Mind over matter 1

Mind over Matter

Interesting test subjects were hard to find.

It was even harder to find a test subject that stayed interesting. Fortunately, I had found three test subjects that would keep me interested for a while. It was a rare moment, really, one that should be treasured.

Thousands of patients had been in my office, and each one came out a little different each time. I was rather attached to this office, I could afford to design it exactly how I wanted it. The last time that had happened was years ago, back when I still worked for the PRT. The office was closer to a hallway then it was to a room. A rich burgundy carpet met sterile white walls, which were purposefully left blank. I was the main attraction here, I didn’t need to put something up to distract my patients. At the end of the hall was a door, a golden, well designed frame surrounding it. The door was a deep black, a tasteful color scheme that contrasted with the halls. In a flowing golden script was my name, Dr. Cranial. The room on the other side was where the magic happened.

One wall of my office had flat cots that could be pulled out from the wall, each one higher up it then the last. A ladder was between the two columns of cots, and white plastic half domes jutted our from the wall to flank the ladder. Three of the cots has been pulled down, each patient laying on one with their head in the half-dome. The little white domes gave off a slight hum, and a red light blinked on them to signal that they were on.

This was the most boring part of the whole operation, yet also the most necessary. Without a brainscan, I would effectively be fumbling around blind. I might have considered doing that, had my patients not been so incredibly interesting.  The only type of patient more interesting then this trio was a Case 53. So many repressed memories in them, it was like a treasure hunt.

They were almost topped by the set of three grab bags who had been in Madison when the Simurgh hit. Almost.

The Simurgh was an utter blessing for me. She kept my work interesting and she kept me in business. The minds of Simurgh victims were always active in some way, even more so then the brains of normal people. Neurons were always firing, always looping to repeat some minor task. It was completely unnoticeable if you weren’t me. Every one of the patients I had in my office today had a slight, deep seated hatred burried within them. They weren’t even consciously aware of the hatred themselves, they just acted.

Simurgh victims were primed bombs ready to go off, and that was what made them interesting.

The Simurgh and I were alike in a lot of ways. We were both masters of the art of getting others to do what we wanted. We both specialized in the mind. We both set small triggers in the minds of our victims, keywords that would set them off if spoken. We played people like they were a piano, and we felt no guilt about it.

A certain thought occurred to me, as it always did when performing a brain scan on Simurgh victims. What if the Simurgh thought that there could only be one? What if she didn’t want anyone to ever rival her in the field of mental domination? All she would have to do would be to have my brain scans set them off, and I would be dead.

Which is why I took precautions years ago, even though there was no way the Simurgh would dare try to kill me.

Eventually, the light on the domes vanished, and a disk slid out of each dome. I snatched it up, rushing to the desk at the other end of the room. I fed each one to the computer, filling in the appropriate blanks as needed.

As expected, the scans all showed relatively similar information. That was a fun part about grab bag capes; they all had personality bleed over of some sort. Sometimes it wasn’t even noticeable, but in this case they were all basically the same person, the differences being individual memories and the subtle imprints the Simurgh left. I was disappointed by how ambivalent they all seemed to each other. It was always interesting to see how kiss and kill manifested. I felt cheated.

Slowly, I worked my three patients off the cots, and instead over to the large machine on the other side of the room. It took up a whole wall, and was basically a modified MRI machine. The major differences weren’t going to be noticeable until I turned the machine on, and by then it would be far too late for whatever poor soul was being operated on.

I strapped in the first patient, a girl who went by Maginot. Primarily, she was an expert at making bunkers and hard light projections. I was definitely going to convince her to stay around. Toybox could use someone with her specialties. I slid Maginot in, and then went back to my desk computer. With a few clicks of a button, the brain modifier hummed to life. The sound almost drown out the whirring of a hole being drilled in Maginot’s skull.

I glanced back at the scan for reference. Maginot was a keeper, which meant less was more. She would be riddled with triggers by the end of this, but that was to be expected.

The first change was to minimize the Simurgh’s influence. Whatever she did with her scream, it rooted things too deeply into an individual’s mind to completely reduce it. I would minimize the damage, create a counter trigger that would nullify the Simurgh’s. With a few buttons, tools shifted in the brain modifier machine. I directed them, instructing them on how to alter the neurons without a noticeable change.

That done, I moved onto the next part. A gradual loyalty to me. This part needed to be subtle. There had been too many close calls in the past, and the changes I made would have had me Birdcaged like Teacher had been. Unlike Teacher, I knew how to get away with things and fly under the radar. My patients remained functioning members of society if I let them. The loyalty needed to be slow, it needed to seem like a natural thing. It was easy to modify Maginot’s brain, to institute a slight towards me in her mind. The endorphin rush I programmed her to receive would make her loyalty towards me look all the more natural.

The next step, and really the final step when I wasn’t removing, manipulating, or adding memories was to implement the failsafe. Every single one of my patients got a failsafe trigger in them. It was purposefully undetectable, and it had come in handy more then once. There were two varieties I implanted. One which turned my patient into a blank slate I could verbally program, and the other, which turned them into an obedient, but willing, servant to me.

The whole process took approximately 10 minutes. I could have rushed it and finished it in 2 minutes, but there was no need to. It only took as long as it did because I double checked my work. Maginot was valuable, I would enjoy seeing her show up to join Toybox in a week.

Her two companions, Frisk and Cardinal were far less interesting to program. They didn’t have a set mission for me. Instead, they would act as sleeper agents put feelers out and maybe act as my point of contact in another city. All I did for them was nullify the Simurgh influence and instill obedience triggers. Satisfied with my work, I shut down the machine. “And I’ve fixed you all up. You should be free of the Simurgh’s influence now. You’re free to go.”

The three grab bag capes all left, though a camera on showed that they were milling about outside the hallway, looking over what Toybox had for sale.

We were still setting up shop here in Ohio. Big Rig’s drones hovered above the ground, each one carrying a long, piece of plywood in its grasp. They swept over the ground, pushing rocks and sticks out of the clearing we had designated for ourselves. Currently, the only real thing we had set up at the moment was my hallway and office, which stood out in the clearing. Toy Solider’s giant robot was standing upright, but I didn’t count that as a structure. The robot was made out of a jagged looking black material, and stood over 40 feet tall. A singular red eye, which served as a cockpit, was in the center of what counted as its head, a gaping crack below that counted as its mouth. It’s hands were jagged, with obsidian looking outbursts of metal which vaguely resembled fingers.

It was supposed to resemble Behemoth, and it was the most recent design Toy Solider had turned his robot into. It was also the most troublesome. It wasn’t tiny, which made it hard to hide. It didn’t blend in, so it was easily noticeable. It was hard to tell it apart from the real Behemoth at a distance, and most people struggled to tell the robot apart from the real thing. It drew unwanted attention towards us. A whole team of heroes had seen it in Illinois and we had to abandon that state.

But, on the bright side, it kept the Fallen coming back for business.

Dodge was an utter godsend for Toybox. Big Rig had been too, but we’d had him for years. It had started out small, merely consisting of myself, Bauble, Toy Solider, and Sphere. Sphere had still been finding his feet then. He didn’t like us, but he need our support to get his whole world saving operation off the ground. It was a shame he had become a monster before I had a chance to implant commands into him. The Simurgh had stolen him from me, she’d practically declared herself my rival with that action.

I wasn’t one to make the same mistake twice. I put commands in every member of Toybox after that incident, instead of just the temporary members we didn’t fully trust.

Setup had been a lot harder back then. We had to fit all of our stuff into a pair of trailers and hope none of it broke on the way to our next location. We didn’t even have proper buildings at the time, just folding tables full of stuff for sale.

Big Rig had changed things on that regard. His drones could build things, like actual storefronts for us to use. They weren’t always the prettiest, but they were a lot nicer then the tables.

Dodge had been the icing on the cake for us. He was a young boy, but his specialty had made us relevant again. Everyone wanted a safe place to hide, especially villains who were on the run. Even better was the fact that I didn’t have to constantly remake my office. I could just have Dodge teleport it in instead.

All was quiet and peaceful outside, so I took the moment to pull out my latest project. It wasn’t something I was planning to sell anytime soon, but that didn’t matter. I wasn’t planning to sell my magnum opus anyways. The brain was a fickle thing, and no one knew that better then me. I stared at the mess of wiring and metal. It was too bad we had lost our electrician the same time we had lost Stinger. Artificial brains was something that was relatively easy to make. It was a complex, involved process, but it wasn’t something that was incredibly advanced for me. I had artificial brains with a copy of every Toybox member’s memories. Two of them were devoted to mine alone.

Artificial brains were easy, but that’s because they lacked what truly made them brains. They had artificial neurons, they could imitate brains, they even had memories stored in them, but they were missing the spark that truly made a brain.

They were missing consciousness.

Technically, I wasn’t making an A.I. Rather, I was making an artificial consciousness, which is what an A.I. was. It would be helpful once I made an android body for the artificial consciousness to inhabit. It would be good to have a second version of me running around. I had planned on calling the other me Cortex, but one of Accord’s Ambassadors has taken the name Codex. They were far too similar for my tastes, I would hate to be associated with that monster in Boston. Which was why I was going with the name Neuro for my clone. Well, my android clone, anyways. I already had a set of clones made up for the current members of Toybox. It was a shame that Blasto insisted on being independent, I, he, and Glace had specialties that synergized so perfectly.

Regardless, those clones we had ordered were to act as backups in the case that something terrible happened to us. Not that anything would, we were far too scary a threat to face. It was why the PRT didn’t shut us down. Sure, the fact that we were mobile helped, but the real reason was that we were intimidating. It was generally considered a bad idea to take a tinker on in their own domain. Toybox had seven tinkers, which made it seven times as bad of an idea.

I stared at the artificial brain. It was nearly finished, I knew it was. I just had to find the right voltage to jump start the consciousness into being. I couldn’t aim too high, I had broken the whole entire thing last time, so I steadily worked my way up in the voltage. A few false positives brought me hope, only to immediately quash it. I was nearly there, I could practically taste success.

A slight buzzing sound rang through the air, and I sighed. I set the jumbled mess of wires back into its container, and went back to my desk. I stabbed at the intercom, “Yes? What do you want?”

Dodge’s voice cracked over the intercom. His voice was high and quiet, and he tripped over his words. “I think, well, I set the, you called it the magnet optic of my work, I set that thing down and now it’s gone but it’s not for sale and I think one of your patients has it and they are too intimidating and I don’t want to ask for it back but it’s the magnet optic, and-“

I cleared my throat, “Magnum opus. Not Magnet Optic. Now go lock those three in a pocket dimension until they crack.” I paused, “Wait, they have the master key, don’t lock them away. Get the key back first, then lock them away.”

An indecipherable sound came over the intercom, Dodge’s voice cracking over it a moment later. “Doctor, I’m not really sure-“

I sighed heavily, “Just snatch the device and run.” Almost as an afterthought, I added, “I believe in you.”

Kids were the worst and the best. They were such a hassle, they required guidance and stood out, which made them terrible sleeper agents. Yet they were interesting as test subjects. Admittedly, they would be far more interesting if they were also grab bag case 53s who were also effected by the Simurgh, but that was a pipe dream. The brain was still developing in children, and that led to changes made to their mind becoming quite permanent.  They also had potential that adults lacked. Sure, Jack Slash was a terrifying madman and Sphere had been an overachieving workaholic who turned his work ethic towards crime, but they weren’t as terrifying as the children were. Grey Boy. Bonesaw. Glastig Uaine. All of them were true monsters, and yet they were still childish. I could only assume they still had the same idealism that most children had, yet they were mass murderers. They had such a tendency towards violence, I could only imagine what their Corona Pollentia looked like. I still regret that I hadn’t been able to get my hands on Grey Boy’s brain.

In short, children were guided missiles of mass destruction if cultivated correctly. Due to his growing brain, I hadn’t fully programmed Dodge yet, but it didn’t matter when I was going to do everything right to compensate.

I flipped on the camera to view the clearing where we were setting up shop. Big Rig’s drone flitted about, a large number of them lifting a large building with a neon sign and turning it so that it faced the inside of the clearing. That was Pyrotechnical’s area.

On the opposite side of the clearing, a short black haired boy stared down at a remote, delicately pressing numbers in. Next to him was an older blonde, her hair adorned with crystalline clips. She wasn’t all that tall herself, but she towered over her companion. Dodge and Bauble. Bauble frowned, pacing before the Dodge.  She snapped her fingers frantically, and impatience seemed to radiate off of her in waves.

Dodge pressed a button and a glass pyramid seemed to drop out of thin air, landing gently on the grass. Bauble frowned, inspecting every inch of it for damage. Satisfied at its condition, she nodded.

A shadow flickered on the edge of the clearing.

I pressed the intercom on again, “Dodge, did you take care of the nuisance?”

Dodge nodded, lifting the small radio up to his mouth. He fiddled with the buttons for a minute, “Yeah, I sent them away like you told me, Doctor.”

A shorter shadow joined the first one. They were just outside my cameras range.

“Bauble, who’s on the edge clearing? Big Rig and Pyrotechnical?”

The blond sighed, looking away from her pyramid. “Who else would it be, boss?” She crossed her arms.

Two more shadows joined the already existing two. A third joined a moment later. One shadow seemed to shift, while the other seemed misshapen in some way. There were five people at the edge of the clearing.

Toybox didn’t have enough people for five of them to be out of the clearing.

Steel edged into my voice, and I reached into my desk drawer. Pyrotechnical’s gun felt cold against my palm. “Bauble. Intruders at the edge of the clearing.”

Bauble turned slowly, flicking the camera off. Her posture changed in a heartbeat, stiffening. She turned her head ever so slightly, glancing at the pyramid, before scrambling away from it in a panic that was completely unlike her.

“Bauble, what’s going on? Who is it?”

Her hand shook slightly as she held her radio up. There was a slight tremble in her voice, which was decidedly out of place. “Boss, is Shatterbird still in the Nine?”

A feeling of dread rose up in me. I gripped the gun. It was loaded, I never unloaded it. “No. Dead.”

Bauble relaxed for the slightest moment, sprinting towards her glass palace, shoving Dodge out of the way.

Her voice didn’t lose the undertone of fear as she spoke, “The Slaughterhouse Nine are here.”