Emergence (21 page)

“How did you get hold of this?” Daniel asked, stopping by a box labeled HT-1X.

“Ahhh,” said Urksky with a chuckle. “Trade secrets, my friend.”

HT-1X was an artificial heart created by Biotiq's largest rival, Chromosene. It was apparently years away from proper production. Daniel found himself itching to take it apart and see how it worked. He had already tapped into studies recording how it allowed the subjects to increase hormone production within their own bodies, including epinephrine, for short periods of time. If the organ
could
affect the adrenal gland in such a way, Daniel’s mind raced at the possibilities of gaining custom access to the body’s entire endocrine system. He popped open the locks to the box and lifted the lid.

“Hey!” Urksky said in a chiding tone. “None of that, unless you're paying for it.”

Daniel let his gaze linger on the heart a few seconds before dropping the lid and popping the locks back into place. He turned and gave Urksky a wide grin.

“We'll have our own one of these developed soon enough. I thought I was the only one bringing you experimental tech, Jake.”

Urksky snorted.

He was a black market robotics specialist and one of the best. He traded in stolen prosthetics, illegal tech, and some pieces that were far ahead of their time. Every modification Daniel had done to his body had been with the help of Jake Urksky, and he had profited from it, getting to see and install experimental tech that other chop shoppers wouldn't get their hands on for years.

“So, maintenance or installation?” Urksky asked as he finished up playing with the robotic finger and dropped it into a pile of them.

“Consultation,” Daniel said, joining Urksky at his workbench. He pulled the chip suspended in a foam-filled glass vial out of his pocket, along with the schematics.

Urksky glanced at the chip before spreading the schematics out on his table-top. He stared at them a few minutes,
scratching
at his chin and frowning.

“What's it do?” he asked.

Daniel shrugged. “Should allow me to see spatial disturbances as they're forming.”

“Why?” Urksky asked. “What's got you cowering this time?”

“I'm not…” Daniel stopped himself from snapping at the man. “I hear there is a teleporter in town. I want to be able to defend myself should they attack me.”

Urksky looked at him with a crooked smile. “You're a piece of work, man. I don't know what happened to you, but you're so damned scared of chimerics that… it's like you're trying to make yourself one of them.”

“I don't come to you for a psychological analysis, Jake.”

Some uncomfortable memories were threatening to surface, and it took a lot of effort to push them down. Daniel knew that if he refused to accept that they happened, he wouldn't have to deal with their consequences. It was easier that way.

“Yeah? Well maybe you should get one of those, man,” Urksky said. “I got clients want themselves altered, but none like you. The tech you get me to put in you isn't tested, might not be safe. This…” he pointed at the schematic, “this would require a major modification to give you a…I don't know. A tenth of a second warning? Why the hell would a teleporting chimeric attack you anyways, man?”

“I don't know,” Daniel said, exasperated. “They just might.”

“You're not using these modifications to fight crime, are you?” Urksky asked, giving Daniel a quizzical look. “Because there's this Other…”

“Can you make the modifications or not?” Daniel snapped. “I come to you for your discretion, not a lecture. If you can't do it, I'm sure I can find myself a more reputable modifier.”

“Reputable?” Urksky let out a bitter laugh. “You come to me because I'm the only one who will perform the modifications, man. I'm also the only one that can. These 'more reputable modifiers' you might know are hacks. Barely know a clamp from a scalpel.

“I don't sit in my basement because I couldn't make it as a licensed modifier, Danny. I'm down here because it's the only way I get to test myself. The only way I get to stay ahead of the game. Up there they deal with the crap your companies decide to throw at them. Down here I get addicts like you wanting experimental tech shoved inside them. You tell me which you think is more fun, eh?”

Daniel took a deep breath and let it out with a sigh. This was the problem with people like Urksky, they viewed people as parts. The chop shopper didn't understand why Daniel was doing this. He thought Daniel was addicted to modifying his own body. It was about protecting himself.

“Will you do it or not?” Daniel asked, tapping the chip. “This is about as experimental as it gets, Jake.”

Urksky looked at the schematics again. “You might need to take a sick day, Dr. Danny. I can do it. But you're gonna need a corneal modification. That shit ain't cheap, and it ain't the sort of thing you recover from overnight. Not even with those little reconstruction bots we put inside of you.”

Daniel nodded. “Do it.”

#

Urksky wasn't wrong about the recovery time. If anything, he was conservative. For the next two weeks Daniel had to wear an eyepatch to hide the healing wound from his co-workers. He told them all it was an eye infection and the patch was doctor prescribed, and no one said anything about it other than to wish him well.

In truth, it was because corneal replacements usually took months to fully heal and for the eye to start functioning normally again; Daniel's accelerated healing managed it in just two weeks.

In that time, he heard of one other teleporter incident. A woman robbed a bank vault and made off with a large bag of precious jewels. There was also an article about the nuclear power plant going dark again. This time, specialists were being brought in to analyze the problem. Reassurances went out that there was no danger to the city, and that was the end of the news' involvement.

Daniel kept up his evening self-defense classes and was learning quickly, despite only having one functioning eye. He also kept up his usual exercise routine, adding rapid eye movements into the set. It was the core advice given to all patients after receiving a new prosthetic; use it as much as possible so the body could adapt to its new limb or organ.

After thirteen days, he judged his eye was functioning normally again, and there were no outward signs of the modification at all. He was now ready. In case a teleporting chimeric attacked him. At least he hoped he was. He had no way of testing the modification without encountering a teleporter and had no wish to do so. Still, it put his mind at ease. He slept soundly for the first time in weeks.

#

The Other crept along the hillside and watched. He scanned the papers and news websites and, for a few days, they’d all been about him; however, the Other hadn't been seen in a couple weeks, and news moved quickly in this Age of Emergence, where a new chimeric seemed to debut in Port Haven on a nigh weekly basis. The Other was all but forgotten. Yet, one headline kept creeping back into the pages of the tabloids: the power plant.

Four times in two months the old nuclear power plant in Cascade Valley had gone dark. Four times it had shut down with no reasonable explanation. It was possible they were having malfunctions, of course, but the Other suspected something else. He suspected there was chimeric involvement.

From the slopes of a spruce-blanketed hill, he recovered his breath. He had the power plant in view. Now, he waited. He wasn't sure just
what
he was waiting for, only that he had a feeling something would happen tonight. It turned out his instincts, as usual, were right.

His gauntleted hand beeped, and he looked down to see the displacement wave alarm pinging. It pointed in the direction of the power plant. The Other grinned. He was hoping he'd get another run in with Blink. This time, he'd take her down for sure.

There was only so far he could approach the power plant. It was well beyond the metropolitan area, out in the pastoral fields and forested hills of Cascade Valley.

The Other had no car and, unlike some chimeric, he couldn't fly. Still, he was in peak condition and made the 25-mile run in just under an hour. The plant was fairly in the open, though, and he needed to get to it unseen somehow. He decided there was nothing else for it but to trust in his speed and stealth.

The Other set off at an Olympian-paced sprint among the trees. He knew approaching the plant by the main gate would be a good way to get shot. Most likely it would be patrolled and policed by armed guards with orders to shoot anyone who didn't look like they belonged. Under cover of night, the Other darted across a grassy field straight up to a section of fence that looked clear. He hid nearby, amid the tall grass, watching for patrols. A couple of guards walked past, paying little attention, and then it was clear again.

He peered askance at a few cattle in the field. They didn’t seem spooked by his presence. One looked at him dumbly as it chewed cud. The Other looked past it at the outline of the twin reactors. Having read up on the site, he knew the station had a Radioactive Materials Laboratory where post-irradiation examinations were carried out. He fought the urge to check the cow for a third eye, the beast having grazed its entire lifespan beneath the shadows of those massive towers.

Rushing over, the Other easily tore a hole in the chain link fence. Pulling it back together was more difficult and, if the guards were observant they would definitely see it. He moved in a fast crouch over to a nearby building and put his back against the wall, creeping towards a nearby door.

He tried the handle, found the door locked. A keypad nearby looked like it controlled the door. It bore a card reader. The Other had neither pass-code nor card, of course. A camera sat above the keypad aimed towards the door. He realized with a small grunt that he was in full view of it; if anyone was watching, his cover was already blown.

On cue, an alarm started up. The Other cursed. No way in hell he would leave Blink for another day. Now was his chance and he was going to take it.

A small rectangular window sat above the door. It was a long way up, far too high for any normal to get to; of course, the Other was no mere human. Crouching down, he sprang, launching himself upward. His clawed gauntlets bit into the brick around the window and held.

The glass was lead-lined, tough, and nigh unbreakable. The Other punched at the glass once, then twice, feeling the brick giving way beneath his claws with each impact. On the third punch, the window buckled. The frame fell inward. Shouts echoed from across the power plant, and the Other knew they were close by and coming for him.

It was a tight squeeze, but he managed to slip through. He dropped the twelve feet to the floor, landing with less grace than intended. He was in a room filled with noisy,
whirring
machinery, but there didn't seem to be anyone else around.
Yet
. He knew power plants like this could operate with a skeleton crew of engineers.

The Other hoped he didn’t run into anyone. Blink would only use civilians as interference against him again.

The detector in his gauntlet pinged. The Other turned in the direction and moved forward past the
whirring
,
clunking
machinery and myriad blinking lights, even the plant’s alarm was lost amid the noise. The far wall loomed up and a set of metal steps led down into a basement. It seemed the only way to proceed, so he set off down the steps two at a time. The ping from the detector was fading. Once it was gone, he would have to wait for Blink to teleport again before getting a fix on her. He just hoped she was staying around for a while.

As he descended the steps, the noise from the machines faded, yet there was a distant
humming
that permeated the air. The alarm sounded from above, but still he’d come across no one. A large corridor extended in front of him, rooms leading off to each side.

The Other moved along quickly, glancing through the window on each door. Inside the first few rooms he spied technical equipment, most likely workshops that looked strangely familiar though he couldn't say why. In other rooms he saw figures in white hazmat suits going about their work. He didn't stop to investigate. Guards would be behind him, and Blink was somewhere up ahead.

The corridor split left and right, and the Other chose right, descending another set of steps into a large open area with various machines scattered about and a glass and metal dome in the center. He judged he was a good three stories below the surface by now and hoped that would make escape almost as hard for Blink as it was for him.

The dome was flashing, or sparking. The Other approached cautiously. Near a control panel with various switches, levers, dials, and readouts, he saw four people lying on the floor. Two men wore the uniforms of guards, while a woman was wearing overalls and a third man a lab coat. They looked unconscious, not dead, but the Other couldn't tell without a closer look, and his attention was grabbed by activity within the dome.

Electricity arced out from a central sphere within it, trailing lines across the glass. Blink was inside the sphere, strolling along carefree despite the deadly electricity. Occasionally, one of the arcs struck her and, instead of being fried as the Other would have expected, she seemed to absorb the energy.

As Blink walked around the sphere in the center of the dome and was struck by another arc of electricity, she spotted the Other watching her from outside. A wide grin stretched across her face, and she blew him a kiss just before another arc hit her.

A single steel door sealed the dome and the Other approached it. A keypad with a card swipe locked the door.

“What are you doing here, hero?” Blink asked.

The Other turned to find her perched on top of the control console. Electricity still arced out from the sphere inside the dome, crawling across the glass.

“I'm here to capture you, Blink,” he said, stepping away from the door. “Your crime spree is over.”

“Oh, really?” Blink let out a throaty laugh. “Last time you tried…well, you almost demolished an entire apartment complex. Now we're standing, or sitting in my case, in a nuclear power plant. I'm not sure your heavy-handed approach is wise here.”