FRANKENSTEIN
“Reborn”
By
Dean C. Moore
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2017 by Dean C. Moore. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
ACT ONE
PLAYING WITH FATE
ONE
The sight of the monster materializing out of thin air caused Soren to take a step back. Well, that and the fact that it looked hungry and had its beady eyes focused on him.
The four-legged, horned creature hoofing it out of the portal, that looked a bit like the mastodon version of a prize bull, flared its nostrils a couple of times and charged him.
Honestly, nothing so far had made this day stand out from any other for him. If anything, so far, it was a bit subpar. Most times he didn’t get the split-second to react—because something had gotten the jump on him from behind. Or, he’d fallen into a well-set trap; but he digressed.
His brief excursion into la-la land inside his head had given the beast all the advantage it needed. As if several thousand extra pounds, horns, and fire billowing out its nostrils weren’t advantage enough. Well, that and the assistance he was getting from Sir Isaac Newton and his equation, which stated clearly: force equals mass times acceleration. That meant a lot of force coming straight at Soren because, quite frankly, that was a fuck-load of mass and acceleration—pardon his gutter-speak. This was the gutter-end of town, after all. What was worse, it was the dead of night, where all sorts of unseemly things came out to play.
Moving without hesitation, Soren employed one of his choicest martial-arts moves, pivoted to the side as he took a step back to make his body less of a target. He then squatted down into his best bent-knee posture—balancing his weight and freeing his front leg and arm to do some serious damage—well, mostly to his ego, considering what he was up against. And he punched upward with his hand, using a one knuckle fist—look, if you don’t do martial arts, just take my word for it, it’s a nasty move heading that Mega-bull’s way—and crushed the creature’s larynx—all in one smooth, seamless move.
The creature charged past him, and basically over him, its horns of little use as they were flared way off to the side like one of those Texas longhorns, and Soren was positioned straight in front of the bull’s snout. The flame-spouting bovine possessed enough girth, what’s more, that Soren could slip comfortably between the legs on either side, avoiding being trampled.
The beast went down for the count.
It managed a couple final defiant pulls with its now useless lungs, after slamming against the asphalt in the center of the road, that did nothing to clear its obstructed airway. It lay helplessly, drowning in its own blood.
Ordinarily, he’d be happy to cash in on the fresh road kill. Feeding himself wasn’t always easy with his penchant for spending every spare dime on upgrading his body with every nanopunk upgrade he could engineer.
But there was the matter of this chick giving him the once over from a distance.
He bolted toward her.
Why, you ask? Well, several reasons, really. First, she was drop-dead gorgeous. Second, how many chicks do you know that just stand there calmly watching as someone is mowed down by a supernatural being? She was scoring some major points either in the fearless department or the callous department, or both, and Soren was determined to find out which.
And then there was the fact that she’d done more for his dick in the brief time his eyes had alighted on her than his hand had ever done for him. Little did he know, he was a couple sizes bigger than he ever imagined.
The girl was fleeing her stalker—namely him—now, for unfathomable reasons. I mean, yeah, she didn’t know about his priceless sense of humor. But she had to see he was even prettier than she was. To say nothing of the black leather pants with the cool LED lights, and the unzipped leather jacket exposing his ripped, bare chest beneath; his wild dirty-blond hair with enough highlights to look like frozen flames. They’d make the perfect pair of bookends. Granted, there was the fact that he’d just put down a supernatural creature many times his size while busting only one move—not even two—and without breaking a sweat, which made him potentially quite dangerous. But he thought the whole “dark and dangerous” thing was a turn-on. Certainly if she were walking this end of town, it had to be.
Truth be known, he could have caught up with her already—he had two nervous systems; the one he was born with, and the synthetic one, growing out of his mindchip. The mindchip he’d made himself. And once engaged, there was really no outrunning him. But hell, she looked rather fetching from behind, and he wasn’t done enjoying her ass yet, her legs, her striking figure, or the way she moved.
Alright, Soren, putting the fear of God into her is getting a little sick, even by your standards. Maybe it’s time to end this. He bolted forward at a blur. Launched himself into the air to pounce like a puma. She turned, held her hand out at him and froze him in mid-air. Like he was caught in some fucking Star Trek tractor beam. He’d been subjected to telekinesis before, but nothing this strong.
She waved her hand and sent him into the wall of the nearest building—hard enough to knock out a sizable chunk of it, and kept running. That struck him as rather rude. She had no idea how fragile he was or wasn’t. That little stunt would have killed most people—certainly someone without any bio-enhancements or supernatural powers—possibly both. And he was a bit light in the supernatural powers department, as his aching body rushing to mend itself was all-too happy to remind him.
“Hey, I just want to talk!” he shouted. By rights, his voice should have carried to Pluto and back. She either didn’t hear, or the theory about her potential callousness was gaining merit. Of course, the blood rushing to her ears and her heart pounding a mile a minute could dampen the hearing—as he’d scientifically proven on many such occasions.
He hated to do it, but…. If rough play was her thing…. He held his hand out and sent a bolt of lightning her way that actually caused an explosion of air right up there with any good thunder strike.
She was down for the count alright. Still breathing, and twitching—he’d had to take a guess how much she could handle and how much he could handle; a few more shots like that and someone would be using shock paddles to revive him. But he did have enough juice left in him to revive her, if it came to that. Thank Techa it didn’t look like it was going to come down to that.
He was already crouched over her, holding her in his arms, her back somewhat arched—honestly, if she was trying to tone down her sex appeal with the semi-limp body, and the passive non-resistance, it wasn’t working. It made him feel a bit predatory, but not exactly apologetic.
That auburn hair with just enough red highlights…. The jade green eyes to offset it with just the right shade of green. The sassy lips, just a little fuller on the bottom. The eyelashes that traveled like the flick of a whip…. To say nothing of how she filled out a pair of blue jeans and a pullover. The scent wafting off her—like jasmine mixed with fresh morning rain; it was driving him wild.
He could tell she was coming to, as her eyes sharpened and locked on to him. “Honestly, I mean you no harm. Actually, I’m looking for your help.”
“My help?” Her voice conveyed surprise, one might even say shock, and no shortage of indignation.
“Me, Science Guy. You, Supernatural Chick. Sou
nds like a marriage made in heaven to me, if you can just get past the Tarzan-Jane speak.”
She huffed. Then she winced, and rubbed the back of her neck, as she tried to writhe out of the stiffness and soreness in her body, the way an alley cat would. He helped her to her feet.
“Why do you need my help? You did pretty well against that supernatural creature back there.”
“Yeah, well, it doesn’t always go so well, trust me. I can never upgrade myself fast enough to keep up with the demons coming through hell’s door of late, if that’s what they are and where they’re coming from. I won’t survive much longer if I don’t team up with someone like you. And if I’m reading you right, neither will you. You could have charged in, but I smelled the fear on you. And it wasn’t of me. Something’s humbled you lately, and it sure as hell wasn’t the lightning bolt I fired up your ass.”
She burrowed into him with her eyes, continuing to filter everything he was saying through her bullshit meters. Sure, he seemed harmless enough for now, but that could all be a ploy. Honestly, it kind of was. He was hoping there were more like her and she would take him to them. Even better than super-powered chic was a super-powered posse. Of late, there was no such thing as too much insurance against Portal People. Teleporting Thugs. Broadcast Beasties. Materializing Mayhemers. Whatever you wanted to call them.
She read his mind. “There’s no way I’m leading you back to my people.”
He let go of her, before she could read any more of his admittedly ethically compromised thinking. “Hey, I know it’s a risk. I wouldn’t trust me either. Look at what end of town we’re in. Not everything that jumps through the portals is a big, dumb animal. Some are way smarter, way more evolved, and far more predatory. And quite capable of posing as anything. I can see by your eyes you know exactly what I’m talking about.”
“Yeah, I’m afraid I do.” She touched him again. He thought it was to reestablish a psychic connection with him, to see if she could read him better, get to the truth. But he wasn’t so lucky this time.
The lights went out.
The last thing he remembered being conscious of was his dick getting even bigger and harder. Did she do that? Hey, maybe she’s secretly into you, Soren. Then again… maybe you’re into being dominated and picked now of all times to find out.
Here’s hoping you don’t wake up dead.
TWO
When Soren came to he was back in his lab. So, she’d clearly gotten more out of his head than she’d let on. Was this her way of telling him to lay off, because she knew where he was holed up, even if he didn’t know how to find her?
A glance up at the skylights overhead verified that it was still night out, so possibly he hadn’t been unconscious for that long. The all-too clear sky showed the ill-fated stars beaming down at him. It was the constellation Orion, the hunter—who Soren suspected was hunting for him.
Soren ran a systems check. His synthetics were at one-hundred percent. Whatever she’d done to him, she’d left that alone. Not wanting to leave him defenseless? No, of course not. Her understanding probably didn’t extend as far as his cyber-systems. By the way he was sitting up on his own examination table, he could tell that she’d drained the life out of his biological systems, though. Some kind of life-essence vanquishing ability? Like a succubus? Let’s hope not; that could make his sexual fantasies as trying as they were unlikely, at this point.
Maybe she was more of a Sponger. They were quite rare, but they also had the ability to suck up supernatural abilities from others, add it to their own toolkit. Shit, if so, the longer she lived, and the more she was exposed to… that was quite the superweapon to have at his side. And, man, could he use one.
Soren was having trouble shaking off the cobwebs as he jumped off the examination table. It wasn’t much of a jump, and still he felt like he’d given himself shin splints.
He didn’t have time for this. It could be hours or more before he was back at a hundred percent; days—if the way he was feeling was any indication. Way too long to remain vulnerable in this end of town; especially with what had been going on of late. The spike in paranormal activity suggested whatever phenomenon had caused this region to become a hotspot in the first place, was only growing worse.
Cracking his spine with a twist, he threw a glance over at “the electric chair.” Unlike the ones used to execute people, his could revitalize his cyber-systems. If any of his wiring was fried, or the mindchip for that matter, it could scan him and find the exact nature of the damage. And then it could sic nanites on the job, injecting them into his body. Once the microscopic-sized robots’ work was done, they self-dissolved before their continued degradation, wear and tear became another vulnerability. He had plenty of nanites floating around his body of a more enduring nature; but too many fixer-bots inside him risked triggering an auto-immune reaction. Right now, the chair wasn’t going to do him any good. His problems lay elsewhere. And despite the nickname he’d earned from the chair of the Frankenstein monster, there were only certain kinds of deaths it could bring him back from.
The warehouse space that housed his lab was generous and cramped at the same time; there never seemed to be enough room for his gadgets. Designed on the cheap, as they were, out of obsolescent tech that had never been built for such advanced purposes, the place had an almost steampunk-like feel. Between that and the woodwork—which he’d shaped into bookshelves and the like to give the place a warmer feel, and, well… the truth was, the place probably would make a convincing set for a Frankenstein movie.
As to how he’d come by such lavish digs on his meager budget…. The building was condemned. Not that it was so far gone that not even a slum lord would touch it; figuring the tenants could just risk fire from the poor electrical, and collapse from the earthquake-damaged infrastructure, and die en masse inside—just so he collected his rent. There were plenty of people willing to play that game. But since the city was on to what was up with the building, he’d have gotten his ass sued out of his posh, predatory existence, living far, far away from here.
Soren had since reinforced the building, sure, but it wasn’t like it would survive another earthquake, or his way with carpentry and masonry was anything like his way with electronics. Ironically, he’d also booby-trapped the warehouse against intruders. But “trap guy” he wasn’t either. His defensive measures were just as likely to bring the place crashing down on his head as time itself eventually would.
Most of the two-story building remained unused. He’d just carved out a portion for himself in one corner section, set up shop in the basement, after ripping out the top two floors to expose the skylights.
He padded over to the tank—a circular aquarium typically used for indoor fish-farming. And he plunged himself into the cold waters, falling backwards over the lip of the pool’s four-foot-high wall. The liquid was an embryonic fluid of his own design. It allowed him to breathe underwater—it was so highly oxygenated and saturated with his formula. He’d stolen the idea from NASA which was busy applying it to hibernation applications, and regeneration of wounded warriors—in anticipation of off-world habitats that likely couldn’t be survived any other way.
The solution would heal his biological systems and fast. But not without a price. The dreaming. He wasn’t sure what it was. A form of psychic sensing, created by his tweaks to the fluid? A form of astral-traveling? Whatever it was, it creeped him out more than the creatures invading his city.
Syracuse, New York, had a bit of a small town feel as cities went. It was charming—once upon a time. Now he had to figure out how to throw an energy dome over it to ensure the creatures that made their way in, stayed in, until they could be dealt with before they got unleashed on the rest of the world. He was a long way from masterminding that science project.
The tank’s solution was taking him. Wherever he was headed to next, his rational mind would be impaired. That made the demons scarier still. And his greatest weapon—to devise weapons that could possibly neutralize t
hem—would be stripped from him.
Forget the chair. Floating in this tank—that led to a form of rebirth he was a long way from mastering. If he came back out again— he might not be both Dr. Frankenstein and the Frankenstein monster anymore; he might just be the monster.
***
The girl. The same one that had sucked the life out of him; the tank had taken Soren straight to her. But how? When she touched him, she must have left some kind of psychic slime trail, some residue of paranormal energy inside him. And the tank was keying in on it. Either that, or he was simply hallucinating, free associating from the events earlier in the day. A mix of memory and wish-fulfillment. Stir in some fears and anxieties and unprocessed psychic energy surrounding meeting her that needed to be worked out and… the work of typical dreaming.
But something wasn’t quite right. If only his rational mind hadn’t receded into the background; the tank always felt as if it was giving him a lobotomy, that or exposing him to some alternate personality—the simpleton that was the flipside of the genius.
Where was she headed? Yeah, Soren, sure, you can ask the questions as well as ever, just not find the answers you’re looking for.
She was using the underground tunnels running under the city—the sewage lines. Yuk. And how cliché. She and her friends. She did have a posse, as he suspected—or, as he’d hoped. What’s a demi-god of a chick to do but team up with other demi-gods when fighting off things with god-like powers, right? Hell of a thing to be so well-endowed and still feel so vulnerable. He blamed their digs on every Hollywood paranormal TV series there ever was—always, they went for the tunnels. He supposed it made a dim kind of sense—the city was teaming with life, but the wrong kinds, which for supernaturals could lead to them feeling overwhelmed. The acres of concrete and earth above their heads might well insulate telepaths from thought-bombardment from uncontrolled minds. And if anyone were to figure out how to track paranormals—they’d have a much harder time doing it past miles of earth and rock, which was a pretty effective insulator against most forms of EMF radiation.
Reborn (Frankenstein Book 1) Page 1