Enhancer 4

by Wyatt Kane

  But he wasn’t yet going to get the chance. As he made his way from Zach’s room, the device on his wrist buzzed an alert.

  It was Dinah. The beautiful deerkin’s face appeared in holographic form and she started to speak before Ty said a word.

  “Where are you?” Dinah asked, her smile still in place. “Tempest has returned with one of the victims. We’re down in the med bay, and would like you to be here too, if you’re not doing anything. I’m going to give Lilith a call as well,” the deerkin said.

  With that, she rang off, not even giving Ty the chance to respond. He blinked at the space where Dinah’s hologram had been and did so anyway.

  “I’ll be right there,” he said to thin air, then turned his words into reality.

  27: Bunnykin Victim

  By the time he reached the med bay, the girls were already there, doing their best to reassure a very sick young woman on the surgical table.

  Lilith stood on one side, holding the young woman’s hand in her own, while Dinah was stroking her hair.

  “It’s all right,” the deerkin said. “We’re trying to help.”

  Of them all, only Tempest stood back, and Ty understood why. Like him, the blonde superhero wasn’t as good at offering comfort as the other two. Yet she wasn’t about to leave them all to it. The young woman on the table didn’t look threatening, but the city of New Lincoln was often a dangerous place, and people weren’t always what they seemed.

  The young woman writhed in obvious torment. She was pretty by usual standards, though a significant step down from Tempest, Dinah, and Lilith. In a world where body modifications were normal, she’d limited herself to a pair of fluffy bunny ears on her head. A partial bunnykin, Ty thought, and wondered if she had the tail to match.

  Either way, her modifications weren’t why Tempest had brought her.

  The young woman had sweat beading on her forehead and she looked about with eyes filled with fear. Such was her torment that she didn’t let go of Lilith’s hands even as she spoke.

  “Who are you people?” she managed through teeth that were clenched against the pain. She groaned out loud, then continued. “This … this isn’t the hospital. You aren’t doctors, are you?” She looked faintly puzzled, then frowned as if in response to a bigger dilemma. “How did I get here? Did I … did I fly?” She stared at Tempest with an incredulous look, not quite fully focused, before groaning again.

  Lilith took her cue. “My name is Lilith, and this is Dinah, Tempest, and that good-looking guy standing over there is Ty. And what is your name?” Lilith asked her.

  “Melody,” the younger woman managed. “Why … why have you brought me here?”

  “We’re here to help,” Dinah repeated, and Melody quickly turned to face the deerkin. “We need to find out what’s causing this. Tempest says when she found you, you were hunched over in an alley, in and out of consciousness. We figure that can’t be good for anyone, so she brought you here. I’ve given you a restorative so we could talk.”

  The frightened woman glanced at Tempest again, then frowned as if she almost recognized her. Then the woman’s gaze lingered on Ty, and stayed there for a moment.

  “You’re them,” she blurted.

  Tempest and Dinah exchanged a quick look.

  “Who?” the blonde superhero asked. “Who do you think we are?”

  “You’re the one from the amusement arcade,” Melody said. “I’ve seen you online. And you,” she added, turning back to Ty. “You’re from that collapsed building thing. You’re really strong and glow blue.”

  Melody seemed to relax a little at the recognition. Her breathing became deeper, and instead of looking around frantically, she took her time. She seemed to notice that Lilith was holding her hand for the first time.

  “You’re the one who kept appearing and disappearing,” she said. “How do you do that?”

  Yet she didn’t seem to expect an answer. She looked back to Dinah, and her expression became puzzled.

  “I don’t know who you are,” she said. “But you’re superheroes, right? You’re not going to hurt me.”

  Dinah offered the confused woman a gentle laugh. She shook her head. “No, we’re not going to hurt you. Quite the opposite. We just want to know what’s causing this. You aren’t the only one to get sick this morning.” For the third time, she repeated herself. “We’re trying to help.”

  At this, the woman relaxed even more, yet she still moved her feet in an unconscious gesture of pain. “What do you need?” the woman asked, letting out another small groan.

  It was the permission Dinah was waiting for.

  “Gregory, full scan, if you would,” the deerkin said. As the house robot whirred into life, Dinah explained to Melody what it was. “It’s just like the ones in the hospitals, but smaller. We’ll get to the bottom of what’s going on in just a moment. In the meantime, maybe there’s something you can tell us?”

  Melody looked back to Ty and Tempest. “It’s your fault,” she said.

  Ty was confused, and Tempest flinched as if she had been struck.

  “Our fault? What do you mean?” the blonde superhero asked.

  With Gregory working its way down her body, the bunnykin nodded. “The videos. They’ve got everyone talking. And when a guy said he could give me the same type of powers, well, who wouldn’t be interested?”

  It was Ty’s turn to flinch. He was astonished. Sure, he’d already thought this latest event might also have something to do with the Master, but he’d never even guessed it might be something like this.

  Melody was sick because she wanted powers like him, Tempest and Lilith. A quick glance at the young woman’s wrists showed no sign of a device, so that meant only one thing.

  AZT-407?

  Could that be why so many people were falling sick? He swapped astonished glances with Tempest and Lilith, but Dinah kept her focus on Melody.

  “What guy?” Dinah asked. “What did he give you?” Either she hadn’t made the same mental leap as Ty, or she wanted confirmation.

  The bunnykin was more relaxed now than ever. Ty suspected Dinah had given her a sedative alongside the restorative.

  “Just a guy,” she said. “Works for one of those crime families, I guess. I’ve seen him around in the clubs, selling stuff. Zzapp, Flash, Spazz, you name it. He said he had something knew. Something that could give people powers. Said it was harmless otherwise, and I figured, why not?”

  As she finished speaking, Melody gritted her teeth against another wave of pain. She moved her head and writhed on the table as much as she could.

  “So much for that,” she grumbled. “Harmless, my ass.”

  It was almost funny, Ty thought. The guy who injected him, Darien Cort, had used much the same line on him.

  “It’s okay,” Lilith said, still holding the woman’s hand. “We’ll get you through this,” she said.

  At the same time, Ty wondered if it was AZT-407 after all. Sure, he’d also had an extreme reaction to the drug, but for him, it had been over in a matter of minutes. Did that mean Melody had been given something different?

  And what about all the others?

  There was only one way to find out.

  “Scan complete,” said the rich, mechanical voice of the med robot.

  “Diagnosis?” Dinah asked.

  “Subject displays evidence of significant toxic pathology leading to impaired function of lungs, heart, kidneys, liver, pancreas, digestive system. Blood serum analysis shows heightened ESR, CRP and PV levels, also raised levels of adrenaline, serotonin, magnesium, iron, selenium. Significant amounts of multiple toxins detected.”

  Ty listened to the robot’s pronunciations in something akin to shock, as did they all. To him, it sounded like a mashup of the Architect’s diagnosis and his own. It didn’t escape anyone’s attention how serious the robot’s pronouncements were.

  Into the silence that followed, Melody spoke. “Well, fuck,” she said quietly. “Am I going to die?”


  Dinah didn’t ask for a prognosis, and Ty suspected that was because she didn’t want the med bot to confirm Melody’s fears.

  The poor girl had just wanted to experience something more. It was an odd feeling, to know that this woman – and countless others, judging by Dinah’s alert – had put themselves in life-threatening danger just to see what it was like to have superpowers.

  Like him.

  It was Lilith who answered the bunnykin’s question. “Not if we can help it,” she said.

  The others all seemed to agree. Yet it seemed Melody was a realist. “What can you do?” she asked.

  28: To Fight an Epidemic

  They decided Melody’s best chance would be in a hospital. But at the suggestion, the bunnykin’s expression became one of despair. When Lilith questioned it, Melody admitted that her insurance might not be up to the task. Yet she had no real option.

  Dinah administered a stronger sedative, and when the young woman closed her eyes, Lilith teleported her away, leaving Ty to wonder how many of those they’d rescued the day before would now be saddled with ongoing debt that they would never escape from. That was the type of problem Ty knew he had to find a solution for. Not just fighting bad guys or sifting through rubble, but the systemic issues that plagued New Lincoln and the world as a whole, driven by corporate greed and corruption.

  How he might address it, how his skill with technology might help him, Ty didn’t yet know. Nor did he have the time to truly contemplate a solution. Despite this, he knew that even if they managed to defeat the Master, Rubio, and any other super villain who raised their heads, the job wouldn’t be done until ordinary people could live decent lives without fear of some faceless mega-corporate organization making their life financially untenable.

  When, moments later, Lilith returned with a pop and her familiar tang of ozone, it was Ty who asked the salient question.

  “What do we do?” he asked.

  The response was more accepting than wildly enthusiastic. “All we can,” Dinah offered. Then she went into more detail. “Even then, we’ll be lucky if nobody dies. There are people on the streets who need medical attention. I’ll locate as many as I can and direct Lilith and Tempest to help them,” she said. “At the same time, I’ll get Gregory to send toxicity reports from both Ty’s and Melody’s scans to confirm that it’s the same drug in both cases. Then I’ll see if I track down the source.” She shrugged. “It’ll be interesting to see if I can find a trail leading back to the Master.”

  Even as she said it, Ty didn’t hold much hope. The Master had so far proved a shadowy figure, too secretive to leave such an obvious trail. Yet he wasn’t going to suggest not to bother. There was always a chance Dinah might get lucky.

  “And me?” he asked.

  Dinah looked at him squarely. “Maybe you can work on your inventions. See if you can come up with something that might help. In the meantime, there should be more cryo chambers being delivered this morning. When they turn up, maybe you can help set them up?”

  To Ty, it wasn’t a satisfying answer. He’d become used to being in the middle of things, yet knew Dinah was right. Lilith and Tempest were both far more capable than he of carrying victims back and forth over New Lincoln.

  Beyond that, what else could be done?

  Ty nodded, accepting the realities of the situation, and wished the girls luck as he turned to go. Perhaps he should re-prioritize his flight project, he thought to himself. That way he could at least be more useful.

  Or perhaps he should give his friend Brad a call. It was time to do that in any event, given that Ty thought he might have a solution to their hole in the wall problem. Or at least, the start of one. If he could ever get a moment to update his nanites to heal walls instead of flesh.

  But as well as that, the gamer had an unusual way of looking at the world and often thought of solutions to problems Ty would never have considered. Perhaps, Brad would show some insight that might help Ty and the others with their overall problem.

  The Master. Rubio. The way the world seemed to be changing.

  All of a sudden, Ty stopped. He’d thought of something that he should have considered before. It was Brad’s girlfriend who’d steered Ty to Clinic 104. Tempest and Lilith had learned that the clinic no longer existed, and each source of information about it they’d found had led to a dead end.

  But maybe Sarah knew something of value. Brad had said she was part of the research team behind the drug itself. Did that mean she could help them out with the current crisis?

  Ty spun on his heels and hurried back to the deerkin. As he did, he couldn’t help but think it was a huge coincidence that the first girlfriend Brad had managed to attract in years just happened to be working on the AZT-407 drug – and therefore, if they were right, for the Master himself.

  Ty didn’t like coincidences at the best of times, but this one, in his mind, was starting to smell really bad.

  “Dinah!” Ty yelled through the mansion. “Dinah, I need to borrow your bike!”

  ◆◆◆

  Ty normally enjoyed riding Dinah’s bike. But this time, the New Lincoln drizzle was heavier than normal, giving the whole city a pall of despondency even beyond the misery that was normal. On the back of the Ducati, there was no way Ty could avoid the dirty splashes from cars traveling ahead, flicking gritty mud toward him.

  Worse, at ground level, he couldn’t ignore the desperate feel of the people as they scurried about, hunched into raincoats or hiding beneath umbrellas. Despite the early hour, it seemed to Ty that there was more than the usual number of hookers and drug pushers about. Or perhaps the hunched, despondent men and women weren’t beggars. Perhaps they were victims of the drug epidemic he and his team were trying to do something about.

  If they were, then it was a much more prevalent problem than Ty had first assumed.

  Almost, Ty thought to park Dinah’s bike and approach one of the dealers. Perhaps that would help point the way to the source of the drug causing all the problems.

  Yet Dinah was already looking into that, and if need be, she could get Tempest to work her way up the chain. Ty’s priority had to be Brad. Or at least his girlfriend. She was a potential avenue of information unavailable to anyone but him.

  With the damp, dirty smell of the street mixed with exhaust fumes of too many cars seeping through the filters built into his helmet, Ty made his slow way through the streets to his old apartment.

  As he rode, he wondered if perhaps he should have spent the time giving himself the ability to fly. He figured it might take no more than a couple of hours, and the task would finally be done. Such was the traffic that morning that by the time he reached his apartment, he might already have finished.

  Ty knew from past experience that it took Tempest only a few minutes to fly between his apartment and the mansion. When he factored in the time it would take to ride Dinah’s bike back again, it didn’t seem to make any sense.

  Except that none of his calculations included the time he might take to learn how to fly.

  Even with the best programming in the world, Ty could easily imagine himself cartwheeling through the air only to smash against the side of any building that happened to get in his way.

  So perhaps it was best for him to travel by bike after all, at least for the moment.

  29: Ty’s Apartment

  Ty pulled the bike up onto the curb, climbed off and set the antitheft device. Any other rider would have been soaked through to the bone, but Ty had activated his shield when he started the journey. He had managed to stay completely dry.

  For a moment, he just stood outside the building and took in how tired and dingy the building appeared. Yet, he couldn’t help but feel a touch of wistful nostalgia. In his mind, despite his best efforts, he no longer thought of this place as his home. It had been weeks since Ty had done more than visit Brad at this place.

  The whole building was a shithole, filled with addicts, thugs and an assortment of others who were no more than ha
lf a step away from the streets. There were good people too, like him and Brad, and millions of others throughout New Lincoln. Those who just never seemed to be able to reach the next rung of the ladder.

  Despite all this, it had been Ty’s home for several years. He had spent hours playing games with Brad or just talking into the night. He’d even, from time to time, brought a girl home to stay.

  Good memories, for the most part, even if they were tinged with desperation and an ongoing lack of financial well-being.

  As Ty made his way up to the seventh floor, he deliberately chose not to think about his current living situation. His stubbornness refused to admit that for all intents and purposes, he did live at the mansion. It was just that the arrangement had never been made formal with Tempest and Dinah.

  It was with this thought in mind that he chose to palm the door open rather than knock, and step inside as if he still lived there.

  A quick glance at the kitchen and the small lounge beyond it told Ty that Brad and Sarah were still together. Bradley Fletcher was Ty’s best friend in the world, but that didn’t mean he was blind to the gamer’s faults. Brad was the ultimate slob, and if he’d been left to his own devices, there would be rubbish piled up on every available space.

  Old pizza boxes and street food containers, many of which would have had scraps of uneaten food moldering in the corners. Junk mail building up in untidy piles, empty beer cans by the half-dozen, and, depending on how his sinuses were acting at the time, a multitude of used tissues that never made it to the trash.

  When Ty had lived there, he’d made half an effort to keep the place tidy. Yet he hadn’t wanted to clean up after his friend either, so he’d made a point of ignoring part of the rubbish.

  That was no longer necessary. The kitchen counter was as tidy as it had been the last time Ty had been there. The only untidy thing he could see was in the living room, on the couch, where Brad himself lay bundled up in a blanket.