She blew a lot of money from her first couple of paychecks, but this was worth it. This was so very worth it. Enlarged doorframes, super comfortable furniture, LED lighting along the edges of the ceiling or floor depending on her mood, top-tier cooking appliances... she had even made some special lightweight material that helped reinforce the weight limit and support for her apartment. You never know when you were going to have visitors of any size.
Or if you'd get the chance to upgrade yourself, but that's getting ahead of oneself.
In terms of decoration, simple was best: A few tapestries, some small sculptures of various foreign make, and one shelf in particular had some miniatures of some of the various heroes and villains. Heroes such as Legend, Miss Militia and Hoper. But also some custom ones like Gold Skull, Buckshot, and Mr. Skeltal. If there's one thing that needs to be kept in mind, it's to support what goes on locally.
Fractal was fairly certain the 3D printer in the facility wasn't meant for these, but hey, the boss gave her the facility. As far as she was concerned, tiny things like this were way easier to justify than say, trying to bring a monster out.
Monsters... it was ironic, when she thought about it.
The memories were fresh in her mind any time she thought about it. One moment she had been busy with cleaning her living area, and in the next reality had simply shattered. Myriad reflections and rushes of what-ifs and maybes, of multiple versions of Earth. A kaleidoscopic tunnel where she could barely comprehend things, before being pulled towards what looked like a solid obsidian crystal.
She remembered curiously touching it, only for it to begin crawling up her skin, only to black out and wake up afterwards to the sounds of screams. To car sirens and groans as she needed to crawl out of the dumpster she had found herself in. She still remembered how horrified she felt when she came face to face with a rotting face on opening the lid. One garbage bag to its face later and she managed to buy enough time to high-tail it to a spot just far enough to get an idea of how fucked she was.
It's only in hindsight she knew now that it was a containment outbreak and that Brockton Bay was handling it fairly well. But at that time she was completely panicking. Zombies, screaming, scattered blood, and varying degrees of resistance in a city she was completely unfamiliar with. To make matters worse, some people had been taking the opportunity to do some looting, so you had more than just the corpses to worry about.
That's when the Trigger event happened. Not hers, but someone else's.
Multiple zombies had cornered a man who was using his pistol to hold them off. She had only noticed because she was in the middle of using the congregation of zombies as a distraction to grab a discarded weapon herself. But just as she was going to try and help, the man stumbled backwards and fell over, disorienting him just enough to let the horde get up close. She still remembered the disgusting sounds of regurgitation, and a sizzling akin to bacon on a greased pan as he screamed.
But then the screaming continued as it doubled. Then tripled again as the screams gave way to insane laughter, and an entire torrent of gunfire erupted. Being grazed on the arm and cheek was more than enough incentive to get out of the way. The slight glance she managed had shown the man was nothing more than a skeleton, surrounded by other skeletons laughing maniacally and cutting down anything that moved. It was decidedly fucked, and the clearest indicator that she was well and truly in a different place.
She still remembered his declaration even over the gunfire. "KHARN! I'LL FIND YOU! I'LL FIND YOU AND THEN YOU'RE REALLY GOING TO BE FUCKING BONED! I WILL FIND YOU FOR THIS!"
In hindsight, it was a fairly good indicator of Mr. Skeltal's penchant for puns. But at the time it was like she was hearing the declaration of the devil himself. It had been a good ten minutes before she had finally managed to get far enough away that she had felt safe, only to realize her fear made her discard all caution. Which made noise. Which alerted other zombies to her location. Oops.
A nearby repair shop had been the closest place she could manage to hole herself up in... or rather, locking the entrance door and hiding in it like a complete coward as there was banging on the doors and the nightmarish moans. Trying to hold her weight against the door as hard as she could while heavy thuds kept fighting to push it down. Adrenaline worked wonders, but she could only do so much. She was only human. She remembered cursing her lack of ability. Her fear of being mauled. Her hatred for her own weakness.
The hinges had been breaking. She had desperately kept thinking of wanting to better herself. To rebuild herself. She needed to be better, or she was going to die in this place as a complete stranger. She would perish as a nobody, and it was her fault for not building herself up properly.
That's when the pain had erupted in her skull. It was a whirlwind as she found herself collapsing, a sensation like needles in her eyes. Her panic when she realized the 'tears' she was crying was actually blood and eye tissue from melting out of her sockets, yet somehow she could still see. The blackening of her flesh, yet she could still feel. Her hair falling out in practically one large clump, and her mouth sealing up despite still screaming.
The reverberation of something that deafened all other sensations as the image of an obsidian crystal filled her mind, falling off something vast. A flow of information, a need for cooperation. A need for creation.
A Hunger
Then as quickly as it started, it was over and her mind had been overflowing with knowledge and ideas. She remembered grabbing a nearby chair and slamming it against the door, knowing it only needed to hold long enough to fix a nailgun that was on a bench. Her hands moved with a machine's precision, and it only took roughly twenty seconds to fix it up and pull it up to start firing.
Unfortunately, aim was still something of an issue. Cue more running.
She had been lucky that she managed to shake them, even if it meant nearly getting hit by a truck that swerved to try and hit her. She was sure she'd remember the screams of the woman inside for life as the zombies converged on her and pulled her apart, but better that it was them, right? If nothing else, it bought her the time she needed to quickly make some adjustments on it. Steady her nerves since the zombies weren't going directly at her, as long as she didn't think about the screams. A few moments later and she had managed to gun them all down, and rushed in to check on the truck.
That's when she saw herself in the mirrors on the truck. A sort of cracked prism where her face should be, her head looking like an eternal flame. Slivers of colors along her body. She looked like a monster of a different sort, and moving her hand up to her face in the reflection had confirmed it for what it was.
Strange. It was all strange. Too strange. Where was her face? She couldn't recognize herself. Fix. She could fix this, right? Yes she could fix this! She just needed time she needed tools she could fix this, she could fix herself she just needed the materials-
The memory of the crystal had erupted again at that point. Splinters in her brain. Colors flaring.
WE CAN FIX THIS
It was an event that was more unnerving than the first. She remembered feeling calm all of a sudden. Knowing she could fix herself. Fix others. She could do more than that, why stop there? Yes, she had time now. She just needed materials. It was only a matter of materials.
It was gunshots that was next. Yes, gunshots echoing from down the street. She remembered rushing over to see what she knew later as 'The Hoper' flying above a street and lasering some of the zombies. Clearing the way for armed soldiers to take out others and storm into buildings to rescue people. The emotion of elation knowing she could potentially try to find some way to be rescued, only for shock to flood her system at the symbol on the trucks.
Umbrella Corporation and a zombie outbreak. If the Fates had a sense of humor, they were surely laughing at her at that point. But it meant an opportunity, when she had thought about it. Multiversal coincidences aside, such events would have meant a loss in faculty. Corporations had access to all kinds of material and tools. She could use that to fix things.
It almost felt disgusting how easy it was to use the situation. Shoot at some zombies on the side, and allow a goodie two-shoe like Hoper to vouch for needing to help a survivor. Granted, it had almost backfired when a jumpy soldier reflexively shot at her, but Hoper had managed to catch the bullet and chastised the soldier.
One truck ride later, and some pressuring on the goons to recommend her in exchange for the information on the new vengeful skeleton, and she had been in a machine shop to show off her skills. One thing led to another, and soon enough she had been taken on.
Ah, memories. From a dumpster to a snazzy looking apartment she was allowed to customize. Not how she expected her life to go, but c'est la vie. She wasn't going to look the gift horse in the mouth, not with the money Dr. Gore had been paying her.
Umbrella even managed to fabricate an entirely new identity for her, even if she never went by it. As far as she was concerned, that strange crystal defined her. She was more or less an extension of it: A 'fractal' being.
That's not to say every part of her life had to be organized. Things would be wonderful once the various plushies she ordered had arrived, and the gaming rig! Oh that was going to be a treat, especially when she took it apart and improved it with some choice materials-
Her cell phone beeped. It only had a single message on it: <Patient is ready. Room 14.>
Right, yes. It would be best to take this. Ever since that little fuck-up with finding out Dr. Gore had reflexes like a puppy, Fractal realized she needed to prove herself again. Corporation life be damned, the big softie took her in. As far as she was concerned, Dr. Gore was her boss and she would do whatever it took to keep it going. All so she could eventually convince the good doctor to help with a special project.
She'd fix herself yet.
It took thirteen minutes to travel across the gated community to the company grounds, and then seven additional minutes getting through security and taking the elevator down to the subterranean facility. It was probably poor taste to bring a small kick scooter with her, but fuck it. The hallways weren't for moving specimens anyway, and it helped her shave time from getting place to place. Plus she technically had jurisdiction; if she wanted to use a kick scooter, then she was going to use a fucking kick scooter.
Getting to the door for Lab #14, she placed her hand on the scanner before it opened, heading over to the section for biohazard suits. "Sorry, got here as fast as I could. What's on the docket, Dr. Aubert?"
To his credit, the man was already in a suit and tapping on a tablet. "Orders from the top. We're to use Alloy Sigma-3 in a brain augmentation. The request is to replace the parietal and occipital lobes, and try to give it functions to let it connect to a computer. Any further augmentation relies on the success of this procedure."
Fractal paused a little at that. Theoretically such a change would practically supercharge perception and calculation abilities while maintaining memories, but Alloy Sigma-3 was designed with quantum processing in mind. The body had a real risk of not being able to keep up, which would make things awkward for the sanity of the user. What's more, connection to a computer? Sure, it could help download information, but a skilled Tinker could use that to potentially take control...
"Has the patient been altered beforehand, or are we starting base?" She had to know what she was working with. It was fortunate that Dr. Aubert was on the ball with this. "The patient appears to be base for now, but there's no plans to stress-test things just yet. Proof of concept. The plan is to alter the body to take advantage of the additional thinking ability once we've proven the device works."
It made sense. Make sure it does as needed, then build around it. If it worked, it could mean a game changer for all kinds of research as well as those who need such processing power in the field to take in every aspect in as short a time as possible. If placed in an augmented human or even a Cape, it could have an even greater impact.
It was worth it. She could always make a new version to edit the bugs out once they saw the results, and it contributed to her future project. If someone did manage to take control, then she'd just have to make sure that aspect wasn't there for her version and mark it as a potential control function for the monsters the company sold. Every little bit counts, and the good Dr. Gore always had such strange ideas she could utilize. Oh, this was wonderful.
"Good to hear. Let me get in this suit, then let's help our new patient see things in a whole new way."