JMJ

Chapter Fifteen

My Ace in the Hole

Professor Utonium.

Before I left that afternoon, I checked our patient once more. The readings were the same as prior to my modifications to the detox machine. I tapped the dial. I tapped my foot and shook my head.

This was not going to work.

Certainly it helped, but I was beginning to realize what I'd feared. The body of our patient was never going to be cleansed entirely of this "S" created by the rogue scientists. Even if all excess "S" was depleted from him, his cells were infused with it down to a near genetic level. He could be in there for eternity and there would always be that risk of dormancy.

Now, I supposed to myself that we could all live with his condition reduced to having to come to the chamber here once a week indefinitely to keep it down, but I had promised him a cure. He trusted he would be cured. Without a doubt in his mind, he knew this would be over. He was talking about prison for life and wanting to make up with his father. He hoped for house arrest. They would probably give it to him too if he proved himself and he was free from risk of his condition.

Behind his usual aloofness, he revealed that he completely intended not only to mend his ways but to do good in this world if he could. I knew a person with his stubbornness could do very much good if he put his mind to it. I had had my wayward days as well— nothing like his, but I certainly understood rebellion. I understood him and that look. His story was one of complete reform, and one that could be called by some amazing for who he had been as the leader of the Gangreen Gang.

Although only a teen, he had been right up there with the other super villains against the Powerpuff Girls. I had promised myself at the beginning of this assignment not to get too attached, but the more this went on, the more I knew it couldn't end before it started. I couldn't let those scientists win. Even if Ace, or rather Alex, did accept going once a week here, which I truly doubted, he could still remain contagious to some degree, and that was something I could not bear as a scientist or as a person with Ace as a problem to overcome, or Alex as a human being— a boy who would not be allowed to hug his father if I didn't do something.

And then it really got me as I put my coat on to return to the house.

If I could never hug my children again even the boys who were so new to the household, I wouldn't be able to…

Oh, did it have to be that way? I scolded myself in the car; when I did not see my own younger self in him, I saw my own children.

If I couldn't fix him, I couldn't fix him. Even a doctor had to deal with that at times. There were some things that technology could not overcome, but I resented it so badly. If those monsters called scientists could destroy a perfectly healthy body, there had to be a way to restore said-body, and I would do it. Not just for Patrick Alexander DiDio's sake. As Ace he truly had been asking for it and these were the consequences of his actions in wishing to steal Chemical X to restore his "green". Not just for his father's sake. He had not been a good parent. I understood that much! This was also for the sake of Townsville, for the sake of humanity, for the sake of second chances, and because I truly, truly, truly could not let S take the place of X. Not now. Not ever. I had to nip this in the bud before it started like a disease and one that the Powerpuff Girls could not stop.

There were no Powerpuff Girls, and I could not just give Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup back their powers to stop such a disease. They would fight, but it would never be over. And those scientists were still at large. Even if the girls would be immune to S with Chemical X flowing through them, I could not risk…

I screeched to a halt at a stoplight.

"Chemical X," I breathed.

#

"I know that Chemical X is illegal now…" I told Jojo cocking his head curiously at me in a very animal-like manner.

We were in my lab now. The door was locked. Through the ceiling I just barely made out now and again some stomping from the boys still getting used to living in a house with rules and getting along with their sisters. Thankfully, at least Wes was around to keep them under control somewhat right now, but I still felt guilty.

I felt guilty as though they were all six of them and Wes standing there looking over my shoulder with big round eyes, instead of just Jojo. Even he seemed more sentient to me than usual as he studied me with care trying to understand my seriousness just like a little child might.

He touched my sleeve and grunted, and I shook my head as though against his argument.

"I can't let this go on," I told him firmly.

I took out from a secret drawer a key that unlocked a cupboard that popped out of a secret panel in the floor.

Jojo watched with interest, but so much more behaved than in the old days before he himself had been changed by Chemical X. He looked at the glow from the vial as though he was remembering something very thoughtfully. His lower lip dropped and his brow knit tightly. It was always a curiosity of mine: how much did the chimp understand from his past?

Sometimes he looked like he was giving himself a headache trying to understand memories that his brain, now normal for his species, conjured up from that time from when he had been Mojo Jojo, one of the deadliest super villains of Townsville, but there were worse things than Mojo Jojo had ever been no matter how crazed or angry he had been. No matter how much he congratulated himself on being evil, he was never so focused as a mad scientist. Even with his own dabbling in science in which he was only copying me, though with brilliant success, he had never been what those scientists had been who had used Ace for their experiments.

How much damage had Pr. Ex and all who had ever worked for him caused?

"I feel responsible, Jojo. I know I shouldn't, but I do. Now, you can't tell the girls about this, you understand. Or anyone. Thankfully you can't." Here I laughed a little, and that seemed to ease Jojo. "But I need to confide in someone. I'm not supposed to have this Chemical X. This is a secret between us two."

I leaned down and touched his shoulder and he looked at me with another grunt or two as though asking me quietly once more what it all meant. I just patted him reassuringly and stood upright again.

I took the vial.

Just a drop. Less than a drop.

I measured microscopically how much a person of Alex's weight would need to cancel out S for good but without changing him in any perceivable way. The secret I had already discovered about S was this: it had been made brilliantly from Antidote X, but in the process of making it a power on its own, I now realized that X had become its antidote. Maybe Alex would live longer or heal quicker than other people afterwards, but as long as no one would be able to trace this back to X, including Alex himself, it would be good. I could do this.

I had confidence in that, but just in case, I first had Jojo go check up on the girls. There was no room for mistakes with this no matter how docile Jojo had been of late. No sudden movements, and especially no pushing.

Now, I needed a binder to make sure it would stay in Alex, to make sure the S would never return from any hidden cell. It had to be perfect. Seamless. No loose ends.

#

"This is all going to be very stressful on you today," I said cheerfully with the mug all ready in my hands to place into Alex's.

Alex was there raising a suspicious brow and a pout.

"I don't want to put any pressure on you, but stress does seem to weigh heavily on your condition, so just in case something would go wrong with your meeting I brewed up a cup of the best chamomile tea that would sooth even the tightest nerves.

"Chamomile?" Alex said not withholding his tongue sticking out of his mouth with distaste. "Yeah, right."

"There's honey and chocolate flavor. I put enough in so that even the most stubborn non-tea drinker won't notice much but a syrupy cocao mix."

"Are you sure the cocoa won't imbalance the calming effect," I sniffed.

"Not at all, because it's not actually chocolate but carob, which has no caffeine, but it tastes a lot like chocolate."

"I donno. My taste buds are pretty sharp," said Alex snidely, but he took the mug nonetheless. "There ain't something else in here, is there, that you're not saying?"

Sharp as always, but I had an answer for that.

"Vitamins and minerals and other medicinal ingredients that would taste awful without the flavoring," I retorted playfully.

"Gatchya!" Alex saluted and took a sip, thought about it a moment, and then shrugged. ""kay, you got my compliments to the chef this time. B+. No hot chocolate, buuuuuuut, it's not totally disgusting."

He took another sip of it, and then a longer gulp. I tried not to watch his reaction too obviously. I think he noticed somewhat anyway.

"I feel calmer already, actually," he admitted. "Didn't think it was something that would be so noticeable."

I smiled smugly and wrapped my arms behind my back.

"Well," I said. "I'll just tell you when your father arrives then."

Alex went back into the detoxification chamber. I slipped around away from the window as casual as could be, but I paused, waiting for the machine to get reacquainted with Alex. Already, his body was more detoxified in a greater leap than the whole of his time being here. The readings were dropping visibly at a pace so rapid that the dial could almost not keep up with it. Within seconds he was down to zero percent affected by the S. All was either canceled out by the X or sucked away to dry out into harmless nothing by the machine.

I almost went back to see him for myself. I'm sure he felt something during that procedure, but I didn't want to be more suspicious than I already was, so feeling quite pleased with myself, I closed my eyes and turned away.

"Good morning, Dr. Warden," I said cheerfully to Shelby as she appeared.

"You seem happy this morning," she remarked.

"Things are going better so far today," I told her simply.

She grinned. "Oh, I'm glad to hear that. Patrick's father just arrived and he's waiting in the lobby. Should I bring Mr. DiDio to him?"

"You should bring Alex out to his father, actually," I said simply.