Took off the weekend to drink and play pinball like a modern day Bacchus.

New Stern Kiss machine is neater than I expected.

And now without further ado, the brothers we’ve all got a genetic predisposition for:

The Super experiment bros super show.

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Chapter 6: Into the Woods

Day 39

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When We woke up The sun was just rising somewhere to our left. Moving as a group we moved towards the well lit cave exit. The energy was palpable. Finally we would get our first view of the honest to goodness natural world, instead of the manipulated hell we’d lived in to date. There was no dividing line, with each step the grass became bushes became trees, and before we’d even left the cave we were deep in a forest. Here too I suspected dust had a hand in the growth. Most of the vegetation was healthy green, but occasionally a bright blue or red tree might appear, or something with extremities that resembled arms far too much for comfort. We might be in the wild now, but we couldn’t relax our guard. Now that we were under thick growth, we could stop supporting Harper. The light was weak enough here that he could see as long as he looked down and squinted.

Barely an hour later we happened across a watering hole. Water emerged from a rock face. I guessed this was coming from the same source as the thundering falls we’d heard for so long. We still hadn’t seen the source, but we were getting further away. Harper approached and smell tested it before giving us the OK. We all drank, while at least one of us stood guard. A creature approached the water and we all stood at attention. It looked like a donkey or small horse, but with toes instead of hooves and large, sad blue eyes that looked warily at us. It had long, curly hair. I wondered whether there was another mad researcher out there or if at some point a man had desired to be a horse. Or maybe a horse had wanted to be a man? It was unsettling to look at, but after a brief staring contest it moved to the pond and took a drink. I realized that it was the first creature we’d met outside of our brothers that didn’t want to kill us on sight. Weird though it may be, the outside world was already proving nicer than the cave.

After we’d drank our fill, I looked over to see Rabbit only a few feet from the horse thing. It wasn’t moving, just looking at him closely. He reached out his hand-

“Rabbit, what are you doing!” Wolf had extended his claws. The horse thing sprinted away and some birds flew out from the surrounding trees.

“I thought it might let me touch it…” Rabbit once again took on the aspect of a chastised child. I agreed with Wolf, but it really would have been interesting to make contact with friendly natives. Though ones that could speak would be more to my liking.

“We need to start looking for food” Harper chimed in. He wanted to end the argument. I did too, but more because of the noise it was causing. We wandered further, with Harper and I checking the various trees and bushes for any fruits or nuts we could find. We found a handful or black berries to start, and after offering to test them Rabbit grinned and we all took our share. After that we didn’t see anything for quite a while. Strange growls and chirps could be heard periodically, and once we saw some sort of land-bound octopus up a tree. It had a scaly underbelly and could blend in, so that it was only a lucky break that we noticed the thing before going directly beneath it. It flashed bright colors when we looked up, and we hurried to put some distance between us.

After a few hours we came to a large tree with brightly colored bark that ranged from a red-brown to a yellow-green. It looked a bit like a willow, except that each branch ended with a group of coconut sized nuts. We harvested a few before another creature appeared before us. It was the size of a cat, but had the features of a squirrel. It had well developed hands and a coat that matched the tree we were invading. Getting the idea, we ran away with our prize just as a few more appeared higher up in the tree. We ran maybe ten minutes before we felt we had lost them. Keeping watch in case they followed we found a large rock and proceeded to open our prizes. After a few hits we got one open, and a sickly sweet aroma came out along with a think liquid. In the center of the “nut” was a small squishy mass.

“I think we just stoled their children.” Rabbit lost it, Harper looked close. My eyes were grim. I was no vegetarian but I hadn’t meant to do this. Until we had a better feel for what was food and what was sentient life I had wanted to avoid meat. With our appetites ruined for the moment we left the other squirrel eggs behind and continued to walk. Maybe the parents would come for them. I hoped so.

Some time later we came to an opening in the trees and saw a small hill rising to the tree line. Climbing to the top I got my first view of the forest as a whole. We were in a crater or depression of some sort between obsidian cliff faces. Almost all around were imposing rises with jagged black tips. To the west I saw the only possible pass, an area where two cliffs broke and it was possible there might be a path hidden by the trees. If the facility was truly more dangerous than the outside world, we would want to put some distance between us and the entrance as quickly as possible. We decided to rest for the evening on this hill, and continue to the breach in the rocks tomorrow. We sat down in the afternoon sun. The climate was sweltering, but after days in the cave we welcomed it. Harper and I sat on a rock towards the middle of the hill. I was trying to memorize the landscape and Harper was once more blinded by the light. He sang lowly as we basked in the warmth. I noticed that while there were no trees around us, there were periodic holes in the ground that might have belonged to gophers or moles of some sort. I made a mental note to keep watch for snakes. Off behind us somewhere were Rabbit and Wolf. They had found some more chips of Obsidian, and were trying to chip them into daggers. Rabbit had reminded us all that biological weapons were not our only option, and we would be foolish to continue without at least a simple cutting edge. Tools were mankind’s greatest evolutionary advantage after all. Wolf’s claws were great, but every attack with a weapon was one that saved our bodies for more dire situations.

I looked inside myself, and discovered yet more dust had brightened since yesterday. I wish I could better quantify the amount usable. I knew from my memory that tools for measuring dust existed, but it wasn’t a natural skill. The best I could do is to guess that about half was glowing, and that my pool had roughly doubled since I made my first changes in the room. Judging by that, It should be about time to pick another change. I sighed and looked at my miserable hands. It would be nice to gather energy from the sun, or sprout wings, but my injuries would have to take priority. Luckily this was an area where my memories could help. A large portion of the experiments I had seen had revolved around regeneration. Dust was not magic, or at least not all powerful. To my knowledge there was no way to regenerate from a single cell, or prolong life indefinitely. However, there were many natural examples of regrowing limbs, and speeding healing. I picked one that I thought might be useful beyond this single use, and began preparations. I asked Wolf, still working on the obsidian, to find some nice straight sticks. Then I took the obsidian that was closest to a blade and asked Harper to cut my hair. He cut as close as he dared with the crude tool, and I asked him to tie thin groups of it together so that when I was done I would be able to fashion a splint. With the preparations complete, I once more dove into myself.

Looking down at my golden dust supply, I focused on what I knew of my intended technique. A lot of the healing a human is capable of is facilitated by the splitting of adult stem cells spread throughout most of the bodies systems. Musculoskeletal, cardiovascular and neurological systems all rely on the use of these cells for healing. When an injury occurs, they split and the resulting stem cells become the new specialized cells to replace the damage. As we age these cells regenerate less, and healing is impeded. I had to be careful playing around here. If I simply caused these cells to grow unchecked, it would be no different from giving myself cancer. Luckily, nature had already solved my problem.

There is a class of proteins that is naturally produced for the purpose of causing these cells to split. These Wnt proteins are delivered to injury sites when the body detects damage, where they cause increased stem cell production and speed healing. Naturally in humans this is fairly limited, but in certain animals, like the zebrafish and most flatworms, they occur in much greater quantity. This allows these animals to heal much faster and more completely from injuries. I found the pathways that would normally signal the generation of Wnt3a, the specific Wnt protein I needed. This was the tricky part. I needed to increase the amount produced, but only when my body detected damage. This turned out to be easier than I thought. Since it was something my body produced naturally, it was much easier to get across to the dust than my poison had been. I simply told it to increase what was produced under certain stimuli. If I had gotten the amount right, I should expect healing to occur 3-4 times faster in bones, and a good increase in general healing as well. The increase in production would probably mean I get hungry faster while healing, but since the proteins were only created when I was healing, it shouldn’t have much of an effect the rest of the time. I’d want to avoid getting injured too often since use could eventually lead to mutations and cancer, but then who didn’t want to avoid getting hurt? I would just have to be careful In the future.

My dust had dulled, but not as much as expected. I probably had half of my previous amount. As I stared at the glow, my eyes jolted open and the pain of the change began. It wasn’t too bad this time, the physical change was small. However, this protein was produced by cells all over my body, so I felt as though my whole body was on pins and needles for a good half hour. By the time it stopped the sun was setting over the mountains. I wanted to re-break my fingers and set them before we lost the light. I had Harper ready the splints, and Wolf do the honors. Rabbit looked at my with pitying eyes, and then avoided looking my way for the duration, keeping watch with his new knife. Wolf grabbed my right hand, and I put a stick in my mouth as a gag. Snap. One down. Snap. Two. Both broken fingers were set, and tied to the finger next to them. It wasn’t unbearable, but I’m not ashamed to say if it hadn’t been for the stick I may have bit my tongue crying out. Hot tears ran down my face as Harper finished wrapping the splints.

Now the left. All five fingers and the hand itself had been broken, and the hand would be harder to set than the fingers were. Again I readied myself, and nodded to Wolf to continue. Snap. I heard a scream, and realized I wasn’t chewing on the stick anymore. Snap. I saw a vignette around the edges of my vision. Snap. My eyes were open, but I could swear I was seeing the glow of my dust superimposed over the forest. Snap. The last thing I remember is Harper’s hands on my back, holding me upright.

Day 40

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It was the middle of the night when I woke up to Harper yelling and Wolf and Rabbit grabbing my upper arms. Still groggy, I was lifted to a standing position and made to run down the hill with the others. After a minute I was awake enough to run unaided, though the pain in my arms slowed me down somewhat. I looked behind us, and in the moonlight the hill seemed to shimmer like water.

“What is it?” I asked, still groggy.

“Bugs. They must have been nocturnal. The whole hill was a nest.” I looked back as I ran, and managed to pick out a few individuals from the horde. We erached the tree line and hurdled through the dark.

Running through a forest at night is dangerous, even if you discount the possible wildlife. Roots stick up, branches reach down and holes can trip you from under vegetation. Several times One of us fell. I was extremely careful. One fall could mean having to reset my bones again tomorrow. The others helped each other up and we continued through the trees for hours. When we couldn’t hear the rustling of grass or the chattering of mandibles we climbed one of the normal looking trees (I was lifted by my armpits) and rested. My myoglobin-rich blood was once again proving it’s worth. I felt like I had gone for a light jog, though my arms were still screaming at me after pumping so much blood and Adrenalin to the injuries. We huddled in the tree, intent on waiting out the night. After only a few minutes the insects approached. There weren’t as many, they had spread out as they chased us. Still, we spent hours kicking them down as they climbed up the tree after us. The things were as long as my finger, and seemed to be some sort of hive-based beetle. They had fierce looking jaws, but at least they didn’t seem to be able to fly. We all got bit once or twice, but thankfully they weren’t poisonous. Finally around the time the sun crested the mountains they lost interest and turned back to the nest. I was starving from my advanced healing, and the rest of the group was falling down on their feet after the run and short night.

We walked as the light returned, hoping to find a meal and a safe place to rest. I used the position of the sun to orient us towards the pass in the mountains, and we slowly started our day, checking each plant for anything edible and overreacting whenever an insect was found.

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So there you have it. There’s a reason mankind started clearing the forest to make villages. Forests are terrifying places where everything tries to kill you. Trees are pretty, but they’re just trying to distract you from the wasp nest and the bears.

This second arc marks a turning point in the story. From now on far fewer of the things they encounter will have human features. Of course there will still be man-creatures, but we now have the entirety of nature at our disposal.

For the science minded among you, Wnt based healing - https://www.cirm.ca.gov/our-progress/awards/enhancing-healing-wnt-protein-mediated-activation-endogenous-stem-cells