I don't mind, but… I wasn't planning for this to be an ongoing thing, and it doesn't make sense in terms of utility. If internet connections were reliable I could just create a webpage where people could list their main ailment and what other modifications they were content to have-.
At worst, you can leave Karon a communicator that lets her get in touch with you. And she can sort out contacting people when you've got time to do a clinic day...
"Nonsense! Zhe human brain is more zhan capable of perceiving sound in three dimensions!"
"Yeah, but… I don't want my ear transplanted to the top of my head."
...Oh, no. Is Cranius talking to his soon-to-be patients?
"Zhat is where owls have it! Do you zhink you know better zhan owls?! Can you catch moths mit your mouth?!"
Karon and I make momentary eye contact, both of us wincing.
Yeah, most people don't
want to do that.
"Unt what would we replace it with? Ah! Why don't we let you see sideways!"
As before, that announcement is immediately met with the sound of hurried feet and the slamming of a door.
Sounds like that patient decided not to bother today.
"Ingrate!"
Karon winces as she watches the patients with cataracts blindly flee for the door and miss.
...
Ow. Yeah, best to ask Cranius
not to talk to folks in the waiting room...
"Ah… I think you should see that guy next."
"You calm him down, I'll calm Cranius down."
Good idea. I doubt Karon could manage to handle the walking brain guy. Nor that he'd pay attention to a
normal.
"Sounds good." She affects a public service smiles and walks over to help the man up, while I head into Cranius's work area-.
Then step back because Cranius was right behind the door.
Okay,
way too close.
"Ah! So!" … "Oh, it's you." He shakes his head… Or whole body, I suppose, then retreats back into the room. "Anozher fool who will not change."
I frown as I follow him, closing the door behind me as Karon escorts his former patient to an ice pack.
Sadly, I suspect Cranius will not be kindly disposed to OL's point of view. Too...
Mundane.
"Me or him?"
He rotates on Otto's shoulders, waving Otto's right arm dismissively. "Oh, bozh of you. Your ring gives you anyzhing you want, and you turn yourself into a swimsuit model!"
Hey, peak human is always going to be damn fine. He can't help it.
"Yes? Because looking like this gives me everything I want..?"
"But you could want more!"
And if he wanted it, he would have it, then give it up when he didn't want it anymore. An orange Ring makes his physique
very malleable.
"Yes." I nod. "But I don't. It took me a while to even reconfigure my own eyes."
"Even reindeer can see ultraviolet light! You cannot tell me that you could not modify yourself in zhat way."
Why would he need to when he has a Power Ring? it's sensory system is far more potent.
"I could, but… I'd have to either reconfigure a bunch of things -and I don't know how to do that- or… Change how I perceive all other colours to make room. And even if I could work out how to safely change my brain, I'd be stopping myself doing other things with my time while I adjusted."
Funnily, that's one of the reasons Batman gives whenever he's offered super-soldier serums or similar enhancements.
"Jah, it's always harder for zhe first one to untergo zhe process!" He sags, though Otto remains completely upright. The effect is to make him look like he doesn't have a neck, which.. is technically true. "But nobody wants to experiment!"
"No, people do want to experiment, they're just not as enthusiastic for-." I frown at him. "Okay, there's something about you that I don't understand. Your brain is made of human brains, right?"
That doesn't mean the mind running on it thinks like a human does, though.
"Jah? What of it?"
"Humans have a built-in sense of what's healthy. What things should look like. But assuming that your brain is working more or less like a normal human brain… With some extras, you should have that same sense. You may not like this intellectually but you should understand it empathically."
Sadly, I doubt Anton Arcane put that much thought into it when he made Cranius.
"Anton Arcane would not have left such a thing in any of us."
"So why don't you add it back in?"
Oh, yes. It's just that easy, I suppose.
"Because zhat would make me like everyone else!"
"But you'd be able to understand them better. Be able to understand what they'd accept better."
Too bad that by
his standards, what they'd accept is
boring.
"Geh."
Some of the tension leaves-. Well, leaves Otto, but I assume that it was coming from his domitor. I can see Cranius's anger-. Ah. Something Anton Arcane did to compel his creation to do this sort of work.
I wonder how much of Cranius' emotions filter into Otto. If Cranius gets angry enough to want to punch something, do Otto's hands clench?
"Have you..? Ever had yourself checked out by a professional magician? My friend Superboy, when he was broken out of Cadmus Laboratories, he had codes implanted in his brain that could be activated by speaking to him. Compulsions-."
"Yah, we had a compulsion to throw ourselves off a cliff when Arcane died."
But you were able to
resist it. Even so, some deeper compulsions might still be there...
"But are you sure that's the only one? Because I can see a very strong drive in you to-."
"Jah! I was made as a tool. I was not made as a man. Why are you surprised that my desires relating to zhe zhing I was made to do are strong!"
He has a point. He was made to make monsters out of people. At least he
asks first now.
"If that's who you are then that's who you are. I just think it would be worth checking. But if you don't want to do that, then I suggest moderating your demands. Pick something that doesn't change their outside so much, or something that's more aesthetically pleasing. That's what I do. You can even suggest stranger things at the start to-."
...Nudge people into softer aspects? Why not work on some augmented organs, as in the Renegade timeline? Such a big Warhammer 40,000 fan and yet he never thought of suggesting bio-augments?
"Clearly-" He puts Otto in 'drive' and storms past me. "-I em wasting my time here."
"Cranius-."
...Sadly, he's flubbed all his relationship events with Cranius, it seems.
He turns on his heel and thrusts his face towards mine. "Unt your mole composition is all wrong!"
Huh?
OL has
moles? They must be tiny, and well out of the way.
Another set of slammed doors, and a brief intake of breath from the waiting room as he stomps through, and then out into the street outside.
What's wrong with my mole composition? I mean, obviously the sort of symmetry I have doesn't occur in nature, but so what? They can do their job if I'm not carrying my-
...
Moles have a biological function?
Ah, she managed to talk the poor half-blind fellow around?
She comes back into the corridor from my workroom. "If Cranius has gone, would you mind fixing Kevin's cataracts? I don't think he's going to volunteer for anything experimental."
"Yeah, I'll do that."
Pity. Maybe he'll accept a little tweak to improve visual acuity, or extend his optical range?
He glances towards the front door. "Is he coming back?"
"I don't know. Maybe." I shake my head. "Probably not. He can't settle for less than radical physical transformations, and…"
Most people aren't up for that sort of thing...
"Not everyone wants to be a squid-man."
"Yeah. But, that's his problem. Let's sort Kevin out now."
Maybe I can sell him on reindeer eyes?
Heh. Cranius did have
some points.
