So, here’s Episode 1b. The B titles will usually be add-ons to the A titles or something to that effect. There’s lots of talking in this bit, and another new character. Kudos to anyone who laughs at the title before reading the chapter because they get the nerd joke. If you don’t, it’s vaguely explained later on.
Episode 1b: …And A Cat Named Schrödinger
Raven ran her hand along the cool metal side of the laptop. “This is amazing.”
“If that’s amazing, you should see some of my other work.” Phoenix smirked a little as they walked down the hallway toward his current home. “I just took the basic interface of your old laptop and gave it an upgrade and a new face with some of the stuff I had lying around here. It is pretty good for such a compact size though. I’ve been working on that.”
“Remind me why you’re not working for some big corporation and making good computers for the general public.”
Phoenix shrugged. “They’d either bog it down or charge more than it’s worth. The main point of that statement is that they’re a corporation. They’re trying to make money. I’m not. I’m just here to help.”
“Why, though?”
“Why, what?” The door unlocked as the inventor approached, and Raven only had a split second to wonder why before she reverted to thinking about his question.
“Why are you just here to help?”
“I’m not familiar with the entire story, seeing as how I’m on the back end of it…” Phoenix turned the doorknob and pushed the door open, a wave of cool air blasting in their faces before he stepped in.
“What I do know is that I was in really bad condition after… some sort of accident. I somehow got to the NSA, and asked them to make me forget everything. I had a really bad grudge against some guy, and I wasn’t a very nice person. I just wanted to start over.
“They erased my memories of my history, but not my memories of my inventions or how I made what I did, because they saw a use for me. I became an entirely new person from the ashes of my old self… and that’s why they call me Phoenix.”
“You had this all planned?” Raven asked as she glanced around at his apartment-like housing unit. Without illumination, the entire place was shrouded in a light blue-grey, matching the cool temperature. She thought she saw an animal for a moment, but when she glanced back, it was gone.
“Well, I had the name planned before I lost everything, yes. I wanted to help people deep down, and I managed to oblige that part before the… not so nice part surfaced again.”
“And you’ve been hanging around here ever since?”
“I only started being able to move around without pain recently. I don’t even remember most of the past few years.”
“Wow.”
“Well, this is it.” Phoenix sat down on a grey couch. It looked comfortable enough, and Raven sat on the other end, careful to keep her distance. The laptop came to rest on her lap, and she glanced down at it. It looked so sleek and smooth, she couldn’t help but run her fingertips across the metal again.
“Thanks again for the laptop.”
“It’s no problem, really. Oh, if you see Schrödinger, don’t mind him.”
“Who’s Schrödinger?” Raven asked, looking up.
“He’s the cat you saw earlier.”
“How did you-“
“You looked at him just before he shifted.” Phoenix shrugged. “I notice a lot of things people don’t think I notice. I just keep quiet about them unless the issue comes up.”
Raven blinked as his statement processed. “Before he what now?”
“Before he shifted. That’s what I call it when he moves through solid objects.”
“A cat that moves through solid objects…?”
“Okay, apparently I can’t get by with a sparse explanation.” Phoenix sighed and stared out the window. “Schrödinger was a dying cat I found a while ago. I decided I wanted to see if something would work, so I gave him some… supplements.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I figured out how to give him humanlike intelligence, speech capabilities, and a couple of powers. I thought I’d call him Schrödinger because he’s alive, and yet a good amount of him is machine, which is not alive. He’s alive and not alive at the same time, which is the basic principle of Schrödinger’s cat. It’s a bit skewed for my purposes, but hey. It’s a cat that talks and walks through walls. What are you going to do.”
“Wow.” Raven stared at her new partner. “How did you figure out how to give him powers?”
“I found out that in my ‘other life’ as I like to call it, I had been doing extensive research on how to artificially create superpowers. It apparently never came to fruition, but I figured out how to do it with animals as Schrödinger proved.”
“That’s amazing,” Raven mused, keeping her thoughts about how great it was that Syndrome hadn’t figured it out but Phoenix had to herself.
“Yeah, but I’ll never try it on people.”
“Why not?”
“Well, Schrödinger’s body accepted it better because he couldn’t feel the pain that came along with it. With a human, it’d have to be way more intense, and the pain from it would torture if not kill a person from shock. I don’t even want to test it out if it does something like that. Nature doesn’t like being tampered with.”
“Well, at least you don’t want to hurt people.”
“I figured that I’ve done enough of that in my lifetime, however short it’s been.”
Raven looked over at Phoenix for a minute, then started fiddling with her leather jacket.
“Why is it so cold in here?”
“I don’t know. It always has been.” Phoenix shook his head. “I think that someone thought with the nickname ‘Phoenix’ and my hair the way it is… they thought I had some sort of fire-based power or something. Rick doesn’t know because I didn’t complain about it, but…”
“Why not?”
“I don’t like complaining to Rick. Usually he gives me this look and it makes me feel like my problem is insignificant and that I really shouldn’t have brought it up, and then I feel like I’m being whiny and annoying. So I just don’t tell him the petty stuff anymore, and eventually I stopped being bothered by stuff as much.”
“You really have changed.”
“Huh?”
“Before the, ah…” Raven cleared her throat before continuing, “…accident, you weren’t the nicest person, obviously. You weren’t all that pleasant to be around, and you were horribly self-centered and childish. I like this new you much better.”
“Um, thanks?” Phoenix laughed nervously. “According to Rick, this is who I was deep down. Most of one’s personality is shaped by your memories, and this is me untainted by all that… bad stuff. Deep down, whoever I was ended up being a sarcastic optimist. Who knew?”
“I don’t think the sarcasm was deep down,” Raven said with a chuckle. “Listen, I should really be getting home. I need to tell my family the good news, and test out this little box of awesome.” She tapped the laptop gently.
“Okay. I’ll see you… when?”
“Tomorrow morning. I still haven’t gotten any cases yet because I haven’t heard anything, really. I plan to rectify that tomorrow.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
“See you then.” Raven smiled and walked out of the room. Phoenix didn’t notice the door closing, though, as Schrödinger had just appeared on the seat beside him.
“See? Rick was right. She did warm up to you.”
“You really need to stop following me places outside,” Phoenix responded. “I think you almost gave someone a heart attack.”
Schrödinger rolled his eyes. “Whatever. You know what you should do?”
“What?”
“Invent a time machine and something that creates pyrokinesis, then go back in time to when you were still healing up and give it to yourself.”
“Then I’d have the weaknesses that go along with it, though. I think I’ll just invent something for it.”
“Bo-ring.” Schrödinger stood up, his tail waving slightly. “Listen, I’d love to stay and chat, but I know you’ve got better things to do. In other words, check you later, I’m gone.” With that, Schrödinger jumped straight through the wall, and Phoenix was cold and alone, just like in his first memory.