Chapter 11: Interstitial: Breakdown

Early morning. Another damned stop at the lab from hell. Pound on the door to the professor’s lab. Pound. Pound. “Samples!”

“Come in, boy.” Grit my teeth, like every time he calls me that. Unfair. The little subhuman monster gets to have a perfect little time huffing around the place like a little princess. And I’m feeling the worst I’ve ever felt. Open the door, push my way through. Dump the samples on the desk. “Good. I see you’re not ending up like my little assistant.” Grit my teeth. Gnash them. “You know, there’s research out there that it spreads like a contagion. Rapid Onset I think they said? Fascinating stuff. If only I can get the sample to stick around forever, we could use you two as the perfect control and experiment unit. Really blow the doors off this whole thing, yeah?”

Huff, cross my arms. Pull at my ear, it’s been hurting bad. “Yeah. Sure. Or maybe it’s because he’s going. Brain is melting out his ears and the first thing that goes is a sense of shame. I thought you were going to fix it.” 

A frown comes across his face. “Bah. All the samples I have, and I can’t crack anything. I tried juicing them with mana, electricity, god damned energy drinks. It always breaks down. The only thing we ever tried that seemed to work at all was my little assistant using her witch magic to siphon the mana directly from the original to the copy.”

Keep scratching at my ear. “Then why don’t you just do that?”

He laughs. “You wouldn’t like that, boy. It saves the subject by killing off the original. Starts dying instead of the copy. Something with the duplicated mana field just stays connected to the original. I’m pretty sure the mana breakdown is just the field going back to the original. Maybe duplication is just the wrong project, we should convert it to a teleporter or something. The Robot can do that pretty fast.”

Grumble, huff. “Why do you keep that thing around here? It’s dangerous. It could crush you in a second.”

He waves me off. “I need it to keep using my witch. They’re a twin package. Besides, if it ever gets too bad I built this.” He waves a stick with some electrodes on the handle. “One poke with it will kill the battery of any magitek device like that. Then it’s useless until it gets charged back up. Not even a freak like that thing could survive it.” He places it on the table behind him.

“Whatever, doc. Samples are here.” I kick at the table. Knock a bunch of stuff off. Quickly lean over to pick them back up for him.

He frowns pretty heavily. “Klutz. And look at these! I have told you every single day that I need these labeled! Again you didn’t do it!” He looks like he wants to smack me. I just square up, make myself look even bigger than I am. He takes the hint. Sits his ass back down. “Whatever. You can tell which sample is which now just by sight anyways. Look how dead this side is getting when pulled from the host. Frankly, I wouldn’t give him another day. It’s happening tonight.”

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Grunt, pulling out of the room. Stomping my way down the hallway to meet up with Morty. Have to stop. Feel woozy. Leaning against the wall. Things have been feeling worse and worse since… 

Since the two fruit flies started hanging out together. Since the witch got him to start acting like her. What if she actually did decide she liked the little degen version of me? What if she…

Morty comes walking up to me outside the building. “I saw you huffing and puffing all the way out, through the glass. Are you ok?”

“No. Head is killing me. Sore.” Pawed at my ear again. “Something’s in my ear.” 

Morty perks up. “Oh! Dude if that’s it, I’ve got some tweezers in my pocket knife. Hold still.” Sit down on a bump in the curb. Let him dig into my ear. It’s searing hot pain for a second, and then sweet pressure release. “Dude, grooosss. There was a bug in there!” He holds the tweezers up to my face. A tiny little worm pulsates up and down on it. Disgusting. Reach out and crush it in my hand.

“Thank you. You know how much I need you. You’re the only one there anymore.” He smiles a huge smile at me. 

“Are you heading home then? No more reason to be out.”

“No. I have something to do first. Frank demanded I spend time with him today. Probably to scream at me more, the little traitor. Likes the weak broken version of me more, I guess.” I look over to him. “You have something to do too.” 

He looks puzzled. “I do?” 

I pull the rod out of my pocket. Hit the switch on the bottom, watch electromana arc out of the stick. “Yes. You do.”