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Residual. Nanobots.
Dean had woken up that morning to someone writing on his stomach from the inside. He’d seen his grandfather’s disembodied head. And yet, when the dust settled and they were all watching the parade from their roof, that one word, “residual” haunted him the most.
Those nanobots were still active. Tiny foreign entities were milling around Dean’s insides, slinking through muscle and sinew, fraternizing with his blood cells, lounging in his brain matter. And they had been there for months.
Dean wanted to crawl out of his skin.
There had been disorienting moments after the initial nanobot… accident. Of course, that evening when Pete and Billy had been playing around with them had been awful. From projectile vomiting, to literally dying, to being shot with tranq darts by Brock—It had been its own kind of hell. But there had been moments after that, sometimes brief, sometimes a few minutes, in which Dean felt… invaded.
As he sat in his Calculus I class, taking notes, it would suddenly become apparent that Dean knew the equations that were being written on the board. How was that possible? There had been math lessons in the learning beds, of course, but they only went up through algebra and geometry. And Dean had felt lucky Grandpop had included those. Back when Grandpa Venture had written his lessons, most high schools didn’t even offer calculus. Dean definitely hadn’t picked it up in bed. He’d studied it for the SAT, and he’d done well enough on the problems come test day, but in class, the equations were too familiar, in the way things sometimes where when he’d learned them in his sleep with no memory attached.
Other classes had triggered this random information. Bits of literature he knew he hadn’t read. History people referenced from after the 1970s. It was beyond odd.
Then, Dean had found himself out with Jared one evening, and they’d been jumped. Jared had been taking care of it, but then one of men grabbed Dean’s arm and…
No. Dean wasn’t himself. He didn’t know who this person was. This person who had phantom information floating in his brain. Who flung jerks on the street over his head without even trying. Dean Venture couldn’t throw a punch. Dean Venture had an aptitude for math and science, but he had to study hard for most subjects and genuinely enjoyed it.
So when his father had said “residual,” Dean’s fears were confirmed. And heightened.
They were all staying in a hotel during the initial repairs to the VenTech building, but Dean returned to the lab on his own. There was no sleeping right now. Not with secretive little things buzzing beneath his skin. He’d woken in a cold sweat, dreaming of digging them out of his insides with his bare fingers. Blood and viscera covered his hands, soaked through his shirt as his legs turned to jelly and he collapsed, gasping. Then his father had walked in and complained about the mess.
Nope. No sleeping.
“Uh, whattaya doin’ there, Deano?”
Dean jumped a mile before whipping his head around to see Pete White standing there in a track suit, scratching the back of his head. Crap. It was his lab. His and Dr. Whalen’s anyway.
“Um, hi,” Dean said.
“Hi.” Pete flipped on the lights, flooding the entire lab with florescence. “Billy and I gotta sensor in here at night. Never know when that pud St. Cloud is gonna show up. You leave somethin’ in here? Not exactly like you’re usually on this floor.”
“I’m not, no,” Dean admitted. Should he just tell him? But if Pete were a part of this, he might tell his father. Then again, Dean had no way of knowing what he was looking for, and Pete knew the computers the best. “I was, um, I didn’t want to worry anybody, but…” Dean sighed. “When Grandpop was in control of the computers, I think he used the nanobots inside me to write a message on my stomach. It’s freaking me out. Can you check to see if they’re still active?”
“Write on your—Crap.” Pete rubbed his lips and shook his head, and then walked over to the computer, flipped the thing on, and started typing. “They shouldn’t still be goin’ after all this time. Rust said they outta break down after a few weeks, and you’d uh, passed, most of ‘em.”
Dean frowned and hovered near the screen so he could see what Pete was doing. “Dad didn’t sound too surprised when he suggested the nanobots did it.”
“Huh. Okay. Just a sec.”
The lab was dead silent as Pete typed away. Dean felt his stomach growing unsteady as the memory of that first day with the bots replayed. Hell, the first encounter, when they’d rushed up the drain pipe and into every orifice on his lower body, had been like something out of one of those movies that were nothing more than jump-scares and special effects held together with cheap fake blood.
“Okay, I got the program up,” Pete said. “There we are. Ugh. Yeah, looks like Grandpa V did it. Shame on ‘im. See there.”
Pete pointed to a command and clicked on it. Dean leaned over to look.
“Basically, he activated the nanobots to spell out a message for him. There must be a lot of the little buggers left to be able to do that. Or maybe they just replica—“ Pete raked a hand through his hair. “Whew. That must’ve hurt.”
“It wasn’t so bad. I mean, freaky, yeah. But the heart attack hurt more.”
Dean hadn’t meant to accuse Pete of anything, but the man winced anyway. Dean was about to tell him there were no hard feelings when he spotted more commands above the blinking cursor that Pete had selected. There were entries and numbers and more than one list of commands.
Trial 37.05.13
20.32.17
>> Remedy Lung Function
>> Neutralize Ulcer
>> Enhance muscle strength//full body: x4
>> Adrenaline boost: 70%
>> Stop Heart
>> Restart Heart
>> Neuro Download: Gilgamesh
Trial 38.05.14
03.05.22
>> Neuro Download: Geometry
>> Neuro Download: Trigonometry
>> Neuro Download: Calculus I
>> Neuro Download: Calculus II
>> Neuro Download: High School Literature
>> Neuro Download: High School History
A wave of nausea rose inside Dean. The first list he’d known about, most of it. It had been an accident, just a lab mishap, really. Common enough to be a staple in superscience. And fixing an ulcer he didn’t even know he had was kind of touching. But that next list. All that math downloaded into his brain. All those things that he would’ve studied anyway, if his dad had just given him a book and asked him to do it.
Trial 39.08.05
05.01.12
>> Enhance Lung Function
>> Enhance Balance
>> Neuro Download: Women’s Self-Defense
>> Neuro Download: Evasion Protocol I + II
>> Neuro Download: Krav Maga
>> Download connection: Muscle Memory
Trial 40.11.28
00.16.53
>> Neuro Enhance: Memory x2
>> Neuro Enhance: Aural/Visual Processing x3
When Pete closed out of the screen, Dean looked at him and blinked.
“Look, kiddo, about that heart attack—“
“Oh, that’s fine. I know you didn’t know they were inside me.” Dean tried to retain a semblance of normal breathing as he thought about all those commands that had been issued after
“Yeah, just. You looked upset.” Pete’s fingered hovered over the keyboard again, like he was thinking of bringing the program up again. “Look, I wanna check out a few things while I’m here, but I don’t want you lookin’ at this. You didn’t see that whole list, didja?”
Dean opened his mouth, then closed it. Why wouldn’t he have been able to read the list? He’d been staring at it for at least five minutes. Or it had felt like he had. How long had it really been?
… Enhanced processing of information. Was that why he’d been getting through his readings so quickly lately? Since he’d been studying for finals, at least. He’d been buried in notes, and suddenly, he had a breakthrough. Things started to stick. He reread his textbooks much more easily and quickly.
“No, um.” Dean swallowed. He really wasn’t a good liar. He had to cover his discomfort. “Did I really have an ulcer? What was wrong with my lungs?”
“Oh!” Pete swiveled around. “Well, yeah, there was an ulcer there. Not perforated or anything, but you set the bots to repair something, they’ll take care of it quick. The lungs, that was the first thing Billy and I saw, y’know? Nothing wrong, mind, but it looked like you might have some mild asthma. I bet it’s a lot easier to run now.”
“It has been.”
“Y’sound disappointed!” Pete swatted at Dean’s arm.
“I just… I thought running laps had paid off.”
But it hadn’t. Not the way he thought, anyway. That third entry. Another boost on his lungs, self-defense, Krav Maga? Dean was starting to feel dizzy. Advanced mathematics was his dad for sure; it was the basis for most science, but Krav Maga? The only one who would think of something like that would be…
No. Nope. Nooope.
“Unnn.”
“Hey, hey.” Pete stood and put his hand on Dean’s shoulder. “Look, I know that night was super weird, but it’s over. How often is your granddad gonna come back and mess around with ya? Not that often.”
“But, they could, couldn’t they? Um… someone?”
“I’m gonna lay in some security measures. Make it a lot harder to get into this program. Okay?”
“Yeah, but… anyone could break that, couldn’t they?”
“Geez, thanks.”
Dean flailed his hands. “I’m sorry, but… If they did, anyone could give it orders, right? And control me from anywhere?”
“What? No! No way.” Pete perked up. “Those babies are controlled remotely, yeah, but their range doesn’t go super far. No more than a block away. You don’t gotta worry about that.”
Dean tried to catch his breath. Those last three entries were weighing on him, and he wasn’t going to be able to hide what he knew. Not for long.
“Okay.” Another deep breath. “Okay. Okay.” He put his hand on his chest.
“Yeah, let’s not give you another heart attack, huh?” Pete laughed.
“Doesn’t a heart attack cause muscle damage? Wouldn’t that have some kind of after effect?”
Pete looked back to the screen. “I think when I restarted your heart, the bots decided to repair the damage. We’d already taught them to do that, basically. They had some programming already for what healthy means, and they mapped your tissues right away. Before we even found the program, so they’d know what it was supposed to look like in there.”
“Oh.”
The bots decided.
Dean had another urge to start peeling his skin off to get them out of him.
“I really appreciate you taking care of the program,” Dean said after a long pause. “And, um, thanks for fixing my heart.”
“We were just screwin’ around. We should’a been more careful,” Pete admitted. “And anyways, I don’t mind doin’ this. I’m up anyways. I should’a put in an extra layer of security months ago.”
“Were you having nightmares? About the head?” Dean asked.
“You bet!” Pete laughed again and slapped his knee. He looked at the computer. “I’ve been in computer tech my whole life. Never seen anything like that. Life’s interestin’, huh?”
“It sure is.”
“Go on to bed. Rust’ll lose it if you just disappear on him.” Pete leaned over to give Dean a push.
Dean managed a smile.
As he took the elevator, Dean’s mind wandered. He lifted his shirt, looking at his slim body underneath. There was no scar whatsoever from Grandpop’s message. It was more toned than it had been, but he wasn’t bulky with muscle. His abs weren’t ripped like Jesus or anything. But he didn’t look the way he had at the beginning of the summer.
Dean had just thought he’d finally hit puberty.
He looked at his hands, opening and closing them, wondering where the bots were now, and what they were up to. The bots decided. They’d decided to repair his heart after restarting it. They’d decided to erase the message on his stomach as unnecessary.
What else would they decide to do?
Dean walked out into the remains of the lobby. The hole where his Grandpop had been was there, and Dean envisioned his head with all the dangling bits of him placed into the mold as Jonas Venture Senior stared ahead with an almost violent intensity. Funny, the first interaction Dean had ever had with his grandfather, and the man had used him as a vessel for his purposes. What else was the man capable of?
He turned from the memory of the grisly head and pressed his hands against the railing.
>> Enhance muscle strength//full body: x4
What did x4 mean? Toss-a-Brock strong? Toss-a-jerk strong? Definitely that, but what else?
Dean gripped the railing and squeezed. He squeezed until it hurt and then pulled back. The metal had dented, and his hands were throbbing.
“Ow.”
Dean pushed his jaw forward stubbornly and then grabbed the railing again, squeezed as hard as he could, and jerked backward. The railing came loose from the floor, and Dean went flying backward. He fell, and slid, and then dropped the railing and looked around. No one else was here, and the security cameras were off in the lobby, thank goodness.
“Like twenty ‘enhanced’ brain commands and still an idiot.” Dean moved to push himself up and winced. He looked at his hands, which were garishly bruised along the palm and on every finger. “Well. That sucks.”
Dean hurried away from the mess that he’d made, not that anyone would really know the difference given the state of the rest of the destroyed lobby.
By the time he’d gotten back to the hotel, where he’d gotten a glare from Brock, but otherwise not been missed… the nanobots had decided to repair his hands.
* * *
“I can’t go back there.”
Jared looked across the table at Dean, who looked like he might not have slept in the past week. He hadn’t touched his coffee. Just spent the past several minutes shuffling and sorting the sugar packets that had been on their table, then grabbing the centerpiece for the empty table to their left and sorting that one as well.
“I can’t go home.”
Jared didn’t know what to say. Every time he formulated something, the words died before he could voice them. They all sounded so terrible. They were only looking out for you? Cheating for you? Manipulating you? Dean had complained about his father being controlling before, but Jared had imagined that only included his birth father and the man’s friends, or the wall of a man who served as their bodyguard/nanny.
Jared would’ve had a panic attack, too. Not that his aunts would have ever.
“Can I?” Dean looked up at Jared in askance. “Go home.”
Jared pursed his lips and shook his head. “When I first met you, I asked if you needed help.”
“Well, he’s still not my pimp. He’s still just my dad. I just wish he thought I was capable of doing anything on my own. It would’ve been okay if I’d failed the SAT the first time. I could’ve studied more. They hold it more than once!” Dean put the other center piece back where it belonged and rubbed his thumb along the edge of his coffee cup. “What if they keep doing it? What if, in my sleep, they keep changing me? Would I ever have known if Grandpop hadn’t written on my stomach? How do you know who you are if… it changes, and you didn’t have any choice in the change?
“I think…” Jared paused as Dean’s eyes fixed on him again. He looked as lost as Jared had ever seen him. “God, Dean, I wish I had answers for you. But I do know a kid in trouble when I see them. This situation is bad, and you’re not going to be to see it clearly from the inside. Don’t you still want to stay? It’s because they’re your dads, both of them, and you love them.”
Dean’s head drooped, and he nodded miserably.
“That doesn’t mean they get to do this to you. If distance protects you, then that’s what you need.”
“I just don’t know how I’m going to do that.” Dean wrapped his fingers around the mug, then pulled back and inspected the glass.
“Your family does have money. You could tell your father that you’re getting a place near the university—“
“He would never pay for that.” Dean rolled his eyes, then smiled fondly. “He’s so cheap. And he wouldn’t want me to go. I’m like four minutes younger than Hank, and he treats me like I’m the baby.”
“He loves you,” Jared concluded. But images of all the parents who had affection for their children and hurt them regardless weren’t far from his thoughts. “True as it is, that doesn’t change anything.”
He reached across the table and took Dean’s fingers in his hand. Dean’s cheeks flushed, and he pressed his lips together.
“Maybe you and Hank could get a place together…? No, you’d need the cash upfront for that.”
“I don’t know that Hank would want to move away from Sirena.” Dean brushed his thumb along Jared’s fingers so, so lightly. “I should try to figure out money anyway. Just in case. Never had a real job. I don’t think my internship counts now that Professor Impossible went antagonist.”
“Have you told him?” Jared asked. “Hank?”
Dean grimaced. “I should, shouldn’t I? I dunno.”
“You think he wouldn’t believe you?”
“More like…” Dean blinked a few times. “I’m not sure Hank would think it was a problem.”
“Shit.” Jared rubbed the side of his headband. “I’ve seen situations like that, too. But would they use those nanobots on him?”
“Oh, they can’t. There were apparently only the ones in the tube they broke, and they all went into me.”
“So he’s safe?”
“As he can get. If he doesn’t jump off any buildings for a while, or get in Wide Wale’s cross-hairs again.” Dean slumped back and crossed his arms over himself. He looked incredibly uncomfortable and glanced down at his middle with the same expression someone might have if a head were sprouting there.
“I’ll keep an eye out when I’m on patrol.”
“I’d appreciate that. Hank isn’t always very careful.”
Jared sipped his coffee and leaned on his hand. “You should move on campus. Campus isn’t far from your home, but far enough out of the remote control range. It won’t look personal. You can explain to your father that it’s about staying focused for your academics, thanks to all the arching that’s been going on at the penthouse. And you can leave as soon as the semester starts. Maybe sooner, if you can find a place.”
“I don’t know if I could get in a dorm this late.” Dean shrugged. “But you’re right. It sounds like the best idea.” He sucked in his lower lip and stared at the table. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to sleep at the penthouse at all.”
“Maybe I can swing by. Or you can sleep over with me when you can. Say we’re preparing for the semester, oh!” Jared jerked up in his seat. “I can say you’re helping me with one of the RA activities!”
“That would work.” Dean cringed. “Dad’s gonna be so hurt.”
Jared started to intervene, but then Dean exploded: “I’m so mad at him! Why does he think I’m just a toy he can play with?”
“I dunno, sweetie.”
Dean sunk his head into his hands. “He calls me sweetie. Sometimes.”
Jared closed his eyes, then rose and pulled his chair over next to Dean. “I’m sorry.”
“Your right. I just need to get out. I’ll figure it out from there.”
Jared draped one arm over his shoulder and squeezed. “This is a good step. It’s going to be hard. I mean, I haven’t done it, since I was raised by my old, gay aunts, but I’ve seen how hard this part can be. It’s hard to tell up from down when you’re mired in a situation.”
“Thanks for listening, Jared.”
Dean flopped his head onto Jared’s shoulder. Jared warmed a little. He loved how cuddly Dean could get. He adored how open and caring Dean could be. Hell, he even loved when Dean was grumpy and catty. It hurt to see anyone treat him so carelessly.
But as Jared had learned in his years as the Brown Widow, family dynamics were complicated. The most toxic environments could slowly and insidiously become a person’s normal. And what a parent felt was normal from their own toxic situation could easily be passed on to the next generation without a thought.
“No problem.” Jared petted Dean’s hair. “Just making good on my promise to help.”
“And I didn’t even have to blink twice.”
Jared tentatively leaned his cheek against Dean’s hair and made a kissing noise. Dean laughed softly and nuzzled his head into Jared’s shoulder. A moment later, Jared could tell that Dean had dozed off. The poor guy was confused and exhausted.
Since the beginning of Jared’s vigilante days, he had always wished he could do more. His reach was limited, and New York was an entity unto itself when it came to the mask game. Too many times, he hadn’t been able to save those who needed it. Too many times, they hadn’t even been able to ask.
Jared couldn’t say how grateful he was that Dean was comfortable enough to tell him what had happened. If all he could do was give Dean an ear to listen and a place to rest his head, well, that’s what he would give.