Microstory 178: Straton Giles

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One thing about Bellevue was that it was conceived, not as merely a super team composed of people with special abilities, but as an organization. The purpose of this organization was not always clear, but its founder envisioned it being international, and used to help the world in a myriad of ways. That the majority of original members were anomalies was always intended to be more a jumping off point, and less of an archetype. The perfect example of the founder’s ideas was Straton Giles. He had no special ability, and was not related to someone who did. He had a prior relationship with Milo Chombers, but this was a coincidence that was not known to others until his first day. He was removed from prison by the powerful Basil Ploutos through a series of threats, legal loopholes, and fraud. The Keystone knew that if they were going to establish something that in any way resembled a law enforcement agency, they would need to learn unorthodox skills; bonus points for finding someone who didn’t need to be paid. Straton fell into a life of crime as a natural progression from living in poverty his entire life. He never hurt anyone, and he only ever stole from the corrupt, but the older he became, the bolder he became. It was only a matter of time before he was caught, and this happened about a year before Bellevue’s founding. He kept his head down while locked up, and didn’t start trouble with the other convicts. He was actually friends with Hector Cubit; rather, he was as close to a court marshall as a criminal possibly could be. There was some resistance to Straton joining the team from its other early members; especially Cosmo Drexler. Jaklyn Simonds was ordered to lock him in the astral plane every night, which was impossible to escape. But he eventually endeared himself to the others, and proved himself worthy of being part of the group. Though his position was later replaced by more educated professionals of the non-academic fields, he worked well as a proof of concept, showing that learning street skills was just as important as understanding how anomaly abilities worked.

Microstory 177: Generosity Larkin

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Many years before the anomalies were first activated, there was a civilization just chock-full of people with special abilities, and they were no secret. These had more to do with the mind, and less to do with genetics, which was why they presented much sooner, even though the ancient science experiments were all conducted around the same time. There was a rivalry of sorts between the scientists from each group, and they came up with a bet: develop a human with the ability to provide energy for those around them. The others succeeded in their quest on a more massive scale. Once this ability came to pass, people with it were often hired, not for military or productivity purposes, but for parties. They were provided with a bed in the corner of the room, reading material, all the food they could want, and a caretaker. They kept the party-goers’ energy up, and the fun going all night long. But there was only so much energy these special people could store and donate, which was why they remained in a bed, with tons of food, and sometimes intravenous fluids.

Anomaly Generosity ‘Jen’ Larkin, cousin of Helen Larkin, had this same ability, but with limitless power. In fact, even though the abilities of the first kind were widespread, the majority of them were common, and in fact, rather mundane. Anomalies were rare, and infinitely more powerful, by most accounts. Jen could convert energy tapped from simplex dimensions, and use it to maintain her own stamina, much like Tamra Shore. But unlike her, she could also initiate this process in those around her, which meant that simply being in a room with her made you more energized and alert. The more she learned about herself, the more powerful she became. Her power increased so much that she was nearly able to provide energy for the daily lives of an entire small town. She died too young, but she was able to contribute immensely to a number of different scientific fields, and changed the game for how the world generated energy.

Microstory 176: Tamra Shore

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Until someone else was discovered to be slightly older, it was believed for a long time that Tamra Shore was the very first anomaly to have been born. That is, besides the long-running Generation Twos that preceded Dores Roach. Tamra was born in Stanton Parish, Louisiana in 1886, and appeared at first to be a normal child. But the older she became, the slower she aged. She looked like a regular infant, but then she looked a little young for her age, and then she looked suspiciously too young. By the time she hit sixteen, it was practically impossible to get people to believe that she really was an adult. There are a number of reasons for Tamra’s semi-immortality. She can accumulate a seemingly infinite amount of energy through simplex dimensions. Her body is in constant flux, allowing her cells to replicate quickly and subsist on dead cells with a more complex and efficient system of macrophages. Basically, her body is perpetually dying and recycling itself so that it never has to quit. Tamra’s brain processes data more efficiently as well, allowing her to remain awake and alert 20 hours a day, ten days a week, with no need for sleep. Lastly, she stopped needing to eat right around the time her mother weaned her off of breast milk. She was one of the very first members of Bellevue, which was surprising, since she was one of two anomalies who no longer lived by her original identity; the other being the one who found her. A couple of years into the program, a pathogen spread around Bellevue that caused abilities to turn against their user. Tamra’s cells continued to divide at a phenomenal rate, but this process was left uncontrolled, effectively giving her cancer. Fortunately, they had amongst them an anomaly with the unexpected ability to cure her. When this person was done, she began the long journey towards aging at a normal rate, but was able to keep a second ability she had been granted.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: April 22, 2046

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Mateo’s birth mother, Aura was waiting for them, along with her love interest, Samsonite, and Leona’s half-brother, Theo. She stood in front of him patiently, unsure of how she should proceed. Mateo began to cry as he wrapped his arms around her neck. He needed his mommy. Leona and Theo moved off to have their own heart to heart. Mateo stayed in Aura’s arms, trying to tell her what had happened, about how he witnessed Leona’s and his father’s deaths, but he was shrieking and sniveling so much that she had trouble understanding him.

After several minutes of this, Mateo fell asleep, still on her shoulder. And when he awoke, she was still there. She hadn’t budged, and he was grateful. “I’m sorry for leaving you,” he said, having composed himself. “That was foolish of me. You were right. We need to stay as far from that man as possible. I don’t want to lose anyone again.”

She nodded and prepared herself to continue the deep discussion. “I need to ask you something very important, son.”

He pulled away and sat up so that he could look at her at a proper angle. “Okay.”

“For me, we haven’t seen each other in years. A lot has happened since then.”

He almost started crying again. “I know, I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”

She stopped him, “I know, that’s not what I mean. Have you encountered a girl, of any age? Someone you didn’t know before, or maybe someone you did who you didn’t know was one of us?”

“Yes. The girl who sent me back in time. She was Reaver’s daughter.”

She frowned. “She wouldn’t be who we’re looking for. No...” she hesitated. “This girl would have Samsonite’s eyes.” She paused again. “And hair like mine.”

“Oh, mother.” He buried his face in his hands. “You had another child? I have a sister?”

“Somewhere. Aquila.” She smiled, but sadly. “She disappeared from us when she was only three years old. I have been told that that is how it works.”

“How what works?”

“Apparently, you’re not allowed to raise your own children if both you and your partner are salmon. They disappear on you, never to be seen again.”

“You and my birth father are both salmon. You didn’t do it alone, but you raised me for seven years.”

“I had not yet been activated when I had you. You’re not full salmon offspring, or whatever. No, I think they took me away from you just because they’re mean-spirited, not for the same reason they took Aquila. I think they do something with salmon children. I don’t know what, but the children might be the whole purpose of this parody of a life.”

“So, Leona and I shouldn’t conceive.”

She became even more concerned. “Have you been thinking about it?”

“No,” he replied honestly. “But we grow closer every day, and in the next 300 years, we’ll be all alone together. Once the three of you make the next jump, it’ll just be us.”

She nodded. “I don’t know what’s going to happen 300 years from now. Theo has pretty much stopped aging, just like us. But there’s no telling where we’ll go for our next jump, or if we’ll die before then. We have no control over our lives.”

“Yeah.” They sat in silence for a little while before Mateo fell asleep again.

When he reawoke, it was late in the morning. He found Leona still asleep and lied down next to her until she woke up herself. “Are you feeling better?” she asked.

“Are you?”

“I didn’t go through what you did, Mateo. I’ve only seen the one timeline. I never saw myself die.”

“Then I should be fine. You’re fine. You never died.”

“That doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.”

“You understand this time travelling thing better than me. Do those alternate timelines still exist? Are there multiple versions of us running around in parallel?”

“We don’t know. Present-day science has not caught up with time travel technology. They may never since the powers that be are powerful enough to stop every development. It’s possible that alternate realities run parallel to our own due to some kind of point of divergence. It’s also possible that there is a single master timeline, and all others are ultimately destroyed. It appears to be our job to create some kind of perfect reality, so my gut tells me the powers are only interested in having one reality at a time.”

“I see.”

“Would you rather there be alternate versions of us?”

“I’m not sure. A part of me wants there to be, to know there may be a set of us out there who are happy, but do I really want that? I think I would be uncomfortable knowing a version of me has a better life since it implies a version of me has a worse one.”

“In the end, my love, we cannot worry about what might have been. This is where we are now. I know you think you have no control. But you do. Just the fact that your father was sent back to stop the Reaver from killing me, but failed, proves it.”

“How so?”

“The powers that be would have us believe that they control everything, but they were so hopeless in that basement that they were forced to send one of their own to clean up their mess. I don’t know where their rules come from, but they were obviously technologically capable of simply whisking us away from Reaver to protect us. Why didn’t they?”

“Maybe they’re just middle management.”

“Maybe.”

Mateo’s head hurt, so he changed the subject. “My mother and I didn’t talk about it. Did Theo tell you where they’ve been living?”

“They moved around a lot, living as rustically as possible. They stayed quite a long time in the mountains of Kentucky once your sister was born. They decided to contact Ulinthra after Aquila’s disappearance since she was her only way to find us.”

“I have another time travel question.”

“Go ahead,” Leona replied, already used to him needing things spelled out.

“We’re not necessarily looking for a 3-year-old. The next time we see my sister, if ever, she could be an old woman.”

“Correct.”

“There was this girl at the funeral. She was really close to Daria’s nurse. Did you notice either of them?”

“I did not.”

“My mother said that Aquila looks like her and Samsonite, and...”

“And you think this girl at the funeral might have been her?”

“I doubt Aura and Samsonite would have noticed her, but they must have seen her six years earlier in The Constant, ya know when I had to escape from Reaver’s facility?”

“I don’t know, your mother was pretty focused on you.”

“Did you ever talk to that girl?”

“I didn’t. She wasn’t there when we jumped out of the timestream, but I obviously wasn’t really paying attention.”

“From now on, we need to take note of every single person we encounter. It could be someone trying to kill us, or just a child passing on the street. We have to remember everything.”

“Agreed,” Leona said. “Which means I’m going to need you to do your absolute best to draw the face of that man who stabbed you in the other timeline. There is a near zero percent chance we don’t run into him again.”

“No need,” Harrison said, coming into the room. “I can interpret his thoughts and convert them into a readable image. It’ll be the last thing I do before going back to my boss to see if I’ve been fired or not.”

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Superpowers: I Have a Plan (Part III)

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Though Federama was governed by a single system, and everyone within the government was on board with Governor Stockton’s vision, not all citizens were. Roma Tanner, the de facto leader of a coastal city was the primary voice against the mission. He had not been elected to any position, but he was the owner of a variety of different small shops, so many looked to him for general guidance. Every single day since the beginning of Stage One, Tanner requested audience with Stockton. His family had immigrated from Russia, which would very obviously be the focus of Stage Three, so his urgency was growing. Following the completion of Stage Two, Stockton was feeling comfortable with his position, and finally called for a meeting with Tanner.

“Why have you been avoiding me?”

“I’ve not,” Stockton promised him. “I’ve been busy, with obvious crises.”

“Yes, I’ve heard. I’m here to discuss some concerns. I’m not happy with you threatening the lives of my brothers and sisters around the world.”

“I’m not happy with it either,” Stockton agreed. “I felt I had no choice. If they don’t think we are capable of protecting ourselves, then we encourage them to come after us. I’m not the one who invented mutually assured destruction.”

“This isn’t mutual. Every time you take their weapons, and keep them for yourself, you are succeeding in increasing your own.”

“I have a plan.”

“I know. I’m trying to tell you that it’s not working.”

“No, I’m not talking about the plans to disarm the world. That’s going swimmingly. I mean I have a plan for what to do with the weapons once I’ve collected them all.

“And so what is it?”

Stockton took a sip from his tea. “I’m afraid that such information is known only to myself.”

“You’re telling me that your lieutenants and subordinates follow your ambitions blindly, without even knowing how it ends?”

“They trust me. You should too.”

“No, I should not. Your threat of nuclear retaliation is not working. All signs point to the very real possibility that Russia is calling your bluff and is planning on deploying missiles against us.”

“I have a contingency in place if this were to happen.”

“And I suppose you’re not going to tell me that either?”

“You would be correct.”

“You couldn’t possibly have enough spies in Russia, like you did with China. Their recruitment program is notoriously difficult to get through. The statistics on failouts are staggering. No one really knows what happens in the spy world, but it’s a common rumor that Usonia has been trying and failing for years to embed spies in Russia, or at least informants.”

“I don’t have any spies,” Stockton answered with a shrug. “But I have intelligence. I know where most of their weapons are. We’re still working on it. I would have liked more time, but these are the cards I was dealt.”

“No, Stockton, that’s not true. You’re the one dealing the cards. You’re the instigator of all this. And you have to stop. It’s only going to get worse. Usonia has the largest stockpile of nuclear weapons, by an astronomical margin.”

Stockton chuckled. “That’s funny what you just said there. It’s not funny now, but it’ll be funny later. Trust me.”

Tanner ignored his remark. “What are you going to do when you inevitably reach the Stage for Usonia? They’re going to be the hardest.”

“Yes, they are. But that’s why I’m holding off on them. I’m hoping after I’m finished with France and the U.K., they’ll choose to disarm themselves.”

“That’s not going to happen. No one is going to do that.”

“We’re already talking to India about it.”

“Really?”

“Yes, they intend to disarm of their own accord. We’re just discussing specifics.”

Tanner seemed genuinely impressed with this, even knowing how supportive India had been throughout this whole endeavor. “Either way, that’s them. What about everyone else?”

“I’m handling each nuclear nation differently. I have considered all of the angles. Every single point of retaliation or resistance, I’ve planned for it.”

“I am a point of resistance, as are my constituents. Have you planned for us?”

“Indeed. In fact, I was putting off this meeting so that you can be here on this specific day. What you said about Russia is true, and will mark a turning point in our grand mission. We have been monitoring their communications, and we believe that they are about to, as you said, call my bluff very soon. Within minutes, actually.”

“Well, what are you going to do about it?”

“I have a plan.”

“Stop saying that!”

Stockton shrugged again. “It’s true.”

“It’s also meaningless to someone as ignorant on the matter as I am. If you want me to trust you, then read me in.”

He shook his head. “The only way I know that I can trust you is if I don’t read you in. You have to make the decision yourself.”

“What does that even mean?”

“You will soon have a choice. You can either push the button, and show me that you love your constituents, or you can do nothing, and risk not only this mission, but the lives of everyone you know.”

“I don’t understand.”

Governor Stockton’s special red phone rang. “Ah, here’s the call now.” He answered. “Yes, Mister Lazarov. What do you hear from the airwaves?” He waited for a response. “Are you sure?” He waited once more. “Have they already deployed?”

“Deployed?” Tanner repeated. “What’s happening?”

Stockton placed his hand over the mouthpiece and whispered, “Russia’s gonna nuke us.”

“What!”

“Thank you very much, Radimir. My love to your family.” He hung up and walked over to the other side of the room.”

“They’ve already sent a missile, haven’t they? We have to get everyone to the bunkers.”

Stockton unlocked a cabinet and pulled a drawer from it. There was a single mauve button on it. He simply presented it to Tanner, as if trying to sell him a car.

Tanner jumped up and pushed the button without hesitation. Sirens went off across the entire island. Everyone and their mother was headed for safety in the bunkers below. “Is that going to be enough? Will the bunkers keep them safe?”

“Some of them, yes. The coastal bunkers couldn’t be dug too deep, but the Russians are almost certainly aiming for the center. For the people there, probably not. The Amadesins built the bunkers to protect themselves from that day’s technology, not today’s.”

“This is crazy!”

“I know. They’re all so shortsighted.”

“No, I mean what’s happening right now! The Russian missile will be here in, what, thirty minutes?”

“Closer to twenty.”

“You did this!” Tanner screamed. “You put us all in danger, and now it’s coming to fruition. Was this your plan? To have everyone die? I imagine you have a bunker that goes down a thousand sheam. You and your friends will be safe, while your country burns around you.”

“Nonsense,” the governor replied. “I’m staying right here.” He fiddled with a few instruments on the console. “Remember when we renovated my office a few years ago? I had to lobby for the tax money, even though it was seemingly frivolous?”

“Yes, as I recall, that was the first time we heard you say, I have a plan.”

“Well, I’m sorry to inform you that the renovation was mostly frivolous.” He playfully finished the sequence of commands on his instruments. The ceiling above them began to open up. “I couldn’t pass up the chance to have the best seat in the house. There’s no way I’m going down to a bunker.”

“We’re in the middle of the island,” Tanner said while watching with interest as the ceiling continued to disappear. “It’ll fall right on top of us.”

“It’ll try.” He casually placed his sunglasses on his face.

After the ceiling was finished, a set of television screens rose from the floor, cycling through security footage from around the island. Stockton was not lying about having technology beyond the day at his disposal.

After time, the screens showed that no one was left on the streets, or even above ground level. “Tell me your plan,” Tanner insisted.

“I need to know if I can trust you. I’ve told you this.” He unlocked a second cabinet, and released a second drawer. A yellow button this time. “Push this. I’m not going to tell you what it does. But I can tell you that it will surprise Russia like none other.”

Tanner hesitated. “I can’t. I would rather die than send a barrage of missiles towards my enemies.”

“So you agree? My vision is right and good.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“And I didn’t say that the yellow button would deploy a missile.”

The security screens transformed to show the perspective of a single camera, each one revealing only part of the picture. The missile from Russia was on its way.”

“It’s your choice, Roma. Are you going to push the button or not? You have to decide in the next minute or two.”

Tanner stood there, stunned and sweating. He desperately exchanged looks between the yellow button, and the security screen. Fearful and feeling no other way out, he reached over and smashed his hand into the button. It opened a secret door from the bookcase. A woman came out of it. “Really, Stockton? Those theatrics? I say...”

“I knew you would come out on your own, in plenty of time, if he ended up not pushing it. You are nothing if not reliable, Mrs. Blackmore.”

“What’s going on?” Tanner cried.

Stockton handed Tanner a pair of sunglasses. “You might want these.”

Mrs. Blackmore walked to the center of the room and lifted her arms. The security camera became useless as they could now see the missile headed towards them with their own eyes. Tanner continued to sweat. A magical yellow light came out of Mrs. Blackmore’s hands and shot towards the missile. It overcame the deadly weapon, and in one bright flash of light, disappeared it.

Tanner removed his glasses and continued to stare as the yellow light faded away to reveal blue skies. “What the hell was that?”

“Oh yeah, you should know,” Stockton said with a smile. “Superpowers exist.”

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Microstory 175: Ormonda Brooks

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The problem with anomaly abilities is that they are generally limited to the biology of the anomaly. Fictional representations of special abilities more often than not have a character who can somehow magically use potentially destructive abilities without damaging their clothing—or rather, they won’t even bring it up at all. If a character can transform themselves into liquid form, but can’t transform other objects, then why exactly is it at all believable that their clothes are somehow exceptions to this rule? Sometimes, the person with powers, or an associate of theirs, will science their way into a special kind of clothing that adapts to the wearer. A pyrokinetic will, for instance, always be wearing a special suit that can withstand extremely high temperatures. Which is great, except that they make no mention of the fact that such an astonishing invention could have other uses, like—oh, I dunno—for firefighters? Gee, thanks for making an impervious suit of armor for our hero to wear. Think you could make more, and maybe pass them out to law enforcement officers, and other first responders? That’d be great. Ormonda Brooks was one of those kind of anomalies whose ability only helped other anomalies. Whenever she sewed a garment, a special kind of oil was excreted from her hands that imbued that garment with the properties of whichever anomaly wore it first. This oil would combine itself with the natural oils of the wearer, and become literally tailored for them. This was, by its very nature, not useful to all anomalies. Hosanna can sense other people’s emotions, regardless of what he’s wearing. Quang can autocalculate measurements of things around him, but that never has an effect on his clothing. In contrast, however, Blake Williams would benefit from one of Ormonda’s pieces, because the vibrations from the earthquakes he absorbs and dissipates damage normal clothes, and force him to change after every one. This example isn’t that big of a deal, but for Diane Ghoti, who can spontaneously generate fire, the gift of a Brooks suit was extraordinarily helpful. These garments always took a long time to make, because Ormonda was not a particularly gifted sewer. And at first glance, the oil could not be used for preexisting clothing, or harvested and utilized by someone else. But with time, such harvested samples were studied and replicated beyond her death from old age. And they gave rise to a host of other applications.

Microstory 174: Anton Vann

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Anton Coriolis Vann (real name) was a good little Amadesin, and all for the violent nature of his religion that his family and friends instilled in him as a child. But unlike his twin brother, he was sympathetic to his sister, Wilma’s distaste for the “family business”. He kept the secret of her vigilantism from the rest of the community for years. He was also smarter than his brother, Otto. He modified the traditional soul-squeezing techniques so that they were less physically painful, and slower. He chose to torture his victims much more deliberately than his fellow Amadesins, and primarily psychologically. As a result, the number of converts he managed to create was much higher than the average. Fortunately for the rest of the world, Amadesins were stubborn and foolhardy, and refused to adopt his new techniques. If they had, their numbers would have increased beyond control. Anton was actually pretty fascinated by his own ability, and tried to practice it on his own time. He could manipulate the nitrogen and oxygen in the surrounding air to create small explosions. Had he been stronger, he may have been able to cause more massive explosions, but Bellevue researchers believed his damaged soul prevented him to excelling. Upon channeling his ability, Helen Larkin discovered that his ability had several other applications that Anton never knew about. He could have progressed the field of food preservation, agricultural fertilization, and steel manufacturing. He even could have generated nitrous oxide laughing gas, and manipulated his victims more precisely. The world never really got to see the good side of Anton Vann. His upbringing prevented him from making the right decisions, and having a desire to help others. His death at a young age also prevented scientists from being able to study his biology and replicate his ability in creative ways.

Microstory 173: Stella Pelto

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Stella Pelto’s was the weirdest ability out there, and one that could not easily be explained. Though anomaly abilities were extraordinary, they remained within the boundaries of physics. These physical laws may have turned out to be more wondrous than the present academic understanding of them, but they were real, and there for a reason. Stella first exhibited properties of adhesion; able to stick to and climb up walls and ceilings. Had her presentation ended there, the leading scientific experts within Bellevue would still have been suspicious, because it was unlikely that there would be such a perfect harmony between nature and nurture. Because her parents owned a glue factory, but not until after her birth. After leaving her community for an extended period of time on the suggestion of Bellevue, Stella found herself losing her adhesion, and instead developing properties of the flora around her campsite. Her skin was a kind of pliable tree bark, and leaves began to grow out of her body. Her hair became vines. It was...unusual, to say the least. The closest thing to her was Vivian Polzin, whose body expertly adapted to its environment, and prevented her from succumbing to it. But Vivian’s changes were still reasonable. As there were a limited number of dangerous environments, each permutation could have theoretically been programmed into her bloodline by the ancient rogue scientists. For Stella, however, there were too many variables, and too many changes that were not evolutionarily plausible. Something else was happening, and Bellevue scientists were desperate to figure out what.

Stella was able to take on the properties of practically anything, and later proved capable of doing this at will. After further genetic testing, they had gathered more information about what makes an anomaly an anomaly. All activated anomalies shared certain genetic markers. They shared a different set of markers with normal humans who had the potential to have been born anomalies. Anomalies with similar abilities shared markers with each other. Each anomaly carried a specific set of markers unique to them, based on whatever their bloodline had been imbued with. Stella’s DNA was, as expected, quite different. She was somehow both an anomaly, and not. It was like someone had replicated the original genetic experiments from memory, but with  different tools. This was the unsatisfactory explanation for why she broke the laws of physics. One day, Stella was walking through a room when she came across Cosmo Drexler. Passersby watched as the two of them stared for several seconds, and then turned around to walk right back where they came from, like they were allergic to each other. This gave Adam Nicks a clue as to what made Stella Pelto so exceptionally different. And then he noticed what her name meant. And also what Cosmo’s meant.