"You cannot do this, Dr. Westcott--you'll die!"

"You cannot do this, Dr. Westcott--you'll die!" The voice of my Chief Safety Officer, Melvin Perkins, echoed through the test chamber like a kid at the bottom of a well. It didn't matter. I didn't care. It could have been the sound of a thousand cannons booming at once and it wouldn't have mattered a whit. Come hell or high-water, the Oklo-Gamma Reactor Extractor, or O.G.R.E., would become operational today.

Klaxons began their electronic bleating and I could feel the tremors beneath the soles of my Xtremis Suit (XS-Mark1) as the transmission sequences began deep in the bowels of Devil's Peak. I shot icy glances towards Subcommander Ralph Warren and Colonel Marshall Mēkhos. "Gentlemen, you are relieved of duty. I suggest you get scarce now, or prepare to potentially get dead." I put as much of my authority into my words as possible. Technically, I could not order these guys around. I wasn't military, but they were assigned to support me since Project SHIFT had first began, and had done so faithfully. I could only hope they would do so now...I simply could not have the death of my two counterparts on my conscience, with all that I'd already done.

Ralph was not about to let this fly. He looked up from the screen he'd been monitoring, disbelief etched across his features. I noticed that his ever-present shadow and assistant, Franklin Geist, sat beside him. Perfect - make that three deaths on my conscience.

"What in God's Name are you thinking, Graham? You've activated the Infuser and turned off--" Ralph was halfway across the room and headed my way when the automatic safety controls--which I'd previously overridden--gave up the ghost and the meter-thick steel door sealed all of us in with our plodding doom. Marshall, who'd narrowly missed slipping under the door, began cursing and wailing like a madman, pounding on the impenetrable portal.

"It doesn't matter, Ralph", I said dully, making sure all of the diodes and receptors on my XS-Mark1 where active, "It's all about to be over for all of us..." I began, stepping into the Infusion Chamber that we'd all been working on for seven years.

The lights in the room dimmed and the only light was from the extraction chromatographor that was drifting down from the cavernous ceiling on hydraulic arms. It was a softly glowing vat of liquid chemical and radioactive death.

"...or, it will be the beginning of a whole new form of life." I finished. Complete darkness, radiation, chemical energy, and electricity, flooded the room while quantum computers, hydraulics, and mechanical agents went to work.

We all screamed.

Art Source: "Future Science" (c)/by Zatransis
Story and Characters: (c)/by Brannon Hollingsworth

#MMWW, #Makes, #Me, #Wanna, #Write, #BrannonHollingsworth, #GrahamWestcott, #OGRE, #O.G.R.E, #Melvin, #MelvinPerkins, #Ralph, #RalphWarren, #Frank, #FrankGeist, #MarshallMēkhos, #Mēkhos, #AUX, #A.U.X., #thestorygrows

Ralph Warren is still alive and I will have his head!"

"Ralph Warren is still alive and I will have his head!"

Melvin wasn't entirely sure how Mēkhos even had a voice anymore, but somehow his deep basal voice filled the chamber and resounded from the stalactite-encrusted ceiling. Dust and pebbles trickled down from the darkness, coating all Melvin's work with a fine layer of limestone. "P-p-please, sir, your v-v-v-voice!" he squeaked, pushing his coke-bottle glasses up a little farther on his thin nose.

Mēkhos wheeled on his diminutive technician and almost brought his servo-and-fluxx powered fists down like meteors upon his head. It was only the single, searing fact that Melvin was one of the few men on the planet who possessed the knowledge and skills to keep his new body working that stayed his rage-fueled strike. Even though he did not need to breathe, something deep within Mēkhos's formidable mind lead him to believe that--just like when he was alive--that his rage had affected him physically. His massive metallic chest rose and fell, heaving like a titanic steam engine. After several moments of his labored, mechanical heaving, the mad man continued.

"You are right, Melvin. But then again you are wrong." Mēkhos stalked around the cave that had become his temporary home in the two weeks since the event that had killed him and brought him back from the dead. He himself was still completely unsure of precisely what had happened, but he knew two things for certain: his new form--partially mechanical and partially spiritual--was far mightier than anything that he'd ever seen or known and that his hatred for his old rival, Ralph Warren, had not diminished in the least.

"I am changed, Melvin" he said to his shivering assistant. The small, mousey-headed man seemed even more like a mouse now than he had when Mēkhos had first met him. "I am more mighty now and I should be more careful. It would not do to harm you." The voice that drifted out of Mēkhos's violet-energy limned skull became silken and soft. "You, who are the key to maintaining my new form."

"Yet." Mēkhos's voice changed like the whip-crack strike of a snake. A frigid, soulless detachment blew through that one word like the wind from an opened tomb. "You are also wrong, Mevin. I know that Ralph is alive. I can feel him through the fluxx." Mēkhos lifted his left hand and it slowly began to morph and change as he spoke. The retro-adaptive alloy and axionic terminals that made up Mēkhos's containment suit began to interact with the glowing, purple energy that now composed and contained his form. The suit-of-armor like gauntlet that once covered Mēkhos's hand began to realign itself, changing its form and function to match the man's innermost cravings and desires.

"Whatever changed me that fateful night, also changed Ralph. We thought he was dead, but I can feel him - sense his life force through this energy you call fluxx." The metallic glove was completely gone, replaced with a massive cannon that looked like it could pound buildings into rubble, or blast battleships into slag.

"He calls himself the A.U.X. now--and when I find him, I will finally destroy him!"


Art Source: "Ghostman 2099" (c)/by cwalton
Story and Characters: (c)/by Brannon Hollingsworth

#MMWW, #Makes, #Me, #Wanna, #Write, #BrannonHollingsworth, #Mēkhos, #Melvin, #AUX, #A.U.X. #thestorygrows, #fluxx, #RalphWarren