Super Genetics

The Keeper of the Plains was one of the most stunning landmarks in the city and one of the few still standing after the Splintering. At over 40 feet tall, on top of a 30-foot-high rock pedestal, the Native American monument dominates the horizon for hundreds of feet in every direction. At night, flames are lit around its base, creating an effect which can’t be beat in all of Wichita.

But tonight, as Terry approached the landmark on foot, all he could see was the fog. He felt a pang as he approached the monument, reminded painfully that the city had lost all of its beauty with his grandfather’s working. His mother had brought him here frequently for the nighttime lighting and she would have been devastated to know that it was lost to the fog.

That didn’t matter right now. Tonight was a night for answers and clandestine meetings. His palms were slick as he followed the trail along the Arkansas River, careful not to step off the side and end up taking a bath. He wiped his hands on his pants for the hundredth time, then fingered the pocketknife in his jeans. He had no intention of actually using the thing in self-defense, but he hoped it would serve as some sort of deterrent if IBelieve turned out to be…well, he didn’t know what, exactly, but not what they claimed to be, at least.

There was no denying it though, IBelieve definitely had video footage that corroborated their intentions. And it was a stretch of the imagination to think an enemy of Wichita could possibly be trolling Necrotalk Forums on the off chance that they could snag the prince. How would you even set something like that up? Anyways, Terry had reached out to IBelieve, not the other way around. Worst-case scenario, they were probably just a kook with too much time on their hands and a camera pointed at the Wichitan farms…for whatever reason.

Still, the tiny knife was a comforting weight in his pocket as he fast walked toward the meeting spot.

It was a brisk night, much colder than it had any right to be, presumably because the sun was obscured. A shiver traced up his back and he hunched into his windbreaker, pulling the zipper up tight and covering the lower half of his face with the high neckline. He had packed a few essentials—a flashlight, a pen and notebook to take notes, a protein bar, and a whistle loud enough to cut through the fog—but no extra jacket or change of clothes.

Note to self, pack for the weather…

As he passed over the bridge that led to the plaza housing the Keeper of the Plains, he checked his watch and saw he was six minutes early. Movement at the plaza caught his eye and his stomach flipped. Was that IBelieve? A figure resolved in the fog, then another. They were holding hands, strolling casually across the plaza toward the statue.

He chuckled to himself, the knot in his chest relaxing. He found his hand was clutched tight around the pocketknife and he let it go with a snort.

What are you gonna do with that, Terry? You’re not stabbing anyone, even if they did attack you.

No, his best defense were the running shoes laced up tight on his feet. At the first sign of anything weird, he’d just bolt.

I’m definitely not punching, charging, or otherwise engaging with anything supernatural or villainous. Definitely not.

Now that he was in the plaza proper, he spotted a few people milling about or sitting on the nearby benches. The breeze from the intersecting Arkansas and Little Arkansas rivers wasn’t strong enough to clear the fog, but it did fight back, providing slightly better visibility.

Passing through the plaza, he saw at least a dozen people and it put a smile on his face. Despite everything, despite the cloying fog, the rotting smell, and the oppressive night, people were gathering, laughing, waiting to see the Keeper of the Plains light up in a few minutes.

IBelieve had mentioned meeting in public, but Terry had never imagined there would actually be people here. It filled him with an irrational hope, as if things could get better, with time. Maybe one day, he’d even get over the loss of his mom. Maybe he’d be able to laugh and enjoy life the way these people were. It didn’t feel like it would be today, or tomorrow, or even weeks from now. But one day, the edge to his pain would be gone, a dull ache replacing the sharp hurt.

The clock was about to hit seven and the small crowd of people gathered in tight, like a herd sheltering together for warmth and safety and companionship. He felt himself drawn to these strangers, a moth to the flame.

A whoosh filled the air, yellow-red fire coming to life in the first brazier perched above the water. Heat and light bloomed, burning through the fog, illuminating the people around him. A cheer went up, soft, but pure. He smiled at that, forgetting his purpose for being here, reveling in the unadulterated happiness that he could practically feel.

With a start, he realized he could feel the joy. The aura of the bystanders played around him, conjoining into an amorphous wave that carried the feel-good energy. He basked in it as another brazier lit, then another. In a moment, all five burned bright, the heat palpable from the viewing area.

“It’s really something, innit?”

Terry turned to see a mousy man, barely taller than him, standing a few feet to his left. He had thick glasses reflecting the flames, hiding his eyes as Terry glanced over. Short stubble marred his cheeks and chin, doing a poor job of concealing the man’s gaunt features.

Terry’s pulse quickened and he turned to face the small man. Instinct almost caused him to blurt out, ask if the man was IBelieve. But good sense intervened at the last moment.

“Sure is,” he replied hesitantly. “Was my mother’s favorite part of Wichita.”

The man turned to face Terry, scanning left and right to observe the other bystanders before speaking.

“I know,” he replied. “My drones tracked the princess coming here nearly every week.”

Terry gasped, though he didn’t know why. He had strongly suspected the man was IBelieve. But some part of him had still felt like none of this was real, that IBelieve was trolling him or would have cold feet—or a million other reasons why he wouldn’t show up.

But seeing the man in person suddenly made this all real, brought his purpose into focus.

“IBelieve?” he asked, inching forward. “You said you had more—”

“Not here,” the man hissed, his head nearly doing a full circle as eyed the small crowd. He waved for Terry to follow and made for a bench on the edge of the plaza.

Despite everything, he was nervous to leave the safety of the people and the light from the braziers. But this was actually IBelieve! The man who claimed to have more videos of his mother.

Terry followed him, perching on the edge of the bench, his feet firmly beneath him, ready to spring up and make a run for it at the first sign of anything weird. But as he sat down, IBelieve looked away, as if he were having trouble holding eye contact. A waver in the air caught Terry’s attention—the man’s aura pushing out, hesitating, drawing back.

He’s nervous…and not in the, I’m setting you up for a double-cross type of way. He’s just…a nervous person.

And his aura, though hesitant, felt slightly stronger, more robust than a single person usually felt like.

Then it hit him.

“You’re a super!” Terry gasped.

The man’s eyes bugged out behind his thick glasses, locking on Terry before flitting away to check their surroundings for the third time.

“Am not,” he protested, but the words were weak, the lie bald before Terry’s burgeoning aura sense.

He’s unregistered, Terry realized.

“Hey, I’m not trying to out you or anything,” he said quickly, holding his hands up. “I just…it hit me, is all.” The man looked tense, as if he were about to get up and bolt off. “Listen, I don’t care if you’re unregistered—” He flinched at that. “—really! I just want to know what happened to my mom…”

The man chewed his lip, his eyes studying Terry with a sudden intensity. Now, Terry was the one squirming.

After a far too long pause, IBelieve seemed to come to a decision.

“Yes, I’m unregistered,” he finally said. The nervousness seemed to leak out of the man with the admission. “I have my reasons, let’s leave it at that.”

“Sure, sure,” Terry replied as earnestly as he could. “Really, I don’t care about that. You said you had more videos of that day. And of…my mom.”

IBelieve nodded, glancing around them distractedly.

“I always follow the royal family with my drones—at a distance, of course,” he added with an embarrassed look. “I’m not creepy about it.”

Terry very carefully kept his expression blank.

“So, you were following me and my family when we visited the farms?” A shiver of excitement passed through him. “You caught the whole thing, then! You know what happened to my mom!”

He looked off sheepishly. “Um, well…I did catch the whole thing, but I don’t know what happened to the princess.”

Terry stared blankly at the man, not quite comprehending his words. The silence stretched and IBelieve turned back, his lips peeled back in a cringe.

“You know, uh, how about I just show you?”

He pulled a tablet from the bag perched between his feet and Terry’s heart began to pound.

This was it, this was the video that had been haunting my dreams. I’d finally get to see the entire fight, figure out what had happened to mom. But why did IBelieve say he didn’t know what happened?

Terry shifted over to look at the screen.

Guess I’m about to find out.

The angle of the video was different than the one IBelieve had sent him over Necrotalk Forums. It was crisper, too, the resolution sharp enough for Terry to make out the details he had missed before.

He saw Savage leap to follow Crunch and Terry, but ignored that to home in on his father, mother, and the rest of the Knights.

A team of ghouls distracted the Scourge as Terry’s father summoned Skol and Hati. The two dire wolves slipped through a portal cutting across the air and immediately charged to assist the ghouls. His mother angled a hand toward Sol and the light threading into his body from the sun dimmed noticeably.

Pride toward his mother’s strength filled his chest.

The Siren angled behind Sol, out of sight as she approached James from his blindside. Knowing that his father would ultimately be unscathed, he kept his eyes on Sol and his mother.

But the two weren’t fighting. Instead, Sol floated above her, and it seemed as if he were saying something.

“Can you magnify that?” he asked IBelieve. “Maybe we can read his lips or—”

“Already done.”

A caption appeared at the bottom of the feed as the view narrowed in to show Sol, the Siren, and his parents.

[I didn’t come to fight you! I’m here to rescue you!]

Terry’s thoughts faltered and he missed the next part as he tried to understand Sol’s words.

“Hold on, can you pause.” The feed froze without the man hitting a button. Neural integration? he wondered for a moment before shifting back on topic. “Are you sure that’s right? What…why did Sol say he didn’t want to fight?” He looked up to study IBelieve’s face. “Savage was literally kidnapping me!”

IBelieve’s eyes were glued to the tablet, his jaw clenching over and over again.

“Let’s keep watching before I say anything else.” Now, he did glance up at Terry, a nervous expression on his face.

He wanted to protest, demand answers, shake the man until he explained. But he had no right to interrogate IBelieve—he was grateful just for the chance at an explanation.

“Okay, can you go back, I missed some of it.”

The feed skipped back of its own accord.

[I didn’t come to fight you! I’m here to rescue you!]

His mother’s back was turned to the camera, but she was obviously responding.

Sol held up his hands and backed away. Was he…scared?

[I promised your father I’d—no, don’t do this.]

His mother pushed a wave of power toward Sol. The camera couldn’t quite track the energy, but Sol’s reaction was enough. The powerful super dodged away, his flight turning erratic, like he’d hit turbulence. Another wave of power emitted from his mother, and Sol did his best to dodge.

“Look at the Siren,” IBelieve suggested softly. Terry dragged his gaze away from his mother’s battle with Sol, telling himself he could rewatch the feed to catch what he missed. But he found it difficult to pull his thoughts away.

Did Sol kill mom? Why was he refusing to fight? And he’d mentioned mom’s father. She had never brought up her father…ever.

His thoughts cut off, his chest clenching. The Siren had maneuvered behind his father, mere feet away from the man. Irrationally, Terry wanted to shout watch out. His father would sense her, right? He’d turn around in time.

But he didn’t. Her hand clasped his shoulder and a shudder arced through his body. A moment later, she fell back, collapsing from the strain.

She was only a B-ranker, what was she thinking—

James whirled around and even zoomed out as the feed was, Terry could see the unbridled rage in his father’s eyes. Siren noticed too, and started crawling away, her body seeming to be taxed beyond the brink.

His father regarded her with murderous intent, then turned toward his mother. Terry also shifted his attention, having lost track of her fight with Sol, only to gasp as he saw her curled up on the ground, her body spasming.

She was still alive!

He expected his father to race across the field, defend his exposed mother from Sol’s retaliation while she was helpless. Instead, his father turned back to the Siren, strolling over to kick her onto her back.

A wild shout echoed out of the tablet—Sol’s voice, Terry realized, powerful enough to reach the camera from hundreds of meters away. His father looked up, met Sol’s eyes across the field, then stomped his foot down on the Siren’s neck.

“No…” Terry gasped, reeling away from the bench. His legs trembled, his stomach twisting. What had he just seen, what had his father—

His dinner splashed out onto the pavement and he collapsed to his knees. Bile burned his throat, vomit caked his pants. He didn’t care. None of it mattered.

His father had executed the Siren rather than save his mother.

“Why?” he gasped to himself.

He reached a hand up to the bench to steady him. He half expected IBelieve to have gone, but the man stared back at him, biting his lip as he regarded Terry.

“I don’t understand,” he muttered. “I don’t understand.”

Wiping his mouth with his sleeve, he forced himself to his feet. IBelieve watched him stand with obvious trepidation, but Terry took a steadying breath and returned to the bench.

“Keep playing, please. Go back to right before—” Before dad executed the Siren. The words wouldn’t come, but IBelieve understood and the feed skipped back.

This time, he kept his eyes on his mother as the Siren touched his father with her powers. Mother had been mid attack, sending a wave of power toward Sol, when she suddenly froze. Then, she seemed to cry out, collapsing to the ground as Sol hovered in the distance.

Terry squinted, his entire focus turned on the details of the battle. It hadn’t been Sol, he realized. The powerful S-ranker hadn’t so much as lifted a finger against his mother.

“Go back, please.”

The feed cut back once more.

Terry’s eyes skipped between his father and mother, watching for the moment. And then—

“It happened at the exact same time,” he whispered. He looked to IBelieve with wide eyes. “The exact same second.”

The man hesitated, then nodded.

“One more time, please.”

The Siren reached out, his mother prepared an attack, and then, the Siren’s powers affected his father and in the exact same moment, the White Rose faltered, then collapsed.

There was a connection, feedback…

“My father…” Terry thought back to that moment in his bedroom, his father giving him the news of his mother’s death. “He said the feedback from Siren killed my mother. But this…”

Terry forced himself to watch as his father executed Siren once more, though he kept his attention on his mother’s convulsing body as much as he could. She would stop seizing any minute now, slipping into death caused by…what?

And she did stop seizing. But instead of lying there, still and quiet, she moved. Terry’s eyes widened as she rolled to all fours, then stood up with a confused expression visible even from a distance.

Sol had also moved, yelling with rage as he raced toward where Terry’s father loomed over the Siren’s corpse. His father yelled something to his mother, cupping his hands over his mouth so that there were no captions. But Sol was coming in fast and his father was obviously only moments away from being torn apart by the powerful S-ranker.

Instead of replying to his father or coming to his aid, his mother turned and…

“She ran away…” Terry looked up at IBelieve. “She ran away! She’s alive!” Then, the confusing realization hit him. “She’s alive? But why didn’t she come home? And whose body was that in the casket?”

IBelieve didn’t respond, so Terry turned back to the feed to see if there were any answers to be had.

Sol was nearly upon James, so the prince turned and ran. Sol was blocking the path to Terry’s mother, so he watched as his father fled across the field toward where Savage was fighting Crunch. His two dire wolves appeared at his side as the Scourge fled on one of his swarms.

Sol arrived at the Siren’s body and lifted her into his lap, stroking her hair delicately as he openly wept. A few moments later, the telltale gathering of light signaled what Terry already knew would come.

He turned away from the feed and regarded the cool night and the slowly emptying plaza. He wasn’t sure how long he stared out blankly, wasn’t even sure if IBelieve was still at his side on the bench. His mind felt doused in kerosene, like a single thought would set it aflame.

An involuntary chill traced up his spine from the dropping temperature, shaking him from his fugue state.

He turned, half expecting to be alone, and was surprised to see the mousy man regarding him with a plain sadness in his eyes.

“I’m…sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have shown you that.”

Terry shook his head, his thoughts confused about everything except one thing: he was happy IBelieve had shown him what had really happened.

“No, I’m glad you did. Thank you, really. I…don’t know exactly what to think about all of this, but it’s given me hope.” He felt the resolve solidify inside his mind, a purpose and an understanding mingling to form a foundation for him to examine his emotions—alone. “This proves that my mother’s alive.” And that my instincts about my father were right. The realization that he had idolized the wrong man stung, but he would push past that on his own time. “I better get back before my bodyguards start to wonder. Will you…can we stay in touch? Please.”

IBelieve bit his lip nervously, seeming to consider, then finally nodded.

“Yeah, it would be nice to have someone to talk to about these things.” Then he held out his hand. “I’m Arthur, but you can call me Art.”

Terry smiled, though he still felt an ache in his heart that made the expression feel hollow, distant.

“Nice to meet you, Art. I’m Terry.”

He walked back along the trail, his thoughts confusing and painful. He wanted nothing else but to linger out of the palace, work through the pain and confusion he was feeling. But he’d been gone long enough and he didn’t want Tania to worry.

With a start, he realized he was outside the palace, right below his window. He had been so distracted, he didn’t even know how he had made it back. But the cold was starting to become biting and he was glad for the opportunity to collapse onto his bed and forget this night, even if for just a few hours as he slept.

The sheet-rope was pulled up out of sight, but that was expected. It would have been pretty suspicious leaving it dangling outside the window all night.

“Tania,” he called up, keeping his voice tight. But his window was six stories up and the fog obscured his view. He raised his voice a bit, wincing as he called out again. “Tania! It’s Terry, can you hear me?”

He was about to call up again when the rope slipped through the fog in front of him.

With a sigh of relief, he gripped the knots. His muscles felt numb from the cold and the spent emotions, but he shook his hands out and started climbing.

The climb felt like it took forever and he gasped in relief when he finally reached the top. He practically rolled over the windowsill, flopping to the ground in an exhausted heap.

“Tania, you won’t believe it. I don’t even really believe it—”

Two long, red legs came into view, powerful and inhuman. Toe-blades dug into the carpet and the sound of jagged teeth filled the room.

Terry looked up to see Crunch, his single eye boring into him, though his face was expressionless beneath the melted skin.

“No Tania, only Crunch.”

Terry’s stomach clenched and he grasped at his bed weakly as he pulled himself to his feet.

“I’m sorry, Crunch,” he started. “I…you didn’t punish Tania, did you? It was my idea and…” He trailed off, too emotionally drained to say more.

Crunch was silent for a moment and Terry squirmed under his gaze. Then, the ghoul reached up a hand and Terry had the irrational fear that his friend was going to strike him. But his hand simply wrapped around the backpack strap over his shoulder, easing it off. Hefting the bag, he set it on the nearby desk, then turned back to Terry.

“Where go?” Crunch finally asked.

Terry hesitated a moment, knowing he had disappointed his friend. He didn’t even consider a lie, the shame burning away the thought.

“I met someone online,” he admitted. “He had videos of the Knights' attack and…I went to see him.”

“No tell Crunch? Meet stranger? Why?”

Terry flinched at those words, hearing the hurt behind them.

“I…I didn’t think you’d understand.”

He looked away, unable to meet the ghoul’s eye. A pause filled the air, sucking in the silence like it was about to burst.

Then, Crunch put a hand on Terry’s shoulder.

“Crunch understand.”

The silence exploded inside of him, the wall he’d been trying to build against his emotions cracking, tumbling away. A sob burst from him, tears that he couldn’t fight cresting his eyes. He threw himself against Crunch’s sturdy body, wrapping his arms around his friend.

“C-crunch, it wa-was horrible.” An ugly cry-hiccup took him and he could barely squeeze the words out. “M-my father…” No, he couldn’t squeeze the words out. “And m-my mom mi-might be a-alive.”

Crunch wrapped his arm around Terry, squeezing him tight.

“Crunch friend. Tell Crunch everything.”

End of Part One: Fallout