Chapter 116: Neuron’s Hospitality

“Go back three frames.” Natalie told the computer.

Click. Click. Click.

From the point that Perry’s armor suffered a critical damage shutdown, they scrolled backwards three frames.

“Look at that!” Heather said, pointing at the smaller screen below Perry’s primary viewpoint. ‘Warp’s right hand was hidden under his left elbow, but they could see that the tips of his fingers were pointed directly at Perry.

“Do you think that was it?” Breaker asked.

“Yeah, I mean look at Chemestro,” Heather said, motioning to the dorito-shaped bodybuilder. Chemestro was reeling back with a split lip, black eye, and a panicked expression.

“Unless he was able to bust Perry’s armor while flailing, but the only time his arm is in the right position is three whole seconds ago, and the armor didn’t detect any tangible damage around then.” Natalie said.

“He doesn’t have to point at you to mess you up,” Breaker reminded, rubbing his voicebox.

“Right, but it takes concentration, and if he doesn’t have enough spare time to even point his fingers, how is he gonna concentrate enough to break the armor? Especially if he was having a hard time a moment ago?" Natalie reminded him.

“I tried pulling the rest of the fight from Nexus’s logs, but the surrounding cameras had already been destroyed by Chemestro.” Natalie said.

“Of course they were.” Heather said with a sigh. “So in conclusion, Warp is evil, Perry got kidnapped, and his armor…”

She motioned to the black armor resting in it’s bay. “Well, his armor is fine, apparently.”

“Isn’t it cool!?” Natalie said. “It literally had a massive hole in the front just a couple hours ago, and now it’s like it never happened. Did you know it’s primarily constructed out of carbon? He just managed to ‘teach’ it the shape it’s supposed to be in, and it can suck carbon dioxide out of the air to heal itself and release the oxygen back into the atmosphere! It literally heals itself like a plant and provides life support! How freaking cool is that!?”

“Hardcase. Your boyfriend got kidnapped.” Heather said, tapping her on the shoulder.

“Oh my god, Paradox has been kidnapped!” Natalie shouted, her eyes wide.

***Paradox***

Perry’s head was pounding.

He tried to groan, but his mouth was covered by a thick metal plate. That was the first clue that something was amiss.

He tried to lift his hands to see what was across his mouth, but his arms were restrained behind his back by thick gauntlets that prevented him from even wiggling his fingers.

Perry’s feet weren’t in much better condition. They were secured up to his knees.

Thankfully Perry could wiggle his toes inside the steel boots, but not much else.

What happens when I have to go to the bathroom? Perry thought with a frown. I should probably escape before that happens.

His entire world was pitch black. Perry didn’t have any pain in his eyes, so he had to assume the room simply wasn’t lighted. Being blind would be inconvenient.

No light, no limb movement, no problem.

Let’s see. I can summon tools and aerosolized materials, but my hands aren’t gonna be useable any time soon.

Perry tried to get his fingers to move so he could modify his gauntlets, but his hands were locked securely in place. The only modifying he could do was by passive skin oil and oxidation, which could take hours to build critical speed, even modified by his powers.

My toes wiggle, Perry thought, directing his attention down to his big toe, which was able to wiggle freely inside its constraints.

Wiggle wiggle.

Sucker ain’t gonna know what hit ‘im.

A blast of light cut off Perry’s musing. The entire room was bathed in luminescence from the brilliant ceiling. Perry just so happened to be strapped to a table facing the ceiling, so it was a bit like looking straight up into the dentist’s overhead.

In short, painful.

Neuron swept through one of the solid walls, which was either a hologram or programmed to allow him through. Perry marked that wall to further observation.

“I have tried to get your father on video one hundred and sixteen times since I captured you so I can kill you in front of him, and every single time he screens my call!” Neuron said as he barreled through the wall, glaring at Perry with his floating eyeballs.

Perry lifted a sassy eyebrow.

You do realize that my dad knows if he picks up the phone, I’ll die, right?

Neuron’s Emotional Intelligence lagged far behind his schemes and tech. Part of the reason dad beat him so regularly. Part of the reason he made such a mess of Chemestro, come to think of it.

“Do you have some other way of contacting your father? Preferably one that includes video.”

Perry furrowed his brows.

Why, so you can kill me? Are you serious?

He couldn’t shake his head because the metal strap around his mouth was bolted into the table underneath him, but Neuron read his expression well enough.

“I see. It must’ve left with that suit of armor of yours. I must say, that armor is impressive. After you were removed from it, it went on a rampage and nearly killed my sons. Chemestro is in critical condition, and Warp just barely held on long enough to give the news the story I wanted them to hear.”

If a brain floating in a jar could look smug, Perry was pretty sure it would look like that.

“Sadly, Paradox went berserk and attacked the new hero Warp unprovoked. Perhaps it was a delayed trigger rampage.”

Perry frowned.

Chemestro is in critical condition… Warp has internal bleeding…Does that mean…?

Status.

Congratulations! You are now a level 7 Garage Tinker.

Paradox Zauberer (Perry Z.)

Class: Garage Tinker

Level 7

HP: 8

Body: 7

Stability: 14

Nerve: 10

Attunement: 31

Free Points: 9

XP to next level: 4767

Spells: Light (5/5)

Good job Mk. 5. If I have a son, I’m gonna call him Mark Five Zauberer.

“Your father is a romantic fool who believes that investing all his time and energy into one project will somehow magically fix all the faults it has.” Neuron gestured to Perry with a mechanical tentacle. “Case in point. I subscribe to a more…survival of the fittest school of thought, and this has borne fruit. You’ve already met…

Perry zoned him out.

Currently we have an approximate 2.3 Effective Attunement/Stability ratio, and we want to keep it below 2.5 to avoid personality damage and psychosis.

I wonder if when my Nerve gets substantially higher than my Body, my brain will begin drawing more energy off my Body than it can produce, leading to another imbalance. The difference isn’t high enough to be concerned with right now, but we should keep an eye on it.

I can add four to Stability and five to Attunement and still land underneath the 2.5 hard limit, but I’ll be taking a step backwards as far as mental stability is concerned.

Wheras four to attunement and five to Stability shrinks the difference by a bit.

35 Attunement = 5.51X modifier to perks (and Spells), and right above the cutoff point to grant another free stat point at the next level.

Perry briefly considered putting points into Body to help bull his way through this situation, but that wasn’t Perry’s build, and it would slow down his progression dramatically in exchange for that safety net of superhuman strength, speed and durability.

Even if he dumped all nine points into Body, that would only bring him to 16 Body, or a 2.18 modifier. Not even enough to tear his way out of his thick steel restraints, either, so…what would be the point?

Might as well focus on what he was good at.

Raise Attunement by 4 and Stability by 5, Perry thought.

Paradox Zauberer (Perry Z.)

Class: Garage Tinker

Level 7

HP: 8

Body: 7

Stability: 19

Nerve: 10

Attunement: 35

Free Points: 0

XP to next level: 4767

Spells: Light (5/5)

So before I leveled, Attunement was at 29, or 4.11X, and now it’s 5.51X

That was a pretty damn substantial level. Of course the real difference would be when Perry used Sliding Stats to boost that even higher.

“…and that’s how our epic rivalry was born,” Neuron said, turning his jar to face Perry. “Of course I don’t expect a science experiment like yourself to understand human emotion.”

Perry rolled his eyes.

Pot, Meet kettle.

“Come with me,” Neuron said, motioning with a robotic tentacle.

And how am I supposed to- Ah.

The table Perry was strapped down to tilted upward, and began rolling after Neuron on it’s own as the brain headed towards yet another solid wall.

Perry watched as they phased through a wall, keeping his eyes wide open to see everything he could about the nature of the passwall.

The entire world went dark for a second and a half, which, judging by their walking pace meant the wall was about a foot thick, and solid, rather than a single plane of holographic imaging.

Hmm.

“I’ve enjoyed watching your lair’s progress, young Paradox. Like watching an anthill slowly being built. There’s a certain amount of vicarious pride I take in my nemesis’s things. If you were an abject failure, how poorly would that reflect on me?”

Perry glanced around at the hallway they were travelling through, feeling a strange sensation of motion on his body that couldn’t be explained by their walking pace, and the vaguely uncomfortable sensation that there was something moving out of the corner of his eyes…

But he couldn’t pin it down.

“After your attack on my insurance company, I realized that you desire to be treated as your own person, not an extension of your father.”

Perry’s brows raised. Really? Wow. Maybe he does have some EQ after all.

“Like a rogue AI that’s careened out of control.”

Perry rolled his eyes.

“I also realized that you’ve been growing in power exponentially.”

Perry’s skin went cold.

“Lots of little details have been adding up. When Chemestro first thrashed you at your ‘motel’ you sported an athletic but totally human physique, but when I injected your brain with behavior inhibitor chips after catching you today, I noticed your skin and bone was 34% more puncture resistant than human baseline. Your reflexes during the fight with Chemestro and Warp were 48% higher, and the growth of your tech’s efficacy compared to its actual technological advances indicates that you’ve become four point one times better at reinforcing materials than you were when you first started. And the increases have only been getting bigger. Exponentially so.”

Excuse me, did you just say inhibitor chip in my brain?

Perry immediately focused his attention on modifying them. They had to be tiny, and therefore would be weaker to corrosion. Naturally, Neuron would’ve used a non-corrosive metal to coat them, but there was no such thing as no interaction with the environment. Little by little, atoms and electrons would shift around simply by interacting with Perry’s brain. And that would be all he need to start the chain reaction.

As Perry’s attention turned inward, the outside seemed to fade away, save Neuron, floating along in his jar in front of him.

“Naturally I must either kill you or control you.” Neuron said. “I’ll give you a choice between those two, if you answer one question.”

Perry waggled his eyebrows.

Go on.

“How did your father make you? What method did he use to devise a super with seemingly limitless growth potential?”

Perry shrugged, still being dragged along by Neuron. When Perry stood back and looked at it objectively, his System had all the hallmarks of a Magnum Opus, which Neuron wouldn’t be able to copy anyway. His father reported being swept up in fierce emotion when he made it, The System was malleable, and it was STRONG. Comparable to Matador, given enough time.

“Mmm MM mmm.”- ‘Magnum Opus, probably’ – Perry said around the metal strap covering his mouth.

“I see, you’d rather die than tell me. Commendable.”

Definitely not what I said. But Neuron wasn’t really interested in listening anyway.

“Well, I’ve made my choice. I would much rather control you. At least long enough to reverse engineer the source of your strength and apply it to something more deserving.”

Good luck with that. Perry thought, using Multi Tool to summon a steel guitar pick on his big toe and scrape it against the steel boot keeping his right foot restrained, switching between one and the other.

Sliding stats

Attunement 35 -> 39

Stability 19 -> 15

Perry needed every ounce of wit, strength and speed to get out of this situation…and a little psychopathy might come in handy. Stabillity was useful for not becoming a monster, but may be a hindrance for escape.

“Here’s your room,” Neuron said, motioning to a featureless steel wall. A moment later they passed through it to reveal a carnival of horrors.

Dominating the space was a massive char with an ungodly amount of needles surrounding the headrest, with heavy steel restraints seemingly designed to lock the victim up from head to toe, not allowing for the tiniest of movements.

There were torture implements surrounding the chair, from fingernail removal to tooth-and-gum surgical tools, and everything in between. They weren’t artfully covered in beef blood, either. They were made of silver, clean and shiny.

To prevent infection, of course.

Perry’s stomach sank as his eyes took in the most damning detail of the chair: a hole under the ass connected to a porcelain bowl.

No bathroom breaks.

This was no intimidation. Neuron was completely serious about strapping Perry into that chair and torturing him until he was broken.

A bit of Perry’s confidence cracked, and his heart began to thud hard against his ribcage.

“Assistants, please move our guest to his new home.” Neuron said, and no less than six young men emerged from the walls.

Perry hastily dismissed the steel guitar pick, and struggled to control his breathing as the straps holding him down were replaced with the iron grasp of Neuron’s other kids.

Perry saved his energy as they moved him to the chair. There would be a moment where he would need all of it.

The gloves and boots came with Perry, locking seamlessly into the diabolical machine.

Perry’s heart thudded in his ears, drowning out the quiet communication of Neuron’s children as they fixed each strap in place.

“Insert the needles.” Neuron voice pierced Perry’s near panic-attack.

The helmet around him began to hum, and Perry felt dozens of pinches along his scalp. He imagined he could hear each tiny crick as each individual probe penetrated his skull bone.

Perry focused every ounce of his concentration on the needles.

“Activate the Behavioral Inhibitors.” Neuron said.

“Umm…Father, they appear to have…dissolved.” One of the technicians said hesitantly.

“Apply the sedatives,” Neuron said.

Perry felt a bit of sedative drip off his scalp.

“The needles have…shut themselves, Father,” another technician said.

Perry couldn’t help it. He started laughing uproariously under the smothering plate of steel covering his mouth.

The square cube law makes needles my bitch. Perry thought, meeting Neuron’s gaze as he plucked a flake of rust off the tip of his restraining gauntlet with both of his index fingernails.

He scratched them against the tip of the immoveable gauntlet, able to twitch his fingers no further than a millimeter.

Responding to his power, the gauntlets began to loosen.

“I see, you’re already beyond the point where I can control you.” Neuron said, seemingly considering his options.

“Kill him.”