Chapter 1.1.19 — Time to Spare

After two hours of combat training, the chest cavity of Dr. Venture’s robot opened, and it pulled out the long gray whip.

Emmett’s eyes widened. He’d been so preoccupied with training that he’d forgotten about his mods.

The robot walked over to Emmett and held out the whip.

“How do I, uh…”

“Hold out your right arm.” Thin, wiry fingers slid out of the robot’s fist as it reached for him.

Emmett kept his arm as still as he could, despite the cold touch of the metal and the tiny pinches that felt like static electricity as it touched his skin.

A moment later, the skin on the inside of his forearm bulged in the shape of a cylinder, and then slid open—the extra skin sliding over the back of his forearm like two panes of glass.

Emmett shivered.

Ever since the accident, his right arm had felt almost exactly the same as his real one—it moved the same as a real arm, felt pressure and pain the same as a real arm. Only a handful of times had he remembered that it was, in fact, mechanical. Even then, he couldn’t feel a difference. It was only when he poked at the compartments and felt the shape beneath the ‘skin’ was different that he really knew.

But now, staring at a cylindrical, flesh-colored gap in his forearm, it was like his mind couldn’t process what was happening. It felt like a hole—like a missing tooth.

“You’ll get used to it,” Dr. Venture said. “...I think.”

Emmett chuckled awkwardly. “So, you don’t have any mechanical limbs with weapon storage in them?”

“No. Now watch carefully, and hold still. This is how you secure a modification in your arm.”

The robot pressed the end of the whip into the gap and toward a bundle of connections toward the elbow. With a quick twist, the base of the whip clicked into place.

Immediately, Emmett felt the whip—not just where it connected to his forearm, but felt the entire length of it as if it was an extension of his arm.

It felt like an extra finger.

“Holy shit,” Emmett muttered.

His hand jerked slightly, and the end of the whip twitched.

Emmett moved each of his fingers, one by one, and watched as the end of the whip twitched slightly each time.

Dr. Venture said, “Try holding the whip and then moving it. The whip is made of similar materials to your arm and so it will be strong enough for any Class one or Class two super you engage with, but holding it will prevent extra stress on the connections.

“In addition, it will take time for your brain and nerves to adjust to any new modification. Holding the whip will help your brain shunt attention from your hand to the whip so it can divert more attention to the modification. One day you’ll be adapted enough that you’ll be able to move it like an extra arm or nimble enough for it to be an extra hand, but holding the whip will help you in the meantime.”

While Dr. Venture talked, Emmett did as he suggested, gripping the ‘handle’ of the whip and trying to move it around again. Immediately, he felt a difference.

It felt like an arm that had woken up from numbness after being laid on the wrong way. Emmett could feel the individual linkages like bones and could curl the whip around into coils and S’s. He curled the end of it so that the whip rose into the air until the tip of it looked him in the eye like a snake.

Emmett smirked, giddier than he’d been in years—than all his time working for Dr. Venture.

“How do I—”

Emmett had been about to ask how to fold the whip and hide it in his forearm, but he didn’t have time to get the question out.

The whip began retracting—each link shrinking back into the one before it like a collapsible pole. Emmett watched as the fifteen foot whip condensed to just under a foot long and then slipped into the gap in his forearm. The covering of skin slid back into place a moment later.

The entire process took just under two seconds.

“Wow,” was all Emmett could manage. He looked his forearm over in disbelief.

It had gone back to that eerie feeling of normalcy—except for the miniscule feeling of extra weight in his forearm, like he was wearing a watch or a wrist brace.

Venture added, “The extending and retracting the whip should get faster and easier too as your body gets used to it.”

Mentally, Emmett commanded the whip to extend, and the process reversed itself—the whip uncoiled link by link until it was lying on the street of the Gray Room again.

“So, uh, can I test it out yet?” Emmett asked, trying not to seem overly eager. Meanwhile, the end of the whip twitched with anticipation.

“You and Clara will test it. Start with movement drills. I’ll be back later.” A square opened up in the tiles and swallowed Venture’s robot.

~

After Dr. Venture and his robot left the Gray Room, Emmett turned and found Clara’s robot looking at him expectantly.

Emmett’s whip twitched—mirroring his own eagerness. “So what’s it going to be?” he asked. “Combat training? Movement training?”

“How are you feeling?” she asked.

Emmett paused and shrugged. “Alright enough, I guess.”

Clara’s blue robot stared at him for a long moment, and Emmett felt like she was reading into what he said—which was odd because all he saw staring at him was a featureless blue face.

Clara added, “Because you went from looking like you were having a flashback to wearing that same brutal determination you had when you were choking out Zanté on the roof.”

Emmett stared at her in disbelief and confusion. “Oh, that was Skull Masks’s name?”

“Yep.”

“Oh…”

“You didn’t bother to look him up?”

Emmett shrugged again. “I was hoping I wouldn’t run into him again.”

Again, he felt Clara staring at him, and Emmett wished he could see her face instead of the expressionless robot.

Emmett told her as much.

“You couldn’t keep up with me,” she replied.

“You mean your suit…”

“Besides,” she continued, ignoring him, “we’re going to run into them again. Dad thinks he has a lead in the Champion street attack.”

Emmett’s eyes widened. “Go on. I’m listening.”

The robot shook its head. “Dad thinks we have time to spare. First, you need to finish movement training and combat training.”

Emmett groaned. She was right. Venture was right—and Emmett had no desire to get beaten two times in a row by the same supers.

But he wasn’t happy about waiting. The end of the whip twitched, mirroring his internal struggle.

“Fine,” Emmett said through his teeth. “What’s next?”

~

“Loading movement training, lesson three,” TINA said.

Clara added, “Let’s work on moving around the city using your whip. Honestly, of all the tools Dad scrounged up for you, it will wind up being the most versatile. It’s also going to take that much more practice to get used to.”

Clara’s robot ran across the white-tile street and leapt two stories up to the top of the nearest building. Then she waited expectantly for him.

Emmett retracted the whip and then extended it again, feeling like he was flexing and stretching the limb—like he was limbering up.

He ran toward the closest single story building, and when Emmett was close, he jumped and extended the whip—a motion halfway between throwing a ball and shot-putting it. The whip hurled upward like a spring, stretching to its limit as the end sailed over the top of the building.

It curled around the lip of the building and felt like Emmett was grabbing on with his fingertips.

He stood there, staring up with satisfaction, before wondering what he was supposed to do next.

Emmett tried retracting the whip, hoping that it would pull him up, but he could feel the mechanisms inside the modification resisting—it was a whip, not a grappling hook.

So Emmett tried climbing up by gripping the whip and ‘walking’ up the side of the wall—

The whip lost its grip on the roof, and Emmett fell on his back.

Clara snickered from the rooftop. “Just haul yourself up. You have super strength, remember?”

Emmett sighed and stood. He threw the whip up again and grabbed the edge. This time he pulled with both hands and hurled himself up to the rooftop. Then he turned and looked back down at the floor in disbelief.

“You’re still only 183 pounds, remember?” Clara said. “It’s a lot easier to do a pullup now.”

Emmett nodded, still processing the information. In his best shape, he’d been able to do precisely two pullups. Now he could do them one-handed.

“That’s better,” she said. “Now, let’s see if you can keep up.”

~

Emmett spent the next hour chasing Clara’s robot around the Gray Room. And it quickly became clear that Dr. Venture had been toying with him the last time they trained.

He didn’t catch Clara—not once. Not even by accident.

As they ran and leapt across the faux city, Emmett slowly got more proficient with his whip, which in turn forced him to learn even better coordination with his body. Soon he was leaping two stories upward at a time, leaping up one story and using his whip to grab another fifteen feet up.

He practiced leaping from windowsill to windowsill by his fingertips and even managed to use his whip to do the same. The end of it was amazingly strong and versatile in that regard, being able to contort itself to grab the slimmest of ledges and nooks.

Emmett also revisited leaping back and forth between the sides of the buildings in an alley, skidding down the walls to slow his descent. By the end of the afternoon’s practice, he was confident enough that he could leap off the roof of a ten story building and land safely—provided there were two buildings for him to slide down.

Even though Emmett never caught Clara’s robot, her mood seemed to improve as the afternoon went on, and before long she was cracking jokes—mostly at his expense.

When he fell—“The ground won that one.”

When he slammed into the side of a building—“You’re not supposed to use your face.”

Others were more generic, like “Good thing you’re smart.”

Eventually Emmett was laughing too.

Training with Clara was the best time he’d had in a long time.

But then Clara’s robot stopped suddenly on the roof of a three-story building, and Venture’s voice sounded through the room.

“That’s enough for today. Emmett, meet us in the training hub.”

Emmett retracted his whip. Then he jogged out of the Gray Room while the grayscale representation of Belport and the Clara’s robot disappeared behind him.

~

Dr. Venture and Clara were waiting for him in the training room.

Clara gave Emmett a small smile as he entered. Venture didn’t.

“That’s enough for today,” Venture said, hands clasped behind his back and eyes hard.

Emmett wanted to argue. He was sore, sure—every muscle in his body felt like it had a hot coal buried in it, but he could’ve kept going. He wanted to keep going.

But all Emmett could think to say was, “I’m not that sore.”

At that, Venture smirked, quick and fleeting. “It might not feel like it, but your new body needs rest and sleep—almost as much as your old one did. Your muscles will recover faster and your coordination will improve faster too.

“Go home, rest, and take care of the classwork you’ve been neglecting. Doctor’s orders.”

~ ~ ~