Regenesis (Book 1): Impact (26 page)

“All
three of them are light and should only weigh the same as your leg did before.
And all are extremely durable too,” he flipped to show the interior of the
limbs. “And within a week or so, calibration would be complete and the limb
would act and function as good as before, if not better. Once calibrated, the
limb would be covered with a prosthetic skin that would blend and feel like
your real skin.”

“You
don’t need to worry about this,” the voice persisted.

Ryan
ignored it and tried to concentrate on the prosthetic situation, the Cladis
case, and all the while he tried to determine whether or not he was going
insane.

“Mister
Sage?” Ryan snapped back to reality. The doctor continued, “You haven’t given
me an answer yet. Are you sure that you’re up to this right now? We can talk
about this later if you aren’t feeling up to the task just now.”

“Tell
him to leave.”

Ryan
sighed and agreed with the voice, as he truly wasn’t ready to discuss anything,
and as such he asked the doctor if they could talk about it later. Grayson left
and Ryan tried to get to sleep.

“Rest…”
the voice told him. Ryan agreed with the voice and tried to sleep, as he hoped
that he’d be able to recover as much of his strength as he could. Ryan also
hoped the voice would leave once he woke.

---*---

6:13
PM

Washington
DC

Thousands
of people scurried through the streets of the American capitol; in and out of
air-conditioned museums, restaurants, and all about the monuments out in the
sweltering humid air. They tread on the past, they gazed at monuments, and they
saw the face thereon, and ignored the core, the soul, the purpose, the meaning
of those memorials.

Nick
and his newfound Japanese ally sat beneath trees by the reflection pool at the
Lincoln Memorial. The man sat on the bench in his trench coat, gloves, dress
shirt, and slacks and despite the heat and humidity he seemed entirely
comfortable, in contrast to the sweaty young man who sat on the ground with his
back against the seat of the bench. Nick’s coat lay slung over the back of the
bench.

The
Japanese man told Nick they were in Washington DC to meet someone who was a
part of his project, though they’d been there for nearly an hour and Nick began
to believe he suffered from heatstroke. His Japanese ally knew he was fine though.

They
looked at the masses as they walked by the large strip of filthy water. Nick
always believed the water in the reflection pool was clean, clear, and pure,
yet there it was not forty feet away and he knew it was some thicker-than-water
substance filled with animal urine and fecal matter as well as any other sort
of trash that found its way there.

“Your
nation is going to waste.”

“What?
W-Why?” the exhausted boy asked the man.

“Only
twenty-three percent of these people actually know what this pool symbolizes,”
he began, “Yet there it is as an accurate reflection of your society, in all of
its degradation, corruption, and so-called glory.”

Nick
scowled, “I-I take it you’re n-not American then.”

“No.”

“A-Are
you Japanese?”

“Racially,
yes. My nationality isn’t though.”

“Th-Then
what a-are you?”

“Nothing;
I was Japanese but now I don’t belong to any nation.”

“H-How
d-do you l-lose your nationality?”

“You
stop acting as a citizen should.”

Nick
paused, then asked, “W-Why are w-we here?”

“We’re
here to gather someone.”

“For
the p-project?”

“They’re
already part of it, so we’re merely picking them up,” he reported.

“Wh-Who
are they?”

“Someone
similar to you.”

“Like
me?”

“No,
similar. ‘Like’ implies that they are close to identical in their properties.
‘Similar’ implies the same thing, only vaguer.”

Nick
tried to figure out what he meant, but shook his head and asked, “I-I thought
that y-you were going t-t-to help me.”

“I
am going to help you with the investigation, but I have to help you first.”

Nick
paused, confused, and asked for clarification.

“At
the moment you’re basically what every American teenager is, rather useless.”
Nick sarcastically thanked him before the man continued, “You’re learning who
you want to become and what your life can amount to, that’s why you’re useless
at the moment. Granted, not every teenager is useless, as there are hundreds if
not thousands of teenagers who are at this very moment providing for their
families, taking care of ill family members, acting as heads of their households,
or any number of other successful and meaningful  scenarios. Those examples are
not you Nick.”

“Th-Then
who am I?”

“That’s
what we’re going to find out,” the man told him. Nick wanted to say something
but the Japanese man stopped him by stating, “Nick, you need to stop
stuttering.”

“What?”

“You
stutter because of a poor self image you contain within your own conscious. You
think poorly of yourself and as such you believe that what you say has little
to no relevance in any topic of conversation, including this one, which you are
obviously the subject of. It has almost nothing to do with your speech but with
a trepidation you hold toward life, friends, family, and the opposite sex as a
whole.” The man looked at Nick and continued, “You need to stop for two
reasons, the first of which is because it’s a sign of weakness. Your friends
also see it and know that it’s not only a sign of weakness, but they know it
makes you self-conscious.” The man paused as he saw a young African-American
woman approach them.

“What’s
the s-second reason?” he asked.

“It’s
annoying,” the man rose to greet the young woman.

The
young woman only carried a small backpack with her. “Who’s this?” she asked the
man.

“Nick
Jacobs,” he turned to Nick, “Nick, this is Melanie Washington.”

“What
can he do Mizuno?” she asked.

“Y-Your
name’s M-Mizuno?”

“No,
it’s Mizuno,” he told Nick. “Only one ‘m.’”

“What’s
with you?” Melanie asked.

“Have
you been training?” Mizuno asked as he scanned the crowd.

“Why
do you even ask?” The man ignored her question. “Yeah I have. D’you want me to
air the F-word on the radio again?”

“No,
try China though.”

“I
can’t broadcast that far!”

“Well
that’s why I said ‘try’. Train more, get to China,” he flatly told her.

“W-Wait.”
He looked at them both and asked what they were talking about.

Mizuno
rubbed his eyes, “I’d hoped you might have taken a guess at it, but basically
we’re talking about what super power you have.”

Nick
looked at him blankly. “Super…power?”

“Yes.”

“L-Like
flying?”

“Similar
to flying. Basically there has been a sudden development of super powered
individuals across the world over the last few decades. A majority of people
have seemingly useless abilities such as the transference of one liquid into
another, such as water to wine, or things such as the ability to prevent or
force people from sneezing or to sneeze. You, Melanie here, and I however have
rather valuable abilities which I plan on utilizing to shape this world for the
better.”

Nick
forced a small laugh, “You’re j-joking, right?”

“Nope,”
Melanie told him. “Mizuno here hasn’t already proved his skill to you?”

“I
did but Nick assumed I was simply stalking him,” Mizuno answered for Nick.
“He’s less likely to accept what he believes to be outlandish things such as
super powers, which in all honesty makes him more of a problem at the current
moment than an asset.”

“Why
don’t you show him what he can do though?” she suggested. “If he used his
power, whatever it is, then he’d believe us, right?”

Mizuno
nodded, “Yes, but we’re not able to do that at this moment. We’ve got to get
Mithra first.”

“Wh-Who?”

“You’ll
learn soon enough, just wait.”

“When
do we leave?” asked Melanie.

Mizuno
retrieved three tickets from his coat, “In two hours.”

“Wh-Where
are w-we going?”

Mizuno
faced Nick and said, “From now on I won’t respond to you if you stutter in a
sentence. However if you restart and can complete the sentence without
stuttering, I’ll listen.”

“Jerk,”
Melanie muttered.

“Thief,”
Mizuno replied as he resumed watching the crowd. Before she could respond, he
stopped her, “Just drop it.” He glanced past her, his eyes flashed as he stared
at a man who walked past the reflecting pool, and he frowned. “We need to
leave. Melanie,” he tossed her a set of car keys without looking away from the
man in the crowd and said, “Get the black Honda Civic, license plate 052-HJP,
and pull around now.”

They
left in opposite directions without another word; Melanie ran to the street to
find the car, Mizuno moved through the crowd toward the reflecting pool, and
Nick remained where he was while he watched Mizuno work.

Mizuno
followed a pale heavyset man in a large brown coat and a worn black baseball
hat. Within a second of Mizuno tailing him Mizuno seized the man, broke his
neck, and threw the man into the pool. He retrieved a handgun from his coat and
in a fluid motion fired the gun at the ground.

The
area erupted into panic. Nick watched intently as people fled as fast as they
could, while they screamed and shouted that Mizuno was a killer with a gun.
Before Nick realized it, Mizuno was back beside him despite the chaos and fired
once through the crowd and hit the man in the water. The man exploded, which
sent the liquid, garbage, and scraps of metal from the man’s bomb flying in all
directions.

Mizuno
grabbed Nick and Nick’s jacket and dragged him toward the car Melanie sat
waiting in. Once they were inside the Honda, Mizuno muttered, “That makes
twelve.”

Mizuno
rode shotgun, Melanie drove, and Nick sat in the back while he tried to gather
his thoughts. Mizuno tossed the coat next to Nick. “H-How did y-y-you…” Nick
stopped, took a breath, and slowly asked, “How did you do that?”

“It
was obvious. The man weighted at least two-hundred thirty-five pounds and wore
a heavy coat. He would have given himself heatstroke very quickly in this
weather. The rest was only a second’s work on my part.”

“B-But…But
how did you know he had a bomb?”

“How
was I certain?” he asked for clarification, which Nick confirmed, “My ability
enables me to learn anything I want about someone so long as I can see them.”

“And
y-you…You found out that he had a bomb?”

“Yes.”

“D-Did
you h-have t-t-to…Did you have to kill him?”

Mizuno
nodded. “Are you familiar with an organization known as the Dáfù?” Nick said he
knew of them. Mizuno continued, “They’re terrorists that have made a startling
number of attacks recently, today’s making the twelfth in the past three weeks.
This was however the first of their suicide attacks that’s been countered since
the incident in Riyadh when Ghost saved the United States President’s life.”

“B-But
did you…Why kill him?”

“‘Justitia
Omnibus,’ justice for all. What I did was lenient; he was going to die anyway.
And compared to what would have happened to him once he was captured, he’d be
grateful.”

“Did
you know that was going to happen?” Melanie demanded. “Is that why you had us
meet there?”

“No.
That was just an eerie coincidence.” Mizuno handed Nick his passport and
ticket, both read ‘Isaac Jones.’

“So
we were lucky?” Nick asked.

“I’d
say so.”

“No,”
Mizuno muttered. “Now the Dáfù’s at the very least aware that there are people
who can counter them which is a disadvantage to us as we’ve lost the element of
surprise.”

“I
doubt they’re going to be able to find us,” Melanie muttered.

“That
isn’t the point,” he snapped, “They’re aware of us, which means they’re going
to become far more cautious and it’ll be far more difficult when the time comes
to deal with them.”

“Deal
w-with them?”

“All
this will do is cause them to become cautious,” he mused, “Now that they know
they can be stopped, they’re going to escalate things…” Mizuno scowled and
retrieved a small notepad from his coat, reclined in his seat, and focused on
his notes for the rest of the drive to the airport.

---*---

4:45
PM

Bothell,
Washington

A
cool breeze washed over Drake and Ian while they sat on Ian’s front porch. They
each held a can of soda in their hands, an orange soda for Ian and a can of
grape soda for Drake. They enjoyed the sunny day in contrast to the rainy night
they experienced the previous evening.