The Jumper's Journals

by blackshadow111

What happens when you give an ordinary person, someone completely, utterly mundane, with little special and even less important in his life, bored and tired, a shot at... well, Everything? What would you do, with all of eternity, all that was, is and will be at your fingertips? These are The Jumper's Journals, the story of a man's ascension. There's Wish-Fulfillment, be warned.

22. Chapter 22

Okay, this took forever to get out, between jump docs to be made (Superman Movies, yo! Get your multi-galactic scanning satellite now!), exams, college fests, books to read and whatnot.

Warning time. Those of you who are reading on SB/SV are fine, but for the QQ only bits of this chapter… I deliberately tried to get just a touch creepy and dark here, building on the theme I've been trying to put together that I know no one's noticed. There's a bunch of dubcon too.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Alright, hit it!" I command, standing back.

Ahead of me, a giant hologram whirls into action. I watch it with eyes peeled, waiting for the culmination for the last several days' work. This isn't the first simulation I've run, but if things go right, it very well should be the last for a long while.

So I had a whole lot of plans for bio-augmentation. When there was still something like sanity left in my life, I'd maintained a degree of restraint, formulating my plans and ideas in small increments, designing things like better lungs and muscle system, maybe a body capable of beating the four minute mile, something like that.

Well, long story short… that didn't happen. Not with the sum total of Nigel Montague's biochemical research and resources at my disposal. I've spent the last several days coming up with a whole new set of plans, and they're… well, to dramatically understate things, they're kinda out there. There are possibilities I hadn't even dreamed of, at little as a week ago.

Of course, it wasn't all in a state where I could just inject a handy solution and get going. I had to put things together and finalize the results myself, ergo the simulations.

This is the final simulations before I move on to testing. If… no, once it goes right, we can finally start getting some real work done!

I watch as the giant DNA strand floats, orphan protein pairs combining into it at multiple points. There are dozens of small markers, tiny little bits of genetic information falling into place to shape a cohesive whole. And it's holding! It's all holding together!

I watch till the end, till the last of the pairs is in place and the strand starts replicating. It's working. It's finally fucking stable!

"Okay, then! Start synthesis and testing. Use the full range of subjects, and make sure we figure out every detail this time!" I bark out at the computer overseeing it for me.

"Yes, brother. I know" DADA answers. He's the AI my father designed and I implemented. Calls me brother because, well, my father was his father.

"Load up the files on the Bell in the meantime? I want to study it again."

"Oh come on. You have eidetic memory. You recall every word of those files!"

I mean… he's right. And yet, this is the kind of thing that tends to go a lot better if you don't screw around with it.

"Just do it, please? I want to be completely sure."

"Of course you do. Here you are." The computer concludes, patronizingly enough that I have to physically stop my hand from picking up a wrench and showing its CPU what's what. Not that it'd work, considering that his actual brain is on a different continent.

Would make me feel better, but eh.

Orders given, I open the files on the Bell once more. Die Glocke, as the Nazis called it, was a secret Wunderwaffe project by the Third Reich, started when a meteorite shower saw a huge bunch of space debris landing randomly across Eastern Europe. A bit of investigation showed them as having weird properties, among them ridiculously mutagenic effects on biology, especially human biology.

We're talking full-on 'new organs developed with extended contact' level of dealing here, just to make it clear.

Of course, the Nazis being the Nazis, the means they chose to study those effects were… well, one of the leading researchers documenting the changes was called Josef Mengele. So… yeah.

But that had been with the effects the meteorites had naturally. There were other groups studying the energy fields the asteroids themselves were radiating, and how to break down and recreate those effects. That was where the Bell came into the picture. Somehow, over the course of studying the meteorites, those scientists went in deeper entirely than just understanding the rock's own power.

The asteroid was designed to mutate things along certain specific patterns, turn Earthborn beings into alien lifeforms. It had been meant to land in one place, probably a population center, and mutate people from there. But something had intervened. Somehow, instead of landing in one place and starting its work, the rock had shattered and hit the planet in chunks and pieces, with none of them quite powerful enough to do what it was needed.

Huh. Probably for the best?

Anyway, the point was, the rock executed its magic through doing something that honestly speaking, I hadn't believed possible. It manipulated probability itself, on the quantum scale needed to guide gene theory. It's like… it's like this, Whenever you try to splice DNA or otherwise manipulate the building blocks of life, there's a probability factor to it. A million and one things need to go right, the right electrons need to fire at the right time and the right protein pairs should line up in the right place.

The normal way to do it is, you just trial-and-error it until you find one way that works, and then you follow that way. But the changes I need to make are far, far too complex. It can be done that way, but it would take something in the vicinity of a thousand years to get there, at the earliest. Ergo, something different is needed. And that something different is the Bell. The bell guides those million and one reactions through the pitfalls and the traps, like leading a child through a maze by holding their finger.

Probabilities are manipulated, waveforms forced to collapse in one certain way, until you get the result you want. Its borderline magic, and honestly speaking something I don't think would work outside of Action-Movie physics worlds like this. But it does work here. Pity the power requirements are what they are. Could have been interesting to come up with real life Plot Armor.

"Okay, d'you want me to include the Bell from the beginning in the tests or should I do a few control tests to start with?" DADA's voice breaks me out of my thoughts.

"Eh. We know it can't be done without it. Just do it with the bell from the beginning, and show me the results at every stage."

It's not long before the testing is done for each of the separate parts that together comprise the first stage, and from there it's moving on to the next stage. I have several stages of augmentation to test and finalize, before hopefully combining them so more than one can be done at the same time. If everything goes right I should be able to bring it down to no more than two stages, one biochemical and one viral and purely nano-biological.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Huh." The computer's voice breaches the silence, making me look up from where I'm working.

We're in a different room now, this one being more of a final implementation area than 'lab' as such. I'm close to the end of this whole procedure, with just a final test left to see the robustness pf the different steps I've combined. If this works, instead of several dozen steps performed across weeks I can get done with my enhancements in twenty-four hours, tops, with time to spare.

I have to say, the Bell is working well beyond my wildest expectations. I hadn't even dared to think it could do the kind of things I managed to get it to do so far, and best of all, there's no questionable bits. It takes all the uncertainty out of these experiments, and that's… kinda a Big Thing, let's just say.

That's mainly the reason why the sudden sound from DADA surprised me as much as it did.

Looking up, I ask "Yes?"

"A film crew just left the hotel. They're going to be doing a documentary on the tribe, looks like."

Oh. The tribe nearby is the Shirishama tribe, denizens of the rainforest since forever. Dad used a few of their people for human trials, along with others from across the world. I, of course, get an online form that I have to fill out with the details of the people I want. Gender, race, age and all that, and random 'blanks' show up in the lab afterwards when no one is looking. CP backed items are funky like that.

But if someone is showing up around here now… I sense the flow of 'plot' around this. Especially considering…

"Dude, didn't you say there were these specimens that had escaped a while back?"

DADA takes a second to respond, before starting "Yeah. It was a couple of snakes that the Shirishama had pointed him to. Apparently each of them was thousands of years old They were these monstrosities the size of that snake in the second Harry Potter."

… yeah. He's been picking up my way of talking a bit too much.

"But he killed them, right? He was experimenting with their kids."

"Two baby Anacondas, yes. He was trying to pinpoint the chemical factors behind the telomere reinforcement in them."

I nod. Telomere reinforcement sounds like something silly, but then you realize that it's referring to immortality, which is… yeah. Dad found a long-lost chemical in some of the animal and plant life around here, came in and built this lab around it. Then he got to experimenting. The ones to possess the strongest strains were the local snakes, and he got to work trying to isolate it out of them.

Only… things kinda go wrong when you leave your lab in the middle of an experiment and never return. The enclosures were designed to contain them up to a point. And when he wasn't around to have them taken out and either kill them or move them to stronger enclosures…

"So there are two experimentally enhanced snakes running around here, where the Hollywood crew is going to go in?"

"Yes?"

I close my eyes. It's hard to tell at most times, but I have to keep in mind, even the most advanced circuits in the world tend to have problems properly implementing ethics or emotion protocols.

I keep my voice steady, when I follow up. "See, that sort of thing is what we call a problem. They'll get themselves killed. And I can't very well leave this place for it now, can I? Just… just keep an eye on them. In the meantime, those snakes had the control treatment, yes?"

"Yes, but the emitters on our end are… in a questionable state. We don't have them secure enough to really rely on."

"I know. Run a full diagnostic and update me on them too. In the meantime, let's get going on the enhancement work, shall we now?"

"Well, we've run the full suite of tests. All stages are stable once Bell influence is included. This is as complete as it gets, Eddy."

I grimace. "I got that. Yeah, let's go ahead with it. The chemical stage will require what, eighteen hours to stabilize before I can attempt the viral and genetic treatments?"

"Closer to twenty, but yes. It's five injections and an hour of bell treatment between all of them, followed by about six hours to stabilize and settle the final stage. Then you need to be up and about for about eight-nine hours, probably get in some exertion to get the blood pumping and the changes… worn in, for lack of a better word. "

Ah yes, the Bell. It's a big thing, a giant hemisphere shaped not unlike an actual upturned Bell. Right now there's a thin bed-like thing mounted in its middle, surrounded by a glass cylinder that almost touches the walls of the hemisphere. All around the inner walls of the cylinder there are bands of metal, all carrying the multitude of things needed for the operation here. There are test tubes filled with the requisite chemicals, thin robotic arms exuding out of carefully spread-out clusters, nozzles to emit gas, so on and so forth.

A few minutes after DADA confirmed it, I am lying inside it, waiting as one by one the many preparations for the procedure are completed. Scanners map every trace of my body, metal tentacles seek out veins to inject, while the nozzles are preparing gas they'll be releasing any moment now. It takes several minutes before it's all in place, and then another couple minutes for me to look it all over and be comfortable that yes, it's all in the right places and no, I'm not going to become a rabid weasel out of this.

"Well, let's get started."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

It is a mighty thing, here in this jungle. It remembers when it was not so. Many cold-hot-sleep-wake cycles before, it was born in a cold place of glass barriers and metal restraints. It remembers the two-legs it saw there, the man who had no a single snake on it but still reeked of being more of a reptile than it can ever be.

And it remembers the pain. The cold man used to hold it up, inspecting it and turning it this way and that. Then he put it on the cold-metal-ground, and a thin knife flashed. And it hurt. It hurt every day it was in the cold place. It tried to escape, to kill everything it saw and break all the cold things that bound it. But it was too small and they were too strong, and when it grew bigger the cold men came and put stronger metal-things in their place.

Until they didn't.

It doesn't remember the days very well, but it remembers that one day the regular checking and pain simply… stopped. There was still prey coming in, but no one to check and no one to hurt it. It ate and slept, and started to forget the pain.

But the prey was too little, and it was too big. It tried to wring more prey from the metal prey-mother, but it was to no avail. And it kept growing, so the prey meant lesser and lesser.

Until one day it smashed itself free of the place, moving quickly through the narrow big-parent till it reached the water. Then it roamed, and there it hunted.

Instincts it had never gotten to use before had surfaced, and it had fed. It had fed on the fish in the water, and then on the small horn-runner things in the jungle, and all else it could find besides. It had found its mate some time in, and they had bred in the wood-cut two leg place to yield many eggs. Even now its mate was there, while it hunts.

And hunting it is. It senses the movement in the water, and tastes the scents on the air. It waits for things to come to the water to drink, and considers crawling up one of the trees to fall down on something unsuspecting. It wishes, at times that the less-blood-face two-legs from the wood-cut place had not escaped it. The two legs had murdered its hatchling, and it wanted to strange it for a long time for that.

And then those ideas leave its mind, as it feels something entirely unprecedented.

Great tremors shake the ground and the water, small enough that a two-legs would possibly not even notice, but they are as the sky's falling to its senses. It feels them wash across him, and knows that they are not like the tremors it has felt before. Those had been repeated. This is one single tremor, and there are only ripples in water from other things falling in, afterwards.

Something new has entered the Jungle. Something has shaken the staid, almost frozen territorial dynamics of the river-and-jungle. It doesn't know about dynamite, or it would know that someone just dynamited a wooden dam that had many, many snakes nesting on it.

But it does not need to know this, to care. It only needs to hunt.

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It takes several blinks to clear away what feels like a film over my eyes. Considering the amount of chemical-rich smoke that has been around me, it's entirely possible for that to be literal, unfortunately.

I come to in a bed I recognize a fraction of a second later as having been attached to the room where the bell was. A quick check on the internal side of things reveals no searing pains or aches. So far so good. I should get up to check myself more…

Huh. I'm standing already. That's… new. I… I should probably get to a mirror and… of course, I'm already standing near it, having leaped across the room in a single bound as soon as the thought cleared my head.

Okay, so this is going to get old soon.

Very, very carefully, I regulate my voice. I don't want to blow a microphone or something. "Dada." I call out in the air, confident in the absolute certainty that he's listening.

A second later, a hologram takes shape in front of me, projected from cunningly hidden devices around the room.

"Yes?"

"I thought I told you to take out the mental filters? Deep End protocol and all, yeah?"

The computer remains silent for a moment, mimicking even the useless bits of the rituals that comprise human conversations. "You did. But we agreed that exceptions could be made for an emergency. One has come up."

I look up sharply. He wouldn't be so calm if it was something that directly affects me, so it must be something that…

"Oh, don't tell me. The film crew?"

The hologram nods. "Yeah. They're in trouble. And I mean major trouble."

I'm not particularly concerned. This is the fuckin' Amazon deeps. Pretty much everything in a ten mile radius comprises 'major trouble'to lost lamb civvies. But the thing is, DADA knows that so if he felt it necessary to keep on the filters that keep my thoughts moving on speeds I'm used to…

"And? What aren't you telling me?"

"Well, it's kinda our fault?"

Ah. There we are. "Our?"

"Okay, mine." He finally says, in a remarkable imitation of a teenager muttering something angrily.

"What happened?"

"So remember those specimen that got loose?"

"The one you said had implants we could use to pull out of the way?"

"Yeah. Those. Turns out, implants designed and fitted a decade ago don't work out that well, especially on snakes that have been growing stupidly fast. Damn things are almost an order of magnitude larger than they were in the files I have."

Hm. I didn't see the files, but I did see the implants dad liked to use back then. They should…

"Let me guess? It drove them to get more aggressive?"

"Well… almost. More fixated is closer to the truth. Earlier one of them was at the old logging place watching the eggs. Now they're both looking for the boat the Hollywood people are on. One of them even got close, ate the boatman."

That shakes me a bit. "Hang on, what? How can it have eaten the boatman and not know where the boat it?"

"He was investigating this other wrecked boat. Looking for fuel as I understand."

And they're out of fuel. Of course.

"Speaking of boats…" I trail off.

"Yes, I had the yacht called in. It'll be here in eight hours or so."

I raise an eyebrow. "Will our movie-making friends be alive that long?"

I swear, it's not possible but the computer just shrugged. Or at least, that's the idea I get from the voice afterwards "I guess? The male already fed on the boatman, and the female got a big monkey earlier. They shouldn't try to hunt the humans till tonight, easy."

Tonight? I look at the time display on the side of the screen. Huh. 4:45 AM. That's an oddly long time for an Anaconda to be going without… right, genetically modified.

"Hm. Hopefully. Keep an eye on them, and tell me of any changes."

"What are you going to do?"

"Well, I seem to have been given the opportunity to play around at being a literal Anaconda Wrestler. I'm not going to screw that up, and that means having to get my mind properly in sync with my body first."

The computer doesn't answer, probably because it's unable to comprehend the sheer stupidity of what I just said. But what's the point of being a would-be supervillain in a secret lab performing unspeakable experiments on myself, if I can't say stupid shit in the process?

I lean back in the chair, closing my eyes. Basically, I'm through with the first round of enhancements on my body, involving basically the injection of a cocktail of varied enhancement chemicals on me, boosted through energy inputs of a similar variety, and the whole thing being stabilized by a quantum effect that ensures that all the right reactions happen at the right time.

This boosts my body to frankly, ridiculous levels. Think Captain America, but better. And yes, the enhancements include my mind. But I already got a shock from my mind moving too quickly a little while ago, and just to prevent that I and DADA put in a set of filters, so I can remove those slowly and synchronize my body and mind again. Problem is, that's a process that's supposed to take a good while longer than I have right now, so… this is going to be trippy.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

There was something wrong.

Paul Sarone was a veteran hunter in these jungles, with hundreds of kills to his name. He'd led expeditions deeper than any hunter before him, had spoken with uncontacted tribes, and even chased after the holy grail of these lands, the unreachable Maple White Land itself. If it could be killed and mounted, he'd shot it.

Having sold the bulk of his trophies to less brave but richer hunters, he had little to show for all those years, but one thing that had sunken all the way to his bones was the experience. He knew these lands, knew the meaning of the sounds from among the trees and how to interpret the smells on the wind.

And all that experience, every instinct honed over those years, they were all collectively screaming at him. Something was wrong. One learned to obey these instincts, or one died. Messily and painfully, screaming for relief. For the rare few, it even got to be quick.

But what was it? Looking around one more time, he found nothing to see, nothing that would indicate what it was. He'd cowed the Americans well enough, the boy through promises and the others through the simple existence of his revolver. They were scared, too scared to question him. When the boy's woman had started crying he'd thought blood would come of it, but it appeared the lure of money overruled the love the boy had for her.

It was badly done, Sarone had to conclude. He'd admit, he'd balked when the question of live capture had been posed. He'd told them it couldn't be done. But the money they had offered… Wexel Hall Pharmaceuticals, the company that had financed this trip originally, had named a sum that would keep Sarone in drinks and bitches for the rest of his life. He'd still hoped to make this a clean expedition, a single hunt that let him make a swan song out of capturing the snakes. Something to ensure his retirement. But it had gone from failure to failure. His boat capsizing, he'd been forced to get Mateo to get another boat brought in. With it had come the stupid Americans, and this whole… mess.

When he'd learned their plans he'd laughed at the inside. They thought that the Shirishama were this lost, uncontacted tribe, just waiting for the touch of civilization. They hoped to take pictures of them and get paid for those pictures, to somehow 'improve the knowledge' of the world. What worth was in knowledge of these savages, Paul had no idea. Because that was what they were.

The city folk would scoff at these words and clutch their pearls, but decades in the Amazons had taught him that if the natives of many centuries ago had forced some tribes to go so deep into the jungles, far from the best fields and harvests, there usually were very good reasons for that. And the Shirishama were as bad as could be, apart from…

Sarone made the sign of the cross about himself. There were things one did not mention, even in one's own mind. The Shirishama practiced worship of demon snakes, captured animals and people both and fed them alive to those snakes. There were other mentions in the old legends he'd spent years immersed in, wisdom passed down from native guides and elders. Tales of infant sacrifices and other children raised on snake milk and venom, and some even more disturbing.

That he'd tortured and killed those same elders mattered to him not at all. The land was crawling with the vermin anyway, and better people had too much tolerance these days. He was among the last of a dying breed, the folk who saw the world for what it really was, that there were people who were just… worth more than others.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw the negro look at the Hispanic bitch who had dared to order him around after he'd arranged to have her man poisoned. The black man, Danny, slowly opened up a knife, intent obvious. Without turning his head too much, Paul looked for the answer. The bitch shook her head imperceptibly, probably hoping he didn't see.

In a different part of the boat, the other girl still had tear tracks on her face as she stared at her man, hoping he would turn against Paul. But he wouldn't, not after the vision Paul had painted before him. Sarone knew the kind well, creatures that would sell their own family out if they could get the right price.

He shook his head lightly. The situation on the boat was under control for now, but blood would come of it before long. That much he was certain of. The only hope was for the snake to show itself, maybe kill one or two of them so he could work on the others. It would have been better if he could have had Mateo with him, but losing had been more than worth what it had got him.

Sarone ran a hand through the harpoon they had jury rigged into a fishing line. It was an old friend, and had seen him through many a hunt. More than Mateo, certainly. The snake could have him, for all that Paul cared.

But none of that answered just what it was that he was missing. Something was wrong here, and if he could just –

The fishing line went taut.

"Nobody move!" he called out immediately. At last. At last they could end the pussyfooting and get this done.

Keeping his eyes fixed as the line's edge moved this way and that, he tried to see where the snake could rise, and where he could strike from. The plan was simple. While the power of the boat and the lure of the bait kept the snake stuck, he would blind it with the lights, and use the tranquilizer arrow he was lying a couple feet behind him. Once the snake was unconscious, it would be easy enough to pull it behind them as they returned to civilization. He had plenty more tranq shots to use if the snake woke up in the middle.

With every movement in the water, he turned the wheel on the line, reeling the cord back in more and more. He could feel the people behind him panicking, feel it as they realized what his superior instincts already had.

And then the snake was there, rising high in the air on a combination of the cord pulling it up and its own strength pushing it. It hissed loudly enough to provoke scream from all the Americans, and sent even Sarone scrambling for his tranquilizer for a second.

Picking it up, he started yelling orders, commanding his involuntary crew about the boat. After several painful seconds, Gary finally switched on the lights and focused them on the snake, blinding it as Paul had planned.

Sarone kept the line steady, focusing on pinning down the snake until he could fix it in place. He never noticed the tail that struck at his legs, sweeping them out from under him. Falling to the ground an instant later, he heard the snap as the hook broke from the cord and went flying, the snake dipping back into the water. He also heard the wet squelch as it found a new home in the throat of Westridge, the biggest coward of all these Americans, and the way they screamed afterwards.

He ignored the dying man with practiced ease, rushing to the crossbow with the tranquilizers. Picking it up, he just waited for the snake to resurface. A few moments later, it did, spitting out the monkey corpse he'd used to bait it. It stayed still for a few seconds, staring at the dying Westridge, and Sarone saw its intend to eat the man in its eyes. Yelling at everyone to stay still, he took aim at the still snake.

And then an impossibly large tail struck the boat with the force of several sledgehammers. It tossed everyone about like ragdolls, the crying girl that was Gary's girlfriend to scream the loudest she'd managed so far. Sarone cared nothing for that, though. He was concerned much more with the crossbow that the movement had knocked out of his hand. He saw it just as it fell into the water, sinking instantly.

Turning around wildly, Sarone noticed the second Anaconda, the one that had struck the boat. The female was even larger than the male, a black and red monster that would be well at home as queen among the snake pantheons the tribes here worshiped. It reared high in the air, coiling back before it descended with the quickness of, well, a snake descending to strike.

To his credit, the boy Gary moved fast, scrambling across the deck away from the snake. Unfortunately, that just meant that the snake struck the deck itself, tossing about the boat once more. It reared back and dove back in, probably about to strike from some other side.

Sarone ran for the gun. Not to try and kill the snakes, not just yet. But one of these cowards could, and he needed to keep it out of their hands. The snakes were no use to him dead. What he needed was for the snake to go away after eating one or two of the cowards, so he could dive and get his tranquilizers back out.

He ignored the snake on the other side as it dove for the cabin where the Terri girl had run a few seconds ago. Danny picked up the gun just as Sarone reached him, aiming at the larger snake that had just risen from the same side as the other one. They had no time to talk anymore. Sarone reached into his waist for the knife he kept there, and waited for the black man to take aim.

On the other side of the boat, the male snake appeared to be stuck in the window of the room that Terri had just left, apparently trying to run to the dead Westridge's corpse to take out the hook so she could use it as a weapon. She had guts, that one.

But Sarone had no time for that. As the man aimed the gun at the monster that was even now backing up to strike at Gary again, Sarone struck, opening his throat with his knife in a single, well-practiced maneuver.

Picking up his gun with one hand, Sarone pushed the corpse of the man into the water with the other. He followed it up with the corpse of Westridge, pushing it in just before Terri could get the hook in his throat. He didn't know if the snakes would eat already dead prey, but the scent of the blood would distract them long enough for Sarone to maybe get the tranquilizers back out.

Not that he intended to do it himself.

Just as he stepped back from the edge of the boat, the male worked itself free of the window. The cowards from Hollywood shrieked as one, but Sarone was calmer. He knew the snake's mind. The lure of blood would be impossible to resist.

As the snake dove back under the water surface, he took stock of the boat. Westridge and Danny were dead already, so that left the two girls, the near-dead guy in the hold, and Gary. He checked his pockets again to ensure that yes, his revolver was still in place, before pulling it out.

Even as the girls started screaming at him, he waked quickly to Gary, where he was hugging himself tightly. His girlfriend… well, former girlfriend now that the boy had helped Sarone make her snake bait, was sitting close to him, looking at him in disgust that only intensified as Paul came close.

"Gary. Gary!" he slapped the boy, hard. It broke his panic, making the American stare blankly at him.

Turning slightly, Paul saw the girls drawing closer. Pointing his revolver towards the sky, he let off a shot. "Let's not get any dumb ideas, girls. Just stay where you are and no one needs to get hurt."

He regretted it immediately. He had few enough bullets, and now he'd wasted two in keeping the sheep that called themselves people quiet on this boat.

"Now Gary. Stand up. Stand up, boy!" He pulled the boy upright, smiling slightly as he finally met Sarone's eyes.

Gary made to say something, but Paul spoke before he could "I need you to go into the water, Gary. I want you to pull out my tranquilizers."

He ignored the cacophony that erupted at that, stepping away to let the boy stand up properly. Once everyone was done yelling, he gestured with his gun to indicate where it had fallen.

"Go on. The water isn't that deep. Just go and get me the crossbow, Gary."

"You're-you're crazy! I'm not doing that!"

Sarone rolled his eyes, before pointing his gun at the girl. "Go, Gary, before I put one between her eyes."

"Hey, what! No, don't do that, please!" Gary yelled. But he didn't, Sarone noticed, even move a step closer to the water. So did the others, evidently. With a sigh, Paul moved the gun to point at Gary himself.

"Go! If you go, maybe the snakes kill you. But I definitely kill you if you stay. Go quickly, before the snakes come back!" He would do it too. He had, before.

"Alright, alright! I'm going!" Gary finally yelled, before trudging over to the edge of the boat, shaking the whole time.

Once the boy was in the water and diving to where Sarone had pointed him, it was a waiting game. It had been maybe thirty seconds since the snakes had descended to eat the bodies he'd pushed underwater. Beasts that size, there was no way it would be enough for them, especially for the female. They would be back, it was just a matter of time. If he had his tranquilizers back before then… it was all still within reach.

Paul consoled himself with thoughts of the paycheck that waited for him once he brought the snakes to Wexel Hall. It would make for one hell of a retirement, that much was certain. Now he just needed to…

Ah, bubbles. That would be Gary returning. As his head popped back over the water, Paul leaned forward. A second later, the boy poked out the crossbow, handing it to him. Taking it in hand, Sarone stepped back to let the boy climb back up.

That was when he felt the first stab. Looking down, he saw the tip of an intensely familiar knife poking from his stomach. Of course, after killing the black man, he'd left it lying near him when he'd pushed Westridge's corpse into the water…

Feeling his lifeblood pouring out, Paul Sarone descended to his knees, trying to stem the bleeding desperately with his hands even as the hand holding the knife twisted it, quite literally, before pulling it free. Mistake. Sarone used the chance to gather all his strength, and toss the gun in his other hand just over the edge, where it sank instantaneously into.

As she stepped over him, he saw the Hispanic woman, Terri, lean down to extend a hand to Gary. The hand was still slick with his blood, as it had welled up along his knife. Paul was already dead, but he still allowed himself a smile when Gary was pulled back underwater instead. He was still smiling when a loud hiss filled the air, and both snakes rose from the water once more.

While both women shrieked as one and the boy thrashed around with every scrap of strength in him, Paul crawled to the side, still trying to staunch the bleeding in his stomach. It was useless, of course, but it was also the survival instinct. He could no more have stopped it than stopped breathing altogether.

Instead, he set himself to enjoy the destruction of the ones who had killed him. The boy was dead already, being swallowed this very moment by the female anaconda. Now it and the male were rearing back, ready to deal a strike that would probably capsize the boat entirely. The only weapons they could have used to kill them was in the water, him having tossed it as soon as he felt them murdering him.

Sarone made his peace with that. He was dead already, of infection if not the stab wound itself. But that was alright. It wasn't as if he'd ever really expected to die any other way, after all. He could find relief in it, going while at the most important hunt of his life, and taking a whole boat's worth of idiot cowards with him. Especially those two bitches, he was the most glad for having been involved in killing them. It was…

Sarone's jaw had dropped open. He blinked several times in quick succession. What he was seeing was impossible. 'Check again', his brain told his eyes. 'We did. It's really happening', the eyes responded. Paul was left trying to understand it. He was a trained, experienced, veteran hunter. He had seen the worst nature had to offer him, and worse still, thanks to any number of companies and clients that hired him to clean up after them. With all his experience, he'd seen good, smart plans and he'd seen dumb plans that could have, and indeed, had gotten people killed.

But he'd never, ever seen something like this. It was so ridiculous, so dumb a sight that it couldn't be true. It had to be something from a novel or a movie. And yet, his eyes didn't lie. Apparently, there really was someone in the world dumb enough to jump onto the back of a full-grown giant female Anaconda in the middle of her meal, armed with nothing but a machete clenched between his teeth.

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Shit, shit, fuck! I hold on for deer life, trying to reposition myself so I can better act on this damn thing. A fifty feet long snake with the girth to match isn't what I'd call the easiest of mounts to arrange myself on, especially when it vigorously refuses to cooperate. I put every iota of strength I have into my grip, but even then I'm trying to choke an anaconda, so it's not the most spectacular of plans.

But that's what happens to plans. They go wrong. A process that was supposed to be done in six hours ends up taking twelve, even longer than it would have had I not been hurrying, because I underestimated the complexity of the work. The computer who was supposed to wake me up anyway fails to do so, because he places more value on my mental filters getting removed right than on the loves of half a dozen people.

And the end result is, I end up having to jump and hop and all but fly through the jungle, armed with nothing but a knife. So plans aren't what I'd give priority too, about now.

That said, I am here now, and drones should be bringing in a bunch of equipment behind me. Out of the corner of my eye, I see the other snake, where it's still lashing out at the boat, carving in deep dents and several gashes.

Moving sharply to avoid the movement of the snake as it tries to coil around me, I reconsider my options. I'm more than fast and strong enough to avoid the snake's counterattacks. But I need to kill them, quickly, before they can get either of the girls. That won't be easy, to say the least.

The good thing is, I'm not confined to doing only easy things. I force my legs to grip the snake tighter, before releasing my arms from the duty. A second later I have the knife I was carrying in my teeth in my hand instead, and I immediately crawl upwards on the snake's body, targeting its head.

It apparently senses what's coming, because it dives, and hard, in the span of a single instant. Animal instinct tells it to shake me off, and water is a tried and tested way of doing that with drop predators.

I'm not a drop predator.

As soon as we hit the water, I let go of the snake. Instead, I swim away from it in several quick strokes, deliberately presenting it with my back to strike. Sure enough, it can't resist the temptation. It closes in, headfirst... and that's it, really.

As my left arm clamps down around its neck once more, I stab the knife, deep, into its head from the underside. The blade isn'tquite monomolecular, but it's still very, very sharp. More than enough to do what's needed. I allow myself to be carried with the snake, as it rises out of the water letting out a loud, overwhelming hiss that doubles as a scream. Pulling out the knife and stabbing into the thrashing head a few more times for good measure, I let go and jump away just as it comes close to the boat.

Alright then, one down. I've been on-scene for about twenty seconds now.

Landing on the boat, I'm bare feet from the door to the cabin the girls are huddled in, where the snake is menacing them even now. My landing draws its attention, however, coupled with its mate's death knell. I smile as the snake pulls back, before moving to stare at me. It remains still for a couple of seconds, just long enough for me to wonder if I could get away with stabbing it before it moved… and then it moves.

So I've just enhanced myself, and not a little. My old estimates having been rendered irrelevant, both my mind and body are as far from baseline human as can be. Indeed, I'd have given you even odds I'm one of the deadliest beings on the planet right now.

Yeah, good thing I didn't. The snake was supposed to be a slug in terms of speed, compared to me. Instead, the first thing I notice when it moves it when its jaws clamp down on me. I manage to move just enough that it's not my head it manages to close in on, but instead my shoulder.

What the fuck? It's not supposed to be close to this fast! And now I feel my shoulder bones creaking before the sensation of venom pouring into my veins makes everything worse.

Yeah, venom. In the anaconda's fangs. Just in case I'd forgotten where and what I was dealing with, I guess? The good thing is, and I'm really reaching here, is that at least it transfixed the snake's head. I stab forward with my machete, ready to end this right here and now. That is, of course, when the damn tail slams into me.

My ribs are as enhanced as everything else, but that doesn't mean they can't crack. That side is going to be a vulnerability for this whole fight. Worse, it knocked out my knife from my hand. As the snakes pulls back, I don't resist, letting myself be carried along. Instead, I focus my strength on prying the snake's jaw open to extract my shoulder.

It takes several tense seconds, but I find myself freed, only for the coils of the snake to settle in place around me, and start squeezing. See, this is why you shouldn't buy into stereotypes. I'm going to stab the next guy who tells me that it's the female of the species you should watch out for.

I feel the club of 'jumper's cracked ribs' expand by several members, before I finally have an angle on the snake's face. A second later I have a finger in each of its eyes, and it's thrashing and doing the whole 'hiss-scream' thing all over again. I'm barely loose though, before I hear the most beautiful sound in the world over the sound of it's pained screaming.

The dull, barely detectable droning of a UAV as it flies down from above the tree line, laden with gear. I find purchase on the snake's coil to flip myself off, landing on the boat with a backflip and snagging a grenade from the drone in the process.

Half a second later, the grenade's pin is in the water and the grenade is down the snake's throat. Unfortunately, the movement also seems to have told it where I am. As the snake dives down on me, I jump away with a quick motion, landing right next to the girls.

Who are staring at me. And one of them is Jennifer Lopez. This might just be a good day after all!

"Shall we get off then, ladies?" I ask as the snake's dive punctures through the drastically weakened hull.

"Huh?" Jennifer… no, that's a terrible thing to do, Terri says, right before she faints dead away. Looking around, the other girl… Denise, I think? She's gone too, flat on the floor. Which is… yeah, fair enough. Just one thingto do, then. I pick both the women up, one on each shoulder. Three seconds later we're jumping off the boat together, narrowly avoiding a swipe from the wildly thrashing tail of the snake.

The grenade was set for eleven seconds, so we still have about five of those left, so I don't even bother to head for land. Just swimming away with every scrap of strength I have, we manage to put several meters of distance between us and the boat. Which is overkill, honestly, but the best way to appreciate an explosion is a good distance away from it.

And yes, it's a very pretty explosion. The chunks of snake that rain on us? Less so.

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Denise Kalberg had never been a very brave woman, she'd be the first to admit. As a matter of fact, she'd never been very much notable at all, in practically any field worth noting. She was a Production Manager, for fuck's sake. She worked with figures and papers, to make sure that the money kept flowing between the right places, and everyone kept getting what they needed for movies to be made. It wasn't a description that called for a lot of personal bravery.

Well, they'd better update that job description in a hurry. When Gary had said he wanted them to come along, she'd been excited. It'd been a nice vacation out in the wild. Instead, it had turned into… this. It had turned Gary into someone who had actually held her hostage so he and his new friend could capture and giant snake and get rich. It was something of a wakeup call. The last she'd seen, there had been a snake snapping at her and Terri from just feet away, ready to eat them in one go.

And now she was… where was she? Thinking hard, Denise realized with a shock she did remember a bit about coming to… wherever this was. She'd just fainted after seeing… oh, right. The full breadth and depth of her whole experience struck her in a flash, leaving her weak in the knees. That guy, that impossible guy who'd jumped on the back of a giant snake for them… he'd brought them here, to his… right, it was his boat. Some kind of research vessel he was using to explore the Amazon. Then some people had gently helped her through getting out of those clothes into these robe thingies, and then she'd just slept.

Well, she was awake now. Rising from the bed, Denise looked around the room, just to get a better idea of it. And then she froze, because even as she was now, tired and coming off an adrenaline high, something like this was still a shock. The first thing that hit was the sheer size of the room she was in. While she knew on some level it wasn't possible, it looked at first glance like most of their whole boat could have fit into this room, with room to spare.

And that was just the least noticeable thing about it. Between having a management degree and working at Hollywood, Denise knew money, and she knew luxury. And this place was way beyond anything she'd ever seen. The carpet her feet landed on after getting off the bed was so soft she felt like she was walking on clouds. The walls were covered in rich wood paneling, the electronics were all the latest she'd heard of, and if the thread count on the sheets she'd been on was below several thousand she'd eat them herself.

It was just… it was ironic, she thought with a rueful smile that after the day she'd had it was the ultra-fancy room that she didn't have the right words to describe. But she didn't. It was as if someone had taken a place out of a royal palace and plunked it down on a boat.

Just after stepping into the corridor beyond the door she ran into a sharply dressed man, who was so obviously a steward or a manager that it might as well have been stamped on his face.

"Ah, I see you're awake now, miss?"

She furrowed her eyebrows "Yes…?" she trailed off.

"Your friend woke up a little while ago. She and the boss were talking, they asked to see if you were up. But you were sleeping, so they said to let you rest up."

Oh. Yeah, that sounded like Terri alright.

"Where are they now?"

"They retired to the boss's rooms to discuss something about the… giant snakes?" He phrased the last bit like a question."

Denise just nodded wearily. "It's a long story. If you'd just point me to the room?"

After a moment's hesitation, the man told her the directions. On the way, Denise thought back to the whole insane sequence of events that had been the mysterious arrival of this mysterious 'boss', and the way he'd saved both her and Terri. He'd looked like… like a wild animal himself, fighting against other monsters for control over their fates. It was something that sent strange tingles down the back of her neck, just what kind of man would even do that.

The more she thought about it, the more insane it sounded even in her head. And worst of all, she thought, idly running a finger down her front, she had never seen him before in her life. She'd tried to remember, and she'd tried hard in her own head as she wandered down the halls of the giant superyacht she was in, but no matter what she could not remember anything about who he was.

By the time she reached the door she'd been guided to, Denise found her mind focusing more and more of the only things she did have about him, his appearance and actions. Evidently it was someone who would cheerfully throw themselves, and it bore to be repeated, on giant snake monsters, for complete strangers. And she still remembered the way he looked. Powerful, rippling muscles wrapped around a monstrous serpent, him jumping off of it after having stabbed it to death, a few traces of blood clinging to him in just the right places…

She was, Denise realized to her horror, getting excited. As in, the wrong kind to be, when she had ahead of her a serious conversation about just what had gone on out there. Raising her hand, Denise knocked on the door, only to raise an eyebrow when it swung open under the impact.

After a moment's hesitation, she stepped into the room. Taking a few steps in, she looked around. The first thing she saw was the dog as it came barreling down. Narrowly avoiding it as it all but flew across the room, she watched it run down the corridor. Of course, the door had been left open for the dog.

Looking around again, she was in some kind of foyer. So the room Terri and the guy were in should be the one…after…it.

Denise Kalberg felt her mind go blank. She looked at the guy who had rescued her, and she looked at the woman who had long since become a close friend.. She took in their relative positions.

After a few seconds of her staring at them and them at her, she could finally conclude that no, it actually wasn't possible for people to faint on demand.

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Well, this took weird amounts of work to setup. But that fucking expression on her face… it was worth it.

I look back at Denise where she's still transfixed in the doorway, lips haplessly trying to form words. She's looking right back at me, gaze moving back and forth between me and the woman kneeling between my legs, both her hands grabbing my knees as she impales her throat on my cock.

What? I have needs, okay? And we're talking about a spitting image of Jennifer Lopez. I consider it an achievement that I didn't ignore the snakes and start right when I first her. As it was, poor Terri had questions for me when she woke up. It took about an hour's work for those questions to be forgotten and the new one to take root, this one being something along the lines of 'how many times can I cum in an hour?'

I wait for a few seconds, letting Terri work me over some more and just luxuriating in the experience of her vice-tight throat twitching and swallowing around me. Timing it just as I see Denise's mind catching up, I change tracks.

Terri lets out an abrupt yelp as I pull her off my shaft, rising to my full height in a single motion. It's taken me an embarrassingly long time to get entirely, completely comfortable in my own skin, I have to say. I had hangups I didn't even realize. But I guess surgically and chemically morphing and shaping it to my will took care of the last of my hesitations. There isn't much left to hesitate about in your body, once you've taken a scalpel to it for several long hours.

It achieves its purpose, which is what matters. Just before she could finally say something about the scene, I see Denise blush right down to her neck at the full frontal she receives of me. Enjoying the way the other girl's gaze just falls downwards and finds itself stuck there, I walk ahead, stepping around Terri. That's when the woman notices the other girl, smiling wide as she does.

Oh dear. I might have overdone it with the pheromones, if this is her reaction. Oh well. Live and learn.

As I reach the door, Denise is still trying to form words, and failing. It would be funny if it wasn't so intensely sexy seeing he confused like this. She almost shirks back as I reach out to her, but extends her hand at the last moment, pretty clearly in a daze. Stepping past her, I close the door she came in through, very deliberately leaning into her in the process.

"How… I mean of course, there's nothing wrong… but you just… what the hell's going on?" She finally gets out, once she's well into the room.

I watch as Terri closes in on her, before just putting a finger on her lips. It's almost exactly like a scene taken out of an erotic movie, so much so I'm tempted to look around for cameras. But leading Denise to the bed at the side, Terri sits down besides her.

"No questions now. Just enjoy it, please?" the Hispanic woman seduces the other. I keep stepping closer with every moment, ready to… well, 'pounce' sounds wrong despite being exactly what I mean.

"Enjoy what-" is the predictable response, silenced by the even more predictable kiss. But I don't mind, gently stroking my cock at the seering hot sight. Terri pushes Denise gently onto the bed behind her, continuing the kiss the whole time. I let out an appreciative whistle as she undresses the other woman without once coming up for air, while thoroughly soaking her mouth in my precum.

I wait till Denise is kissing her back, before stepping closer. A gentle touch at Terri's back has her moving, making way for me to sit down. That's when she breaks the kiss, gently snapping the line of drool that connects the two women.

I watch in growing amusement as for the third time in less than ten minutes, Denise Kalberg comes off a daze in front of me. It was an assault pretty much exactly like this that felled the JLo lookalike, after all, so I'm curious to see how said woman pulled it off in her turn.

Sure enough, Denise's expression clears to reveal a dramatically different mood that she'd stepped in with. Seated on my bed, I wait till she's lunging for Terri, before catching hold of her head by the hair.

"Ah, no. That's not what we're doing here."

Looking at me, I realize she genuinely forgot I was here. I enjoy the dawning realization as she realizes where she is, kneeling in front of me with the woman who was giving me a blowjob not five minutes ago. The strange mix of fear and excitement I'm so very familiar with now builds up behind her eyes, and I wait just long enough for it to grow into a crescendo before reaching out.

"Wait, I don't, I haven't-" is all she manages to get out, before I push my cock into her open lips. Noting Terri as she moves immediately to my balls, taking one in and starting her sucking, I gently push Denise down my shaft, slow enough to give the impression that she can easily push herself off any time she wants.

And then I'm at the back of her throat, and her eyes have finally found mine. I wait for just a moment, letting the refusal in her eyes take shape, before I remove my hands. Almost immediately, she tries to pull of… only that's not happening. I have more than two hands, after all. It's not something as stupid as a hand forcing her head to remain on. Rather, my telekinetic 'hands' are smoothly, gently working her throat and hands.

Try as she might, she just can't get the muscles to work that would be needed to push her head off my cock. The idea to be given is that her own body is betraying her, and you'd be surprised how little time and effort that particular idea takes to take root. Sure enough, in a matter of seconds I feel her tongue taking tentative licks of the cock lodged in her throat, and a fraction of a second after that I feel her try to move her head again, this time in gentle bobs along the cock.

And then I just relax, letting the illusory hands fall away. This is what it's all for, isn't it? I lay back, letting my mind sink into the dual blowjob the two women as visiting on me. Soon Denise is licking my tip, running her tongue along the sides of my shaft while Terri works the bottom, before they starts running their lips along opposite sides of it at the same time, taking turns at the head and sucking with everything they've got.

It takes little time for things to go further. Before long I'm buried to the hilt in Denise's pussy, with Terri alternating between working our assholes with her tongue. I work the two of them through orgasm after orgasm, working them right until they're at the edge of being insensate before pulling back and letting them remember.

I split Terri's legendary ass in two with my cock, plunging in and out like a piston once in the right position, before pulling out and parking it in Denise's ass instead. The girls are entwined, kissing hard with their pussies rubbing along each other. Then I'm pulling on their waists, and it's back to them wrapping their lips around my cock and kissing around my cockhead.

As the hours pass, I blow my load down their throats, inside their asses, on their faces and on the floor, having the girls clean up every instance with their tongues. Denise almost says something when I spear her pussy on my cock while pushing her face into Terri's ass to clean it up, but the orgasm she gets when I paint the inside of her pussy white leaves her blitzed enough that she's already halfway through by the time she notices.

The hesitation triggers something in me though, a sort of anger that I didn't know I was capable of anymore. How dare this woman deny me? In a flash, balls deep inside her, I'm gripped by an utterly irrational urge to impose on her something she'll remember for the rest of her life. And then she moves in an acrobatic feat that pulls her off of my cock such that my cum is still dripping out of her sodden cunt, turns completely to face me, and has her tits wrapped around my cock. All in less than two seconds, while I'm halfway through my orgasm. She opens and closes her lips in sync with my thrusts back and forth, so my next few spurts alternatively fill her mouth and cover her face.

And really, I can't stay mad at that face.

It's almost a shame when DADA's alarm tells me that I need to end things quickly or I'll be late for the microbiological/genetic round of enhancements. Not really, though. Things had started getting messy, even with the cleanups.

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Stepping out of the room several hours after Denise entered it, I look back the mess one last time and consider if it's all really too much.

But then I recall the last few hours, and the answer is a definite no. I think this counts as empirical proof that there's no such notion as too much of a good thing. Or if there is, I'm nowhere close just yet. Either way, I clearly need to do more! Yes, that is right and proper logic that won't hurt me indirectly in the future at all.

Anyway. "So, any updates?" I ask the thin air of the corridor.

The air, specifically my brother DADA who lives in the radio waves in the air, answers. "Not really. All samples holding steady. Ready when you are."

Good. If the last round of upgrades had been risky, this was suicide. Actually, what I plan to be doing comes disturbingly close to just plain suicide, in all honesty. Treating my body with a carefully designed cocktail of chemicals and serums?

Can be called questionable, if you're the like to call such things questionable.

Using unknown, dangerous, horrifically mutagenic and just plain weird viruses and bacteria to enact changes to the absolute most basic, most delicate building blocks of my existence? That's questionable by anyone's measure.

And yet. And yet, I'm the fucking Jumper, and if I'm going to keep being terrified of my own talents, what the fuck was the point of spending CP on them?

The argument is weakened slightly by the fact that I do not in fact know for certain that I did spend CP on them, but c'mon now. I don't remember building for this jump, but I'm still me. If I didn't pay for every enhancement in sight, I'd eat my shoes.

I mutter out a few quick instructions to DADA on my way to the lab, telling him to get the girls whatever they need, including a way to contact us, reviewing a few things on oncoming plans, until I'm here.

"Well then." I mutter to myself.

The process is pretty similar to what I underwent before, at least on the surface. We're back to the big, hemispherical Bell with the apparatus inside it, itself lined with metallic bands that hold various samples and specimen and tools on them.

While I strap myself in, I check through the inputs one last time. This has been tested and retested, but y'know, I'm playing around with my DNA. It's never too much analysis. The modifications are pretty extreme, no two words about it. There are strains of chimera DNA, as in synthetic DNA comprised by splicing in desirable traits from a whole bunch of animals and tinkering with the result till it's stable. Then there's the strands in my own system already. It took a lot of work but we isolated the unique strands that the Apotheosis Initiative seems to have emplaced, and that was before I realized that there were more. Way more, and far, far too old and smoothly integrated to have been spliced into me, even at birth.

I'll admit, it was very, very tempting to activate those to see what would happen. As a matter of fact, it was the single most tempting, inviting experience I have had so far in my life, up to and including drugs, women and whatever else one might care to mention. But no. That would be the kind of thing that turns people into chimerical monsters who lurk in the shadows and become supervillains. So no. I isolated those strands, making small modifications so they'll be dormant barring the infusion of specific chemical markers.

Like… I decided that I couldn't really fight against the narrative causality of this world, yes, but come on. My own DNA is one battlefield I'm not tolerating any 'pick your battles' shit on.

Speaking of which, we come to the viruses. Honestly, pound for pound they're the single weirdest and most powerful part of what I'm doing. The animal splicing is fine, and frankly speaking I still have no real clue just what activating the mysterious strains floating around in my own blood will do. But the viruses… they're primarily built on two strains, both found in nature but modified heavily.

The Multi Gloria strain as dad's notes had it, is an aggressive amalgamator-ruler creature. There was apparently some huge kerfuffle about it all the way back in 1969 when the military was trying something with it. Anyway, once the bonding is complete the virus should provide some pretty ridiculous effects. We're talking more or less freeform control over my own biology, the ability to integrate and mimic technology on some level, the ability to aggressively absorb and assimilate biological traits and even brainwave patterns… and that's just the first stage integration. Once that's done the second stage launches, which allows for induction of similar abilities in others, creation and maintenance of hive structures… it's crazy stuff.

The other one kinda pales in comparison in terms of the sheer, raw power, but it's a lot more… grounded, shall we say? Basic strength and dexterity enhancements, positively unspeakable levels of ruggedization and endurance enhancements, and a few rather more… questionable abilities. Such as the ability to spread on levels unheard of by anything I've ever seen, creation of parasites with their own effects, and a whole lot other small, nifty effects. The main draw I have to it is that it enables the activation of the single tastiest gene sequence I've ever seen, buried in my junk DNA.

I was going to sideline it and work on it later with the other untested sequences, but simply infusing the virus seemed to spark an immediate activation. And what it unveiled… well, that would almost actually be worth turning into an abomination.

Apparently called the Optimization Sequence, it's supposed to basically make me just better over the course of time. Not better at something specifically. That's the whole draw. Just better. It kills of the weakest cells in the body, and at the same time forces the remaining cells to upgrade and improve themselves, continuously, over and over. Given some time, it will start to create tiny glands and organs buried in the body that should even allow me to… well, spoilers. Let's just say that I'm excited about it and leave it at that.

Not excited enough to smash one of the vials, though. I catch the machine as it starts closing, with one of the vials loosened from its clasp by the motion. I a few moments I have it fixed right, before pulling my hands back and affixing the restraints.

"Alright then, let's start!" I say just loud enough for DADA to hear, before taking a deep breath and relaxing myself.

The gaseous sedatives are first, the enclosed glass top of the Bell filling up with a barely visible fog seconds after I have the go ahead. Of course, my constitution now is such that it'll take forever for it alone to work, which is why it's coupled with an intravenous counterpart. The feeling of needles sliding in is strangely soothing, letting me relax just that bit more as the fluid is injected and immediately starts acting. It reminds me a bit of the way it felt when that stupid Anaconda was biting me and I could feel its venom sacs unloading their contents into my shoulder.

Anacondas with venom. Just what the fuck else is out there, I… wonder… I feel my eyes snap open, even as the effect of the sedative starts to grow overpowering.

Anacondas with venom. An unknown venom, that is the result of old experimentation and genetic alterations, further catalyzed by a lifetime spent in one of the most biodiverse locales on the planet. Which is in my system now, when I'm, undergoing my carefully calibrated, oh-so-painstakingly tested procedure.

Oh, this goddam fuc-

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