Arc 8, Superficial
Chapter 4
We made our way along towards the elevator, however I could feel a certain sensation running up my spine. Are my wasp senses tingling? Do I even have wasp senses? Well, I guess my instincts would qualify. It was danger and since Sub was still out of commission I could not really interpret it other than the primal senses that were welling up. Was I just being paranoid? I looked around the white washed walls and nothing really seemed different at all. I could not see anything that would illicit this feeling. Just when I thought it was in my head the lights dimmed and red siren lights blinked along with a wailing alarm.
“Warning, warning! Containment on lower level has been breached. Mutation Prevention Division has been compromised. All non security personnel are to quickly and orderly evacuate to safety zones.”
I just looked at Johnson, frowning, “Safe in here, eh?”
“Hold on, I will get to the bottom of this.” He replied making his way over to the reception desk.
Around us all the scientists locked themselves into their respective research rooms. The lights and sounds annoyed me. I didn’t like these noises they grated at my antennae. Nothing seemed to change for a minute or so. However that was when the elevator arrived at our floor. The doors opened and several armored people stepped out, eight in all.
“What happened this time Boss?” asked their leader holding a large caliber rifle. If I had to guess then that thing could take out a tank.
Johnson replied, “Something got loose down there. Kill it and bring anybody that was injured to the infirmary.”
“Right, any idea what it is?”
“Not too sure, camera feeds are down and I would have to go up to the security room to review the videos. We don’t have that kind of time.”
“It is not one of those baboons again, was it?”
“We can’t be sure, be alert. You know how crafty those things are.”
“Yeah, last time they set up an ambush and used a hostage as bait.”
I looked between them, “Wait monkeys?”
“They are Dr. Arbor’s, we are just holding on to them temporarily.”
Hmmm, it feels like I remember something about this. “You mean the genetically engineered baboons the she was making for a warlord in the Congo?”
“You seem well informed and here I was thinking that was supposed to be a secret.”
“Well, Dr. Arbor and I have a rather intimate relationship. She has saved my life many times now. Though I have only heard about it in passing so I don’t know too much.”
“Intimate you say?” He looked at me and his eyes roamed down, clearly I knew what he was thinking.
“Nothing sexual,” I replied, “that would just be weird.”
“Right,” he said, looking away from me and towards the men, “Quicker you get to it, the less problems we will have.”
They nodded and went back down the elevator to deal with the problem, what ever the hell was going on down there.
“So, eh what now?” I asked. “Honestly, surprised you didn’t ask me to go help with that.”
“We have people who can deal with such problems. As for you, we need to draw up a new contract. So come on up to my office and we will work out the kinks.”
“Look man, before I sign anything, is there anything else I need to know about? You guys shady or something? Last I heard those baboons were bioweapons engineered for killing. Last I heard that sort of thing was outlawed. Just come clean and I will decide if I want to continue.”
Johnson nodded a bit, crossing his arms, “Those are more of a favor. We didn’t make them, we are just holding onto them for the moment at Dr. Arbor’s behest. Personally, I can’t wait to get rid of them, the things are a nightmare. We don’t make mutants here we just capture them and try to figure out counter agents.”
“Is there anything crazy that will come back to bite me in the ass? You know, guilt by association?”
“Not that I can think of. If anything does happen, well, we have good lawyers. I wouldn’t be too worried.”
“So you are saying that I should be a little worried?”
“One should always be worried over their business ventures. Things can change very quickly and usually not for the better.”
“Speaking from experience?”
“We learn from our mistakes, do we not?”
“Well, some people don’t.”
“True enough.” He cracked a slight smile.
I was about to reply when that feeling came back, shuddering up my spine. I am not really creeped out by his smile… so it is not Johnson, then what the hell is making me feel this? All the little hairs were standing up. I had felt this before, but where? Oh right, when I was being hunted in the sewers. Wait a minute why would I be feeling that?
“Hey, whatever is down there can’t get up here right?” I asked looking around.
“Not unless it got into the elevator shaft and managed to climb here.”
I nodded vaguely. Hearing that made me not want to get near that elevator. We idled around the information desk, the attendant appeared to be a lot less concerned now that we were hanging around here. The white walls surrounded us with a monotony that was only broken by the windows of the varied labs and the shapes of people moving within. Out of the corner of my eyes I noticed something that I had over looked before, the vents. It is always the fucking vents.
“Do all of the vents connect?”
“Well yes. It would be weird if they didn’t. Why do you-” Johnson never even got to finish when somebody slammed against the glass of the Solar experiment room.
The door burst open and the remaining scientists fled, screaming and making a Bee line for the elevator. What they were running from? A squirrel. Not just any squirrel this thing was a monster. Now a normal squirrel was about two feet long counting the bushy tail, this thing was going on four feet. The lithe form reminded me more of a cat than a rodent, but the talon like claws and bucked teeth definitely kept that image in check. The fur was silvered and mottled in some places, but those black soulless eyes seemed overly large, bulging even. And it was foaming at the mouth, of course it was. So, it has got the rabies.
At any rate it was agile and fast. Darting all over the fucking place. This looks like a job for… somebody else. Eh, who am I kidding? Who the fuck else is going to deal with this thing? I sighed, how bad can this be? The thing isn’t that big. Well at least there is only- I had to stop that thought before I could jinx myself. No, no, no I have learned my lesson already don’t go thinking and especially don’t go saying stupid shit.
I squared up, making myself look bigger to intimidate it. It kinda worked the radioactive rodent was hissing and edging away from me. I stepped into the room and closed the door behind me so that it could not get loose and attack others. It is just you and me now, you filthy animal… well I guess there is that mauled guy over there in the corner as well. Speaking of which, he wasn’t really looking so hot.
The beast had overcome the wariness and launched into a screeching charge. Oh shit. Thinking fast I ripped up one of the solar panels and used it to hold the deranged creature back. It blocked the blow, but threw me back, pinning me to the wall. The only thing between us was that panel and it was not going to hold up for very long. It started gnawing and ripping through to the point where my shield snapped in half. Uahh! Get it off me! I swatted at it, beating back the chattering teeth and scraping claws. How can something so small, be so fucking evil! What is this thing from a Monty Python skit? Where is the holy hand grenade when you need it?
I lost sight of it for a moment as it rustled about behind the tables. Uh oh. Shit, where did it go? Everything got real quiet for a moment until I heard a dripping sound. Seeing a globule drop down right in front of me, made me really not want to look up. Of course I had to though. It was there on the ceiling, directly above me, crawling down in a prowling fashion. How in the fuck did it get there?!
It leapt, latching into my helmet, clawing and biting at me. Cracks started to form in my visor while I screamed and thrashed about. There was only one thing to do, attack. My fingers jabbed into those black eyes. Who says I fight fair? Molotov had always taught me to go for the eyes and as much as I hate to admit it, it worked. It squealed, retreating back, giving me much needed space. I managed to dislodge the critter and hurl it as hard as I could at the opposing wall.
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
Blinded and now filled with a murderous rage the squirrel bolted all over the room, crashing into stuff. Though it could not see, it could certainly hear. The moment I took a step it honed in on the sound and threw itself at me. I felt like a matador and side stepped it. The squirrel thudded into the thick glass bouncing off, momentarily stunned. I was not over looking an opportunity and dived in, firmly grabbing hold of the scruffy flanks. It squealed as my grip tightened and the bushy tail whipped at me, trying to knock me loose. I could hear bones cracking and the heart beat quickening.
It snarled and squirmed in my grasp. Lefty swung down with the solar panel, smooshing the trembling creature with an ear splitting squeak. Take that Mother Nature, why you so fucking scary? Eco friendly my ass. Whew, thank Helix that is over. That thing was surprisingly strong was not expecting that for the size. This arm is really something else though. It is definitely stronger than my others and this was Astrea’s smaller arm. I wonder what I could do with one of her main arms? Well, that got morbid real quick.
Hmm, if I had gotten bit by that thing would I gain all the powers of a radioactive squirrel? Honestly… I think I am better off the way I am. I mean nobody would take the Marvelous Marsupial seriously. Wait a minute those things are rodents, they don’t even have a pouch so it is not even a fucking marsupial. Then what the hell would the name even be? Squirrel Girl? Girl Squirrel? Nah that is stupid. Gotta think of something cool like eh… the Chattering Champion. Yeah that sounds cool. Wait, wouldn’t I grow like twelve boobies? Nuuh that is just too many, I mean what would I even do with all of those nipples?
It feels like I am forgetting something. Ah, right that guy in the corner. I stood over him, looking over the wounds. Yeah, that don’t look good. There was nasty green ichory stuff oozing out of the bite marks. Something tells me this guy is going to become the Man Squirrel. Not even sure if amputating would save him at this point. I decided to leave him be and stood beside my beaten quarry. I poked at it with my foot. It is certainly not coming back from that, the head is flatter than a pancake. Smells rotten too, likely has that feral disease.
I looked up and nearly jumped when I saw the faces of Johnson and Mark staring at me through the glass. Seeing that the coast was clear they opened up the door and gathered next to me.
“You got it, as expected of a hero.”
I crossed my arms, “I want a raise. This was not in my job description. I mean if you want me to fight mutant animals I will, but I want a heads up before hand.”
“I believe that can be arranged,” said Johnson.
***
We spent the next few hours pouring over legal papers with all manner of lawyer jargon to the point my head felt like it was going to explode. Apparently, things were more complicated than I had thought. Luckily, I had my own personal blood sucker to fight off Johnson’s money grubbing fiend. They had been going back and forth for a while now over a swimsuit photo op where I would just be wearing my helmet and the varied under garmets provided. They had even brought the guy in to try and talk me into it. Needless to say I was adamantly against it. I mean, I would do it, but I am not ever taking off this suit in front of people.
“Can’t I just wear the suit with the bikini and thong or whatever it is I am promoting over it? Have you seen the ass on this thing? Pretty nice right?” I said, bending over and looking at them from between my legs.
“People think swimsuit and they want skin. They want under boob and sexy toned asses with sweat glistening down the crack.” Said the photographer.
“I get that and I agree, but I can’t take off the suit… I have scars.”
“It can’t be that bad.”
“I literally don’t have skin.”
“Oh…” he trailed off taken aback. He sounded a little more empathetic to my plight, “How did that happen?”
“Chemical burns and fire. I would be dead right now if I had not had extreme and invasive procedures done to me.”
He rubbed his temple and closed his eyes thinking it over. After a little bit of silence he sighed and started looking me over from varied angles. He was doing the whole picture thing with his fingers making a rectangle as he went. He was especially checking out how my ass looked. I was not offended or anything, really it is more of a compliment when people check you out. I know sex sells an that would be the whole point of this. If it means I have to over sexualize myself then well I guess it is part of the process. Looking is one thing, but getting touchy feely without my permission is another.
“I can work with this,” he said giving his nod of approval.
I don’t really know this guy, but he is famous apparently. I have not been reading magazines lately so I would not particularly know. He was a rather flamboyant guy with pink hair done in some weirdo spiral. Is that popular these days? He had on a colorful button up short sleeve shirt that conspicuously was only half buttoned, leaving his smooth chest exposed. He was not particularly muscular just kinda thin. There were some blue shorts and he wore socks with his flip flops, the savage.
I almost thought he was gay, but there was no way with that sort of fashion sense and he totally was not living up to the flaming tag. He was not dramatizing his voice or anything. Although maybe that sort of thing is in now? I don’t know, why would I know? Is this that Metro sexual thing I had heard about a few times? You trying to impress me? Where are the bulging man muscles? Where is the manly chest fur that I can ruffle as I snuggle?
I shook my head throwing away these errant thoughts. At any rate I needed a break from all of this and that was when somebody who looked awfully familiar walked in, though I could not place my claw on who exactly it was. I stared at the young man. Hmmm. I feel like I should know this. He had dark frizzy hair, it was a Jew fro. A large nose sat in the middle of his face and siting upon it were some black rimmed glasses. He wore a lab coat with a pocket protector on the front with several pens sticking out of it. Below that was a buttoned up white shirt and a pair of tan khaki pants.
“Sir I brought the report from the Testing labs,” he said, barely glancing at me.
To this Johnson perked right up, he was kinda tuning out all the laywer talk as well now that most of everything was hammered out. “Morty Manberg! Just the guy I was looking for. Say hi to our new sponsored hero, Mecha Fairy.”
Morty Manberg? It felt like a ping pong ball darting all over my brain as memories ricochet through my skull. Wait a fucking minute! “Morty!” I shouted and the poor guy went sheet white.
He retreated a little as I aggressively approached and gave him a hug that lifted him off of the floor and popped his back. Oops, I put him back down before I broke anything.
“Do I know you?” he asked wearily.
“Morty old pal, it is me. We went to high school together.”
He was thinking on it, “Look, I don’t know you.”
I got close to him, looking around so that nobody else could hear. I whispered, “It is me, Vesper. I am so happy to see-”
He screamed bloody murder and ran away, leaving me just standing there, “Morty… Morty? Hey come back here!”
Mark looked at me, “What the hell was that about?”
“I don’t know,” I replied dumbfounded. “I’ll be back. Going to see what is wrong. Mark you can finish up I don’t know how long this will take.”
“Alright, still going to need you to sign stuff though.”
“I will do that when I get back.”
I took off after him and followed the scent through the halls. It wound around several corners and through several rooms until finally I had caught up to him. For some reason he had run to a secluded storage room and was hiding behind some crates. He cornered himself and started crying as I got closer.
“Morty, what the fuck man? Are you… crying? Why?”
“This isn’t real.”
“What isn’t real?”
“You, you can’t be back. You were dead, it was in all the news. I was finally free of you.”
I crouched down next to him, “Free of me? What the hell did I do?”
He looked at me meekly, “You… you don’t remember?”
I shook my head, “I remember bits and pieces. Senior year we were thick as thieves weren’t we?”
“What are you talking about? You made my life hell!”
I sat there for a moment and then shouted, “What!? We were friends you got me into anime and manga. The rays of light and salvation in this dark world! The only reason we stopped being friends was because you went to a different college and we lost touch.”
He stared at me with cold eyes, “I went to a different college to get away from you. Hell, I went out of state to escape you.”
I sat there in denial for a good while, “Morty, I don’t understand. My memory might be wrong… so eh, tell me what I did to you to make you hate me this much.”
“You tortured me.” He said.
“It was the pulling of the pants in gym class wasn’t it?”
“There was that and you gave me a swirly almost everyday. Every morning you gave me a noogie until I had scabs. You broke my special edition Neko-chan dvd box set and figurine. You threw me in a dumpster like five times and took my lunch money so that you could buy a second lunch.”
I sat there, rubbing my chin, hmm that does sound familiar. Wait didn’t I also tell the girl he liked in J.R. year and then she threw food on him? Oh my god, I am a fucking terrible person. What the hell was wrong with me? Seriously, if I had a time machine I would go back and punch myself in the face and kill Hitler, but that is beside the point. Why was I such a bitch?
I looked at him and pat his shoulder, he winced a little, “Look, I am sorry about all that. Didn’t we hang out a lot during senior year though?”
“We didn’t hang out, you just kept following me cause everybody hated you for ruining the championship game and I could not get rid of you.”
“I am sorry. Morty, I am different now. I will make it up to you. I will get you a Neko-chan body pillow? Sound good? If you want I could get a replacement box set.”
“Why would you bother? You think buying me stuff is going to make this ok?”
I sighed, “Sorry. Just… I am sorry. I feel terrible about that, I don’t remember some of that, but I don’t remember you ever lying to me either so you are probably telling the truth. What do you want, what can I do to make this better?”
“You are serious?”
I rubbed my face, “Yeah. I literally remember us being friends. I still remember the rubik's cube that you taught me how to do and just hanging out after school watching anime. My memories are a bit distorted though so maybe it is all just lies that my brain is piecing together.”
“Rubik's cube? Oh right, I did teach you that. What do you mean your memories are distorted?”
I rubbed the back of my head, “Well when I say that I changed, I really mean it. I hardly remember anything before college and even then I block most of it out.”
He didn’t seem as mad now and despite himself asked, “What happened to you”
“Oh, you know… fell in some glowing goo and poof, Super shit.”
“So you are a hero now? Well, I guess you must have changed. Otherwise the League would not have let you in, probably.”
“Yeah. Friends?” I said hopefully extending my hand.
He gave me a sour look for a moment and then shook my hand, “You are going to make it up to me.”
“Eh… what do you want?”
“You are going to replace Neko-chan.”
“I can do that. So old pal, tell me, what have you been up to all this time?”
He had calmed down considerably by this point and sat there smiling while he talked about various things. This is the Morty that I remember. After high school, he went to Arizona and did a masters program in theoretical physics. Which was amazing, I always knew he was smart. Wait a minute, is Morty actually a Super? He denied it, so I guess not. Apparently he was in charge of the Tachyon Energy Research Division here. I didn’t particularly pry into that considering it sounded rather top secret. I mean sure people mentioned it, but they never really went into detail about exactly what it was meant to do. I guess I would have to do some research on it.
Hold on, then why does he need me to buy Neko-Chan for him? He makes more money than I do! Well, whatever it is my peace offering. I missed this guy. I gave him another hug, this time being gentler and making sure not to break his back. It was kinda cute how he struggled. I ruffled his hair, laughing. Yay, friends are great. I can’t wait to binge watch anime with him. Just like the old days. I bet him and Sunshine would get along.