Esperanza

“I meant all of Central City, but yeah, he does.”

“So you’re....amigos?”

Ports

Andrews regarded her for a moment before motioning towards Leeland. The people who had been at his back stepped away, their plastic aprons and gloves smeared with the boys blood.

Leeland had grown quiet, arms clinging to the upright gurney he was strapped on. The old ports that perforated the middle of his back had been removed, leaving painful scar tissue that would heal tighter than it had done before.

#thebabelfishboy #black womb plot #ports

Lo siento, Leeland...but I promised to keep you alive.

Once she’d looked her fill, she gave a firm nod and closed her eyes. Someone passed her a piece of fabric, the gurney sheet that would be his shroud if he died on the table.They wouldn’t let her build them directly into his skin, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t build them better, build them warm.

It was what made them family -- that alien steel, colder than ice but always warming to the touch. She cast the ports in titanium, wisps of metal blossoming from her hands as her powers devoured the fabric sheet. Dark silver from every angle, a color that never suited them, but would make the scientists nod at its utilitarian make. But the inside was a toxic breath of transmode, gold and pulsing at her touch, wrapping itself in that earthly cloak of titanium.

It was all she could do -- plant a seed within the torment, that someday she could pull the foreign metal from his skin and knit him back together.

She left them on a tray by Leeland’s gurney and pointedly held out her hands for the cuffs.

“Exactly. We’re kind of known for it.”

“We....or you? Seems like Mr. Flash has a special interest in making weird shit happen around you.”

Ports

“It was quite handy we stumbled across you when we did.” Andrew smiled and procured a file from his clipboard. “No electronics, you understand.” He said, holding it for her to see.

Someone came and unlocked the shackles from her wrists and ankles and Andrews held the file out for her.

“You make them, we’ll insert them. Then we can hopefully get our machine powered up and 42 won’t, hopefully, die.”

#black womb plot #thebabelfishboy #ports

Esperanza rubbed at her wrists for a moment before reluctantly reaching out for the blueprint. It was...vaguely comprehensible. She hated herself for having studied enough to actually know what they were asking, the way the pieces would fit.

“...Can you let me see his back?” she asked quietly. It wasn’t a trick. Even if she did touch him, she wasn’t sure there was anything she could do for him. All she could do was make it....painless. “I need a better idea of size. I can’t make it as exact as the blueprint, I go by intuition.”

“That depends on the people.”

“I suppose strange things do happen in Central City”.

“You would be amazed, actually.”

“Convenient excuse.” Or a convenient friendship. “Do people usually buy it?”

“Maybe it was the Flash and he just ran away really fast afterwards to pin it on me.”

“And that happens to you often.”

[@ramondelamancha from here]

“Mister, you know what.”

abcnews-deactivated20251106

sdzoo

Silver Leaf Langurs by Bob Worthington Photography

A mother’s love

#chi-chee

Bright orange François’ Langur, one of the world’s rarest monkeys, born at Sydney’s Taronga zoo. There are only 800 thought to remain in the wild: http://abcn.ws/1l610Sr

#chi-chee

Ports

Andrews beamed at that. “Good girl.” He said, before turning his gaze towards where Leeland was pointedly ignoring him. “Years ago, before he ran away-” There was an air of amusement to that, as if it was almost funny that they had lost several years of work because their subject teleported out of their grasp. “We implanted 42 with connection ports. Those ports are now obsolete and he won’t be able to work the machine until he’s fitted with new ones.”

Getting to his feet, Andrews made his way towards Leeland and stepped around the pool of blood seeping across the floor. “And once in the machine, we’re hoping it’ll keep him alive. He’ll power the machine, the machine will power him.” And then he smiled at Leeland, who flinched and turned his head away again.

“Either that or we let him die and we start all over again… But that’s not very cost effective you understand.” He said, turning to Esperanza with that same smile.

#thebabelfishboy #ports #black womb plot

“Ports,” she echoed lifelessly. “You...want me to make the new ones.”

It would save his life -- so they said, at least, and she certainly had her doubts about that, but at this point no other options had appeared. She promised him he’d make it out. Kicking or screaming.

She wasn’t supposed to be the one to make him scream.

“I’d need a..a blueprint....” Esperanza at last forced out, trying not to puke at the idea alone. Hoping at the very least they wouldn’t want her to....to make them...directly into his body...

Ports

She drifted through half-dreams, dust in her throat, in her eyes. Winds whipping, tumbling, a ghost town in distant gold. A tower. The cry of lost children.

“Chi-Chee…” she rasped as the world came rushing back. “What’s…where am…” She clenched her fists, and as the tendons of her wrists flexed against the metal shackles, she understood.

Leeland’s shoulders slumped from where he’d been holding them in a stiff position. She was awake. Just out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of Andrews and had to clench his teeth together as not to move or make a sound.

“Ahh, you’re awake.” The man said, peering down at her before perching on a stool that had been placed between herself and Leeland. “Now, you’ve got a choice. I can undo these shackles and you can run but no doubt someone will put a bullet in you.” He gestured to the armed guards scattered around the room and up on the balcony. “Or I can undo them and you can help 42 not die.”

#thebabelfishboy #black womb plot #ports #no i still dont have new x-kit #shut up and just trim this for me plz

Esperanza’s bitter gaze bored into Andrews for three long minutes before she finally gave a curt nod. “What’s wrong with him?” she whispered, hoarse, her throat so dry. Not, what do you need me to do? Only the question she already had the answer to.

When she was younger, a test subject for the first time, they told her she was Midas. Everything she touched turned to cold, cold gold. But now she knew better. No one ever feared gold, but envied it, tried to cage it and carve it out of still-living veins. Did Midas curse himself, or did those dull-eyed scientists of his own time curse him instead, curse his name in rage when he died before they could mine his body for riches.

Subject 42. Gold Mine 42. Save him, help him, so we don’t lose our favorite quarry.

Ports

[ esperanzaling ]

“The body’s rejecting the old ports.” - - -

The worst thing about it all, was that he was conscious. It would have been a relief to have passed out, but the drugs were keeping him wide awake. There was, however, an added bonus that parts of him were blessedly numb.

He was strapped to an upright operating table, arms locked in front of him with his head turned to the side. Next to him, they had placed Esperanza on a bed with her feet and hands shackled. She was still unconscious, and Leeland half hoped she wouldn’t wake up.

There had been Doctors and technicians at his back, and he knew from the tugging sensations that they had been removing his old ports. The blood had seeped down into his white scrub trousers and pooled around his feet.

#thebabelfishboy #black womb plot #'last activity: 32 days ago'#oh fuck me y do u put up with this

She drifted through half-dreams, dust in her throat, in her eyes. Winds whipping, tumbling, a ghost town in distant gold. A tower. The cry of lost children.

“Chi-Chee...” she rasped as the world came rushing back. “What’s...where am...” She clenched her fists, and as the tendons of her wrists flexed against the metal shackles, she understood.

landlocke

Protecting the Hive