by Wyatt Kane
Ty just stared at her. Everything Sarah had said made perfect sense. Just like that, he had the confirmation he and the others were looking for. The Master was behind the drug epidemic just as he was behind everything else.
And with him came Bain.
Once more, Ty’s dreams of the monstrous villain came back to him, and this time he knew they were real. He had been at the clinic. Although why, Ty still didn’t really know.
Nor was it the only thing that eluded him. Ty now had even more questions than ever.
“How did you know about the devices?” he asked.
“The Master, obviously,” she said. “I don’t know how he knew about them.”
With the knowledge that Bain had been yards away while he’d been helpless in the clinic fresh in his mind, Ty was struggling to keep up. But Sarah was right, it was obvious, when he thought about it. Just as it was obvious, to Ty, how the Master knew about the devices: the Architect had told him.
Aware that he couldn’t spend too long in the hallway talking to Sarah before Brad started to wonder what happened, he tried to focus on the key points. It didn’t matter that Sarah had effectively put his life at risk. She’d needed to test the drug, and that was the only way. Nor did it matter that she—or the Master—had targeted him over Tempest, Lilith, or Dinah.
That answer was obvious as well, although Ty didn’t like to admit it.
Of all of them, he was the most vulnerable. The Master would have known about Brad through Bain, and Ty’s friend had no reason to keep his money issues secret. And the AZT-407 drug had an appeal all of its own.
Simple, when he thought about it.
So he asked the question that, to him, mattered the most. “Bain,” he said, naming his greatest personal nemesis. “What was Bain’s role in all this?” he asked.
Ty had fought against Bain more often than anyone else. The last time they’d met, it had been Lilith who raged against the man, and that meeting had been decisive. Lilith had been the victor, walking away with Bain’s device—the one Ty now wore—as well as a big part of the villain’s arm.
Yet Ty was strangely certain they hadn’t seen the last of the man.
Sarah’s expression became flat and the light of hatred shone from her eyes. Ty noted that Lilith had responded in much the same way.
“Everything comes through him. He’s the Master’s voice, right hand, and everything else,” Sarah said. “It was him who threatened me. When he wants something done, there’s no choice. We do it.”
It all made much more sense to Ty now, and he was starting to wonder about the next steps. But Sarah hadn’t finished. She answered questions Ty hadn’t yet thought to ask. “They gave you a weaker dose,” she said. “And bugged you as well. You’ve been sending all your physiological data through to us ever since you went to the lab.”
“What?” Ty demanded. He’d heard Sarah clearly. It was just that he couldn’t believe what she’d said.
“At the clinic,” Brad’s girlfriend said. “When they hooked you up to the IV line. The needle they used was more than it seemed. The end part was a bug that they left behind in your arm.” She shrugged slightly, as if it didn’t really matter. “It’s designed to be undetectable.”
Ty was beyond shocked at her words, and yet, they made sense. Tempest and Dinah’s med bot had identified a ‘foreign body’ in his arm he hadn’t recognized, and he’d wondered at the lack of blood tests when he’d received the drug.
Now he knew it was because they hadn’t needed it. He’d been transmitting all the information the Master would ever have needed.
The understanding made Ty angry. His first thought was to rip the bug out of his arm and smash it under his heel. But the saner, more rational part of his mind told him he didn’t have to.
His EMP grenade would have ruined the bug, just like it had ruined all his other tech.
Instead of asking Sarah more about the bug, he went in a different direction. “So, these others, the Master’s device wearers, they got a higher dose? Which means they burn through it more quickly, and get to the hangover stage faster?”
Sarah nodded. “Yes.”
That explained why Concussion hadn’t made even more of a mess than he did—and why he’d disappeared after destroying part of the city.
“It’s not safe to dose them again right away,” Sarah added. “Repeated use can be dangerous.”
“And what about the people on the street? The ones getting sick because of the drug? And Brad?”
“As far as I know, they received a dose somewhere between what you got, and what the Master’s device wearers received. Except for Brad. I gave him the stronger one.” Surprisingly Sarah quirked a grin. “He really wants a superpower,” she said.
Ty studied the woman for a moment. Once she’d decided to talk, she’d shown no hesitation in telling him what he wanted to know. But there was one key question Ty had yet asked.
“Is there an antidote?” he said.
At this, Sarah looked away. She shook her head. “No. The drug changes people on a genetic level. There’s no going back.”
Ty looked at the EMP grenade still merged with his hand. He thought about the hundreds, maybe thousands of people who had taken the drug. How many of them might develop a skill? And how many of those skills would prove to be significant?
Ty thought back to the conversation he and the girls had had about how the world was changing. How there were more and more superpowered people climbing out of the woodwork. He also thought back to what he’d said to Brad about how the Master might benefit from having so many potential superpowered minions at his beck and call.
Would the shadowy villain do as Ty had suggested? Would he pick and choose from those who developed skills, and give them devices as well to increase their power?
Just at that moment, Ty felt like it was already too late. The genie was out of the bottle, and there was nothing anyone could do to stuff it back in.
All they could do was deal with the fallout, whatever it might be.
Ty was grimly aware that the battles he, Tempest, Lilith and Dinah had already fought were just the start of something much more serious. At the same time, Ty understood that without an antidote, there was little he could do to stave off whatever was to come.
The drug epidemic itself, however, was an immediate problem that was putting lives in danger. Maybe there was something that could be done to help with that.
With the weight of the world on his shoulders, Ty had no real choice but to focus on the smaller problem.
He closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath to calm himself. “What about the side-effects?” Ty said. “We examined one of the victims. She was in danger of her whole system shutting down.”
Sarah nodded. “The Master—or Bain, at least—doesn’t care about the side effects for ordinary people. All he cares about was whether or not those who wear a device can survive them. He said, as far as everyone else was concerned, all that mattered was that some of them survived.”
Ty was incredulous. “How many is ‘some’?” he demanded.
Again, Brad’s girlfriend looked away. “We calculated it, based on the data we had. Best guess, it has a thirty percent survival rate.”
Thirty percent. Ty didn’t know how many people had already taken the drug, but knew the figure could easily be in the thousands. Maybe in the tens of thousands, or even more. And the expected survival rate was just thirty percent.
They could be looking at a catastrophe on a colossal scale.
And Brad’s girlfriend was at the heart of it.
Despite her protestations that her family had been threatened, Ty couldn’t help but look at the woman with disgust. How could anyone put so many lives at risk? How could she look at herself in the mirror in the morning? How could she just continue to live her life as if nothing had changed?
Then Ty had another thought. He glared at her, enraged and full of disbelief at the same time.
“What about
Brad?” he demanded. He was angrier than he’d been in a long time, and his fists clenched before he even finished the question. He didn’t know what he would do if he didn’t like her answer.
Sarah looked at him and offered a quiet smile. “Some of us—we didn’t like Bain’s callous disregard for people’s lives,” she said. “We knew what the drug could do, and weren’t happy with the plan to unleash it into world. We developed an associative serum that should mitigate enough of the side effects to help ensure the patient’s survival. I’ve already given it to Brad.”
Ty looked at her with new respect. Much of his anger faded away.
“Have you done anything to get it to the victims?” he asked, a lot more gently than he’d spoken before.
Sarah shook her head. “We’re not sure how. We don’t want Bain to know what we’ve done.”
It made sense to Ty. “If you’ve got some you can give me, I know someone who will find a way to get it to those who need it.” He was thinking of Dinah, who seemed to be able to find out pretty much anything.
“There’s some in Brad’s fridge,” she said.
Ty nodded. He considered the woman in front of him, answering his questions. At first, he’d thought she was just a random person the Master had chosen because she was pretty. But her knowledge of everything that had happened, the words she used as she spoke, even that odd combination of pride and shame she displayed suggested something else.
“What is your role in all this? Why did he choose you?”
“I’m one of the researchers. My specialty includes biochemistry and genetics. I’m on the team that put the drug together, and the Master chose me because he could.”
Ty was impressed. His estimation of Sarah went up another notch. At the same time, he couldn’t help but think that her knowledge could prove to be useful.
There was much more that he wanted to ask her, but time had run out. Despite his illness, Brad had made it to the apartment doorway and poked his head out into the hall.
“Sarah?” he called out. “Ty? What the hell, man?”
31: Sarah’s Serum
Together, Sarah and Ty wandered back to the apartment. Brad had a look of confusion on his face to go with his green pallor. When Ty and Sarah were close, he repeated his question.
“What was that all about?” he asked, looking mostly at Sarah.
The woman didn’t answer. She just flashed Brad a warm smile and pushed him inside the apartment.
“Nothing for you to worry about,” she said. “Just go back inside and settle yourself back down on the couch.”
Sarah was much smaller than Brad and shouldn’t have had the ability to push him around. But Brad was ill and perplexed at the same time. All she needed to do was keep pushing him gently, and Ty gathered up the spilled groceries in the doorway behind them.
By the time he placed the bag on the kitchen counter and let the door close behind him, Brad was once more wrapped up in his cocoon on the couch, this time with Sarah beside him.
Ty still needed some more information, so he returned to his spot against the opposite wall and sat on the floor once again. He studied his friend and Sarah for a moment, taking in the gamer’s goofy grin and the way he was leaning toward her. For her part, Sarah wore an expression that suggested contentment, and clutched Brad’s hand in her own.
“So, this drug,” Ty said, looking more at his friend than at Sarah. “You know it’s dangerous, right?” he asked.
“I’ll be fine,” Brad said, full of confidence. “Sarah is looking after me.” And Sarah nodded.
“He’s been taking something to take the edge off,” Sarah said, as if Ty didn’t already know. “There’s some left, if you’d like to see it.”
She didn’t wait for Ty to answer, but instead immediately stood and went to the fridge in the kitchen. Ty figured this was her way of keeping their conversation private, and followed her happily enough. She took a tube of green liquid from the slot in the door and offered it over.
“Here,” she said quietly. “There should be enough there to analyze, and it isn’t that hard to synthesize. If you can get this to everyone who needs it, then it should improve their chances immeasurably.”
Ty accepted the tube. “Doesn’t Brad need this?” he asked.
Sarah shook her head. “He’s doing fine. I promise.”
It was good enough for Ty. He looked at his friend, who was staring at them with a nonplussed expression.
“What happens now?” Ty asked. “With Brad, I mean.”
Sarah understood what he was asking. “He’ll probably be ill for the next day or so, but then he’ll start getting better. If he’s going to gain anything from the drug—and there’s no real guarantee, remember—then the effects will start to show then. Increased strength, sharper focus, that sort of thing. If he has any new abilities, he will manifest them then as well.”
“How will he know?” Ty asked.
Sarah shook her head. “Depends what it is, I guess. If he develops bullet-proof skin, then maybe he won’t know unless he happens to get shot. But maybe it’ll be something more obvious, if anything at all.”
As Sarah spoke, Ty wondered if there was a way he could find out. Like, integrate some sort of sensor with the device on his wrist. It could tell what his skill might be, so figuring out what skills others possessed should be possible.
Not to mention, useful. It would be handy to know at a glance what skills others might be hiding.
Maybe he could whip up some sort of wearable scouter device like Vegeta used to have?
Sarah was looking at Ty expectantly. He knew it was time to go and leave her alone with his friend. But he had one more question to ask, or maybe it was more of a favor.
“Do you have any of the drug here with you?” Ty asked.
Sarah shook her head. “Why…?” she began, and Ty held up his hand.
“I gained a new skill, but it seems to be jammed. And, if I’m honest, the drug worked wonders for me. With what might be coming up, it might be good to have something like it on hand at need.”
Sarah nodded. “I don’t have any on me. But you can get it pretty easily. All the street hustlers have it, at three-quarter strength. That’s stronger than the dose you had before.”
Ty nodded. “Thank you,” he said, and glanced at his friend. “Look after him,” he said.
“Wait,” Sarah said. “You’ll have to use its street name, or the dealers won’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Street name?” I asked. He had been thinking of it solely as AZT-407. He hadn’t even considered it might have been known by some other name.
“Yes,” Sarah said. “They’re calling it Upgrade.”
◆◆◆
As soon as Ty left the apartment, he contacted Lilith via her device and asked her if she could swing by. No sooner had he voiced his request when the demonic woman popped into existence in the hallway beside him.
Ty would have liked to take a moment just to admire her, but he hadn’t forgotten what she was doing, and one glance at her was enough to tell him that time was of the essence. She looked tired and worried, and Ty knew she hadn’t rested since she’d left the mansion in the morning.
Yet he couldn’t help but ask for an update. “How is it?”
“They’re everywhere,” the demon woman replied. “Dinah is doing her best to locate them, and to provide their addresses. But Tempest is also spotting them in the streets, and I can take them quicker than she can. Between the two of them, I’ve been fairly busy,” she said, offering a wan smile. “The hospitals are starting to burst at the seams.”
All at once, her expression started to break, and Ty saw exactly how worried the woman truly was.
“They’re all so sick,” she said. “And some of them are just children! What were they thinking? Taking a drug that can do that?”
Ty feared he knew exactly what they were thinking. They wanted to become super. Like him. Like her.
He didn’t know what
to say, but knew that the demon woman needed his comfort. He reached out and gathered her to him in a hug, and held her tight for long seconds even though she was damp from having spent so much time outside in the drizzle.
At first, the demon woman seemed to resist, as if she feared the delay would be the death of someone. But then she returned his embrace and seemed to gain strength from it.
Finally, they broke apart. Lilith seemed a little less frantic, a little less desperate than she had a few moments before. Yet her mission remained.
“Why did you call?” she asked. “I’ve got to go. There are more that need to be helped.”
Ty showed her the tube Sarah had given him. “This will help. Get it to Dinah. She’ll know what to do with it.”
The demon woman reached for the tube automatically. “What is it?”
“It’s a serum that should help with the worst side effects. It’ll stop the drug from killing anyone.”
Lilith immediately understood. She looked at the tube as if it was precious, nodded once, and blinked out of existence before Ty could say anything else.
Ty thought briefly that it might have been good to get a ride with the demon woman as well. There was so much he still had to do. But he’d left Dinah’s bike behind once before, and it had been days before he’d been able to return to it.
He didn’t want to do that again, so with a heavy sigh, he made his way down the stairs of his apartment building and back outside in the rain.
The ride back to the mansion was largely uneventful. Ty found a dealer without any problem, a thin, dirty-looking man in a dark alley, and exchanged just a few credits for his dose of Upgrade.
When he’d gone to the Clinic 104, it had been quite a procedure to get the drug into his system. He’d been hooked up to various monitoring devices and had been given the drug intravenously. Now, Ty knew that most of it had been no more than theater, hiding the introduction of the tracking device to his system.