Spider Man

From recordings done by Shoshanna Sihara (Earth-96, “Sue Storm”). Translated by SHIELD.

-

The Sarmatians? You want to know about the Sarmatians?

God, no; no you don’t want to know about the Sarmatians! What they did to Veneda- anyone else, absolutely anybody else- the Finns. The Finns are the only ones who actually talk to them regularly, nobody has any idea why they do, but-

Let me tell you about the Finns. They’re a different sort of… strange.

For most people, mutation is a useful quirk or maybe a powerful skill. For the Finns, it’s a way of life. They actively seek out people with powers- mutant or magical, they don’t care. They have people they call Etsijaanoita; people who are trained to discover what a person’s powers are, or can do. They’re the ones who keep the Finnish Books, which are a bit like a mutant index or genealogy- it’s the name of every person they’ve ever come across with a power, what their powers were, how they strong they were, who their relatives were, what powers they had. It’s a really great source for research, actually, biological science would never get by without it. The Finns, though, they use the Etsijaanoidat as matchmakers. The Finns marry for mutations and magic- their first Prince was Loki Silvertongue and they married him back into the royal family twice afterwards; that should tell you how seriously they take this.

The mess that’s the joint Viking-Finnish monarchy right now is because of that, actually. There was a Viking king, Magnus I, who kidnapped one of the less-inspiring Princesses the Finns have had powers-wise and serial raped her trying to get a mutant child who’d be King of the Vikings. Well, I already told you how Viking genetics is weirdly resistant that way- there were three children, none of them mutants. That nearly cost the Vikings their kingdom and definitely destroyed their already-shaky relationship with the Finns, who slaughtered the Viking court when they rescued their Princess and then leveled Skandia on their way home. Anyway, so when the Viking succession crisis finally blew up, the most qualified person bloodlines-wise was Eydís Kultainen Pirkkje Valdir-Hjördís, the absentee Princess of the Finns. She left Judea with her wife and children very quickly when the Vikings asked her to take the throne for someone who’d neglected the empire she was supposed to be running for so long. It wasn’t much of a surprise, unfortunately; starting with Antona the Golden, the Finns have had a string of neglectful mostly-Viking rulers who let a cousin, Mei Loistavis Pirkkje, actually run Finland as its Grand Duchess.

There’s a nice story about that side of the family, actually, that gets told around Alexandria. About… oh, sixty years ago, right after Mei’s official appointment as Grand Duchess, her younger sister Miiria came to Alexandria to study. There was a Byzantine man there at the time, Rixardos Zabat, who she took a fancy to. He had an interesting mutation- perfect vocal mimicry of any voice or sound, and when he sang he could call anything he wanted to himself. That’s what he did on the Axeinos, he’d sing the fish into the nets. Some rich businessman heard about him and sponsored him to Alexandria, where met the Finnish Duchess, fell in love, and then dropped out of his doctoral program when she finished hers to go back to Finland with her. She gave up her birthright from Loki of a magically-extended life so they’d age at the same rate- they’re dead now, assassinated, but it was nice to hear about while it lasted. It was the sort of thing you’d only expect in a children’s story.

-

June, 1826

The bundle of scrolls faded into existence on the top of Piitros Loistavis Pirkkje’s desk in his quarters in the Minor Court. They came with a folded letter on top and the three-tone accompaniment unique to the Grand Duchess of the Finn’s magical sendings.

Piitros swiveled one ear towards the sound and didn’t open his eyes, enjoying his doze on the warm mantel-stone of his room’s heater.  When the clock chimed eleven, he stretched, extending every claw and joint of his spine, then dropped gracefully down to the carpet. He shifted fluidly out of his housecat form as he walked towards his chair and collapsed in it, staring glumly at the scrolls. They were bound with the official green ribbon of state business, the ends enchanted into a seal that glowed softly gold with security spells.

The Finnish wolf stared reproachfully at him from the royal seal, blinking at him and yawning. It bared its teeth at Piitros when he reached for the bundle, snarling quietly.

“Oh, be quiet,” Piitros grumbled at it. “They’re for me.”

He pressed a finger to the seal and felt the wolf’s teeth prick through his skin, checking to make sure he was the proper recipient. Satisfied, the wolf moved from under his finger and flowed back into the ribbon, turning again into gold-thread embroidery on the green silk. Piitros flipped the ribbon up and off the scrolls, and opened the letter.

‘My good nephew

                I find myself contemplating the sudden flowering of our tundra here in Revontulet Heikaal. The colors of the lichens and moss, for this short time, will mirror the shimmering plasma ribbons that are lost to us in the summer to the never-setting sun. Truly, the symbolic confluence of this date, the first Bright-Day of the Day-Moon, has never been more perfect a description of the world than in these times. Our mortal lives parallel the course of nature these days, here in Revontulet Heikaal. As our friends in Nihon continue their fight with the Sinese for control of Ankamuti, so do we continue our fight with the ice of the Gorlog. I think longingly of your ice-free waters in Raajokin; and of yourself and my husband, watching over you.’

Piitros resisted the urge to take notes on his aunt’s opening statements. He was no good at the poetical conventions required of letter writing.

‘As the ice floes impede our waters, though, I find happily that our guests do not impede the flow of our Major Court. We received to court some days ago your father’s old friend from school, Doctor Conrad Conochvars, who was accompanied by Master Heimrikh Ásbjarn, the son of the man who paid for your father to attend Alexandria. The younger Master Ásbjarn is refreshingly accomplished in manners and etiquette, and has distinguished himself quite well for a foreigner. Doctor Conochvars, sadly, is not so accomplished; but Alexandrian scientists rarely are, and thus our disappointment was mild.’

Piitros tried very hard not to take that as a slightto his own, rather lacking, mastery of etiquette. There was a reason he was head of administration for the Finnish heartland here in Raajokin, at the Minor Court; and not with his aunt at the Major Court. The official story was and always had been that it was easier for his uncle to provide him with security at the Minor Court, since the people behind his parents’ deaths had never been discovered- but Piitros was twenty-one now, an adult for years, and surely it was doing his social and political standing no good to be under guard by his aging uncle. He was no child, that needed looking after- but it was not done to slight one’s family.

If not for his parents’ assassinations, he’d thought often, with a tinge of bitterness, he would have been in Alexandria years ago, and already in possession of at least one Doctorate.

‘Doctor Conochvars expressed his desire to visit our family tomb to pay his respects and express his continued remembrances to your parents. We entertained them in court for a few days, and this letter comes as they leave on the train for Raajokin.’

That put their arrival at about four hours from the time the letter and scrolls had arrived; maybe about three-and-a-half hours from now.

‘They will be proceeding straight from the train to the tomb, where you will meet them.’

Oh, joy. He had an unforeseen diplomatic obligation.

He scanned the rest of the letter- it contained only the formal closing statements, the farewell, and the date. He ended up putting it aside and looked through the labels on the scrolls, mentally plotting his route to distribute them to the appropriate parties.

-

The easiest way to get to the government complex in the Minor Court from the Pirkkje Residence was through the stables. Piitros made a short cut across the stone-paved courtyard to the stables, which he hadn’t meant to linger in, but-

“Stablehand.”

All movement in the stables temporarily halted as every single stablehand stopped what they were doing and looked at him. Piitros knew that part of the job of royalty was being regal, but all he wanted to do when people’s attention was focused on him so intently was make some sort of quip to lighten the atmosphere. It was a serious character flaw in Finnish royalty, he reflected gloomily, since dignity and grace were tantamount.

He pointed mutely to the nearest stablehand, silently dismissing everyone else. As they turned back to their jobs, he was able to relax.

The stablehand bowed deeply and held it, waiting for Piitros to speak.

“My uncle’s horse is gone,” Piitros said. “There are messages for him.”

“My Royal Highness, we are expecting your uncle back before the thirteenth hour,” the stablehand said, and straightened up. “I can have a courier horse prepared immediately.”

“You don’t need to do that,” Piitros told them hastily. “I’ll just- leave it for him.”

“As you wish, my duke,” the stablehand said, and held out both hands to accept a few of the scrolls, which were carefully placed in a saddlebag for when he returned.

Thankfully, the rest of the people who needed the scrolls were in, and Piitros emerged from the gate that opened directly on the Government Plaza ready to not speak to anyone else. The Palace Guard Quarters were just across the way, against the complex wall, and Piitros knew if he walked past them the Guard Captain would detach a few people to walk with him- or, if he told them to leave, shadow him. It would be nothing but more etiquette and manners and he’d had enough of that today.

He ducked into the join of one of the wall towers and the Quarters and shifted, taking off from the Court grounds as a Steppe Eagle, flapping up through the guards patrolling the skies. Inevitably, a few peeled off- a swan, a gull, and a dove- to follow him; but this way, there would be no talking. He merely got a dip of the wings and a bit of a guard, gull flying point, swan behind, dove flitting around the formation, to keep his airspace clear.

Raajokin was spread out on the north bank of the Raajoki underneath him, the wild, undeveloped south bank in Sarmatian territory a sharp contrast to the stone and brick and steel and glass of the Finnish city.

Piitros considered, for a moment, going hunting in Sarmatia’s fields, but there was really no prey animal he wanted. He adjusted course slightly instead, wheeling around the palace complex to glide over the City Plaza, the roof of the City Palace shimmering gold and the colored tops of the tents and stalls in the City Market bringing a patchwork of color to the warm gray stone and the dark red brick. Loki’s Temple and the Lesser State Library stood out with their green copper roofs, and the golden-brown shine of the brass against the dark dull iron of the Grand Bridge cut across the Raajoki. Piitros dove at the bridge and landed on one of the suspension posts platforms, dropping back into his human shape for the climb down to the bridge walkway. As he descended, the dove guard followed his path and his shift.

When they both reached the walkway, she bowed quickly, and started to say: “My royal highness-”

“I would be greatly pleased if you confined your guarding to an appreciable distance behind me,” Piitros told her, and she agreed with a murmur.

Piitros walked relatively alone down the Grand Bridge, which didn’t have much traffic at the moment, headed for the white lacquered wood and flawless marble of Hela’s Temple at the far end, which guarded the cemetery. The bridge terminated right up against the Temple torii, forcing people to keep to the proper path. He took the two stairs up onto the vai and purchased incense at the Offerings Office before proceeding down the courtyard to the steaming miikva, ritually washing his face, hands, and shoes, and then passing through Hela’s shrine and the crematorium behind it to reach the cemetery.

He took his time walking the cemetery path, first through Hela’s Garden, the burial grounds for the unknown bodies and the foreigners, where he wandered some to take up time, reading the inscriptions on the shrines to keep the dead spirits identified and happy. The walk through the general grounds, past all the small family tombs eventually brought him to the intersection of the main path and the side one, that curved down and away down the arm of land that connected this Finnish territory to the Sarmatian lands, with the shrine to Tuoni in the middle. Across the river the City Palace bells were ringing the fourteenth hour, so he sat down on the first tier of the plinth Tuoni’s statue stood on and just enjoyed the quiet of the cemetery. At the fourteen-and-half bells he stood and continued on the path until he reached the Pirkkje family tomb, just before the cemetery exit.

It was a low stone building, flat-roofed, the opening covered with a hard, stiff cloth that softened into the curtain it really was as Piitros touched it, letting him tie it away inside the edifice. The Pirkkje family tomb was larger than most others, but just as dark. The shrines for individuals lined the walls, the wooden structures carved with the names, attributes, and accomplishments of the people whose interred ashes they stood over. Piitros’s parents, the latest in the family to die, were by the door. He knelt on the dirt floor to light the incense and place it in the shallow bronze offering dish on the shelf for his parents’ joint shrine, then bent over to touch his head to the ground for saying the proscribed prayers.

He stayed in that position for a while after finishing, just contemplating idly, until he felt a light brush against his mind, his guard in human form giving him a little warning of the arrival of the expected guests.  Piitros unfolded himself then and went to stand in the doorway of the tomb, watching the two men present their credentials to his guard.

Once the bit of ceremony was concluded and she’d let them pass, he took a step to bring him out of the tomb doorway, where it wouldn’t have been appropriate to receive guests. It was easy to tell who was who, here, even without the clear age difference- Doctor Conochvars was wearing his full Alexandrian Doctor’s robes, while Heimrikh Ásbjarn was in the rich, bright colors of Byzantine fashion. His long wool paludamentum flared out dramatically and fell, perfectly, as he dropped to one knee a couple feet in front of Piitros, head bowed, right fist to the ground.

Piitros felt ceremonially impaired, even as Doctor Conochvars simply bent forwards at the waist to bow, favoring a less-correct but still-acceptable genuflection. Piitros himself had left the palace in what amounted to clothes for a casual, incognito stroll around the palace garden, which was about what he had been planning on doing with his day. Reading outside in good weather was a nice way to relax, and Piitros realized that, somewhere along the line, he’d just assumed that his guests would be dressed down as well, for traveling, and that the dressed-up meeting would come at their formal dinner reception in a few hours, once evening fell- but they’d come straight from Revontulet Heikaal from the Morning Court there. Of course they hadn’t changed out of court clothes.

This is why they don’t let you do anything really important, he berated himself mentally. Aunt Mei never would have- 

Piitros remembered that his guests had to hold their positions until he gave them permission to stop.

“My Royal Aunt’s missive preceded your coming with good recommendations,” he told them, opening the way for conversation. “She spoke favorably of your time at the Major Court, and I hope that your good graces continue here in the Minor.”

“Your Royal Highness, Piitros Loistavis Pirkkje-”

Oh, Friya, he was going for the full address, which meant he’d have to do the same back-

“-Duke of the Finns, your kindness and munificence of words exceeds your reputation and stature.”

I have a reputation and stature? That’s news to me.

 “Master Heimrikh Ásbjarn of Byzantium, I see that my Royal Aunt’s compliments were not misplaced,” Piitros told him, completely lacking the inspiration to do anything but falling back on complimenting his manners. “You truly do have an exceedingly good grasp of etiquette. I look forward to meeting you again at dinner tonight, and experiencing the pleasure of your company over the table.”

Heimrikh smiled, just the right amount, and stepped back and away, holding an arm out to invite Doctor Conochvars forward, and Piitros couldn’t help but think that it was very, very obvious that he was inadequate for the task set to him because there was no reason to hand off the conversation like this, not yet.

Piitros reminded himself that he was the Duke of Finland, and the highest-ranked person here, so he could dispense with some of the formalities if he really, really wanted to; and could stand getting a passively critical letter from one of the Etiquette Secretaries when they heard about it; or worse, one from his aunt.

He reached out to shake Doctor Conochvars’ hand, but remembered halfway there that the Doctor was missing his right arm, and it was the one he’d use to shake Piitros’ hand with, and this was a major breach of politeness, and Doctor Conochvars took Piitros’ hand with his right and shook.

Piitros had a momentary lapse of manners and stared before catching himself and looking the Doctor in the eyes, instead.

Doctor Conochvars said something pleasant about ‘the miracle of science’, but Piitros didn’t hear it through the mortification banging around in his head. He managed some weak reply to the effect of happiness for his continued health, and completely-unsubtly reminded him that he was here to pay his respects to the late Doctor Miiria and Master Rixardos Pirkkje, not their son; and then fled in a gross breach of manners back to the palace without saying goodbye.

Someone was definitely going to have words with him about this, very soon.

-

Sprawled out on his bed for the time being, Heimrikh Ásbjarn smirked at the patterned ceiling.  This was going to be ridiculously easy.  Piitros Pirkkje was a joke.

Back in Byzantium, his father had gone mad with advice, recommending how to avoid being jailed for this, being imprisoned for that, and above all, how to avoid offense.  Because, in this mad world, offending a Finn was more dangerous than killing one.  Seriously.

Of course, Heimrikh hadn’t been nearly as nervous as his father.  Sure, meeting the Grand Duchess at the Finnish Major Court was probably one of the most difficult things he had ever done, given the intricacies involved; but within the space of five minutes, Piitros Pirkkje had missed about fourteen different ways that he could have taken offense.  The most obvious had been Heimrikh’s vibrant green paludamentum, which was pinned with a silver and gold clasp.

Gold and green was reserved for the Finnish Royals, and only the Finnish Royals. It should have been read as the height of bad taste, as well as an outrageous presumption. The Finns were touchy about status, and it should have been a deep insult that a mere foreigner, and one of Viking descent besides, had dared consider the combination.

The laughably-styled Duke of Finland hadn’t even noticed.

Heimrikh grinned at the ceiling.  He was a wolf among a sea of peacocks – they were pretty, and bit if you got too close, but wolves were much more dangerous.

Furthermore, among this sea of peacocks, Piitros Pirkkje was a little brown bird – plain, dull, and so nervous that he flew away if you breathed wrong.

Seriously, his father had chattered on and on and on about how sinuous and dangerous the Finnish courts were, but this was nothing compared to Byzantium.  Back home, he played word games and dodged poison on an hourly basis – this stuff was nothing.

Rolling over, Heimrikh called his traveling case to his bed with a gesture.  Rubbing the lovely purple leather for a moment, Heimrkh unlocked and opened the trunk, mentally shoving his piles of clothing onto his bed.

Still grinning the tiniest bit foolishly, Heimrikh stroked the bottom of the trunk, wincing as a tiny needle pricked his finger.  The DNA code lock on the magically hidden compartment had been expensive, but…

“There you are,” he breathed, carefully levitating a tiny box out of the compartment.  “Now, first things first.”  He set down the tiny box, smiling at the pinholes in the sides.  “Yesssss….”  His grin grew wider.  “Aren’t you beautiful?”

Gleaming in the dim light of the room, a tiny crystal vial hung misleadingly innocently in the air.  The shimmering blue liquid inside could have simply been a dangerous alcoholic concoction from downtown Byzantium.  But, of course, Heimrikh wouldn’t have had to smuggle an alcoholic concoction with this much subterfuge. 

No, this was a beautiful little productive piece of poisonous science that would bring him to glory.

The best part?  It wouldn’t actually kill anyone.  Not even…a spider.

Opening the little box that he had set aside, Heimrikh lifted the spider out with a flick of thought – and dropped it into the tiny vial.

“Ah – Master Heimrikh – what are you doing?  I thought –”

Heimrikh flipped off the bed, drawing his sword.  At the last second, he paused, his blade an inch from Connor Conochvars’ throat. 

“You idiot,” Heimrikh hissed.  “I nearly killed you, you wet-brained barbarian!  Now move!  Out of my way!”

Heimrikh watched as the spider writhed in the vial.  “You are not here to think, idiot.  You are here to do as you are told, nothing more and nothing less.  Do you understand?”

Conochvars nodded, backing away slowly.  “I – just – why did you – with the spider?”

Heimrikh rolled his eyes.  “Just to enlighten your thick brain, I’ll explain.  The spider, by soaking in the liquid, becomes a vessel for the liquid.  If we were to pour the liquid into a drink or food, or if we were to inject the liquid, we could be implicated.  But who ever heard of a man who is not capable of controlling animals or insects being blamed for a spider bite?”

“Spiders are neither animals nor insects.”

Heimrikh mentally slapped Conochvars, rolling back onto his bed as Conochvars reeled across the room.  “Shut up.  You’re here to work, not to be smart.  Now get ready for your meeting this afternoon.  I need to fit the spider with the control system.”

Conochvars hesitated, and left the room, disappearing behind one of the movable paper-and-wood dividing walls.

“Wimp,” Heimrikh muttered, smirking. The control system for the spider was delicate work, made possible in the end only by telekinetically freezing the spider in place. The spider went in a thin silk bag, easy to inconspicuously open.

The reception dinner that night was the full complement of the Minor Court, which meant the Governors of every administrative district in the Finnish heartland, and their spouses, and then the higher-ranked government officials, and the dignitaries stationed at the Minor Court, all in addition to the Court’s luohi-noita- their magicians and mutants- and their artists, musicians, poets, and entertainers.

Peacocks, all of them, again; even the Magyar Baron, who apparently regularly insisted on his own idiosyncratic version of his official uniform as the Marshal of the Equestrian Guard. He looked fierce, but Marshal of the Equestrian Guard was a hereditary title, just like the Magyar Baron- and since when had anyone who inherited a military title actually been competent, or had proper experience? Sure, there was a war on back home, but the Vikings hadn’t officially declared as combatants and even if they did, anyone who wanted a piece of Finland would have to go through them, the Turks, or Sarmatians. Heimrikh would be surprised if the Vikings managed even a couple groups of Finns for military service for the time when they stopped vacillating on formal declarations of war.

The only truly outstanding characters there were Piitros Pirkkje, the Finns’ sad excuse for a Duke; and his uncle, the Grand Duke of Finland and Duke of Estia and Livia, the Finnish protectorate state in Venedan territory.

  Heimrikh and Conochvars had to be presented to him, of course, and that’s how the dinner started. He repeated the flourishing Finnish bow he’d used at the graveyard for the Grand Duke, and forced himself to keep a straight face when the herald appended ‘Vanspag of Tribe Ruirig’ to the list of titles, wondering how the ever-so-proper Finns could stand to have a Sarmatian Grand Duke who openly defied assimilation, keeping his warlord title and belting his swords and knives on over his robes.

Grand Duke Benham smiled at him, once, and Heimrikh committed his first breech of protocol of his entire time in Finland by looking away. One of the many things the Grand Duke had kept from his Sarmatian life was his teeth, still dyed the red that his people called shuriig. The color was disquietingly highlighted by the red-and-black thread silk he had used as his complimentary fabric in the gold and green outfit- it looked like thick blood, flowing beneath the Finnish veneer his marriage to the Grand Duchess had forced on him.

Heimrikh reminded himself that the Grand Duke was a barbarian, yes, but also old- well past the age where he would go to battle, and the weapons he carried were an old man’s vainglorious nostalgia.

 Piitros was outstanding for his complete ineptness and nervous silence, which everyone seemed to have trained themselves out of noticing for politeness’ sake; a small, younger shadow to the Grand Duke on the dais overlooking the Court Hall that trotted behind his uncle to the ballroom where dinner was being served like a particularly skittish lapdog. Heimrikh nudged Conochvars discreetly to remind him that he had a job to do with the Duke, after the dinner was over. The little cloth bag with the spider was hidden up his voluminous sleeves, just waiting for the moment when he’d pull it open and release the spider on Piitros. The offer of stories about his parents, or Alexandria, should be more than enough to make the boy drop Finnish pretenses and his guard.

He kept a careful eye on the Doctor throughout the meal, and in the sortie they all retired to afterwards, until he saw Conochvars and Piitros slip off together to one of the small conversational side rooms in the Court Hall.

-

The moment that they had drawn out of view from the rest of the court, Piitros seated himself on a chair and waved Doctor Conochvars over to another one.

“Please, sit,” Piitros said haltingly.  “And – if it does not offend – we might dispense with the formalities?”

Sitting slowly, Doctor Conochvars seemed to brighten somewhat at the suggestion.  “If – that is alright with Your Royal Highness, I –”

Piitros winced, ducking his head.  “Oh, call me Piitros, please?  Surely, in private, we can have a simple conversation?”  Inwardly, he groaned at the stuttering mess he had made from a simple sentence.

A bit of the tension seemed to seep from the Doctor.  “If that is alright, that would be fine.”

Piitros beamed.  “So, I was wondering about the newest information about mutations from Alexandria.  I heard that you had been working on some fascinating new ideas dealing with healing using mutations, and I wanted to know if there was anything that hadn’t made it up here to Finland.”

Doctor Conochvars hesitated.  “I’m not quite sure what has or has not made it here from Alexandria, but – well, did you hear about Doctor Bét Yisroel’s successful serum?”

“I did!”  Piitros said eagerly.  “Were you involved with that?”

Doctor Conochvars laughed quietly, waving a gentle hand dismissively.  “Only peripherally,” he admitted, “but I do have a great deal of our research on my computer, and I could easily share it with you over the course of my visit here.”

Piitros couldn’t help his small hop in place of excitement.  He was going to get to see the most up-to-date research in the biological sciences!  This was so exciting!

“So, could you explain to me about how you got around the human body’s natural impulse to resist overwrite?  Because that’s where the latest information stops.”  Piitros leaned forwards eagerly, and restrained a twitch as something tickled on the back of his neck.

Doctor Conochvars looked down.  “Well, that was actually a combination of an idea that I had and an idea that Avraham – that is, Doctor Bét Yisroel – had.  You see, we knew that it had to be possible, based on some of our previous successes, and our correspondence with some of Avraham’s colleagues.”

He settled a little deeper into his chair, an action Piitros recognized from the Alexandrian-trained tutors that had been lured to Finland on the promise of good patronage.

“Tell me what you know about how the process works?” Doctor Conochvars said, placing a hint of query in his voice to avoid making it an order.

“Mutations are a genetic feature humans, coded in two parts,” Piitros began. This part was easy- he could have asked this question in the street and any Finn would have been able to recite what they’d been taught in school. “The mutate system is twofold, the chemical compound secreted as a secondary function in the endocrine system, and the mutation genome contained in every piece of DNA. The mutation genome comes in three parts- the trigger, the binder, and the code. In natalate mutants, the chemical compound was released in utero, thereby manifesting the mutation from birth. Pubescate mutants’ mutate systems release the chemical throughout the process of puberty, creating a slow build up to the full strength of the mutation. But what the process does is simulate maturnate mutants’ development, taking an adult subject without a mutation and activating the trigger gene-”

Now things got complicated.

“-that’s the part I’m not so clear on, Doctor, because none of the writings ever specified a tri-ow!”

Piitros jumped, clapping a hand to the back of his neck. 

“Are you alright?” Doctor Conochvars asked nervously.

Piitros grimaced, pulling his hand away from his neck.  Two tiny specks of blood and a scuttling spider told him all he needed to know.  “Just a spider bite, Doctor Conochvars.  Don’t worry about it.  I’ll get some scans done tomorrow if it starts to swell.”

“If you’re sure,” Doctor Conochvars said uncertainly. 

“I’m sure,” Piitros said flatly. “The trigger? I know the most common non-induced trigger in adults is stress, either chronic or immediate life-and-death-”

“I can’t tell you the specifics of the procedure in Alexandria,” the Doctor told him, a little hesitantly. “I wasn’t there. But when we were theorizing and doing preliminary work, the most promising trigger was radiation. It already has mutating properties, and when done in a proper medical or research facility, decontamination and treatment for radiation poisoning in the event of a failed procedure is easy- while, say, shooting someone in the hopes that they spontaneously develop advanced healing capabilities is obviously untenable.”

“Preliminary work,” Piitros repeated. “You mentioned previous successes?”

Doctor Conochvars smiled, a little smugly.

“I noticed you were surprised about my arm, earlier today,” he said, and Piitros was crushed with overwhelming embarrassment again, going red to his hair. “That was the previous success. Doctor Bét Yisroel was working on the project as a scientific matter, but mine was personal. My theory was that the maturnate mutation process could be triggered partway, to cement minor bits of genetic engineering- I was born without a right arm, and I thought I could introduce a bit of my genetic code, redone to include the portion that said ‘build an arm here’, and trick my mutate system into treating the changed code as my mutation. Doctor Bét Yisroel thought it could go further, could be done to… graft, I suppose, is the best word, a mutation or mutations different from what was in the genetic code into a person with the same procedure. He was still working on the exact process when we were forced to flee Franx, when the war started.”

He paused for a moment, thinking.

“Have you heard of Doctor Alspeth Ros?”

Piitros nodded.  “She wrote some of the most recent papers about mutation and the biology behind it that have been translated into Finnish.  You’ve met her?”

“Once,” Doctor Conochvars allowed.  “When I was passing through Alexandria from Athens on my way to Franx. She’s a very intelligent young woman, and she has a mutation that I’ve heard is revered quite a bit here in Finland.  She can identify mutant abilities.”

Piitros straightened in his seat.  “She – why isn’t that in any of her biographies?  They put a biography with each paper, and – oh, it explains so much about how she knew that the X538 sequence was correct, she could see it!”

“Yes, I’d heard about that,” the Doctor said. “Anyway, after we fled Franx, Doctor Bét Yisroel went directly to Alexandria, and Doctor Ros started working with him. That’s why she was studying the X538 sequence in the first place- Bét Yisroel had been thinking he’d have to incorporate it into his theory. I don’t know if he ever did, though. If you want to know more about his work, you should write her. Mention my name, and say I recommended you, and they should answer your questions. Those of us who have worked on this project, we’re careful about who we talk to about the specifics. Ethics is paramount.”

Ethics-

“Have you also worked with Doctor Xavier?” Piitros asked.

“No,” Doctor Conochvars said.  “He wasn’t in Alexandria at the same time as I, and he doesn’t agree with using science to induce mutation.”

Piitros frowned.  “But, I’ve read his philosophy papers.”  More like suffered through them; he preferred science to philosophy.  “He’s a big human rights activist.”

“Oh, he has no problem with people who are mutants, or people who have had mutations activated, he just doesn’t agree with the actual action of inducing mutation.”  Doctor Conochvars twisted his lips.  “He thinks that there are too many ways that the science can be misused.”

There was something odd about that last emphasis.  Piitros knew that he wasn’t the greatest student of human relations, but he would definitely have to think about that last sentence at some other point.  It was almost as if –

“Misused,” he said. “It’s- not that big a step from using the procedure on a natalate or pubescate mutant instead of an adult non-mutant to overwrite one ability with another. I can see how that could be really useful, because you do get mutations that prevent things like human contact or difficult or impossible to control, and usually those mutants move here, if they can, because unlike some places, Finland embraces all mutations. We love that sort of stuff, and we respect the boundaries of people who need different ones because of their powers. But the ones who can’t come, or think they can’t, usually they… kill themselves. But if you could go to nearest hospital, and get an, an injection, or something, to tone it down- that would be really beneficial. But all it would take would be one of those ‘human rights activists’ who think no one should have mutations, or someone who wanted a bunch of mutants of one specific power, to abuse it. Like- I can shapeshift, into just about anything, and so can a lot of other Finns; and I know there are foreigners who pay a lot of money for the services of a Finnish shapeshifter.”

Piitros hesitated to ask, but he wanted to know.

“Is anyone working on a mutation override formula?”

Doctor Conochvars smiled, completely without mirth.

“It’s being tested right now.”