What a pleasant surprise, obviously someone sees the value in Tesla’s genius. He already had a plan to escape any prison they sent him to, nothing on Earth could hold a man like Doctor Tesla, but then he made bail.

  Why would the judge do that? He had killed Eric, left his son and wife to fend for themselves. How are they? Are they having dinner? Wasn’t he supposed to join them? He was bringing... something, he told Eric to let them know.

  Then Silverline betrayed him.

  Tesla grinds his teeth and starts breathing harder and harder, his eyelids twitching. He grabs at his chest, and grins wide. There’s no need for anger anymore, he has become like the Count of Monte Cristo, he has taken his revenge.

  But there are still loose threads, aren’t there? Like who has bailed him out, why would a judge set bail? He’s a murderer, justified, maybe the judge saw the justice in it? But there’s no justice in the other one, the other death. That woman Prehistoric Kid was protecting.

  Prehistoric Kid.

  Prehistoric Kid.

  Prehistoric Kid.

  His teeth grind together as his grin stretches so far it hurts the corners of his lips. They get to continue their little game, get to continue—

  Tesla is torn away from his thoughts as he finds himself in front of a limo, a nice limo, and a driver opens the door for him. Who could this benefactor be? Grant Connors? Why is Tesla involved with him again? Oh yes, he wants to kill him.

  Is Everett alright?

  The thrill of curiosity satisfied runs through his veins, like lightning, as he enters the car, and sees who’s freed him. A heavy set man, with shoulders as wide as two Tesla’s sat next to each other.

  “Hm,” Tesla taps his chin, “I have no idea who you are.”

  “My names Robert, Robert Reynolds.” The giant man holds out a hand, and Tesla takes it without hesitation.

  He recognizes the name, Ms. Beth and Ms. Delilah had mentioned a Robert while they did business, and so the pieces start to fall into place.

  “You want me to kill Prehistoric Kid?” Tesla smiles.

  “The enemy of my enemy, there’s drinks in there.” Reynolds leans back and gestures to an ice box.

  “Ooo.” Tesla opens it up and pulls out a grape soda, popping the cap off with his thumb and watching the cool vapors leak out. He takes a refreshing sip and lets out an exaggerated “ah,” after he swallows the crisp, fizzy liquid.

  “I’ll need a lab to build a better suit, materials, a discreet location so Prehistoric Kid and technological savvy friend cannot find me before—”

  Reynolds holds out a hand for him to stop, and Tesla finds it in himself to oblige.

  “This is about more than killing the lizard.”

  “He’d tell you dinosaurs aren’t lizards.” Tesla chuckles.

  “I’m well aware.” Reynolds rumbles, his face turning red.

  Unsurprising, in between their bouts, Prehistoric Kid was always interfering with the illegal drug and weapons trade. Why, even the Mexican Cartel’s political business, when he can. The young man must be getting very expensive.

  “I want to hire you Doctor Brown.”

  “Tesla.”

  “Doctor Tesla, to kill that brat, but that’s only the half of it. The world is changing, fast, and I want to get ahead of the curve. In short, I want you to build us weapons.”

  “Oh? An interesting prospect! I’m listening.”

  “People like Prehistoric Kid are becoming more and more common, and I want to be able to fight them head on. You build suits and weapons that can handle anomalies, for me and my people, and I’ll make sure you become very, very rich.”

  Tesla’s grin stretches enough to hurt again. He doesn’t particularly care about the money, as useful as it can be, but arming these people? The people who Prehistoric Kid so obviously has a personal vendetta against? Now that sounds like fun.

  “The materials necessary will be quite expensive, especially if you mean to arm more than a few individuals. Will you be able to handle that, Mr. Reynolds?”

  “My partners already have it handled, as well as that discreet location you mentioned.”

  “Oh? So well prepared.”

  “After you met my friends, paid them in advance for all that discreet smuggling, I already had my eye on you. I’ve been preparing this pitch for a few weeks now.”

  “I respect a man with an eye for quality!” Tesla chuckles, “And I gladly accept your proposition!”

  “Good, we’re already on the way to your new lab Doctor, I think you’ll enjoy it.”

  It’s a long, albeit comfortable drive to a port in downtown San Diego. While an oceanside warehouse is certainly a classic supervillain trope, Tesla has his doubts of it being at all discreet, especially enough to avoid Prehistoric Kid, but then Mr. Reynolds guides him onto a boat.

  It's another long ride as they bounce across the water, sending salty sea spray airborne, until they reach an island. It's almost as if they’ve been transported to a South American jungle, the tree and plant life being so thick that if anyone were to stray off the beaten path, it feels as if they’d be lost forever, left to join the detritus across the ground.

  Despite this, Tesla feels the electricity firing within the nervous system of animal and man alike, occasionally catching glimpses of armed patrols.

  “This island, created by one of these anomalies?” Tesla muses as they approach a facility, vines creeping up its walls.

  “Probably, I know my partners have a few under their employ.” Robert gestures to some men as they approach a large compound of sorts. They nod and hurry to open its large, metal doors, allowing the men to step inside.

  “Yet they’re fine with you creating weapons that can compete with them?”

  “The current leader of this Cartel is a funny man.” Robert nods to a man as they walk in. “He prefers there to be ways to keep these people in check, and besides, ultimately? All he really cares about is money, and there’s a lot of money in what you can build for us.”

  “So you say Robert,” A Hispanic man looks to them, away from directing groups of workers setting up various tools and hardware. “But Doctor Brown needs to prove himself, just because he can use this technology, with those reckless pads of his, doesn’t mean everyone will.”

  “It's Doctor Tesla,” He narrows his eyes at the man. “And you are?”

  “Jesus Herrada, and I’m not calling you that ridiculous name.” He rolls his eyes. “Play the dinosaur boy’s game when you’re out in spandex with him if you must, but in here, I simply won’t be able to take you seriously.”

  “Heh.” Tesla’s finger twitches, trying to summon a lightning bolt to smite this man, but alas, he can’t reach out the heavens without his technology. “You’re quite charming, Herrada, what exactly is your purpose here?”

  “Your lab partner, overseer, surely you didn’t expect to have complete free reign?”

  “No, deadlines are part of the job, but, I can’t help but notice you didn’t introduce yourself as Doctor, Mister Herrada.”

  “Tsk,” Herrada furrows his brow, frowns with his teeth showing, “I assure you, I don’t need a doctorate, I— Hey!”

  His attention snaps away from the conversation to a group of people setting up a workstation, two struggling with a heavy terrarium, nearly dropping it. The veins in his neck bulge as he snarls at them in Spanish, his fingers twitching.

  The workers cower as Herrada berates them, and Tesla saunters over to get a look at what's inside. Some plant matter, dirt, tunnels, and ants, Mr. Herrada was so set off by ants? Tesla looks at the struggling workers, one an older man, and puts a hand under the exhibit. While his genius is his primary ability, he’s aware that he unlocked something in himself, became more, and lends his strength to the gentleman.

  “I fail to see how an entomologist will help me in engineering work.” Tesla wipes his hands.

  “I’m not a bug doctor,” Herrada scoffs, as if he’s a doctor at all. “They are simply my pets, and my tools.”

  “Tools?”

  This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

  “Notice how large they are, Doctor Brown? They’re bullet ants.” Herrada takes the lid off the ant farm, and sticks his finger in, one of his thousands of pets crawling onto him. “Called that, because their sting is said to feel just like a gunshot.” He holds up the insect to the workers, and they cower away.

  “A tool to keep them in line?”

  “A tool to punish, should they ever displease me.”

  “Barbaric.” Tesla chuckles.

  “Says the one who incinerated a man because of a petty squabble.”

  “Herrada,” Robert flexes his jaw, “you have a lot of leash, but don’t think you can keep talking to one of mine like this.”

  “Ha! And what would you do about it Rey—” Herrada stops, bites his tongue with a “tsk,” as some familiar faces enter the room.

  “Ah, Ms. Beth, Ms. Delilah, a pleasure to see you again!” Tesla greets them, then notices both of their demeanors.

  “Are you serious Robbie?” Beth screams bloody fury at him.

  “Who told you? I was—”

  “It doesn’t matter, you know what he did!”

  What he did? Such an odd reaction to seeing him again, last they did business it was nothing but pleasant.

  “You better have brought him here as a gift Uncle.” Delilah leans against a supply crate and crosses her arms.

  “What is this Reynolds?” Herrada asks.

  “Quiet!” He yells in the ant man’s direction, then lowers himself down to eye level with Beth. “I need him, we need him, this is the single, biggest opportunity we’ve ever had.”

  Beth stares at him, and reaches down to her belt, unholstering a gun.

  “Beth,” Robert clenches his teeth.

  “He hurt my son.”

  Tesla narrows his eyes, hurt her son?

  “Ms. Beth, if I may—”

  “Quiet if you don’t want a bullet between your eyes.” Beth spits at Tesla.

  “You need to back the fuck off.” Reynolds says in a low thunder, “Delilah, take your mom out of here.”

  “I’m on her side.” Delilah glares over to Tesla, “he killed that woman right in front of Timmy, and he hasn’t been ok. Like I said, he better be a gift.”

  Tesla’s eyes go wide, his hand covers his mouth as he smiles, it stretches to the ends of physical limits, the corners of his lips splitting from the strain of this ecstatic revelation. He never cared to learn Prehistoric Kid’s identity, it wasn’t important, not part of the show, the game, but now? Working with his mother and sister? Now that has potential.

  “Allow me to apologize, and make it up to you, ladies.” Tesla says, “I have plenty more money buried away from my escapade at the bank, I don’t mind paying you and your son... restitution, let's call it.”

  Robert frowns, but the women? They’re interest perks up, Beth more than her daughter.

  “How much?” Beth taps the gun at her side.

  “Oh around fifty thousand or so, all yours of course.”

  That’s most of his savings gone, but this is worth it. Though, Tesla gets a small pang of regret, if he had started lower, he could see just how much Prehistoric Kid’s pain is really worth to his mother.

  Beth looks good to Delilah, who shakes her head, but is ignored.

  “Fine, I expect the money by tomorrow.”

  “He can’t safely leave the island.” Robert glares down at her.

  “I’ll get it.” Delilah sighs, “Just have him write down the instructions, doesn’t matter where in the city it is, I know it like the back of my hand.”

  “I’m more than happy too, would you prefer print or cursive my dear?” Tesla grins.

  “Print.” She says, unamused.

  “I’ll get right on it.” Tesla turns to Herrada, “Now, let’s finish setting up my lab.”

  Tesla’s ears buzz with delight as electricity dances amongst the crash and clangs of assembling machinery, his hands moving like a maestro making music. He feels a sudden tinge of panic as he expects something, a jolt of pain, but it never comes, and he quickly forgets.

  Herrada curses at his men, threatens them with his little pets, letting them climb onto a pen or a tool and shoving them in the worker’s face. Tesla watches as he constructs a fast assembly machine, with pieces of gear for himself, and as he constructs a Tesla Pad, he looks to one of the ants Herrada is using to assault a man, and gets a sudden jolt of inspiration.

  “This is ridiculous.” Herrada scoffs then cursed in Spanish. “The amount of power this thing needs, inefficient, how do you expect it to even turn on without being connected to the grid?”

  “You needn’t worry Herrada, I have it handled.” Tesla says as he puts the finishing touches on the assembly line.

  “What? Going to steal a nuclear reactor? Some other mad scientist machine? Perhaps you’ll need to cook that brain of yours more for something to come to you.”

  “I am very quickly tiring of your disrespect, assistant.”

  “Tsk, assistant.” He scoffs, “I assure you, I can engineer circles around you, Doctor. One does not need some fancy American schooling to be a genius, obviously.” He raises his chin and dares to look down on Tesla.

  “Those words are laced with implications, assistant.”

  “I am not your assistant! And yes, there are, you’re no genius Brown, you’re a freak of nature. Your entire career you floundered with your grand ideas, and then you try and boil your brain, get lucky, and turn an exoskeleton into a battle suit. I wonder, why did you actually put on those death traps? It had to be desperation, yes? Desperation for what though? To try and crawl back to Eric Silverline for your job back, or did you just want to die?”

  Tesla doesn’t answer, simply slipping on a new gauntlet and admiring it.

  “Oh! Ha! Haha! Trying to threaten me hmm? As if I’m scared of your glorified tasers.” Herrada boasts, “You think you can intimidate me? What? You murdered one man and lost a fight to a child, and think you can scare me? I am part of the Cartel, I have been to executions of tourists who’ve over stepped in a small town. I’ve tortured men, fed their mutilated fingers to my ants before shoving more down their throats.”

  “Inspiring.” Tesla flexes the gauntlet.

  “And you think to call me assistant? Me? You think because you have a doctorate you can talk down to me? Because some small time drug lord wants to use you to get into the weapons business? That any of that grants you any authority?” Herrada sticks his hand into his ant farm and lets the insect crawl up him.

  Tesla cocks his head and takes a hold of a Tesla Pad, playing with it in his palm. Smaller now, sleeker design, he should be able to integrate more onto his body. That way, if Prehistoric Kid is ever possessed to rip the ones off his head, he’ll still be in the fight.

  “I am your overseer, I am the one in charge.” Herrada walks up to Tesla, holding his ant covered hand up to him. “I am your boss, your master, Doctor Brown, and you will not disrespect me.”

  A spark comes out of the gauntlet and Harrada falls back, hitting his head on the ground and splitting his scalp open. His body jolts a few times as he, impressively, remains conscious for a few more moments, before passing out.

  “Master?” Tesla chuckles, kneeling over the man’s unconscious body, and plucks an ant from the man’s hand. He watches it squirm, pinched between the fingers of his gauntlet, then holds it up into the air, the Tesla Pad beside it. “If you want to be the master of something so bad, assistant, I’ll give you what you want.”

  Tesla asks the men to bring him books and pull up any videos they can as he gets to work. He’s by no means a surgeon, of course now that his mind has been expanded so, learning what he needs for Herrada’s operation is child’s play. Child…

  Prehistoric Kid.

  Tesla wonders if his rival might be amused by this, after all, he’s clearly a fan of science and the classical age of super hero media, and this is so full of whimsy and mad science. Though perhaps the boy would be more disturbed than anything, after all, as whimsical as this is, it’s also full of gristle.

  All in all, the surgical component of this fantastical new idea is a far smaller component than Tesla was expecting. Such is the way of new ground being broken, he supposes. Speaking of supposing, his initial thought of using the new Tesla Pads as the bases for his improvements on Assistant Herrada need a few tweaks.

  While the smaller, sleeker design is a stark improvement from the last iteration, they simply don’t have enough ‘storage’ for this new project. Tesla starts, stops, scraps, then starts again on new architecture for this new variant, then he runs into a new problem.

  He shakes his head and chuckles, “So focused on the human aspect of it all, I nearly forgot about the insect. Excuse me goodman,” He addresses the elderly worker, “if you could fetch me a book on entomology, particularly one on their anatomy, I’ll forever be in your debt.”

  It's a delicate process, fitting the chosen Bullet Ant into its new prosthetics. Even with Tesla’s skill the sheer complexity of it all takes him a few hours and by the time it's done, well it's far bulkier than Tesla would like, in all honesty, but what new technology isn’t? Besides, including a few bells and whistles will be necessary for basic conversation.

  Lightning moves from Herrada’s twitching body, brain exposed, into the cyborg ant. Like god breathing a soul into a husk, the ant begins to animate. Its mechanical legs move, twist, like the wrist of someone waking from a dream, one in which they lost their arms. Speakers at its font crackle with the static, a groan eventually emerging from the electronic noise.

  “Have a nice nap, Assistant Herrada?”

  “W-what’s going on.” The front right mechanical leg places itself on Herrada’s forehead, its end opening into a four fingered hand. “Why does everything look so...”

  “I did take the time to put new eyes into your new body, closer to human ones, but I suppose it's likely that you have better vision than in your old one. Or did you mean your lower perspective?”

  “What? What are you talking—” Herrada freezes as he looks up at Tesla, his leg scraping across the operating table as he tries to get away. “What! What’s happening!?” He cries out, the speakers straining to reach the volume he’s trying to convey.

  Tesla grins as the ant scrambles away, then bumps into the empty vessel behind him. Herrada freezes, slowly turning around, only to see his own eye staring down at him, his mouth open, and tongue hanging out.

  He whimpers now, his antenna twitching, his body shuddering, and his mechanical hand reaches in between his mandibles. Tesla puts both of his elbows on the table, and smiles smugly down at the ‘man.’

  “So, Herrada, who is who’s master again?”

  “You... You’re a madman, a monster.” His voice trembles.

  “Mad? No, visionary, and you, assistant, will be helping me with all my great works.” Tesla holds out his hands and drops a myriad of pro ethic pieces in front of him. “That is, once you add to your mass. You do love your ants, now go be their queen.” Tesla chuckles.

  “How? I- I can’t… You turned me into an ant? How? Why? I don’t—“

  “Don’t you worry Herrada, I will obviously help to guide you through your new metamorphosis. After all, you’re my assistant, my pupil, and I would never betray that relationship.