Chapter Two: The Discovery of a Lifetime
Lincoln sighed. Day two of his enforced vacation from vigilante work. He'd spent time talking to Jordan and Stella. But he hadn't told them about his double life yet. How could he tell them that for a full year and a half, he'd been a vigilante, that he'd spent his nights leaping rooftops, beating criminals, that he'd been arrested, but had 'escaped' before the police could unmask him? He still had the paper from the day after The Loud Knight had escaped from the police. He was considering calling himself The White Knight now. A sort of play on his white hair and his own ethical and moral behavior while on the job.
He was still training downstairs every day in his basement. Lisa had provided him with a full gym. It was all reduced to a single machine. With a combination of pulleys and levers and wires, the machine was able to work out every muscle group in the body. By using a system by which it was more progressively more difficult to make the wires move, it allowed the machine to create higher resistance than any standard gym machine. Lisa got input from Lynn, having her test the machine before she put a patent on it and got investors in it. Now, there were several high-class gyms that used the machine.
Especially gyms in California where super stars worked out. Lisa's bionics alone had netted her a nice fortune. She'd patented them and she had worked and was working towards getting them approved for Medicare and Medicaid. They weren't approved just yet. The government was taking its sweet time. They had a pretty Liberal president in the White House at the moment. He was Liberal even by Obama's standards and Congress and the House of Representatives had a Liberal majority.
So it wasn't out of the realm of possibility that a lot of progress would be made on improving Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. Lincoln was snapped out of his thoughts by a knock at the door. He sighed and let one of his androids answer the door. Penelope as Darcy jokingly called it walked over to the door.
"Who is it?" Penelope asked.
"Jordan Wickham and Stella Zhau." Jordan said.
A screen lit up on Penelope's face and Lincoln saw who it was. He nodded. Penelope opened the door.
"Please, come in. May I make you some tea?" Penelope asked.
"No, it's okay. We just need to talk to Lincoln." Stella said, taking off her shoes and heading over to the couch, where Lincoln seemed a little bit out of it.
"Linc… What's wrong? You haven't answered the phone at all yesterday. Is something up? Are you breaking up with us?" Jordan asked.
"What? No! Of course not! I just… I had a little… A bad encounter two nights ago and I've been a bit… Well, it was a close call and I'm kind of reassessing things. I do want to talk to you. But I'm afraid that you won't believe me. Or that worse, you'll be angry at me." Lincoln said. He'd realized the magnitude of having lied to Jordan and Stella for over a year. The magnitude of having let them believe that he was just busy at night. He didn't specify what he was doing. But he was working hard on his comics and he let them assume that it was work on his newest story.
"Tell us. I can't promise I won't be angry. But whatever it is, it's better to be honest." Stella said. Lincoln sighed.
"Okay… You know the Loud Knight?" Lincoln asked.
"Of course. He's the talk of the town. I don't know if he's crazy or if he just really cares about the city. But he sure makes for interesting news." Jordan said.
"Well… He's me." Lincoln said anxiously. The girls were silent for a long moment before they started laughing.
"Okay, Linc… Very funny. Good joke." Jordan laughed.
"I'm not joking! I'll prove it to you!" Lincoln said. Lisa had allowed him to keep his broken costume, though she'd ensured that it would be unusable by shutting down functions. Lincoln took Jordan and Stella to a room in his basement that had an intense system of locks and code keys.
He opened the door and turned on the lights.
"See? This is… Well… This costume is broken. I would strongly recommend against anyone using it." Lincoln said. Jordan gasped, looking around. It had Lincoln's costume in it. It had various tools that he'd been known to use in his crusade as the papers called it. There was little Jordan and Stella could do but believe him.
"Wow… I assumed Loud Knight was just an ironic name since he… I mean you are able to drop down almost silently. People compare you to Batman, you know. They say that you're just a mentally ill person whose delusions make you believe you're a hero." Jordan said bluntly. Lincoln chuckled.
"Well… I'm not… I mean, as far as I know I'm not. But if I was, I wouldn't think I was." Lincoln said. Jordan laughed. It was true. Crazy people never think they're crazy.
"So, where did you get injured?" Stella asked kindly. Lincoln took off his shirt and showed off the scar on his spine. It was a sort of star shaped scar that radiated out from the center of his spine. Stella hissed empathetically.
"Wow… I'm amazed you weren't paralyzed." Jordan said.
"Lisa healed me. I probably would have been paralyzed though if my suit hadn't done its job though. It has armor on it that's extremely flexible, but dispels kinetic energy.
The bullet that hit me was too heavy and it was an explosive round, so it made a pretty big mark on my back. But I'm sure the damage would be much worse if I hadn't had the suit. Lisa implanted me with more bionics in my brain and spine this time. And I can already feel the effects." Lincoln said. Stella gasped.
"You're still going to go back out there as a vigilante? I can't believe you! What if you're not as lucky this time? What if they escalate and they shoot a sniper rifle at you?" Stella demanded.
"I… I know. But I love this town… Now it's a city and crime is a problem. In just ten years. Progress happens fast and I know that I won't ever stop crime from happening. But if I make criminals second guess themselves before they commit a crime. If just one criminal decides that the potential of meeting me makes that crime not worth it, I've done my job. And you know how I conduct my work. I don't beat people to a pulp. I don't kill. I don't use lethal weapons."
"But you also put yourself in danger. Not everyone shares your ethics." Stella said.
"Royal Woods' increased crime comes from the fact that there are more poor people here now. Families that used to live in other cities have come here for work and demographics have changed in Royal Woods." Stella said.
"But that still means that violent criminals are out there and obviously you fought some last night and they didn't share your prohibitions. They took advantage of the fact that you don't kill or seriously harm." Stella said.
"I admire you for what you do. But if you're really going to do it… If we really can't stop you… I just… I don't know if I can stay with you." Jordan said softly. She loved Lincoln. She could picture herself marrying him. Or at least she could picture herself still being with him if he ultimately married Stella. There was no reason to change their relationship just because two of them got married.
"I don't know if I can either. You have to make a choice, Lincoln. Your work is important. But I hope that we're important to you too." Stella said.
Lincoln hesitated for a long moment.
"I think that's all the answer we need. Call me if you change your mind." Jordan said sadly, going out of the house with Stella and heading to their car. They shared an apartment in one of the nicer parts of the city. Lincoln went up to the living room, sitting on the couch. It was hard to just sit around while he knew there was crime in the city. But he was sure that Lisa wouldn't even give him the outfit until seven days had gone by. And Lisa was very hard to negotiate with.
He called Lisa up.
"Hello, Elder Brother. How can I help you?" Lisa asked.
"I don't know. Jordan and Stella broke up with me. Not because I was a vigilante in the past, but because I'm not sure I can stop being one." Lincoln said. He'd only been doing it for a year and a half. That wasn't so long. But he had trouble picturing himself not being a hero. Because he felt restless not going out at night on the town. Maybe if he showed them his newly enhanced powers, they would reconsider.
Because he couldn't picture himself without them either.
"Why don't you come over to the house? We can test your new powers. Your base physical abilities should be enhanced by now and I'd like to test your new baseline." Lisa said. Lincoln nodded, heading to Rita's and Lynn's house. They had moved from their old house. They wanted a more modern, up-to-date house. So they got one in what was now a different suburban area of the city. It was a nice house. About the same size as their old house. But it didn't have any drafts. It had three bathrooms.
It had a beautiful common room and an extremely modern kitchen. They had afforded it between the two of them. Because Rita was an author now, having published four books and Lynn having spread his restaurant, opening two new locations around the city, they had the money to buy a new house and put a significant down payment on it. Lisa had made Lynn a new van that looked a lot like Vanzilla, but was much more powerful, could easily carry the 13 family members and gear and had many modern features, like a satellite radio that could tap into stations around the world.
In fact, there were only a few stations the LoudTech satellite radio couldn't tap into and most of them were in places like China and North Korea and Russia. Lincoln drove his car over to his parents' house, going inside.
"Hey, Mom. Hey, Dad. How's it going?" Lincoln asked.
"Lincoln. You're here again. I heard you got injured in the city! What happened?" Rita asked. She knew Lisa had fixed him up. But she was still worried about him.
"Oh, no big deal, just got waylaid by some thugs." Lincoln said. It wasn't technically a lie.
"Oh, Lincoln!" Rita said, hugging Lincoln tightly. Lincoln had grown much taller over the years. He was now taller than his father. Lynn Sr. stood at 6'0". Lincoln was 6'1".
"I'm okay, Mom. You know Lisa. She fixed me up really well." Lincoln said. Rita nodded, unwilling to let go of Lincoln just yet. Finally, after Lynn had hugged him as well, Lincoln went down to the basement where Lisa was waiting for him.
"Okay… How are you feeling?" Lisa asked. Lincoln shrugged.
"I feel… Weird… Strangely intense. I cut myself making breakfast this morning and my hand healed within ten minutes. That's never happened before, even with my nanomachines. It usually takes at least half an hour.
"Hmm… That's atypical. Even with your newly enhanced abilities, your healing shouldn't be that fast." Lisa said.
"How would you feel about testing your abilities more extensively?" Lisa asked. Lincoln hesitated. It was important to test his abilities, but he didn't know what Lisa had in mind.
"We'd take it one step at a time. I'm not going to throw you in a vat of acid or anything." Lisa said.
"Well… Okay. But if I tell you to stop, please do it." Lincoln said.
"Of course. I will always respect your wishes." Lisa said. She'd grown a lot as a person as she got older. She was more ethical in her experiments.
"Let's start by logging into the central computer. I'll set your profile to retest your baseline." Lisa said. Lincoln nodded, putting his thumbprint in and telling the computer to retest the baseline. She'd taught him how to use the computer so that he could do it in his own home. This computer was a little more advanced than his own since Lisa had upgraded it just recently. But it worked similarly enough that he could use it with ease.
He sat down on the machine and was guided through the process again, though he didn't really need the guidance. He went through each of the muscle groups one at a time. Lincoln was sweating a bit by the end, but he was amazed at how much more weight he could lift now. He was looking at the readouts. His weight was now on average 1.5 times what it had been just days ago. Lisa nodded.
"Hmm… Atypical. This isn't just a result of the new implants. They might result for a certain level of enhancement. But their purpose is more for reflexes, agility and similar movement abilities.
"This enhanced strength must be… An unintended but potentially beneficial side effect of the implants. Let's get you on the treadmill." Lisa said, having Lincoln go on the treadmill and turning it on, starting at the baseline of 4 miles an hour, letting him start at a fairly mild jog, slowly turning it up. Despite it going for over twenty minutes, even with Lincoln's bionic lungs and heart, despite it going up to a sprint, Lincoln didn't seem to be getting out of breath. Lisa started having him run uphill, keeping the speed the same. Lisa kept taking notes and had the treadmill start moving to represent rugged terrain.
This was all incredible. He was moving like he wasn't even a little bit tired. He was sweating, but her readouts suggested that his vitals weren't rising. So either he was dead and had somehow not stopped moving or he had some new abilities that were allowing him these newly enhanced abilities. Finally after an hour of increasingly rigorous testing on the treadmill, it slowed down and eventually stopped.
"Very well. Well done, Elder Brother. Your hypothesis that you have new abilities seems to be correct. I'd like to test your regeneration now if you'd indulge me. I promise that if it's not as advanced as you indicate and you need repairs done on you, I will do them immediately." Lisa said.
Lincoln nodded, taking a towel and wiping off his face and head. He was sweating heavily. That part of him was at least still human.
Lisa pulled out a razor-sharp knife and took it down, tracing along Lincoln's arm, flicking her wrist and slicing Lincoln's arm open. Lincoln seemed not even to react.
"How odd. Did you even feel that?" Lisa asked.
"Yes. I felt it. But… I dunno… I guess it hurt. It just… I didn't feel the need to react to it. I knew you wouldn't do me any real injury." Lincoln said.
"Interesting. You seem to have more conscious control of your body than before…" Lisa said, writing down notes as she watched his arm. It had already stopped bleeding. Lisa nodded, scribbling her notes faster, putting on her scanner goggles so that she could observe this phenomenon at a cellular level. She watched the heat bloom in his arm as the surprisingly deep cut knitted itself together. Within eight minutes, it was fully healed.
"Fascinating! Elder Brother, this is… Perhaps an extreme request, but I would like to test more extreme injuries on you. I will not record it since you no doubt wish to keep your powers secret for the purposes of your vigilante work." Lisa said. Lincoln shrugged.
"How extreme?" Lincoln asked.
"Breaking your arm with a hammer?" Lisa asked. Lincoln reeled at the thought. But maybe this attack would be similar to the cut he got from Lisa just minutes ago.
"We can try it." Lincoln said cautiously. Lisa had her android come in with a sledgehammer and had Lincoln's arm strapped down.
"Okay… Three… Two… One… Swing." Lisa said. The android brought the hammer down hard on Lincoln's arm. Lincoln roared in anticipation of the pain he expected.
But surprisingly, though he definitely felt a powerfully uncomfortable sensation radiating through his arm as he practically saw his bones shattering and cracking in his arm, it was not the mind-numbing pain he had been expecting.
"Oh… That wasn't… That wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be." Lincoln chuckled sheepishly. Lisa chuckled as well, unstrapping Lincoln's arm.
"Very well." She said, putting on the goggles again and observing as the bones in Lincoln's arm seemed to move around.
Those that had been splintered and shattered, the broken pieces were dissolving and being reabsorbed by the body and those that could be repaired were knitting themselves back together. Lisa was breathless as she watched the incredibly efficient process of Lincoln's arm repairing itself.
"Unbelievable." Lisa breathed. She wouldn't have believed this was possible if she wasn't right now witnessing it with her own eyes.
Lincoln's arm took about half an hour to forty-five minutes to fully repair itself, and while much of the bone wasn't laced with Lisa's UDOM anymore, Lisa noticed that the bone was just as dense and strong as it had been before it was broken.
"Remarkable." Lisa said.
"Elder Brother… I would like for you to test a hypothesis I have. Take deep breaths and focus on your blood flow. Order your blood to stop flowing through the body for two seconds." Lisa said.
She had noticed that his body seemed to have an almost conscious control of its own activities, that his regeneration was such that it suggested a far deeper healing ability than simply that of nanomachines. Lincoln closed his eyes and ordered his blood to stop flowing. Lisa watched as it slowed and then stopped. Lisa nodded, taking notes on this.
"Yes, I've read some of your comics in my time. Most of them are bunkum. But it seems that my experimental implantations have caused your body to gain conscious control over itself.
"Body Manipulation… Though, the full extent that you may experience this may not exactly be to the same level that say Jean Grey would. We'll continue to experiment with your powers and in time, perhaps I'll manage to find a method of deliberately reproducing this effect in other people. I've performed implantations in the brain and spinal cord on maybe 100-300 people. Perhaps it requires the full set of bionics, organs and spinal and brain to create Body Manipulation. Perhaps only certain people will awaken. Perhaps it's incredibly rare to do so.
"Who knows! But this is the discovery of a lifetime! Who knows how far this discovery will take mankind! I'll keep this to myself for now. It wouldn't do to have you outed as the Loud Knight, especially since your powers are so unique. But I hope one day, you'll allow me to share this with the world!" Lisa said.