Caped (Book 1): The Burdens of Fate (3 page)

Which is odd considering world-ending events
still place higher than terrorist attacks on my list of shit to care about,
right? And considering our global short term memory epidemic: Sandy,
Haiti, Japan, the Norway Spiral
anyone? I could go on, and that last one is just the conspiracy theorist in me
coming out, but I can't be the only one not buying the official story, am I?

But that's it for me, as much as I love
punching holes in shoddy journalism it's not enough to keep me from an evening
with my leading lady. Sweet dreams America.

Bryan Cox -

A gas mane explosion in the middle of the
night? I can kind of buy it... if I were twelve. Seriously, I moved out to the
suburbs so my family could feel safe. I don't feel safe anymore. The lights go
dark and suddenly I'm hearing the rattle of gunfire. Not the crackle and pop of
live power lines dancing around, actual gunfire. Then the explosion, one hell
of one at that, two windows on the south side of my house got cracked. Sure, a
gas mane could do that but since hearing about that flying man in Japan and
that bus in India, well, I'm not foolish enough to just blindly jump onto the
official story.

Amanda Noel Kennedy -

OMG Facebook fam! You know that news story
about the gas mane explosion, it happened right down the road from where I
live! How cool is that?! Sure as hell got our attention, cracked half the
windows around my house, completely ruined two. Half the neighborhood was out
there at some point, gossiping, looking at the flames. They said a bunch of
weirdoes lived there, God rest their souls. Also said they heard some sort of
popping sounds just before the explosion, the officials say it was the broken
wires that sparked the explosion.

The bus actually passed by on the way to
school, there is absolutely nothing left of that house but a hole in the ground
and a bunch of people in hazmat suits rummaging through the rubble. It's
amazing what a spark of electricity and some gas can do, right?

Edward
Otep
-

And it begins, like neurons firing in the
brain, one by one these people are coming to terms with a frightening reality.

Are they scared, worried, excited, in denial?
Oh to be a fly on the wall of one these strangers’ home, watching as they pass
through a wall for the first time, defy gravity, or ignore the laws of probable
physics altogether. There are even reports out of India
that a demon threw a tour bus into the 32nd story of a New Delhi sky-scrapper. Police are hesitating
to speak on the matter.

It's amazing to see the world changing right
before my eyes, and the blatant denial of such amazing feats. Japan's flying
man, the prison disappearances, and now this. We're only at the tip of this
iceberg.

Laurie checked out earlier this morning, even
though he'd intended to kill himself he still purchased a ticket for a return
flight home. I checked out shortly after and made sure to stop by a bodega to
play some numbers.

My phone rang once; I was so paranoid the hairs
on my neck stood straight up, only for it to be a good friend of mine. I guess
I'd forgotten I had a life before all this nonsense. I ignored the call but
sent him a text, whatever he wanted could wait. It was time to move to the next
stage of the plan, more phone calls, but this time for the brains of the
operation. See, my ability is great for gathering information on potential
outcomes, but I'm also aware of my limitations. I can neither take nor dodge a
bullet, and I'm definitely no tactician.

I found my way to a Pret-A-Manger, a neat
little Starbucks type place where people would leave me alone as I work, as
long I'd purchased a coffee or something.

The first guy was Thomas DeMille, a skeptic
from the start who actually insisted I was a telemarketer. Once he realized the
truth he was even more defensive, and promptly hung up on me. I couldn't tell
whether he was in denial or actually skeptical but I couldn't let this one go,
not yet. I called back and waited through the many rings, silently hoping he'd
answer but knowing he wouldn't. The voicemail was short but concise, consisting
of an apology and a number. It wasn't until hours later I received a text from
him, he was willing to talk, only it had to be in person and in public. I
agreed, giving him the date and the location. He thought I was joking until I
told him I'd e-mail him the link to print his ticket. Now to make the money to
fly him to Seattle.

After Thomas hung up on me I moved on to Carter
McLennon, a far more welcoming man when it comes to speaking on fringe topics
with total strangers who call your house and know a little too much about you,
but as with most people requesting possibly illegal activities, he was
obviously hesitant. Intrigued, but hesitant. Expected given the severity of the
consequences. He'll be the janitor, the clean-up man who'll tidy up behind us
when things get too sloppy, and things are going to get very sloppy.
Mud-wrestling sloppy.
The part he plays is vital and nothing
short of a concrete answer would suffice. We spent an hour talking before he
had to leave for work, and set a time to talk more. As with Ivan, Carter wanted
a face-to-face meeting, a request I was all too happy to oblige. I set the date
for five days out and he set the place somewhere downtown Seattle, the same one
I'd later set with Thomas.

The pieces are falling together in such a
surreal manner, the process is almost effortless. I speak with these strangers
almost as if I already know them, as if a bond has stretched backwards through
time to help this union form; perhaps by necessity, or sheer dumb luck.
Regardless, with each half-victory I find the strength to persevere.

Dennis Shaeffer
-

These things are a wild mess of quick and vivid
images. Frantic, yet crystal clear; gripping and enhancing every sense so
intensely I felt as if I could reach out to touch the world and warn them.

I drifted, weightless, without form or mass. An
unimpeded aerial view of a dark rural landscape, slowly replaced by the
spinning blades of a barely visible helicopter as it coast over a constellation
of lights sprinkled across the shifting country side.

It was a calm night and I could feel the cool
breeze brush through my senses. The sky was within the final moments of
relinquishing its last sliver of daylight to the growing dark, giving way to
clear skies untouched by the distant city lights, and letting the countless
flickering stars bear witness to the arrival of these black ghosts. The extreme
silence in which the stealth helicopters moved was unsettling, hovering over
their target without so much as a whisper to give it away, surrounding their
prey like a pack of wolves in a dark forest.

The forest of suburbia, houses as far as the
eye can see. Joe and what remains of his clan continuing unaware inside their
plain, three story, red brick house. Nobody knew who lived here or exactly how
many people called it home and, aside from Joe, I can say the same. The same
car never stayed parked in the driveway for more than a few weeks, and never
more than one person ever left the house at a time. While on occasion you could
see the surrounding families out planting flowers or trimming the bushes, all
their yard work was done by professionals, arriving to do their job and leaving
without any interaction. This wasn't to say they weren't friendly, if you
smiled they would smile back, and would likewise return the wave of a hand or
occasional greeting, but always keeping it brief and at a distance.

Infrared showed five bodies on the premise,
blissfully unaware and relaxed. Yet damned like a gazelle having inched too
close to the water. Two watching television, one showering, another surfing the
internet on their laptop with the fifth passed out right beside her.

A series of cables drop off the side of the
helicopters with a flood of soldiers sliding down almost immediately after.
Glass breaks and people scream. Flash bangs, tear gas, and gun shots. Bright
flashes of colored light and the thud of dead weight. Cornered like animals,
filled with rage and hatred.

Thunderous toe-curling screams that quickly
devolves into instinctively violent actions, and just as quickly turns the odds
in their favor. Rich trails of warm blood flow from every room, across walls,
over furniture and people. Panicked and desperate actions drowned out by a cacophony
of rapid gunfire.

And then the fire, an unnatural and
overwhelming amount that burst forth all at once; a column of it rising into
the sky. The walls crack, splinter, and fly apart, bodies as well. Yet the
soldiers press on, squads of the best our military has to offer. Strong young
men trained to work so well as a cohesive unit their reactions border on
telepathic, hitting hard and fast, aiming with almost mechanical precision,
thinking clearly and never losing sight of their goals.

Through the fire and falling debris, ignoring
the scorching heat, pushing through the fatigue of their muscles. More
scattered gun shots, until a soldier cuts through the smoke, carrying Joe's
unconscious body slumped over his shoulders. Seconds later another one, an old
man, followed shortly after by a young man and an older woman. A total of four,
handcuffed, drugged, blind- folded, and carried off back into the silence of
the night.

That is not the type of thing I'm interested in
subjecting myself to every night, I'm very much interested in keeping my
sanity.

Just because I was into conspiracies and
alternative news sites doesn't mean I've lost my mind, it just means that I'm
tired of having the same old nasty muck they're trying to pass as the news
these days shoved down my throat. I grew up at the end of the era before this.
When good journalism was on its way out, and even if you couldn't trust the
person feeding you the news you at least had a small degree of comfort knowing
that they weren't entirely full of shit. Back then people still believed in the
American dream, they put their lives on the line for it and knew that being
patriotic doesn't mean never questioning your government, just the opposite.
We've lost that somewhere along the way, most of us anyway.

So, about a month ago I get a private message
from a stranger on a forum I frequent. I found it rather odd considering I
rarely engaged in any sort of conversation, and I'll even admit I juggled the
thought that he might be some covert agent from one of the alphabet agencies.
We talked back and forth for a few weeks, before he finally asked if I wanted
to meet in person, he'd apparently seen a post of mine from a couple months
back giving my location and he wasn't too far away. I agreed, but not without a
great degree of hesitation.

We met on February 24th in a park by a soccer
field a couple miles from where I lived. I drove, and he arrived by taxi. I
could tell there was a calm demeanor he was trying to portray, but it only
slightly worked. He was constantly looking over his shoulder, something that
made me even more nervous than I already was. There was something odd about his
face that made you notice it immediately while still looking normal enough to
shrug off as a possible birth defect. I do my best not to judge people by their
appearances, but perhaps I should. Only later did he tell me that he was using
a latex mold to cover his actual appearance. He never gave me his real name
either, to this day I refer to him as Joe.

He was deep into conspiracies, a depth he'd
quickly lower me to as well. Aside from the hello’s and welcome’s there wasn't
much small talk, he jumped straight into the solar event on March 8th, which I
almost took as complete madness, but his sincerity sold it just enough to keep me
interested. The actual event sealed the deal.

He spoke of paradise, coming short of, and
refusing to use the word utopia. Bickering about the current socio-economic
failings that prevent us from having that type of world today, and how it will
be all the more imperative once people start developing abilities. Moneyless
societies devoid of any type of class structure. True equality. Super-efficient
machines and abundance on a scale like never before. This was the type of world
he came from, where people with abilities and without lived in harmony. It
sound like a fairytale, and one I wasn't too quick to believe in.

Somewhere amid his tirades against our societal
failings and brief trips down memory lane he handed me a small gold encrusted
gem with a deep ocean-blue colored center, ingrained with both familiar and
unfamiliar markings, weighing just over two pounds and small enough to fit in
the palm of my hand. He gave this to me with instructions not to tell anyone,
and he specified "anyone," that it was in my possession.

Then he told me his reasoning for contacting me
and, I assure you, it wasn't because he was lonely. It wasn't really even me he
wanted, rather the ability I was going to be burdened with. And yes, even in
this short time I can tell its one hell of a burden. They're homesick and they
want me to help them get back. This, of course, involves changing the world.
One which I agree is headed down the wrong path.

That day, I left feeling like I'd just had too much
alone time with the king of the crazy house. He seemed convinced, but that
could've easily been explained as him being bat-shit crazy.

And then that damn storm came, and my life
changed.

Joe sent me a private message on the forum
site, "Do you believe me now?" It took me four days to work up the
nerve to respond. That was two days ago and I'm still waiting for a response,
uncommon for someone who usually responds within the hour. I know it was more
than a dream, and Joe wasn't the one who got away. I just pray I'm not next.