Different Strong [Book 2]

by Nat Kozinn

  “Hey Gavin,” she says with a smile that shows no awareness of how rude she was last time. “A shout out from the Governor. Quite the honor, even if he did resign afterwards.”

  “Oh, I didn’t know you remembered my name,” I say. I’m doing a great job of keeping the last time out of my mind.

  “I’m sorry about that. Rose is no fan of Differents and he’s got a lot of sway at my precinct. If I cross him I could wind up working transport. That would mean I couldn’t look at the Heater’s blood test results.”

  “You saw the results? What was he on?” I ask finally letting my purpose overcome my hurt feelings.

  “Here,” she says and hands me a scrap of paper with a long list of chemicals on it. It’s a mixture of both prescription medication and street drugs. “It was hard to get. Rose was outside the room most of the night, but I managed to talk to the Lab tech in her office when I said I had to go to the bathroom.”

  “All of this was inside him? It doesn’t make any sense. Who would mix all these drugs? Are you sure you haven’t heard of anyone else taking these drugs?”

  “Nope, and I’d hear if it was happening in other precincts. That mix is a recipe for some wild stories, Different or human,” she says with a smile.

  “Why would two Differents be the only ones taking these drugs, and why weeks apart? I need to talk to that Speedster.”

  “That’s not all. The street drugs on the list, a whole stash of those drugs went missing from our evidence room a couple of days ago. Now, this isn’t exactly a freak occurrence, my captain is yelling about something new that went missing from evidence every week but still…”

  “It’s quite the coincidence,” I say.

  “That might be all it is. Coincidences happen.”

  “Like all the dead Differents in your precinct?”

  “Touché. Just don’t let your crazy investigation get in the way of my crazy investigation,” she says with a smile.

  “There is enough crazy to go around.”

  9

  My Forgotten Sons may ask themselves where this leaves them. My first children have their strengths. Even in the harsh world I create, it is doubtless they will continue to live on for some time. I give my Chosen Sons salvation. To you, my Forgotten Sons, I give damnation.

  Chosen Sons: 46

  The Beast cannot take it anymore. He has been locked in this room for what seems like an eternity. He healed from his fall weeks ago. It has been nearly that long since the voice on the loudspeaker spoke to him. The voice that was so concerned not long ago has gone silent.

  When he first awoke in this room, he actually thought it was some kind of purgatory. The bare metal room and nothing but the pain of the injuries he received from the fall felt like a punishment, but then the voice on the loudspeaker promised him that he was alive.

  The Beast used to think it was the voice God, or at least one of His servants. After all, it must have been divine intervention that saved him when he fell from the top of the Shimmering Tower. The Beast is strong, but even he is not strong enough to survive such a fall without the help of the Almighty. He has vague memories of one of his Chosen Son brothers carrying him into the cage. He thought it was God sending an angel of salvation.

  Then someone else came into the cage, a human. The Beast could smell the man even under a layer of ForteSilk body armor. The man fed The Beast for those first few days. The Beast was fed through a straw since he had so many broken bones. Someone went to the trouble of making a meat milkshake. In a few days, thanks to the food, The Beast was able to heal enough to crawl around his tiny room. Then the man stopped coming, but the food did not. A slot in the side of the room opened, and meat arrived. The Beast can still taste the bounty of different animals that came from that slot.

  One day the voice on the loudspeaker asked, “Are you back to your old self?”

  “I am, praise the Lord,” The Beast replied.

  That was the last time The Beast heard the voice. That day, instead of meat, food made of Manna came through the slot. Manna which came from a Chosen Son slave. No one should be allowed to eat that slop, least of all a Chosen Son whom God speaks to directly. That was when he first started to question why the Lord sent him to this place. The Beast refused to eat the Manna for two days until his hunger finally overwhelmed him.

  When the Manna came through the slot, The Beast realized where he was being held, Great Basin Prison. A fortress built into the side of the mountain, designed to hold Chosen Sons. This is where the most “dangerous” Chosen Sons are kept, those who refuse to live by rules forced on them by lesser creatures, those whose blessings from God were so great the humans are too afraid to let them live to their potential. So instead, they throw them into cells made of Maceo Steel and forget about them. Locking away the humans’ fear and guilt over Differents in a jail cell.

  Why would God save The Beast just to let him be imprisoned by weak, worthless humans? Is it a punishment for The Beast’s many sins? Did God decide that death was too good for The Beast? Does he want him to suffer the humiliation of being subject to the whims of the Forgotten Sons?

  Maybe that is not why. God told him his purpose back in the Los Angeles Metro Area. The Beast was made for death. God made him in order to hasten the demise of the Forgotten Sons. That means The Beast was brought to this prison by God in order to enact that purpose. God led him to this place so he could kill the humans imprisoning the Chosen Sons and free his powerful brothers who are being held here. The Beast is meant to lead a new army, an army powerful enough to free the entire race of Chosen Sons. This revelation makes The Beast giddy with excitement. God is not angry with him. He simply requires The Beast to execute the task he was made to perform: killing.

  He is going to need to find a way out of this cage. It will be no small feat. The cage is made of one of God’s miracles, Maceo Steel. An unbreakable substance made by a fellow Chosen Son. The humans worked him to death, and, as an added insult, Maceo’s miracle is now used to cage his brethren. As strong as God made The Beast, he is not strong enough to break out of this jail cell. He needs to think of another way out.

  There are three openings to the cage: a large door that has remained closed since his nurse stopped coming in, a small air vent covered by a Maceo Steel grate which, even if The Beast could pull the grate off, is too small to climb through, and a sliding door that opens to drop in the Manna food, which is too small to climb up as well. That door is the key. When the door closes, it does so with great force. The Beast does not know why the humans are keeping him here, but whatever the purpose, they obviously want him alive and healthy. The door could change that.

  He spends hours waiting for the door to open; he cannot be sure how long, as he has no way to keep time. He cannot see the sun, and the WormLight that brightens his room shines constantly. Eventually, he watches the door open and a Pho-Plastic container full of Manna food drops down, usually a faux-meat flavored abomination. The Beast asks the Lord for protection, then places his arm inside the open slot.

  The door slams shut. The Beast howls in pain.

  The bone in The Beast’s left forearm shatters. The sliding door pulverized it, sending out shards of bone that cut through his arm like razor blades. The door closed with the force of a speeding train. He knows that he should be thankful his arm did not get cut off. The blinding agony in his arm makes gratitude difficult. He lets out a continuous stream of pain-induced howls, his voice cracking because his vocal cords have not been used in months.

  “Are you injured? What happened?” the voice on the loudspeaker asks.

  “My arm, it’s caught in the food door. Please, hurry,” The Beast says.

  “How did you get your arm stuck in the door?”

  “It was on accident. Help me, please.”

  “It did not look like an accident.”

  “I was curious. What do you want from me? I got nothing to do down here. Are you going to send help? I’m dying here.”

  “Hold pl
ease,” the voice answers.

  The Beast had not realized they could see him. There must be a video monitor somewhere in the cage. That complicates things. He is going to have to wait to free himself, which means enduring more agony from his trapped arm. The Beast prays he is strong enough to do what must be done when the door to his cell opens.

  After what feels like an eternity, the speaker turns on. “We are sending assistance. Be advised, the team we are sending is armed and will not hesitate to use deadly force if this is a trap.”

  “I’m the one who’s trapped. I’m in agony. I won’t do nothing. I swear it.”

  Luckily for The Beast, lying to a Forgotten Son is no sin at all. It is the same as lying to a dog.

  He hears men coming down the hall, at least five of them. He can smell the gunpowder and oil from their weapons. The voice was not bluffing about using force. They want to keep The Beast alive, but they are not going to risk their own lives for it.

  He waits until he hears the key in the door. Then he shoves his right hand into the gap in the trap door where his left arm is pinned. He pushes with all his might, stripping the automatic door’s gears and extracting his busted arm.

  “Wait, stop!” the voice on the loudspeaker yells.

  It is too late. As soon as a guard opens the door to The Beast’s cell the tiniest crack, The Beast rips it open the rest of the way. He is greeted by five men covered head to toe in ForteSilk body armor. They are carrying high-caliber machine guns. The Beast charges into the group of guards, knocking them down like human bowling pins.

  The Beast picks up one of the armored men and slams him into the hallway wall with bone-crushing force. The armor might protect the man from The Beast’s claws, but it does little to absorb the massive impact. The man’s insides shatter and burst. The Beast reaches out and grabs another guard by his body armor, throwing the man fifty feet down the hallway where he hits a wall like a ton of bricks.

  One of the three remaining guards scrambles to his feet and attempts to stick The Beast with a syringe. The Beast catches the man’s arm in mid-stab and picks him up by the wrist. The Beast swings the man like baseball bat into one of the other guards, who is struggling to get to his feet. The Beast feels bones break inside of both bodies.

  The fifth guard opens fire with his machine gun. He is terrified and firing wildly, but some of his panicked shots manage to hit The Beast. The creature leans into the line of fire with his already crippled left arm, taking several bullets to his shoulder and bicep. The bullets cut deep. The guard has a powerful gun, but none of the shots hit anything vital on The Beast.

  The guard’s machine gun clicks empty. The Beast grins and knocks the man down, then jumps up and down on top of him, pulverizing the man’s bones. He does the same to all the other guards. Now The Beast stands alone in the empty hallway. He considers tearing open one of the guards’ body armor to eat the meat inside, but that will take time. Besides, these guards had the audacity to attack a Chosen Son. Their sin should not be rewarded with a trip to heaven.

  The Beast heads down the hallway, looking for fellow Chosen Sons he can free. To his surprise, the other rooms on the level are not prison cells. They have hospital beds inside them, or rows of desks covered with test tubes. He even finds a room full of cleaning supplies. He does not know what to make of his findings. They do not seem right for a prison, but perhaps he was being kept in a separate part of the complex. The gifts God gave him are especially great. The Beast is going to have to make his way through the rest of the prison if he wants to free his brothers.

  His searching leads him to a stairwell. The only way to go is up. He stops, takes a deep breath, and listens, letting his senses inform him. He smells many odors coming from upstairs, including an abundance of gun oil and gunpowder. He can identify many different people, all of them human. He does not catch a whiff a single Chosen Son. The Beast finds this perplexing, if this is truly Great Basin prison, he should be overwhelmed by the scent of his brothers.

  He is going to need to get some answers from the Forgotten Sons. Unfortunately, he already killed the humans down on his level. He can hear more of them up the stairs. They are barking orders at each other and moving furniture to mount a defense. They know The Beast is coming. He does not plan to keep them waiting long.

  10

  The question we should be asking ourselves is not if we need the Field Office Program, it should be why don’t we change the law and let the OEC take on a larger crime fighting role? Thieves, murderers, and rapists abound in the Metro Area. Our brave police officers do all they can to help, but I don’t think I’m being controversial when I say that they are overstretched. There are simply too many people in the Metro Area to police with a conventional force. Differents could change that. Speedsters could chase down the most evasive criminal. Strong-Men could enforce the law without fear of reprisal in even the most dangerous corners of the Metro Area. Telepaths could discern the guilty from the innocent. We have the people we need to make Los Angeles safe again. We just need the courage to use them.

  “We Must Not Be Timid” by Forest Brown, think.Net News LA

  “In one of his first acts since taking office, newly appointed Governor Lewis Khan reversed a decision made by former Governor Hayes, which voided a contract the Metro Area council had awarded to Ultracorps for the management and expansion of the Metro Area’s Water system. Governor Khan emphasized that the Metro Area cannot allow itself to make decisions based purely on panic and claimed Governor Hayes exceeded the scope of his office when he vetoed the Metro Council action. Governor Khan went on to laud the actions of Gavin Stillman and the newly created OEC Field Offices. He pointed to the OEC as proof that the best policy is management of Different labor, not the abandonment of it. Now, on to sports…” The radio keeps squawking, but I stop paying attention. I can hear Captain Murphy on his way in.

  “Hey Gavin, I just got off think.Net with a Doctor Wright. Why did you give him my info? You used to work for him in the Oasis Burger labs right? He was going on and on about some sort of problem with the water in something. Anyway, he said he needed to see you. He wants you to check over some data, said it couldn’t be done over think.Net. He wanted my permission to let you out. We don’t have anything going on here, so why don’t you go ahead and see if you can help him out. Take the P-Train, that way you’ll be ready if something comes up,” Captain Murphy says.

  I slow down time so I can consider my response. I never worked for a Dr. Wright, but according to the news, Ben was right about Ultracorps getting that water contract. Something tells me he’s the one behind this. The question is, should I go? I had convinced myself that Ben was crazy, but maybe I was wrong. He was right about the water, who knows what else he’s right about.

  The problem is that I don’t get to leave the office much during the day and I have another investigation that needs my attention. I need to figure out who’s been drugging the Differents. This is my chance to talk to that Speedster. Maybe he can tell me something about the man who gave him the drugs. That investigation needs to be the priority. Maybe I can make it to Ultracorps employee housing and to the lab? How long has it been since he talked? I should have responded by now.

  “Always nice to be needed,” I finally say.

  Captain Murphy gives me a strange look, but I don’t think he’s suspicious, just weirded out by my being a weirdo. I get up and start to walk away, but Captain Murphy stops me by putting his hand on my shoulder. My heart sinks in my chest.

  “One more thing and it’s a bit of a tough one. That Heater you guys caught, Stephen something. I got a note from the District Attorney. Stephen had some sort of medical complication. He didn’t make it.”

  “He’s dead?”

  “I’m sure it had nothing to do with what you guys did. Something went wrong while keeping him under sedation. They were preparing him to be moved to Great Basin Prison. Don’t beat yourself up about it. It doesn’t take away from anything that you did. These thin
gs happen. If Stephen didn’t want to die, he shouldn’t have gone on a rampage. Anyway, thought you should know. Give me a heads up when you’re on your way back from the lab.”

  I head out of the OEC building and walk two blocks to the raised garage that houses our P-Train. We have our own little slice of tracks, which leads into the main system. I climb a ladder to a Maceo Steel door, which I unlock. I haven’t gotten to drive the train since my initial training. Victor usually does the driving. Six-year-old me would have had his mind blown at the thought that I get to drive my own train.

  I step into the train and head to the controls. P-Trains are designed to be simple. There’s one lever, which I push forward to accelerate and pull back on to decelerate or reverse. There’s also an emergency brake. I check my fuel gage, and there are still plenty of Slugs in the tank. I pull the crank to spark the engine. Soon the bits of dried carbon chains excreted by bacteria, or Slugs as everyone calls them, are burning hot enough to evaporate the water that powers the P-Train’s steam engine. I release the brake and push forward on the velocity. It turns out that twenty-year-old me still thinks this is pretty cool.

  #

  I can hear shuffling behind the door. Someone’s home and it’s taking them a long time to answer my knock. Arnold is still injured like I knew he’d be. Counter-intuitively, Speedsters, like Strong-Men, heal slowly. They have complex and dense, muscles, cartilage, nerves, and bone, all of which take longer to regenerate than normal human cells. That’s one of the reasons The Beast was so unique. He was fast, and strong, and he could heal like a low-level Regenerator. I see a shadow pass in front of the light coming through the peephole.