“And you’re certain this will work?” asked O.
“It will take time and research,” Gabe replied, “but I’m confident, yes. There have already been numerous tests done to show that our level of genetic engineering is beyond anything ever previously imagined.”
Gabe was seated in much the same way I was during my meetings with the Directors, but this felt more like a congressional hearing. There were many bodies around the table in front of him, and they were all intently listening and asking questions.
“How have you managed testing?” asked someone whose voice I didn’t know. “Did you do it on supers, normals, or animals?”
“All three,” Gabe replied. “In every case, the tests have shown remarkable results.”
A slew of other questions followed, but I was fast-forwarded through most of them.
“The question on the minds of the Paranormal Police Department,” Silver chimed in as the speed of the replay returned to normal, “is whether or not we’ll be able to safely utilize these enhanced officers to police our streets.” He paused. “Will we?”
“In time,” Gabe replied with a nod. “I firmly believe this is doable. I also believe this is the only way we’ll be able to stop the spread of supernatural villainy.”
Unless Gabe was showing me the script he wanted me to see, doctored to make him look good, it seemed he was genuinely interested in keeping the public safe. But if that was the case, why would he have created someone like Kevin? And why would there be all these ubers, that he created, attacking the world like this?
“If we approve utilizing these test subjects of yours in the field,” asked Zack, “how can we be assured of a failsafe in the event that they malfunction?”
“Each of them has only a single genetic enhancement,” Gabe answered. “Therefore, they can be taken down by those who are not part of their kind.”
This sounded like he was just talking about the standard upgrades that the PPD cops got now. If it wasn’t, the Directors would have had more concerns…right?
Everything went dark and then slowly faded back into view. Years had apparently passed as the decor and technology looked quite a bit different than the last time. Plus, the panel was smaller than before.
“…Yes,” the voice of O was saying, “we agree that the individual enhancements have been quite successful, but you are now talking about turning already powerful supernaturals into something far beyond that.”
“It’s no different, sir,” stated Gabe. “It’s merely the necessary evolution of the technology. The officers program that we implemented ten years ago has cut supernatural crime by nearly seventy percent across the board.” He put up his hands. “What I’m promising now is a one-hundred-percent drop in crime.”
“Yes,” agreed Zack, “but at what cost?”
“Agreed, Zack,” stated Silver.
“Now, wait a second,” EQK said in his snippy voice. “If this butt fucker can guarantee wiping out crime completely, why do you two jizz slurpers want to stop him?”
“Please refrain from calling members of the panel names, EQK,” O said in a tired voice. “Oh, and our esteemed Mr. Dexington as well.”
Dexington?
My name was really Ian Dexington?
That was just awful.
“Fuck you, O,” EQK responded without malice. “We’ve got this dick brain over here giving us a way to wipe out crime, and there’s a bunch of hippies on the panel crying about it. Maybe you’ve all come down with a ripping case of vaginitis?”
The event fast-forwarded again.
“We approve the use of genetic enhancements to bring one individual to the state of what we will call ‘ubernatural,’ Mr. Dexington,” O said, acting as the voice for the rest of the committee. “We expect to be kept completely up-to-date on each step of the process.”
“…But I just need a little more time,” Gabe pleaded. “This is a new science. It takes trials to be sure that it works properly.”
“You blew up half of Manhattan, you clit smacker,” EQK roared, “and you used a fucking pixie to do it!”
I had to wonder if the pixie that EQK was referring to was none other than Rot, the guy I had battled in a Joke-off a couple of months back.
“I admit that’s true, Director EQK,” Gabe replied coolly, “but we were able to subdue him rather quickly, and we are making strides to correct the issue that caused him to become unsettled.”
“Unfortunately, Mr. Dexington,” Silver argued, “this is the fifth time in as many months that we’ve heard this exact testimony from you.”
“But, you must see—”
“See what?” Zack interrupted. “The only thing I see is that thousands of lives have been lost. Your Frankenstein monsters are not working, Mr. Dexington.”
“I would have to agree,” O noted.
It fast-forwarded again.
“All in favor of shutting down this program, please vote ‘aye,’” called O.
Everyone voted in the affirmative.
“You have thirty days to shut down the program, Mr. Dexington,” commanded O. Then he softened a bit. “We all know that you have done your best here, Gabe. Your heart was in the right place the entire time, but we just can’t risk any more lives being lost.”
We were back in the lab now. There were tunnels being carved out, mostly through the use of magic by people I’d seen before.
There was Reese the mage, Shitfaced Fred the necromancer, Charlotte the dragon, Rex the werewolf, Rot the pixie, and Sylvester the vampire. There were many others, too, but I didn’t recognize most of them.
The magic-users were carving out tunnels faster than anything I’d ever seen before. The others were carrying gear down and placing it in a large room. As Gabe scanned the area, I noted that it was the same place Gabe and I were standing in outside of Flashes right now. The difference was that this room wasn’t currently empty.
“Keep digging here,” Gabe commanded. “We’re going to head back for another round of equipment. We’ll return soon.”
Everything sped forward, showing a quick trip as a convoy of vans and trucks cruised out to the middle of the desert. Just as they were about to turn off the main road, a building in the distance exploded.
“Bastards,” Gabe hissed after a moment. “They were going to kill me and all of my creations.”
I had the distinct impression that the ‘they’ in that statement referred to the Directors.
“They’ll pay for that.”
Two children were in incubators. One male and one female. They were both sleeping as IVs dripped bluish liquid into their veins.
On the front of one was the name ‘Ian,’ the other said, ‘Wynn.’
‘Wynn Dexington’ wasn’t as fucked up as Wynn Dex, but it was still pretty fucked up.
“Okay, my little amalgamites,” Gabe said as he tapped the table that housed both my sister and me, “you are the future of the world.” He glanced over at four young boys who were lying on a nearby table. “Your brothers will one day help in your growth, but they just aren’t quite up to spec for what I need. Once you have reached your full potential, the world will finally be a safe place.” He sighed heavily. “However, I will have to choose one of you to stay while the other goes out and grows up as an innocent.”
He pulled out a coin.
“Heads, and Wynn goes; tails, and it will be Ian.”
We all know how that turned out.
Over the next few minutes, I saw wisps of my life as Gabe paid various families money to raise me, each unlocking a part of my potential before moving me on to the next set of foster parents.
That meant that none of them had ever truly cared about me.
They were simply hired guns.
Watching this was certainly not making me feel very warm and fuzzy toward Gabe. In fact, I was of the mind to kick his ass all over the place at the moment. Unfortunately, I had no control over his body, or I’d have had him punch himself right in the nuts.
The scenes continu
ed, one after the other, until I finally landed as the chief of the PPD in Vegas.
“And now you will all be sent out to do what you were intended to do,” Gabe was saying to all of the ubers in the room. “You will each prepare and be ready the moment I call you.”
One hand went up.
“Yes, Reese?”
“What is our ultimate goal, sir?”
“You will destroy the evil one known as Ian Dex.”
Everything began to fade as three powerful words began to form inside my mind.
What.
The.
Fuck?
Chapter 42
I snapped out of Flashes and just stared at Gabe for a few seconds. I had no words. He wanted them to kill his own son? For some reason, this just didn’t sit well with me, especially since I’d been dumped into the system for my entire life as part of some grand training program.
What kind of parent does that?
“I know what you’re thinking,” Gabe said. “How could I have possibly let the Directors strong-arm me the way they did, right?”
“That’s not even close to what I was thinking,” I answered.
“Oh?”
“I was thinking something more along the lines of how you could be such a fucking asshole?” I spat. “And then I started thinking about the best way to kill you for being such a fucking asshole.”
He bridled at my response.
Good.
“You will show me respect, Ian,” he hissed.
“Why would I do that?” I asked with a laugh. “Because you’re my ‘father’?” Yes, I did use air quotes that time. “I’m nothing but a goddamn experiment to you, Gabe…or did you want me to call you Dad, or maybe Daddy?” I then grimaced. “Okay, I’m not calling you Daddy. That’s just weird.”
“Agreed,” noted The Admiral.
Gabe took a few deep breaths, visibly trying to calm himself. I guess he wasn’t used to having kids who talked back to him. What was he going to do, though, give me a timeout?
“You saw what happened, Ian,” he said, keeping his voice steady. “The Directors cut my ability to continue the single most important scientific breakthrough in the history of our world.” His fists were squeezing rhythmically. “Then they tried to kill me and my creations out of fear that I would pursue my chosen path without regard to their damnable rules and ethics.”
“Which you absolutely did,” I pointed out while giving him a they-were-right-to-do-so look.
“But they couldn’t have known I was planning to do that,” he countered, “which meant that they had decided to kill me before I’d even had the chance to shut things down.”
That was a stretch.
The Directors weren’t exactly on my Christmas-card list at the moment, but I doubted they’d just blow up a building they knew was full of people just because they wanted to silence them.
Then again, maybe they would.
All right, so the jury was out on that, but it didn’t fix the bit about my ‘father’ being a bloody psychotic.
“Fuck them,” I said, referring to the Directors. “What I want to know is why you told the ubers to kill me?”
“Ah, yes, that,” he said, nodding. “I can understand that you may have found that part somewhat upsetting.”
“A little bit, yep.”
“I knew they didn’t have a chance against you,” he explained. “Well, assuming you rose to the challenge and became what I knew you could be, anyway.”
“Meaning you didn’t know if they had a chance against me or not,” I corrected him. “Basic logic, Gabe.”
He bowed slightly. “Let’s just say we are living in the land of odds, and I was confident with my bet.”
I rolled my eyes at him.
“As I explained before, each uber I sent your way unlocked more and more of you,” he continued, “but I wasn’t pleased with the speed at which you were growing.” He began to pace back and forth. “Fortunately, Officer Cress decided to leave the precinct. That was perfect because it put you in an emotional state. All I had to do was work to bring you out of your shell even further.”
“So, wait, you had Rex kidnap Rachel?”
“Correct,” he replied as if it were nothing. “That started you down a path of both anger and vulnerability. From there, I just needed to push a few more buttons before having you injected with venom.”
Well, that about settled the debate over Gabe being a raving lunatic or not.
Then again, maybe all parents did shit like this to their kids? I didn’t really have much of a reference point aside from shows like The Brady Bunch, and I had a difficult time believing that was even remotely realistic.
As an aside, am I the only one who preferred Jan over Marsha?
“Loved those braces,” The Admiral sighed wistfully.
“Anyway,” I said, shaking myself back to the moment, “you essentially fucked with me my entire life, and now you want me to embrace you with open arms? Uh, no.” I then leaned in a bit and added, “That’s the summary from my side, if you give a shit.”
He blinked stoically. “Sometimes we must make sacrifices for the greater good, son.”
“Quit it with the ‘son’ stuff, will you?” I rasped. “And sacrifices are fine if you know you’re making them and if you agree with the cause in the first place.”
His expression changed to one of concern.
“I’m assuming you do agree with how well you turned out?” he asked. “Can crime continue in Las Vegas now that you have the powers I’ve given you?”
Technically, crime could continue just fine, but he had a point. It’d only be a matter of time before word got out that I was now a major badass. Once that happened, only supers who had a death wish would fuck with my town.
“Okay, I’ll give you that one, but I have a feeling you’re not planning to stop there.”
“Of course not,” he replied, rubbing his hands together like a maniacal evil genius. Technically, I guess that’s precisely what he was. “Between me, you, and Wynn, we will grow an entirely new batch of amalgamites. Then we’ll distribute them throughout the world and everyone will follow my rule of law without question.”
That caused an eyebrow to raise.
“Your rule of law?”
His face twitched slightly.
“You know what I mean.”
“Yeah,” I agreed with a heavy dose of sarcasm, “I really do.”
“Good.” His smile was wide and proud. “Soon, the world will bow to the Dexingtons.”
I grunted and then cracked my neck from side to side. Things were about to go south for old Gabe. I still couldn’t believe this guy was my dear old dad.
“How come my brothers thought their last name was Dex?” I asked. “I mean, I get why you did that with me, but why them?”
“In case they were captured, of course.”
“Ah, right.” That’s when a thought struck me. “What about…Mom?”
“Mom?”
“Yeah, what happened to her? Is she still around?”
“You didn’t technically have a mother,” he answered, looking a bit uncomfortable. “There was an egg, certainly, but it was chosen at random. I fertilized the egg using genetically altered sperm that contained DNA adjustments and additions from various supernatural donors. The only one you didn’t get was dragon. It was just too complicated and risky.”
“So you made me out of jizz soup?”
He frowned. “That is a juvenile way to put it, but essentially yes.”
“Which means that you aren’t technically my father.”
“My sperm was part of the concoction, and I did raise you.”
“No, you didn’t,” I shot back. “You paid others to raise me.”
“Technicalities,” he said, waving a dismissive hand at me. “You are my son and together we will rule the world.”
There he went again with the megalomaniac talk.
I was sure that his heart had been in the right place all those
years ago when this all started, but it was clear that Gabe’s power exploded his ego somewhere along the way. Regardless, it was clear that he had no doubt that running the world under his ‘law’ was for the best. Dictators tended to get pretty fucked in the head over time.
Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority, still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority.
- Lord Acton
Again, I watched a lot of documentaries.
“Here’s the thing, Pop,” I said, realizing the shit was about to hit the fan, “I think you’ve lost touch with reality a bit, and I’m not about to back the next Hitler or Stalin.”
He went to open his mouth and then grimaced.
“Don’t you think you’re being somewhat dramatic, son?”
“Says the guy who just announced that he wanted to rule the world?” I scoffed. “You’ve lost your marbles, old man. Worse, I was damn close to implicitly trusting you, but…”
I just shook my head.
He closed his eyes and took in a long, slow breath.
“I understand that you may be somewhat upset,” he said in a diplomatic tone of voice, “but that will soon pass.”
“Even if it did, I’m not going to be a part of your draconian plans.”
His eyes creased and his skin flushed. Obviously, Gabe was not a fan of the way I viewed his chosen path.
“You will be a part of my plans, Ian Rupert Dexington, or you will be killed.”
My jaw hung open.
“My middle name is fucking ‘Rupert’?”
I then jolted again at the breadth of what he’d just said to me.
“And, secondly,” I added, “did you seriously just do the parent thing where you called me by my full name?”
His face was so tight it looked to have been chiseled from granite.
“I have no more time for games,” he announced. “I have invested heavily into you over the years, both financially and emotionally. But you are a grown man now. You may choose to do as you please.” He stared at me. “What will it be, son? Do you plan to cast aside your pointless emotions and follow me now, or will you choose to die?”
Clash of Flames: An Ian Dex Supernatural Thriller Book 7 (Las Vegas Paranormal Police Department) Page 16
