(HS) Who Needs A Medical License? *Revised Form*


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9/22/2011 20:49:51

Goldstein
Member

Discuss here
March 29th, 11:11 a.m.

For Strebor Goldenstein, life was too good to be true. Living in rural Ukraine had never held much appeal. Now, he was living in Liberty City, one of the greatest (or at least one of the most interesting) cities in America, even more so than Detroit or Cincinnati. He had found work easy enough. While the education in Eastern Europe wasn’t exactly world renowned (Bukovinian State Medical University in the Ukraine is a find college to be sure, but it is no Oxford), neurological studies was a rare specialty, and Sweeny Pood University just so happened to need a TA.

The neurology professor was a boring little man who’s name currently escapes me, but that certainly didn’t stop his class from regularly reaching capacity each new semester. The professor himself was baffled. What he didn’t know was that during his twenty-minute long bathroom breaks, Strebor liked to turn music on and talk with his students.

“Hey, Streb, what’s up with the getup?” one student hollered out from his desk.

He was referring to the suit and bowtie Strebor proudly wore under his lab apron. “For that, I’m failing you.”

The student threw up his hands, befuddled. “Why?”

“Have you not been paying attention to me at all?”

“Not really,” he said sheepishly.

Strebor grabbed a foam ball off the professor’s desk and lobbed it at the student, much to the amusement of the rest of the class. “I have a meeting with the head of OmniRoe, you dunce!” he yelled. “He’s going to investigate the progress of the LEECH.”

The student picked up the ball and threw it back at Strebor. It missed him and knocked a mug off the desk, causing it to shatter. Everyone laughed as Strebor hurriedly picked up the pieces and threw them away. “It’s fully functional, unlike your head.”

The student rolled his eyes and went back to sleep.

There was a knocking on the door, and Strebor, as quickly as he could, shut off the music and rapped his meter stick on the desk, causing everyone to sit up at attention.

“Come in,” he said in a bored voice.

The school secretary poked her head in, holding a cell phone. “Assistant Strebor? You have a call from your father.”

Everyone booed and tossed paper balls at the old woman. She blanched and shook her head.

Strebor flicked the music back on and stepped outside. The secretary looked at him with bewilderment. “You let them listen to that rubbish?”

“I find the bass to be rhythmic and the lyrics to have strong social relevance,” he said with a wink as he accepted the phone from her. “Hello?”

“Strebor, my son! How are things going for you in that grand land of America?” he asked in Russian.

“I am doing fine, thank you father,” Strebor replied. His rough accent returned whenever he spoke his native tongue.

“That is good to hear, son. I trust you are doing well.”

Strebor leaned against the wall and stared up at the ceiling. “Of course, father. I have an apartment, and many great friends. “

“Are you still finding time to go to the shooting range?”

There was a long pause as Strebor decided whether or not to lie. “…of course.”

Ivan Goldenstein cleared his throat, letting Strebor know he wasn’t fooling anyone. “That is good, son. I do not want to take up any more of your time, I just thought I might let you know that my birthday is coming up soon, can you make it?”

“Of course, father. Why even ask a question like that?”

“You never know nowadays, son. The world’s all topsy-turvy. I certainly don’t understand it.”

“I know…I love you Dad.”

“You too, Son.”

Strebor hung up the phone and returned it to the secretary, who was doing a poor job of hiding behind a potted plant.

He was about to reenter the classroom when he saw Sarah Berkeley strolling the hallway. Perhaps class could wait a few seconds.

She was radiant in her Capri cargo pants and Chuck Taylor shoes and her white blouse. Her red hair was pulled back in a loose bun. Sarah saw Strebor and ran forward.

“Hey Streb,” she said, “how’re you?”

“Oh, just fine. You?”

“Great! Why do you sound Russian?”

He cleared his throat and nervously wiped his hands on his apron. “Oh, heh, I just talked to my dad. But anyway, uh, what’s up with your French class?”

“J’aime il! It’s the best thing in the world. The students are great, and everyone is eager to learn. In fact, we’re taking a trip to Paris next month. Would you like to come?”

The idea made Strebor almost giggle. “If I’m not too busy, then yeah, sounds great.” He glanced at his watch and realized the professor would be back any minute. “ Unforgivably, I’ve got to get back to class.”

She looked down at her papers and nodded. “I’ve got a bunch of essays to grade, and the library isn’t very quiet.”

Strebor saw an opportunity and seized it. “I’ve got some work to do in the lab, it’s really quiet there, would you like to come? 7:00 tomorrow?”

She blushed, her freckles nearly disappearing. “That’s sounds like a wonderful idea.”

His heart fluttered. “Great.”

“STREBOR! WHERE ON EARTH ARE YOU?” yelled the professor from inside his classroom.

The two lovers smiled and waved and walked off, both having a mixture of joy and dread in their hearts.

< Message edited by Goldstein -- 9/25/2011 21:21:44 >

Post #: 1

9/26/2011 18:26:41

Goldstein
Member

Caution, rated pg-13. It's just one guy smoking a cigar and drinking some wine, but still, better safe than sorry.

March 29th, 6:46 p.m.

Strebor had not been to many fancy restaurants. As a med student, he survived on a steady diet of noddles and loafs of bread. In Liberty City, between his rent, buying nice clothes and that crippling habit of always slipping homeless people twenty dollars, he had upgraded from bread to hamburgers. So when Mr. Mavet's chauffeur pulled up outside The Vine, Strebor was visibly excited.

The French waiter with the comically thin mustache spotted Mr. Mavet and immediately picked up two menus and led the two to a table overlooking the entire restaurant. A fountain, with a statue of a nude man and woman frolicking over a tiny little replica of Liberty City, stood behind them.

Strebor squinted at the menu, finding the dimness poor reading light. "Caviar? Isn't that...that's disgusting! Mr. Mavet, what do you advise?"

The lean, pale-faced man smiled and handed his menu to the waiter. "Two sirloin steaks, with some cheese souffle and a bottle of '69 Bordeux wine."

"Actually, I'll just have a water," Strebor said. The waiter snickered and walked off to put their orders in.

Mavet arched an eyebrow as he took a cigar from the silver case he always kept in his breastpocket. "You do not drink? I thought wine was good for the heart."

"The cons outweigh the pros," he said, tucking the napkin into his shirt collar.

Mavet offered the case to Strebor, and he refused. The businessman shrugged and lit his cigar. His puffed on it, then carefully placed it on the edge of his plate. "How is the LEECH coming along?" he finally asked.

"Quite nicely. The working prototype should be ready for the FDA examination tomorrow."

"Good." He took another puff on the cigar and blew the smoke. Strebor politely kept his hands in his lap, his eyes watering. "Do you know how much the LEECh has cost OmniRoe? $294,000,000. You said the LEECH would cost us $12,000,000."

His tone had not changed, Mr. Mavet's tone rarely changed, but the atmosphere had suddenly become much more...serious. Strebor swallowed dryly, tugging at his collar. "I understand that this investment has cost you...more than you might have expected, yes, but the additional costs were simply to make the LEECH more attractive to potential buyers! A machine that lets you live an extra six months is nothing. A machine that lets you live an extra three years? That'll turn heads, I guarantee."

"I'm sure," Mr. Mavet said, "but your little project has prevented OmniRoe from pursuing additional investments, such as an improved MRI machine, or biotic limbs..."

The waiter, with two steaming plates of food, waltzed by and set it out. The food looked disgusting and greasy. Mavet rubbed his hands together and dug in while Strebor just sipped his water.

"This should come as now surprise, but OmniRoe will not be offering you anymore contracts in the future."

"Of course," Strebor whispered.

"Also, we will be sending a report out to all of the biomedical corporations. It's standard procedure."

"What? You're blacklisting me! No one will ever hire me again! I'll be at Sweeney Pood University forever!"

Mavet delicately dabbed at the corners of his mouth with his napkin. "Not my concern," he said coolly.

Strebor picked at the steak, his stomach in knots. Then he blurted out, "What if I can make it bring people back to life?"

Mr. Mavet chuckled and drained the goblet of wine. "Are you God now? The patients Lazarus?"

"No, no, but it is an experiment I've been working on. I think I can modify the LEECH to make the brain resume activity, thus having the rest of the body systems follow suit. The brain would need to be in suitable shape, but say a person bleeds out and dies. Use the LEECH, give him a blood transfusion, and there we go, he's perfectly okay."

There was a pause. Strebor noisily gulped his water while Mr. Mavet thoughtfully smoked his cigar. With the cigar held tightly between his teeth, he asked, "Are you certain you can make this work?"

"Yes."

"...I want this machine on the market by the end of the month...very well then. The FDA official will be bribed, regardless, to streamline the process...fine. But I want this thing on display. I'll arrange a public display of the LEECH for live television. You are aware that the original founder of Sweeney Pood University was cyrogenically frozen? I believe it's time we thawed him out."

"You can't be serious," Strebor said, his heart racing.

"I am. We'll have the demonstration two days from now. You better make your modifications fast, or else you won't even have a job as TA. Now, off you go. I have a dinner to enjoy. Would you like a doggy bag?"

Strebor just finished his water and walked off, no one in the restaurant paid him attention, they were too busy complimenting each other on their bow-ties and sequin necklaces. He had work to do, and eating overpriced foodstuffs was a waste of his time. He yanked off the bow-tie and tucked it in his pocket. It would have ended up in the garbage if it wasn't for the fact that it was his father's.

Post #: 2

10/3/2011 17:40:55

Goldstein
Member

March 30th, 11:43 p.m.

All Strebor wanted to do was impress his teachers and colleagues, and maybe even Sarah, even though she had never displayed any interest in the medical field. And don’t forget the OmniRoe contract. His entire career depended on this thing working even better than it was suppose to. If it didn’t, what could he look forward to? A lifetime as some backwoods doctor that treated measles and broken legs? Oh no, he was too use to the hustle and bustle of Liberty City. The energy was his life-force.

He had not a single malicious thought in his head as he unlocked the lab's door with the key he had secretly copied from his instructor's own. It was dark, and the machine glowed with the whiteness akin to a ghost. Being a man of science, however, such silly things like apparitions and ghouls did not scare Strebor. He whistled softly as he wheeled the gurney into the lab. Sarah followed close behind.

He flipped on a light switch, and the old fluorescent bulbs slowly turned on. The lab had no windows, and exceedingly thick walls, so he could work and move freely. Perfect. Strebor walked through the tables covered in sparking gadgets and jars containing organs suspended in a green goop. He paid them no mind and made a beeline for the white behemoth that sat at the back. The gurney's wheels squeaked as they rolled over the slick linoleum floor.

It resembled a MRI machine, but then again, it wasn't. It was shaped like a capital C, and made a relaxing humming noise. On the bottom tip of the C there was an exposed grill. On the top tip, a row of lights, casting a soft blue light onto the grill beneath it. It was called a Life Extending and Enriching Circuit Hub, or LEECH.

“It certainly is big,” Sarah said stupidly as she sat perched on a lab table next to it, a binder full of D’s and F’s on her lap.

Strebor pulled on a white lab coat, ignoring her. He was in the zone, the science zone. He felt for the gloves in the pocket, but they weren't there. A sense of superiority and arrogance seized him when this happened, and not even his juvenile love for Sarah could prevent it. He shrugged at his lack of gloves and picked up a tray holding a dead frog, clipped to the tray, prepared for a dissection.

Sarah squealed playfully, her binder nearly sliding to the floor. Strebor smiled absent-mindedly at her, realizing it was a mistake to invite her here, and placed the tray onto the grill, then proceeded to the back of the machine. He opened a panel, revealing a mass of flashing buttons and knobs. "Here we go," he said as he opened a can of soda.

Strebor worked through the night, adjusting knobs, pressing buttons, and taking notes of various currents. The frog would occasionally twitch, filling his heart with hope, then it would become limp again. Though, at least it was progress.

Sarah finished her tests in the first hour and busied herself by texting and unsuccessfully making small talk.

“So what are you trying to do?” she asked for the fiftieth time.

Strebor looked from his clipboard and decided it might give him more peace just to answer her. “I’m trying to bring it back to life. You certainly finished fast.”

“Yeah,” she said, leaning back and messing with the button on her blouse. “I didn’t expect for it to take long…isn’t bringing the dead back to life…unnatural?”

“It’s my job, and besides, it’s a medical breakthrough. And why did you come down here if it wasn’t going to take long?” he asked, rather harshly, which was unintentional. Strebor had never claimed to be a night person.

She blinked, caught off guard. “Well, you know, to spend time with you. So we could talk.” She laughed breezily. “But you’re not very talkative when you’re working.”

Strebor forced a smile and returned to the back of the LEECH to make more adjustments. “Go back to your room,” Strebor said as gently as he could. “It stinks of embalming fluid and all I’m doing is messing with a dead frog.”

He twisted a knob, sending the current up to 12.69 amps and removing a 6.7 ohm resistor. That wasn’t a good idea.

Sarah squealed a second time, not an exaggerated squeal, but an authentic scream.

“STREBOR! THE FROG IS MOVING!”

It was indeed. Like a newborn child, only more frog-like, Orwell’s sack thing expanded and contracted, over and over, steadily. The eyes were rolling back and forth, taking in its surroundings.

"It's alive!" Strebor yelled. That little amphibian was the most beautiful thing in the world. "Oh, joy, it's alive! Ah ha! Ha ha ha ha!" He stooped down and poked the frog.

"How are you feeling, Orwell?"

It croaked again.

"Excellent!" Strebor said. He felt as giddy as a schoolgirl. He had done it. He had brought the frog back to life! Some part of his mind that wasn’t very interested in important things noted that Sarah had undone her two top buttons, but had forgotten that and was staring at Strebor with a mixture of curiosity and horror.

He reached into the machine, removed the tray, and unpinned the frog. Tenderly, as if it were a balloon and his hands were claws, he carried it over to its cage and let it crawl in. "Sleep tight, my little freak of nature," Strebor said as he shut the little metal door behind it.

Then he turned to the body. “What are you going to do to it?” she asked, already knowing the answer.

Strebor just grinned.

It belonged to a felon that had been executed. The university had a deal with the prisons, all dead bodies were sent to the medical department for study. This particular fellow had tattoos on most of his body, all of them either depicting lewd body parts or symbols of a former regime. He was bald and had a walrus mustache and had just been brought in yesterday. No one would notice his absence. The body had been hooked up to an IV drip containing the nanobots necessary for the LEECH to work.

Unceremoniously, Strebor tossed the dead body onto the tray. With a needle full of 100 milligrams of Pancuronium bromide in hand, Strebor flicked on the machine.

The blue lights covered his body. The seconds ticked past. Nothing happened. Sarah let out a sigh of relief, and Strebor, full of disappointment, was about to turn the machine off, when he noticed a twitch. Just a twitch. His left big toe was wiggling back in forth. Then, an entire spasm passed through the corpse. All at once, the felon's eyes tore open and he let out a painful cough.

Sarah screamed so loudly, it was a miracle that the entire university didn’t hear her. If anything, one can compliment the thickness of Sweeney Pood’s laboratory walls.

"What is your name?" Strebor asked quickly. He stood over the man, the needle ready.

"What?" The felon was breathing heavily, a hand shielding his eyes from the bright lights.

"What is your name? Come on, tell me! What is your name?"
Sarah was still screaming.

"Uh...Donny. Donny Roberts. Where am I? Who are-" Before he could finish, Strebor injected the drug into his jugular. He immediately fell silent, paralyzed. Soon, he stopped breathing.

"That's all I wanted to know, thank you," Strebor said happily as he hefted the newly dead man off the tray. He propped him up on the counter. Students likes to take bodies and play pranks with them, so no one would guess Strebor, a TA working for the bio-medical professor, would have committed the crime.

He turned to Sarah, who had fallen silent, but was trembling terribly.

“Pretty cool, huh?”

She grabbed her binder and ran out. A few papers slipped out, but she didn’t notice.

There was a twinge in his heart, but Strebor was far too happy to feel anything else. Sarah would come around, he knew it. It was just a little shocking, but she’d get a good night sleep and soon they’d be cracking jokes about how this was just like the they watched that zombie movie and she ran out as Strebor laughed.

He was humming as he flipped off the lights. He noticed his hands were glowing blue a little, but that didn't concern him very greatly at the moment. Strebor was too enthralled thinking about where he was going to place his Nobel Prize and how pretty Sarah would look like at the unveiling ceremony.

< Message edited by Goldstein -- 10/3/2011 17:43:34 >

Post #: 3

10/3/2011 17:43:11

Goldstein
Member

March 31st, 7:00 p.m.

The auditorium was full of people. Strebor never did like crowds; they made him nervous, like a riot was about to break out. But his anxiety was offset by his pride and confidence. His device was about to be used on the college's president! Everyone had turned out to see if the health benefits were as instantaneous as Strebor had bragged.

He peeked from behind the heavy red curtain and nearly squealed with delight. There was the president‘s coffin, a bouquet of roses the only splash of color on the dark oak.

"Alright, raise the curtains!" Strebor hissed. He stood next to the big white machine, one hand on it, like a jockey would do to a world class horse. He thought he looked quite dapper in the white lab coat he wore over a grey waistcoat. He took a deep breath, and smiled as the audience came into view.

There was a crippling silence, and Strebor was afraid his bladder would give way. Cameras were everywhere, their lights blinding him. But he couldn’t shield his eyes. That would have looked unprofessional

"This is the LEECH,” Strebor said, his voice quivering.

More silence. Someone coughed.

“It stands for the Life Extending and Enriching Circuit Hub, and it will do just as its name implies, it will extend and enrich your life. And who doesn’t want that?”

Some smattering of laughter. Even more silence. It was like a blanket, suffocating him.

“It can also bring the dead back to life.”

Now that, that caused an uproar. Perhaps one that Strebor wasn’t looking for, but it calmed him down significantly.

“Blasphemer! Unnatural, evil, heretic!” someone yelled.

“Uuuuuunchristian!”

“Now, now,” Strebor said, becoming more and more confident. “If you have religious objections to this machine, then leave now. But remember that this machine can also help the living.”

Entire sections of the audience got up and left.

“We just went from ten thousand to twenty thousand viewers,” said the program director through Strebor’s earpiece. “Go ahead and begin.”

Strebor called his hands together and beamed at everyone. “For those that are open-minded enough to stay, prepare to be amazed by the newest and most stunning advance in medical history.

Two assistants clad in white smocks walked out, bowed, and proceeded to pry open the casket.

“Our much-beloved headmaster passed on three weeks ago. In his will, he stated that he wanted his body to be used for the purpose of furthering our understanding of medicine. He’s going to fulfill his wish right now.”

As carefully as they could, they placed the body, encased in a silk shroud, onto the LEECH’s tray. Strebor drew the shroud and injected a dose of nanobots into the body’s deflated jugular. He smoothed shroud down.

"Nanobots are critical to this machine. They require tremendous amounts of energy, and LEECH delivers it without making them too large. The nanobots travel through the body, making repairs as they see fit. They can either remove blood clots, eliminate excessive fat, or even expand an artery.

He switched on the LEECH, and the blue lights flickered on.

“We’re up to forty thousand viewers. Mr. Mavet is getting impatient, hurry this up!” hissed the director.

“This machine," Strebor said as he slowly paced up and down the front of the stage, "will revolutionize medicine. Cancer patients can be treated regularly until they reach the time they are ready to die. Victims of fatal wounds can be kept alive long enough for the proper attention to arrive. The average man can re-energize his body for about one week's salary. Soon my LEECH will be in every beauty salon, hospital, and mogul's home by the end of the year.”

There was a pause, and Strebor glanced down to where Sarah should have been sitting, next to the world-renowned doctors and politicians in the VIP section. She wasn’t there. That was strange. He had slipped an invitation under her door when she didn’t answer earlier that day.

Something must have come up. Yes, that’s it. She’s probably watching on TV somewhere. I might as well get on with the show, he thought.

“The results are truly outstanding, aren't they, Mr. Sweeney?"

The shroud was rustling, and Strebor gently pulled it back. The old man gasped for breath. Strebor helped him rise to a sitting position.

“We’re at five hundred thousand viewers,” the director said, breathless.

“How are we today, Mr. Pood?”

The old man coughed out some spit and looked at the frozen audience, wide-eyed.

“It appears I’ve forgotten to wear my trousers in public again.”

“Oh my God…my, my God…we’re at twelve million viewers.”

There was a moment of broken murmurs. Then, spectacularly, the entire room exploded into applause, ecstatically cheering and waving their arms. Strebor proudly approached the front of the stage and bowed deeply. The two attendants helped Mr. Pood off the LEECH and led him back-stage.

For hours afterwards, Strebor signed autographs and gave an interview to every national news network in the country. He forgot his concerns about the safety of the LEECH now that it had been modified. He didn't even notice, as he undressed and finally fell to sleep in his dorm room, that Orwell the frog was dead in his cage.

< Message edited by Goldstein -- 10/15/2011 2:59:04 >

Post #: 4

10/14/2011 17:50:34

Goldstein
Member

April 3rd, 10:45 a.m.

Strebor awoke to the smell of disgusting decay. His migraine only magnified the repulsiveness.

"My god, what is that? Did I leave food on the counter again? Wait..." He sat up in his bed and sniffed the air. "That's not moldy food...that's organic decomposition. It has a moist feel about it."

He threw off his sheets, and approached Orwell's cage, the source of the smell. He gagged and drew away when he saw the corpse. The little froggy skin had peeled off to reveal little froggy organs. Flies were dining on little froggy insides. His little froggy eyes could have x's over them.

"Oh my, what happened to you Orwell? What happened?" It didn't take long for him to come up with a plausible reason. But he needed to be sure. He had to. He just had to. Strebor changed out of his Cozy Comrade pajamas. With one hand pinching his nose shut, he carried the cage out of his dorm, but not before opening a few windows and spraying three containers of Febreeze.

It felt strange to Strebor not to be mobbed as he walked the crowded collegiate halls. For the past three days it had been nothing but interviews and appearances and statements and pictures and autographs, from Fox News, from CBS, from CNN to ABC. In the mail Strebor got letters hailing him as the next Christian prophet, as the reincarnation of Alexander Fleming and Edward Jenner, and some even condemned him to Hell. It was intoxicating. But eventually the excitement died down a little and Strebor could walk the hallways without being accosted.

People recoiled when they saw and smelled the poor frog. Notebooks and pens fell to the floor. A few remaining autograph-hunters who hadn't forgotten him looked disappointed as their sensory organs forbade them for getting any closer to the grim doctor and his grim package.

The forensic science class was still rather empty when Strebor arrived. He had counted on that. Only a real enthusiast would be at class forty minutes early. He marched up to a guy with black hair parted down the middle, a guy named Edwen and held up the cage. "Why is my frog dead?" he asked.

Edwen immediately dropped the folder he was holding and eagerly rubbed his hands together. "Ooh! Goody!" He lifted the frog out of the cage and plopped him down on a metal tray. He took a shiny stick that he kept in his breast pocket for just such an occasion and started poking around.

"Did you heard about the body that ended up in the bio-medical lab? Weird, huh? I bet some necrophiliac or something took the poor stiff there. But I wouldn't expect you to know anything about that, being big man on campus, making the dead walk. Anyway, how long will it be before you quit your job and go live in some mansion in the Bahamas?"

He laughed. There was a touch of envy in the kid's voice that made Strebor uncomfortable. In fact, it sounded like thinly veiled disdain. Strebor noticed an ornate cross necklace hanging from his neck. It sparkled and was hard to look at.

Bzzz...bzzzz... Someone texted Strebor. He checked it and groaned an exasperate groan. The message read, "We're over Strebor. You are rude, inconsiderate, and do not value my intelligence. These are all things I thought I'd never say about you, but the way you have acted recently has completely changed my perception of you. I am truly disappointed in you. I thought you were a kind, clever man that I could joke around with, enjoy my time with, maybe even romantically. But this LEECH has showed me otherwise. Goodbye Strebor Ovan Goldenstein. May you change and perhaps become a better man. ~Sarah"

That girl was the most frustrating maelstrom of emotions ever to walk the planet. Now he was going to have to speak and soothe her and calm her down and reassure her that he was sorry, like she was a cat hiding a chair and Strebor was very sincerely telling her that yes, the vacuum cleaner is gone, and it isn't exactly dangerous to begin with. But now was not the time to be thinking of silly girls. Edwen had found something.

"Alright, here we go. You've got some massive heart failure here. And not because of atherosclerosis or anything like that." He pinched a little slimy thing and lifted it up. The student's glasses caught the light so that they were just two shiny circles. "See this? This is an artery. For some reason, it's squeezed shut. All of the arteries are shut. No blood, no heartbeat. Dude, what did you do to this poor thing? A new lethal injection serum or something? Do you really think that it's a good idea to be making another unholy abomination?"

Strebor stared at the dead frog. "I have no idea what happened, I didn't mean for this to happen," he said hollowly. Edwen watched him go for a moment, muttered "Devilish ilk" under his breath, and dumped Orwell the dead froggy into a nearby trash can. The lid fell with a starling crash that nearly gave Strebor a heart attack.

Strebor was lost in his thoughts. I should have performed additional tests, he thought. It's all OmniRoe's fault! If it wasn't for their deadlines and unwillingness to compromise, they should know by now that I can be trusted...No, maybe it's a specie-related problem, maybe the LEECH only harms amphibians...But God, what if it isn't? I could lose my medical license, people might die! I need to speak with Mr. Mavet...I'll go public if anything happens. Yeah, I'll expose OmniRoe. How they've got a finger in everyone's pie, how that FDA inspector was slipped a check behind everyone's back. If anything goes wrong, well, better Mr. Mavet crashed and burns than me. He felt someone tap on his shoulder. He turned, but no one was there.

"Ah! I got you, my dear boy!" cooed Mr. Sweeney. He was dressed in suspenders and a bow tie. His face was glowing with health. "How are you, my star pupil?"

Somehow, Strebor managed a crooked smile. "Oh, just fine. And you, sir? How's your blood pressure? Healthy, I hope? Within normal parameters, no dilated arteries?"

"Oh, no!" he said. He draped an arm around Strebor and sighed happily. "I don't care much about blood pressure, I'm just glad I got over that nasty bout of death. Really nasty, it was, but you, you have found the Grim Reaper's silver bullet! You'll be, pardon the pun, immortalized!"

"That's...great, sir," Strebor said, trying his best to keep his voice from quivering.

"You're shocked, I'm sure Anyway, I just wanted to tell you, that the first line of your LEECH machines are being manufactured by OmniRoe today. A new wave in human understanding of its own mortality is soon to be unleashed on the world! I just hope we don't drown! Oh ho ho ho!"

Strebor felt the blood drain from his face. "Oooh, re-really? You think so?"

"Yes, I know so! My word, Strebor, you're too humble. There's no going back now! You must be so proud of your accomplishment. Just imagine, soon you will be a household-"

Mr. Sweeney abruptly stopped his train of thought.

"Sir?"

The president's grip slackened and he slumped to the ground. He was dead before he hit the concrete. He scraped his arm, but no blood came out, it just left a patch of exposed, sinewy flesh. A girl screamed out and like bugs to a flame everyone flocked to the still figure on the sidewalk. A cloud passed in front of the sun, making everything seem grayer. Without speaking, Strebor slipped through the crowd, his insides knotting up, like a tangled string of Christmas lights that never would work again.

Here's a link to Arachnid's great, and relevant, poem.)

April 3rd, 11:12 a.m.

There was an unexpected man waiting for Strebor as he entered his dorm room. He was wearing a crisp dark blue suit with slick backed hair. In one hand was a briefcase, and the other, a thick folder, bulging with papers.

"Doctor, how nice to see you," he said in a monotone voice tinged with snobbery.

"Oh, thank God! You're here, we need to talk, urgently. We need to halt the LEECH's production. Today."

Mr. Mavet humorlessly grinned, revealing two rows of very shiny teeth. "Then today is not your day."

"You don't know the half of it. But please, cancel all of the orders, NOW!"

"Very funny, Dr. Goldenstein," Mr. Mavet said, slapping his knee jovially. "But in all seriousness, I have some papers I need you to sign to let OmniRoe ship the first line of LEECHs in two weeks." He thrust the folder under Strebor's nose with all of the politeness of a spoiled three-year old.

Strebor blankly stared at the papers. He took them, retrieved the lighter he kept in his nightstand, and set the whole package on fire. He dropped the flaming mass with all of the politeness of a spoiled three-year old.

Mr. Mavet awkwardly coughed into his fist. "I take something is wrong, Doctor? I understand that paperwork is boring, but really now, you're an adult, no need to be so childish-"

Strebor leaped up and angrily seized him by the very expensive Italian custom-made lapels and shouted, "Forget the LEECHs! They're death traps! They killed Mr. Sweeney, and they'll kill everyone else who tries to use them. Get that through your Ivy-League educated skull of yours! For one moment, get your head out of your arse and listen to me! THE LEECHS ARE LETHAL TO USE. Understand now?"

Mr. Mavet studied Strebor, his cold eyes going up and down, trying to find any signs of trickery. When he did speak, his voice was like a razor. "Is this because of the modification?" he asked quietly.

Strebor wiped the sweat from his forehead, keeping one hand on his lapels. "...yeah, I think so."

"I knew I shouldn't have given you the chance, I knew it," Mr. Mavet muttered, clicking his pen. "The board will be mightily displeased, but I have created a fail-safe...yes. Yes, this is of little consequence."

"WHAT? Have you been listening? The LEECHs are deadly! You have to pull them from production."

"We have spent millions on this project, Doctor Goldenstein. Do you honestly expect us not to release the product? No, all of the consumers have already paid, and I intend to give them a LEECH. Every last one of them. That is a promise."

A cauldron of terrible things to call brewed inside Strebor. He wanted to last out, to strike that calm, mocking face, scratch it, draw blood, force it to show some sort of emotion other than detached arrogance. "Are you an idiot? You'll kill thousands of people! You're company will be broken up and you'll get the chair," was all he could manage to sputter out.

"You're wrong, OmniRoe will survive the incoming storm."

"Incoming storm? You're the morons perpetuating it!" Strebor yelled, strengthening his grip on Mr. Mavet's lapels.

Mr. Mavet adjusted his tie, then pulled out a gun. "Please let go of me," he said.

Strebor's eyes widened as he let his arms drop to his sides. The gun was big and silver, and very intimidating looking.

"Now look outside and make sure no one is eavesdropping. Make a peep, and I'll make a ruckus."

A cold sweat broke out on Strebor's forehead as he opened the door. This was it, then. Killed by the CFO of a medical engineering firm. Strebor always imagined he'd go out more spectacularly. Perhaps in a hail of gunfire as he dragged his wounded sergeant to the helicopter waiting to evacuate them out of the war zone. Or maybe a deadly plague would claim him as he treated the president's very pretty daughter. Better still, he'd strap a bunch of C4 to his chest and dive head-first off of the Empire State Building into a massive thicket of zombies below, detonating the C4 just before he hit the ground.

There was a noise. He stepped out into the hallway. There was no one around. He poked his head out from behind the door and saw a girl pressing herself to the wall. She stared at him for a moment, then ran and jumped out of the fifth story window. How strange. Down the hallway stood two very intimidating looking men in black suits that had OmniRoe embroidered on the chest. They didn't seem to have noticed the girl. Strebor blinked, and closed the door behind him.

"We're alone, if you don't count your friends."

"Excellent. Now, let me assuage your concerns. Every contract that every consumer ever signed when they agreed to buy a LEECH had a clause in it stating that OmniRoe was totally absolved of any liability for injuries or death related to the LEECH. A thousand people die because of the LEECH? No one can sue OmniRoe, it's the hospital's, or the salon's fault. It will, of course, destroy our reputation. People will revile us. However, it shouldn't be excessively hard to merge with, say, PluriPotent Enterprises, take their name, and work exclusively in Europe and China, far away from the overtly-intrusive eyes of the American government."

"We can afford it, by any rate. We're making an 8.1 million profit off of each LEECH. We've already sold 1,234. Are you bad at math? That's $9,995,400,000 made in one day. It'll be a few weeks before the government links the LEECHs to the deaths. By then, OmniRoe will be posting record profits from their headquarters in Berlin. Of course, the public will be crying for blood to be spilled. The head of the FDA, the inspector that looked over the LEECH, maybe a secretary or two..."

Strebor rubbed his brow. "And me. I'm going to be forsaken...This is...unsettling. That I'd trust you people with my work, I am an idiot." He felt something rub off on his brow. He pulled his hand away and nearly fainted. The skin was flaking off, revealing burgundy patches of skin. The fingers were emaciated and bone like. He moved them, and he could see the white bone slowly emerge. Strangely, the necrosis faded away at his wrists.

"What has happened to you?" Mr. Mavet asked, his voice finally conveying an emotion: fear. If it wasn't for the Lovecraftian ailment on his hands, Strebor would have smiled at having finally broken Mr. Mavet's cool demeanor.

"I didn't use gloves when I put Orwell in the LEECH...the arteries in my hands are closing up, the muscle is dead and decaying, but I still maintain basic function. Interesting."

Mr. Mavet sniffed and put away his gun. "Regardless, you're coming with me."

"To where?" Strebor asked, looking up from his zombie-hands.

He grinned, and Strebor noticed how sharp his teeth were. "To SkullDeep, of course. OmniRoe can't sell the LEECH once it becomes PluriPotent Enterprises. It'll need a new idea. And new ideas come from the medical leaders of tomorrow. Right, Dr. Goldenstein?"

Moving with more agility than Strebor gave him credit for, Mr. Mavet swung his briefcase, smashing Strebor across the face. Before he could recover, the business man drew a syringe from his inner coat pocket, and injected its clear contents into Strebor's jugular. Strebor went slack, and with the help of his two lackies, Mr. Mavet carried Strebor to the elevator, into the waiting and van, and down a dark tunnel, just as the breaking news report informing everyone that Sweeney Pood, headmaster of Sweeney Pood University, was dead. Again.

< Message edited by Goldstein -- 10/16/2011 13:47:57 >

Post #: 5

10/21/2011 22:04:10

Goldstein
Member

April 4th, 1:22 p.m.

The lab was dingy and the walls were smeared with what might have been dried, blood. The exam tables wobbled and squeaked. The needles were cracked and dripped. The assistant, a gigantic lump of a man named Cram. It was not a place for a doctor to practice medicine.

Good thing Strebor wasn't a doctor anymore. They had taken his medical license away from him faster than he could raise a voice in protest. They didn't even have a meeting or anything, no hearing, no public trial. A stone-faced official had taken all of his files and shredded them right in front of him. They put a handgun to his head and forced him to call Sweeney University and quit his job. They weren't very sad to see him ago. A few of his students raised a feeble protest, but no one paid them much mind.

Strebor's ankle was shackled to his desk, and his lamp kept flickering, and his pen was out of ink, and he really had to go to the bathroom, but there was no point in asking. Dr. Braun was the most strict person ever. He probably got mad when people strained too hard when they tried to get the car he parked on top of them off their legs.

"Strebor, please stop squirming," he said as he injected a prostrate monkey with some hydrochloric acid.

He had to scream to be heard of the peals of shrieks. "I need to urinate, Dr. Braun."

He scoffed and pricked the monkey with a tube. "Hold it, Strebor. Your break's in an hour."

Cram leaned in, breathing into Strebor's ear, and said, "Lucky. My break's in three hours."

Strebor stiffened, trying not to stare at his messed up face. "Go check on the plants, Cram," he said quietly.

He nodded hastily and shambled off.

A heavy door swung open, and in walked Dr. Shriner, pristine in his white lab coat and black tie and slicked back gray hair. Strebor felt self-conscious about the grubby apron and frayed gloves they had given him. What seemed to be a robot walked in after him, looking around, like a little kid.

"Hello Dr. Braun," Dr. Shriner said, "having fun babysitting the rejects?"

Dr. Braun sniffed, causing his mustache to bristle a little. "Dr. Shriner. How unpleasant to see you today. What is that horrid bucket of bolts shaped like a human following you around? Some sort of pet? Are you lonely?"

The robot narrowed his eyes and pointed a claw at the old man. It's skin was pale, but it seemed real. "I am no bucket of bolts. I am Project Romeo Oscar Beta Oscar Tango." It faltered, and tapped Dr. Shriner's shoulder. "Did...did I say that correctly?"

Shriner patted it's claw, like a parent. "Yes yes, my boy, you did wonderfully."

The cyborg grinned brightly and began to investigate the lab, picking up specimen jars and broken equipment. Cram was terrified of the robot, and retreated to the back room, where the bodies were kept. That seemed to delight the robot.

"What is that contraption doing in my lab?" Braun demanded. He spoke as he worked, his fingers dancing over the body of the monkey. "It is violating the sanctity of our work."

Shriner chuckled. "Of course, your investigation into primate pesticide must be crucial to the goals of the SkullDeep syndicate. And to answer your question, I felt like Experimental needed a jog. Test his mental capacity. Plus, Mr. Mavet wanted me to check up on..." He couldn't see him, but Strebor had a feeling he was motioning towards him.

He sighed and said, "I am working on an improved version of the nanobots used with the LEECHs. These things will be independent and work off their own internal power-source."

"Have you had any breakthroughs?" Shriner asked as he studied the schematics of the nanobots. The things were 80 nano-meters in diameter, and Strebor didn't have a camera powerful enough to photograph them.

"Actually, yes, I have. The materials are lighter and the design is more aerodynamic. They can't go on forever like they could when used with the LEECH, the battery life on these things is about one week. Besides, body fluids would destroy these things in a few weeks. But they're cheaper. And since they have to be reapplied every week, it almost like they're-"

"Drugs," Braun said proudly. "Yes, under my guidance, Mr. Goldenstein has flourished."

Strebor gritted his teeth but said nothing.

"Mr. Mavet will be pleased. However, he instructed me to tell you that you will be transferred to the Weapons Department, Strebor."

Shriner's voice seemed very far away. He had not said what Strebor thought he had said. There was no way.

"I am a doctor," he said, his own voice sounding very distant. "Not a bomb maker. Tell Mr. Mavet he can shove his briefcase up his arse."

"Not any more," Shriner said, gloatingly. "Not according to Liberty City, at least. Now, get your things, I hear you'll be cleaning thrusters for rockets and missiles. Sounds fun, doesn't it? What must it feel like, going from building the LEECH to building weapons? Do you have philosophical objections to that?"

All of the sudden, all of the abuse Strebor had taken, the disgusting food with maggots, the tick-infested straw mattress, Cram's disregard for personal space, the repulsiveness of Braun's work, and how he flaunted it, bubbled to the top. It made him enraged, furious, deranged.

Strebor grabbed a pen and lashed out. He couldn't break free from his shackle, but managed to impale Dr. Shriner in the stomach. He gasped and fell to the ground. The robot and Dr. Braun rushed to his aid, and Strebor, unable to escape, had his head smashed against his desk by Cram, who was howling with delight.

< Message edited by Goldstein -- 10/22/2011 12:33:05 >

Post #: 6

10/27/2011 21:00:04

Goldstein
Member

April 5th, 9:09 a.m.

His cage could have been bigger. And it could have had a bathroom, and maybe even a television. Instead it was barely big enough for Strebor to squat in, his knees to his chest. It swung slightly in the hot volcanic breeze.

His clothes had been reduced to tatters, and the scruff that was growing on his cheeks and chin was itchy and coarse. Whenever he had to go to the bathroom, he just made sure none of it got in his cage.

"How are you doing up there?" Mr. Mavet called up to him.

"I'm having trouble coming up with new inventions. These conditions aren't conducive to the innovative mind," he called back.

"Then perhaps you'd agree to come back down?"

"And go back to the lab you set up for me?" Strebor asked hopefully.

"Of course."

"And I'd still have that hunchback assistant?"

"Cram? Yes."

"And you're still insisting on the collar that will cause an explosion if I leave the lab?"

"Yes, Doctor Goldenstein."

Strebor thoughtfully rubbed his jowls. "In that case, you can go stick your head in a big pile of hot lava."

"Be reasonable, Doctor. Where are you getting food from, anyway?"

Strebor scratched his chin and said, "There are some punks that like to throw bits of bread at me."

Mr. Mavet shook his head and tightened his tie. "You are being very foolish, Doctor. You will rot in that cage."

"Yeah, how about you come up here and we can talk as equals? How's Dr. Shriner doing, by the way?"

"Not very well. He's dead. That pen of yours punctured his stomach. Very messy."

That should have made the blood drain from his face. That should have made his stomach turn inside out. Instead, he was filled with a sense of triumph. Dr. Shriner had deserved it, he was monster that was building a bio-bomb to be sold to the mob. His death made Liberty City safer. Strebor stuck his head out from between the bars and spat down on him. "Send my condolences to his grieving widow as she laughs herself silly."

"That's very cold-hearted of you," he said coolly as he wiped the spit of his face.

"No! Locking me in a cage and causing me to develop muscular atrophy is cold-hearted!"

Mr. Mavet chuckled and quickly disappeared into a swirl of ashes and cinders, off to sell the newest toxic gas recently invented by SkullDeep's R&D Department.

Strebor sighed. He actually wouldn't have minded going back to the slaughterhouse they called a "lab." At least he could stretch his legs and eat properly. But then again, if that Cram fellow sniffed him one more time, Strebor would have punched him in the face. A change of clothes would have been nice as well.

It seemed like hours went by. The scenery never changed, it was an opaque cloud of red and brown dust and ashes and embers. Then...there. There was that cyborg again. That curious-looking robot that had witnesses him murder Dr. Shriner. He walked under Strebor's cage everyday...perhaps he could convince him...

"Hello there, ROBOT!"

The cyborg slowly came to a stop and gazed up at the caged doctor. "How did you get up there?" he asked with childish fascination.

Strebor grinned devilishly. "If you get me down, I'll tell you."

"Really?" it asked, not believing its luck. "Yeah, no problem! I'm a ROBOT!"

He jumped up, sliced the chain connecting the cage to the stalactite-covered ceiling, and gently lowered the cage to the ground. With a deft slice he cut off the padlock and opened the door. "Will you tell me now? Huh, huh? How did you get up there?"

Strebor yawned and stretched, his back popping in ten different places. He saw the robot's shining, eager face, and chuckled and wagged a finger at him. "Not yet,first, you have to help me out of here."

"Alright!" he shouted, and they ran off together, out of the prison, into the sunlight.

June 19th, 12:01 p.m.

Strebor awoke from his dream. It was the same dream he had every night, the one where he and that cyborg fellow, escaped from SkullDeep. They had almost made it out this time. Strebor had actually seen the light of the outside world.

There was no explanation for his fixation on the robot. But in every one of his escape fantasies, it was always the robot that cut him down and helped him escape. No other creature appeared, no other entity. Just the robot. Just the robot. Just. That. ROBOT. WHY THAT ROBOT? WHY?

He had planned out the entire thing. He knew every nook and cranny of the hallways they'd have to run down and the closets they'd have to hide in. He knew the position of guards, and which doors were locked. None of these things existed outside of his fevered mind, of course, but they were real to him. They were very, very real to him.

"Down the hallway and through the door and kill the guard and hide the body. Hide the body in the closet next to the bucket and mop. Use the mop to bar the door. Kill the two guards. Throw them over the railing to distract guards. Cut the padlock and FREEDOM! Freedom...independence. Independence and liberty. The Fourth of July. I could use fireworks to distract the guards. Take the fireworks out of the bucket and kill the guards with the fireworks..."

"The LEECH is a leech. The LEECH is a leech. The LEECH is a leech is a leech is a leech is a leech is a leech is a leech is a leech is a leech is a leech is a leech is a leech is a leech is a leech is a leech is a leech is a leech is a leech is a leech is a leech is a leech is a leech is a leech is a leech is a leech is a leech is a leech is a leech is a leech is a leech is a leech is a leech is a leech is a leech is a leech is a leech is a leech is a leech is a leech is a leech is a leech is a leech is a leech is a leech is a leech is a leech is a leech is a leech is a leech is a leech is a leech is a leech is a leech is a leech is a leech is a leech is a leech is a leech is a leech is a leech is a leech is a leech is a leech is a leech is a leech is a leech is a leech is a leech is a leech is a leech is a leech is a leech is a leech is a leech is a leech is a leech is a leech is a leech is a leech is a leech is a leech is a leech is a leech is a leech is a leech is a leech is a leech is a leech is a leech is a leech is a leech is a leech is a leech is a leech is a PARASITE!

"Strebor...Strebor is Roberts backwards. I am Roberts...No. NO! I am Strebor. Strebor Ovan Goldenstein. DOCTOR Strebor Ovan Goldenstein. Goldenstein. Goldestein. Emmanuel Goldstein. From 1984. Big Brother is watching me. I don't have a Big Brother. I am a Big Brother. My little brother...my dear little brother. Bless him! Is he watching me? Can he see me? No, no, no...I am Doctor Strebor Ovan Goldenstein."

"И если я вижу Mavet Клянусь Господом я убью его. Кровь будет литься по его лицу, как я обезглавить его. Но в глубокие ямы моего сердца я люблю тебя, так что ... это слезы меня на части, она извергается каждый атом и клетка в моем теле с яростной огненной страсти. Бог помилует вашу душу, MAVET, ибо я нет, то я КВАРТАЛ ВАС И ВАШ SCATTER ЧАСТИ через этот глухой ЗЕМЛИ," Strebor would babble in Russian. It was incomprehensible to everyone, even the Russians. It was some strange, alien language.

He liked to look up and grin at the chain. "A link! A link is cracked! A link in the chain is cracked! Da, da, let the iron that binds me to this horrid place please, deteriorate and corrode and be destroyed and fall away! A broken link, yes, crack! Crack, link, crack! Break, be destroyed. Come on! BREAK! BREAK, YOU STUPID LINK! BREEEEEEEEEEEEEAK! Aaaaaaaaah ha..."

The link was never cracked.

"Huh? What? Where am I? Am I dead? My God, what is my name? I know nothing! I have no memories, I have no knowledge. No, no, this is not happening...oh, God, someone help me. Curse this world, curse it and it's mercilessness"

Strebor hung his head and sobbed, causing the entire cage to shudder.

Though he desperately wished for a mirror, it was a stroke of luck that he did not have one. He would have seen the sallow skin and thin, collapsed cheeks, and the dirt that covered him in a cruel film.

He suddenly caught sight of ROBOT running across SkullDeep, as if he was being chased by some specter.

"Hey! ROBOT! Yes, you, ROBOT! Cut me down from here."

The cyborg slowed to a stop, and looked up at the doctor, suspicious.

"Who are you?" he barked.

"I'm that doctor, Doctor Goldenstein, remember? I killed Dr. Shriner. Please, help me, I'm lucid, I don't know how much longer this will last, please, help me!"

The cyborg narrowed his eyes, then snapped his fingers in remembrance. "Oh, yeah! You killed Dr. Shriner!"

"YES! NOW CUT ME DOWN!"

The cyborg leaped into the air, slashed open the cage, and safely lowered it to the ground. Strebor stumbled out, his legs weak and unstable.

"I need anti-psychosis pills before I descend into madness again. Please, hurry, hurry, please!"

The cyborg watched with superior amusement, like Strebor was a kitten scuttling around. "I'm Experimental now, by the way."

"Great! Now shut up, boy, and help me!"

Post #: 7

11/7/2011 21:43:59

Goldstein
Member

June 19th

Strebor kicked the lab's door open and ran in, ignoring Cram, who was trying to catch a loose duck. He noticed the haggard doctor and yelled, "Hey, what are you doing here?"

Experimental easily knocked Cram out with a precise strike to the back of the head. The big, malformed man fell to the floor, tipping over a wooden table covered in glass instruments and vials. The duck, which Experimental noticed had five eyes, escaped from the lab, squawking and flapping its wings. "What are you so desperate to find?" he asked as he glanced over the different experiments. Ever since Dr. Braun had been transferred, the lab had fallen into destitute and grime. Cram wasn't the most competent scientist.

"Anti-psychosis pills," Strebor said as he rummaged through the cupboards, throwing unwanted pill bottles over his shoulder. "I'm lucid but...but the headaches are already coming back." He shook his head, blinking rapidly. "Then I'll become psychotic again, and maybe this time I won't regain sanity...aha! Eureka, just what I wanted!" He seized a bottle of Omniverosa and shook out a few bright red tablets and swallowed them dryly. He instantly felt his vision become clearer.

"So you're good? Because, in case you haven't noticed, I'm being chased by Mr. Mavet's Human Resources." He seized a chair and blocked the door with it. "That won't last long."

"There's a secret passage for rapid escape in the event of a chemical spill. You don't remember?" Strebor glanced at the robot, who was looking up and down, the same curiosity, but no innocence.

"Remember what?"

Strebor narrowed his eyes. "You were here when I killed Dr. Shriner."

"Who?" Experimental arched an eyebrow. "What are you talking about?"

"Fascinating, it seems your memory is being erased before my very eyes. How interesting." The doctor grabbed all of the Omniverosa as he could and poured them into his pockets. "Regardless, this isn't the time or place to discuss such matters. We must make our escape. Now."

Experimental helped Strebor move the overturned lab table out of the way and when the rusty old door didn't open, Experimental punched it so hard, it flew off its hinges. A cold air greeted them as they descended into the stretching maw.

They walked for hours upon hours. It was very subtle, but Strebor could tell they were walking up a very shallow incline. Pipes lined the walls, and rats scurried across the floor. The utility passages for SkullDeep must not have been very deep in the ground, because Strebor could still hear the whispers of the villains above them.

"Why did you help me?" Strebor eventually worked up the courage to ask.

Experimental shrugged. "I don't know. You seem like a nice guy."

"Do you...do you remember Dr. Shriner? Or Dr. Braun?"

"No, should I?"

"Lord no, they're no one."

The passageway echoed with the sounds of toilets flushing and rats squeaking. "You're a doctor, right?" Experimental asked.

"...I guess. Why?"

"I have a problem. A big problem. I was out in Liberty City not too long ago, I can't recall why, exactly, it's a little fuzzy, but I remember her. She was on a bus and looked me right in the eyes as I walked past. She had short black hair pulled back in a ponytail and square glasses and a thin red mouth. She looked at me strangely. I think she might have transmitted some sort of virus to me wireless, because now whenever I think about her, my stomach feels weird, I get sweaty, and my knees become weak. I think she's an assassin, and to keep me from really retaining any details about her, she infected me with malware."

Strebor looked at the cyborg, a very scrunched up look on his face. "You're serious?" he asked, his voice trembling.

Experimental nodded his head.

"Oh my God..." Strebor ran a hand through his hair and giggled. "Oh God, you're in love! How...cute!"

His brow furrowed. "What' so funny about that? That sounds like a serious virus!"

"I just didn't think...a cyborg...oh Lord, how hilarious!" Strebor placed a hand on Experimental's shoulder. "Love is a feeling that one has whenever they care for someone else. You, my dear robot, have a crush, which, I suppose, is quite similar to a virus." For the first time in weeks, Strebor thought about Sarah, and his face fell. "I don't like love very much, but that;s not reason for me to condemn you to a life of unhappiness. In my doctoral opinion, you should find this girl and go on a date with her. As in, a dinner and a movie."

Experimental cocked his head, and stroked his chin. "Not a bad idea, actually. Not a bad idea at all."

Strebor smiled. He was glad that his isolation hadn't totally robbed him of his ability to help people.

Soon, the incline became steeper and steeper.

"We're close to the surface, listen," Strebor said. He held a finger to his lips and pointed upwards. The muffled voice of a guard could be heard.

Experimental scraped his claws together, as if they were two knives, but Strebor held up his hands. "I'll handle this," he whispered.

In one motion he kicked open the door and grabbed the guard from behind, covering his mouth with his hand. A green glow was emitted from his hands, and before Experimental could blink, the man had gone slack. Carefully, Strebor set him down on the ground.

Experimental looked on, amazed. Strebor looked up and smiled slightly. "Up in a cage by yourself, not much to do...I've knocked myself out a few times by accident doing that."

Strebor stood and breathed in the fresh air. Oddly enough, the utility passage opened up in a bright, grassy field about a mile outside of Liberty City. Things seemed bright and hopeful for Strebor. He bade Experimental good-bye, who flew into the air. The good doctor put his hands in his pockets and whistled a jaunty tune as he walked towards Liberty City, totally forgetting that he was a highly notorious hack. For a a brief hour, his mind was clear. Thank God.

Post #: 8

11/20/2011 22:58:00

Goldstein
Member

July 19th

The city seemed more cheerful to Strebor. Maybe it just seemed that way after so much time spent underground. Maybe the fact that he was sane and that the confusing nightmares and hallucinations had stopped made things more rose-colored. But regardless, the brick buildings and unscrupulous people seemed so wonderful, so precious. But he wasn’t going to let his newly-found freedom go to his head.. He had a plan.

He found the Department of Vigilante’s address in a phone book in a booth, and he went in, feeling confident, despite the contrast between the clean, modern government building and his filthy clothing.

“I’d like an application to register with the DOV, please,” he said sunnily to the shocked secretary.

“Uh…I’m going to need proof of powers, first. I can set up a demonstration date for you in three weeks, so please report…report…”

The secretary faltered as Strebor pulled his shirt over his head. There was a disgusting lesion on his shoulder. It dripped with pus and was inflamed.

“Sir, if you could please put your shirt back on, I-”

“Not just yet, watch.” Strebor placed a hand on the lesion, breathed in deeply, and concentrated. Just like in the cage. Concentrate, concentrate…

His hand began to glow, and it spread to his shoulder. The lesion quivered, and shrank, and shriveled up, and the scab that had caused him so much pain and discomfort just fell away. In its palace was smooth, normal skin.

Strebor let out a tremendous sigh of relief and put his shirt back on. “There we go, proof enough for you?”

The secretary, covering his nose with his tie, handed Strebor the application attached to a clipboard. Strebor bowed and took a seat on a couch in front of a big-screened TV next to a little old lady with her head wrapped up in a scarf.

“In other news, Strebor Goldenstein, the rogue scientist that has caused the deaths of thousands, is still at large. Authorities are now asking the public for any information they might have about his whereabouts. Any person that successfully leads the police to Goldenstein’s location will receive a $5,000 reward. Here is a the last photo taken of Goldenstein before he disappeared.”

An image of Strebor in his suit on the day of his dinner with Mr. Mavet popped up. It was blurry, like it was taken from a cell phone camera. He was laughing.

The old lady squinted at the photo, then at Strebor. Strebor smiled nervously. The old lady smacked her lips then turned back to the TV. He let out an internal sigh of relief.

Strebor looked down at his application, and erased his name. “Name, name…what should I use…”

He tapped his chin with the pen, then wrote, “No name, amnesia.” He smiled and continued, jotting down his height and weight (six feet one inch, and a mere 144 pounds.)

“Superhero name, good Lord, I hadn’t thought…”

“And now, an interview with OmniCorp’s CEO, Mr. Mavet, his first since his injury.”

The TV switched to that of Mr. Mavet in his typical suit, but there was a startling difference. The left side of his face was crumpled in, like a paper bag. His eye was bright red.

“OmniCorp will begin making payments to victims’ families by the end of this month. It is the least we can do over the horrors we helped create. And while some say no matter what we do, we can never make the deaths of those that used the LEECH okay, we can do our best to make things just a little better. OmniCorp has also hired twelve different private investigators to track down Strebor Goldenstein. We will bring ‘Dr. Knox’ as the public has dubbed him, to justice.”

Mr. Mavet looked right into the camera’s lens and said, with a tinge of smug satisfaction, “We will find you, Mr. Goldenstein. Bank on that.”

Dr. Knox, Strebor thought in his head, the doctor that bought bodies from Burke and Hare. How nice. Better than Jack the Ripper, I suppose…I’ll show them what kind of doctor I’ll be…

In the “superhero” name field, Strebor wrote, “Surgeon General,” and he felt embarrassed to choose such a corny name, but no matter! It would be a title he'd wear proudly. He completed the rest of the paper and gave it to the secretary.

“Very well then, Surgeon General, after your sanitization, you may select your costume and your ID should be ready,” the secretary said as he filed the paper away.

“That’s the only reason I’m doing this, actually, for an ID,” Strebor said coyly as he pushed through the door marked, “Sanitization.”

The secretary sucked his teeth and went back to reading his magazine.

The Sanitization Room was nothing but a very long hallway with hoses on either side. Strebor placed his clothing in the garbage bin, and hoping that no one was watching, walked through the hallway, naked.

“Welcome Surgeon General!” someone said over the intercom. “I hope you enjoy being scrubbed clean!”

Strebor just gulped as he covered himself and continued down the hallway.

There was a loud hissing, and the hoses shot out scalding jets of water, accompanied by a cloud of soap and bubbles.

“Oh God, it hurts, it hurts!” Strebor howled.

“That’s just the forceful removal of dead skin cells!”

“Still hurts!”

The water suddenly cut off, and Strebor was left dripping and shivering, hugging himself. “Please proceed to the exit where a towel will be waiting for you.”

Strebor wrapped the towel around his waist and left that awful place, and found himself in could have been a very fancy clothing store. Instead of suits, there were capes, and instead of silk, there was spandex. Not sure where exactly to go, Strebor wandered over to the Men’s section.

He found a very nice white apron covered in pockets and some very comfortable black rubber gloves that came up to his elbows. White button down shirt, black tie, brown slacks, black loafers…Strebor took them all and eagerly made his way for the dressing room.

“Clothes make the man. I suppose this is a way to remake the man,” Strebor said cheerfully as he came out, looking very snazzy. He spotted the Mask section and hurried over.

There were domino masks, leather masks, monkey masks, John F. Kennedy masks, skeleton masks, all sitting on a mannequin’s head in neat little rows.

“Gaudy…tawdry…ridiculous…” Strebor muttered to himself as he walked down the aisle, his hands clasped behind his back.

Then he saw it. A plague doctor mask, birdlike and pearly white, its beak short and its glasses dark red. It was just like out of the old medical textbooks he used to read. Feeling a little like a kid that had just found the perfect toy, Strebor snatched up the mask and placed it on his face. It fit perfectly.

“Your ID, Surgeon General,” a young woman said as Strebor walked out. It didn’t have his picture, but it had his DNA code. They must have taken a sample during the sanitization process. Sneaky buggers. “Also, the post office sent over all your uncollected mail. In the future, you’ll receive mail here.”

Strebor accepted the big bundle of envelopes with a smile that he realized couldn’t be seen, so he nodded instead.

He stepped into the cold night air (as it had taken him a few hours to reach the city) and thumbed through the different items.

“Bill…bill, bill, nothing but bills…ah, some letters from Mom and Dad. They must be worried sick about me. I’ll open them later. Now, let’s see what’s in this box.”

He tore it open and was filled with confusion. It was his father’s pistol, a Makarov, the one he had been issued when he joined the Soviet military. It was very valuable to him…why had he…

There was a note tied to the handle. With trembling hands, Strebor read the following.

“Dear Strebor Goldenstein,
I am Dr. Morrow. I was your parent’s caretaker in their final days. I am unsure if you already know this or not, as you have not responded to any of their letters, but if not, let me say, I am sorry for your loss.

Your father died of a brain tumor on May 3rd, and his funeral was a few weeks later. We waited as long as we could, but you never arrived, so we buried him. Your mother died a few days after the funeral from a stroke. I once again tried to stall the funeral, but you never answered any of my letters. She was buried on June 6th.

I send this to you now as your father explicitly told me for you to have this. Neither of your parents had wills, so the rest of their possessions are tied up in the legal system now.

I hope this package reaches you, and once again, I am sorry for your loss.

Sincerely, Demetri Morrow”

Strebor stopped in his tracks as he read the letter again. And again. And again. He couldn’t wrap his mind around it. His parents were dead. And he didn’t even get to go to the funerals. He didn’t even get to console them. He didn’t even get to be with them as they breathed their last breath. The weight fell on him like an anvil.

Very far away, Strebor heard a soft voice say, “Give me your money and you won’t get shot.” What it was saying was unimportant when compared to his grief. He ignored it.

Suddenly, he felt a sharp pain in his stomach, and as he hit the ground, he heard the sounds of footsteps, running, fade away. Tears began to leek from his eyes. And it took all of the willpower in his body, all of his logic and reason to place his hand over the wound and heal himself, and not let himself die, right then and there.

< Message edited by Goldstein -- 11/27/2011 21:28:56 >

Post #: 9

11/27/2011 21:25:12

Goldstein
Member

July 20th

The morning light was harsh and burned Strebor's eyes, but that wasn't going to stop him from leaving the hotel as soon as possible. He had stumbled in, not entirely aware of his surroundings, late last night. Somehow the very irritable clerk managed to extract the correct amount of money from Strebor, and show him to his room, and without any encouragement Strebor flopped down on the bed, asleep.

When he awoke, he found himself lying on moth-eaten sheets that were soaked. He thought something had spilled, but then he realized the wet spot was only around his face. He had been crying as he slept. The walls were tired and peeling, and the shower spit out more dirt than it did clean water, but Strebor made the best of it. He thought about shaving, but decided no one would see the stubble under his mask.

There was a phone book in the nightstand, and Strebor flipped to the "B" section. There was just one listing for Berkeley. He ripped the page out and stuffed it into a pocket, hoping the ten-year old phone book was still accurate.

APB's roamed the streets. They always made Strebor nervous. Were they watching you? Was someone watching you through them? Who knew? They always seemed to be staring at him, and a few times, Strebor swore that he caught them staring at him even as he passed by them.

People told him that the days of human police officers were better, but Strebor didn't know. He had arrived in Liberty City after the Aurora Park Conflict. He hadn't witnessed the carnage of the Chaos Riots. He hadn't been present when the Department of Vigilantes was created and the REI Bill was passed.

Sarah lived at Perennial Orchid Apartments, a gleaming complex that had survived the riots. It was one of the few places left in Liberty City that still had doormen, and the one on duty that day stopped Strebor before he could enter.

"Oi, mate, do you live here?" the doorman said, stepping in front of the glass double doors. He was very smartly dressed, in a freshly pressed vest and shiny loafers.

"Uh, no. I'd like to see someone, though," Strebor said humbly.

The doorman cupped a hand to his ear and said, "Say again mate? You're too muffled."

"I'm a guest of one of the visitors," Strebor repeated loudly. "Sarah Berkeley? She lives here, right?"

"Berkeley? That old dodger? He has kin? I'm surprised. Yeah, you can see him. What's your name?"

Strebor nervously fiddled at the pocket where his DOV ID rested. "Real name, or...?"

"DOV name'll be fine, thanks mate."

"Surgeon General."

"Oight." The doorman held a walkie-talkie to his lips and yelled, "Hey, Berkeley! There's a Surgeon General here to see ya. Want me to let him in?”

The answer sounded hesitant. “A…Surgeon General?” Strebor’s heart skipped a beat. He wasn’t going to get in. “Yes, I’d like to see him. Send him up.”

“Tenth floor, room 213. Good day,” the doorman said, shifting out of Strebor’s way. The doctor nodded and pushed through the door, his heart still beating erratically. Maybe it was a mistake to be here.

The tenth floor’s hallways were empty.
“That’s good,” muttered Strebor. “I like this mask and all, but…there’s a problem if you’re embarrassed by your costume and your superhero. I dunno…ah, 213.”

He knocked three times, and he could hear movement inside.

“I’ll get it,” sang out a woman’s voice, and the door swung open, revealing Sarah Berkeley.

She had changed. Her hair was a little longer, more curly, and she had on a form-fitting hoody with gray and white stripes. Odd, she usually liked to wear colorful things, Strebor thought. But then again, time does march on, and I fell out of step.

“Who are you?” Sarah asked cautiously.

“…oh! The mask! Silly me.” With a quick tug Strebor pulled the mask back so that it rested on the top of his hair.

She didn’t respond right away. Her eyes narrowed, the way they do whenever she was trying to remember on the edge of her tongue, and then her eyes got very, very big.

“Oh my God…Strebor?”

In the most wonderful display of awkwardness ever, Strebor attempted to hug her, then thought better of it and instead started swinging his arms back and forth. “Hello, Sarah. You look nice.”

“You look like crap.”

“I know. May I come in?”

She opened the door a little wider, then stopped. “Wait…why should I? You’re one of the most wanted men in Liberty City! I’m calling the police right now.”

“Why on Earth would you do that?” an old man said as he shuffled by in a dark purple tracksuit. “Sarah, where are your manners? Invite this Surgeon General in right now, I’d like to hear what he has to say.”

Her eyes never changing, Sarah sulkily allowed Strebor to pass by. She slammed the door hard enough to rattle the frame.

So far, so good, Strebor thought ruefully as the old man led Strebor through a prestigious apartment and into an airy kitchen with an ornate wooden table and sleek granite countertops.

“So, Surgeon General,” the old man said as he dropped a tea bag into a boiling pot of water, “you wish to speak with me? I’d like to know you’re real name.”

“He’s Strebor Goldenstein,” Sarah said coldly. “That guy I used to date.”

The old man turned from the pot, his brow furrowed. “You created the LEECH, right? The one that killed thousands?”

“Yes, yes I did,” Strebor said quickly, “But the mechanism that caused the deaths, I…discovered it before the LEECHs were shipped I tried to stop OmniCorp, but they kidnapped me before I could tell anyone.”

“You honestly expect us to believe that crap?” Sarah cut in. “I know you think I’m stupid, Strebor, but for the love of God-”

“I’m not lying! If I wanted to murder everyone with the LEECH, do you think I would have let this happen?”

Strebor tore his gloves off and held them up for all to see. The soft yellow light accentuated the red arteries and veins, the few spots where bone was visible seemed old and worn. “Not very attractive, are they?” Strebor said, sounding like he was on the verge of tears.

The old man poured a cup of tea and handed it to Strebor. “I’m convinced. It’s Earl Gray, very nice.”

“Thank you,” he said, taking the cup without putting his gloves back on.

“Sarah, would you like a cup?”

She shook her head, her arms crossed tightly across her chest.

“Suit yourself. Call me Mr. Berkeley. Now, Mr. Goldenstein, what is it that you have to say?”

Strebor took a long sip of the tea. The hot liquid burned a little, but he was grateful for its taste. There was still a lingering hint of ash in his mouth from his time in captivity.

“I was kidnapped by Mr. Mavet, the CEO of OmniCorp, when I threatened to tell everyone about the LEECHs. They forced me to improve the technology of the LEECH, and I did…but eventually I snapped, and they kept me locked in a cage. For weeks I went without human contact, and I went a little crazy. Then a lovesick cyborg helped me escape, then I registered with the DOV, and then I found out that my parents had died while I was locked up, so really, what I want to say is…can I maybe stay here for a while until I can secure a job?”

Sarah and Mr. Berkeley exchanged looks of sheer astonishment. You could hardly blame them. His fantastic tale contrasted sharply with the casualness win which he told it.

“Of, uh, of course you may stay. I have a guest room. If anyone should ask, what name shall I give them?”

"No one is going to be calling for me, trust me."

The old man titled his head, then shrugged and shuffled off. With a sigh of resignation Sarah motioned for Strebor to follow her.

The room was contemporarily decorated. The bed had a dull grey metal frame and white sheets and pillow. The carpet was a plush white and there was a single black nightstand with a lamp of the same color.

“I like it. Better than the dorms at Pood,” Strebor said happily as he wandered in. Inside the closet were pressed white shirts and black trousers and shoes. “Does your grandfather want me to move these out of here, or…?”

“Those clothes belonged to my brother. You can have them.”

“Really?” Strebor held up on of the shirts to the light, then ducked his head under it. “Are you sure he won’t mind?”

Her smile was sad. “Yeah. I haven’t seen him in ten years.”

“Oh. Then yeah, I guess he won’t be complaining.” Very carefully Strebor placed the shirt back on its hanger and sat down on the bed next to Sarah. She sighed.
“You’ve changed a lot,” she said.

Strebor gazed out the big window that offered a view of the city with the OmniCorp building. “Doesn’t change the fact that I was a jerk to you before I…left. I remember, what little I do remember, during ,my imprisonment, is missing my old life.”

“So you’re with the DOV now, ‘Surgeon General?’” she asked as she scooped his ID out of his pocket.

“Yeah. They keep an eye on me, and I can get away with a lot of different crimes. So long as I’m pursuing a bad guy.”

Sarah shot him a side-long glance. “Are you actually going to be a superhero?”

Such a simple question. Yes or no. But the consequences were unfathomable. “Maybe. I don’t know yet. The shock of losing both my parents hasn’t set in yet, not really…I’m, I’m going to just play it by ear.”

They were both very quiet, thinking, when they heard a commotion downstairs. Someone was running, and Mr. Berkley was hollering, “You can’t go in there!”

The door swung open, and Strebor rose to his feet. Experimental, looking very bruised and very tired, stood in the doorframe. His hair was wild, and he was panting like a dog.

“Dr. Strebor? What are you doing, ah, never mind, it doesn’t matter. There are people with guns, from OmniCorp, right behind me. That’s, that’s kind of my fault. Sorry.”

< Message edited by Goldstein -- 11/30/2011 18:38:07 >

Post #: 10

12/2/2011 16:20:03

Goldstein
Member

July 20th

“What are you talking about?” Strebor demanded. “People with guns? How did you find me?”

Experimental flopped down on the bed, clutching where his heart, if he were human, would have been. His breathing was labored and strained. Twigs poked out of his hair, and his face was covered in scratches. “I didn’t mean to lead them to you,” he said in between pants, “but I thought I had lost them, and I wanted to get off the streets. Maybe they didn’t see me…”

The sounds of helicopter blades was suddenly heard outside the window. “This is the SCPD! If you are capable of communicating, rogue AI, then come out with your hands up! We will shoot if you do not comply!”

Experimental looked at Strebor, weary, and said, “Rogue AI? Where do they get these ideas?”

“SCPD? I thought you said that OmniCorp was after you, not the cops,” Sarah said, peeking out the window. A sleek black helicopter circled the building. It had an OmniCorp logo on the tail.

“They’re working together. Do you really think the SCPD can afford a helicopter? They’re going to go nuts when they find out that you’re here, Strebor.”

The doctor ran his hands through his hair. Luckily, none of the skin flaked off. “What do I do, what do I do…Experimental can you still fly?”

“Well, yeah.” He twisted his head over his shoulder and inspected his jetpack. “There’s only a few bullets in there.”

“Take Sarah somewhere safe. I’ll stay here and try and maybe explain everything,” he said, adjusting the plague doctor mask so that he had as much peripheral vision as possible.

Sarah jumped up, her face flushed. “You’re crazy if you think I’m going to just let you explain everything? Might as well walk out there with a target on my chest! If anything, Papa will settle everything, no problem.”

Something fell and broke in the hallway outside the room, and Mr. Berkley yelled out, “Unhand me, unhand me you brute! I am the CEO of Granddad’s Grocers, you can’t gag me, I’m-mrghfh!”

There was a sickening smack of flesh against flesh, and what sounded like a body hitting the floor.

“Find the robot, and kill it, and anything else that gets in the line of fire,” rumbled a deep, gravely voice.

“Wait a minute, we can’t just kill people! We’re the cops, not murderers!”

A gunshot rang out, and another body hit the ground.

“Anyone that gets in the line of fire,” the voice repeated stonily.

Everyone looked at one another, and they each had the same look of paralyzed fear.

“Can you carry all of us?” Strebor asked Experimental.

He rubbed his brow, his hand shaking. Even in some insane recess of his brain, Strebor was vastly impressed at how realistic the cyborg recreated emotions.

“I can try,” he said, not very encouragingly. “It’s better than trying to fight. Bedrooms are terrible places to fight.”

“How would you know?” Strebor asked skeptically as he opened the window.

Experimental the cyborg narrowed his eyes, wrinkled his forehead, then shrugged and grabbed Sarah’s and Strebor’s wrists. His claws did not chop their hands off, as Strebor had feared.

A look of terror crossed Sarah’s face. “Hold on, you’re going to carry us by our wrists? How is that safe, like, at all?”

Two shotgun blasts blew the bedroom’s door off its hinges. Wooden splinters showered the trio.

“Just fly!” yelled Sarah, and Experimental was more than happy to oblige.

At first it acted as if it wasn’t going to work, but after a spell of coughing and wheezing and spitting out some smoke, the jetpack burst to life. Before either Sarah or Strebor could request a countdown before liftoff, Experimental shot out of the room like a missile.

“Please slow down!” Strebor yelled about the whistling of the wind.

“There is no slow down!” Experimental yelled back.

The helicopter took notice of the very odd aircraft, and pursued. “Land, or we will open fire!”

Sarah yelled out an expletive at the helicopter, and it seemed impossible that the pilot could hear her, but the machine guns opened fire as soon as the curse word left her lips. Bullets zipped past inaccurately, but the dual mini-guns were pumping out enough lead, eventually, one of them would find their target.

“Hold on tight, time to see how good I am at evasive maneuvers!” Experimental said as he dove down, hurtling towards the ground, then swerving back and forth in a zigzag manner.

“Bad idea! Very bad idea!” yelled Strebor nervously.

The helicopter stayed above the skyline, but they continued to fire. The bullets ripped into the pavement and obliterated vehicles. No one was out on the streets or in a car after the first one erupted into a gigantic fireball.

“Explosive rounds, are you kidding me?” Sarah said. “Get us inside, somewhere!”

Experimental squinted, then said, relieved, “A parking garage! Thank God!”

The jetpack started vibrating as it increased speed. The parking garage was getting closer and closer and bigger and bigger, and it looked like the space they were aiming at wasn’t wide enough to fit them all, and-

“OH CRAAAAAAP!” screamed Strebor at the top of his lungs.

Then Experimental safely landed next to a SUV, gently setting the two terrified humans down. The helicopter was nowhere to be seen.

With a flourish Sarah clapped her hands together and said giddily, “That went better than expected! And here I thought we’d all die and end up as a skid mark on the asphalt!”

Out of nowhere, the helicopter appeared from below, its mini-guns spinning. The glass in front of the passenger side had a bullet hole and blood smeared. The pilot did not like he was from the police. The corpse next to him did.

“C’est la vie, you bits of trash!” the pilot said gleefully, and he squeezed the mini-guns’ trigger.

No bullets ever touched our three heroes, though. From below, like a crack of lightning, an angel hit the bottom of the helicopter and pushed it and its mini-guns upwards. No, not an angel, just a man with angel wings.

That insane part of his brain told Strebor how insane that thought was. Just a man with angel wings indeed.

There was a loud screeching as the helicopter desperately attempted to regain a proper position, and then, an explosion. An explosion that shook concrete and sent down a rain of cement chips and dust.

No one said anything. The resulting silence was suffocating. Then the angel-man appeared, his hair and face stained with grease.

“You guys are good guys, right?” he asked. “Because the creepy bird mask is throwing me off.”

“It’s a plague doctor mask,” Strebor answered shakily.

The angel-man grinned, his smile dazzling compared to his dirty face. “No indignant rebuttal. Okay, that’s good. You guys are good guys. So that helicopter I just blew up, it was a bad guy, right?”

“The pilot was,” Experimental said. “And you are a what guy? Good, bad, chaotic?”

The angel-man grinned wider and stuck out his hand. “Good. Name’s Celestin. And you guys are…?”

“Experimental.”

“S-Sarah.”

“Uh, The Surgeon General.”

There was another long silence, that eventually cumulated into everyone save Strebor breaking out into laughter.

“Surgeon General?” Celestin asked as he wiped tears from his eyes. “You’re kidding, right?”

Strebor was grateful that the mask hid his bright blushing. “Well, no.”

Celestin shook his head good-naturedly and walked to the edge of the garage. “Okay, well, glad I could help you guys. Ever need some more, just give me a holler, Drakkoniss knows me.”

He flew off, his wings fully extended. Strebor stepped to the edge and gulped. The view of Super City was a scene from Hell.

A man in dark metallic armor and spiky red hair flew past, chasing a hot air balloon with a sloppy clown face painted on it. The flying machine seemed to be going far too fast. A man with tentacles sprouting from his head was running away from a smoking bank, big bags full of money in each hand as he was chased by a man who was shooting tornadoes and ice shards at him. A massive alligator was snapping and biting at a big group of police officers that had cornered it against a butcher’s shop. Another man that was but a shadow was leaping from rooftop to rooftop, just for the fun of it. A few more characters, indistinguishable, moving so fast, chased after the shadow. They might have been females.

In the distance, a siren sounded.

“Everything all right?” Experimental asked from behind.

“I never did like comic books,” was all Strebor could say.

< Message edited by Goldstein -- 12/2/2011 16:23:49 >

Post #: 11

12/10/2011 23:22:49

Goldstein
Member

*Chronicler’s note: Mysteriously, all OmniCorp records on Dr. Strebor Ovan Goldenstein have been erased. I was able to save the few entries I had already copied, however. To further this narrative, I will be using the diaries of Dr. Goldenstein, which were donated anonymously. I will present these diary entries without any modifications, as opposed to the previous chapters, which I had to adapt from surveillance transcripts to fit the narrative style of this memoir.*

July 20th

Drakkoniss said to start a diary, so, I guess I’ll start with today. I just hope I get all the dialogue right. My memory kind of sucks, and, well, that’s not important.

“Twenty dollars says that alligator destroys that cop car with its tail.”

“No way.”

A police officer fired his shotgun at the creature, and it didn’t do anything except make it angrier. It roared and swung its tail. The cop had to dive out of the way to avoid the deadly weapon. It instead smashed into the patrol car, shattering the glass and crumpling the frame.

I reluctantly dug twenty dollars out of his pocket and handed it to Sarah.

We were sitting on the edge of the parking garage, our legs hanging over the railing. We were unsure what exactly to do after avoiding death by helicopter. So Experimental suggested they just sit down and rest.

Sarah and I were quick to agree.

“So the cops are dirty,” Sarah said after some time.

“Yup,” I said plainly.

“At least, the people they’re working with are. You saw that the pilot had killed the cop next to him, right?”

“Yup.”

“Doesn’t make their actions any more excusable,” grumbled Experimental.

“Yup.”

The fact of the matter was, I was too busy to really hear what they were saying. I was watching this one superhero, a guy with spiky red hair and pale white skin chase a hot air balloon around the city’s skies. The balloon would always somehow speed up and evade the hero’s grasp. They were playing a game of cat and mouse at three thousand feet.

The hero suddenly stopped, and flew over to our little spot. He landed next to us, his chest heaving.

“Cu-curse you Clown the Jester,” he was mumbling, “Curse you and your vexing little toy.”

Experimental noticed our guest and waved. “Hello there!”

The hero glanced at us, his eyebrows raised above his dark shades. “Hello to you,” he said eventually. “What are you three doing here?”

“Oh, we’re just taking a break, after nearly getting killed by a helicopter, you know?” Sarah said mockingly.

“You were the ones Celestin saved? Okay, good, nice to meet you. I’m Drakkoniss.”

There was a pause, and he looked at us expectantly. The silence dragged on and on, and Sarah and I awkwardly exchanged looks.

“Name doesn’t ring a bell?” he said finally. “No matter, I don’t expect everyone in the city to know my name. Sarah and Strebor are college students, and your stress levels indicate that exams are coming around.”

“Well, technically, I’m a teacher’s assistant,” Sarah began, but Drakkoniss cut her off.

“And the robot seems to have had his memory wiped clean. So you aren’t being rude. That’s good. Mind introducing yourself to me?”

“I’m Experimental! And-”

“And how the heck do you know our names?” I said angrily.

The hero shrugged and took a seat next to me. “I’m telepathic. I don’t like invading people’s privacy, but information like names are on the fringe on the mind.”

The sun caught his sword, and it nearly blinded me with its shininess. Then I realized that this guy must know exactly who I was. What I had done.

“You’re fine, Doctor,” he said before I could say anything, “I see that you pose no threat to this city.”

An alarm went off on my watch. It went off every two hours. “I’m glad you can see I’m not some villain,” I said as I unscrewed the top of my Omniverosa bottle. “I’m not a mad doctor, I just got bullied by a corporation.”

I lifted the mask so that it sat on my forehead, and I popped two pills into my mouth. They were dry and gross, but that was a very minor inconvenience when compared to what might happen if I didn’t take my medication.

Drakkoniss studied the pill bottle very closely. “That’s Omniverosa, the psychotic medication, yes?”

“Yeah, why?” I asked, dropping the medicine back into its pocket.

“It’s for mental psychosis,” he said flatly.

“Uh, yeah, is that a problem?” Sarah asked.

Drakkoniss looked from me, to the hot air balloon, which was currently making figure 8’s in the sky, then back to me.

“Peculiar,” was all he said.

Sarah rubbed her eyes and turned to Experimental. “Can you take me home now? My grandpa is still tied up, I bet.”

“Sure!” the robot said, and his jetpack rattled to life. He took Sarah by the hand, and reached his claw out to me. “You coming Strebor?”

“Actually, I’d like to talk to Strebor in private,” Drakkoniss said without moving his head. He was still watching that balloon.

I nodded and winked. Unwillingly, Experimental slowly rose into the air and disappeared above me, Sarah in his arms.

“I doubt a relationship with her would go well,” Drakkoniss said.

I chose to ignore that and asked what he wanted to talk about.

He sighed. “Insanity is one of the main roots of evil on this Earth,” he said. “There’s Clown the Jester, and his entire Chaos Carnival. Star Screamer and is ilk. There’s that Agent Syrena, and there’s Swamp Croc, and Nerconmicus. Celestin hears voices, and he can barely maintain his pledge to the side of good. And you, you suffer from hallucinations, you’ve been wronged by everyone and everything, yet you control your insanity, and you still want to do good. That’s…admirable.”

“What exactly are you getting at?” I asked. It sounded unnecessarily rude.

He stared at me, and I saw my pre-maturely aged face reflected back at me. “I want to train you. Personally. Professor Smash’s Academy is backlogged. And I think you need immediate guidance if you’re ever going to become a full-fledged superhero.”

He rose to his feet, and offered me his hand.

I do want to become a superhero, right? I thought to myself. What exactly was the alternative? I already had a DoV ID.

“Alright, let’s go,” I said, taking his hand.

*Chronicler’s note: The following was taken from a recording recovered from ROBOT (Realistic Operating Build for Organic Targets)’s concealed camera, microphone, and Mental Sonar. The Mental Sonar is a remarkable device that interprets one’s thoughts. It seems ROBOT was unaware of it’s presence. I have adapted the recording as I have seen fit.*

Experimental softly glided through the window. The day was late, and the air was cold, and Sarah had asked him to fly slowly. It was almost eight o’clock when they arrived.

The bedroom had been thoroughly destroyed. The mattress was thrown against the wall, the nightstand was smashed, all of the clothes on the floor.

“Hello, hello, Grandpa?” Sarah called out. She opened the door, and found him propped by against the wall, tied up, snoring softly. Making as little sound as she could, she retrieved a kitchen knife, cut him free, and carried him to his bed. Hopefully, the raw, red marks on his arms would go away. She would ask Strebor to look at them later.

I’m already starting to like him again, she thought to herself. I can’t let that happen. She sighed and smoothed her hair, feeling exasperated.

Sarah found Experimental carefully placing the mattress back onto the bed frame. When she entered the room, he looked up and smiled and let the mattress drop from his claws.

“Sarah! Can I talk to you?”

“Talk? About what?” she asked.

“Oh, about this problem I have. Strebor already spoke about it a little, but I need more advice.”

Sarah bent down and started picking up pieces of broken glass.

Experimental took her silence as permission to continue. “Well, there’s this girl, and I think I might be in…love with her?”
The “L-word” sounded foreign in his mouth.

“And Strebor said I should go on a date with her. The more I think about it, the more I don’t want to do it.”

Sarah looked up, a strand of hair in her face. “Get to the point, robot.”

“Well, what would you suggest I do on this…date? What do I say? How do I ask her?”

The glass shattered when it hit the bottom of the trashcan. “Okay, watch her. Whenever she goes into a bar or coffee shop, follow her in and buy her and yourself something to drink. You drink right? Whatever. Start talking, and ask her to a movie. Something you’ll both like. Then, everything that follows will be natural.”

“Is that how Strebor met you?” he asked innocently.

“Ha, yeah. He even told me he had been watching me. It was creepy at first, but when I realized he wasn’t creepy, just, uncomfortable with that kind of stuff.”

“Yeah,” Experimental said with a chuckle, “he told me that love was like a virus. Funny, right?”

Sarah sucked on her teeth and started throwing her brother’s clothes back into the closet, all landing in a pile.

“He hasn’t changed a bit, and he never will, that pompous, pig-headed, chauvinistic, conniving son of a-”

“Sarah! Language!” Experimental said. He sighed, and walked over to the window. He knocked the few remaining pieces of sharp glass out of the window and climbed out so that he was stooped on the perch, like a metallic bird.

“Hey, wait a minute, Experimental?”

He hopped around, and cocked his head, and the bird simile only strengthened. “Yeah?”

“Can you, uh, can you…bring me something?”

“Like what?”

Sarah put her hands on her hips and blew the strand of hair out of her face. “It’s uhm, an, uhm, a rapier. I’ve always wanted to learn how to fence. So, could you pick one up for me?”

Experimental, either being nice or naïve, didn’t ask any questions. He just smiled and nodded and flew off.

Oh, I’m an idiot, she thought as she sat down on the bare mattress, ripped up and spilling out fuzz, realizing just how absurd her plan was.

Post #: 12

12/16/2011 19:04:16

Goldstein
Member

*Continuation of Strebor’s previous diary entry*
July 20th

Drakkoniss had to carry me all the way to his place. It was kind of embarrassing, to tell the truth. I’ve seen stores with jetpacks in the windows. I’ll have to buy one of those. The idea of being chauffeured everywhere by the closest hero with the ability of flight wasn’t very appealing.

Drakkoniss landed in a back alleyway behind a gym. He took off his armor and dropped it into a trashcan. Oddly, it didn’t seem to make a noise when it hit the bottom. He had on some clothes underneath, a polo shirt and some jeans, and in one hand he held a cane. His wings managed to retract so tightly that it simply looked like he had a slight hunchback. The dragon mark on his face faded almost completely way.

“It’s a disguise,” he said in response to my questioning looks. “I’m not really blind, but most people assume I am when I stumble around with a cane and sunglasses.”

“But of course,” I said.

We walked around front and entered the “Bruce and Clark’s Super Facility.” It was kind of grubby, with a dusty tile floor and walls with faded paint. The receptionist was a guy in a tank top with a towel around his neck.

“Here to use the sauna, Drake?” he asked gruffly.

“Yes, Dan. Why else would I come here?”

He snorted and flicked a page of his magazine. “Who’s your weirdo friend?”

Drakkoniss glanced me over and said simply, “An associate from Europe. He’s visiting.”

“Privet,” I said, using my rusty Russian to my advantage.

“You sure do have lots of visiting associates from Europe, Drake. Go ahead in.”

Drakkoniss nodded and gestured for me to follow. I could feel Dan’s eyes bore into me as we left him to his magazine.

The gym looked very mundane, not the kind of place one would expect to be the training place for Super City’s smashers. People ran on treadmills and lifted weights, and they all nodded at Drakkoniss.

In the back was a door with a little sign that read, “Sauna.” Drakkoniss patted the door very convincingly. If I hadn’t known better, I would have marked him as blind. He eventually found the sign and flipped it over, revealing the words, “In Use,” in bright red letters.

“After you,” he said as he opened the door.
The sauna was equally mundane. Varnished wood, a bench, a little fireplace in the middle.

“What are you getting at? I don’t appreciate people wasting my time, Drakkoniss. Where’s this training area?” I asked, my voice more harsh than I had intended.

Drakkoniss just chuckled and pressed a button labeled “Steam.”

There was a soft hissing sound, but instead of steam, the floor slowly began to sink into the ground. The varnished wood gave way to steel walls.

“An elevator, hidden in the sauna room,” I said aloud. “That’s brilliant.”

“We try,” he said with a shrug. He lifted one of the seats and there was his suit of metallic armor. He pulled it on, and let his wings relax and expand. The mark on his face regained its intense blackness.

The floor finally stopped, and the steel wall slid open. I walked forward, astonished.

Everything was dull white. The walls, the ceiling, the floors. People in fantastic costumes ran back and forth, carrying weapons and papers and dangerous looking creatures. I couldn’t find the light source.

“Welcome to the DoV’s official sanctioned headquarters for smashers on Super City. We like to call it the Treehouse. HeroSpire is all shiny, but when something bad is happening, it’s better to be under Super City than 5,000 feet above it.”

“It’s…beautiful,” I said, numb. It was too much to process at once.

“Better than SkullDeep?” Drakkoniss asked, no emotion in his voice.

“Just a little, yeah…wait. Wait, what?” I turned around and stared at Drakkoniss, who had his hands clasped calmly behind his back. “How do you know I had ever been to SkullDeep?”

He just shrugged and passed by me, assuming I would follow. He assumed correctly.

“Okay, but seriously, stop being so stoic and tell me, how do you know about SkullDeep?” I asked angrily, having to run to keep up with him.

“I am a mind-reader. At least, that is one of the many powers I possess,” he said. “I don’t like to investigate people’s minds, but you are the notorious Doctor Strebor Ovan Goldenstein, the Dr. Knox, the Dr. Meangle. I had to probe your mind to make sure you weren’t this monster. You aren’t.”

“Well, thanks, but I could have told you that,” I said, feeling a little less angry but a lot more wary of my new friend.

“I’m sure. But enough talk, we are here.” Drakkoniss pushed open a white door, the last on the right of a very long hallway.

It was a dojo, a Japanese dojo. It was empty except for two, Celestin, the man with angel wings that had come to the rescue earlier, and a young woman with wavy black hair. She wore form-fitting blue armor.

“Hey Drakkoniss! Who’s your friend?” the girl, lowering a big anvil to the ground that I guess she was moving around with her mind.

“Aren’t you the Surgeon General guy? Getting chased by the helicopter, right?” Celestin asked.

“I am,” I said, placing my hands in my pockets.

“Surgeon General? Why not Strebor?” Drakkoniss asked.

Celestin’s eyes narrowed, then they got very big. “Strebor? The Strebor? The doctor guy that killed thousands? You’re that guy?”

He lifted his hand into the air, and I did the same. It felt like I was being lifted by a rope that had been tied around my neck.

“Celestin…” Drakkoniss said, sounding bored. “Please don’t kill the good doctor. He hasn’t done anything wrong.”

“In case you haven’t forgotten, this guy’s invention killed thousands! How is he no different than Clown?” Jae asked indignantly.

“Because he did not do it willingly.”

The rope felt like it was getting tighter and tighter. “Uh, guys?” I managed to choke out. “Please don’t kill me.”

Celestin looked from me to Drakkoniss, then back to me, then back to Drakkoniss. He curled his lip, and let his hand fall to his side.

“AAAH!” I yelled as I plummeted to the ground. I landed on my butt, and I knew immediately I wouldn’t be sitting for at least a few weeks.

“Next time, don’t be so quick to kill me,” I said to Celestin, my voice still raspy.

He snorted.

I stood up and straightened my tie. It was a little unsettling that Celestin reacted so violently and so…hastily to finding out my identity. It kind of worries me. How will other people react?

“Now, Strebor, what exactly is your power?” Jae asked, at least trying to be a little civil.

“Well, my hands emit this weird kind of energy that can heal people, or knock them out,” I said, sounding a little shy.

Jae nodded, then walked over to a weapons rack, selected a long mahogany staff, and tossed it to me.

“It absorbs energy and amplifies it,” she explained as I tested its weight. “A lot of heroes that emit energy like yours tire pretty easily, so that staff will make it a little easier. Neat, huh?”

I studied the engraving of a snake into the wood. “The Rod of Asclepius,” I said. “Everyone thinks that caduceus is the Greek symbol of medicines, but it’s for the salesman.”

I was reminded painfully of Mr. Mavet. I pushed the memory out of my head. “Okay, so how exactly do I train with this?”

Drakkoniss, Jae and Celestin all exchanged knowing smiles. I gulped.

They stood me against a padded wall as they stood in a row about twenty feet away. Each had a bin of baseballs next to them.

“Try to either dodge them or knock them out of the way,” Drakkoniss called out. “Are you ready?”

“No!” I said, clutching the staff with both hands, my knees trembling.

“Villains aren’t going to ask you if you’re ready,” Celestin said. “Heads up!”

*Chronicler’s note: OmniCorp records on ROBOT start here. I will use them to follow Experimental’s travels.*

Experimental was trying to make himself very inconspicuous beside the magazine rack. His claws weren’t helping. The owner of the rack would shoot him dirty looks every time he accidentally tore the newspaper he was pretending to read up a little.

The girl was sitting inside a café drinking a latte and reading a book. I, Robot by Isaac Asimov. She had dark skin, and darker hair, pulled back into a single braid that stopped midway down her back. She had glasses and a lab coat and a gray sweater on underneath.

She was perfect. Occasionally she would glance out the café’s window, and she seemed to be looking right at him. It made his heart tingle.

Experimental stood, rooted to the spot for thirty minutes, when the girl finished her latte, threw it away, and stood up, her book under her arm. She pushed open the door and seemed to be coming right at him. His heart skipped a beat and in his excitement, he accidentally tore the newspaper in half.

“I’ve had it!” the owner yelled, throwing his hat to the ground, “of you Smashers that think you can just tear up a man’s property! I beat you won’t even pay, will you?”

“Calm down, Donny,” the girl said, and Experimental’s heart might have well leapt out of his chest. “I’m sure he didn’t mean to tear it. You have my Science Monthly, yes?”

The owner grunted and picked up his hat and handed the girl her magazine. “Always a soft spot for freaks, Nila,” Donny said.

“Not freaks,” she said, and she smiled at the robot.

“Y-you read Science Quarterly? Me too!” Experimental said, happy to lie in order to engage this “Nila” in conversation.

“Really? What did you think of last month’s cover story?”

“Yes!”

She laughed and said, “Quite enthusiastic. What is your name?”

“Experimental. And your’s is Nila, right?”

She nodded. Her face still shone with geniality, so Experimental worked up his courage and blurted out, “Want to go see a movie?”

Nila blinked, pushed her glasses further up her nose, then shrugged. “I was planning on watching TV tonight, might as well enjoy a movie. You know the cheap theater close by? I think they’re playing “Blade Runner,” is that okay with you?”

“Definitely!” Experimental said enthusiastically. She could have suggested two hours of static, and he’d still happily accept.
They walked off together, leaving Donny to grumble and curse the “uppity new Smashers, who do they think they are, taking our women…”

*Chronicler’s Note: I understand my constant intrusions may be irritating, but this is simply to inform the reader that Sarah Berkley, who is key to Strebor’s life, began a diary roughly the same time her old flame did. I will be using her diary as well.*

I suck at fencing. Big shocker there, huh? What was I expecting, anyway? To be some god-like swordsman? The guy I practiced with got me every time. It was considerate of Experimental to get this rapier for me, but now I just feel silly.

However, visiting the “Gentlemanly Sporting Shop” wasn’t a complete waste of time. Not at all.

I was sparring with this guy (he was a much higher skill level than I, and he had no problem with effortlessly beating me every time) when this bird just came out of nowhere.

It was screaming and crying like it was terrified. I took off my helmet-thing. I winced whenever it flew into a corner and hit its head. It spun around and saw me, and I swear, it immediately calmed down and slowly and gracefully swooped down, and, get this, it landed right on my shoulder.

It looked so noble I just had to laugh. My sparring partner threw his arms up in disgust that he had been forgotten and skulked off. The guy in charge of the place ran over , out of breath, straw in his hair.

“I hate that bird,” he said as he and the bird stared at each other. “How did you get it to calm down?”

I shrugged with the shoulder the bird wasn’t perched on. “I just looked at it. Why, is that weird or something?”

“This accursed bird has caused us so much trouble…it’s a hybrid, you see. Falcon and something or another. Make a new species of bird so that anyone can become a falconer. Instead, we get this little hellion, who’s always knocking things over and scaring the other birds.”

The bird twisted his head to the left, as if it was mocking his master, and I laughed again.

The owner sighed, and looked at me wearily. “It likes you. You like it. You want it?”

I held my hand out for the bird, and it eagerly hopped onto my wrist. It’s talons barely dug into my shirt. I like to think he did that on purpose.

“I guess. How much?”

“Just take it! Just let me get some food and the paperwork. I’m just happy to get rid of the mongrel.”

The owner disappeared into a backroom, and I became conscious that everyone was staring at me and my new companion.

“A voman and a falcon? How…droll,” someone said, and a low chuckled spread through the room. The bird let out a loud screech, and everyone quickly fell silent.

The owner handed me this thick folder full of information about taking care of birds and stuff, and this little can of what I guess is bird food. It’s solid brown chunks of something. Charles loves it.

I named him Charles in case you couldn’t tell.

So now I’m in the apartment by myself with a bird with dark crimson feathers and a bright white beak sitting on the back of my armchair.

He’s incredibly smart. Too smart, I think. Get this. I say something, like “cup,” or “pencil,” and he flies over and grabs it in his mouth and drops it into my lap. How does he know what a cup is? It’s amazing.

I have a feeling Charles and I are going to have a very nice friendship. But he’s going to have to stop surprise-landing in my hair and crying with mischief if he doesn’t want to be locked under the kitchen sink.

Post #: 13

12/27/2011 0:16:17

Goldstein
Member

July 21st

Okay, baseballs hurt! I am still sore from all the times I was hit by one of the bloody little things. If I hated sports before…I am not so sure about this whole “Smasher” business. Oh, it looks all rosy on the surface, sure, with their shiny white walls and friendliness. But isn’t that how they sucker you in? Wasn’t Mr. Mavet and his staff soooo accommodating? And look how that turned out!

Perhaps I’m being paranoid. But don’t I have a right to be paranoid? I think I do. I really think I do. How easily could Drakkoniss turn on me? Or Jae and Celestin? All mind readers are tricksters, right? They’re fourth on my list of untrustworthy people, right below corporate executives, telemarketers and politicians.

But this diary isn’t for me to complain. It’s to “document my journey” or some crap like that…once they were done hitting me with baseballs, the trio decided to have Drakkoniss beat me to death. Well, not to death, but pretty badly.

“You’re going to have to learn close-combat.” Drakkoniss said as he twirled his one-handed blade that looked a little too sinister for such a noble “hero.” We stood on polar ends of a sparring circle, about ten feet between us.

I awkwardly held the staff in both my hands. It seemed solid. But against bullets? Or even a sword? We would see, I suppose.

Celestin and Jae stood off to the side, amused, half-bored expressions that indicated that they knew exactly what would happen. I readied myself for what was going to be a thrashing.

This was going to hurt.

“Whenever you’re ready,” Drakkoniss said happily.

I gulped, and feebly swung the staff at him.

He easily swatted it away the strike with a flick of his sword. “Come now, Doctor, try a little,” he said, and he swung downwards.

I held up my staff, it surprisingly held up against the blow. It didn’t surprise Drakkoniss, because he followed up immediately with a undercut to the torso.

Clumsily, I turned the staff sideways. Drakkoniss lurched forward and tapped my shoulder. “Sorry Doctor, but you’re dead now.”

He tossed his sword aside and picked up a weighted bat. “I don’t want to hurt you, but I imagine the lesson won’t be learned unless you really get hurt.”

And with that charming sentiment he whacked me upside the head. I staggered back, and he jabbed me in the stomach. I swung wildly, and he took the staff in his hand, yanked me forward, and whapped me on the back of the head. Like a final insult, he tossed me behind him, like trash.

Hot blood was smeared all over my face, and I could feel more pumping out of my nose.

“Oh, that does not look good,” Jae said. Celestin tried his best to hide his snickering.

“What, what the heck?” I yelled, cupping my nose. “Do you just do that, for, I know, the giggles? What, the, HE-”

“Doctor, please remove your hand,” Drakkoniss said with a ghost of a smile playing on his sallow face.

“What? Why, why?” I removed my hand. Oddly, blood did not run down my face. I touched my nose, and didn’t feel any blood pouring.

Celestin titled his head to the side and asked, “How did you do that? How did you stop the blood loss?”

I shrugged. It mystified me.

“You two can leave now,” Drakkoniss said, “I want Strebor to do something that may take a while.”

Celestin and Jae shrugged and strolled out. “Good luck!” Jae called out.

Drakkoniss led me over to a treadmill and started it up. “Just run until you want to stop, okay?”

I nodded, removed my apron, tucked my tie into my shirt, and started running.

He smiled, slapped me on the back, and left.

Whenever I run, or do any kind of physical activity, I put my head down and just bobbed my head to the music.

I was broken from my rhythm with a tap on my shoulder. I looked up and there was Drakkoniss.

“You haven’t done much running since the incident, have you?” he asked, amused.

“No,” I asked, “why?”

“It’s been three hours. You’ve been running for three hours, at ten miles per hours. Strebor, your gift allows you not to become tired. I imagine your blood has a much higher capacity to deliver oxygen to muscles. What an interesting gift. You should be thankful.”

“Three hours? Okay, yeah, it’s been fun, Drake, but I’m going home,” I said as I removed my shirt (which was drenched in sweat) and pulled on a white, cotton one.

“Are you sure? Think of the extents of your power. We should further explore and-”

“I’m coming back tomorrow, okay? So calm down, okay? I’ll learn to fly tomorrow.”

Drakkoniss sucked his teeth and nodded and just watched me go without saying a word.

It was dark outside, and I hurried home. So, I’m calling it home now. Ok. Heh, soon enough, Sarah and I will be going out again.

…

Yeah, not likely.

I walked into the living room, void of furniture, to find Sarah playing with a bird. Okay, where’d she get the bird from? Well, that wasn’t important. What was important was that the falcon was swooping down, snatching up glass bottles, then lobbing them across the room. Sarah was blindfolded, and she was running around, catching the bottles.

“Strebor, is that you? Watch what I can do!” she said happily, juggling the bottles. “Pretty cool, huh? Wait…why do you smell like body odor?”

“That’s not important. Where did you get that bird?”

“Charles? He’s a falcon! He’s awesome! Watch this!” She tore off the blindfold and whipped a revolver out of her waist pocket.

I screamed and covered my head, but she just laughed and said, “Charles! Targets!”

The falcon chirped and dove down and flung some more bottles into the air. Easily, Sarah fired three shots, each of the shots connecting with a bottle.

“Amazing, isn’t it?” she said, delighted.

“I suppose so. Does your grandfather support you shooting stuff inside his house.”

She scoffed and said, “He’s at the store, buying a new door, and some paint. You’re helping him fix the walls tomorrow.”

Charles the falcon landed on my shoulder, nipped my ear, then laughed. Can a bird laugh? It sure sounded like it. Sarah laughed, and let the falcon land on her forearm, and she scratched its beak.

“Lucky little bugger,” I muttered as I slinked to my room. “Hey, where’s Experimental?”

“He’s on a date with a girl he has a serious crush on. He called me, said he was watching a movie. ‘Blade Runner.’ He’s having major existentialist crises, but he says he’s having a very good time. I’m glad for him.”

I sighed and thought, He’s an even luckier bugger. Everyone is having fun tonight. And I’m Lance Armstrong. Whatever.

I muttered a good-night to Sarah and left her to her happy little bird. I couldn’t sleep for all her laughing.

Post #: 14

1/6/2012 14:03:45

Goldstein
Member

*Excerpt from Sarah Berkeley’s diary*

Charles is making remarkable progress. He responds to “Come,” “Stay,” “Attack,” “Retrieve,” and “Dodge.”

All of the other falconers are baffled. “No training? No conditioning? He just files out the window and eats and uses the bathroom and comes right back?” they say.

He’s a brilliant little bird. Funny, too. He likes to land on people’s heads, chewing on their ears. I hope he’s not too much of a nuisance. That laugh of his, though. How could anyone resist him?

I have hidden talents, too, it seems. My shooting skills are…exceptional? I went down to the shooting range. The place where they launch those clay discs into the air.

I was pretty good. Got every single one. Everyone was dumbfounded, especially when I traded in the shotgun for a pistol and did just as well. It’s not as cool as everyone was making it out to be.

…

Ok, maybe it is. It’s REALLY cool. For the first time since I…I can’t remember the last time I’ve had so much fun!

I went down to the DoV place and registered. I wasn’t expecting the disinfecting process. That was an…experience.

After that I picked out my costume. It’s really, really awesome looking. A bomber jacket, with the sleeves pushed up, leather gloves, and a scarf (to conceal the lower part of my face, of course). It’s not showy or impractical, and it goes really well with my new Smasher name: Airheart.

Everything is just so surreal. I never thought that I could be a Smasher. Me, of all people! It feels like a dream.

I’m not the only one who’s been happier than usual. Experimental seems to be bursting with joy. Whoever he’s seeing, she must be nice. He even got over the whole, “am I a human, or but a robot?” phase after his second date. I’m happy for him. I don’t know him very well, but it’s always happy to see someone succeeding at a relationship.

And Strebor is back. I’m feeling pretty unsure about that. He seems different. In a good way, that is. Not so…jerkish. I guess mental breakdowns can do that to a person. Who knows that he suffers through every day. It scares me to think about what his brain’s like.

Do I still feel about him the way I used to? No. Could I? I don’t know. Maybe? Probably not.

All I know is I have to find a better place to keep the book, Charles likes the taste of paper, apparently.

July 23rd

“Not that I don’t enjoy your being here,” Mr. Berkley said, “but honestly, how long do you plan on staying?”

We were fixing the door to the bedroom. It was a brand new door, a lot heaver than the last, with a really sturdy lock. I was holding it in place on one side with he screwed it in on the other.

“I’m not certain, sir. I appreciate your kindness, but I don’t want to leech off of you forever-”

“I should hope so.”

“-but I’m not sure how Smashers make money.”

“I thought they got paid by the government to capture criminals?” he yelled over the whine of the drill.

“I didn’t know that.”

“Yes sir. They’re having to really cut down on budgets to afford paying all of those Smashers. That’s how Sarah lost her job.”

“Wait, Sarah lost her job at the university?” I asked. My first thought was that she got fired because of her connection to me. Guilt washed over me.

“Yup. They got rid of all of the foreign languages except Spanish once the city government cut down on grants. She’s working at my grocery, but she’s not happy about it. Alright, done!”

Thankfully, I hadn’t caused her to get fired. Then I realized that I was feeling glad about her getting fired, and that just made me more guilty.

He opened the door, nodding his head in satisfaction. “Good and solid.” Then he narrowed his eyes at me. “How long do you think that’s going to stay like that?”

I shrugged a little, stepped through the door and shut it. “I hope so, sir. But, uh, did you know Sarah was firing gun off, last night?”

“You dumby, that’s a plastic gun! As in, it fires plastic bullets.” He snorted and put the toolbox back in the closet and picked up a sandwich and viciously bit into it.

“Oh…“ I said, rubbing the back of my neck, “anyway, one of my, uhm, acquaintances is coming over.”

Mr. Berkeley hung his head and sighed. “How weird is he?”

“Not too bad,” Drakkoniss said as he sauntered in, his cane resting on his forearm. “Hello Mr. Berkeley. Hello Strebor.”

“Hey Drakkoniss,” I said, making myself a sandwich and hading Drakkoniss a bag of chips. He accepted them with a grateful nod of his head.

“How do you know my name?” Mr. Berkeley asked indignantly in between bites of his sandwich.

“I’m a Smasher.”

“That’s all I need to know,” he said, and he finished his soda with a gulp.

“You said there was something you wanted to talk to me about?” I asked.

Drakkoniss produced a thick file from his suit jacket. “I found a building. Vacant. Cheap, too. Very easy to install medical equipment.”

“What are you getting at?” I asked.

“You’re a man of medicine, not combat,” Mr. Berkeley said unexpectedly. “I think Mr. Drok, Mr. Drakkan, Mr. D is saying you open a clinic.”

Drakkoniss beamed and said, “Quite right. Smashers need a trained medical professional that specializes on REI’s.”

The phrase REI threw me off. I asked Drakkoniss what that meant and he explained: “Radically Endowed Individual. It’s what the government officially calls us. There is a doctor, a man named BlackShock. But as of late, he has lost my trust. Becoming a vampire can do that. Old-world prejudices die hard. Now, what do you say?”

“Do I have to decide right now?” I asked, setting my sandwich down.

“I have already contacted the owner. This clinic is something you want.”

As much as I hate for other people to dictate my actions, I couldn’t deny it, he was right. The idea of running a clinic, treating people, practicing medicine again, sounded so alluring. After a future that seemed to be filled with nothing but instability, here was a chance at the opposite.

“Yeah, it is. Would I just serve Smashers?”

“Primarily, yes. You’d become an expert of sorts, developing practices and methods that are as unique as your patients. Interesting, no?” Drakkoniss finished the chips and balled up the bag and tossed it threw the air and into the trashcan.

“It won’t be cheap. Medical equipment, assistants, things like that,” I said, feeling the wrinkles on my forehead deepen.

Drakkoniss held up his fingers, ticking them off as he listed the sources of money. “The government will provide some funds, HeroSpire will pay for the building and some basic items, but there’s still about $40,000 that will be needed. I’m not quite sure how we’ll come up with that.”

“I’ve got that covered,” Mr. Berkeley announced, whipping out his wallet. “Anything to keep my house from being torn to shreds. But…how close is this building?”

“Why, just a few minutes. Walking distance.”

Mr. Berkeley relaxed and handed over a blank check. “That’s good.”

“And you trust me enough to allow this?” I asked. “Me, the guy who made the LEECH?”

Drakkoniss didn’t answer right away; he just collected the folder and tucked it away. Finally, he said, “I do, Strebor. There’s no OmniCorp, just you. However,” he paused and removed his sunglasses and trained his eyes, milky white, with no pupils, right on me. It was very awkward.

“If you wish for this clinic to work,” he said, “you must give up your thirst for revenge. As an associate and a friend, I ask you, put the idea of revenge out of your head. It will destroy you and everyone you love. I don’t want that to happen.”

Mr. Berkley shot me a confused, worried look.

“Of course,” I said, my throat suddenly dry, “no problem.”

Drakkoniss nodded his head approvingly, then replaced his sunglasses. “Good. I expect you to be there by eight o’clock tomorrow morning. Have a nice day, everyone.”

He left and shut the door behind him. Mr. Berkley nodded at me and left for the other room, his sandwich and soda in tow.

The full weight of what had happened fell on me. Excitement ballooned in my chest. I’m going to be a doctor again! Doctor Surgeon General! Goofy, but still! A doctor!

Post #: 15

1/18/2012 22:45:06

Goldstein
Member

August 2nd

Case Study #001: Patient “Experimental”
Classification: Realistic cyborg
Symptoms: heart flutters, shaking hands, stomach pains
Diagnosis: Lovesickness
Treatment: I wish.

We’ve finally gotten the clinic up and running. And by “we” I mean Mr. Berkley. The man’s a blessing. Any whim, any need, he was more than happy to provide the appropriate funds. I’ve got an MRI, PET scanner, blood analyzers, the most wonderful machines…they all hum in unison, like one great big happy family.

I have a nice little desk wedged between the medicine cabinet and blood chromatographer. I was working there, filling out some forms,
when I heard the door bell chime.

“Ah, Experimental,” I said, looking up from my work and waving him in. “How nice to see you.”

“You too Doc. Do you have a minute?”

I tossed the papers aside and nodded at the chair in front of me. “Have a seat.”

He timidly sat down. He kept scraping his claws together. “I want real hands,” he blurted out.

I blinked. “Well, I’m not the blue fairy, but if you want robotic hands, I can do that.”

“Yes, yes, that’s what I want,” he said eagerly, his face relieved. I suspected he was afraid that I would say it was outside my range of expertise. “I just want to be able to…to hold my sweet Nila’s hands in my own.”

I whistled loudly and patted him on the back. “Sounds like you found the one, good for you. Can I see your claws?”

He extended his arm, and I studied the appendage. Jagged, sharp. A weapon. Very fitting. He had no idea why he had been given these…that was little saddening. I pushed the thought out of my head and started unscrewing the claw, like a lightbulb, from its socket. When it came free, it was still attached to his body by a network of wires. I was reminded of arteries and veins. Carefully, I disconnected them, and set the disembodied claw down on my desk.

“Now, I can’t give you the skin-like material. That’s too fancy and expensive. What I can do is provide you with skeletal hands with sensory functions. You can cover them up with gloves, okay?”

“Yeah, sure…” The excitement in his voice had died down, replaced with melancholy. I glanced at him curiously but said nothing. Instead, I started to sketch the new hands on a sheet of graphing paper.

“Strebor,” he said after a few minutes of silence, “is it wrong I can’t remember anything before meeting you? I can remember waking up, and hearing alarms, and knowing that I needed to leave, then I can remember that you would help me, but that’s it. Is that weird?”

“Hm? No, I suppose not.”

“It’s just…Nila mentions things about her work. Names, and places, and they stir something inside me. Like, I should know them, but, I don’t.”

“Really…now, if I rewire the copper wiring to the circuit…no, no, well, maybe…”

“Like, she keeps talking about this one guy she works with, Dr. Braun. And it just sounds so familiar!”

The tip of my pencil snapped. It sounded like a cannon blast. My heart was racing. Dr. Braun…now there’s a shadow brushed under the rug. “Where does your girlfriend, ah, Nila, work?”

“I can’t remember…she’s waiting for me outside, but-“

“Nonsense!” I said, a little too loudly and cheerfully. “Bring her in, I want to meet her!”

Experimental looked at me strangely. Thank God the mask made my face a blank slate. He got up and poked his head out the door and said a few words, and he returned with a girl.

If anything, he had good taste. She was a beautiful Indian girl with big, deep eyes and a dazzling smile that just made you want to smile right back at her.

“He’s going to build me real hands, that’s why it’s missing,” he was saying to her.

“So you’re the famous Doctor General,” she said, shaking my hand. I hoped she couldn’t feel the sweat through the glove. “Expy has told me lots about you. I'm Nila Delphi.”

“Expy? Doctor General? Pet nicknames, eh?” I said. Then I realized how awkward that was, and I continued, without giving them the opportunity to think. “Experimental and I were just drawing the plans for his new hands.”

I showed her the blueprints, which she studied and approved with an enthused nod. Out of the corner of my eye I watched Experimental. He was sulking. This wasn’t the topic he wanted to be discussing.

“Anyway, Strebor and I were talking about my memory loss,” Experimental said once Nila had handed the blueprints back. I winced at the use of my real name.

Nila stared at me, her gaze piercing. “Strebor. I’ve heard of a Strebor. Have we met?”

“N-no. Not at all. Strebor’s a common name.”

“Not really.”

I thought I might throw up right then and there. “So, anyway, in my opinion, I believe that Expy might have a corrupted memory chip.
That’s all!”

“Do you think you could recover the information on the chip?” Experimental asked.

“No,” I said.

“Yes, Nila said.

“Well, it depends on the damage,” I added quickly.

Nila narrowed her eyes. "We should have a look."

"Of course!"

Experimental laid down on the examination table, and closed his eyes. Carefully, I lifted the almost invisible flaps, exposing bare, cold steel. Using a screwdriver, I removed the screws and pried open his cranial hood. Inside, it was fascinating. Like the inside of a human brain, but... digitilized.

"I don't have much expertise when it comes to robotic operating systems, but if I scrounge around, I think-"

"There. The memory chip is there," Nila said, pointing at a tiny, glowing blue square. I noticed she had removed her coat and had left it on my desk.

"Ah. Th-thank you."

"Nervous, Doctor?" she asked steely.

"No, but I didn't expect to be performing brain surgery today." I used a looking glass, similar to what jewelers use, strapped over my mask, and a pair of tweezers, to lift the blue square from its spot. "Fascinating," I said as I marveled at the little blue square, which had ceased glowing. "Let me make a copy of this, and I'll pop it right back in."

"Experimental, are you sure you want to just let him have a copy of your memories?" Nila said. I ignored her, sliding the blue square into a data converter.

"Who are you? Where am I? Who am I?" he asked, confused, his head swiveling back and forth, like an owl. "Why am I missing a hand?"

I laughed, and it was high and nervous. “I'm almost done. So, Nila, where do you work?”

“OmniCorp, but why? Is this an appropriate time?”

It was the final nail in the coffin. “No reason! Oh, look at the time, I have an appointment in a few minutes, you guys better split!” I hurriedly placed the chip back into Experimental's brain, and I closed his skull.

“But-“ Experimental began, but I cut him off with a vigorous shake of his hand.

“Good to see you, both of you! I'll tell you what I find as soon as I can!”

Nila shrugged, and grabbed her coat, offering Experimental her arm. He took his claw back and looped his arm into her’s, like a pair of
newlyweds. Without saying good-bye, they left, leaving behind an atmosphere of panic.

I removed my mask and gulped in fresh air. I had to think, think. She was suspicious of me. She recognized my name. She would report me. A picture of the cage popped into my head. No, I wouldn’t go back. Never.

Then, I saw it. Just sitting there.

Nila had forgotten her OmniCorp ID badge. Perfect.

I picked up my phone and dialed a number. It rang twice before she answered.

“Sarah,” I said, trying to keep my voice from wavering, “I need your help.”

< Message edited by Goldstein -- 1/19/2012 21:14:24 >

Post #: 16

1/20/2012 21:28:13

Goldstein
Member

August 4th

Case study #001: Experimental, aliases: “Expy”
Classification: Realistic cyborg
Diagnosis: Lovesickness, yearning for humanity
Treatment: Robotic hand coming along nicely

Sarah barged into the clinic, Charles on her shoulder, her scarf trailing behind her. “What’s up, Strebbie?”

I looked up from the disembodied hand lying on my desk, one of my eyebrows arched. “Strebbie? What is with you people and nicknames?”

“What?”

“Uh, nothing.”

She whistled and Charles hooted? Yelped? I don’t know, he made a loud noise and flew off. He circled the room a few times, and then landed on top of my model skeleton’s head. Like a woodpecker, he poked at its eyeholes.

“Anyway, I just happened to check my phone today, and I heard your message.”

“Took you long enough,” I grumbled. “I sent that message two days ago. What have you been up to?”

Her eyes lit up. “I’ve been a Smasher, that’s what! I’ve taken out bank robbers, weapon dealers, all of them! It’s amazing! The adrenaline rush, the glory!” Frighteningly, she spun a revolver around her pointer finger, a little too cavalier for my taste.

The differences were astounding. The frantic, nervous girl that I had known in college was gone, replaced with a person full of bravado and confidence. It was slightly…attractive…but that was not the time to be dwelling on such matters.

“I need your help recovering something. You’re the only one I can trust. Besides Drakkoniss, but he’d never agree.”

“And what are we recovering?” she asked, crossing her arms.

I poked the exposed wires on the hand’s wrist, causing the fingers to twitch and curl. “Can’t tell you,” I said.

Sarah snorted, then flicked her scarf over her shoulder. “Okay.”

“Really?”

She shrugged. “Yeah. I trust you now.”

I sighed and swept the robotic hand into a drawer, and I locked it. “Then you’re going to be real disappointed in me.”

The junkyard was very dark, and very still. The moon hung low in the night sky, sick and bloated. The only light for miles was the one inside the guardsman’s booth.

“Seriously?” Sarah hissed as she silently parked the car, a little ways off the road. “How can you even be sure it’s here?”

“The university puts all of its old hardware here. Just trust me, okay?”

“I use to…” she said gloomily.

The guard was thumbing through a magazine. His dark blue hat sat crookedly on his head, and I saw the OmniCorp logo stitched on. Sarah showed him the badge as I stood back in the shadows.

“You're Nila Delphi?" he said, holding the ID up to Sarah's face.

"I got a really nice tan in the Bahamas."

"And the hair?"

"I dyed it."

"And who's that guy behind you?"

"Privet," I chimed in happily.

After a few seconds, the guard shrugged his shoulders and waved us in. As we pasted by, I noticed a gun resting under his magazine.

Once the booth was far behind us, I pulled out a pair of flashlights and flicked them on. Charles shot into the air, silently.

The huge mounds of garbage loomed ominously above us. Years upon years of engineering failures and mistakes piled on top of each other.

“What if it’s all broken?” Sarah asked as we picked through the trash, “What if it’s all busted and not usable? Did you ever think of that?
And why do you even want this thing back? It’s idiotic.”

“It’s fine,” I said, letting my beam of light rest on a white spot that shone amongst rusty red and mossy green.

We knocked away the garbage, and slowly, the LEECH emerged. Aside from a few scuffs and dents, it looked perfect. Absolutely perfect.

I lifted my mask, and popped a couple of pills. I wanted to be entirely lucid for this. “Get the car,” I said. “I’ll handle the guard.”

Sarah nodded grimly, then took off, Charles sailing overhead.

I found my way back to the booth, approaching from behind. I removed my right glove, and slowly opened the door.

“Take a break,” I said, and I covered his mouth with my naked hand. A soft green glow encompassed his face, and he fell to the ground with a soft thump.

Soon we had the LEECH loaded into the back of the truck, and we were zooming down the highway.

“I don’t like this,” she said.

“It’s not your concern,” I said, trying to sound just as hostile. It didn’t work. It didn’t matter what she thought. I had plans for this thing.

She was agitated, her tongue kept pressing against the side of her cheek, forming little mountains. "Why?" she said after a few miles.

"Why what?"

"Why do you need the LEECH? Have you learned nothing from this whole experience?"

Of course she didn't understand. "The LEECH didn't do anything. It just wasn't ready. It was OmniCorp. They're the problem. I learned that you can't trust anyone, except those you really know."

The compliment was a little too subtle for her. "Drakkoniss told me to keep an eye on you, but what am I doing? I'm helping you!"

"I need protection, Sarah. I don't have a hyper intelligent bird, or the ability to fly or read minds. I'm just a doctor with a lot of enemies."

There wasn't any talking after that.

It was still night when we arrived. Together, we dragged the LEECH into the clinic, and Sarah left without saying good-bye. People seemed to not like saying good-bye to me. Oh well.

I worked into the late hours of the night, Tchaikovsky playing on my boombox. The blinds were closed and only the
lamp on my desk was on.

My forearm was the first to be modified. The LEECH hardware fit the contour of my limb perfectly. Plus, there was plenty of material. Nothing new would need to be made. Just modified. And, an added bonus, the nanitie tanks were still at full capacity.

The equipment was crude but effective. A belt for a tourniquet. A funnel was set up under my arm, which had a tube that led into my
jugular. Any blood I lost would be directed right back into me.

I took a deep breath. I steadied my hand. I made a vertical incision on the top of my right forearm.

The sight of my own arteries and bone made me swoon, but I couldn’t afford to pass out. That’d be certain death. A pot of coffee sat on my desk; I drank it all. I set it down and picked up the piece from the LEECH instead. It was similar to a cylinder, cut in half. I gulped, and set it upon my arm.

It automatically latched into place with a *click.* It was icy to the touch, but it felt good, in odd sort of way. Wanting to get the operation over with, I took the suture, and stitched up my arm.

New skin magically formed to cover the new addition to my body. The LEECH really is a brilliant innovation, when you think about it. Such wonderful powers…magnified…

It stuck out, and I could see the faint blue glow of the battery through my skin. It wasn’t natural, or pretty, not by a long shot. But it worked. It was perfect.

I went to bed that night without a shower. I stank of blood, but it was well worth it. I took five Omniverosa pills, and promptly fell to sleep, dreaming of robots and circuitry.

< Message edited by Goldstein -- 1/20/2012 23:59:26 >

Post #: 17

1/27/2012 22:51:57

Goldstein
Member

August 7th

What a day. What a day, what a day, what a day. My jaw is broken, my clinic is trashed, and I think I lost a critical ally. And what did I accomplish? Nothing. Well, not nothing, exactly, but regardless. It wasn’t worth it. It so wasn’t worth it. My God…it’s painful to write this. I think a rib’s broken, and it fixing itself just stings.

It was a normal day, like any other. At least, as normal as days could be. Slowly, I was building a clientele. In fact, Jae had come to me a few days before, complaining of headaches. Ibuprofen wasn’t exactly cutting it, so I prescribed her a special tonic I had devised in college.

Experimental visited me a half-hour after lunch. Nila wasn’t with him, which was a relief. A worried look was etched all over his face.

“’I’ve been calling her, but I don’t want to appear clingy. Or needy, you know?” he worriedly asked as he took a seat.

“Where is she, do you think?” I asked, trying not to sound too curious.

“No idea, but I want to take my mind off of this. How’s the progress on my hands?”

I smiled and unlocked my top drawer, drawing out two very skeletal, delicate-looking hands. “They’re still in the development stages, but they still have some functional capabilities.”

There was a look of wonder in his eyes as I replaced his outer appendages with the new inventions. There was a certain eeriness as he tested his new additions.

“Try describing what this feels like.” I handed him a small pillow. Slowly, like a primitive clamp, he squeezed it. So tightly, it ripped in half.

“Pillowy,” he said, sounding amazed.

I laughed and offered him a hand. “Shake, eh?”

A smile spread over his face, and he gripped my hand and vigorously shook it up and down. It nearly ripped my arm off, but I dismissed it, he was excited. It was understandable.

“How about we share a celebratory drink, hm? Maybe a strong glass of ginger ale?”

Experimental agreed, and I poured us each a shot as he turned on my little television that sat atop my MRI.

“…news, today, an OmniCorp employee was arrested on charges of theft of government property. Nila Delphi, an employee in the Research and Development branch of the mega-manufacturing corporation, was taken into custody last night in her home. She did not resist. According to the police report, Delphi trespassed onto a government dump site and stole the original prototype of the LEECH, the machine that has caused a documented , 1,279 deaths in its users. The lone guard stationed at the site was found dead this morning. While there has been no official report, it seems likely that Delphi is responsible for the tragic homicide as well.”

“Anything good on the news?” I asked as I handed him the glass.

His eyes cut from the screen to my face. His was totally indiscernible. They cut down to my arm. The forearm was exposed, the skin glowing light blue.

“Tell me it’s not true.”

“What?”

“Delphi. Did you…” He jumped up and pushed past me, heading for my personal cot.

“Wait, no, wait-“

He kicked open the door, and I could see the LEECH, in plain view, my bed shoved aside to make room.

“I, uh, I can explain.”

He lunged at me. I quickly darted away, and Experimental crashed into the MRI. With a roar he punched the MRI, and yanked out a big piece of metal, and launched it at me. It narrowly missed me. The hairs on the back of my neck were a few centimeters shorter.

“No, really, I can explain!” I said, reaching under my desk and drawing out my bo-staff. It started to glow, but much brighter than usual. As to be expected.

“You got her arrested! YOU DID!” he yelled as he lunged at me again. This time, I wasn’t as fast, and he landed on top of me. A sickening sound echoed through the clinic as he smashed my nose to a bloody pulp. I levered him off, and knocked him upside the head, but that did little to faze him. He roared and punched me so hard in the stomach, I swear I felt my spine break.

I coughed up some blood and tried to crawl away. I could feel my wounds healing already, but I had no idea just how much blood I could lose before I kicked the bucket. The LEECH could only do so much.

“I trusted you, and this is what I get,” Experimental said, picking up a jagged piece of metal let from the MRI. “Betrayal. And it all feels so…familiar! What do my memories contain? More betrayals? More false promises of happiness?”

“No, please,” I said, feeling a wrenching in my stomach. “Don’t, please, no, Experimental…”

He swung the metal down, and I quickly threw my arm up to protect myself. There was the loud ringing of metal against metal. Before he could react, I jabbed him in the gut, then flicked it upwards, smashing his jaw, then I knocked him across the head.

My knees were buckling, but I managed to stand and remain standing. “It was a necessary precaution,” I said, trying to reason with him before he could deliver any more blows. “Nila worked with OmniCorp. She was probably, uh, trying to steal your blueprints or something. We can’t trust them, don’t you get? We can’t trust anyone!”

A rising sense of delirium was taking hold, but I didn’t care. I had to convince him. I had to.

“OmniCorp, the police, they are all working together. Nila was working for them. She was going to turn me over. I will not go back there Experimental. You don’t know what it’s like, being isolated, being driven insane just because a businessman wanted to make a profit.”

“You’re crazy,” he said, rubbing his jaw. “And you know what? I want nothing to do with it. Nothing. Drakkoniss wants you to be some doctor, a good guy, but you’re just a messed up guy that thinks way too highly of himself. And you know what?”

That examination table looked way too light as Experimental picked it up and threw it against my X-ray machine, sending shrapnel and fragments of debris across the room.

He glared at me one last time, and left.

…

The LEECH project was a success. It managed to stop a sharp object with no problem. And it increased my healing rate. More additions should further increase that rate.

Yes, more additions. More and more. A breastplate, knee guards, cranium plates. Yes, biological augmentation will do nicely.

Very nicely.

Ha ha haa ha…

Wait, when was the last time I took my medicine? When, I, wait, I, uh, oh, no…

Post #: 18

2/5/2012 23:56:36

Goldstein
Member

*Taken from Sarah’s diary. Adapted to narrative format*

August 7th

I saw the news, and I was shocked. The guard was dead. Strebor had killed that poor man and framed Experimental’s girlfriend. How could he, and I…helped him. My heart broke in half, and Charles cooed in disdain. I grabbed my bomber jacket and Charles landed on my shoulder. I was going to have a talk with the Doc.

On my way to the clinic, I ran into Experimental. He seemed really angry, and he seemed a little beat up (as beat up as a cyborg can be, at least) and seeing as he was probably in more emotional distress than Strebor…

“Expy! How are you? I saw the news.”

He looked at me, and for a second the look on his face terrified me, but he saw me and he went back to normal. “I’m fine, but Nila is the one that’s in trouble. I just spoke to Strebor, and he’s unwilling to help.”

That didn’t surprise me, but I didn’t feel like bringing that up. “Well, I’m willing to help. What exactly do you want to do about all this?”

Experimental shivered and looked up at the sky, rubbing his upper arms. “She’s innocent, I know that, but I don’t want to get Strebor arrested. Not yet, at least. There’s got to be a way to prove her innocence.”

I watched a few APBs lazily float past, trying to think. I didn’t want to get Strebor arrested either, but that seemed to be the only option.

“We could search her house,” I said half-heartedly.

“That wouldn’t help much.” His eyes got wide, as if realizing he had just made a mistake. “But let’s do it anyway.”

I tilted my head to the side, and then understanding dawned. “You just want to go through her things, don’t you?” I asked.

He blushed and offered me a hand. A real hand, one that Strebor had made, not one of his claws. What had they discussed? I took his hand and we slowly ascended.

Everything looked spectacularly from the aerial perspective. Despite using just one hand, Experimental held onto me with an unwavering iron grip, while at the same time maintaining a speed that Charles could barely match.

“So this is what it’s like to you all the time?” I shouted out to my feathered friend, who chirped and soared underneath.

“Nila said my claws hurt her wrists. That’s kinda why I wanted real hands. So we could fly together.” He sounded so sad, it killed conversation and we flew the rest of the way in silence.

Nila’s apartment was a few blocks away from Titanium Threads. We landed on the roof. “If you see any police officers entering the building, let us know, okay?” I told Charles, who nodded and flew off.

“He can actually understand that complex of a command?” Experimental asked as he watched the bird fly off. “Smart bird.”

I smiled, and we made our way inside.

It was obvious what room was hers. It was coated with police tape. Very carefully I peeled back the tape and stuck it to the doorframe so that it could be used again when we left. No evidence would be left.

Her room was dark, and messy. It didn’t suit Nila. The few times I had met her, I had gotten the impression she was an orderly person. She wouldn’t leave papers all on the floor, and dresser drawers open, nearly torn out.

“The police were not kind,” I said, stepping over the remains of a smashed chair.

“They ripped this place apart,” Experimental said, the pain in his voice evident. “Why? Why even come here at all? She didn’t fight. She was too surprised.”

“How do you know?”

“I can imagine it clearly. She’s at her desk, finishing some paperwork, listening to dustep. She loves dubstep. It reminds her of the techno her dad use to play. The police burst in. They yell that they have an arrest warrant. She asks them if they can wait a few moments so she can finish her report…” He coughed, but I suspected he was trying to hold back tears.

“Poor Nila, sitting in a jail cell. And I can’t even post bond.”

“Why not? How much is it?” I asked.

“$480,000. That’s how much they say the LEECH was worth. They haven’t’ charged her for the murder yet, too hard to pin that on her, I guess. It’d be a lot more if they had…you know, I was on the phone with her, talking to her, during the time they say the robbery took place. But who would believe me? OmniCorp would claim I’m a malfunctioning cyborg and snatch me up so fast…”

I sighed. The entire trip was a bust, and all it did was make Experimental depressed.

We heard the clear call of a hawk outside our window.

“Time to go,” I said, and before the police arrived exactly forty-five seconds later we were gone, every piece of tape back in its rightful place.

Experimental dropped me off by the clinic. I invited him in, but the idea seemed to invoke some unpleasant thoughts. He told me he was going to go think, and he zoomed off.

I sighed and braced myself to have a nice shouting match with Strebor.

I was dead-wrong.

The inside of the clinic was a nightmare. Blood was splattered against the walls. Like a goat had been butchered, and then its corpse had been thrown around. All of the machinery and furniture had been shoved against the walls, leaving a space in the center, with one lone chair, and a figure, a figure that, that couldn’t be…

“Strebor!” I yelled.

He was lying, prostrate, a syringe clasped in one hand, a scalpel in the other. He wore nothing but a pair of boxers. His eyes were closed. It bulged in weird places: his chest, his things, shins, arms, shoulder, and neck. It sent chills down my spine.

I grabbed his shoulders, and I felt hard material underneath. I took all my willpower not to recoil in revulsion.

“Wake up Strebor, wake up, what’s happened to you?”

One moment his eyes were closed, then I blinked and they were open. His pupils were tiny.

“Hello there, ma copine,” he said, and he let out a high-pitched laugh. No, not a laugh. A shriek.

< Message edited by Goldstein -- 2/10/2012 18:12:41 >

Post #: 19

2/10/2012 20:06:25

Goldstein
Member

August 10

*Excerpt from Sarah’s diary*

It has been three days since we placed Strebor in the observation room Drakkoniss had found for us. He shows…no signs of improving. Grandpa is watching him now. Drakkoniss and Celestina and Jae and the rest of them forced me to take a break. I feel so responsible for all of this. I know I shouldn’t, but still. I find writing in my diary does help things, if not a little. And I can’t sleep with his screams echoing through the entire building.

I managed to keep Strebor restrained until Drakkoniss arrived. No easy feat, mind you. Whatever he did to himself, with that blasted LEECH, he’s strong as an ox now. He kept thrashing about and laughing, but I managed to keep my grip. Drakkoniss, with Celestin at his side appeared just in the nick of time, and using some sort of mental Jedi mind-trick, put Strebor to sleep. Introductions were had, and we left for a place Drak said he had for “just such an unfortunate occasion.”

He brought us to a run-down facility in a bad part of town. “Completely secure,” he told us as he switched on a light and shooed away a family of rats nibbling on a piece of discarded cheese.

“Sure it is,” Celestin said, lifting Strebor so that his feet didn’t drag. “Will it hold him once he wakes up?”

“Well, maybe. If not, we’ll be here, waiting for a moment of lucidity.”

“Why?” I asked. “Explain to me again why we can’t just give him some Omniverosa.”

“Omniverosa prevents psychosis, it doesn’t treat it,” Drakkoniss explained patiently as he cleared some rubble out of the hallway. “I looked into Strebor’s medical file. Very curiously, our dear friend is allergic to all of the medications that do treat psychosis. How fortunate that he didn’t pick one of those, or he’d be a distant memory to all of us.”

“Maybe that is a good thing,” Jae said. Everyone looked at her strangely, and when she realized that, she said, “I’m sorry, I was simply voicing the thoughts of Sar-of someone.”

I hoped my cheeks weren’t too bright red.

Much to my surprise, in the last room, was Grandpa, sitting in a chair with a shotgun across his lap, fast asleep.

“Mr. Berkley,” Drakkoniss said, “It’s time to wake up, we have the package.”

His voice roused Grandpa, who rubbed his eyes and scratched the back of his head with the shotgun’s barrel. “About time,” he murmured, “thought you had forgotten about me.”

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

“Mr. Drakkoniss called me and told me that he needed someone to watch this place. Guard it.”

“From what?” I asked, but before Drakkoniss could answer, Celestin broke in with an urgent, “He’s waking up, and he sounds very, VERY angry.”

Drak threw open a door, and Celestin, rather roughly, threw Strebor inside the room. With a haunting clang Celestin locked the door with a heavy bar.

“And now we observe,” Jae said quietly, turning off the lights in our room, and turning on the lights in Strebor’s. A large mirror suddenly became a window.

The room was padded, but worryingly, what seemed like blood stains decorated the hovel. Strebor lay on the floor, curled up in a ball. Whimpering. Then, he let out a howl, and leaped to his feet, flailing about. He was talking to someone. What he was saying, I had no idea.

“And now we wait, right?” I asked.

Grandpa pulled up his chair and checked his shotgun. “There’re more in the closet,” he said.

Slowly, we set up chairs and settled in for a long wait.

Minutes became hours became three whole bloody days. Charles wasn’t going to sit inside all day, but I really didn’t want to leave, so Celestin volunteered to take him for a flight. Half an hour later he returned in a foul mood and with a white stain on his shirt.

After that, Grandpa would take Charles for a stroll around the town.

Experimental, as it turned out, had been invited to join the vigil, but had declined. I didn’t blame him. I just hoped he wouldn’t do anything rash.

A few hours ago, Jae came back with some snacks. “Chips, hot fries, chili dog, soda.” She said the last part as she handed me a Dr. Salt.

“How did you know, wait. Right.”

She smiled at me and took her place between Drak and me. “Watching is always worse on an empty stomach,” she said cheerfully.

“Indeed, but this is hardly boring,” Grandpa said, his eyes trained on Strebor. He was doing somersaults. Or at least, trying to.

“Watch your tongue,” Celestin said angrily. “This is just sad. Not some spectacle.”

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Grandpa said coolly. “You can’t deny it, it’s fascinating.”

“Celestin simply speaks because of the sensitivity caused by his own insanity,” Jae said.

“You’re insane?” I asked, surprised.

“Let’s not discuss such matters. Not now,” Drakkoniss said.

We lapsed into silence. It was torture, watching Strebor thrash around. But his moment of lucidity might pass in a second, we needed to give him his medicine as soon as possible.

“I don’t remember him bulging like that,” Grandpa said. “What exactly did he do?”

“He let his revenge define him, instead of moving on,” I said bitterly.

Drakkoniss shook his head. Disappointed.

“Why are we even here?” I said aloud, voicing what I felt to be everyone’s opinion. “What has he ever done to make anything better? What has he caused except pain and hate?”

I felt tears welling up in my eyes. It was embarrassing beyond belief, but I pressed on. I had to get it off my chest. “He created the LEECH. He knew what he was doing. How many people did he kill because of that thing? A thousand? More? And then he goes and gets it fixed in his head that OmniCorp is watching him. Then he convinces me, betrays me, to help him get that LEECh back, and then he does this to himself. I just don’t understand. Why the HELL are we here?”

A long pause…a very long pause. And then,

“Because it’s the right thing to do,” Strebor said, his voice raspy, the bags under his eyes dark and prominent. “I’m sorry.”

Drakkoniss drew a syringe from his jacket and rushed to the door, but before he could administer the medicine, Strebor melted away, laughing and tearing at his hair.

“He’s making progress,” Jae said. “If he was lucid once, he’ll be lucid again. We just have to be faster.”

And then I was ordered out of the room. I wouldn’t be too much help, anyway. Too many tears, I couldn’t see.

Post #: 20

2/18/2012 2:36:43

Goldstein
Member

*Chronicler’s note: data taken from various sources, including convenience store security cameras, eyewitness reports, et cetera. These sources will NOT be disclosed, for various reasons. *

August 10

To whom it may concern (the man whom can issue the order to stay my execution),

This is Mr. Brack. If you look into my records, you'll see that I have a long history of serving OmniCorp. I participated in the hostile takeovers of twelve different corporations. My loyalty has never been, and never will be questioned. So please, read the rest of this letter.

The doctor had been held inside the government building for one week. A careful strategy had been plotted out. It was necessary, due to the nature and power of the inhabitants inside. Our goal was not to defeat Drakkoniss and his ilk, however, but mere extraction. Of one target. Our teams had handled more. This was not supposed to be a difficult operation.

We were to attack at nightfall. Several controlled explosives had been planted. They were to provide the initial confusion source. To prevent an organized resistance, a marksman team would lay down fire from a nearby skyscraper.

The main team, comprising of Mr. Gunst, Mr. Marlbor, Mrs. Krill, and myself, infiltrated the building through a hole created by a very subtle explosion. The hole lead directly into the room where the doctor was being held.

According to plan, the others did not have their attention on the doctor, and were instead busy with protecting the elderly gentlemen from our snipers.

9:23 p.m. Grandpa’s Grocers camera #3 West Entrance

Identified four men clad in black moving across parking lot with person whom appeared unconscious. The group loaded the unconscious man into a van and promptly drove away. The police were contacted and informed of the issue.

You'd think this would make the CEO's visit earlier this week actually make sense, but I'm still pretty mystified. But he said it might happen, and it did.

Weird.

Officer James MConroy’s Report on Case 24.56

The station was contacted at 9:27 in the evening about a person being abducted at a Grandpa’s Grocers. I was only a few minutes away, so I was radioed to seek and investigate the incident.

I quickly found the van on I-34 heading south. I turned on my lights and signaled for it to pull over.

Instead of pulling over, a masked man leaned out the passenger window and fired upon my car, using what I determined to be a military-grade assault rifle. Assessing the situation, I radioed in back-up. A nearby armored vehicle responded swiftly.

The van’s passengers continued to fire upon the armored vehicle and my own. Officers in the armored vehicle, in an act of bravery that should be commended, pulled up next to the van, and fired several shotgun rounds at the tires. This apparently had no effect, as the van did not come to a stop, and the van sped ahead.

Police engaged us as we attempted to return to headquarters. We had no means of hiding the doctor, and Mrs. Krill believed it to be prudent to make the first strike.

Unfortunately, backup arrived more swiftly than we anticipated. An attempt to shoot our tires was made, but failed. Mr. Gunst responded with gusto that is typical of him.

Once the assailants fired an RPG at the armored vehicle, I decided that, to minimize police causalities and sent out a request to all Smashers in the area to lend assistance after sending out an order for a bus.

The response was a God-send.

Everything was going excellently until the Smashers that had been with the doctor intervened. The two Smashers, known as Drakkoniss and Celestin, assaulted us. Drakkoniss landed on the roof and proceeded to cut a hole with a broadsword while Celestin utilized mental powers to repeatedly ram Mr. Marlbor’s head against the steering wheel.

I opened fire on Celestin, but to no avail, as another vehicle rammed us at that moment. It was the remaining individuals.

An unknown female (the other being the documented Smasher, Jae) leaned out the window with a shotgun. I thought they were going to attempt to shoot out our tires again, but instead she shot Mr. Marlbor.

The bullet-proof glass held, not that it mattered, since Mr. Marlbro had been incapacitated by Celestin. By then Drakkoniss had entered the van and dispatched Mr. Gunst with a single blow. Mrs. Krill fired her entire magazine, and either he is very resilient or she had very bad aim, as the bullets did nothing. Drakkoniss grabbed the gun from her, bent it in half, and then used it to beat her over the head.

When I realized Drakkoniss was attempting to extract the doctor, I took desperate actions. I took the steering wheel.

Smashers directly engaged the van. Shots were exchanged, and the van careened to the right, off the road, over the railing, and into the embankment. I immediately called for another bus and pulled to the side of the road to check for survivors. The bus would be on the scene in twenty minutes, and that is where my involvement ends.

So, please understand my situation. Mr. Gunst and Mrs. Krill were unconscious, Mr. Marlbro was screaming in pain, and the van was upside down. Drakkoniss was dazed, but that would not last long.

I did try the emergency termination plan and kill the doctor. He had not made a noise during the entire affair. It should have been easy.

I had the pistol against his forehead when he swatted it away and punched me. Our intel was way off, that doctor wasn’t a frail man. That one punch had enough force to give me a concussion.

So, in conclusion, I beseech you, let me live out the rest of my life in prison, and please do not put a bomb in my lunch. Please. I tried my best. But in the end, we underestimated the situation. And that cost us everything.

...

......

.........

I. AM. BACK.

< Message edited by Goldstein -- 2/18/2012 11:22:06 >

Post #: 21

Page: [1]

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