The Burning Hand

Arsenal pulled on a white lab coat and thrust his hands deep into the pockets.

An attentive viewer might have noticed him relax and smile as he pulled on the utilitarian garment. It reminded him of what he was before the industrial accident that revealed his powers -- another mass-produced clone worker, trained as an engineer, type 350, lot 125, requisitioned for the development of plasma soliton weapons. Peter Cat, one of many.

Thresher -- a cyborg, and no stranger to violent dismemberment -- poked his head out of the cargo hold into the hallway.

"Hey, Arsenal! Can you give me a hand?"

Arsenal waited a half-second too long to pull his hands from his pockets and quipped flatly, "Yeah, I think I can spare one."

A recent mishap had resulted in him having two right hands.

The humor was marginal enough, but Arsenal fluffing his cue utterly ruined the joke. Most of the audience didn't think he had a sense of humor anyway, and this scene would do little to change their minds.

Thresher attempted to save the exchange with a forced chuckle, and they proceeded to the partially disassembled open-frame space-craft in the middle of the room.

"So, what do you make of it?" Arsenal stuck his hands back in his lab coat.

"It's got a power plant -- fairly conventional fission job -- but nothing that would explain the acceleration we saw when we were chasing it down." Thresher took a few steps around the ship, and pointed out one of the rear modules. "That looks like a thruster, but it isn't; it's some kind of resonant amplifier."

Arsenal looked under the ship, where some clear liquid was dripping on the floor. "Interesting. This looks like a closed-cycle life support system."

"Oh. Whoops. I sorta unplugged it from the power plant about an hour ago."

Arsenal followed a bus of pipes to a spherical module in the middle of the vessel, just below where the saddle was mounted. "The bus runs up to here." He paused for a moment, and stretched his subtle fields through the container. "There's about a kilo of organic matter inside the sphere."

Thresher extended a small circular saw from his cybernetic left forearm. "Should I open it up?"

Arsenal nodded. "Go for it. We need a tissue sample for ID."

Sparks flew with a grinding noise as Thresher opened up the spherical module. A sector of metal fell to the floor.

"Dude. That is nasty."

Arsenal swallowed. "A vat-grown brain. Probably telekinetic. I think we've found the thruster."

On the bridge, Jolt and the Eye watched a progress bar slowly extend from left to right on the main view-screen. It was very nearly full.

Jolt drummed her fingers on the armrest of the command chair. "Well, this is exciting."

"A broad sweep of all hyperspace jump activity in sensor range takes a while." The Eye was apologetic. "I'm sure it will be done soon."

"You think?"

"Yeah."

"Is that your professional opinion as a registered precognitive?"

"Sure."

The progress bar filled in another step. Now only a tiny sliver remained.

The Eye turned and smiled at Jolt. "See?"

Arsenal entered his quarters, holding a small cartridge with a tissue sample from the strange star-ship's dead brain.

Jinx had set up an effective improvised laboratory in his stateroom. She looked up from the screen of her workstation, which was connected to a humming box by a broad, rainbow-colored ribbon cable. "Hey. I think I have canonical sequences for Lowrider and Apostrophe Girl. Check this out."

Arsenal looked over her shoulder at the screen. "What am I seeing here?"

"It's a set of genes from a chromosomal insertion in both bodies. The sequences look almost like genes inserted in a force-growing process, but they don't match up with anything used in mainstream Corporate clone production."

"Is this from the tumor monsters?"

"Nope. The tumors show no signs of mutation or degradation from rapid mitosis, and match up perfectly with the samples from the corpses."

"That's crazy."

"That monster's got one funky cancerbeam." She looked into Arsenal's eyes. "How are you holding up, Peter?"

"It's my hand. I can't stand it any more."

"I understand. I wish I could help you." Jinx looked sad. "I used to be able to heal people. Shaping flesh is easy." She broke eye contact with him and looked down at the floor. "I'm so sorry."

"Listen, I'm going to try something crazy. If I blow myself up, I can patch my state and fix myself up."

"You're going to blow up?"

"Yeah."

"Do me a favor and do it in the shower, OK?"

"OK." Peter walked towards the sealed bathing compartment and opened the door. "Wish me luck."

Jinx smiled weakly. "Good luck."

He closed the translucent door.

Jinx could not look away.

A moment later, there was a soft wet pop, and the inside of the door was covered in gore.

Jinx heaved, but could not vomit. She curled up into a ball and began sobbing uncontrollably.

She rolled on the floor for a few moments, and her spasms changed slowly from retching to simple sobbing.

Peter emerged from the shower compartment, and showed Jinx his palms.

"What the hell?"

She looked at his hands -- two copies of a right hand.

Her face moved from shock to calm.

"It's god power. Ontology control. Nyqll's corrupted your state equation."

"Who?"

"The burning hand." Jinx grasped Peter's hand. "Sit with me. I have a story to tell."