To Lyger 0: I may have to include a Doctor Moreau…


Standing in the bright artificial light of the SLD's underground lab level beneath city hall, Ramus paused in front of the containment cell, looking through the impenetrable glass at the dealer, his baseball cap having been confiscated on his arrest. Ramus held his prosthetic behind his back, cycling mentally through its various settings as he watched the man stare up at the nondescript ceiling with its single vent. These containment cells had been designed to handle the worst that the city could throw at them, anything from a rogue magic user to someone who could manipulate their own body to fit through the tinies opening. But after what he had witnessed today, were these enough? In searching the dealer once he was subdued, they had found twelve other vials of the strange reddish liquid on him, each containing only a few milliliters of the substance. A cursory examination of the vial in the "customer's" car had revealed traces of a similarly-colored liquid. But Baseball cap had absolutely refused to say a word as they wrestled him into the back of the car, his wrists, ankles, and tail all cuffed securely. Currently, Baseball cap lay on his cot, an annoyed expression on his face, staring up at the ceiling while his tail flicked back and forth listlessly across the floor. Several meters away, Gardur sat sullenly in the other containment cell, the glass tinted and sound-dampening activated, cutting him off from the outside world. Meanwhile, the… creature… was in the lab with Vernant, heavily sedated with the power-dampening collar in place and under constant guard.

And yet, they had turned out better than the other officers.

By the time Gouger and Mansart had reached the two officers who had pulled over the other customer, it had mostly been over. The two officers lay on the ground in a pool of blood while a man with two rows of serrated teeth stood over them, looking around with wild, bloodshot eyes. Without hesitating, Gouger had tackled him to the ground, barely avoiding a bit to the shoulder for her trouble, and wrestled to snap the power-dampening collar around his neck. He had resisted, nearly taking a chunk out of her arm in the process and rolling on top of her, pinning her to the ground, before Mansart had finally shot him in the back. The two officers had been rushed to the hospital where they were still in surgery. Their attacker's body lay in the SLD's second lab, waiting until Vernant finished his examination of the living subject.

So much destruction, so much fear, so much horror… all of it tracing back to the man lounging in front of him.

"Maurice Marais," Ramus intoned, eyeing the dealer carefully for any sign of movement.

Marais raised an eyebrow at him but didn't sit up. "So you ran my prints. Hooray."

"We found out a lot about you from your record, Marais," Ramus told him curtly, holding up a tablet. "Let's see… father died at twelve, grew up on the streets, picked up off and on over the years – record as long as my arm, with just about every crime imaginable on it…" He hummed. "You were part of the Drogue Syndicate for a while, before they got absorbed into the Lynchpin's organization… two years ago?" Marais shrugged one shoulder noncommittally. Ramus nodded slowly. "And since then it appears you've been one of the Lynchpin's pushers. That correct?"

"What about it?"

Ramus gave him a hard look. "I have a few questions for you," he informed him. "If you can answer truthfully, we may be able to work something out with you."

Marais scoffed. "What? You saying you'd let me go? Not likely."

Ramus raised an eyebrow. "Depending on the information you give me, you might get to walk out of here today."

Marais sat up straight and stared at Ramus, his jaw hanging open. "Seriously? You're not shitting me?"

Ramus folded his arms, eyeing Marais carefully. "You'd have to give me everything you know," he told him. "And I mean everything. And you'd have to agree to give me whatever information you get on the Lynchpin from now on."

Marais scoffed shaking his head. "Are you insane? No way – not a chance. Snitching on the Lynchpin is the quickest way to get dead there is! No one crosses him and gets away with it! I turn rat and you might as well just kill me now – save him the trouble."

Ramus shrugged. "It's either that or the Super-Maximum Security Prison."

Marais smirked. "La Santé? I'll take it. I've done worse time."

Ramus schooled his expression and shook his head. "Not La Santé's Super-Ward," he told him. "There's a new one – you could be one of the first prisoners there… say, next week?"

Marais cocked his head. "What?" He eyes Ramus suspiciously, a hint of fear in his eyes. "You're lying."

Ramus raised an eyebrow. "Last I checked, La Santé has a couple of magic users, a few former miraculous wielders, a handful of Dark Acolytes of the Mundane – you remember those, right? Plus there are a few others with… weirder abilities." Marais paled. "Now, I'm sure and old 'pro' like you can figure out how to fit in there, right?" asked Ramus. "But then, there's no reason they would accept you any better there than any anyone else. Besides," he added, "word could get out that you helped us here…"

"You wouldn't do that," Marais began, his voice quivering

Ramus gave him a look. "Tell me everything, and you won't have to find out about it."

Marais sighed heavily. "Look, I don't know much. But I'll tell you what I know."

Ramus nodded. "Start with the new…" he gestured vaguely toward his back. "Our records gave no indication that you had a tail before now."

Marais shrugged. "I didn't; the tail's new."

"New as in last year, or new as in today?"

"New as in…" Marais hummed, looking away in thought. "It's been about 2 months now, I think. It was after the Tarasque showed up, at least.."

"Where did it come from? The same place as… Stretch?" Ramus held up the empty vial and shook it back and forth, jerking his head in the direction of the lab.

Marais nodded. "I… experimented a little with it," he explained. "That's where the tail came from."

"And did you get this from Lynchpin?"

He shook his head. "No way. There was a warehouse. Up around the northern communes. After the Tarasque went through, no one was around to say otherwise, so I… scavenged. I was looking for anything that might be important or useful. I had no idea what it would do – you can imagine how weird it was when I started growing a fucking tail! It disappeared after an hour or so the first time it grew, but the next time I took the stuff, the tail stuck around for twelve hours."

"You found a random vial and the first thing you decided to do with it was drink it." Ramus scoffed in disbelief. "So how long is it here for now?"

Marais shrugged.

"So, what?" You're selling the stuff for Lynchpin?"

"Hell no!"

Ramus raised an eyebrow. "You're one of his guys. You have one of his enforcers with you as a bodyguard. Don't give me that crap. You're working for the Lynchpin."

"I'm telling you, I got nothing to do with the Lynchpin now!" Marais protested. "I didn't want anyone shaking me down for money now that I have something valuable to sell, so I hired Gardur for muscle. He's still with the Lynchpin, but I pay him to be discreet and not tell the Lynchpin. I lost contact with the big guy when the Tarasque showed up, and I haven't exactly been in a hurry to remake his acquaintance, if you know what I mean."

Ramus hummed, eyeing him carefully. "Thank you for your information; I'm sure I'll have more questions before too long."

Marais leaned forward. "So… are you going to let me go, then?"

Ramus frowned. "Soon enough," he agreed, nodding slowly. "But if I do so, you're going to have to talk to the Lynchpin again."

Marais' eyes widened in fear. "What!? I – no! No way in hell! I'm not snitching on the Lynchpin! You think I've got a death wish!?"

Ramus folded his arms. "It's either that or the Prison for people with powers. And most of them worked with Lynchpin to some extent anyways, so…" Marais opened his mouth to protest, and Ramus brought his prosthetic back around into view. Marais' eyes went white and he gulped. "Look, just give it some thought," Ramus told him curtly. "We'll talk more later."

Marais let out a string of curses while Ramus adjusted the controls on his containment cell, clouding over the glass and cutting off Marais' view of the world outside of his cell. Finally, Ramus walked back over to the lab, where he could see Vernant inside, examining several samples under a microscope. The… creature… meanwhile, remained unconscious on the table, with Ray and Gouger standing over him. Ramus stepped inside and cleared his throat. "What do you have?"

"You mean, other than a monster?" asked Ray rhetorically, raising an eyebrow dubiously.

Gouger folded her arms. "He's been quiet since we got here," she explained.

Vernant looked up and hummed. "My analysis has revealed some interesting results thus far. Some of the information appears to be very good, though some is quite troubling. First, the sample I took from our friend here, Huret, shows that he is back to normal."

Ramus cocked his head. "What do you mean, 'normal'? You mean Huret's human?"

Vernant nodded. "That is correct – whatever this substance did to him, the effect was only temporary and it has worn off. That is the good information."

Gouger frowned. "Do we still need to watch him if that's the case?" she asked.

Vernant hummed, examining the man for a moment before shaking his head. "Or perhaps not both of you at the same time."

Ramus hummed. "Better to be safe," he decided. "But what about the troubling information you found?"

Vernant gestured toward the samples on his desk. "I was able to get some samples from Huret before he reverted to normal, and I compared them to samples from Marais and Gardur, as well as all the other 'biologically-enhanced super-criminals' that we have encountered, including a preliminary sample from the deceased subject in the other lab."

"And?"

"On the surface they are very different," Vernant explained, gesturing toward the display readout. "As you can see in here, the substance which empowered Huret also did the same to Marais and the other subject. However, the same cannot be said for Gardur, or for Bear Arms, or for Mind-Wipe. Their abilities are more genetically-based, connected at least in Bear Arm's case to foreign DNA spliced into their genome. Gardur is a similar story. But I still found something in here that may tie them all together." Vernant pointed to an image on the computer screen. "This is a reactant that I found in this substance. While it will require further experimentation to be certain, my preliminary analysis suggests that it causes a reaction in the target DNA by acting as a catalyst for a separate chemical. But when this particular chemical breaks down, it leaves behind two key substances which are not found in the human body naturally. I found those substances in the proper ratio in Huret's blood and Marais' blood. And they are also present in the other samples, though in slightly different ratios."

Ramus cocked his head to one side, furrowing his brows in confusion. "So what does it mean?"

Vernant frowned. "I am unsure," he admitted. "But I suspect that they must all have received their powers – or had their powers activated – in a manner similar to this man."

Ramus' eyes widened. "Someone is going around and creating super-villains," he finished. "Well, shit."