Skitterdoc 2077
by SpiraSpira
A crossover between Worm and the Cyberpunk universe. MC is Taylor from an AU (Riley/Bonesaww triggered with QA bug control powers and killed Jack Slash) but she lived her life as is canon, then gets swapped into the Cyberpunk universe and must survive. Medical Tinker Taylor in a Cyberpunk world.
Original source: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/14155507/1/Skitterdoc-2077
Chapters: 64
Words: 463473
Rated: Fiction T — Language: English — Genre: Sci-Fi/Adventure — Reviews: 1,118 — Favs: 2,132 — Follows: 2,351
Exported with the assistance of FicHub.net
If she was a butterfly am I just a moth?
A Moth's Wings and a Tyger's Claws
A pussy cat with Claws
Chippin' In
Weapon of Ass Destruction
The Kids Aren't Alright, Actually
Fit Right In
The Complete Idiot's Guide
Relics of a hard life
If you're not first, you're last!
Stormy Clouds
I'm bona fide
Rockstar of medicine
Proper fucked
Stop! Not like that!
Rose coloured glasses
Treading water
Base visit
You mean I'm not getting paid for this?
Front-leaning rest position
Muffins
A gig to build a dream on
in flagrante delicto
The anger of a gentle man
Crime against humanity and decency
Walls closing in
SIDESTORY: Retainer
Keep on rollin'
I'm that girl!
The Solo's Manual
I knew you were into that weird shit!
I Want Peking Duck!
We're the Neon Angels!
The meeting of two great entrepreneurs
Absolutely nothing will go wrong!
Civic improvement
Anything that can go wrong...
will go wrong
She bravely turned her tail and fled
We're the government & are here to help
Kyaaa!
Discourse
Ano what is the opposite of hiatus?
Lizzie Borden took an axe
Bodyblow
A Great Success!
Second chances
Tinker, Taylor, Entrepreneur, Spy
You are cordially invited
SPACE! I'm in space!
Nuka-Girl
Superpower? That's a midpower
Higher education
Magna Cum Laude
Sidestory: Junior Illuminati Agent
An offer she can't refuse
Nine to giving it
She got the job!
Get your ass to Mars
Patience, little crystal
Nobody Do Voodoo Like You Do
Odd bedfellows
Unification
It's treason, then (pt1)
next chapterchapter list
If she was a butterfly am I just a moth?
I thought I would die inside that locker, and I thought for a while that I did, but that couldn't have been what happened. I had been trapped in there for hours, screaming myself hoarse... school had already let out, and I was just hoping a janitor might find me. It was a futile hope after none of my fellow students, and I was pretty sure even teachers ever helped me, but I wasn't going to give the Trio the satisfaction oaf murdering me without even trying to save myself. Rage, rage against the dying of the light, my mom would have quoted.
Did you know that Winslow turned off all the heat as soon as school was out? I mean, when it was working at all. I lost consciousness shivering, wondering whether it was the hypothermia or toxic shock that would kill me first.
[DESTINATION.]
[AGREEMENT.]
[TRAJECTORY.]
[CONCERN.]
[DATA!]
[CO-#^ &*
I regained consciousness thumping onto the floor as if I had rolled off the top bunk of a bunk bed. I hit with considerable force, and though I groaned in pain, the wind having been knocked out of me, I had already diagnosed my shoulder, which I mostly landed on with nothing more than a contusion.
I thought someone had opened up the locker, and I must have spilt out onto the floor like a sack of potatoes, but opening my eyes and glancing up, I appeared to be in a small, efficiency apartment. I could see the small kitchenette directly in front of me, and it looked like they hadn't even finished unpacking because the ground was littered with brown cardboard boxes with the name "MILITECH" stencilled on the side.
Great, I was kidnapped by a gang that was... doing a... guns deal? Gun trade? What the hell? That doesn't make any sense. It made more sense that I died, except...
If I died, I wouldn't still be covered with the blood and filth that was in the locker, surely. And the afterlife wouldn't be a shitty apartment full of cardboard boxes. And there wasn't any trail of such filth coming from the door, so there was no way I walked or was dragged in here.
Wait...
Wait one second!
I teleported! I must be a cape! I triggered with a teleportation Mover power... but please, why did I end up in the middle of some stash house full of whatever is inside these Militech boxes? It had to be some kind of weapons in there even if they looked more like moving boxes; I mean... the name!
I always wanted to be a hero, but I sure wasn't ready right now! Power, I like your moxie in trying to break up a gun deal first thing, but we have to get ready first! You're moving almost as fast as Ladybug did when she killed Jack Slash as soon as she triggered over half a decade ago.
Since his death, it had been theorised that the famous serial killer had some type of Thinker precognition power that was especially useful against other capes, which allowed him to get away from so many heroes that attempted to bring him down so often, but when a six-year-old girl Triggered with bug-controlling powers while you were torturing her parents, who thankfully hadn't gotten around to calling the exterminator to remove the giant wasp hive in the backyard, well... there is only so much fancy footwork can do against thousands of wasps, all controlled with a singular purpose— to murder you.
Power, we don't even have a mask! I stood up and squinched my eyes. Power! Go back to Winslow, for now!
...
Power?... Go back... to my room at home!
Uh, go... anywhere else but here? Wait, anywhere safe but here! I don't want to be in a volcano, next to Oni Lee or at the bottom of the ocean!
I stood there with my hands balled into my fists, eyes closed, eyebrows furrowed and face scrunched up. It suddenly dawned on me how ridiculous I looked. I looked like Carrie after she was drenched in pig's blood trying to hold a fart in.
The thought of the blood and my cut fingers, damaged fingernails and numerous scratches on my body had a number of possible bacterial infections and toxic shock syndrome coming to my head. In fact, I was already infected with a number of harmful bacteria, which might proceed to sepsis in as little as twelve hours if left untreated. I was sure of it. Prompt treatment was important at this stage, and I started moving without realising what I was doing. There was no phone visible to call emergency services, and leaving this apartment was fraught with peril, so I would have to treat myself, which was not a big deal at all...
I came back to my senses in the shower, just letting the hot water run all over my body. It felt heavenly after being stuck in that locker for hours. Not only was it disgusting, but I was a tall girl, and my shoulders and neck were crinked from being in there so long... or at least they were. Rolling my neck, it felt a lot better after having the hot water run on them for so long.
I sort of remembered what I had been doing as if my body had been on autopilot for a while. I stepped out of the shower, giving the bloody remnants of my clothes a wide berth. I didn't care if this was Lung's personal stash house; there was no way I would ever wear those clothes again. I'd rather run through the Docks in nothing but this towel!
I glanced at a mug that read "World's Number One Dad" that was half-filled with an off-white powder. I had already taken about twenty milligrams of the powder. It was a shame that there were no gel capsules around, and the time necessary for me to fabricate an actual pill press would have caused my treatment to be delayed unacceptably.
This drug was an extremely effective broad-spectrum antibiotic. Only one treatment was necessary to eradicate everything from syphilis to MRSA and everything in between. Honestly, there was really only one negative side effect to it...
I immediately threw my towel off my body and rushed to the toilet. Thankfully in such a small bathroom, it was only two steps away.
"Oh, shit..." I said aloud as I felt my stomach rumbling dangerously.
And shit, I did.
I realised I was a Tinker about halfway through the twenty minutes I spent on the toilet. I would have learned immediately, but for the first ten minutes, there was no real conscious thought at all. Just groaning and pain.
The antibiotic had literally destroyed every micro-organism in my body, which actually would have been a really bad thing as humans had evolved to depend on their microfauna biome. Except it wasn't the only thing, I made when I was in a fugue.
There were no amounts of courtesy flushing that would forgive the sin I committed against this commode, so I just flushed it for what must have been the twelfth time once, grabbed the mug full of super antibiotics and walked out of the bathroom.
I had made four drugs at the kitchenette, which I found incredibly impressive. It wasn't even a proper kitchen; it was the kind that you might find in a hotel that you rented by the week or crappy apartments... like the crappy apartment, I was currently in.
I had memories of already taking two of the drugs, the other one I needed to take immediately, and the last was made as a contingency.
The second drug I had taken in my fugue made me frown deeply, and I started to get pissed off. It was an anti-depressant, and it was as good as the antibiotic was. It was guaranteed to normalise neurotransmitter levels within six to twelve hours of administration and only needed to be taken once a week.
Did my power think I was depressed?!... well... I mean... It still didn't have the right to take the decision out of my hands itself!
Wait, why was I talking about my power like it was another person? The Agent theory of Parahuman powers was widely denigrated, and only crazy crackpots on PHO actually subscribed to it. I just wasn't used to going into a fugue as I had done.
At the back of my mind rested a deep field of absolute knowledge, like I had a hundred different encyclopedias hooked into my brain. The knowledge was mostly about medicine, biology, anatomy, organic chemistry and genetics. I had also been trying hard not to think about the vast trove of psychiatric data I had access to.
According to the same part of my brain that diagnosed the exact strains of staph bacteria I had been exposed to, I was at a mental health crisis point; just one bad day would have been all that it took to push me over the edge into some permanent solutions. It felt that gaining powers was only postponing the inevitable and that I would likely do something foolish and get myself killed in a classic example of self-destructive behaviour if I didn't take things in hand. It felt that my mental state was a bigger danger than the bacteria. It could be treated pharmacologically, but that wasn't really a cure.
I did... not like being confronted with this. But, my possible mental breakdown and a psychological break could wait. I was really at some risk if I didn't take this third drug very soon.
I had made it out of a can of yoghurt and some miscellaneous kitchen chemicals, the latter of which was the same thing I made the other three drugs out of, which didn't make me feel that much better about them, except that I knew that they would work and be fine.
Sighing, I grabbed a spoon out of the drawer and ate the entire can of yoghurt. Mmm, it was strawberry flavour. This would replace all the beneficial microbiomes in my digestive system after the earlier antibiotic wrecked it.
After finishing the yoghurt, I glanced at the last drug I had made, which I hadn't thought much about. I made it as a contingency, as a tool to escape. I was already exhausted, but if I was in the middle of a dangerous area like the docks or deep in Empire or ABB territory, I might not have enough time to stay in this stash house. There was no telling when someone might arrive. It might be months or minutes!
So I made a very potent dopamine reuptake inhibitor; it was a very strong and long-lasting neural stimulant. One dose, and I could stay awake for at least forty-eight hours with no real side effects.
My hand rushed to cover my own mouth in shock. Aghast, I said, "Oh, no..."
Had I just Broken Bad and created super-meth? Already? Oh god. No, no, no! I will not be Skidmark's second girlfriend! What will they call me? Hollar, to go with Squealer?! I felt ill.
I shook my head rapidly to clear it and stared at the over six hundred grams of powder in an empty old margarine tub as if I had just made some mashed potatoes or something. Oh god! A single dose was only twenty-five milligrams by oral administration! The PRT would get me for distribution! If the gangs didn't catch me first!
It was all over!
I started panting, acutely aware that I was hyperventilating and having an anxiety attack but ignoring the corner of my brain that was brimming full of medical advice. I sat down, slumped on a couch on the other side of the room, which was surrounded by boxes full of guns and stared out into space for a time.
I wasn't sure if it was because the super-antidepressants were starting to work, but I only let myself have a panic attack for about five or ten minutes at the most. After that, I started calming down a little bit, even if I was still kind of hyperventilating. I realised I wasn't thinking straight. Nobody knew what I had done. I could flush the incriminating evidence, and it would be fine.
I started to get up to go do just that, but something caught my eye on the coffee table in front of me. It was one of only two tables in the apartment, the other being a small table next to the kitchenette that was stacked full of cardboard boxes. This table, however, only had what looked like a smartphone on it. It was either a small tablet or a large phone, and I considered the latter to be more likely. Smartphones were still quite expensive, and this one looked even swankier than the DragonTech phones that were all the rage if you were rich.
That made her become very, very scared. Nobody would leave their expensive phone here if they were not going to come back and get it, and soon. I had to call the BBPD or the PRT right away, or I was going to be dead meat! I didn't think that the PRT would care about saving me at all, but they would be at least interested in all of these boxes, and I might get saved as a result, but I had to move fast. I had already spent at least two hours in a fugue making those drugs!
I was pretty sure you could still make an emergency call even if you didn't have the PIN number to unlock a phone, so I grabbed the phone off the table, the screen coming to life as soon as she picked it up.
