Ch. 13: Stop Digging

Zola's supposedly 'neutral ground' ended up having four of his men, fully armed, who escorted me inside. There's a large wooden dining table, and an amazing looking spread of food, clearly evoking some kind of king's feast instead of a simple dinner. I wish I could eat any of it, truthfully.

"Beaker! My friend! Come, sit, help yourself."

I sit down, signing a quick "you sit and eat" to Solvent. She reaches for the food, but Zola stops her by slamming a knife into the table, barely six inches from her hand.

"I said Beaker can help himself, not you."

"My apologies, Sir Zola, I misread the situation and directed her to eat. This transgression's blame is mine. Solvent, please do not eat for the time being."

"Huh. Listen, Beaker, its tradition for us to sample the food together before business. Go ahead." He waits, arms in his lap like a schoolboy, smiling for the wrong reasons. This is just a power play, of course. He's not going to tank everything for the sake of me not eating.

"I apologize yet again, good sir, but my mask impairs my sampling of your bounty."

"Then take it off."

"Ahh, no. Tis not-"

"Take it off. You're not in the Apothecary right now, you're in my territory, you follow my very reasonable rules. You've seen me, I want to see you."

"Pish. You are witnessing the sum total now. This is all I am, Sir Zola."

Zola slowly gets up from his chair, spinning a knife around in his hand. "Take your mask off, or I'll take your mask off. Guys, shoot him if he tries to run or reach into his coat." He walks closer, coming around the side of the table.

I hold my stance, hoping it's a bluff, and grasping the handle of my cane. "Perhaps my friend Solvent can eat in my stead."

"No."

He's taking his time, dragging the knife along the table. Now that I care to look, I see at least a dozen tiny scores just like that.

I turn to a bowl of mashed potatoes, and stick the beak of my mask into it. "Yum yum." Maybe I can break the tension with a joke..?

Zola stops, and looks at the scene, a small chunk of the potatoes sliding off and falling to the bench. "I like you, Beaker. You add some fun to the drab day-to-day. But you're not a player in this game, understand? I don't know who the fuck you think you are, coming to our meetings as though you're anything but a resource. To make my point, I'm going to unmask you. Just between us. So you know that I know."

I sigh, wiping the potatoes off my beak. "A hoodlum of yours had an implanted explosive along their spine, and the ensuing blast damaged my exam room. That is my sole reason for being here, to alert you to the problem."

"Uh-huh. Sure."

Solvent stands between Zola and I. No matter the training, a full foot and 100 pounds advantage will win. Damn it, I didn't want to use nerve gas on him...

"Solvent, stand aside." She looks at me for a long second, but does as instructed.

"Zola. This shall be my final warning, which I give in all seriousness. Do not force me to bar your people from my clinic, too."

He stops a foot away from me, looming over me. "You don't have the balls."

"Oh? Thy people would be gravely insulted. I have aided scores of Hearts, not one has stopped beating upon my table until today. I save their lives, charging little to nothing, and in return you stand poised to vanquish me. For that is what removing my mask shall do. It shall force me to abscond with what I possess, and leave your kindred without my services. I have no desire to participate in whatever game you refer to. I shall make my speech clear, just as I told EViRT no in regards to being a sanctioned hero. I wish for naught but my clinic."

He stops for a long moment, weighing it in his mind. "Yeah. My people won't give a damn. Did you see anyone else at that meeting hiding their identity, besides the Nightjars? No? How strange. And this dipshit little ye olde routine has gotten old fast."

I only have one ploy left, beyond that its the nerve agent and smoke bomb while I pray his men miss their shots.

"Fine. I shall speak as the person beneath the mask, just this once. Modulator off."

I take a long breath, as Zola grabs the beak of my mask.

"Have you wondered what kind of dispower I would have to have for such a strong healing ability?"

He lets go of the beak. "What the hell, you're a chick? That's funny. Gonna tell all the guys that..."

"My dispower is that-"

"Shut up, I have to make a call. I already proved my point. You flinched. Now get out of here, little girl."

"Modulator on," I say as I hurriedly walk away from the building, with Solvent inches behind me. I try to fight back an upcoming panic attack as my sweat starts to pool. I can't afford to puke in the suit.

"This was bad." The words appear inside my mask as we walk.

"Yes."

"I will not ask you who you are."

"No?"

"I am curious. But you are good to me. I am not a bastard like Zola. You have earned my trust."

"Thanks... but I think you're owed at least that much. When we get back, I'm going to introduce you to someone."

I closed the clinic early. It was a ghost town anyway, and my nerves were shot. I called in the people who made the place to come repair the exam room, which was going to cost half a million. Whatever, the money isn't important. I kept Catalyst and Solvent nearby, just in case.

I checked that Emily was at my home with a text, and after reading she was, took a long sigh. "Okay. Ishfaq, you already know me, and I need you at my home. Michiko, you get to learn who I am, and you're coming too." Without waiting for a response, I open the door to the decontamination chamber, with Michiko and Ishfaq hesitantly walking inside.

Immediately, the decontamination gases pour in. And when they finish, the door opens to a small coat room. Once inside, with only Michiko and Ishfaq, I take off my mask after pressing a specific series of points on my neck. It click open, and I remove it, looking back at Michiko through my normal environmental suit, as it slowly turns white once unpaired with the mask.

"I do not understand," Michiko slowly signs.

"This is why I go through so much trouble to keep hidden. My dispower is I have no immune system. None. A common cold would kill me within a day or two. The flu would do it even faster. I wouldn't even know if I was infected until I was dying, since I wouldn't have any immune response like swelling or fever. If I were to be unmasked, then not only would it be incredibly obvious how to kill me, but incredibly easy to find out who I am. Not a lot of people walking around in a suit. I'm going to go change. Wait here."

I close the door behind me, steadying my breathing, and go to my bedroom. I take off the suit, change into an old t-shirt and pajamas, and walk back into the coat room.

"Hey-"

Immediately, Michiko grabs my throat, baring her teeth like a frenzied animal. After a second she lets go, eyes wide.

"Sorry sorry sorry sorry thought you were intruder sorry sorry never saw you before sorry it was instinct," Michiko spews out, hands flashing faster than I can understand.

I rub my neck, already feeling a bruise coming. "Jesus, Michiko, right after I tell you how fragile I am."

"Sorry."

"It's fine, it's fine. Okay. One sec." I stand in the doorway on the right, seeing Emily turn around and light up at seeing me.

"Viv! You're home early. Wanna talk about it?" She asks, concern starting to take over her enthusiasm. "Why does it look like you were choked?!"

"Because I brought friends, and one of them is a little overzealous."

I step into the room, as Ishfaq and Michiko come in behind me.

"Hello. I am Michiko."

"Shit. Mevi, run program A-S-L-underscore-T-R-A-N-S-underscore-two-point-eight-one."

A bloop sound comes over a speaker I didn't know was in the house. I guess that answers what she's been doing on her days off.

"What? I do not get it," Michiko notes.

A voice that sounds suspiciously like mine plays over the speaker. "What? I don't get it."

Emily nods approvingly. "Contractions were a huge pain in the ass for some reason. Okay, enough of me being weird, you must be Michiko and Ishfaq! I'm so glad I get to meet my girlfriend's friends finally." She gets up, gently hugging Ishfaq, and offering a handshake to Michiko who hesitantly accepts.

Michiko and Ishfaq share brief glance, before Ishfaq speaks. "Wait, Vivian had a girlfriend? This whole time?!"

"Her name is Vivian?" Michiko adds.

"Yes and yes," I say, giving Emily a long hug. "She's been with me since I got empowered. Saved my life, and then made it worth living. I wouldn't be able to leave the house without her engineering."

I sit down on the couch, Emily sitting next to me as I rest my head on her shoulder. Ishfaq sits down on the far end of the other couch, while Michiko stands.

"This is very weird," Michiko signs.

"Right?" Ishfaq says, awkwardly smiling. "I mean, I'm used to seeing you being weird, but you being normal and domestic is somehow more unsettling."

Michiko's eyes are locked onto me as she signs, "It is like you are the evil twin and the person on the couch is the original."

"Exactly. Also, hello Emily! I've heard nothing about you!" Ishfaq says, grinning.

Emily's laugh shakes my head up and down a bit as she moves her shoulders. "Yeah, that's the point. I'm the tech end of Beaker. I set up all the electronics in the suits, designed the building, made the suits, invented the nerve gas cane mechanism, that sort of thing."

"So why are we being introduced now, specifically?"

I take a deep breath. This isn't going to go over well, but they have to be told.

"Because I'm not sure I'm going to make it here."

"What the hell?" Michiko emphatically signs.

"Yeah, what the hell?" Ishfaq echoes Michiko's words.

"It's like this. I barely survived an unwilling suicide bomber through a lucky quirk of my power, and then when I went to tell the bomber's leader about his man being literally exploded, he pulled a knife. If this suit gets punctured by a bullet, a knife, a sharp enough piece of paper, anything, I probably die. I only got out of taking off my mask by revealing my voice, which was funny to him."

Michiko's the first to answer. "Because you keep digging. Stop digging."

"Yeah, I'm with Michiko." Ishfaq confirms. "Just ease up on the pedal."

I turn to Emily with a frown.

"Don't look at me, Viv. I've been telling you it was a bad idea."

I go to object, but nod. "Yeah. It is. Let me be clear: I'm not quitting. When I say 'I'm not going to make it' I mean 'I'm not going to be alive in a year." I'd certainly like to be, but-"

"I could have taken him," Michiko signs. "You stopped me."

"You're an idiot, Viv. I'll add more defenses to your suit, see how much I can stretch that incredibly big budget we have now. Stop rushing into things. I get it, it's chaotic, you're dealing with a lot, but going to meet a gang leader at an unknown location with a singular bodyguard, no offense Michiko, is a terrible idea. You know what? I have a plan..."

Emily takes out her phone, calling someone on her contact list I couldn't read the name of in time.

An angry man's voice crackles over the phone, as Emily puts it on speaker. "Emily, if you say you can't work tomorrow, I swear to god I'm going to-"

"Actually, I quit. Bye, jackass." She hangs up the phone, smirking at me. "Bam. I'm your full-time tech girl now. I should have done it a while ago, but I'm committed now."

"Emily..." I say, trying to think of words that can match what I'm feeling. Only three come to mind, which I say with little fanfare. "I love you."

She wraps her arms around me, and presses her forehead into mine. "I love you too."

With a long stretch, and a few short hops to hype myself up, I enter into my clinic. Solvent was leaning against the doorframe, waiting for me, now following at my back. Seven Bleeding Heart members are in the waiting room. I was prepared for this. I open my coat, taking out two potions, as all the gang members hold their hands up.

I look around at the very much not attacking people. "I am lost."

One of them clears her throat, a tall girl with hair dyed red who looks vaguely familiar. "Look, we heard what happened with Zola. That was fucked up. We're not the only ones who think so. But we figured it would sound better if it came from people who you healed."

That's where I remember her from. Internal bleeding. I slowly put the potions back. "It is no matter. I am surprised he fell for such an obvious trick, however. This is a voice modulator." I tap my beak. "Observe." I whisper "modulator off." "Indeed, a convincing facsimile of a woman's larynx. Amusing, no?" I whisper again to turn it back on.

A few of the Heart members laugh a bit.

"My fellows, perchance share your intentions?"

The red haired woman looks off to the side. "Dunno. Just wanted you to know we got your back if some shit happens."

"Indeed? I am simply a physician, Bleeding Hearts. I have no aspirations beyond the perfection of my craft, but you all honor me with your gesture. It has restored my faith in your accumulated members. And I was moments from announcing I would refuse service to further Hearts patients, too."

"Shit. I'm glad you won't. We'll keep an eye out for you, okay? Be safe, Doc."

With a nod, the seven of them leave together, passing a very confused looking security detail of Kamakiri and a Nightjar.

With a smile hidden behind my mask, I notice the exam room was fixed overnight. I take a peek inside, and its like nothing happened. Absolutely wonderful.

Catalyst calls for me, as I exit the exam room and see Highway standing by the desk. "Heyo, Beaker. Got my dose?"

"Indeed, my friend. Please sit anywhere, I will return with it."

It's strange. It's not a life-saving treatment. It's a quality of life medicine, but it makes me proud.

When I return and administer the potion to Highway, I feel a slight pang of regret as he leaves. If I die soon, what's he supposed to do?

No, I decide, taking risks is selfish. And I've had too many people pull me out of the fire to be selfish anymore. My life is worth something. Worth a lot, in fact, to quite a few people.

I need to stay alive, for their sake.