"You can breathe fire?" The blonde squealed. "Show me. Do it." Roland sighed, then took a deep breath.

"No way," Bart yelled. "Not in my bar." Roland paused, let out a burp of smoke, then sneezed with both hands snapping over his closed mouth. That didn't stop a small jet of flame from coming out of each nostril or the smoke that rose from between his fingers. The blonde squealed in excitement, sounding more like an actual child than a drunk midget.

"I thought you said you snapped to make a spark." The redhead said. Roland held up a finger, not in a rude way but in the way that says "one minute." Roland coughed up more smoke and a few black flakes that were hidden behind his hand. He swallowed the burnt black flesh that used to be the sensitive membrane of the inside of his mouth and tongue as it was replaced with a freshly regrown layer. He hated replacing his tongue, despite rewiring the nerves and tastebuds perfectly it always left an aftertaste of blood in his mouth, not to mention the smell of burnt flesh that stuck in his nose for days.

"Made some improvements," Roland said with a wheeze.

"Trying to be a dragon?" The blonde asked with a laugh as she grabbed a glass and took a drink.

"No, just helps if I can do it hands-free." Roland looked at the blonde. "You know that was my drink, right?"

"It's mostly just melted ice." The blonde said, holding up the glass to show him. Roland grabbed the glass and turned to Bart.

"Can I get another bottle. Top shelf if you would." Bart grabbed a bottle and poured the first glass for him before setting the bottle down next to him.

"I'll take some of that." The blonde said as she reached for the bottle.

"Nope," Bart said, snatching the bottle. "You're cut off for right now."

"What?"

"You had 4 iced teas and each one 4 shots in it. I'm not even sure how you're still upright, but I don't feel like calling an ambulance for alcohol poisoning. So you're cut off."

"You are no fun."

"We should probably go before she passes out." The redhead said, chugging down the remains of her iced tea. "I'll call a cab."

"There is no way in hell I'm leaving before the end of this story. But I have to know, can you really go down on yourself since you removed those ribs." Bart spit up his drink, again, while the brunette laughed and the redhead just scoffed and rolled her eyes.

"Why would you ask that?" The brunette asked with a laugh.

"Because I have the sudden urge for some hot meat in my mouth." She leaned over to Roland, slid her hand up the inside of his thigh, and licked her lips. "How bout it? I bet you have something really nice to put my mouth, and a few other places."

Roland put his finger on the blonde's forehead and pushed her back. The blonde instantly went blank as though she were asleep with her eyes open. He pulled his finger away and reached over to grab his drink before she gasped. "How's that feel?" Roland asked with a smirk.

"What the hell did you just do to me?" The blonde asked, grabbing her head.

"Turned you off, and sobered you up a bit."

"What?" She asked in confusion. "How the hell?"

"You drank from my glass, ingested active cells, which I can still control and use to mess with you."

"Using your power to mess with Blanche," The redhead said, shaking her head. "That is so low. Why would they let a monster like you walk the streets?"

"I kicked her liver into overdrive for a minute to lower her blood alcohol level, and told her hypothalamus to counteract the oxytocin and other hormones that it already released so she stopped acting like a dog in heat."

"Did you just call her a dog?" The redhead asked.

"At least he didn't call her a bitch." The brunette said with a laugh. "Prime joke and he didn't go for it."

"Such a gentleman." The blonde, Blanche according to the redhead, said with a smile. "You, sir, get more fantastic by the minute, and my offer still stands."

"You can't seriously be interested in a guy who sucks himself off." The redhead practically yelled.

"That's enough out of you," Roland said with a sigh. "We get it, you don't want to be here and you don't want to leave without your friends. Stop being a bitch about it. And if you really must know, if I wanted to, I could literally ejaculate on cue."

"You can cum on command?" Blanche said laughing. "Do it, do it, do it."

"Stop being crude." The brunette said with a sigh.

"He killed my buzz and my libido. What else do I have going for tonight? I'm stressed out and if I can't scratch that particular itch then I need to have a lot of fun." She turned back to Roland. "Jizz your pants. Jizz your-" her chanting was cut short by Roland reaching out and flicking Blanche's forehead. She stopped for a second, then gasped. Roland smiled, took a drink, refilled his glass, then turned to her.

"You should run to the bathroom," Roland said calmly. Blanche jumped out of her seat and scrambled toward the bathroom, running in a funny way as though she were trying not to shit herself.

"What the hell did you just do to her?" The redhead yelled. She obviously didn't care about making a scene, not that anyone else in the bar cared.

"Gave her what she wanted." Roland took another drink. "So what do you girls do?"

"Like we'd tell you." Redhead said.

"Interoffice coordination for a large company." The brunette said, ignoring the redhead. "Blanche is a techno-wizard, Renee deals with personnel, I deal with supply acquisition and communication between the different departments."

"Why would you tell him that?" Renee asked.

"It's called conversing. Something like the interrogations you typically do, but somewhat more pleasant with people volunteering information as a way of bonding."

"But you don't get to tell him about me."

"Nervous about him knowing your name, or nervous about him thinking that you might not be the bad girl you pretend to be."

"I'm cool as a cucumber, I just don't want some random knowing my name."

"You were handing out business cards with your cell number on it at the club last week."

"You girls always go clubbing on the weekends?" Bart asked.

"Blanche and Renee are convinced that they'll find the man of their dreams in a night club. We usually just go to flirt, though I don't really like the attention I get."

"That's a shame," Roland said. "You're pretty enough to be a model."

"You're not the first person to say that, and it's a cheesy line." She took a sip of her tea, licked her lips seductively, then smiled. "If it weren't such a small market these days, I might consider it."

"I happen to know a few people in the industry."

"Here we go." Renee started in again. "Let me guess, you'll get her a meeting if she gives you a little something something in return."

"No. I was just going to warn her that the field is a bit more selective than she thinks. I know 4 kinds of people. Carriers, soldiers and military, other freelance units like the one I work for, and random people I talk to in the bar. Guess which category the people I know in the industry happen to fall in."

"I'm guessing they came by to do some kind of USO show," Renee said. "You try to take her back to the barracks?"

"Wait." The brunette said with a slight gasp. "Are you saying that the models are carriers too?"

"Some of them. There's only like 5 or 6, but they can change their appearance and skin tone so they do the job of like 20."

"Shit. Just how many carriers are there?"

"Quite a few. But most keep it under wraps or force it into dormancy. Very few actually use their abilities, and even fewer use them to fight."

"Carrier's can have other jobs besides fighting?" Bart asked.

"Yeah. Like I said, most return to an inactive state. Some use their abilities for jobs inside the wall, we call those the neutral Carriers. And then there are the active combatants like me. Neutral carriers have all kinds of jobs, using their ability to modify living tissue to their advantage. Like with models, they can change their face, body, skin, hair, all at the drop of a hat. Some even do porn under assumed identities."

"No. I get that, but what else is there to do? I doubt there are many jobs that benefit from being able to change your face."

"Bouncers, bodyguards, security, and anything else that benefits from a simple increase in size." Bart nodded for him to go on. "Trust me, you don't want to know."

"Then drop it." Renee said sharply.

"I'm almost tempted to say it just to piss you off."

"I work in a bar dude," Bart said with a laugh. "Guarantee your big reveal won't really register."

"Fine. You girls minds."

"No," Brunette said with a smile. "Renee doesn't get a vote." Renee protested, but the brunette waved her off.

"Fine. Big reveal. Neutrals basically control the food industry."

"How the hell could they possibly have that kind of power?" Renee asked.

"Because there aren't very many farms left. A lot were raided and destroyed during food shortages in the first year, and those that remained weren't enough to maintain the population. That's when a carrier started using his ability by infecting farm animals on a small plot of land with active cells from his body. From there, he was able to make them grow to incredible sizes and tweak their biology so they can stay healthy on a diet of the absolute nastiest shit."

"You said the food industry," Brunette said, spilling a little of her tea on the bar. "Does that mean that every ounce of meat comes from one of these farms?"

"Smart girl. Yes and no. Mainly pork and beef are created by carriers. They infect the animal, make it eat a metric shit ton of garbage from the dump, and kick its metabolism into overdrive to produce more and more meat, and shorten the pregnancy to about a week."

"That is disgusting," Renee said, shaking her head in disgust as though she were watching those pigs give birth.

"You have no idea. Fortunately, they only make meat this way, and it only applies to beef and pork. They can't use the virus to infect poultry, fish, reptiles, or plants, so there are still plenty of choices if you don't want any of what they're serving." The group looked down at the nachos, more specifically the ground beef that sat upon a layer of cheese. They all stared for a second until a small hand reached onto the plate and grabbed a chip, scooping up plenty of meat and cheese before Blanche dragged it to her mouth and took a bite.

"Welcome back," Roland said casually, as though he hadn't just explained that the majority of the meat people ate came from disgusted mutated pigs and cows. "Are you going to behave now?"

"If that's your idea of a punishment," Blanche started around the food in her mouth. "I'm gonna start acting out."

"I can just as easily give you the shits. In fact, it's actually easier on me to go that route, so don't push it."

"I'll be good. Just promise me you'll give me a call sometime."

"Didn't you just say you would be good?"

"Oh, if you thought I was being dirty before, you have no idea how bad I'm willing to be for you now."

"I can also knock you out with very little effort."

"Is it wrong that I'm turned on even more now?"

"Yes." Everyone said together. She smiled wickedly and licked her lips as she leaned out of her seat and started reaching for his crotch again. Roland reached out and pressed his thumb to Blanche's forehead.

"What are you…" her words trailed off, and her eyes drooped as her head lulled slightly. Roland pulled his hand back and returned to his drink. Her head wobbled as though she were fighting sleep, constantly repeating the same word. "You… you… you… you… you… can breathe fire?" She suddenly snapped out of it and screamed with excitement.

"Yes, I can breathe fire," Roland said casually. "No I'm not going to show you. Get over it and move on or I won't finish my story. "

"Party pooper." Blanche stuck out her tongue at Roland, then turned to Bart. "Can I get another of these iced teas?"

"Seriously?" Bart asked.

"Yeah. Not sure what you put in them, but my buzz is already burning off."

"I wiped her short term memory," Roland said casually. "She can't remember the last 10 or 15 minutes."

"What the hell," Renee shouted.

"Oh stop it." The brunette said. "We both know that she was gonna keep up with that for the rest of the night."

"But messing with her mind."

"Not really," Roland said. "Its a bit more complicated, but think of it like a computer. I turned it off before it could save properly so effectively the data was erased. It's still there, but it takes some effort to uncover." Blanche was looking between everyone as they spoke, but everything went over her head. Instead of dwelling on it, she reached over to take Roland's glass and lifted it to take a drink, before pausing with the glass inches from her lips.

"Woah." She said, pulling the glass away. "Dejavu." She stared at the glass for a second, then shrugged and drank.

"Like that."

"How could you mess with someone's mind?" Renee asked. "That's horribly unethical."

"So is feeding people mutated animal flesh, but nobody gives a damn about that."

"What?" Blanche asked, looking to Roland.

"Nothing," Roland said, reaching over the bar to grab another glass. He poured her some rum then filled the new glass for himself. "Just keep drinking and let me tell my story."

"But she-" Bart started, but Roland cut him off.

"I've got it handled. Just chill."

"Yeah," Blanche said with another beaming smile. "Chill." Bart wanted to be mad at her, but that cartoon level cheery smile was disarming.

"So what the hell happened next?" Bart asked, grabbing the bottle of rum and pouring himself a glass.