The Protagonist System

Life seemed to settle down after that confrontation. I wasn't sure if I should protest that or just accept it, though. My kids were being taken care of by someone else and my ex-wife had forcibly become a government weapon that they aimed at dissidents as an example and a deterrent. The only good that came out of it was that several other people with powers had been forcibly recruited as well and they were now a team.

Bobbie was finally getting all the fighting action she could ever want and she only had to lose her family to do it. I just couldn't help but wonder if she knew that was going to happen beforehand, would she still have done it? Did she think her exciting life was worth leaving her family behind? Honestly, I didn't want to know, because I suspected the answer was yes and I didn't want confirmation.

Viper and I managed to get the mobile phone to work and then we worked our asses off for the next few months to reduce each of the normal components to a more reasonable level to make the phone actually portable and not a heavy monstrosity that no one but the super rich and gullible would ever buy.

Of course, our innovations sent the tech industry into fits, because every new part had every company scramble to update their tech to the new standard, only for the next innovation to hit and reset them all again. The government was having a great time stringing the tech companies along with each of the patented innovations and controlled how much it affected the economy.

It was almost funny that Viper and I caused a premature technology boom with the things we introduced. Scientists and researchers were having a ball with how small everything was and were creating things that shouldn't have seen daylight for at least another 30 years.

It was a humbling experience to find out how something so small as an integrated circuit board could change how everyone in the world viewed technology. Each innovation alone sparked people's imagination, so with all of them combined it made everyone rethink what could be done with technology. Oh, and the government made mountains of money from the whole thing.

The cost to install mobile phone towers everywhere across the country was mitigated almost immediately by the monthly charges that rich people were willing to pay to always stay in contact with their businesses and their families. The full coverage had been my only stipulation to releasing the mobile phone technology and Rikki had accepted it and sold it to her superiors, mostly because she knew that having full coverage was better for their own operations instead of spotty and unreliable service.

It firmed up their secret spy operations inside the country's borders and almost overnight revolutionized how they reported in to their superiors. The government then started sending out envoys to allied countries and friends of the United States to start them building their own mobile phone towers to extend that coverage as far as it could go.

That move opened up several large untapped foreign financial markets and some absolutely staggering revenue streams flowed right back into our country that was fully taxable by the government, making them even happier with the developments. Sales of mobile phones soon went through the roof and it didn't take long before mobile phones worked anywhere you went on several continents.

Who knew that the various governments around the world would pay exorbitant amounts of money for the convenience of calling friends and family whenever they wanted? Rikki, apparently. She had spearheaded the mission because it allowed them to stay in contact with their agents posted on foreign soil and other countries to stay in contact with their own agents in other countries. It was a win-win for everyone.

*

I woke up the day after I had performed the single person healing spell and felt wonderful, because my Minor Regeneration was taking too long. It had been a close call and I had almost been caught by Viper when she returned from an errand earlier than I thought she would. Luckily, I managed to vanish the prepped materials before she saw anything and we went to bed.

Viper's hand caressing my chest and I mumbled a good morning to her and hugged her with both arms. Her surprised gasp fully woke me up.

“Huh? What is it?” I asked and pretended I didn't know what was going on.

Viper's tear-filled eyes blinked at me and she pointed at my left arm that was hugging her.

I stared at her, then at my arm that was holding her just as tightly as my right arm, and I gave her a huge smile. I wiggled each of my fingers and thumbs on her back and all 10 digits responded normally.

“Oh, Hank!” Viper exclaimed and kissed me deeply.

We went at it again and Viper reacted a lot more than she usually did, because my left hand was pulling its own weight for the first time in almost six months. She hadn't felt me grab both of her breasts at the same time before, so she was really into it while I ate her out and my extended tongue licked all over her insides.

Viper held me tightly as I entered her and I braced myself up on my arms to angle myself inside of her to hit her best spot. She turned her head and kissed my left hand several times and then my arm and up to my chest. She pulled me down and peppered the left side of my face with as many kisses as she could before she cried out in pleasure.

I moaned as well and saw the popup I had been waiting for. “Viper, I'm ready to blow.”

“YES! Do it! Knock me up!” Viper almost shouted before I could even ask her about it.

I accepted the option and poured my potent essence into her eager opening. It was an odd sensation that I could feel her body trying to milk me for as much as possible and I wallowed in it until I was spent. I rested on her for only a moment, then rolled us over to lay her on top of me.

“Ooohhh... oh, god.” Viper whispered, her eyes half-closed. “I can feel... so much...”

“You're definitely pregnant after that.” I confirmed for her.

Viper blushed and blinked her eyes at me, as if trying to see through a haze, then she smiled a very warm smile. “If I am, then I'm perfectly fine with that.” She said and gave me a kiss. “The last six months with you has been the best time of my life and I wouldn't trade it for anything.”

I gave her the same warm smile back. “Neither would I.”

Viper gave me another kiss and fell right to sleep.

I would have to keep an eye on her to make sure our baby wasn't going to have freaky super powers like Jack-Jack did in the original movie. Viper hadn't been exposed to any alien viruses or government experiments, so the child should only inherit my normal powers and not mutagenic ones. It was still going to be a lot if the baby acted up in the womb, though.

Maybe I should make an amulet with a calming spell that would keep the baby docile until it was ready to be born? I asked myself. I would have to think about it and would work on it later when I had the chance.

On the plus side, no more necessary camera in my room to monitor me. On the down side, I might not get to sleep in my room anymore. I mentally shrugged and would think about the consequences of having my left side active again in the morning. For now, sleeping with the mother of my future child took priority.

*

Rikki Dicker stood outside the medical examination and weight training room and didn't know what to say as she stared at Elasti-boy dead-lifting their maximum of six tons of weight like it was nothing. His arms weren't stretched and were taut with bulging muscles, as were his legs. Their appearance had been quite the change from what had been his normal floppy look for the last six months.

The doctors had no idea why Hank had bounced back into such fantastic shape after his long convalescence. They had given him a full workup and a CAT scan, only to find no traces of his previous clots and all of the nerve damage had been reversed. Hank's explanation that he had been feeling better and regaining some feeling back for months had only confused them more, because he never mentioned it before.

“I didn't want to get everyone's hopes up.” Hank had said when he was questioned at the time and looked embarrassed. “If I only had some tingling and twitches in my left hand and nothing else, why mention it? I didn't want to make Viper sad if that was all I was ever going to have.”

Rikki had nodded acceptance at the time and now she had a serious decision to make. She also fought down how much Hank was giving her a warm feeling in certain places. He had somehow become even more handsome and his personality had changed just enough that everyone said hello to him when he entered a room and he greeted everyone like they were old friends.

Viper was beyond happy with the change, especially now that she was pregnant, and wasn't that a huge surprise to find out? How the hell had they been sleeping together all this time and it was only after Hank was somehow fully healed that his sperm had also become potent enough for a single dose to get someone pregnant?

Funnily enough, they tested Hank to provide a sample and he jokingly warned them that if they weren't careful, whomever was handling it might get pregnant as well. The sheer gall to say that in a room full of doctors had sent them all scrambling around like chickens with their heads cut off to perform as many experiments as they could and as quickly as possible.

Rikki picked up the phone by the observation window and dialed a number. “I need his remaining sample separated by individual sperm and I don't care how you do it. Yes, I know there's still hundreds of millions of them left after all the tests. Just do it. I also need ten of them prepared immediately and sent to Exam Room 25.”

The sputtering voice on the phone couldn't respond before Rikki hung up on them. She folded her arms behind her back and watched as Hank was asked to stretch his upper arm out as far as he could and then do arm curls with 1,000 pound weights.

Her eyes widened as his reach ended up being four times what it was supposed to be and his arm circled the room twice before his elbow reached the bench and he propped it up, grabbed the weight, and did a set of exercises with it.

Rikki pushed the intercom button. “Doctor Sampson, I need your help for another experiment.”

“I'll be right there, Miss Dicker.” The woman said and excused herself from the team watching Hank perform ridiculous feats that they were making up on the spot, just to see if he really would do them without asking them why.

Rikki left the observation room and met the doctor in the hallway. “Follow me.”

The woman did for several minutes as they walked through the medical wing and they entered an examination room. The table had the stirrups set up already and a medical technician was there and he had a rack of ten vials with clear fluid in them.

“Thank you.” Rikki said and took the samples from the young man. “Head on back to your station and keep working.”

The medical tech fled from the room.

Doctor Sampson chuckled. “Newbies are always fun to tease.”

Rikki smiled and handed her the rack of vials. “One of these is for you.”

The woman looked at her in surprise and then she blushed. She didn't say anything as she prepped an intrauterine needle and loaded in one of the vials. She stripped off and climbed up onto the table without help, set her own legs up on the stirrups, and then gently inserted the needle into herself.

“How many sperm are in this sample?” Doctor Sampson asked as she pushed the plunger. “I need to know to calculate the odds of insemination.”

“Just one.” Rikki said and the doctor gasped. “Let's go find the other nine volunteers.”

“But... but, this... there's no way only one will do it. There has to be multiple doses of thousands of sperm for even a single chance of fertilization during a woman's cycle.” The doctor said and hopped off the table to sterilize the needle. “We're already pushing things as it is with ten volunteers to split the limited sample among.”

“Normally, yes.” Rikki said and nodded at her clothes, silently telling her to get dressed. “However, this is not a normal situation.”

Doctor Sampson quickly dressed and picked up the rack of nine vials. “You're taking Mister Parr at his unbelievable word, then?”

Rikki gave her a deadpan look. “You saw his performance back there. Is his word unbelievable?”

Doctor Sampson fell silent and they left the room to look for the secretary that had happily volunteered to have a baby. There was also a file clerk, two agents, two wives of politicians, a committee member, an intern, and finally one of the cleaning women.

They all had their own reasons for wanting a child and all of them were there in the building constantly, so monitoring them wasn't going to be any trouble. Of course, they would also be compensated well for their participation and would never have to worry about their child ever having to do without.

Also, the potential for powers was extremely high and this experiment had the full backing of the government. They wanted more people with powers under their nominal control without having to force them into it, like the supers they had now. Happy agents were loyal agents, after all.

An hour and nine more quick procedures later, all ten women were logged into the experiment's records and each of them were given medical passes and the paperwork to file. All of the proper protocols were followed and logged, as were their happiness that only one treatment was needed for the first round. They were also issued appointments to return to have pregnancy tests performed in two weeks and all of them were ecstatic about it.

“Are you going to tell him?” Doctor Sampson asked Rikki after the cleaning lady left the examination room.

Rikki took a deep breath and let it out. “I probably shouldn't, even if he is a government employee.”

The doctor smiled and nodded. “Maybe take him out to dinner first before breaking the news?”

Rikki chuckled a raspy laugh. “You know, I think I will. I haven't had a good rissole in a while.”

Doctor Sampson hummed and thought about it. “There's a nice Italian place on Metro Avenue and they do have a walk-in section.”

Rikki nodded. “Sounds good. Thank you, Carol.”

“You're welcome, Rikki.” The doctor responded and patted her belly. “I should thank you, too.”

“You can thank me after your test comes back positive.” Rikki said with a smile and left the room.

*

A week after my miraculous recovery, I sat in a fancy restaurant as Rikki's guest and she told me about the little experiment that my joking comment had set off. She explained that having potent sperm wasn't that big of a deal for normal people, except I was a super and she just had to test if each individual sperm would do exactly like I had warned them it would.

I sat there, quite stunned, because it never occurred to me that was possible. I just assumed 'one shot' was enough and a woman would get pregnant, because I paid the Karma Points to ensure the sperm was 100% effective. I did not even consider that it was only a single sperm that made it inside an egg to fertilize it and the rest was wasted.

“We only managed to secure about 35,000 individual sperm before the rest of the sample expired.” Rikki said and ate another bite of her rissole. “It would have been more if the method of secured storage hadn't become an issue.”

I stared at her and didn't know what to say.

“The ten volunteers are quite happy to have a child, for various reasons. Some have been trying for years and you've given them a chance they never thought they could have.” Rikki said and finished off her meal. “This really was the best rissole I've had in years. I have to come back here again soon.”

“I... I'm going to be a father... ten more times.” I whispered.

“No, you're a sperm donor. None of them want or need you to step in to ruin their lives by becoming a father that they don't want involved.” Rikki corrected me.

“You can't just expect me to...” I started to say.

“You signed the release declaring no responsibility for what happens with your samples, be they blood, hair, or other bodily fluids.” Rikki reminded me.

“Yes, I did. I just didn't think I could become the father of 35,000 children.” I said, my voice stern.

Rikki chuckled and pushed her plate to the side. “You don't really understand the predicament you're in, Hank. Unlike Bobbie, who is under severe scrutiny, you have almost complete freedom to do whatever you want, as long as you don't use your powers to do it.” She said and smiled. “Then it becomes an issue of government control.”

I sat back at her words and thought about it. “Son of a bitch.” I said with a sigh. “I declared it to be super sperm.”

Rikki smirked at me as she took a drink of her wine. “That's right, Hank. As soon as you shot that gigantic load out, which really impressed a lot of people with the sheer volume by the way, the contents became government property.”

“Fuck.” I cursed and she raised her eyebrows at me. “I'm allowed one after hearing that.”

“Fair enough.” Rikki said and finished off her wine. “There's a week left before the pregnancy tests can be confirmed as positive, so you have a small window of peace and quiet.”

I nodded at the warning. “At least I won't be bugged for samples constantly.”

“Not by me.” Rikki said and waved for the check. She checked it and put several bills of money into the waiter's hand. “We're going to keep the announcements spread out, in case anyone gets suspicious.”

“You're not going to tell anyone that it was my... contributions?” I said instead of another word.

“Neither I nor anyone involved in the program will say anything. However...” Rikki said, leadingly.

“...there's more than those at the government building and word of mouth is faster than light speed when there's good gossip involved.” I said and she nodded. “Thanks for the warning.”

“You're welcome, Hank.” Rikki said and stood up. “Now go on home and tell Viper she's technically a part of the experiment by proxy, only with you having full parental rights.”

I nodded and watched the old woman waddle off towards the exit. I thought about staying there and shook my head. I needed to get home and pass the warnings on to Viper. We wouldn't have long before we would have to go into hiding and had to prepare.