by Reg Franklin
Patterns of Chaos
Book 1 - The First War
I.
1.
It began, near as history can tell, in the year 2047. That is when he first emerged as a scientist and entrepreneur in multiple fields; medicine, consumer electronics, armaments - And that last is what he quickly became known for. World governments clamored for access to his designs. Nuclear weapons with no fallout or risk of climate change from their usage, small arms that could cut down unarmored troops as a hot knife through wax, new forms of drone weapons that easily distinguished friend from foe with no external guidance.
Not to say other products bearing the intertwined Greek characters of his manufacturing consortium did not flood the market. New antibiotics that eliminated many of the world's worst diseases were distributed at minimal cost to consumers. Those who could not afford the pittance, such as the world's most impoverished nations, found large supplies of these medicines delivered via armed guards to hospitals and shelters. Pharmaceutical companies that complained they were being forced out of business were purchased with proceeds from the armaments division.
By the time the world realized that he was buying their loyalty, it was almost too late. Rumours began that the company had tested many weapons on captives purchased from despots who wanted their enemies to disappear. In order to test the miracle cures, other victims were deliberately infected, with those given unsuccessful versions of the drugs dying in anguish, their incriminating corpses incinerated to hide the company's wrongdoing.
But rumours are just that without proof. And the good work done by the company cast those who believed in the conspiracy theories as insane or jealous.
Then evidence of something else began to show. His employees began to show signs of a cult-like fanaticism towards him. Whispers that he could grant those who he deemed worthy enough the gift of immortality spread. Finally, evidence came, but at tragic cost.
An employee, emotionally disturbed following a failed relationship, went on a rampage in a small Midwestern town. Armed with one of the company's newest small arms, he killed over two hundred civilians and police officers before he was brought down by approximately fifty-seven rounds of conventional ammunition. The autopsy revealed that the first few bullet wounds had almost completely healed by the time of death, along with other evidence that something had been introduced into the man's genetic code, one of the effects being that his blood would fluoresce green under certain lighting conditions.
An investigation of the company began. However, when investigators arrived, millions of documents had been destroyed and almost all the employees had vanished.
All but one.
He was found seated in his office in the company's headquarters in Toronto, brown hair neatly styled, green eyes glinting. With a sardonic smile he offered his wrists and entered custody quietly.
Charged with illegal human experimentation primarily, followed with comparatively minor charges such as evidence tampering, his defense was meager and yet powerfully chilling. "The man volunteered. It was his life to do with as he pleased. In addition, it pleased him to allow me to further his evolutionary progress. As all my subjects do."
"How many subjects, sir?"
The smile became more chilling. "Now, that would be telling. Let's just say...enough."
"Your honor..."
The judge, one David Clemens, directed him to answer the question.
Looking incredibly bored by the proceedings, the former CEO of Psi-Omega Industries, Paul Stragdoc, began to utter the following address:
"How many, you ask? You truly want to know how many people have had their evolution accelerated to the point where the weapons of yesterday now have zero effect on them? How many people have been spared the ravages of not only disease, but of the slow death of old age? Because that is what I have done. I've sped up the evolutionary clock, remade humanity, and brought it to a new paradigm!"
Stragdoc, once voted as one of the most handsome billionaires in the world, now launched a tirade that twisted his features into something monstrous and insane.
"Why should you fear these children of mine? Because they are new? Different? Because I didn't follow some outdated protocol to seek approval to perform this treatment? Every. Single. Person. Volunteered. When they heard what the stakes were, you are damn right they volunteered. Also, if I had 'sought approval'," he sneered. "How long before federal governments the world over would seek to restrict the process? How long before it became the sole property of the incompetent political class? The so-called 'one-percent', of which I am forced to call myself by virtue of my bank account alone, would have demanded that I limit the process to only the wealthy, the upper crust. Would the common man have had an opportunity to taste freedom from age and death?"
The prosecutor, who had until this point by his own later admission been captivated by the ferocity of the defendant's words, meekly asked Judge Clemens to direct the witness to answer.
"Fine. You want an answer to how many first new men, homo alpha novus, are among you now? I honestly do not know. At least every employee on my payroll is, no matter if he was a project lead or the poor schlub scrubbing toilets. Therefore, worldwide, I suppose that would be, what, two and a half million? However, there is an added wrinkle: The process can spread via fluid transfer. Many of them were blood donors. They may have had sexual partners outside of the company. But you will never find them all. Not until it's too late and Homo sapiens go the way of the Neanderthals. We are as far separated from you as you are from the common chimpanzees. In a few hundred years, why I bet the few remaining Homo sapiens will be largely kept in zoos, flinging their excrement against the bars in frustration that their ancestors lacked the vision to better themselves!"
Here Stragdoc erupted in mad laughter, with Judge Clemens being forced to call a recess, with the defendant to be escorted to a holding facility. The press covering the trial exploded out of the courtroom to broadcast this shocking new revelation, that humanity stood on the brink of irrelevance in the wake of homo alpha novus, which would eventually be contracted down to homo alpha, then later Alphite.
Stragdoc continued to laugh in his isolation cell, but far less intensely; more of a chuckle now. Truth be told, there were far fewer of his children than he had told the court, maybe only a quarter of a million. Nevertheless, with official employee records having been destroyed, Stragdoc could have invented any high-sounding number and gotten the same reaction he wanted. Panic and chaos. For he knew in the ensuing panic, the waves of xenophobia that would follow, he was going to emerge more powerful than ever.
He was right about the panic. Riots broke out across the country, people accusing their neighbours of secretly being Alphites, of concealing the secret of immortality from them. As the first night lengthened, the rioting intensified. Guards were posted outside Stragdoc’s cell as the rioters moved closer to the courthouse, intending to free him and tear the secrets of immortality from him. As for the man himself, his laughter had stopped, but a wide grin spread across his face, unsettling his guards more than the nearing mob. Fearful, they radioed for further assistance. Within ten minutes, a helicopter ostensibly filled with reinforcements landed on the roof. Within five more minutes, the guards were dead or dying.
The heli had not carried additional police, or even rioters. Instead, it bore employees of Psi-Omega Industries, come to free their leader as part of a plan to increase his influence - his legend. The Midwestern rampage was not part of the plan, but more the instigator of things. Aware that the secret was out, Stragdoc had planned his surrender and “confession” as a means to an end.
And that end was chaos.
One guard lived long enough to relate some of what happened during the escape. Stragdoc had been gri
nning, but seemed to be straining at the same time. Just as the “reinforcements” arrived, Stragdoc’s cell crashed open. No one had touched it, there was no remote access, it had simply...opened. Two of the guards dropped as if struck from behind, autopsies later showed they died of broken necks. Stragdoc’s people shot the rest, with the one survivor taking a round in the side. Once the shooting stopped, the leader marched over to Stragdoc, saluted, and handed him a coat. “Reinforced, as per your orders sir.”
“Yes, thank you, Major.” Stragdoc chuckled. “Better safe than sorry, eh?”
“As you say, sir. The mob has reached the walls of the building, we should leave now.”
“One moment.” Stragdoc raised a hand, eyes searching the room. “We have a survivor.” The disgraced mogul picked his way over to the surviving guard, and once at his side, Stragdoc kneeled down next to him. “Well, this has been fun, hasn’t it?” The hateful grin was back. The guard’s teeth were gritted in pain, he could not respond. “You're dying. However, you will live long enough to tell what has happened here. Do make sure to relate every word.” Stragdoc winked, then stood and strode for the door, his personal guards falling for into step behind him. The last thing the officer heard was Stragdoc saying something about “Site A being readied”.
Just after he relayed this information to the real reinforcements that arrived about fifteen minutes after Stragdoc's escape, the guard died. His wound was not fatal, his heart just...stopped.
2.
The magnate’s escape did nothing to quell the global chaos, if anything it intensified. Knowledge that his followers had broken him out was strictly classified, which resulted in accusations that Stragdoc had been accosted by either the federal government or foreign powers desiring his knowledge. Amidst the rampant anarchy, people began to quietly disappear.
At first, it was merely the former employees of Psi-Omega Industries; the general assumption being that they were going into hiding because of the public hunt for the secret of eternal life. Then others began to vanish. People with incurable illnesses at first or physical disabilities, anything that limited them in general perception. Then scientists in various fields suddenly quit their jobs, tidied their affairs, and were never heard from again. After the riots, thereafter remembered as the Trial Riots, an elderly gentleman covered in bruises staggered into a Vancouver, Canada police station demanding protection. The tale he related was terrifying in its implications.
His name was Geoffrey Journeyson, and he was a biochemical scientist working for the American government at a facility just east of Seattle, researching renewable organic energy sources. Four days ago, after leaving work, he had been approached by a woman offering him a position at a “new, state of the art firm”. Journeyson, two years from retirement, politely declined. The woman became more insistent, promising that her employer would be able to pay more than his pension. Again, Journeyson refused, perhaps more angrily than he meant to for it had been a long day and he was anticipating his favourite slippers and a cool scotch.
With that, an impact crashed against the back of his head, and the woman muttered something about “the hard way then”. A pair of hands lifted him under his shoulders and dragged him towards a vehicle parked nearby. Before the poor man could be shoved inside, another figure tackled them both, who shouted for Journeyson to run, to get away as fast as he could. A glance over his shoulder as he bolted showed another woman locked in physical combat with his attackers. When he finally ran out of breath, he was deep in the nearby woods. Then he saw the searchlights. Whoever was after him was not through yet.
Therefore, he hid, moving slowly through the woods at night, sleeping fitfully during the day. Eventually he broke through the tree line, and noting a speed sign listing the maximum speed in kilometers, knew he had crossed the border into Canada. Finding a gas station, he called a cab, asking to be taken to the nearest police station.
With that, the RCMP got in touch with the American Embassy, who collected Journeyson shortly. When the media got the story, speculation focused on who the attempted kidnappers could be...although Journeyson was more interested in the young woman who rescued him was; from his brief glance, he knew no one at his workplace looked like her. General consensus seemed to be that the abduction attempt was some sort of corporate espionage, with some whispering darkly that Paul Stragdoc had orchestrated it...but in the months following his dramatic escape, conspiracy theories abounded, laying blame for everything from abductions to the increase in produce costs as deliberate acts of sabotage against society at his feet.
What was truly curious was the corpses left at the same Vancouver police station a week later. A woman and a man. Acting on a hunch, the RCMP asked Journeyson to please identify the bodies. He did, they were his abductors, but there was a difference: when they were alive, they did not have the emblem of Psi-Omega Industries branded on their foreheads. He was not told that the brands were applied perimortem, nor that each had the word “FAILURE” carved into their chests post-mortem, along with being wholly exsanguinated. As far as cause of death, it seemed that like the remaining guard on Stragdoc's cell, their hearts had simply...stopped.
They were further identified through fingerprints as former security officers for the tech conglomerate, named Jon Watkins and Lizabet Abbot. Their families, when notified of their deaths exclaimed disbelief and shock that they were part of a kidnapping plot. Yes, they knew they worked for Psi-Omega; no, they had never been inside one of their labs to receive some vague treatment.
As far as Journeyson, he was given twenty-four hour protection. However, a letter arrived for him, and instead of a return address, there was merely the intertwined Greek letters that made his blood run cold. Within the envelope were two items, a letter and a cashier's cheque. The letter read:
My dear sir,
I find myself in the position where I must offer my most honest apologies for the ordeal you went through. Yes, I desired your expertise in my new enterprise and had instructed Ms. Abbot and Mr. Watkins to win you over to our exciting new project. As it turns out, the two of them felt that their job duties included assault and attempted kidnapping. For that, I humbly beg your forgiveness. They were authorized only to offer whatever fee you wished, any benefits necessary to interest you in this endeavor. I am sure you are aware that these individuals’ employment with my organization has been terminated quite permanently. Nevertheless, I know that is hardly due recompense for what they put you through; as such please accept this small financial gift. It is yours to do with as you please with no strings attached. I encourage you to deposit it post haste.
Again, my most sincere apologies and I humbly remain,
Paul Stragdoc
The cheque was for ten million.
Journeyson consulted a lawyer who went over the document with a magnifying lens, looking for some clause that would obligate the old man. He came up clean. Journeyson turned the letter over to investigators while his lawyer held the cheque. The police recognized the letter as a ploy to disavow the kidnappers, putting sole responsibility on the shoulders of the deceased. For his part, Journeyson felt the apology was genuine, and deposited the cheque, retiring shortly thereafter. He lived to the age of ninety-three before passing of natural causes.
3.
A few years passed. General panic declined, as did reports of people uprooting and disappearing. Rumors about the presence of Alphites in society persisted, but by far and large the new race of men and women seemed to have vanished along with their engineer. Studies were performed on the bodies of the three dead Alphites - for yes, both Abbot and Watkins also belonged to the evolved race - in an attempt to replicate whatever process had been performed upon them, but whatever had been done to them remained out of reach. The only potential source of the secret was therefore the blood of the first one who had instigated the whole affair...but whatever had been introduced into his system became unstable after a few months following his death, and any attempt to transfuse his preserved bloo
d into a living subject resulted in convulsions, madness, and death.
By 2055, when the organization reemerged, people had returned to their normal routines. Of particular note is that during this historical period the United Nations still existed, and had made great strides in establishing global diplomacy save for a few holdout nations. In this age of global unification, a request was received to address that august body...by a representative of what was now calling itself the Psi-Omegan Empire.
Shock was felt the world over, concern that the company had amassed such a population as to nationalize itself, moreover that they had done so under the nose of the entire globe. However, the then Secretary-General, Phillippe Oiseau of France, ruled that they had before allowed representatives of nations guilty of far greater crimes to address the General Assembly, and so allowed it.
On May fifth, a strikingly beautiful woman strode towards the podium before the amassed diplomats. Olive-skinned, dark haired, of obvious Mediterranean extraction, and a stark reminder that these “evolved humans” looked like everyone else. She introduced herself as Calixta Morsalis, and began her speech.
Yes, the collected Alphites had nationalized, and had elected Paul Stragdoc as their leader. He rather wanted to address the group himself, but was concerned for his safety should he make himself publicly available. The American ambassador interrupted and demanded to know where the group had settled, drawing combined shock at the interruption and whispered agreement to know where they had been hiding.
