by Wyatt Kane
He spoke conversationally, as if it was a matter of minor importance, but from Ty’s point of view, it was just another example of the control the megacorporations had on the people of New Lincoln. Only the truly wealthy could afford to fight for a fair deal.
“I understand,” he said, and thought he really, truly did. He wouldn’t have been surprised to find the omission in the brochure had been deliberate. “Now, can I get out of here? Or what?”
“Yes, yes. Of course you can. Let me help you with the sensors.” He reached over and started to peel them from Ty’s skin. Then he paused. “And while I’m not accepting any legal liability for anything that happened, from a personal perspective, I just want you to know that I’m sorry you had the reaction you did. It can’t have been fun going through it.”
Ty accepted the man’s sympathies without comment. He didn’t really know how to respond. All he knew was that he wanted to leave.
“Thank you,” he said, although whether he was referring to the man’s help with the sensors or his words, even he didn’t know. “Now, can you transfer my money?” Ty asked.
◆◆◆
With everything Ty had learned living in the city of New Lincoln, he half expected sort of ‘issue’ with his money. It was the way things seemed to work whenever a megacorporation was involved. And while he hadn’t heard anything specific about OmniTec Industries, in his mind, they were all much the same.
But Aleta helped him with the first installment without any problems. While she transferred it through, she also reminded Ty that he had to turn up again to go through some tests in the next day or two.
“It won’t be like that again, will it?” Ty asked, still a bit fuzzy headed and grumpy.
The receptionist shook her head. “I don’t see why it should. As far as I know, it’s just a questionnaire and a couple of tests.”
Because his brain wasn’t yet working properly, Ty didn’t even think to ask what she meant by, “as far as I know.” She was the receptionist for Clinic 104. Surely others had gone through the same drug trial as he had. Surely Aleta would know with certainty what happened next, without having to make any assumptions.
As it was, Ty let the comment pass with no response. “Do I need to make an appointment?” he asked.
“It would probably be best,” Aleta said. “When would suit you?”
Ty’s life used to be fairly predictable. He’d spent most of his time at work, and the rest at his apartment, maybe playing a game with Brad or just watching a show. But now, it was much more uncertain. He couldn’t easily predict where he would be even a few hours ahead anymore, let alone an entire day or two.
And with his brain still lost in the mud, it was all he could do to just stare at Aleta in confusion
She took pity on him. “How about we just pencil you in for the day after tomorrow, about this time again?” she said.
Ty nodded. “Fine,” he said.
The receptionist looked him up and down with the overly large eyes. “Will you be okay?” she asked. “Is there someone I can call to collect you?”
It was a moment of unexpected kindness, and Ty appreciated it. But he didn’t really want Tempest or Dinah to know what he’d done, at least not yet. Nor did he have anyone else he could easily call.
“No, thank you,” he said. “I’ll be all right.” And with that, he turned and made his way out of the clinic.
He reached Dinah’s bike easily enough, but when he turned off the antitheft device and sat on the Ducati’s seat, he felt the world swirl around his head for a moment.
“Steady,” Ty told himself. “Come on Ty, get it together.”
A few seconds later, he felt good enough to put his helmet on. He activated his personal shield just in case, and started the engine.
He rode tentatively at first, but with each passing moment, he felt more sure of himself. He sat straight and breathed deeply of the New Lincoln air. And by the time he reached Tempest’s and Dinah’s building, he was almost feeling back to his normal self once again.
His headache had mostly cleared. While his eyes still felt like they were made from sandpaper, the grit size had decreased from boulders to smaller than sand. And the aches in his muscles and bones had faded to no more than a tingling at his extremities.
He parked Dinah’s bike in the parking garage a little ruefully, aware that he’d borrowed it several days earlier and that Dinah had been without it all that time. Then he made his way up the stairs.
37: Buzz
Something peculiar started to happen as he stepped into the mansion. He was beginning to feel really good. Strong and alive, like he’d seldom felt before, even with the device on his wrist. And his brain seemed to be fizzing. Not like before, when the drug had lit it on fire, but like he had overdosed on caffeine.
He felt so clear and awake it was like he would never need sleep again, and he wondered if maybe the drug was starting to work.
He wanted to head straight to the workshop to see if it had made any difference to his skill, but had to pause first at the kitchen. Dinah was there, as was her habit, but, surprisingly, so was Lilith.
“Ty!” the deerkin exclaimed. “We missed you this morning! Where did you go?”
“I went out to get your bike,” he replied.
“You did? Excellent! Maybe we could go for a ride later on,” she said. As she spoke, she glanced at Lilith, and Ty was mostly certain her “we” had meant her and the demon woman.
Ty just grinned. It seemed that Dinah was wasting no time at all getting to know the beautiful woman. Now that she had Tempest’s approval, things were all go.
As for Lilith herself, she seemed happy enough. Perhaps the conversation with Ty had helped. In any event, she smiled shyly at Ty as if she knew where things might be heading and was happy to let them.
“I’m teaching her to make waffles,” Dinah said, and Ty had to stifle a laugh. It seemed to be one of the deerkin’s go-to moves. “We can bring you some when we’re done if you’d like.”
Ty understood. It was a subtle dismissal, but a dismissal nonetheless. It was clear that Dinah wanted to spend more time with Lilith. He nodded and said, “Works for me. I’ll be in the workshop. I’ve got a few ideas I want to track down.”
Before he turned to go, he asked, “Where’s Tempest?”
“She went out on patrol,” Dinah replied. “I think she wanted to find a simpler problem to solve rather than thinking about Rubio or the Master.” The deerkin gave him a lascivious grin. “Looks like you’ll have to look after yourself for a little while.
Ty laughed. He thought about what had happened in Clinic 104. He knew he should tell Dinah about it, and Tempest as well, but for the moment at least, he decided against it. His brain was fizzing, and he wanted to find out if that meant anything or if it was just some harmless buzz brought on by the AZT-407.
“You know where I’ll be,” he said, and made his way down to the workshop.
◆◆◆
It seemed to Ty that with each passing moment, his brain became noticeably clearer. Even before he reached the workshop, he felt as if ideas were starting to holler for his attention. Not just ideas relating to his immediate problems, but random ones as well.
He thought he knew a way to increase the power output of his police baton tenfold with just a small tweak.
A large-scale idea for how to clean the New Lincoln air quickly and efficiently sprang fully-formed from nowhere.
And, even though body modifications weren’t really his thing, he figured it wouldn’t take much to create a nanite that could change a person’s eye color at will.
But before he could even note these ideas down for later, new ones appeared, shunting the old out of place.
Ty hadn’t been much for recreational drug use in his earlier life. Zzapp, for example, wasn’t something he’d ever been in a position to try. With what he made at the Concubine Club, even a casual beer had been a luxury, so to even think of trying something a little more extre
me would have been financially crippling.
He’d never been truly high before, but thought that must have been what he was feeling just then. The clarity with which he could think, the associated release of endorphins—he was enjoying himself more than at any other time in his life.
Ty let out a quiet laugh as he surveyed the workshop. It was ironic that the hangover from this high had been the first thing he’d felt. Perhaps there would be another once AZT-407 left his system. But for that moment, at that time, Ty was over the moon.
“Meow,” said someone, out of the blue. Ty looked down and saw Gremlin on the floor, winding herself around his legs as if she hadn’t betrayed him entirely for Dinah.
“What are you doing here, you rotten traitor?” Ty asked her. Then he understood. “I get it,” he said. “You have a competitor for Dinah’s affections, don’t you? And you’re not sure yet if you can trust her.”
The cat had never been the friendliest of companions, but Ty liked her all the same.
“Well, you’re welcome to hang with me,” Ty told her. “But I warn you, I have a feeling I’m going to be busy over the next little while.”
Surprisingly, the cat accepted Ty’s words with aplomb and sat next to his feet. But when he reached down to pat her head, she adroitly stepped just out of his reach before settling down once again.
Ty laughed. “You horrible creature,” he said with affection.
Then he put the animal out of his head, and before he did anything else, he brought up his character sheet.
What he saw was nothing short of astonishing. It was like when he first put on the device. Across the board, his stats had gained a +2 buff. According to the holographic readout, he was smarter, stronger, and more durable than he had been before the drug had entered his veins. It was like the AZT-407 was a universal buff in a syringe, and he couldn’t help but wonder how long the effect might last.
Could it be permanent? Or was it temporary, good for a single round of gameplay but no more?
Either way, the important thing was that he had also levelled up in his skill. Where before he’d been a 3, his character sheet showed a solid 5. But even that was secondary. Something else had appeared on his character sheet, something that hadn’t been there before.
There, in front of him, a new line had appeared:
Secondary Unique Skill: ?
The question mark suggested it was as yet undefined, but the implications of its presence alone were staggering.
It looked as if the drug had performed as advertised, conjuring a skill from nothing. And if it could do that for him, it could do it for others as well.
New Lincoln was indeed on the brink of an evolution. Tempest and Dinah, and Lilith as well, might have thought that evolution was all about the Architect’s device. But if this drug got out, if people started to use it, all things were possible.
No longer would simple body modifications be enough. People would pay for this drug. It would change what it meant to be human.
Ty knew he could no longer keep this to himself. He made a mental note to tell the girls what he’d found. He didn’t know what they might want to do about it, but one thing was certain. They needed to know.
But that was for later. Just then, Ty had an unknown length of time left on this inaugural dose. He had to make use of it. He had to do what he could to reset the playing field between him and the girls on one side, and Steam, Massive, Bain, Rubio, and the Master on the other.
38: Ty Supercharged
Ty knew just what he wanted to start with. For the first time, after a sequence of comparative failures in the workshop, he could see a clear route to succeeding with one of his goals: accelerated healing.
While it wasn’t exactly an offensive measure, it was a potential lifesaver nevertheless.
Always before, he’d become hung up on the need to understand all the complex workings of the human body. But now he realized he didn’t need to understand everything after all. All he needed was a clear picture of what a body should be like, and he could program the nanites to replicate it.
He just needed a pattern, a detailed breakdown of human tissue as it should be.
Fortunately, he had just such a pattern available.
Although he knew that Dinah was busy in the kitchen with Lilith, he didn’t hesitate. He gave her a call via his device.
“Ty,” the deerkin said, her holographic image smiling. “What’s up?”
“I’m working on something,” he said. “Can you access the anatomical files the med bot uses?”
The deerkin didn’t even blink. “Sure. It’s all cloud based. Give me a moment.” As was her habit, she hung up.
Seconds later, Ty’s device sounded an alert. Dinah had sent a message linked to everything he needed.
He sent a quick thank you to the deerkin (along with a reminder that she’d promised to send down some waffles), and got to work.
Over the next little while, Ty was a dynamo of furious, efficient activity. Using the Stark Imager to help him see what he was doing, he integrated a single nanite with the full knowledge of Gregory’s anatomical database. But integration wasn’t enough. He also needed to give the nanite the ability to act.
A couple of times before, Ty had found himself in a trance as he exercised his skill. It was like all he needed to do was stand back and let his talent guide his hands. This time was much the same, except that he could sense the success before it came.
In his mind, it was a form of magic. He was imbuing the nanite with life and purpose. He was doing it by means of new code that came to him as if by divine inspiration, but it may as well have been a spell.
Ty’s focus narrowed. He forgot about Gremlin even though the cat had curled up in the middle of his workbench. He forgot what day it was and everything else except for the task at hand. His focus narrowed so that all he could see was the code and the holographic representation of the nanite, and whichever part of Gregory’s anatomical references he had replicated at the time. The rest of the workshop meant nothing to him, and even when Dinah appeared with a plateful of waffles, he didn’t notice at all.
Only the work in front of him mattered. This shining, perfect creation that was forming before him. He was so focused that he nearly forgot to breathe, and only remembered when he started to get dizzy.
Finally, after an unknown length of time had passed, he was done.
He could have let out a whoop of sheer joy. Instead, he just stood back and stared at the holographic representation of what he had accomplished with a smile and a quiet sense of pride.
He’d done it. He knew he had—the simulations he’d run told him so.
The nanites would replicate itself within their host body. Millions and millions of them would come into existence, waiting and ready to spring into action. And when an injury happened, not only would the body’s natural defenses kick in, but the nanites would as well.
They would help heal bruises within twenty minutes. A cut within half an hour or so, depending how deep, and how many types of tissues were damaged. A broken bone might take an hour or two. But no more than that.
Ty had achieved something he’d started to think might have been impossible. And he’d done it in a matter of hours.
There was only one more thing he had to do. Test it in a real-world situation.
But first, he had to build up his supply of nanites. He transferred the specs to the fabricator and gave it a command. “Fabricate,” he said.
He looked at Gremlin, who was still sleeping in the middle of the workbench. “That wasn’t so hard, now was it?”
Then he noticed the plateful of waffles on the workbench for the first time.
“How did they get there?” he muttered. He hadn’t seen or heard anyone enter in the entire time he’d been working. Perhaps Lilith had teleported in and away very quickly, he thought. But then he shook his head. Why would she do that?
He decided it didn’t matter. The waffles were there, they promised to be del
icious, and he was hungry. So, without any pretense of decorum at all, he stuffed them in as fast as he could, barely chewing before he swallowed.
It was almost a travesty to treat Dinah’s delicious offerings like that, but Ty was on a mission. Even then, his mind was still fizzing. He wanted to keep working as long as he could.
By the time Ty had finished eating, the fabricator had finished fabricating the nanites. More than a million of them, they looked like nothing more than a small puddle of mercury in the Petrie dish Ty had positioned to catch them.
There was no better time than just then. Ty could have swallowed the nanites, or injected them directly into his bloodstream. But he didn’t need to do either. They were small enough individually to enter his system through the pores of his skin. All he needed to do was touch them.
He did so. At once, the liquid metal started behaving in a way no true mercury ever would. It latched onto the tip of his finger and flowed upward. In just a few seconds, there was nothing left in the Petrie dish at all, and his finger looked as if it was enclosed in the tip of a metallic glove.
Ty watched, fascinated despite himself, knowing with great clarity what the nanites were doing. Even now, he imagined he could feel them working their way through his skin to the tissue beneath.
In less than a minute, they were gone.
For the second time in a matter of hours, Ty had willingly allowed an active foreign substance into his body. The first time, it had been AZT-407. The whole experience had been painful, and his body hadn’t enjoyed it at all. This time, it was a big non-event.
The only sensation was that of having dipped his finger into a cold liquid. Nothing more. He couldn’t feel the nanites at all once they had entered his skin.
Now all Ty needed to do was wait. He’d thought to test the nanites by cutting his thumb or causing some other form of minor injury. But he didn’t have to do even that. The burns on his leg and shoulder, while healing, still had a long way to go. Or at least, they would have, if it weren’t for the nanites.