MISC: Pulse #1
MARTIN
FROM: MR....@acc.rwu.edu
To: cx...@musica.mcgill.ca
Subject: And please post this too...thank you.
Narcolpetic Dogs Press Presents--
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ISSUE ONE: HOMELAND
Caught up in emotion
Goes over my head, Goes over my head
Sometimes I got to think to myself
Is this life or death
Am I living or am I dead?
--Suicidal Tendencies, How will I laugh tomorrow (When I can't even
smile today?)
Danny looked at the hastily cobbled together screen in the
bunker. James had worked his magic, his strange knack for invention
and electronics having provided them with a superior sensor and
communication station out of busted TV's and old Atari 2600 parts,
but that was the problem. Knowing what was out there made Danny
feel worse.
Daniel Anderson was, as the media had taken to calling people
with abilities that most people didn't possess, an "Omega", the
last evolutionary step in humanity. He thought that the newspaper
reporter who came up with that particular classification should be
beaten severely, but he and his were stuck with it. It had caught
on. The Daytime TV talk shows bristled with "Is your child dating
an Omega?" topics, Maury had covered the "Omega Crisis" in a two
part special,and there were rumors tht Oprah and Phil both had
their own shows planned. Danny hated it, hated what he knew was
coming.
People hate and fear what they don't understand. People don't
understand other people who can fly, or read minds, or bend things
with a glance, or who can lift battleships. War was coming, and
Danny knew that he and his, the blessed few that might have been
able to HELP humanity would be killed by it. He sat down in the
chair they'd scavenged from an old WWII Mustang fighter and for
a second, looked like a seventeen year old again.
The base was secure for now. Angela and Thomas were on patrol,
and between his pyrotic gifts and her inhuman speed and accuracy,
no "feebs", the name the two hundred colonists had taken to calling
those who were not Omegas, could get in. Danny wondered how he'd
gotten to be the leader of all this.
"Dan? It's Miranda." The mind touch was as familiar as the
sensation of waking. He and Miranda spent a great deal of time
together, in each others minds and bodies as much as his position
as leader and her position as Medic allowed.
"What is it, Mir?"
"It's Eric. He's awake." A jolt ripped through Danny, joy
mingled with fear.
"When?"
"Just now. I think you should get down here."
"On my way. Warren?"
"What, Danny?" Danny was a non reader, but his ability to
touch an object and then bring it back to him any time he wanted
had caused his family to try to kill him when he was sleeping. Of
course, they WERE a bit extreme in their reaction, but Warren was
proof of the war Danny knew was coming.
"I have to go to the Sick Room. Take over on Monitor."
"Okay." Danny got up and headed out the door. Buried
underneath the junkyard that Miranda had inherited from her father,
the colony provided James with all the parts he needed and Danny
felt it was defensible enough for now.
And with Eric awake, maybe we can take the offensive.
He walked the corridors, listening to the sound of his boots
clicking on the metal floor. What they'd done since they arrived
was amazing, Danny thought. I wish we had time to be proud. But we
don't. They'll begin registering us next, and then rounding us up
into camps and neutralizing our powers or killing us. I can't let
that happen, and I don't think I'll have to. We won't go quietly.
They want to exterminate us, they'll have to get really bloody.
Miranda was standing next to a flat bed mounted on a swiveling
armature. The Sick Room, in a fit of inventive brilliance from
James, was a model of automated medicine. Diagnostic tools built
into a special computer console, all far beyond what the feebs
could have built. And they want to destroy us, Danny wondered. We
could give them so much.
On the bed, sitting up, a thin man/boy sat. His exposed chest
rippled with muscle. He was hairless, except for the mane of black
hanging all the way down his back. Danny walked next to Miranda,
and sucked in his breath as he saw his adopted brother's face.
The eyes blazed green
"Hey, Dan."
"Eric, how you doing, buddy?"
"Good. Your chick here doesn't believe me, though."
Had Miranda told him? He looked at her, and she shook her
head.
"Danny, Eric has gone through the most powerful awakening I've
ever seen, almost more like a larvae going through its pulpae
stage. His muscles have become an organic material I've never seen
before, All his internal organs have become denser and hard to
read, even on the MRI scan, and apparently while he was out he
psionically scanned all our minds, yours and mine included."
"But..our shields?"
He went through them like paper. Also indicated is some
extreme telekinetic and telelectromagnetic control, and other stuff
I've never even seen before. Looks like your guess was right."
Danny smiled, a feral smile, the smile of a trapped animal
that sees a way out.
* * * * * * * * *
Eric ripped the leg off of the turkey that the group at
Danny's table was eating. The group was Danny and Miranda at the
head of the table, Eric next to them, James, the large jamaican
inventor next to him, and Kimberly and Erica at the far end. The
two twins giggled at a private joke shared through their unified
consciousness. That, and their ability to supercharge their skins
with electricity, had gotten them kicked out of their house.
"So, Eric, hoas it feel to graduate from the ranks of the
feebs?" James at 22, with his accent and ebony skin, and the
fifteen year old Eric made an odd couple, but even before the
beginning signs of Eric's change they had been close. Danny
wondered what he'd have done if Eric hadn't manifested like he did:
There had been no guarantee at all that the NATURAL brother of a
psi would be a psi, and Eric was adopted out of the foster program.
Luckily, he didn't have to worry.
"I told you I would, man. Don't see what all the fuss was
about."
"Boy, don' you remember going into a fit in the middle of
Danny's boring ol' speech about unity breeding strength? I swear,
if I hadn't thought you were dying, I'd ha thought you were doin'
it just to annoy him."
Kimberly looked over. "Yeah." Erica said. "It was freaky."
"This from the girls who engage in a conversation that don't
stop." Eric smiled as Kimberly tossed a roll at him. Danny felt
that strange fatherly feeling that he'd developed. When did I get
so old? finally, after watching them laugh and jape a little more,
he cleared his throat.
"Eric?"
"Yeah, bro?"
"Have you had any other telepathic impressions since you woke
up? Sensed any thoughts, felt your own thoughts project, gone
astral, that sort of thing?"
"No, man. Just the one that happened while I was down. But
Mirry told me she can't read me anymore, so maybe I'm shielding
myself or something."
Danny himself, the most powerful peeker at the base, had tried
several times to get through the shield that had slammed down over
Eric since he woke, and with no success. It concerned him, but not
overly. Danny wasn't the prying type anyway. "What have you been
able to do?"
"Well, I can fly...we found that out early enough...and
nothing so far has been able to hurt me...not even that thing Jimmy
here cobbled up that fires lightning."
"Yeah, Danny, should have seen it! We started at the static
level, and I had that baby cranking enough voltage to charbroil a
tank by the time we were done. Nothing. Bullets don't work either."
Testing the emergent powers of one of them had become one of the
most dangerous aspects of life at the colony. That's why Miranda
was always on hand when it was being done, to heal any injuries the
testing may cause. Danny squeezed her hand gently under the table,
and she smiled at him.
"Anything else?"
Eric took another bite of the turkey, swallowed it with little
chewing, and washed it down with a can of coke. "I'm strong."
"How strong?"
"Stronger that Jarod."
"WHAT!? Jarod can lift a tank!?" Danny suspected that Jarod's
strength was psionically assisted, but it was still impressive. If
what Eric said was true, he could now lift at least eighty tons!
"Well, all I know is that when James and I use that machine
he built for Jarod, it broke and I didn't even feel any strain. I
was doing the lifting one handed, too." Eric polished off the
second drumstick. Danny linked to Miranda.
"What do you think?"
"Definite telekinetic enhancement. His new muscles should be
strong, but there's no way he could be this tough without some sort
of protection. Plus...from what my scans this morning indicated,
his body is processing that food in ways no human has ever done."
"So, now what, Danny?" Eric's question tore Danny's attention
away from the link. "We know what I can do...when do I get a chance
to do it?"
"I've got a few ideas about that, Eric."
* * * * * * * * *
Dynamax Labs was a genetic technology firm on the cutting edge
of genetic research. To the outside world, they were a benevolent
firm seeking an AIDS vaccine, cures to Muscular Dystrophy,
Alzheimers, and various inherited diseases. They made the proper
donations, their founder, Jarvin Tazakles, was seen at all the
right parties and functions with people like the President, Clint
Black, and other famous people. He was rich, famous, and handsome,
and his company facade was so clean it squeaked.
Danny knew otherwise. Dynamax was the bane of his existence,
the one thing he wanted to destroy more than any other. It
kidnapped young Omegas and in an attempt to learn how their
abilities worked, performed ghastly tests that even the doctors at
WWII concentration camps would blanch at. It infected them with
horrible diseases, tortured them with implants, performed
vivisecton and dissection.
To Danny and the Colonists, a few of which were survivors of
Dynamax's Black Labs, Jarvin Tazakles was the embodiment of Satan.
And Danny had his own private reasons for hating the man, as well.
Unfortunately, somehow the man had developed effective
defenses against Telepathy and Telekinesis. They couldn't just kill
him from a distance. And all attempts to assasinate him more
conventionally had failed, sometimes spectacularly.
"I wouldn't be surprised if the man was a reader himself.
Somehow, he keeps a step ahead. He and his can't find US, and we
can't get HIM. Stalemate. Goddamn, I hate that smiling butcher."
Danny turned off the screen and turned back to his brother. Eric
hadn't managed to process all the information he'd recieved during
his nap, and so the presentation had been needed.
"Definitely someone who needs killing."
"Do you think _you_ could be his executioner?" Danny didn't
have time to be subtle or coddle his brother. In war, boys grow up
fast, and Eric had the potential to be a powerful weapon of war.
"Do you mean am I powerful enough, or do you mean am I
ruthless enough?"
"Both."
"Well, I _think_ I have the power. I'm not sure if I'm
ruthless enough...hey, waitaminute. Something about the name
Dynamax rings out."
"Mom worked there." The tone in Danny's voice was flat, even.
He wasn't sure he could play the trump card: Turn his own little
brother into a killing machine with the news. After all, for the
whole time they had been building the base, Eric had blocked out
the events of their parent's death. Two years, and Eric had never
remembered. Did he remember now? The hesitation showed in his
face.
Eric wondered what Danny was thinking. This whole set up must
be hard on the guy. Maybe if I could think about some of the stuff
I learned while I was out...then, Eric hit a node of memories in
his own mind he had sealed. The smell of fire, men in yellow and
black metal, Biohazard patches, running as the boiler exploded,
Danny using his power to get them to safety... and the information
Eric had read while changing clicked.
"They're dead. That son of a bitch had them killed when he was
trying to get you. Get us, I guess. Didn't he?"
"You remember?"
"I remember. Danny?"
"Yes, Eric?"
"I can kill him." The glowing in Eric's eyes filled the room,
so bright that the monitor screens were dim in comparison. "I'll
tear out his heart and bring it back here as a friggin' trophy."
"First we have to make sure you're up to it, Eric." Danny went
over to the main console and typed in an access code. The screen
begand rapidly scrolling, too fast for a normal human to follw: But
Danny had reflexes and perception both enhanced by his will, and
Eric seemed to have no trouble either. "This ought to do."
"What?"
"A raid on a Dynamax lab we suspect of being where they
warehouse their Guinea pigs. Jarod and Agony are going. You can go
with them."
"Agony?"
"Jen DuPries. She refuses to answer to anything else, so we
humor her. Admittedly silly, but she's powerful and skilled, and
we need all the combat ready bodies we can get." Danny motioned for
Eric to follow and walked out the door. The two of them walked down
the twisted lengths of tunneled out earth and metal plates.
"Still haven't finished the lower levels, huh?"
"You were only out for a month, Eric."
"How much room we got down here?"
"Enough. We could fit three times what we have, according to
James, but I'd like to have more." Finally, they came to a large
double door that came from a battleship. As it opened, more
automation from the mind of James, it revealed a few people
training with rifles and pistols. None of the guns matched, and a
couple were really bizarre aggregations of tubes and wires.
"Jarod!" Danny called out. A large man walked over from a
complicated device that was built in order to challenge his
superhuman strength. Eric hoped James had fixed it by now,
otherwise he'd never hear the end of it.
"Daniel. Eric, you're up and about."
"Nothing gets by you, Jarod." Jarod had an air of authority
about him that both Anderson's disliked. He was forty-eight, and
disliked the fact that the colony was run by a seventeen year old,
but Danny had the support, and Jarod didn't. He was autocratic, and
a bit uptight, Eric thought.
"What can I do for you two?"
"Eric's going on your mission tonight."
"What?" Jarod felt his pulse rate shoot up. "For God's sake,
he just got out of the med lab today!"
"Miranda gave him a clean bill."
"He's a BOY! Hell, _You_ are a boy! He's the same age as my
son!" The large man wiped at his coffee colored skin with the back
of his hand. He'd shaved his head to save his vanity, but at times
like this the sweat ran into his eyes.
"If your son had shown any signs of being an Omega, _he'd_
have to go on a few missions too. We all have to pull our weight
around here. Hard times are coming. Besides, he broke your weight
machine this morning, with one hand." Jarod looked aside at Eric,
and Eric smiled at him.
"_FINE_ then...just as long as you both understand that _I_
am in charge of this raid."
"I gotcha, dude." Eric leaned back against the wall. Danny had
been about to say something about that, and wondered why Eric was
being so concilliatory. "Not here to make waves, just wanna help
out and learn the ropes and all."
"We leave from the staging area in one hour. Be there." With
a curt nod to Danny, Jarod walked back over to the lifting machine.
Danny turned to face his brother.
"What are you up to?"
"No reason he should hate _both_ of us. Besides, I kind of
agree with him. I mean, I know we don't have the luxury of waiting
until we're older, but still, it kinda sucks for the others to lose
their childhoods. Me, I bounced around from foster home to foster
home until mom and dad took me in, and you just _are_ this way.
About as fun as a colostomy bag." Eric smiled again as he said it.
"I'll give you a colostomy bag. C'mon, I'll get you a radio
and a uniform."
* * * * * * * * *
Jarod gestures, and the three of them approached the outer
fence. Eric stole a glance at Jen again, or Agony, or whatever she
called herself. She was Danny's age, and for some reason had picked
up a strange set of powers from her Omega.
First off, she broadcast a message telling everyone of the
proper sexual orientation that they desired her. Eric remembered
it well from before, but apparently the same thing that kept his
mind from being read shielded him from that, too. Just as well,
really, as it'd be hard to get through the mission with a perpetual
hard-on. The second was general physical ability, just about
everything was past human norms. She wasn't in Jarod's class, but
she could lift a car easily enough, and was trained in martial arts
before she joined. Finally, she could "Switch On" a person's pain
receptors, all of them, at once. This is where she got her Nom Du
Guerre from, Eric supposed. He wondered if he was immune to _that_,
and decided not to try and find out.
"Allright, here's the plan. Originally, we were going to break
the fence and storm the place, but Anderson here can fly and he
says he can carry me, so he'll do that, and you'll jump the fence,
Jen. You have the codebox James made?"
"Yes."
"Good. You'll go for the main lab we saw on the blueprints,
and Anderson and I will go to their Mainframe and destroy it. Once
we do that, alarms will be set off, so we'll smash our way to you,
and together we'll set any victims free and get out. You two all
clear on that?"
"Yessir, Jarod sir."
"Cut the sarcasm, Anderson. Let's go." Agony slipped out of
the bushes and flipped over the fence easily, clearing it by twenty
feet. She then ran across the thirty yards to the main door in
seconds and slipped inside. Jarod, while stronger than her, didn't
have the ability to leap higher than a human. Eric grabbed his
wrist.
"This is Race Bannon, your stud pilot, and thank you for
flying Eric Air. We'll be cruising at a..."
"Cut the shit."
"Spoilsport. Just for that, no peanuts." Swallowing to keep
himself calm, Eric hoped that the jokes made him seem unconcerned
as he lifted up and over the fence and swept over to the top of the
lab and the skylight that Jarod had drilled into his skull thirty
minutes ago. They landed on the roof next to it, and Jaron pulled
it open. No alarms sounded.
"This is too easy."
"I told you, Anderson, they didn't secure the skylights in the
initial contractors plans." Jarod dropped down and Eric flew in
after him. Something in him wasn't convinced by Jarod's
explanation, and he didn't think Jarod bought it either, but having
nothing else to go on, he went along.
They walked out of the office they entered the building
through and headed down the halls. Three lefts later, they were at
the Data Storage room. Jarod smashed the door down, and the alarms
went off.
"Destroy as much as possible!" Jarod picke dup one of the
large computer units, about the size of a refridgerator, and
smashed it into another. Sparks and shards of metal and plastic
flew out of it. Eric followed suit, and in seconds the room was in
ruins. Eric looked at the devastation.
"Well, I guess we won't be invited to the Christmas Party."
"C'mon!" Jarod ran out the door and began running through the
walls to get to the main lab, and Eric just flew behind his trail.
Sometimes subtlety isn't required, he thought as chunks of wood and
plaster flew past him.
They came out through a cinderblock wall. Three men and two
women were unconscious on the floor, and Agony was unshackling a
woman strapped to a modified table out of the office of an OB-GYN.
But no OB-GYN ever had a buzzsaw and a drill attatched to his
table. Eric looked at some of the others, and felt like he was
going to vomit. There was a man, still alive, with his head cut
open and pinned down like a frog in a science class. Three others
were dead, and five more had been waiting for their turn. They
sobbed in relief or swore with joy or panic as Jarod began breaking
them out.
"Jesus. This is..this is.." Suddenly, floodlights snapped on.
Eric whirled around and saw four people standing in the hole Jarod
made in the wall.
"Hold it right there, terrorists." Ther man speaking was of
average height, obviously oriental, with no hair. He wore a
modified military jumpsuit with a Dynamaz patch where a military
blazon should be. Next to him was a small man, bowlegged, with
short blond hair, skin so sunburnt it was almost orange, dressed
in jeans and a button front denim shirt. Behind them was another
man, unremarkable, wearing the same uniform as the first. The blond
woman behind them with the hatchet face was wearing it too.
"Dynamax security. You're under arrest."
"Give me a break." Jarod walked up next to Eric. "You people
do _this_ and then evoke the law? We don't think so, you f*&%king
_filth_." Agony came up on the other side of Eric, and Eric was
glad these four had shown up and given him something to think about
besides the poor bastards on the tables. She spoke up. "You want
us, you'll have to take us."
"Fine by me, girl. Crush them!" The cowboy suddenly vanished.
One second he was there, next second he wasn't. Then the speaker
of the group waved his hand, and Jarod was caught by a telekinetic
blow that sent him across the room. Eric's mind reeled. They were
Omegas, and they allowed this to happen to their own kind! His eyes
flared. The rest of the security force had spread out, but the
telekinetic was in his line of sight. Before Eric could do
anything, the cowboy reappeared behind him and thrust a knife into
his back.
It's blade broke. Eric lashed out and smashed the bastard off
of him. The impact snapped his spine, and his scream rang out thin
and reedy. "Shit! Smasher, Larry's down!" Jarod was going toe to
toe with the woman, who was apparently protected by some kind of
forcefield. She was the one talking. "The kid's not a gimmie! You
take him!" Agony had the other man rolling around on the floor as
she played with his pain receptors. The man that the woman called
Smasher looked at Eric.
"Say goodbye, kid." He made a fist. Eric felt the force hit
him, but didn't move. Instead, he smiled. Smasher was taken aback,
and it showed on his face. Eric smiled.
"Not bad. Try one of mine." Suddenly the gree light flared,
and a blast of heat smashed into Smasher. His uniform burnt off
him, and he fell to the ground as his teke shield collapsed. Eric
walked over as his enemy struggled to get up.
"Say night-night, moron." He crushed the prone man's head with
his foot. Turning, he saw Jarod drive his opponents head through
the reinforced cement of the outer retaining wall. With her force
field, she may have survived that.
She didn't survive the punch that drove the rest of her
through. The captured Omega's looked at the bodies of their captors
and then began kicking them, hitting them, pounding them with
debris. Jarod looked at Eric and motioned to Agony, who walked over
to him, as did Eric.
"You kill yours?"
"Definitely offed the leader there, I don't know about Pecos
Bill."
"I overloaded his pain threshold. His heart stopped. And I got
mine, too."
"What about that poor bastard?" Jarod gestured to the man on
the vivisection table. Eric didn't want to look back over. "Can he
survive that? Should he?"
"I don't know. Maybe. What do you think, Eric?"
Eric swallowed down a chunk of nausea balling up in his
throat. He didn't want to make the decision, but he had to say
something. He doubted that the man would survive another five
minutes, no matter _what_ they did. And if he did, surely he'd be
a vegetable. "No. I think we shouldn't let him suffer any more."
"I concur."
"I'll handle it." Agony walked over. Eric heard the crunch of
bone, and unlike his own brutal actions of a minute previous, he
thought he was going to vomit when he did. Somehow, he didn't.
Jarod put his hand on Eric's shoulder.
"It doesn't get easier, but you get used to it."
"I'm allright."
"Just saying it in case you needed to hear it."
"Thanks, but I'm frosty."
Agony walked back."Let's get out of here."
Next Issue: Tazakles sets a trap. Eric discovers his limits.
The Government takes action.