The Vespidian Arc 7 Healthy Green Glow
Chapter 18, Interlude: Breaking Eggs
June 26th, 2011
“My little pretties. Oh, how cute you little babies are. Who is going to grow up big and strong and kill all of Mommy’s enemies? You are, oh yes you are,” said Dr. Arbor, wiggling her fingers over a nursery filled with trembling little creatures.
Their soft squiggly flesh made the writhing grubs within seem repulsive to the more squeamish. However, to Dr. Arbor, they were cuter than kittens. They had no eyes to speak of, though, the bodies had long sensitive hairs that flicked around. The soft gurgling sounds and whining noises they emitted when hungry made her smile, granted it was hidden under her mask. She turned away when an alarm sounded. It blinked over in the corner beside her control center. She gingerly closed the lid, sealing in the little worm like creatures.
“What now?” she said to herself aloud.
If it wasn’t her cute little daughter. Oh, how she struggles. She sure was adorable when she was suffering. Regenerators sure do love to get hurt. Agony was ecstasy to them so she couldn’t blame her for getting into trouble. But what is she up to? Dr. Arbor took a closer look, watching on the cameras as the frantic wasp girl seemed to have resolved onto something rather dangerous, escaping. Her mental stress seems to have reached a breaking point. Luckily, the reason why this was so dangerous happened to be out at the moment. For how long, that was likely to be short.
“Why would she do something that stupid? Is she trying to get killed?” she mumbled to herself.
This was unacceptable. To lose that Subject would be catastrophic to her research. She sighed, it was nice here, but the way things were going it would not end well for little Vespidian. She, she was just too damned human for her own good. Usually, when changed to such a degree the subject casts off their humanity and embraced what they had become. This was not always a good thing though. Especially, for one so inhuman, so wonderfully touched by the Spore or in this case the extract Mutigene. It was astounding that she managed to retain so much of her former self through the transformation process. At one point she had been reduced to a literal soup of organic material. It was a process similar to a caterpillar entering into a chrysalis and reforming its body.
Dr. Arbor shook her head. Now was not the time to reminisce. Vespidian seemed dead set on escaping. She scanned over the cameras watching for anybody who would impede the path. For now, it was clear and her flight out of the installation went smoothly. It was what came after that was the problem. When SHE would inevitably return and find out, then this little walk would earn the girl a broken spine if she was lucky.
She sat there for a moment contemplating. Perhaps, it was time to move on. A Super Genius can’t help but come up with plans to their current situations, it was just how they were. Dr. Arbor had not come here willingly, no, she had been kidnapped. It had been four months already locked away in this prison-like lab. It appeared that the time to enact the escape plan had come. They would both need a distraction to get out of this. Or else the little terror would likely skin them both alive.
Dr. Arbor typed away for a few manic moments until all manner of alarms started going off. The surrounding cages opened up. Four nearly identical copies of Vespidian wearily emerged from their enclosures. They seemed disoriented at first from the lights and sounds. She took her micro chipper out, it looked very similar to a glue gun, and thrust it into the back of each of their heads. A loud crunch sound emanated and each fell over, writhing in pain. They turned to attack her before she sprayed a specially designed pheromone onto herself. They immediately became docile.
Good, so that works. She flipped several more switches and the vents opened up. After a little bit of coaxing the creatures took off, scrambling to freedom, to wreak havoc on the unsuspecting city. With the distraction taken care of Dr. Arbor packed her vital research materials into the dimensional storage device attached to her belt. She backed up the computer hard drive onto a small external drive. The process took a few minutes. Just when it was about finished the door opened. Dr. Arbor turned and frowned by what she saw. A little girl in a spy outfit glared at her and it felt like the moon was going to come crashing down.
“What have you done?!” Yelled a gritty man’s voice as she bore down on Dr. Arbor.
She retreated cringing in terror, “It was a glitch in the system!”
“Nyet, I know better than to believe that lie. Dr. Arbor, I am disappointed in you. Tell me, was it worth what I am going to do to you? And her when I catch her?”
Dr. Arbor did not say anything. She didn’t have a chance before her arm snapped, bending backward and her legs crumpled in at the knee from where the tiny fist slammed into them. She knew something like this would happen, however, that didn’t help numb the explosions of pain from her shattered limbs. She whimpered meekly, fighting was so barbaric and uncouth.
“I suppose that will have to do, for now, can’t just kill you.”
She chuckled a little, coughing up blood. “I was counting on that.”
“Now to clean up this mess you made.”
“Good luck with that, I doubt you will find her in time.”
“What are you prattling about now? How could I not find her… what did you do?” Molotov stared at the screen where five dots were quickly moving in different directions over the city map.
“Oh, I just gave her a helping hand.”
Molotov scowled, “I will deal with you later.”
***
Present day, October 10th, 2011
A beeping sound jarred Dr. Arbor from her restless pacing. She grimaced for a moment and wiped the cold sweat from her forehead. Green mist wafted from her breathing apparatus. It had been another nearly sleepless night of nonstop work. She was so very close to another breakthrough, she could taste it. The beeping continued, drawing her attention. Dr. Arbor blinked a few times and scraped the sand from her scratchy chromatic eyes. Sure enough, Neon Nurse was waiting at the entrance, locked out like everyone else who came to this place. She made her way along the long corridor in her bunny slippers, stained sweat pants, and loose lab coat, before finally reaching the door. She opened it, ushering in Neon Nurse.
“Welcome, come in, come in, don’t be shy. Don’t mind the mess, things tend to get sloppy while I am working,” said Dr. Arbor, leading the way through the whitewashed walls.
Despite what she said, there was not a single speck of dust to be found in this place. It was unnerving how clean the place was. The reason why it was so well kept became apparent. Robots scurried around behind their feet cleaning anything that trailed in their footsteps. Neon Nurse wore a frown. The pink tubes embedded in her fake skin gave her a strange glow, She hardly glanced at the skittering robos, after all, she had made them.
Dr. Arbor looked into the glass tank, which she had been pacing around before. This was a sort of rejuvenation pod filled with stem cells. Within floated Vesper, her carapace warped and melted from her latest fight. Reckless as always, picking fights with people she had no business getting involved with. If she had not acted when she did the little fool would be dead. One would expect a person who is weak to something to stay away from it and yet Vesper violently threw herself at the very banes of her existence. Just last month she got into a fist fight with a Pyrokinetic and now she pissed off the second-strongest Super in the whole damned city. Well, native Super that is. There were currently eight visitors who were stronger in Rank, including Dr. Arbor herself.
She sighed, walking to the larger tank and placed her hand on it. Within an even more impressive in appearance, creature lay dormant, suspended in a sort of gel. Subject 808. It looked a lot worse off than Vesper had, missing most of its limbs and the face had melted completely exposing the mandibles below. It was a shame, to think this was all the potential it had. A cheap knock off to be sure. Though it was stronger than the original, physically, that was only temporary.
A voice rose from beside her, it was Neon Nurse, “So, what are we going to do with that?”
“Not much we can do. The damage was too extensive and a lack of regeneration has sealed its fate. This one will die, but before that, I will be sure to harvest anything of use. I learned a lot from this one. We are almost ready to end the experimental phase thanks to it. It had a good run, for a clone.”
Neon Nurse nodded coldly, “You told me they would never meet. How am I supposed to explain this? She is going to ask questions and I don’t have answers, at the least ones that she can know. There is no telling what she would do if she found out we are cloning her for experiments.”
“I am sorry,” said Arbor sarcastically, “I was uninformed that the League was raiding the sewers yesterday.”
“Don’t you blame me. I told you specifically last week down to the hour and even our entry points.”
“My mistake.”
“What were you doing anyway?”
“Same thing I always do, research. Which is why I did not collect it since I was so busy at the main facility. You act like I didn’t lose anything from this as well.”
“Why was it out of the pen in the first place?”
Dr. Arbor wagged her finger, “Now, now, Xava. It was out there as a control test to see how it would match up in the wild. Fairly well, I should add. Easily an apex predator, that being said, an animal is still just an animal. If it was not mentally deficient, it could have posed a real threat.”
“I don’t care if it was retarded, it could have killed Vesper.”
Arbor took a moment crossing her arms, “Doubtful. All the clones are hardwired with her pheromones. They would not harm her, it is in their behavior modifications. Still, I am surprised you are so hostile. It was still a clone, biologically it is Vesper. Granted the cloning process is not perfect as you can see from the variance in powers.”
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“It is not the same. Don’t call that thing Vesper.”
“I wasn’t, it doesn’t have a name. I just called it 808.”
“I thought that was because you gave this one doses of Mutigene to accelerate the growth period.”
“I did and that is why it was a rank 6. If my calculations are correct, it was a fair amount stronger than Den Mother. Not to mention the carapace was much more sturdy than her skin.”
“How long until she recovers?”
“A week, most likely.”
“That long?”
“Have you seen her face? She is missing an arm, by the way, she won’t be growing that back so we will have to improvise a replacement. Luckily, we happen to have a willing donor,” she said gazing up at 808.
“Won’t there be rejection?”
“It is an experiment. There will be a chance, however it is still better than leaving her down an arm.”
“I could always make a robo arm.”
“If it does not take then we will go with that. It will be interesting to see how compatible their anatomy is. Before we had problems, but now her regeneration is stronger so better odds.”
“That is easy enough. So when are you going to dispose of that?”
“Jealous?” smirked Dr. Arbor.
Neon Nurse’s face tightened, “Don’t make fun of me.”
“It is unbecoming of you to be so riled up over a little copulation.”
“Copulation? What do you mean Copulation?! They… no, no, no they didn’t!”
“You should have seen it. Little Vesper so vulnerable and willing. She was begging for it.”
Neon Nurse held her head in dread and screamed, “Nooo! I will kill it myself. How dare it, how dare it touch my Vesper! It defiled her!”
Dr. Arbor chuckled, “Your Vesper? A little clingy, don’t you think? Calm down. You are too attached.”
She scowled in return, “You are too detached. I thought you cared about her.”
“A good scientist has to passively observe,” replied Dr. Arbor.
“That sounds very lonely.”
“I have friends like you, so it is not too bad. Besides, I find it very fulfilling watching my children grow.”
“Friends eh? The best a Mad Scientist can hope for.”
“Who is mad? I am perfectly calm. If anyone is letting their emotions get to them it would be you.”
“I know, but I want her to myself you know.”
“I am well aware and you have had my consent for a long time now. At any rate, Vesper chickened out halfway through, real shame too. I wanted to see them breed.”
She looked at her blankly, “You mean, they didn’t…”
Arbor shook her head, “Nope. Besides 808 is sterile. Tied her tubes myself. Best that they could have done was vigorous mating with ultimately futile results. I suppose it is a lot like humans and how they have sex for pleasure rather than procreation. If she had been in danger, then I would have killed 808.”
“Don’t joke about that stuff. You know I take it personally. How would you have killed her?”
“Oh, you know, the safety measure I installed,” she made a small hand gesture squeezing two fingers together. “A small detonation device that is in her brain. I think it would level a city block. I learned long ago, not to take chances. Always have backup plans for your backup plans. And above all else, never create something you can’t destroy. They can and will turn on you.”
“That is rule number one for us Super Geniuses right?”
“It is, indeed, my apprentice. Some people don’t know it though, like Chimera. I have been hearing some distressful things.”
“Chimera? Now what are they up to?” asked Neon Nurse.
“Children playing with fire. They have been pestering me to join them again. Seems their experiments with Spore are having some, setbacks, shall we say.”
Neon Nurse thought on it. Spore was some bad stuff. Dr. Arbor would know and she had said that it was a sentient life form that did not like being here on earth. The atmosphere was toxic to it, or rather inhibited its growth. For a fungal based creature that was a bad thing. Mere contact with it would induce violent mutations, usually resulting in death or mental degradation and instability. It was where Dr. Arbor’s power came from and why she was so obsessed with the Spore. After all, she was the leading researcher on it since it was first discovered in 1947. Considering that she was thirty-two at the time meant that Dr. Arbor was ninety-six years old now. One would not be able to tell considering how spry she was for such an old granny. She was in better shape than most athletes in their prime. Being Rank 3 in Reflexes and Speed helped too.
Neon Nurse shook her head, getting back on subject, “What have they done now?”
“From what I hear they are trying to make Arachnaon stronger, but that is not possible. Direct contact with Spore was what made her to begin with. I mean she eats the stuff now, you know. She has peaked and they don’t like that one bit. It is why they have been aggressively scouting and recruiting.”
“You mean like Mantia and Centi?”
“Yes, those two are promising. Omega is another one we have to watch out for.”
“How would we even know if it was coming though, it could be anyone.”
“They only call in Omega if things need a subtle touch, usually it is political stuff. Things here are not dicey enough for Arachnaon.”
“Hopefully, we can keep it that way. I don’t want to be involved in a city wide war zone.”
“That depends on Kraken and Chimera if push comes to shove this city will likely be destroyed during the fighting.”
“Not even accounting the Hero League?”
There was a silence between them and Dr. Arbor looked away, “We both know too much for such foolishness.”
“Yeah, I know.” Neon Nurse’s face became plastic and fake, emotionless for a moment. It unfroze and she stepped over to another hallway, “How are the Vespids doing by the way?”
Dr. Arbor followed and they reached a heavy blast door. She punched in a couple of numbers and the door slid open. Lights flickered on, revealing ten observation rooms, five on each side. At the end of the room was another section with an operating table. Upon this metal slab lay a half dissected wasp woman. The mechanical arms precisely moving about and carving her flesh. They pulled out organs and lay them to the side in an organized manor.
Culture tanks fizzed to the side with half grown clones. They looked so peaceful, unaware of what horrors awaited them once they matured. Though it was doubtful they would understand what was going on. Each clone was a blank slate. A child, innocent, naive and so trusting all the way up to when the surgeries began. Their personalities and minds stunted by design. A test subject had no need for intelligent thought. It would only make it more cruel to torment them with experiments that only ended once they could take it no more and died. That was what Dr. Arbor and Neon Nurse had decided.
“We are almost coming to the point where I can learn nothing more from these defective look a likes. However, once that occurs, we will be ready for Stage 2 of her development.”
“How long do you think?”
“A month or two. Once I go through 808 my research will advance a great deal.”
Neon Nurse looked over the creatures as they meandered in the pens. The one near the end attacked the glass, trying to escape. It garnered only electricity. A powerful shock went through it, smoke rose from the jittery body, falling to the floor and twitching. The others seemed rather content and ran on treadmills or lifted set amounts of weights. They were rewarded with a flow of protein paste from a nozzle. A twinge of guilt crossed her heart, but she reminded herself of why these creatures were enduring this. It was all for Vesper. These would die so that she could grow and flourish. She almost felt sorry for them, if they didn’t have Vesper’s face, she would not feel anything. It was one of the pluses of being able to turn off one’s emotions.
“Have any escaped recently?”
“No. Even if they did, these clones all die within a week of maturing. Their brains shrink as they eat themselves. It is a very painful way to go and makes them violent, like that one.” She said, motioning to the one lying dead on the floor. “She would have died tomorrow. This is why I tend to harvest them a day or two before they would expire.”
“Good, at the least they do no suffer. What do you do with the bodies?”
“I grind them up into paste and feed it to my S.O.Y. Same thing I do with all the bodies of my research subjects. Once they process it through their special organs they produce S.O.Y. for consumption by other creatures. I dislike wasting valuable materials.”
“Well, that seems rather efficient. It is like pigs eating ground up pigs.”
“Yes, it fattens them up rather nicely.”
“Wait… then it is their poop?”
“No. It is more of a milking.”
“I have been wondering this for a while, but what is a S.O.Y?”
“Trust me, you don’t want to know.”
“Can you at the least tell me what S.O.Y. stands for?”
“Oh, that. It stands for Super Organism Yolk.”
“So you are feeding this stuff to an egg? Wait, how do you milk an egg?”
“No, but it is laying eggs.”
“So it is a giant chicken?”
“Not at all. Much too many tentacles and drooling orifices.”
Neon Nurse gave her a strange look, “Did… did you say tentacles?”
“Yeah. Why do you ask?”
“Please! For the love of science, tell me that you have not told Vesper about this thing.”
“Well, she knows it exists, but I have been rather vague about it to her. She thought I was grinding up orphans.”
“Oh, thank you.”
“Why were you freaking out?”
“This is Vesper we are talking about. She probably would have tried to have sex with it.”
Dr. Arbor’s eyes got big, “Now that you mention it… I wonder how that would turn out? I could see it sticking-”
Neon Nurse put her hands up, waving them frantically, “No, no, no! I forbid it. Keep that thing away from her.”
“I think you are over reacting.”
“You have not seen her porn folder. She is into that sort of thing.”
“What sort of thing?”
“There are only a couple of things that scare her off and tentacle monsters that lay eggs are not one of them.”
“Well, I guess that is an apt description. I would not worry about it so much. They are Asexual and reproduce without a mate. Besides, they don’t have teeth or a brain so they are not dangerous. The S.O.Y. is literally the solution to world hunger, well if their population increased a lot more. I only have about ten adults in my main research facility.”
“So they are like jellyfish?”
“Sort of.”
“I kind of want to see this thing now.”
“Maybe next time. I don’t have any here.”
“Good, you keep it away from Vesper.”
“I kinda want to see them together now though. I wonder what sort of child they would have?”
“Nobody is having Vesper’s babies but me!”
“It must be hard for you. At any rate, I feel that we have gotten off subject.” Said Dr. Arbor motioning for Neon Nurse to follow.
“We did, didn’t we? What else was there?”
“I was just about to dispose of Nuclear Knight. I am sure that you wanted to see that after what he did.”
“How considerate of you.”
They rounded another corner and arrived at another science station. This one had an airlock that separated it from the rest of the installation. Once through the pressurized chamber they arrived to a moderately sized room that had a prominent containment cell. A glowing green mist filled the view port, swirling endlessly. It was Nuclear Knight. For now he was trapped inside of that chamber. Arbor stepped next to her, staring in with pitiless eyes.
“Let me out of here!” He yelled, angrily bashing against the sides to no avail.
“I will do no such thing,” she replied, “You have caused me a lot of trouble, even after I did you that favor of augmenting your power with Mutigene.”
“We had a deal!”
“And you have caused me trouble. You have proven to be a liability and as such I will not allow it to continue.”
“So what are you going to do to him?”
“I will put him to good use. The amount of energy that he puts out is rather astounding. Given the right setup, he makes far more than Spark Spray.”
“Oh, so you are really going to do THAT to him?”
“Yes.”
“What? What are you going to do to me?! Lord Pluton will deliver me from this prison!”
“Lord Pluton does not exist you idiot. Plutonium is what you are thinking of and it is merely an element. It won’t save you from what I have planned.”
Nuclear Knight raged and swirled in there, but for all his power it was useless. The walls held fast and there was no escape. Dr. Arbor pressed a button and the air within the chamber began being sucked out. Bit by bit it pulled at him until he was caught in a vortex. He became a little tornado getting smaller and smaller as the vacuum increased in power compressing him and sucking him in. Finally, every last breath of oxygen in the chamber was sucked out leaving it a void. To the side a canister lit up and several monitors showed bar graphs, indicating that it had been successful.
As to what had been successful? Nuclear Knight had just been turned into a battery. Dr. Arbor had combined her own expertise with Dr. Tesla’s dimensional pocket technology and created a prison that would not only trap Nuclear Knight in another dimension, but siphon off his power creating a near infinite supply of power. Since he did not need to eat or drink, he would not starve to death in there. It could not be opened from the inside and now that it was locked and secured could not be opened from the outside either. There was no longer a way for him to get out. If the device broke, then he would be stuck in that alternate dimension or destroyed with it.
“Finally, he shut up.” Muttered Dr. Arbor.
“Was he that talkative?”
“Last time he was in here preaching about this and that. Just wouldn’t shut up at all.”
“When can I take Vesper home?”
“Once she is fully healed. I will tell you.”
“What am I to tell the others?”
“The truth? She got hurt and so I am taking care of her until she is healed.”
“What if they want to know where she is?”
“Don’t tell a soul. We don’t know which one of them is the Chimera plant or who has been compromised yet. Paranoia is the key to a long and prosperous life.”