Turn 50

--- Maya ---

“Okay, so what’s this favor you were asking me about?” She asked, Kim as the other girl finally showed up to her clubroom.

“Right, uh, sorry about being late.” Kim apologized, before shaking her head. “Anyway, here’s the thing, I think I told you about the tours the M.A.D. club do to keep this place running right?”

“Yeah.” She nodded. “You want me to help you with one or something?”

“Yes, sort of.” Kim corrected herself. “The thing is things are starting to get a bit hectic on my side of things and I was kind of hoping you wouldn’t mind covering a few of my shifts for me.”

“Shifts,” She blinked. “Do you mean like, you have an actual job working here?”

“Again, sort of.” Kim answered. “Most of the members are free to volunteer to help out with the tours whenever they want, but since I have all of my little critters living here, I’ve got a deal doing tours in exchange for the extra costs of keeping them all here.”

“But I thought you had that deal with the pet store to sell them?” She frowned. “Shouldn’t you be making a decent amount of money from that.”

“That depends…” Kim grimaced. “On a good month I’ll make a decent amount but on a bad one I might actually take losses. And at the same time because I want to take care of my critters I make the people who want one go through this whole interview process, which cuts into it more, and there’s the stuff with keeping everything licensed and it-it’s a whole thing really.”

(Ugh, sounds boring and painful.) Her inner child cringed.

(Adulthood often is.) Her inner reason agreed.

“So you just need me to help give tours so they’ll let you keep your critters here?” She asked, not wanting to touch that existential crisis just yet.

“Well it’s not like they’ll just throw them out, it’s just…” Kim shook her head before sighing. “I don’t feel right leaving them here when I’m not helping out around the club, and do so so regularly that they’ve got me scheduled on days they know I can cover it.”

“Only you can’t cover it, so you need me to.” She corrected the other teen.

Kim winced, before giving her a reluctant nod. “Yeah, I do. But if you cover me, you can take whatever the club would’ve paid me on those tours.”

“But I thought you needed that money to cover club expenses?” She frowned getting a little mixed up.

“Not quite. Like I said the club won’t just throw out my minions, but they could also lose a fair bit of money if they have to close down on the days I was working, meaning I need someone to cover those shifts for me.” Kim explained.

“Right… well it can’t hurt for me to cover one or two of them, I mean when I first signed up you mentioned something about that anyway.” She reminded the other girl.

“I know but I wasn’t expecting this kind of thing to pop up for a few more months.” Kim admitted. “And even then it would’ve been more you signing up for it then me having to ask you for help with the tours.”

“Well yeah, but I was probably going to end up volunteering for a few anyway.” She shrugged. “I mean who knows maybe I’ll even learn something myself.” (If the club M.A.D.s are really all that.)

“Maybe.” Kim agreed with a smile. “Well if you’re going to be covering for me I might as well show you the ropes a bit while I’ve got you here.”

---

Once Kim had finished showing her the basics of running the tours for the M.A.D. club, she asked if she could borrow some of the other teen’s equipment to inspect this weird flower she had a ‘feeling’ about since she lacked her own version of said equipment.

“Sure, just be sure to clean up on your way out.” Kim told her, as she made her way towards the exit of her club room.

“Got it thanks.” Maya nodded back before loading the magic berries onto a bit of equipment the whispers were telling her how to use.

“Kind of surprised they know how to use stuff like this.” She couldn’t help but comment as she mashed one of the berries into a paste, not really bothering to keep her mental conversations to herself now that she was more or less alone.

(Really that's what breaks your suspension of disbelief?) Her inner passion asked with her own disbelief. (Not any of the other bullshit we’ve gotten our hands on or made?)

“No, I mean I can’t name half of this stuff and the whispers are telling me exactly how to use all of it without any learning curve.” She tried explaining. “And no this isn’t like our other tools, I mean you need a computer to run half of this shit.”

(It is a little odd, but the whispers seem to know a lot of things they shouldn’t.) Her inner reason pointed out. (Perhaps this is just another one such incident?)

“Maybe… but it’s still pretty weird.” She sighed, once more curious about the whispers but also once more lacking any information about them beyond the fact that the better an M.A.D. could understand them the more powerful said M.A.D. was by their deviancy’s standards.

(How about we focus on something we are capable of understanding at the moment?) Her inner logic suggested. (Have you learned anything interesting about these magically enhanced berries?)

“Uh, yes… but not as much as I’d like.” She admitted reading over the information being provided by Kim’s equipment while also keeping an ear out for the mysterious whispers inside her mind. “Okay, it seems like berries have this thing where the more water they have access to the bigger they grow.”

(A trait shared with a fair portion of the flora kingdom.) Her inner reason reminded her.

“I know, I know, but the interesting part is the fact that whatever energy the -I hate calling it this- magic was manipulating, took advantage of this and provided a substitute for water and nutrients to facilitate this growth before… doing something to accelerate said growth.” She said, explaining what she could understand before frowning as she realized the bigger secrets were beyond her. (For now…)

(Alright, that’s cool and all but is there anything we can do with that information?) Her inner passion asked in a bored tone.

“Well, while we lack the equipment right now, with a few modifications to our biology interface program we could take advantage of this little function ourselves to increase the crop yield of our bio-pod projects.” She told herself, listening to some of the whispers suggestions to the ideas currently flowing through her mind.

(Well, that sounds like something we’re going to have to get to work on at some point.)

---

“Alright hermano, you know you’re starting to get creepy with this whole ‘drawing your mystery girl’ thing.” She told her elder brother as she once more found herself sharing the kitchen table with him as he still tried to draw the girl from nearly two weeks ago.

“I know it’s just…” Tommy sighed while rubbing at his eyes. “I don’t know, it’s this whole thing. Sort of like my whole creative flow is out of whack until I get this done, you know?”

“Yeah I do.” Whenever she started one of her more physical projects that was how things usually went, her mind -(and the whispers)- refusing to let her focus on anything else until she gets it done.

(Well that may be the case with me but Tommy isn’t an M.A.D. so he shouldn’t have this whole project obsession he’s got going on.) She reminded herself.

“Hey, maybe all you need is something to help break your mind out of this artistic rut.” She suggested with a clap of her hands.

“And what did you have in mind?” Tommy asked with a hint of amusement.

“Well how good are you at working with clay?”

---

“Now then, 1A, 1B it has recently come to my attention that in my fit of creative genius I may have slipped a few hidden sequences into your DNA when I grew the two of you.” She told her two LCMs as 1A watched her with an intense focus while 1B watched her… with a much less intense focus. “What this means is that while I’m aware of a few of your special abilities such as your poison resistance and your adrenal overload. That said, I’m curious if the two of you are aware of any other abilities you may possess?”

1B blinked not quite understanding what she was talking about.

1A on the other hand seemed deep in thought about her question.

(You are aware that while our LCMs are notably smarter than the common rodent, they also aren’t more intelligent than most toddlers. Beyond what we’ve shown them how to do at least.) Her inner logic reminded her.

(Yeah, but 1A is smart, I’m sure he’ll be able to figure something out and tell us about it.) Her inner madness argued.

(What about 1B?) She asked herself with a frown.

(We both know he's not the brain of this duo.) Her inner darkside pointed out callously.

“He’s smart, he’s just a different kind of smart.” She defended, before a sudden movement caught her attention as 1A seemed to suddenly disappear. “Uh, where did your brother disappear to?”

1B raised a paw and pointed to the other side of the room, where upon looking she found 1A bouncing between several things like a pinball before tripping and skidding to a stop a short distance away.

“1A what happened?” She asked, picking the little critter up.

The LCM in her hand began making a series of squeaking sounds that she couldn’t quite decipher until after a moment a faint thump drew her attention to 1B as he began to run around much like how 1A had just a seconds prior.

(Well, they may not have figured out anything new, but I’m guessing they figured out how to trigger their adrenal overloads on command.) Her inner logic reasoned out.

(So basically we have a pair of minions who can trigger a super sugar rush on command?)

“Why do I feel a certain sense of maternal dread?” She blinked before frowning. “And why do I get the feeling mamá is laughing her ass off right now?”