Braxton called his father and requested a medic suit. He wanted one that could do minor surgeries. "I'll have it sent immediately. Vixen loaned me half a billion for researching weapons. This is the least I can do." Braxton Sr replied in a respectful manner.
Braxton was shocked. Vixen had not even hinted at the expenditure. "Sounds good. We have more to talk about but, I haven't reached the bottom of the well yet. It's still confusing. Send a nanite dose with the suit too. I might need to infect someone with them." Braxton replied.
"Alright son, it should arrive in less than an hour. We got a few prototype weapons I can send too. They need field testing." Braxton Sr added.
"I'm pursuing something else right now. More to come on that. You can send weapons but I don't have time to test them right now." Jr informed his father.
"Fine, I'll hang on to them for now." Sr said, the disappointment was clear in his voice.
"I've got to run for now. I need to check out the news. Seems like I have a fortune to rebuild." Jr stated as an excuse to end the phone call.
"Stay safe out there kid." Sr said as he hung up the phone.
The suit and nanites arrived shortly after. Braxton talked with the accountant. He still had more money than he could hope to spend in his lifetime. Business was as good as ever. Vixen held dinner meeting with all the partners who lived in the building. In her pregnant condition she had become the acting CEO of the business. It was a job she was well suited for. Her aggressive direct approach worked well with her coworkers, all former military members. She turned them into more of a family. They discussed issues and plans during their dinner meetings.
Braxton wanted to stay for a while but, he was on a mission that was time critical. He kissed his ladies and son, then returned to the Blast Furnace temple. He put on the new medic suit. A couple things happened at once. The voice of Alpha chimed in "Combat First Aid armor skill acquired." Then it said "Classified Species identified. Report building."
Braxton had been through this before. "X lock the report and shutdown transmission." He ordered.
"System shutdown complete." X replied.
"Can I still use the new skill X?" Braxton inquired.
"Affirmative." X system responded quickly.
"Good. It seemed like nothing for you to takeover his suit's Alpha program." Braxton stated with surprise.
"This suit wasn't military grade. It lacked defenses against control." X system replied.
"Sounds good." Braxton said as he began inspecting the new suit. It was white with designs. He recognized them as letters of the Decamar language. He knew they were the phase for medic. He also had a Red Cross on his chest. The back had a red crescent. He stood out in a crowd for sure. He spun his mind around the fact he could be invisible and had a Combat Dodge. He could be the best combat medic in history. That notion came and went quickly. He dismissed it as his childish whimsy acting up. That was a fairytale and he had become a man.
"What is this suit you found?" The old man asked.
"It's a medical suit. I figured I might need run some tests on your people. I wanted to check for trace effects of the genetic bomb." Braxton lied.
"Oh that sounds like a good idea. I think we are safe and unaffected. We evolved to survive here. I doubt we will have been effected by that." The old man informed him.
"I'll just run tests to make sure. If I find the empire in my travels I can't introduce infected people to it now can I?" Braxton tried to make a logical case for tests.
"You can start with me. If I'm ok my daughters will go next. We can move on in that manner so the tribe builds trust in your methods." The old man suggested.
"That works for me. You seem like a natural leader." Braxton responded honestly.
"I used to be the leader. Our crops failed and the hunters took over. My family stays separate from them. We survive on our small gardens since they started requiring sex for food." The old man informed him.
"I gathered some meat today. I will share it with your family. I'll keep the blood for myself." Braxton replied.
"That will be most welcome." The old man stated. His voice betrayed his happiness at the prospect of meat.
"Okay, your scans are complete I'll just need to draw a drop of blood to run tests on and your physical will be completed. You will feel a small pinch." Braxton warned. He quickly took the sample. The suit ran a complete battery of tests. It came back clean.
"You have a clean bill of health. I will move on to the next subject." Braxton stated. "Oh can I get your name for my data?" Braxton asked.
"Markquise." The old man replied.
"Thank you, Markquise." Braxton said.
He continued this process the rest of the day. He was able to learn the names of all the people. The hunters had yet to be tested. Braxton had expected this. They would likely be out hunting. Word would reach them in the evening hours. A medic would be able to help heir injured man. They would come find him.
Braxton finished his medical work. He summoned his kills and drained their blood in Markquise home. He gave the bodies to their cook to make with their food. Braxton got six vials of blood from these two creatures. It was better than nothing.
Braxton sat down to eat with the family. There were a dozen adults and six children. Markquise youngest daughter was unmarried. He had six of them, five of their husbands worked their gardens. They also assisted with keeping the temple grounds free of trees and large plant growth. Without technological assistance the job was an everyday affair.
A knock on their door came as they were eating. Markquise answered it and there was a brief conversation. He returned to his seat. Then he said "Your presence has been requested by the hunters. One is waiting for you to finish your dinner."
"Duty calls. I will go now. I will return later." Braxton said as he got up to leave.
"Be careful they are not as nice as we are." Markquise said cautiously.
"I will." Braxton stated confidently.
He walked out the door and saw the man standing outside. It was one of the men from the injured man's hunting party. He addressed Braxton "I have an injured man. We heard that a medic was in he village. Can you take a look at him? We removed the object and he isn't healing well yet."
"I will see what I can do. Lead the way." Braxton replied.
He was taken by the most direct route. When he got to their house, he was lead into another room. It was hidden from the guests and the sexual ritual. The hunters were clearly hiding the wounded man from the others.
The man looked green. The wound in his arm was black. Black lines raced up his arms. It was clear he was not in good health. "I need to work quickly. You can sit off to the side and watch. I don't know if I can save his life." Braxton informed the other man.
Braxton took a blood sample. It quickly was discovered the man was poisoned. He was in a lot of pain too. The suit was equipped with many different medicines. He administered antitoxins and sedatives to ease the pain. Then ran a scan of the infected area. He saw a few tips of the quill that had broken off when they removed it. These ones were poison and dissolved much like the paralytic ones did, releasing toxins over time. A few more hours and this man would be dead if he didn't get them out immediately.
Braxton summoned the surgical implements. The tips of his fingers changed into medical tools. They moved automatically cutting and removing the foreign materials. Fluids flushed out the wound and stitched his wound closed by knitting the flesh together one layer at a time. When the wound was closed up tubes linked into his man's blood vein and arteries. He suit began filtering out his blood. It even synthesized more blood and funneled he clean blood back into his body.
The process took hours and Braxton was little more than a passenger in the suit as the work was completed. He was throughly impressed with this suit. The man's skin looked different. He would have a scar to remind him of the event for the rest of his life. He would live though.
After the suit disconnected from the patient, Braxton said "He should recover in a couple days. Have him come by to see me when he wakes up. If I don't see him later today or tomorrow morning I will return to check up on his recovery."
He color had mostly returned to the injured man. He looked almost as good as he had before he was wounded. "Thank you. I will bring him by to see you. What is your name?" The hunter asked.
"I'm called Braxton." He replied.
"I'm Dresden." The hunter informed him.
"Nice to meet you. I must go rest myself. This has been taxing on my body." Braxton responded. He had not noticed it while the suit was working but, it really had drained him. The suit had used his blood as a source for making the synthetic blood to treat the wounded man. It had also exchanged some of the wounded man's blood with his body.
"See you tomorrow." Dresden stated as he walked him out of the building.
Braxton struggled to make the trip back to Markquise home. When he arrived he sat down in a chair and fell asleep. Hours passed and he was woke up the next evening by many concerned people. Markquise was in the front of them all.
"You had us worried. What happened?" Markquise asked when he saw Braxton coming around.
"This is new technology. My body must not have been fully prepared for it." Braxton replied.
"Your people make new technology?" Markquise questioned.
"New to me. I found it in a gate." Braxton lied.
"Ah, well it was a fortunate find. The hunters came by and gave us a fresh kill. They left some blood for you too as payment." Markquise informed him.
"Good. I'll take the blood. I should go check on my patient." Braxton said as he stood up.
He was handed a large beaker of the smoky blue blood. Braxton knew his was special blood and he was shocked they gave his up so freely. He put it in his storage. Then walked back to the hunter's camp. He located the man and fans test on his blood. He had been fully healed. His blood had some weird DNA markers that where listed in the full report. The suit marked and flagged them. The rest of the hunters submitted to testing too. Each of them had strange DNA markers. Some of them had the same markers.
Braxton gave them all clean bills of health and they all acted friendly. He was given free access to come and go in their camp. They didn't seem dangerous at all, to the contrary they seemed friendly in the extreme. They asked if he had drank the blood yet several times. He told them he had not. He explained that he had experienced complications following the surgery himself and had not had time yet.
He made excuses to leave. "I need to recover more. I will be around for a while. We can talk more later." Braxton said before leaving.
He wanted to check on the individuals with the same markers. Over the course of the following few days he used his invisibility to trail the three groups. He was able to verify the ones with the same markers possessed the same skills. Some of them actually had several abilities.
Braxton had the suit sample his own blood. His blood showed similar markers as the injured man. He had picked up some trait from healing him. He also had shadow markers too. He didn't know what ability the wounded man had yet.
As he was sitting around looking at the information. He saw Stone Ghosts grazing less than a hundred yards from his location. This was unexpected. He knew here creatures were invisible. He uncloaked himself. All the animals he saw before vanished, including the Stone Ghosts. He reentered his cloak of invisibility and the animals were visible again.
"Nice, it's almost like two world overlap here. I can see both when I'm invisible." Braxton thought to himself.