Regenesis (Book 1): Impact (32 page)

Drake
sat in his living room with a Sudoku book. The alleged challenge printed on the
cover misled Drake though, as he’d finished nearly half of the book without
effort. He only bothered with the book to whittle the time away and it helped
to quell the restlessness he felt. He told Hiromi who he was, who he really was
over lunch earlier in the day, and she was fine with it. She was excited and
asked him a dozen questions about what it was like to be the son of a
billionaire, what the new
Creeping Darkness
game was like, and whether
he’d ever played the game before.

It
worked out as Drake expected it to, yet it seemed sincere in contrast to his
other so-called relationships he’d partaken of thus far in his life. Drake
never managed to be with someone who he honestly felt was attracted to him and
not his father’s money. It always seemed about who he was, hardly about who he
truly was.

Drake
tossed the book onto a small square coffee table at the center of his brown ‘U’
shaped leather couch. It landed on top of a small pile of books Drake and his
father read or leafed through on occasion, which ranged from a dictionary and
thesaurus to the works of William Shakespeare and Edgar Allen Poe. Drake looked
at the fifty-eight inch screen television that sat mounted into his wall.
Beneath it were all of the videogame systems he’d collected through his life,
along with a large assortment of games that reached the mid-hundreds. The young
man frowned and realized he had what he wanted and hardly cared for anything
more.

Someone
knocked at his front door. He wasn’t expecting anyone so he amused himself with
answering it, if only to learn who was there and turn them away. It however
turned out to be Ian and Jordan who wasted no time in walking right past him
and into his home. Jordan initiated the conversation, “Is your dad here?”

“No,
why?”

“Good,”
Jordan grinned. He looked at Ian and eagerly told him to show Drake.

Drake
looked at Ian and then back to Jordan and asked, “What’s this about?”

Ian
hesitated at the start, but from Jordan’s prompting and Drake’s expression he
relented. He cleared his throat, clapped twice, and all of the power in Drake’s
house went out. After a moment the generator kicked in and power was restored,
though Ian clapped twice again and the power of the generator failed as well.
After a third time of clapping twice all of the power was restored to Drake’s
home.

Drake
remained quiet while Jordan laughed. “Isn’t that the wildest thing you’ve ever
seen?”

Drake
slowly agreed. He looked at Ian and asked, “When did you realize you could do
that?”

Ian
fidgeted in place and admitted, “That isn’t all of it.” Ian took a shallow
breath, pressed his hands together, and then slowly pulled them apart. Between
his fingers and palms shot bluish-white tendrils of lightning. Once he pulled
his hands roughly a foot apart, the tendrils vanished and a small crack was
heard.

They
all remained silent after that display until Jordan jokingly asked, “Does this
mean Ian has to come up with a superhero name? And wear the whole spandex
outfit and all?”

“Be
quiet Jordan.”

“C’mon
what color underwear are you gonna sport?” He laughed, “How about black and
purple with a sky blue lightning bolt down your chest?”

“Jordan.”

“You
could call yourself Captain Thunder, or Zeus, or the friggin’ Blue Streak!” he
struggled to say through his laughter.

“Jordan
shut up!” Drake ordered.

He
muttered something but they ignored him. Ian asked Drake, “What do I do?”

Drake
wasn’t sure what to tell him. He brought them into his kitchen and retrieved
drinks for all of them. Drake cracked his open, took a swig, and gave the
situation a moment of thought.

“What
if…What if you’re not the only one?” Drake suggested.

“What
do you mean?”

“Yeah,
we haven’t exactly seen any multicolored weirdoes flying around,” Jordan
reminded him. “Something like that would make headlines,” he opened his drink
and before he took a drink he added that one of them would have heard something
about it.

Drake
agreed. He frowned and told them about a serial killer in Baltimore who was
believed to target people with alleged super powers. “It could be complete
crap, but it’s something.”

Ian
nodded, “I guess after this it doesn’t sound too insane.”

“But
does that change anything?” Jordan asked them. “I mean, so there are others,
who cares? Ian here has something they probably don’t so the only question we
should ask is what’s next?”

The
three young men all stood in silence and though of what could possibly be the
next step for Ian. Drake lowered his eyes to the dark wood floor and
concentrated on all of the plausible avenues Ian could take with his new
ability. Ian finally opened his orange soda and drank it while he stared off
into space. Jordan was the only one who truly remained in the kitchen in both
body and mind. He tapped his index finger against the side of the can and
waited to see it either of his friends would come up with anything.

Drake
started, “You could use them to help people, and I don’t mean as in flying
around in tights with a mask. If you see someone in trouble you could help
them.”

“Screw
that,” Jordan butted in, “Why shouldn’t he become a super hero?”

“Maybe
because we don’t know what the ramifications could be,” Drake told him. “What
happens to him if he does don a cape and mask and the world panics? Then he’s
hunted down, interrogated, and possibly locked away. It could simply become a
witch hunt.”

“Or
he’ll be a hero everyone looks up to.”

“Guys,”
Ian finally spoke up, “I don’t think I’m going to do anything with them.”

“Why
not?”

“Because
it’d be easier if I was just Ian Price rather than some idol.”

“But
you’d be a super hero,” Jordan told him. “Do you know how many people dream of
that? Including me?”

Ian
looked away from him and apologized. “If I could just dump this ability into
your hands I would. All I want is to move to London at the end of the month and
just try to blend in there.”

Jordan
rolled his eyes and sighed. “You’d be a major force for good.”

“He
still could be,” Drake intervened. “This isn’t something he has to decide on at
this very moment in time. If he wants to do the whole savior of London thing in
a year he still could.”

Jordan
frowned but agreed with them. He changed the subject, “So have either of you
heard from Nick?”

---*---

Chapter
12

August
31
^st
, 2029

9:45
AM

Kenmore,
Washington

Jessica
sat in her room behind her desk. Her laptop was open and busily flashed
different images, video clips, and documents from a number of sources. Most of
the documents’ tags read ‘check this’ or ‘you won’t believe it.’ She spent the
morning reading through dozens of different materials while she tried to gain a
better understanding of the recent discovery.

She
woke up at six in the morning because of a text message that rang over her
phone. It startled her for a few reasons, the first of which was that her phone
was set to silent, yet it rang out her ringtone when the message came. The
other oddity was the absence of a sender. The message only read ‘login.’
Although she tried to reply to the sender, her message was only bounced back to
her. A friend of hers sent her a message that told her she needed to log onto
REFOIA.

Jessica
logged in and hundreds of documents, messages, videos, and images flooded her
inbox. The first thing she did was filter them, to narrow down the ones that
were duplicates, which left her with three dozen documents, two dozen images,
and another dozen videos. A majority of the items were sent to her by her best
contact, kirasho52, and as such many of the remaining sources were duplicates.

After
she watched, read, and saw all the documents, she joined a chat with some of
her friends, a conversation that had gone on for nearly an hour.

[jess_VII has joined]

kirasho52: obviously half are fake.

balt_raven00: no, which ones?

kirasho52: most u sent out. (@balt_raven00)

mhanzo40: No, the one he sent about Texas is real.

lady_L_12: really? what about tehran?

mhanzo40: Sniper, most likely an assassin.

mhanzo40: Possibly Ghost.

kirasho52: no way.

lady_L_12: yeah right.

balt_raven00:
cant b, was killed by Dáfù week b4 US attack.

kirasho52:
Doubt that, Ghost is the best.

jess_VII:
No one’s seen him in over five years I heard.

lady_L_12:
2 actually.

lady_L_12:
funeral n london.

balt_raven00:
casket thing? I rem.

kirasho52:
heard that was fake.

jess_VII:
Real. No one else is sick enough to try.

mhanzo40:
What about the kid from Vietnam?

balt_raven00:
real, can’t fake.

kirasho52:
yeah u can.

jess_VII:
It’s called Hollywood.

lady_L_12:
I think it’s real, he ran across water.

kirasho52:
could rock path be underneath?

jess_VII:
Doubt it, that would take too much time.

mhanzo40:
Someone would have noticed.

jess_VII:
What about the kid in Texas?

mhanzo40:
The kid stopped a tornado. I’m surprised it didn’t make any news headlines.

lady_L_12:
could b coincidence.

balt_raven00:
doubt it.

lady_L_12:
that’s what most video responses outside of REFOIA have said.

mhanzo40:
Well they’re all mostly people who have nothing to say about the changing
world.

kirasho52:
and we do?

mhanzo40:
More or less.

mhanzo40:
What about the girl in Cairo?

balt_raven00:
no vid, no way.

lady_L_12:
news article said car went through her.

jess_VII:
Still seems hard to believe.

kirasho52:
how bout pic from PCR?

kirasho52:
PRC*

mhanzo40:
Yes.

balt_raven00:
no, Photoshop, I could do it.

lady_L_12:
he was holding a house over his head.

lady_L_12:
stopping it from sliding down hill or something.

balt_raven00:
telling u, Photoshop house or the guy into pic.

kirasho52:
house was over head, doubt it was Photoshop.

[wor1d
had joined]

balt_raven00:
who r u? (@wor1d)

balt_raven00:
this is a private chat.

wor1d:
New video, private viewing, uploading now.

[wor1d
has left chat]

lady_L_12:
who was that?

[CHAT
TERMINATED]

Jessica
tried to restart the chat but the system told her the option was restricted. A
small pop up window appeared on her screen and a progress bar quickly sped from
zero to complete within seconds. The window enlarged and a video played. Audio
was heard first in the form of a garbled voice, “This was recorded outside of
Las Vegas earlier this morning. I have reviewed it and found that it is
authentic.”

The
video played and showed two men in the Las Vegas desert. Whoever shot the video
could be heard talking to a friend of his, though Jessica quickly realized
their commentary wasn’t beneficial to the overall purpose of the video.
Everything paused for a moment while the image zoomed in on the two men in the
desert. The image was cleaned up and Jessica thought her heart stopped.

The
man on the right was the assassin Ghost, a man who had never before been on
American soil. He held a large black sniper rifle and handed it to the younger
man on the left. Jessica’s heart raced when she saw him there.

“Nick?”

Nick
touched the end of the rifle and after a moment a black cloud of smoke consumed
the two of them. Once it cleared Nick held an exact copy of the rifle Ghost
held. Nick took aim at the two young men who held the camera, both panicked,
and a single shot was fired before the image went black.

The
garbled voice returned and gave additional information about the event. “The
shot was from over five-hundred-thirty yards away. Neither of the two young men
who filmed this were harmed. Both men claimed that Ghost and the young man with
him acted as if neither cameraman was there, though both cameraman say they
fled the scene immediately after the event.”

The
window disappeared and the chat resumed.

[balt_raven00
has joined]

[jess_VII
has joined]

[kirasho52
has joined]

[lady_L_12
has joined]

[mhanzo40
has joined]

kirasho52:
Whoa

balt_raven00:
cant b real, ghost is dead.

mhanzo40:
If REFOIA says he was there, he’s alive. It’s real.

mhanzo40:
Sorry, but I need to go.

[mhanzo40
has left chat]

lady_L_12:
I’m in London and it’s still freaky.

lady_L_12:
oh, I think it’s real too.

kirasho52:
def. real.

kirasho52:
kid copied a sniper, how cool.

lady_L_12:
Alright. So we’re in agreement that there are at least thirteen people with
super powers thus far?

balt_raven00:
not counting my opinion?

lady_L_12:
of course

kirasho52:
what about u jess?

jess_VII:
still unsure.

jess_VII:
gtg.

[jess_VII
has left chat]

Jessica
left the chat and immediately grabbed her cell phone. She tried to call Nick
but it went straight to voicemail. She hung up and called another number, it
too went to voice mail, but she did leave him a message, “Drake, its Jess. Call
me as soon as you get this. It’s about Nick.”

“Ghosts
are scary aren’t they?” Jessica felt her heart race again as her little brother
said that. He stood in the doorway and wore one of his big grins. He continued,
“They always sneak up on you and since you can’t see them you don’t know who
they really are.”

She
took a breath and told him, “Ghosts aren’t real Michael.”

His
smile faded. He made a sign with his hands and yelled out, “Pow! They won’t
leave and one of them won’t ever be able to rest.”

Jessica
knew she wasn’t breathing regularly but she tried to remain as calm as she
reassured him, “Ghosts aren’t real buddy.”

He
walked up to her and put his hand on her shoulder and said, “You can’t fear
what doesn’t exist because if it didn’t exist you wouldn’t know it could scare
you.” He stopped, frowned, and whispered, “They’re real, and they’re coming.”

“Michael,
what are you talking about?”

“They’ll
be here, but one of them will never rest, as most ghosts never rest,” he told
her as he headed for the door.

Jessica
continued to look at the doorway after he’d gone. She only looked away when
Drake called her back and she needed to tell him about Nick.

---*---

10:10
AM

Bothell,
Washington

Ian
sat with Coop and Wally in a small diner on Main Street in downtown Bothell. He
and his friends had discovered the restaurant one morning years earlier and
quite by accident. The food was inviting, however after ordering their meals
they quickly realized that the location they had selected was designed somewhat
more for the brunch seeking crowd, namely for couples and groups of women. The
floral décor along with the selection of music escaped them until their
collective moment of realization. However the food was excellent and as such
they became regulars on days when they could gather so early in the morning.

Coop
shoveled his order of an omelet, toast, hash browns, bacon, sausage, and fruit
into his mouth without stopping for a breath. Wally, in contrast, had ordered a
far more modest order of a short stack and bacon, and took his time eating
without looking like a glutton. Ian ordered oatmeal and toast, though he hardly
touched it.

An
elderly couple were the only others in the diner, so other than the occasional
waitress who would stop by to refill Coop’s orange juice, Wally’s coffee, and
Ian’s water, the three young men were undisturbed.

Ian
held his glass of ice water and brought it to his lips for only a moment before
he set it down and initiated their conversation, “Guys, what if I told you I
could do something, but if might freak you out?”

Coop
swallowed his food and asked, “Is it the thing Jordan told us about?”

Ian
scowled, “What thing?”

“The
thing with the lightning and you–”

“Wait,
he told you about that?”

They
nodded uniformly.

Ian
felt sick. He downed the rest of his water, rubbed his eyes, and cursed
Jordan’s loose lips. “So you two know…Did he tell anyone else?”

“How
the hell should we know?”

“Coop,”
Wally stopped him. “No, from what I know he only told us because the three of
us were hanging out last night and he let it slip once he was wasted. I thought
it was crap, but apparently…it’s true?”

Ian
nodded and watched their enthusiasm unfold. Coop practically sprayed him with
his meal while he spouted question after question. Wally was hardly better, as
he failed to take a breath between his queries. Ian finally stopped them and
agreed to answer their questions, and to display his newfound abilities to them
once their brunch was finished.

--          --          --

Once
they paid, the three boys drove over to the nearby Blythe Park. Once they
parked they hiked far enough into the forest where Ian felt no one might
stumble upon his display of power. Ian ensured that his friends were ready and
after one final cautionary glance around their surroundings, he pressed his
hands together and slowly drew them apart. He revealed the thin strings of
lightning between his hands. But when he pulled them too far apart, instead of
the crack of thunder, lightning shot out in two directions from his hands.

“Holy
crap!” Coop yelled. He laughed, shaken, but excited, “That was so cool!”

“Did…Did
I hit anything?” Ian asked, startled.   

Wally
shook his head, “No, but that was amazing!”

“What
else can you do?” Coop asked.

“Not
too much…I didn’t even know that I could do that,” he admitted.

“Then
you’ve gotta be able to do other things too!” Coop boomed, “You just gotta
try!”

“But
since you can do things with lightning,” Wally began, “And Jordan mentioned the
thunder, maybe you really can fly. I mean those other things are from the sky
and all.”

“How
on earth am I going to learn how to fly?” asked Ian.

“Jump
off a cliff,” Coop joked.

“Ha
ha.” Ian paused for a moment and then told them that they needed to keep his
secret between the three of them. “Don’t even tell Jordan about this, alright?”

“Sure.”

“Yeah.”