Duke Bushido

sigh..... I miss this thread _so much_ when it's not at the top....

Scott, my man, that is just freakin' _amazing_. Dude!

+20 PRE Defense; +5 Ego Defense, limited duration: 10 minutes. OAF: dog biscuit. Gotcha covered.

"Rooby Rooby Rooooo....!"

Extrapolation from what is going on in our non-super world. Cyber villains are more successful than cyber heroes. There's a much larger payoff for a successful villain than there is for a successful hero. Not a lot of innate nobility in our species; it's why we respect the selfless and those who are naturally more giving than others. Take the word "Super" out of that question: No; there is no single coder at MS who could do all that effectively. I don't know, but I've been told the code, printed, for the MS OS would make an encyclopedia (of old. I have to remember those are relics now) look like a grammar school primer. Certainly there is a guy-- likely several-- who _could_ verify every single line of it. But there's no way he could do it effectively or even reasonably efficiently. There are, I would imagine, _lots_ of guys that go into that sort of work even today, yet there are still issues. Does every bug in Chrome get fixed in a remarkably short length of time? (seriously; I don't know: I don't use it beyond the cripple version of Android my phone runs) Is there a truly foolproof firewall today? I mean, if "supers" make the difference, then removing supers on both sides of the equations should still yield comparable results, right? Assuming that the ratio of super-good guys to super bad guys is consistent with the ratio of regular good guys to regular bad guys, then we're still sunk: we're outnumbered by bad guys, and some of them win. Adding "super" on both sides doesn't really solve it. (Honestly, this is one of the reasons I was never a comic book kid: I had a hard time buying into the greatness of superheroes when they were up against super bad guys. It's like one of them exists _only_ because the other does, and falls apart in silliness. :Fight the good fight! maintain the status quo! Not really. When I was first online, after about six months, I got bored and stayed off for a couple of years. I got back on, found this place (just prior to the launch of 5e) and hung around for a couple of years. Then I went off the internet again for a few years, and when I decided to get back online, well-- that was about two days to my return to this board. Dude, unless you are a seriously dedicated online shopper ("I refuse to let the sunlight touch my skin, even reflected from the moon!" ), there's really nothing out here but advertisements and arguments with total strangers. It's not really universally appealing. When I get bored again, or decided I'd rather do something else with my time, I'll probably shut the net off again for a couple of years. I remember back in ..91? 92? My wife got online and started a Facebook at the request of her sister. She played with for almost two weeks. Hasn't been back online since. Considering the schedule of people with _no_ secret lives, I don't find it difficult to believe that someone living two lives just doesn't bother to stay tethered to the internet. We build it up as a great wonderful way to meet people, but it isn't. It's a great way to share ideas with strangers, until you disagree vehemently enough, then you can work out your stress by yelling at each other. That's it. And youtube, when you don't know how to remove a particular piece from your car's interior. It's not a big magnet for every person. I can't see supers being any different: some like it, some don't. Some use it, some don't.

Returning to his life was a lot harder than he thought it would be. He no longer matched any of his ID: his driver’s license showed him to be six inches and roughly a hundred pounds less than what he was now. Worse, the skinny, pointy-chinned, thin-haired, hook-nosed man with glasses in the picture looked nothing like the broad-chinned square-jawed man he had become. His landlord didn’t recognize him; the security checkpoint at his job refused to let him enter until someone from higher-up ordered it. None of his clothes fit, not even a little. He felt ridiculous that first day out shopping for new clothes, poking out of all his old ones. He had gone to see his father later that same day, and that had been a total disaster. “Hazel! What you have done to yourself…! What you were thinking?!” “I didn’t do anything, Dad. I was in an accident, like I said. The doctors saved me, and what they did— it made me the way I was supposed to be. It made me… _me_.” “Hazel, how you could do this to yourself…. Do you really think we are not loving you as you were? We are not loving all of our boys?” “Dad, I didn’t do anything! I stopped a thief, like I said, and I got infected with a bunch of experimental medicine, and I came out of it—“ “Hazel….. We have loved you, always we have loved you. You are my _son_! My boy! You were the first child and the first son! My heart is so much full of you, all of the time. It pained me that you were sick so much times, but I loved you. I did not care that you were not like the others. I was proud of you. You always worked so hard; you studied while your brothers played…. You were such good boys, all of you, and I love _all_ of you, Son. There is no matter that you were different. I did not realize that you were…. ashamed.” Viktor's throat fluttered, and a soft almost-choke accompanied the sudden wetting of his eyes. “It’s not like that, Dad. It’s not like that at all. Or maybe it is. I don’t know. But _this_—“ he gestured up and down himself “this is something special. I am more like you and Steffano and Grigory and Lukas. I am who I was supposed to be, Dad. I was excited. I thought you would be proud….” His father shook his head in disbelief. “My son…. I do not know how you can do this to yourself…” “I didn’t do anything, Dad! It happened to me! I told you!” His father was beyond hearing him. “You face…. you little bright smile with the buck-out teeth…. you slender hands— you mother, she hoped you would be pianist, you know. You have worked so hard to throw away who you were. Do you not know that you were my son?!” he barked at the end, anger welling up from somewhere deep in his heart. “I told you, there was an accident; I was exposed to experimental medicines—“ “There is no medicines that can do this! This is why you have no car; no home for you own! All these years— you spend all your money on the surgery for the face! The hair— you never have thick black hair this way, Hazel; do not deceive me! How you get so big? You take the hormones! The hormones, they ruin you body. Do you see the news? The steroids, the hormones— they wreck you heart and you guts! They kill you! They kill you, Hazel!” Viktor was in a heart-broken frenzy by now, tears running down his face as his voice ran higher and more jagged. “Dad….” “Why, Hazel… What I did so wrong, so terrible that you want take away my baby son from me? Why…?” “Dad…. I love you, Dad.” And with that, Hazel turned and left. He swung by the gym after that, desperate to release the maelstrom of emotions whirling away inside him. He had to buy a new membership: no one believed he was the man in the picture on his club card. He started with the speed bag, and worked it like he had never been able to do before, but no matter how hard he hit it, or how fast, it seemed that he couldn’t get it to fall into its familiar blurry rhythm. Lost in his thoughts and his pain, he was oblivious to the crowd that had slowly formed to watch him. He walked away, unaware of the split seams on the bag or the stretching he had done to the spring. He found a heavy bag and began jabbing it, trying to remember the rhythms and patterns his instructors had taught him. He danced and shuffled and hopped and poked the bag, harder and harder until he fell up against it and was hammering his fists into it, harder and harder until he managed to tear a hole into it and shoved his gloved hand completely into it. He snatched out his hand, furious over his loss of rhythm, drew back and delivered a haymaker roundhouse dead center of the bag, tearing it loose of its moorings on the wooden beam above. Everything in the gym stopped. All eyes were on Hazel. He stood, frozen, arm still outstretched with the follow through of his last blow. Finally, a bow-legged little bald man in sweats walked up to him. “Son, your stance is crap, absolute crap. But you get good results.” “I’ll— I’ll pay for the damage-!” Hazel started. “Don’t worry about it. That was quite a show, Big Fella. My name’s Dietrich. It’s on the glass where you came in. If you ever decide you want to train up, go pro…. You give me a call that number on the other side of the window.” “Let me pay—“ “Don’t worry about it. I was going to replace a couple of those things anyway; they’re getting’ old. Get outta here; get some quiet. You got a lot on your mind, and I ain’t got a lot a spares around here. That one came from China, dirt cheap anyway.” He studied the mess on the floor. "Kinda surprised." he muttered to no one in particular. "I for the price, I figured that thing'd be full a' old diapers or somepthin'." He had already forgotten about Hazel and jerked a thumb toward one of the high school kids that worked the afternoon shift. Hazel stammered more apologies as he left the gym. He _did_ have a lot on his mind. As awful as his life had been, for just a few weeks, it had all seemed worth it: for a few days, he was exactly what he had always felt he was supposed to be: a big, strong, athletically built handsome man, just like his male kin. He had been surrounded by people who cared about him, and his friendship with Pauline seemed to be growing stronger by the day. He had even gotten to be a hero of sorts, keeping Pauline safe from the intruder and saving the company the massive financial loss that a successful theft would have been. All he was lacking was the acceptance of his family, and it turned out that the very thing he thought might gain him that acceptance was, simply because the truth was too fantastic to believe, the very thing that instead cost him the acceptance that he never understood he had. Lost in thought, Hazel didn’t really notice that he had walked a few dozen blocks beyond his apartment. There was so much to which he had to adjust, around which to get his head. He didn’t notice the extra footsteps that had fallen in with his, or that they were getting closer. He barely noticed the young man that stepped away from a porch stoop and stood in front of him, cigarette in mouth, fumbling through his pockets. “Hey, Mister; you got a light?” Hazel stopped short. “Sorry; I don’t smoke.” “Yeah,” said the younger man, spitting out the cigarette. “me, neither.” he said as he whipped a knife from inside his jacket. Hazel stepped back instinctively, only to find himself pushed forward by two more thugs behind him. “Your wallet! And your phone! Give ‘em to me. Now, Dude; I ain’t playin’ with you!” He waved the knife menacingly. Well this was just great. All he needed to top everything else off was to be robbed. “Hey, check it out.” the hood with the knife called to his partners. “Big man’s looking all scared.” They all chuckled. Hazel didn’t want any trouble; he just wanted to go home. He reached back toward his pocket for his wallet. Then the thug’s words spun a wheel in his mind. ‘Big man.’ His mind’s eye exploded with a series of images— the testing, his new speed and endurance and muscle mass; his increased perceptive abilities (for all the good they had done him so far) and the heavy bag at the gym torn from its mount. He didn’t have to be anyone’s target, ever again. Without thinking further, he sprang into action. The hand behind him flew forward as he whipped his shoulder forward, propelling his fist as hard as he could. He twisted his waist and lunged from the knee, they way his boxing trainer had always tried to get him to do. Even as the young thug’s face had just begun to register surprise Hazel’s fist drove home into his abdomen, pushing deeper and deeper as Hazel followed through for all he was worth. The young man curled around Hazel’s fist, and the look on his face told Hazel that he had taken a hit at least as good as a heavyweight boxer might have delivered. The hood sailed backwards, trailing vomit as he arced through the air and landed on the sidewalk six feet away. Even before the first criminal hit the ground, Hazel spun around, shooting his left arm out and whipping it with his rotation. He balled his fist and delivered a perfect backhand smash to the side of a head. The hood spun in place, staggered, and began to fall. By now, the third man had a moment to begin to react. He lunged forward for Hazel, reaching as to pin his arms from behind, and his face showed confusion that his target was now facing him. He was already in motion, lunging forward, over-balanced. With both arms still partially extended, Hazel drew up his knee, counterbalancing by bringing his fists in tight, and delivered a snap kick directly into the younger man’s chest. He fell backward against a mailbox, but hadn’t gone down like his friends. Before he could react, Hazel darted forward, grabbed him one-handed by the front of his jacket, swung him overhead as though he were a rag doll and slammed him on his back to the sidewalk, while being careful to cushion his opponent’s head with his own foot. The impact stunned the thug’s diaphragm and left him gasping for air. Hazel noticed, and commented. “Poor little fishie. Look at you… You got too adventurous. You swam too hard and jumped too high, and now you’re all the way out of the bowl. You have to be careful, Little Fishie. That’s a good way to die….” The hood looked terrified. Hazel walked back to the first young tough, the one who pulled the knife. He was cradled in a fetal ball, barely able to breathe, in too much pain to attack, or even to get up and run. “You.” Hazel demanded. “Give me your wallet.” The thug looked up at him, uncomprehending. Hazel reached down and tore the jacket from him. Rifling through it, he found eight wallets and six cellular phones. He used one to call the police. In turn, he searched the others. In total, he relieved them of thirteen wallets and nine cellular phones. The hoods had started to stir, but Hazel kept circling them menacingly. He didn’t realize just how long it took the police to respond to some neighborhoods, and by the time they showed he had been seriously considering letting the boys go and turning their ill-gotten gains to the lost and found. When they did arrive, Hazel told the police what had happened, while each of the three muggers gave radically different stories about being attacked by a crazed stranger. Hazel handed off the wallets and phones to the officers, who told him point blank: “Listen, this is a really good thing you did, hanging around to turn this stuff in. I wish I could tell you that these kids are going to get locked up, but the fact is I got nothing. It’s a he said / they said kind of thing. We’ll likely have to let them go after we get them there.” Hazel was a bit disappointed. Even though he had always wanted to be a police officer, he had never realized how often even the simplest bad guys got away with it. The officer could see the disappointment on his face. “Listen, Man; don’t let it discourage you. That’s a mighty brave thing you did; not a lot of people think any good deed is worth getting out of a chair for anymore. Don’t let this get you down. The world needs more people like you.” The officer’s words rang through his head as he turned and walked home. By the time he opened the door to his apartment, Hazel Netteldryk Schlipzenskarts knew what he wanted to do with his life. First though, he was going to have to learn a few things. He called Dietrich’s gym and asked for the owner. After a brief conversation, he thumbed through the phonebook and looked up a few dojos. His life might turn out to be useful to someone after all. Powers and Abilities Maximum, through the combination of the radiation and experimental nanotechnology to which he was subjected, has gained extraordinary gifts. Most of his physical abilities have been raised to or just beyond the absolute peak of human potential. Owing to both his altered physiology and the persistent presence of a large number of molecular RNA nanobots (it took Pauline some time to realize that Hazel would never be completely free of them, as many of them had mutated to become self-replicating or, like the viral model upon which they were based, co-opt Hazel’s own tissues to replicate themselves as needed), he is able to lift approximately one ton, run for hours without becoming unduly tired, and recover energy far quicker than all but the most intensely-trained athletes. Owing to his altered musculature, he is able to leap roughly twelve feet into the air; up to eighteen feet if he has a moment to prepare.The nanobots also allow him to heal extraordinarily fast from injury, and make him extremely resistant to illness. His trebly-replicated nervous system includes uncountable redundancies in his neural map and thousands of neurological ‘shortcuts’ both in his brain and his nervous system in general. While none of this makes him more intelligent than he ever was (while the public education system failed him, Hazel was always extremely bright), he is able to process and recognize data far faster than most other people. This allows him to recognize a situation sooner than others, and combined with his augmented reflex system and superior muscle structure, he is able to react faster than most others as well. Testing has demonstrated conclusively that extremely-well-trained combatants are able to react to an attack or an opening an order of magnitude faster than the average person. Hazel is able to do this as though he has spent his life training in martial combat, but further, he able to do this in _any_ situation, from timing button presses to driving. Without a common experience, he usually explains this as feeling like he can “see faster” than most other people. In times of extreme stress, he states that it is as though “the rest of the world is moving at half-speed.” An unexpected side-effect, he rarely perceives the “speed blur” associated with viewing rapid repetitive motion. As with his experience with the speed bag on his last night in the gym, he is able to clearly see the object at speeds far above what most others are capable of perceiving. Hazel’s movement, too, is faster than that of most. While his running speed is incredible, it can be matched by a small handful of olympic champions. It is his “twitch” speed that borders super-human. With his altered perceptions, reflex speeds, and muscle structure, Hazel is capable of orchestrating a dizzying number of movements in an instant, though the faster he moves, necessarily the less refined the movements must be, as is the case with any other human being. The most spectacular demonstrations of this ability are found in his more complicated combat moves: his signature “Machine Gun Punch,” in which he can deliver up to ten specific, full-strength strikes in one-seventh of a second. There is also his well-known “Flying Smack Down,” an exhausting combination of punches, kicks, and nerve strikes that he uses to gain a bit of breathing space when the fight is going badly, or to quickly take down a powerful threat. Super-high speed cameras have counted as many as thirty precisely-coordinated strikes in two-sevenths of a second. Perhaps his most impressive move is the one he has termed “the Ambush Reversal,” with which he has been able to deliver serious blows almost instantaneously to a half-dozen targets placed to surround him. He once commented that he could be the world-record champion of typing, if he wasn’t so lousy at spelling. Weapons Hazel has no special weapons training— in fact, he has very little combat training of any kind, save a decade of amateur boxing lessons and his recent study of Mixed Martial Arts. While his powers have given him the ability to deliver a staggering offense, they have not made him invulnerable, and striking fifty blows a second hurts a bit. Because of this, he wears a lightly-armored wrap around the knuckles of each fist and carries a pair of wooden sticks that he will often use as weapons to deliver his attacks and block the attacks of others, though he is perfectly capable (even though it is unpleasant) of continuing to fight without them. He is clever at finding numerous objects durable enough to use as weapons should he lose his sticks, and wears the half-gloves typical of many martial arts schools to wrap and protect his hands. Interestingly, though with his increased strength and perceptions one would assume it would be easy to do, Hazel will very rarely use a thrown object as a weapon, and in fact carries no weapon specifically for that purpose. The reason is surprisingly simple: Hazel has had no sporting experience or even outdoor play that has given him the chance to practice a throwing skill, and his aim and throwing skills in general are sub-par compared to the typical person. His fears that he might injure someone thirty feet away from his target are well-founded. copyright D.E. "Duke" Oliver, 2019 And that's it, folks. That's as far as I've ever had time to finish it out. Like I said: this is about all I get for practice anymore, and the time to do it is scarce. I hope you enjoy it, and if you don't, I hope you take a minute to tell me why not: I've _got_ to do something to get the rust off! Duke

Intrigued, he coaxed her back on topic. “So what happened to me?” She paused. “Well…. as I said,” she continued softly, “this stuff has to be tailored, matched to a patient’s DNA, things like that. The stuff you were exposed to— Hazel, you have to be the bravest man I know. I can’t believe you went after that guy…” “What happened to me?” “We weren’t ready for human testing. Not even close. Most of what you were exposed to was tailored for a very specific chimpanzee— well, group of them: we were using identical lab-created quadruplets— and rats. Not human. Not even close.” “And….?” “‘And?’ ‘_And_?’ ‘_And_’ it _worked_ that’s ‘and’ for you! It worked!” “How?” She said nothing for a measurable time. Finally, she was soft again. “We don’t know. Who knows? It might have been a lucky break: we might have been so far off for the animal tests that we’d have killed them all. We might have been perfect for human. It might have been all the different types of RNA machines introduced into your blood all at once. For all we know, it might have been the radiation; RNA is just as subject to mutation as is DNA, after all.” “But I’m okay?” “Oh, you’re better than okay! Trust me!” “What are you talking about?” “Well…. well, it didn’t work, initially. There was too much going on. Each compound was looking for its locks in DNA where they didn’t exist; each compound had a different job to do, and they were as often as not working in opposition. There was so much interaction and replication in the various nanites, and some had started to attack your DNA as unviable while others started reinforcing microorganisms within your system— it was a mess; they were killing you, tearing you apart and rebuilding you bit by bit into…. well, they were killing you, okay?” She stopped and fought back tears. Hazel’s eyes were closed; he couldn’t see the wetness in hers, but he could hear the catch in her throat; the poorly-concealed sniffle. She paused to catch her breath and regain her composure. “Right at the end… you had been pronounced four times already; we were all in agony. Right at the end, as they brought you back… There are pictures, but I can’t look at them. I don’t think you should, either. Right at the end though, after they brought you back, we all knew that there was no way we could do it again: you were too far gone; too damaged. I…. I have to tell you,” the tears were welling up again; he could hear the catch in her throat ”you wouldn’t have wanted us to save you even if we could! You really wouldn’t. We talked about it, and decided for….” Hazel was terrified, but he controlled himself perfectly. He continued to look relaxed and peaceful, as if he were listening to a recounting of a particularly pleasant picnic from two seasons ago. Pauline found her stride and continued. “Right after they brought you back, I had an idea. We started taking samples from you— a thousand, at least— blood, muscle— every tissue sample we could get. Then we filtered them and strained them until we had nothing but _you_, and I literally mean _you_. It wasn’t double or treble redundancy: I’m talking we compared hundreds and hundreds of samples against each other until we could one-hundred percent _know_ that each individual molecule was in the right place. Once we had a few perfect strands of your DNA analyzed, we built more— millions more; copying is pretty easy. I worked on the coding myself until we had a new compound— a new nanite, with a single purpose. It fit all the keys of the various compounds already released into your body and it modified whatever compound it touched.” She fumbled for words. “Oh, how do I explain this? Essentially, it just said “‘this is the blueprint. Whatever you fix has to look like this.’ There’s more to it than that, of course, but it worked. The shift in what was happening to you was incredible. I swear, it looked like you… you were….” A vivid image hit her memory and she dived for the trash can near the bed and threw up. “It was awful, Hazel. If it wasn’t for the team the company put together and the fact that the absolute best in this field are all right here, there’s no way you would have lived.” “I heard I died.” She giggled, half-heartedly. “You did; a lot. But the last few weren’t that bad. There were too many nanites, doing too many jobs, and your body couldn’t handle it. We continued coding, sending in more to shut down replication, to slow the work, even a few that simply bolstered your constitution against the shock. In the last three months, what we’ve learned to do is worth billions in terms of sheer research-“ “Why would they waste that kind of money on me? I’m just a security guard, and not a very good one. I let a thief get in, then I killed him.” “It’s complicated, Hazel, but first and foremost, I want you to realize that the people we work for are _good_ people; very, very good people. You prevented fifteen years of research and theory from walking out the door and being mass produced in some converted missile silo in a third-world desert. They felt that they owed you all that they could do for you. You have to remember that before you think about the rest.” “The rest?” “Well Hazel…. While it wasn’t at all what they wanted— what _ANYONE_ would have _ever_ wanted; you have to believe that! You were…. well, you were a human test, dumped right here in their laps.” “So they did this just to see if your super-germs worked?” “No; Hazel; that’s not why they did this. They did this because it was the right thing to do. But because there was so much to learn, we had no problems at all getting you the absolute best medical attention possible. Everyone worth their salt in their field was begging to help, just so that they might learn a tiny bit about what the future of medicine is going become.” “And is this it? Am I a success?” He was suddenly very sleepy. “Oh, there’s no doubt that this is the future, Hazel. But not in our lifetimes. Maybe not in our children’s. We’ve learned that the reactions are too… well, ‘virulent,’ I suppose, if you’ll pardon the expression.” He’d have to: he didn’t get it. “No; we’ve learned a lot, but mostly we’ve learned that we’re nowhere near ready to implement the nanites. We’ve got to learn how to control them more tightly; how to better organize and structure them.” “I see. Pauline, I can’t believe I’m going to say this to you, but I need to rest now. It’s been a big day.” “I understand.” She stood to go, and patted him on the hand again. “You get some rest. I’ll see you tomorrow. And Hazel?” He raised his eyebrows without quite opening his eyes. “I think when you get out of here, I’d really like to have that cup of coffee.” He grinned and slipped into blackness. It wasn’t until the next day that he was clear-headed enough to get out of bed. It was strangely difficult to do. It was as if everything in the room had been built slightly off scale. Not enough to notice just looking around. It was more like showering at a friend’s house: you get soap in your eye and try to find the towel with your eyes closed. You know where everything is, but it’s not precisely where it should be because it’s not your house. Odd comparison, but it was exactly the feeling he got as he stumbled about the room. He stumbled quite a bit. It was probably loss of muscle mass due to laying in a bed for three months, but he felt a lot heavier than he should have. Another doctor came in. “Well, Mr. Schlipzenskarts, this _is_ a surprise. I see you’re out of bed already. How do you feel?” “Weak as a kitten.” The doctor laughed uproariously. Hazel stared down at him and was not amused. He was miserable. Why was this funny? If he wasn’t so happy that the doctor was actually short enough for him to look down on, he would have felt just nasty enough to say something rude. “Mr. Schlipzenskarts, do you feel well enough to walk to me?” If you get this tube and bag off the bed frame, I’ll try it. But I’m not making that mistake again.” This brought another, though more reserved fit of laughter from the doctor. “Mr. Schlipzenskarts, you are a funny man. That’s good! People with a well-developed sense of humor tend to adjust to changes better, and you’ve got a lot to get adjusted to!” Hazel had begun to walk toward the doctor. “What do you mean by that?” “You’ll see in just a moment, Mr. Schlipzenskarts. First, let’s see how steady you are.” Hazel walked in slow, methodical steps, pretty sure that his legs were not his own. “You’re doing fine, Sir. Just fine. All right; now turn and walk back toward the bed.” Hazel turned toward the little bathroom instead. “Doc, if it’s all right with you, more than anything, I really want to brush my teeth.” “Of course, Mr. Schlipzenskarts, but please, use the stool; we don’t want to risk you falling until you’re fully recovered.” “Right. Then we’ll risk — WHAT THE-?!” Hazel had glanced in the mirror and nearly had a heart attack when he saw the open-robed stranger casually staring at him. “What the— DOC! What’s going on?!” “It’s okay, Mr. Schlip—“ “It’s all right, Hazel!” Pauline cooed reassuringly as she entered the room. Calm down. It’s all right.” “Pauline! What happened to me?!” “Calm down, Hazel. Calm down.” “Calm? What did you do to my face?” “Nothing, Hazel. We didn’t do anything to it.” “What happened to me??” “Hazel, calm down.” This time it was more authoritative. She waited while he gained his composure. He turned and walked, visibly shaken, out of the bathroom. “What happened to me?” he begged, weakly. Was she shorter? Was he out long enough to forget she was short? He walked back and sat on the edge of the bed. “Hazel, listen to me. I’ll answer all of your questions, of course, but don’t interrupt until I’ve gone through this. The first thing you have to believe is that what you saw _is_ your face. Your honest-to-God genetically perfect face.” “How?” “Don’t interrupt!” she snapped. Then she gave in to the look of confusion and mild fear on his face. “Oh, all right. Remember what I told you? How the nanites were trying to tear you down and build you into whatever they had been told that you were? And how a large number of them were simply mismatching all kinds of things into you? And I told you that we solved this by using your own purified DNA and directing them to work on restoring you and only you?” “Yeah; kinda.” “Well that is you, Hazel. That is what your DNA meant for you to look like.” “Then why didn’t I look like that?” “Almost no one is a perfect example of what their DNA intended. Even identical twins-- people who share the exact same DNA-- don't look exactly alike. Slight mutations, irregularities, et cetera. But not you. At least, not anymore. You no longer have a deviated septum. You no longer have a slight cleft pallet. You no longer have that narrow chin from when you broke your jaw riding a bicycle as a child.” Man. How much research had they done on him? “You have all your teeth; your wisdom teeth have been restored to you. No; we don’t know exactly how. Your allergies are gone, and your body has been rebuilt from the ground up in accordance with your pure DNA. You are not diabetic, and your size has not been affected by it. Your heart is perfect, and again— your body shows none of the signs of a child who grew up minding his physical exertion.” “So my body is different?” “Your body is exactly what your DNA meant it to be, thirty years ago, without any of the mistakes or the meddling of outside influences.” “I can’t think I can get my mind wrapped around that. I mean, I understand it, but I don’t really—“ “How tall are you?” “Five ten.” he answered instinctively. “You’re a liar. You’re five eight and a quarter. You have been telling people that you’re five ten since you landed your first job. It’s to be expected though, what with you being a male and a single inch or so not being something that anyone’s going to scrutinize. You simply fudged a bit so that you were at least perceived to be average.” “How much did you look into me?” “We had a lot of time. However, it’s not that hard to figure out. You’re a male, and being short has some sort of taboo attached to it.” Hazel thought back to his enormous father and brothers. She had no idea. “That, and _I_ am five eight, and the first thing I noticed about you is that we were exactly the same height.” She notice me! he thought. “Hazel, it was your plethora of metabolic issues that resulted in you stopping at five eight. That, and who knows how many allergies, illnesses, etc.” She really had no idea. “The nanites rebuilt you entirely from pure samples of your DNA. Hazel, you are now six-feet, three-and-one-quarter inches tall.” Hazel was stunned. “You mean… you mean… you mean I’m normal sized?” “Normal? Six-three puts you well over average, Hazel.” “You don’t understand; I mean like my father and my brothers— I’m as tall as they are!” “You are now exactly as your DNA dictated you are supposed to be. I suppose it’s perfectly reasonable that if being tall runs through your family that you would be tall, don’t you?” “Well I never have been.” Hazel stretched out his arms and examined them. Thick. Long. He put his hand up to Pauline’s face, gently. He was clearly ecstatic. “I’m tall! I’m tall! I’m as big as my father! Pauline, this is _great_!” “Calm down. Lots of people are tall.” “Have you ever been tall?” “Well no taller than I am, but I can’t say that I’ve ever been unhappy with it.” “You have no idea, Pauline. You have no idea at all!” He didn’t elaborate, but spent the next few minutes staring at his arms and legs and grinning stupidly. Finally, Pauline had endured enough. “As I was saying: the nanites rebuilt you to the exact specifications of your DNA. Your skeleton, obviously, is much larger and more dense than it was, as is your musculature. Granted, muscles themselves are built through use and not simply ‘given’ to you, but you seem to have been given more to start with than most. We have no solid understanding for why you have so much muscle mass, though, especially since you've been essentially without exercise for weeks now. We suspect it has something to do with the simian RNA nanites, but who knows?” “I’m perfect! Oh, God, Pauline; you have no idea how wonderful this feels!” The look on her face told him that he would have to explain it to her, but right now he couldn’t. He was too caught up in the feeling. She slowed, perceptibly. “There were some complications.” He froze. “Complications? Am I going to shrink again? Lose it all? Die? Cause that I don’t care about right now, so long as I can die tall!” No, Hazel. Complications with rebuilding you. There were too many sample specimens and the nanites were all competing— it’s why I had to create a blueprint….” “What complications, Pauline?!” She forced herself to take a distant, authoritative air. “Now keep in mind that there are still a few nanites working inside you, and this may all straighten itself out—“ “They’re still in there?” “Yes; of course. They are RNA, after all. Just like any other virus: it’s a semi-living thing that will burn itself out or be metabolized eventually, but yes, there are still some inside you.” “What will—“ “They can’t hurt you, Hazel. They are responsible for what has happened to you, after all. They will simply keep doing what they are doing until they can’t or until something destroys them.” “So what kind of complications…?” he trailed off. “It goes back to the earliest stages of their attempts to repair you in spite of you not yet being broken. Bone and muscle tissue were built, rebuilt, and over-built. Your bones and muscles are over-built. That is, they are both far stronger and far denser than they need to be. In fact, testing shows that a great deal of your muscle and connective tissue, while keyed almost completely to your DNA, is actually simian in nature—“ “What?! I’ve got monkey inside me?” “Well, for now, yes. We expect that the nanites will either replace it or as it dies and is replaced naturally that it will be replaced by genetically perfect human tissue.” “So I'll end up normal after a while?” “Quite likely. Though there is the chance that those parts of you that keep your genetic code for muscle and tendon have been changed to continue simian tissue, but that's highly unlikely. Or perhaps your DNA has been changed to produce some sort of hybrid tissue that incorporates traits human and simian. There is no way to know except to wait and see.” “Is any of that possible?” “Nothing in any of this has precedent, but the driving for almost every nanite in you was repair, strengthen, improve. I don't know how likely it is, but it_is_ possible. You might have become some sort of unique superman, in a way.” “But what am I going to do right now?” “Nothing. Enjoy it.” “Enjoy it?” While she could not possibly know how much he was already enjoying it-- the height, the muscles, the handsome picture in the mirror-- he was still confused about how to go forward with his life. “Hazel, apes have a different type of muscle tissue than do humans. It’s far stronger, ounce for ounce, and their tendons are capable of storing far more energy than our own. The tradeoff is that these tissues are less suited for precision or delicate use—“ “What kind of monster am I?!” His eyes were wide. “Can I tie my shoes?” “Calm down! What we think you have is an unheard of hybridization of the two types of tissues. I can’t say why this is, but I can offer the guess that when the nanites were finally given a map to your DNA that they either were too few in number by then to completely rebuild all your tissue or they were already far too regulated by our additional control sequences to finish the job before they burned out or— who knows? Maybe something in the radiation affected how they perceived some DNA sequences. For all I know, they _chose_ to give you a superior combination of the two!” She was clearly becoming impatient with his interruptions and flustered by her own lack of answers. And of course, there was the fear of the unknown, the possibilities for her friend scared her, even if she didn’t let on. “Can they do that?” “Of course they can’t do that. They can’t think; they’re not even truly alive, any more than is a virus. I can’t explain why it happened; I can only tell you _that_ it happened. The same is true of your bones: they are far stronger than they should be, as though you’ve been training to be a powerlifter since you were a child. Your nervous system, too, is…. well, you’ve got triple redundancy in your nervous system.” “What’s normal?” “Roughly none.” “None?” “No. Nerves don’t have redundancy, and they don’t generally heal. Ever cut yourself, in your life?” “Sure;” he said, opening up his gown and peering to his left flank. “Right he—“ He stopped. There was no scar. “You’ve been rebuilt, remember? It’s like a second chance. No scars; no moles. You even got a full head of hair all over again.” He hadn’t noticed that. Instinctively, his fingers raced through it and he reveled in its thickness. It could also stand a good washing. Your nervous system— and I can only guess that it’s related to the requirements of your unusual muscle structure, has been repeated throughout your body. There are also a number of reflex arcs— let’s call them ‘shortcuts’ for now; I’ll explain them later— that don’t exist in humans.” “But they had a copy of my DNA—“ “Hazel, let’s remember that there were _many_ different kinds of compounds delivered to you. Some were to heal; some were to augment; some were — well, we don’t know what you ended up getting, but there are many kinds of healing, and there were a lot of things done to you before we got a blueprint in the mix; understand?” Hazel was quiet for a few moments. “Yeah; I think I kinda do.” He vanished into his thoughts for a moment, sullen. “What else?” “Beg pardon?” “What else might be wrong?” “‘Might be’ is an open-ended list; we can’t say for sure. The only thing now that really seems different from before— in terms of side-effects, that is— is that you seem to have developed an allergy to pork.” He slumped visibly, folding as if he had been hit in the gut. “Well of course I have” he grimaced. His eyes closed as they rolled, and he was shocked at how much that hurt him—not so much having an allergy; he was quite used to those, even if they were all gone now. But that one— it separated him from the only thing that ever made him feel like he was truly a part of his family; the only thing he ever had that resembled a bonding experience with his brothers and his father. It was too good to be true, he supposed. The universe had never given him anything before; it only made sense that it would give him all this at the expense of a massive sucker punch to the gut. He sighed. A look of genuine regret came over Pauline’s face. “I have to go right now, but I wanted to let you know that we think you’re out of the woods. You’re going to live. We will need to keep you here for another month or so—“ “What?!” “Testing, Hazel.” “Oh yeah; the accidental guinea pig—“ “No; not that. We need to make certain that you _are_ going to be okay. What happens if you go home to your apartment tonight and fall on the floor, turning into another liquidifi--“ she stopped herself. “It’s for your own good, that’s all. We want to test you to make sure that you are in control of yourself and that there are no side effects; that’s all. And frankly, there’s no place on earth right now better equipped to help you than we are right here. Everyone we might want to help is already here, from all over the free world. Obviously, we can’t force you to stay; you’re not a prisoner, and whether you believe it or not I want you out of here just as badly as you do.” Hazel let it sink in, and then nodded his consent. “Thank you, Hazel.” she said sincerely, taking his hand in hers. “I just want to be sure that you’re going to be okay.” Her eyes grew moist as she turned to leave. Over the next few weeks, the Facility learned a lot about Hazel. They learned that he was, with a few notable exceptions, almost perfectly what his DNA should have made him. One thing that everyone involved had to agree with, however, was that, unusual musculature and neural systems notwithstanding, he was completely without flaw. Unexpectedly, his altered nerve system was repeated in several parts of his brain as well. He discovered that he was able to “see” faster than he could before. Essentially, his mind was able to faster analyze incoming sensory data and allow him to react to it even before others registered anything at all. The combination of his altered and additional reflex loops in combination with his increased twitch muscle mass allowed him to move extremely quickly. He could perform dance steps almost faster than the eye could follow, and he picked up some interesting sleight of hand tricks with ease. He could extend his palm to a button that lit a small bulb, draw his hand back to a sensor on his chest and press the button again so quickly that the bulb never quite stopped glowing. While others were amazed, as his movements were almost a blur, they did not appear so to him. Continued and constant physical testing began to put muscle mass on him far faster than was normal for even a pubescent boy, let alone a thirty-something year old man. Every day, Pauline would draw blood from him to analyze for nanites. Every day, her team would find them. He told her she did not have to draw the blood. He had discovered while shaving that morning a much simpler test. He drew a small knife across the pad of his thumb. As her eyes widened, she watched the scab form, then watched the ends of the wound come closer and closer together unit they disappeared under the scab. A few minutes later, the scab flaked off, and the wound was gone, leaving not even a scar. “How did you—?” “I cut myself shaving this morning. Superior new body or not, mirrors are still two-dimensional and my rugged new face isn’t.” He grinned. All of his test results put him at or slightly above the absolute ideal in every physical category. His endurance seemed to be endless. By the end of the testing, it was concluded that he was perfectly fit, and allowed to return to his job and his life as he knew it. The first thing he did was take Pauline out for that cup of coffee. Then for a movie. Then for dinner. It was as though his life had suddenly come together in one giant fit of perfection. copyright D.E. "Duke" Oliver, 2019

Hazel yelped and tried to pull away as the man bit deep and hard into the trapezius muscle at the base of Hazel’s neck, tearing the flesh and chewing, grinding in teeth and bits of shredded glass. Hazel released the hold on the thief’s arm and grabbed his head, pulling and pounding until he freed himself. He stood, kicked his opponent in the gut as he grabbed for him again, and ran behind the shield with Pauline. She was panicked, screaming and chiding. Hazel tore off his uniform shirt and attempted to hold it against the blood running from the large wounds on his neck, chiding himself for being stupid, calling himself out for not simply waiting for the police, not running behind the shields as Pauline had begged him to do…. Hazel became vaguely aware of noise behind him-- hurried footsteps, shouting and yelling, squawks of radio static. It took him a moment to realize that four police officers were moving into the room. It was a good thing, too, because everything was all catching up to him now. Post-traumatic stress: the shakes, the exhaustion, the confusion, the uncertainty. He gave as good a recount as he could, Pauline trying to fill in what he could not, and the security system remote installed in his phone allowed the police to view a great deal of what happened. The investigation would go on long into the morning and continue late into the night, It would have to do it without Hazel, though. Exhaustion was catching up to him, and he was feeling kind of…. weird. Sick-ish. Great. All he needed on top of everything else. He felt a bit dizzy— probably the adrenaline shortage. He sat back on the floor, waiting for the EMTs that the police had called, trying to stop the bleeding with his uniform shirt. He looked up at Pauline. At least, he thought it was probably Pauline. He was too tired and too woozy to look any other direction, so he hoped with all his heart that it _was_ Pauline. “Hey.” he whispered, attempting to sound friendly and energetic. “You uh… You wanna go get a coffee this morning? We can take my car.” “Oh, Hazel,” she replied, stress still obvious in her voice. “this…. this really isn’t a good time.” Of course it wasn’t. Probably just as well, though. He was really starting to feel very, very sick. It didn’t matter if Pauline was watching or not. He vomited. A lot. Then the world spun and slid sideways a bit, but gravity went in an entirely different direction, and the blackness and quiet were something for which he was very, very grateful. “Wait a minute.” Techtic popped the visor on the helmet of her exoskeletal frame, the obvious look of incredulity on her face. “You’re telling me that you became the greatest living martial artist on this half of the earth because you were bitten by a radioactive ninja?” Maximum stood there, glowering, his arms slowing crossing back across his chest. “Like I said, Lady: my entire life has been one sick joke after another. Thank you for watching yet another episode of the ‘Hey, God! Let’s screw with Hazel Schlipzenskartz!’ show.” He crossed his arms on his chest as he turned his back to the audience and glowered, his regret at choosing to ignore his earlier reticence making him more recalcitrant than before. Absently, he took in the serenity of the clouds moving over the rooftops of Campaign City. When it was clear that Hazel was going to offer no more, Techtic made supplicating noises, apologizing for asking, but Hazel was done. Jetsteam, too, tried to apologize for the ill-conceived joke. “She wasn’t trying to be offensive. That’s a lot to take in; she was just trying to keep things…. you know; ‘friendly.’” “Right;” Techtic agreed hastily. “I wasn’t trying to insult you. I”m sorry, Hazel.” Without turning around or actually accepting the apology, Maximum eventually offered a tiny olive branch. “I prefer Max.” Hazel awoke in agony, sweating and trying to escape the feeling of being in an oven. He couldn’t feel his legs. He could feel his arms, but begged anyone that would listen to rip them off and stop the agony. He was vaguely aware of sound, of shapes— a face? two? none? Then he was gone again. Over the course of the month since the break in, he had been on lock-down within the facility, every single scientist that worked on every single compound that had been in the raided sample cooler was watching him around the clock. Radiation sickness specialists, too, were on hand, as were numerous medical doctors and more specialists than could be listed. All of them were here to keep Hazel alive. All of them were astounded by what they were seeing. No one could lay a solid hypothesis as to which formula— none of them ready for human testing— was affecting him, or how, or what part the radiation played, — it was all guessing; it was all reacting to the latest development. Two months later, Hazel awoke again. His head was pounding. He was in a hospital bed of sorts, but it was tilted up to the point that he could almost fall forward out of it. Restraints held him in pace. As soon as he stirred, a nurse announced “Mr. Schlipzenskartz, you’ve been in an accident. You are in a hospital, and for your own safety, you have been lightly restrained to prevent you from falling out of bed. Please do not fight the restraints. Are you here, Mr. Schlipzenskartz? Can you hear me? Do you understand what I’m saying to you?” Hazel nodded feebly. He tried to speak, but his tongue was fat beyond belief, and his mouth was _so_ dry…. “Mr. Schlipzenskartz, I am going to tell the doctors that you are awake, okay? I will be _right back_. You will only be alone for two minutes. Please don’t fight the restraints as you may hurt yourself. I’m going to lay your bed back down some more so that you can rest more comfortably, but please don’t fight the restraints; they are for your safety while we have you elevated. The doctor will remove them as soon as he gets here, okay?” Hazel nodded, loosely. He was vaguely aware of the nurse leaving. Or at least he was aware that there was some movement and then the busy noises and the talking stopped. Was he lying down? He couldn’t tell, and he couldn’t remember what she had said. Had she said something? There was more noise— hurried noise, briskly marching footsteps and then flutters of motion and hurried activity. “Mr. Shippenkatz (Hazel was aware enough to wince at yet another mangling of his name), I am Dr. Woonsocket. I’m going to ascertain your physical condition. I am going to touch you in several places to determine your sensation, your reflexes, and your muscle tone. Do you understand what I am going to do?” Hazel nodded again, this time a bit less groggily. He wished he could find the strength to open his eyes, but the light was burning too intensely through his closed lids. He felt the doctor press against the soles of his feet and push the balls of his feet upward, then down, then up again. He felt him probe lightly behind his kneecaps and into his thigh muscles. “Fascinating.” he muttered. “Unbelievable.” Hazel felt the cold bell of a stethoscope move across his abdomen, followed by more probing and prodding. “This is absolutely incredible.” “Mr. Shippenkatz, do you know how long you have been unconscious?” the doctor asked as he clicked on a pen light and reached a thumb gently toward Hazel’s left eyelid. Just as he touched Hazel’s face, there was a snap and a tearing noise and the doctor’s wrist was grabbed in a near-crushing vice. He tried to jerk back, but the hand around his wrist was an iron manacle, rooted to a tree limb of an arm. Hazel was sitting bolt upright, wide awake, with a look of almost-fear on his face. Only the doctor and the nurse noticed the torn restraints. It was then that Hazel realized he was holding the doctor’s arm. Sheepishly, he apologized and release the man. “I”m sorry, Doctor. I’m sorry. It was just— it was really bright. It hurt a lot.” “Understandable, Mr; Shippenkatz; your eyes have been closed a very long time.” the doctor reassured, pleasantly. His wrist really hurt, but there appeared to be no damage. “Hazel, Doc. Hazel’s fine.” he fell back to the routine— the best defense against hearing his name mangled— for fun or sincere accident— was to give them one easier to remember. How…. How long have I been…. “ he settled on “out?” simply because he had no idea of a more appropriate term. “It’s been thirteen weeks since the accident, Hazel.” “Accident?” The nurse chimed in: “the break-in, Mr. Schlipzenskarts; he means since the break-in.” The doctor shot a mildly perturbed glance at the nurse, while Hazel offered an appreciative thank-you face. “Yes; the break-in was three months ago. You’ve given us all quite a scare, Hazel. Did you know—“ “Pauline? Is she okay? Did she get the radiation, too?l” “I beg your pardon?” “Pauline; the lady that was here that night— it was her lab that got robbed. She sent me the silent alarm. Is she okay?” “I’m okay, Hazel.” she said, gliding in the door with a look of excitement and overwhelming relief. “How are _you_, though? That’s what’s been scaring us!” She came over to the side of the bed, took his hand in hers, and patted the back of it. Hazel was pretty sure the monitors in charge of telling on him were going crazy somewhere. I’m okay, I guess. What happened?” Pauline, with the help of Dr. Woonsocket at first, and soon with over a dozen other physicians, filled in the blanks for him. The bite of his attacker— as potentially infective as that was in its own right— had introduced up to twenty-seven experimental compounds into his blood. The exact number— even the exact compounds— were unknown and, given the circumstances leading up to the bite, likely forever unknowable. The dosages were beyond even guesswork. Some of them didn’t work. Others did, but not all of those that worked had worked correctly. Perhaps it was flaws in the compounds themselves, or perhaps it was the extreme radiation to which they (and to a slightly lesser extent, Hazel himself) had been subjected that affected the compounds, or perhaps the radiation affected Hazel, altering how the compounds would react to him. Perhaps it was none of this; most likely it was some combination of all of this— but Hazel had died. Nine times. Each time they had beaten the odds, and brought him back. His body had writhed in unknown agony while he was kept in a medically-induced coma to ease his pain. His body writhed in more than agony: whatever mixture of everything come together had worked on him, it had worked on him in a previously-unknown completeness. He burned through nutrition; he burned through body tissue. His bone structure changed— thickening, lengthening; muscle and sinew grew and layered and became more dense. It was something totally unseen outside the womb. Overwhelmed, Hazel finally chased everyone out of the room, claiming he needed rest. Only Pauline remained, and without invitation. He looked at her for a long time, her face still beaming with joy that he had lived. “Pauline, what happened to me?” “Well it’s pretty much like they said, Hazel.” “In your words. Tell me what happened, from one person— a person I _know_— and in words I understand.” “Well, Hazel— you know, I thought that was your _last_ name!” “Yeah. I put it on my name tag because it’s just easier on everybody.” He didn’t go into the reality of having a cartoonish last name or being a man with the first name of Hazel. “People remember it easier.” “I see. Well anyway, _Hazel_—“ she winked. There was no malice in it. “like they said, we don’t really know what caused all this to happen. Presumably, it was the compounds. These weren’t just drugs. We’re far more cutting edge than that. These were living nanites— lab-created bits of RNA designed to respond to pre-programmed chemical and biological conditions and elicit a precise mechanical response without fail.” “RNA?” “I hate to put it this way, but think of it as custom-built viruses—“ “Viruses?!” “Well that’s what RNA is; that’s what viruses are: not really living things, but random very small sections of DNA that exist only to replicate themselves. They break into the DNA of a host cell and replace some of that DNA with their own code, which forces the host cell to start producing more and more identical copies of the virus.” “So you were making some kind of new chemo or something? Get them sick with germs instead of drugs?” “No; nothing like that. The nanites we created are far, _far_ more complex than that. They were staged in such a fashion that they would…’evolve’… at each trigger situation.” Hazel didn’t like the way that sounded, but he kept his mouth shut for fear of coming off as an ignorant witch hunter and blowing whatever friendship he might build with Pauline. “You see, a simple virus is little more than a command to ‘make more like this’ with a key on each end. When it finds the right two locks in a piece of DNA, it unlocks the DNA and inserts itself. What we built was multi-layered. That is, we had a command set between two keys, around which was another command set between two keys, around which was another command set— this is a gross over-simplification, but you see where I’m going.” He didn’t; not really. He caught the gist, but already it was over his head. Still, he was exhausted, dizzy, sick-feeling, and it felt good to lay here with his eyes closed and listen to her voice…. “…so that after “locking in” on the first trigger, they are then completely changed— like peeling the shell from a walnut, so to speak, and what’s left is now ready for the second trigger. When that trigger occurs, it locks in again and is now ready for the third, and so on and so forth. You see, that is what makes this so revolutionary! Instead of trying to use drugs to induce a reaction that we _hope_ the body can put to good use we are instead attacking the problem _directly_! Now granted, a lot of these things need to be specially tailored, both to the patient and to the condition— especially cancer; I think we’re a long, _long_ way from that yet, but this is such a huge start! But for example, if you have a broken bone, we can inject a compound— the correctly-designed nanites, along with proven medications— that not only become bone tissue, but trigger a chain reaction that causes surrounding tissue to generate bone, or to divert more resources for the formation of bone, etc. Hazel, we might one day be able to give a shot to a dialysis patient and watch them grow new kidneys! This is groundbreaking stuff we’ve been doing here!” copyright D.E. "Duke" Oliver, 2019

While science was not a “good” subject for him by any means, it had ended up being his favorite, and the research being done at the facility excited him. He was filled with questions, and the staff were always willing to answer him when they could, in specific as often as in general. One scientist in particular had taken something of a shine to him (he was pretty sure that she would never have noticed him before he could afford contact lenses and scalp reduction surgery), and usually made it a point to hunt him up at his station for a small chat when she had a break. She might have been cute. She might have been a three-headed alien. All he knew for sure was that she was a she, she smiled every time they spoke, and she seemed genuinely interested in Hazel. She was probably the first person he had ever met that would walk up to him and start a conversation. She actually seemed to enjoy his company. Perhaps it was just his eagerness to learn about the research being done and the equipment with which it was being done; perhaps it was his genuine appreciation for the people doing the work and the good that their work had done for the world. It didn’t matter. All that mattered to Hazel was that she seemed to like him, and would even show him around some of the more secure projects. It would take him weeks, but he was steadily trying to build the nerve to ask her out. Certainly not until he had a nice rental car lined up, but he was going to do it. Her name was Pauline, and she was a molecular biologist. Her team was working on a new breed of medicines, specifically medications that would boost the healing process. The implications, if they could pull it off, were huge. If the healing process could be isolated and commanded to promote better or faster tissue repair, or the immune system directed to attack cancer cells specifically— medicine would take a huge leap forward. Imagine healing a broken leg in two or three weeks. Or battling cancer totally without surgery or chemotherapy. Through Pauline, he met the rest of her team and learned about their experiments and those of many of the other teams housed in the facility. Hazel had friends, and in a very tiny, very minor, support sort of way, his work was important to the world. He might possibly even have a girlfriend (he wasn’t quite sure how to tell). He was dangerously close to being happy with his life, and he wasn’t sure how to handle it. This was it. This was the night. Or rather, it would be the morning. Tomorrow morning would be the day. Morning. This was the day. Night. Okay, he was a little nervous…. He had casually asked for night shift a couple of weeks ago, shortly after Pauline had mentioned moving some of her research to nights as it granted her better access to some of the busier labs. A lot of the compounds she and her team had worked on were almost ready for testing, but they were running some computer simulations before moving on. He had rented a car earlier that day— a nice car: not too flashy; not too sporty; not too luxurious— just a nice, sensible car with a couple of nice appointments, smooth ride, and a comfortable interior. He had also “accidentally” parked it in the visitors’ area, closer to the main entrance than the employee lot. Tomorrow morning, he would walk out with her, stop to open the car, and suggest that they take in a cup of coffee or maybe some breakfast out before going home. He was scared to death, but he was also strangely excited…. Then came the little light. The little light on his monitor that told him that someone had activated the silent alarm. He checked the location— Pauline’s area! He snatched the phone, but hesitated before calling. It was a silent alarm. It was double-blinking, which meant that someone had intentionally activated it via panic button. It wasn’t the loud clanging “emergency! Everyone out!” alarm or the automated sensor-based break-in alarm. Someone in the building was in trouble, but couldn’t draw attention to themselves. He dropped the phone, pressed the police call button, grabbed his flashlight and ran straight for the section of the building that housed the research of Pauline and her team. The elevator did not respond to his override code. He pulled up the monitor on his phone: power had been cut to the elevators that served this corner of the building, as well as to several alarm circuits. He opened the flap on his holster and headed for the fire stairs. On the third floor he found Pauline, hiding behind a barely-cracked door to the Ladies’ room. “Hazel! Hazel! It’s me!” Unsure what to do at this point, he slipped into the Ladies’ room as well. “Pauline! What’s going on? What happened?!” he whispered impatiently. “I was coming back from the computer lab to review some ideas the simulation run gave me. I was about to swipe my card when I noticed that the door was open. Not just open, but forcibly opened, like it was pried open with tools. I pressed the silent alarm and hid.” “Where were you going? What door was open?” “My desk. I was going to my desk. The door to the group lab was open. I didn’t go in and check anything else. Do you think they’re after the samples?” “Samples?” “We’ve got some of the compounds close to perfect. That’s why we’ve been running the sims. We’re almost ready to start live testing, unless we want to make some last minute tweaks.” “It’s just medicine. What could they be after?” “I don’t know; I’m not a thief! But Hazel, if even _one_ of the drugs in that cooler works, it would be worth a fortune to any pharmaceutical company on the planet!” “Right. Stay here. I mean it. Don’t open the door until you know it’s me, okay?” “Hazel, don’t—“ “Listen, there could be a burglar in your lab, and my job is to make sure you’re safe, then make sure the facility is secure. You stay here. I’ll go check. The police are on the way.” “Hazel—!” But he was gone. As he approached the lab, he never more in his life felt the ramifications of his short stature and his slight build. There was no way he was going to intimidate any but the most incompetent of crack heads, and none of the signs so far suggested that this was anything less than a professional criminal at work. Well, he had a gun, if he didn’t shoot himself in the foot with it. He was suddenly very grateful for ten years worth of boxing lessons. At least he knew how to cover his face and head when taking a pounding. He had made it to the lab. Slowly, he eased the door further open with his toe. He could hear movement inside. He drew his pistol and stalked cautiously into the large group lab. As he entered, he could see that three of the four private labs had also been forced open. The sounds were coming from Pauline’s office. Through Pauline’s office was door to the cooler room where the samples were stored. No doubt about it: someone had heard the compounds were ready for testing, and had hired a pro. As he approached Pauline’s door, he peered carefully around the door jamb and could see the intruder. Man, where were the _police_, already?! The man looked for all the world like a refugee from an old Kung Fu movie: long soft black pajama-looking outfit with a dark scarf pulled lower over his head and wrapped around his face. Soft socks covered his feet and ensured his passage would be noiseless. He was busily grabbing tiny phials from the cooler, wrapping them into a silk scarf and tucking them away into a roomy sack purse. Well, you only live once. He braced his weapon in front of him and filled the doorway,— at least, as best he could, hoping to take the intruder by surprise. “Don’t move!” he yelled. His clunky orthopedic shoes had given him away. Even as he leapt into the doorway, the intruder was on the move, sprinting toward him. Not knowing what else to do, Hazel fired, but even as he squeezed the trigger, the intruder dropped to the floor backwards, and let his momentum and silk pajamas on the glossy tile floor slip him right between Hazel’s legs. Even as he turned around to aim again, the intruder had already regained his feet and raced for the outer office door. Hazel squinted against the kick (that first shot had _hurt_!) and fired again, putting a hole right through the wall three feet away from the door. Disgusted with himself, he was also quite shocked to hear a man yell in pain. He bolted through the door and into the hallway. The intruder was clutching his side, blood leaking through his fingers. His sprint was now an extremely fast limp, slowed by his wound and having one arm wrapped around his abdomen. He was still faster than Hazel, though. Hazel, now in the hallway behind him, tried again “stop right there! I _will_ shoot you!” But by then, the ninja thief had rounded another corner. As Hazel raced past the ladies’ room, Pauline poked her head out. “Stay put!” he yelled as ran by. When he rounded the corner, he caught no sight of his quarry. Warily, he stepped down the hallway, cautiously looking behind the bulkhead fire doors before passing through them. Then there was pain and the world went tilted and splotchy. A leg shot down from the ceiling behind the bulkhead and a heel kicked him square in the forehead. Had he been taller, the blow would have been brutal. As it was, he was stunned for a moment, but as he fell backward he instinctively reached out to grab a purchase and save himself. In a bit of sheer luck, he grabbed the intruder’s leg. As he fell backwards, he yanked hard and pulled the intruder from his hiding place wedged above the bulkhead of the fire doors. Caught by surprise, the intruder fell hard as if flung by the ankle. His reflex attempt to spin around and kick Hazel again with his free leg, but Hazel’s fall was tilting him just out of range. The thief's effort resulted in his landing hard on his neck and collarbone. There was a wet snapping noise as his shoulder popped out of joint. Hazel had fallen backwards, staggering, but kept his feet. He had dropped his pistol when he grabbed the silk-clad leg, but he still had his flashlight. Out of desperation, he threw it as hard as he could, hoping to catch the thief somewhere vital. The Thief had dropped the bag in which he had stashed his score, having been holding it in his now almost-useless right arm. The flashlight had missed the thief’s body, but managed to smash his hand as he swept the floor, the heavy aluminum flashlight breaking several bones in the back of the pseudo-ninja’s hand and fingers. He again dropped the bag, this time spilling it’s contents out, the sash coming unfurled and slinging scores of little phials all over the floor. Far more quick-witted than Hazel, he swept his other hand across the floor, picked up as many of the tiny glass ampules as he could and shoved them into his mouth, then swept the floor again and picked up the flashlight. Just as Hazel drew next to him (he had stopped to pick up his pistol), the intruder stood up, swinging the flashlight from the floor. Had it not been for ten years of boxing training, Hazel would have taken the blow straight under the jaw. He jerked his head up and over, side-stepped, but over-compensated with a quarter-turn. When he turned back, the ninja was halfway to the next intersection of hallways. He fired again, wildly, but missed. The ninja spun down the left turn as Pauline came up behind Hazel. “Hazel! He’s got the compounds! It looks like all of them!” “I told you to stay put!” he snapped and ran after the thief. As he rounded the corner, his hopes of wrapping this up before the police got here were dashed. He had hoped to capture the thief, retrieve the stolen property, and stride up to Pauline a hero. Unfortunately, there were eight doors down this corridor, all of which led to some of the larger labs— the ones that required heavy equipment. It would be absolute lunacy to chase a hiding thief, especially now that he had a few moments to prepare. Best to wait for the police. But if he did that, the thief might find a way to escape. “There!” Pauline pointed. She wasn’t good at staying put, it seemed. He hoped with everything in his heart that she would get through this unharmed. “There! Lab 7! See? Look— blood on the frame. And it looks like it might have been forced.” Well, he certainly couldn’t back down now— how would he look? Security guard with a gun, refusing to chase a wounded thief. Not the sort of man a girl would consider having breakfast with; no, Sir! He kicked the door open and peered inside. Dark. Dark, and shockingly tiny. “Here,” Pauline said. “Cycle the lock. It’s a safety measure.” She pointed to a large yellow button labeled “Cycle In.” The tiny antechamber lit up, a door slide shut between him and the hallway door, pushing it shut. He heard air movement and the click of assorted machinery. Then the door in front of him slid open. The lab was dark as well. It was very large, and lit only with the light spilling out from the antechamber, making it impossible to see anything as more than a large, lumpy shadow. The room was filled with those. Eventually, his eyes adjusted as best they could, but he could still tell little about his surroundings. There were rows of machinery along the walls, then another row inside of that, a large closet in each corner, and a massive machine with some kind of chimney right in the middle of the room. Details were impossible to make out in the dark. He inched slowly along the walls, looking for a light switch or a lamp or anything that might give him some idea where the thief was hiding. The light in the antechamber went out as the inner door slid back shut. It was totally dark. He crouched lower and rubbed his hands along the wall as silently as he could. Eventually, he found a bank of switches and was nearly blinded by the explosion of brilliance from the ceiling. He scurried forward, away from the wall and into the scant cover offered by the machinery and workstations ringing the room. Just as he began to scan the room for his quarry, the lock at the door snapped back open. Hazel leapt nearly to the ceiling, spinning and scrambling frantically to bring his weapon to bear on the lock. He landed, crashing into the work station behind which he had been cowering. Machinery hummed to life, and a low rumble permeated the lab. Pauline sprinted up to him from the lock. “What are you doing here?! You could get killed!” “I can’t just hide like that. It’s— it’s scarier alone. I want to be with you.” “_I_ could get killed!” “Don’t say that! Besides, you’ve got a gun. I’ve heard the shooting.” “I missed him three times!” Her eyes widened, and Hazel instantly regretted admitting that he’d never once fired the weapon after finishing his training with it a decade or so ago. “Hush!” “Well I hit him once, too.” He started, sheepishly. “Hush!” “What?” “That noise. That hum. It’s the capacitors charging.” “The capacitors?” “Like big batteries—“ “I know what capacitors are! I want to know what these are for!” “Oh, God!” She yelled. She jumped up and worked frantically at the workstation into which he had fallen. “Shut it down! We have to shut it down!” “Shut what down?” “The irradiator! It’s charging!” “The what?” The hum intensified. “The irradiator. This lab is primarily for the geology department. That thing there—“ she pointed at the massive machine with the colossal chimney “is used to irradiate specimens for all kinds of research.” “With what?” The hum had been replaced by a tightening whine. She looked at the control panel and attempted to read the various controls and figure out what had been activated and what had not. Her eyes got even larger and more distant. Her face slackened. “Everything….” she whispered in shock. “Oh, crap!” Forgetting the danger of the ninja thief, Hazel began to frantically throw switches and push buttons, and in desperation he finally reached for the various wires at the back of the console— “NO!” Pauline screamed. “This isn’t a TV show, Hazel! It’s already been told to go; if you snatch the wires, there is absolutely no way to tell it to stop!” Back to her senses, she began keying in commands and working the controls in sequence, cutting in overrides— or what she hoped were overrides. She rarely needed anything irradiated, and had only watched the procedure a few times. A low bass thud that was felt more than heard vibrated through the lab. The lights dimmed the tiniest bit. It was surprisingly anticlimactic. At least, right up until the screaming started. Pauline worked feverishly. “It’s pulsing! We need to get it to— There! There,” she said, “I got it.” Her shoulders slumped in relief and her breathing was short and ragged. “It’s off. It’ll take a few minutes for the scrubbers to clear the sample chamber, but the danger is over.” She noticed the screaming for the first time. It was horrifying. It was a raw, animalistic sound of pain and nightmare and death. Hazel ran toward the source— behind the irradiator. As he circled it, he realized that the sound was coming— the sample chamber door was closed, but not dogged. He heard Pauline scream “Not yet!” as he threw the door open. The thief was there, writhing, his skin burned, the silk of his clothes seeping with fluids oozing from his massive wounds. Hazel grabbed him to pull him out of the chamber, but the man fought— not against just Hazel, but against whatever nightmare Hell he was enduring. Blindly, he swung his good arm, a wide arc that even Hazel could dodge, stepping under it with ease, then Hazel threw him to the floor and pinned his good arm and legs with the (admitted limited) weight of his own body. The man was in bad shape, and getting worse. Hazel got sick to his stomach, and only the totally-out-of-place notion that he could not let Pauline see him do it kept him from vomiting. The smell was far, far worse than the sight— like burned pork roast and demon scat. The man continued to fight wildly while Hazel tried to keep him restrained. “What are you _doing_, Hazel?” Pauline pleaded, terror in her voice. “You’ve got to get away from him! Get over here, behind the shields!” “We’ve got to help him!” “We can’t!” Pauline, I can’t leave him like this!” “Damn it, Hazel! get away from him! Don’t you get it?! He’s already dead! He was dead the minute that first pulse fired. And he was in there for nearly forty. He’s taken enough gamma shine to poison this entire city.” “We’ve got to do something!” “We can’t! Get away from him! He’s shedding enough radiation to kill you out there!” “I can’t leave him like—“ The thief had spun and in an instant he had flipped Hazel onto his back and with his good arm— and even with his dislocated arm and shattered hand— began strangling Hazel. Out of adrenaline and pure self-preservation, Hazel swung a fist as hard as he could, and connected solidly with his captor’s jaw. The sick crunching noise made him think for a moment that perhaps he had broken the man’s jaw, but he knew he simply didn’t have that kind of skill or the brute strength to do it by luck. ‘The phials!’ he thought. This man was still, with whatever remained of his capacity for thought in spite of what was happening, trying to carry out his mission. Hazel wondered for the briefest of moments just how much such a job paid. Dozens of phials were still stashed in the thief’s mouth, and Hazel may have just crushed them between the man’s own teeth. The new pain of the shattered glass slicing the insides of his mouth and tongue and back of his throat distracted him long enough for Hazel to reverse the pin and punch him again, as hard as he could manage. The thief tried to gouge Hazel’s eyes, but Hazel leaned in and bent the man’s arm up under himself. As Hazel leaned down, attempting to hold the pin, the man rolled forward in agonized desperation and bit him. Hard. copyright D.E. "Duke" Oliver, 2019

Thanks for the vote of confidence, Chris. Sorry it took so much time to do a copy/paste, but I was weighing out where to break it up: didn't want to dump it all into one post (and not sure I could have). At any rate: Maximum “Look, I’m going to be as straightforward with you as I can. You have been in a lot of action with us lately, and you have proven yourself to be quite an asset. Keeping with the honest approach, Maximum, I am not only impressed by what I’ve seen, I’m flat-out flabbergasted. You claim to have no real paranormal abilities, yet using nothing but your martial arts prowess you have been able to not only hold your own against some of our more powerful opponents, but to provide us with an edge against them. There just aren’t any words— “I guess what I’m trying to say is that we’d really like you to accept the offer we made; we— all of us, myself included— would really like you to officially join the Crusaders. I know it’s only been a month, but have you given the offer any thought?” The man in the simple sleeveless ghi stood before him, his arms crossed before his chest, nervous tension clear in his shoulders and on his face. He stared out over the edge of the skyscraper whose roof they all stood on, his back to the small group of colorfully--costumed people ten feet away. Finally, he spoke, trying to find the words to both express his appreciation and let the group before him down gently. “Look, Jetstream, I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it, but I’m just not the guy you think I am. I’m just really fast and really lucky. That’s it. You guys can find a lot better people out there— real paras— that would fit in with you way better than I could—“ “That’s not true, Maximum,” interrupted Fury sharply. Her white eyes shone brightly under her silver mane of hair, all of which accented the glistening metallic reds of her skin. “There are certainly many paras out there who are more powerful than you are.” Maximum wondered absently how an alien being could not only look so human but sound so downright… Jamaican. He almost laughed, but Fury was still speaking. “… and we are petitioned almost daily by many fine paras anxious to join our cause. But the fact remains that power—“ “pow WAH!” gave Max an internal snicker— “is not de only ting that we are looking for. I might say to you that as a former soldier—“ ‘Sol-JUH!’ rang through Maximum’s head and pulled up memories of a really hokie movie he had seen as a kid, something about a military strike force looking for an escaped monster on an island off the coast of Jamaica. All he really remembered was there were zombies and that the accents were really, really…. _bad_. That was it Fury actually sounded like she was faking a Jamaican accent. Badly. He couldn’t help but be slightly amused. “is useless to any team if the one who wields that power cannot bond to that team.” “She’s right, Max.” Jetstream offered, his voice somehow both tinny and flat coming through the small modulators on the face of his helmet. “We’ve been a better unit with you on board than we have been in a long time. We’ve even tried some of the others that Fury is talking about. No one really felt right; we couldn’t get that ‘trust fall’ sort of confidence in each other the way that we have with you in just a few weeks.” “Guys,” Maximum began to protest again, “I appreciate it. I really do. I just don’t know that I am the guy for you. I don’t even know if this is what I want to do with my life.” Jetstream paused a moment, taken aback a bit by this unusual admission, then was struck with a new approach. “So what are you doing with your life now, Max?” “I’m a cop” he fired back, reflexively and without feeling. His thoughts were clearly elsewhere. “So… you don’t think that this is a natural extension of that? You don’t think that what we do is fighting crime? Not only is it fighting crime, but think about the criminals we take down. There aren’t very many regular policemen who can handle the sort of threats we deal with. There aren't many police _departments_ that can do what we do! Step up to the next level, Max. You could be a part of something that takes your career further.” Maximum turned away from them again and stood silently for a few minutes. Then sighed and slumped his shoulders. “At least, I wanted to be a cop.” Jetstream and the others looked at him, surprise and confusion on most of their faces. Perhaps all of them; Jetstream’s white powered armor gave him the perfect poker face. “What do you mean, Max?” “Feh— My name isn’t even ‘Max,’ Man. It’s not! It’s…. It’s just…..” Maximum wandered away, across the rooftop, aimlessly, wrestling with something inside of himself. He paced around randomly and ended up back in front of the Crusaders, who were waiting patiently. “Look, Jetstream…. I would _love_ to join you guys. I really would. But I have to say ‘no.’ I just have to.” There was a long silence while Maximum shifted his gaze across the city, down at the pebbled gravel of the warehouse roof, off over the bay. Finally, he turned to walk away. “Why, Max?” another-- the small one with the green bug-eyed goggles and exoskeletal hardsuit called ‘Techtic’ called after him, partly confused and not quite managing to fill his voice with the bravado of a demand. Max paused. Techtic-- voice plain, open, honest-- continued. “Why do you have to say no?” Maximum drew a breath. His desire to share his story--at least, the good fortune of the more recent events-- bolstered by the simple sincerity of the question, wore deeply against his resolve to keep his life a secret that he would erase as quickly and painlessly as possible. He couldn’t quite meet any of their gazes and when he finally spoke, it was softly, distantly. The sounds were almost lost to the people at his back. “Because for the first time ever, my life is more than just a joke.” He turned to look at them, take them all in, one at a time. “I have finally become something I’m proud of. I don’t know if it will last, but I want to enjoy it; I want to use it for as long as I can. If it’s gone tomorrow, then I’ll go back to being— well, to who I was. But until that happens, I don’t want to even _think_ about what I used to be.” Jetstream called out to him, firmly, almost a dare. “We can help you be everything that you want to be. Believe me, if you stick with us, you’ll have the chance to use all your training, all your skills—“ Maximum laughed out loud. He laughed and laughed, long, loud, completely. Finally, almost in exhaustion, he walked back to the group. “You have no idea why that’s funny. I do; I know why it’s funny, and that’s what I’m running from. I know your rules, Jetstream: if I join, I tell all of you who I am. Well you know what? From today on, I’m Maximum— the epitome of human physical potential. That’s all the name I need.” “We don’t do it to invade your privacy, Maximum. We do it so we can keep an eye on each other while we’re incognito, too. We all have loved ones, you know. They make tempting targets to the wrong people. We help keep each other safe, twenty-four-seven.” “Well who I was was a complete joke; it’s a miserable existence that I don’t want to remember anymore, and I’m not reliving it for you or for anyone else, do you hear me?” “Max…. have you got family? Friends? People you care about? Anyone at all? It doesn’t matter if you don’t want to go back to whatever your life was before, but someday, someone may find out who you are— or were, rather. Then those people closest to you, they suddenly become targets. Revenge, or worse: some kind of sick voodoo dolls. You know: ‘if I stick this pin deep enough into her thigh, Maxie-Boy, what will you do for me then? What will you do for me to keep me from —“ “Enough!” Maximum was clearly shaken. Yeah, I get it. I’ll take my chances. But then I have to tell you how I got my powers—“ “What powers? I— we all— assumed you were a gifted martial artist. Your moves make Bruce Lee look arthritic!” Techtic blurted. “Yeah.” Max hissed through grinding teeth, the muscles in his temples bulging and shifting. “Yeah. Gifted athlete. A gifted athlete who just sixteen months ago was having his third surgery to repair a hole in his heart, right? Who spent his whole life making sure he had an asthma inhaler close at hand in case he accidentally tried to run somewhere, right? That kind of gifted athlete?” Stunned silence. The Crusaders as a whole looked to him for some explanation. Maximum himself looked torn, the agony on his face a testament to his struggle with the decision. “Guys, you just don’t know. You just don’t know how badly I want this— how badly I want to join you, to fight the good fight with one of the greatest team of superheroes ever assembled. The breeze rustled his sandy hair and the crimson silk highlights of his blue-black ghi. “But I don’t…. “Look, if I walk out of here now, I have the respect of some of the greatest crime fighters the city has ever known, probably the greatest group since The Seven. I leave here as equal to each and every one of you. If I stay— if I tell you my story…. You have no idea what a joke I am. If I join you, if I reveal my secrets to you, I’m just a joke again. I lose again.” He felt a hand on his shoulder. He glanced to see Lightning standing beside him. The smaller man looked up at him. Without moving his hand or breaking eye contact, he spoke, earnestly, with clear embarrassment on his face. “Th-th-the ac-ac-ac-cid-d-d-d'nt that gave me my powers has played havoc with my autonomic nervous system." Max was taken aback. Lightning rarely spoke; Max had no idea the little man had a stammer. "My digestion t-t-took a bi-big hit. I c-c-c-crap-p a-a-eight or ni-nine times a d-d-- a day." He paused a moment and swallowed while swinging his head in some sort of personal ritual, then continued in a slightly sing-song manner. "T-Techtic built this” he said, rolling up his tunic and pointing to a small electronic device on his side, just under his ribs. Noting Maximum’s lack of comprehension, he clarified “it’s an electrical zapper and m-monitor." For whatever reason, the sing-song seemed to help him speak. "At least, th-tha-dat little button is the external axi-access for the interface for th-the zapper. B-but hey— at least I do-don’t need batteries!” He smiled humorlessly. He spun his head, breathed a time or two, and continued on again in his sing-song manner. “Som-uh-muh-times, my diaphragm just s-s-stops.” He rolled his tunic back down and continued speaking. “When that thing notices, it kicks me hard in the guts to get me breathing again. Hurts like H-He-Hell, too.” Done speaking, he walked back and joined the group. Fury came forward to him. At six feet, four inches tall she moved uncomfortably close, her nose not quite touching his, staring almost through his eyes with those weird reflective pupil-less eyes of hers. “I tell the world that I left the service of my people to come here and escape the evils of grand warfare. I tell them that I wish to help stop those who would conquer this planet or who would abuse those who live here. This is not the truth. I am here because I am running from my own execution at the hands of my people. I was caught selling weapons to our enemies for nothing more than the fortune to be made. My own squadron was cut low with weapons that I myself sold to our enemies.” Maximum stood there for a long while, watching Fury’s eyes and their reflective brilliance, become cloudy and foggy. He could feel the catch in her throat as the weight of this admission bore down on her. “I did not even come here on purpose.” She said, more softly than before. She broke eye contact for the briefest of instants, but it was enough to express her humiliation. “I got lost. I escaped and ran to the first jump-capable ship I could find. It is fitting that it was a ship that I had stripped of valuable navigation software and sold to the enemy. When I came out of jump space, I had no idea where I was. I drifted for weeks. I was nearly out of even the air to breath when i collided with an old probe from this planet. Desperately I studied the information it contained, calculated its trajectory, and found my way here.” Maximum said nothing as she turned and walked back to the Crusaders. “But these people here—“ she sliced a broad sweep to indicate the parahumans collected around her— “these people helped me to understand myself. They helped me to realize the horrors I had created for nothing more than personal greed. They helped me to find a way to balance my debts, to repay the cosmos for the damage I have done. And they have never once held my past against me. These are good people, Maximum. We do not judge our own. We help them to grow. We all help each other to be the people that we want to become.” Maximum stood for a long time, staring in disbelief. He met each of their eyes in turn, and each gave a slight nod, as if to admit that they all had something that they would prefer stayed secret. A few moments passed, then he began to step toward them. Instantly he thought better of it, but began to speak. “I wanted to be a cop. All my life, I wanted to be one of the good guys— the heroes. I mean, doesn’t every kid want to be the guy who saves the day? Doesn’t every kid want to be respected, even just a little? I never had that. Not even from my brothers. I was the oldest of four kids, and my entire life was just a complete joke.” Jetstream stepped forward, hand outstretched. “We are asking you again. Will you join us, … ‘Max’?” Maximum took the offered hand in a firm grip and shook it. “Hazel. My name is Hazel.” “Seriously?” “Yeah, seriously” Maximum defended aggressively, throwing his hand out of the shake. “I told you, my entire life is a sick joke.” “I’m sorry;” Jetstream offered sincerely. “It’s just unusual. But it’s nothing to be ashamed of; it’s actually-“ “Yeah, yeah— I know. It’s a unisex name. You don’t think I’ve heard that all my life? Fine. I know it; you know it. But let me tell you, there ain’t a kid in any public school on planet earth that knows it. I spent my whole life catching it. But it’s worse. My name is Hazel Schlipzenskartz. You have no idea that fun you can have with that. Really, you don’t.” Maximum continued, and within moments his whole life story poured out to his little audience. He told them of his childhood, born to a woman who had, against her family’s wishes, married “down” from her upper middle class life to a poor immigrant worker, a burly west-european giant of a man who promised to devote his life to making her happy. Hazel had been their first child, and had barely survived infancy. His mother had named him ‘Hazel,’ for his beautiful green-flecked light-brown eyes. He was born with, among other things, diabetes and a hole in his heart. He grew slower than other children, and while his father never showed it, Hazel had little doubt that his weak and slight frame and lack of endurance were a heartbreaking disappointment to his father, a rough and athletic man who vigorously and joyously wrestled with all aspects of life, a man who was happiest when he was laboring the hardest. Hazel was also a sickly child. The only thing his immune system seemed to fight with great vigor was itself, and when he wasn’t nursing some bug or germ, he was having fits with his allergies. By the time he was six, Hazel had three younger brothers, all of them broad-shouldered robust creatures like his father. They would often wrestle with their father and chase footballs and Hazel would watch as they played themselves into exhaustion. Hazel, of course, pretended to be having just as much fun watching. He grew slowly, and by the time he was sixteen, though he had managed to reach a respectable height of five-foot eight inches tall, only his youngest brother was still shorter than Hazel himself, though he was nearly half again as broad, and as thick-thewed as their father. He loved his brothers and his father, and deep down, he was certain that they, in turn, loved him, but he always felt himself an outsider amongst his kin: unable to engage in the things they enjoyed the most, and them largely uninterested in the things that filled Hazel’s life. The only time he really felt like he belonged at all with his family was holidays, or special celebrations: his father would spend two days roasting a pig, each and every special event. He would tell them stories about their heritage as west european boar hunters, and how special it was for the whole village would come together and roast hogs and have a huge feast. Even into his adulthood, Hazel would get a special sense of comfort from something as simple as a ham sandwich or a side of bacon. It gave him a sense of connection— something he could do with his family. As the oldest child of working parents, he was often called upon to pull duty as babysitter, and this was perhaps one of the cruelties of his life: the brothers that played rough and tumble with his father expected to do the same with him, and he would invariably end up pinned to the floor, or tied to a chair, or locked in a closet, or a hundred other such things. His brothers, too, seemed to sense their father’s appreciation for the physical side of life, and it shaped them accordingly. While they loved him, they had lost anything resembling respect for Hazel by the time he turned ten. Children, cruel things that they are— even his brothers found him an easy target for the teasing and harassment that he endured from other children in the neighborhood and at school. Determined to prove himself, Hazel early on turned his efforts to his studies, hitting the books late into the night, studying every chance he got, taking extra assignments at school, and joining as many clubs and extracurricular activities as he could schedule. Unfortunately, Hazel wasn’t much of a scholar, either. All the late nights barely kept him afloat, and the extra assignments were the only thing keeping him up in solid “C minus” territory. He was horrible with the clubs and social groups, too: he was too uncoordinated for dance, too short-sighted in his thinking for chess club, too nervous and self-conscious for drama, and teased and laughed out of almost anything else he ever tried. It turned out he was a fair hand around the science lab, but that might have simply been because his allergies kept him from smelling too many unpleasant odors so he didn’t avoid it like most of the other members of the science club. It did help him to make science his best subject, though: he graduated high school with a C plus. Maybe it was all this that drove him to want to be a policeman. Mostly, though, he simply wanted some tiny opportunity to prove himself to be a good, upstanding guy, to demonstrate that he, too, could contribute something useful. Certainly the poor neighborhood in which he grew up had been nothing but brutal him, and he had always felt out of place in his own home: not athletic enough to make his father proud, not academic enough to make his mother beam with pride. He had never met his father’s parents: they had remained behind in western Europe while their son sought to make his fortune across the planet. He had always hoped that perhaps they dreamed of a grandson just like him, and not like his rowdier siblings. He had met his mother’s parents twice, and wished that had never happened. They had made it perfectly clear that they did not approve of his father, and by extension approved of his brothers less, and him even less still, with his grandfather once remarking “at least the others have the potential to dig ditches; that might somehow be useful.” He had thought that graduating high school and getting out into the world might improve his life. He was quite thrilled to notice that the senior yearbook had actually voted someone else as “least likely to be remembered.” He was so delighted that he pointed it out Randy, who sat across from him in homeroom. “Oh.” said Randy. “You know, when we were voting, I forgot all about you.” After high school, Hazel tried to join the police academy, only to be told that his grades were not good enough to overlook his questionable health and overall physique. Unhappy with life in general, and learning that finally getting out of school doesn’t mean that random strangers won’t mock you for being named ‘Hazel.’ he bounced from dead-end job to dead-end job, marking the passing of the years with unhappy observations: there had been the day in his mid-twenties when he noticed that his acne finally cleared up. He also noticed that his hair was thinning. It was hard to be certain, of course, because his vision wasn’t quite what it ought to be. Probably all those years of late-night studying by flashlight finally catching up to him. ‘Another stage in my development into a fully-developed drone,’ he thought. ‘I need a job with insurance.’ And so began the quest for possible long-term employment. That was how he happened to become a security guard. There wasn’t a lot of physical demand: sit here, watch this, walk here, look at that and that, walk here, sit there, watch that, then walk back and repeat. This job was something of a no-brainer. Alas, the pay reflected that. But he did have a job with at least a couple of minor benefits, and the possibility of promotion. The greatest and most unexpected benefit was how often he would be alone. Completely by himself, there was no one to harass him, and no one to whom he could compare himself and find himself lacking. Perhaps his father would see that he had turned out to be, if not a huge success, a responsible adult with long-term goals. He should call him this weekend. That phone call was how he found out that two of his brothers had formed a plumbing company and were already considering buying more trucks and hiring more crew and his youngest brother had gained a full scholarship to State. Hazel plodded through the next ten years or so of his life uncomprehendingly. He paid little attention to the pattern of work, go home, pay bills, repeat, and hoped for nothing more than a death spectacular enough to get a few lines in the newspaper. He would never be respected; he would never be remembered; he would never be anything special to anybody, ever. On a lark, he began to take boxing lessons late at night, more to keep himself from simply vanishing than anything else. It was simply a reason to get out of the house not related to going to work, paying bills, or buying the groceries he needed to keep the cycle going. Just before his thirtieth birthday, he was assigned to the Shepherd Research Facility, a branch of a national science institute that specialized in medical research and was renowned for the number of medicines and medical procedures they had pioneered in the last sixty years. Well, a change of scenery would be nice, and it was still in moped distance. Yes, at age thirty, Hazel Schlipzenskartz was still riding a moped older than he was. It was the best transportation he had ever been able to afford. Something wonderful happened during the first few weeks at the SRF: Hazel had made friends. While his claims that science was his best subject were completely true, his ‘proving’ that with his C-plus final average was met with laughter, but not the kind he was used to. While there weren’t many, there were three or four people at the SRF who had taken a genuine liking to Hazel (though not without first cementing the jokes they would attach to his name for as long as they knew him), and he quickly learned quite a few things about the place he was working. When the offer of a permanent position here, working for the SRF as staff security instead working for his placement agency came along, he jumped at it. With the position came better pay, better benefits, and an honest-to-goodness feeling of actually belonging somewhere. Even a couple of the ‘pedigreed’— the name that the lay staff used to refer to the scientists and researchers busy at the center— had come to know him by name and would often chat with him when taking small breaks from their work. copyright D.E. "Duke" Oliver, 2019

Please delete: wrong forum.

Please Delete; wrong forum

Please Delete; wrong forum

Please delete; wrong forum

Please delete; wrong forum.

There's a lot of writing going on here on these boards of late, and I admit, it's been tempting. Too tempting. So terribly tempting that I lost the battle, and have given in. But that brings up another problem: Time. I don't have time to write like I had years ago, before the kids-- and _certainly_ not like the time I had before the wife. Honestly, if any single guys out here find themselves routinely bored or wondering what to do with the copious amounts of free time on your hands, get married. Boredom may still be problem, but it will be far less frequent. Free time, however, will disappear completely; you have my word. There are a thousand other things that weigh in on my "creative time," just like anyone else-- and especially if you happen to GM for a couple of games thrown into the middle of the "normal" things like work, family, etc. I have of late begun to wonder about the methods of Shrike and Bolo: Just put up a little at a time, as you find time. Tempting, but I honestly don't know if I can write that way. All my life I've had the problem of the story appearing in my head _almost_ finished. As I wrote it, I _had_ to completely write it, because once it was completed in my head the impetus to keep writing was gone. Not that I didn't want to get it down, mind you; the problem was that the next story had started, and was far more interesting than the one for which I already knew the ending. So I thought: put up something you've done-- something short. Test the waters. Alas, there isn't much that survives. Well, let me give you a short run-down: The bulk of my non-gaming writing was lost in a small house fire twenty-two years ago (lightning strike). I'd done other stuff since, and even some after I got married, but when we moved to Vidalia fifteen years ago, our computer and relevant accessories (which my wife had insisted on labeling "COMPUTER ROOM" as opposed to my own suggested "FETAL CATS." You can never be too cautious, you know?) didn't make it. I really haven't had much time since then (we moved here to have babies; frankly, given the choice between practicing my writing or practicing making babies--- well, _that's_ a no-brainer). But every once in a while--every once in a rare season, I find a precious moment to stroke the keys. Unfortunately, inspiration does not--for me, at least-- work quite in that way. So what do I find myself doing? Expanding character bios for players who really want one; expanding character bios for villains I was particularly taken with. Honestly, today, even "my" creative time serves the double-duty of both letting me have a bit of fun _and_ going into the game, because I don't have time to do both. Honestly, I don't even have enough time to call it "practice." When I get these rare opportunities, I am always ultimately disappointed in the results, and I realize that the jumps and omissions and bad cut-aways are all the result of getting rusty. Way, way rusty. Frankly, I should stop calling myself a writer and start calling myself a "hobbyist" or "dabbler." At any rate, I have perhaps half-a-dozen expanded bios done for various characters-- and one really, _really_ long "special circumstance" type thing done for a very dear friend some years ago that I was fortunate enough to still have in my "sent mail" box from way back when. I thought I'd post one here -- not the really long one. (You're welcome)-- to gauge feedback. This particular character was the first character I had made after finally getting to "retire" my ungodly, became-unfun-years-ago-why-won't-you-let-me-make-a-new-character-like-everyone-else-has-you-bastard first character. This was my "martial artist" who wasn't a martial artist (not fond of the genre, but twenty years of the same damned brick got _so_ old, I wanted something different). At any rate, presented for your consideration: The extended background of Maximum (yeah; it's a crappy name, but it's chosen on purpose as a nod to the character's social ineptitude)

Not exactly a quote, but an interesting event overall, and I can't really think of a more relevant place to put it. My youth group game is the only "weekly" game I have, after all, the other two being a bi-weekly game and an "at least every four weeks; more if possible" game. I picked up a set of these: https://www.amazon.com/Oojami-Giant-Wooden-Carrying-Canvas/dp/B072KGYFLF/ref=sr_1_8?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIxYnMwq2o4gIVksDICh01aw9UEAAYASAAEgK7a_D_BwE&hvadid=328191546198&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=9011003&hvnetw=g&hvpos=1t1&hvqmt=b&hvrand=4774527260171532108&hvtargid=kwd-314746230900&hydadcr=2335_9913328&keywords=large+dice+wooden&qid=1558295080&s=gateway&sr=8-8 Not _exactly_ those, but similar. For those not wanting to follow links posted by relative strangers on the internet, it leads to a set of wooden dice roughly 3-1/2" on a side. They are essentially waste cuts and drops from hardwood 4x4s, evened up and finished into "yard dice" or "lawn dice" or (creatively) "Yardzee" dice. Went to Statesboro yesterday (wife wanted to go to Hobby Lobby and get some new brushes) and I saw the set of five (yeah, the set I bought only had 5 pieces, but then, it rang up at ten bucks, so I'm good ) and picked it up. On the way home we stopped and she bought a car, but this isn't that story. In fact, all I will say about that story is that, after nearly two decades of road tripping in the Leviathan, she now claims she wants something that rides better. (the nerve of some people!) So, in honor of the last of the bearable summer weather (by this time next week, central GA will be Hell's own bakery), I decided to do something to get us out into the weather and enjoy the last breeze we're going to have until January. We used three of the dice as "Skill check" dice-- forgive the non-HERO-ness of the term, but over the years, I have found people pick up on the roll for Skills and Roll to Hit if they learn them to be "Skill Checks." Don't know why, unless it just helps them group the mechanics in their head. Now make no mistake, rolling three of those dice isn't possible. You end up sort of backsnap-tossing it into the air to give it random spins, etc, and wait for it to land. (I know: I played around with the viability of this idea last night when we got home and the wife was tired of driving her new car.) I don't know why-- probably for _me_, as things conspire to keep me out of pretty weather but locked outside in rain, blast-ovens, of near-freezing temperatures with shocking regularity-- but I really wanted this to be a fun thing to do. So I grabbed a few paint paddles-- the little balsa or white-wood slats they give you when you buy a can of paint-- and selected tomorrow's (today's) bad guys and a few random NPC-types, ad of course, the Heroes themselves, then printed the character portraits (remember I still use 2e, and our character sheets are _way_ more fun than anything that's come after 4e) and glued them the paint paddles. Today's game featured the all-new fair-weather attack technique of "Bowl to Hit." When a character wished to make an attack, his target's wood-and-paper effigy was stuck in the dirt roughly eight feet away. The player had three shots (roll 3d6, right? ) he would fire off his three dice toward his target. If at any time he hit the target with one of the dice, bingo! Automatic hit. :D. If he did _not_ hit the target but the total of the three dice said he made it, then he hit. If he both hit the target _and_ made his roll, then a random good thing happened: extra damage, automatic Stunning, or some such thing as that. If there were _multiple_ opponents, then multiple targets were set up. You might hit an opponent totally different from the one you were aiming at! And of course, the die total might say "nope; seems you hit the _both_! And if there were innocent bystanders, well things got.... dicey..... (wow. That hurt more than I thought it would) It was really funny watching them just _sling_ the dice at the villains, but when there were civilians, they'd oh-so-carefully line up their shots, roll the die, and wince at every odd tumble..... "There." I proclaimed. "Now you have a _much_ better idea of what it's like to actually be a super-hero-- to know how much power you have, and how easily you could accidentally hurt someone. You understand the worry and fear your character's should have when fighting out in the open, and you understand why you might want to restrain the amount of power you use when something bad happens at the mall or the amusement park. " Most of them found that to be eye-opening, as most of them (the oldest is in ninth grade right now) get their ideas of superheroes from movies, which don't seem to put a lot of emphasis on internal struggle or watching out for the civilians. Yeah, this story goes nowhere, and only has a single quote, and it's by the world's worst Superhero Sensei, but still: it was a blast, and I wanted to share it. Y'all have fun. Duke

Yes on the history! And tell us what's for sale!

You're right. Your little brother _is_ awesome!

Dang it! I thought you'd added some more. Good stuff!

Here you go: Unless you'd rather have a paper copy, in which case: what have you got to trade? (I've got a couple of extras) Duke

The last fantasy I ran was the occuktish western I've mentioned before (it didn't start out that way; we sort of drifted into it). The biggest sources of magic were ancestor magic and shamanic magic, so there weren't a lot of traditional magic items: most of them had serious limitations like a four-hour ceremony to recharge, single or double use only, certain rituals or rules that had to be adhered to or the item would disappear /lose enchanment-- the magic was real, but rarely extremely powerful; those things that were powerful were rare and difficult to maintain. Wierdly, the most popular things were the hides of enchanted animals (certain random animals would bear enchantment by either having served as a spirit guide or hosting a particularly powerful soul (or ancestor or minor God) and, if properly treated, would provide clothing that granted immunity to certain environmental conditions, etc. Jackelope boots were popular: extra movement, silence, bonus OCV, etc, depending on breed and season. Arrows tipped with jackelope antler gained a +1 Stun multiplier or created an aggravated wound (REC Drain versus this one wound: heals very, very slowly) and no jackelope antler wound could be healed magically (fortunately, these arrows and spears were rare). Painted symbols and lengthy ceremonies could provide extra Def to certain garments, etc. Lots of things that could turn the battle, but nothing that could turn the war, if you follow me. Petty items: paint mortars that never emptied, waterskins that never quite emptied (but could be ruined by holing them, or desecration) torches that burned for hours-- little stuff.

Okay-- so what we're doing is bitching about the idea that in this-- In _THIS_, and _this alone!_-- the way to determine a character's general attractiveness to the rest of his or her kind / social group-- should _never_ be handled any way but X. Damn that makes sense, because we all _know_ that the ultimate rule of HERO is "one way to do one thing, period. All other way are WRONG!" Makes sense, considering how there is only one true way to achieve any other effect, right? If you want a character who moves twice as fast as another one, you _must_ by more movement, because it is absolutely forbidden to by more SPD. If you want a character who can walk through walls, we all know that only Tunnelling allows this; characters with Desolid are just ass-out when it come to passing through barriers: just can't be done. I'm out-- for a couple of reasons: I've been cautioned by people way smarter than me to not get too deeply involved in the Great COM Debate (ironically, some of those same people are here in this thread already), and I've read through some of the old threads from the period during which I was absent; it _never_ ends well. Never. It doesn't even stay civil more than about four pages, and I'm going to drop out while it _is_ still civil, and never get back into another one of these. I got suckered this time by simply answering an opinion question: "what do you think about..." Frankly, I had no idea my -- or any other one person's-- opinion had such an impact on so many lives, or was so incredibly important to so many complete strangers that they would spend all this time and effort (as witnessed in previous threads; I'm not going to hang around in this one long enough to find out) to change it. We should all feel very special: we have global influence. For those of you who want to play around with Google Maps satellite view: I live in Toombs County, Georgia. I am in the absolute _heart_ of redneck country. I get enough of this stupid-assed Ford / Chevy / Dodge crap any day of the week, and the answer is always the same: the best truck you can drive is the one that's paid for and does the job you want it to do. Anything else is going out of your way to piss on an otherwise perfectly content person. This says a Hell of a lot more about you than it does about them (for the record: this applies to _both_ sides of this COM debate thing) Those of you who want to carry this thread until it dies in a fire, go ahead. I'm taking my COM stat and getting out. (In all serious now: I love all you guys; I really do. But history tells us how stupid this is going to get, and I just don't want to see it happen to anyone here, so I'm out.) Duke

I'm not the original poster, but I suspect you are seriously misreading that. I take it as the character reacting: how does Character X react to a particular COM score? Sure, you could use a mechanic to tell you how you react rather than deciding for yourself. But then, you could pop a disk in the X-box and run _everything_ on rails, too.

The funny thing is that I _remember_ the little plastic "dinosaurs" that contained both the Bullette and the Rust Monster. My youngest brother drove the librarian nuts when we went to Anchorage-- he kept wanting to find the book with that specific "dinosaur" in it.