Ch34 Greasy Grimy Gopher Guts

 

Mutavus mutations can be broadly categorized into four general categories, the first being minor internal mutations. These are alterations such as a modified heart, or liver, or lungs, things that can’t be seen by casual observation. This type of mutation is often caused by some type of ongoing medical problem, such as cystic fibrosis in the case of lungs, or alcoholism in the case of liver. At some point the condition becomes immediately life-threatening, mutavus activates and somehow senses that the problem is a simple malfunction of normal bodily functions, and then solves the problem in the most efficient way possible: by permanently fixing the afflicted organs. Of note is how little extra modification takes place; when these minor modifications were first starting to be discovered across hospitals the world over, it was thought that they might not even be due to mutavus. The near-zero instance rate of trigger events in this population later proved that mutavus was indeed the cause.

 

The next two categories, selective external mutation and full-body mutation, are really the same thing, it’s merely a sliding scale of severity. These are caused by external events such as a stab wound, a fall from a great height, a violent rape, et cetera, et cetera. Basically anything that puts the host’s life at risk while not actually killing them. These, I believe, are a result of mutavus trying to ‘solve’ a situation that has no clear-cut answer. Sure you can patch a knife wound, but how do you stop the possibility of a knife wound from ever happening again? By covering the body in armor? With superior reflexes and your own bladed weapon? With the ability to spit acid onto potential attackers? How do you choose? A virus has no brain, no thought process, it can barely even be called alive by our standards, so how does a virus choose? For some insight into this we turn to the fourth category: catastrophic mutations.

 

You’ve all heard the horror stories no doubt. An unfortunate injury resulting in a monstrous, cannibalistic horror-creature out of a crazy man’s worst nightmares. These are what truly makes mutavus such a feared and reviled affliction, but why do they happen to begin with when most mutations seem largely beneficial? Some research of the injuries involved in these cases shows that most were a result of massive physical trauma, often involving the head. Now, we all know that bad triggers can be the result of a drug-induced, altered mental state. The fact that a traumatic head wound would also obviously hinder mental state suggests a linked cause. It is my belief that mutavus “piggybacks” on whatever phenomena causes trigger events, and therefore, is affected by the host’s conscious mind in a similar manner.

 

Now. A lot of this is merely conjecture on my part. It can be difficult to separate cases of catastrophic mutation from other oddities of summer, or even just from regular cases of mutant animals, so keep in mind the data I’ve managed to collect is not the result of a scientific survey, but merely my own investigations of singular cases. Mutavus also tends to handle hallucinogenic or similar recreational drugs quite easily, whereas these drugs are terrible to combine with triggers, but that’s a matter for a different day.

 

Today, I wish only to test if massive brain damage truly increases the odds of a catastrophic mutation. To that end, I’ve assembled a variety of implements with which to do so, most notably this common N17 Lobbe handgun. I’ve been told its low-caliber ammo will indeed pierce a skull, but will not do so much damage as to kill a person before mutavus can begin its work… Hmm, note to self: do areas of higher gun use or ownership have more frequent occurrences of catastrophic mutation? I’ll check into that after we finish up here.

 

-Monologue given by Dr. Kevin “Killaman” Jaro to a class of college students before his death at the hands of one of his victims.

Apparently we were heading to a ‘hospital’. A quick internet search on my phone revealed that it was where humans took their sick and injured for medical care. It wasn’t something I had ever really questioned before, but in hindsight it made sense to centralize long-term medical care and vital medical resources. I had sort of assumed the ‘ambulances’ I saw from time to time were the de facto method of assisting civilians in need of medical help, seeing as they appeared whenever there was a car crash, or street brawl, or sometimes when a human just collapsed. The first time I had seen a human collapse for no reason had scared me, as I thought there was another super picking targets out of the crowd, but I overheard that the man had suffered a ‘heart attack’. Research told me that it was a strange condition where the human heart just stops beating, primarily affecting older males? I suppose this was a condition similar to choking from clogged airways, an unfortunate product of the human design (a heart just…stopping. So strange). Either way, it’s apparently not too big a problem, because the human in question got back up well before the ambulance arrived.

I scrolled through the website for E13 General Hospital, a large building just a few blocks north of the Red Zone. They had several different areas of medicine listed as departments: primary care, rehabilitation, neurology, maternity, emergency (which had a lot more doctors listed than the others), and more. Quite a long list… Oh! There was a mutavus emergency response and care ward.

I was starting to feel… excitement! This trip had the potential to be a lot more beneficial than I thought. Maybe I could slip into the mutavus ward for a bit and have a look around, or one of the surgery wards; I’d love to see how humans fixed internal damage without the aid of mutavus.

The van rounded a corner, and the front of the hospital came into view. The building itself was a gigantic rectangular structure, about three blocks long by two blocks wide, but only two stories tall, much shorter than the surrounding structures. The longest side of the building was also the front entrance, and from the design I could tell the place was built for large influxes of patients. Multiple entrances marked as “Emergency” were spaced out along the front side of the building, and a wide approach lane allowed a small army of ambulances to easily enter and disgorge passengers without getting in each other’s way. As I watched, three ambulances were doing just that, the multiple humans of the medical caste carrying the injured civilians into the building. Let’s see, if I was reading the website correctly, then the humans driving the ambulances were emergency response technicians or EMTs, the ones who did surgeries were surgeons… optometrists, neurologists, nutritionists, so many! There were dozens of specialized personnel for every facet of human biology! Fascinating. Not all of them were located in the hospital itself; the sheer number of specialists and their required resources probably just didn’t fit. Were there really that many different facets to a human body? I had dismantled a decent number of them now, and hadn’t noticed anything that would require that many areas of study. Skeleton, musculature, brain and signal transfer system, skin and internal pressure maintenance could be counted as two systems I guess, appendix, the heart, and of course the multiple filter organs like lungs, liver, kidneys…oh! There would be two different reproductive systems; one for male, one for female. That increased the count, though not by much… had I missed something? It all seemed rather simple besides the brain; why would they need so many specialists? Admittedly I hadn’t managed to figure out why they had so many separate and redundant filter organs, but only the single appendix, so there might be subtleties I wasn’t seeing. So strange… it had to be because of mutavus. It changed their biology on an individual basis, so maybe they were trying to cover all possible permutations? It seemed like a fruitless endeavor considering the near infinite variations mutavus might choose, but then again, humans did seem very stubborn when it came to the pursuit of knowledge…

A mystery for later. Right now I was more concerned with all the police I was seeing around the hospital premises. Especially since they all appeared to be armored and armed.

“That’s a lot of police…”

“Hm? Oh don’t worry about that,” said Fred, “Just don’t cause any trouble and they’ll ignore you; the Red Zone basically funds this whole hospital, they know where their salaries come from. Not like anyone wants trouble happening at a hospital anyways. Actually that reminds me, if either of you are ever in-mask and need medical help, get your ass to a hospital. Don’t try to tough it out or some stupid shit. Doctor’s can’t reveal anything they find out while treating you.”

“Sandra told me during my interview,” I replied. Gregor nodded his confirmation.

That whole part of the interview made a lot more sense now. I had figured if worse came to worst I could just kill whoever was trying to unnecessarily treat me. Much harder to do if it was a bunch of doctors in the middle of a hospital, and not just some EMTs down an empty side street. Honestly, I probably should have found out about hospitals a lot sooner, but I had been avoiding flashing lights and sirens whenever possible, and hadn’t come near this area while exploring.

…Exactly how many areas of interest was I missing by being ignorant? Worrisome. I needed to practice proactive scenario envisionment like humans did using movies.

While I pondered the best person to surreptitiously ask about ‘interesting places’, Brilla drove the car into the rear parking lot. There was a lot less activity on this side of the building, and we eventually parked near what seemed to be some kind of loading dock. Fred went to get a gurney to wheel the body in, since having two helmeted minions carrying a body around in a hospital was ‘too conspicuous’. I didn’t see why putting it on a gurney was any better. It wasn’t a human body anyway, why would anyone care?

“Me and Brilla can do this part if you guys would rather wait here,” offered Fred.

“I’ll come. I’m interested in meeting this Stitcher you mentioned.” As if I was going to miss out on a look inside, pfft.

“I think maybe I’ll watch the van,” said Gregor, “Don’t much care for hospitals.”

I found that strange. Hospitals seemed so exciting.

Fred led the way while I pushed the gurney. We used the loading dock entrance to enter; inside were a few workers moving boxes of what I assumed to be medical equipment. Fred walked up to a wide-eyed worker and asked him to go get Stitcher, and he practically ran to do so. The other dock workers quickly made themselves scarce.

After a few minutes, a man entered the dock area. He had thin hair despite his young age, and a crooked nose that supported a pair of spectacles. While his eyes were red from lack of rest they were nonetheless sharp, and he zeroed in on us immediately. Most telling was that he wore a white coat. A scientist.

“Whoever you’ve brought me better be at death’s door. Do you have any idea how busy I am?” he asked.

“No worries Stitcher, should be quick. No medical care today, just need you to see if you can I.D. a super for us,” said Fred.

“I’m not Hellion’s personal mortician,” he sneered, “I’ve got better things to do than digging through the aftermath of your mistakes.”

“Easy doc. I think this one might interest you,” said Brilla, and she lifted a corner of the tarp to reveal the stitched-rat’s head. The stitches and surgical modifications were on full display.

“…You brought a dead rat into my hospital,” said Stitcher. He scowled at the body, but after his gaze swept over the extent of the surgical modifications he sighed. “This would be one of the rats from the mall incident yesterday?”

“This one attacked an establishment in the Red Zone last night, but we think it’s the same guy.”

“Ah yes, that would explain the suddenly expedited interest. Fine. Follow me, and make sure that thing doesn’t drip on the floor!”

We followed Stitcher a bit deeper into the hospital while he continuously grumbled about patients he had to get back to. Several times he pulled aside members of staff to have them go check on active situations. I surmised that his apparent hectic state was an ongoing affair. We arrived at a room labeled “Morgue”, and he had me wheel the rat body in after him…

Bodies. Lots and lots of bodies! The room was full of them, and an extended shelf that poked from a small square aperture hinted at more stored away. They were in all shapes and sizes, with a few mutants in the mix as well. I started calculating my odds of being able to eat a few. It was unlikely I’d get a chance, but still! The things I could learn!

Stitcher pointed at two people working in the room and ordered them out, then directed me to move the rat to a large steel table welded to the floor.

“I hope none of you are squeamish. I can’t have my usual assistants help with cowl business,” Stitcher announced.

“I’ll be fine” I replied. Fred and Brilla looked a bit more reluctant.

Stitcher pulled the tarp off the body and began looking it over.

“Hmm. No lacerations, no real blood loss. Cause of death appears to be blunt force trauma. Rigor mortis hasn’t set in yet, are we certain it’s actually dead and not just unconscious? I’d rather not have it jump at me half-way through.”

“Uh. I mean it didn’t move on the way here,” replied Fred.

“Tch. Which could mean absolutely nothing. One of you stab it in the neck, over the drain please.”

I grabbed the corpse by the head and moved its neck over the drain before doing as asked. The blood didn’t so much leak out as ooze out. Definitely not fresh. Fred wasn’t looking too good, and Brilla was refusing to look directly at the operating table. I guess they were ‘squeamish’. Stitcher finished putting on a different coat, along with a cloth mask to cover his mouth and nose, and approached the rat body.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

“Not the best conditions, but I’m in a hurry. One of you take notes, or just pay attention, I’m only going over this once. Now then…”

Stitcher held out his hands, and a strange shimmer effect emerged from under his sleeves and encompassed them. It looked like they had been covered in crystal clear water. He had a power! As I watched, the substance around one of his fingers lengthened to create an edge, and he used it to start dissecting the rat. His power reminded me of Magenta’s, but on a smaller, more precise scale. He talked while he worked, and I found it interesting to see how a human analyzed the corpse.

“The skeletal system is reinforced with metal in several sections. Care was not taken in preserving a normal range of motion. The digestive and muscular systems are mostly untouched, but there is no mismatched scaling with the rat’s other organs, so whatever method they used to grow the rat to such a massive size was done properly at least.”

“That’s a normal rat size. I think it was modified after it grew that big,” I supplied. His eyebrows rose at the information.

“…What metric are you using?”

“Tiny fits in my hand, small can jump at your face from the floor, medium is this dead one, and large hits its head on the sewer ceiling.”

“…I see. I believe I’ll be putting in a request for an extermination crew later.”

Stitcher kept opening up the corpse, paying special attention to the individual organs to check them for modification. He was starting to grumble about wasting his time, when he got to a section at the base of the rat’s skull.

“Ah-ha. Here we finally have something interesting.”

He was pointing at a lump of flesh that looked like brain matter wrapped in bone. It almost looked like my core (but with more fleshy bits).

“This tumor here is artificial. See the melding of different tissue types, but the design is too structurally demarcated to be a normal cancerous tumor. If my guess is right, there should be… yes, right here. See this?”

“…I don’t see anything?”

“Precisely! There is no connection between the tumor and the brain. There is no connection with this tumor and anything else in the body. The stitchwork on the epidermis is superficial, the metal reinforcing the bones should hinder the creature more than help, and the only piece of functional design isn’t connected to anything! This super playing at being a Victor Frankenstein is just that: playing. My hypothesis is that their power does all the heavy lifting in order for this rat to actually function. Any actual surgical work is simply an activation requirement, or maybe it isn’t even necessary at all and they’re just a wackjob.”

He started to clean up after the messy dissection. The mask and overcoat went in a bin with other dirty articles of clothing, but his power had kept his hands immaculately clean.

“So, any idea who might be doing this doc?” asked Fred. He should probably sit down for a bit and rest; he wasn’t looking so good.

“Well, the good news is that it’s definitely not an established super,” said Stitcher, “A power that makes remote drones from corpses to do the user’s bidding? Far too rare to not have been noticed before, even if its user is a complete hack. The bad news is that it’s probably a new trigger, so it could be almost anyone. Have they announced any demands?”

“Nothing so far.”

“Well in that case they are probably just a fresh trigger flexing their power. Do try to get rid of this one in a timely manner please. This type of power tends to cut out if the user is removed, but I’d rather not wait until they have a small army before finding out. Either way, I’ve wasted enough time on this as it is. Please clean the mess up on your way out would you?”

With those words Stitcher walked out of the morgue, and Fred, Brilla, and myself were left alone. Fred and Brilla took one look at the remains of the corpse, looked at each other, and yelled, “Not it!” They both ran out of the morgue, claiming that they “Need to make sure Gregor is fine,” and to “Take all the time you need!”

I looked at the large rat corpse, and the bodies throughout the morgue, and the lack of any cameras or humans.

It seems that biding my time on reporting the bio-weapons had finally paid off.

Elation.