“That looks inedible,” said Lucinda, staring at the mildly glowing concoction Bobby had served up. The pot had black flakes suspended in a very toxic looking luminescent liquid.

  “I think it looks fine,” Bobby replied, putting a spoonful in his mouth, trying and failing to hide the involuntary grimace that immediately appeared on his face.

  It was the day after he cooked a meal in apology to Lucinda being caught in his gravity spell. To be fair, he’d done a good job yesterday, good enough that Lucinda had delegated the task of cooking to him today as well.

  “What the hell did you put in it, glowsticks and nuclear waste?” asked Michaela, walking in wearing a well fitting cloak she’d nicked from the JJJ store room. It did a good job of hiding her face and was probably more comfortable than all the spare clothing they’d originally wrapped her in.

  Bobby scratched his head, it had been an experiment to see if he could create some kind of healing potion by pumping a curry full of green affinity magic that he’d found a spell to convert his magic to in the recesses of his mind. The trouble with the green magic though is it somehow revived the very much dead ingredients he’d put into the dish: mushrooms, spices and algae.

  When he realised what was happening, he cranked up the temperature to try and kill them off again. It had been a long and heavy battle with the ingredients which he finally won. But as they say he’d won the battle and lost the war because the high temperatures had partially incinerated the curry.

  “Magic,” Bobby tried to smile, but ended up choking as a mushroom revived itself in his mouth and began growing again. He spat it on the table and watched with fascination as over about ten seconds it went from coin sized to tennis ball sized. This does not work like it does in video games.

  “Please keep magic away from food.” Lucinda glared at him.

  “Sorry, yeah I don’t know what I was thinking” Bobby said.

  “Well I’m too hungry to wait while you conjure up more food, so how about we take a walk over to that gang you’re in control of, I bet they have some and you’ve been avoiding going back for some reason.”

  “Ah, but… Okay fine,” Bobby relented, realising he couldn’t come up with an excuse. He hadn’t originally planned to stay with Lucinda this long, but it had seemed so cosy hanging around her bastion and when he compared that atmosphere to the gang full of manchildren and the basement of horrifically modified humans he had found himself a bit reluctant to return.

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

  Lucinda called out for the rats and the ones who’d remained assembled themselves, Wat-haf had left again a few days ago to set up a chain of communication and start putting more rodent power to work monitoring the other gangs. Bobby had told the creature to find him with the JJJ when it had anything to report. Aside from him Rho Dent had once again remained, with the addition of her uncle and one of her brothers, Bobby had been getting to know them better and they were quite fun to have around.

  He leaned down to the group and the furry creatures climbed his arms and made themselves comfortable on his shoulders. He knew if he wasn’t wearing his blazer their claws would be digging in painfully.

  They let themselves out of the bastion; Bobby, Lucinda, Michaela, the rats and a freshly recharged TODD. It didn’t turn out to be a long trip back to the hospital base, far quicker than last time due to TODD being fully operational.

  This time they didn’t approach the building from the back, instead opting for going straight through the front. Bobby saw several men begin to raise their guns before quickly lowering them again when they realised who he was. One of the men spoke into a black box with a large arial, and Gary met them at the bottom of the stairs by the time they reached the main hospital building.

  “How’s it going?” Bobby asked the man, feeling slightly guilty at the size of the bags under Gary’s eyes.

  “Thank god you’re back, running this gang has been an uphill battle, I had to put so much work into rehousing the mutants, also the Jameson brothers have created far too much of a mess as they didn’t trust any of the men to handle any administration for them, so I’ve been reworking the gang hierarchy with individuals who show some promise while interrogating them for any vital information I am missing, and Mcgunkin has glued his ass to one of those thrones for three days straight, he seemed intent on keeping it warm for your return.” Gary paused his monologue to take some deep breaths, it was quite impressive how long he had just talked for without pause.

  Bobby was about to reply when two children ran through laughing while they played some game of tag, one with transparent skin and crystalised hair, and the other with three extra arms growing out of his current ones like tree branches.

  Lucinda watched them while looking bewildered. “Is this what you meant when you said the Jameson brothers had been mutilating people?”

  “Yes, its illegal genetic modification run using equipment provided by some shady organisation I can’t track down, breaks more laws than I can count, and I suspect all the other gangs in the city are doing it too.” Bobby said.

  “But that’s terrible, do you think it's reversible?”

  “No, whoever did this didn’t care about the consequences of their actions, they were after the results and nothing more after,” Gary scowled.

  “I want to see the rest of them,” Lucinda proclaimed.

  “Good idea, and I’m going to relieve Mcgunkin of his self imposed throne duty.”

  +++++

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