Regenesis (Book 1): Impact (57 page)

mhanzo40:
And if my guess is correct he’s Drake Winchester.

eternal_hourglass:
Yeah, actually…

eternal_hourglass:
How’d you figure that out?

mhanzo40:
I already know that Jessica is somewhere around the age of seventeen or
eighteen and lives in western part of Washington state, which is where you
live.

mhanzo40:
After mentioning that she saw you on the news and the mention of ‘your ability’
it was quite clear…

mhanzo40:
She also mentioned your name.

eternal_hourglass:
Oh…yeah.

eternal_hourglass:
Who are you?

mhanzo40:
I’m mhanzo40 for now.

balt_raven00:
none of us kno who he is.

balt_raven00:
hes rather secretive.

eternal_hourglass:
What about you? (@balt_raven00)

eternal_hourglass:
Are you actually in Baltimore?

balt_raven00:
yes, why?

eternal_hourglass:
What do you know about Cladis?

balt_raven00:
what do u know?

eternal_hourglass:
I only know what I can find on REFOIA.

balt_raven00:
well I wouldnt believe evryhting on here

balt_raven00:
everything*

mhanzo40:
How can you claim that though? Everything on REFOIA is pulled directly from
computers, phones, gaming consoles, the web, etc. and analyzed for factuality
before it’s even added to this database.

mhanzo40:
How could REFOIA be wrong?

balt_raven00:
its not that they’re wrong, they just dont kno everything

mhanzo40:
Which makes you a cop then.

[balt_raven00
has left group]

mhanzo40:
Hmm…That was easier than I’d thought it’d be…

jess_VII:
what was?

mhanzo52:
Nothing, just getting the truth out of him.

eternal_hourglass:
So who are you? (@mhanzo40)

mhanzo52:
I’m not the super hero Hanzo, if that’s what you’re wondering.

eternal_hourglass:
Oh, I was hoping you would be…

mhanzo40:
So what’re we going to talk about?

eternal_hourglass:
I don’t know, but I have to get going.

eternal_hourglass:
I need to make some calls.

jess_VII:
about what?

eternal_hourglass:
For a small get-together.

eternal_hourglass:
Y’know, me, Nick, and Jordan.

eternal_hourglass:
you’re more than welcome to join us if you’d like to.

eternal_hourglass:
(I’d offer you as well @mhanzo40, but I don’t know who/where you are).

jess_VII:
I’ll pass.

mhanzo40:
Thanks for considering me, ha ha.

jess_VII:
Sorry I couldn’t find the video.

mhanzo40:
What video?

eternal_hourglass:
The one about Ghost supposedly in Vegas a little while ago.

mhanzo40:
I seem to have lost it as well. I had archived it but it’s been missing for a
while now.

eternal_hourglass:
Where could it have gone then?

mhanzo40:
It’s strange. REFOIA usually doesn’t miss a detail…

jess_VII:
If I find anything I’ll send it to you, okay? (@eternal_hourglass)

eternal_hourglass:
Perfect. I’ll talk to you (both) later.

[eternal_hourglass
has left chat]

Drake
shut his laptop and slid it back under his couch while he fished his phone out
of his pocket. He dialed Jordan first, who he knew would never object to a
party, and would immediately aid Drake in pressuring Nick into the gathering.

It
rang four times before Jordan answered, “Hey Drake, what’s up?”

Drake
told him there wasn’t too much going on in his life before he suggested the
meeting.

“What?
Is Hiromi not available?” Jordan mocked him.

Drake
forced a laugh, “No, but you and Nick could come by my place on Friday and we
could play video games or something like that.”

“Are
you going to buy pizzas?”

“I
always do.”

“Then
of course I’ll be there. I think I’ve got that night off anyway.”

“Alright,
I’ll see you then.” Drake hung up and called Nick. It rang three times before
he answered, “Hello?”

“Hey
Nick. Listen, I was thinking about how long it’s been since we all hung out, so
I’m buying pizza, Jordan’s stopping by, and you’d better be there or we’ll drag
you over.”

It
sounded as if Nick forced a slight laugh at Drake’s joke. Drake wasn’t sure but
he thought he heard someone whisper in the background of the call before Nick
agreed and asked what time he should be at Drake’s house.

“Um…around
eight’s fine.”

“Okay,
I’ll be there,” Nick told him. “Did you want me to bring anything?”

“No
I’ve got it. I’ll see you then.”

Drake
hung up and looked around his house. It was still cold and empty, which
bothered him. He got off his couch, walked over to the collapsed pile of cards,
organized and returned all of the cards to their respective decks in less than
a ten-thousandth of a second, and slowly made his way upstairs to find
something else to occupy his time.

---*---

Chapter
21

September
21
^st
, 2029

10:05
AM

London,
England

Ian
hardly managed to get off the plane and into his apartment before his boxed
belongings arrived from the States. He hadn’t had the time or energy to unpack
at that moment either, as the time difference was taking him much longer to
adjust to than he had expected it to take him. Ian also spent what little time
he had since arriving trying to secure a job before he ran out of funds to live
off of. What he had managed to unpack consisted of a few books, a photo
journal, his camera, bedding, and a few pairs of clothes. The rest of the boxes
were stored in his room in a pile against a wall. His apartment came furnished
with an old sofa the previous tenant left, a small sink, stove, refrigerator,
but lacked an actual bed, any bookshelves, or a dresser. His closet did have
dozens of bent wire hangers, but the only thing he actually hung up was his
Voltage costume, which he’d used every night since he arrived.

The
weary young man was curled up on his couch with the vain hope of getting a few
hours of sleep when he heard someone rummaging through his closet. He shot up
and dashed back to his room but found someone who could move as fast as he
could tell him to calm down and relax.

Ian
hardly believed his eyes. “Drake? What are you doing here?”

“I
wanted to drop by and see your costume, y’know, since I didn’t have a chance to
see it back in Washington,” he told him.

“How
do you know where I live?”

Drake
held up a slip of paper and handed it to him. “You mother gave me your address,
as I said I wanted to mail you something, though I decided dropping in on you
might be more fun.”

“But
how–”

“Oh,
I forgot to tell you I’m a time manipulator.”

Ian
looked at him blankly and repeated what he heard Drake say while Drake examined
Ian’s mask and costume. “You’re a time what?”

“Time
manipulator,” he said as he took the cape off Ian’s hanger and draped it around
his shoulders. “You and I are in the same super powered boat,” Drake said with
a grin. He looked around the room and told Ian he really needed to furnish his
place.

 “I
plan to…But you’re a time manipulator?” he asked again. “What does that even
mean?”

“It
means what you think it means; I can manipulate time, meaning I can slow it
down, stop it, speed it up, et cetera.”

“Can
you go back in time?”

Drake
took a breath and told him that it was complicated. “It seems as though I can
only go to random periods of time.”

“What
do you mean?”

“I
always go back to Japan and seem to follow this one couple’s day-to-day lives.”

“That’s
weird.”

“You’re
telling me.”

Drake
took the mask and put it on before Ian asked, “Do they freak out when you pop
into their life?”

“No,
they can’t see or hear me.” Drake took the items of Ian’s costume off and put
them away while he told Ian he couldn’t affect the past at all. “I can witness
what happens, but I can’t do anything to change it.”

“Oh.
That’s kind of useless. Why can’t you?”

Drake
took a breath and tried to give a reasonable explanation, “The way I see it, if
I could go back into the past and change something, I would inadvertently
create a seemingly infinite amount of parallel worlds that would be similar to
this one, but different in minor details…and possibly in significant events.
It’s also probable that I would never be able to return to the original earth
and would be trapped in one of the numberless other worlds forever. And when I
would go back in those worlds to change something, all of those events would
spawn even more alternate earths and the pattern could continue forever until
either time itself would break, or the earth’s would die from the constant
strain of being duplicated so many millions and billions and trillions of times
into parallel realities. And the only way that I could rectify it would be to
find myself in the original world before I decided to go back and change
something, and either convince myself not to go back in time and change
something, or to kill myself. Yet it’s also probable that in the event that I
did stop or kill myself that I’d cease existing altogether and would create a
time loop where I would go into the past, change something, then return to kill
myself over and over and over again until, again, time or the earth would die,
this time from stress of reliving the same events for eternity.”

Ian
just stared at him, as Drake lost him early into his explanation. He simply
asked, “So…you just can’t?”

“Pretty
much,” Drake said with a smirk. “So how does it feel running around London in a
costume like that?”

“I
fly, actually” Ian corrected his friend.

“Oh,
but of course.”

“But
it’s nice,” he told him. “Liberating almost.”

“Have
you saved anyone yet?”

He
nodded, “Three people.”

“Really?”
Drake asked, surprised. “You haven’t been in town for a day and you’ve saved
three people already?” He smiled and said, “I guess you’re in the business
alright…which reminds me, have you found a job?”

Ian
rubbed his eyes and said he hadn’t had the time. “As you said before, I’ve been
here for less than a day. I haven’t really had time to even move in.”

“Just
give it some time and something’ll turn up.” Drake looked around the room, let
out a sigh, and muttered, “This is really bugging me; you need to furnish this
place.”

Ian
looked at him and asked how it could bother him, “You’ve been here for less
than five minutes, how can it bother you this much?”

“Trust
me, when you can manipulate time a second seems like decades.” Drake walked
around the small room and nodded, “Yeah it’s killing me how sad this place
looks.”

“Thanks,
you wanna pay to furnish it?”

Drake
shrugged, “Sure.”

Ian’s
vision blurred and the room distorted itself. He rubbed his eyes and shook his
head and the room became clear. Everything in his apartment changed. He had a
queen-sized bed, a stereo, bookshelf, and a lamp in his bedroom. Drake told him
to head into the other room and Ian found the room furnished with a rug, a
forty inch LED television, a coffee table, a new couch, dishes stacked on his
kitchen countertop, and some sort of plant Ian guessed was a type of bonsai.

Drake
smiled, took a seat on the couch, and said, “That’s better. By the way,” he
pointed at the dishes on the counter and told him they still needed to be
washed, “I’ll let you handle that.”

“Um,
thanks.” Ian took a breath, scratched the back of his head, and asked what he
owed Drake.

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“Nope.
Just show me what there is to do for fun in this town sometime.”

“I
could take you out to fight evil doers,” he joked.

“Do
I get to wear a cape?”

“Ha
ha.”

“Oh
there’s one last thing you’ll need,” Drake trailed off and moved so fast Ian
couldn’t follow his movements. Once Drake returned, he presented Ian with a
thin laptop. “I know the tech’s old, but I didn’t think you’d mind.”

“Not
at all, thanks.” Ian took the computer and set it next to the free dish set
Drake produced. “Seriously, what do I owe you?”

Drake
rolled his eyes, “What does a time traveling, billionaire, teenage boy need?
Girls aside,” he added at the end.

Ian
only chuckled and thanked him.

Drake
grabbed the remote for the television and turned the news on, (as it was the
only channel Ian had until he managed to get a television provider set up). It
was about some minor celebrity neither of the young men cared for or knew of.

“How’s
your company doing?” Ian asked Drake.

Drake
chuckled and said it was hardly his company anymore. “All I’m doing is making
money off of it. I don’t have any say in what happens with the business, aside
from holding a majority stake in it, but I trust Jonathan and I don’t think
he’s going to drive it into the ground, so I put him in charge. I did manage to
get my friend Sho a corporate job, though he isn’t too high up in the ranks.”

“That’s
nice of you.”

Drake
said it was, except for the fact that he used Sho to gather information. “I’ve
heard something about a rather secretive project within the company that I want
to know more about, so that’s why I worked to promote him. Sho’s kind of my
little spy.”

“So
now you’re delving into espionage?”

Drake
nodded, “A bit.”

“Well
what do you do with all of your time if you’re not working for your father’s
company?”

“Not
much,” Drake admitted. “I play a lot of videogames, watch television, and
travel to foreign lands to kill time.” He paused a moment before he told Ian
that he’d learned thirteen languages since he found his ability.

“Really?
How do you remember them all?”

Drake
shook his head and told him that he wasn’t sure. “It’s nice being able to
travel to places where I can practice speaking the languages whenever I fear
I’m getting rusty or in need of a test run.”

“Wow.”

The
story on the news changed and Drake perked up when he saw the hero on the news.
“Check this guy out,” Drake told him, “He’s Japan’s coolest hero so far.”

Jack
Randles reported on the new story, “Japan’s widest known hero, Hanzo, managed
to stop a small quarrel between two minor branches of the Yakuza in Kyoto
today. We’ve even managed to access a short clip of the incident through one of
our affiliates there.”

The
video played and showed a bright sunny afternoon in Japan that anyone would
have deemed a fine afternoon had sixteen heavily tattooed men not engaged one
another in a firefight in the middle of a crowded street. Drake paid close
attention to the excerpt as the men shot at one another and would occasionally
hit a bystander by mistake.

However
someone called out at the men.

A
man emerged between the two parties and ordered them to stop fighting. He wore
black armor fashioned after the late Edo Period, though without a mask or helmet.
Hanzo stood (from what Drake could guess) nearly six feet tall, had long black
hair he kept tied tightly behind him, and kept a trimmed goatee. He also
carried two katanas with him, though neither one was removed from their
protective scabbards.

Hanzo
ordered the men to stand down, though most of the Yakuza simply stared in
disbelief at the stranger who approached them in rather ancient looking armor.
One young man swore and fired at the hero. In a movement that was so swift the
camera hardly captured it, Hanzo dashed from where he stood directly toward the
gunman and gently moved each round fired off out of his path and into the
concrete street or a nearby vehicle so as to not injure any nearby pedestrians.
A flash of light danced off one of the two katanas released from their holdings
and once the camera caught up with the hero, the image revealed a terrified
tattooed gunman with a blade pressed against his throat. After a moment all of
the aggressors surrendered their weapons and agreed to heed Hanzo’s command to
end their conflict.

Hanzo
thanked them, put his katana away, and vanished in a brief whirlwind.

 Jack
Randles returned onscreen and continued, “We’ve been told that Hanzo ordered
these men to stand down and reminded them that they endangered their kinsmen.
He threatened to use force to subdue them if they failed to cooperate. After
his demand, as you saw, all sixteen of the members of the Yakuza peaceably
conceded and although there were minor injuries, there were no fatalities.”
Randles briefly shuffled through some pages on his desk before he added, “We’ve
learned through our affiliates in Osaka that the hero Hanzo has been identified
as Osaka resident Takeo Fujishima; however the hero has refused any and all
interviews beyond confirming his identity.”

The
station announced that it would take a brief commercial break at which point
Drake shut it off. He frowned and chewed at the end of his thumb while in
thought. Ian saw his look and asked what was wrong.

“Nothing
really,” he admitted. “I just don’t understand why he’s using katanas.”

“What
do you mean?”

“The
legendary hero of Japan, Hattori Hanzo, used a spear…or at least that’s what
many scholarly sources claim. Yet this new hero, who clearly named himself
after the former warrior, uses two katanas,” Drake explained.

“Does
it really matter?”

Drake
looked at Ian and said it did if you wanted to remain historically accurate.

Ian
changed the subject and asked how things were since his father’s passing.

“My
father didn’t pass on Ian, he was killed,” Drake reminded him, “But I’m fine. I
miss him, I really do, but I’ve mourned, believe me I have. And with my aunt
smothering me constantly, I won’t forget that I still have family and friends
who are ‘there for me.’ But something good came out of his death, I guess, and
that is only that I think the assassin who murdered my father is the same
person who murdered Victor.”