Bingham led the party to a floor-to-ceiling canvas displaying what appeared to be a suburba living room being sucked into a funnel and coming out, on top of the canvas, a scrambled version of itself.
Art tended to go over Seb's head. He'd have chalked it up to a left brain vs. right brain thing if he didn't know that both concepts were just a load of pop psychology drivel.
"It's here somewhere..." Bingham fretted, moving her hand deftly up and down the painting, "You'd think at this point I could look at the thing without getting dizz..."
At which point Malick reached forward and tapped the painted likeness of a marble bust, halfway through the funnel. Immediately, a tiny ringing one sounded and a mechanical voice sounded, 'Access granted'.
The painting shimmered, billowing in and out as easily as if it were a curtain, before fading away, the atoms it had been composed of reverting to some more compact state, presumably packed somewhere in the walls.
"How'd you figure that?" Dex asked Malick, who shrugged as if it were nothing.
Presumably that was the only answer they were going to get out of him. Seb didn't relish having to take orders from him on the regular.
"Thank you, Captain," said Bingham, leading them into the featureless black elevator, "Your critical thinking remains on point."
"I'm Captain for a reason, yeah?" Ethan cocked an eyebrow.
---
Teddy resisted the urge to roll his eyes. It was easy for him to ignore such impulses for the most part these days. Still, Malick was grating his patience.
As the elevator began to descend, he turned to Dex, "Batman."
"Uh, no dude, DEXman. But, like, Dex is fine, if you..."
"The bust. On Batman, the TV show. It's how they got into the cave."
"Oh," he nodded, "Christ, you're old."
"Not THAT old," he said, a little twinge of humor passing through him.
The elevator descended smoothly and silently at what Teddy knew to be an extraordinary speed, even if you couldn't tell just riding in it. He was aware of Leach nervously tapping his foot, picking anxiously at his arms. Poor kid.
"On now," Bingham announced as the elevator glided to a stop, the doors sliding open to reveal the compact lab floor that, if he recalled correctly, was several stories beneath the Horizon building.
"You're an engineer?" he asked Dex as they moved through the room.
"Nah. Well...sorta. I build stuff. But I don't do...you know...LAB things."
Teddy wasn't sure what that was supposed to mean.
Bingham came to a stop in front of a long, chrome finished table, turning on her heel to face the four of them, "Mr. Dexman, the floor is yours."
---
"Sweet," Dex adjusted his ponytail, moving up behind the table, "Ready to have your minds blown, fellas?"
"Let's see the peashooters, Goldilocks," said Malick.
Looks like he'd struck a nerve before. Dex was inclined to suspect it was a bigger deal than cake.
"If you insist, Cap," he quipped, seizing the first item from the table and firing it straight at Malick.
---
"Jesus!" Ethan ducked the bright, nearly invisible shot as it soared over his head.
"A bit more oomph tha peas, right?" asked Dex, twirling the skinny, silver pen like weapon between two fingers.
"Are you alright?" asked Harkness, offering a hand to help him up.
Ethan ignored the hand, getting to his feet, "Fine."
He noted Leach hastily trying to hide a smile, and tured to Bingham, who said, with little enthusiasm, "Mr. Dexman, while I'm sure we all appreciate the practical demonstration, but I do need all four of you alive for this endeavor to succeed. Preferably in one piece."
"Sorry, Brassy," Dex shrugged.
"You little shit, you almost killed me!" Ethan stepped forward, throwing Harkness's staying hand from his shoulder.
"But I didn't. Listen, man, if I WANTED to kill you, I could've," he stuck the pen behind his ear, "I'm kind of a crack shot."
---
"Energy beam," said Seb, "Right?"
Dex grinned, "A man who asks the right questions. Damn straight. Yep," he retrieved three other pens from the desk, "Single charge mini-blasters. One shot and..."
He nodded to the back wall where the shot he'd fired had burned a neat, perfect hole.
"You MINIATURIZED an energy cannon?" he couldn't keep the excitement out of his voice.
"Well, it's more like a laser pointer than a cannon, but..." he shrugged, "I did."
"The military's been after that kind of tech," pointed out Harkness.
"That they have," agreed Bingham, "Consider this expedition a test run. Major Harkness, I'm sure with your wealth of experience you'll be able to tell how well these work in a pinch."
"What if they don't?" asked Malick, "And nobody makes it back to tell them."
"My shit WORKS, Cap," said Dex, "I can give you another demo if you like..."
Malick stepped forward, hands clenched into fists.
"Enough," said Harkness, "What else, Dexman?"
"The recorder?" prompted Seb, figuring he could throw his new friend (?) a bone, "Y-you said it does more than record."
"Right it does," Dex agreed, "You've already got yours, why don't you pull it?"
Seb shrugged, again fidgeting at the weight of eyes on him. He retrieved his recorder from his pocket, turning it over in his hand, "What should I..."
"Just say something. Anything."
Not entirely sure, Seb pressed the 'record' button on the touchscreen interface and spoke, "Um...this is Sebastian Leach..."
"Okay, cool, that's enough," Dex had a keen smile on his face. Seb began to feel uneasy, "Now, try it again."
"But...I...I didn't..."
"It'll know."
Seb was uncertain, but spoke into the machine all the same, "This is Sebastian...whoa!" he nearly dropped the recorder, hearing his voice not sounding like his own
"Neat party trick," observed Malick with a wry smile.
"It's a voice modulator?" asked Harkness.
"Something like that."
"This is..." Seb kept talking into the mic, hearing his voice come out in the sultry, smooth tones of a woman, "wow."
"Aw, I bet you say that to all the guys," Dez winked. Seb flushed a bright red, lowering the recorder and saying, just to make sure he sounded like himself again, "How...how did you?"
"There's a database. Every voice that gets caught in the recorder is added."
"And the woman..." began Malick.
Dez shrugged, "I've got my sources. There's a few other built in voices too. Just in case."
"In case of WHAT?" asked Malick.
"I dunno, man...in case. Shit happens. If anything, use it when you get bored, I don't know." he took the other two recorders from the desk, giving one to Harkness and the other to Malick, "There's also a built in tracking device and auto-generated maps. Ooh, and the voice modulator can do translations. Most languages."
"Could've opened with that," said Harkness wryly.
"Ah, that's not as fun."
---
Dex looked around, pleased they were all eating this stuff up. If there was anything in this life he took any amount of pride in, it was his gadgets. Good to see them getting the rise he'd wanted out of these guys.
"Okay, so numero tres," he reached into the desk and retrieved the next thing on the itinerary.
"A bracelet?" asked Malick, who seemed determined to be a skeptical killjoy every step of this process.
"Oh, but it is SO much more than a fashion statement, Cap. If I may demonstrate..."
"Mr. Dexman," Bingham said in a somewhat milder tone, "Perhaps you should prepare them before this one..."
"Aw, c'mon, Brassy. It's not hurting anybody."
With that he went to the bracelet, turned it once to open a barely visible sliding panel, and entered a four digit code using the touchscreen interface.
"Prepare to be amazed," he smirked, undoing his ponytail and letting his hair spill out from its knot. In the next second, he felt a warm surge pass over his body, from head to toe. Anticipating this, he merely turned his head back, letting out a low, excited sigh.
"What is this?" asked Malick, "A striptease?"
"Nope..." he breathed, feeling a sudden tension in his center of gravity. With a muffled grunt, he leaned over the table, grinning at Ethan, "But it can be."
It began then. The change, somehow slow and fast all at once. Dez felt his hands first, thickening, knuckles broadening. In the next moment, his feet started to press against the insides of his sneakers as they grew as well.
"Oh my God," he heard Seb gasp, "Is...is he okay?"
Dex gave him a thumbs up in response, feeling his arms beefing up as well, new muscles swelling against his shirt, his jeans.
"Never..." he breathed, feeling his voice deepen, become coarser, cockier, "Better."
"No fucking way," Malick took a step back.
"Way," Dex straightened up, feeling his hair shorten, turning into a familiar black faux-hawk, "Like looking into a mirror, isn't it?"
---
"You just..." Ethan looked him up and down, his OWN body in ratty jeans and a twenty year old band shirt, "You're ME!"
"Looks that way, don't it?" Dex spread his arms...Ethan's arms...wide, "Just put on your DNA for a sec, no big deal." he bent down behind the table, looking up, "God, this is...REALLY snug. Might wanna lay off the cake, man..."
Ethan rolled his eyes, "How...how did you..." he rounded at Bingham, "How is he doing this?"
"I'm told it's cutting edge technology. You'll recall that's my central interest."
"Don't get all jelly," Dex retrieved three other bracelets, "You guys can do it too."
Leach picked up his at once, "This...this is incredible. I've never..."
"You've never met me. Been working on these beauties for a coupla years. They work kinda like the voice copiers, but more complicated, obviously. Access a DNA sample, it gets loaded into the database...which is shared between all four."
"How long does the change last?" asked Harkness.
"Long as you want," Dex shrugged, "I mean, in theory."
Ethan clicked his bracelet on, adjusting it on his wrist, "Any side effects, or is this another of those trial things?"
Dex shrugged, making some doofy expression Ethan hoped to never again see on his face. Bingham supplanted, "You'll find these invaluable where you're going, I assure you."
"Which is where, again?"
"Captain..."
"It's just I'd have liked a bit of a head's up about the body stealing jewelry and..."
"Are you saying you're not up to lead this team?"
She'd caught him, "You want me to lead the team. I'll lead the team. But..."
"Aw, lighten up, Cap," Dex entered another code on his bracelet, letting out another semi-erotic breath as his hair began to lighten and grow, his body to shrink, and his face to return to mundane from outrageously gorgeous.
"Hey, if you wanna be me for a day, you're more than welcome..."
"Yeah, no thanks," he crossed his arms, "There anything else?"
Dex grinned, "Just the van."
"The VAN?" asked Leach, "We're going to another dimension in a VAN?"
"There'll be time for that," said Bingham, "But first, you'll want to get changed," she paused, "In a manner of speaking."