Ch05En: Ivy
William Robert Dickstein
Copyright © 2019 William Robert Dickstein
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 9781070307961
Imprint: Independently published
DEDICATION
Special thanks to Brittany, my partner in crime. Shout out to Charlie for always believing
DON’T MISS THESE OTHER Ch05En TITLES:
A Tale of Gems Anthology
Ch05En: Episode 1(Free!)
Ch05En: Episode 2
Ch05En: Episode 3
Ch05En: Episode 4
Ch05En: Episode 5
Origins Anthology
Ch05En: MegaTech
Ch05En: Jane
Ch05En: Ripsaw
Factions Anthology
Ch05En: Freelancers
Ch05En: Capes
Ch05En: Aggregate
Kid’s Collection
Ch05En: No Nose
CONTENTS
Welcome to Ch05En
i
Prologue
1
1
Lochlan, Nearly Ten Years Later
Pg 7
2
Ivy A Decade Later
Pg 26
3
Lochlan In Choudrant
Pg 46
~
The Journal Of Gerald Roupell #151
Pg 64
4
Ivy Near Graduation
Pg 66
5
Lochlan’s Discovery
Pg 83
6
Ivy At Testing
Pg 99
~
The Journal Of Gerald Roupell #225
Pg 118
7
Lochlan’s Confusion
Pg 120
8
Ivy And The Agents
Pg 135
~
The Journal Of Gerald Roupell #366
Pg 158
IN THE NOT TOO DISTANT FUTURE…
Scientists at the Max Plank Institute for Molecular Genetics will map out a gene given the markers of Ch05En.
The Fate Gene
A latent Ch05En gene destines someone for greatness. Maybe you'll be a rock star, or CEO of a Fortune 500. You might save somebody's life, or give birth to the greatest supporting actress of all time.
Maybe you'll be a superhero.
Those with powers often join the Global Heroes Society to become Capes. They are our protectors in a world of infinite possibilities.
A world where the terrorist organization known as the Aggregate lives to instill fear in the masses, and Freelancers use their powers for personal gain, often at the cost of others.
Welcome to the world of Ch05En.
Where we're one suddenly-activated Fate Gene away from total salvation...
Or complete annihilation.
Prologue
I was eight when the bad men came. They wore colorful skin-tight clothing and pushed their way into my living room. They were looking to harm my father. I very nearly watched it all happen.
I still wish that I had.
The dinner I’d been eating had gone unfinished, much to the disappointment of Daddy, a game of pretend with my little brother Rodney more important than the chicken and carrots that had been on my plate. I’d convinced Rodney to come with me after playing to ask for a fresh portion. Pouting had already stopped getting me what I wanted by then, but a whine from my brother Rodney still worked like a charm. Except, we never got to that point.
There was no talking between the men and my father. The fighting started the moment they came through the door.
My little legs had me nearly tumbling down the stairs to the basement, big tears in my eyes blurring my vision as I struggled to watch where I was going and simultaneously get a good look at the men who had come to do my family harm. I clutched Rodney’s hand so tightly I’m sure I must have broken something. I wondered, somewhere in the deepest parts of my thoughts, whether anyone had seen us dart by. I wanted my father to know I had remembered what we’d practiced. Bad men had come…
My job was to get myself, and Rodney, to the Special Room.
I stole one final glance before turning the corner and heading into the kitchen, squinting just enough through the tears to see my father fighting back. My heart warmed, and my stomach sank, and before turning the corner to step into the kitchen, I watched my father land a solid blow against one of the assailants. The man he hit flew through the air as a rag-dolled mess of hands and feet, spinning in every direction before he crashed against a wall in the living room.
I was out of sight before the other man hit my father, but the grunts I heard from both of them made me shiver, and caused fresh tears to well up in my eyes. When I rounded the corner to stand at the door to the basement, my stomach fell fully to the floor. It was locked. My own tears had managed to stop but I could sense that Rodney’s had just renewed themselves–could hear his sniffles behind me. I twisted and pulled as hard as I could, my fingers aching as the handle seemingly refused to do what I willed it to. I let go of Rodney’s hand as I realized I needed to use my other one–the good hand, the one that still had all its fingers. I grit my teeth as I turned with all of my might and forced my weight on top of the long handle. Finally, the mechanism budged just enough for me to shoulder the door to the basement open. I couldn’t be bothered to turn the light on as I closed the door behind me, allowing my adrenaline to be my guide as I perfectly navigated around the toys I knew I’d left on one of the stairs. Of course, Rodney kicked it the moment he came within range. But he was tough, just like I’d taught him to be, and didn’t whimper. I still remember the pain of the truck he kicked bouncing off of the tendon on the back of my foot.
I reached up to place my hand on the scanner to the Special Room, using the bad hand with only four fingers this time. The sickly feeling in my stomach renewed itself as, in the near-absolute darkness of the basement, I couldn’t feel the warmth from the scanner I had expected. It had always reacted, always gotten warm when I touched it. I pressed one last time, my tiny, sore fingers tingling as the scanner remained lifeless. Rodney chose that moment to finally ask what was happening. When I didn’t answer, he cried all the harder.
My addled mind began to race through what I was meant to do with the second door that was refusing my command. Nothing was working as it was supposed to!
My thoughts went completely sideways before I could think of what to do. I heard my father make a sound I remembered him making only one other time in my life. It was the noise he’d made almost a year before, when we’d come home to see our house had been broken into. My father’s roar that day had made me want to crawl under my bed. He seemed in those moments scarier than anything that could have been hiding there. When I heard him roar that second time, the sound exploded through the floorboards above me and I felt a different flavor of that same fear I’d experienced the first time I immediately wished for a bed to crawl under. My tingling fingers dug themselves into my long nightshirt as Rodney’s cries persisted. There was a near-deafening silence after my father screamed and I heard him make a new, much softer sound.
My daddy, the biggest and strongest man in the whole world, pled for his life that night. There was a soft thump and the floorboards rattled, causing dust to rain down into my eyes, and I could hear him whimpering. I looked up through teary vision, a sliver of the light from above slipping in through a slit in the carpeting, and I could see the lights near the front door flickering. Then came a BZZT that made my nerves do jumping jacks, and when it was gone, one more thump on the floorboards followed. The thump was a gunshot in that moment, igniting once more my race to keep my little brother safe. I grabbed Rodney’s hand again and pulled him in front of me, covering his mouth to muffl
e his cries.
I didn’t hear what was said as the men upstairs talked, but something deep inside of me told me they were coming. I slid my feet as I worked our way around the sharp, cumbersome power tools my father kept in the basement and pushed Rodney to his knees so we could crawl underneath a workbench. I tried to make myself small, but wanted to be big enough to hide my brother. I pushed my body into Rodney, into the basement wall, the bricks damp and cold against my skin through the soft cotton of my favorite shirt. I worried he’d catch a chill, but knew it couldn’t be helped. With one final push, my knee slid directly into a puddle and the light buzz of tiny mosquito wings flew by my ear. I wanted desperately to find somewhere else for us to go, and I gritted my teeth to keep them from chattering as a fresh bunch of tears swept down my face. My hands struggled to decide whether to wipe my eyes, swat away the bugs that lived near the wall, or keep covering as much of my little brother as possible. I began to feel thirsty.
I wanted to close my eyes, and I nearly did when one of the men swung the door to the basement open and turned on the light. When that happened, I completely froze, my eyes stuck open. I refused to breathe, my hand coming up again to cover Rodney’s mouth. The man’s feet brought him slowly down the stairs, and the light from the kitchen cast a long shadow that foretold his descent. His hard boots creaked on each of the steps as he continued. Each pace he took seemed deliberate, like he had to focus just to move. He reminded me of a giant baby, the way his legs came down the steps. I had memories of watching Rodney walk exactly the same way, his weight shuffling from side to side, his knees barely bending.
The suit the man wore was just like my father’s. Dad used to wear it when we played board games in the Special Room. It looked like it was made from the same hard rubber as the suit Daddy kept in the corner. The only difference was that my father’s suit was dark, and the man coming after me had a suit that was bright and red.
At first, the man walked right past the workbench we were sitting under, shoving each of the power tools out of his way as he did. His shoulder brushed a rusty saw on the wall and it clanged as it fell its perch, bouncing as it landed. I put my other hand over my own mouth, and my breathing became suddenly more rapid. Another mosquito buzzed by my ear, but I refused to acknowledge its presence. My heart felt like it was going to beat itself right out of my chest. The man hadn’t been sliding his feet like I had, and he kicked dust all over as he stomped around looking for me. I covered my nose with my nightshirt, but it didn’t help. All of the dust snuck right on in, making my eyes water.
Then Rodney sneezed and my world changed colors. The sound of his sneeze brought this sort of green and orange tint with it. There was a tingling that started in my hands and moved up to my eyes. The basement was awash with color momentarily. My chest felt warm, almost like I was sick and filled with phlegm, and my skin grew hot where I was pressed against the basement wall.
It was preternatural, the way the man turned his body around first, his legs not following for half a moment as he left his lower half facing the opposite direction. He was over to us before I had a chance to process what was happening, his rough hands pulling me by my shirt until I was standing in front of him. I clenched my teeth again, not wanting to cry, and was only successful for a few heartbeats. Before the new tears came, I got a good look at the mask he wore, which was painted with the visage of a snake on the front. The snake’s jawline extended to the sides of the mask, seeming to wrap around where I thought the man’s ears would be. He pushed me to the side and took a staccato of quick, deliberate steps as he reached for Rodney, my brother pulled into the arms of the man I was desperately trying to hide him from. The snake carried him back up the stairs with a speed I couldn’t have matched if you’d given me rocket powered roller-skates. I felt my proudest moment as a big sister when I ran after them.
But I shouldn’t have.
The other man, his helmet painted with a fox, was there to meet me at the top of the stairs so he could snatch me up the same as his partner had grabbed Rodney. It felt like flying, we moved so fast, and before I could muster a scream I was sitting on the cold metal floor of a large van, Rodney nowhere in sight. I watched as a third man closed the van’s double doors and could see his mask was painted with the visage of an animal as well; the wolf on his face just as ferocious and frightening as the snake or fox. The man in the fox mask slid his arms around me like a seatbelt, with one arm over my left shoulder and his other arm under my right, his hands clasped together at the palms by my belly button. He slid his head down, the hardness of his mask pressing against my left cheek as the van came to life.
I was almost exhausted from crying, and unable to do anything but sit in the van. They had taken Rodney somewhere else. The failure I felt was worse than the pressure the man in the fox mask was putting on my chest. I remember wanting to whimper, but thought that if I made any noise, the men might hurt me like they had hurt my father. I tried to crane my neck to see where we were going, but the man in the fox mask pulled his elbows so they touched his hips and forced my body back to where it had been. I told myself to do what I’d seen Johnny Quest do on the old cartoons my father had on USB and tried to count how long we drove in any direction, taking note of how many turns we took. Then, the van’s engine grew louder, and my weight shifted as we picked up off the ground. I started counting as we continued to ascend, but I was running out of numbers. When the first tactic I’d learned from Johnny didn’t work, I tried another, and mustered all of my courage, then bit down onto the fox man’s arm, fresh adrenaline fueling me through the exhaustion. It was too late to save Rodney, so I had to try and save myself.
My teeth clenched so tightly that the man swung his arm to free himself, flinging me against the far wall of the van. I hit my head hard as I landed, the stinging warmth of a bloody abrasion under my hair my only reward for the stupidity. Still, I had grown emboldened by my tiny victory, and kicked at the man as he reached for my feet. I remember him chuckling to himself, his hands snapping like tiny fox mouths as he reached for me while I kicked myself back against the doors. When I realized what I was doing, I tried to turn around to let myself out, but he grabbed so hard onto my calf that one of the screams I’d been too tired to release earlier finally forced itself from my mouth. The scream had been holding back a thousand others just like it, my tiny diaphragm working overtime as each inhalation became a momentary pause in my infinite screech. The man struck me across my face as he pulled me close, and I felt a distinct lapse in my vision as my head cocked from the blow, the world around me entering a state of blur. I tried to focus on what the man in the wolf mask said as he called back to us, but the words didn’t register.
My vision cleared when I felt the blood running down the side of my head, and the fox’s arms wrapped around me once more. Please. Someone please help me. I was beyond exhausted, my body completely depleted of whatever fight I’d had in me. I wanted to run.
I wanted my daddy.
We can help you, the voices said.
They were almost unbearably loud the first time they spoke, like turning on a radio after forgetting the volume was all the way up. They talked in unison, a clamor that I could feel myself working to encode.
It’s easy for adults who hear voices to realize what’s happening, I’ve been told.
When I heard voices for the first time, I was bleeding in a van mid-kidnapping. There wasn’t anything for me to do but embrace the situation and accept the help being offered to me.
Please. Whoever you are, please hurry.
We already are, Little One. Try to relax. It will take a few moments, but then it will be over.
I was too tired to question them.
The voices had told me to relax, so I did. I sometimes wonder what the man in the fox mask thought as I went limp in his arms. When I relaxed, my vision started to go dark again, and my head hurt even more terribly than before. The pain kept me lucid through the exhaustion, but only barely. The van descended swiftly,
my body seeming like it was ready to fly off of the metal we sat on, and the man in the wolf mask pulled over. At first, the fox’s arms remained tightly wrapped around me. I heard the man in the wolf mask coughing, and the fox didn’t bother to pull me back in like he’d been doing so far as I looked to the front.
I tested the fox’s hold and he half-heartedly reached after me as I crawled away. When I looked back, a stream of blood flowed down through slits where the fox’s teeth were painted. I looked to the front and saw the wolf go limp, the man falling face-forward onto the steering wheel.
The same thoughts came racing back as the sight of blood made my stomach flip. Help, please. Help me.
We already have, Little One. Others are almost here. You should go out to meet them.
I stole one more glance at my momentary kidnappers, both of them now just a pile of lifeless limbs, and stepped out of the van into the arms of a man in a suit like Harvey Birdman wore, except with a black tie and a white shirt. I was startled when he grabbed me, but he was warm in his embrace. Not at all like the man in the fox mask had been. His suit jacket was soft on my skin and felt nice. I hoped someone was doing the same for Rodney, wherever he was.
“There you are,” he said. “You must be cold. Let’s get you a blanket.” When he put me down, he told me to take a look around and see everyone else who was there–the other men in uniforms and the paramedics, who wheeled one of those portable beds over to me. “The helpers are here, and we brought someone else, too.” He pointed to his left at someone he must have known I’d recognize.
Ivy Page 1