Testing the Dark Waters
Nicky Drayden
An Izzet chemister makes an incredible discovery about the world . . . and herself.
* The unnamed lead is a low ranking Izzet scientist who is trudging through a sewer with a Golgari guide troll to figure out why a fatburg isn't being broken up by the crackling drakes they sent in.
* She discovers a spatial rift is granting immunity to electricity, and after getting attacked by electric eels, she goes to her boss.
* It turns out rushing up to your boss covered in sewage demanding a promotion for your discovery while being too electrocuted to explain yourself is liable to get you fired.
* She sets up her own lab in secret, worried about Dimir and Simic corporate spies and poachers (of lab hires).
* She manages to get an assistant named Tamsyn for cheap, though still more than what she can spare right now. She's great in the lab, but the lead is ready to let her go until she promises to pull strings to help her. The narration seems to imply that the lead is attracted to her.
* After they successfully make lab rats immune to electricity, and kill them for the autopsy, they move on to humanoid subjects that Tamsyn is able to gather.
* It works on them too, but they can't afford to pay the test subjects what they advertised and Tamsyn points out they can't let others poach their lab results from them.
* The lead catches her drift but hesitates to kill them. Tamsyn says that's fine, because she already poisoned them.
* The lead decides she'll get the money to pay Tamsyn, shut down the lab, hire a mind mage to erase her memory, and then move on with her life.
* She takes jobs as test subject for various Izzet experiments, which turn out well enough for her. For real money, she signs up for a Simic experiment, lying that she hadn't taken a regeneration potion in the last seven days so she wouldn't be rejected.
* The experiment goes badly, turning her into a monster, and she hides in the sewers.
* Tamsyn tracks her down there. She's actually a Dimir agent who wants to tie up loose ends.
* Somehow, the threat of the lead's work not being credited to her motivates her more than the threat to her life.
* Tamsyn attacks the lead using electric magic but the lead manages to salvage enough material from a fatburg to make a device to absorb the electricity. She throws it at Tamsyn, blowing her away, and then grabs her with her now monstrous claws.
* Except she looks and sees that the Simic experiment wore off and she's normal again. Regardless, she snaps Tamsyn's neck, killing her. It's easy for her now.
I don't think the ending worked as well as it could have, but I still liked this story.
