Chapter 116: Couple Therapy (1/2)

Psychos had been a fact of life for fifteen years.

Ryan had visited hundreds, if not thousands of communities through his long existence, and almost all of them shared the same tales. Maddened monsters attacking them at night, mutants hiding in sewers, raiders attacking their Genome defenders, or fools trying to imitate Augustus only to come up short.

Psychos had collectively killed the courier many times, coming in as a close second behind traffic accidents. His adoptive father Bloodstream had caused his very first death, and it still gave Ryan headaches to remember it.

Nobody could imagine a world without Psychos...

Until today.

The refurbished laboratory of Station Orpheon was far lighter and warmer than the Alchemist’s, with white walls, glowing bars in the ceiling casting a pleasing light, and the sweet, sweet smell of morning coffee permeating the air. Ryan’s host of Geniuses, namely Shortie, Alchemo, and Stitch, had gathered behind control panels and thrumming computers. Meanwhile, the Panda happily cleaned up a large vat in the northern corner of the room with a sanitizer.

All were gearing up for an experiment that might change the world’s face forever, though their patient lacked their enthusiasm.

“I don’t want to go inside,” sweet Sarin grumbled at Ryan’s side, arms crossed. “Find another way, nerd.”

“There isn’t,” Ryan replied. Truth be told, nothing guaranteed that the operation would work at all. Even though they had copied the Alchemist’s research data before destroying her base, the group didn’t have her wealth of alien technology. “Come on, you fought aliens and you’re afraid of a glass tube?”

Instead of blasting him where he stood, Sarin let out a grunt. “It’s not the vat,” she said. “It’s…”

“Getting out of that suit?” Ryan guessed, avoiding any joke or jab. The woman had suffered for years from her condition, never feeling anything nor experiencing joy. Taunting her on that front, especially now, would feel like kicking a cancer patient.

Sarin shook her head. “Doesn’t matter.”

“You wouldn’t bring this up if it didn’t,” Ryan replied. “You know, I’m a certified therapist and I’ve seen everything. I’m here if you need an ear.”

“I ain’t like your princess,” Sarin scoffed. “I don’t need a white knight. You think I’m that weak?”

“I don’t think you’re weak, just alone.” Though the Psycho didn’t answer, Ryan could tell from her posture that he had nailed it. “And even that is a thing of the past. I mean, we had a good time raiding drug churches, exploring new continents, freeing the government from both the reptilians and the Illuminati...”

“It was nice,” the Psycho agreed, looking away at the Geniuses toiling away behind their computers. “And you’re following up with your promise, which is more I can say from Adam. You ain’t a fink.”

“See?” Ryan decided to share some wisdom accumulated over centuries of time travel. “If you keep all your feelings for yourself, you’re never going to get over your fears and neuroses. Either you become more open with others, or you need to blow off steam. If you want to follow the latter path, I would suggest bullying Ghoul.”

“I would rather hit Adam,” Sarin replied, before raising her hands and moving her fingers. The movements were unnatural, gas pushing cloth from the inside. “Every time I get out of my suit, I fear getting scattered to the winds. Stretching for miles, feeling my mind slip away with the distance. You can’t imagine how it feels, nerd.”

“No, I can’t,” the courier admitted. “Though you already left your suit behind once, when we made an FBI raid on Ischia.”

“I know that the experiment is as safe as it can be around you.” Sarin sighed. “But I still feel weak, and I hate it.”

Ryan crossed his arms, meditated on what to say next, and then uttered a single word.

“Bianca?”

Sarin bristled at her true name being spoken, as if she had forgotten it.

“Being vulnerable is... never easy,” Ryan said, trying to find the right words. “Especially not with others. After building strong and thick walls around ourselves, it’s difficult to tear them down.”

Sarin snickered. “Easy for you to say, Mr. Time-Traveler.”

“It’s not as perfect a crutch as it seems.”

At this point, Ryan had decided to fully come clean to everyone not in the know yet among his group. Sarin had been the first, but the courier hoped to have a discussion with Felix and especially Mr. Wave. The former already suspected something was up, and the latter…

Ryan owed him much more than his love of cashmere.

“You know, when Livia and I…” Ryan took a deep breath, before speaking his mind. “I was scared of her, at first. Very few things scared me since I got my power, but she topped all of them. She could remember.”

“She could kill you for good,” Sarin guessed. “Throw her daddy at you?”

“That and worse.” Ryan shuddered at what Livia could have done, if she had taken more after her thunderous father. “For the first time in many, many years, I had to be honest with someone that wasn’t my best friend. Like a bear cornered in his cave. It was… it was difficult. I mean, yeah, now she’s my First Lady, but she could have easily been my Lee Harvey Oswald too.”

“Who?” Sarin asked, showing an absolute lack of culture.

That inane question was proof that anyone could become Ryan’s vice-president these days, which he took as a badge of honor. The courier prided himself on his government’s inclusivity.

“All of this to say that it took me a while to trust Livia, and even longer to feel at ease around her,” the courier explained his point. “We struggled to conquer our fear of the other, but in the end, it was worth it. All the pain and the fear led to something better. Do you see my point?”

“No.”

“Oh well, then you’re on your own.”

Sarin chuckled. “Seriously, I get it,” she said. “That day is going to make all the efforts and struggle worth it. Maybe I’ll get diabetes with my new body.”

“Genomes can’t develop diabetes,” Ryan said absentmindedly.

“My life has been a long string of frustration and disappointments, smartass.” He could almost taste the bitterness in his ally’s voice. “Even before Adam. Each time I hope it will change, and I’m always left disappointed.”

“Not anymore. Taking that leap of faith might sound hard, but it will be rewarding.”

“Really?” she asked. “You know, I agreed to follow you on this stupid mission because part of me hoped that the Alchemist had a plan for us. That what I went through had a purpose. Well, as it turned out, I was just experimental junk.”

“That’s the thing with life, we have no purpose, and we are completely free,” Ryan said. “Free to change, and live as we want.”

“You know what’s the worst part, nerd?” Sarin asked with sorrow. “I’ve spent so much time looking for a cure, I’m not sure what I will do with my life if your idea works.”

“You could start with community service. You worked with Adam for years, so you’ve got a lot to answer for.”

“I’ll leave the Circus to the explosion brat.” Sarin glanced at the vat, seeing her gas mask’s reflection in the glass. “What will you do after you’re done with all our messes?”

“I’m not sure yet.” Like Sarin, Ryan hadn’t planned anything beyond completing his Perfect Run. “At first, I thought I would drive into the sunset towards new adventures, hopefully with Shortie in the backseat.”

“If you leave New Rome, would there be room for one more? Your car ain’t that big.”

“I always have room for more minions,” Ryan replied. “But only if you call me Mr. President in public.”

“Don’t push it,” Sarin replied with amusement, while the Panda emerged from the cleaned vat.

“What’s up, Doc?” Ryan asked his pandawan.

“It’s all good, Sifu!” The Panda declared with a raised paw. “I removed all the germs from my fur too!”

Sarin hesitated for a few more minutes, before finally deciding to take the leap of faith. She opened her hazmat suit, and let her gaseous body leak out. A cloud of alien chemicals emerged from the suit, and moved into the vat.

“It’s going to be alright, Bianca,” Ryan promised, as he and the Panda closed the glass door behind her. “This time, it will work. I swear.”

The gaseous cloud briefly took a vaguely humanoid shape, before turning back into formless mist.

“Of course it will be alright,” Alchemo grumbled, while Len typed on the computer panel. “You made us work day and night on this, you meatbag slavedriver.”

“I would be willing to keep this up for weeks,” Dr. Stitch replied. “This will change everything.”

“We are ready to begin, Riri,” Len said, barely staying in place. No doubt a part of her still hoped that if this experiment worked, it might help her father.

The courier nodded, giving his assent. Cables linking the computers to the vat activated, while a plastic lamp projected a blue light above Sarin’s gas form.

The Panda, thanks to his multiple fields of expertise, had managed to translate the Elixirs’ Flux language based on the Alchemist’s notes. The process would be simple, in theory. The group would use a system based on the Chronoradio to send signals to Sarin’s Elixirs, guiding them into rewriting her DNA based on a new paradigm. One that followed Livia’s ratio of Homo Sapiens and Neanderthal genes, cleanly separating the Psycho’s powers.

“I worry about her mind, however,” Dr. Stitch said. “Modifying her body on such a deep level will give her a brand new brain.”

“She will remember,” Alchemo replied absentmindedly.

In fact, she would remember everything.

“When the Elixirs bond with us, they see our thoughts and wishes, and translate them into Flux,” Ryan whispered, remembering what he had read from the Alchemist’s data. “True Genomes exist on two levels. The biological, and the immaterial.”

Ryan should have realized it before. Of all people in the room, he alone existed in two places and eras at once. Two brains separated across the timestream, yet sharing a single consciousness. Henceforth, his neurons weren’t the full seat of his intellect.

If a host’s consciousness partly existed in Flux form, then it would also explain cases like Mr. Wave, Sunshine, Geist, and Sarin in particular. And in time, that ethereal consciousness grew in power, in wisdom, and strength, eventually becoming something too powerful for a body of flesh to contain.

It would ascend into a greater form of existence.