A Menace to Society

[Null]

Will walked through the Point, headed to one of the labs. Under one arm, he had a medical sample container, sealed shut with several layers of tape and gauze. Inside, floating in some kind of clear liquid, was a small lump of grey matter.


Will placed the container on a workbench, and went to work gathering some materials and supplies. The thing he was working on setting up now was essentially a terrarium, though most terrariums were not constructed with conductive bullet-proof glass.

((open))

[Null]

--Twelve hours later--

The "terrarium" had gone nuclear.

Well, OK, not ~literally~. That would have been a disaster. But it had evolved far beyond the original design. Rather than a square, it was now more of a small globe -- maybe about eight and a half inches in diameter, about the size of a good bowling ball. Inside THAT was a second, smaller glass globe, maybe two and a quarter inches in diameter, or roughly pool ball sized.

The pool ball had several cylindrical tubes connecting itself to the outside of the bowling ball -- ports, essentially, about the size of a drinking straw. Will had cannibalized some things lying around the lab -- you know, other students' projects and things of that nature -- to create the ports, which apparently served as some sort of quasi-airlock, for putting things into and taking things out of the center. Inside a couple of them were some miniature fans, presumably for adjusting the air pressure like a small vacuum -- a homemade pressure chamber, albeit a homemade pressure chamber with state of the art, military-grade parts.

Between the bowling ball and the pool ball was a near rat's nest of wiring and cables, along with a collection of nine-volt batteries rigged in parallel. Some of these wires connected to voltage transformers, which themselves connected to the surface of the pool ball on various locations. Will looked down at the laptop he was using, and punched in a couple of commands, testing to see that the electric shocks were firing as expected. He nodded, as he continued to work through what looked like a well-practiced checklist.

[Melissa Terrance]

The door slides open and an unfamiliar figure steps through. "I was told a telepath might be required down here." She seems to take in at least some of the contraption in front of her. "But... I was not told why."

[Null]

"That's funny. Are you sure they gave you the right room? The point can be complex."

[Melissa Terrance]

"It's possible I could be mistaken," she says with a nod, gesturing to the machine, "What are you doing there?"

[Null]

"Clean-up from the mission. There were some rogue elements that had to be brought in and neutralized. Nothing I haven't seen before, and everything is under control."

[Melissa Terrance]

"I see. Well, if you don't mind, I'll just stick around and watch," she says, looking at him without really looking at him.

[Null]

"Alright, but I'm pretty much done here," Will shrugged.

"...Did they send you to make sure I'm doing alright? Is that what this is? Because I get that; it's good practice to make sure people aren't traumatized or something after a major mission. You can just say if that's what it is, though, rather than being all vague and spooky."

[Melissa Terrance]

"I think being vague and spooky comes with the telepath territory. But since you raised the question, are you doing okay?"

[Null]

Will sighed. "I'm surviving, you know. Some freaky stuff happened in that hospital. Lots of medical experiments gone wrong. Sure, they were only humans, but no one deserves to be medically fucked up like that. It'll take me a bit to shrug it off, but I'm told I'm fairly resilient. I will bounce back."

[Melissa Terrance]

"You're told your fairly resilient?"

[Null]

"Is there an echo in here? Hello!-o!-o!-o!-o!" Will mock-shouted.

"Yeah, resilient. Like I bounce back from things fairly easily, given enough time and space."

[Melissa Terrance]

"I am aware of the definition," she says patiently, "The phrasing seemed curious is all."

[Null]

"Well, you can't really judge how good or bad you are at something without an outside reference, right? I recover at a perfectly normal speed; it's all y'all who dwell on things too long," he said, with a lopsided grin.

[Melissa Terrance]

Melissa makes a thoughtful noise, her mind skimming the surface of the emotions in the area as she considered Will. "Well, part of my job here is to help people recover from the traumas they've experienced, so you'll understand my concern."

[Null]

Will was mostly...tired. A long day, a long fight, with an undercurrent of recent fear that he was trying not to show -- adrenaline spikes and all that.

There was a second presence, though -- faint and indistinct. Not really a fully fleshed out emotional state, more like the raw elements of one.


"Oh, don't worry, I know all about what you do. I've spoken with your, uh, counterpart many, many times over the years."

[Melissa Terrance]

"My... counterpart? Oh... yes, you come from another dimension, according to your file." She tries to find where that second emotional state is coming from, since there's only one readily apparent individual in the room other than herself.

[Null]

"Yeah. I really hate to be the bearer of bad news, but your dimension's just got the faintest whiff of dystopia to it, you know? Again, one of those 'no external frame of reference' things."

The second emotional source was very, very weak, but it seemed to be coming from the general direction of the grey lump in the liquid-filled sample container.

[Melissa Terrance]

"A whiff of dystopia? What makes you say that?" She could tell what was inside the container, the problem with effectively seeing by sonar, but she made note that there was something in the container that was at least potentially capable of thinking.

[Null]

"Mutant Registration Act. The Brotherhood attacking random civilians in the middle of the UK. Francis Dashwood going down in a god-damned regional by-election. It's utterly insane, from my point of view, to think of any of that happening, but well, here we are.

Personal reasons as well, but I'm biased there, so that's probably not a fair test."

[Melissa Terrance]

"I won't disagree. Some of those things are reprehensible. Though I would point out the resurgent Brotherhood activity is a relatively new development, but that's splitting hairs. What would you have the school do about it?"

[Null]

"I, uh, don't think the school is capable of changing the moral constant of the universe.

I'm not entirely what this version of the school is capable of in general, mind you, but certainly not that."

[Melissa Terrance]

"Assuming it's a moral constant is a pretty big assumption though," Melissa challenges.

[Null]

"Is it? Different universes have different properties. Some are less dark or complex, some see powers on every corner, some are infested with zombies. It's whatever's different in that cocktail shaker of the world that gives each universe it's distinct character. And the distinct character of this universe is things are just 10 to 15 percent worse than they are back where I'm from."

[Melissa Terrance]

"In your estimation," she adds. "So, if this universe is so bad, would you care to explain to me why you're the one imprisoning a potentially thinking being in a globe of some sort?"

[Null]

"When you phrase it like that, no, I wouldn't care to explain to you. Why don't you dial that accusatory tone down to a three or a four, and try again?"

[Melissa Terrance]

"If it's a Brotherhood prisoner, we have holding cells for that. But I would still love to hear your explanation."

[Null]

"Well, it's not a brotherhood prisoner. It's what's left of one of their victims. It can't control itself at the moment and, if not contained, could easily have killed everyone in the hospital before moving onwards and outwards. But it's under control now, so there's no need to worry."

[Melissa Terrance]

"Fair enough," Melissa says, still not totally buying it. "Is there anything I can do to help them?"

[Null]

"Oh, now all y'all are worried about his well-being. Typical. When he was so depressed and suicidal he was sitting in a closet for a month and a half, he doesn't get a peep from the administration or his friends. But now that someone else is coming in to actually take action, you feel obligated to try and tag along. Honestly, this universe," Will said, shaking his head.

[Melissa Terrance]

"And I am one counselor in a sea of students. If one student is hiding in the closet and other students are concerned, the other students should have come to me. Contrary to belief, we telepaths are not omniscient. If you want to take it up with someone, I suggest you take it up with the other students. But you have informed me as to the situation, and so I'm going to ask again. Is there something I can do to help him?"

[Null]

"You may not be omniscient, but your boss who signs your paychecks is, for all intents and purposes. But that's neither here nor there.

I'm going to fix this Will my way, in a way that doesn't involve anyone creepily treading over his brain."

A long pause.

"No offense meant, of course. Though I suppose you could help in more normal, non- creepy ways."

[Melissa Terrance]

"No offense taken. I'm used to the assumptions people make about my abilities. What help do you need?"

[Null]

"Alright, let me know if I go too fast for you here.

This guy got pretty much sliced and diced. I dunno where the rest of him went; it's probably not important. So, what's left is only this little slug thing, here," he said, shaking the container and watching Will bounce up and down inside it. "Normally, when he's reduced to this state, he's still HIM, just tinier, but they took out a lot of him -- higher reasoning's kaput for the moment, for instance. Basically, he's a barely-reactive lump of undifferentiated tissue.

Fortunately, he's alive. I'm frankly not sure you CAN kill him, and it's not something I'm particularly excited to experiment with, so meh. What we got to do, then, is have the cells regrow to something more functional. Normally, again, he does this all naturally, no muss, no fuss, but they took all the parts that could REGULATE that out, hence the big giant clay blob that was instinctivey trying to absorb the entire hospital. Had Tosh and company stayed inside the beast longer, they would have been fully absorbed into the clay, and we'd have a surfer-idiot who occasionally fucks about with technology on our hands, and that would be terrible.

We can help it regrow by feeding it raw nutriants and stuff, but it's not going to redevelop any personality that way; it'll just go from being a tiny useless slug to being a human-sized useless slug. That's pretty much what he was before, and ehhh, that sucks. No one likes that.

So, we're going to regrow him, and decide what goes IN and make him a better and cooler person. No fuss, no muss. Now, sticking actual PEOPLE in there probably counts as a little tiny bit of murder, so thas' no good. So, because of his ability to interpret things symbolically, we can use other things to help determine what sort of person, or animal, or object, or WHATEVER he's going to be when he's done.

In other words, I'm going to shove random crap in there and see what happens, and then blow it all up if it doesn't work."

[Melissa Terrance]

"That doesn't sound precisely ethical, but if it's what will help him," Melissa says.

[Null]

"Unethical, huh. Do you have a better idea, then?" Will challenged.

[Melissa Terrance]

"I... don't," she admits. "Without knowing more about him, it's hard to say."

[Null]

"Well, there's no rush. If you'd prefer to take time and come up with an answer of your own, I can keep 'em on ice."

[Melissa Terrance]

"In a situation like this, I would assume that time would be of the essence."

[Null]

"...Do you keep any tabs on the history of the students here at the university, or...?"