Permutational Industries

Herein lies a short history of Permutational Industries, starting with its founding as a snake-oil manufacturing firm and ending with a summary of its recent, highly illegal activities. The company seems to have come to something of a stand-still in its development of organic circuitry technology, thanks to the rebellion of its test subjects, but its work with alien biology proceeds apace...!

Permutational Industries is a corporation that has indeed lived up to its name. It has taken many forms (and names) since its inception in 1872, beginning with Thaddeus Wilhelm Fromage's Down Home Medicinal Supply Company. When it first started out, the company was naught but a snake oil distributor, selling a variety of 'miracle cures' to hucksters who plied their trade around the country.

While the Company made a lot of money doing this, the truth is that not everyone in the Fromage family was happy with the nature of the family business. In fact, Thaddeus's son Mortimer abandoned the Company to pursue a study of science - biology, in particular. You see, he was obsessed with the ideas of Charles Darwin, and wanted to get to the root of this mysterious thing we call 'life'.

Though initially disappointed, Thaddeus eventually came around to the idea of Mortimer becoming a serious biologist, as it would ultimately lend credence to the company's wares. Things would change for the company, however, when Thaddeus died unexpectedly of a heart attack, leaving the business to his sole heir, Mortimer. Having learned all he could at the time, Mortimer came home to change everything.

Renaming the company Bio-Logic Industries at the turn of the century, Mortimer Fromage completely rebuilt the family firm from the ground up. He hired a small army of biological researchers to help him concoct genuine pharmaceuticals, not the flim-flammery his dad was peddling to an unsuspecting nation. Though primitive by modern standards, the work Bio-Logic performed was leading-edge at the time.

This earned the company a rather powerful reputation, which in turn helped it to acquire a large number of government contracts. Working to support both the public and private sector, Bio-Logic Industries made an astounding amount of money, some of which it spent building a new headquarters deep in the deserts of Arizona - on a vast tract of land that they could use to perform experiments willy-nilly.

Where the company became a bit more relevant to ascendant humans, however, is in its monetization of extra-terrestrial life forms. After the second World War, the company was given free license to study a variety of alien life forms the government had gotten its hands on. Most were dead, having crashed due to accident or military intent, but a few were still alive, and these still-living beings made Bio-Logic billions.

Mortimer's son, Dean Fromage, was an accomplished biologist in his own right, and just as obsessed with the ideas of genetics as his father was. As such, he was able to extract all kinds of knowledge from the company's stable of living and deceased alien creatures, and only a few managed to escape the company's tender care. Revolutionary drugs, the likes of which the world had never seen before, became commonplace releases.

But where Bio-Logic truly excelled was in the creation of living implants, tissues harvested from aliens and implanted into humans for a variety of purposes. One such implant proved invaluable to various intelligence agencies, as it let them monitor the minds of implanted operatives subconsciously - from any distance! This let them weed out all manner of traitors, double agents and other troublesome operatives.

While lucrative, the problem with these alien tissue grafts was that the company couldn't patent them like they could the drugs. You'd have to explain to a public body how you made them, after all, which would kind of reveal their source to an unsuspecting world. This is why Dean's son, Horace Fromage, was more than receptive to an offer made to him by a mysterious scientist who only identified himself as Mister Brewer.

This man had a truly brilliant idea, to concoct what he termed organic circuitry. This revolutionary technology would be built with entirely terrestrial source material, and thus, could be patented proper. He had all the knowledge he needed to create this material, but was sadly lacking where the funds were concerned. Thus, Horace began a series of negotiations with the man about both of their futures.

In exchange for financing Brewer's creation of the organic circuitry, which he'd coined Technohol, Horace would gain exclusive commercial rights to the technology for the duration of the initial patents. In exchange, Brewer could continue his work with the nigh-unlimited funding that Bio-Logic Industries could provide, and when Bio-Logic's patents expired he was free to do what he wished with the Technohol.

Elated, Mister Brewer got to work right away, and within a few years he'd developed several prototype Technohol formulations, living machines which combined the best characteristics of the biological and the mechanical. Horace was ecstatic, and as such decided that development of this Technohol would be the new focus of the company; sure, they'd maintain their other work, but there was just so much more money in this.

To this end, he rechristened the company Permutational Industries, and poured most of the company's development funds into Technoholic research. In time, the target of said research changed, the company eventually wanting to produce a means of creating an instant army of super-soldiers. The idea was trained fighters could imbibe a dose of Technohol and be converted into organic circuitry killing machines when necessary.

This invited an all new level of challenge, for Brewer had to use his technology to control and modify existing human beings - a dicey proposition at best. However, this would allow him to pursue his own interests with the Technohol, so he was happy to oblige. He then devised a series of prototypes, disguised as a new brand of soft drink, which unsuspecting test subjects could imbibe to be converted into living weapons.

What Brewer failed to tell the company, however, was that he exposed himself to the first batch of weaponized Technohol, one which had the mind controlling elements stripped out of it. Thus enhanced, Brewer was able to continue his work at a breakneck pace, also performing work on his own, private projects. The only problem was, the mind control functions of the subsequent Technoholic doses weren't working properly.

Some would work for a while, while others didn't at all. This caused a series of messes for Bio-Logic Industries, which they wouldn't have been able to clean up save for a special solvent he'd made which would unravel his organic circuitry on the molecular level. This managed to spare the company from any untidy messes from their first eleven test subjects, though things would begin to fall apart soon afterwards.

This was because of Sam Xerxes Robbins. Dosed by Brewer in a Taos diner, Robbins was being converted successfully with version thirteen of the Technohol, when he was exposed to a lethal amount of radiation by a random super-criminal. While the mind control portions of Technohol 13 would have otherwise functioned properly (the bugs having been worked out), the radiation prevented them from activating.

Sending his previous, seemingly successful test subject, Clarice Soto, after him, Brewer railed about the effects of random elements ruining his tests, before moving along to test out the fourteenth iteration of Technohol. As he dosed a set of twins with the material, Robbins appeared to oppose Brewer's further efforts... which was when Brewer revealed his own, Technoholic powers to the man!

Soundly thrashing Robbins, Brewer would have slain him, save for the appearance of Soto, who then killed him with his own, Technoholic solvent. She'd been faking her successful transition to a 'perfect' Technoholic operative out of fear, and saw in Robbins an opportunity to escape Permutational Industries and its diabolical aims. The two then launched an attack on the company's headquarters itself!

Destroying a large number of Permutational Industries' staff and resources in the course of this assault, Robbins and Soto culminated their rampage with the slaying of Horace Fromage himself! They then threatened the assembled, still-living executives with a horrible death should they see any hint of them at a future date. As one can guess, this seemed like a serious set-back for the corporation.

While the death of Mister Brewer, along with the destruction of his Technoholic super soldier formulae (by his creations) and developmental notes (by Seņor Barnett) hampered Permutational Industries' efforts, they were far from out of business. Propped up by their other development lines, the company has started over with its development on the Technohol, still having enough of Brewer's base material to work from.

That, and the company's newest owner, Sherry Fromage, intended to get revenge on Soto and Robbins for the murder of her father...!

The following is a roster of the known 'innovations' produced by Permutational Industries as a result of its exploitation of extra-terrestrial life forms. Furthermore, the individuals who have been touched by their developments, for good or ill, are described in some detail as well - particularly those people who have been enhanced by the Permutational Industries' work on its so-called Technohol...

Permutational Staff (Former and Present):

Drag: Bartholomew Smithers is a bitter scientist who was laughed out of 'respectable' scientific circles for his idea of growing living armor suits. Deemed mad by his peers, he proved them wrong by building himself a bio-suit to use against mankind! Availability:

Permutational Innovations:

Technohol: the brain child of the mysterious mad scientist known only as Mister Brewer, Technohol is a revolutionary organic circuitry technology that he needed Permutational Industries' help to develop - which they gladly did - for a price. Availability:

Technohol-enhanced Humans:

Eleven: Wilbur Bonaventure was a hired goon that volunteered to be dosed with Technohol 11. However, he began to get Ideas about living a better life soon afterwards, and was dissolved by Mister Brewer as a result. Oddly, he kind of recovered from this...! Availability:

Mister Brewer: the creator of Technohol, Mister Ezekiel Brewer experimented with it on himself, both out of curiosity as well as a need to be one with his creation. This put this mad scientist even further over the sociopathic edge than he was before, however. Availability:

Technoholic Man: used as a test subject for an organic circuitry super soldier sleeper technology disguised as a soft drink, Sam Xerxes Robbins managed to come out of this on top, and now wanders the earth as a mighty technological hero! Availability:

the Technoholic Twins: these two oblivious twins were dosed by Mister Brewer with his experimental concoction: Technohol 14! Saved from its mind control components by Seņor Barnett, they've gone on to fail at their acting careers... sort of? Availability:

XII: Clarice Soto was formerly a scientist working for Permutational Industries who was subjected to Technohol 12 when she learned what the company had in store for the technology. Luckily for her, it didn't silence her as her boss planned...! Availability:

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