An ambulance ride and a police report later—yes, he had been attacked and poisoned in his hotel room by some disgusting, bed-pooping alien heister that had taken the form of a Maltese to steal his most prized possession—Sam was once again slumped in front of his TV, a fresh margarita in his hand, unable to focus on the latest space caper through the depression. The concierge had offered to put him in a different room, but Sam had just told them cover the burned spot with a throw rug and leave him alone to die.

The pinnacle of his brilliance had disappeared to begin its canine army, taking his own dose—the only remaining evidence of his success—with it, which, if Sam’s quick mass calculation was right, was enough to give twenty-four of the little fuckers shapeshifting and hyperintelligence if he managed to dose them all before the solution oxidized or went stale.

It just wasn’t fair. It had taken Sam hours to come up with that. The idea of doing it all over again, from scratch, was just too depressing to consider. Sam hated doing the same thing twice. It was worse than tearing off toenails. He wondered if the little monster had known that.

Probably.

Thinking back at how easily he had been outplayed, he winced, wondering if maybe adding two hundred IQ points had been a low estimate.

Then he wondered if his new nemesis would return with an army. One was bad enough. Twenty-five of them would be hell. He would need to build a containment system and weaponry.

But then again, there was the potential of more of them if Patient Zero was, in fact, contagious.

Though there was only a very small chance of infection, one possibility had been through poop-eating, and, by happenstance getting out of his taxi on his way back from the hospital that night, he had heard two dog owners discussing something strange that had happened that evening at the local dog park, how a couple of the dogs had eaten shit and gone into convulsions.

Fuck.

Yes, he would need to calibrate AI autoturrets trained to recognize and annihilate hybrid DNA. That would be interesting.

Sam was back to filling up his bottle of margarita mix with Cincoro and Grand Mariner, waiting for the moment the news started to report the mass disappearances at the hands of a canine army, when his movement on the couch made the crack between the cushions move just enough to allow a purple glow to shine through.

Sam dropped his tequila and ducked his hand between the pillows to pull out his prize. Immediately, he shoved the margarita mix aside to chug out over the floor and, holding the shimmering purple vial in both hands, he kissed it. “The gods do love me!” he cried, giggling to himself. It had to be all those Karmic Good Deeds he’d done in the past. He immediately popped the cap, intending to gulp it down before the beast could return with his poop-eating companions and steal it from him.

…then hesitated, once again remembering all the unwilling shapeshifting test subjects who had died in a puddle of gray mucous, screaming until they gurgled blood.

Very slowly, he put the cap back on the serum and squinted at it. He had wanted to run a few more tests before he used it, maybe make some final adjustments and calibrations to the nanotech base…

But with his computer a sizzled husk, his lab destroyed, and his notes burned, Sam would have had to put another afternoon into getting back to where he had been in the process, and even then, the efficacy of the serum was degrading as the viral bodies had not been intended to be stored at room-temperature for more than twenty-four hours after activation.

So it was either do it now, or throw it out and hope he got it right a second time, considering how mind-numbingly boring it would be doing it all a second time, and Sam knew himself well enough to know that his attention wandered and his brain often checked out when he had to redo things he’d already conquered once, since all the challenge—and thus his interest—was gone the moment he’d completed it the first time. In fact, the one miserable time a college professor had made him rewrite a thesis from scratch was, after six days of procrastinating and beating his head against a wall and refusing to look at his Word document, the one time Sam threw aside the Word document and invented an AI to do the writing for him, then turned in that thesis, completely unread by Sam, because fuck doing the same thing twice. That was the definition of insanity, and Sam was not insane. He had, after all, earned his sixth thesis from that work.

He hadn’t even bothered to remember the title. The MIT professors, upon granting him his resulting doctorate, had been subsequently stunned by how Sam had ‘written’ it, and had tried to grant him another one, in AI theory and coding, but Sam no longer cared. He’d destroyed both the AI and the essay after he’d proved his point, then gone on to find interesting things to do to bad guys’ bank accounts, the misguidedly pretentious university ‘scholars’ and post-doc work in general effectively conquered.

Sam dragged the mostly-spilled margarita mix bottle from the floor and took a swig from what was left, eyes still on the luminescent vial, thinking. He hadn’t been paying much attention when he’d made those latest adjustments, planning one last looksie just to catch typos. Had he gotten a few of the numbers mixed up? He was slightly dyslexic…

Then again, much of Sam’s best work came when his conscious mind was off thinking about other things and his subconscious was on autopilot in the background.

Shit.

Sam started to calculate how dangerous it would be, theoretically, to drink the serum, as opposed to start over with a new test subject. He hadn’t, after all, tested the shapeshifting—the quality that had doomed all previous guinea pigs—on the dog, just the smarts. Damn it.

Slugging back as much of the margarita he could get out of the bottle as possible, Sam went to go open another, this time pouring it in a coffee mug—the dog had broken his margarita glasses and room service hadn’t delivered new ones—and stirring it with a tiny red straw, lost in thought.

In general, Sam reasoned, his theories worked. Sometimes they didn’t—he could remember three times, in particular, they had backfired horribly and he’d almost died or set the world on fire—but in general, it was a pretty sure bet to bet on his brain, and his brain had decided the reason the Huouyt shapeshifting genetic was dissolving people was because they didn’t have an onboard control center to keep it in check. Sooooo he had coded in the basis for a Huouyt’s zora, too, just on the off-chance it would stabilize things, but there was, of course, the question of how, exactly, that would manifest in a host, and whether or not it would bring with it its own slew of issues.

He eyed the serum with trepidation as he sipped his margarita, wondering just how badly he really wanted to shapeshift. Probably not that badly, now that he really thought about it. After all, he couldn’t really think of any benefits to shapeshifting that he couldn’t do with a wig, makeup, and a few fancy keystrokes…

But the idea of having the serum expire and losing all that work with no tangible results made something spasm in his neck and he swallowed the rest of his drink reflexively. Then he went to call the front desk and order another whore.

When she arrived, he spent the entire act of fellatio deep in thought, puzzling over whether or not it was worth the risk.

He was usually right. Usually. And he did want to be smarter, because that would be cool. And the long life would definitely be a bonus. But he really didn’t want to die in a screaming puddle of goo, either. It wouldn’t accentuate the proper character traits he wanted to highlight for his legend. Because, if he died, he was wrong. He hated being wrong. But he usually wasn’t wrong, and it was a pretty sure bet on most days that he was ninety-nine percent of the time right.

But he didn’t want to die screaming and gurgling blood as he disintegrated from the inside, and there was a possibility of that. Approximately the same possibility as the carrier virus being transferrable through the immediate consumption of feces, maybe a little bit more because he had been distracted and rushed at the time of last calibration…

He was still lying on his back, frowning at the ceiling, trying to decide whether or not it was worth the risk to make himself the very first shapeshifter in all of Congress that wasn’t a psychopath, when the hooker finished, waved a hand over his face, shrugged, then paid herself and left.

Sometime later, Sam sat up and went over to the sofa to squint down at the serum again, snagging a slice of pizza and another margarita from the room service cart along the way.

The vial lay where he’d left it, taunting him.

Sam ate the pizza, glaring down at it, then knocked back the margarita. He’d already downed six that evening, but he was rapidly running out of time and courage, and he really didn’t want to have to redo all that work over again.

Taking a breath and steeling himself, he picked up the vial. He squinted at it, thinking of all the horrible things that could go wrong if even one calculation had been off. Then, straightening, he unscrewed the cap a second time.

It stank of ozone and tar. He pulled his head back, wincing.

Do I really want to do this? he wondered, peering down at the shimmery, glowing liquid inside. He couldn’t think of a lot of tangible benefits, aside from the long life thing. He was already so smart he doubted some alien DNA was going to do much to amplify it, and he really only wanted to shapeshift just to prove he could, yet another thing to cross off his bucket list.

He stood there for long minutes, debating.

Just how much do you trust in your own brain, Mr. Dobbs? a snide part of him asked.

A lot, the stubborn side of him retorted. Besides, he had a legend to build, and women to impress—

He gasped when he remembered why he had originally wanted to retain the ability to shapeshift in the first place. Women!

Images of their open mouths, gaping at him in awe, immediately assailed his senses, and he allowed himself to slip into an exploratory—yet highly instructive—investigation of just what kinds of things could be accomplished with localized shifts at just the right times and places…

Yes, he definitely needed to be able to shapeshift, Sam decided. It would be the start of his legend. He could begin by astounding hookers with his prowess, then sit back and wait for them to tell all their female friends and eventually get enough of a rumor out there to begin a snowball effect that, at its inevitable conclusion, would result in women would wanting him and not his retarded brother.

Besides, it would certainly be impossible for anyone to claim Joe was the smarter brother if Sam turned himself into a shapeshifting alien with the power to give them the best lay they’d ever experienced.

Naked, still holding an empty margarita glass, Sam looked down at the seductive swirl of liquid Fate. Would he set it aside in favor of safety and boredom, dooming himself to a life of mediocrity, or would he take the chance and prove to the world he was the legend his early college professors claimed, finally outshining his jock of a brother in the popularity contest of Life? He scowled, still somewhat unsure, the ‘screamed as they bled from the eyes’ comments nagging at him.

Had he gotten the formula right? He’d been so distracted with pirate capers and sex…

Minutes passed, with the surface of the brew oxidizing and darkening, the top layer becoming useless. He saw the discoloration sink deeper into the brew, indicating he was rapidly running out of time…

Through the window to the balcony, his eyes caught on the Congie billboard with his brother’s picture, proudly flying over the Congressional recruitment office. His brother was standing on the head of a Dhasha, a gun cocked in one hand, a half-naked, terrified-looking woman clinging to his leg in a typical Conan pose.

Sam narrowed his eyes and glanced back down at his brew.

Well, Sam thought, bringing it to his lips, God hates a coward…

-END-