I feel like I’m playing Fallout, Perry thought, whistling as he navigated through the stuffy maintenance catwalks with a makeshift laser canon over his shoulder, wearing homemade steel armor covered in spray-on rubberizer. At first he’d sprinted around at full speed, trying to dodge Neuron’s counter-attack, as the Thinker surely knew exactly where he was, and would be sending children to kill him.

Except he hadn’t. It was as though Neuron had completely forgotten about Perry.

Probably a trap. Perry couldn’t imagine anything that the brain in a jar could be more fixated on.

Finally, the maintenance hall came to an end, turning hard left and leading back into the Lair proper.

Perry paused and checked the map he’d stolen off a suspiciously young janitor. The outlet for the maintenance hall was here, leading to the massive supply room, which acted as the central hub for all the cramped maintenance passages.

There would no doubt be a lot more juicy gear there that he could make further improvements to his weapons and armor, but Perry wasn’t going to go there.

Reason 1: It would take more time than Perry was willing to spend to make better equipment. He might have access to hand-tools, but anything truly cool required load of time and a CNC machine, printer, growing vat, etc. More than enough time for Neuron to arrange an attack on him.

Maybe when I level up Multi-tool.

Reason 2: If Perry was the one setting up a trap from himself, he would put it at the junction where all maintenance roads lead. The gear in the supply room was a lure and the room was a choke point. It radiated bad vibes.

So what if I did this instead? Perry thought, turning the map on its side and studying the room to his right. It didn’t have a web of maintenance tunnels leading around it, indicating that it probably didn’t have nearly as many death traps in the walls.

It was labeled, ‘2000 series’. Perry had no idea what that was, but it definitely looked safer, and it hooked into the main thoroughfare for the lair. Which also had less death traps.

I think I was in the high-security area. Perry mused.

Yeah, let’s do that.

According to the map, the wall was about a foot of solid steel, prompting Perry to adjust the settings on the laser cannon.

Can’t have this thing blasting through eight rooms and breaking a gas line or something. Perry would rather not suffocate/burn to death.

There we go, dialed WAY down to one foot of solid steel.

Perry oriented on the center of the room on the other side of the wall and leveled the cannon at it.

Click.

Perry poked the receiver buried deep in the machine’s guts with his finger – it didn’t have a trigger – and a sudden burst of light filled the room along with the buzzing hiss of laser-cutting, and the smell of burned steel.

Nostalgic. Reminds me of dad.

It was just missing notes of powdered concrete and explosives.

Perry swiftly cut a circle before cutting off the laser, admiring his work. Damn, that’s a fine circle. Looks like a machine did it. Da Vinci would be proud. Wish I could show that to someone.

Fun fact: Steel weighs 489 lbs per cubic foot, and the door I just made is 28.27 cubic feet, which makes the circle I cut nearly fourteen thousand pounds.

Perry funneled his stat points to Body, braced his back against a machine and shoved the center of the circle with a grunt. The insanely heavy slab of steel begrudgingly tipped over and fell inward, hitting the ground with a deafening crash that Perry could feel in his chest.

Shock and awe, Perry thought as he dove through with the laser cannon at the ready. If there was a trap waiting for him here, he wanted to catch them flinching.

Perry was not expecting the shocked cries of children.

The lights snapped on, revealing dozens of kids about twelve years old, with expressions ranging from shocked to cold indifference. Each of them was wearing a plain white sleeping tunic with a number printed on it. X-2340 on a little girl. Y-2173 on a little boy.

Each and every one of them in the two thousands, with a prefix to indicate their gender. Perry grasped the implication immediately. There were a lot more where these came from.

Well, Perry thought, slinging the laser cannon over his shoulder. Now I have to kill Neuron.

“Is…is this a test?” one of the more fearful kids asked, hiding partially behind his bed.

“Don’t be silly,” One of the cold-faced girls said. “he’s obviously a-“

“Surprise test on healing battlefield injuries!” Perry spoke over her. “Which one of you is the healer!?” Perry motioned to his shoulder. “I’m from the one thousand series, and got a hole through the shoulder in combat. Not lethal, so Neuron thought it would be a good test.”

“Who’s Neuron?” The skeptical girl said with an icy stare.

SHIT.

Perry mentally rewound to his memory of the barbeque. What did Neuron call Neuron? Father?

“Father, of course. He allows some of the top thousand series to refer to him by name. Me, Chemestro, Warp, you know, the ones with proper names.” Perry bullshitted. The little asian girl’s eyes narrowed.

“I’ve never seen you before.” She said.

“You are not the one in charge of this facility, are you?” Perry said, shifting slightly from amiable to authoritative, assuming they would respond better to that.

A little boy stepped forward to defuse the situation, his hand raised.

“I think this test is meant for me.” He said, radiating nervousness as he stepped forward and put his hands on Perry’s injured shoulder.

“Twenty three seventy-two, are you sure?” a nearby little girl asked.

“It’ll be fine,” Perry said, eager to get the use of his left arm back.

“It has to be me, doesn’t it?” he asked before glancing up at Perry. “Hold still for a moment, please.

“But what about what happened to the rabbits?” A boy asked from the corner.

“Father sent a human because he wants me to take this seriously.”

“What happened to the rabbits!?” Perry asked, shifting nervously in place.

“Don’t move, I don’t want you to have a stroke.” The little boy said, sweat beading on his temple.

Perry went completely still.

Something punched him in the injured shoulder, sending lung-clenching pain radiating out through his entire body.

Perry reeled backwards, collapsed to the ground and began writhing as the pain didn’t diminish, instead getting worse.

“Motherf*cking P***ant Piece of-“ An unending stream of creative cursing was wrenched out of Perry as he clutched the wound, causing the surrounding kids to take a cautious step backward, their gazes uncomprehending as the river of profanity washed over them.

After approximately ten seconds of hell, the pain began to recede, and Perry was able to catch his breath, staring up at the steel ceiling.

In the edges of his reddened vision, Perry saw half a dozen children’s faces looming over him.

“A-Are you alive?” The little bastard asked, glancing at Perry’s shoulder.

Perry reached under his armor and poked the wound. Gone. Tender, but gone. Perry unlooped his sling and moved his left arm. Sore, but useable.

“Yeah, I’m alive. Good job.” Perry said, climbing to his feet. “Father is most pleased! I see time in the rec-room in your future.”

“What’s a rec-room?” one of the little science experiments asked.

“Seriously!?” Perry demanded. “You’ll find out. It’s a good thing. I’m gonna go have a ‘Talk’ with Father about it.”

Perry emphasized ‘talk’ by throwing the laser cannon back over his shoulder.

“You’re an intruder aren’t you?” the skeptical girl said.

Smarter than her brothers and sisters.

“Nonsense!” Perry said. “If I were an intruder, that would mean that Father was incapable of stopping me, and that I probably killed a handful of the thousand series on the way in. It would also mean the man Father couldn’t stop, is standing right in front of you.” He leaned in close to the girl. “Good thing I’m not an intruder, right?”

Perry saw the gears working behind her eyes. She understood the subtext: Live and let live.

She gave him a bright, totally insincere smile. “Yep!”

“Awesome,” Perry said, patting her on the shoulder and heading for the door.

Betrayal in five, four, three, two…

Shhh!

The moment he was in the doorway, Perry heard the sound of air splitting around something sharp and fast. He leaned out of the way and allowed the blade to clatter against the wall in front of him.

Aerosolize

Multi-tool

Perry summoned a can of foam in one hand and a machete in the other, tossing the can up and bisecting it.

BOOM!

A heartbeat later, the exit to the kid’s room was sealed off by a pillar of foam as durable as the steel around it.

“What were you guys waiting for, that was OBVIOUSLY an intruder!” Perry heard the girl’s voice fade as he walked away, picking up the laser canon and resuming his jog.

Before, Perry had decided he was going to kill Neuron for purely practical reasons. Now he had a couple thousand more.

Perry was jogging in the general direction of where he assumed the control room was. It wasn’t on the map, but there was a blank space where Perry would’ve put a control room.

A few moments later, the entire lair bucked in place, the floor rising up to meet Perry’s foot and nearly breaking his ankle. A chest-rattling rumble caught up with the shockwave and shook the entire lair like a angry kid with a dollhouse.

The hell is that?

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Perry dropped to all fours and scrambled forward in order to stay moving as the Lair continued to buck underneath him, awkwardly cradling his makeshift laser cannon as he moved.

Should’ve made a strap for this, Perry groused, aiming towards the sound of explosions.

Listen son, always run towards explosions. That’s where opportunity lies. – dad.

Or shrapnel. – mom.

Yes, sometimes there’s shrapnel, but usually opportunity. -dad.

***Chemestro***

Chemestro pulled Neuron out of his Apocalypse armor, shearing off his metal limbs as he did. The two of them were perched in an open-air crater that used to be the upper levels of the mad brain’s lair.

Father’s jar was covered in hairline fractures, and Chemestro could even see some bruising in the brain. He’d had to use quite a bit of force to disable the massive robot he’d ensconced himself inside.

“Why are you being like this!?” Chemestro demanded, hauling Neuron forward until they were eye to eye, searching his father’s brown eyes for any sign of compromise.

“Did you teach us to value logic!? Just give up! Leave! What is so valuable to you that you’re willing to die for it?”

“Pride, you fool!” Father snapped, his speaker crackling. “Of all your brothers and sisters, I thought you, the best of all of them, would be able to understand pride!”

“I’m not the best, though!” Chemestro said, dozens of long-gone brothers and sisters flickering through his mind. “I’m just the one who was most afraid of losing!”

Father’s glare cracked, and he began laughing, slowly swelling into a mad cackle, eerie as his speaker buzzed and crackled, slowly dying.

“I guess we’re more alike than I thought, twelve forty-two. I tried to make something better than myself. You were supposed to be my Magnum Opus. You were supposed to prove…” Neuron sighed. “But I wound up creating a flawed human.”

“What’s wrong with that?” Chemestro gritted.

“My greatest achievement is something two teenagers could do in the back of a car!” Neuron sneered, the vitriol washing over Chemestro.

“I’ll ask one last time.” Chemestro said, his fist slowly tightening. “Leave Franklin City, release all your children to Nexus custody. Or I will kill you.”

“What, so they can go to school, have friends, pair-bond, and other mindless, animalistic pursuits?”

“YES!” Chemestro roared.

“I’m dying anyway,” Neuron said. “So go ahead, kill me. Make yourself infamous as the villain who took my place. I know you’re good enough to step into my shoes, so to speak…Chemestro.”

“I’m going to be an anchor.” Chemestro said. “Not your replacement.”

“Ah, so your plan is to trade one master for another?” Neuron asked. “Not surprising.”

“I’m not-“

A beam of light created an afterimage in front of Chemestro’s eyes, and suddenly Father was gone, leaving nothing but the cherry-red, smouldering edges of his glass jar. A modest amount of neural fluid sloshed out of the base of the jar and splattered onto the ground.

Plip, plip.

Chemestro turned his head to the left.

There, on the edge of the crater that used to be Father’s headquarters, Paradox was panting with his left hand on his knee, leaning on a makeshift cannon that looked like he’d torn it right out of the wall.

“Got’im,” Paradox said between breaths.

A tidal wave of raw fury crested, barely restrained by a lifetime of discipline.

“Why did you do that?” Chemestro focused on enunciating the words and not screaming them. He didn’t want Father dead. He wanted…he wanted…Something from Father.

And now he would never get it.

Chemestro’s eye twitched.

Remember, when you get mad like that, take deep breaths and try to deconstruct it. Figure out exactly what’s making you mad and decide whether or not it’s worth your time to be angry about it.

Lu’ann’s words allowed Chemestro the momentary peace he needed to take a deep breath.

“Because he was crazy and if I didn’t, he’d kill me or someone I care about?” Paradox said, his stance shifting to be more guarded, seemingly reading the anger in Chemestro’s body language.

Chemestro stood in the center of the crater and looked up at the black night sky, exposed by the high-explosive ordinance that Neuron had been firing around like crazy, genuinely trying to kill Chemestro.

That had been his moment, when he and Father could finally exchange words as equals, and Paradox had taken it away from him.

Was it really?

Chemestro closed his eyes, took a deep breath and blew it out. He was still angry, but it was manageable now. At no point would Neuron have ever treated him like an equal. It burned his guts like acid, but it had nothing to do with Paradox’s rude interruption.

Father had some intangible hold over me that I wasn’t aware of. Chemestro thought. I could’ve sworn I removed all the implants.

“When your father inevitably begins to destabilize, I will return the favor.” Chemestro said.

“Hey, man, don’t even joke about that.” Paradox said, shaking his head.

***Paradox***

Chemestro was looking a little less murderous, and Perry was beginning to relax his sphincter when he heard the sounds of helicopter blades beating the air.

“Attention, Paradox and Chemestro, lay down on the ground and put your hands on your head.”

A massive beam of light landed on the two of them as the helicopter began circling overhead, kicking up dust and bits of debris.

That sounds like Freddy Steel, but he’s part of moms…team…

Oh god no.

“This is Strike Force Alpha, and we’re here to contain the situation.”

Stomach sinking, Perry laid down on the ground with his hands on his head. Mom’s team could and would kill him. A moment later, Mom landed beside his prone position and wrenched his arms behind his back before the cold steel cuffs clamped down around his wrists.

“Hi sweety!” Mom said in her usual bubbly tone. “You’re not in trouble, we just have to do a little show for the public, okay?” Mom said as she hauled him to his feet. “You’ll be out in a week once we investigate what happened and spin it.”

“I don’t want you to take this the wrong way,” Perry said as Mom marched him to one of the Nexus containment vans. “But can I get someone else to arrest me? This is really embarrassing.”

“Nope!” Mom kissed his cheek before shoving him into the van.