Junior and Diddy high fived each other. "Alright! Let's get that pizza!"
---
The phone wasn't picked up until Usso was talking on the answering machine. He suspected that might be the case-- Mrs. Marbet had grown very reclusive after her son was born.
"Usso! Hello!" Marbet said on the end of the line. There was a sound of something being whipped. "I heard you were out on some big adventure. We've been so worried."
Usso gave a half-wince, half smile into the phone speaker. "I'm sorry for worrying you guys-- I'm fine."
"They're feeding you well?" she asked kindly. "You're not miserable?"
"They're treating me well out here," Usso said as he gripped the cloth of his jacket that lay over his heart. He had watched both his mother and father die horrible, violent deaths in the Zanscare war. Mrs. Marbet was the closest thing he had to a mother anymore. And she seemed to know it. "I-I really am sorry for leaving you all on such short notice, I know you could use my help with the baby around."
There was a muffled sniff at the other end of the line that made Usso's heart sink. "Oh, I'm doing just fine over hear," came the cheery response from Mrs. Marbet. "The baby is a big handful, yes, but Shakti and Suzy come by sometimes to help out. But even then, I wouldn't be much of an ace soldier if I couldn't handle one little kid around the house." There was a light laugh at the other end of the line. "Oh, but enough about me, I want to hear what you're doing out there! Shakti doesn't even know. NONE of us do."
"I know, and I'm sorry for that it's just... just a little hard to explain it all," Usso said. "But I AM doing well, I promise."
"Are you sure? I know you brought the V2 with you. I just guessed that means you were doing some kind of military detail."
"... Kind of," Usso said as he held his forehead. "It's just guard duty. I'm not asked to go and seek out anyone to fight. I wouldn't even want to."
"Is your CO giving you trouble?" Usso clenched his teeth as the response 'No more than Oliver did' bubbled up and he crushed it before it could leave his lips. "Oh no, he's very nice. Very wise-- I wish you could meet him. There's a lot of folks out here I wish you could meet. So many interesting people from all walks of life."
"...That does sound interesting," Mrs. Marbet said, a note of sadness in her voice. Haro had stopped bouncing and chirping behind him, noticing Usso's grip on the phone was getting shakey. "Mrs. Marbet?... Y-you're not, uh... Y-you're not feeling too lonely, right?"
It was a question he had planned not to ask. He didn't want her know how much he worried about her. There was a slight pause, and the sound of something being wipped. Another muffled sniff.
"No no no, your little farm is just down the road. I'm never really alone out here."
Usso bit his lip. "... I could come home," he said. "I-if you need it. If you ARE lonely. I know raising the baby alone must be so hard without Oliver." There. He said it. He felt like he had to: the only chance he had at an honest answer was if he was being honest himself.
Mrs. Marbet answered with a slightly shaky voice. "I-it is a little hard, I won't lie," she said, and this time she gave a sniff that she didn't bother to hide. "Maybe I am lonely some days... well... maybe more than just some. But I know what you're doing with all this money you're sending in. I couldn't ask you to come back just for my sake." There was a sad laugh at the other end of the line. "I'm not even sure you coming back would help, if you know what I mean."
A few tears fell down Usso's face. "But... what you CAN do," Mrs. Marbet said, her voice starting to break, "Is promise me, from the bottom of your heart, that you'll come back to us in o-one piece. Can you do that, Usso? And promise to keep it? I... I don't want to lose anyone else." There was a slight sob at the end of the line, and the sound of a baby starting to cry in the background.
"We've lost so much. I don't... I don't think I'm fit to lose anyone else. Please. Promise you'll come back alive. Even if it means having to run from a battle to survive."
Usso wiped tear that were now streaming freely down his face. "I-I'll come back, Mrs. Marbet. I promise. Nothing b-bad's gonna happen."
"... I guess that's all I can ask for. Stay safe, Usso. Call me if you ever need anything, I'll do my best to help."
"I will. Thanks, Mrs. Marbet."
"My pleasure. Goodbye. See you soon, I hope."
"Bye."
Usso hung up and cried openly while Haro looked on, puzzled.
---
From the Diary of Dr. Roy Curien
February 9th
Vertebrate trials have been very stressful on the staff. We started with lizards, then mice, then bats, then moved our way up to primates. It’s not that the tests have been unsuccessful: quite the contrary. They’ve been astoundingly successful: almost anything dead we inject with these genes as well as a few factory cells to house the protein synthases will come back to life.
But they don’t come back to life gently. Both of our working strains seem to instill extreme aggression into any multicellular organism that is revived. The instant they come back to life, they shriek and snarl and try to attack the researchers with terrible ferocity. Given that they have substantially increased physical strength after the resurrection, this has become a serious safety issue for our technicians. One of them was mauled pretty badly. It has everyone spooked.
We’ve begun the habit of doing automatic injects with a robot arm behind heavy plexiglass. Thankfully they don't seem to show any aggression what so ever towards each other—even if they were predators and prey of each other in life—so we’ve been able to house many individuals together in the same pens. The plexiglass also helps hide the shrieks. And the smell.
We’re also preparing for the inevitable full sequence resurrection of The Chariot. One of our techs brought up a novel solution to keeping the Chariot both protected and less upsetting to look at for the rest of the staff. He has a hobby of welding together historical armor, and he offered to come up with a suit that would bind to the Chariot’s theoretical dimensions. Today, he showed me the final design. I wish he made a design that didn’t look so sinister, but it will do well enough for how little we planned to leave the thing alive. The gas mask was a good design choice—with how high its body temperature will be, its mere body heat could end up being an actual fire hazard, even when we have it completely restrained. It should at least be a step up from what it would end up looking like without any covering on it. We’re bleeding talented staff—as silly as it seems, anything that would put my worker’s minds at ease is welcome. Even a suit of knight’s armor.
I saw that my tech had also scratched out a drawing for something else one the back of the design sheet he handed me. Some kind of weapon. When I pointed it out, and he said that was simply a weapon from his own collection: a historical axe-like polearm from Russia called a bardiche. For how big the Chariot is, it would be able to weild it like a hatchet. He claimed he only put it in the design as an artistic flair.
I told him to bring this bardiche of his to the mansion anyway. Obviously we’re not going to let the Chariot get anywhere near a deadly weapon like that for the short time that we’ll have it alive, but I can think of a few other uses for it. It would certainly help in cutting up some of these bodies we’ve been sneaking out of the cemetery.
And, of course, partial sequence human trials are coming up soon. We can only hope for the best. I don't expect it, but I can hope.
We’ve also successfully gotten two of our other strains to sustain cellular restoration Type-6803 and Type-0028. It was a bit less exciting than when we had gotten the Chariot and Hangedman strains to work, but there was still cause for celebrations. Our techs all agreed that we should name them the same way we had before. Sampson brought out his deck again, and soon we had two names: The Hermit and The Fool. Since Type-6803 was based on spider DNA, and spiders tend to be loners, we gave it The Hermit name, while the sloth based Type-0028 was given the name of The Fool. I suppose we’ll run through every name in the tarot deck at this rate. It doesn’t matter, I suppose: the important thing is that the two strains work, and can begin invertebrate testing with spiders and leeches.
I haven’t been sleeping well. I imagine a lot of us aren’t. But while my staff probably have nightmares of zombies and the awful test subjects we’ve been concocting under the mansion, I dream of Daniel’s death. It’s the same dream, over and over, and each time its feels so real.
We must succeed with this research. We MUST succeed!
