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Damien looked out the window of the helicopter as it approached the reactor, pondering the events of last night. His goals had been accomplished, but not without significant personal cost. In fact, if he was being honest with himself very little had actually gone according to plan – a reality that was quietly but constantly brought to his attention by the faint sensation of something crawling beneath his skin. He couldn't tell if the feeling was real and physical, spiritual, or merely a figment of his own imaginings, but it persisted regardless. Looking out the window served as a distraction, but also as a reminder of another facet of his reality.
The grounds of the final battle against the Inferno Hellions remained a blasted wasteland – a visceral scar across the landscape reminding him of exactly what his siblings and their friends were capable of when properly motivated. It likely wouldn't have been nearly as jarring had it not been for the unexpected visitor in his car at the end of last night's adventure. He sighed, his breath fogging up the plexiglass visor of his protective environment suit. He still hadn't figured out how Eris had managed to break into his car. He did, however, have a very good idea of how Alex and Torvi would react to the situation, and the idea of Eris joining the team he was putting together.
The apocalyptic landscape stared back at him, a metaphorical red light on the dashboard of his mind – one of several that had lit up in the last few weeks.
On one hand, it was absurd to expect the Ruckus Crew to be ok with Eris working for him. She was, in their minds, still a child – in the case of Alex and Torvi, a child they had raised in many ways. Their protective reaction was natural and in fact rational, given that “familial relations” had, until very recently, been antagonistic. The Johns Hopkins incident and his idiot brother finally realizing that there were bigger things at stake had done a lot to fix that, but tensions still ran high at times. On the other hand, Eris's biggest motivation for seeking him out was exactly that – she was increasingly frustrated by the Ruckus Crew treating her like a child. Between seeing her talents – magical and otherwise – for himself firsthand, and knowing the absolute hypocrisy of his siblings telling a 16 year old that she was too young to fend for herself after the things they had gotten into at that age, he saw her point. She was still young and inexperienced, but her talent was undeniable and definitely a skill set he could use.
He pushed the Eris situation from his mind for now as he felt the helicopter descend. Even up here, the background count – the magical turbulence – of the radiation was palpable. The crawling-skin sensation got stronger as they landed.
“We've arrived, sir”, the pilot stated the obvious.
“Take the chopper and land it somewhere safe, outside of the radiation. I'll call when I'm finished. If all goes well, expect another passenger.”
“Roger that, sir.”
Damien stepped out of the vehicle, feeling the pressure of the rotors winding down even through the suit. The pilot waited just until he was a safe distance away before spinning them up again and taking off. He entered the facility through a makeshift rooftop access – really just a collapsed hole in the roof that had been reinforced and had a ladder attached. The gloves on the suit made him feel clumsy, something that he wasn't used to, and his hands nearly slipped from one of the rungs on his way down.
He hated this place, but it was simply too important to ignore.
He made his way through the ruin, ignoring the suited-up Atlantis techs and the strange cultists alike. The one advantage of the suit was that it granted him relative anonymity here. Well, that and the radiation protection. He took a meandering route to the reactor, taking the opportunity to inspect progress with his own eyes rather than relying on the second-hand reports he got daily. The difference between the areas Atlantis had permission to repair and the areas the cultists denied them was stark – hallways full of construction supplies led to areas of absolute decay. His techs were doing their best to cleanse the radiation from the facility, but until they could properly repair all areas it would just be re-contaminated as they worked, and the cult knew it. That's exactly how they wanted it.
He walked through a decontamination arch, and then into a shielded room that acted as a buffer between the radioactive hellscape and the magical lab he had set up. Abominations were summoned here for research on how to kill them more effectively, but no one knew how they were being summoned - Damien never summoned them in person, only astrally. It was safer, in so many ways.
A woman with grey hair that didn't match her age stood at a desk, tinkering with a few magical instruments and typing data into a comm. Aside from her premature grey, her most striking feature was the clear exhaustion etched into her face, at least until she looked up. One eyebrow arched above eyes that glowed blue – not the bright, incandescent power of him or his siblings, but faintly, like a backlit aquarium. If that aquarium was a human being's iris.
“You must be a new one. You can take the suit off once you pass through the de-con room. That's what it's there for.”
It took him a second or two of staring to realize that he wasn't seeing things, and that the soft glow must have emanated directly from the fluid in the woman's eyes. It took a moment longer for him to register the strange sigils tattooed on her face in neat, orderly patterns – a combination of traditional magical symbols and those found in scientific documents concerning nuclear physics.
This had to be her.
She stared back at him for a moment longer before realizing that the stranger in the rad suit was staring at her, specifically. “Oh, right. I forgot to put my work face away again.” She blinked and the tattoos faded away. The glowing in her eyes did not, however. “Is there something I can help you with? Techs don't usually come back here now that the reactor is stable. Did you get lost or something?”
Damien collected himself mentally and removed the helmet of the suit, giving the grey haired woman her first look at who she was talking to. “I'm not actually a tech. As for helping me, that remains to be seen. The prospect is looking better than I first thought it would, though.”
“Oh!” recognition flashed through her eyes – something else Damien hadn't expected – as he peeled the rest of the suit off. “No, you're certainly not. What brings you out here, Mr. Rhinehart?”
Damien kicked the last of the suit off, taking a moment to straighten the red silk dress shirt and black slacks he wore underneath. “Several things, honestly. I haven't inspected the summoning lab since it was set up, or the reactor. I wanted to get a sense of how things are progressing with my own eyes instead of just relying on what I'm being told. And, assuming you are who I assume you to be, you would be the third reason, Ms. Kaliach.”
“Sorsha, if you don't mind.” She brushed some mystery residue from the shoddy brown robe that all of the cultists seemed to wear, wiped her hands off, and then offered him one. “Nothing toxic, I promise.”
He took her hand and shook politely. “Sorsha then, and you can call me Damien. Mr. Rhinehart is reserved for employees and underlings, not contemporaries. A pleasure to meet you.”
Sorsha gave him a knowing look. “And now I know you want something from me. No one ever thinks that meeting the local psychotic radiation cult witch is a pleasure. Touching the rad-witch?” she chuckled softly. “Most people treat me as if I'm made of plutonium.”
Damien rolled his eyes and exhaled his contempt for the superstitious. “You seem far less psychotic than rumor suggests, and given that no one in the Inferno Hellions turned up dead from radiation poisoning I felt it was a safe assumption that you aren't bleeding gamma rays everywhere you go.” His eyes softened a bit. “Bigotry towards the Awakened is something we all deal with, even me at times. I can only imagine that it's even worse for those with, ahem, less socially acceptable gifts.”
A half smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. “Such a delicate way of putting it. I prefer the more direct approach to the situation: people fear what they don't understand, they're taught to find ways to justify hating anything different than them, and if they have just enough understanding of that difference to think it's dangerous to them, that fear turns into naked hatred. Tale as old as time.”
Damien shuffled his feet slightly, taken off guard by Sorsha's matter-of-fact statement. “You're correct of course, I was just-”
“Just what?” the half smile grew into a whole one. “Just trying to be polite and diplomatic about it? I'm sure you're used to tip-toeing around the delicate sensibilities of corporate suits in board meetings, but I'm promise I'm made of sterner stuff than the coddled elites you deal with.”
He said nothing, just blinked. Some part of his mind was trying to do the math on how long it had been since anyone had left him so completely flat-footed in conversation. The answer he got was 'Inconclusive'.
She laughed, her backlit eyes shining a bit brighter as she did. “Seems you don't get out around us normal, unwashed masses much. I'm sure you didn't come all this way to be harassed by me though.” Sorsha grabbed a pair of what looked like thick sunglasses with side panels from her desk. “Come on, let's go take a look at the lab and that reactor. You can give me your opinion on the state of the facility on the way.”
“I'd hardly consider you part of the 'normal, unwashed masses', Sorsha.” It was just an instant, a momentary flicker in her movement, but the comment seemed to hit a nerve in her and he found himself internally cursing his clumsy words before he realized what he was doing. The moment didn't last long though, and she seemed to take it in stride.
“Normal? No, I guess not. Not really. Unwashed?” She shuddered. “Let's just say that the cult doesn't put a high priority on personal hygiene or the means to maintain it. Violating the Geneva Convention doesn't have quite as much impact when most folks view you as the magical equivalent to a walking nuke, but I'd still do it for a hot shower with actual soap and not think twice. We're talking full on war crimes if conditioner is involved. Do you have any idea what radiation does to conditioner?”
“I....can't say that I've given much thought to it, actually.”
She motioned for him to follow her down the stairs that led to the summoning area. “It irradiates it, of course. And then you get under hot water, open up all the pores in your hair, and rub it in. At that point, it may as well be called anti-conditioner.”
He found himself blinking yet again as he imagined the science behind her statement. “Well, that certainly makes a horrifying amount of sense.”
She nodded. “Despite what the fanatics here seem to think, not everyone thinks that the phrase 'Hiroshima Victim' is a fashion trend.”
Damien's eyes went wide, and he started laughing in spite of himself. “That's completely inappropriate. And hilarious.”
“Not half as 'inappropriate' as what gets summoned into this place.” He couldn't see her eyes behind the protective shades, but he could feel the sharpness of her gaze on him. “Go on, take a look. Tell me if anything is out of place, because I'm the only one who maintains it.”
He walked the length of the space slowly, scrutinizing details only he should know to look for, finding to his surprise that everything was still perfectly as it should be. “Only you? Why is that?”
“Because everyone else is scared shitless of the 'work' that gets done here. The cultists treat it like normal people treat something that's radioactive. The techs... they have no idea what they're dealing with, but even they know it's wrong. As for me, well... I'm not an expert on all the weird things out there, but I do know that whatever you're summoning here, they aren't hive spirits, or Twisted, they're something else. Pretty sure they aren't spirits at all, but whatever they are it sometimes takes multiple radiation spirits or mages to put them down.”
He froze mid-step. “What did you just say?” There was a frosty edge to his voice that he didn't bother concealing.
Her tone matched his. “Let's recap. I know they're not normal spirits, I know they're hard to kill, and I know that you're the one summoning them. Presumably, to figure out how to kill them. That's not exactly the most comforting thought, but discovery requires experimentation and a bunch of fanatical radiation cultists is just the perfect blend of useful and expendable.”
“And this.... assumption... that I'm summoning them?”
“Occam's razor. I understand that when you set this up, you assumed you would only be dealing with mundanes and a group of people so brainwashed that they think radiation sickness is a fun party drug, but now I'm here. I'm a self taught rad-mage with a doctorate in oncology and a minor in nuclear physics, a photographic memory, and I'm not drinking the cult's kool-aid, which means I actually believe the research I do with all the resources of the nexus and your Atlantis techs at my fingertips. This?” She waved her hand to encompass the entire room, “it doesn't match any known form of recorded magic, not even the stuff they don't want people talking about. And here you are, walking through the middle of it perfectly at ease, with a level of comfort that only comes from being very familiar with the danger you're staring in the face. More familiar than the only other person that seems to know anything about it, through exposure.”
Damien stood stone still, his mind caught unprepared for the second time since meeting her.
“That 'other person' is me by the way, in case you're wondering. I think I mentioned the photographic memory earlier? And see, that's the most interesting bit. My photographic memory is artificial. I got the implants young, before my parents knew I was gifted magically. I've never once had a problem with the implants retaining something, until I saw this stuff. It's as if it resists comprehension, even cybernetically enhanced comprehension. But you? Completely unfazed by it all. Not hard to figure out why, wouldn't you agree?”
Damien spun around slowly to face her. “Ms. Kaliach, I want you to listen to my next words very carefully, because as of now, your life depends on your full understanding of them.” He paused for a breath, long enough for the threat to sink in. “Your deduction is both correct and impressive, truly. At this moment, I have no doubt that my interest in you was more well founded than I presumed. However, that is knowledge that no one is supposed to know. As it stands, there are only three other people who know this. Two of them, it was inevitable. The third is the... person... that taught me, and she is still alive despite my best efforts to remedy that problem. And now, there's you.”
It was Sorsha's turn to stand perfectly still.
“Everyone else who has learned this has been killed. Not just to protect me, but to protect everyone else from the information they learned. Without the proper...” he took a moment, pondering the right word to use. “... the proper pedigree, the knowledge itself is corrosive, like a cancer of the soul. And once you have it, you want nothing more than to spread it.” As he spoke, he took the time to scan her aura looking for the telltale 'coffee grounds', as Alex called them. He found nothing thankfully, aside from a sudden sadness he didn't expect. Something about the words he had used....
“Understand that your implants probably saved both your life and your soul by not being able to process something not intended for the neohuman mind to understand without cracking in some way.”
Sorsha took a deep breath, digesting everything he had just said and running through a list of possible responses, including the one where she fetched her broom and nuked “Mr. Rhinehart” through the nearest wall and into the radiation soaked chamber beyond. Instead, she opted for a less violent, yet still direct approach.
“What the hell are you into, Damien?”
Damien was silent as he tried to figure out how to answer her. He absentmindedly rubbed his mouth and chin, looking down at the floor as he searched for words he didn't expect to need, at least not this early. As he thought, he became more and more aware that he had just threatened the life of a highly capable radiation mage, on her home turf, and with both her spirits and other radiation mages close at hand - and she hadn't tried to kill him yet. That was good, at least. He shook his head, partly at his own recklessness, partly at her restraint, and sighed.
“This past 24 hours has gone so completely far from how I planned. Right now, I'm trying to determine how to answer your question, something that I ask myself daily when I wake up in the morning. The response I give myself can best be described as the internal equivalent of incoherent screaming that I lock away very quickly, so that I can continue to function.”
He looked back up, meeting what he assumed was her incredulous gaze behind the shades. “Is there somewhere we can sit and talk, so I can explain all this?”
Sorsha took a moment to process the sheer audacity of this stranger before deciding on a response. “How do you handle the chafing?”
“I'm sorry, what?”
“The chafing. I figure with the size of the balls you're dragging around, chafing has to be an issue.”
It started in his eyes, which had become perfect, wide circles of surprise. The chuckle then announced its presence in his throat, and before he knew what had happened it took root in his belly and grew into a full fledged, nearly uncontrollable laugh. Soon he was bent over, one arm braced against a wall to keep upright as violet tears ran down his face from the sheer force of the laughter rippling through him.
Sorsha smiled despite herself, giving him the time he needed to regain his composure. Eventually the laughing fit subsided, and he righted himself again. “Well, you clearly needed that. Not sure about the tears though, that's probably not healthy.”
"Side effects of my bloodline's magical heritage."
“Come on then, follow me.” She grabbed a broom that had copper wire for bristles and a rubber crutch foot on the other end and led him further into the plant, using the broom as a walking stick.
Sorsha led Damien through hallways that shouldn't have been cluttered, illuminated by lights that shouldn't have been flickering, until they reached a doorway 20 meters down the hall from the non-radiated barracks for the Atlantis Global techs. An old, yellowed plastic sign identified it as an employee clinic. Once inside, he took stock of his surroundings; a twin sized bed was stuffed into one corner, a small trideo set sitting on a table at the foot of it. The majority of the space was dominated by medical equipment that didn't belong in a clinic intended to treat workplace injuries - an ultrasound machine and MRI/CAT scan cocoon sat side by side, both plugged into the same monitor between them. A dialysis machine sat in the corner opposite the door, flanked on either side by various IV rigs, test kits, and a refrigeration unit that could have held either medication or food, possibly both. A cloning rig with a tank too small for limb or even digit replacement sat off in a disused area, covered in dust and in a state of obvious disrepair. Taking a second look around, he realized that all of the equipment was damaged or breaking down in one way or another, even the trideo and bed frame. Sorsha set a folding chair down across from the dialysis unit and then sat down at the unit herself.
"So," she said, casually shoving two needles into her arm, "We were discussing what goes on in that lab, and why." She checked the readouts on the machine, connected a few bags to the IV rig that Damien realized was in fact set up to feed directly into it, and then turned it on. A crimson line slowly snaked out of her veins, through a clear tube and into the machine.
He sat down in the chair, both fascinated and disturbed by what he was witnessing. "Yes, we.... ah, may I ask what it is that you're doing?"
"I'm treating myself. I'm a radiation mage, Damien. I have leukemia, and sometimes I get a bonus Cancer Of The Week. Ironically I can usually treat those with radiation, but that still leaves toxins behind, and I need regular infusions of meds to keep myself functioning and prevent things from getting bad. Kidneys and livers aren't designed to deal with high levels of radioactive elements or the bi-products of chemo drugs regularly and implants aren't an option for several reasons, so I need my little friend here to help."
Damien took a moment to process all that. "So.... this is normal for you."
"Yup. Every few days, since I was 12."
"Your dedication to not diluting your abilities with cyberware is... I was going to say impressive, but that doesn't seem strong enough."
She laughed, a vision that was in and of itself disturbing given that he was watching a machine drain her of blood while she did it. "Thanks, but that's only part of it. I - literally me, my physical body - am constantly radioactive, and getting implants that won't just break down within a year is either impossible because the materials don't exist, or incredibly expensive if they do. My memory enhancements were replaced with radiation shielded upgrades by the corp responsible for all this when I was first diagnosed because I needed normal, mundane radiation therapy, but that was before I awakened and they found a way to legally wash their hands of me. And don't worry, you're not going to get irradiated just by standing too close to me. On a magical level, containing the radioactivity inside me was the first thing I learned how to do." She grinned a small, wicked grin. "It only comes out when I want it to."
He smiled back at the teasing threat as the machine whirred and the bags of medicine began to drain into it. A moment later, a second crimson line started slowly flowing down another clear tube attached to her other arm. "That's quite the cocktail you have there."
She silently held up a finger and closed her eyes, paling a bit as the line of clean, medicine laden blood entered her veins. After some time, she spoke. "It's always cold coming back in, and the shock of it can make me a little loopy at first. But yeah, we've got some fine vintages here. Prussian Blue, Entolimod, Potassium Iodide, Pentatate Calcium and Pentatate Zinc, and a few immuno-boosters too since I can't get the cloned bone marrow I need right now. I decided to skip the chemo drugs this time. It's not polite to let your guest see you puking your guts out, after all." She opened her eyes back up and winked, the blue glow slowly fading from them. "I'm a classy girl with expensive, rarified tastes."
"Is the Prussian Blue the reason your eyes glow? I'm sorry if I'm being nosy, it's just that I'm not used to seeing that from anyone other than myself or my brother, and even then...." he stopped short, realizing what had just slipped out from between his lips.
"That's part of it, but also, I'm radioactive. Everyone thinks that radiation glows green because of all the movies, but that's not true. Green light is dead center on the visible light spectrum. If it glowed green, radiation wouldn't be harmful. Blue light, on the other hand, is at the upper end of the spectrum and is a by-product of the much higher frequency radioactive waves, like x rays and gamma rays. So to answer your question, the Prussian Blue probably contributes, but my eyes glow when things build up because my aqueous humor is radioactive enough to start emitting light." She smirked again. "The Prussian does make me sweat blue, though."
"You're kidding me."
To prove her point, she turned up the hem of her robe around her collar bone a bit, revealing faint, dark blue smudges. "Nope. The stuff was originally used as a dye until they discovered it had medical uses too. So why do yours glow?"
He blinked. "What?"
"Your eyes. You mentioned that they glow, but I've seen no evidence of this. I think I'm growing skeptical and require proof."
"You..... absolutely not. This is certainly not the time-"
"Damien."
He stopped speaking as she cut him off, some part of his brain wondering how the hell she had managed that trick. No one ever interrupted him....
"I'm currently laying here with needles and tubes sticking out of me while my blood gets sucked out and pumped back in. I'm tired, it's cold and not entirely painless, and it's boring. The least you can do after threatening me and then watching me get the biological equivalent of an oil change is showing me these glowing eyeballs you mentioned."
He blinked and looked away, but when he turned back she was still staring at him, looking like she was somewhere in the neighborhood of half dead, but still with enough presence to smirk at him and cock an eyebrow.
"...fine," he growled, before closing his eyes for the few seconds he needed to call up his mana. When he opened them again, his signature bright violet emanated from them. He held the mana for a three count and then let it dissipate back within him.
She nodded with satisfaction. "Impressive. I'm sure that little trick cuts directly through the red tape at your board meetings, if you don't mind the smell of corporate drones soiling their fancy, expensive suits."
He found himself laughing again. "I admit, I've used it on occasion to, shall we say, drive a point home."
She closed her eyes and let her head sink into the pillow, the smirk still visible on her face. "I'll bet. It also confirms my suspicions - the Hellions were absolutely terrified of your brother. You wouldn't believe the rumors and half-baked horror stories about teal eyes glowing in the darkness, just waiting to gobble up those poor, innocent pyromaniacal psychopaths. It was like a never-ending campfire ghost story, if the fire was made entirely of gasoline, burning tires, and insanity."
Damien took a deep breath, allowing his first emotional reaction of shock and anger to wash over him like a wave before reining his feelings back in and regaining control. He forced muscles that had automatically tensed up to release. "That is dangerous knowledge, for him as well as me. I don't know how you discovered it, but keep it to yourself, please."
She nodded, grimacing as the machine attached to her whirred into another phase. "I'll keep it to myself, but it wasn't too hard to figure out once you mentioned having a brother, at least for me. Same last name, similar features... the eye thing just sealed the deal. Can you hand me the jug of synth-juice in the fridge?"
Damien nodded and retrieved a plastic thermos that smelled strongly of sugar and artificial cherry from behind stacked bags of various medications. "You've met Alex?"
She nodded, taking a long drink of what was basically liquid glucose before continuing. "Once, in passing. It was during the prisoner exchange between the Hellions and his crew. You know, the one where they signed their death warrant. I wasn't even sure that he noticed me at the time, but the more I think about it, he definitely noticed. On my end, it was hard to ignore the polychromatic ball of anger packing enough mana to worry my radiation spirit. I was actually more worried about the fact that he managed to keep that crew together and call the shots effectively through all that rage. Hell of a leader, even the spirits he had with him gave off vibes of being loyal to an ally and not just forced into servitude. Of course, when I brought that up to Lekter he just shrugged it off like an idiot. The only concept of leadership that passed through the rusted bucket of bolts he called a brain was the idea of leading through fear. It was after that little incident that I decided I needed to be elsewhere."
Damien nodded. "An excellent observation. Alex does have a rather unique relationship with the spirits he summons. He's expounded on his theories to the point of excess on the chat forums on the Nexus, to the point that one might confuse his lectures with angry rants and tirades."
She snickered as something clicked into place in her mind. "Wait. Is he Paul? Online I mean, Paul E. Chromatic?"
"The one and only, thank gods. And yes, he did notice you. It was actually his suggestion that I seek you out."
Her eyes opened a bit more, devoid of the radioactive glow but still blue and showing more life than they had minutes before. He noticed that despite her mention of being cold, a few beads of blue tinged sweat had appeared on her brow. She noticed him noticing and wiped them away with her sleeve, grinning. "See? Blue sweat. Not quite as spectacular as purple glowing eyes, but it still makes for a nifty little party trick."
"That's....oddly fascinating, honestly. More than I thought it would be."
Chuckling, she sat up in the seat and took another drink from her jug. "Right? It's one of the few weird side effects that I get a kick out of. It turns out that the human body can't break Prussian Blue down, but it's non-toxic and readily absorbs radioactive particles. So it just works it's way through your blood stream and into your other fluids, neutralizing unstable particles and taking them with it when it washes out. The only downside is that most of my wardrobe is either blue or black because it stains everything else. Or at least it was." She motioned to the tattered robe she was wearing. "These days it's entirely Mud Brown. But enough about me, you said the other Mr. Rhinehart sent you? Is he dealing with the same... situation that the lab is being used for?"
Damien chuckled at the mental image of Alex being referred to as a Mr. "Please, as a personal favor to me? If you are ever around both of us, please refer to him as Mr. Rhinehart. I want to see the look on his face. But to answer your question, yes he is. He's focused on other... familial issues at the moment, but the threat I'm researching here is something that is legitimately impossible for us to ignore. He doesn't have a bleeding edge laboratory, a nuclear reactor, a radiation cult, or a corporate bank account to throw at the problem, so I'm handling this while he handles things that he is far more capable of dealing with than I am."
She blinked. "Right. While the concept of 'more capable than you' at handling something is certainly attention getting, let's stay focused. What exactly are we dealing with in there? Walk me through it."
"We?"
Sorsha laughed. "Yes, we. What, did you really think I was going to just walk away from something this fascinating? It's not like I have a full calendar or a hot date waiting for me."
He grimaced. "You may want to reconsider that enthusiasm once you know all the details."
"Well if you'd just spill your guts instead of circling the issue, maybe I'd be able to make an informed decision."
He sighed. "Alright, we've come this far and you're right about me dodging the issue. Where to start..."
She began disconnecting the now empty tubes from her arms, slapping a pair of self sealing bandages over the puncture wounds as the machine wound down. "Take your time. I'm not going anywhere for another few hours at least."
"Alright then. To start with, you need to know that my family isn't human. Not entirely, at least."
"I had assumed that from the glowing eyes and magical clout you both have, but it's good to have confirmation."
"Specifically," he continued, "we're the grandchildren of Lilith. Yes, that Lilith." Sorsha's eyes went wide, and for the first time since he had met her Damien had the small satisfaction of stunning her into silence. She swallowed, trying to formulate a response. "Take all the time you need to digest that, and feel free to ask questions as they come to you."
"Ok, first question is rhetorical; what the fuck?"
He smirked and looked down. "Ah yes. The question I ask myself every morning."
"Second question. How is that even possible? I mean, isn't she a spirit?" She paused. "Now that I think on it, I have no idea what Lilith would be considered. I don't think they have a nice, neat category for her, do they?"
He nodded. "That's the truth of it, and also the reason I can't answer your second question. As best I can determine, she is both entirely human and yet beyond humanity in every way. If you believe the old tales, she became something akin to a godling when she ate from both of the forbidden trees in Eden. Science doesn't have a convenient genus-species label for.....that."
"So who's your grandfather?"
He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "That's not something I'm willing to reveal, for your own safety and mine. What I will say is that he isn't directly relevant to the lab, and that he has powerful enemies. Well, had. His enemies are still alive. He isn't, and that fact is directly relevant to what goes on in the lab."
"Let me guess," she said, wiping more sweat from her forehead. "Actual-Fucking-Lilith falls in love with someone to the point that they have children, and then he gets murdered. Given that she's basically the patron saint of vengeful women everywhere, I'm betting that plays into this somehow. I just can't figure out how quite yet."
"Correct again. I'm beginning to think I'm going to be saying that to you a lot."
She smirked. "You sound excited about that. Most men just find it irritating."
"Most men are threatened by someone smarter than them, especially a woman. I am not, especially given how rare it is for me to have a conversation with someone on my level."
She raised her eyebrows and gave him a half smile. "Ok Damien, calm down and put your ego away, I don't think it's going to fit in here with all the medical equipment."
He took a mental step back. "I...uh, I apologize. I didn't mean to come off as arrogant."
She shrugged. "Most arrogant men don't when the arrogance is well founded, but I do appreciate you seeing me as an equal. Enough with the awkward social graces though, more tales of revenge and horrible creatures, please."
He nodded. "Right. I'm unsure of how or when it happened, and barring a direct conversation with her I'll probably never know, but at some point after my grandfather's death, Lilith was torn from this reality and sealed..... elsewhere. I know that's vague, but if I could give you a more accurate name I would. This place just happens to be the home of the....things.... I've been summoning here. Her plan is to find a way to return to our reality and unleash them on the world. My plan is to learn the best way to kill them so we have a chance of survival."
"Ok. Let me make sure I've got all this right. Lilith wants to unleash a bunch of actual eldritch horrors on earth to get revenge on.....whoever killed your grandfather? That seems like overkill to me."
Damien pursed his lips. "I would agree if his killers weren't dragons, and if her lust for revenge stopped with them."
Sorsha sputtered out the sugar water she was sipping, literally choking on that statement. He waited for her to recover. Once she stopped coughing, she looked down at the jug, tossed it aside, and fished a beer out of the refrigerator. Damien subconsciously cracked his knuckles - if she was going to back out, it would be now.
She sat back down on the dialysis chair and popped the cap off the bottle with a corner of the machine. "I'm going to need something a bit stronger than fruit punch for the rest of this, I think. She wants to kill the damn dragons?!"
"She's essentially spelled that out to both Alex and me. In fact, she's set on convincing us to help her, or at least she was until recently. But I'm convinced what she really wants is revenge on the one who created her, by destroying what he sees as his creation."
"She wants to fucking kill god?!"
He shook his head. "No, not god. Yahweh, the Abrahamic deity. I know that sounds like I'm splitting hairs but it's actually an important distinction. And she doesn't want to kill him, she wants to make him watch while she destroys everything he made."
"Oh, that's all. That would be a lot more reassuring if I didn't happen to live here."
"My sentiments exactly, which is why I'm asking for your help."
She held up a hand. "Hold on. I'm not making the leap of logic - if logic even lives here anymore - between wanting to avenge her lover's death and blaming god... I mean, Yahweh, for his death."
He sighed. "Ah yes, I missed that part. Part of Lilith's curse entails that since she violated Eden, any garden she creates will be brought to ruin. In this case and given her history, I think it's safe to say that "garden" also includes any family or any mate she finds. In a nutshell, every entity Lilith has truly fallen in love with has met a violent end, and their children haven't fared much better. I don't think I need to explain who laid that curse."
Sorsha whistled through her teeth. "So she's harboring a grudge built on literal eons worth of the lives of everyone she's ever loved. Yeah, that'd do it. Hell, I'd honestly take her side in all this if it I wasn't on the list of things to erase."
"That's a feeling both Alex and I share, keenly. If it was only the dragons we'd be far more willing to help her, but neither of us are willing to sacrifice the world so she can satisfy her need for revenge."
She shook her head, an incredulous smile creeping across her face as she sipped the beer. "I appreciate that, but what makes you believe that you're going to fare any better than the rest of her children. Actually.... you said grandchildren." She cocked an eyebrow at him. "What makes you two different? If we keep with the precedent set, you shouldn't have even had the chance to be born."
Damien took a long, deep breath and let it out slowly. "I truly hope that eventually I can tell you more, but for now, all I can say is that unlike our long departed predecessors, we are not beholden to the entity that cursed our grandmother."
She snickered. "Ok Mr. Tall, Dark and Dramatic. Outside of god's good graces, is it?"
"More like his ill graces, but yes. It's a deliberate consequence of who our grandfather is."
She started cackling, and Damien just watched, unsure of how to proceed. After a minute or so, she caught her breath. "OK ok, I'm sorry but I need to be vulgar for a second here. Your grandmother decided to fuck something that can just laugh in Yahweh's face?"
He blinked, grinning slowly as the absurdity of what he was saying seeped in. "Well, when you say it like that..."
"Ok. If you want to keep any more secrets from me, you really need to stop giving me enough clues to piece things together on my own because the list of things that match that description is ludicrously short."
He grimaced. "The price of working with someone on my level is that, well, they're on my level."
"So," she continued, "You have other familial affairs, you have dragons that killed your grandfather and, I'm assuming, want to dig up and burn your entire family tree based on things you've inferred, and your grandfather was either old enough to predate Yahweh, is powerful enough to be unconcerned with angering him, or wasn't created by him."
Damien huffed. "That's correct."
"Excellent, I love being right. So he was either another god, some sort of demon predating the entire Abrahamic faith, or a dragon. Am I getting warmer?"
"Uncomfortably so."
She grinned at him, blue eyes twinkling with a light that had nothing to do with magic or radiation. "Well you might want to take that suit jacket off then, because I'm not done yet. See, the one thing that really stuck out about Alex - aside from the magic, I mean - was that he had what I thought were cosmetic optical implants and fangs. It struck me as odd that a mage of his caliber would have implants that would screw with the flow of his mana, and occular implants definitely do that."
Damien set his jaw and said nothing.
Her grin took on an aspect that reminded him of his cat stalking a trapped rodent. "They're not implants, are they? He's got dragon blood in his veins, and so do you."
"You are, once again, correct," he growled.
"Odin's left fucking eye," she breathed.
He chuckled, despite his growing discomfort. "Well, that's certainly a creative way to put it."
She shook her head again. "I'd call you out for being either a liar or insane, but your aura says you're telling the truth. Do you understand how many laws of magic you're breaking just by existing? In terms of magical theory, you're the walking equivalent of Heisenberg discovering quantum physics."
"Those aren't the only laws our existence breaks, but yes. Alex reminds me of that regularly."
She scoffed. "And you want my help? For what? What the hell could you even need from me?"
Damien looked her square in the face. "First off, none of this information leaves this room, Ms. Sherlock Holmes."
She nodded. "You put a lot of trust and faith in me, even if some of that was unintentional. I won't violate that."
Damien visibly slumped in relief, finally taking her advice and removing his jacket. "That's reassuring. I don't enjoy trusting people, but Alex keeps telling me that I have to sooner or later. Please don't make me regret it - given the choice between being betrayed or hearing him tell me he was right, I'll take the latter. As for what I could need from you, where do I start? How could I possibly find a use for a Doctor of Oncology and Nuclear physics with an eidetic memory, a grasp on magical theory that matches mine, and an intellect that I clearly have problems keeping up with at times?"
"The flattery is nice," she replied, "but none of that is why you came here."
"No, it isn't. I need a radiation mage that's still sane. Everything else is a fantastic added benefit."
"I put that much together the moment you started talking to me like I'm a human being instead of a sideshow freak. Why? I want to know why you need a rad-mage."
He sighed again, and then started chuckling, a low, slow laugh threatening to saunter directly into hysteria.
"Wow, you are not used to asking for help, are you?" She reached into the refrigerator again, pulled out a second beer, popped the top, and then walked over and handed it to him. "Here, drink this. I swear, if anyone had told me that I'd be hanging out in my bedroom with Mr. Rhinehart and watching while he fought off a panic attack, I'd have called an asylum on the spot."
"Is that what these are?"
Her face went blank for a second as the full impact of that sentence hit her, replaced a moment later by sadness and concern. "Jesus.... yes. Yes, this is a panic attack, and I'm guessing it's not your first one either. Aren't you... doesn't Atlantis provide mental health care? Are you seeing anyone about this?
He laughed bitterly, trying to control breathing that was steadily heading towards hyperventilating. "What, talk to my therapist about the end of the fucking world and how I'm not supposed to exist, or about how some of the most powerful creatures on earth want very specifically me and my idiot brother dead? Which should I lead with?"
Sorsha grabbed a second folding chair and set it across from him before taking a seat. "You're going to start by drinking some of this beer, and then, when you've calmed down some, you can explain what you need me for. I mean hell, you've already told me most of this mess. What am I going to say? 'Oh I'm sorry Damien, I'd love to help you save the world and all but I've got an appointment with my stylist on Tuesday to get all the anti-conditioner scrubbed out of my hair implants.' "
He started laughing again, an actual laugh this time instead of a thinly veiled cry for help. "I don't think I know any stylists that specialize in radioactive decontamination, sadly."
"That's not sad. Hell, if that's something that people regularly needed, we have bigger problems than I thought."
He nodded, sipped his beer, and took a deep, centering breath. "Implants?"
"Yeah, technically I'm bald. Radiation and chemo. My hair follicles were implanted with my own hair, and then augmented with fiber optics to protect them. Normally I don't bother with changing the color, but..." she closed her eyes, and the grey hair shifted into a rich black. "That's my actual, natural hair color. I got this done at the same time my memory implants were replaced."
"And they don't interfere with your mana flow?"
She shook her head. "Hair is already dead, so no. It's one of the few implants we can get with no impact on our abilities. In fact, I'm pretty sure Alex has the fancier, non-medical version. Because he somehow needed more ways to look like a package of glowsticks that exploded."
More chuckling, almost a giggle, and then he took a second breath. "Alright. I need your help for two reasons, and they're related. First, it's because this won't be the first time that these extradimensional horrors have invaded our reality, and they're adaptive. They have resistances to most kinds of traditional magic, but radiation magic, or radiation in general, wasn't something humanity had developed the last time they were here. It's new, and they have no defense against it."
She nodded. "So I was right. You're trying to figure out how to kill them."
"That's correct, and I need someone who actually understands how the new forms of magic work to help develop ways of killing them that we can teach. Someone who still has all their mental faculties intact."
She blinked, stunned by what he was implying. "Wait. You want me to teach radiation magic?"
"Eventually, yes. Once we figure out how to do it safely...or at least as safely as possible."
Sorsha whistled through her teeth. "That's..... hell, I don't even know if that's possible."
Damien looked up, a half smirk on his face. "It's not possible, and neither am I. We'll do the difficult things now, the impossible might take a little while."
Sorsha shook her head, disbelief and a grin on her face. "Billie Holiday? Really?"
"I'm a man of culture. I enjoy the classics."
She sipped her own beer, still smiling. "Alright then. What's part two?"
"Part two is somewhat more complicated on several levels. I've recently become acutely aware of what a dedicated team of professionals can accomplish, compared to what I can do on my own."
She gave him a knowing look. "Oh, you mean the crater that your brother and his people left where the Hellions used to call home?"
He nodded. "Precisely. To be fair that was a lot more than just his team, but it was his team that made it possible for the gangs to unite, and they organized the attack. That was the culmination of several operations they've carried out, most of which are simply outside of my ability to accomplish on my own with corporate assets. Alex has been telling me for a long time to put my own team together, and given the things we're likely to go up against in the field.... you would be a vital asset, Sorsha." He shook his head as soon as the words left his mouth. "No, not an asset. Sometimes it's difficult for me to leave the corpo-speak in the board room, so I'll be blunt. You'd be someone that will probably save lives, both in terms of the rest of the team and in terms of people who would otherwise be little more than victims of the things we're hunting. Someone I would be trusting with my own life at times."
Sorsha closed her eyes, trying to push back the joke forcing it's way out of her brain and onto her tongue, but the look on her face betrayed her. "I'm sorry, I don't want to make light of this but I have to.... just..... your brother told you to go make friends and your first choice was the local neighborhood radiation witch?" Damien started chuckling, and that was all it took for Sorsha to crack and start laughing. "HEWWO, MR. AWEX? CAN DAMIEN COME OUT AND PWAY SAVE THE WORLD WITH ME??" At this, Damien lost all of his carefully reconstructed composure and started laughing along with her. Soon they were both hunched over in their seats, laughing too hard to speak coherently. At length, and with tear streaks down both of their faces from laughing, they both managed to finish their beers and regain their composure.
"So," Damien met her gaze, "will you help me?"
She sighed, the enormity of everything he had revealed weighing on her, and then made a decision with a shrug. "Well I can't very well just sit here and do nothing, knowing all of this. So yes, Mr. Rhinehart."
She gave him another half smirk. "I'll play Save The World with you."