Emergence

by Various

  Or maybe Dornasian had never been there at all? Maybe Thrasher’s Intelligence was faulty.

  Yeah. How often did that happen?

  On cue, Thrasher’s voice cut back in, sonorous, rumbling. —there?

  “I’m here.”

  They must have a decent scrambler…had to engage an ionic baffle and re-calibrate the Bird’s transmitter to a sub-frequency. I’m surprised you can hear me this low.

  “Yeah, well. It’s not all that pleasant, to be honest.”

  You sound like James Earl Jones talking through a hazmat hood, so…

  “You mean like Darth Vader.”

  Thrasher’s laugh rumbled. Yeah, but not as cool.

  The chopper was quickly moving away. I decided to let them go. For now. I could pour on the speed and catch them easy enough, if need be. Instead, I flew toward the island. “I’m checking things out. I’ll hail you if anything comes up.”

  Sure it’s a good idea? Give me two hours to get Artemis and we can be there.

  “I think whatever happened here is over. I don’t want to waste your time. I’ll have a quick look and decide whether or not to go after the chopper.”

  Okay. Be careful, Hero.

  “Not my name anymore. I keep telling you.”

  You mean you keep telling yourself. I’ll keep my ears on.

  “Thanks.”

  Within seconds I was sweeping low over a crimson-blanketed mangrove forest and toward the executive resort. I did a full circle around the place. It was empty. Just some nesting cormorants and a few small lizards basking in the afternoon sun.

  Toward the beach, I spied some Varangian handiwork. I touched down to study the corpse of a costumed female, more blood outside her body than in it. A lump of blonde hair caught my eye beneath the drooping fronds of a banana palm. I hovered over and retrieved her head. She looked familiar, even in this gruesome state, but I couldn’t place her name.

  I’d told DeAngelo more than once he needed to rein the Varangians in, but obviously this Mr. White—who I hadn’t the pleasure to meet but was really looking forward to it very soon—had some form of arrangement with The Chimeric Agency. Somebody had leverage on someone else, and DeAngelo made a habit of turning any kind of conversation about ‘damage control’ back on me.

  I laid the head down next to the body and retrieved my TCA communicator from my belt buckle. I’d kept it after breaking ties—the communicator, not the buckle. Thrasher ran some of his tech on it, descrambling and unlocking the device. I used it to take a couple images of the body, sent them to my secure cloud, then levitated away.

  Further reconnaissance of the island revealed destroyed buildings, more body parts—big body parts, for that matter—and a cave that reeked of death. I took some aerial shots, then flew back down.

  “Christ,” I muttered. The corpse outside the cave was a bloody mess, looked to me like some kind of bruiser-class chimeric. Obviously not impervious to bullets and grenades. Two lizards were lapping at the body. One of them hissed at me, and they both fled into the jungle.

  I looked at the yawning opening of the cave, switched to thermal vision. No heat signatures to speak of. Nothing appeared to be lying in wait near the entrance. I gave the huge dead fellow another glance, his chest a gaping hole of charred meat, the top of his head seemed to be missing. Flies gathered and buzzed all around.

  I took a couple images, stored them.

  “Sorry about your luck, big guy,” I said, then lifted about six feet off the ground and proceeded inside the cave.

  #

  I used to think I looked a little too grandiose in the white cape and red tights. I’d never really gotten comfortable in those duds. The cover of a month-old edition of Entertainment Weekly read: Where Is He Now? and, in the recirculated photo, I held a young woman in my arms, her sundress torn, her long legs revealing a hint of shapely tush, long dark hair all wind-blown in perfect disarray to match my billowing cape.

  I remembered that one. It had been a staged shoot. One of the various contractual obligations for The Chimeric Agency.

  The model had her head tucked in tight, the side of her face against my chest. Wreckage sparked and smoked behind us.

  I shook my head, tossed the rag on the empty seat next to me, peered at the clock on the wall. To me, the minute hand sounded like someone chambering a bolt-action rifle inside my head. Chik-clack. Chik-clack. Chik-clack!

  “Excuse me, sir?”

  I looked up at the peroxide blonde, her brown eyebrows knitted together like she’d called for me more than once already. Funny how I missed the obvious when I went all hyper-focus.

  “Sorry. I was, uh…” I just shook my head. Listening to the clock ticking…

  “No problem,” she said. “Can I get your number?”

  They’d had me login with a number rather than my name. I fetched the slip of paper from my pocket and handed it to her.

  She took it, but didn’t bother looking at the number, just clipped it to her clipboard. “Follow me, please.”

  She must’ve taken a bath in a tub of Eternity for Women. Yeesh.

  I tuned my senses down, focused on touching feet to floor. Never can tell how folks will react when one starts floating around the room, and flying had become second nature for me. I tried to pass for a norm when I could these days. Or a mundane. Or whatever they were calling non-PwPs now. At least I didn’t have alligator skin or thorny appendages instead of arms and legs. That would definitely make things tougher.

  “Room three.” The blonde indicated the door to our left and stepped back, clutching her clipboard to her chest. She peered at me, looking me up and down. I heard her heartbeat increase.

  I nodded a polite smile and entered the room.

  “Just have a seat. Dr. Legato will be right in.” Perfume Girl closed the door.

  Heh. Perfume Girl. I tagged the alias on blondie in my head, then immediately thought back to this pheromone-producing chimeric I’d run across in Motor Hills who’d managed to get me in the buff before a monster-hunter called Wild Bill showed up and put a couple scatter-slugs in her leathery posterior. Still gave me the heebie-jeebies thinking of that crocodilian witch. What was her name—?

  I heard the biometric lock slide through a trough as the security latch glided into place. It broke me from my meandering. Unless that door was made of solid metal it wouldn’t slow most of the good doctor’s clients down more than a second or two, I would imagine. I thought it was odd they were locking me in the room, but shrugged it off. It’s not like I’d ever been to a facility like this before.

  I looked around, wondering if all the offices were furnished this lavish. Lots of cherry and faux-leather and a large, tinted, plate glass window overlooking a small lake teeming with ducks and geese. I walked over and placed my fingertips on the glass, a simple tactile analysis. I counted three layers of thermoplastic-threaded polycarbonate. You could empty a .44 at this window with nary a scratch. I was tempted to test it with a punch, but that would just be mean.

  The ‘Old Me’ was more reckless. I liked to think I’d gotten wiser since the world had become rife with what National Geographic had dubbed ‘Humanity 2.0.’ Now you had watchdog organizations like the DCD and more so-called ‘chimerics’ than ever before. Couldn’t blame a shrink for us meta types for being careful.

  I removed my fingers from the glass. It made a strange warble and rippled like a small stone hitting water. I cocked my head. That was odd.

  My bewilderment was broken by the beeps of someone on the other side of the door keying in a code. The security lock swished, and Dr. Legato came in.

  “Hello,” she said, a slim woman, showing white teeth with an attractive gap in the front. She had brown skin a shade or two darker than mine, and her hair was a mere hint, not much longer than the stubble on my jaw. Some tech-looking, ceramic spectacles hid her eyes, the earpiece read Biotiq on the temples—a mega-corporation here in Port Haven, though I had no id
ea they made cool shades. Rather than slacks, blouse, and a lab coat, she had on a dark blue bodysuit that hugged her hips and left little to the imagination. My super senses reached out and caught a subtle sweet floral scent with a touch of beeswax, nowhere near Perfume Girl stage.

  I nodded in greeting before realizing she couldn’t see; she touched the edge of a side table to navigate around it.

  “Please,” she said, indicating one of the recliners.

  I waited for her to sit, then lowered myself cautiously into the chair. Next to her, on the side table, was a decanter of filtered ice water and a pair of clean glasses. She filled both of them halfway and handed one toward me without asking.

  “Thanks,” I said, leaning forward to take it.

  A brief smile came and went as she straightened in her chair. She put the glass to her thick glossy lips and took a small sip, then set it on the side table and looked in my direction. She reached up and tapped her finger against the side of her specs, then spoke: “Wednesday, March 11th. Patient TCA-dash-zero-two-two-eight-A, commencing session one.”

  She paused a moment, smiled, then, “I understand this is your first session since you came online?”

  “Came online?”

  “Do you prefer another term? Manifested? Activated?”

  “I don’t have a preferred term. ‘Came online’ is fine. And, yes, this is the first time I’ve been ordered to therapy. I’ve had you types in my head before, so forgive me if it takes me a while to warm up to this. Which kind are you?”

  “Empath.”

  “An empathic shrink. Does that make your job easier or more difficult?”

  She gave another fleeting, butterfly smile. “I received a TCA-ordered prescript: anonymous client submits to psych eval pursuant to conditional agreement following a classified incident…neither of which I am even remotely briefed on. So, as I understand it, you didn’t initiate being here?”

  I thought I was done with DeAngelo’s Agency.

  “Guilty as charged.”

  “But you’ve come unescorted and compliant?”

  “Unescorted?” I smiled, shrugged, and realized she couldn't see me. “I try to play by the rules.”

  “I get the impression you’re a bit…aggravated?”

  “Aggravated? Nah. Not at all. Inconvenienced maybe. When I get aggravated, people tend to know it.”

  “Fair enough.” Long pause as we sat in silence. Then she said, “Perhaps we can start with you telling me why you think the Agency wants my evaluation.”

  #

  Confusion. Something in my head.

  Whispers in the distance.

  Something’s coming.

  #

  “…Port Haven Tower, this is Quintara 311. Mayday, Mayday! I repeat, we are losing fuel, request urgent and immediate emergency descent, over.”

  The response was garbled static, just as it had been the past five minutes. Something had impacted the DC-10’s fuselage somewhere. A smaller aircraft perhaps—

  “What’s our altitude, Jensen?”

  “The rudder’s jammed, Bill. Elevator controls are gone. Nothing’s working!” I reached across and knocked on the altimeter. Actually knocked on it, like that would do a damn thing.

  “Jesus Christ, keep trying them.”

  I nodded as Bill pulled with everything he had at the steering throttle. We were flying blind at low altitude during a gale thunderstorm with no instrument panel, no radio contact, losing fuel, and with airframe damage a foregone conclusion. Even worse, we may have overshot Port Haven, which would put us above the Pacific.

  “Port Haven Tower, this is Quintara 311. Mayday, Mayday! Suspected structural damage requesting emergency landing. We are in emergency descent, vector and altitude unknown! Acknowledge, over!”

  “Throttle cables must be cut!” The captain fought the controls, teeth clenched. “Jensen, even if we somehow find a safe place to put down—”

  “Captain!” Heather reeled into the cockpit, her face sheet-white. My stomach dropped even more if that was possible. I had a soft spot for Heather Casey. “Engine two’s on fire,” she announced, looking at me, terrified.

  “Strap in,” I told her.

  She started to move to the empty co-pilot’s chair, then stopped and pointed out the cockpit window. She didn’t say anything, just gasped.

  Forks of lightning backlit it, whatever it was. Some form of massive, winged, white… monster. That’s really the only thing I could have called it. It flew in a sweeping arc ahead of us, slashing through the air from left to right, then whipped in our direction coming straight for us. It looked like a man sat atop its shoulders. I couldn’t believe my eyes.

  And then it struck.

  The airliner shuddered. Metal separated, tore like paper. Heather screamed. Then everything went still. My mind was crystal clear for ageless seconds as my vision dimmed and flickered. A voice in my head chattered and chorused, warned and hummed, and finally pealed like a thunderclap.

  Like the lid of a sarcophagus slammed shut, the cacophony ended.

  Time resumed. A snail’s pace.

  I watched as Heather was sucked into the raging void. I reached out. Too late. Then went Bill, tumbling after her, still tethered to his seat, his head caved in and sporting shards of glass. And I heard, no, felt nearly two-hundred voices screaming, nearly two-hundred lives being snuffed out.

  Then, like emerging from a broken shell, I was battered by jagged metal and wind and cast into the storm.

  #

  She interrupted me. “Quintara 311? You’re Noah Jensen. You’re Hero.”

  So much for remaining patient 02-A. “People hear the name of that flight and it’s like they know me. In fact, yesterday was my 12-year anniversary. Since coming online.” I finally took a sip. Filtered water always tasted like charcoal and carbon. I was used to it. Fluoridated water tasted a hell of a lot worse.

  I watched as Legato processed whatever was going on inside her pretty head.

  “So…you’re Hero…and this is your first time in therapy? How long have you been an active PwP? Ten years?”

  I cut my dismissive chuckle short. “What are you getting at?”

  She shook her head. “Pardon me for putting it this way, but you’ve been through a lifetime of, well…”

  “Shit?”

  “Well, I was going to say hardships.”

  I scoffed. “Tell me about it.”

  She took a slow sip of water, then said, “Why don’t you tell me?”

  #

  Waking up in a thunderstorm during a free fall with every nerve in your body on fire? Not advised. I still remember the utter terror. Flaming debris tumbled through the air all around me. This was worse than any nightmare I’d ever had, and as a pilot I’d had my share of dream explosions and accidents and terroristic acts. The difference when it was happening for real is you so wished you’d just wake the hell up.

  But this was no dream.

  Why me?

  Lightning. Wind. A screeching roar.

  Snapshot images of falling bodies. Screaming faces.

  A white-scaled thing coiled in the air.

  It swooped upwards, toward me, wings extended.

  I could do nothing but fall toward it, terrified. A flash of lightning illuminated the beast, its snakelike jaws agape. A human-sized figure was mounted atop it, pale face and wild hair in the swell of the storm.

  Damn this world and every chimeric in it, I thought, and prepared to die.

  Well, ‘prepared’ isn’t exactly the right word. Preparing for something is like you were doing it intentionally, with a purpose. This? This was an utter and complete inability to do anything but die. I was powerless.

  Then, something struck the dragon like a missile. A small, dark projectile.

  My panicked brain barely had time to register whatever it was, then time slowed down. Again. Or maybe it was my senses that sped up. I saw a girl. That’s right. She
was falling, like I was, only with greater velocity. She had been screaming—obviously as freaked out as I was, too—right before she smacked into the beast.

  The monster’s wings folded. It began its own plummet toward the ground, its rider screaming, not in panic, but more like rage.

  I had enough wits somehow to scan for the girl and found her, limp as a rag doll after slamming into the creature, and now she spun in the air maybe a hundred feet away. It might have been five-hundred. I don’t know. But then, just like before, time slowed to a crawl. The alien gibberish and white noise warbled in and out of my ears as bodies and debris and fire tumbled to earth.

  Impossibly and unexpectedly, I started to fly.

  That’s right. I flew. Just like in the comic books. Somehow the gibberish let me know I could control my fall. Told me, somehow, don’t ask me how, that I could even stop it. So, I pointed my body toward the falling girl and launched after her.

  #

  Dr. Legato interrupted again: “So that was your ASD event, when your powers as Hero first manifested?”

  “ASD?”

  “Acute Stress Disorder. It’s the trigger that affects the locus coeruleus, causing a momentous oversupply of norepinephrine which, in turn, ciphers the meta-sequence interlaced in every chimeric’s hypothalamus. The only way to access the sequence is via an exceptional stressor event.”

  “Riiight.”

  “You have a different viewpoint?”

  I shook my head. “I just…I really don’t know. I mean, sure, seems like most of us have some sort of life or death experience that sets things into motion, I guess. How does that explain children being born with abilities? Or the cheerleader in Austin who ‘came online’ and detonated while she and her boyfriend were beneath the bleachers doing whatever kids do these days beneath bleachers?”

  She started to speak, stopped, her lips slightly apart, then seemed to quickly make up her mind to continue. “I believe we’ve set off an evolutionary chain reaction.”

  “Evolutionary? Makes as much sense as any other theory, I guess. What makes you think it?”