All Epilogue 17 - Augmentation

Cohen continued to talk at length, discussing the minutia of biochemical cell components; Lucca had stopped fully understanding what the doctor was going on about nearly fifteen minutes ago. It wasn't even clear if he was actually talking to him or just speaking aloud, but every few minutes, he would make some sort of suggestion of the former. Regardless, Lucca listened intently, his brows furrowed slightly as he tried to parse what he could from the doctor's rambling. This went on for some time longer, with the druid getting progressively more lost before he eventually interrupted.
"Doc...I think you're gonna have to back up and like, talk to me like I'm dumb or something. I'm having trouble following."
"Wait, I was getting to something..." he carried on his rambling for another few minutes, then stopped, made a few notes, and finally turned his attentions back to Lucca. "Sorry, I was on a bit of a roll there. What didn't you get?"
"Uhh...you started losin' me somewhere around the point you started getting really into the chemicals in the cells doin' their things. I just...sorta got the idea of what you were saying, but not entirely...and I have no clue how it's supposed to relate."
"Oh, well, honestly, that part was technical, and really more for my own benefit. I appreciate you letting me work things out aloud. But, I'm not sure how to make it simpler, without going all the way back to 'I think you have organelles specifically designed to enact magical effects'. I haven't worked out exactly how they work yet, but oooooh, am I ever going to."
"And then what? Once you know how they work, what the heck are you gonna do with that information?"
Cohen smiled, "Oh, I'm sure I can figure out something."
----
"Look! Look look, come look!" Cohen gestured excitedly as Lucca walked into the lab. He took him towards a series of animal cages, and pointed excitedly towards one in particular, housing a group of very young guinea pigs, some with coloured tags on their ears. They looked entirely normal, but Cohen watched Lucca excitedly for his reaction.
"I'm lookin', dude, but you're gonna have to tell me what I'm seein'." Lucca said leaning in closer to inspect them, an almost reflexive smile coming to his face as he watched the little creatures snuffling about their cage. "Other than a bunch of adorable little dudes goofin' around, that is."
Cohen leaned over and pointed to the tagged animals, whispering conspiratorially with a huge grin, "Those are rabbits!" 
"What!? No waaay!" The druid exclaimed, awestruck. He stared for a moment longer before the questions began bubbling out of him, "How the hell did you manage that? I'm guessing this is from the research you're doing with my shifting, yeah?"
"Of course!" he watched Lucca and the animals equally, "It's taken a while, obviously. But this was a breakthrough! They're animals, of course, so there's not a whole lot I can do to test their voluntary abilities, but they were certainly born rabbits. After they were born healthy, I introduced them immediately to the guinea pigs, and wouldn't you know it, within the first day, they shifted!" He was obviously ecstatic. "Progress!"
"...They got that reflex too...that's so cool..." He said quietly, turning from the doctor back to the guinea pigs once more. He watched them for quite some time, an odd expression on his face before saying, "You could try scaring them, to test their voluntary abilities. Although it might be hard, what with them being kinda simple creatures with no experience outside of their cage...you might have better luck if you can get a more advanced animal doing it...but yeah, something scary might get them doing it."
"Is that what triggered your voluntary control?" he asked, watching the animals closely. "Or is it another automatic response? I only guessed in this scenario: I assumed that, given that they were newborns, if I introduced them to a different species immediately, they would believe themselves to be members of the adoptive species. It appears I was correct...unless, as you say, it is a reflex. A bit hard to tell at this juncture; they are the first successful test group, after all."
"Yeah, pretty much. First time I shifted, I was trying to hide from some other kid I'd pissed off. He was a real asshole, and I was pretty much scared shitless. Anyway, at some point I'm hiding in this tree and thinking over and over, like, 'I need to get back to Granny's, but the minute I move he's gonna see me and catch me. I wish I looked like someone else.' And somewhere in there I ended up triggering a shift. Later that day we sorta worked out how I'd done it, in the process of me trying to get back from it, and I've had voluntary control ever since." He explained with a shrug, "I dunno if that first one was strictly voluntary or an automatic response; it's been years and I was a scared little kid, but make of it what you will."
"Hmm. Interesting," he scribbled down a note in a small pocket notebook, "I'll have to experiment." He grinned, "I'm glad this is a private venture. Ethical committees might get mad that my project plan includes the phrase 'scaring bunnies'."
"I can only imagine." The druid said with wry look. His gaze once more returned to the cage, his fascination with the creatures plain. "What did they look like, before they shifted? Were they normal rabbits? Or...did they get some of the other stuff too...?" He asked almost hesitantly.
"Their fur was jet black, remarkable only in that their heritage shouldn't have produced that colour. Their skin was markedly pale, probably paler than what should be possible, but I'll be honest: I wasn't very thorough with my examination. I was more concerned about getting them to shift. Nothing else seemed superficially extraordinary." He grinned knowingly, "Their blood is red, if that interests you."
"Lucky bunnies...they're only part freaky." He said simply, with a somewhat sad-seeming smile. "That's really cool though...really cool."
"Isn't it?" Cohen grinned. "But I'm sure I can do better."
----
Lucca had recieved a Sending telling him to show up at a certain address, but without any further instruction. This was made all the more frustrating by the fact that no one had heard from or been able to contact the sender in nearly four years. The only reason they knew that the doctor wasn't dead was that the Share that he had kept occasionally caught sight of him. Lucca walked into the building whose number matched the Sending: a public library. Wandering around, he looked for the man who had requested his presence here.
As he wandered up and down the stacks, Cohen's voice suddenly said behind him, "There you are!" Lucca turned around, and the doctor was indeed standing there, looking awfully cheery about something. "I wanted to show you something." Without further explanation, he ducked around the end of the aisle, disappearing from sight.
"Hello to you too," The druid said with a slight huff, moving to follow him. "I was starting to think I'd been stood up. What the hell have you been up to?"
"You know, this and that," Cohen replied. When Lucca made his way around the corner, Cohen was standing a short distance away, grinning. He suddenly looked significantly younger, like when he used Youthful Appearance. "Just pushing the boundaries of science," he added, popping around another corner. "This way!" he called.
"The usual, then. That isn't usually cause for you to fall off the map though." He shot back, still following, "What the hell do you have to show me that requires a tour through a random ass library that's got you so excited anyway?"
"Nothing!" he replied, his voice suddenly sounding entirely different. "The library is incidental. I just wanted to get out of that lab." When Lucca turned the corner, there was an entirely different man standing there: it was only because he kept the conversation going that he was obviously the same man. "Spent years in there. I'm so sick of it now, I guess it's time to move. Sorry about not returning calls though." He moved out of sight once more, and the voice that continued the sentence was suddenly female, "I was very busy, and I'll be honest: that treatment hurt like a complete bitch. I wasn't really coherent most of the time."
Slowly, looking almost wary and perhaps a little taken aback, he asked, "What...did you do...?"
He popped back around the corner, now looking like he had while wearing the elven collar. "What do you think I did?" 
"...You've got my shifting, that much is obvious...that's not what I was asking...What...How did you transfer it to an adult person?...Why did it hurt?" As he spoke, it was difficult to tell if he was offended, or just very surprised.
He smiled as he changed back to his familiar form of an aged, human male. "It hurt because trying to rewrite the genetic code of a living adult without killing them is a feat, and that level of interference is far more than I had ever attempted. The transitionary period was less than pleasant; wouldn't recommend it. The how is a very long, very technical shpiel that I will simplify to 'alchemy'," he waved his hands, "But if you want the notes, I can walk you through them. Later. Right now I'm excited to not be in crippling pain, and to be outside. Outside is nice. I miss outside when I don't see it for a while."
Lucca simply nodded slowly, still eyeing him with an odd expression, "You got all the kinks worked out of it, then, I guess? Isolated the shifting and got rid of the muck and shit that came with it and all?"
"Define 'kink'," he replied. "It obviously worked. I won't know if there are horrible long-term side effects until 'long-term' happens. And, there appear to be some phenotypic aspects that simply can't be divorced from the shifting mechanism. I'm sure this will continue to be the case when I start to investigate other spell-like effects that can be conveyed by this system. In fact, it likely explains Clover's colouration, why it changes when she channels different energies, and why it's different from yours. Might even explain the colours in elven hair and eyes as well. But! It also appears to have cured my lycanthropy, so that's well worth any 'kinks'."
"Oh!" he blinked and smiled slightly, "Well, that's a plus, I'm glad to hear it! How'd it do that, though? Were the changes enough to somehow make you not human, anymore? Or do you just shift during the full moon and dodge it that way?"
"Second one. I'm still human enough, apparently. Do you want lunch?" he changed the topic suddenly. "It occurs to me I haven't eaten in probably two years. What year is it?"
"4849," the younger man replied with a crooked smile. "And sure, I'm not gonna say no to food. What do you feel like?"
He blinked, "...Huh. Four years. I was in there for four years. ...Huh." He shrugged, "Oh well, what did I miss?" He started walking towards the exit. "And I'm not terribly picky. We should see if we can find a buffet or something. Do you get terrible sunburns? I would imagine you'd get absolutely awful sunburns."
Lucca gave an almost resigned sigh, falling into step with him. "Well, as I don't generally run around outside unshifted, that doesn't tend to be a problem...that said, yes, yes I do. Not that you can see 'em, but oooooh man can you feel 'em. Sucks, hardcore. As for what you missed..." He fell to looking thoughtful, "...I don't think really anything important, aside from all of us wondering why the hell you'd dropped contact."
"Eh, four years, that's peanuts in the longer scheme. I'm sure no one will even notice a few decades difference in a little while. And I'd imagine that if anything really important happened, you'd try harder to find me. So, good good. Unfortunate about the burns. It used to take a fair bit to give me a burn, thanks to my mother, but I'm going to guess that's no longer the case. Oh well; fake tans for everyone!"
"Oh, you scored the lovely complexion, did you?" he asked dryly. "Congrats. I'd definitely recommend not running around in the sun unshifted, then. Do it once and you'll learn quick." Looking up at the sky as they stepped outside, he asked, "So, what's next? Is that the end of your research on this topic?"
"Of course not!" Cohen grinned. "I've only just begun."
Category:Advent of the All