“Also, I’ve sort of been trying to kill you for a couple of weeks, so that’s still rattling around in there. Sorry about that, by the way. I’m glad it didn’t work.”
“Thanks, man. You’re a good friend.” I reach up to clap him on the shoulder, but even the slight impact makes me wince. “Ow. I felt that in my side. Peterson worked me over pretty good. Oh! Peterson! Is he okay?”
“Yeah, man, he made it,” says Brian. “Probably. The doc got him stabilized and they patched him up. She’s pretty sure that she’s set the nanos to undo their mojo, but it’s going to take a few days to find out. And I mean, he doesn’t have a left arm anymore, so there’s that. But he made it.”
“So the doc figured out how to work the computer?”
“Man. It’s a good thing she woke up when she did. You’re standing there maybe dead, Peterson’s standing there maybe dead, I’m in a blood-spattered pit and getting deeper all the time. Doc Simmons comes to, looks around and just gets to work. She has no idea what’s gone on, there’s this insane tableau, no one can answer her questions, and she just gets right to business. Tapes up Peterson, calls the police, starts tapping on the computer and all of a sudden, I can think clearly again. Plus the ground under me stops dissolving, which is good because I’d hit a sewer pipe or a tunnel or something, and one foot was just starting to stick through into open air beneath me.”
Regina chimes in. “I think we were really secondary, though. I mean, obviously she took care of everyone first, got our nanos shut off and made sure we were okay. But then she dove into the computer and just started reading. When the police got there, she refused to step away from the keyboard. Told them that she wasn’t going to let this disappear into some evidence locker. She eventually let them take it, but she left along with it. I doubt she’s let it out of her sight yet.”
“So the police know now? Everyone knows now?” I ask.
“‘Everyone’ is a stretch,” says Brian, “but seeing Peterson half-morphed really quelled a lot of doubts from the police, yeah. Plus I can still dissolve little holes in things if I concentrate on it. Repeatable, testable results are pretty convincing, you know?”
“Man, it feels weird to be believed about this.” I heave a sigh. “So—are we being charged with anything? I mean, just today there was a car accident, I helped trash a restaurant, we burned down a building…”
“You escaped from jail,” Regina adds helpfully.
“I can’t believe that was just this morning. Man, has it been a long day.” I sigh again. “But yeah, I’ve been committing crimes small and large. They’re just going to let all that go?”
Brian shrugs. “I think they want to not have to deal with the mess, more than they want someone to blame. So my impression is that we’re not going to get the blame, but we’re also not going to get any credit.”
“Fine by me, man. Fine by me.”
- - -
As it turns out, Brian was half-right. And shockingly, the half he was right about was that we didn’t receive any official blame. But when the news organizations got wind of the mad scientist doing clandestine experiments on unwilling subjects, they ate it up. Brian, Regina and I were the darlings of the media for a solid month. Simmons was called on pretty frequently to explain the science, but her brusque attitude meant that they tended to use sound bites or emailed quotes from her instead of putting her in front of a camera. Honestly, I’m pretty sure she played up her asocial behavior to avoid the cameras.
Then Peterson was released from the hospital, and the media dropped us instantly to focus their cameras on him. With his missing arm and his unimpeachable history in the police department, he was the perfect human interest story to rekindle flagging interest. He took it with good grace, all things considered. They’ll grow tired of him soon too, I’m sure.
I can’t speak for Brian or Regina, but I’m glad to be out of the spotlight. I mean, it wasn’t a particularly bad experience for me. It did a lot to reverse the negative impression that Tanger had spread around about me. Also, when I went to apologize to Mr. Steele for missing work without notice, he just said “Heard you had a busy day,” and welcomed me back. I feel like he’s giving me more stuff to haul than he used to, though, so I think he picked up on the part where I’ve got residual super-strength. Most of the guys on the team either don’t know or don’t care, though, so it’s basically business as usual on the site.
Despite all that, I’m just more comfortable when the majority of the world doesn’t know I exist. So to hide from my newfound celebrity, I mainly spend my time hanging out at my freshly refurbished house. It took some decent damage from the fire, but nothing structural. Nothing that a good coat of paint, some new drywall, replacing some studs and redoing a bunch of wiring can’t fix. Oh, also replacing several windows and repairing an outside wall. And part of the roof. So it’s been keeping me busy in my off-hours, is what I’m saying.
Absolutely no one’s tried to kill me in weeks, which is amazing. My dad looked like he might give it a shot when he saw the house, but my mom talked him down. And anyway, like I said, I’m repairing it. He’ll get over it. He threatened to raise my rent, but if he tries that, I’ll threaten to move out and leave them to deal with the rental property. Two can play at that game.
I woke up yesterday morning without any soreness or aches. My cheek has healed up, my bruises and burns are all gone. I don’t have so much as a stubbed toe. It’s actually a little uncomfortable. I feel too good now, and it’s weirding me out. I might need to go hit my thumb with a hammer or something just so I know that the world’s still running like it ought to.
Regina and Brian are still doing well, both individually and as a couple. And they still let me third-wheel it up with them whenever I like. It turned out that that warehouse I had Regina burn down was, in fact, unoccupied at the time, so that was a weight off of her shoulders. Also, her nose has healed flawlessly from where she’d taken a header into the floor in Ichabot’s lab, so she’s come out of this pretty well unscathed. As much as any of us have, anyway.
Tanger, my old boss and Ichabot’s sole customer, has vanished. No one’s been able to find him since the day everything went down with Ichabot. The doc says that she deactivated his nanos, so he’s not sweet-talking his way into anything, but money’s got its own way of opening doors, and he presumably still has plenty of that. I doubt I’ll ever see him again, but if I do, I owe that guy a good solid punch in the nose. Probably more than that, since he did have people try to kill me, but I think I’d get the most visceral satisfaction out of just decking him.
Peterson, like I said, is currently taking his turn in the media circus. Between cutting edge medical technology and Doc Simmons’s work with the nanotechnology, the hospital managed to reverse the effects the nanos had on his body and repair all of the internal damage that had been caused. They couldn’t regrow his arm, but Simmons says she’s working on that. I think she’s just excited by the possibility of a human test subject.
The doc’s been buried in Ichabot’s notes for the last month, barely coming up for air. She says making great strides in understanding. I went to go see her at the hospital just a couple of days ago, but when she started explaining the details of what she was doing she might as well have been speaking another language.
“Doc,” I joked, “I don’t know how even you are tracking this stuff. Have you been using the nanos to speed up your thinking?”
She put her hand on my shoulder and said, with amused condescension, “Dan, I’m already the smartest person you know. I don’t need nanotechnology for that to be true.”
I played at being offended, but she’s absolutely right. She is the smartest person I know. If someone asked me to summarize Doc Simmons in one phrase, that’s word-for-word what I would say. Anyway, she’s saved my life more than once, so she’s earned the right to condescend even if it weren’t reasonable.
So my days have fallen into a predictable schedule. I wake up early, go to work, come
home, work on the house, watch Netflix and fall asleep. With minor variations, that’s every day now. I’m in a rut. A boring, ordinary rut.
I couldn’t be happier.
- Afterword -
And we’re done! Dan’s come a long way, I think, even if in the end nothing’s really changed all that much. That’s just the nature of noir. The small problem is solved, but the larger structure remains the same, and the wheels grind on.
I’ll miss Ichabot and his worn-out suit. I liked him, even if he was a sociopathic mad scientist. Well, let’s be honest: because he was a sociopathic mad scientist. We all have our types! I’m not saying I condone his behavior, but you have to admire the intellect. Regardless, he’s gone now, and even his marvelous nanomachinery can’t bring him back. Such is life.
I’m still writing things, of course. I have a new serial called Retroactivity which has started going up on Friday mornings at http://retroactivityserial.wordpress.com. It’s a different style, dark superhero fiction, not to be confused with superhero noir; this is more about the moral ambiguities in the world. I, of course, think it’s great, but go check it out and decide for yourself.
As ever, I’d love to hear your thoughts on the book, so please feel free to email me at [email protected]. I am happy to discuss anything you want to talk about! If it’s unrelated to my writing, I don’t guarantee that I know anything about it, but that won’t stop me from voicing an opinion.
I hope you’ve enjoyed The Experiment!
Micah Edwards
January 2018
- About the Author -
Micah Edwards is an author, a comedian, or a database administrator, depending on the day of the week. He also runs with Richmond, Virginia’s chapter of the Hash House Harriers, an international running and drinking club.
In addition to The Experiment series, Micah has authored Okay, So Look, an irreverent but completely accurate narrative retelling of the Book of Genesis—yes, the one from the Bible. The book is available on Amazon, as so many things are. The follow-up gives the same treatment to the Book of Exodus; it is called Here’s the Deal, and will be out in the second quarter of 2018.
He collaborated with Tom Brown to produce Ricky’s Spooky House, a kids’ book version of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher, and the upcoming kid-friendly retelling of The Raven called I Heard a Bird. Sound ridiculous? They’re meant to be! But it’s also great.
And on the flip side of the spectrum, Micah joined Lilith Lore in rewriting classic children’s tales for adults in Tales Untold and its soon-to-be-released sequel, Tales Untold vol II. So if you prefer your fairytales a little more Grimm, give those a try!
He should probably narrow his focus. He’s also probably not going to.
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