The Negative Man:
Stormfall
By Jeremy Croston
First Edition
© 2016 Jeremy Croston
Two Dudes, Brews, & Books
www.facebook.com/groups/brewsandbooks
Please do not re-distribute this book
in any way or format for
commercial purposes
or change the content.
This book is a work of fiction.
All of the names, places,
and events that occur are from
the author’s imagination.
Any resemblance to an actual
person, alive or dead, place,
historical event, or business establishment
is purely coincidental.
Cover by 67 Studios Production
Formatting by Gen X Formatting Solutions
Editorial Team:
Rebecca Blackburn
Caroline Price
Karen Vacanti
ISBN Number: 978-1532841750
Dedication
First to my wife Stephanie, thank you for pushing me forward each day. The Negative Man wouldn’t be possible without you. Without your support, these stories mean nothing.
Second to my son Jakson, who’s coming this August. Even though you are not here yet, you’re the apple of my eye and my little buddy.
Finally, to my business partner Jeff Trelewicz. Our dream, Two Dudes, Brews, & Books goes on each day because of our hard work. There’s no one I’d rather be in the trenches with.
Table of Contents:
Dedication
Table of Contents:
Forward
Project Jericho 1 –
Project Jericho 2 –
Project Jericho 3 –
Project Jericho 4 –
Project Jericho 5 –
Project Jericho 6 –
Project Jericho 7 –
Project Jericho 8 –
Chapter 1 –
Chapter 2 –
Chapter 3 –
Chapter 4 –
Chapter 5 –
Chapter 6 –
Chapter 7 –
Chapter 8 –
Chapter 9 –
Chapter 10 –
Chapter 11
Chapter 12 –
Chapter 13 –
Chapter 14 –
Chapter 15 –
Chapter 16 –
Chapter 17 –
Chapter 18 –
Chapter 19 –
Chapter 20 –
Chapter 21 –
Chapter 22 –
Chapter 23 –
Chapter 24 –
Chapter 25 –
Chapter 26 –
Chapter 27 –
Chapter 28 –
Chapter 29 –
Chapter 30 –
Chapter 31 –
Epilogue –
The Cast:
Three Years Later –
Prologue –
Issue #1 –
Issue #2 –
Issue #3 –
Issue #4 –
Issue #5 –
Issue #6 –
Issue #7
Issue #8
Issue #9 –
About Us:
Books:
One Last Thing:
Forward
Welcome back to the continuing series The Negative Man. Stormfall is going to be a tad different than the last book. Before we start the actual story, the web-series Project Jericho will be here for all to enjoy. There are many parallels between what happened in the web-series and what will take place in Stormfall that I felt it was necessary to include it in the book. For those of you who may have already read Project Jericho, kindly skip ahead a few pages and the main story will begin. If you haven’t read the origins of The Negative Man yet, I recommend you do so.
Now sit back and relax as we once again enter the world of Jericho Staley and The Negative Man…
Two Dudes, Brews, & Books Presents:
Project Jericho:
Origins of The Negative Man
Project Jericho 1 –
Five Years Old
“His readings are off the charts! It’s just as we feared…”
I looked over at Dr. Leonard Cooper, “He’s still just a child, torn away from his mother.”
Cooper’s glare focused me on. “Don’t confuse this experiment with an actual human child, Ellison. You saw what happened when he got angry. Damn near blew the roof off this place.”
No matter what Dr. Cooper said, I saw a scared young boy who just wanted to go home. The worst part was I knew how much Miranda missed her son, one she hadn’t even got around to naming before we took him away. “Can you blame him? All we do is poke and prod. We need to give him something meaningful to do.”
Beside us was General Lambert Talon. He was a reasonable man who usually saw both sides of the coin. “Dr. Cooper, Dr. Staley’s right. If we give the boy books or try to give him an education or sorts, it might help calm him.”
“Are the two of you suggesting that we give him access to information? Are you crazy?”
I knew the root of Dr. Cooper’s anger. He had lost a great many friends the day the electron generator exploded and the boy was his outlet to unleash his anger. “I’m telling you every child wants structure. And they want an identity. It wouldn’t hurt to call him something else besides boy or kid.”
The three of us were watching the boy behind the one way mirror. He was sitting in the corner, bored of course, and he began to play with his hands. Sparks of energy arced between them, like visible static electricity. Yet it wasn’t electricity, not any kind we’d seen before. “If he had something to do, he wouldn’t be doing that.”
General Talon agreed with me. “Cooper, Staley, I want that kid occupied. Get him books and get me a volunteer to act as his teacher. Idle hands…”
“I’ll teach him, Talon. Besides Cooper, I know his gifts the best and how to protect myself should something go awry.”
Talon looked over at Cooper who shrugged. “There’s no way in hell you’ll get me to go in there.”
“Fine.” Talon reached his hand out to shake mine. “Dr. Staley, you’ve got yourself a new student.”
Later that day I returned to the containment unit, this time entering and not going into observation. At the sound of the door opening, the young boy jumped, scared. “Who are you?”
I had a book, one my mother used to read me when I was about his age in my hands. “I’m Dr. Ellison Staley. And who might you be?”
I knew there was no answer coming, but it was best to keep the front going. He scrunched up his forehead, thinking. “I don’t have a name, mister.”
“Oh really? Everyone has a name.”
“Not me. The people out there just call me boy.” I saw a spark of anger in his eyes. He was too young to have to deal with this.
I sat down beside him on the floor. “I brought you a book. Have you ever read one before?”
He looked at the funny little dog on the cover. “No.”
“Well let me tell you a little about this one then. It’s special because it’s about a puppy named Jericho who saves the day.”
He put his hand out, rubbing the cover of the book where the dog was. “He looks silly. I like him.”
A smile crossed my face. “Then this can be your first book. Would that make you happy?”
“Yes.” He took the book in his hands. The anger that was there moments ago faded into pure happiness. “I want to be like Jericho one day mister and save
the day!”
“Keep this feeling in your heart and one day you just might be.”
Project Jericho 2 –
Eight Years Old
“Ellison, how much longer is this charade going to last?”
It was the same argument every time with Cooper. “The progress he’s making is remarkable. The boy is smarter than we could’ve ever imagined.”
We were watching him reassemble a computer piece by piece he’d taken apart not but a half hour ago. The boy, who went by Jericho now due to a story book I’d given him, had a gift for electronics. It was almost as if he could manipulate them on a cellular level.
Cooper was still very antagonistic towards him. “Do you remember six months ago when he lost control and nearly shut this entire project down? Three guards were lucky to make it out alive!”
“You sent armed guards into a child’s room and expected him to understand? You might be a doctor, but you’re far from an intelligent man.”
Red faced, Cooper stormed off down the hallway, back to his laboratory to sulk no doubt. The other man in observation with me, General Lambert Talon was firmly on my side of the argument. “Cooper will never understand how being a human to this child will help us in the long run.”
I knew what Talon was hinting around at. “The rash of powered people from the nuclear fallout is disconcerting, but I don’t understand where Jericho fits in. He got his powers in a very different manner.”
“The President wants someone under government control who can stop, by lethal force if needed, these threats to national security. The public is truly worried, Ellison.”
“Be that as it may, Jericho is still years from being ready for anything like that.” Then there was something else. “Limiting the time his mother gets to spend with him is only going to cause anger towards us later in life. Can’t we up her visitation?”
Talon’s face crinkled up. I’d gotten him to consent to once a week visits and they were improving Jericho’s moods. Miranda was so happy to see her son and even approved of the name he’d chosen. “I can probably get twice a week, a couple hours at a time without too much fuss. But I can’t push for more, Ellison, no matter how much you want me to.”
I smiled, knowing I’d won this time. “That’s better than a kick in the ass. Thank you, Lambert.”
“Now it’s my turn to ask something of you.”
Ahh the back and forth negotiation never stopped. “You want me to start testing his true ability, no?”
Talon gave me a hearty pat on the back. “It would make my bosses very happy to start getting status reports about what the child can do, besides almost killing guards.”
The strangest part about that whole episode was no one was all that upset at the boy for his uncontrolled outburst. Call me a fool, but a fatherly instinct to protect him kicked in and I was ready to fight tooth and nail if needed. Instead, people seemed to shrug it off and let us continue on.
Looking in at Jericho as he turned the computer back on and it booted up perfectly, “I can’t deny that starting him early is a good way to get him to learn control. Children are much better at adaptation than adults.”
Talon turned towards the door. “Thank you, Ellison. If we’re lucky, in a few years he will be ready to start field trials.”
I smiled, but privately I hoped very much to protect the boy long enough to find another solution. One that would be happier for everyone.
Project Jericho 3 –
11 Years Old
The tension between me and Dr. Cooper was as thick as it could get. “You’re developing a way to kill the boy?”
He wouldn’t back down. “Once again you let your feelings for the boy blind you.” He was going to try and reason with me it seemed. “The threat of these super powered people is escalating every day. The after effects of the nuclear meltdowns all those years ago is only just starting to show its ugly head.”
Jericho received his powers in a very unique way; he hadn’t been born yet when the facility his mother worked at exploded. The electron generator they were testing went critical and his powers were a side effect from all the energy that escaped. Most powered people were the results of the vast number of nuclear meltdowns the country experienced years ago. Each day, a headline was front page on an accident or worse involving one of them.
But that still wasn’t the answer – putting them down like rabid dogs. “We need to learn more about them before you start a mass genocide.”
He threw the manila folder on the desk in-between us. Written in big, bold letters was the title of his secret project: The Stormfall. “Whether you like it or not Ellison, we need a fallback in the event this situation gets worse. It could be the boy or any number of others out there that tries to do something catastrophic.”
Even if he had a reasonable point, I couldn’t in good consciousness endorse such measures. I opened his file, just to see what ‘humane’ way he came up with. “This is your answer?”
“Like it or not, this is the best way to protect our country and the citizens living here.” He poked me in the chest. “When you took a job here at this facility, you signed up to study and protect everyone oblivious to the threats.”
Frustrated, I read again at his proposal. The Stormfall, as he called it, was an event in which a super operating at his full potential could be killed if hit with an attack that breaks the sound barrier. The name Stormfall comes from the theorized after effect; the energy released into the atmosphere would create arcs of far reaching lightning that would be deadly to all in the area.
“This is suicide. First to find someone with the ability to create an attack that would break the sound barrier is a fairy tale. Second, based on your model here, the chances of that person surviving the fallout will be nil.”
He grabbed his research away from me. “I thought you of all people would understand the logic. One life is not more important than millions of lives.” He looked as if to say something more, but thought better of it. He left the lab, slamming the door behind him.
With the bad taste in my mouth of our conversation, I too left. Making my way down to Jericho’s room, I decided it was time to run a few more tests on how his powers were coming along. He was eagerly waiting for me when I arrived. “Dr. Staley, do we get to shoot some more electricity?”
I had another idea. “Actually Jericho, I was curious to see just how in-depth your powers are. Have you ever tried to turn a computer on with just your mind?”
Project Jericho 4 –
14 Years Old
“Why did Dr. Cooper leave? Was it because he didn’t like me?”
I’d just sat down dinner between the two of us, Jericho’s favorite – tacos. It’d been two weeks since my fellow doctor had rushed out in anger over the development of Jericho. He called us world destroyers and said that one day this boy would be the bane of civilized people.
Looking over at the lad, I couldn’t disagree more. “Dr. Cooper didn’t like any of us son. Don’t take his personality or temperament personal.” That much was completely true. “He felt things should be progressing differently, ways I just couldn’t support.”
The boy grabbed one of the soft shells and stuffed it into his mouth. He mumbled something, but it was barely audible thanks to the amount of taco in his mouth. Swallowing, “I’m not a failure am I?”
“Jericho, you’re far from a failure.” Another truth; the boy’s abilities were surpassing anything we could have ever anticipated. Between being able to supercharge electrons and phase with electricity, Jericho was brilliant. At fourteen, his learning level put him on pace with some of the interns we had from Providence Institute of Technology.
The new general over the project, General Talon retired last year, General Arden Fisher took a more hands on approach. Just last week he had Jericho disassemble and then reassemble the lab’s mainframe. Believe it or not, the speed of our computers actually increased twenty-five percent afterwards. “General Fisher believes soon you’ll be re
ady for field work. You’d be able to leave the facility every so often.”
He finished off another taco. His abilities called for constant nourishment, that or he was just a regular teenage boy. “Would you come with me?”
“No, Jericho, I’m a scientist, not a soldier.” The idea of Fisher allowing me to come on field assignments would be laughable. “I don’t think they want me hanging around during combat situations.”
His eyes brightened at the word combat. “You mean I’d be out there fighting?”
“You don’t know a lot about this world, but there’s bad people running around with powers like yours. It’s getting harder each day to stop them from hurting innocents.”
I don’t know if that made a lot of sense to a booky teenager, but he still seemed excited. “Dr. Staley, would they let me go see my mom too when we go out? I haven’t seen her in a few months and I miss her.”
“Let me talk to Fisher, I’ll see what I can do.” I knew I’d be shot down and unlike Talon, Fisher wanted the boy to have no emotional connections to people. I guess he probably read Ellison’s notes and agreed with my old colleague. “She still writes you every week, right?”
He got up from the table and went over to his bookshelf. He pulled out a hefty stack of letters. “I get a letter every Monday, right on schedule.”
I gave him an earnest smile. “Your mother is a very good lady. I hope you write her ba-” We were interrupted by the base’s alarm system. “That’s strange…”
“Dr. Staley, what’s going on?”
My phone buzzed. The alarm system was tied to all of the facility personnel’s phones. I gave it a quick glance – the lab was under attack! Startled, I went back to the scared looking boy. “Quick, Jericho, we don’t have time for questions. Follow me and stay quiet!” I ran over to the bookshelf and revealed a hidden panel. Pressing the button, the shelf moved, showing us our path to safety.
Pacific Station Vigilante (Book 2): The Negative Man [Stormfall] Page 1
