1.3
Biogenesis 1.2
March 16th, 2011
Sophia's pain and confusion gave me the opening I needed to escape the school. Sure, I wouldn't be able to return to Winslow, and sure, I would just have to accept Sophia Hess could show up to my house anytime to exact revenge if she thought she could get away with it, but it wasn't all bad.
I had decided on a name for my creation! It was now known as Julia. A bit ironic, but I couldn't think of a more fitting name for a thoughtless, formless parasite with no free will of its own.
I boarded a city bus headed to the southwest of Winslow, swiping my student ID in lieu of paying with cash. The bus was empty of other passengers, aside from a few of the Bay's ever-present vagrants. My destination was an often-overlooked park close to my house. I was familiar with the park due to dozens of visits with my family over the years. That was all so long ago now.
Even with the deterioration of the city's control over the Docks in recent years, not every nook and cranny in the Docks was crawling with drug dealers or gang bangers. There were quiet and hidden places in no small number, just as long as you knew where to look.
The small park was the most suitable out of the several locations I had scouted for my needs: a place to gather biomass discreetly, and an isolated testing ground for my powers.
The scenery wasn't bad, either.
The park wasn't much more than a few groves of trees dotting a large clearing. A few picnic benches covered in graffiti sat in the middle of the park, near the edge of a bubbling stream that divided the park down the middle. There was a small pedestrian bridge which connected the park's two halves for its visitors. I sat in a shady spot near the river's edge, back leaned against the cool metal of the bridge's supports.
Despite the warming spring weather and sunny skies, I was the only person present at the park. I was fine with that; it allowed me to relax fractionally as I grasped a medium-sized shrub which sat directly along the shoreline. Bringing my powers to the forefront of my mind and forcing the shrub to change brought forth a sudden rush of euphoria.
Half a minute or so of concentration later, and the shrub was now a lump of malleable biomass sitting in my lap. I would have done more to modify it right away, but most plants lacked several vital nutrients that I needed to make more specialized adaptations.
Plants were great for generating a lot of mass quickly, but it was horribly inefficient to rely on them to produce everything I needed. I could create organs to produce most of the proteins and other useful compounds, but the process was slow and energy-intensive.
To make matters worse, if I lacked certain elements, there was simply nothing I could do. Calcium was the main hurdle. If only I lived somewhere with a bit of limestone, it would be quite simple to create an endless stockpile of calcium. Instead, I was having to rely on dairy products. Milk, cheese, butter, and whatever else I could get my hands on were metabolized by my crea- no, Julia, which conveniently supplied the other elements I was having trouble with: phosphorus and sulfur.
I idly connected Julia to the lump of biomass and started drawing it into a wide, flat shape. Once it was stretched until it was about two inches thick, I wrapped it around my midsection. Another moment of concentration and natural adhesive secured it in place.
The end result made me look like I had a beer belly, or maybe implied that I was a pregnant teenager. The lump on my otherwise flat appearance was unsightly, but not enough to draw attention. It didn't matter – this would only be for a single bus ride.
Once I was satisfied, I enjoyed a quiet bus ride home. My Dad wasn't home by the time I arrived, so I made a beeline for the basement door. I went down the stairs and flicked the lights on, and was met with the sight of my second creation.
About half of the basement's back wall was covered in a confusing mass of flesh, coated by a thin layer of translucent skin. As I watched, it slowly writhed and pulsated. It had taken a few months to collect all this biomass, but with my careful guidance, it needed surprisingly little maintenance. It reminded me a bit of a house plant.
Right now, the flesh was in a 'dormant' state. I had plans for a proper suit, but it was expensive and useless to maintain it in that form and keep it upright when it only took maybe five or ten minutes of work to form it into whatever shape I desired.
I wasn't down here to work on my suit right now. My fight with Sophia had taught me a valuable lesson: I was not safe in my civilian identity, and I needed a better approach to protecting myself than 'pray I get lucky and avoid notice'.
Julia turned out to be very useful in combat, and nobody seemed to notice its presence. I wanted to build off that concept to design a skin-tight, self-maintaining suit that I could wear at all times for a subtle supply of biomass and a minor boost to durability.
I stripped off all my clothes and hooked Julia partially up to the wall of flesh, then willed Julia to thin out and spread across my body until everything from my collarbone to my toes was covered. The bottoms of my feet were tricky to get right, and I spent a while figuring out how to make the skin more durable without just increasing its thickness. After a while of adjusting it, the suit stopped tearing when I tried to walk, and further enhancements made it mirror my own skin more closely, down to small details like fingerprints and pores.
I decided to create a bit of space for reserves of fat and nutrients in the backside of my suit, and I put the majority of its organs (including its primitive brain) in the chest area of it.
It would make people ask a lot less questions that way than if I went with a random lump on my arm or side. If it had the side effect of making people confuse my gender a bit less often, then that was just a happy coincidence.
I took a few steps, then did some jumping jacks in the suit. The organs jostled around a bit more than I would have liked them to, so I took some calcium from the flesh wall and reinforced the suit with a bit more cartilage. I was trying to avoid an actual skeleton, because I needed the suit to be as flexible as possible.
I then created a few extra 'mouths' on the suit, allowing it to puncture my skin in multiple locations. By the time everything was set up, I had a much better picture of my own health and status than before. It also made the process of releasing chemicals into my bloodstream much faster and more effective.
I ran a few more tests until I was satisfied, then disconnected the new-and-improved Julia from the flesh wall. I gathered my clothes and left the basement, headed for the downstairs bathroom. A look in the mirror confirmed that I had done an adequate job on the suit. I hadn't copied every detail one to one, some things I simply had no use for. The end result left me looking a bit like a Barbie doll, oddly featureless but otherwise completely normal looking.
If I figured out a convincing way to mimic a human head, this suit would become the perfect disguise.
My examination was interrupted when I heard the front door open.
"Taylor, you already home?" My Dad called out.
My heart rate skyrocketed, and I was forced to take a few seconds to manage the levels of the chemicals present in my bloodstream in order to bring my stress levels back to normal. Not something I wanted to make a habit of, but it was important not to let my Dad know that anything had changed about me.
"Yeah," I answered weakly.
It wasn't out of malice or spite that I couldn't tell him, nor a desire to get away from his influence. The real reason was a concern for his own safety. He would force me into the Wards, who would either ban me from using the bulk of my powers or hide me somewhere far away from any prying eyes, where the controversial nature of my powers were not such a large risk to their PR. With my luck, the Protectorate would probably do both.
Regardless of how careful the Protectorate was, the true nature of my abilities would spread, and entire teams of villains would throw everything they had at securing me. I was just that valuable.
Brockton Bay only had one healer, and she was a villain. The Protectorate often had to be wary of cape fights due to this, and it wasn't uncommon for some heroes to be down for weeks or months due to injuries incurred during skirmishes with the gangs.
I recalled one particularly striking incident where the heroes had been forced to ask Othala to heal a few debilitating injuries suffered by the Protectorate during a battle with Oni Lee.
No, I couldn't put my Dad at risk. He would stay focused on his work at the Dockworker's Association, and I would stay focused on my own work. It was better that way for both of us.
I put my clothes on over Julia and tried to ignore the way my clothes felt slightly tighter than before. I had always wished for a better figure, but now that I actually had one (even if it wasn't actually real), I just felt self conscious and awkward about it.
I flushed the toilet to give myself an excuse for what I had been up to, then let the sink run for a few seconds. I left the bathroom and greeted my Dad with a small smile.
He smiled back and asked, "How was school, kiddo?"
I froze and tried to keep my expression from changing. I knew I had forgotten something. If the school called home about my fight and my Dad found out, I would be in trouble for weeks, and I'd be forced to go back to Winslow under closer scrutiny.
"It was fine," I forced the words out of my mouth.
My Dad must have picked up on something in my tone or expression, because he gave me a knowing look. Thankfully, he didn't press the issue.
I edged my way closer to the home phone and did my best to act natural about it. Once his back was turned, I took a few more steps and plopped myself down on the couch next to the phone.
"Anything interesting happen at work?" I grasped at straws for a change of topic.
By some stroke of good luck, my distraction worked and my Dad responded with, "Interesting, yes, but nothing good. One of Lung's casinos got robbed the other night and the ABB's been up and down the Docks looking for something. They roughed up some of our guys, but it seems like they were just letting off steam. The gangs know our position: we stay out of their way, and they stay out of ours, but I can't help but be concerned…"
As he talked, he moved further away from me and into the kitchen. I heard the fridge open, and took that moment to turn the answering machine off as quickly and silently as I could.
"It'll be alright, Dad," I reassured him, even though I didn't fully believe my own words, "Things will calm down. They'll send the Protectorate in if Lung goes too far, and nobody wants that."
I stood up and followed him to the kitchen, where I saw my Dad clutching half of a ham sandwich. He was looking for something else in the fridge, but stopped when I entered the kitchen behind him.
He turned and gave me a weary smile that didn't quite reach his eyes before he nodded, "Maybe so, but that's not a reason to be unsafe or reckless about things. Sometimes I worry about letting you out alone to take the city buses and go where you please, but I don't want to smother you. This recent escalation by the gangs isn't normal, though. I've required any of my crews working at night to move in pairs at the least, and I've put them under practically the same set of rules that I made for you. Things are tense in the Docks, Taylor, and if they keep getting worse, I might have to start driving you to school and back – I'm sure I can arrange it with the DWA."
"Dad," I began as I rolled my eyes, "I could get struck by lightning tomorrow, but that doesn't mean you should-"
My Dad cut me off as he came over and swept me into a one-armed hug, "You better not, or I'll have to ground you."
It took me a few moments to process what he just said. I harrumphed and stomped away while he chuckled at the look on my face once I understood his stupid pun. I marched up the stairs and to my room, hiding my small but genuine smile from him.
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A/N: Might as well post chapter 3, I still have 20,000 more words in the backlog. Expect new chapters to become less frequent as I work through my back log.
Thank you to everyone who commented and liked so far.
Biogenesis 1.3
April 2nd, 2011
The next two weeks were a bit of a blur. I learned from my mistake with the answering machine and made sure to delete each and every message the school sent. After a few days, they stopped calling.
Most of my time was spent in my basement or various abandoned places working and gathering biomass. It was increasingly tempting to use animals rather than plants for biomass, but I wasn't about to cross that line.
I refused to be the next Nilbog.
Instead, much of my work was spent finding workarounds to my resource limitations. There may not have been an abundance of limestone in Brockton Bay, but concrete was suitable enough as an alternative source of calcium. I processed and refined everything I could get my hands on. Everything was recycled out of necessity rather than any desire to act frugally.
My other main project revolved around turning the flesh wall into more of a flesh cavern. I designed long cords of muscle anchored throughout the mass of flesh, connected to a bony structure that functioned as a makeshift drill. I had it constantly grind deeper down until it penetrated the concrete foundations of my house. It took about a week and some additional modification to make a hole big enough for me to fit through, then progress quite literally ground to a halt.
Granite, granite, granite.
What an annoyance. Granite was very difficult to burrow through, and I gained little from it. Granite was mostly silicon, and while I supposed I could make some kind of silicon life form, it had fundamental drawbacks that made it non-viable to even attempt. Everything else that I could gain from processing granite was present in such small amounts that the endeavor wasn't profitable at all, no matter what I tried.
Another week and I had barely made it three feet into the granite layer underneath my basement. I needed a change of plans. I scrapped the drill system and replaced it with a slightly more complicated system instead.
I didn't really have anything close to the hardness of granite readily available to me, so I settled on incorporating tightly bound chunks of granite with reinforced extra-dense bone in my newer design. This large spike would slam down with all the force my flesh wall could muster before a reserve of water was pumped at high pressure into the cracks in the rock. The water was partially drained, tendrils emerged and tore the shards of granite out of the ground, then the rest of the water was drained.
This system was far more efficient than my previous drill system, and was definitely an improvement worth keeping. In the past few hours since I finished its design, I had made another three feet of progress towards the aquifer. However, this new design came with certain drawbacks. I kept having to repair the bone spike, but I was gradually refining it. On top of that, the new design was loud enough that I couldn't run it when my Dad was home, and it took far more fuel to run than the old design. With my increased trips to collect biomass, though, I was still gaining biomass every day, even if the margins had gotten a bit slim.
Once I broke through to the aquifer, I would hopefully have a lot more room to expand. I didn't know exactly how large Brockton Bay's aquifer was, but growing through water would be a far easier task than growing through granite.
My Dad kept me informed on the situation in the Docks while I focused my attention elsewhere. Lung's fury hadn't been satiated until he won a Cape fight against some group called the Undertakers, or something like that. The fact that I hadn't heard about anyone dying and only half a city block burned in the chaos was a small miracle.
One of the Undertakers was temporarily captured by the Protectorate after the fight and everything calmed down for a few days. I started to let my guard down, only to find out that he escaped before he even got to the PRTHQ (how does everyone keep escaping Protectorate custody!?).
Lung was predictably unhappy, and the residents of the Docks were bracing themselves for another fight.
What did I know about Lung?
He was a pyrokinetic regenerator, who grew in size and strength during conflicts until he matched and surpassed any opponent he faced. PHO threads about him were filled with claims that he fought the entire Brockton Bay Protectorate single handedly, and that he fought Leviathan to a standstill in defense of Kyushu.
It was scary to have someone with powers like that stirring up trouble in my neighborhood. How could I even fight someone like that? The beginnings of a plan started to form in my head, but I brought myself back under control before I could get lost in thought further.
Hiding away and building my resources up instead of bringing the fight to the gangs had been steadily eating away at me the past few months, to the point where even thinking about delaying my plans for a few more days made me frustrated and put me in a bad mood.
I wasn't a violent person and never sought out fights before, but now I was chomping at the bit to go out and take people down. Even if they were bad people, shouldn't I be more concerned – if not about their wellbeing, then at least about my own?
Was I really so weak that the first bit of power I could get my hands on corrupted me to the point where I could hardly recognize my own thoughts sometimes? Was I doomed to become another Emma or Sophia, all-too-ready to take advantage of my position to drag others down, just for the sake of it?
It was an unpleasant thought, but one I couldn't do anything about.
I had powers now, I needed to use them, and I would fight.
The microwave beeped, and I pulled on its door handle. Microwaved Fugly Bob's leftovers, yum. I supposed I could save myself a bit of time by eating from my biomass for every meal, but it felt a bit weird to do so, even if I could make it look just like store-bought food.
I expected my Dad to come home soon, and a few minutes after I settled in to eat my leftovers, he came through the front door.
He saw me and replaced his exhausted expression with a more positive one before he said, "Hey, kiddo."
"Hey, Dad," I greeted him in between bites, "Are you feeling alright?"
I could tell just by looking at him that he was in rough shape. Dark circles were prominent under his eyes and his already pale skin was a few shades lighter than usual. If I hadn't checked his health a dozen times since first getting my powers, I would have been worried about him having some kind of serious medical issue.
Well, besides the obvious, I suppose. My Dad was depressed. It wasn't bad enough that I was concerned about him trying to take his own life, but he hadn't ever developed proper coping mechanisms after my Mom's death. It would only take a touch and a few seconds of concentration to wash away most of his pain and maybe help him move on, but I wouldn't take that step.
If I started messing with people's heads, I could easily tell myself I was helping them while turning them into something more convenient for me alone. How far could you change someone until they weren't themselves anymore?
No, I'd rather help my Dad by helping myself, and by actually making his life better. I suspected most of the factors behind his depression were environmental anyways, and besides that, I had already decided my Dad was off limits from any use of my powers unless his health or life was in imminent danger.
I had never experienced an 'accident' with my power; it always did exactly what I told it to. Despite that, the thought of making a mistake and killing my Dad as a result was terrifying. I had resolved to do everything that I could for him without the use of my powers, maybe as a way to make up for my cowardice.
"I've been worse," He told me, "We got a job this week with the owners of one of those rusty old ships in the Boat Graveyard. They wanted us to cut the hull up into pieces and let them ship it off to God-knows-where. Pretty good deal for us, considering that most of the tools we needed were just lying around."
I nodded and waited for him to continue as I finished the last few bites of my leftovers. He had been opening up to me a bit more recently, but I was worried it had more to do with his work-related stress than anything I had done.
"They're supposed to pick it up next week. Thing is, I'm worried that the ABB are going to make a move before then. Lung might have his hands full with the Undersiders, but once they're taken care of, he might change his focus. Have you heard about Lung's new bomb Tinker?"
Oh yeah, the Undersiders – their name had been on the tip of my tongue for a while now. It was relieving to know what they were actually called. I took a second to refocus and think about my Dad's words.
"The crazy one who held her school hostage?" I asked.
I had read about the woman's successful jailbreak a few weeks ago, assisted by Lung under the condition that she work for him from now on. Unfortunately, that was about all of the reliable information publicly available about the woman's villainous activities.
"Yeah. This is high quality steel, even if it's in bad condition. Not the sort of thing the gangs normally care about, but with a new Tinker to supply, there's very good odds that Lung decides to make a move, and we'd be at his mercy if he did," My Dad couldn't hide his grimace as he finished speaking.
"Dad, I know there's a lot going on, but you can't carry the world on your shoulders. Have you thought about taking a break, at least for a bit?" I gently urged him.
All of the remaining energy in his body seemed to seep out of him at my words, and he visibly sagged before he replied, "I know, Taylor. Busy few weeks, that's all. I'll be fine."
I stood from the kitchen table and walked towards him, but he just ruffled my hair gently as he passed me by.
"Maybe you're right. I'm going to get a nap in, 'kay?" My Dad murmured.
"I'll be fine. I might pick something up for dinner later if I'm hungry, just try to get some sleep."
My Dad nodded his head in agreement and plodded up the stairs to his bedroom.
He turned to me before he left my sight to say, "Love you, kiddo."
"You too, Dad," I told him while undercurrents of anxiety and protectiveness swirled within me.
This whole situation was enough to make me feel a bit queasy. The information my Dad had shared about Lung targeting the DWA... A ramped-up Lung could easily burn down the entire DWA building and take out everyone inside, especially if they put up a spirited defense. Knowing my Dad, that's exactly what he would do. A stupid way to deal with Lung, maybe, but my Dad was nothing if not loyal. He would let himself get hurt if it meant saving others, and I wasn't planning to let him throw his life away.
It was time to get serious.
-
After about four hours straight of working on a new suit, I had begun to run out of ways to make further improvements with the materials I had on hand.
It stood about seven and a half feet tall. Thick plates of armor made of reinforced bone were positioned over much of the body's surface, secured in place by thick tendons. Layers of thick muscle gave the suit a tremendous amount of strength – nothing beyond what was possible to find in nature, but far more than the ability of the best athletes.
Most of the suit's body was covered in thick gray scales of variable size. They were especially dense around areas not covered by the bone plating, often layered on top of one another. I could make stronger structures than this, but the resources simply weren't available to me. It irked me that the suit wasn't optimal, so I had focused on maximizing what I could get out of the rest of it.
Every organ necessary for the suit's survival was redundant – even its brain was spread throughout the body, to the point where even the destruction of most of the suit would not be enough to disable it. Alongside the standard organs expected within most mammals, the suit contained dozens of specialized organs, designed to filter any air before it got to me. It was able to filter out most incapacitating and lethal toxins, nerve agents, and carcinogens. Radioactive material was still a concern, but I had to limit my attention given the suit was a bit of a rush-job compared to some of the things still in my head. Other organs created a reserve of stem cells which could be pulled on to rapidly regenerate damaged parts of the suit. I had equipped Julia with a similar organ designed to heal my body, should anything happen to my actual body.
Other organs were situated towards the hands of the suit, designed to release either powerful anesthetics or lethal poisons through scaled-up versions of the 'mouths' used in Julia's design. That was about it for the suit's combat-related tricks, except for the two pairs of fifteen-foot long tentacles coiled up near the suit's spine, ready to rapidly breach the surface should the suit's arms be disabled.
The front half of the suit was currently opened up like a flower, exposing the cavity within its interior. I had already stripped down until I was wearing nothing but Julia, and it took just a few seconds to slip inside of the suit and hook up its interface with Julia's.
Julia acted as sort of a relay between my new suit and my body. I had created a lot of autonomous processes for the brain of the suit, simple things like reflexive attacks should anyone move too suddenly near it. Dangerous, maybe, but necessary when fighting people like teleporters. I could easily disable it whenever I wanted, but if part of the suit was separated from me, it could theoretically fight on until killed or until I told it to stop.
The interfaces connected, my suit closed up around me, and my mind was flooded with new sensations. I had gone a bit overboard on the suit's senses. My senses of smell and hearing were much-improved, and light-sensing organs of various complexity along the suit's surface gave me full, three-hundred-and-sixty degree vision.
Having two sets of senses was far less disorienting than I expected after a bit of practice, but there were still some flaws I needed to iron out at some point. The movement of the suit gave me a bit of motion sickness if I concentrated directly on the disconnect between the suit and my body's movements too much, which was part of the reason I went with more automation for the suit instead of less.
Still, it wasn't like the suit could actually think for itself. Its head was quite literally empty. I had designed the head of the suit to be as eye catching as possible. It practically screamed at people to focus their fire on it.
The scales covering my suit continued up its neck until the base of the jaw, where the thick bone of my suit's unnaturally large skull was exposed to open air. Muscles and crisscrossing blood veins covered the bottom half of the face which allowed the jaw the ability to open and close, but the top half of the skull was free of any flesh. There were two exceptions to this – the back half of the skull had a thin layer of skin clinging to it, where dark, greasy hair sprouted. That hair hung down to the suit's shoulders. The front half of the skull had no eyes, nose, or ears. Instead, a thin layer of flesh lined the skull in those places and glowed a bioluminescent green.
The suit had a tongue and mouth, although both were made using minimal amounts of flesh – just enough to be able to enunciate words properly. Its teeth ended in sharp points, and the thickness of its jaw muscles gave it a bite with considerable crushing power. The inside of the skull held absolutely nothing vital, and merely served as a repository for extra biomass. The base of the suit's neck was about where the top of my head was situated within the suit, and it contained the top portion of a thick core of bone and granite which wrapped protectively around my body.
As a final touch to the suit's main design, I created a simple shirt and loincloth out of hide. It was connected directly to my suit, allowing it to count as 'alive'. I made the hide more colorful with a blend of multiple exotic animals' patterns, primarily based on a tiger's stripes. I had gone back and forth on this – adding clothes could be a big risk if Lung set them on fire, but something felt wrong about going out in such a humanlike form without proper clothing. I didn't want to be associated with those freaky nudist capes like The Siberian, even if there wasn't actually a risk of exposing anybody to anything they shouldn't see while I was in my suit.
I ran a basic diagnostic on the suit to make sure it was responding properly to my movements, and took a minute to reinforce the front half of the suit, now that I was inside of it. I ended up spending almost the next half hour throwing punches, kicks, dodging, doing exercise, and generally training up the suit's muscle memory and calibrating everything. The biological process behind developing muscle memory was excruciatingly slow, so I sped it along with my powers.
It was tempting to spend all night doing this – the more I developed the suit's muscle memory, the better its reflexes would be. However, I had already spent too long tinkering on my suit.
"Alright, time to do this," I said using my suit before I winced at the harsh sound.
The suit's rasping voice was like a lifelong smoker trying to speak through a mouthful of gravel. I spent a minute redesigning its vocal chords, then spoke again and repeated the process until I had a satisfactory end result. The suit's voice was now quite similar to my own, just tuned down an octave or so.
No more delays.
-
A/N 2: The Shaper is very happy with its host at the moment.
Thoughts on the suit's design? Thanks for reading.