Ch. 25: The Road to Hell

Damn it. Too many people are getting hurt for me to keep up, and word about my impromptu practice somehow spread across more of the area than just the mall.

I moved my trauma center to the superstore that caps our end of the mall, and set up shop at the in-store pharmacy. The change was largely for accessibility of ingredients, but the fact I can create my potions out of sight is also a strong positive.

Still, every time I heal someone, another person shows up. Bleeding Heart members, civilians, even a Rat Sink member who was bleeding out, and is currently being beaten to death by the guy with the missing eye.

The moment Barkbite shows up again, though, I immediately divert my focus. "What brings you unto me, Sir Barkbite? Were you not assigned elsewhere?"

"Firing's stopped everywhere else."

I tap the side of my mask, half-expecting to have misheard. "Pardon?"

"I said that the firing's stopped everywhere else. They're all making a break for it. We think Calhoun himself isn't here, but there's someone else important in the mall. Why else would they be holding position?"

"I understand." I wordlessly direct someone with a broken wrist to get in line with the others I'm treating. "What needs done?"

He looks around at the dozen people waiting in line. "Right now? Nothing you aren't already doing."

Even through the ironclad focus instilled by my stimulant, that worries me. No Calhoun, everyone's fleeing. Has it really ended already? "Any word of certain VIPs?

"No. Sorry."

I'm sure my frustration isn't well-hidden by the mask, and remaining objective is growing harder. I turn back to my healing, as Solvent returns with a shopping cart of groceries.

I withdraw the items one by one. Fish food, sketch paper, frozen vegetables...

One obvious issue clouds my mind. Why hasn't Emily been located yet? If they're retreating, the hostages would be pretty easy to find.

The battle ended not with a bang, but with a drawn-out sigh. The firing slowly died down, eventually stopping entirely. EDR took their time in telling us that we can go home, but they did. Still no word on Emily.

I scurry back and forth in the Apothecary, late in the night, tending to those injured in the city-wide skirmishes. Every time I enter a new room, I'm half-expecting to find out that Emily was hiding somewhere inside and didn't realize I was looking for her. Instead, it's always just more strangers. More and more strangers.

I take a brief detour to make potions that will eliminate my food and sleep needs for the time being, and return to silently working in tandem with Medulla. Thankfully, she's used to pulling absurdly long shifts. One of the pros of formerly working in the nursing industry.

The second I see her starting to lose focus, though, I pull her aside and tell her to go home. Everyone left is stable, and I'm not going anywhere.

Sleep doesn't appeal to me now, anyway. In fact, going to bed without Emily next to me sounds like torture.

I work through the night, stimulants both artificial and natural keeping me going, with me saying very little to anyone as I work. Patient after patient, all blurring together into a homogenous mass of symptoms and damaged tissue.

It isn't a surprise that I lost track of time.

In fact, it's almost noon the following day by the time I clear my clinic of patients. I wasn't keeping track, but Catalyst noted I treated over one hundred people. So he says, anyway.

Without so much as catching my breath, I take the opportunity to start cleaning. To organize my lab. To look through the ledger. To do everything, anything, to get my mind somewhere far away from the dangerous reality I'm teetering on.

After all, Vivian can't die if she never reveals herself.

Just as I'm running fully out of chores to busy my mind with, a familiar man enters the Apothecary, strolling with a certain easy arrogance.

Ed R. Flanked by his usual entourage, of course, in all of their heavily armed glory.

"Find her?" I ask, jogging over with frantic purpose, voice unsteady.

"Not... not yet."

"Then what do you want?" I hiss, my frenzied tone unhidden by the mask.

He looks around the building. "Mind locking the doors? I'd like to talk in private."

I oblige, saying the word "Lockdown" and having the doors slam shut. Only Ed, his four soldiers, Solvent, Catalyst, myself, and possibly Kingfisher have ears to this conversation.

"Great... I'm gonna wait for our friend listening in to leave, first."

He waits for some undetermined signal, but speaks again after half a minute. "About time. Beaker, you've met Calhoun, right?"

"...indeed."

"Are you familiar with his abilities?"

"I am. Some type of ridiculous ability to befriend people."

"Right. Think you can come up with an antidote for that?"

I sigh into the mask, frustration outweighing the otherwise welcome distraction. "My potions only work when I administer them, and they aren't preventative. The best I could do is drip feed it to one person at a time, but he'd just target me instead."

"We're counting on that, actually. He's been trying desperately to recover some kind of credibility after Rat Sink's attack went south, and I suspect he's going to start leaning heavily into having hostages. You're the only one who has a consistent location, so he's probably going to blackmail you first."

"I made sure he didn't know Beaker and Vivian were the same person."

Ed looks at me for a long moment. "...are you joking? You told him that you were a healer, and then a healer shows up. Healing abilities are rare. You do the math."

Damn it. I was so wrapped up in Beaker that I completely disregarded how visible I was as Vivian. Yet another dumb mistake added to the pile, but this time, it had consequences. "Okay... what do I do?"

He glances around the room, and leans in. "We have a plan, but it relies entirely on you. Vivian, I'm speaking to you, human to human. I've kept an eye on you, and I know you're not one of these clowns who have their little turf war bullshit. If you want to save your girlfriend and everyone else those bastards took hostage, we're going to have to trust each other. Think we can do that?"

"Why even ask? I've already worked with you to stop them in the first place."

"Because this time, there's no backup, and you can seriously screw us over if you want to. Thing is, once you're done, we're in a position to screw you over. Make sense?"

I try to ignore the slowly increasing sweat I'm stewing in. So far, EDR has been fair, but can I really leave Emily in their hands?

Do I have another choice?

"...yeah. You can trust me."

Calhoun.

He's much the same as the first time we met. Soft eyes, thin smile, though the jogging suit has been replaced with a much less casual ensemble of fake glasses and a too-tight business suit. He's currently occupied in the security room, casually talking down my guards, as planned.

I immediately switch to my private communication channel, and tell both Solvent and Catalyst to go into a back room, and lock the door. I don't need them falling under his influence like I did.

I walk away from the monitor I was watching him through, and stand in the center of The Apothecary, cane held in my hands. "Ed, any last minute advice?"

His voice comes over clearly and cleanly. "Just be yourself, Beaker."

Calhoun looks through my mask like it wasn't there, pleasant eyes looking through my lenses. "Hey."

I feel a twinge to give a friendly response, to take off the mask and greet him like an old friend. Unfortunately for him, my brain is barely my own at the moment; already a slave to the pharmacological slurry that infuses it. "I assume you are injured?"

"Hardly," he says, fiddling with the red clip-on tie that hangs off his shirt. "I just came by to ask you about your practice. Quite the operation. You weren't lying in the park, huh?"

"I have nary the free moments nor desire to lie down in a public space." If only calling for others would help. I'm unsure just how far he can push that power of his, and if he can befriend anyone sufficiently armed, I'd be dead within seconds. The fact he came in person, though, presents an excellent opportunity he would have no way of knowing about.

reduced life expectancy dispower-

Damn it. Nothing I can abuse.

"I don't mean laying down, I mean being dishonest. You can drop the act, by the way. Emily told me everything I needed to know about you, Vivian. It's such a shame you decided to ignore my warning. Come on, let's take a walk outside."

"Indeed? Lockdown."

The magnetic doors to the clinic slam shut, Emily's fantastic engineering at work. He spins around and takes a half step to the door, before slowly looking back at me. "Let's unlock the doors, huh?"

"I think otherwise. My fellow, you have made a critical error."

He stuffs his hands into his pockets, fiddling with something inside them. "Yeah?" he asks. "What's that?"

"I see no purpose in revealing such information. I am the physician Beaker, though I foresee naught in the way of medicinal assistance for you, scourge."

He purses his lips, rapidly playing with something in his pocket, the forcefulness of each movement betraying his mental state.

"Signaling for something, I presume? A pity that the doors are nigh impregnable to your wireless words, is it not? Sir Faraday sends his regards, as you are in his cage."

It takes him a moment to understand what I'm getting at. "Fine," he says. "You got me. So what now? I still have your little lady friend, who you won't find without me. I still have the upper hand."

"Indeed... indeed. What shall I do to remedy this quandary? Perhaps you have a suggestion?"

"I do. First, open the doors back up."

"Or," I offer, "I decide that a singular compatriot is worth far less than you believe."

A smug aura overcomes his feigned geniality. "I don't believe that for a moment. I saw how happy you were together."

I can't help it. I start laughing due to the absurd position I'm in right now. Face to face with the person who kidnapped Emily, while I confront him in a goofy costume and spout flagrant lies to his face, with Emily's life in the balance.

There's one thing I have on my side. I've had quite a bit of experience in maintaining my Beaker persona.

"My goodness," I say, a few loose 'hah's escaping in between my words. "An earnest effort, though with one major misunderstanding. You have mixed up which of my halves is the Jekyll. No, this is my true self, and there is nowhere to Hyde." I reach out, and rest a hand on his shoulder.

He looks at the gloved hand tightly clenched near his neck, then slowly turns his head up to me. "Oh, you're... you're actually psychotic, aren't you? That's... worrying. That's very worrying, in fact."

"Indeed."

"How about I go and release Emily, and we call this a day?"

My grip tightens. "My friend, I am hardly swayed by one minor character held in esteem by my alter ego. No, I have decided you haven't any worth anything to me."

"Which means... what?"

"I believe I shall auction you off. Many factions within this city would pay exorbitantly for an opportunity to enact their own revenge."

"Oh. Uhh. I think... I can pay you more than whatever they can. I have all of Rat Sink's finances at my disposal."

"Indeed? Then yes, that would make you the highest bidder, and perhaps we can come to some arrangement..."

Calhoun finalizes the money transfer with a few sweaty clicks of the keyboard. "Done. It's all there."

I take out a potion from within my coat using my free hand. Before he can react, I drop it to the ground, shattering it and releasing a thick white gas.

Obviously, it only puts him to sleep. With a smile, I stomp on his ribs a few times partly to see if he's responsive, but mostly to enjoy the moment. "Ed, he's down."

"Good. We'll go and pick him up. Also, we got Rat Sink's funds. We'll direct them into repairing the damage they caused, as meager a sum as it was."

"Don't forget our deal," I note, before letting out a sigh that sounds more like a whine. "Please don't screw me over."

I haven't eaten in three days. I haven't slept, either. I've been in this unyielding nightmare all this time, waiting for word from EDR about the hostages.

I'm getting sloppy. Dropping ingredients, spilling potions, stabbing too deep with injections.

I don't know how much longer I can keep this up.

It's well past midnight. The potions I've been using have fried my endocrine system, and I've had to use even more cures to get in back into an acceptable hormonal range. I'm probably two percent potion by volume, at this point.

And then, I hear my phone ring. I answer immediately, reflexively. "Who is this?" I ask in a tone halfway between exhausted and high.

"Ed."

If I wasn't already as tense as I could be, I imagine that would have made me tenser. "Thank God. Did you find Emily?"

"...I'm so sorry, Vivian."

Emily wasn't dead, exactly.

She wasn't really alive, either.

She was catatonic, some kind of psychological shock, unresponsive to anything in the outside world. Her brain activity was irregular. This was a mental issue, like her thoughts were scrambled somehow.

I confirmed as much. My power doesn't work on mental health issues, and as such, I didn't receive any cure, no matter how long I stared at her.

Traditional treatments weren't working. Nothing was working, and Emily wasn't alone in that. All twenty-nine hostages were affected in an identical way. It must have been someone with a particularly fucked up power, but even knowing that, I couldn't change it.

I closed the Apothecary to all but life or death emergencies until further notice. I had Emily brought to the now-closed clinic and placed into one of recovery beds, so I could be at her bedside while still responding to emergencies in a timely fashion.

Ishfaq, Michiko, Vera, Barkbite, Cavalcade, Fritillary, Rogue Wave, Liron, Bradley, even Kingfisher made an appearance. All people who came to express their condolences, to offer to watch over Emily while I took a break, to try and hug me and tell me everything was alright.

Nothing was alright.

All the Beaker crap, all the bullshit power stuff was secondary to Emily. I was doing it for fun, at first. When did this become my future? When I first started dressing up? When I agreed to work for Kingfisher? When I lost my job? When I opened the apothecary? When I started working overflow for hospitals?

How far have I slid into Hell?