+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Prelude 4 : Adam and The Garden
Her face stayed with him for some reason. He does not remember much from the first days except that vague feeling and the brief memory of her face looking down.
That dark round face, cold yet shiny dark eyes, and hair pulled back in a tight bun... The only image clear in his mind was surrounded by a feeling of gratefulness.
Grateful for the morphine, for the high, for how numb... how numb it all felt.
The rest was a blur.
He could tell he was moved, placed from a bed to another and made to drink something that felt like acid going down his throat
From there the memories get clearer, it all gets so colorful and clear...Like a spike of ice through his brain had woke him up from that daze, and he felt ... [ HUNGRY ]
###
Eva clenched her fists soo tight her nails draw blood from her palms.
It was not supposed to be like that. In decades nothing like that happened, so why...
At one moment it was like any other process. They took the anesthised and injured subject to take in the formula and them- Kurt shouted.
It was not a scream per se as much as the closest thing to screaming the Number Man ever had.
" Get Dow-" He did not even finish his warning before the tentacle priced through the wall. 5 freaking layers of protection, 2 layers of 3 inch carboniun made by one of their thinkers... and the damn thing still shot through it faster than a bullet through cardboard in other to get to him.
One of the strongest most competent individuals she ever met... reduced to a trembling mess.
He was seated in the table with them, even considering the recent developments.
It took over 2 hours for him to regain consciousness and another 40 minutes until He could walk and talk normally. Still his body would not stop shaking and his eyes lost that abnormal focus he used to have.
" So... What exactly are we dealing with? What this anomaly is all about?" David was the first to break the tense silence.
Eva locked eyes with Fortuna. After a deep breath, she gathered the courage to nod, so that her ward might start the presentation.
The Thinker inserted instructions on her tablet activating the 7 feet monitor on the far wall. Images of a young man bleeding and crying were shown.
" Designated subject 38-12, male, no genetic or physical Abnormalities, was extracted from Earth Upsolon 34 hours ago and subjected to the procedure 53 as of usual. Nothing on him or the formula given to him was particularly noticeable in any form of fashion. According to a previous analysis, we predicted the development of a simple Breaker or Brute package... But as you can see, " she pressed another option and a video started playing." Our predictions were off."
Even in slow motion, the video was hard to comprehend. In a moment the boy was convulsing, as typical of a vial trigger, in the other, a mass of colorful organic crystall material of weird texture and luminescence substituted the human.
From the bizarre new creature, several tentacle-like appendages burst into being and shot at multiple directions like snakes going for a rat.
David was not an easily shaken man, but even he let out a small curse at the images, momentarily looking at the Number Man.
" The formula seemed to have granted 38-12 a Changer/Striker/Trump power-set, with Thinker, Brute and Stranger sub-effects."
"Stranger 2, for my powers falling to analyze or even perceive him in his Changer form. Brute 6 for his performance against our reinforced walls. Thinker 3 for quickly detecting and aiming for the nearest parahuman even considering all the structures between us..." Kurt spoke for the first time in the meeting, their voice surprisingly steady. " And Trump... although is still to soon to give secure conclusions, I would say the computational capacity of my powers has decreased significantly. Around 39% at least."
The room was silent at that.
" Any signs If or when the effect wears off? And aside from physical shock and power reduction has any other effect from his Striker touch?" As always Rebeca took the rails and started planning for a solution. " We should test him urgently. The better the grasp we have on his powers the sooner we can find a use for him."
Contessa, for her part, was ready to supply as always. " Tests have been executed on the last few hours." Another touch of her tablet and windows with videos of the 38-12 being put in contact with several other subjects started playing. "Invariably, whenever being put on a room with another parahuman, the subject enters a berserker state and proceeds to stab them with some form of his Changer form mutated limbs. Depending on the power level of the other subjects, he may only partially change his body, but all victims present the same symptoms. 1 to 3 hours of coma, temporary nervous system disruption, and division of power."
" Division?"
" Yes... Observe."
In one recording, 38-12 dodged the Blaster attacks of his opponent with ease and economy of movement very familiar to all of them; In another, he blinded and overwhelmed a regenerative Brute attacking him by using a Blaster power very similar to the previous subject; on a third, the wounds caused by his metal-skinned opponent healed fast enough for the Eye to see; on the fourth video, one of his limbs morphed into a metallic shield as the other became a multicolored spear that impaled the pyrokinetic trying to carbonize him.
"That ... changes things." Rebecca's voice sounded almost eager to them. " How much power can he accumulate? How many can he use at once? Did you stress-tested him already"
Turning off the monitor Contessa extended to them the good news. " That will not be necessary to test. Luckily, although my power does not work on the subject while in his presence, after distancing myself from him I have successfully completed an model of him, and added him as variable to my active paths."
Eva relaxed ever so slightly on her seat. She did not usually get so tense about their subjects ( Oh so many ended up violent and monstrous) , but holding onto Kurt's bleeding body as the bizarre tentacled mass broke into their observation room had been a little to much for her.
" What do you suggest we do with him them, Contessa?" She asked her ward, wishing to tame and contain this one as soon as possible.
The fedora-wearing woman finished her typing before responding. " The full plan regarding 38-12 has been sent to all present. "
Nodding Eva opened up the file Fortuna had uploaded. Each of them rad the plan on their time, which of course meant Rebecca finished first, ending up being the one to question: " Won't this represent an unnecessary risk? Wouldn't a controlled environment or an already chaotic region be preferable?"
Contessa shook her head." Sadly, you two will have to deal with him on your nation. Ultimately, 38-12 shall be a protectorate element more than a Cauldron element."
"We really need to give the guy a proper codename already," David muttered, rubbing his chin, eyes still on the text.
As he came upon the middle of the document his eyes widened. " Hell, Keith is not going to like this."
" Yes." Their prime Thinker finally said, getting up." But it is what it shall be. " elegantly she fixed her suit and gloves, before turning to Eidolon. "And his codename is decided, as per path. We shall call him Reunion"
###
It started, as it mostly does, with a dirty alley
He woke up nude, with a headache like a dozen nails going through his skull. Trying to get up made the pain worse, so he just rolled on the filthy rain-wet ground until the pain receded enough for him to try to sit up.
There was a street but it was too empty. Screaming for help was not a good idea from how dehydrated he was.
He wished he knew what to do.
... and suddenly he somewhat did know.
His muscles and had been currently dealing with a lot of trauma, but were just steady enough for him to get up If he angeled his legs and arms on a tight manner, distributed his body weight a moved with the correct amount of and acceleration.
Angles, vectors of force, distance... it was all so clear.
The street was made for 2.3 cars of the average variety to pass at the same time. The small 5.38 inches incline was what made the rain go down to the alley He just left. The sun standing on the -15* angle of the sun indicated there must be close to lunch.
...Lunch.
... Food.
That was what this horrible feeling came from. That was why he was soo weak. They let him starve!
Memories folded back into place. Hazy, but clear enough to understand most of what happened.
He died - or at least got close to it- and then that pain was taken away and substituted with hunger.
He remembered the metallic room and how they put people there to fight him. How he had felt fighting ( killing).
One after the other after the other. The man with the passenger of fire tried to burn him, but could not while he was behind the shield made from the passenger of the boy with the passenger that let you replace your flesh and bone for metal. The one with the passenger that let you shoot kinetic radiation from your body and the flow could be used as a weapon if focalized in a single point like the palms or one's hand... yeah that one saved his life when he had to face the man who was strong and could heal himself.
In at least 2 of those fights, he had struggled.
The regenerative man was faster and stronger than him. Even with his calculations, he could not get the upper hand on the bastard without resorting to hit and run and accumulating damage. In the end, the regenerator was burned and begging to be spared as shot after shot of radiation rained over his broken form.
The boy of metal was too tough to hurt. A small tornado of fire over his head to blind him was necessary. And in the end even the shiny head had squishy eyes.
The memories should be horrible. Abominable. He should be angry at the people who made him do it
No one made me do it . I did because I wanted to. Because I needed to. It felt good. It felt soo freaking good.
What angered him was that they stopped!
They stoped and left him to starve! Oh, he got water and food but for days, weeks ( months ?) he was left bored, in hungry, and alone. Days got worse and worse.
He had tried to punch the walls, blast the doors, melt of everything... nothing.
The only way to know any time had passed was that they sometimes made questions.
"How do you feel?"
"Can you still use power X, or feel presence Z?"
"Can you tell me about your passenger?"
"Could you rip off one of those crystals for me?"
Questions coming from a soundbox he couldn't even see ( he tried, mostly to destroy the damn thing), enunciated with a voice that sounded mechanically indiferent to his protests and questions. Well, Except for 3.
"What are these passengers?"
" The source of your powers. What you connect with when you feed."
"What is this place?"
"The Garden."
"Wha- What do you want from me?"
"Survive.
Grow.
Become."
###
For 3 days he scavenged and robbed.
Naked and with their body covered in pimples of crystal he knew that he would call for to much attention at hospitals and soup kitchens. So he swallowed his empathy and ambushed a few guys for money and clothes
It was surprisingly easy with all the power that came to him.
On the same day of his arrival he found that If he focused enough, the weird powers from the room came forte
Like a mental lock in his head, If he inserted one key, the trashcan he was focusing on would burn in flames.
With another he opened the gates for the silver-boy's passenger and whatever part of his body that touched the metallic thing became numb and turned into metal. It was pretty hard to turn it off, but he maned it after his arm consumed all the metal available.
With another and weird feeling came over his skin and he knew that If he tensed his muscles and them relaxed them a short burst of radiation would come out. He did not dare to test it indoors though as the power easily twisted the thick metal walls of his former home ...
O Home... The metal room was my home. I cannot have always lived there can I? What there was before the room?
Was I -
He had to take some of the stuff he stole from the ratty drug dealer to take his head of that line of thought.
... But not even the drugs made the hunger go away for long.
3 days of hunger, before it came to him.
He was walking on the street close to where he had the guy with the drugs when he smelled the sweet aroma.
Ironic really, considering it was Mush who came to him.
The walking landfill was a block away when his passenger first came in range. Nothing really valuable in retrospect. A structural aggregation device...but for the starving -
"Yesyesyesyes! YES!"
In retrospect hiding and ambushing would have been preferable strategies to running through an entire block in while yelling like a maniac.
Mush and the half dozen of merchant thugs with him saw the incoming threat of course. Apparently, the dealers he has stolen clothes and drugs belonged to Brocktons least respected gang.
A smelly villain and a bunch of armed goons were what he got for his offense... and he couldn't be happier about it.
Mush, by his part, was just confused. " Fackin craze retard. Th' fack he doing?"
" Think h' is high, boss?" One of the goons asked raising his gun to the incoming madman.
" Gotta be. Anyway - his funeral." The giant human-shaped mass of trash cocked his fist, all but telegraphing his intending attack.
When the madman got into 30 feet of them Mush started advancing himself, ready to meet the idiot halfway.
His downward haymaker was dodged easily though, the smaller fighter twisting out of the way and landing a palm strike on the trash man's lower abdomen.
Mush was about to laugh at how weak the strike was before a blast of energy was shot point blank at his core of mass.
" Aaaargh! You shitard!"
" Hahahaha." The man laughed with crazed excitement as the trash Golden staggered backward.
As Mush redistributed his trash to fill the 2 feet hole made by the blast, the madman jumped a few feet back. And with a large smile, he snapped his crystal-covered fingers.
Mush, sadly had chosen a pile of trash rich in combustible items that day. With a small act of piroknesis, the Merchant was set in flames.
The goons seemed to snap out of their scared gaze at the sight of one of their parahuman bosses burning. Shots rang in the air, along with shouts of " Die fucker !" And "Fucking capes! Fuck!"
As bullets hit both his crystalline body and his soft tissue ( causing sharp pain and bleeding even as his healing factor got to work) loose thought touched his brain.
I should be dead, shouldn't I? With guns and angry thugs and all that blood... I should be dying here.
It crossed his head as suddenly and dangerously as the bullet that left a tunnel through his limbic system.
No scratch that, I should have died in the metal rooms. The memories are blurry but I remember well... I should be dead. They broke my neck and pierced my heart ( with an arm turned longsword nonetheless).
Before that even... He was not born in the metal room. He had something before that. He had... Love? Security? Passion?
He feels like he is missing those. And you cannot miss what you never had, can you?
I liked to draw, I liked to lay in bed during the day, I liked ... someone? Multiple people? I had a lot, didn't I?
Mush's no-longer-flaming form crashes upon him like a football player. Turns out the existential crisis mid-battle took just long enough for the merchant to adapt. No longer a 9-feet tall golden, but a more of a 6,5-foot amalgamation of cans, bottles, scrap from squealers trash and other non-flammable materials.
Smart, get read of anything that might catch fire, tackle me and break my arms so I do not repeat my first attack and punch me in the head so even If I am a brute of Crystal my meaty Brain gets all damaged... this guy is smart. IQ between 90 and 110 according to my numbers... the crystal man thought absently as his skull got smashed in by a fist composed mostly of broken bricks, car parts, and wood.
Punch, Crack, Punch.
"Gonna fucking bleed for this, faggot! I am gonna fucking break you and use your rocks to make me a bitching new suit!"
Punch, Crack, Punch
I was dead before... no problem dying again, them? Maybe in the next one I will not be so hungry all this time. Maybe I will have a bed and smiling people instead of just blurs. He mused as Crystals sprouted of his damaged body, making a helmet to shield his concussed brain.
Punch, Crack, Punch, Crack.
"And When I am done with yah, Skidmark is blasting your ass into the moon, you punk!"
Yeah that sounds peaceful. I am so hungry. I want to sleep. Maybe sleeping I will -If I fight I can eat! Do not have the energy for that. Yes, I have ! I just-
Punch
Darkness
###
Her face, her dark, tired, face. It was so clear in his dreams. A numb comfort as the words echo around.
"Survive.
Grow.
Become."
He woke up to a familiar feeling of cocaine entering his system.
Blinking his dry eyes awake he found something that made his brain anxious and his passenger excited.
3 passengers. One was Mush and the others felt leasing on how close they were. Not 3 feet from him a Woman in a tank-top and goggles waved her cocaine-covered fingers at him, tantalizingly licking the excess of. 6 feet to his right Mush is seated next to a call masked man with a simile of ruined teeth.
Around, a few feet far of, several humans in various state of drug poisoning stand, weapons of various kinds in their hands.
It feels like the preparation for a slow, torturous execution.
What about it? Doesn't matter... Tired, hungry -Them eat!
"Well well well, so you are the dumbfuck who thought you could just steal our shit and beat up our boys hmm?" The sitting man got up, full of swagger and oozing cockiness. " Let me guess, you triggered and was all : The world is mine, I am gonna get high!" He continued, chuckling. " But let me tell you something ..." Long, burned-up fingers grabbed him by the chin and forced him to look up. " ... Power don't make you shit. One in 3 faggots die on their first year as capes because of retard shit like what you pulled, ye-"
The man's voice cut short by a pained choke.
The masked man tried to pull his hands away but capilar-like roots had stabbed through it from where he had held into his hostage and were digging through his arms
Aaah, this feels... better. Way better.
What was I complaining about anyway?
Feed. Feed. Feed.
All sadness, fatigue, discontentment. Every single thing became nothing.
Everything is good. Everything is meaningless as long as he feeds.
around him the druggies try to peel their passed out - when did he pass out?- leader of the chained man. Mush manages it with is Brute strength.
I would like to be strong like that. Aggregation of matter and structural change with minimal energy spent and easy dissolving for the acquisition of new structures... What a clever passenger.
Said passenger's host moves to attack.
The calculations go off without thinking. Strategy forms from a groggy mind. All upper body muscles tense before relaxing. from his chained for a wave kinetic radiation bursts. An omnidirectional beam. an explosion.
He had used it through his hands for maximization of impact, aiming, and control, but all the host's form is a channel for the blast. As it is, the impact will feel less like a cannonball and more like a strong push from a large animal.
It is enough.
Mush, squealer, and the armed man are sent off their balance. the metal of his constraints twists but does not give. As they try to get their barrings another wave comes. Then another, them another.
At the 4th wave, the passenger imposed limits for output/ per time are almost reached, but it does not matter. The chains had been broken.
This is fun.
Survive
Yeah
Grow
I should get in more fights. It is fun
Become
But first... The now partially crystalline licks his lips as he moves to the pile of trash that is the dazed Mush.
To taken aback by the several radiation blasts the merchant can barely seat up before an elongated crystal finger stabs through his left cheek.
His screams are deafening. Somehow ugly and pitiful at the same time. They last for less than 6 seconds before he passes out
"Aaaargh...Wha- Aah- Adam." The woman surprisingly recovers before the goons. Her voice is strained and it seems like she is concussed. " A-Adam, h-help." Blinded by blood from a injure somewhere in her head, and with the brain more scrambled than If it had a baseball bat to the head, she moans and begs. " where are you?"
Squealer looked around for a bit, before scrambling towards the downed Skidmard.
"Nonono... Adam, baby. My Skidie. Wa-wake up. Wake up." She shook his unconscious body. Probably thought he was dead. She seemed pretty out of it.
"Adam... I like that name." The crystal man says, alredy 2 feet taller with solid multicolored matter instead of skin and bone from neck. the upper half of the left side of his head forming into a half helmet. " Adam, Adam, Adam... I heard this one before."
The woman looked up in fear. Fear quickly morphed into rage as she looked between the monster and her sleeping lover. " Stay the fuck away cock-sucking retard freak!" She yelled, getting up and putting herself as a barrier to protect skidmark from the approaching enemy. " If touch one more hair of his head I fucking run you over with my tank until of nothing but s shitstain on the asphalt!"
Hmn... she is brave. Was I ever brave? What is to be brave?
Face fear and danger. Persevere.
Not brave them, but - Survive, Grow
Euphoric and absentmindedly the 6 foot Changer grabbed the Tinker by the arm.
He would dream with her screams for weeks after that.
###
Adam managed to avoid running into anyone for 2 weeks after that.
Aside from tinkering he did not do much with his time.
He woke up, ate ( normal food, do not think of parahumans, do not think, do not think) went to the abandoned building he made his workshop, ate, slept more, ate, Tinkered more, ate, slept and inject himself with what he had stolen when things got to much.
He did not like it all.
He thought of himself. Thought of his life and wondered on what to do with it.
What was he? He was a parasite. He did nothing to this world beyond taking.
He liked tinkering. Creating instead of consuming felt good... but not enough to justify his hazardous presence and the pain of abstinence.
He thought of ending it all. it felt attractive not being, not having to worry about all of this. Gone hunger, gone shame, gone boredom, gone self-hatred...gone it all... But he quickly discarded the plan.
His calculations and a afternoon of experimentation proved that it would take a very special bomb or the work of multiple heroes to put him to sleep. Destroying his head did not work, jumping in the sea only made him turn to his uglier self ( who did not need to breathe apparently) and poisons only made him writhe in agony for a few hours before his healing factor took care of it.
Doable maybe, but deep down he wanted to ( Survive! Grow! Become!) give the world a chance.
So ... he lived. For a few weeks, he lived.
It got a little easier every day but it still felt empty before the man appeared.
" Is this seat taken?"
He approached out of nowhere while Adam ( he had started calling himself Adam, only because the name would not leave his mind) was sitting over the edge of a dock close to the abandoned building he had made into a Tinker cave. The man was black and very thin, his clothes were fancy, but not too much soo, just enough for Adam to calculate he was not a person who would be working anywhere near this part of town.
The fancy man seated next to Adam on the dock without waiting for an answer. The parahuman did not bother to answer only stared with tired eyes at the weird person.
The stranger was not deterred by the silence though."From all the decay the Bay is still a beautiful place, don't you agree?"
A weird but not untrue statement. In his brief time existing Adam had learned to appreciate the small things of beauty and love on this weird place... How the city lights almost looked like stars from this part of the bay; how good it was to be close to the ocean ( there was an odd nostalgia about swimming on the soft tides); how some cashiers from where he bought food managed to have genuine smiles on their faces and one of them even offered some free canned beans, saying Adam made her remember of their son.
"I guess... yeah, I guess you are right."
He continued, voice taking a magnanimous tone."I intend on fixing this place one day. Cleaning the docks, repurposing all this abandoned side of the city into a place of high activity and trade. To-"
"Why?''
"..."
The question seemed to cut the stranger's line of thought, as If he expected to be allowed a speech time table. He recovered fast though contracting with his own question.
" Why I intend on reforming this area you mean?"
"Why do anything..." Adam divagated. " You say you want to change things for the better. But why do you want that? What in you told you this is something worth doing? What makes things worth doing? I mean, you could be doing anything else, but you ended up wanting to this. Was it your past? Somehting more innate to your person? What keeps you going with said goal ?"
The man only stared at Adam for a bit before smiling. " Oh believe me when I tell you, this question had plagued me before. In my youth, I was a man, I joined a military force believing that it would make the world a better place by that. You know what I suffered for it?"
Adam merely shook his head, signing for the man to proceed.
"Hell. I saw the hell of maddening monsters tearing man apart like paper. Of life and death being put at the wims of a madman and the system I was indoctrinated to treat like a idol above man fail me and my people as easily as a fool that forgets the cowardness and selfishness of individual man."
Adam honestly did not know how to answer to that, so he only listened.
" Yet, I did not despair. If all-purpose I had adopted until my encounter with reality was misguided, I decided I shall craft my own purpose based on my most natural desires. I shall become Who I wish to be and shape the world around me according to my values. To hell with the rest of the world. To hell with their expectations and desires and judgment. I shall shape myself and the world around me and never wield or cowar again. Never let others decide my fate or destroy what I value. Become the King of my world and make it as it should be."
Adam's eyes actually gained life at the stranger's weird but genuine passion. "And... did it work?"
The man's face lit up. " I am today more powerful and successful than any who knew would have ever dreamed. I can say with Pride that the world is my oister."
Adam did not understand well the mister part, but he felt this weird man's resolutions restante with him.
The problem was, If he was to craft himself a propores and say fuck it to all that making him desviar... what should it be? What did fascinate him? What did he truly want?
The stranger opened his mouth to talk more, before a ring interrupted him. Reaching one dark hand into his suit's pocket he produced a small modern cellphone, the type that came without buttons and with a screen.
"A moment please." He said before getting up and walking a few feet away from Adam.
The young man did not want to pry on his new aquantice's business, but he could not avoid getting curious on how the stranger's previously confident face was overtaken with a fearsome expression during the brief phone call.
When he returned to Adam's side, not a full 2 minutes later, the man was stiff and had an air of nervousness to him. "Sorry for the interruptor."
"It is ok."
"Yes, uhm... yes, Mhmrgh." He cleared his throath and visibly fumbled a bit with his own thoughts before asking: " And you, my friend, where are you from? What brought you to this beautiful city?"
Hmn... weird how he would change subjects so suddenly, but Adam knew not a reason to avoid the question. " I am not sure really. My life has been...confusing."
The stranger did not react as expected, instead of asking about it he merely exclaimed. " Well, you should try to find out them! Our past molds us and is essential for a man to determine who he is and what he should do." He said, but without the same conviction he had talked with earlier
Find out... That... Was something.
He remembers the metal room. He remembers they had done something to him. Changed him. Made him how he is. Whatever he was. Whatever he might make of himself. It all came back to them. To that one woman with dark skin and tired eyes.
"Well, It was pleasurable talking to you, but I must return to work." The man said getting up. "I hope you find your way into this confusing life in the city of Brockton Bay."
As the man left his words stayed with Adam through the rest of the day.
It might be objectively meaningless, but it was something.
He could latch on to that, he could occupy himself. He could... Be something. If he found those people, that woman, he would know what purpose they created him for, what they wanted from him... And than he could do exactly the opposite.
If the strongest feeling he had was dissatisfaction with the fate chosen for him, If he craved to know himself... Then Why not? Why not spit in the face of his makers and rebuild himself in opposition to them?
With a renewed spirit, Adam returned to his workshop and started drawing. He drew her face pushing every single detail he could from his blurry memory.
"I will find you." He told the image drawn in his wall, determined eyes meeting the drawing's tired ones. " And I will break whatever fate you imagined with my own hands."
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
Author note
Well... prelude is over. Sorry If it took to long. I R L things going on
Hope you are liking it, And for whoover is has time, comment make me happy