Missing Time (Alchemist / Thalia Trimble One-shot)

A wide range of emotions flash across his face. His eyes flicker back and forth between the two of you and it is obvious the wheels are turning up stairs on some sort of plan. When he speaks, he is quiet and calm. "Maybe I allowed you to stay because I thought you would be a good example for the Doctor." Thalia can easily pick up that this is a lie he made up on the spot. "But seeing as you have had no positive effect on his reception of what I have to say, I guess I’ll have to find another use for you."

Thalia opens her mouth to speak but nothing comes out. Her eyes bulge and her hands reach up to clutch at her chest. Her veins thicken and are easily visible as they start to glow a sharp red color. She collapses onto the table in a fit of convulsions.

This is especially odd for Thalia to witness. It isn’t every day that you see yourself struggle so desperately; all in the third person no less. The real Thalia finds herself back in the booth on the other side of the diner where the meeting with Lang and Alicia started. The elderly man is also seated across from her here, even though she can see him standing up from the other booth and walking over to Lang.

"You seem to have me at a disadvantage, Thalia," the version sitting across from her says. He pronounces her name correctly this time. "I am sorry, but all my prep was for Dr. Thomason. Please tell me about yourself." He gives you a pleasant smile.

Lang is unaware of any of this. His version of Thalia still struggles to take each breath as the poison in her veins spreads farther and farther. A chemistry set materializes on top of the table just as the old man is placing a hand on Lang’s shoulder. "Only you can save her, Lang. Do you recognize the affliction?" He does, but only from a description in the newspaper. It resembles an alien virus that broke out across San Espero a few years ago. Angelo Cortex saved the city by quickly developing an easy to make antidote that he was able to disperse over the city as a gas. "The Warden was no use when this nasty bug came to town. You cannot punch a poisonous virus from someone's veins. It took brains just like yours to save the city. Time to step up to the plate, Lang."

---

Dice Pool Limit: 7

Threat Rating
Mix the Antidote: 3
Thwart Mortimer's Control: 3

Thalia gapes at the elderly man - the one sitting across from her - and says, "I... Who even are you? What do you want from us? Look-- just leave Lang alone. Please. The guy has been through hell. I mean, you obviously know that already. Why torture him like this? Oh... arrrgh!"

She grabs her notebook and pen, writing furiously for a moment as the bowler bozo watches in apparent fascination.

She tears the note out of the book and bolts from the booth, heading toward Lang and her fake, dying doppelganger. She assumes that Lang won't be able to see her, and that's confirmed when she yells his name and waves her hand in front of his face. She tries waving the note in front of him, but that gets her nowhere, too.

Shaking her head and sending a dagger-y look at Bowler Bozo, she slams the note down on the table, next to the chemicals.

Lang - This is an illusion. I'm out of phase, or a spirit, or something. This me isn't the REAL me. Do what you have to do, but I'm FINE.

Thalia

P.S. I have my own personal Hat Guy, too

She stands next to him, waiting for him to read the note. She takes the opportunity to glare at the nearer version of Bowler Bozo while she's at it.

Lang’s initial reaction (well, reactions plural) is panic, worry, terror, fury... too many to fit on just one face.

"What the hell is wrong with you, you sadistic freak?" he yells as he dives for the chemicals, running a quick inventory of what’s available. He grabs a pad and pen that one of the waitresses must have left behind when the restaurant emptied and starts scribbling chemical structures and arrows. "For the love of Pete, volatile antivirals don’t just synthesize themselves. It’s a terrible delivery vector for just one patient anyway. Diels-Alder there... no no no. Has to be an aldol condensation, no way a Grignard works with all this moisture around..."

He’d started out griping at Bowler Hat, but now he’s only talking to himself, scribbling more synthetic schemes on the pad with remarkable speed. That’s when the note appears out of seemingly thin air. He startles, reading it quickly. He relaxes a little, but he’s got the bug now. His intellectual curiosity is piqued now, but the lack of need to save Thalia’s life right now makes it easier to focus.

"Gimme that glass. And your spoon. What I wouldn’t give for some trifluoroacetic acid right now. None of these acids have a reasonable pKa."

He mixes some powders on a saucer, mashing them to a fine dust with the back of a spoon, and adds them to the glass with a few milliliters of various solvents, stirring and adding a few other things. A few bubbles rise, and the solution turns a very faint yellow. "Conjugation for the win, baby. Ain’t too many chemists that can do that with a chemistry set you could buy in a toy store, my friend."

He swirls the glass around a few times, then helps the fake Thalia drink it down.

The elderly man watches Thalia with much curiosity. He does not respond to her question but he also makes no attempts to stop her actions. He seems genuinely interested in seeing how her plan works out. When she manages to find a way around his constraints, the version of him in the far off booth is actually impressed. He vanishes from the booth and repairs directly behind Thalia, so she is now flanked by two Hat Men.

"You know it would have been much more meaningful if he had done it without your help," the one behind her says, for only her ears. If she turns to look at him, he is no longer there.

The Hat Man Thalia is glaring at turns to meet her eyes. "You should really learn to mind your own business." He snaps and Thalia is now back in the booth. She is the one that is poisoned now. She can feel it burning through her veins. Thankfully, by this time Lang is already finished with the antidote and is moving to administer it. With each passing second, the pain subsides further and further. It falls from agonizing torture to a dull ache in less than a minute, but the memory of that pain will stick with her forever. Unless of course this whole event happens to get stricken from her memory for some reason.
"My thoughts exactly, Dr. Thomason. That is but one example of how you are capable of greatness. Imagine what you could accomplish if you devoted yourself fully to the endeavor. Don’t sell yourself short. That brain of yours can solve any problem."

Ding, ding! The bell on the front door jingles as a panicked man comes running through. He has a square of PVC pipes around his neck. It is not tight enough to strangle the man, but is too tight to pull it over his head. When he sees you he comes running over and begs Lang to help him.

Now that he is up close you can see more of the device around his neck. There is a digital readout which displays the number 70. As you are looking at it, it ticks up to 71 but seems to stop there for the time being. On either side of the digital display are numbers and a symbol. To the left is what looks like a drawing of the square device itself, but one side is open and the number 60 is written in blue. To the right is a cartoon-like drawing of an explosion and the number 75 written in red.

"You gotta help me! Some guy attached this bomb to me at gunpoint. I don’t know what to do," he pleads with Lang to help him.

Thalia finds herself unable to move from her position. The pain from the virus is gone, but her feet feel like they are glued to the floor. The elderly man appears uninterested in Lang and the man with the bomb around his neck. A holographic display of words and statistics is floating in the air before him. He uses his hand to scroll through it.

The name at the top says "Thalia Trimble." Below that is a very long list of attributes and skills along with a numerical value between 1 and 10 given to each. A short paragraph under the header "Powers" explains exactly how her abilities work. This is followed by a shocking detailed and accurate bio, which the old man quickly reads over before dismissing the display. "Another minor anomaly," he quietly says with a mixture of worry and annoyance.

Struggling against the magical force preventing her from getting up to help Lang with the bomb, Thalia growls in frustration and directs her ire at the Bowler Bozo.

"Why are you doing this? You're torturing people, and for what? Your own amusement? It's despicable, it's-- wait, what's that?" She squints at the holographic display he's reading. Inexplicably, it's entirely legible to her even though they're reading it from opposite sides of the table. "Where did all that information come from? How did you... Who ARE you? Why-- anomaly? What anomaly?"

"I do find it amusing, but that is hardly the point. And I wouldn’t call it torture, exactly. Motivation is more accurate. Some people need a little push to set them down the correct path."

He looks delighted at your interest in what he was reading. "So inquisitive. Do you realize you’ve asked me 18 questions in the last 3 minutes? I’ll admit; with your skills and determination, I’m tempted to set you down a similar path to Lang’s. But superheroes are men and women of action. They don’t have time to ask questions and follow clues. No, my dear, I am sorry. You are doing what you were meant to do."

He reaches forward to put a hand on yours. "There’s no shame in being a simple detective. A damn good one by the looks of it. Although we can’t give you all the credit. That little gift of yours must come in handy in your chosen line of work." He winks. "Don’t worry. I’ll let you keep it and will even keep the secret safe." He mimes zipping his lips.

"I may not have given you that power, but you sure have set out to maximize its use. Good on you." He lowers his voice to a whisper and points in Lang’s direction as he says "Now if only we could get a certain someone to do the same."

Thalia stares at Bowler Bozo with the same expression she used on the guy who'd tried to mug her last week and then, after she'd kicked his ass, asked for her phone number. "Gee, thanks. I've been absolutely dying for some random demon to approve of my career choice. What do you mean, you'll 'let me keep' my gift? How could you possibly-- You talk like you're... God, or something."

Lang glares daggers at the Hat Man. "How much more of this sadistic nonsense do you need to put people through?" he growls through gritted teeth.

Turning back to the latest victim, he says, "We're going to get this figured out, don't worry." He looks over the device as quickly as he can, then takes the man by the shoulders and says seriously, "I'm going to have to open up the PVC. It's a quick chemical trick, shouldn't cause any trouble, okay?"

He turns back to the chemistry set on the table and mixes a few things together in one of the handful of test tubes. He draws some of the solution up into a Pasteur pipet, something like a long, skinny eyedropper, and carefully drops a bit of it at the elbow joint. Each drop rolls down the pipe along the edge of the elbow, thin curls of some sort of smoke rising from the trail. He repeats this a couple more times before he sets the pipet aside.

"Okay, I'm going to pull the joint apart to see what's inside. I need you to take deep breaths and try not to make any sudden movements, all right?"

The man smiles and shrugs his shoulders. "If the shoe fits." He turns his attention to Lang and the man with the bomb around his neck just as Lang lashes out at him. "I’ve got no further appointments today, Dr. Thomason. We can keep this up as long as it takes for you to accept your destiny."

By now, everyone has broken out in a sweat. The number on the bomb necklace goes up again and now reads 72. "Whoa, man. I dunno if you should be messing with it like that. He said if I tried to force it...Oh man." The man with the bomb necklace tries to relax himself with a focused breathing exercise while you get to work.

The elderly man appears surprised at Lang’s chosen tactic. He leaves him alone to focus on the task at hand and turns back to Thalia. "I'm curious. If you were to put on a cape and join Langford on a quest to clean up the streets, what righteous name would you give yourself?"

Lang gets the end of the pipe open a small amount. Some of the hot smoke finds its way up and into the PVC pipe. The readout ticks up again to 73.

Lang is able to see that inside the PVC pipe is another smaller series of connected pipes. They too form a square that appears to go all the way around the inside, but this one is made of smaller metal piping. The kind you might see in a pipe bomb.

Further up you see a detonator is attached to the metal pipe. A set of wires run from the detonator to the digital display. Running from the display, you also see a second set of wires that connect to a thermometer.

Thalia is starting to think that maybe this is all some sort of dream. No, not a dream - more like a drug trip. It occurs to her that someone might have slipped her something; maybe in the pie? Or perhaps she's been exposed to some kind of gas and she never made it to this appointment in the first place, and is imagining all of it.

Because while she was managing to believe, more or less, in the reality of the experience up to this point, her mind seems to have drawn the line at some godlike figure in a bowler hat asking her what her superhero name should be.

Surprising herself further, Thalia begins to laugh. It's more of a giggle, actually, but she tries not to dwell on that.

"Okay, this totally isn't really happening, but as drug-induced hallucinations go, this part's got to have something to do with Cyn. She's always trying to convince me to 'go full super,' and coming up with good superhero names for me is one of her favorite activities." She giggles again, resting her head against the back of the booth. "I think her latest 'perfect name' was... Kinesic. You know, after the study of nonverbal communication through body language and so forth. So yeah, I guess that's the name I'd use. I'd be Kinesic, Reader of Face and Body Language!"

She mimes holding a musical instrument to her lips and makes a comical trumpet-like fanfare noise.

The giggle catches the old man completely off guard. For a moment, he forgets about Lang and gives Thalia his full undivided attention. "Cyn sounds like a lovely girl. Would you mind if I contacted her? I think she would make a great apprentice." He laughs and holds up his hands before you can respond. "I’m only joking. I’m irreplaceable."

He strokes his chin with his fingers. "Kinesic. It’s kind of a nerdy name. Ha! Pot calling the kettle black, am I right?"

Your memory starts to connect a couple of dots. Something about this man has been familiar ever since you saw the bowler hat. Only now are you able to recall who he reminds you of. You remember a small time super villain from the 60’s that dressed identical to him. Mortimer the Magnificent.

As best as you can recall, Mortimer was seen as more of a nuisance than a real threat. Something of an illusionist that liked to play tricks on the first generation of superheroes but almost never brought any real physical harm to anyone. Outside of a handful of appearances decades ago, he hasn't been seen. He more or less drifted off into obscurity.

Even back then Mortimer was a senior citizen. If you are right about who this man is, then he must easily be over 125 years old at this point.

Thalia leans forward, putting her arms on the table. She's still grinning, because this still can't be real. "Yes, Mortimer, calling anyone's name nerdy is kind of hypocritical. Okay, so what's the deal here? Is this supposed to be some kind of superhero audition? Like, America's Next Supe? Because I have to say, a grief-laden chemist and a woman who can read body language seem like C-list prospects."

"Thermal..."

Whatever the bomb carrier is saying, it falls on deaf ears. Lang's too caught up in studying the entire setup. He traces the wiring with his eyes, one finger twirling in the air as though writing calculations in space.

"Gotta keep it cool!" he bursts out suddenly. The man starts, thinking that Lang's accusing him of not staying calm, but Lang quickly takes him by the shoulders. "It has to stay cold while I disarm it, that's what the thermometer's for! Come on, there's gotta be a walk-in fridge in a place like this."

Lang leads him back into the kitchen, scooping up the chemistry set as best he can along the way. There is indeed a walk-in fridge, though it's hardly big enough for the both of them.

"Okay, you're gonna have to trust me here. I don't know wiring, but I do know chemistry. I'm going to trick the detonator into thinking everything's still attached while I take it out so the bomb can't be set off."

He clicks his tongue as he studies his reagents, mixing a bright blue powder into solution and muttering something about a strong reducing agent. Slowly, he opens the contraption up to reveal the detonator and carefully lays several trails of the blue solution along the pipe, contacting the wires that lead into and out of the detonator.

As he starts to add a second solution, bright copper metal begins precipitating along the line of the first solution. There's a tiny bit of smoke, and Lang does his best not to wince. "Stupid exothermic reactions," he mutters, looking quickly at the readout to see if the temperature's going up too fast.

An idea comes to Lang and he rushes toward the kitchen with the walking bomb in tow. Thalia gets another chuckle out of Mortimer. "Do you want it to be an audition? Are you sore over not being picked? Truth be told, most of our futures are already written. Not in stone or anything, I’m afraid. It’s a bit more like... silly putty. Stretchy and malleable. Which introduces my problem. Sometimes those that are destined to be heroes get sidetracked. I’d love it if everyone could get there on their own time, but the world doesn’t work that way. If Lang isn’t ready soon, people are going to die as a result."

Mortimer reaches across the table and takes Thalia’s hands in his own. She becomes the recipient of a series of rapid fire visions. She sees Lang in his laboratory designing and testing the mutagens that grant him his powers. Then he is pulling the hood over his head and is in full costume. She watches as he uses his wide ranging mutagens to defeat foe after foe. He saves children from burning buildings. He turns his skin into diamond and steps in the way of a speeding car that is about to hit a dog. He uses super strength to hold a bridge up long enough for people to get off of it before it collapses. In the span of a minute, Thalia witnesses the Alchemist save hundreds of lives.

---

Lang holds his breath for a moment as he watches the digital readout. Instead of ticking up because of the heat from the reaction, it only continues to go down. It now reads 58. The cold air being blasted out from the overhead fan to keep this freezer cool is quickly getting the job done. Even with his solution adding a bit of heat to the mix, it is no problem for an industrial restaurant freezer.

Lang has no trouble finishing up and then carefully removing the detonator, rending the bomb inert. Through chattering teeth, the man wearing the bombs asks, "How’s it going in there, man?"

---

The sarcastic jovial tone is gone from Mortimer’s voice. He is deadly serious. "You may not approve of my methods, Thalia, but this is a necessary evil. This world needs Lang to become the Alchemist and it needs him now. If you think I am being too cruel, then by all means help me find another way to convince that man to don a cape and become who he was meant to be."

Thalia's breathing has become labored as she's subjected to the onslaught of mental images of Lang's heroics. She is no longer sure this is a dream or hallucination. She doesn't actually know what to think.

"You don't play fair, Mortimer," she says, her voice roughened by the rapid emotional extremes to which he's subjected her. "You yank us around like marionettes, you take people hostage to extort decisions from Lang, but you won't tell me who you are or why you're doing it. Yeah, I know, because if Lang doesn't become what you want him to become, people will die. Save it. I want to know how you know he's supposed to become the Alchemist in the first place. I want to know how you can control everything. I still don't know why you're letting me play a part in this weird drama, but if you really do need my help for this, then you could at least show me the consideration of explaining things."

"I appreciate your recognition that you only want to know these things and do not actually need to know. Let’s be clear that the same word should apply to your assistance. I don’t need it. I simply want it. You are a tool that can make my job a little easier. If you choose to not take part, then we have nothing further to discuss. Assist me and I will let you turn over some of these cards."

Mortimer motions toward the table. You are unsure when they appeared but there are 5 playing cards in the center of the table. Each one has a question written upon it.

Who am I?
Why am I doing this?
How do I know Lang’s destiny?
How do I control everything?
Why are you letting me play a part in this weird drama?

"We both know you’re going to help me, so why draw this out? You’re not going to let innocent people die. You’re not going to walk out of here without satisfying your curiosity. Go convince Lang to accept his destiny and you can flip over any three cards of your choosing. If you have additional questions, add them to the pile. Pick three and I’ll tell you what you want to know." Your powers do not pick up on any deception or intent to back out of this deal.

Thalia glances at the cards, then stares at Mortimer for a long moment. "Okay, just to recap: You have the godlike power to control space and time, move people around like chess pieces, and put innocents into life-threatening situations for the purpose of forcing someone to do something you want to see them do. Now, I don't understand why a being like you doesn't simply make Lang take on the supe mantle, but whatever. I guess this is some kind of game you play to amuse yourself. But from my perspective, you're asking me to convince Lang to become the Alchemist, or else you'll kill a bunch of innocent people for some reason. Because apparently, you're going to set up mass murders for the purpose of watching Lang try to stop them."

She shrugs. "It's clear I have no power to stop you from doing... well, anything you want, and neither does Lang, so I may as well go along with your little sub-game and get some questions answered. I just figured I'd point out some of the plot holes you might want to sew up for the next time."

She tests her ability to get up and leave the booth - looks like she can now - and makes her way behind the counter of the diner and into the back. Assuming Lang and the victim are in the freezer, she opens the door to find him freeing the poor guy from the bomb necklace. "Hey, good work - congratulations. So, I'm supposed to come and convince you that you need to become the Alchemist. I've been shown a bunch of images that show you saving a bunch of people from certain death in a variety of situations. I don't know the real story here, but I believe that you probably will save most of those people if you do what he says. But if I were you, I might ask one question before agreeing to his demand: with the kind of power he has, why do you even have the ability to refuse?"

Lang holds up the detonator with a cheerful grin. "All done. You're free to go."

He starts helping the guy out of his PVC necklace, when he stops suddenly. "Unless you want this as a souvenir? No? Too soon?" he says, then gets back to work disassembling it. "Yeah, you're right. It's too soon."

The poor guy, now stuck between his overwhelming gratitude at no longer being in imminent danger of being blown to bits and his growing concern over the sanity of his savior, is moving toward the door as soon as Lang's got the contraption taken apart. "Thanks, man. That was some crazy chemistry shit you pulled there. You got some kinda super-brain to pull that off," he says. He pauses at the door to the freezer, looking at Lang in disbelief (and just a little bit of worry) for a long moment, then shakes himself out of it. "Seriously. Thanks."

That's when Thalia opens the door and scares the daylights (and a girly scream) out of him. Voice shaking, he says, "This place is... it's... I am outta here!"
Lang tosses the detonator unit up and catching it casually in one hand. It's only when he starts to reply to Thalia that he starts to fumble it. In a sudden panic, he sets it gingerly on the nearby shelf, holding up his hands to tell it to stay put.

"I don't pretend to have any earthly idea what is going on here, Thalia, but... but maybe he's right. I mean, those were two serious kicks in the tush, and I... well, I knew what to do. Once I stopped thinking about why I couldn't and just focused on what had to be done."

He shakes his head slowly: amazement, fear, awe, excitement, worry all find their way into the prosaic expression. "If you don't mind my answering a question with a question -- Alicia would slap me -- I guess I'd say... does it even matter?"

Thalia knows nothing of the bomb victim's doubts about Lang's sanity, but she's now entertaining her own. She looks at him with a frown, folding her arms. "You're right. Some all-powerful godlike dude in a bowler yanks us all around like puppets on strings, poisons one person and puts a bomb-yoke on another, all to force you to accept a destiny as a superhero. How could his reasons - and his potential limitations - possibly matter?

"Don't get me wrong - I'm glad that you've found this experience to be some kind of personal-growth milestone. But maybe spare a thought in that great big scientist brain of yours for the parts of this that make no sense?"

"You sound disturbingly like Alicia," Lang replies. "Lemme explain myself a little better. Of course his motivations and all of that matter, but if I can -- and yes, it sounds absolutely bonkers to say it out loud -- be a superhero and save lives and find out what happened to my wife and son, shouldn't I do that?"

His teeth are chattering by the time he's done with this short speech.

"Can we talk outside? So I can, you know, warm up?"

They step outside, but maintain a distance from Mortimer. Still, Lang keeps his voice down. "I want to know his motivations, so I know how to maintain my independence and what other strings he's got his fingers on and all of that sort of thing, but at the core... at the beating heart of it all... I want to do this. That's all I'm trying to get at."