“Oh god, that sucked,” Perry groaned, taking a deep breath and resting his hands on his knees, doubled over. Threatening your grandmother with blackmail was not the best feeling in the world, especially with nice, healthy Stability.

Gareth gave him a hesitant pat on the arm.

“Can we do that again tomorrow?” Sera asked around her lollipop.

“Probably not,” Perry muttered. That kind of hardball negotiating would only work on his grandmother once. Now that she was aware of Perry as an actual person and not an extension of herself, she would begin some downright machiavelian politics to regain whatever power she could.

It would be a whole thing.

The first thing she would do is prepare a scapegoat for the disappearances in the sixties so that if Perry released his report, she would be insulated from some of the fallout by him looking like a Johnny Come Lately.

Perry even knew her most likely pick.

Now that he was swimming with the sharks he had to keep swimming…or else.

Perry heaved another groaning sigh before sending the video he’d prepared to all of her likely choices as well as Youtube in general.

That’ll buy me some time.

Perry now had the unwanted hobby of predicting his gramma’s next power-move and heading it off at the pass…for basically the rest of time.

Awesome. Hope it was worth it.

“You guys hungry?” Perry asked, reorienting on his immediate family and what they needed.

The twins shook their heads.

“Bathroom?”

Sera nodded. Gareth began by shaking his head, thought about it for a moment, then nodded.

“Okay, what do you say we hit Burger Joint, hit the bathroom, then grab a snack for later?”

“Burger Joint!” Sera shouted.

“Alright, let’s go,” Perry said, taking their hands.

Potty time went well, and Perry grabbed the twin’s favorites for when they inevitably decided that they were, in fact, hungry. Afterwards, they headed to Perry’s motel lair in Franklin.

The lair itself was a few years out of date and needed some updating, but thankfully Perry could just apply the template he’d saved to Gretchen’s Idyllic Manifestation, and the lab would be instantly updated to the latest and greatest version in Chicago.

Once Perry hit the lair, he retrieved the Realm-Piercing Dagger and split reality.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Zauberer,” The Elysian Attendant said, stepping through. “My name is Annette. I have been assigned to be your Attendant for the remainder of your natural life.”

She was kind of bony, with a dual strength and warmth buried underneath, wearing a severe business dress, underscored by a welcoming smile.

‘charming’ was a word for it.

“You know the stories of Abun’zaul?” Perry asked as soon as they Elysian Attendant finished her introduction.

“Umm..no?”

“You ever read ‘who goes there’?”

“No?” the babysitter angel said.

“Watched ‘The Thing’?”

“Yes, actually. It’s rather popular among the dead. Introduced by some of the newer heroes who die on the Franklin City wall over the last few decades.”

“Okay, so we’ve got a ‘The Thing’ situation somewhere on the planet, and until we’re sure it’s under control, you’re to keep those children-“ he pointed at the twins, “entertained and in the same room as me at all times. Can you do that?”

Annette snapped off a salute.

“Absolutely. Protecting children is my raison d’être”

“Excellent.” He handed her the ‘panic button’. “If I die or it looks like they’ll get killed or subsumed, break this.”

“What’s it do?” Annette asked, turning the simple-looking stick of chalk over in her hand.

“It’ll put the twins in suspended animation and whisk them away to Manita before severing all dimensional ties to Earth.” Perry said.

The Elysian Attendant’s eyes widened and she nearly dropped it.

“Relax. You can’t break it unless you’re trying to break it.” Perry said. It was designed in such a way that it was ridiculously strong until it felt a desire for it to break, at which point that layer of reinforcement would be stripped away, rendering it about as tough as ordinary chalk.

Sure, Perry had decided he’d rather focus on solving the problem, but he wasn’t taking any chances.

“Very well,” Annette said, tucking the piece of chalk in her vest pocket, looking like it belonged there. “I’ll go introduce myself to the young ones.”

“Much obliged,” Perry said, placing the bone marrow on the workbench and giving it a serious look while scowling.

If that was what he thought it was…

Gramma had turned a tiny blood sample from Solaris into a marrow sample and kept it alive through –if not forbidden then definitely frowned upon– magic, constantly oozing blood that technically belonged to Tom Franklin circa 1972, making it an endless font of nasty curses.

Scrape probably hadn’t even known about it.

Honestly it was pretty impressive, given her limited resources.

And it would be insanely useful in curing Solaris.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Perry got to work while Annette introduced herself to the twins, showing a natural charisma with children that had been honed over millennia.

While Perry was drawing up plans, he dialed up Heather.

“Sup?” She asked. “How’s the twins?”

“Still with me. I got the Elysian Attendant looking after them, but we’re staying in the same room. How ‘bout you guys? Sticking together? Still human?”

“As far as you know.” Heather said.

“We’re fine!” Natalie’s voice came over the speaker, sounding like she’d pulled it away from Heather’s ear. “Although staying in the same room with Heather at all times might make me question my life decisions.”

“That was your plan wasn’t it, you sick bastard?” Heather said.

“Good to hear you guys are doing well. Find any mimics?”

“We’ve got your drones sweeping outward, but the sheer amount of landmass is…” Perry could almost see Heather’s shrug.

“Not yet,” Natalie said.

“Well, keep looking, I hope I’m wrong, but…I’m probably not,” Perry said as he began feeding a blood sample into the analyzer.

First thing he needed to do was establish what Solaris’s DNA looked like without the virus screwing it up. It was an oversimplification to believe that was all he would need, though.

He also needed a sample of Solaris’s infected DNA to see what kind of alterations had been made so he could design effective counters to them, but it wasn’t as simple as giving him a factory reset.

I mean, sure, I could theoretically use just this sample to program something that could recognize changes and fix them, but that wouldn’t be nearly as effective as a targeted fix. Because DNA isn’t an on-off switch. It’s a cascading effect, and the changes might be one part of a total nuclear meltdown that can’t be fixed by reverting the original damage.

Having Solaris’s original DNA was a huge win, but it wasn’t the whole solution.

And even if he reverted the changes, wouldn’t the brain damage linger?

So I need to not only erase a virulent, curse-boosted tinker-virus, but also find a cure for dementia and a way to make it stick through Solaris’s light-shifting abilities.

A typical cure would probably include many rounds of treatment that would restore brain tissue gradually, but Perry needed something that was one-and-done.

…great. No problem. I can probably piggyback off of Scrape’s design if I can get my hands on it.

A few hours later, Perry was staring at his monitor, fighting the urge to pace back and forth.

Tom Franklin was predisposed to Alzheimers.

Fan-freakin’-tastic.

This meant several things:

#1 Scrape’s design probably wasn’t terribly sophisticated. That was good. Easier to erase, easier to replace.

#2 The damage would be harder to repair as the existing infrastructure was predisposed to failure. That was bad.

Perry tapped his finger on the table as he thought, running through thousands of possibilities a minute.

Solaris’s unique biology was probably to blame for this. The former crime lord had probably been a couple years away from going senile when he turned into living light. This just started the clock.

Except the man hadn’t aged in fifty years in any way. This wasn’t aging, this was his body actively attacking itself.

I really need to get my hands on a sample of the virus.

If he could get that, he could run it through a simulation.

Do they sell those in the Marketplace?

Perry went on the Franklin City marketplace for the first time in years, feeling a faint sense of nostalgia.

Perry chuckled when he saw a few people reselling his old aluminum gears and rods for a significant markup.

He scrolled down to the Software section and spent a few moments searching for what he was looking for.

Human.exe!

Simply enter in someone’s DNA and this software will create a working model of their body. Supports immunology research, surgery prep, allergies, organ printing and so much more!*

Perry read the description and that of it’s competitor. Looked like what he needed.

He didn’t download it, because he didn’t want a paper trail, nor did he want the program reporting back to a database.

He’d have to visit the author in person to get a Paradox’ed copy.

I’m gonna need an AI too, Perry thought, flipping back to the AI core page. Perry was quick enough to do the work himself, but he wanted something that could monitor and diagnose the human.exe program while Perry did other things.

So many of the awesome gadgets he’d scrolled through with envious eyes five years ago were well within his price range now, but the sad thing was, Perry could make better stuff as long as it wasn’t highly specialized.

Ah, it’s the robot butler I wanted. Tsk.

Perry scrolled past and found the AI page cluttered, so he filtered out general purpose AI, leaving just medical ones.

There we go. He picked one and added it to his mental shopping list before closing the page.

“Okay stinkers, we’re going shopping!” Perry said, turning on the vat in the corner of the room and setting it to produce a supercomputer that could provide the AI and software the processing power they required.

By the time they got back Perry should have something that could simulate an entire person down to the atomic level.

Together the four of them visited the guy selling the Tinker-tech medical software: Jason Knox. No super name.

A lot of Tinkers didn’t get into The Game and just sold their Tinker-tech on the marketplace. Having the ability to make supernaturally realistic medical diagnostic software did not give one the ability or temperament required to smash through walls.

Jason was surprised to have Paradox show up in his house, but he was quick to haggle seven million and a favor for an unregistered copy of his software with none of the bells and whistles that leaked data to the outside world.

They shook on it and Perry wiped his short term memory before zipping the four of them to the next guy.

Once they had the AI core, Perry took them by Home Depot and got the twins some cardboard that he could make into armor for them.

It was analogous to knitting while waiting for food to cook.

Once they got back, Perry pulled the svelt black desktop PC out of the vat of carbon nanotubes and installed adapters before uploading both the AI and the software.

While they were loading, Perry got the DNA sample ready to transfer to the super-computer, made some cardboard armor and weapons, then built a tower with Gareth while Annette taught Sera how to fence.

Well, tried to teach her.

Mostly it just involved Sera shrieking at full volume and swinging wildly at the Elysian Attendant. Luckily the thin woman had the patience of an undead saint of some kind.

Perry had never quite nailed down how Elysian Attendants were made. Or born? Sophie having a ‘sister’ implied they were born. But there was circumstantial evidence to the contrary as well.

He resolved to look it up.

Ding!

Perry excused himself from the tower building and turned his attention to the supercomputer having finally booted with all of it’s software ready to go.

“Good afternoon!” an older man in a white lab coat appeared on the connected monitor. He had a bushy beard, a balding head and an intense gaze.

“My name is Hippocrates, an artificial intelligence dedicated to the practice of medicine. How can I assist you?”

“I need you to create a cure for Alzheimer’s.” Perry said.

Hippocrates’s eyebrow twitched.

“That’s a tall order, but I am intrigued, and pleased to be presented with such a challenging task. ”

“I’m uploading a DNA sample I believe to be from the patient,” Perry said.

“You’re not sure?”

“I’ll know once you boot the Human.exe program and load his physical form from the DNA” Perry replied.

The AI looked extremely dubious, but nodded, waiting for Perry to connect the thumb-drive with Solaris’s DNA code on it.

A moment later, a life-sized figure of Solaris appeared beside Hippocrates, who began giving the simulation a physical.

Perry heaved a sigh of relief to know Gramma hadn’t pulled a switcheroo.

“You realize a simple living puppet produced with the patient’s DNA is nowhere near enough?” Hippocrates asked, looking back at Perry once he finished. “I need brain scans, medical history, tissue samples, blood work.”

“This,” he pointed at the breathing doll. “While helpful, does not have environmental factors accounted for, so the accuracy of my diagnostics cannot possibly be accurate enough to produce a cure. The man in the real world likely grew an entirely unique brain compared to this one simply as a result of different stressors and environmental factors.”

Hippocrates motioned to the doll’s skull and the top faded away, exposing the brain.

“Did he drink?” the texture of the brain subtly changed. “Did he do drugs?” the brain changed again. “Was he under extreme stress?”

“In short, while this puppet is helpful, I need scans, medical history and bloodwork.”

“Well, here’s the thing,” Perry said before explaining why they couldn’t get their hands on those.

“I see. That is a rather delicate situation.”

“Run as many simulations as you can with how different forms of virus-triggered auto-immune disorders could progress and form potential counters for each of them. When I get further information, we can use your simulations to narrow down the disease and form a response faster than we might have otherwise.

“As you wish,”

Hippocrates frowned for a moment before the hospital-gown wearing simulacrum of Solaris split into thousands, marching across the screen.