#0 - Larynx: Voices from Without

It surely had to be the sonic wavelengths resonating within him that attuned the the strange veins to him. Lawrence began to comprehend what was 'inside' those veins. It was certainly something organic, something that could be said to be alive. It was like a parasite, no, not quite, more like something symbiotic, ready to nestle into Lawrence's skin through the epidermis, down to the dermis, but stopping short of the subcutaneous layer. Lawrence found he could exert some measure of control to make the symbiotic colony do exactly that, and as he did, the popping veins began to subside until the surface of his skin was as unblemished as it originally was.

Clearly this was something DiCarlo was unable to do. The next interesting question was where the thug had caught the bug from, so to speak. It, or some of it, must have travelled from one host body to another, seeking to nest in the most mutated part of DiCarlo's body aka his cranium, but never quite settling in. It would not be too difficult to request information regarding DiCarlo's arrest as to his last whereabouts for Lawrence to conclude his own report on DiCarlo, that is if Lawrence was going to talk about the symbiote at all in his report.

But for now, Lawrence could breathe a sigh of relief that he showed no untoward sign of throbbing green veins.

"Hello, new friend," he said, feeling the odd power flowing through it and him.

Lawrence sighed, the low reverb sounding odd to him but not unpleasant, as he and the exosymbiont accepted each other. Tracking where it came from would be necessary but that was a task for another time, most likely after lunch and the Horror. Learning what else it could do was also a priority but, like tracking, that would wait.

With shoes back on, Lawrence went out to lunch and xenopsychiatry.

Randall had already gotten them a table at Julien's by the time Lawrence made the drive back into the city central. Getting off the turnpike took him to the main thoroughfare, but weekday traffic was unproblematic as he headed to Gilbert Street where the restaurant was. What occupied his field of vision as he drove into the district was of course the unmissable tallest landmark, First Tower, headquarters of the Ordinal Foundation. The Foundation was essentially the largest think-tank in the country, set up to study the quantum realm and the interactions between quantum forces and reality as we know it. Helmed by the Ordinaire family, or more affectionately referred to as the Ordinals, they were the only set of novas the Super Sept recognised as having full authority and jurisdiction to operate independently without needing their direct oversight.

"Lunch is comped. I get to put this on the corporate account, so order up." It had been a while since he last caught up with his ex-colleague, nearly a year ago, maybe two. Randall looked a little rounder on his cheeks, and there was definitely a pronounced double chin. "In return I get to pick your brains about," and here Randall lowered his voice a little, not much because it was something secret, but because he tried to contain his enthusiasm for the case, "not just an alien, but one purportedly from another dimension."

Lawrence let out a questioning grunt which sounded weird yet not unpleasant to his ears, hopefully nothing out of the ordinary to Randall.

"An extradimensional creature? Is it humanoid? It's amazing that so many aliens look like us but things from other planes? The odds are just..." he trailed off into silence.

"Who has it?"

"It's with us, upstairs." Randall cocked his head in the direction of First Tower. "You know the Super Sept deals with aliens in our universe, that's what the Plenipotentiary is for. I hear he's off-planet dealing with some trade negotiations, which sounds much less sexier than defending the earth against a galactic invasion.

Other dimensions though, waaay more unpredictable. This one's not from this neck of the woods, if you know what I mean. Looks humanoid, just like us in fact, but I don't know if it's a shapechanger or not. But the brainwave readings are all over the place. I get some of what it's thinking, but the rest, the rest is gibberish. And that's with the sanity dampeners on full, in case, you know, it's a cthulhu scenario." He chuckled at his own reference to Lovecraftian horror.

With the Ordinal Foundation paying for lunch, Lawrence decided to splurge on a Super Venti Flat White and a chicken artichoke on ancient grain flatbread sandwich plus a spicy Italian panini for later.

"Good move on the sanity dampeners. Non-AI computer-mediated interaction might be another buffer against invasive memetics... but it seems too late since you've already gone human brain to entity consciousness. I have a few questions. How did you come across it? Did it come here openly or was it caught sneaking in? Did you go to its dimension and get it there or summon it? Can it return home of its own power? Are you keeping it here somehow?"

He paused.

"Maybe more than a few questions but the most important ones: What does it say it wants... and when can I talk with it?"

"Whoa there bigshot," Randall laughed, "I guess your career at J.A:N.U.S. really took off ayy. Seriously do they give you that much free rein over all that information?" Lawrence and his old friend had completed their doctorate together, but their careers evidently took different paths. "I'm just a lowly scientist in the Foundation, that's all beyond my paygrade, alright well, maybe not so lowly," he dropped his voice a notch, more out of deference than anything else, "but that's sort of thing only the First knows."

"I can clear you to come up and talk with it, in fact I was hoping you'd offer. That J.A:N.U.S. badge of yours gets you everywhere. But here's the short version of what I can make out so far: it's rambling on and on about wanting or needing or giving some blood, or bleed, or bloom, or boom, or at least that's what the translation matrix says." Randall gulped down his entire cup of melon tea as if his throat went suddenly dry. "And that's with the neural bypass interface hooked up in order to 'understand' it better.

Well we can head up after this. Lemme finish up. You must be hungry." Randall waved at Lawrence's double portion. Did Lawrence unconsciously order two servings because he needed to feed more than one ... entity?

Had he ordered more food than normal? Perhaps the exosymbiont was exerting some control over him... or maybe his body simply knew what its new needs were. Either way, more to experiment with later. He should also give it a name. Exos?

"Long day. No breakfast," Lawrence answered with a smile and raised his Super Venti in salute, "but you look like you've been putting lots of meals on the corporate account for someone who supposedly isn't a big shot."

He chuckled but went back to being serious quickly.

"If you can get me authorization to even know it exists, that's impressive. Getting me in to analyze its psyche? That sounds pretty big shot to me. If there are some things you can't tell me about the internal workings of Ordinal, fine. I understand that but I need some answers first. Have your own people hit complete dead ends? And why me, Randall? Not to talk you out of deputizing me but your people have far more experience with the truly bizarre than I do."

"Alright I should know better than to play down my role in this. Sure sure, I may be team lead on this one, but Ordinal's really a big science think-tank. We do unstable molecules, quantum nullification, phase matrix calculus, entanglement resonance, heck it's pretty obvious we do dimensional research, but xenopsychiatry? That's not us. Anyway, all the medical professionals we have are over at Third Institute; we have cross species genetics, biomatter studies, even soft psi imaging, but still no one to tell us how someone thinks. Maybe that's potential for a new department, but I truly don't call the shots for that.

Nova comprehension and control? That's all J.A:N.U.S. as far as I undersrtand. That's why I called you. I suppose the First could've contacted your Director directly, but, um, I haven't flagged this case for his attention yet, at least not until I've got something concrete to say."

"If the First hasn't heard yet, then neither have I," Lawrence said with a wink, "but I'm intrigued. I'm all yours for a cursory appraisal, Randall, but anything more in depth will obviously have to be officially sanctioned. The last thing I need is to break dimension containment protocols and get sentenced to the Fantômas Zone. If we can go now, I'll try to push back or reschedule my one appointment this afternoon."

Lawrence called his department secretary to inquire about the status of the Horror assessment.

"That's why this is still just lunch, and I'm talking about this openly without fear of eavesdropping. Nothing official nor classified yet. But hey, if you figure this out maybe they'll start a new division and even hire you. Won't take too much time, I did promise a short one today. I've cleared you to come up with me."

"Your schedule, your call. Just remember when the report is due to Gauss." Stephen, case manager from the administration office and generally the most effective yet most bored bureaucrat in his division was who Lawrence called. The Horror was safely incarcerated in one of the holding cells at the J.A:N.U.S. facility and wasn't going anywhere soon.

With lunch done and Lawrence's sandwich to-go doggy-bagged, he could feel his 'Exos' offer a vibe of approval at the prospect of a future panini. He stepped out to the street, letting Randall lead the way to the looming building that was First Tower. What he saw next was a not uncommon sight for many who worked or lived in the district, but it was a rare picture for one such as Lawrence. One moment he was marveling at the height of the tower as it reached towards the sky, with its pair of resonance spires forking even higher into the heavens. The next moment he saw a bolt of white fire, no it was a figure swathed in fire flying so quickly they appeared to streak from the top of the tower and across the sky. Lawrence knew what or who it was, although he had never seen him up close. It was a member of the Ordinals, the Fourth himself, obviously speeding off for some urgent task. Even though Lawrence had his feet firmly planted on the ground, the sheer visual of his flight mildly triggered Lawrence's acrophobia. For some reason he had the sense that he was connected somehow to whatever the Fourth was about to do, and that unnerved him ever so slightly.

Randall noticed Lawrence's pause. "Yeah they're always coming and going. I think this time it's got to do with the NLF attack at Waid University." The Nova Liberation Front or NLF were regarded as a terrorist organisation vehemently opposed to the Nova Registration Act. The Sept had largely sent them undergrounded, but once in a while they popped up like a bad pimple, or in Lawrence's case, a throbbing vein.

As Lawrence looked down at his shoes to literally ground himself against his fear of heights, he also thought about all the flying metahumans he'd talked with who all seemed to glow when they spoke about the open sky. If only his patients could see how big a bag of neuroses he was, and how increasingly full that bag was growing day by day. Wrapped panini in hand, he followed Randall into the first fortress.

"NLF attack? What happened? I've been out of the news loop recently."

Randall obviously hadn't realised that Lawrence had been out of commission for a while and had only just begun easing himself back to work. "You must be kidding. It was all the news! And surely it would've been in one of your daily briefs, it's right up J.A:N.U.S.' jurisdiction. Except for some reason, the Ordinals have been on the case. Means it's gotta to do with some quantum-related threat. Big explosion at the Waid University lab. Explosion? Terrorist attack? The Fourth came back empty-handed. Think he didn't manage to track the renegades down. He was certain they were NLF though."

"Sorry Dr Quiller, we're at Code 4. That means no visitors for your level." The security station stopped Randall and Lawrence as they stood at the main lobby of the ground floor of First Tower. The foyer was as futuristic as one could imagine, walls made of plasti-steel, bio-signature gantries before one could get to the lift lobby, holographic AI 'security guards' standing by the security station, and a localised hover drone concierge interface to greet incoming entrants.

Randall protested, "I had Dr Lawrence Nixon here cleared beforehand." He beeped in his voice recognition, and a bioscan of Lawrence confirmed both Lawrence's identity and his J.A:N.U.S. security clearance level. "Once again, our apologies Dr Quiller. Perhaps you could reschedule your guest," was all the friendly AI interface could repeat. Randall turned to Lawrence, "dammit I'm sorry man, dragged you all the way down town for nothing. Maybe we can do this another time?"

At J.A:N.U.S., Lawrence was used to Brutalist architecture, 1970s carpeting, and grumpy humans. This Science Nouveau of The Ordinals was a nice albeit startling change. The scan made Lawrence uncomfortable but he was glad alarms hadn't started blaring. Maybe they were silent alarms.

"So much for the grand tour. At least I've got this panini for later. I might as well ask before I'm teleported outside for loitering: what does Code 4 denote?"

"That's for irregularities in any of the research stations, unexpected occurrences. You know back in our grad days, when an experiment would blow up, but no one got hurt because it was a small scale poof that left our faces blackened with soot? Well over here that's a Code 4. We're almost excessively careful with any accident, any breach, and have protocols for each degree of risk. The only level lower than a Code 4 is a Code 5, that happened a couple of weeks ago when one of the spiders got out and bit one of the interns or something."

Randall reached over to tap on the touchscreen interface of the hovering drone reception, and then paused quizzically. "Hmm, strange." He swiped and repeated, Dr Lawrence Nixon, Psychiatric Assessment Unit, J.A:N.U.S.,", and then looked back at Lawrence. The machine blipped and flashed a response. Randall's face showed no emotion. "I'll walk you out." He turned and exited the building, his hand on Lawrence's right elbow, clutching it more tightly than he let on.

Some distance outside, at the small plaza in front of the building, Randall let go. "There's a standard security scan at the front reception, more for registration than anything else. Yours blipped to record that -" and here Lawrence's old buddy revealed the consternation on his face, "- you have a quantum signature." The system had just tagged Lawrence Nixon as a nova.

So... Silent alarm. Lawrence wondered whatever happened to the spider-bitten intern.

"If you've got time for a beer or something stronger, I've got a story."

McAnally's Pub sat under the street level in its building's basement. It was mostly empty except for the bald bartender to whom Lawrence gave a quick salute and raised two fingers while he and Randall sat at a corner table. Two microbrews soon arrived and Lawrence quietly told Randall the tale of the exploding head and all that followed minus today's exosymbiont incident.

"Obviously it's my voice. I don't know what's happened exactly but I've got a... a super larynx now. After seeing what happened to that poor bastard in the sublevels, I don't know what to do. I've been in a daze, carrying on like nothing's happened, waiting for something to go 'ping' and J.A:N.U.S. guards to drag me down below to cut my throat open and make me scream..."

Lawrence clenched the beer bottle like a Titanic survivor clutching an expensive yet broken table leg.

"Speaking as a quantum scientist, I sure would've wanted to see that," Randall gave a low whistle at Lawrence's retelling of the accident. "Sorry man I didn't mean to sound insensitive. And you're sure you're none the worse for wear? Good health and all, except you can now sing in every register?" It was a weak attempt to make light of the situation, but nothing another round of beers couldn't fix as Randall waved to the bartender.

That was when Lawrence noticed the ice cold brews didn't taste as cold, nor tingled as the liquid slid down his throat. Was that his imagination, or an after effect he was only beginning to discover?

"Well my lab can run tests, but not quite the kind relevant to your condition. I can measure the degree of your quantum ability according to the M-R scale, but really, the best place to determine the extent of transformation is J.A:N.U.S. itself. You know that. Besides you have to register yourself, stat. You probably have to make up some excuse to explain why you didn't do so straightaway." J.A:N.U.S.' jurisdiction as Lawrence well knew, was to register, monitor, and if necessary police all metahumans.

Of course, Randall didn't know as much as Lawrence did about the multiple levels below the J.A:N.U.S.' facility. The benign administrative sections were unconcerning, but the lower levels? They were exactly as Lawrence understood and feared. He'd be a subject for profiling and testing as part of the registration process, given the nature of the accident.

Lawrence sipped his beer quietly for a minute, not even noticing the changes at first.

"I'm terrified, Randall. What I saw down there, it screwed me up for weeks. Hell, I'm still screwed up. I feel like I'm still changing but there aren't any megalomaniacal drives to take over the world just yet."

He took a large gulp.

"I don't trust them, Randall. It was a miracle I was even able to go back today, much less do my job. I need someone else to know what's going on, even if it's just secondhand with no evidence. They scare me, and I've been scared enough in my life already. I... I want to speak with the Ordinals, Randall. I don't know if it's possible but I want asylum."

His friend was genuinely concerned, and Randall wasn't that insensitive as to be unable to pick that up. He wasn't as naive either; what Lawrence described did not utterly surprise him. Sure the Joint Administration: Nova Ultimate Supervention was the main authority in all legislative and policy matters on meta-humans, not excluding matters regarding management, rehabilitation and even incarceration. It was no leap of logic to envision that which Lawrence spilled the beans on: that J.A:N.U.S. had been conducting experiments far beyond the ambit of its official directive.

"I don't see where you can go that isn't covered under their jurisdiction, short of running away to some other sovereign nation state. Or go underground somehow, like the NLF. But is that worth it? Throwing everything in your life away? Novas do lead perfectly regular lives, sort of, so long as you are registered." Randall instinctively parroted what a sensible citizen of Capitol City might say to an emergent nova, but part of him also wanted to admit to himself that the advice seemed hollow in the light of his good friend's very real dilemma.

"Look, I think I can set you up to meet with the Ordinals, but I can't predict what their response might be. I'm sure they don't run an adoption shelter for wayward novas. Let me see..." Randall pulled out his phone, which appeared much more like a future future version of a miniature tricorder/communicator than the erstwhile television series could ever envision. "The Fourth is out." That much both of they knew. "The First is not to be disturbed. I personally haven't seen him in weeks. The Third, well, he's a starter, not a solver. I think our best bet is to speak with the Second. She's not in the Tower though, we'll have to head out to the Array. Damn, I'm going have to ping to say I won't be back so soon." His fingers swiped over what appeared to be his scheduling app.

Little cold, no fizzy tingling... Was his throat hardening, becoming desensitized to subtle sensations? Was the exosymbiont working its way endo? God, what else bad would happen to him today? At least his tongue was still tasting just fine, and he savoured the brew's rich flavours.

"I didn't want this. I didn't want any of this. I'm sorry for dragging you into this. I... Damn it. Thank you, Randall. Everything just keeps happening, getting worse, and it's like there's nothing I can do except shut up and shoulder it. Maybe I should have asked for help a long time ago, not just for me but for whoever's still in those dungeons. I appreciate whatever you can do to help but I don't want you getting in trouble because of me. I don't want to put you at risk."

Lawrence took another gulp and focused.

"The Second. The Array. You'd better drive... or does your personal teleporter have a group setting?" he tried to joke.