Industrial Strength Magic

Chapter 73: Life Revolves Around The Wall

“I don’t care what you do, I’m not gonna cut off my pinky finger.” Jason said as his steroid-addled boss reached under the trailer’s wobbling dining table and withdrew a briefcase.

Jason’s heartrate skyrocketed as Chemestro opened the briefcase facing away from Jason, withdrawing a single sheet of paper covered in dense legalese.

Is he threatening me, or my siblings, or my home, or what?

“I broke into Locust’s office recently and asked her what the most efficient way to manipulate a minion’s loyalty was. The discussion was illuminating.” Chemestro said, turning the paper around so that Dazzle could read it.

Despite understanding the individual words, Jason had no idea what the entire thing meant. He saw his sibling’s names, and a cold sweat broke out. There were words like ‘in perpetuity, and ‘incarceration.”

“What is this?”

“That is the paperwork for a trust which will ensure that your brother and sister are taken care of regardless of what happens to you before they reach adulthood. It accounts for food, shelter, education, and the guardianship of a highly professional caretaker until they are adults. One fifth of the funds revert to them when they are eighteen, thirty percent when they are twenty-five, and the final half when they are forty.”

“This,” Chemestro said, passing him another paper. “Is a gag order directed at Tom Smith, the lawyer you have a dispute with. If he ever publicly speaks your mother’s name, yours, or your siblings, he goes straight to prison.”

“What…the hell?” Jason asked, his eyes watering. “Is that legal?”

“No. But I pulled some extra shifts on the wall for Solaris in exchange. About forty-eight hours straight.”

Jason glanced at Chemestro’s face and noted the bags under the musclebound cape’s eyes.

“Now, there’s not actually any money in the trust right now, it’s only set up and needs to be funded. This bank account number will allow you to deposit any money you receive into your sibling’s trust fund.”

He slid the bank information across to Jason.

“And this,” Chemestro flipped the briefcase around, revealing the contents.

Chits. Lots and lots of chits. Practically spilling out of the briefcase.

“This is what you will use to fund the trust.”

“Now, the gag order and the trust setup are gratis. You can take them and walk away, fund the trust at any pace you want. But this…”

Jason heaved a sigh.

“Alright, fine, I’ll cut off my pinky.”

“I knew you’d see it my way,” Chemestro said, closing the briefcase and watching him expectantly.

“Wait, now?”

“Do you have a better time?”

Jason sighed and ran his fingers through his hair.

“I guess not.”

He focused on his left pinky finger, his heartrate skyrocketing.

He took a deep breath, thought of his family, and did the deed.

POOF!

Dazzle’s pinky finger exploded into confetti and he strangled back a scream.

“AA…eh? It doesn’t hurt?”

“I didn’t think it would.” Chemestro said, watching Jason’s hand clinically. “Can you still move it? still feel it?”

“Yeah…” Jason said, bending and unbending his non-existent pinky finger. “Hey, that’s pretty cool!”

“Now bring it back.”

The explosion of confetti inverted around his pinkie, and suddenly it was there again.

“Wow!”

“Excellent,” Chemestro said, sipping on an energy drink. “Now do your entire body.”

Jason froze. “Can’t we just stick with the pinky?”

“Listen Jason. Your powers as you’ve been using them are sub-par at best. You will only be worth my time if you are able to use them on your entire body. Teleporters are…much more valuable. If you are a teleporter, you can command quite the outrageous salary once our contract has run its course.”

“That and we need to finish breaking through your mental barriers while the pinky experiment is still fresh in your mind so you don’t build them back up again.”

From the hallway, Samantha and William wandered into the light of the kitchen, rubbing their eyes at the bright fluorescent light.

“What’s going on?”

“I was just teaching your brother how to do a magic trick,” Chemestro said without a single change in tone or expression. “Would you care to watch?”

“What kind of magic trick?” Samantha said suspiciously, peering at the bulky young man.

“This kind.” Chemestro turned invisible, and reappeared a moment later on the other side of the room.

“Wow!” William shouted, his jaw dropped in childish amazement.

“I don’t think I can…” Dazzle said.

“Nonsense. If your pinkie can still flex, that means your brain can still send signals. It’ll be fine. Do it.”

“Yeah, do it!” William said.

“Do it!” Samantha joined in.

“Do it, do it, dooo it!” The two brats began chanting.

“FINE! but if I die, I’m haunting you!”

POOF!

The world turned black and white. Everything seemed to freeze in place as Dazzle walked through the room, looking around at everything frozen in place with wonder.

Even Chemestro, Sam and Will were locked in place, frozen in greyscale.

Wow, this is amazing, Dazzle thought reaching out to poke Will’s bratty cheeks. Then he looked down at himself and realized that he had no body.

Adrenaline flowed through his nonexistent body as he stumbled backwards and desperately tried to claw his way back.

Come back, come back come back!

POOF!

Thump!

“OW,” Dazzle said, rubbing his hip where he’d slammed into the oil-spattered stove, some five feet away from where he’d started.

“WHOO! That was awesome!” Sam and Will fell over themselves.

Chemestro looked…vaguely satisfied.

“Good job, Dazzle.”

“Thanks, I-“

“Now do it again. We have to completely monotonize the act for you so you don’t build an irrational superstitious avoidance. Again.”

“Again, Again, AAAGAAIN!” Sam and Will chanted.

Jason sighed and ran his fingers through his hair.

“Sometimes I wish I’d never taken this job.”

***Monolith***

If Monolith could sweat, he would be doing so…profusely.

This wasn’t supposed to go down like this.

Monolith’s arms and legs were pinned in place by four different bruisers, while Snake, Barrel of Monkeys, and Fish looked on with neutral expressions.

Ray-Man’s magnum opus was pressed to nearly every inch of his forehead, ready to vaporize his skull as half a dozen clones held the gun to his temples.

Locust was fiddling with her phone, the old crone monologuing as she did.

“You’ll never believe what that brat Chemestro did. He broke into my lair and started asking really dumb questions about how to make other people like him. I mean…It was like the kid didn’t understand how much he was giving away about himself just based on the questions he was asking.

“So naturally, I took pity on him and gave him good advice. I do consider myself a philanthropist.”

She put the phone to her ear.

“Yeah, boss-man, I’ve got Monolith in checkmate. Can I take him out of the game?”

She put the phone on speaker and held it out so everyone could hear Solaris’s decision, while Monolith’s heart seized.

“That’s a negative, Locust. Numbers on the wall are a little tight recently.”

Monolith breathed a sigh of relief while Locust made a sour face.

“Monolith,” Solaris’s voice said over the phone.

“Yessir.”

“Report to the wall for the remainder of High Tide. If you’re not up here bright and early tomorrow morning, I will find you.”

“Yessir.”

“Don’t make me find you.” Solaris whispered directly into Monolith’s ear, vanishing before Monolith could even move his eyes.

“No sir.” Monolith said, his skin prickling with fear.

“And Locust, you’ve got an I.O.U. You’ve got my blessing to eliminate Monolith after High tide. If you can catch him again.”

“Thanks boss-man, but I don’t think old Monolith’s gonna hang around much longer after high-tide. I imagine he’ll catch the train,” Locust said, eyeballing him.

That does seem like a good idea.

“Alright, let him up,” Locust said, motioning for the bruisers to drop him.

“Traitors,” Monolith said, giving BoM his best glare.

Barrel of Monkeys scoffed, a plume of smoke coming out of his cigar.

“Get out of here, loser.”

The world went red, and Monolith Lunged forward, but was caught by the hired muscle as Locust came to stand in front of him.

“If you try to harm one of my men, I will kill you. Solaris will simply require a bit of community service on the wall in exchange for your shiny butt. Don’t even think I won’t do it.”

Monolith felt hollow as he walked out of his former office and began trudging toward Nexus. He should’ve been angry about his subordinate’s betrayal, or grateful that the timing landed on High tide, giving him an out.

Instead he felt nothing.

Could this possibly be my fault….

Nah.

***Perry***

Paradox Zauberer (Perry Z.)

Class: Garage Tinker

Level 5

HP: 6

Body: 5

Stability: 5 (9)

Nerve: 7

Attunement: 26 (22)

Free Points:0

Perks:Sliding Stats 4, Multi-tool 1, Aerosolized, Blueprint 1

XP to next level: 3051

Riing Riing

Perry checked the I.D. and noticed it was Breaker.

He patched the super breakdancer’s call through to his helmet.

“Hey, man, can I call you back? Things are kind of busy right now.”

The prawn’s mandibles shoved against his palm, slamming him back into the concrete, practically embedding him in the wall.

“I’m still a girl!” Breaker’s voice came over the phone. “You said twenty-four hours! It’s been almost a week! I don’t want to…There are certain things that happen…periodically that I don’t want to be around for, you catch my drift?”

“That would be a really interesting thing to know, whether or not the spell actually turns you into a girl or just reshapes your body to look like one. I could add valuable information to the entry,” Perry said, hanging onto the creature’s barbed mandibles, yanking himself out of the wall and blasting his thrusters to dodge the follow-up attack.

“I’m not interested in knowing!” Breaker said

“Okay,” Perry said, dashing over to the edge of the wall and luring the prawn after him. Once it got close, he shot a beach-ball sized chunk out of its central nervous system and the other supers kicked its bulky body over the side, dislodging a couple more as it fell.

I’m running low on disintegrates, Perry thought as the crystal popped out of the magazine.

“Well, You got two options. You can hurt yourself really bad, like step in front of a bus or stab yourself. Or, you can arrange for the magic on the doll to unravel through extra magical wear and tear.”

“How do I do that?” Breaker asked.

“Take the doll out of my lab and take it to somewhere with a lot of magical activity. Maybe ask Dave at the bowling alley to keep it in his basement for a little while. The chaotic ambient magic should unravel the spell faster. No guarantees on how long it would take, though. It would be a lot faster to try and kill yourself.”

“I’m not gonna do that.” Breaker said.

“Alright…Well, then it’s possible that certain…things may happen. I’ll patch you over to Wraith for advice on how to deal with it.”

“Wait no, don’t-“

Perry forwarded the call to Heather.

In a matter of seconds, the shapeshifter began howling with laughter.

“No, no, I’m sorry, I’m totally taking you seriously, Breaker.” She said, stifling her giggles as she clung to the back of a prawn and directed its rampage towards Perry by hauling on its chitin.

“Actually I’m a little busy right now,” Heather said as the bus-sized monster charged Perry. “I’ll have to patch your call over to Hardcase.”

Up on the upper shelf, where Hardcase was doing overwatch, her robot’s arms started wiggling. Through the plexiglass patch in her cockpit, Perry could make out the tiny girl biting her lip and struggling to contain her laughter.

He ducked the monster’s charge and put his shoulder up against it, Blasting all his jets to full. He shoved the thrashing creature off the side of the wall, down into the writhing hellscape that was the other side of the wall.

Perry watched tracers from the oversized cannons halfway down the wall lance outward and fly over the squirming swarm of caterpillar-looking sea creatures, illuminating them for a brief instant before slamming into one of the prawns.

Washington prawns had darker chitin, which was weaker than a Franklin City prawn, but the creatures themselves were more energetic. They charged a bit faster, thrashed a bit more, and had a nasty tendency to jump at you if they thought they could get away with it.

Perry had nearly gotten buried the first time he saw one of the creatures wiggling through the air towards him.

“How’s the patch job coming?” Perry asked.

“Hold on,” Hardcase said, her cockpit swiveling in place to look behind them. “They’re almost done.”

The Tinkers who were less interested in fighting were currently repairing the wall breach that had had happened the moment they’d arrived, where an anomalous prawn had decided it was easier to chew its way through the wall rather than try to climb over it.

Nearly eight hours of non-stop fighting later, they were relieved and their shift was over, allowing Perry and the remaining supers on the wall to ride back down and live life as normal for another day.

Perry rested his head against the hard plastic of the elevator’s seat and stared at the chain-link ceiling, his body melting into the seat for the several-minute ride down to the ground floor.

“You, me, Hardcase,” Wraith said, pointing at the three of them. “Shampoo, Deodorant, Clothes.” She ticked off her fingers.

“Ung,” Perry said, giving her a thumb’s up.

“There’s a mall on the west side of the city, on Mount Avenue. A big one.” Dark Cloak said, laying down in Wrecked’s empty spot.

“Thanks,” Perry said.

“No problem, Paradox.” Dark Cloak said, tugging his cloak down over his face.