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Rating:
Teen And Up Audiences
Archive Warning:
No Archive Warnings Apply
Fandoms:
Parahumans Series - WildbowPortal (Valve Video Games)
Relationship:
Lab Rat/String Theory
Characters:
Taylor Hebert | Skitter | WeaverGLaDOS (Portal)Thomas Calvert | CoilEmma Barnes (Parahumans)Greg VederString Theory (Parahumans)Lab Rat (Parahumans)
Additional Tags:
Being Taylor Hebert | Skitter | Weaver Is SufferingMad ScienceFor Science!Crossovers & Fandom FusionsAlt-Power Taylor HebertInsanityDarkCross-Posted on FanFiction.NetTorturePsychological Torture
Language:
English
Stats:
Published:2025-10-26Completed:2025-11-03Words:25,890Chapters:4/4Comments:97Kudos:178Bookmarks:55Hits:4,373
Parahuman Testing Initiative
CHPrime
Chapter 4: Chapter Two: Episode Two: The Interlude
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Greg didn't do anything to deserve this.
All his life, he had been a (frustratingly) normal kid living his life in this shitty city, going to its shitty schools where he spent his time daydreaming about getting (not shitty) superpowers like everyone else. He'd never done anything wrong in his life!
Sure, he had made a habit of flaming noobs on PHO, and sure, he was always being threatened with bans from the mods, but that was nothing! Those were just words. And not even real words! Fake words given by a fake name on a fake website! He'd never say any of those things for real, or his mom would kill him!
He lived in a decent neighborhood and didn't do anything to attract any gang's attention, like his parents told him to. Greg kept his head down and spent his time playing video games. He didn't even run around the city chasing cape fights like an idiot, no matter how much he wanted to!
He was a good person. He listened to the stupid Just Say No commercials. He did (most of) his homework, and only snuck out to a party once, and that was three months ago, and his mom had never caught him!
But here he was, kidnapped by some goons and running for his life in the bowls of some crazy supervillain lair.
…Okay, "kidnapped" wasn't totally right. He'd been nosing around an abandoned Endbringer shelter he'd heard some rumors at school about.
And maybe there weren't "goons", but after Greg had slipped through a broken window and spent a good hour looking around a bunch of dusty rooms, he had been grabbed. By a crazy Tinker robot, no less!
It was a tall, white thing with two arms and legs and a glowing thing in its chest and no head. At first, Greg thought it was Mannequin from the Slaughterhouse Nine, and that he was going to die horribly.
But instead of turning its arms into knives or a gun or a gun on a knife, not-Mannequin started speaking to him in a robotic female voice. Greg didn't really hear anything the voice was saying—he still thought he was about to die, and was desperately struggling for his life. When a second robot appeared, his panic exploded, and he managed to give the first robot the slip by tearing his hoodie's sleeve off.
From there, he ended up trapped in a small room with a weird Tinkertech machine—some sort of switchboard with a lot of wires and buttons. The not-Mannequins were at the door, and the woman's voice was coming out of both of them and trying to calm him down or something. Probably so she could strap him down to a dissection table without a fuss. It was a shitty situation, but Greg had always been good at thinking quickly.
With a dramatic flourish (that he may have stolen from one of his Aleph anime), Greg ripped out some of the wires from the tinkertech, and brandished them at the not-Mannequins. Some of the lights dimmed on the tinkertech machine after he did that, so Greg was pretty sure that it was conducting electricity.
His brave act had the desired effect: the not-Mannequin backed off. Greg relished his victory, basking in the robot's fear…
…Until he realized he was still trapped in this crazy place with no way out. He couldn't electrocute the not-robots without the cables, and the cords weren't that long. Definitely not long enough to reach the window. So he was still trapped in here.
But then a solution presented itself. The robot woman was telling him not to touch anything, especially not the big red button labeled "DO NOT TOUCH".
So naturally, Greg pressed the button.
He'd seen movies before. Clearly, the button was the robot's main power source, or a nuclear regulator, or the emergency self-destruct. Whatever it was, the robots would be too busy trying to fix it to stop him from escaping. Maybe it would even signal the PRT, and they would be able to see his awesome escape!
Which is why none of that happened. Instead, a hole opened up under Greg's feet. He could have jumped out of the way, but one of the not-Mannequins was reaching out and trying to grab him. Naturally, Greg electrocuted it with the cables, which made a lot of noise, and that meant he was falling before he could do anything. The cables should have stopped his fall, but the stupid things were cheap and snapped off.
And of course, the stupid robot lady finally spoke clearly. And of course it was a total lie. Greg was not a moron!
After falling for what felt like hours, Greg landed in a dark, mushy…something. Greg wasn't exactly sure what it was, but if it broke a fall from terminal velocity, it was good as far as he was concerned. Even if he couldn't see it. But given how goopy it felt, Greg could live without knowing what it was.
But that left the question of where exactly Greg was. As far as he could tell, Greg fell a long way down—he couldn't see any light from the metal shoot above him. Exploring his surroundings revealed a dark cave and an opening into an even bigger dark cave. It also had a fusebox connected to some cables, and when Greg pulled the lever…
It was a huge metal sphere, covered in old, blinking lights. It looked bigger than all of downtown put together. How had anyone built something like this so far underground?
And when Greg finally found his way into the building…
It was awesome. No, that wasn't right. It was fucking awesome.
It was a huge maze, slash escape room, slash paintball range! And the paintguns were awesome tinkertech that shot some weird orange and blue paint streams, one which made him bounce superhigh, and the other that made him move superfast! It was a good thing that he found those boots next to the gun, which made it so he could fall from any height and not suffer any damage. Maybe it was made from some of the stuff he landed on?
But then he discovered the automated announcements.
"Greetings, test subject! I am String Theory, the world's greatest Tinker! You may remember me from every headline in the nation—no, the world! While city-threatening explosives are my pride and joy, I also like to amuse myself with all sorts of side projects, which is why you are here!"
"To test my Repulsion and Propulsion Gels, I have designed several enrichment spheres with a number of puzzles! If all my calculations are correct, you should be able to solve this in a jiffy, and with only a few dozen broken bones! Now enough gawking, get to testing!"
"Congratulations for completing the first room, test subject! I can smell the science happening already, and this is a prerecording! Now chop-chop! If you can get through the next nine rooms—or was it two hundred? I can't remember—alive, you'll get sixty whole dollars!"
"Right, so full transparency: after some more tests, it turns out the gels might be slightly carcinogenic. So don't get any of it on your skin, or hair, and definitely don't drink it, no matter how tasty it looks! But if you do, make sure to drink as much of it as possible. I need more data points, and your sacrifice will forward the cause of science along by several years!"
"...Or maybe several minutes? Did I miscalculate that? Eh. Prove me wrong, test subject, I know you have it in you! Or you will have it in you—look, the point is, start guzzling that gel! Those tumors aren't going to grow themselves!"
"To any FBI, PRT, Protectorate, or other law enforcement personnel who have infiltrated this facility: my lawyer minion has advised me to tell you that this is all harmless, ENTIRELY VOLUNTARY performance art. All the "bottomless" pits are actually full of candy and participation trophies, all the jutting steel edges are perfectly safe tinkertech designs that don't violate OSHA, and in no way is anything ILLEGAL happening."
"I am also happy to spend some of my very valuable time answering all the questions you have! Just identify yourself as a cop, and wait for the bright red light to shine on your forehead. That's the teleportation beam calibrating, the same one that activates when a test subject says they want to go home!"
"Good news, listener! If you've made it this far, that probably means you're one of my minions who needed a reminder of the importance of science, or you're a very lucky test subject who is nearly halfway there! Good effort to you, because you're almost at your sixty bucks, and/or redemption!"
"Also, test subject—shield your *COUGH* ears, minions—just between you and me, if you run into a disloyal minion, who are the only minions you should find down here, shove them into a bottomless pit and I'll slip you an extra fifty."
"Alright, my minions are telling me this next test is physically impossible to solve. Like, you're going to have to trigger with a Mover power right now, and even then, you're probably not going to make it. But don't let that get to you! Prove those simpletons wrong, like I do every day!"
*COUGH* "And if you fail, remember to fill out our complaint form and describe everything you did wrong before you fall to your death so the next test subject can find it and figure out how not to be a LOSER like you."
"Oh, minionnnnnnnnn~! I know you're there! Because if a test subject *COUGH* is hearing this, you've been officially promoted to my minion! I need you to do me one little favor, and PASS THIS TEST! I've got your pay and my professional pride riding on you *COUGH* with one of the bozos at Toybox! Make momma proud, and prove *COUGH* that String Theory doesn't make mistakes! SHE! MAKES! SCIENCE!!!!!!!! AAAAAAAGGGGGHHHHH—*CRASH* Oh shit, I didn't—minion! Get the fire extinguisher!"
Greg had to admit, even if he had eventually beaten the crazy supervillain's mad deathtrap, he had been terrified for the whole ordeal. Some of the rooms had been legitimate headscratchers, and it was only thanks to the general state of disrepair that he was able to drag sheet metal to where String Theory hadn't intended. It was cheap, but Greg wanted out.
Plus, if he heard things right, he was going to need a checkup ASAP after he escaped this hellhole.
Still, things could be worse. He had completed the last room, and now he was standing in front of a weird elevator. It looked like a wiry cage of metal surrounding a white wall, and looked kind of small for an elevator, but there was a shaft above it, and that had to lead to the surface. All he had to do was fiddle with the controls, and he would finally be free!
If only he had brought his camera. All the idiots and assholes would never believe he had survived a trap laid by the infamous String Theory, and the PRT was probably going to buy his silence for one of their cover-ups. Still, it beat starving to death down here. If only the wire would connect—
Greg's hand slipped on one of the dials, and a familiar voice burst to life over the PA. "THAT ABSOLUTE *COUGH* BITCH! SHE THINKS SHE CAN GET AWAY WITH POISONING ME!? STRING THEORY, THE *COUGH* WORLD'S GREATEST TINKER? I THREATENED HER FOR THOSE MOON ROCKS! *WHEEZE* SHE DOESN'T GET TO MAKE ME REGRET IT! THAT'S NOT HOW THIS WORKS!"
Great, she was back at full—"YOU THINK YOU'VE HAD THE LAST *COUGH* LAUGH, DO YOU!? WELL I'VE GOT ANOTHER THING COMING, YOU BLIND *HACK* WHOOOOORRE!!!!! I'M GOING TO THE ONE OTHER TINKER ADEQUATE ENOUGH TO SAVE MY LIFE, AND ONCE I *COUGH* ESCAPE, THE FIRST THING I'M DOING IS FINISHING MY PROTOTYPE AND *COUGH* *COUGH* S-Shoot y-you oUT OF THE *COUGH* *COUGH* *COUGH*—"
String Theory's voice cut off as she descended into a coughing fit. It sounded really bad. Greg almost felt sorry for the fucking madwoman.
Eventually, the coughing stopped, and String Theory's recording let out a very small whimper. "I'm going to beat this, I'm going to win. I've *cough* got to." She was muttering quietly, like Greg did when he thought no one could hear. "All those stuck-up shitheads were wrong. I'm the best. I'm a winner. I-I'm not a moron. I'm…I-I'm a…" The next cough sounded more like a sob.
Greg blinked. This was the first time he'd heard her say anything remotely normal. Between all the deathtraps and screaming, it had been easy to forget that String Theory was an actual human. If she—
"Wha—oh damnit, this thing's still on! Minion, some quitter stole my mic, ignore her!" Aaaand the crazy was back. "Your work is almost done. By the time you *COUGH* hear this, I will have installed the escape button. It will glow in the dark, so even the most hapless fools *COUGH* will be able to find it. But before that, make sure the quantum tunneling—"
Greg heard the words "escape" and "button" together, and it was officially time to stop listening to the madwoman. True to her word, a big button had started blinking red, and true to his instincts, Greg wasted no time in pushing it. Just a long, uncomfortable ride up an elevator, and he would finally be free.
Of course, in his exhaustion, Greg had also forgotten that his instincts were proving to be pretty poor today.
Instead of opening up for Greg, the metal elevator started to vibrate. Then electricity began to spark around it. And then a bright white light started to form in the center. And then Greg got the idea that he should probably run away—
But it was too late. One bright flash of light later, and everything was quiet, except for Greg's ragged screaming.
…And for some reason, he sounded a lot older. Was he hit by some sort of aging ray? And then there was his other voice, which sounded a lot more like a woman—
Wait a minute.
Greg opened his eyes. There were two people standing inside the not-elevator, both wearing identical gray clothing. Or more accurately, standing inside a weird, orange-colored oval on the white wall inside the elevator. A man was holding a woman like Shaggy held Scooby Doo when they saw a ghost. The man was a bit grimy looking, but the woman…
She was wearing big glasses and had long, dark braided hair. Greg had only seen the mugshot once, but—
"AH HA! It worked! IT WORKED!" The woman shouted in joy as she jumped out of the man's arms and through the oval, landing right next to the console. "What am I saying? Of course it worked! I made it, after all! That'll show that bitch Lustrum for doubting ME! I can't wait to hijack the news and rub it in all of their faces—"
There was no mistaking that voice after today. String Theory. The most dangerous Tinker in the world, now the first woman to escape the unescapable Birdcage.
And Greg had pushed the button to set her free. He did his best not to hyperventilate.
"Seriously, String. Do you have any situational awareness?" The man said as he stepped through the oval, casting a sidelong glance at Greg before turning back to the madwoman. "The PRT can't let us escape like any other prison. The Birdcage's reputation is too important. The second we show our faces, the Triumvirate is coming down on us like the hammer of god."
As quickly as it appeared, the orange oval faded into nothing. "Pshaw! Details!"
The man scratched his scraggly beard. Whoever this was had a sort of mousy look, with a noticeable overbite. "That's if Dragon isn't already tracing whatever you did. She's bound to have heard us." In fact, Greg remembered something from one of the threads he frequent—
Oh fuck. That was Lab Rat. The infamous Biotinker. Somehow, this day had gotten even worse.
"Bah! I already took care of that!" String Theory exclaimed as she glared back at the Biotinker. Except she refused to do that normally, and instead bent her head backwards so she was looking at him upside-down while dramatically pointing.
"I have engineered my Dupli-Drive to deploy the second I left! Already, it has activated and is fooling the many dimwitted denizens of my cell block! It will be weeks before my escape is—"
"Your dupli—" The Lab Rat's eyes narrowed. "Do you mean that potato thing? That was a year ago! There's no way it's anything but dust!"
"My potatoes are like me! They never give up!"
A vein on Lab Rat's forehead was bulging. "...Even if that was somehow true, and even if everyone in block nine decided to go along with it, and even if Dragon doesn't notice any of this nonsense, we have a leaders' meeting in three days!"
String Theory's hands made a weird flourish above her head as she leaned to the left. It was like she was posing on a runway or something. "It'll fool Acidbath. And Teacher. And probably Crane. And Kaze won't say anything. I think Ingenue spent the last meetup making eyes at Marquis, so they'll be busy. And Glaistig won't even notice, the brat—"
"God damn it, woman! I'm supposed to be at that meeting! They'll notice me missing! Not to mention the fact that my entire cell block will be chaos!"
String Theory paused to frown before tossing her braid over her shoulder. "Eh. They'll all think I killed you. Or that you fucked up the doses and everyone in block 7 beat you to death. You have been getting sloppy. Everyone's talking about it behind your back."
That seemed to piss Lab Rat off something fierce. He lunged at String Theory and grabbed her by the throat. This only seemed to amuse the madwoman, who twisted her neck to the side and placed her knee next to his crotch, ready to strike. "Gonna try again, are you? At least put a little muscle into it this time!"
"I have had to deal with your shit for too long, you dumb bitch! This time, I'll—"
String Theory's eyes narrowed in fury, and she punched Lab Rat in the face. Hard. "I am NOT stupid!"
"You got a better label for the shithead midget who's first instinct is to hijack a national broadcast the second she escapes from the fucking Birdcage!?" Lab Rat wasn't squeezing yet, but he looked like he was working his way up to it.
"Daring! Theatrical!" String Theory headbutted the Biotinker. She kept her forehead locked on his as she stared up into his eyes. A grin slowly spread across her face. "The only source of excitement in the useless drudgery you call a life, you lazy bastard."
"More like the biggest pain in my ass. I regret saving you more and more every day." Lab Rat seemed to be pushing his forehead against hers now. Like he was trying to force her down in the most ridiculous way possible now that she had challenged him to a contest.
String Theory took the challenge in stride. "Oh? Even after everything I've done for you?" Lab Rat looked like he wanted to growl, but something was stopping him. "S'matter, rat? Have I already got your tongue?"
"More like I should have ripped yours out to use for spare parts ages ago."
"I've heard that threat before. When are you finally going to deliver?"
"When I want to and not a minute before, runt." Lab Rat's voice was getting weird. He was kind of growling, but his voice was getting weirdly low in an only kind of threatening way. In fact—
"Then I guess I'm just going to have to make you." String Theory stretched her legs, and then—
"Um." Greg squeaked out. He hadn't meant to, but he had no idea what was happening, and after the day he'd had, his rock-solid self-control was a little shot. He could only hope the two psychopaths were too busy doing…whatever it was they were doing to notice him.
And of course, both their heads instantly swiveled to him. Greg tried and mostly succeeded at not fainting.
"Oh, right. My minion. Good job waiting several years to push a simple, easy to access button. What took you so long, anyway, you…whoever you are?" String Theory glanced back at her…enemy? "Chris, what's this one's name? I can never remember those little details."
"How the actual fuck would I…" Lab Rat sighed. "What are you doing here, kid?"
"M-my name's G-greg. Greg V-veder." Shit, did he just give his real name to these psychopaths? "I-I almost got kidnapped by robots, and then I fell down a hole, and then I was in your maze—and—and—"
"And congratulations! Just as prerecording #68 said, you are officially my minion by getting this far!" String Theory stretched over and slapped Greg's petrified back. Her gleaming eyes seemed to light up her glasses. "Good job, I knew you had it in you! And this means I finally get to rub my victory in that Toybox tool's face!"
"Uh, y-yeah." Greg couldn't remember if that was one of the rooms he had to cheat to beat. He guessed that telling String Theory that wouldn't go over too well. But then there was that other thing. "Listen, String Theory, or Miss String Theory, or—"
"Call me boss, or madame, or your excellency! All my minions do!"
"...R-right. Um. On some of your recordings, y-you mentioned that the gels could make people…sick, and I think I might have gotten some on me, so I was hoping that because I managed to save you, you could maybe let me—"
String Theory made a theatrical dismissive gesture. "Oh, very well. Lab Rat, I'll lend you my minion for a little while if you patch him up!"
"—Go home and beg Panacea for help." Greg finished weakly. String Theory had already spun around and was prying open her teleporter's control panel.
Lab Rat, for his part, looked almost sympathetic. At least, Greg thought he did. Greg hoped he did.
The Biotinker reached over and patted String Theory on the head. "You're too kind, shorty."
String Theory again contorted strangely to glare up at him. "Don't bother me while I'm tinkering! And don't condescend—"
"Shut up, clock's ticking." Lab Rat patted her head again before walking over to Greg. "So you've got the same gunk in you String did, huh?"
"I-I-I—" Greg stuttered. "C-can I go home after this? It sounds like the PRT will already know you've escaped, and I promise not to tell anyone a-anything. They'll never believe me anyway. I-I'm just a dumbass kid with a boring, stupid, uneventful life, I promise!"
"Sure you do." Lab Rat's eyes rolled over Greg as if he was…well, a lab rat. And not a particularly interesting one. "So what town are we under, kid? String's loose on the details at the best of times."
"B-brockton. Brockton Bay. S-sir." Greg stammered out.
"Oh, of all the…" Lab Rat snorted as he flicked some of Greg's hair. "Galavante and Marquis' old stomping grounds. What are the odds? Next thing I'll learn is that Lustrum did her undergrad here, or one of Kaze's old boytoys is wandering around, or Teacher has a sleeper agent spying on everything." He glanced down at Greg's hands and the gel gun. "I'm guessing you know String Theory. Do you know who I am?"
"L-lab Rat, sir." Greg said numbly. Using the gel as a weapon would probably only piss the two off, and if String invented it, she'd know how to counter it, so that escape route was out. "Y-you're the third-most feared Biotinker in history, sir—"
"BWAHAHAHAHAHA!" String Theory stopped her tinkering to literally fall to the floor laughing. "The bronze medal! In your own subcategory! HA HA HA HA!"
Lab Rat's neutral expression dipped into a frown.
Greg swallowed. He had started sweating. A lot. Greg tried to remember something from the PHO threads he scanned that would connect with the Biotinker, something that could get him out of this mess. He had a sister. Maybe? But Greg didn't have one, so trying to connect with the man through that was out.
What else? Lab Rat created serums that turned people into monsters, which might have been cool if not for the fact that you weren't guaranteed to turn all the way back. Plus, he needed living material to create his formulas, and—and—
Oh fuck.
"This is the part where you kill me, isn't it?" Greg whispered.
"Not necessarily. Depends on how useful you can make yourself." Lab Rat, a man who could literally turn Greg's body into fuel for his experiments, took the question in stride. "And despite your own stupidity, you got us out of that hellhole, so that counts for something." He tilted his head. "Any particular reason you're asking now?"
"Your powers—they don't heal people." Greg could feel his face going pale. "You can't save me—that means String brought you because you can keep giving her a serum that's keeping her alive, and that's why you two are together even if you hate each other, and now you're going to inject me with the same serum—"
"HA!" String Theory stopped to bark laughter at Lab Rat. Again. "Ha ha ha ha! HA."
Lab Rat just rolled his eyes. "A decent guess, for those among us with teenage brains. But no, the pain in my neck is completely cured, all by my hand. You're in luck, kid."
Greg didn't feel lucky. "B-but…how?"
"As much as I loathe to admit it, all I needed was a bit of inspiration from the runt." Lab Rat shrugged. "Turns out, if you can make a formula that literally turns someone inside-out, scooping out tumors is a cinch."
"It feels like everything around you is on fire, and ice cold, and screaming at you even with painkillers, but it got me clean!" String Theory had finished her tinkering, and was now holding a white gun-sphere-thing in her hands that was starting to glow. If he were in any other situation, Greg would have thought it was the coolest thing he had ever seen.
"But you got this far, kid! What's a little pain? I can feel you'll be my best underling yet!" String Theory fired a beam of red energy out of her impromptu weapon, which began to melt through the steel walls. "Say goodbye to your boring, stupid, uneventful life! Now you're working for me, minion! Our first step is revenge, so let's kill the fucking Simurgh!"
"T-the Endbringer?" Greg tried to fidget towards the door. "T-those things that always come back, no matter how much they're hurt?" Lab Rat stopped that by gently putting a hand on Greg's shoulder. It felt like a vice grip.
"If they've already convinced you they're unbeatable, then they've already won! Do you think I listened when the doctors told me I was terminal? Do you think I cared when they told me the Birdcage was inescapable!? Shove those stupid pearls of wisdom down their throats until they choke!" The metal started making a noise it definitely shouldn't.
String Theory twisted her head back while barely aiming the gun. "The heroes stopped me the first time, but now I'm going to light her on fire! In space! Just as a start! And once I kill her, I'll be bigger than the Triumvirate! Let's see them throw me back in prison after that!"
Greg thought to argue, but now Lab Rat was staring at the woman he had been cussing out with a sort of admiration. "You crazy bitch…" He muttered under his breath. His voice seemed…fond? "That's almost stupid enough to work."
"Have some faith, rodent! I always know what I'm doing!" String Theory cackled like the fucking lunatic she was as the room started to tilt and screech. "Come on boys! Let's go make some SCIENCE!"
Notes:
So this fic started while I was reading Marsa11's The Worst is yet to Come (which is frustratingly good for a story starring an OC while sidelining all the main characters) which began the first germ of this fic's idea, which eventually became the first chapter. Then I ran into ElCuervoBorracho's fanart, and thought the Birdcage could be a good location between the jumpsuits and the prison…
And then I realized String Theory was a pitch-perfect character to replace Cave in a Portal crossover. And then I wrote and finished this chapter. Before all the other ones. Because I needed this. A bit of a mood shift from previous chapters. But I, and hopefully you, had fun, so that's what matters.
Also sad to say that this is the last chapter I have in me. I want to be able to write TayDOS vs Greg, Agent of String Theory, but I have other projects in mind. I guess I could string things along by having Contessa PtV a fraction of a percent chance increase for something if she replaces Dragon with Taylor as warden and all the hijinks that would ensue, but I couldn't really make it work in outlining.
Most of the inmates just don't have fun personalities to have TayDOS bounce off of. Maybe Glastig coked out of her mind on gel fumes solving all the tests "the wrong way" or her playing along with TayDOS and forcing everyone else to do the same? The point is, I pulled the one Birdcage inmate (and her comic relief) into the proceedings because that was simpler.
I might have exaggerated String Theory from her canon self. But only a little bit. As for the potato decoy, I'd like to imagine it's a crude mashed potato sculpture with a prerecorded tape recorder. Then again, String, based on what we know of her power, is one of the few people who could believably make a replicant, in a cave, with a box of scraps!…And all powered by a potato battery.
And for those of you asking where the timer is for Gels, let's all say that they were String's lungs.
Finally, the wiki says that "[String Theory] had very bad posture, constantly slouching and contorting herself into strange proportions in order to irritate Lab Rat." Despite the citation not supporting this at all and me forgetting if that was mentioned in Worm proper, I have decided to run with it because I choose to believe this means String Theory is constantly JoJo posing to assert dominance, which is, you know, GOALS.
EDIT: There is now a continuation of sorts over on Spacebattles by Draconic of Splicer fame. It's tone is more like that of this chapter, so give it a try if you are intrested!
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