Dr Empty

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(Written by Ace Dreamer; posted 08 September 2012)

The brilliant eco-engineer woke again. As usual she could smell strong drink about her person, though she was completely sober, 'knurd' as she liked to call it. As she often did when she woke, she speculated on the nature, even the gender, of the person who transformed into her. But, she was dressed as usual, in her Mad Scientist lab coat, over dark clothes that didn't stain easily.

Others called her the 'Mad Terraformer'. She preferred 'Dr Empty', from 'Dr MT'. It was as good a name as any, and she didn't need any other. Though, she'd sometimes fancied 'Sara' – it meant 'princess', though that was a bit frivolous.

The first priority was to obtain coffee, as strong as possible; she wished Klatchian Coffee really existed, it'd make the process of staying herself easier, but, she'd make do. Next, to check her distributed secret bank accounts - she thought they were running a bit low, so maybe she'd have to do some paying work, before more fun research. Fortunately she hadn't got any existing projects running she'd need to check-up on.

Two days later she'd built another ten Standard Asteroid Terraforming Kits, and dispatched them to the usual suspects who'd sell them on. The money was already winging its way to her bank accounts. Maybe she'd take a little break and enjoy herself, before getting on with some research.

Wait a minute! She'd been cheated! This is... Decaffeinated Coffee! Arrrggg!

---

He woke, as usual, after one of his several day benders, in a strange hotel room. His clothes were clean, and matched what he'd been wearing when he started drinking. As usual, he smelled strongly of coffee. Hard to tell if the hotel room had been prepaid for, so, best to take a quiet leave...

He called himself 'Joe', "Just Joe", was his answer if anyone asked; he'd never liked being called 'Mr Bates'. His latest bender had probably cost him his gardening job. Though sometimes he'd call himself an 'ecologist', unless they asked to see his qualifications. He got by.

If he'd gone to university, the way he wanted, before he left Earth, maybe he'd have made more of himself. Always fancied swanning around in a brilliant white lab coat, telling people what to do. Closest he'd got to university was cleaning out some really nasty sumps. That green stuff got everywhere, but he made sure to safely dispose of every drop.

He guessed that's where he got biomodded. He'd not noticed much difference. Cuts healed faster, and hangovers, he didn't get them any more. And he couldn't stand coffee, made him nauseous, had to make do with tea.

He fed himself, stayed clean enough to get jobs, had a few casual friends. It'd be nice, he guessed, to settle down some day. Maybe get married, have kids. But, somehow, whenever he tried to think about his ideal, the woman he wanted to marry, it just made him feel more depressed.

Funny, he didn't feel the desire to dress in women's clothing any more. The secret guilt, the furtive joy, had gone out of it. He'd never wanted a sex change, for him it'd been about the clothes. But, his benders, he just didn't remember them any more. And, he couldn't go a few months without one.

Still, he'd a badly broken leg at the start of one of them, and it was all healed afterwards, three days later. No sign of the cast. That other time, a smashed foot. Where'd the matching shoe come from, he'd been wearing when he woke up? And, even if they'd got pretty bad while drinking, his clothes were always clean.

One of these days he'd have to make a serious effort to find out what his biomod was...

Open Source

You can make free use of this character (these two characters?) in your stories. The only thing that might stop Joe going on these benders is if he was living a totally happy life.

Joe was probably at least a borderline alcoholic when he was biomodded, maybe self-medication for his mental problems, and is now functionally immune to the bad effects of alcohol. He's also got effectively double the lifespan. Unfortunately he only gets to live half of that.

Dr Empty is functionally immune to the bad effects of (too much) coffee, and while she would like some more research time, something always goes wrong after at most seven days, and she wakes up again at least a week, or longer (rarely more than a few months), later.

If either of them is critically injured, and 'dies', they will permanently revert to a cleanly dressed, fully healthy, other. Who now can't touch either alcohol or coffee without feeling nauseous. And still counts as biomodded. For extra fun, they now might start remembering bits of the other's life.

Please don't kill Joe, just to get Dr Empty full-time. Though, if you come up with a good story that needs his death, that'd work. Visa versa Dr Empty. Preferably not until Season 2, though.

If either of them (or anyone) makes a serious attempt to figure out their shared biomod (mostly they don't think about it too much) interesting things are likely to happen - Discordian levels of interesting. Until they give up. It isn't that they can't find out, it's just that there'd better be some really, really, good reason to do so - threatened life-or-death situations for one of them might not be enough.

Note: Yes, I realise that Klatchian Coffee exists in Fenspace. However, even though she's a 'Discworld' fan, Dr Empty hasn't heard about it. Yet. If she does Joe's benders will likely get longer. And Fenspace will 'benefit' more from her skills.