He’s grown to appreciate slow mornings. The silent agreement among his fellow competitors to uphold the peace after a vigorous week in the ring is exactly what he needs. It’s the perfect time to reflect upon his previous experiments, transfer the scrawled fieldnotes to his computer, let the neural net crunch the numbers, and simply relax.
He would never admit it, but he’s getting old. Every morning, the cough deepens and he feels the alevoli pop and splatter within the gnarled branches of his lungs. His bones crunch, loud, like broken glass from his weight, and the surplus of sixty pounds of battlefield gear he lugs around. Oh, to be immortal.
Octane’s constant, persistent drone eventually pierces that temporary peace Caustic has worked so hard to enjoy.
He sighs, a short raspy noise that does not hide his irritation. For the first time since Octane had welcomed himself to the scientist’s quarters, Caustic gives him the attention he so obviously seeks. He ponders Octane with his full attention, fixing a dead stare upon the boy with the stillness of a coiled python finally realizing it’s not alone in its enclosure.
“You’d be a fool to trust the media. They leave out the most fascinating details,” he responds breezily, as if they were discussing the day’s lunch plan. He flexes his wide hands - some sort of exercise to keep his wrists from aching.
“Alexander Nox is dead. The masses are mindless, consumptive zombies, swallowing the garbage the news feeds them. The average biped is only capable of consuming information when served as hyper-stimulating 15-second bites. Equivalent to a serving of junk food. Everyone wants a new boogeyman to make their children behave - to give the pretense of intelligence when they blubber to one another at suppertime.” The name Alexander Nox doesn’t elicit even a blink from the scientist. A dead man doesn’t interest him.
The chair’s wheels squeak with resistance as Caustic stands and plucks the phone out of Octane’s hands. It’s not a model he’s used to, and it takes him a moment to figure out how to advance through the news article.
“Idiots. They swapped the directions. The wind blew west that day, which is what made the procedure feasible in the first place.” His thumb scrubs at the space between his eyes, and he offers the phone back to Octane - but just out of reach.
“Journalists ought to be more careful. No one cares if they die.” A mirthless smile develops across Caustic’s aged face and he wiggles the phone enticingly.
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