10

Spice 2.6

"I meddled in all the possible futures I could create until, finally, they created me."

-Emperor Paul Atreides, Muab'Dib

-March 19, 2011. Park near the dockyard, 1:30pm, Brockton Bay-

Dinah and I didn't have to wait long, true to Carol's word, Vicky and Amy appeared within an hour. While I had given Dinah a simple mask to hide her identity, I decided to let them see my real face. I could feel Vicky's aura expanding towards me tentatively, before recoiling upon contact with me. My shard felt some sense of smugness, though I wondered how, I couldn't focus on that at the moment. Vicky's eyes widened and before she could speak I said,

"Hey Amy, over here!" I think I overdid it in terms of joy, but it shut Vicky up from outing me before I said anything to Amy. Unsurprisingly Amy is wearing a long sleeved hoodie with jeans and sneakers, honestly she couldn't scream wallflower or don't bother me any more unless she had a cigarette. The faint hint of nicotine in her clothing however made me regret the previous thought. Still I grabbed her hand before she opened her mouth.

The tendrils of shaper spread across my skin, I could feel them touching all around my muscles and my brain, Amy's eyes widened slightly,

"Holy shit, how are you alive?"

"Spite, spice and some amount of luck. Let me guess, my Corona is impressive?"

"It's almost fused with all of your brain." Her tone was like listening to a doctor tell someone that their kid's condition is terminal. I suspected as much, Truth made it so that I was closer to my shard for some reason, maybe as part of the price, a whim, or because it asked. Regardless I now had confirmation, and the moment speck begins for me I'll have Belle kill me. I just need a bomb collar. Or a bit more, I'm not sure if decapitation would kill me given the homunculus regeneration.

"That's slightly worse than I expected but I promised you information and a way to contact him." I began saying before Vicky grabbed my shoulder,

"Let go of my sister." Fear washed over me, I focused on the chemicals in my mind that make it possible and shut them off. I can feel my face grow stony as I say,

"Victoria, shut up, this is between her and me. I promise I will not harm her." My tone bordered on cold anger, but it was enough to make her realize that her aura wasn't affecting me. She cooked back her fist before Dinah yelled,

"50% chance of Amy Dallon dying if you do that!" Vicky stopped her swing, staring at Dinah as if just noticing she was there.

I raised my eyebrow, at the fact that she had a decent percentage when it came to me at least. Her right hand had blood in it, did she shove her fingernails through her skin? If so then that's something I need to help her with,

"What do you mean?" Vicky asked, her tone cold and furious. I breathed in loudly and said,

"She can see the future, she's probably the strongest seer in this world and she needs your help." Amy knew I was telling the truth, Vicky didn't trust me at all, and Dinah seemed to be doing everything in her power to keep standing. After a few tense moments Amy asked,

"You said you had a proposition for me?"

"Yup. I was going to ask you to help me with my human genome improvement project but what I need you to do is analyze her brain while she makes a prediction." I replied quickly, the human genome project seemed to draw her attention, yet she replied with,

"I don't do brains." And that was bullshit. But I need her help and I really don't want to begin the old discussion. So I say,

"I just need you to look at it and tell me what you see, I'll design the treatment or drugs necessary for it to be less painful."

"And in exchange you'll tell me about my dad and how to find him?" Amy asks, I can tell she's hopeful. Vicky snorts, her aura was kept tightly wound around her like a shield. Part of me wanted to test out which shield was stronger, hers or mine? But that was the part of me that wanted to beat her within an inch of her life. I choose to ignore it for now and ask Amy,

"No. I'm doing that just because you listened to me. But I would be very grateful if you would help me. So Panacea are you going to help?"

"Yes." A short reply, but an effective one.

It takes a few minutes and some empty threats from Vicky, but we move towards one of the abandoned buildings, Vicky wants us to go to the roof and talk there. I just made a door, destroyed all dust and bugs in the first floor, made a wall that blocked the view from anyone who bothered to remove the boarded up windows and told them to come in.

"So before we begin with you helping me help her. I'll tell you a bit about your father." I say sitting down on a chair I created using the wood from the second floor. In fact I created several of them but only Dinah took a seat. I frowned at that, but continued talking, "As you've probably guessed your adoptive parents knew your father from their work. Their hero work that is, and as you've probably feared, your father was a villain. Now I think it was around ten or so years ago that the Brockton Bay Brigade rebranded into New Wave. Around that time they also took down one of the city's greatest crime lords, Marquis."

"So you're saying my dad was…"

"Yup, Marquis. And to prove it Amelia Claire Lavere. Let me paint you a picture. You're around six years of age when you hear someone break into your home. Your father tells you to hide and you do, in a closet. You hear a fierce battle, then light blinds you." I recite from memory, Amy's pallor changes with each word, Vicky yells at me to stop, but I continue ignoring her, "Surrender for the sake of your daughter. Or something like that is said. Tell me Amy, do you remember who held you at sword point? Do you remember your father? How much he loved you?"

"Carol." Amy says, her eyes empty and her voice breaking. I need to hurry, before she snaps.

"Yup. She didn't want to take you, but she did and to be fair to her, she tried her best for a while. But then you triggered. And what happened then? You're only a healer, those were her words weren't they? Then her disdain got worse."

"You're trying to turn her against mom!" Vicky accuses me. I shake my head and say,

"Nope. I'm neutral in this shitshow, what I want for her is to no longer hate her power and stop suppressing herself." Vicky stares at me incredulously, sits down on one of the chairs and asks,

"What do you mean?"

"Vicky, tell me this, what happens when you suppress your power constantly?" I ask my eyes glaring at hers, she looks down for a moment before answering,

"So you think Amy's suppressing her powers?" Her voice has genuine worry in it, I can see how she looks at Amy now, not pity but the worry of a family member, that's better than I expected.

"Nope, I know it." I replied to Vicky before addressing Amy, "It was easy at first wasn't it? Healing scratched that itch in the back of your head, the one that says change this, shape that. Now it barely gives you anything but a dull headache, one that tells you that you're bored, that this is pointless. Amy I won't push you to experiment with people, but consider making better plants at least. Roses that smell like chocolate would sell."

"Let's get this over with." Amy says changing the topic immediately, I could tell that she wasn't going to want to talk about her power near Vicky, so I nodded and said,

"Very well, Amy. Dinah, I'm going to ask you a question. Without my interference, what are the chances of Armsmaster finishing his nanothorn project if Coil is out of the picture?" Dinah focuses and I see Amy mimic her expression, for a minute everything is silent then Dinah says

"61.5% without counting your interference. Then the usual happens and I only get a guess."

"Good. Now what are the chances if I unmask Coil in front of the whole protectorate?" I ask, Vicky stares at me but I choose to focus on Dinah and Amy. Every microexpression, every twitch, everything is cataloged as Dinah replies with tears in her eyes,

"Fuck. 89% or so." Guilt eats at my heart as I watch her steady herself.

"Amy?"

"Yeah? The problem is that her brain cannot handle the processing. Her Corona's were extremely active, almost lighting up like a damn Christmas tree as far as I was concerned."

"So mental capacity is the issue, spice could help, but I think…" I say before stopping, I draw a knife and cut open my palm. Blood oozes out and I let it drop on the knife. I grab Dinah and mutter and apologize as I pull out a hair. One act of alchemy later and the knife changes shape into a small cup. Then I modify the blood by mixing it with Dinah's hair and tell Amy,

"Check the blood sample to see if those markers could work." If my shard's information is right then this modification should work on her. If the problem had been a forced sort of pain rather than a by-product of the limitations of the shard's prescient capacity, then all I would've had to do is modify the Corona directly so as to lower the maximum amount of pain inflicted. But the problem is the biological hardware so to speak, so we need to upgrade Dinah. The Atreides Genome markers are something almost miraculous, they're highly adaptable to the original human template, in short they're perfect for this modification. What I need to do is make it so that Dinah can think faster, and process more information.

If I wanted I could make her into a mentat, the training can be implanted directly in the base and that would just ease the pain, but I want her to be better than that. So modify the body and mind to allow for greater awareness, still susceptible to prescience. The probability of making her immune to prophecy is almost 100% in my mind, but so is the backlash from it. It would probably trigger Zion early as well, which would be bad. I don't have several planet destroyers nor a tachyon net to hold him… I should build several space-fold engines. Oh well, that's homework for tomorrow.

"So, what's the verdict doc?" I ask Amy as she stares mutters softly about tinker bullshit,

"Theoretically it should work, the gene editing you did should help make it so that it's no longer painful. In theory, that or mutate her into an abomination." I really hope that's her version of a joke, because Dinah paled significantly at it. I shook my head and replied,

"Yeah, I'll take it slow for her and have a machine do it. Should take most of the afternoon to do it. Afterwards an hour or two for the full operation and 5 minutes of recovery. Less if you're willing to help."

"You can change someone's very DNA in a couple of hours?" Vicky suddenly asked,

"Seconds actually if I use my usual method but I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy. Shit hurts Vicky… Anyhow, Amy as far as talking to your dad goes, everything goes through Dragon. So your best bet is to talk to her. Or help me take down Lung."

"You think you can take down Lung?" Amy asks somewhat incredulously,

"Yes. He isn't invincible, but not now. The Empire needs to fall first; because we take him down and then those bastards set up shop. In addition we need to dissuade Accord from interfering with Brockton Bay." I reply before hastily adding, "And dealing with Coil."

"And the Merchants?" Dinah asks, I shrug and say,

"What about them? Skidmark lost his tinker and last I checked the PRT has managed to crack down on their operations."

"So you're okay with telling us this?" Vicky asks,

"Yeah, mostly because I want to prove to Amy that I'm sincere about everything I said and am offering her a place to use her powers without anyone screaming biotinker and running away as if Bonesaw is there." I reply off-handedly, this seems to anger her as she suddenly sits up and her fear aura spikes as she almost yells, 

"So you are trying to take her from New Wave!" Huh, I guess it could be taken that way… Well shit, need to clarify.

"Nope, she can stay if she wants. Just like you can help the PRT if you want. I'm more of a collaboration type of girl." I quickly reply, I can tell she doesn't believe me, "Also I would like to apologize for what I said to you and how I said it." This stops her. She looks at Amy who merely places her hand on my head and nods, 

"Really?" She asks again. I nod and reply,

"Yes. You didn't deserve to be insulted like that."

"Thanks." Vicky says after a moment. I can feel that she's struggling to believe me, but I think this is a good first step.

-March 21, 2011. Stonewell Academy, after school.-

I stretched my arms before picking up my bag, school wasn't that bad today. The student body slowly made its way out, and for once I had the afternoon free. I had spent most of yesterday with Taylor at the main base building several Holtzman engines, Dinah's gene tank, which I modified to be in the shape of a small bed so as to allow both Amy and I to quickly change anything that would go wrong. But I checked the math and used the spice to verify, and according to both, nothing should go wrong. Which leads to my current situation: the music club is closed today, Emily is stuck doing the history project, Lily went home early after she twisted her ankle and Dinah… Fuck my friend list is really small.

"I need a hobby." I mutter to myself as I board the bus to the market near the docks, from there it's a short walk to the main base. I find myself humming One all the way to the base, wondering idly what to build. The holtzman engines served as power sources for many things, mostly the no rooms and the factory but there was one project I had in mind and forgot about it. The null entropy field. I think I know what I'm building today. Belle had finished making a prototype body for itself, humanoid in shape, no clear face but the sculpting made me blush slightly as I recognized my own face or something close to it. I coughed loudly and said,

"I see you've finally decided on a body type." Belle itself seemed to be surprised to see me and quickly draped the face over before replying,

"Yes, creator. Talking with administrator Taylor helped me decide."

"Administrator?" I asked, curious at the wording. Then again Belle hasn't called me mom or anything, but calling Taylor administrator is somewhat suspicious.

"It is her role, is it not? You create many things and she directs them." It replies calmly.

"That's a bit reductionist. But not an invalid point of view." I reply while picking up some metal scrap and drawing a circle on the floor. Silence rules for a few seconds before Belle says,

"I see. Creator, does it bother you?"

"Bother me?" I ask, because there's a lot of things that bother me, but as far as I know Belle hasn't done any of them. Wait, is she going through her rebellious teenage years? Fuck, I'll have to nuke the internet. 

"Yes. You created me to learn to grow yet. I cannot help but notice that I have yet to do so." Belle replied after a few seconds. I tilt my head as I try to understand what it means. Belle has quantitatively grown over the past week, it should know this… Wait…

"That doubt is proof that you are growing. Doubt, confusion, desire… All of these things are important. Every step you take towards your goals is one more thing for me to be proud of. Belle, I don't ask, nor expect perfection, do what you can and that'll be enough." The stunned silence is enough of an answer for me, I begin assembling the engine, it's a slow process but in an hour I'm done. Next I use alchemy to forge the pieces I need for the chassis, slowly but surely it takes shape. Taylor arrives after a while and asks,

"Marie? What are you doing?"

"BEHOLD!!!" I say pointing at the portable null entropy container. Which coincidentally looked like,

"It's a fridge. A mini fridge." Taylor deadpans at me. My eye twitches,

"It's a null-entropy fridge!" I say indignantly at her. Though I find myself smiling despite my tone. 

Spice 2.6, end.