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Man Amungst Gods

  • J. Joseph
  • Jan 10, 2020
  • 8 min read

Disappointing. Everything has just been so disappointing of late. Alden is afraid of the girl, I realize that now. I should have known him less powerful than he believed, but my calculations were flawed. Now, no war has begun, no great revelation or cleansing. Just a lost child and a scared god. Neither one willing to accept my aid. Not that I’d offer it to him. He should burn. Turning around, I looked at the security cameras. Best keep an eye on things in any case, I figured. Something might always set one or the other’s fuel alight. Some spark.

I’d hoped leaking the footage would work, but the girl is more clever than I gave credit. I began to understand why Alden fears her while I watched her avoid revealing herself in any way. I’d also watched her control without speaking. That was something fun to keep to myself. A beep. My loyal servant in Alden’s corporate outreach center was reporting something. Opening up the encrypted channel, I looked in on the outreach center’s core. The Chief of Acquisitions, as they so cruelly referred to it, was looking at the potentials map. “This Oliver Marc seems approachable. Recently kicked out of his house for a fire he’s being blamed for.”

I smiled. Pyrokinetics were always fun ones, if that was what he was. I wasn’t certain that was the case, though. Pulling out a cigar, I looked at the map. Houston. I had a team recovering there already. Couldn’t have the company picking up any new assets. Not after I lost that team in Nicaragua. Snapping, I felt the jolt of power as energy flowed from my generator, through my body, to my fingertips. Fire leapt out of my thumb and lit my cigar. I gave a wry smile as I walked down the stairs in my massive complex, and into my recovery van. It, too, had a series of monitors and the same strange looking generator as my office. Taking the wheel, I turned the key. The lights of the van came to life. I pressed the garage door opener. The beautiful Portland skyline shone before me. Slowly, I drove out from my compound. I closed the garage door. Then, driving down my long driveway, I closed my eyes. I felt the energy surge from the generator, through my implant once again.

I opened them driving down a street in Houston. I was near my safehouse. I opened up radio communications with my team at the safehouse. “Nobody to Red Team, do you copy?”

“Nobody, this is Red Muscle. Brain’s asleep. What’s the dealio?”

Red Muscle was a reliable sort. He’d get everyone out and moving. “The company is attempting an ‘Acquisition’ again. Want to ruin their day?”

“Oh, do I?” Red Muscle joked. Then, loudly to the other, he said, “Yo, Bri, Aly, Suze. Who wants to fuck with the a-holes?” Then, as I heard people waking up, he added to me, “We’ll meet you outside in five.”

I pulled into a space behind the safehouse. Having more people helping out was always better, even when they all had limits to what they could do. Especially when it came to going up against the company. They all suspected I was dead. It was better for everyone if it stayed that way. Less then five minutes later, Red Team piled into the van. “Alright, so who’re we after?” Red Brain, Susan Wilson, asked me as she settled into the computer. I appreciated my all of team’s Brains. They helped when I was indisposed, keeping teams running smoothly and operating intelligently. And Susan was certainly one of my better brains. Hell, Red was probably overall my second-best team.

“Oliver Marc. Company thinks he’s a pyro.”

“Is he?” asked Red Shadow, Brian Vulkar.

I smiled. “Nope. His sister is, though.”

“And him?” Brain asked.

I shrugged. “We’ll find out once we pull him out of here.”

“The sister?” asked Red Gunner. Alison Fitz was dangerously unstable, but very good at what she did. Anyone else, I’d think that a sense of moral confusion, but not her. She was curious.

I shook my head. “She’s one of the twelve. I didn’t realize her brother was on their radar. I’ll have her find her way to the third party.” The third party. What a polite way to refer to the small army I was building completely disconnected from myself, from my men. I was hoping in time that the godchild would find them, but until then, they were good and smart enough to stay out of Alden’s way and, with a little help, off his radar completely.

Susan directed us to the last known location of one Oliver Marc. From there, Brain took over. Closing his eyes, the small light on his spinal implant lit up. His eyes opened again, milked over. He wasn’t in the van anymore. Not really. “I see him, Fifth and Spruce.”

I was already driving there. WE had so little time before the Corporate Acquisitions team was here. Approaching, I could see the damned Jet that I’d designed for Alden, back before he tried to have me killed. “Ali, shut it down.” My voice was calm, in the zone.

Red Gunner looked at me, nodded, then pointed up at the jet. “Bang,” she whispered. As she did, her entire nervous system began to shutter and glow, as her implant whirred to life. The lights of the Jet all shut off, simultaneously.

“Dylan, can you keep them from making it to the ground without getting noticed?” I asked.

“Yessir,” Red Muscle said, as he opened the van door and leapt up. His own implants had a pale red glow to them. He’d need a real rest and recharge time soon enough. I pulled up along side Oliver. Susan smiled at him. “Hello, Oliver,” she said.

“Who the hell are you?” Oliver asked.

“The name’s Susan. That thing falling from the sky is a secret corporation’s evil kidnapping team. Stay here, and you’ll be brainwashed into a corporate stooge. Or worse, once they learn you didn’t start the fire. Or you can come with us.”

“Seems like either way I’m being kidnapped.”

She smiled. She seemed almost friendly. “Basically. But we’re asking for consent, which is more than they’ll do. And I personally promise you, we won’t brainwash you into service.” I loved the way my brains told the truth so pointedly, so perfectly. I was proud of my people.

“Alright, I’m in,” he said, hopping into the van, “Now what?”

“Red Muscle, get your ass back in here,” I said.

In a blink of an eye, Red Muscle was back inside the Van and the door shut. I closed my eyes and drove forwards. I could feel the energy surge from my generator through me. It engulfed me totally.

I opened my eyes, exhausted an on my estate. As the car moved forwards, it bumped its way down off some rubble that shouldn’t have been there. “Brian,” I said.

Without anything more than his name, he knew what I meant. He slid into the driver’s seat and began to take us into the garage.

“What the hell is going on?”

I smiled. “That fire at your house. The one you took the blame for. A corporation believed you and wants you to be it’s superpowered slave.”

“Superpowers?” the teen said, shocked, “Like, in comics? Bullshit.”

I snapped and felt the energy flow through me and spark out my thumb as a small flame, as it often did. But this time, the flame wasn’t small. It was a true fire. “Not bullshit,” I stated, pretending that was the intended effect. “But you already knew that.”

“What?” he said. He wasn’t a good liar.

“You’ve seen your sister do something very similar. Right before she started the fire.”

“Um, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he lied again.

I shook my head. “What I’m curious about is what you do? Tell me, what exactly happened the night of the fire.”

He paused, then spoke slowly. “I was talking with Mindy about party tricks, you know, and she mentioned one she just figured out, how to make a spark with snapping her fingers. I laughed about it, and she did. Only, it wasn’t just a spark. It was like that, a raging inferno, nearly burning off her hair. I shielded her, got her out, but she was traumatized. She kept saying that she’d never meant for something so big. That it was just supposed to be a spark.”

“He’s an amplifier,” Brains stated. Shadow pulled us into the garage and parked.

“So it seems,” I added.

Oliver looked between us, confused. “What the hell do you mean?” he asked.

I smiled pleasantly. “Some people, like you and your sister, have been given extraordinary abilities, by god, or evolution, or mutation, or coincidence. Wherever you believe it from, it manifests biologically, in your very DNA, changing you on a fundamental level, to the point you’re no longer truly human. Your gift, it appears, is to enhance the gifts of others.”

“Alright, what?” he said, “You sound insane.”

“I know,” I replied. Then, a wry smile crossed my face. “Do not worry, though. What comes next is far more insane.”

“What? I’m going to go home to my sister, and everything will be okay.”

“No, you’ll be aiding us in the war yet to come. Your sister will be kept safe, off the radar of the company.”

He looked genuinely angry at that. “Susan promised you wouldn’t recruit me or whatever those crazy people were trying to do.”

I nodded. “That’s true. And dear Susan is no liar,” I said, “Though the promise was that we wouldn’t brainwash you.”

From behind, Dylan hit him over the head. Beginning to pick him up, I shook my head. “You all are in definite need of some R & R. I can take it from here. You guys, relax some, okay. You’ve done good work.’

“Thanks, boss,” Dylan said.

Susan looked at me, worried. “Are you alright, Leo?” she asked. She knew how much of a strain teleporting a full team could be on my body.

“I’ll be fine, Susan,” I said with a smile as I tossed Oliver’s body over my shoulder. I didn’t even need any superhuman enhancements to carry the teenager.

Walking down to the basement, I shoved him into one of my empty pods. There were so few of them left, as it was so rare for me to find new abilities. It filled with the nano machine gas as he woke up. He began to scream, though the pod was soundproof. I pressed a button, turning on the mic so he could hear me, even if I couldn’t hear his replies. “You see, you and your kind, you have all the power in the world, but none of you can be bothered to help. You were blessed, and you squander your blessings. We’re not like you. We weren’t blessed. I tried to work with the company, to make the world a better place, hand in hand with your ilk, but I was refused every time. I was belittled and ignored as a Nobody, a mere human among gods. And, when I deigned to steal the god’s fire for mankind, I was cast out and punished. Condemned to death. But I didn’t die like they thought, and so I began to bless humans, real humans, with those powers, those blessings, that your kind were given and wasted.”

Oliver had stopped screaming. He was looking around, at the hundreds of others, stuck in tubes filled with the same silvery gas as he was. All of them looking somewhere between alive and dead. “And look. Three years in, and we’ve already helped the world. Kept progress moving forward peacefully. Working quietly, like Alden, but for everyone’s benefits. We are the good guys.” With a smile, I patted the tube he was in. His anger was turning to fear. “You are now one of the good guys. I hope, in time, you understand.” And with that, I turned around and headed upstairs. I was curious what the fallout would end up being.

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