Emergence

by Various

  “You're big,” the Other said, wincing.

  “You're dead,” the giant growled and swung again.

  This time, the Other saw it coming. He ducked underneath the bat, getting inside the giant's guard. He delivered four thunderous punches to his mid-section and jumped back outside his reach. He wasn't quite fast enough. The giant's back-swing with the bat caught the Other's left arm, spinning him around and making him cry out.

  Stumbling away, the Other tried to clutch at both his ribs and his left arm all at the same time. There was simply no way he could match this giant's strength. Bruisers were a class of chimeric who grew much larger than a normal human and their strength increased to insane levels.

  As if to prove this, the bruiser crouched down near a black Crown Vic and grunted as he picked the vehicle up. He tossed it at the Other.

  The Other threw himself sideways, and the sedan narrowly missed him. The thugs just beginning to come to behind him were not so lucky. Their screams were cut off as the vehicle landed on them and slid into a building, leaving behind their smeared corpses on the pavement. If the bruiser had any remorse over killing two of his gang buddies, he showed none, already charging towards the Other as he struggled to stand.

  The bruiser probably expected the Other to run, to dodge, to use speed. He probably wasn't ready for a head-on collision, so that's exactly what the Other gave him, leaping at the giant.

  They crashed together, the bruiser's mass and momentum carrying them forward. The Other managed to get in one punch before the bruiser enveloped him in a crushing bear hug. The Other gasped for breath, awash in agony. The bruiser squeezed harder, and the Other felt like he was being crushed. He thought he heard his bones creak. His healing powers could do much, but he couldn't survive death.

  Pulling his right arm free from the bruiser's grasp, the Other felt his vision start to dim as the pressure increased. He punched with all his worth, right fist after right fist straight into the bruiser's face, each one met by a meaty thud and a grunt of pain. The Other may not have the bruiser's size or strength, yet he wasn't a lightweight.

  After seven punches, the bruiser's grip around the Other's midsection loosened. They dropped to the ground, and the Other extricated himself, scrambling away and gasping for breath. His vision flickered. The bruiser stood up for a few moments, his arms to his sides, a vacant expression on his bloody face, then he collapsed sideways, hitting the ground hard.

  The Other let out a painful sigh and lay back on the street, his breathing ragged as he stared up at the night sky. Just one star winked back at him, the problems of modern light pollution. A chuckle escaped from his mouth. He couldn't help it. A joyful laugh followed it up. His ribs twinged with every movement.

  “Is he okay?” asked a woman's voice.

  Slowly, the Other rolled onto his side and pulled his knees up beneath him, pushing unsteadily to his feet. Quite a few civilians were gathering, and he saw more in the windows of nearby buildings. He also heard sirens. The cops were on their way. Probably the DCD with them.

  “Are you okay, mister?” asked a small boy. The lad must have been no more than ten and held onto his father's hand. His face showed a mixture of awe and concern.

  The Other nodded, already looking for an escape. This was not how he wanted to introduce himself to the world. Actually, he had never wanted to introduce himself to the world.

  The crowd started talking all at once, some professing the gratitude while others showing concern at the Other's condition. He was slouched at an angle with his left arm hanging useless and his right clutching at his ribs. He tasted blood. It was all a bit too much.

  He turned and fled as fast as his battered body could move. He ran towards the nearest alleyway and, from there, jumped onto a fire escape, climbing painfully to the rooftop just as the emergency responders and DCD vans arrived. He took one last look down toward the streets and the carnage below, and then ran.

  #

  Daniel woke to his alarm, and then gasped as the pain hit. With more than a little effort, he managed to roll out of bed and stumble over to his clock. His ribs ached. His back was agony. He rolled his left arm and it felt bruised, but he saw no signs of injury on his skin.

  Looking down at his bed, Daniel made a quick search for any springs that might have pulled loose. There had to be some explanation as to why he was waking up aching so badly, and he doubted his violent dreams were the cause. With a slightly painful shrug, he went about his morning routine.

  There were some interesting articles circulating the net that morning. Front and center was a report about a possible new superhero in town. A chimeric by the name of the Other had broken up a gang war in the middle of Jefferson Avenue in Arkwood City.

  Daniel swallowed hard. That area was less than four miles north of Polito, of his home.

  He looked at pics of the Other taken by a resident’s cell phone. The man was tall and well-built and wore a blue suit with bits of armor. Apparently he’d rendered close to twenty gang members unconscious, including a Class B chimeric called Boneyard. The article said the police were attributing all the deaths to the gangs, but a Department of Chimeric Defense rep said the jury was still out on this helmed vigilante.

  Daniel ground his teeth. It didn't matter if the Other was touted as a hero or a vigilante, he was a chimeric, and that meant he was a threat. Daniel’s modifications might allow him to match speed and strength with the man, but he knew nothing about fighting, nothing about combat. Daniel determined to inquire at his local gym about self-defense classes. He could spare an hour each evening to make certain he could fend off attacks.

  He glossed over several other articles, his mind on this ‘Other,’ then read about how the nuclear power plant east of the city had gone dark for a second time in the past week. Officials were still claiming it was scheduled maintenance, but the reporter went on to suspect a large number of alarming causes. Daniel finished charging his modifications and went about his exercises, dismayed at how much pain he was in.

  At work, Daniel spent another day in his office. His plans for a device that would allow him to predict the reappearances of a teleporter were well-underway, but they were still untested plans at the moment. Actually, he had no way to test them, but that wouldn't stop him from building the predictive modification and installing it into his body.

  He attended a brief meeting with some Biotiq shareholders. Every quarter they liked to be kept up-to-date with what the company was working on, and Daniel's lab had made some startling breakthroughs in recent years. They had created the current market-leading cybernetic corneal implant, which had made Biotiq a lot of money. As such, Daniel and his lab were expected to make more breakthroughs leading to similar profit numbers. It was quite a lot of pressure.

  Daniel told the shareholders about the bone replacement therapy his lab was working on, and they seemed suitably impressed despite his claims it was at least a year away from sanctioned human trials. True though his claim might be, they didn't need to know that he had already tested the therapy on himself and could attest to it being an unparalleled success.

  After the shareholder meeting, Daniel went back to his office and continued working on his new design based off the stolen technology. He wanted something ready to show to Urksky.

  #

  Two weeks later, Daniel had a prototype. It was nothing more than a tiny microchip, but it held all the data he needed. He was ready to see Urksky and ready to safeguard himself against teleporting chimerics.

  Jake Urksky was a criminal, and he was the first to admit it. He lived and worked underneath a nightclub in Bay Island, one of the less affluent neighborhoods; it was far from being a gang-controlled slum, but not so far that the cops didn't keep up a presence.

  The nightclub was called Neon Dream and was about as seedy as the neighborhood. It played music at least a decade old and sold drinks at prices so cheap even junkies strung out on Jazz could afford to get wasted. Daniel
was not the only person from the more well-off neighborhoods to be visiting, and it was known that a number of powerful people visited Neon Dream, though always incognito.

  The nightclub itself was not Daniel's destination. A stairwell led to a heavy steel door. A camera hung above the door, and it blinked to life as he approached. Daniel stared up at it for a few seconds and heard a loud thunk as the door bolt slid back. Opening the door, he stepped through into darkness and closed the door behind him, the bolt thunking into place again. A few moments later, lights switched on.

  The first basement was filled with stacked metal kegs and crates full of bottles. Daniel ignored them, followed the path he had trodden many times. Behind a stack of kegs marked as empty was another door, one that looked more sturdy than the last. Another camera blinked to life as Daniel stepped close and, after a few seconds, the door slid back into the wall revealing a staircase. He went down without hesitation.

  He remembered the first time he had come here. Daniel had been terrified and shaking like a leaf. The journey to Urksky's workshop seemed so ominous and seedy that he had no idea what to expect. Little had he known back then that he had nothing to worry about.

  Jake Urksky was hunched over a workbench with a soldering iron in one hand and a robotic finger in the other. The man was tall and thin and fiercely struggling not to go bald. He wore an apron covered in oil and blood in equal parts.

  “In a minute, Danny,” Jake said, still staring intently at the robotic finger.

  “It's Daniel,” Daniel said, looking around the rest of Jake's workshop. Most of the parts were top of the line models. They still seemed antiquated to Daniel. If the public only knew that their 'newest' models were five years out of date before they even hit the market.

  Prosthetics had taken huge leaps in the past decade, now more about robotics and cybernetics. There wasn't much in the human body that couldn't be replaced; of course, there was the philosophical debate about when that body would stop being classified as a human. Picketers had staged more than one rally outside the Biotiq laboratories over the issue. They were luddites afraid of technology.

  “How did you get hold of this?” Daniel asked, stopping by a box labeled HT-1X.

  “Ahhh,” said Urksky with a chuckle. “Trade secrets, my friend.”

  HT-1X was an artificial heart created by Biotiq's largest rival, Chromosene. It was apparently years away from proper production. Daniel found himself itching to take it apart and see how it worked. He had already tapped into studies recording how it allowed the subjects to increase hormone production within their own bodies, including epinephrine, for short periods of time. If the organ could affect the adrenal gland in such a way, Daniel’s mind raced at the possibilities of gaining custom access to the body’s entire endocrine system. He popped open the locks to the box and lifted the lid.

  “Hey!” Urksky said in a chiding tone. “None of that, unless you're paying for it.”

  Daniel let his gaze linger on the heart a few seconds before dropping the lid and popping the locks back into place. He turned and gave Urksky a wide grin.

  “We'll have our own one of these developed soon enough. I thought I was the only one bringing you experimental tech, Jake.”

  Urksky snorted.

  He was a black market robotics specialist and one of the best. He traded in stolen prosthetics, illegal tech, and some pieces that were far ahead of their time. Every modification Daniel had done to his body had been with the help of Jake Urksky, and he had profited from it, getting to see and install experimental tech that other chop shoppers wouldn't get their hands on for years.

  “So, maintenance or installation?” Urksky asked as he finished up playing with the robotic finger and dropped it into a pile of them.

  “Consultation,” Daniel said, joining Urksky at his workbench. He pulled the chip suspended in a foam-filled glass vial out of his pocket, along with the schematics.

  Urksky glanced at the chip before spreading the schematics out on his table-top. He stared at them a few minutes, scratching at his chin and frowning.

  “What's it do?” he asked.

  Daniel shrugged. “Should allow me to see spatial disturbances as they're forming.”

  “Why?” Urksky asked. “What's got you cowering this time?”

  “I'm not…” Daniel stopped himself from snapping at the man. “I hear there is a teleporter in town. I want to be able to defend myself should they attack me.”

  Urksky looked at him with a crooked smile. “You're a piece of work, man. I don't know what happened to you, but you're so damned scared of chimerics that… it's like you're trying to make yourself one of them.”

  “I don't come to you for a psychological analysis, Jake.”

  Some uncomfortable memories were threatening to surface, and it took a lot of effort to push them down. Daniel knew that if he refused to accept that they happened, he wouldn't have to deal with their consequences. It was easier that way.

  “Yeah? Well maybe you should get one of those, man,” Urksky said. “I got clients want themselves altered, but none like you. The tech you get me to put in you isn't tested, might not be safe. This…” he pointed at the schematic, “this would require a major modification to give you a…I don't know. A tenth of a second warning? Why the hell would a teleporting chimeric attack you anyways, man?”

  “I don't know,” Daniel said, exasperated. “They just might.”

  “You're not using these modifications to fight crime, are you?” Urksky asked, giving Daniel a quizzical look. “Because there's this Other…”

  “Can you make the modifications or not?” Daniel snapped. “I come to you for your discretion, not a lecture. If you can't do it, I'm sure I can find myself a more reputable modifier.”

  “Reputable?” Urksky let out a bitter laugh. “You come to me because I'm the only one who will perform the modifications, man. I'm also the only one that can. These 'more reputable modifiers' you might know are hacks. Barely know a clamp from a scalpel.

  “I don't sit in my basement because I couldn't make it as a licensed modifier, Danny. I'm down here because it's the only way I get to test myself. The only way I get to stay ahead of the game. Up there they deal with the crap your companies decide to throw at them. Down here I get addicts like you wanting experimental tech shoved inside them. You tell me which you think is more fun, eh?”

  Daniel took a deep breath and let it out with a sigh. This was the problem with people like Urksky, they viewed people as parts. The chop shopper didn't understand why Daniel was doing this. He thought Daniel was addicted to modifying his own body. It was about protecting himself.

  “Will you do it or not?” Daniel asked, tapping the chip. “This is about as experimental as it gets, Jake.”

  Urksky looked at the schematics again. “You might need to take a sick day, Dr. Danny. I can do it. But you're gonna need a corneal modification. That shit ain't cheap, and it ain't the sort of thing you recover from overnight. Not even with those little reconstruction bots we put inside of you.”

  Daniel nodded. “Do it.”

  #

  Urksky wasn't wrong about the recovery time. If anything, he was conservative. For the next two weeks Daniel had to wear an eyepatch to hide the healing wound from his co-workers. He told them all it was an eye infection and the patch was doctor prescribed, and no one said anything about it other than to wish him well.

  In truth, it was because corneal replacements usually took months to fully heal and for the eye to start functioning normally again; Daniel's accelerated healing managed it in just two weeks.

  In that time, he heard of one other teleporter incident. A woman robbed a bank vault and made off with a large bag of precious jewels. There was also an article about the nuclear power plant going dark again. This time, specialists were being brought in to analyze the problem. Reassurances went out that there was no danger to the city, and that was the end of the news' involvement.

/>   Daniel kept up his evening self-defense classes and was learning quickly, despite only having one functioning eye. He also kept up his usual exercise routine, adding rapid eye movements into the set. It was the core advice given to all patients after receiving a new prosthetic; use it as much as possible so the body could adapt to its new limb or organ.

  After thirteen days, he judged his eye was functioning normally again, and there were no outward signs of the modification at all. He was now ready. In case a teleporting chimeric attacked him. At least he hoped he was. He had no way of testing the modification without encountering a teleporter and had no wish to do so. Still, it put his mind at ease. He slept soundly for the first time in weeks.

  #

  The Other crept along the hillside and watched. He scanned the papers and news websites and, for a few days, they’d all been about him; however, the Other hadn't been seen in a couple weeks, and news moved quickly in this Age of Emergence, where a new chimeric seemed to debut in Port Haven on a nigh weekly basis. The Other was all but forgotten. Yet, one headline kept creeping back into the pages of the tabloids: the power plant.

  Four times in two months the old nuclear power plant in Cascade Valley had gone dark. Four times it had shut down with no reasonable explanation. It was possible they were having malfunctions, of course, but the Other suspected something else. He suspected there was chimeric involvement.

  From the slopes of a spruce-blanketed hill, he recovered his breath. He had the power plant in view. Now, he waited. He wasn't sure just what he was waiting for, only that he had a feeling something would happen tonight. It turned out his instincts, as usual, were right.

  His gauntleted hand beeped, and he looked down to see the displacement wave alarm pinging. It pointed in the direction of the power plant. The Other grinned. He was hoping he'd get another run in with Blink. This time, he'd take her down for sure.

  There was only so far he could approach the power plant. It was well beyond the metropolitan area, out in the pastoral fields and forested hills of Cascade Valley.