Metallo’s Adjustments

by Churnok

Metallo is broken out of the Watchtower vault and the mysterious Beacon gives him one of the adjustments promised him by Luthor, on the condition that Metallo becomes the newest member of the organization Beacon works for.

Metallo's Adjustments

By Churnok

Disclaimer

Metallo is the property of DC and Warner Brothers and is used here for non-profit entertainment purposes only. For clarity's sake this is the character from the DC Animated Universe. Beacon and the multi-dimensional organization he works for, along with their powers, technology and abilities are my creation but I've tried to design them so that anyone can use them as long as they send me a copy of the resulting story. Permission is given to anyone who wants to archive this story as long as they let me know first and give me a link to their site. I welcome any comments, questions, and/or constructive criticisms. Warning; Barbie Doll level nudity.

Metallo came online to find himself secured to an upright slab of metal in an otherwise featureless strange room. It was well lit yet there was no direct light source. He was face to face with a man dressed in business casual and standing on the ceiling.

"Ah, your awake," said the man, with the air of a powerful business man who had nothing better to do today, "or would that be online? It's so hard to keep terminology between organic and robotic life forms straight sometimes."

"Who are you," snapped the android super-villain. "More to the point where am I, why am I here, and why are you standing on the ceiling?"

"Oh how rude of me," he said looking annoyed with himself at having forgotten his manners, "I do tend to forget introductions. You may call me Beacon. It's more of a job title than a name really. I guide potential new employees to a new life within the organization. As for where and why, you are in what we call a Metamorphic Interview Room. It can be changed into whatever form is required for interviewing and examining potential new employees, which should explain why you're here. My employers wish to hire you."

"And your human fly routine?"

Beacon smiled as if at a private joke, "How do you know I'm the one hanging around?"

Metallo wasn't amused, "because, while I can't feel a thing, I do have an internal gyroscope that keeps me oriented."

Beacon shrugged, "oh well, it seemed like an amusing joke at the time. Though I hope you don't mind being restrained for the duration of this meeting. Security measure you understand. Even when you were just John Corbin you weren't an angel."

"And what makes you think you can hold me?" asked the former mercenary as he struggled to free himself but found that he couldn't even wiggle his toes.

Beacon rolled his eyes, "How much of your brain was actually put into that terminator body of yours? Do you honestly think we would have gone through the trouble of stealing you from the watchtower's maximum security vault, without the Justice league suspecting a thing I might add, unless we were 100 sure of containing you? Before we turned you back on we connected an inhibitor switch to the control circuits for every moving part of your body below the neckline. Your restraints are more to keep you upright than to hold you, though they could do that just as easily."

"Alright Mr. Beacon, you have my attention. Why have you gone through so much trouble to get an interview with the notorious Metallo?"

"You flatter yourself. First of all, the name is just Beacon. You can drop the mister. Second, the job was just to get in and out of the vault. Getting you out was just a challenging way for our infiltration expert to prove she had done it. We could have just as easily sent her in to steal a boom tube generator, one of Batman's spare utility belts, or even a pair of the Flash's used gym socks, but it was felt that you would be of more use, a greater challenge, and the least likely to be missed."

"And what happens when they check the vault?"

"They will find an exact replica of your body collecting dust in your place. A prototype was found in a secret chamber of a Lexcorp warehouse. A few modifications made it indistinguishable from you."

"I see. So why bother reviving me at all if I'm just a trophy?"

"Because before you became Metallo you were John Corbin, a mercenary of considerable skill. We could use you."

"And what's in it for me?"

"Aside from your continued freedom from the Justice League?" Beacon asked with amusement.

"I did not mean to sound ungrateful," Metallo said hastily, "but I am a mercenary. I owe you a job for freeing me of course, but further jobs will require further payment."

"We will pay you generously of course, but any organization with the funds can do that. This organization prides itself employee specific incentives that can't be offered by others."

"Sounds intriguing, but what could you offer me that fits the sales pitch?"

"Good question," Beacon replied looking thoughtful. "You mentioned earlier that you could not feel anything. That the only reason you know which way is up is because of a built in gyroscope."

"Yes," Metallo replied sourly, "when I first pointed the problem out, Lex Luthor promised that 'adjustments' would be made. I found out later from the doctor that those adjustments were mine to make. I had to adjust to living in a body that gave me all the sensory input of a video game!"

"But, in exchange for three of your senses, you got an indestructible body that could potentially destroy Superman," Beacon pointed out thoughtfully.

"I don't care anymore about Superman! Revenge against him just gave my mockery of an existence some purpose! At this point I would trade in that vengeance and this indestructible body for a body that could enjoy a hamburger!"

"Hmm, give up the abilities of Metallo for the abilities of John Corbin?" Beacon waved his hand dismissively. "No, I'm afraid that's unacceptable, though we may keep it in mind as part of your retirement plan. Without your Metallo body you're just a mercenary. For what my employers want you for, considerably more… durability is needed. But I am prepared to offer a compromise. This should provide a taste of what I mean," as he smashed a flesh colored sphere on Metallo's head. The contents of which quickly grew to engulf his head in a Caucasian ooze. Then, for the first time in years, Metallo felt something. At first it was just a tingle of pins and needles everywhere the ooze touched, like his entire head had fallen asleep, then it felt like someone ran a high voltage electric current through the pins and needles. His scream of pain was muffled by the very substance causing it. Beacon watched with a critical eye and thought to himself, "I must have a talk with the lab boys about making this synthetic skin integrate less painfully," as he checked his timer. Approximately 30 seconds later the pain and the scream finally ended and the ooze began to shape and congeal into the face of John Corbin.

What the blazing heck was that!" he demanded opening his eyes and glaring a Beacon.

"Synthetic skin," Beacon explained calmly. "More than just a dermal patch up, it actually repairs and/or replaces damaged nerves. This batch was specially designed to give a whole new nervous system to your robotic body. You still can't smell or taste anything, we're still working on those programs, at the moment not even chicken tastes like chicken, but," Beacon flicked Mettalo's newly formed nose causing him to wince, "you can now feel the world around you."

"This is incredible," Metallo began biting his lips, blowing his cheeks out, and everything else he could do with just his face and no tongue. "Can you cover my whole body in this stuff?"

Beacon crossed his arms, "we could, but what's in it for us?"

Metallo looked angry for a moment, and then he smiled, "I see. You've gotten me hooked and now you're reeling me in."

Beacon frowned, "A rather fishy analogy if you ask me. I prefer to think of it this way. I have given you a free sample. It's still your choice weather you buy the whole product or not."

"Very well, what's the price of this product?"

"Oh nothing unreasonable I assure you. Acquisitions mostly."

"What, like stealing the plans for government projects?" Metallo sounded bored with the prospect.

"And waste your abilities? No, we have an infiltration expert for acquiring government secrets though I'm sure the two of you will have plenty of opportunities to work together. What we need you for is getting into places that she can't. Sunken cities, radioactive wastelands, cybernetic alien civilizations, places where air breathers or organic life in general can't go. Interested?"

"If you fulfill your end of the contract and you can send me to Mars on a mission to mess with the heads of N.A.S.A. for all I care."

Beacon chuckled, "I'll keep that in mind for next April Fool's Day." He pulled a cell phone from his belt and said into it, "he's ready," then he put the cell back and pressed a button on the slab. The restraints holding Metallo to the slab retracted and he collapsed to the floor.

Shouldn't you have removed the inhibitor switch before releasing my restraints?" Metallo said angrily as he glared up at Beacon.

Beacon didn't even bother to look up at the angry android as he said, "The additional skin can't be applied while you are in those restraints. If we remove the switch before we apply the skin what you felt in your head will be repeated throughout the rest of your body. The same switch that prevents you from controlling your body will also protect you from that pain." He looked up at the metal mercenary. "I think a little minor indignity is a fair price for being spared a lot of major pain, don't you?"

At that moment a door opened in the ceiling and a woman walked in across the wall carrying a futuristic spray rifle and a suitcase. She didn't break stride when she reached the floor, she just transferred her feet from one plane to the other and kept walking until she reached Metallo's prone body. She then put down the case and let lose with the sprayer carefully coating the uncovered portions of his endoskeleton with the same Caucasian goo that covered his head. Once it had solidified into skin she turned and left the same way she had come in.

Beacon pressed a button on his belt and Metallo was able to feel his new skin. He stretched, reveling in every sensation. Even the stiffness as his skin stretched out was a joy. For the first time in years he could feel the world around him. He caressed every inch of himself while Beacon politely looked on, then he noticed something missing.

"Hey," he shouted, "Where's the rest of me?"

Beacon looked up in puzzlement, "What do you mean? Nothing was removed when we acquired your body."

Metallo pointed emphatically to his featureless crotch.

"Ah, you want genitalia." His tone turned sympathetic, "I'm afraid that's a separate program. But don't worry it's something you can handle without assistance. You can even customize them if you like. Once we get you settled in we'll give you the program so that you can install your privates in private." He gestured towards the suitcase. "Now please get dressed. I know you don't have any naughty bits to worry about yet, but we still can't have you walking around naked. For one thing, only you, I and the lovely Cassandra who hosed you down with skin know of your lack and that it is only temporary. If some of our other employees see you this way there will always be… speculation, afterwards."

"You mean for the rest of my time with this organization they'll wonder if I'm still a Ken Doll under my clothes." Metallo muttered a few insults under his breath as he unzipped the case to find the finest in casual wear. Once again he reveled in long missed sensations as he slid each article of handcrafted, tailor made clothing over his new skin. Even the sneakers were high quality.

When he was finally dressed he looked at Beacon and said, "Ok how do I get out of here without breaking a wall. You and your lab assistant may be able to walk up walls but I can't."

Beacon chuckled, "Normally, I can't either, .except in this room. You see, in this room gravity can be relative. Some call it the Escher effect after that famous artist. To put it simply, up is where your head is, down is where your feet are, and an improperly done flip can have interesting results."

"You're joking. You mean all I have to do is put my feet on the wall and the wall will become the floor?"

"It's just another reason to do interviews in this room. Fair warning, this is the only room where that works. We've had a few accidents because that wasn't made clear."

"Couldn't you just drop me a rope?" Metallo still wasn't sure he believed his new employer.

"We could, and we have in the past for others who were afraid to try it. But normal gravity applies outside this room and what you see as a wall is actually the floor. A cheap parlor trick compared to some of the other things we do here, but effective." Beacon walked onto the wall in question and held out his hand, "here I'll help you."

"No need," he said as he walked onto the wall, wobbling a bit as his gyroscope adjusted to the gravity shift.

"See Metallo, nothing to worry about. Are you ready for your new job?"

"Yes, but Metallo was a machine with no purpose other than to destroy Superman. You have taken away that purpose and given me my life back. I'm not quite my old self yet, but I would like to go back to my old name."

"Very well then Mr. Corbin," he said as they shook hands, "welcome to our multi-dimensional organization. I promise that your time with us will be very interesting."