Microstory 145: Laurence Cardinal

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Strange things began to happen around Laurence Cardinal when he was only a toddler. He was far too young to have any chance of understanding what was happening to him, or that these things had anything to do with him at all. Metallic objects, specifically those with enough magnetism, would either be drawn to him or thrown from him. His parents were frightened and confused, but they had faith in their son, and predicted that he would one day learn to control his clearly amazing gift. Unfortunately, they were wrong. Despite being a seemingly regular anomaly, and despite having been activated by the Keystone, Laurence’s abilities were somehow unfinished. He exercised little to no control over the magnetism, no matter how hard he tried, or how much he practiced. Life in the city got so bad when he was a teenager that he was forced to move to a part of the Seychelles jungle that was completely uninhabited by humans, and more importantly, free from their metal. He continued on as a hermit, like Jayson Casy. He ate out of plastic, and remained removed from society in his little wood shelter. His family visited him as they could, but his parents had six other children to take care of, and there was only so much that they could do. He had to live too far away for frequent visits to be logistically reasonable. One of his little sisters wasn’t even old enough to remember him by the time she needed braces on her teeth. Until she was allowed to have them removed, it was too risky to have her anywhere near Laurence. And so he kept to himself, hunting with rocks and spears when game was near, but surviving mostly on roots and berries. Sometime after being discovered, Bellevue reluctantly agreed to force him into a type of coma, for his ability only ever went fully dormant when he was asleep. The alternative treatment was even more dangerous. With no other choice, and no way to protect him from danger, or from hurting others, they found a way to remove his abilities. Upon success, he was able to start a real life, and ended up in the education department, teaching others useful survival skills.

Microstory 144: Molly Bloom

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Unlike fictional stories of people with special powers, anomaly abilities very rarely presented themselves due to heightened emotions. You don’t hear stories about Freeman Sesto accidentally freezing someone to death because he happened to be angry with them at the time, or Fiona Mill teleporting to the moon because she was scared. No. Many abilities were tied to the acute stress response, which often occurred during moments of intense emotion, but if the ability presented at such a time, it was a reaction to need. When you were a baby, and first learning to walk, you must have fallen at least once. At that moment, your arms reached out to protect your body from injury. No one taught you to catch yourself. It was a reflex. You would have to be suffering from some kind of medical condition in order to stop this reflex from happening, or for whatever reason, make a concerted effort to hold your arms back. Anomaly abilities behave the same way, because they are hard coded in the DNA. If Gus Arnett were ever knocked unconscious and fell from a great height, his ability would automatically kick in and float him down to safety. Mason Palomino could never be locked in a room for any relevant period of time. His ability will always act to protect him, and unlock the door for him. Every time. It is this phenomenon that prevented Molly Bloom from even recognizing that she had an ability in the first place. Abilities usually present in one of two ways; dire need, or basic instinct. But Molly’s ability was too passive, and required a specific set of circumstances, to be called into action. And so, she spent the majority of her life assuming that she was just like anyone else. After careful study and testing, a team of scientists discovered that she could withstand virtually any level of radiation. She was born capable of absorbing this radiation and then venting it through another dimension. But she was never able to test this for herself. Her ability was quickly stolen from her, and given to Phaedra Wirth.

Microstory 143: Ulysses Juno

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For as long as he could remember, Ulysses Juno has never needed to breathe through his nose or mouth. Whenever he tried to hold his breath, he could feel fresh air filling his lungs as quickly as toxic air was disappearing. He didn’t know why he was different, but he figured that he’d take advantage of it, in as many ways as possible. He worked a number of wildly different jobs, each one designed to exploit his gift. He was a stage magician in his younger days, remaining trapped in tanks of water for far longer than any human should have, and he never even needed to drop the curtain and fake it. His assistants never understood how he did it. He worked down in mines for many years, and was able to execute tasks that were so dangerous, no one else wanted to do them. But he was always fine, and didn’t have to worry about contracting some kind of lung disease. He lived in the highest altitudes, the most polluted cities, and spent one entire year never once coming out of the deepest lake on the planet, just for fun. His body had access to another dimension, and it is through this that his air supply could be found. The air would essentially be teleported straight into his lungs, oxygen would be exchanged, and then the carbon dioxide would be released back into the other dimension. He was captured by a team of unethical scientists. When they first stole his ability and gave it to Phaedra Wirth, she began to suffer from radiation poisoning. This was when the scientists discovered that Ulysses had adapted to something referred to as plex radiation simply by having been exposed to it his entire life. This tolerance was not a part of his ability, and was thusly not transferred over to Phaedra. Fortunately, they had in their possession another anomaly; one who could withstand all forms of radiation, Molly Bloom.

Microstory 142: Tracy Wickham

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All anomalies were the result of ancient genetic manipulation followed by centuries of evolution’s attempt at stabilizing their makeup. The fairies that ultimately created them performed each experiment deliberately, and in order to fulfill a specific purpose. Most of them were attaching properties of animals and various natural phenomena. The team that resulted in Tracy Wickham was interested in genetic memory. Genetic memory was usually responsible for instinct and intuition, but they wanted to figure out whether it was possible to encode more complex information. On the surface, Tracy displayed no special ability. Both of her parents were extremely athletic, with experience in archery, firearms marksmanship, foot racing, and parkour. Whenever they encouraged her to pursue an interest of their own, she showed impressive aptitude. She even presented skills found as far back as her great grandparents—however, there was a quantifiable decline in her skill according to how many generations that skill went back in her family. The worst side effect of this was the fact that she struggled with skills not found at expert level within the family. She received poor marks in the majority of her classes, and wasn’t even able to graduate from tertiary school. Her brain was so full of generational information that she had an inescapable failure to gather new ideas. Out of frustration, Tracy left home upon adulthood and fell into the hard-to-find world of drugs. She was eventually discovered by a small group of people who were aware of anomalies. They performed further experiments on her in an attempt to make her the perfect soldier; one who wasn’t intelligent enough to break from orders and form her own decisions. Most of their experiments failed, however, they managed to enhance her physique. They gave her superhuman speed and strength, and her most noteworthy feature was how high and far she could jump. Others, like Setsuko Kawaguchi, grew hateful and bitter as a result of these experiments, but not Tracy. After she and her partner, Phaedra Wirth escaped from the facility, she joined Bellevue, which later assigned her and her team to protect the entirety of Europe. They even eventually developed techniques that allowed her to learn at a more acceptable level.

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.