Genesis

by Kipjo Ewers

  “Walk in front of me.”

  ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜

  Sophia held her brimming temper at bay as they walked out of the high school. She waiting until they were down the steps and halfway out of the quad.

  “You are grounded, I mean literally grounded,” Sophia snarled. “If I see you even hovering, I’m swatting you out of the sky. Phone, tablet, and computer are gone when we get back. Television and video games all gone, you have no idea how much trouble you are in young lady. Do you have any idea what a suspension like this on your record will do in getting you into a decent high school or college?”

  “I don’t know what the big deal is,” Kimberly muttered.

  “What did you just say?”

  Kimberly’s pace increased building the gap between them, which ignited Sophia’s rage causing her to detonate three feet from the main gate of the high school.

  “Do not take another step, or even think of flying off Kimberly Dennison! Get over here!”

  Sophia’s booming voice halted a reluctant Kimberly in her tracks, forcing her to slowly turn and face her parent with a pre-teen angst visage. Sophia folded her arms waiting as her eyes blazed reflecting the visible rage and disappointment on her face. Her daughter stomped back over to her keeping a safe distance between the two of them.

  “What did you just say?”

  “Look at me, mom!” Kimberly’s eyes blazed revealing her own anger. “I highly doubt I’m getting a cushy office job after college!”

  “I’m going to pretend like you lost your sanity for a split second and forgot who you were talking to,” her mother growled getting in her face. “Dial it back to zero.”

  “I’m going to be a superhero, mom,” Kimberly answered back with a softer voice. “That’s what I want to be when I grow up, maybe even a super soldier like dad was. Sergeant Rogers said I would make a great addition to the Regulator team, Heavy Element said I could even lead it someday.”

  “Did they now?”

  Sophia made a mental note to have a serious chat with the Regulators very soon.

  “So, I really don’t see the need for high school, college, or school period. I have the ability to retain and duplicate everything I read and hear, I don’t feel challenged.”

  “So then tell me what was so challenging about you maintaining your composure, when you had your disagreement with that young man in your classroom? What type of ‘hero’ do you expect to be if a mere mortal can provoke you to anger? Answer me.”

  “Bradley Perkins is a lying jerk!” Kimberly howled at her mother. “He kept saying that you weren’t a hero! That you were responsible for deaths the Judgment virus caused, and for freaks walking the Earth! That you were evil!”

  “He is right!” Sophia fired back. “I am responsible for the Judgment virus! By my actions, I inadvertently caused thousands of people to die and created superhumans, some who have done some unspeakable things which included the Zombie Nation. So, you attacked a kid for being right.”

  “But his dad said you were worse than ISIS!” Kimberly shot back at her.

  “I don’t give a damn if his father said I’m having an affair with Donald Trump!”

  Sophia paused and shuddered at that last statement wishing to take it back.

  “Not only did you disrupt your class, traumatize that young man and possibly other students in your class,” she furiously lectured her daughter. “You missed the whole point of the lesson! That young man had the right to express how he felt! No mattered if you disliked or disagreed with whatever he had to say, that is what freedom is about. That is what the symbols I wear on the shoulders of my outfit that you chose for me are all about, the right to say what you feel without reprisal from your government or some higher power.”

  Kimberly turned her head away to pout, but her mother forcefully turned it back via her chin to maintain eye contact.

  “You don’t think I could have systematically wiped out the KKK, and every Neo-Nazi hate group on the planet? I could have done it on any given weekend. But that is not freedom that is not democracy …that is a dictatorship, that is a monarchy, and that is the definition of what groups like ISIS and Al Qaeda are all about, subjugating people by violence to bend them to their will and belief structure. That is what I fight against every day.”

  “Then why do some people hate you?” Kimberly’s eyes welled up with frustration.

  “Some hate me because they are misinformed of my intentions,” Sophia answered with a softer tone. “They believe I intend to take over the world and rule or something foolish like that, which were never my intentions and is far from my mind. I give voice to those who do not have a voice, and I fight for those who do not have the power to fight, and some people especially certain ones in power don’t like that. Some of them prefer things the way that they are because it profits them either politically or financially, and I’m interfering with the status quo when I should be just rescuing a cat from a tree or stopping a bank robbery. So, they spread lies and rumors about me in hopes that people will either fear or hate me. But you want to know something?”

  “What?”

  “I don’t care what anyone has to say about me,” Sophia wiped the tears from Kimberly’s eyes while caressing her cheek. “I don’t care about the opinions of people who already have their freedom, and who does not have to worry about someone kicking their door in and pointing a gun in their face or the faces of their family or worse. Their opinion means nothing to me when drowned out by the cries of those begging to have the same rights and privileges those same people running their mouths off already have. Not to mention I know who I am, and you should know who I am by now too, and as long as you do you should not allow mere words to rattle you so easily, especially about me.

  That is also why going to school in its many levels is essential, it allows you to interact with your peers who may not see eye to eye with you, civilly debate them, and sometimes agree to disagree peacefully.”

  Sophia sighed expelling the last bit of anger from her.

  “Your job is not to defend me. That is my job. Your job is to be a kid. The respectable young lady that I know you are. Okay?”

  “Yes,” Kimberly nodded.

  “You’re still grounded, for a month,” Sophia brought back the sternness.

  “A month?” Kimberly stomped the concrete in frustration cracking it.

  “Destruction to public property just landed you two. You want to go for three?”

  “No,” she groaned.

  “And during your suspension, you’re going to write a letter of apology to your class and teacher,” Sophia continued her sentencing. “And you are going to give this Bradley Perkins a personal apology. Now let’s go, we’re stopping by Michelle, so I can change, and then we’re flying straight home.”

  CHAPTER 8

  September 2016, eleven hundred hours military time, Bridgeport, California, almost a week after the Vitruvian Absolute New York rally.

  At the Ranch, Rogers stood within central command in the middle of a video chat with Blitz, Nitro, and Cyclone.

  Behind them, a way off were, local Chicago SWAT, federal agents in tactical gear and body armor, and paramedics walking back and forth in a fierce battle zone that came to an end.

  “The bust was a success Sarge,” Blitz reported in. “Although our Intel was way off; the Ivankov family had more superhuman muscle than reported. We met with some heavy resistance. We took down four moderately powered EVOs. Three are in custody; the fourth went down to deadly force. We also took some casualties, a couple of agents were injured, three in critical condition, two killed in action.”

  “What of the shipment?” Rogers asked.

  “An estimated fifty million in guns and narcotics in the containers,” Blitz answered. “Including a large supply of boosters, “Human Boost” and “Ascension,” nothing on the level of the stuff we confiscated in Iraq.”

  “Dammi
t,” Rogers muttered.

  “We’ve participated in two different raids coming up with the same results Sergeant,” Blitz concluded. “No one has heard of or seen this type of booster.”

  “How the hell is it possible with what it can do?” Rogers shook his head dumbfounded.

  “Sir, maybe this was something that wasn’t supposed to be sold,” Cyclone said jumping into the conversation.

  “You think what we discovered in Iraq was stolen from possibly an experimental facility?”

  “It’s the only logical explanation as to why there’s no word about this stuff on the streets or even the dark web,” Cyclone answered. “Something in my gut is telling me those boosters weren’t supposed to be sold, not to ISIL terrorists anyway.”

  “If this is what is going on, we’ve got two new problems,” Rogers huffed. “The trail to the origin of these boosters have gotten colder, and there’s a good chance ISIL took a small part of the shipment somewhere else and is reverse engineering it to replicate the formula to make more.”

  “But Erica said a nuclear reactor or particle accelerator was needed to create the unknown properties.” Nitro reminded them.

  “Iran, Russia, and North Korea all have nuclear reactors and particle accelerators, and have been known to consort with terrorists,” Rogers reminded them. “And Iran’s current treaty does not cover the development of super soldiers.”

  All three looked at one another with faces of dread and concern.

  In the middle of the conversation, Erica walked into the command center.

  “Keep me updated if you find anything else,” Rogers instructed. “Help oversee clean up and detention, then hall ass back here.”

  “Yes sir,” Blitz nodded.

  As the video chat came to an end, Rogers turned to Erica patiently waiting for him.

  “Vitruvian Absolute, which stands for ‘Absolute Man’ or ‘Mortal God’ was started by Aafreen Hannan and Xavier Lamonster also known as Saraswati and Deacon Absolute as a YouTube video podcast that went viral on their first show. Their initial funds were made through Patreon donations. Three months later they added Brian Greene, Jiro Nakajima, and Valeria Lopez also known as Maximus, Ryu, and Diana Absolute.

  On their twentieth podcast, they officially announced themselves as the founding members of Vitruvian Absolute along with their mission statement …”

  “Can you skip the dance and tell me how they're making their money?” Rogers impatiently requested.

  Erica answered Rogers’s impatience with an eye roll.

  “Membership donations, speaker engagements, website subscriptions, and merchandise; a lot of their social media sites were shut down after the terrorist assault on Parliament in which their rhetoric was used. They run their weekly video podcast directly from their website. They’re members, however, continue to grow in the record numbers. As long as you subscribe to their ideology, you can become a member.”

  “So, they're clean,” Rogers concluded.

  “I didn’t say that,” Erica shook her head. “Although it is well disguised their operational capital does not add up to the monthly donations they receive.”

  “Meaning there’s a larger outside party funding them,” Rogers said filling in the gaps.

  “Yep,” she nodded. “Someone is handing them cash under the table and doing a good job at hiding it. Because this is technically out of our jurisdiction, I notified some of my contacts in the F.B.I. and the C.I.A. They’ll be mounting their own investigation to see if there is anything illegal like money laundering.”

  Rogers nodded in agreement.

  “Anything else on Mr. Rutherford?”

  “Aside from the fact that he gave a full detail confession of how and why he planned his attack at the Vitruvian Absolute rally,” Erica said with a straight face. “I think he was put up to it, against his will.”

  Her answer brought a grim look on Rogers’s face as his gut told him the same thing.

  “You are certain of this.”

  “Yep, Maxine bring it up please.”

  The large screen came alive showing footage of the shooting at the Vitruvian Absolute rally. Erica zoomed in on Mitch Rutherford as he wielded the Steyr SPP firing rounds into the front row of women and children.

  Erica then brought up video footage of Mr. Rutherford wearing a Mullet and full beard in green tactical gear brandishing an AR-15 at a local shooting range in his hometown.

  “The F.B.I sent me this footage taken off his phone for comparison,” Erica explained while profiling him. “What’s the first thing you see?”

  “In the footage at the rally, he’s not comfortable with the weapon at all,” Rogers answered with narrowed eyes. “He also looks frustrated.”

  “That’s because he wants to shoot more people, but can’t.”

  Rogers kept quiet waiting for her to clarify.

  “Mind-altering control works best when you find a subject that actually wants to do what you want them to do. To do that, you have to dive into their memories and subconscious to see who you are dealing with. Mr. Rutherford fits the textbook active shooter profile with borderline homicidal anarchist characteristics based on his mental state and beliefs, which can be backed up by videos and posts on his Facebook and Twitter page.

  However, Mr. Rutherford is a moron with a ninth-grade education.

  Yet Mr. Rutherford, who has never traveled to New York City, not for a school field trip, or a vacation knew to drive to Jersey City in New Jersey the day before the event, where he checks into a motel with a fake ID and stolen credit card.

  He then heads to Macy’s at the Newport Mall in New Jersey and purchases the outfit he had on paying cash. He then gets a haircut and shave at a barbershop named Clip Joint, and then gets a facial, manicure, and pedicure at V & C Image also paying cash at the two locations.

  He made one online purchase before his trip, a black Enforcer jacket from a company named ScotteVest known for creating travel clothing with multiple hidden compartments. This was made with a stolen credit card.

  The day of the event, he catches a jitney bus on Kennedy Boulevard to Port Authority in Manhattan, and then walks all the way to Union Square to avoid police checks in the subway.

  He is a virtual ghost during the gathering of the crowd and then manages to stand next to the only EVO that can hide him from our scanners until he is ready to strike.

  Mr. Rutherford who is on the F.B.I. Terrorist watchlist due to his affiliation with the Carolina Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, accomplished all of this telling no one of what he had planned, leaving no declaration of his intent, and with no research of any kind.

  His history browser on his computer and other devices were clean.”

  “He even chose the perfect weapon for the job,” Rogers added.

  “All three weapons are registered in his name,” Erica confirmed. “The Steyr SPP and ammo was purchased at the C&E Gun show at the Crown Expo Center on July 28th of this year.”

  “What about the Apollo he hid next to?” Rogers asked.

  “Paula Barton, age twenty-nine is a clean as a whistle,” Erica answered. “She’s a fifth-grade school teacher, who uses her powers for recreational means like posting tricks on the Fad Five.”

  “Fad Five?”

  “Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, and Snap Chat.”

  “Google and Tumblr didn’t make the cut?”

  “Google is the new Myspace, and Tumblr is where you go when you want to read blogs and watch porn.”

  “Good to know. So, he gets there, starts to shoot, and wants to do more damage,” Rogers began to conclude. “But whoever is controlling him, wants him to stick to the plan. Cause a violent scene to prove a point, with as little damage as possible.”

  “Enough to heighten fear and anger in the crowd, but not push them over the edge where they want to burn the city down,” Erica said agreeing with him.

  “They were going to burn the city down,” Rogers muttered. “Whoever planned this was countin
g on someone else showing up to prevent that. Is there any way to link Vitruvian Absolute to Rutherford?”

  “You think it’s them?” Erica asked.

  “You don’t?”

  “No, I do. Saraswati Absolute is a class seven Promethean. She’s capable of mind control and altering. The problem is, even if she did it, it’s not something that can be proven. Clearly, she tracked down the Carolina Knights and picked Rutherford as the perfect candidate for the job. I’ve been busy attempting to place her and the other members of Vitruvian Absolute in the vicinity of North Carolina in the past four months and come up with nothing. She didn’t drive, take a bus or train, nor did she fly, or was driven down there.”

  “Maybe she traveled by unconventional means,” Rogers suggested.

  “That was my next assumption,” Erica agreed.

  “For now, we don’t have the jurisdiction to do an extensive investigation,” Rogers grumbled. “We’re not the police nor are we the F.B.I. Whatever we do uncover has to be turned over to them so that they can mount a proper investigation. Continue to search for the extra money and who’s funding them, and whatever else we can find to bury these people.”

  “That will have to wait until I get back from Cook County Medical Examiner Office in Chicago.”

  “For?”

  “I got an email from the coroner there examining Flaming Jay’s body after her suicide, he’s requesting my professional expertise on EVO physiology to confirm something for him.”

  “Would you care to elaborate?” Rogers gestured as if he was pulling teeth.

  “He eluded to a large burn mark on her neck, which is clearly odd to find on someone who is supposed to be physically impervious to high degrees of heat. I believe he wants me to confirm if her death was foul play or not.”

  “Fine, take Rosann with you.”

  “I don’t need a babysitter, Rogers,” Erica answered back with an eye roll.

  “That wasn’t a request,” Rogers shot back. “I want her off the base doing something other than target practice and racking up record combat simulation time in the Hurt Locker.”