1996-

  “Good morning, Shirou.” Dr. Yamada walked into the secured room. He wore a

  protective suit and helmet. His subject still leaked radiation in the air a year after his

  unwanted transformation. The Institute was still trying to find a way to stop that so

  he could be safe to be around.

  No one wanted to work with a source of cancer and poisoning.

  “You said you had some things to tell me.” Shirou Mirota hovered off the floor,

  sitting on the air. Shields covered his eyes, while the protective suit he had worn

  when he penetrated the sample sphere from the Ninety Rampage had become his

  second skin.

  “We think we have a way to block your radiation leak so you can go outside for

  limited times.” Yamada sat down on the floor. Chairs and other furniture were absent

  from the room.

  Shirou didn’t need them, and didn’t want them since his body slowly cooked them

  away.

  No one wanted a reminder they weren’t human anymore.

  “Seriously?” Shirou grinned. “How do you plan to do that?”

  “We believe that we have devised a coating that we can use as a cover on you.”

  Yamada placed his hands together. “We don’t know how effective it would be, but

  felt it would allow you to leave this room and not kill everything around you.”

  “When do you want to test this coating?” Shirou already saw several flaws in the

  plan. He decided to file them while the experiment went ahead.

  He was ready to leave his unwanted home to do anything but stare at the same four

  walls day after day.

  Even reading, or watching televison, or trying to find things on the Internet, was

  governed by a screen set up behind a protective shield so he didn’t fry the circuits

  trying to use it. Waldos enabled him to manipulate what he was looking at without

  allowing him to leave the heavy shielding of his room.

  It would be nice to see the world with his own eyes again.

  “We are making the first batch downstairs.” Dr. Yamada nodded at his expression.

  “It might need some fine-tuning and testing in controlled areas, but we are confident

  that we can make you safe around other people.”

  “What about the rest of this?” Shirou indicated his body with a wave of his hand.

  “Can you reverse any of this?”

  “We don’t know.” Yamada wanted to have a more comforting assessment of his

  employee’s welfare. All of the experts he had consulted had no clue on how to reverse

  the alchemy performed on Morita. “Dr. Hassick’s workings are indecipherable. Dr.

  Craft and others are searching for him, but he has kept his head down after what he

  did here.”

  Dr. Craft led the Robot Rangers. Shirou had met him and his mechanical minions

  when they had arrived to save the city. He made it seem like he and Hassick were old

  enemies.

  How long had they been feuding before the apartment building man had come to life?

  “The thing made me into a monster.” Shirou glowed slightly. “If you hadn’t arrived

  with that gravity gun, I would be a mindless thing attacking everyone around me.”

  “You aren’t.” Yamada frowned. “The focus has to be on making you better with what

  we have. We know that the holy water damaged the shell and the liquid that was

  transforming you, but it doesn’t do anything to you the way you are now. We know

  that you can fly, are strong, and release radiation. Some of the scientists that are

  helping with this coat think you can learn how to turn the radiation into some kind of

  controlled beam.”

  “They think I can fry something on demand?” Shirou raised eyebrows. “Like some

  kind of laser beam shooting out of my eyes.”

  “They think so.” Yamada nodded. “The question is one of control. There might be a

  process inside of you that allows that. I might have destroyed the control when I used

  the gravity gun.”

  “So what do they expect me to do?,” asked Shirou.

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  “I don’t know.” Dr. Yamada shook his head. “I don’t want you to do anything until

  we apply the coating and see if the base does anything. Then if you want to

  experiment, we’ll have some kind of dampener in place.”

  “Do you think this will work?” Shirou didn’t. He didn’t know what the source of his

  radiation was, but he doubted any coating would stop it.

  “I don’t know.” Yamada stood. “I do know that you are in a prison and could have

  mental problems unless we do something. So I am going to try to do something for

  you. If it helps others in the same circumstances, that is just a bonus as far as I am

  concerned.”

  “I understand.” Shirou nodded. Dr. Yamada and his people worked on strange

  mysteries. They had found some answers. Those answers had been used to stop other

  problems from other sources. This was one of those things that could be used for a

  lot of things that people would never know about unless it failed in some way.

  If cutting his effect down worked, they could use it other places to mitigate radiation

  problems.

  The door buzzed. Yamada went over and looked through the glass into the airlock

  outside the door. He nodded.

  “I’m going to open the door and let the others in,” said Dr. Yamada. “Then we are

  going to apply the coating and see what the base does on contact with you.”

  “Go ahead.” Shirou waved a hand. “I want to see what this does.”

  Yamada opened the door. Two technicians entered the room. One wheeled a tank

  with a hose on a dolly. The other had a cart of sensory equipment. They both wore

  full suits to prevent a lethal dose of poisoning from their subject.

  “Recording the base setting.” The technician at the controls flipped some switches,

  looked at the numbers and the graphs rolling out on strings of paper. “This is way too

  high.”

  “Applying the coating.” The other technician pointed the hose on the tank at Shirou.

  He turned the knob all the way open, then pulled the trigger-handle to let the paint

  out.

  Shirou barely felt the impact. He turned under the spray. He sank to the floor as the

  coating stuck to him, a few streaks dropping to the metal surface. He felt cooler.

  “I feel better.” Shirou lifted his arms as more of the paint fell on him. “I feel almost

  normal.”

  “The temperature and rads are dropping.” The sensory equipment showed flatter lines

  on its output.

  “Pour it all on?” The first technician checked the gauge on the tank as he kept the

  stream of liquid flowing.

  “Yes.” Yamada nodded inside his helmet. “We want him completely covered so we

  can see if this is working as planned.”

  Shirou closed his eyes. The coat seemed to be cooling him off as it cut the radiation

  from the room. He might be able to go outside again. That would be better than

  looking at pictures on a screen.

  He knew he would never touch anything with his real hands again. The altered suit

  and this paint put that to an end.

  How damaged was he now? He had heard the reports and seen graphs. He had never

  considered the fact that two of his senses worked as far as he knew. He didn’t know

  about taste and smell. Would they still work as usual? Was sight and hearing all he

  had left?

  At least he might still be able to fly as long as he took it slow and easy. Dropping

  radiation on the citizens of Japan while he imitated birds would be frowned upon by

  the government.

  He knew from some of the scuttlebutt he heard that the Ministry wanted to test him

  to see how well he held up to their examinations. He was sure that anything major

  would cause an event.

  And he didn’t want anyone probing his guts on the chance they might find out how

  to make more like him.

  Who wanted to lose their humanity to be living weapons? How much were they

  willing to give up for their transformations?

  He knew it was something he wouldn’t want people he hated to have to go through.

  “We might have done it, Doctor.” The second man raised a fist. “Everything is

  reading what it would be for a normal irradiated room.”

  “Tank’s empty.” The other man turned the knob to cut off the flow. “Is it holding?”

  “So far, so good.” The second man nodded. He held up the printing line as it rolled

  through his hand to the floor.

  Dr. Yamada frowned as he walked over and examined the readings. Everything

  looked good for the moment. What happened if the paint failed?

  “We need to run tests to make sure the paint will keep working.” Yamada nodded.

  “We need to know what happens if Shirou exerts himself.”

  “Shirou, see if you can fly with the coating on.” The technician pulled the tank back

  to the inner door of the airlock. “That’s the simplest test we can give him right now.”

  Shirou willed himself into the air. He floated gently as he always did.

  “The count is up some, but it’s still lower than without the coating.” The second

  technician laughed. “This is great.”

  “No,” said Dr. Yamada. “It’s peeling with the trivial exertion he is doing. Land

  Shirou. Let’s see if that will stop the coating’s degradation.”

  Shirou landed. He checked his hands. Small scales showed through the paint job. He

  sighed. At least he didn’t have his hopes up for a solution.

  “May I?,” asked Yamada. He held out a hand.

  Shirou extended a hand. The doctor took it and looked over both sides. He nodded.

  “We need a little more work on the formula, but this is better than I expected.”

  “I don’t understand.” Shirou took the hand back and looked it over. “This looks like

  a failure to me.”

  “No.” Yamada shook his head. “Your body heated up at the extremities when we

  asked you to fly and cooked the coating at those places. The torso coating is still

  there, and blocking a portion of the radiation. We just need to get the formula to resist

  the effects of your powers in your limbs. Once we do that, we can work on actual tests

  so you can get out of here without killing anyone.”

  “I am all for that plan.” Shirou nodded.