That would result, in Crazytown de Flynn at least, in a massive surge of these God particles, which change reality at a quantum level to match the thought patterns. Brilliant really! No, not brilliant, crazy! I was having divergent thoughts again and it was actually painful this time.
I stopped what I was doing, peeling oranges for juicing, and concentrated on what I thought was the ‘real’ me. You know, Eric-is-Crazy me. After a moment, thoughts started to clarify and the pain subsided. Eric may be unhinged in some parts, I was forced to conclude, but at least a large part of his theory had to be correct. It was the only thing I could rely on to explain the unnatural things happening both around me and to me. Vigilant for odd thoughts, I decided to celebrate this small mental victory by finishing and consuming breakfast.
“I can reliably report to you that there are, indeed, human displaying unnatural abilities. This is not a hoax, this is real and it is live ...” *click*
“... explain how it is you began flying and what does it feel ... ” *click*
“... a plot by the Devil himself that can only be the first sign of the end ...” *click off*
The television news had descended into pure information overload. There was little explanation they or any government body could give, other than the confirmation that there were hundreds of reports from around the world of people gaining what any layman would call ‘super powers’. No doubt there were many of my colleagues in every scientific field chomping at the bit to try to decipher this mystery. I had the feeling that my meeting with the dean was going to be forgotten.
A few of these superhumans had started to spontaneously come forward, seeing a chance at quick celebrity or placed in a position they couldn’t dodge the media. To top it off, there had already been the first super-fight, cut almost from the very whole cloth of Eric’s comics, one of which I had open on my lap as I finished my lunch. The problem, of course, was that, no matter how the world had changed, some things still remained the same.
For example, if a man who apparently is made of concrete and strong enough to flip an automobile punches an unprotected human being, the cold hard laws of physics take over. There isn’t ‘the man is battered and bruised and knocked out in a single blow’. There is ‘F = mA vs. the structural hardness of the human body’ and ‘horrific tissue and organ damage’. If you don’t remember from the news that day yourself, I’ll remind you that the world’s first 'Push Battle' (as those headline hungry media jockeys dubbed it) resulted in thirty-seven fatalities and over ten million dollars in property damage.
I had spent the last four hours digging through Eric’s possessions, his comics, his computer ... anywhere I thought I could find a scrap of information. It had been slow going. Not because his possessions were a mess or unorganized, Eric was incredibly fastidious. It was the emotional impact that slowed my progress. When I found the first picture we had taken together, that first night he asked me out, I almost stopped. Seeing us just one year earlier, happy in each other's company, giggling like idiots in front of Fellini's Pizza, left me stunned, trying to make that man in the photo and the man I saw last night combine into one whole being.
When I was finished, I had little to show for it, but it wasn’t totally fruitless. There were two things that, while not providing insight into what exactly his scientific basis was, provided me with a deeper insight into the emotional and mental state that must have led up to this.
First, well, the comic books themselves. I read some when I was a little girl (I only ever really got into Wonder Woman; I was always insulted that most other female heroes were distaff counterparts of the men) so I was woefully unprepared for the vast array and evolution of the medium since then. Between a couple of hours browsing and referencing comic book history, I could only confirm my initial suspicion that comic books, specifically superhero ones, were forming the basis for whatever thoughts he was amplifying last night. The problem I found was that there was so much hypocrisy and circular logic in the genre, at least in the more classical versions of it.
Heroes and villains often generated each other. Depending on the title, a villain could murder a hundred people and at worst spend time in a jail from which they easily escape when the writer needs them again. Heroes themselves could then inversely perform the same acts of mass murder as long as the situation or the writer warranted it. I didn’t try to argue it’s entertainment value to myself: A lot of enjoyable fiction required the suspension of disbelief and a sometimes illogical approach to cause and effect. It was the fact that someone was using this, or their perception of it, to rewrite reality that scared me so much.
Second, I found on his computer photographs and records on his family. His mother and father had been a topic that Eric actively avoided. It was something he was intensely private about. I assumed initially that there had been a falling-out or bad blood or possibly abuse, so I didn’t pry. It was a month ago, during one of our frequent walks through Grant Park, that he told me that both of his parents were dead, that they had died in an unnamed accident when he was ten years old.
It was obvious that Eric had made an active attempt to clear out as much biographical information as he could but he must have felt either compelled by sentiment or simply rushed, as there were a few files left intact. What was clear from these files was that his parents hadn’t died in a simple accident, but the specifics were unclear. I wasn’t beat yet.
It took more time than I expected to find the information I needed online. Web traffic, especially to news sites, was at an all-time high. Still, it only took patience and some rudimentary net sleuthing to discover first Eric’s parents’ obituary and then, from there, several news articles in connection to their deaths.
The tale they told was one straight out of one of Eric’s comic books. The story of a young boy orphaned when his well-regarded parents were murdered in a failed mugging attempt. The mugger-turned-murderer, Gerald Schuller, was eventually apprehended. After over twenty years of imprisonment, he was set to be released on parole tomorrow. Eric’s court date last month to clear up a speeding ticket was yet another lie: he had testified at Schuller’s parole hearing. In yet another point of serendipity or, more likely, design, the anniversary of the murder was today.
I closed the comic book and tossed it onto the stack I had been skimming through. Gerald Schuller was plagued by several mental illnesses. He was dirt poor and was never properly treated until he went into prison. I had little doubt that Eric wanted to do something about what must seem to him like a miscarriage of justice.
I also had little doubt that Eric was one of these ‘Pushes’ ... my guess was that he was the one who caught the plane at Hartsfield. It would explain his vague mention of changes in that text. So, basically, my boyfriend changed the universe because he wanted to hurt the man who took his parents away, who, while not innocent, certainly wasn’t in full control of his actions.
I felt a huge wave of divergent thought come on and pushed it away. I was becoming adept at that. I scribbled in my notebook’s margins to do a full physiological examination of myself, especially an EEG, as soon as possible. I had a suspicion as to why these odd thought processes were happening, but I would have to wait to confirm or deny that suspicion. After all, my equipment was at the lab, and I was officially playing hookie today.
There was actually one thought, while divergent, that the real me was starting to embrace. The thought that I might be in the peculiar position to actually do something about Eric ... about the Whiteout ... about all of it. Didn’t I have the obligation to try at least?
If I was going to go through with this, I had one realistic shot at making contact with Eric. There was no way in Hell I was going to sit and twiddle my thumbs waiting for him to show up on his own time. Pushing aside the bizarre notion to pull a distressed damsel routine and lure him to rescue me (disgusting and dangerous in one neat package!), there was one place I knew he would be today: his parents’ graves. I could only hope that I hadn’t already missed
him.
Chapter 5 Grave
The problem I faced as I got ready to head over to the cemetery was what, if anything, I should do to prepare myself. It’s not as if there had been a seminar on how to deal with a crazy ex-boyfriend with superhuman powers to take when I was in college. I had severe doubts as to the point of carrying that can of mace or the rape whistle. Even the .32 caliber pistol my father had insisted Eric and I take as a housewarming gift (for home defense, of course) seemed pretty silly to think about taking. Dad had died just a month later, bless his soul. If I was right and Eric had been the one who caught a jumbo jet out of flight, the only sensible thing to do was to take nothing even remotely threatening and pick up the sword of reason against him. I felt remarkably foolish and woefully unprotected.
I just had to put faith in the notion that Eric still had some kind of feelings for me. After all, I couldn’t dispute that that I didn’t have some towards him, so it was a good chance the reverse was true. His text after the Whiteout implied that.
I was still going to dump him though. So very hard. It would have to wait, at least officially, until I made this shot at trying to ... well, I still wasn’t one hundred percent sure on what exactly I was looking to achieve. I was holding onto a rather unlikely hope that, if I could convince Eric that this experiment was a mistake, that he both had the means and the will to fix things back to the way they were.
Not that the rest of the world seemed eager for that. As I had finished getting into my most practical set of motorcycle leathers, the only thing the TV could drone on about was the Whiteout. It was now thirteen hours into the Push (the media had coined the term in the last hour, some sound byte about having power ‘pushed’ through the body) and everyone wanted to talk to a Pushed person. It seemed like no one paid much attention to the fact that Congress had been called into emergency session to address the Whiteout crisis or that fatalities from Push-related violence had already topped two hundred people. It was, to me, unfathomable how no one seemed to care.
I took a deep, steadying breath as I slipped on my motorcycle helmet. I had to keep my focus, remember my arguments, and keep the alien thoughts out of my head. Easy.
I kicked the Kawasaki to life and rode out of the parking deck.
Atlanta has always been infamous for it’s horrible traffic snarls, so I wasn’t immediately surprised to hit an unmoving mass of vehicles headed out from the apartment. I took the moment to once again run down in my head the approach I would take if, no, when I saw Eric. It was the roar of sirens that caused me to pay attention. Several police motorcycles wove through the gaps in the vehicles and roared past me, lights flashing.
I tried to focus on their destination but all I could see was a large billowing cloud of smoke or dust. I wasn’t the only one who was curious by the sudden police presence as several motorists came out of their cars, craning necks and holding up smartphones. The sirens grew more distant then suddenly stopped, their glaring noise being cut off by another, far more violent, sound.
The explosion shattered car windows and sent bystanders tumbling. I could see shrapnel and debris pepper the nearest cars to the cloud of smoke as I braced myself against the sudden pressure. As the cloud itself was torn into wisps by the shockwave, my skin instantly began to crawl as what it had been hiding was dramatically revealed.
It was the first time I had seen direct evidence of one of the Pushed. The organism I saw undoubtedly had once been human and was still humanoid in shape. Whatever shaped this creature's alterations took inspiration from fire itself because living flame was the best description I could come up with at the time. To fly further in the face of conventional science, his flames seemed selective for the pair of slacks he wore and the watch on his wrist remained surprisingly undamaged by his new form. There seemed to be something else, something more ... real beneath the flames, but I could see what it was from so far away.
All around me, a wave that combined fascination with terror swept among those watching. Some started to run away, weaving and pushing through the press of vehicles. Others continued to stare and gawk while snapping away with their phone’s cameras. As for myself, I felt neither. Yes, I was afraid, but not in some primal way. Yes, I was fascinated, but not to the point of loosing my senses. My scientific curiosity was peaked.
More so, I was overcome with the sudden sense that someone had to do something. Who knows how many people had died from that explosion? Who knows how many more people were about to die as the man made of fire started to stalk up the street? Coupled with that urgency of action was the sick sensation that I was about to do something my rational mind was trying to fight off at any cost.
Just as I was about to gun the engine of my bike over the ever louder protestation of my rational mind, the air suddenly turned frigid as a large crystalline mass flew right past my head. It was ice, a spear of ice, hurtling past me.. To my eyes, it didn’t even seem entirely real, much like this entire situation outside of the damage and injuries. The large chunk landed square in what would pass for a chest of a normal human and instantly melted, partially vaporizing in the intense flames.
The flame man made an inhuman roar so loud that I could barely pick up what I thought was a much more mundane scream hidden behind it. Running past me, hopping from car roof to car roof, was what had to be another Pushed, his mere presence sending my senses into alarm.
I could only guess that he had been a fireman, because that was how he was dressed. He may have even been responding to the reports of this fire. Now, though, he was something else. His black skin was frosted with ice and had an inhuman bluish tinge. To me, it looked shimmering and phantasmal and I could see the real man underneath the trappings.
Whatever truth lay beneath the skin, it didn't stop the firefighter from instinctively spreading his hands, shrouded in a bluish light. That light caused a large spray of rapidly-forming ice shards to freeze out of the air itself. The man of fire lashed out with his limbs, which seemed to grow immensely in size and intensity as he moved, to defend himself from the offending cold.
I did the only thing I could think of doing: I pushed off my bike and shoved the nearest star-struck bystander to the ground. The air exploded with super heated steam as the two primal forces collided over our heads. I and the man beneath me were safe but I could hear the horrible screams of those too slow or addled to find cover.
The Push Battle I witnessed took a total of twelve minutes. By the time it was over, I could only guess at how many were dead or injured. It was only by some measure of good fortune my motorcycle wasn’t destroyed. Despite that luck, I couldn’t just drive on after it was over.
I stopped myself from my trip to help out as many of the injured as I could. It was grim work. If I hadn’t already been somewhat inured to injury from my work as a therapist, I don’t know if I could have managed to keep myself together to finish it.
It was when I saw the first hint of the media that I decided I had to leave. The last thing I wanted was to wind up as part of the media insanity that seemed to be following the Pushed. I drove off as the super fireman was getting a photo op with the surviving police on site.
Westview Cemetery is, to this very day, a beautiful piece of history in Atlanta. Green grass, marble mausoleum, and headstones from as far back as the Civil War combine to form a picture of solemn peace. Unfortunately, it is over 500 acres. If I hadn’t been left with Eric’s exacting records, partial as they were, I don’t think it would have been likely that I would have found the graves in question. Even armed as I was with the proper location, it was still a good ten minute hike through the rows before I was even close.
The two marble headstones were in a slight depression in the grassy field. As I came to the rise, my helmet tucked under my arm, I came to a halt and scanned the area. It was silent and unmoving, much like the residents beneath the earth. There were few people out at this time of day, after lunch but before the end of the typical workday, so if I was right, we would have privacy. More i
mportantly, if something went wrong, no one would be around to get hurt.
The thought made me go rigid. It wasn’t that I wouldn’t think about something like that. My field of work was finding ways to help people overcome disease and injury; caring about my fellow man was natural to me. It was that I wasn’t sure if that was my thought or one of the ever-increasing divergent ideas that simply refused to stop. I had to admit it was becoming harder to tell them apart and I was becoming increasingly afraid that if I inadvertently gave into one, even if it was so much like my own, that it would open a floodgate in my mind I couldn’t shut.
“Stop it, Irene.” I used my most strident tone, the one I generally only saved for bad drivers and bullies. I was right, of course. If I didn’t stop it, I would start a downward spiral as I began to second-guess my every action, not to mention the biochemical fear response would compromise any attempt at presenting a calm, rational set of arguments in the confrontation ahead. I closed my eyes, counted backwards from ten (my mother insisted it always worked to calm you down), and then reopened my eyes, determined to focus on my destination.
As if summoned by that simple ritual, I now saw a figure standing in front of the graves. It had to be Eric. Not that he was entirely the same anymore.
“Irene.” The man I assumed was Eric had waited patiently at graveside. I was sure he must have seen me when he arrived, in whatever extravagant and relatively silent fashion that was. “I suppose I should not be surprised to see you here.”
The voice was mostly the same, but instead of the quiet exacting tones of my Eric, this Eric’s voice was backed by the steel of absolute confidence. His body, though, that was radically different. Eric had grown at least a foot in height and filled out immensely. He had been a scarecrow, now he had more in common with sculptures of the Greek ideal than a mortal man. My mind instantly jumped from that thought to a general connection with his new mode of dress: it definitely was influenced by Greek mythology through the lens of an action movie. I doubted Zeus needed that half-cape for instance.
The Push Chronicles (Book 1): Indomitable Page 3
