Pick Your Poison
Reaction 2.2
[Sunday, October 31, 2010]
"Do you feel anything?" I asked my assistant, carefully removing the needle of the syringe to be put through a decontamination wash and soak, the rest would be recycled. At the rate I've ended up going through these syringes, I'd need to make another supply run within a few days, but that wouldn't be as much of a problem since I could just ask some mooks to make a trip.
As for Kat, she had apparently hit the limit of her growth at near 7 feet even when she overdosed last Monday, which I was thankful for. The massive woman was hard enough to work around as it is, considering her muscles were so dense it was hard to inject her veins outside of her elbows, and she'd taken to brazenly imposing on my personal space with even more regularity.
"Is it supposed to be instant?" Kat asked, staring at her broken left ring finger. She'd broke it trying out how much she could lift. Answer; a lot. I don't know how much weight flipping a broken tinkertech van involves, but I understand that's enough to be clearly considered for a Brute rating from the PRT. "Ow!" Suddenly, the splinted ring finger twinged, and the swelling rapidly went down. "Tits! I can already feel the pain fading."
"Good, let's keep a monitor on this." I was finally using the results of my Salve's sludge in a crucial experiment. My power had practically throttled me for forgetting about it with pulsing headaches, and I had to make things with it. If I'm right, I may have just made a form of Stimpack. Uber and Leet did an episode based on some sort of post-apocalypse game once, and this was very similar to a prop they used to heal a German Shepard's broken leg almost within seconds. Needless to say that episode was one of their most popular ones.
"I think it's almost fully healed." Kat looked in awe at her finger after just about two minutes. "So is this a one-time thing? Or is it like Surge's permanent benefits?" Hm, good question.
"I am not fully sure. It could very well keep your healing at an accelerated rate, considering the bacteria it's made of are sympathetic to the body's natural healing processes, or it could only be boosting it right now and your body could cannibalize it like it does with Addictol, or, it could even improve your healing so much you regenerate. Without extensive testing, we won't know." I reminded my assistant, who often let her mind wander. I think I would've liked her, she seemed my kind of person.
"And that's my job, right. So just keep getting hurt?" Kat asked worriedly, and I shrugged. She was the willing guinea pig, I was leaving most of the executive decisions on testing to her. "Meh, if I notice anything after an injury, I'll let you know. What's next?"
"I'm still not comfortable with the next one yet. I'd rather we wait on that one until I get another idea fleshed out." Despite how much my brain was aching to know the results, if I was right, it would forever change Kat even further, and without that other product first, it was much more dangerous. "That aside, I need to make more Salve, and treat more flesh injuries with it to get more of the resource bacteria cultures." The bacteria from the sludge was not as flexible as most bacteria, it didn't breed very fast and it was especially weak to light. The more I could possibly farm, the better.
"Still can't believe Oni Lee just spammed grenades in the middle of the Jeepers like that." Kat brought up, since I was indeed treating the victims from Friday's botched daytime raid with my Salve, which was enough for all the surface injuries, but I did what I could with the wonderous paste, stabilizing everyone that practically had their skin split under their reinforced clothes and armor from the grenade fragments repeatedly striking them.
Despite my efforts however, a couple of the Jeepers were so badly injured that we had to strip them down to normal clothes and leave them outside Brockton General's ER, so they could get proper medical attention. Hopefully from Panacea, those broken ribs were far too risky. The rest who got blasted as well had mostly fractured bones, deep bruising, and lacerations on top of the split skin.
It was good fortune then that in the past week, our successes before Friday meant Squealer could just buy some of the materials she needed, and finally got the Peepers their platform. An invisible flying boat. It sounds like the stuff of fantasy fiction, but it was all tinker science. She more or less turned the former speedboat into a contained gravity manipulating mode of transportation. It could near-silently move in any direction as if it was 'falling' in that direction at various speeds while maintaining its upright position and negating all inertia on everything inside the field.
So with that sort of vantage point supplied, the Peepers, who all being ex-military wore their old fatigues with gas masks, got outfitted with hunting rifles long enough to poke just past the inertia field and had short-range radios to help coordinate things, which was why they were able to thankfully save our guys. This was still a big hit to our momentum and morale though. The crew decided to lay off the ABB while the Jeepers healed, and I, being our resident Biotinker, was set to work finding a way to speed up healing. Or rather, make it happen. Surge already sped up healing, but not much more than a peak human's recovery rate.
Not to mention it was my fault to begin with.
Those poor men out there would not be in this mess if I had not stayed to help the Merchants. If I had not made Balcoat so soon, if I had instead made Addictol straight off, or maybe some other product, the Merchants would not have moved on to violence so soon. I may not feel regret, but I know for fact that I must do all I can, or what little of my humanity I have is lost.
Also my self-help books advise that if I cannot emotionally empathize with people, then I must intellectually acknowledge their value as a person and try to help if I can.
"Yo, Deal." I blinked, having gotten lost in thought. It was something I did a lot of these days. I wasn't much of a space-head before I triggered, but now my mind had so many things to occupy it. The two melon-sized breasts my assistant is shoving into my mask not being any of them. "Yo Deal~ snap out of it."
"Kindly remove your mammaries from my face." I demanded, I did not like having my personal space invaded. I prefer having freedom of movement without someone touching me.
"Dear god dude. You have absolutely no traits of a man." Kathleen huffed as she acquiesced and backed away. She had not updated her clothing at all, preferring to stretch her shirts out with her bosom into belly-baring shirts, and she kept her shorts since they stretched over her wide hips still. Also she said the cold didn't bother her as much now, so I had no complaints so long as she wasn't uncomfortable. "How forward do I need to be?"
"Try again in one year and 17 days." I blandly reminded her of my age, and she rolled her eyes as she combed her mane of lustrous black hair back with her fingers.
"And on that note of you reminding me you're more of a kid than me, why aren't you out celebrating at some party or something?" Kathleen asked, since of course as the 31st, it was Halloween. Ironically, before I triggered it was my favorite holiday too. Now though, I couldn't care less. It was a pointless and extravagant waste of time and energy. So were most holidays in fact. I hope mom isn't upset for me saying we shouldn't celebrate anything earlier in the week.
"No. My time is best spent working. Progress waits for no-one." I factually replied, and she sighed.
"I hope you can tinker a way out of that ice cold state boss." Kat commented not for the first time before she turned to leave. "Well, later then. I'm going back to exercising and helping Sherrel finish her project for tonight's event." Sherrel felt comfortable giving us her name recently, something I extended in return since I had trust in her as a person. We still didn't know Skidmark's name, Mush said his name might as well not exist, and Trainwreck sulked for some reason when the topic of...wait, what did Kat say?
"Wait, what? First, how can you exercise and help her at the same time, and second, what event?" I had no information on any event going on tonight. Don't tell me Skidmark decided to do something asinine like throwing a Halloween party to raise morale or something equally pointless. Wait, no. Priorities Andrew, that's not pointless. Morale can make or break any situation.
"I'm doing heavy lifting and holding things in place. She's slapping together a junk rig for a show." Kat replied, so I moved to follow the tall and wide-framed woman.
"What show?" I asked, and she chuckled.
"For someone without emotions, you really have a lot of curiosity. Why not talk to the other capes, they're running it." Kat said in response, so I now had no other logical way to get an answer than to do as she suggested, but first to clarify something.
"Curiosity is a drive to pursue knowledge. One does not need emotion to drive one to learning. There is such a thing as learning for the sake of itself." I informed my muscular companion, who just again sighed.
"Great, the guy I like is a cold-as-ice egghead. I used to think I just liked tall guys." She joked, clearly, as I was well about a foot shorter than her. Now anyhow, I had been nearly a foot taller when she started out.
"Dealer~!" I was suddenly waylaid by Skidmark having snuck up on me and wrapping an arm around my shoulders. "It's about time you came out of that stuffy lab! We've got a damn fun gig planned for tonight!" Skidmark cheered as Kat moved on without me to supposedly do as she said she was going to.
"Perfect. I was actually looking for someone in the know about whatever this event is. I've not heard a thing about it." I stated, hoping to get a straight answer.
"Oh it's going to be grand! We're going to totally pull a showstopper! Fucking jaws will hit the pavement and minds will be blown!" Skidmark, of course, just threw pointless drivel out instead of actual information.
"That does not tell me much." I informed, wishing I could be irritated as he practically pushed me onward with his left arm around my shoulders.
"Well, it's kinda meant to be a big fucking deal. I didn't have anything for you to do so I just figured I'd leave you to tinker instead of pulling you away." Skidmark continued to drone on, would he just tell me already?
"I'm still waiting to hear what's going on." I reminded my boss, who sighed theatrically as we neared the loading bay. This area of the fishery was meant for Squealer's biggest rigs, the motor pool was actually only supposed to be for the vans, which was why her monster truck was still stuck in the motor pool since the doors were too small and she wasn't willing to disassemble it and move it here.
"Alright you damn robot. Friday was a wakeup call, since the ABB already has military gear and by now have figured we have our shit together, we've decided it's time to show the city we're serious." Skidmark said as he maneuvered us through a surprisingly busy crowd of Merchants all working on various things, who weren't outright combat-capable members yet, but getting there.
"How does showing our hand help anything?" I truly doubted this was a good idea. Did Skidmark fall back into some drugs again?
"Dealer, Dealer, Dealer. You need to read some political and psychological books with those science books you've been burying yourself in. But the basis of it is this; shock, and awe." Skidmark gestured to an unfinished rig that Squealer was slapping together from what seemed to be a rusty school bus and a bulldozer, with help from Trainwreck, Mush, and Kat doing heavy lifting and helping put it together in general.
"That's...a military term though." Skidmark groaned at me, and I realized I obviously missed whatever he was talking about.
"Dear god my newest tinker is so damn green. You've gotta get some education kid, I'm glad you're still going to school right now." Ouch, I'll take that into consideration. "Basically, tonight, with some help, we're going to be announcing our changes in our ways to the city and the world. While the Jeepers are getting healed up, I and the rest of the crew aren't gonna just sit on our asses waiting." Hmm, much more logical than I believed then, since how organized we've become will clearly out the gang's sobriety soon enough anyway.
"Fair enough. But what help do you speak of?" I caught that little nugget amidst the rest. Is he saying what I think he is?
"Well I wanted to make as big an appearance as possible. So I forked out some dough for some experts at making really big fucking appearances." Skidmark smirked, and I about wanted to smack him for doing exactly what I had assumed.
"You can't seriously tell me you've hired-."
"Ladies and Gentlemen~!" Came an exuberant declaration from the dark empty area of the loading bay. "Announcing~! UBER! AND! 1337~!" I watched the sight of the two infamous video game aficionados suddenly being illuminated by a spotlight as confetti and streamers rained down. They were wearing extremely stereotypical outfits of thematic Mexican Luchadores.
The taller, beefier one I could assume was Uber wore a sleeveless jumpsuit and his mask along with everything below it was themed with the Mexican style skull often associated with the Day of the Dead. The shorter, lanky one I figured was Leet wore a full-body suit styled with what I think were rather graphic depictions of the Chupacabra considering the goat-like images being viciously slaughtered and eaten by a demonic beast. "Yay." I blandly responded to the situation, getting the two to visibly sulk and Skidmark to cackle.
"Told ya nothing fucking phases him! Nice try though." Skidmark patted my shoulder and wandered towards the others.
"Damn it, I thought for sure he was screwing with us." Leet grumbled, clearly not believing I was a sociopath before. "Well anyway, I'm-."
"Leet, the most flexible yet most inflexible tinker on the planet. Then you're Uber, the most adaptable man in the world. Good work on the entrance. Would have worked on anyone but me." I appraised, but Leet looked about to snap at me for interrupting, but Uber just held up a hand, and walked closer with consideration in his eyes.
"How's this?" He asked, and I had no idea what he was talking about.
"I do not comprehend-."
"You don't see where this is going yet. We're going to be adding some extra muscle and some theme to your crew's announcement." I had gathered as much, Uber.
"I had gathered as-."
"It's also a good way to prove the Merchant's are actually a Player in the Game now." Uber interrupted me again, I don't like it, but thus far he's been more helpful than anyone else.
"Obviously, but-."
"It's also a good way to raise your crew's morale. We heard what happened with Oni Lee. We'd offer to help, but the Stimpack started hissing when we tried to use it lately and we're not exactly willing to risk whatever it might do." Uber explained, quite nice of him to continue to outline things, I may have already gathered-. "That said, we could also use this as a starting point for our two operations to work together. I think between you guys and us, we'd be able to accomplish more."
I think I'm in love, or whatever non-hormonal variant of it there is. "Why can't everyone be as blunt and informative as you?" Truly, the world needed more people such as this man.
"He's just working his powers on you. It takes him a little bit, but he needed to see how you interact to work out the best approach. Guess blunt honesty is just the best way to work with you huh?" Leet figured, and I nodded.
"Yes. Why say things in such convoluted and roundabout ways? When there are important things to discuss, discuss them. Wordplay is all well and good, but there is a time and place, and explanation is not one of them." I declared, finally able to outright talk objectively without having to egg my conversation partner on to the point.
"Yep, we're gonna help you out, because you'll help us out. We're being paid, but after seeing that amazon with the chest melons and all these former junkies completely stone sober, we're going to waive some of our fee for some jugs of Surge." Leet posed, flexing his nonexistent muscles, his skin-tight spandex was not at all flattering of his scrawny frame or his potbelly.
"Yes, again, speaking of which. Just what is this event? All I get is that it involves you two, that big rig over there, and an announcement. It's Halloween, there's all sorts of public venues we could be crashing for this." I had figured out that much, but which one?
"It should be fairly obvious, but we're going to crash the annual block-party over on the Boardwalk." Uber said as if it wasn't a big deal.
"That is suicidal. The Boardwalk is dangerous on a normal day, the Wards are guaranteed to be there for publicity. Not to mention the Protectorate and PRT will be on-call for tonight. We're not going to be the only ones using All Hallows Eve as an excuse for an outing." I was concerned, justifiably. This could quite easily turn into a bust.
"Yup, which is why we're here!" Uber and Leet said in choreographed stereo and posed again. In response I promptly began heading towards my workshop. "Hey! Where're you going?" They perfectly said again in unison.
"To finish a couple of idle toys I was working on. Now I might need them before tonight. I hope you have some of your more ridiculous shenanigans ready." I said as I power walked through the fishery back to my lab.
I quickly got back to mixing a small mason jar I had set aside since it was just a side project, but knowing Murphy, I would need it rather than just want it. After I had finished mixing it with some cocoa powder, I proceeded to feed some of it into an old reusable bug-bomb style spray canister, and filled it with the butane, then did the same with a small empty spray deodorant can, which were more convenient to carry around once I figured out how to refill them.
With that done, I then pulled open a drawer, and picked up a very long-strapped slingshot I made myself. But this wasn't just some toy. I made it from an orange chemical utility pipe which is some of the strongest plastic on the consumer market, a 50 pound draw black tube band from exercise bands bought at the mall, a small leather pouch with an exposed high tensile strength nylon thread. Of course, the whole thing was reinforced carefully with Balcoat in specific places.
I fished out a cheap store-bought plastic arrow with a cheap carbon arrowhead from the drawer, It too had been reinforced. I rested the shaft in the sharp crook of the slingshot's Y, then nocked it in the strap's string that was strung through the pouch.
I aimed down the lab at a target I painted onto the wall, pulled back until the head was touching the slingshot using the reinforced pouch as my draw aid, and fired it dead center in the bullseye. It sank in almost halfway into the metal sheeting, proving my weapon would be just as deadly as it was quiet and compact.
No wonder Slingbows are illegal in 18 states.