Microstory 175: Ormonda Brooks

Click here for the list of every Bellevue Profile.

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

Click here for the list of every Bellevue Profile.

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

Click here for the list of every Bellevue Profile.

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.

Microstory 172: Cosmo Drexler

Click here for the list of every Bellevue Profile.

Billions of years ago, a certain group of people living in the second galaxy became immortal. They were either made this way by taking a trip through a particularly special cube, or by a man whose form of immortality allowed him to make others immortal. There were different flavors of immortality, and not all of these involved literally living forever. Some were reincarnated with no memories of their past lives. Others had unstoppable bloodlines, each member of which was perfectly capable of death. One just keeps giving birth to herself, even to this day. But there was one woman whose flavor of immortality was referred to as Legacy. She died, at quite a young age actually, but her impact on the universe persisted. She had invented two games in her lifetime; the cerebral tabletop game Polygon, and the field sport, Vector. These games continued to be “invented” in every civilization thereafter, with no exception (except for one planet which fragmented the basic concepts into multiple games). Cosmo Drexler was an excellent Vector player, but this was due to his secret. He had a form of telekinesis that allowed him to manipulate the acceleration of already moving objects. He could stop a bullet, throw an object to an indefinite distance, or slow his own descent. He was both the best Wielder and best Shielder his school teams ever had, but this was not enough for his parents. The majority of people who did not belong to the evil religion Amadesis had extremely positive and supportive perspectives on human sexuality. But there were those who were so opposed to Amadesin concepts of complete heterosexuality, that they ended up on the other extreme. Cosmo was born asexual, and had no physical attraction to other individuals, and this was not acceptable to his parents. They abused him psychologically for years, and even began to harm him physically when he was older. Using money he earned from underground Polygon tournaments, he left home when he was 14 years old, and never returned. He had to give up his Vector career, which probably would have been spectacular, and instead worked his way through higher education. He had a passion for geography, but ended up earning physics degrees in order to better understand his own ability. He was in the same group as Freeman, Gus, Diane, Peyton, and Kiel, and became a very early member of Bellevue. His asexuality continued to cause minor tension between him and his friends, but he eventually found his family, and a position in Human Resources, onboarding new recruits.

Microstory 171: Leary Novak

Click here for the list of every Bellevue Profile.

Leary Novak and his sister, Mindy grew up on a farm in Nebraska, not all that far from Bellevue. Their parents had Leary when they were rather old, and adopted Mindy when they were even older, so they passed on when the children were relatively young. The two of them continued to keep the farm in working order, and felt no need to do anything else with their lives. Leary was on The Keystone’s anomaly shortlist, and was contacted during Stage Two of recruitment. His skin is extremely elastic, and allows him to temporary store and release large amounts of energy. Any strike against him is either deflected by a sort of force field, or absorbed and converted into energy that he can use at his discretion. A bullet will not be able to get within a centimeter or so of his body. If he falls from a great height, he will bounce back up and land safely on the ground. Any punch will be absorbed and stored, and will serve only to make him stronger, but this boost will eventually dissipate. Because of this, he has superhuman strength, and only only ever needed to sleep about a half hour to function throughout the day. The force fields he creates allow him to basically turn any surface into a trampoline. When they were young, he and his sister would jump in the pastures for fun, with the force fields sending them high into the air. They referred to this as the “hopping ground”. After Reactivation, and some training from Bellevue, Leary discovers that he can convert other forms of energy. His skin develops the ability to absorb solar power, wind energy, and even electrical shocks, decreasing his sleep threshold to only about thirty minutes, or even lower. Although he learned what he could about his own abilities, and trained to know how to use them properly and effectively, Leary chose to pursue a simple life. He and Mindy sold the family farmland and moved down to Bellevue where they handled the organization’s agricultural needs, with the help of Hester Khan and Flora Canto, when she wasn’t busy with administration. They never made waves, and stayed out of most of the drama.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: April 21, 2045 (Part II)

« < » > Table of Contents

Unlike his regular timejumps, Mateo didn’t move physically. Instead, his mind was sent back to his younger body. He was in the middle of the dark jungle with Leona who had no recollection of dying, or anything else that had happened in the other timeline. The security contingency overwhelmed them, just as they had before. They patted the two of them down, bound their wrists, and took them back up to the house. Reaver was cooking in the kitchen, as predicted. Everything was the same.

Mateo was about to say something to change history for the better, but stopped himself. Reaver had already experienced this day once. Presumably, he did the same thing in both of the first two timelines. If Mateo deviated from what had happened based on his new knowledge, Reaver would be suspicious. Until they got up to the room, Mateo would have no choice but to play this out exactly as he had before, saying all the same things. But could he remember everything? “Cooking? What did you do, watch every movie with an evil villain and just copy their movements? Next you’re going to speak in an accent and touch my skin with vaguely homoerotic undertones.” Shit. That was wrong. He didn’t say undertones last time. He said overtones.

Reaver did seem to notice. He crooked his neck and squinted his eyes slightly, but then either thought he had unwittingly altered the conversation, or that he was remembering it wrong. “Right,” he said, “I’m impressed. You so often prove yourself to be completely out of touch and uncultured, but here you are making hollywood cliché references.” He responded with about the same quip as before, but his voice had changed. He was no longer in a good mood. That undertones mistake had somehow ruined his attitude.

“I like to play to my audience,” Mateo said, also with less snark than last time.

“We had a deal,” Leona said. “We help you out of prison, and you help us stop the powers that be.”

“No, you misunderstand,” he explained. “I needed your help breaking out of prison. And you did a good job. Very clever using your own pattern against the security system. I would have preferred not waiting a whole year for your return, but...it all worked out. Anyway, I’m not here to help you find the powers that be. You’re still the ones helping. I’m going to contact them for my own reasons, and whatever happens to you as a result is irrelevant to me.”

“Well, we don’t know the context,” Leona said. “How are you contacting them? You said you know where they are, but how do we get there? You even admit that you still need us, otherwise you would have done it this past year. So you have one day to get it done.”

“You’re right,” Reaver agreed. “You’re not just helping; you are vital to my plan. But we can’t actually do anything until the end of the day. Like your prison break, my plan hinges on the fact that you’ll jump into the future in 24 hours.”

“Explain.”

“I will later,” he said. “I’m gonna stick you two in a comfortable room for the time being. Don’t worry, there aren’t any cameras. I have no interest in seeing you two...” he trailed off again. “I suggest you get some rest since you were up all day yesterday, paranoid that I would try to kill you.”

“Why should we be less paranoid now?” Mateo asked. “Nothing has changed.”

“This is true. Do whatever you want. I don’t even care anymore. Someone will bring you food later.” He redirected his words to Lieutenant Franklin whose name Mateo wasn’t supposed to know. “Take them upstairs.”

Mateo decided to risk sleep. Even though Reaver might have been suspicious that he knew more than he was letting on, there was no getting around the fact that both he and Leona needed the rest, especially if they were going to make yet another escape. His suspicion about Reaver’s suspicion was reinforced when Franklin came in two hours later than he had in the original timeline, to give them cold noodles instead of hot quiche. Things were diverging faster than Mateo could handle. Soon, time will have changed so much that he would have no chance of predicting what was going to happen next. He had to act. “Franklin.”

“What?” Franklin asked, confused.

“That’s your name.”

“It is.”

“But Reaver never told me your name, so how would I know that?”

“Mateo, what’s going on?” Leona asked.

Franklin looked down at the floor and pondered. He wasn’t the least intelligent person in the world, but it probably took him a little time to figure things out. Mateo was giving him as much time as he needed, because an ally would come in handy. “Horace is a time traveler.”

“Right,” Mateo said, relieved that he knew as much.

“You’re time travelers.”

“We are.”

“You found out my name, and then you went back in the past to now, and now you know my name.”

Mateo closed his eyes and nodded once. “That’s exactly what happened.”

Franklin scratched the hair on the back of his head rigorously, like a dog. “Well, what happens?”

“We die,” Mateo said, but then he began the lie. “We all die. Leona, me, your entire team. Everybody dies, Franklin. And it’s Reaver’s fault.”

“No, Horace would never do that,” Franklin protested. “He’s my friend. He lets me call him Horace.”

Leona followed Mateo’s lead and improvised. “He is your friend, but you two get in a fight, and he loses control. He doesn’t mean to, but he’s just so mad at us. He doesn’t really want us here, but he doesn’t know what to do.”

“Horace always knows what to do!”

“He always has, yes,” Leona tried to calm him down. “But he doesn’t like us, and we kind of confuse him when we’re around. Accidentally,” she clarified. “You have to help him, Franklin. You have to get rid of us for him.”

He pulled out his gun. “I can get rid of you.”

She held up her hands in defense. “No, not like that. We’re time travelers, remember? If you kill us, we’ll just come back.”

That was completely ridiculous, and 100% untrue, but Franklin seemed to be buying it. Maybe he was the dumbest person in the world. “Okay, what do I do?”

“We came here with an android. Do you know where he is?”

“Horace turned him off and chained him up in the basement closet.” He looked at the floor shyly. “But I turn him on every once in awhile when Horace is away. He’s my friend too.”

“Okay,” Leona said. “I need you to turn him on one more time. He is our friend as well, and we need his help.”

Franklin was still hesitant, but in the end, agreed to help them help Reaver. About ten minutes after he left, there was a ruckus downstairs. Shots were fired, wood was cracked, screams were screamed. Harrison burst through the door, face like a rabid animal. “Next time I tell you to stay away from an evil psychopath, listen to me!”

“You don’t have to tell us twice,” Mateo said.

“That was, like, the tenth time!”

They stole Reaver’s aircraft, disabled the tracking software, and flew off to safety in Baker Lake, Nunavut where Mateo described to them what had happened.

« < » > Table of Contents

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: April 21, 2045 (Part I)

« < » > Table of Contents

Reaver had far more loyalists than Mateo thought he would. Once they jumped into 2045, a decently-sized security contingency overwhelmed them. They patted the two of them down to make sure they didn’t have any weapons, and then bound their wrists behind their backs before taking them back up to the house. Reaver was in the middle of cooking breakfast foods when they were ushered into the kitchen. “Really?” Mateo asked. “Cooking? What did you do, watch every movie with an evil villain and just copy their movements? Next you’re going to speak in an accent and touch my skin with vaguely homoerotic overtones.”

“Mister Matic,” he said, “I’m impressed. You so often prove yourself to be completely out of touch and uncultured, but here you are making hollywood cliché references.”

“I like to play to my audience.”

“We had a deal,” Leona said. “We help you out of prison, and you help us stop the powers that be.”

“No, you misunderstood,” he explained. “I needed your help breaking out of prison. And good job with that, by the way. Very clever using your own pattern against the security system. Very clever indeed, however, I would have preferred not waiting a whole year for your return. You were right; that was torture. I’m not surprised people go crazy waiting for you to come back.” He finally switched back to his main point, “but I’m not here to help you find the choosing ones. You’re still the ones helping. I’m intending to contact them for my own reasons, and that may or may not work out for you.”

“Well, we don’t know the context,” Leona said. “How are you contacting them? You said you know where they are, but how do we get there? You obviously do still need us quite a bit, otherwise you would have done it this past year. So you have a day to get it done.”

“You’re right,” Reaver agreed. “You’re not just helping; you are vital to my plan. But we can’t actually do anything for the majority of today. Like your prison break, my plan hinges on the fact that you’ll jump into the future in 24 hours.”

“Explain.”

“I will. Be patient,” he said coyly. “I’m gonna stick you two in a comfortable room for the time being. Don’t worry, there aren’t any cameras. I have no interest in seeing you two do whatever you do when you’re alone. I suggest you get some rest since you were up all day last year, paranoid that I would kill you in your sleep.”

“Why should we be less paranoid now?” Mateo asked. “Nothing’s changed.”

“Right again. But what are you gonna do? Ten feet up, or six feet under; your choice. You’ll be given food later, maybe some noodles, but it won’t be my world famous quiche. You’ve hurt my feelings.”

“Reaver,” Leona started, probably wanting to know more about his plans for them.

“Okay, you can have the quiche. As long as you promise not to ruin it with additional seasoning.” He redirected his words to the paramilitary officer still holding onto their arms. “Take them upstairs, Lieutenant Franklin.”

Against their better judgment, Mateo and Leona found some sleep in their latest prison. Being locked up was becoming a trend; one that needed to be put to a stop. Lieutenant Franklin came in with food every six hours. They tried to interact with him, and ask why he was loyal to someone who had caused so much destruction, but he never said a word. At about a quarter to midnight, he came in once more and escorted them all the way down to the basement where Reaver was once again putting on a show; acting like he was in the middle of a good book.

“We know you’re faking it,” Mateo whined. “Just tell us what your plan is. We don’t have all year.”

“Haha,” Reaver pretended to laugh. “Good one.” His demeanor changed. He became more serious and concerned. “Here’s where things change. Last time I went through this day, I did nothing. I had to wait for my rewind, or the plan would fail.” He took out a fixed-blade knife and almost began to cry. “Now, here’s the thing. I don’t want to do this. I just don’t know any other way.”

“You said you would stop trying to kill us.”

Now he really was crying. “I need to one more time. Just once more. Then it’ll be over. The choosing ones will jump in and send me back. Then this will all be erased.”

Leona stood in front of Mateo and spread her arms in defense. “You’re not going to hurt him again!”

Reaver continued to cry as he shook his head. “No, I’m not. This one’s not about him. I’m sorry.”

He raised his weapon in the air and prepared to plunge it into Leona’s chest, but an arm came out of nowhere and held him back. “Get that thing away from my daughter-in-law,” Mateo’s birth father, Mario commanded.

Reaver laughed through his tears. “I should have known they would send you.”

Mario knocked the knife out of Reaver’s hand and pushed him to the floor. “Yes, they finally gave me this assignment.”

“Dad?” Mario asked. “You’re one of the powers that be?”

“No,” he answered. “What makes you think that?”

“He said they would come if he tried to kill her.”

“They’ll only come if I do kill her,” Reaver said from the floor. He jumped up and tackled Mario. They struggled with each other on the floor.

Mateo tried to help, but a man he didn’t know came out of nowhere and held him back. “What are you doing? Let me go!”

Leona tried to help Mario as well, but the man was strong enough to hold her back too. “Screw you, Mateo.” His spit landed in Mateo’s ear. He pushed Leona to the floor where she hit her head on a table, and then he stabbed Mateo in the gut.

Mario screamed, “no!”

This gave Reaver enough room to reach under his chair and take out a gun. He pointed it at Mario’s head and squeezed the trigger.

This time, Leona screamed, “no!”

“Who the hell are you?” Reaver asked of the man as he was standing up, a bit out of breath. Apparently, he didn’t know him either.

The man switched his knife to the other hand and all but growled at Reaver. “I’m the cleanser. I am the yang! I am here to end this!” He lunged with his knife but Reaver just shot him in the head as well.

Reaver sort of shook his head in a twitch like he had just tasted something sour. “That was weird.” While Mateo was trying to stuff his blood back into his stomach, Reaver slowly walked over to Leona who was massaging her head. He whispered loud enough so that Mateo could hear, “I’m going to save you, my love.” He dragged the blade across her neck and let her life seep out of the opening.

Now it was Mateo’s turn to scream, “no!”

A woman appeared out of nowhere with seething anger. “I never thought you would go this far.” She was the same woman that Mateo saw in the Constant following his escape from Reaver’s facility. She was also at Daria’s funeral.

“It’s a sad world when a father has to kill the love of his life to get his daughter’s attention.”

Mateo kept his hands pressed to his stomach while he pushed himself to sit against the wall with his elbows. “Love of your life?” he repeated listlessly. His whole body felt heavy, and his world became blurry. He was dying. “Daughter?”

“Not only that,” Reaver said, haphazardly dropping the knife on the ground. “She’s one of the choosers. She’s one of the people doing this to us.”

“I am doing nothing to you,” she amended. “It would be a conflict of interest.”

“Can you save her?” Mateo asked through tears. “Can you save Leona and my father?”

“Yes, dear,” Reaver agreed. “Do save her. Send me back to the point of divergence and let’s try this one more time!”

“I can’t send you back,” the woman said. “Like I said, it would be a conflict of interest. There are rules. I literally have no way of subverting them.” She looked towards Mateo. “But I can send him back.”

“If you send him back, he’ll ruin all this! He’ll do everything he did before!”

“I’m not sending him back to the point of divergence you’re talking about. I’m just sending him back one day. That is, if he would like me to.” She turned to Mateo. “But you have to decide in the next thirty seconds. I’ll only be able to hijack your jump just before it happens. If you jump to 2046, all is lost.”

Mateo slid his back against the wall and painfully got to his feet. “Do it.”

Come midnight, Mateo jumped, but this time backwards. It was once again April 21, 2045.

« < » > Table of Contents

Superpowers: Stage Two (Part II)

< > Entire Story

At this point in history, China was Pakistan’s best ally. They shared technology and resources with each other, and even had a sort of joint nuclear energy program. They were insulted and infuriated by Federama’s attack and disregard for international law. While China was preparing to deploy a military contingency against Federama, Stage Two of Governor Stockton’s plan went into effect. China’s nuclear weapons programs was the second largest in the world, and an invasion would not be sufficient enough for full disarmament. They also had an extremely formidable military branch that would swiftly and easily knock down any aggressors. Stockton knew this, and had planned to use a different tactic than the one against Pakistan.

Every country in the world contained a certain fraction of its population who identified as Amadesin. But the lowest by far, and mathematically surprisingly, was China. So because of this, there was not a lack of Chinese expatriates who had immigrated to Federama, and were loyal to its cause because of its act of courage against Amadesis years ago. China was originally, in fact, one of Federama’s best allies. But that didn’t mean that Stockton could allow them to keep their nuclear weapons. They had to be shut down, just like everybody else.

Federama had spent the better part of the last decade planting moles in strategic positions within the Chinese government. The day after the last Federama spy in China was in the right place was the day of the Pakistan invasion. Stockton was nothing if not incredibly intelligent. It was even said that genius level intelligence was his second superpower, but this was never formally tested. Stage Two was carried out much slower than Stage One. With each passing day, panic in China increased, along with their confusion. They began to make a lot of mistakes, and many lower-level officials, unsure of what was happening, ended up destroying nuclear documentation, which meant that Stockton’s people didn’t have to do it. Unlike Pakistan, whose nuclear armory contained only bombs that needed to be dropped or put in place, China’s inventory included missiles. Fortunately, these missiles could be released by the Federama spies, and detonated safely out of the range of innocents, sometimes even on the edge of the atmosphere.

Little by little, spies were pulled out of the country by Federama extraction teams; each one more shocking of a reveal than the last. The conspiracy went almost all the way up to the top. Most of the spies considered themselves to be loyal Chinese through and through, and betrayed their nation’s trust because they genuinely believed nuclear disarmament was the only way to prevent another Utah catastrophe. Though technically no one had died from that explosion, the number of deaths from Russia’s bombing on Georgia five years later following the Amadesins’ attempt was astronomical. It was actually probably the deciding factor in Stockton’s plans. Instead of recognizing the kind of devastation such weapons could have on the world, other governments seemed to take it as a success story, and chose to use it as a learning experience for their own programs. Their bombs were bigger and badder than the original, and let to continue, they could soon lead to The Eleventh Extinction.

While not condoning Federama’s extremist approach to nuclear disarmament, the government of India deployed their military in order to protect Federama’s borders from Chinese forces. They held the line for weeks while China continued to threaten total annihilation, even after Stage Two was complete. It was at this point that Stockton was forced to make an announcement that he was firmly against. He was trying to rid the world of its weapons; not create further panic. But this had to be done. In order to defend his own, he had to make the world believe that he really was the bad guy. He had to bluff and convince everyone that the weapons he had stolen from Pakistan and China could now be used against them, or anyone else who tried to make a move. This decision not only protected Federama, but also ensured that Russia would push them into Stage Three without even realizing it.

Governor Stockton stood at the podium and began his speech that was set to be broadcast in every region that agreed to it. He cleared his throat. “People of Earth. Five weeks ago, I released an invasion into Pakistan. Not long after, I engaged a league of spies that I had embedded within the Chinese government. They sent nuclear missiles into the atmosphere and detonated them away from potential casualties. But that’s not all we did. We...procured a number of engineers and scientists and recruited them to work for us. With these new resources, we enhanced our own nuclear program, and we have plenty to go around. Anyone who threatens us threatens the sanctity of human life, and we will use our weapons against such threats, even if the act results in seeming hypocrisy.

“Our now greatest ally, India has been utilizing its own people and resources to support and protect us. I have begun negotiations with them to figure out the best way for them to pull out of our waters and return home to their families. Do not take this a sign of weakness. We are stronger than ever. We will do what we must in order to push this planet into the future, and make it great again. The nuclear attacks in Utah and Georgia were only the beginning. Every year, a new nation begins plans to develop weapons of mass destruction. Meanwhile, those already with weapons increase their stores dramatically. I spent the first half of my tenure lobbying to form an oversight organization to make sure nuclear technology would be used only for energy and other benevolent endeavors. But I failed in this. And so I’m taking a different approach. I’m taking your weapons. This is not the end. I am not content with only stopping Pakistan and China from making a mistake that leads to World War IV. Many of you will say that I am foolish for revealing my plans and motivations to you, but I assure you that I know exactly what I’m doing.

“Surrender your weapons to us now, or face the consequences. Whatever you choose, I will find a way to get your bombs. I won’t let you keep them. I can’t. There is a new world order. In the past, you may have seen our tiny nation as negligible. But no more. We have technology beyond the weapons we stole that you know nothing about. We can overcome any obstacle in our way. We are small, but we are strong, and you cannot defeat us. Forget what you know about what your governments can do. They may be powerful, but we are now the leader. We are now...the world’s greatest Superpower.”

< > Entire Story