Disclaimer: This story addresses mature issues and contains references to violence, gore, sex, and alternative lifestyles. If you are uncomfortable with any of these topics, please do not continuing reading. If you have any comments or criticisms, please feel free to review and/or email me.

Chapter One:

They tell us that forty years ago there was an accident. They never tell us much more than that. After all, knowledge is power and their regime is all about keeping us as powerless and as obedient as possible. Some government, built on the premise of the only onse with the right to power being the ones in power. Then again, I've never been the type of girl to swoon over a title.

From the little they've told us, I gather that at the end of WWIII, some superpower that's since ceased to be got bombarded and one of said bombs hit a research facility. It could have even been an intentional biochemical attack, who knows. What is for sure is that the stuff hit the upper atmosphere, then everyone's lungs in the whole, entire, war-ravaged world. I figure, accidental or not, that had to have been an oopsie. After all, no country escaped the chemical's reach, so if it was an attack it'd just screwed over their own people.

Either way, no one could have predicted the effect it'd have when interacting with humanity's crazy, mixed-up gene pool.

It unleashed the monster in us all.

The first effects of the Gas weren't seen until all those babies that'd been little more than embryos when the Gas hit were born. Some of the mutations were spectacular. I hear the first real headliner was a beautiful baby boy born with fully feathered, fully functioning wings. Then more reports flooded in. A baby was born fully furred and fanged. Another nearly suffocated because he was born with gills and couldn't breathe in the air. At first, there was a list, and each one had a headline, a story, fifteen minutes in the spotlight.

Then the list hit hundreds, all over the world, and people finally put two and two together.

Some babies were lost in the ensuing panic – to lynch mobs, scientists, or even their own, frightened families. Those who wanted to keep their "freak" babies took up arms. The government finally stepped in when the rioting started, creating special hospitals, special schools, special everything. Anything to keep the mutated out of sight, out of mind. The segregation worked for a time. The number of "special" births hit a peak and leveled off, so the government and the world breathed a sigh of relief that disaster had been averted.

Hah.

Fourteen years in, the Gas reared its ugly head and bit the now-complacent world in the ass. A girl in Nwe York City got her period and burned down most of a city block. A boy in China started flinging semis around like they were twigs. All around the world kids who had up until that point in their lives been normal, been safe, were suddenly discovering they were freaks, too.

Hell broke loose, and this time, the kids fought back. Welcome to World War IV, I guess, but this time it was the world against the freaks and their sympathizers.

This time the government declared martial law almost immediately. They invaded the streets and marched the "Thresholded", as they'd begun to call themselves, into prisons and containment camps. Those who resisted were shot. Most survived and went into hiding, or fled to Canada and Mexico, so the US followed -- for the safety of the world, of course. It was happening all over the globe. Japan seized China, the Phillipines, and a large chunk of Russia. Russia claimed Greenland and Poland, though I don't think anyone really cared. Africa disintegrated. Europe consoildated. South America was carved up between a dozen different powers.

But all around the world, the Thresholded suffered.

They reacted by fighting back and by carving out niches, sanctuaries for themselves where they could be safe. Segregation had worked before, so most governments embraced this tendancy and set up "Genetic Anomaly Relocation Initiatives." GARIs became at once the Gas babies' savior and their curse. They got money to move to GARI towns to live with other freaks, but once they were there the government wanted nothing to do with them and certanily didn't want them ever leaving.

I bet they were quietly hoping the problem would take care of itself. It did, but not in the way the Normies were hoping. GARI towns became tiny, self-sufficient worlds. The movement created an entire freak sub-culture. I think that, more than anything, scares the government about us Freaks. We just don't die. The entire world's tried to stomp us out, but we just keep kicking. One of my friends, a Normie, once called Freaks the cockroaches of the human world. It's a better allusion than I think even he realized at the time.

I was lucky, for the first chunk of my life. There are those babies who, from the moment they're born, are obviously Gas babies. Their parents face a choice -- either send them to one of the many GARI orphanages, or to try to keep them, fully knowing there'll come a day when they have to send them away, regardless. The ones who Threshold at puberty at least get a normal childhood. Sometimes, I think that's worse. At least if you've only known the GARI towns all your life, you don't know what you're missing. You don't remember what it was liek to be normal, to be on the Outside.

I do. I was there until I was 25.

Some of the happiest Thresholds I've met have been Freaks since birth. I'm not one of them; I suppose that's one reason everyone seems to think I'm bitter. I'm not, not really. Just angry, that's all. Really angry.

Like right now. This little slip of a man with large, black eyes and skin the color of one of those beetles that always used to eat up my mother's garden was trying to convince me this pit of an apartment was worth more than I bet the entire rundown building was worth. I guess sleezeballs run on both sides of the social divide.

"Look, it's just not worth it," I was saying, trying half-heartedly -- and vainly -- to keep the irritation in my voice to a minimum. He kept twitching, like he had a nervous tic. It was really annoying.

"F-five ninety f-five," he offered. My indignant snort made him jump, which only made me angrier.

"A five dollar discount? What do you think I am, desperate?"

He twitched again, those bug eyes glittering amusedly. "B-Biggest freak c-city on this c-coast? Everyone here l-looking for a h-house is d-desperate."

I stared at him. Damn him, he was right; I'd been all over town and this was the only even slightly affordable apartment, as scummy as it was. I needed a place to stay, and fast. I could only stay in the Relocation Temp Barracks for another two days before they dumped me out on my shapely and homeless ass.

"Give me the damn agreement," I snarled, sticking out a hand. Bugman spasmed but got the paper into my hand, smiling. I resisted the urge to punch him in his smug little mouth and instead pulled out a pen. A moment later I'd signed on all the dotted lines and doomed myself to this miserable little pit for the next six months. Whatever, at least it had a roof that didn't leak and enough room for what few things I had managed to cart with me from Belmont.

Of course, Bugman wanted the first payment up front. I tossed the envelope at him, grabbed the keys, and tossed over my shoulder that I'd be back soon enough. I wanted to get out of that apartment before I popped his insectoid little head. Plus, I still had to find a job, and God knows with how hard finding a job had been that was going to be one surefire nightmare. Thumping down the seven stories to the ground floor, I pushed my way out onto the street.

Now, the real question was, what sort of job would a Freak like me find in this big city?