Chapter 45: Ch 44 – Lawful Stupid

The Empire City Metropolitan Sepulcher was a giant pyramid.

 

 

 

 

One strange and unsettling effect of the anti-christ war was that the bodies of those who had died did not decompose for about a year. In the months the anti-christ was running rampant across the world, people who were killed didn't rot. They remained as fresh as the moment as when they shuffled off their mortal coil. It is believed that this was because the corpses were meant to serve as hosts and fuel for the hordes of Hell, but something happened and most of the demons never arrived. This left the bodies in a state of preservation, as if they had been frozen in time at the moment of death. The absence of decay and the lack of rigor mortis was unsettling and mysterious, and it added to the sense of chaos and disorder that pervaded the world during the war.

 

Nobody is quite sure why the demons never materialized. The common belief is that the Sorceress Supreme's last act before being destroyed along with her holdfast was to lock out those demons. It would certainly explain why the Anti-Christ's battle tactics were so haphazard. Despite the uncertainty, it was clear that the bodies needed to be stored somewhere, and so they were either burned or placed in temporary facilities. Some people clung to the hope that their loved ones might still be alive, and there were many attempts to bring people back to life. Unfortunately, these efforts were often exploited by con artists who took advantage of people's desperation and grief. Rumors circulated that some people had indeed returned from the dead, but it was never clear how much of this was true and how much was simply wishful thinking.

 

I'll spare you the gory details.

 

The Empire City Metropolitan Sepulcher (ECMS) was built at the height of the Anti-Christ War. Several battles had already destroyed sections of Empire City and in the middle of the ruins of Gravesend someone built the ECMS, literally overnight. It was apparently anticipated by the US government, as an entire battalion was immediately stationed around the building come morning. It was just one more strange thing that happened in a world gone mad, as far as most people were concerned. Over the next week, two more buildings like it appeared in Corpus Christi and Los Angeles. These buildings were designed to hold the bodies of the deceased, with the capacity to hold around five million bodies each. Even more in the case of cremated remains.

 

As it turned out, these buildings were Holy Ground and thus the forces of evil could not even approach the buildings, much less stand to look at it. The very presence of the building created a several mile safe zone that became a major staging area for the US forces to sortie throughout the northeast as well as prepare counter attacks. Bodies were shipped in from all over the tri-state area, especially fallen soldiers, to be interned in the building. Most major religions were represented and many churches were built in the area surrounding the sepulcher.

 

It didn't just become a staging ground for the military, but for the religious and the pious. There arose a certain fracturing in the area. There was the military, the civilians just trying to survive, and then the zealots who formed a sort of quasi-military organization who did not coordinate with anyone else, instead they followed their leaders who may, or may not, have gotten marching orders from God. When the war ended and the military moved out, the bible thumpers stayed, and they took over the sepulcher.

 

Alas, after the defeat of the anti-christ, bodies started to rot again, but the many faithful that had dedicated themselves to the project began the process of embalming who they could, burning those they couldn't. Since many of the other graves throughout the world had been looted by necromancers over that eleven month period in nineteen eighty nine, the world in general had adopted the Sepulcher Pyramid model as well. Although, most of those were built with more conventional methods.

 

It was an imposing structure that towered over the neighborhood of Gravesend like a foreboding monolith. Its ninety-four stories of gleaming bone-white marble stretched up into the sky as if holding up the heavens. Inside the ECMS, rows upon rows of bodies were stored in various manners. Some of the more recent additions are preserved in a state of cryo-suspension. Many were embalmed. A whole section was full of corpses that underwent a form of mummification. Their skin was stretched tight over their bones in a grotesque mockery of life, a result of some poorly executed, but well intentioned use of certain meta-abilities. Many more are nothing more than ashes, their remains placed in urns and stacked neatly on shelves. The ECMS was originally just a repository for the countless victims of the Anti-Christ War, but it became a cultural institution.

 

For the ECMS was more than just a storage facility. It was a place of faith, a beacon in a world that had been torn asunder. It was a place of death and hope. The spires of religious institutions that sprung up in its shadow reached towards the sky in silent prayer. Gravesend had become a testament to the resilience of the human spirit, a lighthouse in a world that has been plunged into the abyss.

 

Along side the many churches and other places of devotional faith that rose up around the giant, modern necropolises, research facilities were built as well. If you are someone trying to figure out how to cure certain diseases, or study the human monadic code, having access to millions of potential samples wasn't a bad thing. Not that just anyone could waltz in and start jabbing the occupants with needles, but the need to advance science by just about any means was a priority after the war. Like attracts like, and hospitals and other health based facilities were built in the area as well.

 

 

That was why Felix Fleaman's laboratory was in the shadow of that towering edifice.

 

---

 

Jack looked up at the sepulcher for a long, long time.

 

 

He didn't know why, but the structure struck a chord with Jack. This giant pyramid of death was place where you could be laid to rest, but that wasn't it. Jack couldn't put a finger on it. He scratched his smooth chin in thought before finally shaking his head in an attempt to dismiss the feeling.

 

He looked at a pamphlet he had been given by one of the vendors on the street. He was boggled by how many... well... he wasn't sure what to call them. Clergywomen? Women dressed as priests? He was actually afraid to ask someone to explain. They all seemed very serious. The image of men dressed as nuns didn't sit well with him and he didn't want to investigate that particular train of thought anymore then he already had. He eyed the paper in his hand as he slowly walked along, while trying to find the office building for Felix's laboratory. Eventually he came to the address he had been looking for, so he folded up the flyer. Slipping it into his pocket, he walked into the building.

 

It was a simple lobby with little flair to it. White marble floors, a circular desk where a receptionist sat, elevators behind the desk, there was nothing special. The man behind the desk was dressed in the style of the time, flashy. The words, 'Aggressively Hawaii' came to mind. The receptionist looked up from his cellphone with a smile as Jack walked up, "Ah. I was told someone like..." He glanced up and down Jack with a slightly disapproving look, "You would be arriving." The receptionist gestured behind him to the elevators with a sweep of his arm, "Please take the elevator up to the fourth floor. Mister Fleaman is expecting you."

 

Jack nodded and walked past to the elevators while Adam commented, ~Bitch.~

 

Jack snorted and nodded in agreement, but said nothing. Instead he simply waited for the elevator.

 

 

---

 

 

"Is this going to take long? I have to go meet my employer around noon."

 

 

Felix was staring into a computer screen while a nearby machine beeped and flashed. He looked up at Jack who was sitting in a padded chair with an armrest so you could comfortably give blood samples, "Just another few minutes." Felix pushed away from his terminal on his office chair and rolled over to Jack, "I find it fascinating that your world has such advanced knowledge about... what did you call it? Genetics?" Jack nodded. Felix smiled, "Right. Genetics, but knows nothing of Monads. It's remarkable that you understand the physical representation of monads, but not the existence of monads themselves."

 

Jack sighed, "You said it was important to get more samples, but you haven't explained why."

 

Felix rolled back over to his terminal. "Well, it's simple. You have the most densely packed genes I've ever seen, but they're very redundant. Think of genetic code as a way of describing you. Here, in this world, we're born with a description of what we are, written in about two thousand genes, a hundred and fifty million pairs of birth monads. But you, with your twenty thousand and three billion pairs? It's like someone wrote a description of you and included a dictionary to define every single word they used."

 

Jack rolled his hand in the air, "And...?"

 

Felix sighed, "You have as many 'genes' as say, All-Star, give or take, but ninety percent of those genes are redundant. It's like... you come from a world where if you are not very very very carefully defined, you... I dunno. Fall apart? I don't understand why any being would need to be so-"

 

There was a ping from the terminal.

 

Felix snapped his attention back to the device, "I see..." He looked up, "Quick. Don't think about it. Just answer. Out of the two of you, which one had been more successful lately?"

 

Jack blinked, "Huh?"

 

Felix humphed and snapped his finger, "C'mon! It's important! Who has won lately and who has lost?"

 

~I guess I lost in the museum and you were the one who saved the day.~ Adam sounded glum about this fact.

 

Jack squinted, "I... guess I've been 'winning' more than Adam. I'm not sure-"

 

Felix snapped his fingers again and grinned, "I knew it!" He pointed at the monitor, "Jack, you've gained more growth monads than Adam since the last sample!"

 

Jack blinked, "Wait. I don't-" He paused and folded his hands, "Look. On my world you don't GAIN more DNA. That's impossible. Please explain growth monads."

 

Felix nodded, "Ah. Sorry. This is like... fifth grade stuff. You are born with the four basic nucleotides, but as you grow older, you can gain more nucleotides through life experiences. These are called growth nucleotides. Yours show that you've been doing some violent things lately."

 

"Wait, you gain..." Jack smacked his forehead, "No no no no no... No." He rubbed his eyes, "Fuck. Seriously?"

 

Felix looked confused, "What?"

 

Jack dropped his hand and looked at Felix with an annoyed expression, "Are you telling me I can gain... experience? Like... EXPERIENCE POINTS?"

 

Felix blinked and looked confused, "Uh... Huh?" He squinted in thought, "Experience points... I'm not familiar with the term."

 

Jack dropped his hand and looked at Felix with an annoyed expression. "You know, experience points? Like, if I beat people up, deal with difficult things, or just have an intense life, then I gain growth nucleotides until I get enough for them to make a new gene or monad or whatever the fuck you call it?" He rubbed his mouth for a bit. "I don't know why, but this pisses me off."

 

Felix thought for a bit then arched his eyebrows up high, "Well... I guess in a manner, yes. Although the actual process and what triggers it is poorly understood. If we knew how to encourage the body to make more growth nucleotides, we would. We know stress causes it, but not all types of stress."

 

"What do you mean?"

 

Felix sighed, "Well, attempts to recreate the conditions where people gain... experience points, as you call it, in a laboratory setting all universally fail. If the subject knows that it is an artificially created scenario, then nothing happens. Furthermore, there seems to be ah... limit? Like, people with low monad scores seem to gain growth monads faster than more powerful metas."

 

Jack rolled his eyes, "There's a level cap."

 

"Level... cap?" Felix blinked, "I... don't understand the use of this term." He tilted his head, "Wait. That's like a video game thing, right?"

 

Jack squinted, "You know about levels, but not experience points?"

 

Felix snorted, "Do I look like an incel? I don't live in my parents basement wasting my life away on computer games." He snorted again and made a dismissive gesture, "However, maybe I should bring this up to one of my interns. Maybe there is something to what you are talking about. Wouldn't be the first time fiction reflected reality."

 

"This is getting too meta for me." Jack said, furrowing his brow. "It's almost like there's some kind of... natural balance that needs to be maintained. Like the universe doesn't want anyone to get too powerful."

 

Felix nodded in a non-committal fashion, then shrugged. "I suppose that's one theory, although it's difficult to say for sure. It's one of the reasons why I'm so interested in studying your genetics, as you call it. Your world seems to operate on a different set of rules than ours, and it could potentially teach us a lot about how life works."

 

Jack closed his eyes and just shook his head, "This is just fucked up." He paused, "Hold it, you can tell what I was doing to gain the growth monads?"

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Felix nodded, "Oh yes. We know G,C,T, and A. A bonds to T, G bonds to C. However, sometimes it is T to A, or C to G. The order matters. But there is also S and B and P and Z. We call it the hachimoji. The eight letters of life." Felix started talking with his hands, "If the pairs start with S more than B, they you gained those nucleotides with violence, and the other way around is usually through more peaceful social interactions. Where as P indicates you created sort of structure, either actual or metaphorical, when you gained it. Whereas Z means the end result increased entropy in some fashion." He was very energetic, like this was a topic of great fascination to him, "I understand it is a lot to take in, but I assure you, this is just how things work. The hachimoji is a crucial part of understanding physical... er... genetics and how it can be used to improve the human condition."

 

Jack stared at Felix, "You are fuckin' kidding me." He shook his head disbelievingly, "Good, evil, law, and order?" Jack got up out of his chair, "Seriously? SERIOUSLY?" He started to aimlessly move about the room, more to move about than to actually do anything.

 

Felix watched Jack with a confused expression, "I don't understand. What's wrong with knowing what triggers the growth of nucleotides?"

 

Jack stopped pacing and turned to look at Felix, "It's just... it's ridiculous. It's like I'm in some kind of role-playing game and not only am I gaining experience points for finishing quests, but they are karma points as well. Like, you could take a blood sample and know if I'm... I dunno! Morally Something!" He threw his hands up in the air, "It's like everything in my life is just a game to be won or lost!" Jack tapped the side of his head as he stepped closer to Felix, "Doesn't that bother you?"

 

Felix tilted his head and put on a well practiced, inoffensive smile, "I understand where you're coming from, but it's not like that. It's just a way for the body to adapt and grow. It's not about winning or losing, it's about living and experiencing life. It can be overwhelming to learn about something new, especially when it relates to your own body. But it's important information to have, and I hope it helps you understand yourself better."

 

Jack started shouting at Felix, "WHO TALKS LIKE THAT? What is this? An ABC after school special!?"

 

~Jack, calm down.~

 

Jack pointed at nothing in particular, "SHUT. UP. I don't believe that I am living in a world where I gain EXPERIENCE and the morality of my actions is coded into my very DNA!"

 

Felix looked confused for a moment, then let out an 'ah', "You're talking to Adam." He sighed and took off his glasses, "And YES, I do a lot of lectures for children. Excuse me if I have a cadence you find offensive."

 

Jack glared at Felix, "You have a keen grasp of the obvious, oh Fabulous Flea!"

 

Felix looked shocked and quickly fumbled to put his glasses back on, "What? UH- NO. I am uh- Not- Uh" He started to sweat.

 

Jack blinked at Felix with incredulousness, "SERIOUSLY? Your name is FLEA-man! Your first and last name are the same initial, which is typical of anyone who has a superhero identity, either that or it's some sort of play on words, like Myrtle when you have plant powers, or Otto Octavius becomes Doctor Octopus and has eight limbs."

 

Felix stared at Jack, "I..." He looked at the floor, "You know, I never thought of that."

 

Jack narrowed his eyes, "What the fuck? Does... everyone in this universe have some sort of blinders on? Like, if I put on glasses, would you think I was a different person?"

 

~You're one to talk.~

 

Jack snarled at the air, "What's THAT supposed to mean?"

 

~Don't worry about it.~

 

Felix squinted as Jack argued with himself and jumped in on the conversation, "I think I could recognize you as you if I saw you put on glasses."

 

Jack asked, "What if you never saw me put them on? What if I never took them off except when I turned into Super Dude!"

 

Felix stared at Jack, opened his mouth, but said nothing.

 

Jack stagger over to his former seat and flopped down into it, "Holy fuck, that would work, wouldn't it?"

 

Felix cleared his throat, stood up, took off his glasses, then abruptly disappeared, his clothes settling to the ground. Jack's jaw dropped open, "What the-"

 

Just then, a small speck landed on the arm of Jack's chair, and a loud voice called out, "DOWN HERE!" Jack looked down to see a tiny man, who he assumed was Felix, dressed as a flea. The odd thing was, the four extra limbs seemed to be for show, as they just dangled there. "You are correct, sir. I am the Fabulous Flea!" he exclaimed, striking a dramatic pose.

 

Jack blinked, then rubbed his eyes, "Wait. I thought you just dressed up as a flea, but you actually shrink?"

 

The Fabulous Flea nodded. "Indeed! Why do you think I am the world's leading authority on quantum mechanics and microbiology?" To say that the Fabulous Flea spoke with a bombastic, dramatic voice would be an understatement.

 

"No shit."

 

Flea nodded, "Yes shit! But that is besides the point! I didn't want to keep lying to you since you figured out my secret identity! I hope that we can keep this a secret!"

 

Jack nodded slightly, "Ummm... sure. Just keep mum about me an Adam as well, okay?"

 

Flea hopped away and a few seconds later his lab clothes 're-inflated' with Felix inside them, "I appreciate your discretion in this matter." His voice was much more subdued, "In fact, since you know now, perhaps you could help me in the future. I could use a man like you in my eternal struggle with my arch nemesis, Doctor Microbe."

 

Jack gave Felix a flat expression and was about to say something when he abruptly shifted into Adam, "SURE!"

 

~HEY! Give me a warning first! I was about to say something super sarcastic!~

 

Felix looked surprised, "Oh! Hello Again! We didn't talk long while you were giving the blood sample. Nice to meet you again!"

 

Adam nodded, "Same here!" he hooks a thumb over his shoulder, "Jack's a grumpy gus. I doubt he'd want to help, but I'd be more than happy to lend a hand when you need it against the nefarious Doctor Microbe."

 

Felix let out a short laugh, "I like the cut of your jib! Alas, not many people take Doctor Microbe very seriously. We were working together in the same lab as interns. We had a bit of a friendly rivalry going on. There was an accident and we both shrunk, but... I learned how to control it, growing from flea sized to human, whereas he could shrink from flea sized... to microbe."

 

Adam frowned, "So... he's stuck that small?"

 

Felix nodded, "Yes. A tragic accident that nobody could have foreseen."

 

Jack abruptly returned, "Seriously? It's obvious he tried to kill you and botched it, thus whatever accident backfired on him."

 

Felix looked shocked, "What? NO! We might have been rivals, but we were friends, once upon a time."

 

Jack rolled his eyes, "At the time, was there a girl involved?"

 

Felix opened his mouth, closed it, looked away and mumbled, "maybe."

 

Adam took over again, "Jack. Stop being so cynical!"

 

~I'm only being cynical, because I'm right.~

 

Felix looked disturbed, "Uh... no. Don't... admonish him. I'm beginning to see that perhaps your... unusual origins and perhaps the incredible amount of redundancy in your genes might give you some degree of insight people of this world don't have." He scratched his chin, "I am wondering if this is the advantage of the redundant code. An ability to see and understand the interconenctive nature of society. Now that you are saying it out loud, it never occurred to me that my last name of Fleaman had anything to do with me becoming the Fabulous Flea. But..." He trailed off, then shook his head, "Never mind."

 

Felix looked at the clock, "You have given me much to think about, but I don't want to keep you any more than I have to."

 

Adam looked at the clock, then turned into Jack, "Crap. I need to boogie." He looked at Felix, "If anything new comes up, let me know."

 

Felix stood up and proceeded to walk Jack to the elevator, "Oh, I will indeed. I will, INDEED." He turned to offer Jack a hand shake, "A pleasure to meet you." Jack took Felix's hand and gave it a quick pump.

 

Jack shifted into Adam who then shook much more vigorously, "A pleasure to meet you as well!"

 

Felix smiled, "You know, I'm part of a club of exclusively male capes. You might want to stop by sometime." He let go as the elevator opened, "Shall I send you an invite to our next get together?"

 

Adam stepped backwards into the elevator, "Please do! I look forward to it!" Then shifted into Jack, who simply gave Felix a flat smile, a polite nod, then pressed the lobby button on the elevator.

 

As the elevator closed, Felix expression turned dark, "Always... wearing... glasses?"

 

 

 

 

 

Felix scratched his chin as he turned away.

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