Psychos had been a fact of life for fifteen years.
Ryan had visited hundreds, if not thousands of communities through his long existence, and almost all of them shared the same tales. Maddened monsters attacking them at night, mutants hiding in sewers, raiders attacking their Genome defenders, or fools trying to imitate Augustus only to come up short.
Psychos had collectively killed the courier many times, coming in as a close second behind traffic accidents. His adoptive father Bloodstream had caused his very first death, and it still gave Ryan headaches to remember it.
Nobody could imagine a world without Psychos...
Until today.
The refurbished laboratory of Station Orpheon was far lighter and warmer than the Alchemist’s, with white walls, glowing bars in the ceiling casting a pleasing light, and the sweet, sweet smell of morning coffee permeating the air. Ryan’s host of Geniuses, namely Shortie, Alchemo, and Stitch, had gathered behind control panels and thrumming computers. Meanwhile, the Panda happily cleaned up a large vat in the northern corner of the room with a sanitizer.
All were gearing up for an experiment that might change the world’s face forever, though their patient lacked their enthusiasm.
“I don’t want to go inside,” sweet Sarin grumbled at Ryan’s side, arms crossed. “Find another way, nerd.”
“There isn’t,” Ryan replied. Truth be told, nothing guaranteed that the operation would work at all. Even though they had copied the Alchemist’s research data before destroying her base, the group didn’t have her wealth of alien technology. “Come on, you fought aliens and you’re afraid of a glass tube?”
Instead of blasting him where he stood, Sarin let out a grunt. “It’s not the vat,” she said. “It’s…”
“Getting out of that suit?” Ryan guessed, avoiding any joke or jab. The woman had suffered for years from her condition, never feeling anything nor experiencing joy. Taunting her on that front, especially now, would feel like kicking a cancer patient.
Sarin shook her head. “Doesn’t matter.”
“You wouldn’t bring this up if it didn’t,” Ryan replied. “You know, I’m a certified therapist and I’ve seen everything. I’m here if you need an ear.”
“I ain’t like your princess,” Sarin scoffed. “I don’t need a white knight. You think I’m that weak?”
“I don’t think you’re weak, just alone.” Though the Psycho didn’t answer, Ryan could tell from her posture that he had nailed it. “And even that is a thing of the past. I mean, we had a good time raiding drug churches, exploring new continents, freeing the government from both the reptilians and the Illuminati...”
“It was nice,” the Psycho agreed, looking away at the Geniuses toiling away behind their computers. “And you’re following up with your promise, which is more I can say from Adam. You ain’t a fink.”
“See?” Ryan decided to share some wisdom accumulated over centuries of time travel. “If you keep all your feelings for yourself, you’re never going to get over your fears and neuroses. Either you become more open with others, or you need to blow off steam. If you want to follow the latter path, I would suggest bullying Ghoul.”
“I would rather hit Adam,” Sarin replied, before raising her hands and moving her fingers. The movements were unnatural, gas pushing cloth from the inside. “Every time I get out of my suit, I fear getting scattered to the winds. Stretching for miles, feeling my mind slip away with the distance. You can’t imagine how it feels, nerd.”
“No, I can’t,” the courier admitted. “Though you already left your suit behind once, when we made an FBI raid on Ischia.”
“I know that the experiment is as safe as it can be around you.” Sarin sighed. “But I still feel weak, and I hate it.”
Ryan crossed his arms, meditated on what to say next, and then uttered a single word.
“Bianca?”
Sarin bristled at her true name being spoken, as if she had forgotten it.
“Being vulnerable is... never easy,” Ryan said, trying to find the right words. “Especially not with others. After building strong and thick walls around ourselves, it’s difficult to tear them down.”
Sarin snickered. “Easy for you to say, Mr. Time-Traveler.”
“It’s not as perfect a crutch as it seems.”
At this point, Ryan had decided to fully come clean to everyone not in the know yet among his group. Sarin had been the first, but the courier hoped to have a discussion with Felix and especially Mr. Wave. The former already suspected something was up, and the latter…
Ryan owed him much more than his love of cashmere.
“You know, when Livia and I…” Ryan took a deep breath, before speaking his mind. “I was scared of her, at first. Very few things scared me since I got my power, but she topped all of them. She could remember.”
“She could kill you for good,” Sarin guessed. “Throw her daddy at you?”
“That and worse.” Ryan shuddered at what Livia could have done, if she had taken more after her thunderous father. “For the first time in many, many years, I had to be honest with someone that wasn’t my best friend. Like a bear cornered in his cave. It was… it was difficult. I mean, yeah, now she’s my First Lady, but she could have easily been my Lee Harvey Oswald too.”
“Who?” Sarin asked, showing an absolute lack of culture.
That inane question was proof that anyone could become Ryan’s vice-president these days, which he took as a badge of honor. The courier prided himself on his government’s inclusivity.
“All of this to say that it took me a while to trust Livia, and even longer to feel at ease around her,” the courier explained his point. “We struggled to conquer our fear of the other, but in the end, it was worth it. All the pain and the fear led to something better. Do you see my point?”
“No.”
“Oh well, then you’re on your own.”
Sarin chuckled. “Seriously, I get it,” she said. “That day is going to make all the efforts and struggle worth it. Maybe I’ll get diabetes with my new body.”
“Genomes can’t develop diabetes,” Ryan said absentmindedly.
“My life has been a long string of frustration and disappointments, smartass.” He could almost taste the bitterness in his ally’s voice. “Even before Adam. Each time I hope it will change, and I’m always left disappointed.”
“Not anymore. Taking that leap of faith might sound hard, but it will be rewarding.”
“Really?” she asked. “You know, I agreed to follow you on this stupid mission because part of me hoped that the Alchemist had a plan for us. That what I went through had a purpose. Well, as it turned out, I was just experimental junk.”
“That’s the thing with life, we have no purpose, and we are completely free,” Ryan said. “Free to change, and live as we want.”
“You know what’s the worst part, nerd?” Sarin asked with sorrow. “I’ve spent so much time looking for a cure, I’m not sure what I will do with my life if your idea works.”
“You could start with community service. You worked with Adam for years, so you’ve got a lot to answer for.”
“I’ll leave the Circus to the explosion brat.” Sarin glanced at the vat, seeing her gas mask’s reflection in the glass. “What will you do after you’re done with all our messes?”
“I’m not sure yet.” Like Sarin, Ryan hadn’t planned anything beyond completing his Perfect Run. “At first, I thought I would drive into the sunset towards new adventures, hopefully with Shortie in the backseat.”
“If you leave New Rome, would there be room for one more? Your car ain’t that big.”
“I always have room for more minions,” Ryan replied. “But only if you call me Mr. President in public.”
“Don’t push it,” Sarin replied with amusement, while the Panda emerged from the cleaned vat.
“What’s up, Doc?” Ryan asked his pandawan.
“It’s all good, Sifu!” The Panda declared with a raised paw. “I removed all the germs from my fur too!”
Sarin hesitated for a few more minutes, before finally deciding to take the leap of faith. She opened her hazmat suit, and let her gaseous body leak out. A cloud of alien chemicals emerged from the suit, and moved into the vat.
“It’s going to be alright, Bianca,” Ryan promised, as he and the Panda closed the glass door behind her. “This time, it will work. I swear.”
The gaseous cloud briefly took a vaguely humanoid shape, before turning back into formless mist.
“Of course it will be alright,” Alchemo grumbled, while Len typed on the computer panel. “You made us work day and night on this, you meatbag slavedriver.”
“I would be willing to keep this up for weeks,” Dr. Stitch replied. “This will change everything.”
“We are ready to begin, Riri,” Len said, barely staying in place. No doubt a part of her still hoped that if this experiment worked, it might help her father.
The courier nodded, giving his assent. Cables linking the computers to the vat activated, while a plastic lamp projected a blue light above Sarin’s gas form.
The Panda, thanks to his multiple fields of expertise, had managed to translate the Elixirs’ Flux language based on the Alchemist’s notes. The process would be simple, in theory. The group would use a system based on the Chronoradio to send signals to Sarin’s Elixirs, guiding them into rewriting her DNA based on a new paradigm. One that followed Livia’s ratio of Homo Sapiens and Neanderthal genes, cleanly separating the Psycho’s powers.
“I worry about her mind, however,” Dr. Stitch said. “Modifying her body on such a deep level will give her a brand new brain.”
“She will remember,” Alchemo replied absentmindedly.
In fact, she would remember everything.
“When the Elixirs bond with us, they see our thoughts and wishes, and translate them into Flux,” Ryan whispered, remembering what he had read from the Alchemist’s data. “True Genomes exist on two levels. The biological, and the immaterial.”
Ryan should have realized it before. Of all people in the room, he alone existed in two places and eras at once. Two brains separated across the timestream, yet sharing a single consciousness. Henceforth, his neurons weren’t the full seat of his intellect.
If a host’s consciousness partly existed in Flux form, then it would also explain cases like Mr. Wave, Sunshine, Geist, and Sarin in particular. And in time, that ethereal consciousness grew in power, in wisdom, and strength, eventually becoming something too powerful for a body of flesh to contain.
It would ascend into a greater form of existence.
And since Ryan had safeguarded a copy of Bianca’s molecular structure from his Meta-Gang loop, then they could ask her Elixirs to reshape her current self while taking this information into account. Sarin would regain her lost memories as she underwent her transformation. Hopefully.
“We’re getting a signal,” Len said, as the lamp changed color, from blue to red, from orange to yellow. “The Elixirs are communicating.”
“Can you put on the loudspeaker?” Ryan asked, curious.
He wondered how Elixirs discussed inside their host. Perhaps they were trying and failing to repair the damage they had caused to their host, unable to understand what they were dealing with. Maybe they casually divulged ancient secrets of the universe, like one would discuss pop culture.
Len put on the loudspeakers, and an alien gargle quickly transformed into two digitized, and yet audible voices.
“—and I say more hydrogen!” Ryan winced at the words, though the voice sounded inhuman, the tone reminded of a hyperactive child.
“But that will make it more difficult to vibrate!” Another answered, and didn’t sound any more mature. “How can our Homo Sapien defend herself otherwise if she cannot project energy? She’s almost died too many times already!”
“You Reds, it’s all about energy with you! She wouldn’t need your shockwaves if you let me do my work!”
“If I let you act without supervision, you would have turned her into a cumulonimbus!”
“Look, our host wants to be free. Mastery of the gaseous state will fill her with happiness!”
“You don’t understand our host’s feelings! She wanted to be strong to defend herself, to shake down everyone who could threaten her! She doesn't want to be free, she wants to be powerful!”
“Power is all you care about! Never us! I’m the one trying to make this situation work!”
A difficult, awkward silence settled among the researchers, as the Elixirs’ debate grew more heated and bitter.
“You Oranges don’t get Homo Sapiens at all, and you are ruining our host’s ascension!”
“You take that back, you heartless battery! I was here first! We were happy before you came into her life!”
“Of course I came in, she’s my Homo Sapien, and you completely misunderstood her wish! She would never ascend under your care! Why can’t you let me fix this?”
“The Panda…” The manbear coughed. “The Panda is having a tough family flashback.”
“Me too,” Len said, biting her lower lip.
Hanlon’s razor.
Never attribute to malice, what can be explained by incompetence.
“I think your Elixirs should get a divorce,” Ryan told Sarin. The cloud inside the vat briefly took a humanoid shape, hand raised with the middle finger upward.
“I have heard enough,” Alchemo said, connecting to the control panel with neural links embedded in his syringe-finger. The light show inside the vat intensified, causing the Elixirs to interrupt their debate.
“Huh?” an Elixir said, the Red one from what Ryan had understood. “We’re receiving a transmission!”
“Is that Eva? I hope it’s Eva! Let me check…”
“It’s an instruction,” the Red Elixir said, sounding astonished. “Oh, we… we made a mistake?”
“There are… two Homo Sapiens? Two Homo Sapiens in one flesh vessel? And we…” The Orange Elixir’s voice turned from confusion to horror. “And we ruined them?”
The other, like any good partner, immediately blamed its fellow. “No way, you didn’t notice?”
“I didn’t notice because you distracted me!” The Orange Elixir fell silent an instant, before speaking up again. “Aww, we favored our main host so much, that we completely forgot about the other one. The Ultimate Ones won’t be happy.”
“Eva said humans often divide into ‘twins’... but I never thought our host could too! Their flesh vessels are so weird!”
Unlike Ryan’s own Elixir, these ones certainly couldn’t read their host’s thoughts very well, and their understanding of human biology left much to be desired. It said something that an anti-life entity from the void like Darkling had a better grasp of the human condition than these two.
“So we each get custody of one Homo Sapiens?”
“I’m taking the younger one,” the Red Elixir said, immediately chastising its kindred. “You neglected her!”
“If you hadn’t ruined our main host’s ascension, I would have noticed the twin earlier! I’m sure you will ruin her too!”
“I will show you! My Homo Sapiens will ascend before yours!”
And so, the divorce was consummated, each Elixir taking custody of a share of Bianca’s DNA. The results immediately showed.
Ryan looked on with amazement, as Sarin’s gas cloud body started to condense. Her substance grew dense, orange chemicals were shaken by reddish vibrations. When her gaseous body had occupied the entire vat a few seconds before, it visibly shrank at a quick pace.
The cloud took a humanoid shape smaller than Ryan himself…
And then the bones appeared.
“It’s happening,” Dr. Stitch muttered to himself, astonished. “It’s… it’s working.”
The others watched the scene in mesmerized silence, Ryan included. No joke came to his mind, as layers of flesh built upon the marrow, followed by a mantle of skin. Nails, hair, and eyes followed, one by one.
When the process ended and the light died out, a man and a woman stared at each other, separated only by a door of glass.
Somehow, Ryan had imagined Bianca as Vulcan’s long-lost cousin, but he couldn’t have been farther from the truth. His former vice-president was thin and small, no taller than one meter fifty and no older than thirty. Her hair was short and messy, a dark shade of green with an orange shade at the tip; her teary eyes a deep shade of gray. She looked as if she hadn’t eaten in years either.
Bianca didn’t open the vat’s door from her side. She raised her hands and looked at them, as if they were foreign transplants. Her fingers then moved to her smooth white skin, brushing against her waist, her breasts, her neck, and shoulders… Bianca rediscovered her body, taking breath after breath like a newborn.
“Get that meatbag a dress,” Alchemo all but ordered his colleagues.
“Y-yes!” The Panda immediately bolted out of the laboratory room to look for clothes.
Ryan softly opened the vat’s door, letting fresh, conditioned air in. “Do you feel alright?” the courier asked, half-expecting the woman to turn back into gas any moment. Considering the Elixirs’ behavior, they might realize their ‘mistake’ and undo the cure.
“What’s this thing?” Bianca asked, eyes closed as she hummed the air. Even her voice sounded different, deeper, and all so human. “That… that stuff.”
“It’s called smell,” Ryan replied, making use of his nose. “The Panda’s. He has quite the powerful presence.”
“I had forgotten I had a nose,” she replied, before kissing her own shoulder to taste the sweat. “I had forgotten so much.”
Before Ryan knew what hit him, Bianca opened her arms and hugged him tightly. She buried her head on his shoulder, holding him close.
“Fuck,” Bianca said, tears pouring down her cheeks. “Fuck… fuck…”
“It’s alright,” Ryan said, letting her cry to her heart’s content and returning the hug. Many times he wished he had a friendly shoulder too. Len watched on from the control panel with a bright smile, Alchemo turned away from the scene, and Stitch examined the data while muttering to himself.
“You fulfilled your promise,” Bianca whispered so low the others didn’t hear her, squeezing the courier tightly. “You remembered. You time-traveling asshole, you did it.”
“If you remember too,” Ryan said, stroking her hair kindly, “then you should know I always fulfill my campaign promises.”
“How did you learn my name, jackass?” she asked upon breaking the hug, wiping away the tears. Her smile was awkward, but felt so raw and real. “I didn’t tell you before that tin can of a Genius took a sample.”
Yeah, he could see it in her eyes.
This was the same Bianca who had sacrificed herself to delay Alphonse ‘Fallout’ Manada and give Ryan time. The transfer had worked, and another friend had followed the courier through time.
“Let’s say the Dynamis raid didn’t go as planned,” Ryan replied, as the Panda returned with a basic shirt and pants. “But we can discuss that around a coffee cup.”
“I won’t need clothes,” Bianca replied, before glancing at the location of Ryan’s most powerful weapon. “Undress.”
The courier blinked, while the Panda covered his mouth in shock. “What?” the courier asked.
“You’re deaf? I told you back then, the first thing I would do after getting my life back would be to jump someone.”
“Hey, it’s not because all my predecessors conquered the secretariat pool that I have to do the same!”
“This offer comes with a limited time, ‘Mr. President,’ so you better get decided within the next five minutes or reload.”
Dr. Stitch’s head perked up when he heard the last part, but Ryan remained firm in his devotion to Livia. “I’m sorry, but I’m married,” the courier replied. “I have a spare cashmere suit though, which is the next best thing in the world!”
Bianca shrugged, finally grabbing the clothes offered to her. “You’ve got cigarettes? Alcohol?” She asked, as she put pants on. “Because I’ve got a lot of catching up to do.”
It had taken many loops and years of suffering, but the Psycho condition finally had a cure.