The hivemind is conquering for me?

Two Days later:

The past couple of days have been wonderful. Studying with my loved ones, flirting all the while. It was magical. Janine and I had postponed doing the deed for now, she said as tough as it was not to jump my bones, she wanted to finish off her plan, even if it was now a moot point.

I humoured the idea as I wanted to see how blatantly obvious things were going to be now that I was aware.

Speaking of awareness, I was surprised to find out that not only Onyx, but Orchid also knew about Janie’s little change and didn’t inform me about it. I didn’t admonish them about it, in fact, I was touched on Janine’s behalf that they would keep her secret, especially Orchid. It showed real growth on her part and that had been rewarded.

I was still a little miffed at Sophia, for doing the one thing I asked her not to do, but considering she didn’t actually convert Janine, and Janine came to her of her own accord, I decided I would wait till I cooled down completely before reaching out again.

The situation had made me realize something though. My emotions were starting to get a little bit reactional. I had been doing some deep meditation during the last couple of days in my free time to make sure my flame was stable and not reaching out for other sources of fuel, an action that prompted bountiful praise from Sol.

The technique was simply intuitive, no guidance, its effects were subtle, but appreciated, like a soft breeze on a hot summer’s day.

*Tssssccchhh!*

My thoughts on recent events were suddenly interrupted by an airlock opening in the decontamination chamber I was inside of.

As the door to the building’s interior opened, I strode forward towards the figure waiting for me in the doorway. Mithra was standing there looking up at the ceiling with blush on her face with her arms extended towards me. In her arms were a set of white clothing.

I took a moment to appreciate Mithra’s clothing as I took the clothes I was provided. She was wearing a simple crop top and booty shorts. I nodded in appreciation of the outfit choice and thought to myself. ’I should have Orchid wear those. Her ass is killer.’

Once I was no longer naked and wearing the clean clothes, Mithra looked away from the extremely interesting spot on the ceiling and towards me with a slightly red face. ”Welcome to our humble abode Apollo. Sorry for the stripping, but we can’t afford any cross contamination from the outside coming in and vice versa.”

I shrugged my shoulders. ”Meh, I have no problem with nudity and no problem with the decontamination. You don’t get a nickname like ’toxic’ that isn’t an ironic one if it wasn’t serious.”

Mithra closed her eyes for a moment as she thought. ’Yeah, no shit you have no issue being naked...’ But that was a mistake, as the third leg and the body that came with it was now all she could see when she closed her eyes...

She then hastily opened her eyes back open and desperately wanting to reset the situation asked. ”Apollo, do you want a drink? Something to eat? We don’t get a lot of visitors so we don’t have much.”

I appreciated the hospitality, but. ”Just some water is fine, I already ate. Thank you though.”

Mithra nodded her head. ”Ok, daddy is waiting for you in the other room, I’ll be right back.”

Taking Mithra’s cue, I walked into the adjoining room and was immediately taken aback by what I was seeing. Usually this would be a living room or a family space. Instead it was a massive laboratory with flasks galore filled with copious amounts of brightly coloured liquids.

At the centre of the room was Virulent. Only he was much different in appearance compared to the last time I saw him. He was not wearing his hazmat suit. Instead he was wearing a regular black shirt and green tie with a lab coat on and green medical gloves.

With his suit off, I had a better look at the man, aside from his green eyes. For a man in his mid hundreds, Virulent took to the Psionic youth juice well, not looking a day over forty. He had short swept back black hair and a stern, yet composed look on his face as he was seemingly finishing an experiment.

The one piece of tech he did have on his body was a rebreather covering his mouth, causing the same teeth sucking sound I heard the other day.

I slowly approached the man, not wanting to disturb his work, but it seemed I was still lacking in the stealth department. ”Ah! Apollo Lambdason, so glad you are here! Give me one moment. I have quite the volatile concoction in my hand, this poison can melt through a Drakoshi warlord in seconds.”

”Impressive.” I said, still not having quite the grasp on Drakoshi strength, but being polite never hurt.

Virulent then added some more of something to the poison before swilling it around and nodding to himself. He then removed his rebreather, exposing a roguishly good looking set of features and downed the poison in one.

The man then froze for a moment as purple coloured veins began to show all across his face and neck, his eyes then turned bloodshot red and I was unsure of what to do before he, even quicker than the effects emerged, vanished, returned to a normal state and began to move again. ”Hmm, not bad. CHIPMUNK! Mark down. Test batch- ’//118247//’ as war worthy!”

From the other room, I then heard Mithra shout back. ”STOP CALLING ME THAT! Ugh, you are so embarrassing!” Virulent then began laughing heartily before his breath became wheezy and started a coughing fit.

The man then hastily put back on his rebreather before turning to me and explaining. ”Due to my... Condition. I require a very specific amount of oxygen with each breath. What you intake is too much for me, causing me to quite ironically be poisoned. It’s quite funny when you think about it. But enough about that, come, come. Welcome to our home.”

Virulent then moved to the side of the room where I suddenly noticed a pair of floating gloves. Focusing on the strange phenomenon, my brain quickly pulled together what I was looking at and reached out in front of me.

*Tink*

”Oh, pretty impressive glass, I could barely tell it was here.” I then reached down towards the glove that Virulent had placed his hand through and shook it. The man laughed cheerfully at what I said and replied.

”Goodness lad! Do you really think I would allow you to be air exposed around me? You might have mentioned poison resistance, but the fact you can still feel the effects of Psionic beers is proof that I will turn you into a pile of goop and gas if you are around me for too long.”

Virulent then ushered us to a table that was separated by the glass. As each of us took a seat, I couldn’t help admitting. ”Man, I really wish you didn’t say that. My little science bug is urging me to test that theory.”

Virulent’s eyes suddenly squinted in lieu of a smile. ”It seems we have that in common, I too have the dangerous science bug when it comes to my work. Unfortunately, I learnt too late when to listen to it and when not to... As a result I killed too many people for my hubris...”

The man went silent for a moment as he seemingly looked away into something that wasn’t there before returning. ”But enough about my tragic backstory, perhaps you can hear it some other time. Today, we are here to discuss science as two experts in our respective fields! And nothing excites me more than that!”

As he said this, Mithra returned to the room with three drinks. She placed the water I requested in front of me before placing her own drink down, a hot chocolate with roughly twenty too many marshmallows from the overflow I was seeing.

An identical drink with much less glutenous monstrosities was still in her hands. She then walked to the opposite side of the room, punched in a code on the glass and a decontamination sequence took place before a small hatch opened.

Shortly after placing the drink in the hatch and closing it, Virulent stood up and took the drink out before walking back towards us and sitting down again. ”Thank you Chipmunk. Very thoughtful.”

Mithra then began to incoherently mumble under her breath and soothed herself with a packet of marsh mellows she pulled out from somewhere... Not helping her case for the nickname that stuck by stuffing her cheeks full.

Smiling at his daughter, Virulent then suddenly jolted in his seat and asked me. ”Oh, Apollo. Are you alright with Mithra joining our conversation? She is my apprentice after all and is very versed in the topic of conversations, especially so, considering she is your helper in your lab. You are of course free to say no.”

Mithra, hearing this, then turned to me and gave me puppy eyes. If I had planned on saying no, that would have hit a crit with the puffed out cheeks, but considering I had no problem, I smiled and replied.

”Of course, Chipmunks are always welcome when discussing science. Now, what would you like to start us off with?”