You’ve been running on pure adrenaline since you spotted the military arriving in the car park, it would be a good idea to slow down and think. Keeping Thom’s lunch date with his wife would give you a breather. Besides, you and Jillian used to go to that coffee house all the time, it’s pretty good.
You decide to walk the short distance to the coffee house, which sits just on the edge of the Keyserling College campus. It’s an independent operation, not part of any big chain and just a little bit upmarket. The prices keep it mercifully free of students, unless they work there of course.
Thom’s wife, Karin, is already waiting when you arrive. You’d been reviewing Thom’s memories on the way over, but they didn’t quite prepare you for his wife. Karin was pretty enough once, you now know, but she never quite recovered her figure after bearing her children. The extra weight she’s carrying sits unpleasantly on her figure. It’s made worse by the clothes she wears, which might be more suitable if she was ten years younger. Throw the terrible pixie cut hairdo and dye job on top of that and you can begin to understand why Thom is so unsatisfied with his life. You sit down opposite her. A pretty Asian barista with a name tag that reads ‘Summer’ takes your order and you favour her with a smile.
“What are you smiling at,” says Karin accusingly.
Ah, the final piece of the puzzle: Her voice. Thom’s memories don’t quite capture the sheer jaw-dropping awfulness of it. She’s high pitched, nasal and retains a thick New York accent. You could probably use her voice as a paint stripper. Or a torture device.
“Oh nothing,” you say, immersing yourself deeply into Thom’s character. It’s probably the best way to get though lunch without killing her. “I was just thinking of a joke someone told me at work.”
“Was it funny,” she asks, obviously not quite believing you. Thom actually found Karin’s voice cute for the first year of their marriage, less so for the other nine years.
“Only if you’re an accountant dear,” you lie. “You see…”
“Never mind that then,” she interrupts impatiently. “Go on, as me about my day.”
“So what have you been up to today dear,” you ask wearily, adding self absorbed to the list of Karin’s character flaws.
“Shopping,” she exclaims with glee, reaching under the table and holding up several bags. Expensive looking bags. “I saw these darling shoes that I just had to have, and once I bought them, well I needed some new clothes to go with them…”
It is at this point that your mind shuts down – a defence mechanism that Thom’s built up over the years. On the outside you appear to be listening to what Karin is saying, making appreciative noises and saying ‘yes dear’ in all the right places. You’re mind, however is elsewhere. Thom usually daydreams, but you are thinking over your predicament.
Firstly, Protean Industries isn’t safe. Someone there is preparing to experiment with the SX-3 and from what you’ve overheard, they don’t plan in doing it in a legal sort of way. One of the voices mentioned ‘the previous case’, and after some thought you think they might have been discussing David Johnson. Johnson was exposed to a previous iteration of SX-3, SX-2. The details of what happened to Johnson are shrouded in speculation and mystery, few hard facts are available
“..and don’t you think that color suits me,” says Karin as you drift back into the conversation.
“Yes dear,” you say on cue. Actually, you just noticed a familiar face behind Karin: Lieutenant Claire Briggs. Claire is a friend of Jillian’s from back at Fort Suffolk. She‘s sitting reading a paper. You think she’s waiting for someone.
“So then I just had to mwah mwah mwah mwah mwah mwah,” continues Karin as you drift back to thinking again.
SX-2 reduced the Johnson boy to a blue residue, not unlike what you seem to look like while changing, now you think about it. Jillian managed to infer that he remained fully conscious after this and was able to bind himself to nerve and brain tissue and absorb, redirect and interpret synaptic impulses, or as she put it Claire once back at Fort Suffolk “that’s science for ‘he can possess people’””. Thinking about it, you realise that the voices at Protean are working on the assumption the effects of SX-3 are similar. They don’t have a clue what powers you have. That’s an advantage you can exploit.
“I think I’ll go back and get the other one later,” continues Karin, pulling your attention back to what she’s saying. “Do you think that would be a good idea Thom?”
“Definitely dear,” you respond with barely a thought. Behind Karin, Claire looks at her watch impatiently.
“I thought so too, there’s still a little left on the mwah mwah mwah…”
Come to think of it, you don’t know the full extent of your powers either. You can absorb people, look like them and think like them. You can even look like them after you… Now what would be a good word for it – eject maybe? Yes, you can look like them even after you eject them, but maybe not have their memories any more. That leaves a lot of unanswered questions: how many people can you absorb at once, how long can a person be safely absorbed for, can you combine bits of people? Protean would be the best place to find out, but it’s not safe. That leaves maybe Keyserling College, although you have no idea how good the facilities of the science faculty there are.
“Excuse me dear,” you interrupt, ignoring Karin’s appalled expression. Even with Thom’s ability to fade in and out of a conversation, there’s only so much of this harpy that you can take. “But I really need to go to the toilet.”
You stand up and make your way through the door at the back of the coffeehouse, down some stairs, past a storage cupboard and into the men’s room. Standing at the urinal, you let your thoughts drift back again.
You’re safe, at least for now. Thom isn’t a great long term prospect for you though. Sooner or later the mystery voices at Protean will start thinking about how to detect SX-3 and hit upon the bright idea of checking all their employees for it. Maybe Karin is more fun to be than to listen to? She certainly gets to take Thom’s credit cards on wild trips. Either way, you’ll have to find a new identity before you kill the woman.
After the stream finishes, you place your member back in your pants, zip up the fly and then wash your hands. Walking back outside the toilets the little basement corridor is more busy now. Claire walks past you and into the ladies room. The pretty Asian barista from earlier is busy pulling a mop and bucket out from the storage cupboard.
Well, you wanted a new identity, here are a couple of opportunities: Most of the staff in the coffee house are students, so the barista could be an avenue into Keyserling, where you could continue your research. All you need to do is shove her inside the store cupboard and you can absorb her in peace.
Then there’s Claire. You could take a chance and follow her into the ladies room, absorbing her there. It’s risky: You don’t know if there is anyone else in there with her. And it would put you right bang in the middle of the army at Fort Suffolk, although right now they seem a lesser evil than Protean Industries. Given the two are joined at the hip, being Claire might even give you the chance to investigate Protean. You could even make contact with Jillian again, since she and Claire are friends.
Or you can forget about taking a new identity for now. With Claire and, to a lesser extent, the barista, it’s possible that someone could walk in on you. Maybe a new opportunity will present itself later, and if it doesn’t, there’s always Karin. Sometimes bad things do happen to bad people.
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