Cam – Scion of Ares

With glowing red eyes, the wolfspawn slowly stalked down the darkened corridor, sniffing at the air. “Come out little boy, I know you’re in here. I can smell you.” The creature’s gravelly voice echoed through the abandoned apartment building, it’s six-foot form nearly filling the width of the rubbish-filled corridor. Suddenly his quarry, a teenage boy in ragged clothes, burst out of one the rooms and began running down the corridor. He was clutching his arm, blood trickling from between his fingers. Baring its fangs in a smile, the wolfspawn began running after him, its paws pounding on the floor; the hunt was on.

The boy darted down the corridor, leaping over obstacles and gaps in the floor. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw that the wolfspawn was rapidly gaining ground. He appeared to change his mind, instead of continuing to run towards the stairwell, he jumped through a hole in the plasterboard walls into one of the apartments. The wolfspawn followed, making a hole of its own as it ran straight through the thin walls in pursuit of the boy. The boy scrambled across the floor, shielding his eyes from the flying wall fragments. “Why can’t you just leave me alone?” He yelled desperately.

The wolfspawn didn’t answer and instead paced back and forth in front of the boy, savouring the smell of his blood. Without warning, it launched itself at the boy, its fangs bared and ready to strike. However, the boy quickly rolled out of the way, ducking under the wolfspawn and evading its jaws by a matter of inches. As the wolfspawn landed on the floor, the boy jumped to his feet and ran towards the boarded up windows. He brought both his arms up and leapt through the window, splintering the wooden planks. Sailing out the window, he plummeted towards the alleyway five stories below. The boy reached out and grabbed a telephone cable strung between the apartment building and its nearby neighbour. He grunted in pain as it arrested his fall but the strength of the cable wasn’t strong enough to take his weight and it snapped. Still holding onto it, the boy was swung down against the neighbouring building, slamming into the wall. The impact was hard, and try as he might he couldn’t stifle the yell of pain as he hit his injured arm. Watching from the window, the wolfspawn snarled as the boy let go of the cable, kicked off the wall, and somersaulted through the air before landing crouched on the floor. “You can run boy,” the wolfspawn called out, “but you can’t hide. I can smell your blood from a hundred miles away.” They locked eyes for several seconds, the boy panting heavily.

“I’ve gotten pretty good at running the last couple of years,” he yelled back before bolting down the alley.

Running into the deserted street, the boy jumped onto the bonnet of an abandoned car and used it as a launching point to leap clear over a chain link fence topped with razor wire. Landing on his feet, he quickly disappeared into the darkness of the junk yard beyond.

The wolfspawn howled in delight; this quarry was proving to be a little more elusive than he had first suspected. This was going to be fun. As the last echoes of the howl were lost to the wind, the wolfspawn leapt out of the window, bouncing from wall to wall on its way down to the ground. It ran across the road and used the same trick as the boy, using the abandoned car to leap over the fence. The immense weight of the wolfspawn crushed the car, causing the still unbroken side windows to explode outwards. It failed to clear the fence but the flimsy steel wire was no obstacle to the wolfspawn as it tore through it, buckling the fence as it chased the boy into the junk yard.

The air in the junk yard was a jumble of smells, oil, petrol and diesel, rusting metal, decaying rubber, decomposing body parts. From the smells, the wolfspawn knew that somebody had been busy in this yard, and not just in the scrap metal business. However, the many overlapping smells obscured the boy’s scent; he’d have to track the boy the old-fashioned way, by following his footprints.

Slowly, it began to creep between the mounds of scrap metal, keeping an eye on the piles of rusting cars. Any of them would make a good hiding place for the boy. A clatter of metal on metal echoed through the night, the sound bouncing around the junk yard like pulses of sonar. The wolfspawn could almost see the waves of sound as they swept past, tracking them back to their source and locking on to the boy’s location. It bounded up a pile of scrap, sliding down the far side into a cul-de-sac formed by three overflowing piles of scrap. As it landed, a miniature avalanche of scrap caused by its slide blocked the exit behind it and it looked over at the terrified boy, grinning a fang-filled smile.

The boy looked around, desperately searching for an exit and the wolfspawn watched as a look of terror passed over the boy’s face when he realised that he was trapped. He backed up against the pile of scrap behind him, trying to get as far away from the wolfspawn as possible. “Little boy, scared and all alone in the night,” the wolfspawn taunted as the boy nervously fiddled with an amulet around his neck, “got any last words before I feast on your heart?”

Taking down his hood, the boy looked up at the wolfspawn, smirking slightly. He grasped the amulet firmly, a wolf talon on an old leather string, the fear in his blue eyes gone and replaced by a mischievous twinkle. “Who said I was alone?” There was a burst of white light and a spectral form erupted from the talon, landing in front of the boy. The spectral form coalesced into that of a wolf, smaller than the wolfspawn, but no less impressive, it’s white and brown fur a stark contrast to the wolfspawn’s blood spattered grey. “Say hello to partner, Orin,” the boy said cracking his knuckles. A tattoo in the shape of a twisted four-pointed star on his right shoulder briefly glowed, its blue light shining faintly through the material of his hooded top. The light spread down the veins of his right arm before racing over the rest of his body, fading moments later. “You’ve hunted scions for the last time, spawn breath.”

Snarling, the wolfspawn charged at the pair, he wasn’t going to let some whelp and his mutt get the better of him. It was time to end this game.

—-

“How’s the arm Cam?” Orin asked, walking over to the boy as he sat on a pile of tyres with a small backpack at his feet.

“Meh, I heal quickly enough.” Cam took off his hooded top and inspected the gash on his arm. It had been hurt when he had allowed the wolfspawn to slash him with its claws whilst it chased him. He had done this in an attempt to appear weak and helpless. It had been a calculated ploy, luring the wolfspawn into the ambush; one that Orin had not accepted without argument. Cam could tell that his friend and guardian was still a little mad at him for not listening. The gash wasn’t deep and it was still bleeding. He reached into the bag and pulled a strip of “clean” cloth that he used as a makeshift bandage, wrapping it around the wound. A little bit of blood soaked through but the material stopped the bleeding. The gash would probably leave a scar, but it wouldn’t be his first; he had a few already. With his top off, the scar he had received from a wolfspawn three years ago was clearly visible, slashing across his belly and left side. It was the first time he’d seen a monster and it was a night he’d like to forget, if only the nightmares would let him.

Satisfied that his arm was okay for the moment, he put his top back on, hopped off the tyres and walked over to the corpse of the wolfspawn. The beast hadn’t taken long to defeat, little more than five minutes. Between the two of them, they had managed to do it without sustaining any injuries more serious than a few grazes and bruises.

Taking out a small knife tucked into his sock, he reached down and cut off the long central talon from each of the wolfspawn’s claws. The creature’s eyes had also solidified in its death becoming red crystals. “These should be worth a bit on the market,” Cam said digging them out with the knife, “this city does have a goblin market, right?”

“As far as I know.”

There was a squelching sound from the corpse and it started to sag. It had only been dead for a couple of minutes but it was already starting to dissolve into a black, oil-like ichor. In a matter of seconds, there was nothing left of the wolfspawn except a pool of ichor. Cam knew that too would soon disappear, evaporating in the dawn sun. “Let’s get out of here Orin, I’m beat,” he said, putting the talons and eyes into the backpack.

—-

What a sight they must make, Cam thought as they walked down the street. A scruffy homeless kid with dirty and ripped clothes, a blood soaked makeshift bandage around his upper arm visible through the torn sleeve of his stop, a scar on his face, and a large wolf-like dog following him like a loyal pet. Lucky for them it was past midnight and there was no one around to see them, at least no one who cared that is.

“You need to be more careful,” Orin said cautiously, coming up alongside him.

“What do you mean?” Cam asked innocently, knowing full well what Orin was going to say.

“Using yourself as bait like that, it’s reckless and stupid.” The wolf hopped in front of Cam, forcing him to stop. “The last time you faced a wolfspawn you were almost killed! This time you got lucky.”

“Last time,” Cam snapped, “there were four of them and I was just a kid.”

“You’re still a child Cam, and the only reason you survived before is that your father saved your life.”

“I’m not a kid anymore, I’m fifteen. And I asked you never to talk about that man!” Cam was almost yelling; his face flushed red with anger. He pushed past Orin and continued walking briskly down the street; his shoulders and back tensed.

Orin walked behind him for several minutes before Cam broke the awkward silence. “Sorry for yelling at you like that. You’re my oldest friend Orin; I know you’re only looking out for me.”

“You know, if you had been born in Ancient Greece, you would be considered a man by now,” Orin said, “and you would have been trained from birth in how to use your abilities.”

“Yeah,” Cam said smiling, “but the nearest I’ve been to Ancient Greece is Athens in Ohio. I guess I’ll just have to make do with what I learned in Ms McKenna’s seventh grade history lessons and watching way too many Jackie Chan movies as a kid.”

Orin laughed, which was a disturbing sight to those not used to the large wolf spirit. “I suppose that would explain your terrible form and lack of technique.”

“Did you just insult the fists?” Cam asked in mock indignation. “You do not insult the fists.”

Eventually, after nearly an hour of walking, they arrived at a sleazy motel. The sort of motel frequented by prostitutes and drug dealers and didn’t think twice about renting a room to an unaccompanied fifteen-year-old boy who paid in cash. He was sure the manager thought that he was some runaway kid or gang member and if wasn’t already involved in business of its two main group of clients, he soon would be. It was a dangerous place to stay, marginally safer than sleeping on the street, but only just. On his first night, he’d been accosted by a junkie attempting to steal what little money he had, probably trying to get his next fix. All that the man got of it though was a broken nose and a few bruises. Not long afterwards, he had been approached been a group of men decked out in bling and carrying poorly concealed handguns; their get up screamed gang members. They’d offered him a job, saying they could use a “scrappy little punk” like him. Cam had refused, politely but firmly; there was no way he was going to get involved with the drugs trade; or the sex trade for that matter, they had been disturbingly vague on what they wanted him for. He hoped they had gotten the message; he didn’t want any trouble from them.

With Orin close behind, Cam walked across the parking lot towards their room. The lot wasn’t deserted, even at this time of night; two men sat on the bonnet of a car, watching Cam closely. He kept his head down, watching the two men out of the corner of his eye. They were probably just lookouts for the gang that used the motel as a drug den and whorehouse, but he wasn’t taking any chances. Cam had been on the run for three years, hunted and tracked by monsters and individuals who wanted to kill him for what he was or wanted to use him for that same reason. He hadn’t survived this long by being complacent.

Cam didn’t relax until he was safely in his room; the door closed and jammed shut with a baseball bat. “I’m telling you Orin, if it weren’t for the fact that this is the only place we can stay without attracting too much attention, I’d seriously consider finding somewhere else.”

“Pity,” a voice said from the darkness, “this place has character.”

Cam span round, slapping the light switch and dropping into a combat crouch. Why hadn’t Orin detected someone was in the room? His heart was pounding, adrenaline coursing through his system. Then, he saw who the intruder was.

Sitting in a chair, with a bottle of beer in his hand, was a gruff middle-aged man in a leather jacket. Leaning against a wall shotgun and massive sword, its blade at least two meters hilt to tip. Cam stood up and fixed the man with a smouldering glare. “Ares, what the hell do you want?”

The Greek god of war sighed. “Just once, would it kill you to call me dad?”

Dragonstar – Part 07

Trace scanned the controls trying to hide how much he was impressed. Rotational control thrusters, multi-vector tactile control sticks, holographic heads-up display, is that an overburn supercharger? Nice. There were a few controls he didn’t recognise though; like the arcane oscillator, his grandfather’s old dropship hadn’t had one of those, neither did any of Dorga’s shuttles. Still, the layout was identical just as he said it would be; he could do this.

Grasping the twin control sticks, Trace felt the ship respond to his command. Compared to a jumpcraft or one of Dorga’s shuttles, the Chimera was a lumbering giant. Looking at the readouts though, he could tell that the Chimera was faster in straight-line flight.

“Stop drooling over the controls and get with it!” Korodo’s voice focused his attention back on Dorga’s shuttles. Remembering how his grandfather had shown him, Trace jabbed at the holographic controls and brought up the ship’s external cameras. A series of windows appeared in the HUD showing the video feeds from the cameras and giving Trace the ability to view what was happening around the ship.

“Where are they?” Korodo said as he cycled through the various sensor systems at his station. “They’re not showing up on the sensors.”

“I know; they’re Guild shuttles, they’ve all got stealth mesh on their outer hulls.” Glancing at the various camera views, he spotted three shuttles. They may be masked on radar, but they couldn’t hide from the visual cameras without major technological and magical assistance. “Got ‘em, seven o’clock high, four o’clock low and six o’clock level. Each of ‘em are armed with twin laser cannons and four externally mounted missiles, radar guided. Top combat speed 22 thousand kph, but they don’t have starcasters. We can outrun them on our main engines, but on combat drives they’re faster and more manoeuvrable than us.” Trace knew they couldn’t switch to their main engines whilst they were still engaged; their manoeuvrability would drop drastically and they would be sitting duck for the shuttles who would have a clear shot at them for a least a minute. If they tried to take evasive action while accelerating, the immense stresses involved in the violent manoeuvres would tear the Chimera apart. “They’ve got no shields, and their polymeric armour plating is weak around the thrusters.”

“And how do you know all that?” Korodo asked, slightly impressed that the boy could rattle off such information so calmly in the middle of combat.

Trace glanced over his shoulder at the half-dragon and smiled. “Heh, you forgotten who I used to work for?”

“Okay, since you’re the expert at this, what do you suggest?”

Trace was thrown for a second, expecting to detect a hint of sarcasm in what Korodo had said; but there wasn’t any. Was that actually a compliment from the noble? “Erm … give me a second. This isn’t like getting away from police jumpers, it ‘aint as if I can dodge between skyscrapers and loose ‘em in the sprawl.” Glancing at the camera feeds, he saw one of the shuttles dart forward, aiming a strafing run at the Chimera’s side.

Korodo nodded and pulled on a headset. “Bolts, what’s the status of the starcaster?”

—-

The soulmech braced himself against an overhead beam as the ship rocked. He was in the small engineering compartment at the rear of the ship. On either side of the cramped room lay the ship’s main engines. Although currently idling, the hum from the giant electromagnetic coils around their particle impulse chambers created a charged atmosphere, the air smelling of ionised oxygen molecules.

“Bolts, what’s the status of the starcaster?” Korodo’s voice crackled over the intercom. The engineer glanced over at the transparent crystal sphere nearly a metre across at the back of the room. Smaller, fist-sized hexagonal crystals orbited it, sparks of magical energy drifting from them and into the central crystal.

Bolts activated his internal transceiver and connected to the ship’s internal communication network. “It’s going to take some time,” he said looking at the holographic readouts encircling the starcaster, “when main power was shut down, the caster dumped its charge. It’ll be a few minutes before the mana levels are restored.”

“Is there any way you can speed it up?” The ship shook as another round of laser fire struck the ship and alarms starting to wail.

“I’ll try,” Bolts said, “even if I have to shovel mana into the caster myself.”

—-

Tsukiko stumbled as the ship rocked, almost dropping the dermal regenerator she had been using. Barak caught her as she stumbled, catching her with his arm. “Careful Suki,” he said playfully, “I’ve got enough battle scars as it is without a new one on my forehead.”

“Pity,” Tsukiko said as she passed the regenerator over the orc’s head wound, knitting the flesh back together, “I like some of those scars.”

A particularly violent jolt shook the ship; the two of them felt the ship shudder as it sustained a direct hit. The deck plates beneath their feet transmitted the vibration of something exploding elsewhere in the ship and alarms started to sound. “Alert, hull breach in port cargo bay. Decompression contained.”

Barak sat up. “Please tell me we didn’t leave Korodo in charge of the ship?” The orc swung his legs of the side of the medical bed. “And don’t give any me any of that ‘you need rest’ doctor-speak.” He said when he saw the look that Tsukiko was giving him as he clipped his sidearm holster to his belt.

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Tsukiko said handing him his pistol, “but I need to give you something first.” She reached forward as Barak looked up and kissed him.

—-

“Echo two,” the shuttle pilot said into his headset, “swing around and attack the left flank. Echo three drop back and execute a flip six three in case the Chimera gets past echo two.” Dorga watched the man at work, manoeuvring the various shuttles around in an effort to engage the rapidly evading ship. Grinding his teeth in anger, he recognised the flying style of Chimera’s pilot. Although it appeared wild, chaotic and undisciplined, it was anything but random. He should know; he had watched as the young boy had developed his piloting skills over the years.

Earlier, Dorga had told Trace that the boy had been born to be a thief; that it came to him naturally. However, the guildmaster knew that he had been lying when he had said this. Trace may have been a good thief, but he was a better pilot. It was in his blood; this was what he had been born to do.

—-

As the alarms rang, Trace scanned the video feeds, committing the position and flight path of each shuttle to memory. “Hang on,” he said over his shoulder, “this might get … a little rough.” He jammed the left control stick forward and pulled the right stick all the way back. In response, the starboard engines went into full reverse as the port engine went to full thrust; the Chimera began to swing around. At the same time, Trace rotated the control sticks within their gyroscopic mounts, triggering the rotational control thrusters. The Chimera twisted and turned, rotating in all three dimensions and scattering the three shuttles, its superstructure groaning in protest over the violent stresses.

Korodo gripped tightly onto the armrests of his seat, thrown about by the rapid and wild manoeuvres. The gravity field generated by the starcaster could barely keep up. The half-dragon could only watch as young boy in the pilot’s seat threw his ship through a series of seemingly random manoeuvres. Earlier, he had accused Trace of being reckless and insane. But watching him now, he had to admit that he had been wrong. In the reflection in the glass, Korodo could see the determined expression on the boy’s face, the depth of his concentration visible in the motion of his eyes and the set of his shoulders as he gripped the controls, a bead of sweat forming on his forehead.

Trace’s eyes flicked from the video feeds to the various system readouts to the view outside the cockpit window, all in rapid succession. Taking in all the information and processing it rapidly, he integrated all of it into a series of quick-fire manoeuvres. He wasn’t even consciously aware of what he was doing, barely even aware of the presence of Korodo. Trace was “in the zone,” a place he always went to in these situations, a place where all conscious consideration was replaced by acting on pure instinct and adrenaline. However, this time was different; this time he wasn’t trying to evade police jumpers who just wanted to stop and arrest him. This time people were actively trying to kill. His heart was thundering in his chest.

Jerking on the control sticks, Trace fired the RCS thrusters and halted the Chimera’s movements, its bow pointing directly at one of the guild shuttles. A single tone sounded and a flashing targeting box appeared over the shuttle in the HUD, the ship’s forward cannons had locked on using the visual cameras for targeting.

Trace hesitated; he knew that the shuttle in his sights was the one that Dorga was on, the one containing his father. There was no way he could possibly have known this, each of the shuttles was identical, but it was as if he could feel Dorga’s presence aboard it. His thumbs hovered over the firing switches on the control sticks. With just a push of a button, he could fire the cannons and destroy the shuttle. They were locked on, at this range there was no way that he would miss, no way that the shuttle would survive. All he had to do was push the switch.

“FIRE!” Korodo yelled from behind him, seeing the same targeting information as Trace.

The sweat dribbled from Trace’s brow, his knuckles white from his grip on the sticks. Even after everything that Dorga had done to him, the things that he had forced him to do over the years, the hatred he felt for the man, he hesitated.

Closing his eyes, he remembered the piercing sound of the alarm as the airlock on his family’s colony was breeched; watching from the balcony of the main house where he had been playing as men poured into the grounds of the compound, gunning down everyone they came across; men, women, children, it didn’t seem to make any difference to them. There was an acrid smell of gunfire in the air and the dull thumps of subsonic ammunition designed not to pierce the colony’s dome seemed to be everywhere. There was a crack and a white streak of tracer fire as a spray of gunfire lanced up from the men towards the balcony. Something warm and wet splattered across the side of his face, followed by the thud of something hitting the floor. Turning around he saw his cousin Carric lying on the floor, blood pooling around his bullet-mangled head. Killed instantly by the burst, he hadn’t even had time to scream as the bullets tore through his face, spraying his blood on to Trace; they had been best friends, the same age, sharing the same birthday, they had done everything together. He just stood there, staring at the body in shock, even as the men began storming the house. His mother came onto the balcony, scooping him up and carrying him into the house, holding him tightly. She tried to shield him from seeing the bodies, but there were too many of them. Cut off from garage and small hanger, they were forced to retreat to the bedrooms. She made him hide under his bed, telling him to be quiet and that it would be all right. Although he was scared, he nodded and tried to smile bravely. If she told him that he would be safe and that the bad men wouldn’t find him, then that’s what would happen; she wouldn’t lie to him. There were gunshots from outside his room and he heard voices, his mother and another man. He couldn’t understand what they were saying. They were speaking in the human language Common, but he only spoke Elven, the language of his mother and her family. She was begging with the man, pleading with him. There was a single gunshot; he didn’t hear his mother speak again. The door opened; from underneath the bed he saw his mother’s dead body lying on the other side of the doorway. A man walked into the bedroom and knelt by the side of the bed. The human looked under the bed and saw him cowering in the shadows. His mother’s blood was still on the man’s face, a face he would grow to hate over the next ten years; a gloved and bloody hand reached towards him as the man smiled cruelly.

“What are you waiting for?” Korodo yelled out, his voice breaking Trace out of the flashback. “Fire the cannons!”

Trace’s eyes snapped open and he retightened his grip on the controls. Screaming a wordless cry of rage and long suppressed grief, he jammed his thumbs onto the firing switches and opened fire.

—-

Red warning lights flashed, a shrill alarm filled the shuttle. “Lock on warning!” The pilot yelled, “we’re being targeted!”

Dorga stumbled as the pilot rolled the ship to the side. “Evade, get us out of here!”

“Too late!”

—-

The railgun rounds from the Chimera’s forward guns tore into the shuttle, the hyper-accelerated metal slugs vaporising on impact and obliterating the target. Trace didn’t turn away as the shuttle’s power cells detonated, the flames of the explosion reflected in his tear-streaked eyes. Hull fragments scattered away from the explosion, pattering like hailstones on the hull of the Chimera. The other two shuttles peeled away to regroup.

Korodo leaned over and slapped him on the shoulder. “Great shot kid, you got them!”

Trace swallowed. “Yeah … I … I got him, them.” He sniffed and wiped his eyes.

The half-dragon heard the shakiness in the boy’s voice and saw the glisten of moisture on the boy’s arm, where he’d wiped his eyes. It was at that moment that Korodo realised who might have been onboard that shuttle. “Are you okay?” He asked carefully.

There was a pause before Trace responded, his voice still a little unsteady. “I … I’m …” Before he could finish the cockpit door and Barak walked in, stopping when he saw the boy sitting in the pilot’s seat.

“Okay,” the orc said scratching his head, “can someone explain why the kid’s sitting at the controls?”

“There’s still two of them out there,” Trace said quietly, focusing on the video feeds and the controls. The other two shuttles had fallen back but hadn’t left completely. Trace had a feeling that they were going to retreat to missile range and attempt to destroy the Chimera while staying out of range of the ships guns.

Korodo turned around and fixed the orc with a firm look. “Barak, can you take the other station and man the guns.” His eyes were saying “drop the subject and leave the kid to get on with his job.” The orc shrugged and sat down, fastening his safety harness.

Trace sat at the flight controls, staring rigidly forward and ignored the two men behind him as he piloted the ship.

“Bring us around to heading one eight zero mark six,” Barak said diverting weapons control to his station. “Did you hear me kid?” He added when Trace didn’t answer.

“I heard you,” Trace muttered, “and my name’s Trace, not kid.” Cutting the engines, he used the RCS thrusters to swing the ship around before reengaging the engines to reverse their heading. The two surviving shuttles had regrouped and were charging towards them. Another tone sounded, this time accompanied by a warning message.

“Alert, missile lock.”

Both of the shuttles fired their entire missile complement and eight missiles began to streak their way towards the Chimera. The missiles shot away from the two shuttles, scattering in all directions before arcing around to attack the Chimera from multiple directions. “Not good,” Trace said, twisting the control sticks and sending the ship into a barrel roll. Barak set the railguns to rapid-fire mode, targeting the heat blooms caused by the missile’s rocket engines. A barrage of hypervelocity slugs struck out at the missiles as the guns automatically tracked the incoming targets. First one, then two missiles were shredded by the guns. One after another, the missiles were intercepted and destroyed.

As the Chimera was buffeted by the exploding missiles, Trace struggled with the controls trying to keep the ship clear of the detonations. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the flare of rocket exhaust as missile broke through the railgun barrage. “Hang on!” He yelled yanking desperately at the controls in an attempt to twist the ship out of the way but it was too late, the missile was already locked on and struck the rear of the ship. It penetrated the hull punching through the metal and ceramic hull plating into the launch bay before detonating. The blast shook the ship, destroying the small shuttle in the launch bay, rupturing fuel and power lines and triggering secondary explosions.

Alarms screamed and the ship rocked violently. Only their safety harnesses kept Korodo and Barak in their seats as the ship was thrown to the side by the force of the explosion, the extreme g-forces created completely overwhelming the starcaster’s ability to compensate. “Shiv!” cursed the orc when the ship stopped spinning as the RCS thrusters automatically stabilised the ship, “weapons control is out, the combat drives are offline, we’ve got a decompression in the launch bay and the damage control system is down.”

“My board’s down too,” Korodo added, readjusting his headset. “Bolts, Suki, you two okay?” He received affirmatives from both of them, although the engineer had some strong words in regards to Korodo’s flying skills. The half-dragon smiled as Bolts continued his tirade, wondering what the soulmech would say when he found out that Korodo hadn’t been at the controls. “Kid, what about you?” When there was no immediate answer, he turned around in his seat and looked over at Trace.

The boy was slumped over the controls, lying bodily on top of them with his upper body resting at an uncomfortable angle against the cockpit window. His was face covered in blood, streaming from a gash on the side of his head; the hair around the wound matted with blood. On the glass of the cockpit window was a bloody mark where his head had struck it violently. The safety harness, which Trace had forgotten to fasten, dangled uselessly at the side of the seat.

“Suki, get up here now!” Korodo said into his headset as he slapped the release button on his harness. He jumped out of his seat and reached over to Trace, pulling him gently back into his seat. The boy was unconscious and the head wound probably looked worse than it actually was. Still, he was bleeding quite heavily. Korodo tore of the sleeve of his shirt and pressed the material against Trace’s wound in an attempt to stem the bleeding, checking the video feeds. The two remaining shuttles were circling around for another attack run. This time, with the Chimera a sitting duck, it would be a killing blow. “Bolts, we could really do with that starcaster right now!”

“Field strength is at 87 percent,” Bolts said of the internal comms, his voice crackling over the bad connection, “and the mana flow is at six point two gans per second. That’s as good as we’re going to get until I make some repairs.”

“It’ll have to do,” Barak said, “punch it!”

Korodo leaned over the pilot controls, accessing the starcaster controls and programming the jump. There was no time to select a destination, all he could do was programme a blind jump and hope they didn’t emerge inside a planet or sun. Setting the starcaster for a 2 light year jump, he uttered a small prayer to the gods and pressed the jump button.

An Unlikely Hero – Issue 5

Todd cursed as another wave of Zombie Ninja’s stormed the barricades. Glancing at the ammo counter, he saw that his weapon was almost empty. At this rate, they would breach the compound and overrun the small group of defenders within minutes.

“I’m out!” A J called out over the headset. His friend was in one of the watchtowers manning its turret-mounted machine gun. A J jumped out of the turret and switched back to his assault rifle, using the under slung grenade launcher to send a barrage of frag grenades into the enemy. Explosions ripped through their ranks, shredding the undead horde. It was never going to be enough though, there were just too many of them. Then, just as he was about to give up, he heard a cracking voice over the radio.

“November six-three-six incoming, prepare for evac.”

“Fall back!” Todd said over the sounds of gunfire, “Protect the helipad.” The soldiers retreated from the wall and surrounded the helipad at the centre of the compound. Almost immediately, the Zombie Ninjas scaled the wall and began to pour into the compound. They were met by the concentrated fire of the soldier’s weapons as a battered helicopter swooped into the valley hovering over the compound. Although the paint was peeling and its hull scarred by battle, Todd could just about make out the faded logo of Overwatch, the organisation that had tried and failed to save the world from the undead invasion. The arrival of the helicopter caused the remaining defenders to cheer.

That moment of celebration would cost them. One of the zombies leapt from the wall on to one of the soldiers, tearing his throat out before anyone could stop it. There was a screech of tearing metal as one of the watch towers began to collapse. Todd saw A J fall from the top, plummeting to the ground. Acting without thinking, Todd switched to the gravity gun and fired. The energy beam struck A J mid-fall, arresting his descent. “You gotta love the gravity gun,” Todd said swinging his friend around and setting him down gently. The helicopter landed and the soldiers began to back towards it, firing as they moved.

“This is just like the Battle of Pittsburgh,” A J said as they covered the retreating soldiers.

“We’re in the middle of the Nevada Rad-Lands, how is this anything like the ruins of Pittsburgh?”

“Hostile terrain, surrounded by the enemy, chopper evac while under attack? This is just like the last three missions.”

Todd sighed and took another bite of his lunch, the plate balanced precariously on his knee as he jigged the controller around. “You’re right, this new downloadable content sucks.” He fired the last of his ammunition at the zombies and boarded the helicopter, followed closely behind by A J’s character. As soon as they were both on board, the helicopter took off and the “Mission Complete” screen appeared.

“Yeah, the Broken Arrow mission pack was better,” A J said as soon as they were back to the online lobby screen, his voice crackled as he adjusted his headset. They had been playing Zombie Ninja Assault over the internet for the last hour ever since A J had instant messaged him about one of their homework assignments. “Hey, did you tell your dad about what happened at the gas station this morning?”

“Are you kidding?” Todd said laughing. “Dad’d go mental. After everything that’s happened already, if I told him some gang member nearly shot me this morning, he’d yank me out of school and pack me off to the same fancy boarding school my cousin goes to in Europe. We lived in New York for 12 years, and the only time I saw a gun was on a cop’s belt. I’ve only been here for two months and I’ve already been shot and got caught up in an armed robbery! I thought Key West was supposed to be a safer place to live.”

“It is, you’re just a magnet for bad luck.” Todd heard a muffled over the headset calling up to A J. “I gotta go, mom say’s dinner’s ready. See you at school tomorrow?”

“As long as I don’t have to stop a bank robbery on the way.” There was a beep as A J logged off and Todd switched off the console. He was about to get up and take his plate downstairs when the nanobots chose that moment to “speak.”

“ANALYSIS OF TACTICAL SIMULATION COMPLETE. 26 STRATEGIC ERRORS NOTED. A REPORT HAS BEEN MADE WITH RECOMMENDATIONS INTENDED TO INCREASE COMBAT EFFICIENCY. DO YOU WISH TO REVIEW THE REPORT?”

—-

Sitting in front of a bank of computer screens, the man watched the house across the road as he eat the re-heated instant noodles, grimacing at the taste. Although he had not been able to enter the Marshall’s home, his boss had specifically forbidden that, he had managed to plant listening devices and hidden cameras in the grounds. The listening devices worked by bouncing an invisible laser off the house’s windows and measuring the vibrations caused by sounds from within. Sounds like people talking. Small cameras were also pointed at the windows so he could see as well as hear what was going on inside the house. He had also managed to tap the phones.

Although boring at first, he knew the assignment would soon become more interesting. While he was making his report earlier that evening, he mentioned the incident at the service station. His boss had found the information interesting and had decided to move the operation on to its next phase. He was to arrange an “accident” for Todd to test the boy’s newfound abilities. So far, he had it narrowed down to either a car accident or a fire at school. The car accident option would be the easiest, he would have no trouble making it look like a simple hit and run. A major fire at school would be a much more wide ranging test, testing more than just the boy’s resilience.

There was just one thing bothering him. So what if the kid was some sort of mutant with accelerated healing; it wasn’t as if they were rare. He couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about; or his boss’s fascination with the kid, not with their operation on Sentinel beginning to enter its most crucial stage. At least he didn’t have to spend all day babysitting a drugged kid in a basement like the rest of the team. As he thought about what he was going to do, he didn’t notice the women watching him from the shadows at the back of the room. There was little chance that he would have seen her even if he had been looking directly at her; she was only visible when she wanted to be seen. Had he been able to see her, he would have been surprised see that it was his target’s homeroom teacher.

If she stayed any longer, she knew that she would be tempted to interfere, to stop him from putting his plan into motion. That was against the rules. In fact, interfering in such a way would violate one of the highest rules of the oath she had sworn. Miss Gunderson sighed and closed her eyes. The darkened room shifted and blurred until it was replaced by a tranquil scene. Rolling hills covered in green grass stretched from horizon to horizon, dappled here and there with white snowflake-like flowers. The blue sky above was flawless, broken by streaks of wispy high clouds that only seemed to cement its perfection, not detract from it. A short distance away was a small folly resembling an idealised version of a small Ancient Greek temple.

Her surroundings weren’t the only thing that had changed. Gone was her short brown hair and green eyes and in their place was long blond hair and blue eyes. Everything about her had changed, her appearance, her height and build; in every way she was a different person.

As she walked towards the folly, she saw that she was not alone. Sitting down inside the folly on a stone chair was a Hispanic man in his late thirties. He was hunched over a chessboard on a marble plinth, his brow furrowed in concentration. When she walked into the folly, a second stone chair materialised on the other side of the plinth. One of the unique features of the folly was that it automatically adjusted its layout and the amount of seating in order to accommodate as many people as were inside it. The man looked up as the appearance of the chair broke his concentration. “Hola Helen,” he said smiling until he saw the clouded expression on her face and winced sympathetically, “bad day huh?”

Helen slumped down onto the chair. “You have no idea. Some sweaty, over-muscled brute plans to test my son’s abilities by either burning down his middle school with him inside or running him over in a car. I’m supposed to just stand aside and watch.”

“It’s difficult when your charge is your own kid. Trust me, I know how you feel; but you can’t interfere or act on their behalf.” He knew that there was little that he could say that he hadn’t already said over the last few months.

“I know I know, we’re only supposed give ‘advice and guidance’ and allow our charges to ‘fulfil their destinies’ on their own terms.” She said testily, “I swore the same oath as you did Matthew, remember? But it’s not that easy. My first charge was an eleven-year-old English boy who had just discovered his mutant abilities. He was a good kid with a loving family, and I gave him all the advice I could. But none of that helped when the soldiers came for him in the middle of the night. I did nothing as his family was murdered and he was whisked away. What can you say to a scared little boy, locked away in a government research lab to be experimented on like a lab animal?”

“He escaped in the end though.”

“Two years later, with blood on his hands from fighting his way out. Just a kid and he had to kill half-dozen people with his bare hands. He’s fifteen-years-old now and a wanted criminal on the Overwatch list of suspected terrorists, accused of stealing government research data because the British government didn’t want to admit to what they did to him. I feel useless just watching the same chain of events happen again, this time to my own son.”

Matthew got up, walked over to the edge of the folly and looked out over the green fields. He reached in to his pocket and took out a small photo from inside his wallet. It was of a young boy in dirty overalls sitting astride a battered dirt bike. There was a proud grin on his oil-streaked face as he started its motor. “Do you know why The Watch was created?”

Helen turned around in her seat and looked over at him. “To guide the next generation of heroes.”

“Well, yes, that’s the ‘party line.’ But do you know the real reason?” Helen shook her head in confusion, wondering where he was going with this. “It’s because they’re getting younger.”

“What do you mean?”

“Your brother was what, twenty four, twenty five when he volunteered for the Paragon programme?” Helen nodded. “That’s the average age when most heroes become active. I was a few weeks short of my eighteenth birthday when my father had his accident and passed on the role of Defender to me. I was one of the youngest of our generation.” He sat back down opposite her. “But now, mutants are getting their abilities at a younger age, metaprodigies get enrolled in accelerated learning programs before they’re even out of pre-school. My son was only 14 when he found the prototype battlesuit that I’d been working on just before I died and decided to use it himself. I would’ve killed dad for not stopping him if I was still alive. Ask any other member and they’ll tell you the same thing. They’re getting assigned to younger and younger charges. Our living peers may not have realised it yet, and when they do they certainly won’t like it, but the next generation of heroes are barely into their teens and Destiny is already picking them out.”

Neither of them spoke following Matthew’s speech. “How’s Jared doing?” Sarah asked, changing the subject.

“He’s doing great.” Matthew said turning back around. “He turned sixteen this summer, and he’s got his first girlfriend. No one has any idea that for the last year and a half, LA’s most prominent superhero has been a high school kid in a suit of power armour.” The smile on his face showed how proud he was of how much his son had accomplished, but is also showed a hint of sadness. He knew that his son was growing up without him and that soon, he would no longer need the advice of ‘Mr Cooper’ who had shown up mysteriously a few months after his father had died. When that happened his son would no longer be his charge, Mr Cooper would vanish and no one would remember he even existed.

—-

Todd sighed and pinched the brow of his nose in annoyance. “It’s not a ‘tactical simulation’, it’s a video game.”

“WHAT IS A ‘VIDEO GAME’?”

“You know what?” Todd said sitting down at his desk and opening one of his textbooks, “it’s getting late and I’ve got homework to do. Go look it up yourself.”

There was a noticeable pause before the nanobots responded. “UNTIL BIOHOST INTEGRATION IS COMPLETE, UNIT IS UNABLE TO ACCESS THE PLANETARY COMPUTER NETWORK TO UPDATE LANGUAGE LEXICON.”

“Yeah, and we call it the Internet, not ‘planetary computer network’.”

Again there was a pause before the nanobots responded. “UNTIL BIOHOST INTEGRATION IS COMPLETED, UNIT WILL NOT BE ABLE TO OPERATE AT MAXIMUM CAPABILITY.”

“Don’t get snippy with me,” Todd snapped, using one of his father’s favourite phrases. Despite the fact that the nanobots only “talked” to him through text, he definitely detected an attitude, a faint insistent tone in its “voice.” He got up from the desk and flopped facedown onto his bed. Todd screamed into his pillow, his cry of frustration muffled by the material pressing into his face. “You really think I’m gonna let some alien nano crud hack apart my insides? How do I know you know what you’re doing? You weren’t even designed for a human being!” That, as far as Todd was concerned, was the end of discussion on the matter. Until he better understood what the nanobots had planned, and until he was sure that they were capable of doing it without turning him into a pile of twitching organic goo, there was no way that he was going to give the nanobots the permission they needed to proceed.

“I should probably tell dad about all this,” he thought to himself as he flipped over and lay on his bed staring at the ceiling. “He’d probably freak out though.”

—-

Moored a little way off shore, the man watched the bridge from a small powerboat, squinting in the morning sunshine as it reflected of the water. After following Todd for several days, keeping him under surveillance, the man now had a good grasp on the boy’s movements and habits. He knew that after school, he had a habit of stopping off at a local electronics store to drool over the latest video games. On the odd morning that he was running late, he would get the school bus and when he didn’t, he usually met up with a friend as he cycled in. Whether on bike or on bus, Todd entered the city from the same direction; crossing the bridge in to Key West from Stock Island.

The man checked a handheld computer, looking at a series of status indicators on its screen. All of them glowed green; the explosive devices attached to the bridge’s supports were armed and ready. With a single button push, he could send the bridge crashing into the waters of the channel.

After a great deal of consideration, this was where he had decided to stage the “test” his boss wanted. In the end, both a simple car “accident” and a fire at Todd’s school might appear to be targeted attacks aimed at the boy. This way, it will appear that the boy was caught up in a terrorist attack just like everyone else.

—-

As Todd looked out of the window, he sighed; today wasn’t exactly turning out to be a good day. He’d woken up to find that vandals had gone down their road during the night and slashed the tyres of the resident’s cars. Even his bike hadn’t been spared with both its front and back tyres slashed. The depth and variety of his language when he had found out had surprised even him, it had certainly shocked his father when he came stomping back into the house, cursing the vandals with every insult that he knew. He had been forced to head down to the main road to catch the school bus.

The bus lurched again as the traffic moved slowly forward. With Key West being located on an island at the end of the Florida Keys, the Overseas Highway was the only road in or out of town. Crossing over the deep channel that separated Stock Island from Key West, traffic often crawled to stand still during rush hour. The junction across the bridge where the highway met Roosevelt Boulevard, the road that encircled the island of Key West, was often gridlocked. Today was no different and a queue had formed, tailing back across the bridge.

Todd hated the school bus; it was slow, noisy, stuffy, and even with the windows open, it was always hot. The seat belts that they had to wear were tight and uncomfortable. He turned away from the window and looked around the bus. There were only a dozen or so other children on the bus, most of the students at Horace O’bryant lived in Key West itself. This school bus was for those children like Todd who lived outside the city limits.

His mobile started vibrating in his pocket, its small speaker pumping out a tinny rendition of his favourite song. He took the device out of his pocket, looked down at the small screen and smiled; it was a text from A J.

—-

From his vantage point offshore, the man watched as the distinctive yellow school bus inched its way onto the bridge. His fingered hovered over the red “detonate” button. “Just a few more feet,” he muttered as he started to sweat.

—-

Todd jumped as a series of bangs rocked the bus, the loud retorts causing him to flash back for an instant to the night he had been shot. Clouds of smoke billowed up from beneath the bridge, enveloping the bus. Before anyone could react, the bus driver cursed as he looked out of the front window. A crack was racing across the width of the road where the join between two sections of the roadbed was failing. The bridge creaked; there was a moment of stillness as if time itself had paused and held its breath. Then with a loud snap, the last piece of steel reinforcement broke sending the road section crashing into the channel below at a steep angle. The bus driver threw the bus into reverse gear and slammed down on the accelerator in an attempt to prevent the bus sliding down the slope into the water. Its tires squealed and the children on board screamed. An SUV behind the bus lost traction and crashed hard into the back. Todd was frozen in fear; he was gripping on to the seat in front of him, his knuckles turning white with the pressure. He was thrown forward as the bus was shoved off the end of the broken road and only the tight seatbelt around his waist prevented him and the other children from being thrown out of their seats. The driver wasn’t so lucky, slamming forward and striking his head on windscreen as the bus pitched into the water.

The front of the bus sank into the channel, its rear sticking out and resting against the bridge. Water started to pour in, rapidly flooding the front of the bus. The other children started to panic and scramble over each other to get to the emergency exit at the back, but the incline the bus was leaning at was steep, almost 90 degrees. A shrill cry jolted Todd back to reality and he turned around just in time to catch one his classmates who had lost their grip and was sliding towards the water. “Thanks,” the boy said holding onto Todd tightly as he pulled him up.

Todd looked around the bus and realised with a start that he couldn’t see the bus driver. “Hey, where’s Jeffers?” The boy glanced towards the front of the bus; the driver was slumped over the wheel, the water already over his head. He unbuckled his seat belt and dropped into the water. The water was cold and the salt stung his eyes as he struggled to remove the driver’s belt. Just as his lungs began to scream for oxygen, the belt popped open and he dragged the unconscious driver to the surface, gasping for air.

The water was rising fast, pouring in through open windows and around the door seal. There was a shudder as the bus shifted, settling further into the channel’s silt bed as it slipped against the shattered bridge support. “Someone give me a hand,” he yelled out over the screaming. Someone, he didn’t know who, helped him drag the unconscious driver up the aisle. As they did so, a green wireframe representation of the school bus appeared in his field vision. Complex calculations began to flash by until the familiar green text appeared.

“AT PRESENT RATE OF WATER INGRESS, VEHICLE WILL BE COMPLETELY SUBMERGED IN APPROXIMATELY 63 SECONDS.”

Todd looked up at the emergency door, which still hadn’t been opened. Through the glass, he could see the SUV perched precariously on the edge of the bridge, threatening to fall onto the bus at any second. “If that car falls, we won’t even have that!” He muttered out loud.

The boy helping him with the driver looked at him confused, “You what?”

“Nothing,” Todd answered, “we gotta get that door opened.”

“It’s jammed,” said one of the younger kids, crying in panic. “It won’t open!” Once Todd got to the back of the bus, he could see why. The frame was buckled and warped, the metal damaged by the earlier impact with the SUV. “We’re gonna drown!” The panic spread as the bus shifted again, the water coming in even faster, already filling half the bus. His own pulse was racing as panic threatened to overwhelm him too but he took a deep breath and looked around, this wasn’t the time to lose control; he needed to remain calm.

“Maybe if we tried together,” he said trying to sound optimistic, “we can force it open.” However, even with four of them, the door wouldn’t budge. He thumped the glass in frustration.

“UNIT CAN ENHANCE BIOHOST’S STRENGTH TO THE NECESSARY LEVEL REQUIRED TO FACILITATE ESCAPE.” Todd could tell there was a “but” coming. “HOWEVER, ENHANCEMENT CAN ONLY BE PERFORMED AS PART OF FULL BIOHOST INTEGRATION.”

“We don’t have time for that,” Todd thought at the nanobots.

“MUSCLE AUGMENTATION OF UPPER LIMBS CAN BE PRIORITISED AHEAD OF ALL OTHER PROCEDURES. NECESSARY ENHANCEMENT LEVEL CAN BE ACHIEVED IN APPROXIMATELY 5 SECONDS.”

Five seconds. In just five seconds he could be able to get the door open and they could all escape. The only catch was that he would have to agree to something that he had been resisting since the nanobots had first started “talking” to him. Looking around at the fearful, desperate faces of the others, he realised that there was really no choice about it. He had to do this; he was the only one that could. Closing his eyes, he silently gave the nanobots the consent that they had been pestering him for.

Todd waited for … something … anything. He didn’t know what he was expecting, but he expected to feel something. When the nanobots told him that the muscle enhancement in his arms was complete, he didn’t feel any different. “Well,” he thought to himself, “he goes nothing.”

He flexed his fingers, took one look at the other children, and punched the door with all his strength. The metal buckled under the blow, the door bulging outwards. Another punch, followed by swift kick and the door was ripped from his hinges and sent flying. Todd looked down at his own fist; despite the punishment the door had received, the skin on his knuckles wasn’t even grazed.

The other children were stunned into silence, but only for a second and they soon began to scramble towards the open door. “Hey, no shoving,” Todd said as he effortlessly picked up a fellow eighth grader that had been climbing over a sixth grader, holding the surprised boy up the floor. “Get away from the bus as fast as you can, those who can swim help those who can’t.”

“Who died and made you the boss?” The boy said as Todd but him down. Todd glared back at him.

“You saw what I did to that door;” he said pointedly, “imagine what I could do to your face. Now help me with Jeffers.” Scowling, the other boy grudgingly helped him lift the driver out the door.

By now, people on the bridge and on the shore had seen the school bus in the water. A few of them had started swimming towards the bus to help the children in the water. As Todd climbed out onto the back of the bus, he saw that many more people were just looking on and had taken out their mobiles. They were either taking pictures or recording videos of the scene. His blood began to boil as he watched them. “That’s great,” he yelled at the spectators, standing on the back of the bus, “just what viewtube needs, videos of drowning school kids. You know, you could’ve helped you selfish…”

The screech of metal interrupted his shout, the SUV slid of the end of the bridge, its underside scraping across the broken concrete. Todd barely had time to look up as the three tonne vehicle slammed into his chest. He felt his ribs crack and break under the force of the impact and he opened his mouth to scream in pain, but before he could utter a sound, the bus slipped down into the water submerging him. The tepid salt water flooded into his mouth, choking him as he was forced underwater, pinned between the bus and SUV.

Kam

This is a character I’m planning on playing in a 4th Edition Eberron game. He’ll be a 3rd Level Shifter, either Fighter or Monk class.

Born into a small tribe of shifters in the Eldeen Reaches, Kam spent his early childhood in a village deep within the forests. As the Last War raged elsewhere in Khorvaire, the Black Talon Tribe was mostly untouched by the war. Kam filled his days with fishing, playing with his friends and exploring the woods around the village. Kam was an only child and was very close to his parents. His father, the village chief was very protective of his son.

Towards the end of the war, the fighting began to move towards the borders of the Reaches. The village’s warriors left to join the other villages in order to repel the invaders. They believed that their village was safe, far from the frontlines. They were wrong. While the village was left relatively unguarded, raiders snuck over the border and attacked. Most of the women and children were able to escape, but Kam and his mother were not so lucky. As Kam hid, he watched as the raiders butchered those that hadn’t been able to escape. Then they reached his hut. From his hiding place, he saw one of the raiders kill his mother. Enraged, he leapt out of hiding and attacked the man, killing him. Before he could do anything more, another raider struck him on the side of the head knocking him unconscious. The leader of the raiders stopped his men from killing Kam, recognising the boy’s natural fighting ability was worth more than a few coin. He took the boy prisoner and left with the spoils of their raid. That was the last time Kam saw his home.

Kam was sold to a particularly cruel master. He beat and tortured the boy, chaining him up like an animal and forcing him into caged fights withmonsters and other slaves. After one particularly gruelling battle which Kam lost, his master lost a lot of money and ordered the boy whipped as punishment. However, tired of hearing Kam screaming for mercy, he strode into the boy’s cell, grabbed the boy’s tongue and cut it out, yelling at the boy that “speech is for people, not beasts like you!” Afterwards, Kam’s mind retreated deep within itself, unable to cope any longer with the abuses. The primal part of him, the part that is within all Shifter’s, took over and in order to survive, he became little more than an animal.

The years passed slowly for Kam who rapidly moved up the pit-fighting circle as his combat skills improved. Eventually, he was traded to an organised crime syndicate from Sharn in order to pay off a debt. Slavery and deathmatches of the type that Kam was forced to fight in were illegal in Sharn, but very lucrative. Thousands of gold pieces could be on every fight, and a fighter like Kam was worth a lot of money. Now fourteen, the boy began to be used as a deterrent by the syndicate. “Pay your debts or we’ll put you in the cage with the kid and let him go wild.” The bloodlust of the crowd was insatiable and the desire for blood and ever more violent battles drove the syndicate to abduct citizens from Sharn’s lower levels. This was what led a small band ofadventurers to the syndicate’s door. They had been investigating the disappearance of one of their comrades who had vanished while visiting the lower levels. They followed the trail to the arena but they found that their friend had already died in the pit, killed by a young Shifter slave, Kam. Luckily, one of the adventurers managed to convince her comrades not to take their revenge on the boy, but on the slave masters and owners of the pit. They freed the slaves and shut down the pit for good.

After being freed with the rest of the slaves, Kam’s future was uncertain. Traumatised by the years spent fighting in the pit, he was feral and barely able to communicate with anyone. He couldn’t remember anything about his past or where he had come from; nor could he remember his own name. “Kam” was the name given to him by one of the adventurers. Luckily, his rescuers took pity on the boy and allowed him to “tag along,” if only to keep him out of trouble. Over the next few months, Kam slowly recovered as his new companions learned to communicate with him through sign language. Everything was new to him, and he was often left wide-eyed with wonder when taken to a new place. Kam’s fighting abilities proved useful to the party, even if his newfound personality disappeared during combat, being replaced by his old animal self. A savage and uncontrolled fighter, he preferred to fight unarmed or with the aid of spiked gauntlets, a weapon that seemed particularly well suited to his unorthodox fighting “style.” Still, mentally he was on the mend. Kam is loyal to a fault to his new friends, showing them the same kind of devotion that a loyal dog might show to his master. He still has a lot to learn about how to behave in public, often acting shy or defensive around strangers. If anyone threatens him or his friends, his gentle nature is quick to disappear, and he once again becomes a savage attack dog.

Defender

Say hello to 16-year-old Jared Sanchez in his role as the armoured superhero Defender.

Physical Description & Appearance

Jared is just over 1.72 meters (5′ 9″) tall and weighs 65.77 kg (145 lbs). He has a muscular build and his hands and skin are rough from working outdoors helping his grandfather in the scrap yard. He has brown eyes and blue hair. His skin colour is slightly darker than Caucasian and is indicative of his Mexican origins. He also has a single gold ring in each ear.

Clothing wise, Jared prefers loose fitting garments that are easier to move around in. He wears a full motocross helmet when using his dirt bike, which, unlike the bike was not salvaged and was bought new.

Defender Armour

The new Mk 1 Defender Armour is a vast improvement over the prototype model that Jared used previously. The Z-Neutrino energy projector, which was capable of molecular disintegration has been replaced by a shoulder mounted missile launcher armed with 5 Particle Impulse missiles. The warheads cause localised gravitational stresses at the impact point which ignore armour.

A 9 terrawatt particle beam forms the armour’s main offensive ranged weapon. Since it is capable of being modulated to a non-lethal frequency, Jared prefers to use it over less subtle attack methods.

Sonic dampners and smart liquid crystal coating give the armour an impressive stealth mode. Although it’s not possible to render the suit completely invisible, it comes damn close to being invisible in poor lighting conditions.

One of the improvements that Jared made was to the helmet. Making it much easier to remove in an emergency. Since the suit is environmentally sealed, it is air tight. A fatal vulnerability when the suit is struck by an EMP. Something that Jared discovered by accident when fighting a smarter than average bank robber.

The armour plates and skintanium undersuit are impervious to normal gunfire.

Finally, the “production” model has two features that his father never thought to include in the prototype. An XM Satellite Radio with MP3 playback capability. And air conditioning.

Background

Jared is the most recent incarnation of Defender. A position he inherited when his father, the previous Defender, died. He himself had inherited it from his father, Jared’s grandfather.

From an early age, Jared was mostly raised by his Grandfather. Both his mother and father had full time jobs that often involved lengthy overtime. Consequently, Jared would often go to the scrap yard owned by his grandfather after school until one of his parents (usually his mother) picked him up.

His father’s night time activities as Defender prevented him from spending a lot of time with his son. When his mother was killed in a car crash shortly after his 7th birthday, Jared’s grandfather increasingly began to look after the boy during the week. Because of this, father and son began to grow apart.

Although Jared now knows the reason behind his father’s frequent absences, at the time this caused some friction between the two of them. It is ironic that Jared had an unofficial poster of Defender printed by a comic book on his bedroom wall. Jared looked up to the hero but his father never felt it was right to tell him the truth. He was still too young.

When Jared turned nine, his father bought him a dog as a birthday present. Jared named him Bucky and the two have become inseparable. When his father died, Jared refused to come out of his room for two days and Bucky was the only one he allowed inside.

The presence of his grandfather was a stabilising influence for Jared growing up and he instilled in the boy a strong sense of right and wrong. Since he spent much of his time at his grandfathers scrap yard, Jared became interested in mechanics and, encouraged by his grandfather, he spent two months restoring a dirt bike someone had dumped at the scrap yard.

18 months ago, Jared’s father was seriously wounded during a battle. Although he defeated the foe he was fighting and handed him over to the police, the wounds he had sustained were ultimately fatal. He had lost a lot of blood and was suffering from major internal bleeding. Sam made it home before finally succumbing to his wounds, dying on the kitchen floor.

Jared was not home that evening. He had been at the inaugural game for the city’s new baseball team, the Liberty Rockets, with his friends Mark and Lee. The only person home at the time was Jared’s grandfather. He realised that if Defender’s real identity was ever revealed it would place his grandson’s life in danger so he stripped his son of his costume and made it look like he was the tragic victim of a home invasion. Jared came home to find police cars surrounding his home and his father’s body being loaded into the coroners van. Since his grandfather was his only living relative, Jared went to live with his grandfather at the scrap yard.

Two months later, Jared discovered a hidden workshop inside several connected boxcars buried beneath a pile of rusting cars. Inside he found his grandfathers old costume, his father’s bloodstained bodysuit and the prototype BattleSuit built by his father. After Jared confronted him, his grandfather admitted that his father had been Defender and that he had been Defender before him. He had concealed the truth as he felt the boy would not understand and would do something foolish like use the BattleSuit to pick up where his father was left off. Being Defender had robbed him of his legs, taken his son and he’d be damned if he would lose his grandson too.

Of course, there was no going back now. Jared wouldn’t take “you’re too young” as an answer. He’d carry on the “family business” either with or without his grandfather’s help. Therefore, to ensure that he didn’t get himself killed, he began training Jared to use the suit and the various gadgets that he had built with his son. As far as the media and the public are concerned, Defender is back. No one knows that Defender is the grandson of Mexican immigrants and no one suspects that he is really a 16-year-old kid in a suit of power armour pretending to be his father.

Recently there has been a dramatic increase in gang violence in North Edge, and the neighbourhood has been described as a “virtual war zone” by some in the media. With the team scattered, Jared has been left to deal with the situation by himself and has quickly become overwhelmed. His grandfather is increasingly worried that his grandson is pushing himself too hard. The team’s base was badly damaged during the Battle of Liberty City and was abandoned. Since then, Jared has taken to expanding the hidden bunker under the scrapyard, hollowing out the ground and building a garage and workshop. With his grandfather’s help, Jared has also been able to correct some of the design flaws in the original Defender Armour. Its obvious that his father never intended the prototype to be used “in the field”.

Friends

Casey Jones (15/F)
Best friends since kindergarten school, Casey and Jared have grown up together, each looking out for the other and getting each other in trouble with their parents. Jared is unfortunately having an iPod moment when it comes to Casey. Over the years, she has developed feelings for Jared that he is completely oblivious to. She has recently discovered that the Defender is really Jared.

Mark Robins (16/M)
When Mark’s parents moved to Liberty from the East Coast two years ago, Jared was the first kid at school to speak to him, since then they have remained close friends. Mark’s parents don’t know that Jared got him into dirt bikes. They would be shocked to know that the two often take to the hills on a weekend on bikes. Mark hides his bike at Jared’s.

Lee Tyre (15/M)
When they first met in elementary school, Lee and Jared fought like cats and dogs. Every week they were sent to the principal for fighting. Eventually they both gained a grudging tolerance of each other and soon a mutual respect. Lee is a big animé fan and a huge Megas XLR fanatic, despite its cancellation.

Bucky (6/M)
Jared’s pet dog.

Warp – Sarah Jenkins (15/F)
A student at North Edge High that gained teleportation powers after taking drugs at an illegal rave. Afterwards she began a short-lived career as a “super” villain. However, she soon began to rethink this decision and took on a different persona as a night time hero. Sarah took shop class with Jared and it was there that he recognised her as “Pest” (as he called her while she was still a villain). For some reason he didn’t turn her in and eventually persuaded her to change sides. Sarah is currently Jared’s girlfriend.

The Eye (??/M)
He’s terribly mysterious. He’s also Jared’s history teacher and “partner in crime.”

“Mr Cooper” (37/M)
Shortly after Jared’s father died, Jared was badly beaten in a fight with Robin, North Edge High’s biggest jock and biggest jerk. After picking himself up off the floor, Jared met a stranger who offered to teach him how to defend himself properly. Over the next few months, Jared regularly met with Mr Cooper at a gym and after Jared found out the truth about his father, Mr Cooper was there to offer advice and guidance. Jared has always felt that he could tell him anything and be sure of complete secrecy.
Cooper is a Watchman, a member of a secret society formed entirely from the spirits of dead heroes given the chance to return to the mortal world in order to guide the next generation of heroes. He is also Jared’s dead father. Sam is taking the opportunity to be there for his son, something he always assumed there would be time for while he was alive. Eventually, Jared will no longer need Cooper’s guidance or advice and when that time comes, Sam will return to the afterlife and all memory of Mr Cooper will fade from the mortal realm.

Rogues Gallery

The Masked Bandito (?/M)
Other villains shun him, heroes detest him. The Masked Bandito is an embarrassment to the costumed villain world. A self-proclaimed “Protector” of the “oppressed Hispanic peoples of the south west.” Unfortunately, his “protection” seems to consist of armed robbery, petty crime and vandalism. He has been arrested and deported back to Mexico a number of times. Each time he comes back to the US to cause trouble. He is an incompetent pest with a inflated sense of his own importance and ability.

Amy Chang, Action 5 News (29/F)
Action 5’s crusading reporter and a minor celebrity in Liberty. When the crap hits the fan, Sharon Chang is often on the scene before anyone else in the Action 5 News Chopper. For some reason Chang has it in for Defender and she is determined to discover who the Defender really is.

Carlos Mendez (15/M)
Carlos and Jared used to be friends. Carlos was always the wilder one of the pair. Their friendship faltered when Carlos began to hang with the wrong crowd and get involved in petty crime. When Carlos joined a street gang, he tried to get Jared involved. Jared refused and their friendship further deteriorated.
Last month Carlos turned up at the scrap yard asking for Jared’s help in hiding some stolen drugs. Jared refused, unwilling to break the law that he had been brought up to respect. However, he didn’t report the incident to the police or tell his grandfather. Jared is torn, on one hand he feels that he let their former friendship get in the way of doing the right thing, but on the other, Carlos asked for his help and Jared has always been loyal to his friends. It doesn’t help that Carlos has been missing now for two weeks.

Doppel (?/?)
Human or otherwise, the entity known as Doppel is wanted in 39 US states and 3 Canadian Provinces for multiple counts of murder and identity theft. He is number four on the FBI Most Wanted List. No one knows what Doppel looks like or whether he is male or female. This is because of the method of his crimes. By “absorbing” one of a victim’s internal organs, he gains the ability to alter his appearance to an exact likeness of his victim. He also gains complete access to their memories. An organ absorbed by Doppel replaces his own and he can use that victim’s likeness as long as he keeps the organ. Doppel is capable of absorbing hearts, livers, kidneys and lungs so he can morph to 6 different identities as well as his own. He poses as his victim long enough to drain all financial accounts and wreck the person’s life.
Recently he has begun to choose his victims more carefully in order to work his way up the corporate and government chain of power.

Lucian Carvelo (56/M)
Once one of the biggest crime lords in Liberty City, his criminal empire came crashing down in the early 90s when thanks to the actions of the second Defender, he was convicted and incarcerated. Lucian swore revenge on the man (or woman) that had ruined him and he spent the next ten years gathering any scrap of information on Defender that he could get his hands on. Shortly after his release, he finally gained conclusive proof who Defender was but by that time it was too late, Sam Sanchez had died two months earlier. Although Lucian was aware that Sam had family, Lucian was a throwback to an older type of criminal. One that believed that an enemy’s family members were not legitimate targets.
Then, Defender reappeared after an 8-month absence. Lucian studied this new Defender and saw that his fighting style was the same as the previous and that the new BattleSuit seemed to be an evolution of the second Defenders body armour. Even the energy weapon used by the armour shared similarities with the old Defender Rifle. Could Sam Sanchez have faked his own death?

An Update

Writing
Well, it seems to have been a busy month. Uploaded three chapters, each for a different story.

An Unlikely Hero has been a pleasant surprise for me. So far it’s turned out quite well and the latest chapter (Chapter Four) has really advanced the plot. In fact this was the chapter in which I really worked out what the plot was going to be. When I first started writing AUH, all I had was in my head was the image of the main character being brutally killed in the first chapter yet somehow miraculously coming back to life.

Chapter Six has been a long time coming. The last chapter was posted way back in August of last year. I got pretty bad writer’s block at the start of the chapter. I knew that Trace (the main character) was going to save the day, I also knew that there was no way he could take out Dorga and his goons in combat. Unless of course it was in an extended “Home-Alone” style guerilla campaign. In hindsight that would have been kinda cool but would’ve taken ages to write. This chapter also revealed the final bits and pieces of the kid’s backstory and exactly what the relationship between him and Dorga was.

After taking a break to write four chapters of AUH, I returned to RS with The Tattoo. I’m glad to return to this story, as its the longest I’ve every written and there’s still so much I want to write. I really want to finish this some day. This particular chapter pretty much has nothing to do with the plot of the story, so it could be seen as filler. It does however ramp up the tension between Ryan and Boris.

These two almost came to blows in this chapter and only the timely arrival of Daniel prevented a knife fight from breaking out. This chapter also introduced Bucky. A last minuted inclusion, I never intended to introduce a dog but somehow, that section just wrote itself.  Bucky is in fact the dog owned by my Mutants and Masterminds character, Jared Sanchez. Ryan’s little joke about the reason behind Bucky’s name is painful in origin, as it was originally the reason why I called my character’s dog Bucky in the M&M game. I pretty much got the same reaction from the GM and other players as Ryan did. As I said, its painful.
University
Exams are starting this week in programming and computing, as long as I don’t freeze up they should be a cake walk. Maths next week I’m less confident about.

Ryan’s Story – The Tattoo

The wind whipped at the sea, sending bursts of spray up onto the cliff-side path. Ryan pulled his coat tight trying to ward off the cold wind. He was supposed to be revising for his SATS exams that started on Monday but he had needed to get some fresh air after being cooped up in the house ever since getting out of hospital earlier in the week. That was what he had told Susan and Anthony, making up some story about having to return a library book in order to explain why he was taking his backpack with him. The truth was that Daniel had answered the message that Ryan had left on his voicemail, phoning him on Friday night to arrange a meeting. So here he was on a cold and windy Saturday morning, making his way towards the old lighthouse.

The lighthouse was on old granite and brick structure, constructed in the 18th century. It had served the small fishing port well into the 19th century until it was replaced by a sturdier structure out by the breakwater. That one itself was replaced by an automated electric lighthouse in the 1970’s. The original lighthouse remained as a local landmark, perched on a small plateau by the cliffs. As tourism had increased and started to replace Cliffport’s fishing fleet as the main source of employment, the lighthouse had become something of a tourist attraction. However, the Great Storm of ‘87 almost put an end to that. The hurricane strength winds of that October night sheared the top off the structure; sending granite blocks, metal and glass tumbling into the raging sea below. All that was left was the hollow shell of the bottom half propped up from the inside by a latticework of supports. Shortly after coming to Cliffport, Ryan had noticed the sign outside the local church hall showing the total funds raised for the lighthouse’s restoration, a total that hadn’t seemed to have moved since the sign was put up two decades earlier.

As Ryan got to the end of the path leading up to the lighthouse, he heard the sound of barking from the path behind him. He turned and saw a small dog running up the path towards him. Ryan involuntarily took a step back as it ran up to him, its wild eyes startling him and reminding him for a brief second of the spectral hound that he had encountered nearly a month and a half ago. The dog ran around behind him and stopped, crouched on the floor whimpering. He was no expert, but even he could tell that the dog, an Alsatian crossbreed, was terrified of something. “What’s the matter boy?” Ryan asked as he stroked the dog’s fur gently. It’s black and brown coat was dirty and he wasn’t wearing a collar; Ryan guessed it was a stray. The dog perked up slightly as he spoke to it but shrank back down as Ryan heard voices down the path.

Boris and two other boys from school ran around the corner red faced and out of breath. The two boys were both carrying cricket bats, but Boris was armed with a knife. When the older boy saw Ryan standing in front of the cowering dog, he smiled. “Hey boys, looks like the mongrel’s found us another stray to play with.” Boris friends laughed as they spread themselves out in front of Ryan in a semi-circle.

Ryan’s eyes narrowed, having to deal with Boris was the last thing he wanted. “What’s the matter, bullying little kids at school not enough for you so you’ve decided to pick on defenceless animals now?”

“You and me, we got unfinished business,” Boris said glancing at his friends and waving his knife in Ryan’s direction. “But tell you what, give us the mutt and maybe we’ll let you walk out of this without breaking your legs.” His offer was greeted by derisive laughter by the other boys; Ryan had no illusion that the offer was genuine. He looked down at the dog behind him. Even if the offer had been genuine, he wasn’t about to hand the dog over to a bunch of thugs for them to torture.

“If you want this dog,” Ryan said surprising himself with how confident he sounded, “then you’ll have to come through me.” There was a glint in Boris’s eyes as he said this. Ryan realised that he’d probably made a huge mistake, the last thing he should have done is challenge Boris in front of his friends. The thug already had it in for him and after what had happened at school, he probably felt the need to prove himself. However, right at that moment, he was reminded of what he had said to Jake two months ago, “I ‘aint taking shit from any of you anymore.” He had meant what he had said back then, all those years of being someone’s punching bag were over. Even if it meant taking a beating, there was no way he was going to let this third-rate thug push him around

“You think I got a problem doing that retard?” Boris said as his friends laughed, “I mean, I heard you were a dumb shit but three against one, I thought even you’d be smarter than that.”

“I’ve taken on three knife-wielding thugs before and I still kicked their asses,” Ryan said cockily. He was also exaggerating slightly, only two of them had been armed and only one of them had actually been carrying a knife. “And the last time we fought Boris, I was half-zonked out by a stomach bug but I was still strong enough to put you on the floor.” The thug tightened his grip on the knife, silently fuming as Ryan spoke. Ryan reached into his coat pocket and pulled out the flick knife. He took a step forward and extended the blade. “Let me tell you something, three to one odds don’t mean that you outnumber me, it just means that I’ve got a target-rich environment.”

Boris’s body tensed, readying itself to charge forward and attack but was stopped when a new voice made itself heard. “Make that three against two.” Everyone turned towards the source of the voice. Ryan grinned confidently as he saw Daniel standing in the doorway, picking at the dirt underneath a fingernail with one of his knives.

“Who the hell are you?” Boris barked as Daniel walked over to stand beside Ryan. Suddenly Ryan didn’t look like such an easy target and Boris’s friends looked a little less sure about themselves. They looked between themselves and their ringleader nervously.

“I’m someone who thinks children shouldn’t play with knives or gang up on those younger than them,” Daniel said quietly, drawing his other knife and twirling them around in an impressive display of skill and finesse. “Unlike you kids, I know how to use these weapons so I suggest you leave before I have to show you what a real knife fighter can do.”

“Hey Boris,” one of the thug’s friends called out, “we can always get him at school next week.” The two sides stared at each other across the dirt for several tense seconds until Boris huffed and stepped back, relaxing the grip on his knife. He looked at Ryan with a grin on his face, although his eyes were anything but friendly.

“See you on Monday morning Henderson,” Boris said calmly, “maybe you won’t be so cocky without your boyfriend around to protect you.” With that, the thug turned and left.

Ryan watched as the boys left, not relaxing his stance until Boris had turned the corner out of sight. He dropped down into a crouch, his arms resting on his knees and laughing nervously, releasing the tension that he was feeling. The dog stood up and walked over to Ryan’s side, nuzzling against his knee as its tail wagged. Without thinking about it, Ryan reached down and scratched the back of the dog’s head affectionately. “It’s okay little fella, that jerk’s gone now.” Ryan looked over at Daniel to say thanks but stopped when he saw the look on the man’s face as he looked down at him. It was a look of disappointment. “What?”

“So you’re carrying a knife now?” Daniel said as he tucked his knives back into a pair of holsters inside his jacket.

Ryan stood up and laughed. “You’re one to talk, you carry two of them; both of them bigger than my forearms.”

Daniel crossed his arms. “That’s different, I…”

“What,” Ryan interrupted, his expression hardening and his face assuming an adolescent pout, “I’m not allowed to defend myself? After everything I’ve been through the last two months, I reckon I deserve the right to carry some protection.”

As Ryan spoke, Daniel saw that there was a confidence in him that had not been there before. When he had first tracked Ryan down nearly a year ago, he’d been a lonely young boy, barely willing to raise a fist in his own defence. All traces of that boy were gone now and there was a fire within him, perhaps a dangerous one. Along with his newfound confidence and courage, there was a short temper and a reckless streak a mile wide. He realised that Ryan had stopped talking and an awkward pause had settled over the two. “You’ve changed.” He finally said.

Ryan’s mouth opened, ready to give an angry response. Before he did, the boy’s expression softened and he looked down at the ground. He walked over to nearby bench facing the cliff edge and sat down, staring at the knife in his hand. “I’ve had to,” he said quietly. Daniel came over to the bench and sat down next to him.

“I guess so; just don’t forget who you are inside.” He put a hand on Ryan’s shoulder in what he hoped was a reassuring gesture. “You said you needed to talk.” Taking a deep breath Ryan told about what he had experienced when he “fell ill.” Listening carefully, Daniel only interrupted Ryan when he needed the boy to clarify some detail or another. After Ryan had finished speaking, Daniel leaned back on the bench and looked out to sea. “So what makes you think what you saw wasn’t just a fever-induced hallucination.”

Ryan tried to explain but he struggled to find the right words. “I remember,” he said eventually after several failed attempts, “spending my twelfth birthday hiding under my bed and barricaded in my bedroom because my foster parents at the time had come home from the pub drunk, again. But I also remember spending it paintballing with Mark and my dad before going out for a family meal; two years after he was supposed to have killed them. Plus, ¿cómo diablos puedo hablar español si nunca me lo han enseñado?”

“You what?” Daniel asked, not speaking a word of Spanish.

“I said, ‘how the hell can I speak Spanish even though I’ve never taken any lessons in it?’. The only languages I’ve learned in school are French and a bit of German. It was the other me, the one from my ‘hallucination’ that did three years of Spanish in high school. I don’t know what’s real anymore!”

Daniel whistled, “Listen, you’re not going crazy if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Ryan looked at him desperately. “Then what the hell’s happening to me?” He was close to the breaking point; Daniel could see that from the look in the boy’s eyes. The eighteen-year-old stood and leaned against the railing, facing Ryan.

“It’s difficult to explain,” Daniel began, “but I’ll try.” Ryan had been the victim of a very old and very powerful curse; one that had a unique method of attack. It subdued the victim, making it appear they had taken ill and falling into a deep fever. Their consciousness would then be forced to experience a kind of alternate reality crafted by the caster. “What you experienced was real. It sounds like Mark trapped you in a world where the events of that night four years ago never happened. He used that to get close to you without you suspecting. You’d have no memory of your real life while under the effect of the curse; at least not until the magic started to decay. That’s probably why you have all these memories that aren’t yours.” Ryan looked down at the ground, his hands fiddling uneasily with the material of his jeans. “If he’d managed to kill you while you were ‘hallucinating’, then you would have gone in to a coma and died here.” But it didn’t make sense, Daniel thought to himself. There was no way that Ryan’s brother should have been able to cast this curse. He wasn’t nearly powerful enough and even if he were, he would have needed a foci in order to target Ryan. When he told this to Ryan, the boy looked up at him, the light of realisation in his eyes. He reached inside his backpack pulled out the old leather bound book. Flicked through the pages, he stopped when he reached one that had a crudely drawn picture of a red crystal.

“Would something like this work?” Ryan showed the book to Daniel.

“A Seer Stone? That could work, but they were all supposed to be lost or destroyed long ago. Where would he get…” Daniel stopped midsentence, Ryan suddenly had a very guilty look on his face. “What did you do?”

“I kinda gave him one?” Ryan admitted. “But I didn’t have much of a choice.” He went on to explain what had happened a month and a half ago to Trey. When he was finished, he closed his eyes and leaned his head back sighing. “You know, I hate to admit, but with the way he set everything up, Mark’s smarter than ever I gave him credit for.”

“Well, at least we know where he got the power from.” Daniel said sitting back down on the bench. “But he would still have needed a foci to target you. It’s usually something personal; either something of yours or something of his in your possession.”

Ryan’s mind was blank; he couldn’t think of anything that could be the foci. He hadn’t seen his brother in four years, and as far as he knew, everything he had owned back then had been lost in the fire. It was conceivable that Mark could have taken something before torching the house but Daniel told him it was unlikely that anything could have retained a strong enough psychic impression after all that time. “But if we can’t find it, what’s to stop Mark from using it to attack me again?”

Daniel looked at the boy, a mischievous grin beginning to form. “I have an idea. But it’ll probably land you in a heap of trouble.”

Ryan returned the smile. “What’ve I got to lose?”

—-

It had taken them a couple of hours to drive from Cliffport to Newquay, a town on Cornwall’s northern coast. The drive had been quiet, with few words being exchanged between Daniel and Ryan. Daniel had joked as they walked from the old lighthouse to the car, the small dog Ryan had ‘rescued’ following close behind, that it looked like Ryan had made a new friend. The man had found it less funny when the dog jumped onto the back seat and no amount of cajoling would get him to get out. Eventually, he had given in and Ryan had climbed in the back. Ryan had spent most of the trip sitting in the back and looking out the passenger side window, lost in thought. The dog was sitting on the seat next to him, its head resting on his lap. Daniel broke the silence as they passed by the town of Bodmin, asking Ryan what he was thinking about. “I would give anything to be able to go back to that night and stop him.” He had said. “The one thing I’ve wanted more than anything is the chance to change what I … what happened that night. I miss all of them, even Mark. As much as I hate him, part of me misses the way we used to be. All the fun we used to have, the way he looked out for me. I guess I’ve always wanted to know what it would’ve been like if they hadn’t died. Now I know. But it’s a rough trade; the lives of Trey, Ben, Jake and Spud for my parents.” Daniel didn’t know what to say after Ryan had finished, so the rest of the trip was done in silence.

When they finally arrived at Newquay and pulled into a car park, Ryan paused as he got out of the car and watched the surfers a short distance away from the beach. “I’ve seen you on that skateboard of yours,” Daniel said noticing what Ryan was looking at, “you’d probably be pretty good on a surfboard.”

Ryan turned and looked at Daniel, his eyes narrowed in annoyance. “You know, this whole stalker thing you got going ‘aint exactly helping me ‘resolve my trust issues’ as Mrs Anders would say.”

“Who’s Mrs Anders?”

“Nobody you need to know about,” Ryan said shaking his head as the dog jumped out of the car. He was surprised; Daniel seemed to know everything else about him, which was disconcerting enough, but at least there was one thing he didn’t know, the name of his psychiatrist.

They walked away from the seafront, into the town. Taking several of the back streets, it didn’t long for Ryan to get thoroughly lost. Eventually they reached their destination, a small shop above a Chinese takeaway. Before he opened the door to the stair, Daniel turned to Ryan. “Are you sure you want to do this?” Ryan nodded and together the climbed up the stairs.

The shop was dark, dimly lit by small windows. A row of chairs was lined up against one wall facing the counter, like in a doctor’s waiting room. On each of the walls were pictures of tattoo designs; both illustrations and actual photo’s of tattoos on various people. In a glass cabinet behind the counter was a selection of ear and body piercings. “Hey, anyone home?” Daniel said leaning over the counter and yelling over the load music coming from the back room. The music was turned down and a man in his late-twenties came out of the back room. He was a large man, nearly six foot in height although some of his muscle had turned to flab through lack of exercise, ruining what otherwise would have been an impressive physique. The man glanced at Ryan dismissively as he entered the shop front before focusing his attention on Daniel. “So what can I do for you?”

“I’m looking for some help for my friend here,” Daniel said. The man glanced at Ryan a second time with an appraising eye before returning his attention to Daniel.

“Kids under 16 need a parent or legal guardian present before any piercing can be done,” the man said hitching his thumb over his shoulder towards a sign on the wall that said the same, “it’s not against the law but it is company policy.”

“That’s not what we’re here for…”

“No way,” the man interrupted, “tattooing a minor is against the law, and I’m not losing my license because some punk wants to join a gang.”

“Hey,” Ryan said indignantly before Daniel cut him off.

“Look mate, we’re not here for gang tags or something to impress girls. We’re here for one of these.” Daniel pulled a piece of paper out of his jacket pocket and showed it to the man. There was a symbol drawn on it, an inverted triangle with small arcs on each of the upper two points. Almost like part of a circle that would have surrounded the triangle connecting its three points. The arcs and the tip of the bottom point were drippy, almost like something dribbling downward from their points. When the man saw the picture, he nodded in understanding. “So you’re after a Protection Sigil?” Daniel nodded. “You sure this is what you want for the kid, tattoo’s are kinda permanent after all.”

“Hey,” Ryan said indignantly, “I’m standing right here you know.”

Ignoring the boy, the man haggled with Daniel over the price for a few minutes before eventually coming to an agreement. “Gear’s in the back,” he said beckoning for Daniel and Ryan to accompany him. As Ryan turned to follow, the man held out his hand stopping him. “Hey shrimp, flip over the closed sign and lock the door will you, we don’t want anyone coming in while I do this.” Muttering under his breath, he did as he was told. When he went into the back room, he saw the man placing a small stepping stool next to the tattoo chair in the centre of the room. Seeing Ryan enter the room, the man cracked his knuckles. “Now that we’re alone,” he said, “I can dispel this bloody enchantment.” The man’s hands quickly formed a series of symbols in front of him and Ryan watched as the man’s form seemed to collapse in on itself. As the man shrank, a dog-like muzzle transformed the profile of his face and hair sprouted from his body. Thankfully, his clothes shrank with him and fitted his new four-foot high body perfectly. Ryan glanced over at Daniel, unnerved by the man’s sudden transformation. If Daniel was concerned though, he wasn’t showing it. The man looked over at Ryan and pointed at the chair. “Well kid, you waiting for an invitation? Hop in.”

Ryan climbed up into the chair and couldn’t stop himself from giggling. “What’s so funny shrimp?”

“The big plan to stop my brother from cursing me again is getting a tattoo from an ewok!” Daniel smothered a snigger behind his hand.

“I’m not a ewok,” the man said indignantly, “I’m a pooka.”

“A whata?”

“A pooka, a member of the fey race, from the goblin realm?” The man threw his hands up in frustration. “Don’t they teach human children anything anymore?”

Ryan was still giggling. “But you look…”

“I know, I know,” the man interrupted laughing slightly, “trust me, my people were howling for George Lucas’s blood long before he made those blasted prequels.”

Daniel cleared his throat. “While I’m sure this is very amusing to you two, can we get on with this? I don’t think I can stand any more of this Linkin Park crap.” He said referring to the music playing.

“It’s not Linkin Park…” the man began as he climbed on to the stool.

“It’s Amber Pacific.” Ryan finished for him.

The man punched Ryan playfully on the arm, “You’ve got taste kid, I like you.”

“All sounds like emo pop punk crap to me,” Daniel muttered under his breath.

—-

Ryan couldn’t help but look at the tattoo as they drove through the Cornish countryside. It hadn’t taken the man long to do it, his hands blurring with supernatural speed as he tattooed the shoulder of Ryan’s left arm. He had expected it to hurt, after all the ink was being placed under the skin using a needle and he wasn’t exactly fond of needles to start off with, but it hadn’t hurt at all. In fact, he had barely felt the procedure. Daniel told had told him that the tattoo granted him protection from rituals like curses, hexes and scrying spells. The tattoo would make it almost impossible to target Ryan unless they had something of him to use in the ritual. Something like a strand of hair or a drop of blood. The tattoo would have little effect if a warlock tried to throw a lightning bolt or fireball at him however. Magic like that didn’t need to targeted, just cast in the right direction. Despite the added protection the tattoo provided, Ryan didn’t feel any different. He had to take Daniel’s word that the tattoo was worth it.

“Have thought about what you’re going to tell your foster parents?” Daniel asked Ryan as he rolled his sleeve back down his arm.

“When I first came to live with Sue and Anthony, they sat me down in the kitchen and laid down the ground rules. No alcohol, no drugs, especially no smoking around the house. They were particularly insistent on that one,” Ryan said smiling at the memory. “Be home before curfew, you know, the usual stuff. They never said anything about not getting a tattoo.” As he said this, he noticed Daniel glancing at him and seeing the expression on the older boy’s face, he laughed. “I know, I know, I can’t use that as an excuse. I’ll have to think of something, but I don’t want to lie to them. They’ve been real good to me.”

The small dog sitting on Ryan’s lap yawned contentedly. “You keeping him or what,” Daniel asked nodding towards the dog.

Ryan looked down at the dog who looked back up at him expectantly. “I always wanted a dog when I was little, just need to think up a name for him.” The dog sat up and started licking Ryan’s face, causing the boy to giggle. “Now I’ve got to figure out a way for them to let me keep you.”

—-

That evening, after checking that Sue and Anthony were in the living room watching TV, Ryan quietly crept out of the back door and headed to the garden shed. He had gotten home earlier that afternoon and, not knowing what to say to his foster parents, Ryan made sure the tattoo remained hidden under the sleeve of his t-shirt during dinner. When evening had started to close in, he couldn’t wait any longer and decided to chance a visit to the shed. Carrying a small bundle wrapped in a blanket, he quickly walked across the garden and opened the shed door.

As soon as he opened the the dog leapt at him, yipping happily. “Quiet down boy, you don’t want the others to hear.” Ryan unwrapped the bundle to reveal a pair of small bowls from the kitchen, a plastic bottle filled with tap water, a can of dog food he had bought from a shop on the way home and a small squeaky ball. The dog ran around his legs excitedly as he filled one of the bowls with water and emptied the can into the other. Ryan smiled as the dog greedily gobbled up the food. “You’ve got my table manners, that’s for sure.”

The dog looked up, as if distracted by something. There was a creak from the window and Ryan turned around to see Trey looking in through the dirty glass. Their eyes met and Trey grinned sheepishly. Realising that he had been rumbled, he motioned for Trey to come in. The younger boy came in and sat down next to Ryan. Cautiously at first, the dog padded over to Trey and sniffed at him. Apparently deciding that he liked him, the dog licked at Trey’s outspread hand. “What’s his name?”

“Bucky,” Ryan said picking up the ball, “and this is his ball.” He squeezed the ball and laughed.

“What’s so funny?”

“Bucky’s ball? Buckyball? Geddit?” Trey looked at him blankly. “Carbon 60 is one of the hardest substances known to science. It’s better known as buckminsterfullerene and its most common form is a spherical molecule called a bucky ball.” The younger boy still wasn’t laughing. Now that he had said it aloud, it wasn’t as funny as he had first thought. In fact, it sounded a little sad, a little geeky.

“Where did you get him?”

“He found me,” Ryan said, “up by the lighthouse. Boris and some of his jerk friends were torturing the poor thing.”

“Do you think he belongs to anyone?” The dog seemed completely comfortable around the younger boy now, as it sat on his lap while Trey stroked him.

Ryan shrugged. “No, I think he’s a stray.”

“Kinda like us then,” Trey said looking over at Ryan. The two boys sat in the shed, lit by an electric lamp, laughing, talking and playing with Bucky. Neither of them realised how late it was getting until the shed door was opened and their foster father looked inside.

“We were starting to wonder where you two had got too,” he said. Then he saw Bucky sitting between Ryan and Trey. “Where did that come from?”

Ryan and Trey looked at each other, at first neither of them saying anything. Ryan opened his mouth to say something but was beaten to the punch by Trey who picked up Bucky and went over to Anthony. “His name’s Bucky, he’s a stray and he’s got nowhere to go,” Trey said holding Bucky tightly, “can we keep him, pleeease?”

Anthony looked down at Trey. He tried to look stern, but Ryan could see the corner of his mouth curling upwards as he barely concealed a smile. “Trey Bennett, are you trying to give me the puppy dog eyes routine?”

“Maybe,” Trey said slowly, “is it working?”

“How did you get so manipulative?” Anthony asked.

“He’s twelve,” Ryan answered causing Anthony to laugh and Trey to scowl.

“Having a pet isn’t like getting a new computer game or toy,” Anthony said carefully, “it’s not something you can just abandon when you get bored.”

“Is that a no?” Trey asked at the same time as Ryan asked “Is that a yes?”

“It’s a big responsibility, and it’s something that we’d have to talk to Susan about. But for the time being, you’d better bring him inside; it’s going to be very cold tonight.”

“Yes!” Ryan and Trey cheered at the same time, high-fiving each other. Anthony told Trey to take Bucky inside as Ryan picked up the bowls, blanket and ball. As he turned to follow Trey, Anthony put an arm across the doorway, barring his exit.

“Don’t think we haven’t noticed that … thing on your arm,” Anthony said as he lifted up the sleeve of Ryan’s t-shirt, “Tomorrow, we’re going to have a little talk about the sort of behaviour that is and isn’t appropriate for a fourteen-year-old. But for now, I think it’s an early night for you.”

An Unlikely Hero – Issue 4

“BEGIN BIOHOST INTEGRATION PROCEDURE YES/NO?”

The words pulsed slowly in his field of vision as if waiting for a response. Todd’s heart was racing, all traces of tiredness banished. What was going on? He could guess that it had something to do with the nanobots, he didn’t need to be a genius to work that out, but he had no idea what “biohost integration” meant. Whatever it was, it didn’t sound good. As if in response to his racing thoughts, more text began to appear.

“DEFINITION: BIOHOST INTEGRATION

PROCESS BY WHICH BIOHOST’S ORGANIC SYSTEMS ARE ENHANCED, AUGMENTED OR REPLACED WITH CYBERNETIC SYSTEMS IN ORDER TO ACHIEVE MAXIMUM EFFICIENCY OF UNIT’S PRIMARY FUNCTION.”

“Oh this is good,” Todd thought, “it’s asking my permission to turn me into a cyborg.”

“INCORRECT: CYBERNETIC SYSTEMS WILL CONSIST OF LESS THAN 5% OF BIOHOST.”

A chill ran down the boy’s spine. “Are you … reading my mind?” He asked out loud, not sure if he wanted to hear the answer.

“CORRECT.”

Todd wanted to run screaming to his dad, he knew that would probably be the right thing to do. However, there was something he needed to know; a suspicion that he needed to confirm. “You’ve already done more than just heal those gunshots, haven’t you?”

“CORRECT, SEVERE NEUROLOGICAL DAMAGE LEADING TO COGNITIVE IMPAIRMENT WAS DETECTED AND REPAIRED. AN OPTICAL SHUNT WAS ALSO INSTALLED TO FACILITATE COMMUNICATION WITH BIOHOST.”

It was talking about the brain injury he had suffered as a baby. Deep down he had known something was going on. Since waking up onboard Sentinel, part of him had felt different. He was more focused, able to concentrate on things for longer periods than he used to. Now he knew why, the nanobots were changing him. They were the reason why he had been able to ace the maths test yesterday.

Todd sat down against the door and closed his eyes, counting to ten in an attempt to calm down. “So,” he said to the nanobots, “let me get this straight. In order for you to do your medical thing better, you want my permission to upgrade parts of me with cyber stuff?”

“NEGATIVE, MEDICAL CARE IS NOT UNIT’S PRIMARY FUNCTION.”

“Then what is your ‘primary function’?” Todd asked confused.

“COMBAT ENHANCEMENT AND BATTLEFIELD ASSISTANCE.”

—-

Sam was surprised to see his that son was already up when he went downstairs for breakfast the next morning. The boy was sitting at the kitchen counter with a bowl of brightly coloured frosted cereal. Opened in front of him was a textbook that he was studying intently as he munched on the cereal. Next to the textbook was another book, a dictionary with dense double-columned text that Todd occasionally consulted to look up an unfamiliar word.

“Don’t read at the table,” Sam said switching on the coffee maker. Todd mumbled an apology, muffled through a mouthful of cereal, and closed the books. “What are you reading anyway? That doesn’t look like a schoolbook.” He reached across the table and turned the book around so he could read the cover. It was a book on nanotechnology, old and slightly dog-eared. “This is from the study.”

Todd swallowed the cereal and shrugged. “Until recently, the only thing I knew about nanobots was from that sci-fi show where they “facsimilate” people.”

Sam laughed softly, “I think you mean assimilate.”

“That’s what I said, assimilate. If I’m going to have these things inside of me for the rest of my life, I might as well learn as much as I can about them.”

Although there was no trace of bitterness in his son’s voice, Sam couldn’t help but feel a stab of guilt. He realised that he never really spoken to Todd about the nanobots inside of him. In hindsight, it was obvious that Todd would be curious about them. Sam picked up the book. “I went to college with Matthew Sanchez, the person who wrote this book.”

“Really?” Todd said as he finished his cereal.

“He wrote it in his second year, quite advanced stuff for a seventeen-year-old in the late eighties. Really ahead of its time, if he hadn’t dropped out of college he could’ve made a great contribution to the field.” He flicked through the yellowed pages.

After putting the bowl in the dishwasher, Todd checked his backpack, making sure that his homework was in the bag. “I’m gonna be late back from school tonight; I’m stopping by the library on the way home.”

“Don’t be too late…” he said looking up from the book but Todd had already grabbed his bike helmet and left.

—-

The six-mile bike ride to school gave Todd the time he needed to think. After his “conversation” with the nanobots last night, Todd hadn’t slept much. He had asked the nanobots exactly what “Biohost Integration” involved and what they wanted to do to him. The nanobots had responded with a bewildering list of procedures. Some of them were easy to understand but most of the proposed “augmentations” were beyond his understanding. Cybernetics and nanotechnology weren’t exactly subjects taught at middle school. Confused and not a little scared by the prospect of what the nanobots wanted to do to him, he had told them to shut up and leave him alone. Surprisingly they seemed to listen, the green text vanishing from his vision. Lying in bed afterwards, he realised that he had to find out as much as he could about what was happening to him.

Todd knew that his dad had been working on the alien nanobots. First thing that morning he had gone into his dad’s study looking any information he could find on the technology. Unfortunately, most of the research data was on the computer and Todd didn’t know anything about hacking. He had been able to find a few books n the study, most of them were out of date but they were a good start for someone like him. That was why his dad had found him sitting at the breakfast table studying a twenty-year-old textbook. In the beginning, he had needed to consult the dictionary at least once a paragraph to decode the meaning behind an unfamiliar word. Yet as he had continued reading, the subject matter became easier for him to digest. By the time his dad had come down for breakfast, Todd had already read the first four chapters, surprising himself by how much he understood.

Halfway into his journey to school, Todd pulled into a petrol station and propped his bike up against an outside cooler. Todd usually met up with his friend on the way to school, the petrol station marking the point where their respective routes to school merged. A J was running late again so Todd went inside the station’s shop to wait for him. He immediately wandered over to the news rack at the back of the store and looked for his favourite video game magazine. The gangly-armed college student sitting behind the counter and glass partition didn’t notice the boy enter, his nose buried in a book. Todd was crouched down, flicking through reviews of the latest video games when he heard the door open a few minutes later. He was about to stand up to see if it was A J when he heard a voice that couldn’t possibly belong to his friend.

“The register,” the voice yelled, “open it.”

Todd dropped the magazine and his heart began to race. He looked up at the convex security mirror mounted on the ceiling above him. Through its distorted reflection, he saw a masked gang member, maybe 16 or 17 years of age, standing at the front of the shop pointing his gun at the student. Although stunned for a second by the sudden appearance of the armed robber, the student acted quickly, ducking behind the counter and pressing the hidden silent alarm button. Hidden from view behind shelving, Todd flipped open his mobile and dialled 911.

“911 Emergency, what is your location?”

Todd spoke quietly, not wanting to alert the robber that he was there. “I’m at the Circle K gas station on North Roosevelt Boulevard; some guy with a gun is robbing it!”

“Okay son, is that the one at 3032 North Roosevelt?”

Todd paused for a second; he still didn’t know his way around the city’s streets. “I dunno, but it’s opposite the little league field.” He didn’t hear the emergency operator’s reply. Frustrated by the lack of cooperation the gang member fired his gun at the student. The bullets impacted harmlessly on the ballistic glass, spider webbing its surface but not penetrating it. Todd dropped the phone, shocked by the sound of the gunshots in the enclosed space. He quickly picked up his phone but before he could bring it to his ear, a shadow fell over him. Looking up, he came face to face with the barrel of a gun.

—-

Officer Taylor was walking across the car park of the fast food restaurant, two coffees in his hands, when his radio squawked into life.

“All units in the vicinity of 13th and Roosevelt, silent alarm triggered at the Circle K gas station.”

His partner leaned out the window having heard the same message. “Hey Robby, isn’t that…” He began to say.

“Just down the road.” Taylor finished for him, looking through the chain link fence that ran alongside the car park, across the grass and dirt baseball diamond, towards the petrol station with the Circle K logo outside. All seemed quiet, the forecourt was empty. “Probably just a false alarm.” He climbed into the car and passed his partner his coffee.

“Update on the silent alarm,” the dispatcher said through the radio, “report of two-eleven in progress. Shots fired.”

“Okay,” Taylor said emptying his coffee out of the window, his partner doing the same, “not a false alarm.”

—-

“Give me the money,” the gang member yelled at the student, “or I put a bullet in this kid’s head!” He punctuated his threat by jamming the barrel of the pistol into the side of Todd’s head. The youth had his arm around Todd’s neck, pinning the struggling boy to his chest.

“I can’t,” the student said with wide panicked eyes, “the register locks when the alarm is triggered!”

“You’re lying!” Yelled the gang member, shooting the ballistic glass of the partition again. The arm around Todd’s neck tightened and the thug lifted him until Todd had to stand on tiptoes hanging on to the arm in order to avoid being strangled. “I’ll do it,” he hissed, “the money or the kid dies.”

“THREAT MODE ENGAGED, VOICE STRESS ANALYSIS INDICATES 78% CHANCE ASSAILANT WILL CARRY OUT THREAT. RECOMMEND IMMEDIATE PROTECTIVE MEASURES.”

“Not now,” Todd muttered under his breath. Although he hated to admit it, the nanobots were right. Curiously, although he should have been panicking, he felt calm. All his senses seemed heightened. It wasn’t like super-hearing or super-vision, it was more like he was noticing EVERYTHING around him; the tone of the voices, the angle of the sunlight coming through the front windows, everything. The gang member was waving his gun around again, threatening the student. Todd saw that this was his chance. Letting go of the gang member’s arm, he jabbed his elbow sharply into the youth’s stomach. With a grunt, the gang member lost his grip on Todd and the boy tore free. He could have made a break for it, running for the front door. However, he knew that he’d never make it; the gang member would have a clear shot of his back for several seconds before he reached the door. Instead, he turned to face the gang member and kicked him hard in the groin. At the same time, the gang member smacked the butt of the pistol against the side of Todd’s head. Both of them fell to the floor stunned, Todd blinking to clear the stars from his vision, the gang member groaning and clutching his groin. As the gang member fell, he dropped his gun and the pistol landed between him and Todd. They both recovered their wits at the same time and scrambled for the gun, wrestling on the floor. Todd kicked out, the heel of his shoe striking the gang member’s nose and forcing him back. He grabbed the pistol and jumped back, aiming it at the gang member. “Stay back,” he yelled in a voice he hoped sounded brave and not like that of a scared thirteen-year-old kid.

The gang member chuckled harshly. “Give me the gun kid, I don’t wanna have to hurt ya.” Two red cross hairs appeared in Todd’s field of vision, both of them fixed over gang member; one centred between the eyes, the other hovering over the gang member’s heart. A third green crosshair wavered around the gang member’s body. Todd realised with a start that the green crosshair was indicating where he was aiming the gun. The red ones were showing recommended targets, both of them kill shots. The nanobots must be using the optical shunt to deliver heads-up-display style information, and they were recommending a one-shot kill. However, there was no way he was going to shoot-to-kill. Both the nanobots and the gang member seemed to sense his reluctance to shoot. The gang member responded by pulling out a knife and stepping towards him; the nanobots by generating more targeting crosshairs, this time orange ones over the knees, shoulders and hands; disabling shots.

“Put the knife down,” Todd said, “I’ll shoot.”

“No, you won’t,” the gang member sneered taking another step towards Todd.

Flicking the pistol’s safety on, Todd smiled. “You know what, you’re absolutely right.” Before the gang member could respond, Todd tossed the pistol in to the air, caught it by the barrel, and smashed the grip into the side of the youth’s head. The gang member crumpled to the floor, unconscious.

“Little dude, that was awesome!” The student said, unlocking the door to the cashier partition and coming out to stand by Todd. “You totally kicked his butt!”

Todd looked up at him and handed him the gun. “You better take this,” he said, “I don’t like guns.” The sound of sirens outside and the screeching of tires heralded the arrival of the police.

—-

Officer Taylor didn’t believe the cashier’s story at first. Looking at the scrawny thirteen-year-old, Taylor guessed he couldn’t be more than five foot in height and 100 pounds. The gang member must have had at least 10 inches and 50 pounds on him. It was hard to believe that he had overpowered and disarmed the gang member. However, the cashier had been insistent. When questioned about it, the boy had been cagey, almost embarrassed to admit his involvement. It was only when the gang member had come too and fixed the boy with a murderous stare, yelling obscenities at him and vowing to track him down for what he’d done, that he finally accepted that the kid had indeed taken the armed robber down singlehandedly.

“So what’s your name son?” He asked Todd a few minutes later after the gang member had been taken away. Todd was sitting on the bonnet of the patrol car drinking a slushie donated by the grateful cashier.

“Todd sir, Todd Marshall.”

The police officer looked at him quizzically for a few seconds. “Do you go to Horace O’bryant?” Todd nodded. “And yesterday you got into a fight with Billy Taylor.”

“How did you…” Todd started to say but then he saw the officer’s name badge. “You’re Billy’s dad. Crud.” He shivered under the stern gaze of the police officer, not just because of the cold ice drink. Getting in to a fight at school was one thing, but even he should’ve known better than to beat up a cop’s son. The police officer held his expression for several long seconds before breaking into a smile.

“Relax son, your teacher told me what happened. Billy should never have said those things about you and your father, he’s lucky he got away with just a black eye and a bloody nose judging by how you dealt with that gang banger.”

“Hey Todd, what’ve you done now?” A J called out from the edge of the forecourt, sitting on his bike on the other side of the police line. Todd waved to him and turned back to Officer Taylor.

“Can I go?” Todd asked him. “I don’t want to be late for school.”

“I suppose so,” the policeman said, “just stay out of trouble.”

Todd grinned, “I’ll try,” he said as he collected his bike, “but lately, trouble seems to be finding me, not the other way around.”

—-

Being the son of the commander of Overwatch had its advantages. Ever since its launch ten years ago, Cody had spent nearly every school holiday onboard Sentinel, exploring every nook and cranny. With Paragon as his father, he had been able to go places normally off limits to civilians and he had the run of the entire station. In his exploring, Cody had found places the only the designers and engineers knew existed, places where coverage of the station’s security system was patchy at best. That was why he was here now, in the bowels of Sentinel, where he could be sure of secrecy.

Making sure that he was alone; Cody took a small crystal amulet from around his neck and clasped it in his hand. The crystal glowed briefly and a shadowy figure appeared in the corner of the room. “Report,” Cody said to the figure.

“The boy has responded to the antibiotics and his infection has subsided,” said the figure, “his condition has stabilised.”

“Good,” Cody said turning his back on the figure. The boy looked at his reflection in the shiny surface of a metal pipe, running his hand through his hair and examining his face. “As long as Paragon’s brat is alive, I’ve got access to his memories and personality through the link we now share.”

“Of course sir, I shall make sure there are no further complications from the surgery.”

“Make sure that you do. Without that access, this whole operation will have been a waste of time. Now what about the other boy?”

—-

The regular beeping of the EKG machine roused the real Cody from his deep sleep. Although his vision was blurred and his thought processes slowed from the drugs flowing into his body through the IV connected to his right arm, he could tell that something was very wrong. Despite the medical equipment arrayed around the bed he was lying on, the room he was in didn’t look like a hospital room. With its grimy concrete walls and exposed pipes, it looked more like a basement. The beeping of the heart monitor increased its speed with his heart rate as became more aware of the fact that he was strapped down on the bed and couldn’t move. Above the bed was a gantry of lights that could illuminate the bed if with a harsh white light, although currently they were turned off. The metal of the gantry was reflective and through it, he could see that apart from his shorts, he was naked and an angry red scar was present on his abdomen above his left kidney.

A blurred figure approached the bed. “Who are you, what’s going on,” Cody tried to ask. However, the question came out mumbled, a nonsensical string half-formed words. He was starting to panic. The last thing he remembered was getting on the bus to the beach near his school. Now he was strapped to a bed in a dank basement with a surgical scar.

“Oh,” the figure said leaning over Cody, “you’re awake.”

“What … what did you do to me?” Cody managed to force himself to say. The figure didn’t answer as he pulled out a hypodermic needle and drew a dose of sedative. Seeing the needle, Cody struggled feebly against the restraints but could do nothing as the man inserted the needle into his arm. The blackness rapidly closed in and once again, he fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

An Unlikely Hero – Issue 3

The car pulled up in front of the school. Todd looked out of his window towards the main entrance of Horace O’bryant Middle School. It had been a just over a week since he had been released from quarantine and given the all clear, two weeks since the incident at the house. This was his first day back at school and he was a little nervous. He got out of the car and turned to close the door. “Todd,” his dad said leaning over to the passenger-side window, “are you sure this is what you want?” Sam had tried to convince his son to take Uncle John up on his offer of arranging a place at Cody’s school. He had been worried about his son’s safety and if he’d had his way, Todd would have gone to school surrounded by armed guards. In the week he’d spent on Sentinel after being released from quarantine, Todd’s dad had spent nearly every minute with him. It was understandable though, he had almost lost his son that night. But Todd was adamant that he wasn’t going to hide for the rest of his life, nor did he want to be shielded from the real world like his cousin. Somehow, he had managed to convince his dad to let him return to his normal school. He was a little suspicious that his dad had acquiesced so easily.

“I’ll be fine, quit worrying about me.” Todd said a little too sharply and shouldered his backpack. Taking a deep breath, he walked through the main entrance and towards the playground. He received more than a few strange looks from the other kids as he walked onto the playground. Several people pointed at him and whispered to their friends. He started to wonder if this was such a good idea, maybe dad had been right, maybe he should have waited another week but Todd had been eager to get back to school. He’d already had a rough start to the eighth grade and missing two weeks near the start of the school year probably wasn’t going to help.

He was about to turn around and head back to the gate when he heard voice cut across the playground noise. “Todd, you’re back!” Todd looked up and saw a boy his own age running towards him.

“Hey A J.” Todd had joined the school at the start of the school year after moving to Key West earlier in the summer. He hadn’t had much time to make friends but thankfully, most of the other children in his class hadn’t made it too hard for the new boy to settle in. Todd had been lucky enough to find himself sitting at a desk next to Andrew Jarvis on his first day and once the usual adolescent awkwardness had passed, he had made his first friend since moving to Florida. “Did I miss much?” He asked as A J skidded to a stop in front of him.

“Never mind that,” A J asked him, his eyes wide open, “is it true?”

“Is what true?”

“Billy Taylor’s dad’s a cop,” A J explained, “and he said that his dad said that you got shot, that there was blood everywhere!” Several of his classmates were also starting to move over towards them, forming a small group around him.

Todd sighed inwardly, so much for the cover story that Uncle John had drilled into him. If A J knew then it was a good chance that half the kids in school knew as well; things like that spread quickly across the playground. He could try to deny it, stick to the cover story, but that would be difficult if half the school was already convinced of the truth. Besides, he hadn’t been comfortable about having to lie to his new friend in the first place. “It’s not as bad as Billy’s making out,” he said hoping his dad wouldn’t be too mad about this.

“Are you calling my dad a liar?” Billy said from behind Todd.

“That’s … that’s not I meant.” Todd stuttered, more than a little intimidated by the larger boy.

A J asked him again. “Well, did you get shot or not?”

—-

Sam watched his son enter the school before driving off. As well as being impulsive, his son had a stubborn streak a mile wide. Todd got that stubbornness from his mother. Like her, once he had his mind set on something, there was very little that could be done to change it. He could have put his foot down, sent Todd to that boarding school whether he wanted to or not but for some reason he didn’t. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to take any steps to protect his son. As he stopped at the intersection waiting for the lights, he reached over and switched on the dashboard mounted GPS unit. The LCD touch screen lit up and displayed a map showing the car’s current location. Sam pressed the little magnifying glass icon, activating the “Find” function, and an onscreen keyboard replaced the map. He tapped on the keys, spelling the word “Todd” and pressed the “OK” button. The map reappeared centred over the school where had dropped his son off. A blinking yellow dot appeared over the school; Sam pressed dot and the screen blanked for a second. A live satellite feed appeared and zoomed in on the school playground. Sam could see Todd standing with a group of other children, oblivious to the fact that he was being watched from space. Last night, he had given Todd a present. A brand new digital watch, crammed with features, half of which he knew the boy would probably never use. Todd had rolled his eyes at the gadget but had taken the present nonetheless; it was a cool looking watch after all. What Todd didn’t know was that Sam had placed a GPS chip in the watch; a chip that Sam could use to track his son’s whereabouts at all times using one of Overwatch’s satellites orbiting over the US. Sam had effectively “lojacked” his son, something he knew Todd would be furious about if he ever found out. The car behind him beeped its horn, the lights had turned green.

—-

Across the road from the school sat a grey utility van with the logo of a local cable company plastered on its side. A worker sat in front a nearby utility box, a rugged laptop on his knee as he ran a series of connection tests, occasionally cursing. To the casual observer, he appeared to be nothing more than a technician trying to track down a fault within the area’s broadband or cable TV connection. However, the act was a lie; his work with the utility box was merely a cover for his real job.

He watched the young boy that he had been ordered to spy on get out of his father’s car. The last time he had seen Todd Marshall, he had been lying in his father’s arms bleeding to death after he had nearly emptied an entire clip into the boy. With their mission complete, they had returned through the portal only to learn a few days later of the boy’s miraculous survival. Part of him was glad that he had survived, he had never been comfortable with shooting the boy. Still, you don’t argue with orders given by a man that orders the death of a child merely to underscore a point he is trying to make.

The man tapped a series of notes in coded shorthand on his laptop as Todd entered the school. He hoped that he wouldn’t be ordered to finish the job; this Todd seemed like a good kid. Looking up from the laptop, he saw Todd surrounded by a group of school kids and lifting his t-shirt up. “What’s that all about?” He wondered.

—-

“Brutal,” A J whistled as Todd lifted his t-shirt. He had been browbeaten by Billy into showing his chest after admitting that he had been shot. Todd had learnt on his first day that Billy usually got what he wanted and he didn’t want to have to explain to his dad again why he had black eye. Although the nanobots had repaired most of the damage caused by the gunshots without leaving any marks, a knot of scar tissue had been left behind on the right hand side of his stomach where several bullets had hit close together. The flesh had been torn ragged by the entry of the bullets but the nanobots had been able to knit the flesh back together making it appear as only a single gunshot wound. “Did it hurt much?”

“Dunno,” Todd lied, “I woke up in hospital a couple of days later. Don’t remember anything about Sunday night.” He tried to downplay the situation, make it sound less serious than it actually was. Then Billy just had to pipe in with the fact that Paragon had been present at Todd’s house. If this had been New York, where Todd had lived for ten years before moving to Key West, no one would have cared about the presence of the super. Super-battles were so common there that they barely made it to the traffic reports, never mind the nightly news. However, here in Key West, supers and super-battles were rare. Todd thanked God that no one had any idea that Paragon was his uncle or that his dad freelanced for Overwatch.

“You met Paragon?” A J said wide-eyed. “That is so awesome, what was he like?”

“Er … did you miss the part where I said I was unconscious and I don’t remember anything.” Across the playground, he saw his homeroom teacher walking towards the classroom block. “Hey, I’ll catch up with you guys in class.” Todd picked up his backpack and jogged away from the group towards his teacher. “Miss Gunderson!”

Sarah Gunderson turned around at the sound of his voice and flashed a kind smile when she saw him running over. “Todd, I didn’t know you were back at school today. How are you feeling?”

“I’m okay Miss,” Todd said smiling back. He liked Miss Gunderson, unlike many of the teachers he’d had previously, she didn’t make him feel stupid when he asked a question in class or didn’t understand something because of his dyslexia. She also had the patience to deal with him fairly when he acted up in class and made sure that if he needed extra help because of his problems that he always got it. She was a new teacher, having only started at the school at the start of the year and she was still enthusiastic about teaching.

“That’s good to hear. Now, what can I help you with?”

“I missed the math test on the 21st and I was wondering if there was any way I could take it during lunch?”

Miss Gunderson raised an eyebrow, “I thought you hated maths, it always seems to bring out your most colourful language.”

Todd blushed, it was true that sometimes he got so worked up in math lessons that he occasionally cursed out loud in frustration without meaning to. “I know, but I studied really hard for it and I’d like to at least have a go. I’ll probably fail it anyway but I want to able to tell my dad that I tried.”

She laughed softly, “I’m sure you’ll do your best. But perhaps during third period would be a better time to take the test, I wouldn’t want you to miss lunch in order to do some algebra sums. That would be cruel.” The school bell rang and children began to filter towards their classrooms. “I’ll have a word with Mrs Willis and see if I can arrange it for today.”

“Really, thanks Miss, you’re the best.” With that, he turned and ran off to join his classmates, waving as he ran. The teacher watched as Billy came up behind Todd and said something that made the smaller boy scowl. Todd clenched his fists as his face flushed red but to his credit, he managed to control his anger and turn back to A J. Miss Gunderson could see what has coming and she quickened her step to try to intervene. Billy cuffed the back of Todd’s head and she could visibly see the moment that Todd’s patience snapped. The smaller boy span around yelling “LIAR” and struck the side of Billy’s face. The bully leapt onto him sending both of them to the ground where they started kicking and punching each other.

—-

That afternoon, Sam was in his study sitting at his desk. Piled next to him was a stack of unmarked coursework. As well as his research position, Sam also taught a couple of classes, something which gave him a great deal of pleasure. After spending two weeks off work with his son, there were a number of assignments that needed marking and he had decided to work from home so he could clear the backlog. Yet try as he might, he found it hard to concentrate on the mysteries of molecular engineering. His eyes kept wandering across the desk towards another stack of papers, Todd’s test results that he’d brought with him from Sentinel. He started flicking through the test results, hoping inspiration would strike, anything to take his mind off the appointment he had tomorrow with his lawyer about the possible charges he might be facing for injecting Todd with the nanobots. Even though it had been a desperate act done in order to save his son’s life, the Advisory Council had decided to go forward with the charges. On top of it all, earlier in the day he had received a most unwanted phone call from his son’s school.

The front door opened and Sam heard his enter the house noisily. “Baxter, is dad home?” He heard his son yell from the hallway.

“I’m in the study son,” he said answering for the computer, “can you come in here for a minute.”

Todd ran into the study. His face was red, as if he had ran home all the way from the bus stop. His t-shirt was dirty with a small tear near the bottom and there were a few spots of blood on its front. Despite the state of his clothes, Todd was grinning. “Dad,” he said breathlessly while holding a piece of paper, “you’ll never guess…”

Sam looked at his son sternly as he interrupted him, “Todd, the principal called. He said you were fighting again with Billy Taylor.”

“But dad…”

Sam pinched the brow of his nose and sighed. “No buts Todd, we’ve talked about this before. I know you find school difficult, and that Billy Taylor is a little thug, but you have to learn to control your anger better. Do you want to get kicked out of another school?”

“Billy Taylor said you were making drugs in the basement and selling them to college students and the bad guys found out and were angry that you were stealing their customers and they came to our house to threaten you and I got shot because you wouldn’t give them a cut of the profits.” Todd said quickly without taking a breath.

“And that’s why you punched him?”

“He started it,” Todd whined defensively, “was I supposed to just stand there and let him tell lies like that.” But his dad wasn’t listening, he kept on talking about not using violence to solve his problems. As he spoke, Todd just got angrier and angrier. He looked down at the piece of paper in his hand, which until a few moments ago had seemed so important.

“Well, what are we going to about this?” Sam asked, looking at his son across the desk.

Todd screwed up the paper was holding into a ball and looked up at his father. His eyes were red and he was holding back tears as he glared angrily at his father. Why couldn’t he make his father understand, why couldn’t he just see that it wasn’t his fault? Why did he have the ruin everything? Dropping the ball of screwed up paper to the floor; he spoke quietly, barely above a whisper but loud enough for Sam to hear. “I hate you.” Todd turned and ran out of the room, not wanting his dad to see him cry.

“Todd wait,” Sam said getting up as his son fled. “Damn,” he thought, “that didn’t go well.” Maybe he had come on too strong, been too hard on him. After all, his son had been provoked into the fight. Sam had so much on his mind; maybe he should have cut his son some slack. Walking around the desk, he picked up a photo frame and sighed. The photograph was the only one that he had of the three of them together, Todd, Helen and himself. It had been taken only a few weeks before the crash in which his wife had died. “I’m a terrible father.” She would’ve known what to do, he was sure of it.

Putting the photo frame back on the bookshelf, Sam noticed the screwed up ball of paper that Todd had left on the carpet. He reached down and picked it up, smoothing out its crumpled surface. It was a graded test paper and in the top corner, circled prominently and with the words “well done” written next to it, was the grade; an A plus. Todd had gotten every single question correct. Sam scanned the paper, all the working out was there, all in Todd’s handwriting. “Wow,” Sam said to himself, “his first A.” No wonder he had been so happy when he came home, he thought, all that hard work had paid off. Then it hit him, Todd must have rushed home to tell him and the first thing that happened is that he received a lecture from his father over a silly playground brawl.

Taking a deep breath, he slowly walked up the stairs towards Todd’s bedroom. Sam knocked on the door. The only answer he got was a muffled “go away” which he ignored and opened the door. Todd had been lying on his bad, his face buried into his pillow. He sat up quickly as Sam came in, wiping his eyes and nose on the back of his sleeve. “What do want now?” Todd said glaring at him from under his fringe.

Sam sat down on the bed next to him handed him the test paper. “You left this downstairs.” His son took the paper off him, sniffing slightly.

“I just wanted you to be proud of me for once,” Todd said quietly, a tear he couldn’t hold back falling onto the test paper.

“Todd,” Sam said in surprise, “I’ve always been proud of you.”

Todd shook his head. “But, you’re like the smartest person in the world, how can you be proud of someone like me. I’m always in trouble at school and I never get good grades. I’ve never got above a C in my life. If I was good at sports that’d be something but I suck at that too.” As he spoke, Sam began to realise that this wasn’t something new; Todd must have been bottling these feelings up for weeks, months perhaps even years. How long had he been hiding these feelings and how could he have not seen them? “My seventh grade teacher was right, I’m a moron.”

“Todd Marshall,” he said turning his son around to face him, “you are not a moron, you are my son and I am proud of you.” Todd opened his mouth to interrupt but Sam kept on talking, saying something he realised he should have said long ago. “You’ve always had difficulties at school because of your problems. But unlike other kids, you’ve never used them as an excuse to just give up. You’ve always tried your hardest to overcome them, and it’s not been easy; it’s been hard but you never stopped trying. That’s why I’m proud of you.” A small smile appeared on his son’s face.

“Really?” Todd asked him.

“Of course,” he answered, pulling his son into a hug. “Just do me a favour, no more fighting to protect the family honour. One superhero in the family is enough.”

—-

Todd awoke in the early hours of Tuesday morning with a thumping headache and a mouth more parched than the Arizona desert. Bleary-eyed, he stumbled out of bed and shuffled his way towards the bathroom. He winced as he switched the light on, temporarily blinded by the sudden light, even though he should have expected it.

“Is everything all right?” Baxter asked quietly from a speaker in the ceiling, the volume of his voice lowered because of the early hour.

“Just a headache, and a bit thirsty,” Todd grunted, “I’ll live.”

“There is a bottle of headache tablets on the bottom shelf of the medicine cabinet.” The computer said helpfully.

“Thanks.” He reached over to the medicine cabinet, having to stand on his tiptoes to reach it, and felt around for several seconds for the bottle before finding it. Todd read the instructions before tipping one of the tablets into his hand and swallowing it along with a gulp of water from a glass. “We’ll see if it’s fast acting or not,” he muttered rubbing his temples in front of the mirror. He stood there for a couple of seconds, looking at his reflection. The weather had been warm and he had gone to bed without a vest or t-shirt. In the glass of the mirror, he could see he could see the knot of scar tissue. Despite how “awesome” his friends at school might have thought it was, to him it was an uncomfortable reminder of just how close he had come. His headache took that moment to send a stab pain rippling across his head. “What sort of alien nano-thingies,” he hissed through gritted teeth, “can heal a dozen gunshots but can’t do anything about a simple headache.”

He was about to leave the bathroom when something strange happened. Grey static washed over his vision, blinding him for several seconds. Todd stumbled towards the sink in panic and was about to call out to Baxter when his vision suddenly cleared. Staring at his reflection in the mirror, and panting heavily with beads of sweat dribbling down his face, he became aware of something very disturbing. Floating in the bottom left of his vision were a series of glowing green characters. Todd didn’t recognise them and he had a feeling that they belonged to no earthly alphabet. Another series of characters appeared in the upper right that changed rapidly; an ever changing sequence of alien letters and pictographs which only stopped when they read “LANGUAGE SETTING: EARTH/HUMAN/ENGLISH.” The characters in the bottom left of his vision changed at the same time to read, “OPTICAL SHUNT ESTABLISHED – BEGIN BIOHOST INTEGRATION PROCEDURE YES/NO?”

An Unlikely Hero – Interlude 1

Me and Cody played well in to the evening. Mostly on Zombie Ninja Storm 2. Personally I’ve always preferred the first one, better story line, but Cody said the second had a better multiplayer mode. Eventually, he had to go. Dinner with his mom and dad; I was left alone in my room again with the astronaut food stuff which I couldn’t eat. I didn’t have to wait long though for my next visitor because the airlock opened soon after Cody left. I was expecting it to be the doctor coming in for another blood sample since I hadn’t seen him since just before lunch; I reckoned I was overdue for another nanobot count. But it wasn’t the doctor, it was dad.

I’d never been so happy to see him in my life and I threw myself across the room into his arms. It took me a while to realise that he wasn’t wearing a suit, we held each other for several minutes. I hate to admit it, but I cried, I think we both did. Dad told me that I was going to be alright, that it was safe for me to leave now since they knew the nanobots weren’t going to infect anyone else. I think that’s when I first realised just how scared everyone must’ve been. They must’ve been worried that I was going to unleash some terrible nanotech plague on the world or something. Part of me wondered what would have happened if there had been a danger. Would I have ever got out of that room? I think we’ve all seen the movies where there’s some dangerous virus about to wipe out all human life, and what the government tends to do those situations. Another part of me wondered if I would even have been allowed to live. But I pushed those thoughts to the back of my mind, no way was I gonna let myself worry about that stuff now.

Dad had brought me some clothes he’d had brought up from the house. I was glad to get out of that hospital issued set of PJs and into something more human. Looking like a regular thirteen-year-old kid again and not some patient with a terminal illness, we left the medical centre. Walking down the corridors I got my first look outside. It was night time and there was full moon. We were over the ocean, hovering about a couple of thousand feet above the water. On the horizon I could see the lights of a city. I didn’t need dad to tell me it was Key West, our home town. I thought about making some joke about being able to see our house from here, but I couldn’t. It was just starting to hit me; I was on board Sentinel, the pride of the United Nations Overwatch. I’d seen pictures of it; watched documentaries and even built a model of it (getting superglue all over my desk). But here I was, actually standing on it. Dad pulled me away from the railing, saying we didn’t want to be late.

We had dinner that night with Uncle John, Aunt Susan and Cody. I’m not a great lover of Mexican food, that’s more Cody’s thing but I would have eaten fried rattlesnake if it meant I could have real food at a table with real people to talk to. Four days cooped up in that room meant I was kinda starved for any real human contact.

After dinner, Uncle John took me to one side as dad helped Aunt Susan with the dishes. I asked him if it was true what Cody had said, that I’d actually died. If looks could kill, then the one he gave his son could’ve killed a supervillain stone dead. That look was all I needed to know that Cody had been telling the truth. To be honest, I was kinda angry that I had to hear it from my annoying cousin. Everyone was treating me like a kid when it came to talking about it. I mean c’mon, I’m thirteen-years-old, I’m not a baby anymore. I just got shot seventeen times and pumped full of alien nanotech, I think I deserve a little respect.

But you know what really ticked me off? Those men hadn’t killed me for something I’d done or something my dad had done. I’d been shot to make a point to someone else, that they were serious about their threat towards Cody. I used to think having the world’s greatest superhero as an uncle was pretty cool, even if I couldn’t tell anyone about it. Now I was wondering just how dangerous it was having him as an uncle. Then I wondered how much Uncle John had told Cody about the death threat, I don’t know if I’d be as cocky as him if I knew that someone had gunned down him and said that I was next.

That night I couldn’t sleep, there was too much going on in my head and I had headache. What no one realised at the time, including me, was that the nanobots had gone beyond just fixing the bullet wounds. They had started to change me in other ways. The signs were already there, if you knew where to look, but so far the changes had been subtle. Over the coming weeks though, my life was going to get interesting. Chinese curse interesting.