෴Project Turnabout෴

෴Alvin Kellogg෴

෴Stratton Oswald෴

෴෴෴෴෴෴

Ineptitude

෴෴෴෴෴෴

  Back in his office, Kellog slumped into the big executive chair he’d originally picked for its intimidation value. “Oh shit. Oh shit oh shit. We need to figure out how to spin this.”

  Stratton sat in one of the visitor chairs, looking far more relaxed than he’d been the first time he was in called into Director Kellog’s office.

  Kellog looked up at Stratton. “I need ideas. Those weren’t supposed to be used like that, just in the field to prevent escape or betrayal. Help me out Stetson, I need some ideas.”

  Once free of the fear he’d once felt for his department director, Stratton had soon realized that Kellog was a pathetic little man with delusions of grandeur that put far more effort into projecting an illusion of authority and competence than anything else. He thought hard about how to approach this.

  “Well, director, I don’t see many options. The room saw it happen, and it's a room that gets video surveillance. So hiding it probably won't work. The remote is keyed to you, so I don’t see how we could spin a story that someone else did it. You killed the team member with easily the weakest ability, one with almost no combat applications.” Stratton watched Kellog flinch when he stated clearly that Kellog had killed the man.

  Stratton scratched his head and then leaned forward conspiratorially. “At this point, I think you might want to just move forward boldly. Weren’t you saying that the next Senate committee meeting is going to be making some big changes to the legal status of people with abilities? Maybe you should just own it and make it part of your platform. I mean, let's face it. Any other option is going to have people thinking you can't run a simple remote control, or that you’re not really in control of your department.”

  Stratton sat back and watched Kellog’s face as the ideas percolated through his mind.

෴Raz෴

෴Carl Brunner෴

෴Richard 'Rich' Stokes෴

෴Krystah෴

෴Lisa 'Zoom' Evans෴

෴෴෴෴෴෴

Lost and Found

෴෴෴෴෴෴

  The next day Raz was eager to get to the activity time. That left him disappointed when Bee warned him it was nearly time, and then no one showed up. An hour later he was waiting at the door when a female guard he’d seen but not spoken to brought him a meal on a tray. He noticed that the door didn't make any sounds when she approached it.

  “Hey, thanks for the food. Do you know if I’ll be getting to the gym today?” He took the tray and then took it over to the bed. On the way over, he detected a barely audible click coming from the door.

  She shrugged. “I don’t know anything about that. Can't tell you anything anyway, but if you’re going to get your activity time, someone will come get you.” She walked away after that and didn’t acknowledge his further attempt at conversation. The door clicked again when she was a few feet away. Raz mentally filed that away as useful but needing more experimentation.

  Well, alright Bee, it is just you and me for now then. Once I get this food down let's work some more on kicks and speed.

  He’d run out of angles and ways to improve his punches and kicks when he heard some footsteps approaching. Relieved that he’d already chosen to get the bed reassembled to practice jump and spring attacks, he sat down on the floor halfway between the door and bed and put on his bored prisoner act.

  Carl and the same female guard he’d seen but not really met at lunch came up to the door. Now attuned to the sound, Raz heard the tiny click of the door lock’s near silent lock disengage a few feet before they were close enough to open it.

  Carl looked at the lunch tray on the floor. “We’re on lockdown.” The female guard looked over sharply at Carl at this. Carl saw the moment and met her gaze. “What, it's not like it’s not obvious.” He said to her.

  She scowled. “It might not have been obvious to him. But whatever, let's just get this done.”

  He looked back at Raz. “So, you have a chance to get some exercise. If you have a book or anything, set it by the door. They are going to clean up your room while you’re out, and that really means searching it for contraband.”

  The woman looked at Raz, “What he really means is, if you’ve managed to sneak a fork or something from the mess hall, tell us now. You really don’t want to give Mr. Braithwaite reason not to like you.”

  Raz looked at the two of them blankly. Without warning even to him, the stresses of his time imprisoned had built up and the comments suddenly brought it all bubbling to the surface.

  “A book? I’d love a book. I’d love me some ‘War and Peace’, unless you’ve got something longer. I don’t even know how long I’ve been in here, and I haven't had so much as a crayon to draw on the wall. If I did have a fork or a spoon or whatever from the mess hall, I’d probably be finger painting with my own blood by now, just to relieve the boredom. Furthermore, that nutcase doesn’t need a reason. He’s already killed someone right in front of me, not to mention a little torture. In what way, would he be different if he, as you say, didn’t like me?”

  He glared at the two of them hard enough that first Carl then the woman took a half step back and Carl put his hand on his holstered baton. Raz didn't want to get zapped, so he relaxed his body and tried to defuse the situation a bit.

  “No no, I don’t want any trouble. It’s just that these exercise periods are the only chance I get all day to do anything, and today I apparently don't even get that. I’m going a little stir crazy in here!” He punctuated that by pointing his index finger at the side of his head and twirling it around.

  The guards relaxed a bit. The woman spoke up. “Well, I guess this is good news then, so let’s go.”

  Raz nodded and waited for them to step aside so he could move toward the door. Carl’s face was hard to read, his expression a bit complex. Raz wondered why, but didn’t have to wonder for very long.

  “Hey, are you serious? Have you really been here all this time without anyone taking you by the bookshelf?” Carl asked.

  Raz nodded, “You talking right now, is the first I’m hearing of a bookshelf.”

  As Raz walked ahead of them, Carl spoke softly to the other guard, “Krystah, let's take him by the bookshelf. The guy’s been here for nearly a week.”

  Raz found it amazing that he could hear them so clearly.

  Krystah whispered a reply. “It’s fine, but you know he’s probably only going to be here for a couple more days before we close up shop.”

  Raz perked up at this but kept moseying along, dragging the walk out as much as he could without being obvious about it.

  Carl spoke up, “Hey, go straight here, the bookshelf is in the next room past the gym.”

  Raz followed the directions and found himself in what looked to be a sort of quasi break room. The book shelf was literally a single shelf with perhaps twenty books on it. The rest of the shelving was taken up by bedding and piles of the generic mismatched uniform style clothing he’d been given his first day in the cell.

  It was hardly a library, but Raz spotted a western that looked like it might be interesting. Krystah pointed at the other shelves. “If you haven’t been here, I’m guessing you haven't gotten a change of clothes either. You might want to grab another outfit and some bedding. You’ll need the bedding when you get back.”

  Raz nodded gratefully and picked through the clothing till he saw some that should fit. One of the shirts looked familiar. Looking closer he realized it was his own shirt from before the car crash. He selected that one and looked for the matching pants. He didn’t find those and settled on some that were his size.

  He’d just set down his bundle of bedding and clothing when Krystah told him to move the pile of stuff. He asked where and she waved dismissively into the room. “Somewhere not here. I don’t feel like tripping over it.”

  Like usual, he didn’t have the gym to himself. An attractive green-haired, red eyed woman in form fitting workout gear was on the big treadmill when they arrived. Seeing her on it showed Raz why the place had the big oversized treadmill. She was tied to a sort of harness on her torso, with a heavy cable stretching to the back of the machine.The speed indicated would fluctuate a lot, but the readout showed her to be running between twenty five and thirty miles an hour. Raz kept an eye on this while he hopped on his own treadmill in what he was coming to think of as the ‘regular people’ workout area.

  Raz looked around and finally decided to put the pile next to the lockers, so he could use the punching bag later on.

   Trying not to stare when she began sprinting in bursts that took the treadmill to speeds over a hundred miles an hour, Raz got right to work warming up on the treadmill. He took the opportunity to work on studying the woman’s running form in one of his virtual mirrors. He told himself it had nothing to do with her shapely body in the form fitting leotard and leggings.

  Is it just me or are these virtual mirrors getting better? I swear I can see her roots showing under that green hair from here.

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  Yes.

  Are you back in the selectively limited verbosity mode?

  Yes.

  Let's turn that verbosity up a few notches, I don’t have the time or inclination to pull teeth, and let’s be real, if she can sprint over a hundred miles per hour, what are we really going to do if she wants to fight?

  [That is a good point. We do not currently have a reasonable way to deal with that level of threat.]

  [In answer to your prior question, the performance of all your senses, and the performance of all system related functions is improving as your negative conditions recede.]

  Oh yeah. Let's see how things are looking now.

  [Distress level 10 <10> (-10% resilience) ]

  [Eustress level 10 <0> (+10% mood)]

  [Anxiety level 10 <10> (-10% stability)]

  [Recovery (physical) level 10 <0> (-1 strength)]

  [Sickness (Assimilation) level 10 <0> (-20% ability upgrades effect)]

  [Overprovisioned (capacity breach) level 30 <0> (+60% upgrade cost)]

  So I’m almost recovered from that last massive injection?

  [Correct. However, until the capacity breach is completely recovered from, additional upgrades are still strongly advised against.]

  So, if I had, what was it, recovery or remedy, I could get better faster, but it’s a bad idea to get them, so I can’t recover faster?

  [In essence this is correct, however, ‘Recovery’ is the skill related to your own healing.]

  [‘Remedy’ is an applied targeted ability toward others.]

  Ugh. I still don’t want to be a healer. But, I suppose there are worse tools to have at my disposal. How do I activate it?

  [You do not have it.]

  Well yeah, but when I have it, how will I activate it?

  [You know how you look at semi reflective surfaces and activate virtual mirror?]

  Yep.

  [It is just like that.]

  Raz nodded his head absently and turned the treadmill up a notch, breaking into an easy jog.

  Ok, so it's just activated by intent. Does that designated opponent thing come into play?

  [Designated opponent and designated ally are currently set to only affect abilities that have negative effects on the target.]

  [This is a user configurable parameter.]

  I guess that would be more interesting if I had an ability like that.

  Bee didn’t answer, and Raz passed a few more minutes of jogging while ogling the super human woman’s impressive physique as she ran.

  Bee, does me using my abilities like this count toward generating additional capacity?

  [It does.]

  [The multiple angle enhanced view you have assembled of the female is putting a significant resource strain on the system and your host resources and available energy. ]

  Yeah, I noticed I’m feeling a bit of of a strain and some headache forming. Is that the feeling of using too much energy?

  [Yes. It is advisable to stop soon and allow your energy to recover.]

  Yeah, good idea.

  Raz let all the virtual mirrors disappear, then remade one that allowed him to keep an eye on the guards and the running woman, who seemed to be winding down her incredible sprints.

  So if we spent that one rank’s worth of grok suite upgrade, what options are available?

  [Nothing.]

  Raz nearly tripped on the treadmill at this. Nothing? How can that be?

  He suddenly tapped his forehead. Oh right, that's due to the capacity cost increase.

  [Correct.]

  [Currently the datastream material and capacity cost of a single rank are increased by 60%.]

  [This would render the single measure of ‘grok’ upgrade unusable at this time.]

  So if we had two, we could get something that cost one, and just what, lose the change?

  [That is an option.]

  [There may be applications for partial reserves.]

  By the time he’d jogged for 15 minutes the green haired woman had unhooked herself from the treadmill and moved from it to the boxing ring and was engaging in dynamic stretching in a way that Raz found fairly distracting to watch.

  Raz had planned to use the boxing equipment next, but decided to give the woman her space and moved to the weight machines instead.

  The sound of approaching footsteps in the hallway pulled his attention from the virtual mirror he’d been looking at.

  Fidel walked into the room with a nod to the guards. He called out a greeting to the woman, and she waved in return. They met over in the boxing gear corner and began talking softly. Raz tried to hear them. He was surprised to discover that he could easily hear the discussion.

  “-ell you shouldn’t have left them here!” The woman said.

  Fidel scowled. “Yes I know. You understand that my plan to leave them here, it was not.”

  The woman smiled but suppressed it. “No no, you say, ‘I didn’t plan to leave them here’ or ‘It wasn’t my plan to leave them here’.”

  Fidel furrowed his brow, “Yes, it was not my plan to leave them here. Is right?”

  She folded her arms and smiled, “It’s good enough. But we still need to find those gloves. We had those specially commissioned. There aren't many sources for items like this, and they cost more than these guards earn in a decade.” She waved the guards over to them.

  She pointed at Krystah, “You, did they find anything in the guys room?”

  Krystah shook her head and pointed to a small earpiece. “No ma’am, guy actually didn't have anything in his cell. No books, no change of clothes, one bed sheet one blanket one pillow.”

  The woman looked at her for a long moment with an accusatory expression before dismissing her with a flick of her hand. “Ok, you can go.”

  The two guards turned to go. “Not you.” the woman said to Carl. “You’re the one Rich was roughing up when Fidel here intervened right?”

  Carl seemed to instantly get even more nervous. “Um, yes ma’am. That was me.”

  She smiled warmly. “Oh honey, you can relax. We’re all friends here. You can call me Lisa. You can even call me Zoom if you’re into the code name thing. You’re Carl, right?” She locked eyes with him intently.

  Carl tried to smile back and mostly succeeded. “Yes ma’- I mean, yes Lisa. I’m Carl.”

  “Well Carl, Rich has been on thin ice for a while around here. Ever since he got greedy and tried to take another rank before the testing said he was ready, he’s been acting out and trying to compensate for what he didn't get. Fidel here taught him a lesson, and I’m asking you personally, to let myself or Fidel know if that lesson doesn't take.” She smiled sweetly. “You can do that for me can’t you?”

  Carl nodded emphatically. ”Ok, I will.” He nodded again.

  “That’s super. Thanks so much.” She nodded her head over toward Krystah, “She wasn’t feeding me a line of bullshit was she? Something about her rubs me the wrong way. I’ve never trusted her.”

  Carl shook his head again. “No ma-, Lisa. He really had nothing in his room. Are we looking for something?”

  She shook her head. “Nah, Fidel just seems to have misplaced something of his. It doesn’t really matter except that they’re expensive and difficult to replace.” She inclined her head toward Raz. “So tell me about him. I can tell he’s a cutie, but what else can you tell me about him?”

  Carl looked over at Raz. “Um, not much. He must have a high tolerance for boredom, we’ve had a lot of people screaming at the cell doors on the first day when they didn't have anything to do. He just got his first book on the way here.” Carl pointed at the bundle of bedding clothing with the book on top nearby.”

  Lisa walked over and picked up the book from the pile next to the locker. She flicked her gaze over it and looked at the cover dismissively. “I guess it takes all kinds.”

  “Well, there aren't exactly a lot of choices there.” Carl replied.

  “Yeah, whatever.” Her tone shifted, becoming dismissive. She tossed the book over the bedding. It hit the top of the pile and slid off underneath the locker.

  “Thanks, honey, let's talk again some time. For now, don’t let me take up any more of your time, you can get back what you were doing.” She said to Carl and then looked back over at Fidel.

  The moment Carl walked away she took a step over into Fidel’s personal space. “And you. You need to find those gloves. It’s not just the money, and you know how fast regular fighting gloves will wear out when you use them.”

  Fidel nodded somberly. “Yes. I still have many pairs from before. Perhaps I left them someplace I am forgetting.”

  She nodded. “Too bad, I was hoping we could spar tonight. Maybe next time, I could use a real workout. ”

  “Yes, perhaps next time.” Fidel agreed.

  The two left, leaving Raz alone with the guards. Taking the opportunity given him with the limited time he had left, Raz finished his exercise. He called out to the guards. “We got time for one more circuit?”

  They both shook their heads no. He’d expected that, but felt he should ask to maintain an appearance of having no access to clocks.

  Raz nodded and then went to gather up his things. Since the beginning of the conversation, an idea had been growing in his mind. As he picked up his shirt and pants, he reached down to grab the book, and reached past the book. As he’d suspected, his hand found one of the segmented armored gloves. He smoothly pulled the pair out and tucked them into the bundle of clothing and grabbed the book. Folding the gloves deeper into the bundle as well he returned to the guards. They barely glanced at him except to motion for him to go ahead.

  Walking down the hall Raz could again easily hear them whispering between each other.

  “What do you think they’re looking for?” Carl whispered.

  “Hell if I know. I was hoping they told you more after that bitch sent me away.” Krystah replied.

  “Something of Fidel’s, but she didn’t say what. The guy has a major fire-based ability, maybe it's his asbestos underwear.” Carl deadpanned.

  Raz almost gave the game away by laughing and instead managed to turn it into a cough. Krystah on the other hand clearly found it very funny and laughed the rest of the way to the cell.

  Now attuned to the sound, Raz was able to determine that the door unlocked nearly silently as soon as a guard was around five feet away from it. He went in and set his things down on the bed.

  Raz had expected them to leave him alone, and was concerned when they stood there in the door for a moment. Carl was looking at him with an odd expression on his face.

  “Hey, uh, just so you know. You’ve got an appointment this evening with Mr. Braithwaite. I mean, I guess you can’t be late or anything. So, never mind.” He said to Raz. Carl backed out of the cell and closed the door.

  As the two walked off Raz leaped across the room. Catching the door and pulling it ajar just before he heard the tiny clicking sound. The two guards were busy talking and didn’t appear to have heard him pull the door open. He listened and could just make out some conversation while they walked down the hall. “What the hell was that? You know the rules. ‘No unnecessary communication’ is literally what the rule says.” Krystah demanded.

  Carl didn’t answer for a moment. “I don’t know. It feels necessary to me. I guess Braithwaite just gives me the creeps, and I figure this guy deserves at least a heads up.”

  Raz stuck his head out into the hallway to catch the last bit.

  “Yeah ok, I’ll give you that. As far as I’m concerned, ‘creeps’ is putting it mildly. To hear him talk, I think he’s actually pissed off that this guy hasn’t already turned into a melter or gone full chimera.”

  Carl said something a low voice that Raz couldn’t quite make out.

  Her louder reply reached him. “Now he’s got us rounding up all the other people. No idea why, but it's an order from him, so you know it's nothing good. I hate this job so much. Some days I wish I could just not wake up. If you knew some of the things I’ve seen. Actually never mind, I promise you don’t want to know” she said as the pair passed out of Raz’s earshot.

  Raz saw they were nearly to the corner and pulled his head back into the room to prevent them from possibly seeing him.

  Raz wondered if this was his chance, but then heard more footsteps coming from the other direction. He reluctantly allowed the door to close and then tested it. He was unsurprised to find that it wouldn’t budge. He sat on the bed on top of the pile of clothing and bedding that hid the long armored gloves.

  The lone guard walked past the door and Raz heard the tiny click. Once again he sped across the room and managed to catch the door before it re-locked itself.

  Well, at least I know how I’ll be getting out of here when the time comes. If they really do have other prisoners here, I need to see if I can get us all out. No one should have to be locked up in a place like this.

  [That sounds like a high risk proposition. You could escape on your own now. Why risk that?]

  It’s the right thing to do.