Chapter 1.2.37 — Preparation 3

Venture insisted that Emmett get his schoolwork in order before working on Preparation 3.

Emmett worked through most of Saturday morning, wondering if his roommate would ever wake up and come out to the common area. It was 2 o’clock when Emmett finally left for the lab.

Lock wasn’t awake yet. His door was still shut.

~

By the time Emmett met up with Clara and Dr. Venture in the lab, he was jittery with anticipation. Emmett told himself that it didn’t matter what the final preparation was—it felt like he was ready for anything.

Venture pushed up his glasses and crossed his arms sternly. “This final preparation is the most important and, in all likelihood, the most difficult. We need to neutralize their trump card… We need to deal with the Mutagen-X super.”

Both Clara and Emmett shared an uncertain glance.

Emmett asked, “Do you mean going after them before the mission?”

A dark smile crossed Venture’s face and was gone just as quickly. “The possibility crossed my mind, but even alone, that super would be far too dangerous to take on. Clara can’t use her full power without being tracked by the Summit. Even with McGuire and Athena… No. We need to find another way.”

Venture locked eyes with Emmett. “You need to find another way. You need to find a countermeasure for Mutagen-X.”

Emmett chuckled awkwardly. “You want me to find a weakness in the most prized black ops super serum on the planet?”

“Yes.”

Emmett glanced from Venture to Clara, but she was staring straight ahead, like she was a student in class, afraid to draw attention to herself.

So he was on his own…

“Shit,” Emmett muttered.

Venture smirked. “TINA will provide you with the specs for Mutagen-X. You come up with your own ideas first, then—and only then—TINA will match them against the ideas we have saved. This is an opportunity, Emmett. Seize it. One day, we won’t be there to guide you. So, start acting like the Tech-Super you are.”

Emmett nodded solemnly.

Of all the things he’d come up against so far, this was… Well, to call it ‘daunting’ was the understatement of the century. ‘Hopeless’, maybe?

Shit.

Emmett tried to salvage what motivation he could. He had a job to do, and if he couldn’t solve this, then the mission was a lost cause.

“Alright,” Emmett said. “Which lab can I use?”

~

“It’s just another problem to solve,” Clara said. She walked with Emmett to the hub of the biolab. “It’s just like engineering. And you’re good at that.”

Emmett managed a chuckle. “Thanks, but there’s building an antenna and then there’s taking down a world-class bioweapon… One of those things is not like the other.”

Clara led the way into the hub and asked TINA to bring up all the data they had on Mutagen-X. The wall of monitors and the holographic table whirred to life.

Emmett stared at her. “Don’t you have your own training to do?”

Clara put her hands on her hips, causing her oversized hoodie to bunch up. “Oh, so you don’t want the help?”

“I didn’t say that.” Emmett backtracked without really knowing why.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want Clara there. She’d sworn to her dad not to help Emmett directly, but every bit of encouragement was welcome.

If Emmett was being honest with himself, he was self-conscious about Clara being there. Which was weird because Emmett wouldn’t feel that way if they were training in the Gray Room…

What was so different about this?

Emmett stood next to Clara and looked over the spec displays on the wall, but he wasn’t really looking. He was still stuck. Still self-conscious.

Clara asked, “What do you think?”

Emmett hummed noncommittally, trying to stall for time.

Maybe he felt fine in the Gray Room because Emmett knew that he had a lot to learn. He was always the one on the ropes, or playing catch-up. It was alright if he messed up or hadn’t learned something yet. No one expected Emmett to be an expert at fighting, at least not yet—he knew that. Clara knew that.

But Emmett was supposed to be good at engineering. He was supposed to take the lead.

Emmett rubbed his face and eyes, and forced himself back to the moment, muttering, “Give me a sec.”

He needed more than a second.

There was a lot of data. Diagrams and charts covered the screens, showing everything from bodily systems affected, to rates of growth, projectile calibers withstood, healing factors, possible side effects, and even recommended psychotherapy treatments.

“...How did your dad get all this data?”

Clara shrugged. “Some of it’s speculation. Part of its data from combat zones around the world. Some of it probably came from Gnosis.”

“It looks like he hacked their systems to get all this.”

“He probably has, but that’s not saying much. Dad hacks a lot of people… Bad people.” Clara muttered.

The pair settled into silence as they looked over the data. At first, Emmett just wanted to get a sense of what Mutagen-X actually did to someone.

In a lot of ways, it was similar to Mutagen-A, in that it caused a broad spectrum of changes to the subject. But if Mutagen-A took a normal person from a 1 to a 2, Mutagen-X cranked them up to 11.

Or, more accurately, to Class 3.

Solid Class 3.

Bones stronger than steel. Skin that shrugged off anything less than high caliber armor-piercing rounds. Veins and arteries that were made to seal off lost limbs. Platelets that instantly coagulated to stop blood loss.

Virtually unkillable—not that most of their enemies would get the chance to fight back.

They also had heightened senses—a sense of smell better than most hunting dogs, hearing better than a cat, and eyes that could see in UV. They were strong enough to tear through steel…

Emmett could remember the rest. He’d seen the Mutagen-X super that night. The super had broken through a steel door, torn apart Venture’s drones, and mangled Clara’s high-tech exosuit… Porcelain had been a formidable Class 2, and that super had snapped her neck as easy as breaking an egg.

For every chart or diagram that Emmett looked over, there were more details, but that was the jist of it. They were hopelessly outmatched.

Emmett desperately wanted to skip this part—Venture said they’d already brainstormed a couple of solutions. Did Emmett really have to bang his head against the wall to come up with another?

TINA had helped him out before. Maybe TINA would help him out again… Just this once.

Emmett smirked to himself and pushed the thought from his head. This was a test. Venture had given him a task, and Emmett needed to try despite how hopeless it felt.

So he and Clara started bouncing ideas off of each other.

Guns were an obvious place to start. A .50 caliber rifle or armor-piercing rounds would be enough to pierce the skin, but they were big and there was no guaranteeing the super would stay still enough to hit. Even if they did land a shot, one wouldn’t be enough before the wound healed. Drones were out—they couldn’t get close to the warehouse without getting detected. Besides, once gunfire started, they would attract attention.

Emmett asked, “What about scaling up your kinetic blasts?”

Clara shook her head. “It’s a bad weapon against someone with high defense. The explosion doesn’t have enough punch.” She slammed her hand into her first for emphasis. “At that point, you might as well just use a regular laser, and well, a battery large enough to run a laser that powerful isn’t something we can just lug around.”

Emmett rubbed his chin in thought, but immediately stopped when he saw Clara raising an eyebrow. He wasn’t trying to look like her dad right now.

“What about fire?”

Clara sighed. “Mutagen-X makes the subject tolerant to extreme cold and extreme heat. Unless we can trap the guy and cook him alive, it’s a bad choice.”

Emmett suppressed a shudder. That would be a horrible way to go.

He mentally checked off several other options: Bombs were out for the same reason as Clara’s kinetic blasts. Knives had a slightly easier time piercing the skin, but with their healing factor even puncturing an organ wouldn’t stop the guy. Sonic weapons had potential, but Mutagen-X also gifted the super with a pain tolerance that was through the roof. There was a similar problem with trying to stun them with electricity—their muscles could reset within milliseconds of impedance…

Emmett laughed bitterly. “Maybe we could just bring the building down on him.”

“Dad made that joke yesterday,” Clara replied, deadpan.

“I mean, we were going to destroy the place, right?”

“Probably.”

Even poisons weren’t much of an option. Mutagen-X allowed the body to operate in an extended anaerobic state—allowing the super to function without oxygen for hours at a time. Even if they managed to get a poison into their bloodstream, bio-engineered white blood cells could fight off or quarantine any infection, and then expel other toxins like heavy metals through sweat.

Emmett sat down at the holographic table and rubbed his temples.

Clara clapped a hand on his shoulder. “You’ve got all weekend. I’m going to get a snack. Want anything?”

Emmett shook his head.

“Suit yourself.”

~

As soon as Clara left, Emmett asked TINA for the answers, reasoning that he should use all the tools at his disposal.

“It’s just like hacking a database.”

TINA didn’t give Emmett the answers, much to his dismay. At least he tried.

Emmett kept examining solutions, eventually superimposing a list of ideas and failed ideas on the left side of the monitors.

After several hours, Emmett concluded several things:

Overpowering the super was out of the question. Any weapon powerful enough to hurt them wouldn’t be viable in their current mission.

Tricking or trapping the super might be viable, but even that had limitations. The heightened senses meant that Emmett’s normal smoke pellet-tricks wouldn’t work. And those same senses made them resistant to most telepathic attacks from all but the most skilled psychics. Emmett and the others also didn’t know the layout of the building, so laying a trap would be difficult at best.

Sadly, the best option was to schedule the mission on a night the Mutagen-X super wasn’t there…

The longer Emmett thought about it, the more it seemed like the best option.

But Emmett couldn’t stop thinking about it—there had to be something. Venture wouldn’t have tasked him with this if he didn’t think Emmett could come up with an answer.

At least one answer. The stark reminder came back to Emmett that Venture and TINA had multiple potential ones.

For some reason, Emmett kept coming back to the super’s healing factor: No matter what method of attack they used against the super, their healing factor and disease resistance were the final barriers to overcome.

Clara had come and gone several times over the last two hours, but Emmett had continued working. Now he was alone in the biolab hub.

“TINA, show all the information you have on the healing factor and disease resistances of Mutagen-X.” The wall of information changed to reflect his request and Emmett searched the rest of the data.

Maybe he’d been going about this all wrong. Maybe instead of worrying about beating this super in a fight, he should figure out a way to take them down from the inside—

Fighting smarter instead of just fighting harder.

“TINA, what nanomachines do I have access to?”

There was a delay before TINA answered. “I’ll send for Dr. Venture.”

~ ~ ~