xp_logs | For Treason Act IV, Scene v (Reply)

Contact, confirm, concuss. Cypher and X-23 go hunting for Jessie.

TW: Violence, death, slight gore, Zalgo text, possible gender dysphoria

"What is it with places like this and endless identical hallways?" Doug muttered as he and Laura prowled down one of said hallways. "Do you want the backrooms? Because this is how you get the backrooms." He could probably make a guess at the depersonalization of identical hallways, and the focus on the mad science being done rather than comfort, blah blah blah. It didn't help that he had the start of a migraine coming on from trying to keep track of their path and not accidentally double back on themselves. And the stress of where they were and why they were there.

The longer they went without seeing anyone, the more it started to feel like they actually might have shunted into a creepy place devoid of anything but endless expanses of metal and plywood and budget paint and fluorescent lighting.

Laura understood that reference having played the backrooms recently but she was too busy following a scent to respond. It wasn't that she couldn't follow the scent, it was that the scent was mixed in with dozens of other personnel and when she thought she had picked it up again she had lost it. Laura came to a door and kicked it open angrily but it was empty. "I can't find her, Pops." She was on the verge of tears because she hoped nothing bad had happened to Jessie. Laura remembered the creepy doctor, Good.Girl. echoed in her mind and she tore herself away from the room and stood in the center of the hallway and closed her eyes as she focused once more on Jessie's smell.

Doug placed his hand gently on Laura's shoulder to ground her in the here and now. "I got you," he told her softly. "Deep breath, close off the distractions." It sucked that one of the things he'd had to teach her was how to compartmentalize quite so much, but he knew how parsing too much input could be. "Think of your sunglasses."

There was a clank of metal as a smoke bomb flew down the hall, hitting the ground in front of the intruders and exploding. Many, many footsteps came down the hall as a man in fatigues led four guards in to ambush them.

"Remember, Killebrew wants the girl alive and unharmed!"

"Right, you need a break from the hand-to-hand," Wade said, frowning at his little protege. "Also, more push-ups and yoga and running, but today we're doing guns because I love them and no one will let me do battleaxes, which are the only thing I love more, except for -- well, that's not the point. The point is, this is a handgun." He put it on the table in front of her. "Today you're learning how to shoot because let's be real, these assholes aren't gonna be sending you out anywhere you actually have to know how to take one apart to clean it. Terrible gun safety, but then nobody really cares about safety now, anyway, either. So it's pretty easy -- pick it up. Make sure the safety's off. Never be unsure of whether your safety's on or off. People will try to make you look, but as long as you know you took the safety off, you never get distracted, so you never get dead. This is the safety." He pointed it out to her where the gun still sat between them on the table.

"Right, sure," ̷̮̯͖͋̇̽̔ͅ ̸͉̔̃ ̸͚̤̻͆͊̉ ̷̠̝̃ ̴̡̫̳͜͝ ̵̯̟͕̻̍̾ ̸̣̱̦̑͗̚͝ ̴̤̀͝ ̷̘͎̂̌͘ ̸͖͓̬̅̒̒͂ ̷͙̑͌ͅ ̴̻̽̂ ̸̻͆̋ ̵̬̍ ̴̠̞͚̆͋ muttered as she picked up the gun. It felt wrong in her hands, but that was nothing new. Everything felt wrong. "So just..."

She clicked off the safety. "Do I have to shoot you?"

The four guards descended on Laura as the smoke evaporated to try and apprehend her while the leader pulled a gun, pointed it at Doug, and fired.

Doug's left hand came up instinctively as his shoulder hunched and he ducked his head away from the gun. The nanites in his hand reacted in the same fashion they had before to a bullet, shredding it into pieces as it moved through the 'flesh' and ablating the majority of the force away at various angles, leaving tiny fragments to pelt against his shoulder and the side of his head. The impact stung, and a couple larger fragments drew tiny amounts of blood, but left him otherwise unharmed. He kept moving to the side, the second shot going high and wide as he grabbed his own pistol and put two center mass in the leader.

"I'm just chopped liver then? Fuckin' rude," he admonished the rest of the group, even as he fired steadily at them to cover Laura's advance.

The mental image of her favorite sunglasses faded as Laura sense were overloaded with smoke and she caughed and as the smoke cleared, she had a new smell reach her nose. Doug's blood. Laura immediately dropped to the ground as she was seperated from Doug by four guards. It was only a few seconds more before she had fully recovered from the smoke grenade but she had already begun to work. Kicking one of the legs out of the guard, she was told not to kill, but that didn't mean she couldn't injury someone so they couldn't be a threat anymore. Laura rolled out of center and ended up on the opposite side of the hallway as her two talons came out of each of her hands. She would aim for the non vital areas as engaged in the remaining guards.

"Yup," Wade said, nodding easily. "Now, the thing to remember is that shooting people in different places gets you different results. Usually, shoot someone in the head, they're dead. Shoot them in the shoulder and it messes up mobility and a whole lot of other things. It's also where a lot of important things like arteries live, so bleeding out is a potentially unforeseen consequence of shoulder shooting. I suggest going for like. The ass. Thighs have arteries, too, but if you go for the outside, you're not likely to kill them. If you want someone to die slow and painful, belly shot. I'm being told they mostly want you for up close and personal sneaky stuff, so fire a few times -- I'll be fine, I heal. I showed you that with the knives. Which we're learning to throw after this and the other stuff. Get used to the kickback -- you can brace with your other hand to lessen it, but I picked a pretty smallish handgun for you so you should be okay. If you accidentally shoot me in the head, don't worry about it. Gimme a few minutes and I'll get up."

That was a lot of information to take in, but that was usually how it went with Wade. She took a deep breath and aimed, using her left hand to stabilize her right like she'd seen other people do, pulled the trigger....

The kickback wasn't bad, but the small explosion left her ears ringing. And she completely missed.

"Fuck," she said, lowering the gun to rub her ears.

"Okay, well, at least you didn't drop the gun," Wade said, giving her double thumbs up. "Now that you've experienced kickback, try to adjust for it so you hit me." He took several steps around the table and lined himself up so they were nearly pointblank. "You'll get used to the sound, just the same way you can get used to loud music. Actually, you should try shifting your ears some to see if you can dampen the sound. That'd be cool."

How would she even do that? She rubbed her ears again, trying to focus on making them do... something. Maybe make them smaller? Would that work? She'd think on it. Maybe ask the doctor if he had any ideas.

In the meantime, she raised the gun, ignoring the feeling of ants in her hands as she took aim again and pulled the trigger. This time the bullet hit Wade in the knee. She had definitely been aiming for the shoulder, but at least she made contact.

"Oh nice," Wade said, saving himself from full collapse by wildly swinging his arms and then bouncing on one leg. "Excellent -- knees are great because your targets can't run away and they're usually still alive long enough to tell you what you wanna know if you need that kind of thing. A+ on accidental assault with a deadly weapon -- I know you were aiming for my shoulder, sneaky-sneak. They put some vicious in you while they were doing all the other things, didn't they?" He grinned, the expression rictus, before kicking his injured leg out like a can-can girl. Three different things popped at once and then he put his weight back on it like nothing had happened.

"Again," he said.

The leader grunted as he was hit, stumbling back, but the bulletproof vest took most of the blow. He recovered and pulled a knife, rushing Doug.

"Okay, I know you've had the basics," Wade said, scratching at his cheek where a new scar was pulling strangely and itching. "What we're doing here isn't basic, it's like... basic squared. Or... whatever -- knives. Lesson plan said knives, writer says knives -- I think guns would work, but everybody's like, 'No, no, secrets.' So we're doing knives. Your goal today, whether you choose to accept it or not, is to stab me. I'll give you the first ten for free, cause it's weird stabbing people without knowing what it feels like or what to expect." He gestured toward a wide array of throwing knives on the table to the side. "They're literally all exactly the same, pick one up and come stab me somewhere you think's vital."

̷̣̦̽̀ ̴̢̞̙͍͖̐͂̍̅̃ ̶̘̈́̋̀͘͝ ̷̡͉̳̥͎̾͐̈́ ̴̘̻͌̅͒͜ looked at the array of knives, then at Wade, then back at the knives. Finally she picked one up, weighing it in her hand, making vague thrusting motions to get a feel for it. "So just...?"

She mimed stabbing a few times.

"Yup," Wade said, nodding. "You know anatomy and stuff -- basic self-defense. Go for the weak spots -- the ones that'll do the most damage. You're a shape shifter, so you can go big or go small, according to the lesson plans they left. Ten times -- stab me where you think it'll hurt worst. Try to incapacitate me. And be fast, a lot of the time your first strike's gonna open up new areas of vulnerabilities in your target. So c'mon. Let's go."

"Okay..."

~Watch the knife, watch the knife,~ Doug had done plenty of knife training over the years, and the first thing you learned was to always know where the knife was. (Actually, the first lesson in knife fighting is that if a knife comes out, someone is getting cut no matter how good they are.) Feints and even punches from the off hand were much less important than seeing the actual strikes coming with enough time to react to them. His opponent came in with the knife in a loose reverse grip of his right hand, but as expected led with a big haymaker style punch from the offhand that Doug bunched his shoulder to take the blow on, concentrating on the thrust-slash-backhand swipe combination from the knife hand. He moved steadily backward, parrying and redirecting the strikes before launching a flurry of punches in counterattack.

A low feint turned into a powerful overhead stab right at Doug's face, and Doug could almost read the expectation in the other man - he would expect Doug to forearm block, or even use both arms in an X to reinforce and trap the wrist. At which point the knife would drop low to the off hand for a slash, with Doug's hands completely out of position.

Instead, Doug simply put up his left hand, letting the blade slide right into the meat of his palm, all the way to the hilt. There was no blood, no exclamation of pain, merely a tight grin. ::lock:: The nanites flowed up around the hilt and then hardened, leaving the knife embedded, at which point Doug pulled it out and away, twisting it against the guard's grip and leaving him open to strike at the throat with the web between his thumb and forefinger.

There was definitely a stunned moment of "what the fuck" as the man stared at the knife embedded in Doug's hand.

She re-gripped the knife so she could thrust it forward easily. Where it hurt most? Everyone always said stomach wounds were the worst. She took a deep breath and, with all the force she could muster, thrust the knife forward. It definitely broke skin, but it didn't go deep.

"So that's what happens when a knife hits flexed muscle -- didn't mean to flex, it's habit. But that was a pretty good spot to aim for," Wade said, wrapping his hand around her's on the knife hilt and guiding it forward with more pressure. "See, easier when I'm not flexing? But you're gonna have to put more like... constant force behind the blade to get it to go in when flexed. Now, since you picked the stomach, remember you're usually gonna want to push in and then like, shred. Kinda move the blade around -- with throwing knives, they're generally meant to just hit and sink, cause you're throwing them, right? But if you're using them for stabbing -- oh hey, idea. When we're done with this, we'll get you started on throwing knives, too. Cause that'll be useful if you've got multiple good guys you're trying to take down."

She winced at the squelching noise the knife made as it sunk deeper into Wade's stomach. "Okay, like, I get what you're saying," she said, making the motions as she pretended to wiggle the knife around. "But I don't think I'm strong enough for this?"

"So bulk up a bit, Miss Shape Changer," Wade said, obviously amused by her comment. "And anyway, it's not about strength, per se. It's about viciousness. Intent. Pretend I'm someone you know who's terrible. Pretend I'm someone who's hurt you or someone you care about -- pretend I'm a baddie you need to protect yourself and your friends from. Hell, pretend I'm that godawful teacher I know you had to have had at some point who continually misgendered you and constantly used your dead name even though the administration had told them to stop. I don't know who you need to think I am, but think it. Killing people is actually the easiest thing they're going to teach you here -- there are tons of ways to do it. Also, I want to register that I did say 'guns' and everyone else was like, "no, knives," which is ridiculous. We're gonna leave this knife in. Get another one and try again. Pick a different spot. Try and like, body it -- stack your hand, your wrist, your elbow, then brace your elbow against your ribs and lean into it. You're just getting a feel for it."

Then he was moving, ducking Doug's blow. He drove his fist into Doug's nuts, then shouldered him in the abdomen, grabbed his arm, and used his position to haul Doug over his shoulder, throwing him off to the side.

Thank god for wearing a cup on missions. As it was, the compression and impact still left Doug wincing for a moment as he was grabbed. He was able to control his fall into a roll, but his one shoulder definitely took the brunt of the impact. He came up to a three point crouch and then launched himself forward again, using his right hand to pull the knife out of his left, which sealed back up without a mark. He drove the knife low toward the guard's gut, trying to get under the tactical vest the man was obviously wearing to have taken two bullets. As the man arched his body backward, Doug planted his left hand on the floor, pushing his body through a tight spin and flashing a spinning reverse kick right at his head.

The man brought up his arm to cover his head, letting his forearm take the brunt of the kick. He shoved back against him, trying to push him off balance, and pushed forward to rush him.

"We're not gonna Mr Miyagi this shit, okay? Great movie, but I don't have any cars or windows for you to wax. What we're doing today is specifically Krav Maga. You'll have homework, because of course you will, but they want you ready to kill so that's what we're aiming for. Also, it's that or Sambo and the writers-that-be have Israel on the brain at the moment, so Ziva David you will become. The main thing about any martial art that's specifically for military use is that it's fast and the goal is to take your target down with as little effort on your part as possible. You want the biggest return on the littlest investment. Like the stock market, only with throat punches," Wade said. "We've been doing the usual strength and endurance training. That hand-to-hand we've done so far has done wonders for your stabbing and your hand-eye coordination is getting a lot better with the guns. Marry those two things. We're gonna start out with kata, which seems like Mr Miyagi shit, but it's not. And we're gonna do katas non-stop when you're not doing other things until you can punch me in the throat and break my windpipe."

She stared at him for a long few moments, blinking. "I only understand about forty-five percent of what you say ninety percent of the time."

Meanwhile, Laura was dealing with four, trained but not that trained guards. They stared down at her, they had their orders, and she was only 5'1.The first guard reached with a baton to hit her in the shoulder but Laura twisted letting the baton miss her but she grabbed the man's wrist as it crossed her body, which she then did a sharp pivot and his arm twisted across her body, giving a loud crack before she slammed her boot into the side of his knee. The first guard when down writhing in pain.

The second and third came towards her with the same speed as the first. She ducked beneath the first swing, but took the second swing breaking her nose. Laura stood up, she snapped her nose back into place and the small gash that had appeared started to heal. "My turn." Moved quickly between the two, kicking the second guard in the stomach and sending them back towards the fourth who was aiming their dart gun and both fell to the ground. The third one she punched upwards finding the throat. It wasn't enough to kill him but enough to bring him crashing to the ground as he coughed and struggled to breath.

Seeing the gun on the floor that had scattered away from the fourth guard she picked it up and aimed it at the remaining two guards who were struggling to get out. With two shots, both of them were back on the ground, knocked out from the tranquilizers meant for her. She moved to aim it at the guard that was still struggling to breath and fired and at the first guard who was still struggling with his broken arm and fired the last shot. She gave a quick nodded and looked back to see how her pops was doing.

Doug couldn't spare much attention for Laura, but thankfully by the noises he could tell she was holding her own. He circled his opponent so he could see her looking at him and flashed her a couple hand signs. Keep a lookout for anyone else.

Whoever this guy was, he was clearly a cut above the rest. The other guards had displayed pretty typical 'grunt' skill levels, but this one moved with purpose and lethality. If pressed, Doug would guess the main art as krav maga, but someone had clearly spent some time crosstraining him with other styles. He barely covered up in time to take a hard muay thai knee on his outer arm rather than in the floating ribs, and as he shouldered the man back he whipped the knife across the bicep, scoring a line of red that looked like it would bleed a fair amount...but as they both hung just out of arm's reach, Doug could see unbroken skin under the sliced-open shirt. There was blood in the fabric, he'd definitely hit the guy, but what the hell?

~What's a mutant doing calling the shots for a bunch of guards?~

The man closed in on Doug again, moving as if nothing had happened. He pulled another knife and thrust it underhand, aiming for Doug's stomach.

Laura saw the hand signals but she also saw the flash of metal in the other guards hands. Quickly Laura moved to protect Doug from the knife that was aim for his vital organ and went in to punch the guard it the ribs.

Most of the blow hit the Kevlar vest, but it was still enough to drive him back. His eyes flicked between the two as he seemed to make a split-second decision.

"Before you sits a vast array of totally random stuff," Wade began, gesturing to the table in front of his little not-minion. "Baskets, bowls, computer parts, tools, cabinets, buckets... pretty much anything I could get my hands on that nobody complained about me taking. Today's lesson is going to be on improvised weapons while fighting. You never know where you're gonna be when you gotta put the smackdown on somebody, so it's good to understand that literally anything can be a weapon. Even other weapons -- like you run outta bullets. The gun's not gonna do you any good without 'em, so just chuck it at the next person's head when you gotta. Sometimes, a mission goes sideways and it ends up not being about ending somebody as soon as you can as quiet as you can. It turns into a survival thing. When that little meter ticks over, you have to be ready to do whatever it takes to make it out alive. If that's fighting hand-to-hand, then that's what you do. If that's fading into the background and blending your way out of it, then that's what you do. If that's shattering vases or laptops or anything else over somebody's head to give you time to get away, then you do that. So before we really get started, tell me what you think you could do with some of the stuff here."

̷̮̯͖͋̇̽̔ͅ ̸͉̔̃ ̸͚̤̻͆͊̉ ̷̠̝̃ ̴̡̫̳͜͝ ̵̯̟͕̻̍̾ ̸̣̱̦̑͗̚͝ ̴̤̀͝ ̷̘͎̂̌͘ ̸͖͓̬̅̒̒͂ ̷͙̑͌ͅ ̴̻̽̂ ̸̻͆̋ ̵̬̍ ̴̠̞͚̆͋ examined the objects with a stern expression, working out plans in her head. "Buckets can be swung easily and hit people in the head. Or like, get kind of cartoon-y and put it on someone's head like a helmet, then beat the shit out of them while they're disoriented. Same with baskets, although you probably won't get quite the same effect if it doesn't cover their faces.”

She picked up a screwdriver, making stabbing motions. "Pretty obvious. Probably go for the eyes or some other fleshy bit to do the most damage since it's not exactly sharp. Cabinets... how did you even get your hands on cabinets? Did you just rip them off the wall?"

"Well, it wasn't like anyone was using them," Wade said, shrugging. "At least not for anything important. Talk to me about some other things you could do if people are coming after you -- not just close-quarters."

"I guess if I want to avoid a fight I could shrink myself down and hide? Or throw things if they're far enough away."

She examines the screwdriver for a moment, tilting her head. "This would be a terrible throwing knife obviously but it would do in a pinch. Even if it's just to distract the person so I can do something else."

"Yes, exactly," Wade said, nodding. "Throwing things is always a viable option. Also, knocking things over and into the path of the people coming after you. Make it as difficult as you possibly can -- spilling fluids like oil and grease is also a good route to go if you've got time. Your goal is to always, always make it back to your handlers with the information you were sent to get. That doesn't mean you're expendable in pursuit of that information -- because I guarantee I can just shoot somebody to make Weapon-X's problem go away, but there's only one you and they're putting a lot of effort into training you up right. That means they have bigger plans for you down the road.

"Now, let's get some throwing and evasion practice in. I'll give you a head start of five seconds. Start running."

He flipped the knife so he was holding the blade and threw it at Doug, hitting him smack dab in the middle of the forehead. Then he dove at Laura, ignoring her slashing claws even when they caught skin. He got her in a bear hug, pinning her arms to her sides; they hit the floor and rolled a few times until the man was on top, pinning Laura down. He pulled another knife and drove it into her stomach, leaving it there. Nothing major was hit; she was hurt, but she'd heal.

"Dr. Killebrew wants you alive," he hissed. "Stay down."

He pulled himself up and turned to face Doug again.

Who the hell -was- this guy? Doug prided himself on his fighting ability, but he was hard pressed by this opponent. If it weren't for the nanites he'd have been shot and stabbed multiple times by now. The way he spoke to Laura, it was almost like it was something personal between them, but Laura hadn't mentioned anyone like this. She'd only talked about 'Agent X' who had helped her escape, and it didn't take a big leap of logic to figure that had been Wade. And this guy wasn't Wade. He kinda fought like Wade, though, what with knowing his way around knives and guns, the general brutality of his fighting style…

"You know, you're not the first person to tell me that... or something similar to that, anyway. The point is, muscle memory. So I'm gonna start you on kata -- movements that you'll repeat ten million times until you can do them without thinking," Wade said. "Think Thai Chi, but obviously not that. I think you'd actually benefit from the elbow breaking one, but that's not murder-y enough. So here we go -- do what I do. Once you get the first one down, we'll work on it -- I'll correct your stances and all that. It's a good thing there's the time-y whime-y bullshit going on, otherwise these assholes would be so pissy about my teaching methods..."

She frowned, copying his example. "Muscle memory. Okay."

She'd noticed that her body was changing - naturally, not just when she wanted to change it. That she could hold a gun for longer without her hands cramping. Drive the knife a little deeper on the first stab. Move a little quicker. Duck a little faster. Sometimes it scared her. What was she becoming?

"Remind me to bring a boombox or something next time," Wade said. "We need a training montage soundtrack."

Doug closed with him again, each of them holding a knife now, the weapons in constant motion, looking for an opening. Doug came in with a kick toward the knee, but when the guard reached toward the leg to trap it and stab, he instead dropped low, slashing into the thigh as he rolled away.

The man cried out, staggering. The skin shifted to knit itself back together, but it was obvious that he was getting tired. He re-gripped the knife and dove at Doug as he came out of the roll, but his swing went a bit wide; the very tip of the blade shallowly sliced Doug's cheek, but it was far from deadly.

Well, that was something. The healing, however it was happening, could be overcome. Doug bared his teeth, feeling momentum starting to shift. The guard came in with a series of thrusts at Doug's neck and throat, and he bobbed and wove like a prizefighter. A slight overextension on the final thrust left an opening for Doug to grab with his left hand and pull the other man off-balance into a punishing kick to the chest. Raising that leg higher, he hooked it behind his neck, launching up with his other leg to use downward momentum to bear his opponent face first toward the ground.

The guard tucked and turned the fall into a roll, taking him out of range of Doug's follow-up kick. As they both came to their feet and Doug started to slash at the ribs, the other man stepped in and used his forearm to push the strike outward, robbing Doug of any room to continue the strike. Then, grabbing Doug's right wrist in his left hand, the guard slowly turned his arm and struck hard with the butt of his own knife against Doug's fingers, causing the blond's grip on his knife to falter. The knife dropped and the leader kicked it away down the hall.

As the remaining knife reversed up toward Doug's face, he stopped the strike with his own left hand. Pulling a leg up, he pressed his foot into the guard's stomach and launched him across the hall and into a wall. Lunging in after, Doug grabbed the other man's hair and slammed his head back a second time into the wall.

A third strike went wide and the guard's knife came up and sliced Doug's bicep in a mirror of the strike he had made earlier. He staggered backward slightly, ducking under the followup that would have come across his neck and bled him out quickly. He drove a fist hard into the guard's kidney and then smashed an uppercut right at the point of the jaw. The guard twisted away from the worst of the knockout blow and pivoted to bring the knife back into play, driving it forward with a two-handed grip. Doug brought his own up to stop it from stabbing into his face, but the guard kept driving with his feet, causing Doug's to slip backward.

::gibney::

There was another pulse of acknowledgement from the nanites. As his right hand pulled the strike up to glance along his temple, drawing blood as it slammed into the wall, Doug's left hand sprouted claws that were a match for Wildchild's, and he grabbed at the guard's left knee, digging and ripping the hamstring. The guard howled as he tried to spin on the lamed leg, thrusting the knife at Doug's head to buy time to knit the muscle and tendon back together. Doug leaned back far enough for the thrust to pass, then his clawed hand came up to close around the guard's throat. They dug in, leaving pinpricks of blood.

The tableau stretched for several rapid heartbeats, then just as Doug was about to close his fingers and rip the guard's throat out, a tiny ripple caught his eye and the mystery suddenly clicked. The claws disappeared back into his hand and Doug pulled him into an elbow strike that had all of his weight behind it, driving the other man's skull into the wall hard enough to concuss and send him crumpling to the floor.

"Alright, so you've graduated! Congratulations! Your reward is this really old clunker of a car that I tuned up a bit," Wade said, gesturing to the vehicle in question. "Today... you're learning defensive and combat driving. The most important thing to know about this course is that the vehicle is a tool. Yes, it's meant to get you from point A to point B, but it's also a shield, a battering ram, and if it really comes down to it, a fantastic distraction in a lot of ways. We'll go over those later, but let me introduce you to Lucinda -- Lucy for short. She's got more going for her on the inside than you'd be able to tell just from looking at her. Go ahead and get behind the wheel -- don't touch anything but the seat until I'm in there with you."

She climbed into the car, keeping her hands carefully to herself.

"Hello Lucy," she greeted the car, because while she never understood naming cars, she respected those that did.

Wade slid into the passenger seat and closed the door, not bothering with the seatbelt as he began explaining some of the modifications he'd made to the car. "First, I upgraded her steering and her brakes. If you need to make a quick turn, you can drift -- yes, I'll teach you how to do that. It involves pulling the manual brake." He gestured to where it sat in the middle of the center console. "There's also a button on the end of the gear shift. It's neon green -- only hit that if you're stuck on a straight-ish road and need to outrun pursuit. It's a level of nitro that is, frankly, otherwise unsafe and you don't have a healing factor, so we're going to avoid you going squish or splat. Go ahead, crank her up."

She buckled in first, just in case. Like Wade said, she didn't have a healing factor, and she was squishy. Then she turned on the car, which sounded frankly far better than it should given how old it obviously was.

"I'm not great at stick. My grandfather tried to teach me but we both agreed it was safer for everyone involved if I just drove automatic."

"Lucy's gonna take care of you, but you're gonna have to get used to stick. It's okay, I've got a simulation figured out for you that'll help you practice that, but first-hand, real-world experience is better. Thus, Lucinda. Plus, I can repair whatever damage you do to her initially and she's not gonna be what you're driving if you're designated GD -- getaway driver. Let's see what you remember from when your grandpa taught you," Wade said.

She nodded and put the car into gear, starting forward slowly.

The guard hit the floor and immediately started changing.

Facial features began to blur and became indistinct. Thick limbs deflated, becoming gangly and thin. The shaved hair sprouted out, turning blonde and growing long as it splayed out under the person’s head. The sharp features faded into something softer and rounder, though still not quite the right shape. Like looking into a funhouse mirror. But the face was still unmistakably familiar.

Her jaw twitched and shook as she rubbed the red, sensitive skin. She tried to glare at the doctor, but the tears in her eyes didn't do much for making her look threatening.

"Why me?" she asked in a small voice. "Why did you take me?"

Dr Killebrew handed over the bottle of aloe, and a few cotton pads before peeling off his nitrile gloves and washing his hands. Then he answered. "You're our little lost lamb. We planted so many little seeds in the world. Sometimes, like you, or your Mister Gibney, we get lucky and get to reclaim our lost children."

She opened and closed her mouth a few times, trying to process this information. "Lost... children?"

"Ah, yes. Little projects we developed, some genetic modification, a donor egg or spermocyte..." He picked up his almost ever-present tablet and scrolled through it. "I am not quite sure the origin of your original donors. The modification of your DNA was one of my projects though. Gorgeous work, you are really absolutely lovely."

She hated when he talked about her like that. Like she was... a car or a boat or something he built. But she couldn't focus on that. "I'm... from here?"

"I certainly hope you mean one of our projects. I am not sure I can confer Canadian citizenship on you." Killebrew said. "Of course you are from here. Where else would you be from? We would not have sought you out if you weren't one of our finest projects."

"I certainly hope you mean one of our projects. I am not sure I can confer Canadian citizenship on you." Killebrew said. "Of course you are from here. Where else would you be from? We would not have sought you out if you weren't one of our finest projects."

"Oh." That's a very inadequate response to everything she'd just been told. She carefully rubbed some aloe onto her face, wincing. "So my parents..."

"Raised you, perhaps not in the fashion we might have." Killebrew said. "But still, you are strong and young and resilient. Any skills they neglected to give you we can certainly catch you up. If you like to consider them your parents, I will not stop you."

Her eye twitched, not from pain this time. Had he never heard of a straight forward answer? "Right," she mumbled, leaning back in the exam chair and turning her gaze to the wall.

"Now don't be like that, Miss ̸̯͌̎͒ ̴͙͝ ̶̧͙͎̓̃͠ ̷͈̤̒̍͒͝ ̶̹̱̾͐͘ ̶̨̽̅ ̷͈̉̏̿͝ ̶̙̱̌͛̕ ̷͎́. We brought you home, where you can have siblings, and a family." He began to put the machine away, wiping it down carefully. "And do not let your Mister Gibney run you through those workouts today or tomorrow. You need to rest and heal after treatments."