Different Paths [Book 3]

by Nat Kozinn

  I need to sneak out of here and get back to the military base to get more vitamins. Once I have those, I can cure myself of the malnutrition diseases and come back and kick butt as my new improved self. My hearing is my least affected sense so I’m relying on it heavily, paying special attention for the buzz of the Speedster on patrol.

  Although, there’s no way he’s still on duty, he would have had to swap out. On second thought I don’t even know how many days I was in the goo. I have no idea who’s on patrol or what‘s going on. For all I know life on earth ended and I’m the only one left. More realistically the National Guard could have moved in on the Differents or vice-versa. Being nearly blind isn’t helping me assess the situation.

  I move through the shadows, keeping myself low. I’m relying largely on the memories I formed of the complex the first time I came through, and considering that it was in the dark of night, they aren’t all that reliable. I end up tripping over a hard metal blob, and face planting into the dirt.

  I wait, slowing my heart-rate so that the sounds of the beats cause less interference with my ears. There is no response. No one heard me. I resume getting the hell out of here. It doesn’t take long to make it to the outskirts of the complex, but as I reach the outermost edge of the maze of pipes I hear a buzz closing in on me. Almost like the Speedster, but softer.

  I slow my perception of time and try to scan for the source, but it hits me before I can discern one buzz from another. It’s metal, and heavy. It knocks me over like a bowling pin, sending me sprawling to the ground and cracking dozens of my brittle bones. I signal the cells nearby to divide, filling the breaks with unhealthy replacement cells.

  “We’ve got an intruder!” a voice yells at an incredible but still human volume.

  I bend my cornea to bring the blur into focus. He’s big; a Strong-Man and I’m in no shape for a fight. I push myself up and start running in what I’m pretty sure is the direction of the military base. Another buzz stops me, this one from the Speedster. A metal pipe smashes into my back, knocking me down again.

  “Is that him?” the Strong-Man yells.

  “I guess so, but he looks like he’s about to drop dead any second. What the hell is he doing sneaking around in this shape? And look at him, he’s covered in Manna,” the Speedster yells back.

  “We can’t kill him yet. You know smarty-pants is going to want to talk to him.”

  The Speedster breaks into a buzz and uses his momentum to grab me by the neck and drag me back towards the complex. We make it 500 yards before I swat at him and he lets me go. Right as he turns away from me, I spot something on his belt that catches my eye even with all the blur. He’s got multi-vitamins.

  Of course they need a supply. Twelve Differents are a lot of hungry mouths to feed and they need a well rounded diet just like I do. Manna alone isn’t enough for anyone. Maybe I could figure out a way to live long enough to find their stash. Although I still prefer plan A: run away.

  That’s just what I try to do; only my first step is directly into a sheet of metal, which was on an intercept course. A gift from my friend the Magnet. The impact opens cracks in my brittle shoulder but I’m not going to let a few more fractures stop me. Besides those will heal in a few moments, albeit poorly. I hear more footsteps coming towards me, Lord knows how many Walters.

  I flood what little nutrients are left in my blood into my legs, strengthening the bones, tendons and muscles. Then I take off running, hurdling another metal obstacle flung by the Magnet. I actually get up a decent bit of steam before I hear the buzz I was waiting for. The Speedster. He’s behind me. I stop on a dime, tearing my right thigh muscle as I plant my foot. I stick out my other leg just in time to catch the Speedster as he runs by me, chipping some bones in my ankle but still tripping him up.

  He crashes to the ground a few feet away and I pounce. He kicks like kangaroo but I manage to grab what I was after before he scrambles away. I hear him run off into the distance to pick up steam again, I also hear those many footsteps from the Walters hot on my tail.

  I take the canister of vitamins and rip off the Pho-Plastic top. I don’t have time for child safety locks. I squeeze the tub into my mouth filling it with all of the pills in the package. I try to swallow, but I need more salvia. I activate my saliva glands just as something large and metal smashes into me. I have to lock my jaw to keep from spilling my precious mouthful. The Magnet is my least favorite for sure.

  I lay flat on my belly and manage to swallow the pills. I already had my stomach acid production going to the point of damaging its lining. The acid makes short work of breaking down the pills, even in the minimal time I give them to process. Then I move the churned up material into my small intestine, where the vitamins and minerals are absorbed into my blood. Speaking of blood, I flood it towards my guts, making sure every bit of nutrition is passed into my vascular system, where arteries lead to capillaries lead to hungry cells. The multi-vitamins continue on to my large intestine where water soluble nutrients are absorbed into my bloodstream.

  While I was in my own little world I was surrounded by Differents in the real one. The gang discuses what to do with me, none of the options are pleasant. The only real debate is whether to kill me or torture me then kill me.

  “He betrayed the race, he deserves to die, what questions are there?” the Magnet demands.

  This arguing can go on forever as far as I’m concerned since I’m getting stronger by the second. One package of multi-vitamins was far from enough to heal my whole body, but it did help. I direct the nutrients to my muscles and bones. I need them the most need right now. My organs can wait until later, I’ll just have to live with extra toxins in my blood, and slightly bleeding insides. Although I do spare some extra nutrients for my lungs. I’m not going oxygen hungry again. My eyes get some love too.

  “We found that Manna knocked over two days ago. Who knows what he’s been up to since? Maybe he planted some secret army type crap. There’s only one way to know for sure. Ask him,” the Strong-Man says and I hear his giant feet heading towards me.

  Two days! I was out for two days!

  “I’m trying to get in his head. It doesn’t work. You know he’s immune to me,” a woman says. I’m guessing she’s the Telepath who’s trying to make me think I want to explain my plans out loud.

  “I wasn’t talking about your way, I was talking about my way,” the Strong-Man says and he pounds his fist into his hand.

  I’m laying on my belly, but I prop myself up for a bit of leverage.

  “That’s not going to work either. They say he can’t feel pain,” the Telepath answers.

  “We’ll see about that… Hey does he look bigger?” the Strong-Man asks.

  “Be careful,” says my Magnet friend.

  That’s when I strike. I push myself off the ground, flinging myself into the air with my legs and right arm. I twirl, swinging my left hand like a hammer, which I smash into the Strong-Man’s face. He is huge, I can confirm that visually now, but a good sucker punch is a good sucker punch and he goes down, for now at least.

  I turn toward the group of Differents. There are only six of them, but they are surrounded by at least a hundred Walters. The Differents scatter as I charge, the Walters do not, they meet my advance. No doubt due to silent instruction from our resident Telepath. She must be powerful to push orders into so many minds at once. No wonder the National Guard needed me.

  But a hundred Walters give me about as much resistance as a million of the hapless creatures would now that I am stronger. I toss them aside like I’m sweeping dead leaves off a sidewalk. They aren’t smart or strong enough to offer any real resistance.

  But these jagged metal strips being flung at me by the Magnet, those are a problem. He sucks them up from the complex behind him, then, as they close in, he quickly changes polarity. Firing the metal away from himself at great speed. His aim isn’t great, a lot of the debris hits the Walters, tearing through them like paper. But plenty of the projectiles h
it, and although my thick body offers resistance, they still cut deeply. I need to take the Magnet out.

  I gain on him, running through a hailstorm of metal, but as quickly as the scraps tear me apart, I heal again. It doesn’t take long to close the gap, although doing so leaves me covered in my own blood.

  “I give up!” the Magnet says as soon as I am close enough to deliver a blow.

  I don’t have ropes or handcuffs or the time to use them, but I need to incapacitate him, or he’s going to turn on me as soon as he gets the chance. He is scared about what I’ll do. I can see his pulse racing through the carotid artery in his neck. I reach out and cut it off, squeezing with my middle and index finger to cut off the blood, if I squeeze just a little bit harder, I can crack his neck. I have to focus to stop my fingers from crushing him after he passes out.

  The Magnet goes down, and for good measure, I lift a nearby chunk of concrete and put it on his legs. One down. There’s a buzz heading towards me, the Speedster, and he’s coming in hot. I freeze time to prepare some sort of response, but he’s going so fast, there isn’t time to do anything, even in slow-mo.

  He hits like a shell from a tank. Smashing into me and sending me flying backwards deeper into the complex. He goes flying in the opposite direction. I felt his bones break when he slammed into me, he wasn’t ready for how much denser I am now compared to just a few minutes ago.

  I land, bounce, skid, and then smash into some sort of makeshift structure made of Pho-Plastic tubing. My body serves as a wrecking ball and the whole “building” comes down on top of me. Among the minor injuries, I hear a wonderful sound. The tiny pitter patter of pills spilling onto the floor. I stand up and search and sure enough I hit the jackpot, their storehouse. I toss aside the pipes in my way and start scarffing down fistfuls of the spilled pills. I eat what must be the equivalent of four canisters worth before a small young woman shows up.

  “Hey, that’s ours!” she screams. Then she pulls out a knife and charges at me.

  She’s a skilled fighter, she dodges my first blow and plunges her blade into my exposed side. Then I slow down my perception of time and take her seriously. I grab her arm as she prepares for her next stab, and squeeze, pulverizing her bone. Then I repeat my knock out grip, cutting off the flow to her carotid artery depriving her brain of oxygen momentarily, causing her to pass out. I watch my fingers carefully to make sure they don’t experience any murderous impulses.

  One more down, but I wonder what she can do. She doesn’t have a tattoo. That was an advantage to fighting Differents who grew up in the Metro Areas; the mark of Differentiation served as a mini-stat sheet so I have some idea of what I’m dealing with. I start looking for another piece of concrete to pin her down. It suddenly strikes me-- there was something familiar about that girl, I’ve seen her before.

  The explosion tears into me, it’s even bigger than last time. I guess since I survived her last kamikaze assault, she thought she’d up the payload for this one. The blast knocks the air out of my lungs and replaces it with burning once again. The explosives she used were full of nails, which become accelerated by the blast and tear into me like a pin cushion, digging deep enough into my flesh that they hit bone. The blast also incinerates the half of my body closest to the explosion. It actually tears through my chest cavity, exposing my inner organs. I can see a part of my small intestine hanging out, that is from the one eye that isn’t sporting a nail.

  The bomber is a few feet away from me, suffering even worse maladies but healing quickly. She endured the same explosion without my dense body. She’s torn open too and one of her arms is missing. I watch her climb over to the detached appendage and hold it in place. Her body heals across the arm, reattaching like somebody glued it. Neat trick, I’ll have to remember it.

  “Whats she shell!” she says through a torn open mouth when she sees me.

  I imagine I look just like her. A puzzle being put back together by its own power. Thanks to the slew of multi-vitamins I consumed, my body has all the nutrients it needs and I can heal at full speed.

  “How can you heal that fast?” she demands.

  “What’s good for the goose,” I say back leaving out the gander because I have no idea what that is.

  I walk over to a pile of Pho-Plastic pipes and grab one. I lean down and hold her still, carefully bending the pipe around her legs so she can’t run.

  “Traitor!” she spits.

  I ignore her hurtful comment and pick up a few more pipes to use as makeshift handcuffs. The Strong-Man I sucker punched is back on his feet.

  “Come and get me! I’m ready for you this time,” he screams.

  He might be more ready, but I am too. I’m not the malnourished, barely functional man I was just a few minutes ago. I am mostly healed, fully optimized, and at full strength.

  I roar.

  He takes a clumsy, oafish swing that I answer with three vicious hooks to his side, the last of which cracks a rib. He swings again, I dodge again, and he hurts again. It only takes a few of these exchanges for him to go weak in the knees. He lets fly with one final haymaker that I sidestep, and counter with a quick uppercut. His jaw snaps back, knocking him out. He should be down longer now. Four down.

  And it’s about to be five. The Telepath who tried to get in my mind is hiding under some concrete rubble to my right. I lift her four hundred pound hiding spot with one hand.

  “Hi,” I say to the cowering woman.

  “I’ve seen the light. You’re an inspiration. I’m ready to dedicate my life to living in peace,” she pleads.

  “Nice try.”

  I lock her in my bent pipe shackles. I’m going to have to find some Tranq or something else to knock her out eventually. There’s no way to transfer her to custody if she’s conscious. She’d just control her human guards. All criminal Telepaths have to be kept under Tranq sedation. There might not be an alternative but it is still a terrible punishment. Five down.

  A wad of goo lands, attaching my left foot to the ground. Then the gasoline comes, sprayed from a hose held by the Heater. Then the fire. I manage to take a good deep breath before the flames engulf me. I can heal from these burns quickly, but I still need to put the fire out and that is difficult to do with the glue wad holding me to the ground.

  The substance is hooked to my calf, I have a flash of inspiration from a fact I read as a kid. Trapped animals will often gnaw off their own limbs to escape traps. I can’t quite bend low enough to bite my calf off, but my fingers are strong enough to tear into my flesh.

  I reach down and rip off my muscle like I’m pulling a serving from a loaf of bread. By removing the muscle, I free myself from the adhesive. Still on fire, I charge towards the Heater who’s turning red in the face while he turns the heat as high as it can go. It isn’t enough to stop me. I close the gap in a few gallops, land, and knock him out. Though to be fair, the horrible burns I sustain from the heat he’s generating would leave the old me with injuries that would require immediate medical attention. But the new me is already well on its way to getting better.

  For good measure, I break his legs. I make sure to do it cleanly, at the fibula, which usually heals well. I know it’s cruel, but he could melt his way out of my pipe based restraint. Six down.

  Seven, the Adhesive Producer, is running away as fast as her legs can carry her. I chase her down. She tries to throw another tiny blob but I dodge it without breaking stride. I think it takes her awhile to produce her adhesive.

  As I close in, I stomp my feet so she hears how close I am. She freezes, then drops and curls up into a ball.

  “I give up! Please don’t hurt me!”

  “You didn’t seem to have a problem hurting me,”

  “I never wanted to do any of this,” she begs.

  “You’d be surprised how many criminals say that. Especially when they think I’m about to hurt them. Don’t worry, I’m not. I am arresting you though,” I say and bend one of my handful of pipes around her legs.

&nbs
p; I head off to the right where I saw the Big Brain flee when that first group scattered. She’s the leader of this whole thing. Maybe taking her out will make the others give up. I don’t really know who’s left.

  I turn a corner and walk into a wall of Walter’s. They are all fiddling with guns, trying to load them. One of the remaining Differents is also a Telepath. They’ve got two, which explains how they were able to control the Walters so well. Good thing the Walters are such klutzes. Did they load all the guns for them the last time I was attacked?

  “Attention other Telepath. Stop controlling the Walters. It won’t work, and neither will trying to push the idea that I should turn around and attack the National Guard instead. Give up now and I won’t hurt you! In fact that goes for whoever is left! What do you say Big Brain? Seems like surrendering is the smart thing to do,” I shout out.

  And, much to my surprise. That’s just what they do.

  12

  Log of Notable Ultracorps/Nita Activity 238

  “Strike” trains headed west past the Death Valley checkpoint and never showed up at the Manna Fields. Trains tracked heading west, passed Manna Fields, but did not pass the Death Valley checkpoint. Nita's people unloaded somewhere between those two points.

  Theories: Likely to stay near enough to Manna Fields to launch assault, but far enough to remain out of sight from military. Her supplies were ample but that many Differents will require copious amounts of fresh water. Most small lakes and rivers in the area have dried to mud. Best guess is that strikers unloaded close to the Manna Fields and doubled back to the Colorado River. Still too wide a search area, need to narrow it down more.

  Ben waves his hand to disperse the noxious fumes from the air around his soldering iron. His work is complete, if dissatisfying. That’s the price he pays for working with a design not of his own making. He only caught a glimpse of the DARPA project blueprints but a glimpse is all he needs. It was just one piece of the treasure trove he memorized prior to his fleeing Ultracorps clutches way back when.