A Future We'd Like to See 1.59 - The God Maker By Stefan "Twoflower" Gagne (Copyright 1994) --cracking of bones, metal ripping noise, scream-- Argh. There it is again; I HATE that. I know what it is now, thanks to several hundred credits in psychotherapy sessions, parental-paid. Here's the full story; I'm ten years old, I'm on a school shuttle field trip out to some chocolate factory off- planet. The bus hits reentry a bit funny and goes out of control, coming to a delightful crash on the planet below. "Delightful" in that I survived, which is a miracle in itself considering the severity of starship crashes. I was in the hospital for a long period of time, maybe six months, but once out I was okay. Except, as I was recently finding out at the age of seventeen, I wasn't okay. I still remembered the crash, but in the worst possible way; subconsciously. Whenever some obscure mental trigger fired, I'd get a nice little five second flashback to the chaos and pain involved. Nobody could get rid of it. I could always get a memory job done at a black biotech clinic, but : A. I didn't have enough allowance B. Mom and Dad would freak C. I hate biotech. I've seen other high school punks getting cybered up and it doesn't look fun. Lots of cutting and metal bits getting inserted and chips and crap. This does NOT appeal to me. I don't know where this hate of biotech comes from... I was arrested two years ago for firebombing a Gallen Upberg shrine. Yes, a SHRINE. Gallen Upberg, the now long-dead scientist who came up with all this bio-junk was being worshipped by some freaks downtown. I torched the place one night after getting depressed after a physics exam and drinking my head off. Last time I did that for awhile, you bet. So I revel in my normality. I don't use high-tech weapons, I don't have 'enhancements', and I'm nothing special. It's fun being a nobody. I dress like a nobody too; the Teen Fashion Plate definition of sneakers, a t-shirt, and logo print shorts. Buzz cut hair. Gangly looking. I resemble 70% of the male population at school, granting me an anonymity beyond a ski mask. I can get away with minor vandalism, because the best anybody can say when asked for a description is "He looks like that guy over there". So this particular nobody was going to school, the great prison of the mind. Walking along the road because my parents took away the car after I flamed the tech-chapel, deciding I wasn't mature enough to drive. (I don't see what the two have in common.) However, others were driving on that fine Thursday morning, and one of them seemed a little out of control and about to slam into me, commencing the act of first degree manslaughter. I stepped out of his way and let him crash into a nearby storefront. Okay, so there's an alarm and broken glass and panic in the streets. I don't care; if I didn't get a move on, I'd be late to my calculus test. I stepped over a skate punk who had wiped out to avoid the car. He glanced back up to me, eyes trying to focus. "How'd you do that?" he demanded, steadying himself on his plank. "Do what?" I ask. "Get out of the way! I thought I'd be a goner and I was way the hell out of the way compared to you." "I just avoided it," I said. "What's the big deal?" "You moved faster on two feet than I ever have on four wheels, that's why," the skater exclaimed. "Whatever," I dismissed, trudging my way onward to school. No time to deal with junior high school brats like that --other kid, dragged out of the-- argh. There it is again! I knocked the side of my head a few times to clear it, and marched on. The day was not looking up. * So I'm late for my calc test because A. A fucking car nearly hit me B. My shoelace came untied C. Some net.religious freak tried to stop me on the street. None of which are valid reasons according to my teacher, so I've got ten less minutes to complete thirty integrations. No shit about C there... some guy was outside the school handing out flyers. Spotted me and made a beeline, waving his little orange papers in the air. "Excuse me, sir, have you been in touch with your innocence lately?" he asked, pushing a flyer at me with some little girl's picture on it. "Piss off," I helpfully suggested. "The way of Melody is the way of the child," he called after me, waving the flyers around. "You of all people ought to get in touch with that again! It could be good for you!" Freak, as said. Freak plus car plus lace equals ten minutes late equals no better than a C, because the bell rang and I was still on problem twentysomething. So the rest of the day started to suck. My only friend in period two had contracted the Yttian Flu... not the six hour death kind, but he wasn't gonna be around to do my homework for me for at least a week. Great; I HATE history. Period three sucked even more than period one and two combined, since I had an English paper due which I totally botched. Period four I didn't mind. Phys Ed. I had managed to put it off for a year, but I had to take at least one semester in order to graduate. It wasn't very hard... run here, throw that, hit him. I was reportedly getting an A, and the track-and-field- and-also-chemistry teacher was pestering me again. "We could really use you, Jeff," he said. "You've got that speed thing down. Our track team needs good runners like you." "Sorry, Mr. Rink, I don't have time," I lied, the usual lie I fed him. After period four comes open lunch, which is always a joy. One soggy McSpackle's hamburger... the best hamburger I ever got was a few weeks back on a spring break trip to C'atel. The cook spoke a weird japanese english mix, whereas here on Earth they only speak spanish. I don't know two of those three, so I preferred the C'atel cook. I was busy munching my sloppy burger behind the McSpackle's when that religious freak showed up again. I guess he hadn't found too many suckers to pin flyers on, because his stack was just as large as it had been when he bagged me earlier. He was grinning from ear to ear. "Care to get in touch with your inner child?" he asked. "Unless it's edible, no," I said, between bites. "It does a world of good to commune with your Melody," he said. "Thousands of AIs can't be wrong. She is the embodiment of peace and innocence." "Good for her. Excuse me," I said, crumbling up my burger wrapper and tossing it on the lawn. "That's littering, you know," he said, cocking his head towards the trash. "Not a very innocent act. Not that I'd expect that of you." "I highly doubt you know me, pal," I said. "Nobody knows me. I like it that way." "Oh, but I do know you, Jeff. I know more about you than you know about yourself," he grinned, without the happy little edge to his tone. --go away, not again, you-- Another flashback. Bad timing. This was getting too Twilight Zoney for me, so I leapt over the nearby dumpster and made a bolt for the school. Okay, so lunch wouldn't be over for another half hour, but this guy was creeping me out. Jump a five foot fence, plow through the bushes and weave through the crowd-- "Care for a flyer?" another freak asked, not two feet away. He made a motion with his arm, and the world turned itself off. * --fuzzy, can't see, get that away-- "Is he coming to?" "Yeah. Turn it on." My eyes refocused. I hauled off to pound the freak at his last known location, but stopped; not the same location. Not just him, but the room. This wasn't the school, it was... was. A room. Kinda white, drab, nothing special. Some carpet, a door. We weren't inside the school; they couldn't afford classy decorations like these. "Hello, Jeff," the freak said, out of his orange robes and in some scientist's coat. "Welcome home." "I'm not home," I said. "Well, not the home you've known, but your original one. Hmm. Was he one of the recovered subjects or the escaped ones?" "Recovered," another scientist-type said. "Located by the salvage team and repaired, memory clean. Government cover-up." "Hmmm. This could take longer than I thought, if we need to revive his memories too," the freak said. "Okay, it's doable. You two go examine subjects K and L." The other two scientists nodded, and exited via the door. I couldn't make out anything on the other side due to poor lighting, and it was closed before even poorly lit shapes could be made out. The freak took out a small CD2 recorder, and clicked it on. "Subject J, purpose : memory revival. Commencing. How do you feel today, Jeff?" "Shitty. Who're you?" "Dr. Frank," he said. "I've been tracking you over the last week, trying to figure out where the Terran Confederation dumped you after recovery. It's taken awhile." "What're you talking about, freak? Where am I?" "You're back at the Grand 'ol Opry," he said. "I didn't name it that, that was Upberg's idea." --name tag upberg whiteplastic red smudge-- "Flashback?" he asked, noting my muscle twitch. "Screw you," I offered, holding my head to keep the pounding down. "That's a good sign. Means whatever cap they put on your memories isn't a good one. I figure you'll have total recall soon enough, but I might as well help you out. Tell me about your life at age ten, Jeff." "Go suck a--" Pain shot up my legs, as I realized for the first time that I wasn't wearing shoes. The pain stopped as quickly as it started. "Electrified floor," the scientist said. "Just to make sure you cooperate, you see. I'll answer the question for you. Your school shuttle crashed, and you were the only survivor, yes?" "Y... yes," I agreed, not wanting to be zapped again. "Well, that's SOMEWHAT true. Upberg engineered the crash, since we needed some underage test subjects. You're the only one that was recovered after Upberg died, though... the rest had escaped and were presumed dead. The government burst in after his death and salvaged the research facility, and found you. Had to put a tight control on your parents not to blab where you had been. Coverup, to keep the technology's true origin from being revealed. The government couldn't patent it if there was a scandal." "Scandal?" I asked. "From the non-volunteers, such as yourself, telling the press HOW biotech was developed," he said. "Doesn't matter. As one of the original researchers, I had the patent before the stupid government could try to get it. I needed to go underground to avoid prosecution, however, for collaborating with Upberg's experiments." "I don't buy this. You mean to tell me I was a guinea pig?" "Was, yes. I forget exactly which experiments were done on you..." he said, ruffling through a pile of notes on his table. "Ah, yes. Limb replacement --grinding sound, loss of feeling-- and some reflex enhancement --speed, everything's blurry and slow, can't see-- and I think he tried a few personality mixers on you --happysadangryhappysadangrydepressedbitter-- but other than that," he concluded, "Not much. Flashbacks again? I can get you some aspirin." "No thanks," I said, holding the pounding of my head in. "Just let me go home." "No can do. As one of the last remaining test subjects, your body is a priceless commodity. Upberg did things with you three subjects that he didn't do on anybody else, things I want to learn how to do. It'll give me an edge in the biotech market again, over the other eleven nitwits in the Dirty Dozen. No, you're staying put until I get you stripped down to the parts and examined." Okay, I can vault the freak and be out the door in one second tops. I've done it before. Start-- BONK! My body slammed into an invisible wall before it could make the initial launch to clear the room. "Force field," he said. "Much more elegant than the original steel bars and chains at the first Grand 'ol Opry." "The what?" I asked, getting back up to standing. "That's what Gallen called the first test center. Shorthand for the grand operating room, I think. No country music references implied. Well, I'll send your meal in soon, and we'll start testing tonight. Don't worry, you'll be out of here in one way or another as soon as I figure out what makes those enhanced speed abilities tick. Ciao." Dr. Frank left, just like that. "Ciao" and gone. * The first two days in this rathole prison/hospital weren't that bad... the other two weasly science types just taking blood pressures and samples of fluid and shit like that. They always kept that force field up though, and when I knocked one cold, I couldn't find any controller on him. I was clearly stuck. The days might have been tolerable but the first two nights were hell. Whatever I couldn't remember for more than five seconds at a time played itself out in disjointed five second bits in my dreams, like a QuickTime jigsaw puzzle. Lots of running around, being strapped into chairs, whirling metal prongs and weird colors and pains... I woke up screaming on the second night, prompting quick medication by Good Old Dr. Frank the Freak. I really wanted to do something to pass the time, like maybe chalk little roman numerals on the wall according to days (I'd have been on day three at that point) but I didn't have chalk. No books, no HV, no video games. Just four walls, one of them invisible. I didn't even have a bed. The most I could do was consider my current situation. Here we had some mad scientist who claims that my bus crash was just a coverup for some massive biotech research project... the ORIGINAL biotech experiment, if I recall, by good old Exploding Upberg. No shit; if I recall, when they found his lab, they found him as a one inch layer coating the walls. Experiment gone awry, I guess. Shame it didn't spoil all the three-ring binders lying around that detailed the A to Z of biotechnology. He must have bought the water-proof kind. I didn't like being treated as a test subject, and tried to make this very, very obvious. "These accommodations suck," I commented as Dr. Frank walked in for his morning checkup. "I know. Sorry, we couldn't do much better on short notice," he said. "I figure, hey, you're going to hate me anyway by the end of this, so why bother trying to cheer you up with good furniture?" "Good point," I said. "I'd regard you as kidnapping pond scum anyway, chairs or no. So what do you have today? More piss in a pot? Wanna suck some more blood?" "No, I think we're ready to move on," he said, and the invisible wall shimmered. Was it down? I made a few finger pokes in the air to determine that it was. One second later I was skittering around the doc and out the door, just as I had been planning before. Waiting outside the door were the other two scientists with a tripwire. Heh. Like that's gonna stop me. I step over it in mid-stride and Dr. Frank tags my left shoulder with a stunner disc. Whatever it was made of, it was some really righteous tech, because my body went limp on contact, collapsing to the floor. I stared up at the dim ceiling lights, unable to move my head. "Electro stunner," Frank explained. "Cut off all motor control rather quickly. You two wouldn't mind getting subject J into his chair now, please?" The two lab toadies each grabbed an arm and dragged my puppet-sans-strings form over to a metal dentist's chair --strap to chair, light swinging-- and strapped me in, secure even beyond my lockpicking skills. Dr. Frank walked up and turned the dentist's light in my face. "Here you go," he said, pulling the disc off of me with a glove. My muscles slowly woke up. "Prick," I insulted him. (Okay, so that's weak, I wasn't in a very good frame of mind to pull off some Orson Scott Card insult-o-rama on him.) "Okay, get the robot arms linked up on all three chairs," Frank ordered, as the toadies scurried around the poorly lit room. I turned my head to either side, to see a chair on the left and right... the sleeping form on the right-hand side was definitely teenaged also, female... vaguely familiar, but that's to be expected if Franky Boy has been collecting old test subjects. The guy on the left, however, is completely unrecognizable; he didn't even look human. "Lab notes, day three," Frank said into his recorder. "Upberg clearly had something going with these three subjects, something he wouldn't tell the other scientists, including myself. Each is enhanced in a different 'area', mental power, strength, and dexterity. However, there seems to be traces of something more... today we will try to isolate those traces, see what they unlock in combinations. Perhaps we will succeed in the second research lab where the first failed. Doctors, if you will please start the arms." The metal buzzsaw neatly opened my skull, ripping the bone halves apart like raw veggies. Similar arms did this to the other two people, the lump of flesh in the left chair letting off an inhuman wail. I was in pain beyond any sense of the word, but didn't bother screaming. It would be a waste. "Life support is working," Frank noted. "Sterile environment achieved. Let's start adding in the probes." The toadies began inserting needles on wires into my brain. It was weird, I couldn't feel anything now. Sure, I was in pain, but it was an all-over pain... like boiling yourself in acid. Steady and constant. If I ignored it, it would go away (but not much). "Let's kill consciousness and start working," Frank called to his two slaves. Lights went out; I was glad. * Glad, except for the nightmare-dream version of what was going on. More blades, some electro-suture-doohickeys, and lots and lots of equipment I can't even describe. Blood and gashes and fluids being pumped in to replace them. All of this with dolby-track mishmash of scientific notes and screams... all of it oddly familiar. I think I would have preferred being awake to this hell. "THIS SUCKS!!" I shouted, although nothing came out. The sound did a great job of echoing around my head, however. detach yourself Eh? detach detach Another voice, but not mine. Couldn't identify it. I ordered my brain to turn off, and it did. "Wow," I admitted, as the noise stopped. Now I was just trapped in an endless void. Great. you have the skill in a limited way "Who am I addressing, please?" I asked the voice. kelly "Ah, Subject K?" yes "Neat. Umm. Am I just dreaming this or are you on some bizarre telepathic link?" both "Cool. How'd you manage that?" i am enhanced "Yeah, aren't we all?" enhanced more than you or larry "Subject L?" yes "Do you remember any of this shit Frank's been babbling about, the stuff seven years ago?" yes I paused. "So tell me already." upberg used us to test his biotech theories we were the only ones that survived i escaped with larry but you didnt make it out and i guess they found you there after upberg died Hmm. Stream of consciousness, literally. frank was on that team i remember his face when he worked on me with upberg it was awful i dont want to remember stop it stop it "Whoa! Take two. Calm down." sorry hard to "What are our chances of getting out of here now?" if frank is successful or not "Err... not successful?" impossible we would die to cover up failure "And successful?" it will be obvious they are almost done retach before they notice you gone ill distract I hurriedly tried to find my body, and turned the brain back on, meeting a wave of pain head-first. The dream nightmare faded away, replaced by the real nightmare. "What's wrong? What's wrong?" Frank was yelling. "Subject K's overloading the meters!" one of the toadies shouted. "We've got to turn it off!" "Then do it! We've got the data we need." The pain subsided, and robotic arms closed my head. Somehow it sealed up, with only a dull throb along the cut-lines. "Hot damn!" Frank said, the sound of ripping paper coming from behind my head. He wandered into view, reading a stream of print-out. "This is big. Big big big! I was right! Three parts make a whole. We need to combine them to learn what Upberg was trying to do. We might even need another test subject. This is great stuff! Hee hee! Beats the hell out of installing cheap bio-gags in my customers for kicks." "Ummm, sir? What should we do with the subjects?" "Don't bug me, I'm relishing the moment. I've got to go to the back room and run some simulations with these figures. You two shut down the machinery and lock up," Frank said, wandering off into the darkness. The roadies packed up, machinery clunking as it was stored in boxes, and I heard a door open and close. They left us there, strapped in. Teriff. "I have to go to the bathroom!" I announced. "Ggrrgrghhh," the guy on my left growled, sound of strained leather accompanying it. "Can't get these things loose." "Hello," I greeted, turning my head as far to the side as I could. "Do I know you?" "You're the brat who was singing that shaving cream song in aisle four," the hulking figure said, bass rumbling over his voice. "I remember you." "Were you on the 'bus accident' too?" I asked. "On it? I was DRIVING. Why'd they have to strap me down so hard? Can't get free..." "How many did they pull off that bus?" "You and the girl there, and me. Then they sent it spiraling down to flaming demise, kids and all. Fuckers gonna go splat once I get my hands on them... I almost got Upberg when I escaped last time with Kelly, but he was already dead." "Good for you," I said. "Why didn't you take me along?" "Not enough time," he said. "Hey, can you get loose? I could break crappy straps like yours, but they put double on me. I got some weird strength amp." "I've been trying," I said. "No go. How about... Kelly? there? Kelly?" The girl wasn't talking. She seemed asleep, actually, dozing peacefully in the chair. "She doesn't talk," Larry said. "Funny, she was talking a minute ago." "You hear weird things when they dissect your brain," Larry said. "You must have imagined it." * From my half hour conversation with Larry and a half hour of hearing Kelly snooze, I had managed to learn that : A. Nothing Frank was saying was bullshit B. We'd probably be killed once he's done C. There was no way out of there. "But how'd you escape last time?" I asked. "I was just gettin' strong then, on these muscle implants Upberg was making," Larry rumbled. "They didn't realize how fast. I busted out of there and got two of them. Upberg had exploded by then." "I heard about that. That for real?" "Yeah. Splattered all over the place, everything but his head. Grinnin' right at me from across the room. I kicked it, naturally, grabbed Kelly and made a run for it. Never could be a bus driver again, I get too angry to drive now and I end up busting up passengers." "That must suck. You know, I've always wondered why I was so good at jumping stuff. I figured it ran in the family, since my dad had hurdles trophies." "Trophies could be part of the cover-up," Larry said. "Since we didn't hear about you after the government found the Grand 'ol Opry, we figured you were dead or tricked into forgetting it all. Kelly--" "You're still out here?" Dr. Frank asked, leaning through the doorway. The printout he was still holding now had a number of circles in red ink, and notes in the margins. "Didn't my partners return you to your cells?" "What does it look like?" I asked. "Don't be dense, doc." "Hmmm. I can't get you back there on my own, especially not you, subject L... well, sit pretty. I may have the final test ready in five minutes, once it's done being synthesized." He shut the door again, the whirring machinery in the room silenced by a layer of plastic. "Final test, emphasis on final. I didn't want to go out this way," I whined. "I wanted to grow up, be a nobody, play a happy little cog life and die surrounded by grandchildren. You know how hard it is to be nobody? If I die in some lab experiment, it's gonna look really strange. I'll get my face on the news, and the sick part is that nobody'll remember it. I don't want to be not remembered for that." Larry didn't comment, given clear reason to try and break his straps again. His muscles shifted around under his shirt, physically moving themselves to concentrate on the breaking points, but there was no way in hell that those bonds were going to give. "Some conversationalist you are," I commented, turning my head over to the right. "Hey, Kelly, wake up. Time to die." Kelly wasn't paying attention either, but she wasn't paying attention in a different way. Her sleep was more fitful... her head tossed back and forth, and sweat seemed to be forming on her forehead. "You okay?" I asked before the room blew apart. No, really. The chairs reduced themselves to component parts, shedding every bolt and reinforced welding mark to collapse in a heap of erector set parts. Larry's straps unwove themselves into fibers and fell to the ground. That's not the cool bit. The cool bit is that all of this junk was floating in the air not, and so was Kelly. "Cool," I admitted. "RIGHT," Larry growled in a bear-like tone. "Time to give happy Frank a little something to worry about--" Frank, as if on cue, burst out of the door, pushing a cart of syringes and bottles. "All set for... whaaa?!" He gaped at the metal-shard whirlwind that had formed in the room, clearly not expecting to see it. The equipment was self- destructing, spewing sparks and wires everywhere. Kelly was nearly glowing now, hair floating around like zero gravity. Then her eyes opened. They were solid, glowing, NEON red. I took this opportunity to find a good place to hide, which is for the better since that's the moment at which Larry chose to storm across the room and grab Frank by the testicles, lifting him six feet in the air. Frank let out a high-pitched squeal of pain, and slapped something on the side of Larry's head. Larry went down, the stunner pulsing his body with electrical energy. "Down, boy!" he said, giggling. "Better. Now! Kelly, be a good little girl and let's ease off on the telekinesis, okay? I'm really amazed you managed this. I know Upberg had planned on evolving humans faster than ever before, but YOW! You're great! I'm so PROUD of you!" Kelly, taken aback by the stream of praise, stopped glowing. The objects in the air wavered. Frank quickly pulled his hand from his pocket, fingering the stunner he had been stalling to get a hold of. It zipped across the room like a frisbee and impacted on Kelly's chest, knocking her to the ground; and the rest of the metal parts too. I covered my head as several kitchen stoves went rolling down a hill. "I'm impressed, very impressed," he said. "Now, I can complete your enhancements. Upberg tried to inject all three abilities in himself, but he used too strong a dose and had a little accident. I've got it perfected now so that all three of you will have the mental powers of a god, the strength of a god, and the speed of a god... under my own power, of course, via a few chemical will-switches..." He took two syringes out of the cart, one per hand, and approached Larry and Kelly's stunned forms. "Alright, that's enough," I said, crawling out from my hiding place. "I'm sorry doctor, but I'm afraid I'll need a second opinion before you shoot them up with that shit. The last thing the world needs is three super humans run by a maniac like you." "Why shouldn't they be under my control?" he asked. "I'm clearly wise enough to use it. I've mastered what that idiot Gallen screwed up. I'm a genius incarnate." "You're also an ugly little fucker, and you're about to die," I said, cracking my knuckles. I was certainly feeling heoric tonight. It wouldn't be that hard; vault the control panels and the chair wreckage, get over there, twist his neck and we're done. I estimate two seconds TOPS and we can wrap it up in time for dinner. I take my first step, world slowing down to accommodate my reflexes. He's got another stunner out and is throwing; oh PLEASE, I avoid, no problem. Closing in. Don't trust my skills at neck breaking, need to find a better way... each of his hands has a syringe of god juice in it. Perfect. I grab his hands, twist his arms so they cross each other and jam both needles into his neck. Depress plungers. Done. Frank reels backward, neck bulging and weird liquid sounds coming from his throat. He crashes through the door of his office, knocking over the table that carried his printout, which piled over him. A death shroud of data. Cool. I walked over to Larry and Kelly and removed the stunners from them, batting them away with a nearby chunk of chair. Larry sprang to his feet, looking for a fight. "Whoa! Take it easy. I got him," I said, pointing to the pile of papers and research scientist. "You okay?" "I would have liked to crush him," Larry complained. "Kelly? You alright?" She said up, decidedly non-floating, and blinked. Very normal eyes. She nodded slowly, starting to smile. "Good. Well, it's been a load of fun, but I say we blow this pop-stand. What do you..." I paused, hearing a rustle behind me. The lump under the computer printouts stirred, and heaved. And grew. I scanned the room for that hiding place when an explosion WHUMPHED out of the data office, knocking me on my ass. TERRIFIC. What could be worse? Here we had a SuperFrank, pulling itself to its feet, muscles shifting around like compact cars parking under its ripping lab coat, eyes burnin' red and hands crushing the door frame as it stood up. "HA HA HA!" it laughed, the traditional mad scientist laugh. "THE POWER! THE MIND, THE MUSCLE, THE MOVEMENT! I HAVE SUCCEEDED! A GOD IS BORN!" I remembered something, something rather important that Frank hadn't. I stepped backwards quietly, looking for something to seek cover behind and motioning for Kelly and Larry to follow. "I AM THREE TIMES WHAT YOU ARE, AND SIX TIMES NORMAL MAN," Frank said. "I AM INVINCIBLE!" "I guess his ego's inflated too," I commented to myself. "Okay, Larry hide behind this, you too Kelly... don't look directly at him and get some cloth ready, this is gonna SUCK--" "THE POWER! THE POWER! THE--" SPSPSLLLOOPOOOOOOOOGGGGGGGLLLEEEYEYYYYYGFGPPPOOGGGGG! Frank, much like his predecessor, went splooey in a large way under the overdose of bio-drug. A few body parts arced over the upturned control center and caused secondary flesh implosion, splattering us with gore. After the wet-bag noises ceased, I rubbed the unidentified material out of my eyes and peeked around. Larry was barely recognizable under gobs of goo; Kelly looked like some twisted Wes Craven version of a wet t-shirt contest. We were kneeling in something awful and the smell was probably Eau du Slaughterhouse Five. I peered over the makeshift umbrella/panel. Through the two inch layer of innards (augmented by my own vomit shortly after) I could see Frank's rather surprised face plastered on the far wall, slowly sliding down the cheap wallpaper. The face came to a rest in the muck below, sinking into the 'water'-level. Yuck. That's all I could say. Yuck. * Apparently my friend did NOT have the Yttian Flu, he had Multiple Testaphobia which was cured after I failed a history test two days later. "Gee, thanks for being there," I said, bopping him one over the head playfully. "You know how hard history is when you plunge into it alone?" "Yeah, especially since I'm doing work for both of us," he said. "Where were you over the last four days, anyway? Testaphobia too?" "I don't wanna talk about it," I said. "And believe me, you don't wanna hear." "Is it anything that'd spoil my lunch?" he asked. I nodded harder than I had ever nodded before. "It would, yeah. Hey, race you to McSpackle's." "Are you kidding? You always wi--" But I can't hear that last letter, because I'm halfway out of the school and accelerating, just another nobody in the crowd of nobodies. Well... maybe a really FAST nobody.