Microstory 141: Setsuko Kawaguchi

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When Setsuko Kawaguchi was a child, she was diagnosed with a medical condition known as congenital insensitivity to pain with anhidrosis. CIPA is an inherited disorder caused by a genetic mutation that prevents the nervous system of the individual from detecting pain and extreme temperatures. In Setsuko’s case, however, this was an erroneous diagnosis. She would go on to be the herald of an extremely useful and common trait referred to later as evolution out of pain. Documentation regarding her was used to develop gene therapy that resulted in a new class of humans who were born with similar symptoms to CIPA, but with Setsuko’s one major advantage. Pain is not an arbitrary component of the living organism experience. It serves a vital purpose; to alert the brain to injury and other physiological dangers. If the brain is incapable of knowing that an injury has occurred, then it will likewise be incapable of solving the problem by clotting blood, mending bone, regulating body temperature, or doing whatever else needs to be done to keep the organism alive. Fortunately, Setsuko—and later derivative humans—needn’t feel pain in order to know of an injury. Her pain receptors had evolved to send complex messages to the brain without actually causing the pain normally associated with such issues. Instead of the stove burner hurting when being touched, Setsuko’s body would simply tell her to let go. A group of scientists who were looking for ways to replicate or otherwise manipulate anomaly abilities kidnapped Setsuko, along with a handful of others, for unethical experimentation. She ultimately lost her ability as a result of it being transferred to Phaedra Wirth. Once the organization involved was shut down, she became angry, and joined a major opposing force to Bellevue. Her new leader provided her and her friends with a new ability, and she used this to threaten the survival of the entire planet.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: April 15, 2039

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Death. Death was lingering in the air when they woke up on the morning of tax day. Last year, after staying off the beaten path for a while, they met back up with Loop Trail and followed it due North. At some point, though, the trail started heading away from their destination, so they went back to walking in the woods. They kept going for about six hours, taking special pills that maintained their endurance and speed, but required a higher intake of calories to compensate. They had to cross the creek twice; once with a bridge, but another by wading, because walking all around the bend would have taken far too much time. They had passed their halfway mark at eighteen miles, and decided to make camp, hopeful that their tent would remain in place during its time alone in a remote spot in the middle of nowhere, knowing that this was a longshot. Somehow, however, the powers that be treated the tent as they do clothing, and seemed to send it to the future with them, along with all of their belongings. That was nice to know, for future necessity.

Upon exiting the magic tent in 2039, they found everything around them dead. The trees, the grass, the brush. It was all blackened and deteriorated, for as far as their eyes could see. Some of the wood was still burning. They walked down a ways toward the creek and saw the water to be thick and blackened as well. “What happened here? Did that huge volcano finally erupt?”

“No. Forest fire,” Leona explained, looking across the distance. “And a really bad one, at that. It destroyed a great deal of the landscape. There must have been a heavy rain right after it too.”

“Isn’t that a good thing?”

“It’s not,” she said. “It would be why the water is black. Ash runoff.” She reached over to feel a still-standing tree trunk. Her fingers turned black. “My God, this probably happened only yesterday.”

“Reaver.”

She fumed. “It’s very likely. Though, the summers of this last decade have been some of the hottest on record for this area. It might have just been caused by a heatwave.”

“It’s April.”

“True, but as bad as he is, his attacks have been precise. Tactical. This seems...reckless. Messy. It’s overkill, and why did he start the fire yesterday instead of today?”

“Perhaps he had intended on it lasting longer, but the rain came on. If he had started after our jump, we could have seen it coming.”

“I won’t rule it out. We are certain of other times that he’s tried to kill you, so I wouldn’t give him a medal if this turned out to not be one of them.”

“What do we do now?”

She took a few moments to process what were probably a thousand options in her head. “What we do now is have a clearer shot to the city.”

“We keep going?”

She shook her head, not as an answer, but as a general distaste for their situation. “We have no choice.”

As they were packing up their things, Mateo asked, “you’re sure it wasn’t the volcano?”

“No, Mateo. It wasn’t the volcano. Don’t ask me that again.”

They continued to walk, but this time without so much of the woods. After two more miles of straying from the creek, because it was no longer the easiest route, they came upon Forest Rd 30050. Waiting for them was a man, leaning up against a luxury car in a chauffeur’s uniform. He smiled, and they were worried that their family had tracked them down. But they should have been more worried.

The man looked at his watch. “That’s funny. You’re late.” He paused to consider the possibilities. “I must have stepped on a butterfly this time.”

“Bradbury reference,” Leona said. “You must be a salmon.”

“I’m afraid not,” the man replied. “I just work for one.” He opened the back door and pointed a gun at them. “Get in.”

Mateo and Leona looked around for an escape. There were plenty of places to run, but there was nowhere to hide.

“You know what they say about futility,” the man said ominously.

“No, I honestly don’t. What do they say?” Mateo asked.

“They say get in the fucking car.”

“Oh yes, I’ve heard that.”

They abided his orders and stepped in. He climbed in afterwards and kept his weapon trained on them. “Take us home, Harrison,” he said to his car’s artificial intelligence.

“As you wish, Dave.”

Leona let out a kind of snort-chuckle-cough thing.

“Yes, a computer talking to someone named Dave. That’s hilarious,” Dave said.

“I don’t get it,” Mateo said.

“Right,” Dave said. “I was told you were kind of dumb.”

“Well, if that’s a reference, I must have been away at the time.”

Leona shook her head. “You weren’t.” She turned her attention back to Dave. “How much is Reaver paying you? Do you even know what he wants with us? He wants to kill us. He’s evil.”

“I don’t work for Reaver,” Dave responded. And it sounded like the truth. He seemed like the type of person who wasn’t afraid to hurt someone, but who would never lie. He probably never needed to. “Reaver’s man, Allen, is waiting for you on Forest Rd 30060. The fire didn’t spread that far, so he’s trying to use trees as cover. I wasn’t afraid of you seeing me, because I do not intend to hurt you.”

“What do you intend? And who do you work for?”

“I work for his nemesis, his archrival, his opposite.”

Mateo felt a little uncomfortable, but decided to voice his thoughts. “I kind of figured that I was his nemesis.”

“From what little I know, you’re an enemy, but you weren’t designed as his counterpoint. I wasn’t told why he hates you so much. My boss can do what Reaver does, and has been using this power for years to quell Reaver’s power as much as possible. Certain events have led my boss to believe that it’s time you met. For real, this time.”

“What do you mean for real?” Leona asked.

“Well, like I said, my boss can do what Reaver does. Their pattern is the same.”

“We don’t know what his pattern is.”

Dave eyed them with disbelief and curiosity. Then he looked down at the minibar, trying to work something out in his head. “You knew it before. Reaver must have told you after getting to you.”

“What are you talking about?”

Leona seemed to understand. “You’re talking about an alternate timeline.”

“You met my boss under different circumstances yesterday. But we’ve changed things now. Maybe I shouldn’t take you.”

“We didn’t meet anyone yesterday.”

“Yesterday from my boss’ perspective; not yours.”

“I am so lost.”

Leona massaged Mateo’s knee. “It’s all right, honey. You’ll get there.”

But he didn’t get there. Skipping an entire year every day he understood. His teleporting aunt he understood. But when it came to his father’s seemingly random time traveling, The Doctor’s apropos appearances, or The Delegator’s sporadic use of Stonehenge, it just hurt his head. Dave refused to explain further, insisting that he not speak another word to them until consulting with his mysterious boss. Leona didn’t try to help either, instead claiming that it would only confuse him more if she tried to explain things without having all of the facts.

The car drove them all the way into Idaho and informed them—since Dave wasn’t talking—that they couldn’t go to any of the nearest airports because Reaver would be monitoring those. Harrison transferred his consciousness to a relatively small but sleek and futuristic aircraft that was hidden in an empty grain silo. It rose into the air, commanded the top hatch to open, and then shot straight into the air. Mateo and Leona watched as the ground flew away from them, but then Harrison tinted the windows completely because they weren’t allowed to know where they were going.

The trip only took a few hours, but Leona told him that they could be anywhere on the planet by that time, due to advances in air travel. They were tucked away in a pleasant and comfortable prison room at this undisclosed location. Before leaving, Dave said that his boss would wait to speak to them until tomorrow/next year so that they could have the entire day to discuss matters. Used to being out of control of their lives, Mateo and Leona agreed to not worry about what was happening. They stuffed their faces full of food, watched a movie trilogy that both of them had missed about a group of people in another galaxy who wore jackets that let them manipulate reality to their liking, and fell asleep on the most comfortable bed in the history of history.

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Crossed Off: Relay (Part IX)

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“It sounds like crosstalk to me,” Karam said after Starla explained what had happened with the old man in Greece. He preferred to speak with her out loud, even though they were psychically connected.

I don’t know what that means.

“Well, you sent your consciousness to Egypt, and while you were doing that, this Don guy was sending his consciousness to Greece. You sort of...collided with him, and it prevented you from completing your call to me.”

How do I get back to them?

“Well, you’ve already tried what I would have suggested. It sounds like you don’t really know his phone number.” He threw up air quotes at those last words. “It was an accident. I don’t know that you could replicate it.”

Starla was silent, unable to vocalize her frustration regarding the last few weeks. She thought things couldn’t get any worse following her physical decline, but she was wrong. Something had to change, and quick.

Alec decided to take the next term of school off, and it would have been an uphill battle for Starla’s parents to try to claim that there was any reason for her to go back to tertiary school. They had no idea why her body had fallen into this condition, but they were probably more distraught over it than even her. They paid the bills and modified the house to accommodate her. They did everything right, on paper, that is. But they had a hard time looking her in the eye. They were secretly grateful for Alec’s involvement and patience. She loved them very much, but she didn’t dwell on the fact that they had grown apart. Sometimes, things like that are just unavoidable.

And so, the two of them remained in Winnipeg with Marissa’s family for the next few weeks. Starla would bring the consciousnesses of her confidants to hang out with them. Unfortunately, she could only connect with one person at a time, and Karam was hogging all the appointments so that he could be around Therasia. He had an open relationship with his husband, so there was no problem with his attraction towards her on that front. Though, there was a bit of a problem from their age difference, so he kept his feelings to himself, and also to Starla since she couldn’t help but know.

One of her confidants was too busy to hang out, however. Uruguayan-born Yenifer was always off on one crusade or another. After tertiary school, she decided to forego college and travel the developing world, providing aid to those in need. She had worked for a number of different organizations and was at present working for Food for Somalia on the outskirts of Mogadishu. It was likely the most dangerous situation she had ever been in, and she was currently calling for Starla’s help. I need you to relay messages to Chantal, Yenifer pleaded. In order for two or more of Starla’s confidants to communicate with each other, without using the telephone or letters, Starla would have to relay messages between them. She would have to send her consciousness to one location, pick up the psychic message, then send her consciousness to the other and repeat the thought. And she would have to do this over and over again, because there was no way to connect them together. It was mentally taxing, but it ultimately instilled a sense of community amongst her friends, rather than them being just a scatter of people around the world who all happened to know the same South Carolina girl.

I can do that, Starla said after jumping to Yenifer’s body. She was running through an industrial area. A large group of civilians were running beside her while some kind of small armed military force was providing cover and protection. One soldier, however, had no weapons at all. Instead, she remained up front, barreling through enemies with her bare hands like they were nothing. She clearly had some kind of superhuman strength. She was either another person born with special abilities, or part of a military supersoldier program. She could not yet rule out the latter.

We have to flee the mainland, Yenifer cried. Chantal is the closest known friendly. I need you to coordinate with her. We need permission to enter Seychelles.

I don’t think that she would have that kind of pull, Starla said.

She’ll have to contact the Coast Guard and inform them that we seek refuge from a pirate legion. Seychelles incarcerates the highest number of pirates in the world. I expect them to be sympathetic to the cause.

What have you gotten yourself into, Yenifer? Starla asked like a disappointed mother.

Don’t give me that. This is important. We’re almost to the plane. We need a place to land. Can you help or not? I can just wait until we get to a phone and do it myself.

No, no, it’s fine, Starla insisted. I can do it.

Starla kept an eye on both of them, making sure that Yenifer got to the plane safely, and that Chantal managed to get ahold of the right people. After some discussion, the Seychelles Coast Guard did agree to let them land as long as they agreed to be debriefed, and to let them handle any further piracy issues. Starla ended up staying with Yenifer for a while as she was looking for a way to get the woman with superstrength alone.

“Could you tell me your name? I always like to know who to thank for saving my life.”

“Máire Lyne,” the woman said, shaking hands. “And it’s my job.”

“Forgive me, but you possess a level of strength of never seen before.” She looked down to the back of the fuselage. “And there are far more soldiers here than I remember running with us.”

“Many were waiting for us on the plane,” Máire explained.

“I don’t believe that. Do you have a superpower?”

“Of course I don’t,” Máire replied, and it was obvious that this wasn’t the first time she had been asked such a question.

“There are two people inside of my body right now. Me,” she began, “and my friend, Starla. Her body is in Manitoba right now.”

Máire was wary but noticeably excited by this. “Is that a joke?”

They provided her with a demonstration. Physical contact with a confidant and someone else on the other side allowed Starla to transfer her consciousness to that new person. She moved Máire’s mind to Marissa’s house where the gang was playing cards and telling stories. “That was amazing,” she said after returning to her own body. “She’s always been able to do that?”

Starla took over Yenifer’s body completely. “I have.”

“My brother and I already know that we’re not alone. Sandro Watts works on a separate team, using darts he shoots out of his fingers. Honestly, Miss Wakefield, I would be remiss if I did not suggest to you that you strongly consider joining us.”

“Sorry,” Starla said truthfully. “I would never.”

“I understand. But remember that we’re here to help; not to hurt. My ability does not only give me physical strength. I’m also able to utilize the intelligence and wisdom of others. I always know how to find the peaceful option, if there is one. Besides, you wouldn’t have to join the paramilitary. There are other positions in the Confederacy. I’m pretty sure one of us works as an interpreter in Hudson.”

“Yes,” Starla nodded. “Ling Guo. I have encountered her. I almost forgot.”

Máire subtly shrugged her shoulders. “Just something to think about.”

“Indeed.”

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Microstory 140: Máire Lyne

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The standard tactical team of the Confederacy’s paramilitary arm carried seven people: a leader, his or her lieutenant, a sniper, a spotter, an engineer, a technician, and a combat expert. Teams were designed this way for a number of reasons. Scientists and other researchers had determined, based on basic dimensional physics and other strategic factors, that whenever a team needed to sufficiently surround and neutralize a threat, seven was always the minimum number focal points. The smaller team was also capable of infiltrating enemy lines without being detected, and the odd number prevented internal disputes from being stuck in a stalemate. Seoc Lyne and his sister, Máire Lyne belonged to a special strike team that had a total of eighteen members. Unlike her brother, who could fuse his body with one other person at a time and become nigh invulnerable, Máire could merge other people into herself. Each person she merged with increased her physical strength exponentially, and this appeared to be limited to around a dozen. While Seoc was fused with the team’s leader, Rashad, Máire was merged with ten other people, and though she was assigned to be the combat expert, those ten others gave her a huge variety of skills and expertise that she utilized with a psychic connection. The eighteen of them were compressed into seven and sent all over the globe on missions, protecting the world from threats that it was sometimes not even aware of. Upon joining Bellevue, Máire discovered that she was capable of presenting the abilities of other anomalies when merged with them. Because of this, Bellevue’s leader asked her to form a special new team. As the need arose, she and her brother would merge with one person from each department and go out on extremely vital missions as a single, nearly unstoppable, force. Tamra Shore provided telekinesis, Dores Roach allowed them to heal the innocent, Dathan Shapiro was more knowledgeable than all of them put together, Serenity Theodo gave them the ability to phase through solid objects, Valary Sela enhanced their vision, and Levi Jacobson allowed them to fly. They referred to this as Team 8.

Microstory 139: Hester Khan

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There was a long and strict vetting process for prospective residents of a coveted gated community in Roanoke, Virginia, and such an occurrence had been a rarity for years. Every current resident was aware of a special secret about one of their own. Hester Khan lived in the most luxurious house at the end of a cul-de-sac, despite her feigned reluctance for the treatment. She was employed as the neighborhood gardener because of her ability. She could remotely dissolve living cells with incredible accuracy. This would have allowed her to kill people, or other living creatures, with a single thought, but that was not her use. Instead, she tailored her skills to keep the grass cut to the perfect length, bushes trimmed into ornate patterns, and other plants nice and pruned. All she had to do was focus on a single line of cells in a plant, and once she completely destroyed them, the remaining two parts would be separated from each other. As many anomalies did, she practiced her ability on her own as she was growing up. By the time she was hired as the gardener, should could clip an entire lawn in a split second. She was not paid a wage for her services, per se, but she was given anything and everything she needed, or wanted, by the homeowner association. She was included as a kind of amenity for all residents, along with the pool and recreational center. Like Donna Belmonte and her town, the majority of Hester’s neighbors ended up moving to Bellevue with her, and forming a tight-knit community so that she could continue her work as the groundskeeper. By the time knowledge of Bellevue’s existence had reached the public, it had formed into a fairly large town of its own, complete with its own security and law enforcement. Any government or other entity that threatened its survival was met with strong opposition. Their dedication and loyalty helped lift Bellevue up from obscurity to become a respected and legitimate organization.

Microstory 138: Flora Canto

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Many found it interesting that a person named Flora Canto would be able to control the growth of plant life. It fueled unpopular speculation that anomaly abilities had less to do with genetics and more to do with how an individual was raised. Those educated enough laughed at such theories. Those with an understanding of the past knew that such an idea was not out of the realm of possibility, and had actually happened many years ago. When Nevada native, Flora was young, her mother took her to the new botanical gardens in Arizona. As part of the fun, the gardens handed out bags of seeds that children could use to learn how to plant. While her mother was distracted, flirting with a garden worker, Flora started noticing that an entire section of plants were dying right before her eyes. She had already exhausted her bag of seeds, but she had the urge to solve the problem, so she grabbed a handful from the bag of a girl near her and scattered them on the ground. Upon her command, the entire section sprouted back up with new plants and flowers. Only a few other people were around, many of them fully aware of what it was like to keep a secret, so the word did not spread about the miracle at that time. Her mother took her back home and warned her to never again do what she had around other people. Still, she could not help but spread life. She felt like it was her responsibility. Over the years, there were rumors of plants in the deserts of Laughlin that did not belong there, and could not have grown naturally. Because of this, she was eventually discovered and kidnapped by an associate of a Bellevue member. He held her in captivity, along with a small number of other anomalies, until they were uncovered and freed by Bellevue before the second stage of recruitment had even begun. Despite having had no prior experience, Flora stepped into a leadership position for Bellevue, and was third to the primary leader.

Microstory 137: Posie McKenna

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Posie McKenna was born in Bloomington, Indiana to a fairly wealthy family. She had a pretty happy childhood, and worked at a number of jobs as she grew up, always interested in learning a multitude of skills. After receiving her college degree in psychology, she took out some time for travel, and to find her purpose in life. After a couple of years, she decided to return home and expand on her psychology background by going to licensure school so that she could earn her certification to be a paramour. Though sex-based therapy was a preexisting profession, Posie was a pioneer in her field, and innovated a number of special techniques that were published in journals and adopted by her contemporaries. As far as being an anomaly went, she had the ability to store her own and other people’s memories, along with any other data, in everyday objects. Like Upton Starr’s and Patience Cooney’s stones, the data wasn’t actually being stored in the objects themselves, rather they served as focal points to artificial dimensions. Her ability would later help advance computer systems as a whole, but in terms of her personal life, she found no use for it. In line with her nomadic tendencies, Posie agreed to join Bellevue, continuing her work, but now as the in-house paramour. She would later be put in charge of records and archives, but that never took up much of her time.

Microstory 136: Zoey Attar

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There was no shortage of unusual births when it came to anomalies. One member was pregnant for years, another somehow gave birth to a clone of herself with no father, and Zoey Attar’s development was accelerated to an incredibly high rate. Her mother, Solange Attar, went into labor just weeks after conceiving with her gracer, Gaston. They had hoped that the rapid growth would stop, or at least slow, following the delivery, but it did not. By this time, Bellevue had gone public, and so they raced to Usonia to ask them for help. Fortunately, the organization had actually already dealt with a similar case, and were prepared with the treatment. Once Zoey began to age at a normal rate, she appeared to be around eleven or twelve years old. The problem was, however, that she still had the brain of an infant, and this was dangerous because of her ability to control the actions of animals. She could also make it seem like she was turning into an animal, but she was actually summoning one from another location, and then hiding herself in a lower dimension while maintaining control over that animal. The whole story was that she inherited this from her father’s ability to teleport, and her aunt’s ability to manipulate pheromones, proving that an anomaly’s lineage is responsible for the nature of their ability, even if none of them presents one of their own. Instead of being able to do one or both of what her parents could, she was the result of a perfect marriage of genetic traits that formed an entirely new ability, taking aspects from both. This was not abnormal in the rest of the animal kingdom. Half of a scion’s genes come from one parent, and half from the other. These genes are recombined and mutated into a new person, but the way Zoey turned out was still surprising. In order to bring Zoey up to a legitimate level of intelligence, Bellevue conscripted Mandy Alto and Claude Bonner as her instructors. Together, they were able to accelerate the learning process so that she could fit in with her peers. She quickly became best friends with Catriona Rice and Stephen Berg. All three were noted later members of the notorious missing children.