by Chewy Walrus
"Well, well... isn't this interesting?" came a voice from Dr. Charles Walker's console deep underneath the city of Chicago.
"What is it, Doc?" came a voice behind him. Walker turned to see Will Tweed standing behind him, a bottle of imported beer in his hand.
"Oh, hey, Bill. Have a seat," Walker said, indicating a chair next to him. "I was just reviewing the tapes we got from the Zoo job."
"And I take it, from the sound of your voice, that you found something," Tweed surmised, grunting as he sat.
"Indeed," Walker answered, strumming rhythmically at his keyboard. "Look at this."
"Agent Turner?" Tweed read, taking a sip of his brew. "What's this?"
"Plans. Blueprints. It's a map!" Walker said as a large smile crept across his face. "Turner... heh. Guy's a meta. Never would've figured that the top MCCA agent would have been a meta."
"Wait a sec!" Tweed interrupted. "The guy that gave you this here headquarters and told you what you were doing -- is a meta?"
"Not only that," Walker said, hitting a few more keys, "but he's also a clone."
"A clone?"
"Yes. A metahuman clone."
"So, what does that mean exactly?"
"It's got Dr. Knell's fingerprints all over it," Walker answered. "TriVext."
"Wait, wait..." Tweed said, placing his beer down on the console desk. "Wasn't that to be our first mission?"
"Before all this Zoo nonsense, yes," Walker answered. "And that's where we're headed next. This morning, I received word from one of my sources within the company. He told me what I had confirmed about 'John Doe' -- that is, he's the most powerful recorded metahuman on earth. Much more powerful than Cicciotto, that's for sure. He also sent me this..." Walker hit the enter key, bringing up an image of a strand of DNA, much more complex than an average human strand.
"Is this a metagene?" Tweed asked, picking up his ale for another swig.
"Almost," Walker said, zooming in on a particular section of the nucleic acid. "See this? It shows signs of a hybridization."
"A... what?"
"Hybridization," Walker answered. "A fusing of two different things. In this case, the hybridization is threefold -- human, metahuman, and..."
Tweed cocked his head in confusion as Walker's voice trailed off.
"And?" he asked, finishing off his beer.
"...and snake..."