Mod Superhero: Initialize: A Scifi Progression Fantasy Series, page 14
And business was only getting better.
Steel doors at the end of the room opened and three more guards appeared, this time wearing light power armor—Gnosis’s proprietary model: Hardened impact plates, actuator enhanced joints, and personal rebreathers. They ushered him down the hall. Lock obliged.
He rolled his neck and shrugged his shoulders, loosening himself up for his coming fight. It was more mental preparation than physical.
Lock followed the long hall to a twin set of steel doors, made to keep the sometimes noxious biological weaponry from escaping. The final door opened, and Lock caught the pungent remnants of acid lingering in the air.
The arena was some two hundred feet square and nearly as tall. The left half was divided into a three level parking garage, while the other half was completely open air. Concrete blocks and dividers littered both sections, simulating the occasional barricade or parked car to hide behind. All the surfaces were either pitted, scored, stained, or filled in with fresh white concrete.
Gnosis had tried to design a singular arena so that they didn’t give advantage to any one kind of powerset. For their simple and brutal testing, Gnosis mostly succeeded.
To Lock, it looked like an abstract painting.
In the center of the open area, fresh red blood stood out. The loser had a bad time… Depending on the Mutagen, they’d live.
Across the room, another set of metal doors hissed open.
A young woman staggered in, her hands pressed against her face. Her hair floated above her, like clumps of bright red seaweed floating in the tide. Her scalp was bleeding and droplets flowed upward and dissolved into mist above.
The guards behind her had weapons pointed at her and shouted desperately into their comms for whoever was in control to close the door.
She didn’t pay any mind as the door hissed shut.
She sobbed, and Lock waited for her to finish.
A booming voice sounded from the speakers above. “Subject 61565 AND Subject 50927, your fight will now begin. It ends with grievous injury, incapacitation, or death.”
Only then did the young woman look up. She scanned the room, recognition flashing across her face before her eyes settled on Lachlan. Her shirt had a large red heart on it, the same color as her hair. The collar was matted with blood.
Lock kept his face expressionless and kicked his shoes off.
Heart-girl’s face twisted into a grimace equal parts anger and pain. She screamed, but the sound was muted by whatever twisted power she was about to unleash. Her hair grew, spreading out in a blood-tinged crescent until it was fifty feet wide.
The strands coalesced into a dozen thick limbs. They pierced the floor and lifted Heart-girl up until it looked like she was hanging in the mouth of a giant red spider.
Then she scurried toward him.
Lock sprinted toward the left side ‘parking garage’ of the room. He deadened his sense of pain and willed the tips of his fingers and toes to grow into a bastardized mix of sharpened nails and bone spurs. He leapt up to the nearest column, his claws hooking easily into the concrete, and climbed up as quickly as he could.
In less than a breath, Lock was on the third level. He stood ready, his muscles coiling like they had minds of their own.
He waited and listened to the tick, tick, tick, of Heart-girl as she climbed hair-first up the wall. The image made Lock take a step back from the edge; no matter how advanced his biology was, it was hard to suppress his lingering psychology.
A moment later, red spidery limbs crested the top of the parking garage. The tips of each limb jabbed into the concrete like ice picks, and left behind bloody impacts. Heart-girl followed, her body hanging lifeless like a marionette. Her face was slack-jawed and blank, except for her eyes, which stared unblinking at him.
Lock crouched, his own claws digging into the concrete.
A spear of hair shot toward him, and Lock leapt upward. He contorted in mid air, hitting the ceiling feet-first, and then sprung toward his target. Heart-girl ambled out of the way, defending herself with a flurry of red tendrils.
With superhuman reflexes, Lock seized one of the red tendrils, but it slipped through his hand—the blood that coated her hair was slick and his hand came back wet.
Lock hit the concrete and tumbled across it. Tendrils followed, slashing and stabbing at him like a dozen separate weapons.
Lock dodged all of them.
He lunged for Heart-girl and she backpedaled across the third floor of the parking garage. Lock slashed at her attacks, severing the first few tendrils, but her hair regrew as quickly as it fell.
Meanwhile, other tendrils speared through Lock’s shoulder—another through his thigh. His blood coagulated instantaneously. The tips that didn’t recoil immediately, Lock slashed through with his claws.
It was one thing to fight a super that moved like a semi-normal human, but with an atypical target, it was too easy to be surprised by a sudden, unexpected counter attack. If Lock hadn’t just fought a similar mutant, he might’ve been afraid. Heart-girl wasn’t much different from the eldritch horror from last time—they both moved like insects and protected their torso.
Lock had no doubt he was going to win. He just had to get close enough to Heart-girl to end the fight.
He waited, biding his time.
Heart-girl retreated toward the wall. Lock already knew she would try to scale the wall and fight from the ceiling. Up there, she would have better reach and mobility.
Lock didn’t plan on letting her get there.
Heart-girl was still backpedaling, desperately trying to fend him off. Lock let her think it was working.
Heart-girl dug her first few steps into the wall and started to climb.
Lock seized the next tendril, quickly wrapping the length around his palm. This time, when he squeezed, the hair didn’t come free from his grasp. At the same time, the claws on his feet dug into the floor.
He pulled. She stabbed. Lock grabbed another handful of hair, then he pulled in earnest.
Lock wrenched Heart-girl free from the wall and spun, whipping her around like a catapult and slammed her into the wall. A dull thump echoed through the parking lot—like a sack of laundry hitting the ground. The whole motion took less than a half second. The hair slackened around Lock’s hands.
But Heart-girl still stood on spidery-red limbs. She was cocooned in hair, only a sliver of her face visible behind the curtain of red.
Lock didn’t waste a breath.
Keeping hold of her hair, Lock pulled again and leapt at the same time. He rocketed toward Heart-girl and caught her in a flurry of slashes, cutting her body free and severing nearly all the hair from her head.
Catastrophic damage was the only way to reliably beat someone with accelerated healing.
By the time Lock’s assault was over, Heart-girl was nearly bald. The hair that was left on her head was short and quivered—still alive. She dropped to the ground, clutching her hands to her chest.
He could’ve brought the parking garage down on her, but he doubted Gnosis would appreciate the destruction.
“It’s over,” Lock said, glancing around the ceiling. He wasn’t sure where the cameras were—they were small and hidden, but Lock knew they were watching.
They were always watching.
Lock turned and started walking to the edge of the parking garage before leaping off and continuing to the exit.
“And next time, give me a challenge.”
Chapter 22
Trust / Lock
Emmett took the bus home Wednesday night.
Part of him wanted to run home across the rooftops of Belport, but his entire body was sore from training in Gray Room. Emmett sat down on an empty seat in the middle of the bus and tried to stretch his legs out without moving them too much—
Whatever muscles were in the back of his thighs were tight and felt like they would cramp up any second.
Between that and Emmett’s apprehension about running into an enemy super again… it really hadn’t taken much convincing.
So Emmett scrolled his phone, figuring out just what assignments he had to get done tonight for class. That way he could go to sleep that much quicker…
Emmett stared at the screen, eyes widening.
He’d missed a discussion and a quiz in his Product and Process class—Professor Quinn’s class.
For the briefest moment, Emmett considered asking her for mercy. He’d been in an accident and wound up in the hospital. Technically, it was the truth, except that there was no record of him at either place.
It wasn’t enough to flunk him, but Quinn was a hard enough professor already—Emmett wanted all the buffer he could get going into the final project
“Shit,” Emmett muttered. Missing those assignments didn’t do him any favors.
Emmett kept going, adding to his to-do list and then started on the reading that he could do on the bus.
The apartment was empty when Emmett got home. Lock was out late again.
That was fine by Emmett. It saved him from answering anymore questions about Marianne—his girlfriend that didn’t exist.
Emmett sighed, rubbing his neck as he walked to his room and then tossing his keys and wallet on the side table.
He didn’t care for the sneaking around part of being a super. He didn’t even have a superhero name, and here Emmett was, already lamenting having a secret identity!
Emmett would have to keep his life secret from Lock, from his classmates, even from his family, and Emmett could already tell it wasn’t going to sit right with him.
It made complete sense to keep his identity a secret—any enemies he made wouldn’t be able to come after his family or friends…
But couldn’t he confide in someone? …Tell just one person?
Emmett chuckled at himself.
His younger brother Antony might be able to keep it a secret, but if his best friend Sherman ever got wind of it, he would probably blast it on the very same forums that Emmett frequented.
Emmett dismissed his older brother Darryl as quickly as he did Mom and Dad—all three of them would worry themselves sick.
Lock… Could he trust Lock?
Emmett shook his head.
Maybe.
But he didn’t know what circles Lock ran in, not anymore. If he was mixed up with the wrong crowd and let Emmett’s name slip… It wouldn’t be good. Emmett didn’t want his roommate getting hurt on account of knowing Emmett’s secret.
It was decided: Of course Emmett couldn’t tell Lock the truth.
Emmett sighed and settled in for hopefully a short night of homework and a good night’s rest.
It was four in the morning when Lachlan got home to the apartment.
He glanced around for Emmett, but didn’t see him in the common area. A moment later, Lock heard his roommate snoring quietly from his room.
He shut the door behind him and locked it, taking care to do it quietly.
Then he pulled back his hood and walked to the sink to wash his hands.
Lock turned the faucet lukewarm and set to wiping his opponent’s blood from the creases of his hands. His fingertips were already scabbed over with normal flesh.
As the blood was washed away, it took the metallic taste with it—the taste of blood.
A few months ago, the sensation of tasting through his hands, especially blood, had disgusted him… Maybe it still should, but it didn’t. Lock had made peace with it. He couldn’t change what he was—not anymore.
Lock dried his hands off and walked to his room. His door was opposite of Emmett’s, and Lock paused with his doorknob in hand—staring at Emmett’s door.
Curiosity was getting the better of him. That or the mutagens were fucking with his head.
Something smelled off in the apartment.
Lock shut his door quietly, changed into shorts and a T-shirt. His stomach was completely healed, with only hints of scars remaining where Mr. Wendell had stabbed him with the screwdriver a half-an-hour ago. His shirt and hoodie had holes in them, but they were just that—just holes.
He tossed his black clothes aside and laid down, trying not to pay attention as his muscles writhed with a life of their own, like worms crawling beneath his skin. It made him feel like a walking corpse—like a deadman balloon.
He felt the urge to look at his body in the mirror, to see the changes, but he’d thrown away the mirror from his room weeks ago. The bathroom mirror was harder, and he had to purposefully keep from looking in it when he went to the bathroom or showered.
It was a long minute in the dark before the urge to see his reflection passed.
Lock cracked the window beside his bed and pulled out his box of pipes and Gnosis-grade narcotic. Then he set to smoking a blend made especially for him. Gnosis hadn’t even told him the name of it, but it was enough to knock out three people.
Lock slept until 10 o’clock Thursday morning—
Basically hopped up out of bed.
He had to admit, getting a restful night’s sleep every night was almost worth the horrors he endured getting to this point.
Lock stood in his room, waiting. Listening.
And when he didn’t hear any sign of Emmett or any noise at all, Lock walked out of his room and into Emmett’s.
The apartment smelled off.
And Lock already knew why.
He knew, but he had to be sure.
The smell wasn’t something that any normal human would be able to catch, but Lock wasn’t normal. Not anymore.
His sense of smell was closer to a hound dog than a human’s.
Lock walked around Emmett’s room to his laundry hamper and grabbed the shirt on top. Apprehensively, he pulled it to his nose and sniffed—already knowing what he was going to find.
He recoiled immediately.
Emmett’s shirt reeked of Gnosis’s mutagens. His pores were probably oozing it.
Lock smelled the shirt again. It was Mutagen-A; he was sure of it, and the smell was so potent because Emmett’s body was taking to the mutations extraordinarily well.
But there was something else… something that Lock couldn’t discern.
And it was stronger on the right arm of his shirt.
Lock stood in Emmett’s room, smelling his roommate’s dirty shirt for much longer than he would ever admit, but he figured out what was off about the smell:
The right arm of Emmett’s shirt didn’t smell normal. It barely smelled of Mutagen-A.
Lock’s mind raced as he thought of the possibilities.
Venture had saved Emmett that night on Champion street. Lock hadn’t seen exactly how, but he knew that the doctor specialized in robots. Now, Lock also knew that Venture had dosed Emmett with Mutagen-A—without the approval and guidance of Gnosis…
Maybe the Mutagen wasn’t taking as well as he originally thought. That was a very real and very dangerous possibility.
Gnosis didn’t like failures.
But that wasn’t the only thing wrong with Emmett’s shirt. The right arm didn’t even have the underlying smell of sweat. It smelled… fake.
Had Venture rebuilt Emmett’s arm?
Lock stared at the shirt. That would explain it. He sneered and chucked Emmett’s shirt back in the hamper.
So, Venture was turning Emmett into his own little pawn… Using Gnosis’s proprietary mutagens and his own technology. After all these years of being a fanboy, Emmett finally had a chance to play hero. It wasn’t a stretch to imagine Emmett running across the rooftops like a naïve brat.
One day that would probably put Lock and Emmett at odds, and, well… Heroes tended to retire early when they went against Gnosis.
Lock shook his head and went back to his own room to get changed for the day. He threw on another set of black pants, black shirt, and another black hoodie. His muscles rippled with anticipation, squirming beneath the fabric with barely contained strength.
Then he pulled up the encrypted window on his phone while he waited for Gnosis to send his next job.
And he contemplated telling his boss about Emmett...
Not yet, Lock thought.
Not yet.
Full Throttle Heart
A Whole New World
[Truck-kun waking up in a strange forest]
Truck-kun’s engine rumbled to life, the revometer visibly trembling. The last thing it remembered was that rogue box truck barreling toward it… Joe’s wide-eyed face through the coffee shop window… The sound of screeching metal and busting glass… Joe falling to his knees in anguish…
That was one crazy nightmare!
Truck-kun rolled forward, its tires gripping dirt. It sprayed fluid on its windshield and wiped, trying to get rid of the haze.
Wait, that wasn’t right…
Dirt?
Truck-kun spun its wheels, kicking up dirt. That definitely wasn’t right. There wasn’t any dirt in the city.
Its engine revved and its revometer flicked with uncertainty. Finally, Truck-kun’s window cleared enough for it to see.
It was in the middle of a forest, surrounded by enormous, towering trees. A blanket of moss stretched out between them. Realization settled on Truck-kun’s metal frame—not just that it was a long way from city streets, but that it was also alone. Not even distant bird calls helped to shake the unease spreading through its engine.
“Joe?” Truck-kun grumbled in desperation.
Where was Joe?
“Joe?” This time it was Truck-kun’s own voice that gave it pause.
“Joe…” The voice came out in a deep rumble, like Truck-kun had just woken up from a deep slumber. In a pang of sadness, it reminded Truck-kun of Joe’s own voice early in the morning, before Joe had his second cup of coffee.
“Is this real?” Truck-kun wondered aloud, as much to its newfound voice as to the strange surroundings.
Only silence answered.
Not knowing what else to do, Truck-kun put on its flashers and drove cautiously through the forest.
