Dorian leaned back in his chair with a loud sigh, letting the sounds of the club behind him bounce and thrum with some force as he regarded the two other people at the table with him. He was a good looking guy, with white skin, tossed brown hair that curled, and subtle, but present muscles. His eyes, colored gold via a biomod of the 24th century, settled on his companions.
Casey, an androgynous individual whose ears were hidden by a mountain of metal piercings, and whose skin was tinted a faint crimson from one of their own biomods, gave him a glare in return. They nursed the stump of an arm that had been cauterized a mere few hours ago. Their skin changed tint depending on how they were feeling. They were…still mad. Dorian couldn’t blame them. That had to have hurt. He’d been lucky enough to never had to have had a limb regrown.
Sabrina didn’t care, ve was staring at the stage, where supposedly, there would be something actually worth their group’s time. Ve was taller than the other two, with arms built like steel cables. Vir had dark skin and hair combined with eyes that were grey without a mod, still wearing a shield suit that had remained intact despite the previous op. Currently, a shitty house band was wrapping up a performance, which Sabrina seemed to be giving vir attention.
Dorian decided to break the silence, speaking aloud to the table. A casual smile appeared on him.
“So that could have gone better. Casey, we’ll take you to the biodoc tomorrow-” He started
“With what cash?” Casey fired back. “This was supposed to set us up for months! “They’re just kids, how hard could it be” is what you said! Nothing about the kids being that powerful of proteans-” The red was growing to a darker shade.
“We’ll find a way, Case, I ain’t gonna have you walking around the Hive with just one arm. And look, our employer clearly undersold the little pricks. Those were at least class A-really, I don’t know how the government isn’t handling it. I’ll bring it up to our Agent.”
Dorian grumbled. He didn’t like that prospect. Sabrina leaned vir chair back in.
“We got tricked. I say we march into Blue’s office, and feed him a plasma shell.”
Vir voice was cold, and angry. Where previously there had been casual enjoyment of the atmosphere, it had all faded to this vengeful decree. Dorian couldn’t blame vir. Blue had a tendency to treat Sabrina like an attack dog. Even trying to hire vir specifically as one of his faceless guards, who stood in augmented suits of armor twenty two hours a day.
But that was a bad plan. Dorian rolled his eyes. He didn’t hate the prospect, but…
“Even if the kid in the bomb mask didn’t turn your powergun into slag, that wouldn’t work. Blue’s a nasty customer, even if he’s young.”
Dorian thought about their employer. And the time he’d sent someone flying out his seven hundredth story window with his mind. Yeah. No thanks. He’d stick to daydreaming about wasting his annoying Program Agent, Miss Pieterszoon. Raising the group’s rates for “Operating Costs”. Supposedly, it was for everyone in the Program. But still. He thought he had a rapport.
“Look. We got clowned. It’s true. Job went to shit. A bunch of teenagers in masks thrashed three highly trained mercenaries. But look on the bright side. This is going to raise their bounty. So when we go back-” He was speaking with confidence, but got cut off.
“Go back?!?” Casey’s voice rose, getting people to look over at the table. Casey looked furious, their face scrunched up in anger, as they slammed a fist into the table. “We lost, Dorian! We lost badly. We shouldn’t go-fuckin waste Blue in his office, but we sure as hell shouldn’t tangle with those little freaks again! Let’s face it, we got lucky back in Regis. We’re not cut out to be Protean Hunters. And I can’t go back to the facility.” A mix of colors crossed their face, as they said that. Purples, greens, and still the red. Dorian knew why. But he scoffed anyways.
“Lucky my ass. Sheer skill, prowess, and quick thinking got us out of that. We stole from some of the strongest proteans in the systems-the types of mutants that they’re going to tell scary bedtime stories about in a couple years. We’re cut out for this.”
He was confident. Though not just in himself. It had been Casey’s plan that had got them through that, and Sabrina’s gun arm that had blinded the walking nuclear reactor just long enough for them to escape on the evac shuttle. And, it hadn’t been possible without Dorian talking their way past the guards. They were all still alive. That couldn’t be said for the last group.
Sabrina had been torn between the stage, and the clearing act, and the conversation. Ve decided the conversation was more important. They turned their head over in full, eyes on Casey.
“Dorian’s right. We’re capable. We got our asses handed to us this time. But we have a reputation now. And I don’t know about you guys, but I’ve been noticing the current rates. The quotas from the Program are going up. And the pay for normal jobs is going down.” Cold and calculated.
Dorian knew that all too well. The Program was the only reason they didn’t have an arrest warrant out by the Alliance. Galaxy’s bloodiest parole. And only by a thread had they made the last payment. Casey sighed.
“You’re right. But next time, Dorian? Stick to the fucking plan. I don’t want to regrow again.”
“I swear. No more improv. But really, Case? You aren’t going to leave me are you? After all we’ve been through since the facility?” He made puppy dog eyes at them.
“Fuck you, asshole.” Casey said, throwing a fork at him. He caught it between two fingers.
Dorian just smiled, and turned his head to the stage, where someone had taken center position.
He was a well dressed man, wearing a mix of colors that clashed terribly. His suit was one of the fancy holo duds that could change colors, and the ugly variations were seemingly endless, as they rotated on stage.
“Ladies, gentlemen, and all of my beloved others, may I have your attention!” He called, his voice projecting through each and every table in the establishment. Needless to say, he had everyone’s attention.
“As some of you may know, this little establishment of mine is celebrating fifty years! And it’s because of the good people here that it was possible. Through wars, cosmic radiation storms, and tax hikes, I’ve always had business. It’s a miracle I wish to celebrate.”
He stood there, smiling like he was a lot more important than he was.
“But you aren’t here to listen to me reminisce. I’d like to reward a lucky person in this establishment, chosen at random, of course. Originally, our prize was just going to be a herculean sum of money but you can win that in your average corporate lottery. So, I talked and talked with some old friends of mine, and got a prize that’s worth something.”
For a moment, his smile grew just a little bit more imposing.
“We now live in worlds of gods and monsters. Men who fly, women who call forth the sun, we call them “Protean Humans” because they have and will continue to change, ascending towards some cosmic apotheosis. For fifty years, humans have been squandered except for those who win a cosmic dice roll.”
A final, punctual pause.
“So, in the spirit of the cosmos, I’m offering one lucky individual, and two of their friends, to become Proteans themselves. Science has caught up, since I opened this little hole in the wall, and that is something worth celebrating! Good luck and good night!”
The man stepped off the stage, and another band took his place. A prompt appeared on the table’s projector.
“Press [Confirm] to enter for a chance to win!”
Dorian entered, then Sabrina, then Casey. They wouldn’t win, but it was the spirit of the thing.
———————————————————————————–
As the three of them walked into the laboratory, Dorian almost couldn’t believe the luck. Casey had won the draw. They had gotten shipped across the system to the icy dwarf of Gelos, stepped through a laboratory with the name “Heart and Feather Inc.” engraved about the door. Nothing they’d ever heard about.
A group of scientists that seemed to be stuck as a skeleton crew, only four or five, each hidden behind protective gear. They sat the group down, and hooked them up to the machine. It would only take a moment for the sedative to kick in, so one of them said.
Casey went out near instantly. Sabrina stayed awake long enough to hear one scientist say to retrieve “Sanguine Indulgence, Trusted Confessor, and Greater Colors”. Three multicolored bags of iridescent liquid were placed into the machine, each one with a label of the names just spoken. Slowly, flowing through the tubes of the machine, towards the parts of them that were attached.
Dorian stayed awake long enough for one of the scientists to whisper to the other, in a not so subtle way: “These were the batch that fell for the giveaway. Good fodder for A1 to practice.”
Too good to be true, huh?
———————————————————————————–
Dorian felt adrift for a moment, cast out into a wide open space. He found himself standing amongst a faceless crowd, pushing the opposite direction as them. They all looked through him, like he wasn’t even there, and it made him bristle, as he pushed closer and closer to the other side. He wasn’t even sure what was there.
It was when the faces around him became familiar that he began to panic. The old supervisor at the facility, his Alliance program agent, friends who had turned tail and run, enemies who had become friends. Sabrina and Casey tried to grab his arm at the end, and he shouted, screamed for it to stop, as he crumbled free of the crowd, at the other end of the space. He felt dizzy, even though he didn’t know why. His skin crawled, as he turned back to see that a thousand faces were all looking at him. All pleading. All sobbing. But the room was dead silent. He backed up, still facing them, refusing to let himself be frozen. He struck into something behind him, something with a dozen hands, which gripped him out the front, and pulled him in tighter than it had any right to, as he was pulled, slowly but surely, into an expanse of nothing but darkness.
He tried to shut out the cacophony that came next. Whispers of insight, insults murmured in the dead of night, and voices of what might have been all swirled around him.
Dorian was the only one to awaken screaming.
———————————————————————————–
Casey was in a small room, locked in tight. Blank white walls surrounded them, and they felt vaguely drugged. Not like the sedative the scientists had jabbed them with, what felt like hours ago, but something more insidious. Something that made it hard to think, but didn’t quite push them to sleep. A strange twilight between the two, where they could feel only impulse.
When the creatures started to creep down the walls, strange snakes and slugs that lace themselves with every color of the rainbow, they almost wanted to cry. It was terrifying, but it was better than going insane in a prison cell. It was better than the facility. That much, Casey knew.
The creatures each had a texture like liquid paint, slathering and writhing up their body, every inch of themselves being covered and stained. They leaned down, relaxing and trying not to resist as the paint filled their body. It was somewhat comforting, to let it happen. To be soaked through in full. It was oddly cleansing. They knew, on some level, that they were in control. But they didn’t let it stop.
This was better than some nights in the facility. Where they didn’t get a say, with some visitors in the dead of night.
Their perspective shifted out of their body, as they looked down at themselves. Saw through themselves, and saw the inside of their body, organs, blood and bone, writhing with multicolored fluid, painting a larger picture of a larger person. They didn’t have a body, but they still found it in them to be smiling when they awoke.
———————————————————————————–
Sabrina ran through an ankle deep sea of blood, splattering vir body as ve ran further and further, towards the titanic structure in the distance. It resembled a spire of sheer crystal, rising up from this macabre and bloody landscape, and it was beautiful.
Taking powerful strides, Sabrina wasn’t exactly sure why vir wanted to reach it so badly. Maybe it was better than running towards nothing, ruining verself with more and more blood as ve went. Maybe it was the enrapturing quality of a spire glimmering in the night, something titanic and bigger than vir.
Closer and closer, until it took up vir entire vision with its massive size. But, ve never quite reached it. The blood got thicker and thicker, and paradoxically, splashed higher and higher, until eventually it was coating vir head to toe. Barely able to see past dried and wet crimson, ve stumbled forward and fell into the blood. It was deeper than ve had thought, and as ve sank, thoughts drifted to all of the many, many times, that Sabrina had previously been coated in such a substance. Even enough to drown.
Fights in the facility. Fights before it. Fights after. It was all vir life revolved around. So there was some form of acceptance, as ve let verself drown, almost surprised to awaken.
———————————————————————————–
Dorian lounged back in the chair provided to him by his Program Agent. A middle aged woman with biomods that made her look younger. Normally, there were a pair of security guards in the room, because he was ex facility, and a mercenary at that. They could get violent!
But Dorian gave her puppy dog eyes, and told her that he needed to talk to her in private, and she had relented. Fewer rifles pointed at his back. He knew she had a pistol in the desk, but she wouldn’t get the chance to use it. Or, she wouldn’t want to.
After the procedure, things seemed to go his way. Nobody wanted to bother him. People always apologized to him, even if he was in the wrong. They told him their darkest secrets, with even a little bit of probing. He knew them like they had known him their entire life, with a of their time.
They trusted him. Almost as if it was instinct.
Funnily enough, the only people it didn’t work on seemed to be Casey and Sabrina. Good.
“So, Mr. Zanitasia, how can I help you?” The Agent, Marigold Piertzoon, said, smiling wide.
“I had a talk with a few other people in the Program. Couple old friends, couple old enemies. Strangely enough, their rates have stayed the same. Despite…what did you say, last time we met? “Operating cost increases” for the Program? Would you mind telling me why that is?”
He asked nicely enough, even if he wasn’t in a particularly nice mood. He smiled nice and bright, looking innocent-and his power did its work. She furrowed her brow…then sighed. Leaning back. He’d already worked his magic. She was hooked.
“You belong back in the facility, Dorian.”
He wanted to kickstart things then and there. But he had patience, and dug a bit deeper. “Why’s that, Miss Piertzoon?” He asked, still nice.
“Your parents are Imperial. You’ve got their tyranny in your blood. If you want to walk free, you should work for it. After all we’ve done for you, all the freedom we’ve given you.”
He was furious. He’d been under Imperial dominion, yes. The twin to the Alliance, fighting back and forth for control. He’d run away when he was young, dodging conscription, left everyone behind. But because he had been born under this tyranny, it was in his blood. And he should rot in a cell forever.
“Thank you for being honest.”
He said, before sending the recording to a buddy in the local holonews. He kept the conversation going, getting a few more nice tidbits, about how she was cheating on her husband with a nice secretary named Oliviara down the hall, about how she needed to get more biomods to avoid her face rotting off, all sorts of good stuff. That one would end up on the feeds for the building.
He left the appointment, promising to pay next time he was there. But, funnily enough, he never did. The Program never bothered getting him another agent.
———————————————————————————–
Casey ducked their head into the stim den. Named for the stims, of course. So many flavors of ways to burn out your life while seeing pretty colors.
Casey was more keen on the colors they could see otherwise. As they navigated through the crowd of modded out pricks, and washed out mercenaries, they eventually found the back table.
Richard Nass, prodigal son of the Program, a big guy with a set of cybernetic implants that made him even bigger. He had a couple cronies with him, tough looking assholes.
They avoided letting any paint dribble into their palm yet. No giving the game away. They walked close enough to be seen. Richard saw them, and grinned.
“Well hey there, Pretty Purple. Didn’t think I’d see that face again.”
Purple. The color their biomods turned when they were scared. He’d seen it before, back in the facility. Again, and again. Because the local director liked his work ethic, and the cut of the money he got. So, their reports, their cries for help, vanished. If it weren’t for the others…
“You come crawling back? I could treat you right, I bet. Better than that little Dorian twink.”
His teeth flashed silver.
Casey shook their head. Their face flushing a sheer crimson red.
“No. But I have something else purple for you, asshole!”
Allowing their palm to fill with the purple paint like substance, they hurled it at the center of mass that Richard had, releasing it in a spray which struck his bodyguards as well.
Purple was one of seven colors of liquid Casey’s two palms could exude. Each did a different thing, upon contact with living or nonliving matter. It was acidic, in contact with the inanimate, and it activated a sharp pain response with the animate.
It worked great on Richard. The metal in his body was melting, and every pain receptor, even dampened ones, fired on all cylinders. No drug dampening them.
His buddies drew weapons, but they were melting too. By the time they fumbled into their face to try and grab them, another color of paint had found its way into their hand. Red, which superheated nonliving matter, and for living, acted like they had just gotten fed nitroglycerin.
The two mooks detonated and burned. Casey secreted blue next, which healed their injuries. As they stepped up to Richard, they let the final color, green, pour into his writhing throat.
“Enjoy that.”
And out they walked, triumphant. Green gave diseases. The painful, and lethal kind.
———————————————————————————–
The doors to the complex unsealed, as Sabrina stepped through. Casually, ve walked through the front lobby, and to the elevator. The guards knew that ve had just done a job for the boss, so no need to harry vir any further. Ve, Dorian and Casey had put a scare into those masked kids. They had been nice, and not killed any-they’d escaped through a weird door.. The group had requested physical payment, and so here Sabrina was.
But Blue didn’t have to know about the real reason for the request. The elevator reached the seven hundredth floor, and Sabrina stepped into the small atrium. It was crawling with eight guards wearing the type of armor that let you lift cars, and drones that could tear apart your average freighter. They felt bad for what they were about to do. But they had sold their souls. And Sabrina refused to do the same.
Sabrina pulled out a powergun, and started shooting.
The powers ve had were strange. Bullets, blades, it didn’t matter. Ve had left the shield suit at home, because as the torrents of blood sprung free from vir broken flesh, Sabrina knew ve couldn’t lose. One faceless guard dropped, then a drone detonated in front of another. Slowly, but surely, Sabrina was torn away, until a skinless person stood, holding vir weapon.
Everything below the skin was invulnerable. The less skin Sabrina had, the stronger and faster ve was. And slowly, the skin regrew. It was a morbid, painful power. But the guards fell.
Blue kicked open his office door with a telekinetic thrust, and picked up every weapon in the room, discharging it into Sabrina with the force of a small army. All it did was wreck the wall, and send the elevator plummeting seven hundred floors down. Ve lunged, and grabbed the young corporate mover by the throat, and endured all seven tons of telekinetic force he exerted.
“Two billion to our accounts. And if you come after us, you’re dead.”
Blue wasn’t the type to die for his job. He’d make the money back, it wasn’t much to him. So as Sabrina left, skin regrowing, pulling on the extra clothes ve had taken from him, vir was smiling. No more fighting. It was done. The group met up outside the building, Dorian checking the account with glee, as they chattered on which planet to retire to.
Kindling And Miscellany 