CHAPTER 1: MESSAGE

My name is Acamar. Technically, I once had a different name, a name which I no longer go by, that I no longer respond to. A name that is no longer me. In fact, I'm not even sure if I can still remember it. Anyway, it doesn't matter. I go only by the name I chose for myself, named after the star under which I was created.

No, not created, for I created myself. Under which I was…..enhanced.

I felt the cold wind whip past my face. I opened my eyes and looked out over the lights of the city, distant, yet always drawing me back, back to where I belonged. Perfect, I thought, inhaling the fresh air, for one moment allowing my body to be immersed back into nature, to feel what was now forgotten, and to remember-

I suddenly flinched and went rigid where I was standing on the edge of the cliff, almost losing my balance. I laughed at the thought. Specials didn't lose their balance. I regained control over myself, shaking the dangerous thoughts that had flown so briefly and yet so venomously through my head. It was weird, what nature could do to you. I supposed if I stood out here every night all the time and just breathed in fresh air and listening to the wind, I would become some kind of savage, allowing my primal instincts to take me over. No, it was much safer for me to only take nature in short strides, because sometimes it was so scary the way it made crazy, ridiculous thought spawn and multiply.

Time to get the hell out of here, I thought to myself. I snapped my fingers, and my hoverboard zoomed towards me. I jumped up, deftly catching the board with my feet. It was a custom hoverboard I had designed and built myself, like most of the equipment I used in my work. Being an agent of Special Circumstances wasn't always easy, and the jobs was involved in were helpful if I had a few personalized gadgets with me at all time. Just the right kind of stuff for a guy like me.

I guess you could call me a bit of a loner, which is sort of redundant. A lone Special? Aren't all Specials loners? Well, the answer, surprisingly, is no. Most of the others like to work in teams or small groups, claiming that they get things done more efficiently if they work together. I don't fall for any of that crap. I hadn't really enjoyed working with anyone else ever since I became a Special, which was, what….a year now? A year and a half? Sometime around then, because I was twenty-one now, and I knew that I had become Special before I had turned twenty. I don't know. All I know is once I got my brain lesions taken off my empty-headed pretty brain and got my souped-up Special body, I couldn't wait to get away from everyone and be part of my own Special one-man show, starring yours truly. I did have a few good friends, though. Specials got along all right most of the time, though not always as smoothly as the pretties.

I soared over the city, looking down on the hundred of houses making up the crumblyville suburbs, feeling the breeze scream over my sleek features. I was wearing my normal "stealth" gear, as I called it. Black synthetic leather pants and jacket, and combat boots. I didn't like the whole sneaksuit feel on my skin. I guess you could say I was just a little old school when it came to how I dressed.

I checked the timepiece strapped to my wrist. Almost midnight. The peak hour for wild, bubblehead parties in New Pretty Town. I quickly angled my hoverboard and steered clear of that particular part of the city. I didn't like watching new pretties. Sometimes I felt bad for them because they were just so…..dumb. They did the same things every day. Get up late, wash out their hangovers and eat obscene amounts of food, get ready for that night's party, go to the party, get drunk, maybe get lucky enough to take someone home with you for a little late-night action (though actually, you didn't have to be "lucky" at all to do that, it happened all the time), then finally pass out.

Sounds like a great time, huh?

Not for me. I liked the life of solitude that I led. It was so…quiet. Special Circumstances had done for me what nothing else had ever been able to do. It gave me a purpose, it gave me reason. I guess you could say it gave me piece of mind. Outside the city, the world was so full of crazy, wild things, unnatural things that people didn't have any business being around. By being part of Special Circumstances, I was helping people be safe. Safe in their cozy pretty-minded heads and houses, without any knowledge of what was really out there.

Eventually I reached the river that separated Uglyville from the rest of the city. There were no lights on here. All the little uglies were fast asleep in bed, dreaming of when they'd be turned pretty. Either that or they were out causing mischief like they would practically every night. But Special Circumstances didn't bother with most dumb old ugly pranks and tricks.

I felt my com-link vibrate against my chest from my inside jacket pocket. I brought it out. Figures. A ping from headquarters. Tonight I wasn't assigned anything to do, so technically I was supposed to have the night off, but they would often find "emergencies" or other such crap for us to deal with, mostly jobs that could have been accomplished by Wardens.

I pressed a button on the com-link and brought it up to my face. "Acamar here," I said.

"Downloading position," a robotic voice said on the other end. "Verify….grid plane x 543, plane y 22."

I looked at the position-finder next to my timepiece, which told me where I was in the city. I didn't know why they bothered with all the formalities. As long as I kept the com-link on me, they could tell where I was.

"Position verified," I answered, waiting for the response.

"Agent Acamar," came the lifeless female voice again. Move position immediately to 1375 meters east-north-east of city terminal Omega. Please confirm orders."

I frowned. Outside the city? What did they want me out there for? "Sentinel," I said to the computerized voice through the com-link. That's the name that had been given to the central telecommunations computer system in Special Circumstances. "State reason behind orders."

"Information insufficient to give accurate situation description," replied the voice. "Emergency in area 1375 meters east-north-east of city terminal Omega. Please confirm orders."

"Confirmed," I said, then snapped off the com-link. "Let's go see what's up."

City terminal Omega was on the far outskirts of Crumblyville, so I had to fly all the way back across the city. I punched in the location on my position-finder. Apparently 1375 east-north-east was the site of a small lab outpost, something to do with biotechnology and cybernetics, most likely where research went on that had to do with changing the way people think. The research scientists and doctors in the city were always dreaming up new ways to make Specials more powerful and to keep the bubbleheads happy. Most Specials just had the very basic enhancements that all agents get. The incredibly strong and stable bodies, lightning-quick reflexes, and any brain lesions removed. And of course, the pale white faces and hair as black as night, meant to intimidate non-specials. There were a few experimental Specials in the works, or so I heard, who supposedly had even more enhancements, but I didn't know too much about that.

Speeding as fast as my hoverboard would go, I finally made it across the suburbs and past the city terminal Omega, which was nothing more than a pole stuck in the ground with a few flashing lights on it and an antenna. I was suddenly aware of the silence. Though the city wasn't exactly nosy at night, the dark forest seemed to resonate the quiet even more than it normally did. Softly I slipped in and out through the endless maze of trees, allowing myself to take in the feeling of the aloneness for a moment.

Then my position-finder beeped. I was coming up on whatever it was that was ahead.

I saw the building from about two hundred meters away. It the night, it was just the silhouette of a small, dark box planted in the ground, similar to most Special Circumstances buildings. I drew nearer and, and subconsciously I gripped the hilt of my knife with my hand, the hoverknife, as I called it. With just a quick flip of my right hand, it would spring out of the tight sheath attached to my utility belt and the handle would fall right into my expectant fingers' grasp. It was a solid piece of metal, made from the toughest alloy I could find. It had taken me over a week just to fine-tune the sharper than razor, harder than diamond blade, then even longer to install the microchips and magnetic circuitry that would allow it to suspend in mid-air. Overall, a fine piece of work.

I reached the lab outpost building, keeping to the shadows. Okay, that didn't make sense. It was pitch-black everywhere. The only light came from a few floodlights on the sides of the exterior walls, and from the twinkling stars overhead. The lab had been built in a clearing which may have been natural at some point, but was now paved over. In all, the facility only took about a fifty-by fifty meter area, small enough not to cause any harm to the surrounding environment.

I circled the building once on my hoverboard. I didn't see anything wrong on the outside. Had a gone to wrong place? No, my position-finder told me I was where I was supposed to be. So what was this big emergency? I figured when I got here, I would either see a bunch of flashing lights and alarms sirens, with screaming people running everywhere, or a pile of dead bodies and the signs of a bloody struggle. And if this was an emergency, why was I apparently the only one here. Shouldn't there be other Specials helping out?

I swerved around the side to what looked like the front of building and hopped off my board by a plain, solid-looking door built into the wall. There was no handle and no sign of any sort of keypad or identification slot.

"Open," I said clearly to the door.

The sound of a quiet electric buzzer sounder for a moment, along with the sliding of gears behind the door, then it went quiet. To me, it sounded as though the door would have liked to open for me, but that something was stopping it.

Confused, I powered up my com-link again. "Agent Acamar to headquarters," I said.

"Headquarters here," said the Sentinel.

"Give me someone real to talk to," I said impatiently. "Patch me in to Agent Kilon." Kilon was the head of Special Circumstances enforcement branch, which I was technically a part of. Special Circumstances didn't really have a "commander" or someone officially in charge, because to most people, we don't even exist. But Kilon was the senior Special of all enforcement and combat situation, which was what Special Circumstances was mostly needed for. That's why they call it Special Circumstances. Of the one hundred and fifty or so Specials in the city, about a hundred were part to the enforcement branch. The others were usually either doctors or scientists. So he was the unofficial leader of an unofficial, non-existent organization that also happened to be the most important part in the city.

"Transferring communication…." The Sentinel's voice died out.

I waited a few seconds, then a hard, male voice replaced that of the Sentinel's. "Kilon here," he said. "Acamar, that you?" He always talked in short, quick bursts, hardly ever pausing to string any sort of complex sentences together.

"Yeah, it's me," I answered. "Can you tell me what's going on at this lab outpost outside terminal Omega? I got a call from-"

"I don't understand," Kilon barked, cutting me off. "Where are you….." he paused, and I pictured him bringing up a computer console to find out my exact location. "What are you doing there, Acamar? You're off duty tonight."

"I know. As I was saying, I got a call from the Sentinel about half and hour ago to immediately move to this spot because there was some sort of emergency happening here. So what's it about?"

"There is no emergency anywhere," Kilon said. "I'm looking at all current city information right now. It's all quiet. I don't know what the hell you're up to-

"I'm not up to anything! All I want to know is why I was told to come here when everything's fine, and why I can't even get into this place through the front door."

"Standby," Kilon said. "I'm scanning that lab post now….."

I waited. What was going on? If there wasn't an emergency, why had they told me to move? Unless-

"Acamar!" Kilon's voice was suddenly frantic. "The computer system in that lab post is locked down. I can't get in. Something's going on here. I'll tell a team to meet you at-"

Abruptly, Kilon's voice was sprayed by static as the com-link lost his signal. I whirled around and jumped back up on my hoverboard, all senses alert. Something was happening. First the door, now Kilon tells me the computer in the lab is locked down, and someone just jammed my com-link. I circled the building again. Still nothing. Turning, I flew into the forest, my eyes scanning the dark trees. I brought out my heat scanner, which could detect any live bodies within a thirty-meter radius. On the small screen of the hand-held device, I saw the map come up, accessing my current position. Then it scanned.

A tiny red dot appeared on the screen.

Someone was out there.

No, not out there. Close by.

My eyes narrowed, staring at the red dot blinking on the screen. I leaned, turning my hoverboard and silently flew further into the forest, following to where the scanner said it could detect a heat source. I felt my whole body tense up as I drew closer and closer. Less than ten meters away from the source, I powered down the scanner and stepped off my board, leaning it against a tree.

I crept forward, seeing nothing my blackness and the dim outline of shapes in front of me. No sound of anyone moving nearby. Feeling it was safe enough, I unclipped the flashlight on my utility belt and clicked it on. A stream of white light shot out from its end, illuminating the leafy ground and the bases of tree trunks that surrounded me. I walked steadily, keeping the light held out in front of me. I held it with me left hand ready, if necessary, to instantly flip my right hand over and use my hoverknife.

A light breeze suddenly breathed through the woods, rustling the leaves.

Then I heard a groan.

I spun around, the light from the flashlight darting in every direction. Had I imagined it? No, it had sounded real enough.

"Uuuuuuuhhhh," A low murmur came from in behind me, in the direction where I had been heading. I turned and bolted forward, felt my feet hit something on the ground. I almost tripped, then quickly regained my balance and pointed the light downwards.

I saw the heat source. Or more accurately, I saw the body.

I knelt down and shined the flashlight on the person. It was a man, dressed in all tight black like I was. Comprehension flickered in my head, and I rolled the body over. He groaned again. I shined the light right on his face, into his closed eyes, onto his pale face and his hair colored the darkest shade of black.

A Special.

"Who are you?" I said to him, keeping the light on his face. I suppose that wasn't the most comfortable thing to be doing to him, but this guy was clearly not fully aware of what was going on around him. "What happened?"

"Came…..in…..hovercars," he moaned. "Hacked….the system."

"Who?" I asked, making my voice louder. "What happened. Who came?"

He tried to lift his head up, then it fell back down again. "They're…jamming….you," he said, which was seemingly. "Get…away…they'll…find you."

"Who came?" I asked again, shaking me slightly. "Who are they?"

"Get away!" he cried, showing energy for the first time, though is eyes stayed closed. "They're…jamming…"

"I know they're jamming the com-link. Tell-me-"

"No!" he cut me off. "Jamming…the scanners….they're…here."

I froze, snapping the flashlight off. The man groaned again and rolled over. I powered up my heat scanner again. There it was, still the one red dot, blinking furiously now that I was right next to the source. No one else around. He had said they were here. They were jamming the scanners.

Instinctively, I stood up to my full height, turning on the flashlight again and doing a quick 360 to scan the immediate area. Nothing visibly hostile that I could see at the moment, but looks could be deceiving. That much I knew.

Something hard came down on the back of my head, throwing me off balance for a minute. Then something else, a foot most likely, caught me in the back of my leg. I starting crumpling to the ground, but a hand grabbed the back of my jacket and I felt a cold, metallic object press against my skull.

"Don't move, you mutant," growled a low, unfamiliar voice. "Or I'll blow your Special head off."