Enhancer 4

by Wyatt Kane

  Yet, maybe it could be.

  If there was a way, he couldn’t think of it just then. Maybe he should have another chat with Brad, he thought. The gamer often had a unique way of looking at things, and Ty was almost sure he would have something interesting to say.

  Brad might even get a kick out of the idea of somehow using a gaming concept in a real-world environment

  Ty mentally added talking with his friend to his list of things to do, and then Lilith and Tempest reappeared in the main entrance way.

  ◆◆◆

  “It wasn’t there,” Tempest said.

  Ty hesitated, confused by the blonde woman’s words.

  “Huh?” he said.

  “The clinic,” Tempest clarified. “We went to the address you gave us, and saw the place you described. But there was no clinic there. It was empty, a vacant space between stores. The only things left were the few tools. It looked as if a new tenant is gearing up for a refit.”

  Ty couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Vacant? Just the day before, it had been a full-functioning clinic.

  “The reception area, the dentist chairs in the back rooms – all gone?”

  Lilith nodded. “As if they never existed. Even the front window was clean. No signage, nothing. There was no trace of anything to prove that the clinic was there.”

  Ty’s brain may not have been up to its usual efficiency, but Tempest and Lilith’s news sent it whirling. “I was meant to go back tomorrow. I had an appointment penciled in and everything.” In his mind, he couldn’t help but think about the second part of his payment. The money would have been useful, but now it looked like it was no more than fiction.

  And what about the receptionist, Aleta, and the guy who had administered the drug. Darien Cort, if he remembered correctly. What had happened to them?

  At the same time, Ty wondered what the disappearance of the clinic could mean. Had it all been some sort of elaborate hoax, designed to get him through the door and no more?

  If so, then why? What did the Master—or anyone—have to gain from that sort of charade?

  What could they gain by giving Ty a free dose of AZT-407?

  “We talked to everyone we could find in the area,” Lilith said. “You’ve been there – the shops in that part of town never close. I don’t know how many people we spoke to, but no one knew very much.”

  “We did get confirmation that the clinic had been there,” Tempest added. “One of the guys from the shop next door said it had been there for less than a week. But no one knew why it was gone, or where it might have gone to.”

  It was all Ty could do to stare at the blonde superhero with a puzzled expression. Nor did anyone else seem to have anything insightful to add.

  After a moment, Dinah spoke. “I haven’t yet had a chance to look into OmniTec Industries my way. I’ll do that after dinner. Speaking of which, it’s time to set the table.”

  25: Reload

  Dinner should have been an event filled with laughter and good spirits. The food was as delicious as usual, and Ty couldn’t fault the choice of company in the least. There was nobody he would have preferred to spend time with than these three wonderful, beautiful women, and by then he was sure the feeling was mutual.

  But the atmosphere over the table was decidedly subdued. Tempest didn’t say much, nor could Ty blame her. If he was in her position, he would have been focused more on the Architect, worrying about him and what they could do to best support his recovery—or at least, to make sure he was comfortable.

  Lilith seemed generally tired, a response Ty understood completely. It had been a trying day, and a long one. And, unlike him, the demon woman hadn’t found time for a nap.

  Dinah tried at first to engage the others in conversation, but had little success. Yet she didn’t seem overly worried either way, seemingly content to just spend time with the people in her life.

  Nor did Ty really help matters either. There was too much going on inside his head to do more than offer the most basic responses to Dinah’s conversational attempts.

  He could barely even pay the meal the attention it deserved. As with everything else Dinah had produced, the flavors were truly spectacular. And even the dessert tasted fantastic, although Ty couldn’t truly understand how they had ended up with such a rich, delicious mousse given the ingredients they had begun with.

  When the meal was done, Lilith stood and excused herself, saying she had to get back to her father.

  Tempest nodded at this, perhaps understanding the demon woman’s motivation perhaps better than anyone else. As for Ty, as much as he wanted to just spend time with the women he loved, he still had work to do.

  He carried the empty dishes to the kitchen and helped Dinah stack them in the dishwasher, then made his own apologies.

  “I still need to finish up in the workshop,” he said. “The EMP grenade knocked pretty much everything out, and I’ve only sorted out about half of it.”

  ◆◆◆

  If it wasn’t for the medication Dinah had given him, Ty wouldn’t have been able to function. Even with it, he could sense the edges of his exhaustion trying to regain control. All he could do was push himself to continue and hope that a good night’s sleep would finally put the AZT-407 hangover to rest.

  At least his healing nanites appeared to be working again. His most recent burns had faded to the point where he barely noticed them. And, fortunately, the work he had to do this evening wasn’t difficult. It was just a matter of replacing the tech he had lost.

  He spent no more than an hour or so upgrading the device he now wore, as well as replacing the neural control for his shield.

  He would have liked to work on that a bit more, to try to turn it into something that would allow them to communicate with the Architect. As well, he wanted to finish giving himself the ability to fly, and Sparkles’ skill had given him additional ideas.

  But for the moment, he had to accept his limitations and just added all the things he wanted to do onto his growing list.

  When all of his tech was back the way it was, including the reintegration of his cell phone into his device, Ty fabricated another three EMP grenades, even though he was less inclined to want to use them now than he had been before.

  He looked at the pile of dead devices on the workbench. In his mind, they were the difference between having the power to really get things done and just being another victim of the New Lincoln indifference. Once before, when Dinah had been kidnapped, he’d looked into fabricating spares. But, because of way the devices worked, he had failed at a particular hurdle.

  Each device relied on a particular type of crystal that had to be grown. Ty couldn’t simply fabricate it. The four devices on the workbench might not work any more, but the crystals within them should still be fine. At the very least, Ty ought to be able salvage them for future use.

  But that was for later, when his brain wasn’t so tired.

  With a sigh of regret that he couldn’t just dose himself with AZT-407 and enjoy the buzz of creation once more, Ty took extra care setting the workshop back to rights. With the Architect now resident in the mansion, it would have felt disrespectful for Ty to do anything less.

  That done, he went upstairs in search of the girls.

  Apparently, it had been a long day for everyone. He found both Tempest and Dinah in the deerkin’s room and wondered briefly why they weren’t in Tempest’s. After all, the blonde superhero’s bed was the biggest.

  Then he understood. Tempest’s room had belonged to the Architect before she had taken it over. Just like Ty hadn’t wished to leave the workshop in any state that might hint at disrespect, perhaps Tempest didn’t want to sleep in her own bed with the Architect effectively back in residence.

  When Ty had first put on his device, he’d fought against the idea that he had effectively moved in with Tempest and Dinah. He still had his own apartment, even with a hole in the wall, which he shared with Brad. Theoretically, he could return to that apartment at a
ny time, just as Lilith had done earlier, teleporting away, leaving Ty and the others to their own devices.

  But Ty had spent more and more time at the mansion, and hadn’t spent a single night back at his own place in weeks.

  Somewhere in his mind, a line had been crossed. He didn’t even think about leaving them now. Ty’s only concern was not to wake them as he climbed out of his clothes and slid under the covers beside them.

  It didn’t work. Perhaps Dinah wasn’t fully asleep when Ty entered the room. Either way, as soon as his head hit the pillow, the deerkin untangled herself from Tempest’s embrace and rolled over toward him.

  “Missed you,” she said sleepily as she nuzzled against him.

  Ty knew she was naked beneath the covers. He could feel the soft skin of her breasts pressing against his side, as well as the delicate feather of her legs against his. Yet it had been a long day. Despite his body’s automatic response, he didn’t want to interfere with the deerkin’s sleep. He turned toward her and placed a hand on her waist, but no more than that.

  “Missed you too,” he said, and knew it was true even though he’d been busy in the workshop. His life had changed so much in the past couple of weeks. If he had the chance to go back in time to tell the Ty from barely a month ago what his life would soon be like, he would never have believed himself.

  Ty closed his eyes with every intention of going to sleep, but the deerkin pushed him onto his back again and started to kiss his collarbone.

  In the comparative darkness of the deerkin’s bedroom, Ty had to smile.

  “Mmmm,” Dinah murmured, sounding a little more awake than before. “You taste good,” she said. She shifted her weight to be closer to him, pressing herself against his side and hip. Ty reached over to play with her fluffy deer tail for a moment, then decided he didn’t want to wait any longer. He half rolled toward her again, but only to give himself leverage. Before Dinah could tell what he was up to, he slid his other hand under her hip and levered her up so she was on top of him.

  The deerkin gave a quiet, throaty laugh, but she didn’t object. Instead, she rubbed herself against Ty’s erection and started kissing his neck. It felt really good to Ty, but not good enough. Grabbing her by the hips, he moved her up just a little further than she intended and slipped inside.

  The deerkin gave a quiet gasp and paused in what she was doing. Breathing more loudly than usual, she lowered herself down as far as she could go and ground herself against him.

  Ty still had his hands on her hips. He used them to good effect, crushing her against him as hard as he could. Then, gently, they moved a little apart, only to slide back together once again.

  “Quietly,” Dinah said. “We don’t want to wake Tempest.”

  Ty thought waking Tempest might not be a bad idea at all, but he respected the deerkin’s wishes. Together, gently but with increasing passion, they moved against one another, doing all they could to avoid making any noise or jostling the bed.

  Somehow, the idea of not disturbing Tempest seemed to heighten every sensation. The artificial constraint made Ty more aware of everything, from the feel of Dinah’s skin against his, the way she moved in the dark, to the way their movements set up tiny sounds they couldn’t control. He was also acutely conscious of Tempest, listening to her steady breathing beside them for any hint of a change.

  Partway through, Dinah started to laugh as she stifled a moan, and that set Ty off as well. From that moment on, everything they did seemed hilarious, and it was all Ty could do to keep from laughing out loud.

  It was a delicious experience he knew he would long remember, only coming to an end when Dinah tried to suppress a series of gasps that came at the same time as she shuddered against him. It seemed that the act of trying to curb her own responses had the opposite effect, augmented the sensation for her as well.

  She continued to quietly gasp and shudder for much longer than she had done on previous occasions, before collapsing against him with a quiet, deeply satisfied chuckle.

  Into the silence that followed, Tempest spoke. “Is it my turn yet?” she murmured, her voice thick with sleep.

  Ty couldn’t help himself, and neither could Dinah. They’d been caught, and they knew it, and they responded with gales of laughter.

  ◆◆◆

  It was almost inevitable that they would be woken again by one of Dinah’s alerts. This time, at least it wasn’t in the middle of the night.

  26: Plague Alert

  Ty woke to the electronic sound feeling almost back to his usual self. The effects of the AZT-407 had finally faded, and his brain felt like it was working again. At the same time, he was starting to get really annoyed by these ongoing emergencies.

  He just wanted to find out who the Master was, what he was doing, and how they could stop him.

  Ty sat up in the bed while Dinah reached for the tablet she kept on the bedside cabinet next to her supply of lollipops. But Tempest had another reaction. She blinked in the morning light shining through the curtains, muttered something unintelligible, and buried her head in the blankets.

  It was enough to make Ty smile, but that smile quickly faded when he saw Dinah’s expression.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  The deerkin didn’t look up from her tablet. Even in the morning, she was beautiful, her natural markings giving her features both interest and texture that no make-up artist could hope to match. Ty would have been happy to spend his days just looking at her.

  “Strange,” the deerkin said.

  Tempest apparently decided she couldn’t hide from the realities of the day. She threw the covers back and heaved herself up onto her elbows, exposing her perfect body with no modesty at all. She glanced blearily at Ty, who had somehow migrated to the space between the two women.

  “Morning,” she mumbled. Then she spoke to Dinah. “What’s strange?” she said, more loudly.

  “This one’s different,” the deerkin replied.

  She glanced up at Ty and Tempest, taking in their puzzled expressions, and sought to clarify. “I have alert set for anything unusual. For all sorts of things. Bank hold-ups, hostage situations, riots, you name it. This is an old one that until now has never triggered.” As she spoke, her expression was troubled.

  “What is it?” asked Ty. He was wondering what the Master was up to this time.

  “It’s my plague alert,” Dinah said.

  “Plague?” Ty asked.

  “Yes. But that was just a generic term I chose for the alert. It’s supposed to trigger whenever there’s an unusual pattern of hospital admissions. For things other than physical injuries. Like, it would trigger if the water supply became toxic, or a particularly nasty flu happened to be doing the rounds.”

  Ty understood. “And now? What’s happening?”

  “What is that bastard up to?” Tempest added.

  Nobody had to ask who she was referring to. “I’m not sure. People are falling ill. Hundreds of them.”

  Ty digested this solemnly. “What do we do about it?”

  In his mind, he wondered if the Master had indeed unleashed a plague on the city of New Lincoln. Without understanding what the secretive villain wanted to accomplish, it was hard to know what his limits were. Would he truly be willing to put the lives of an unknown number of people in danger? For what?

  “Well,” the deerkin said. “First, we need to find out what it is. Which means we need to find one of the victims and bring them back here.”

  Simple enough, Ty thought. But he couldn’t stop himself from asking a follow-up question. “Then what?”

  The deerkin didn’t really have an answer. “It depends on what we find,” she said.

  Into the silence that followed, Tempest spoke. “I’ll go,” she said. With that, she threw the covers aside and climbed out of bed.

  ◆◆◆

  There was no point in Ty going with her. He would just slow her down. Instead, Ty took a quick shower, then wandered into Zach’s room to pick out a new
shirt and pants. As he did, he silently gave thanks to the man he’d met only once, but who’d had such a profound impact on his life.

  Although the dead superhero’s tastes were far more toward the flamboyant end of the spectrum than Ty’s, there was still a selection of more muted options. Ty selected a plain, cream colored shirt and dark pants.

  After he was dressed, Ty reflected that for the first time in what seemed like days, he felt back to his usual self. His mind felt clear and un-muddied, and he no longer suffered the sharp headache of the AZT-407 hangover.

  A quick check of his stats confirmed it.

  General

  Name: Ty Wilcox

  Modifications: None

  Unique Skill: Technological Enhancement

  Secondary Skill: Cyber Assimilation

  Alignment: Neutral Good

  Baseline

  Strength: 4

  Durability: 3

  Healing: 5

  Stamina: 4

  Agility: 4

  Intelligence: 7

  Wisdom: 5

  Skill: N/A

  Secondary Skill: N/A

  Post enhancement

  Strength: 7

  Durability: 6

  Healing: 7

  Stamina: 6

  Agility: 7

  Intelligence: 8

  Wisdom: 6

  Skill: 3

  Secondary Skill: -

  The debuff caused by the AZT-407 hangover had indeed vanished. He was back to his normal self, albeit with a non-functioning secondary skill. And, with his clean clothes and recent shower, he actually felt good.

  More than good, he felt enthusiastic. He wanted to get down to the Architect’s workshop and see what he could do to turn his neural link ideas into reality. If he could develop something to let Tempest – to let all of them – actually talk to the Architect, then that should at least give them insight into the Master’s intentions.

  It should help them defeat him.

  Ty didn’t exactly have it all planned out, but he had a few ideas based on the tech that let him control his shield. Given time, he was sure it would work, and he was eager to get started.