Algorithmic Mutation 2
A story with no heroes.
PART 2 of 3
“When the fox preaches, look to your geese.”
-William Camden, Remaines of a Greater Worke (1605)
Final Induction
Broken Beak Plaza
January 18th, 2034
Audrey chose not to kneel at her induction. She hadn’t warned the handlers or Ace, she simply stood in front of him and waited for him to catch up. Her blonde hair was held high and tight in an expensive clip, manufactured to look like crossed hair pins. She wore a white blouse over a black tank and dark short seamed shorts.
Ace held a trepidatious hand out, before eventually conceding, placing it on her shoulder. Audrey was slightly taller. Ace pushed back the bangs of his near-black hair and subdued an irritated expression just under the placid surface of his pale countenance. He wore a navy blue modern suit, lapel-less, without visible seams.
Exiting the circle, Ace moved behind the branded podium. Yesterday’s induction was a success. Audrey remembered the candidate, they had been in the same test group. Devin something, he hadn’t been clear on the specifics of his background or training. Audrey hadn’t watched the event.
Ace’s earpiece lit up, flashing rapidly as his chip calculated her odds. Nobody within the DOM was optimistic of her chances.
“Twelve percent.” Ace announced. “I strongly recommend-”
“No chance!” Audrey proclaimed, almost playfully.
Silently, Ace nodded and tapped his earpiece. The process began with a deep heat that started by baking Audrey’s gut. The fever spread rapidly, bursting from organs into her limbs, neck and head. She twitched as her eyes began to burn before subduing her reactions before the watchful public.
A gust formed around her. An invisible, circling predator. It pecked at her heat-sick skin as it ran around her, retreating and testing her repeatedly. Audrey growled as the sensation of nerves tearing, wide and painful, started at her finger tips. The nips of the invisible predator became a stretching, aching ripping.
Audrey felt her nerves tighten within the meat of her muscles. As she was unwound from within, another sensation occurred. The nerves weren’t being torn out, they were growing. She could begin to sense the velocity and pressure of the gust circling her.
After a few agonizing breaths, the air torrent was no longer a predator separate from her. It was an organ, a limb, outside of her body. Her imagination started running wild, picturing it changing, becoming temperate, in a desperate attempt to save herself.
Audrey’s fingertips were swollen and darkening into a deep red. The veins along her arms throbbed visibly. Her neck was tight, swallowing became impossible as the wind refused her commands, continuing its assault.
Simultaneously, the invisible growth of nerves reached the full expanse of the torrent and the center of her heart. At that moment, all activity ceased. She could feel the invisible nerves dimming as the breeze died down around her. Suddenly, her heart beat painfully strong.
She closed her eyes and focused on the new, dimmer pain. With sincere effort, Audrey intended a puff of breeze to reignite the stream. It worked.
As Ace and the cordoned off crowd at the perimeter of the plaza’s center waited with bated breath and pessimistic whispers, Audrey focused on reigniting the painful limb, half imagined, half physical. It started to feel like a large hand and arm, hugging her and yet it was her. There was no protective skin or muscle to liken it to anything from modernity or history.
Audrey worked the raw nerves and their airy energy to test for length and strength. She opened her eyes again, standing. The wind-limb pressed firmly against the ground as she focused on balancing herself within its stream. With hard focus but little effort, the limb lifted her from the ground in cycling, simmering gusts.
The crowd cooed and awed as she levitated. Ace’s earpiece blinked three times before its pin light changed to a dimmer blue.
“The process is complete.” He announced. He looked at Audrey’s floating form uncertainly.
She grinned with the side of her mouth, revealing a sharp canine. Her eyes were half-lidded, a wolf without disguise. Gently, she let herself back down. With a practiced grace, she turned around for the crowd and posed for pictures and questions. For nearly an hour.
The handlers allowed it. They ate up the spectacle, starved piranhas. The agents disappeared into the crowd and crew, but never lost sight of Audrey’s performance.
Ace recognized some of the skulking handlers. A few from his childhood, most from the last three years. He tried not to focus on the eerie dread of lifelong surveillance. How these specters greedily consumed Audrey’s novelty. How she was cursed for the rest of her life to bear their attention.
A gunshot rang out from the heart of the crowd. Countless strangers screamed and fled. Several police knelt and drew arms. More began ordering and walking away along with the fleeing patrons. DOM Security personnel positioned themselves into practiced formation, none regarded or assisted the public.
Ace looked into the crowd, his eyes took on a different hue, electric blue sparked from his irises into the sclera. A rough sketch of a pistol displayed within his sight, it rotated as waves of grids fanned across the crowd, centered on him and reaching out to the perimeter of the park. The plethora of armed persons were a net of distraction. Many had their guns drawn. There was no guarantee the would-be assassin was still present or wielding.
Audrey hadn’t moved an inch. The bullet had passed by her, near enough to hear it whizz through the air. Her gut argued over whether or not she had somehow disrupted its path to save herself instinctively. In her stoic pose, she had her sights on the shooter. A black pea coat, white medical face mask. It was a stroke of luck or intuition that she was able to spot him as he discarded his weapon, betrayed by a glimmer of sunlight against its black steel.
The crowd ran in every direction. The assassin attempted to fall in with the majority to escape. Audrey pressed the growing air-limb into the ground again and propelled herself toward them. It wasn’t just easy, it was a new level of power.
Audrey laughed as her physical body soared over top of the crowd with little effort. One limb became two. Two hands pressing against the surrounding trees, balancing and climbing through the open air as she jettisoned along their trajectory toward that heavy black coat.
The shooter dared a glance back, to determine if any of the officers had spotted him as he continued to flee. It was in this movement that he noticed Audrey flying through the air with her mouth wide open in apparent glee.
Instinctively, he ducked. It was no use. With the invisible limb formed into a large hand, Audrey slammed into his body. She landed gracefully next to him, waiting for a sign of movement. When she noticed the blood beginning to pool under his face, she grew concerned. Then, she spotted the tooth. Then, a second.
“Oops.” Audrey muttered while circling the suspect.
Ace caught up to her during the third round. He was accompanied by two DOM security persons and they were tailed by a smattering of local police officers.
“You aren’t licensed for combat yet.” Ace scolded.
Instead of responding, Audrey offered him an indifferent glare. I’m the wind, she thought.
“Well, is someone going to cuff him or are you giving him a second shot at me?” Audrey said while turning to face the slew of armed personnel.
With all the bravery of a timid squirrel, several officers approached the battered unconscious body and began binding him. Another called for medical attention.
Ace stared daggers into Audrey, waiting for her to meet his gaze. She instead headed back toward the waiting press. Some had paused and began creeping back once they noticed the assumed perpetrator had been handled. The most courageous of them had never left, holding cameras or whispering into shirt mics from the half cover of winter-dead trees.
Audrey met them halfway between the scene of the take down and the plaza center. When she spoke it was articulate, intelligent, anticipatory and perfectly polite. The hair on Ace’s arms stood up in a pseudo fear of her. In her likeness to Reynard.
Another charming psychopath, Ace thought.
“Think of the devil.” A romantic growl, from behind.
“Don’t do that.” Ace chided.
Ace stared at him in perfect seriousness. Reynard fixed his burgundy hair from his eyes. Ace guarded his thoughts with memories in high fidelity playback. Reynard cocked an eyebrow and smiled. A predator delaying the kill for another day.
Next, Foxhead started to sniff around the scene. He was filled with humor, but as his eyes darted between the beaten fool and the returning cameras, he discarded the smile. Then, he stared into Audrey, as she performed her own serious circus for the inquiring press. As he picked up a thought or two from within her, one corner of his mouth subtly raised, before it could be suppressed again.
Five Hours Later
SCIR (Sensitive Compartmented Information Room)
Department of Metamorphic Studies, Primary Federal Headquarters
Washington, DC
Reynard’s disposition changed the second they entered the Faraday cage of the SCI-Room. His shoulders slunk, his head shifted from person to person rapidly, he watched his back, frequently.
He was accompanied by the full suite of Federally Approved Metamorphs. There were seven of them now, including the surviving new recruits. As the would-be heroes filed in and found their seats, four suits entered after them.
Once all eleven folk were seated, nobody spoke for a long moment. The room was protected and sound insulated. The rhythm of his own breathing was enough to make Ace’s ears itch. He closed his eyes, slowing and deepening his respiration.
It was cold, yet suffocating in here. A blanket of dampened air raised the pressure in his ears and stifled swallowing. Ace gripped the pen in front of him tightly, pulsating the pressure, focusing his eyes on only that task.
“Reynard?” The suit at the head of the long conference table finally spoke.
Reynard nodded his head affirmatively.
“Ace?” Castillo looked across the table and asked.
“No devices.” Ace affirmed, as he scanned the room at full capacity.
“Well.” Castillo started with a fragment of his thought before pausing. He scrunched his face, directing it toward Audrey Farebloom. She was meeting his stare with an easy ambivalence.
She opened her mouth to say something sarcastic, then hesitated, as her quick mind denoted his position at the head of the table.
“This isn’t how I planned to make introductions.” Castillo continued. “I’m Cameron Castillo, Director of the DOM. You’ve made quite a bold first move.” He said evenly, relaxing his expression.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you.” Audrey offered a pleasant smile. tilting her head forward slightly.
“Farebloom, right?” Castillo shuffled among the folders and documents in front of him on the table.
To his right, a serious woman with bold red lips and thick-rimmed tortoise spectacles opened the notebook in front of her to the first page and held it up in examination.
“Audrey Farebloom. Dreamed effectively and early. Odds of mutation survival were dismal. Notable permutations: flight, transparent combat apparatus, highly attractive disposition toward press under pressure.”
Castillo nodded to her and smiled for the first time as the woman read the last line. Beads of sweat grew visibly on the dark skin of his smooth head. He shifted his gaze to the left, returning to Audrey. He looked up and nodded slightly to himself several times. Then, he looked to the woman on his right again.
“How attractive?” He asked.
“When interrogated without sanctioned preparation, she shifted focus from violence to the DOM’s dedication to protection, denied causing any serious injury, ensured the suspect’s safety and priority, and deflected blaming the accused. She conceded the seriousness of a gunshot in the crowd while assuring the press that her current contingent were capable of protecting those present without risk. Her affectation was consistently pleasant, humble, appropriate in response to the levity or seriousness of the inquiries.”
“Hm.” Castillo responded. He looked back at Audrey. “All that from a couple weeks of media training?”
“She’s heiress to Farebloom Technologies’ holdings and has received highly visible media attention from the age of 14, due to several campaigns to market her as a generational genius in the machine engineering field.” The woman shifted to Audrey, “I’m Catherine Grant, Assistant to the Director.” She finished.
“Valuable experience.” Director Castillo ranked her.
“Thank you.” Audrey responded.
“Reynard, anything from you?” Castillo asked.
Foxhead smirked and spoke through a quiet laugh. “She acts fast, but not without thinking. We can trust her, as long as nothing better comes along.”
“I certainly doubt we have to worry about that.” Castillo tilted his head in acknowledgement.
Audrey looked deeply into Foxhead’s eyes. Her scrutiny caused another chuckle from him. Her mind ran the gamut of possibilities before she spoke.
“Mind reading. Not a mastermind of trickery.” She scoffed, discarding the profile he had publicly.
“Bit of an open secret.” Reynard responded.
“Enough.” Castillo ordered suddenly. All eyes turned to him. “As you’ve noted, we don’t disclose everything to any passerby with a trading card.”
Audrey nodded solemnly, “I divulged nothing about my abilities to the press.”
Castillo’s eyebrows raised minutely, the corners of his mouth flattened from their sunken positions. “Keep it that way, until we tell you.”
She nodded in response.
“We call this the SCIR. It’s a secure room. What’s said in here, doesn’t leave. Ever.” Castillo reacquired his frown. “The reason we’re meeting like this is because you bypassed protocols. You engaged in combat without an official license, and then had the audacity to engage with the press without my explicit leave.” He let the words hang in the air.
Catherine moved the top folder and grabbed a half-page document beneath it. She shoved it with some force toward Audrey. “Your license.” She said, “You’ve had this since last Monday. Though you didn’t have your power, we were able to supplement its effects with technology in cooperation with Farebloom Technologies, the specifics of which are classified.” Catherine’s brows raised in a question, daring Audrey to acknowledge these alternative truths.
“Of course.” Audrey affirmed, grabbing the paper.
Castillo stood abruptly. “Introduce yourselves before clearing out.” He moved to walk away.
He stood at the heavy metal door of the room, clearing his throat. Eventually, a large black bulb within a cage above the door lit green. When it did, the door clicked and heaved itself open. The room remained silent until the door closed with a creak and the lock clicked. The bulb returned to black.
Ace spoke from Audrey’s immediate right. “Catherine and Reynard you’ve met.” He began, “That’s Steven Amorsare, Intelligence supervisor.” Ace said, pointing to the suit beside Reynard. “Then Lukas Lipki, Strategy and Tech Lead.” Ace looked over at Audrey to ensure she was following, or at least paying attention.
“Catherine, Reynard (she raised her fingers in quotes), Steven, Lukas.” Audrey nodded and signaled with her hand for him to continue.
“At the end is Devin Marosak. A new recruit, induced yesterday.”
“Nice to meet you, what’s your deal?” Audrey brightened up at the mystery.
Devin looked cautiously at Ace before responding, receiving an impatient nod. “Driven oscillation.”
Audrey scrunched her face without asking for further details.
“Resonance.” Devin corrected, averting his gaze. “I can sense Natural Frequency and emit an oscillating tone to match it.” He noted her continued confused expression, “Like breaking a wine glass.” He finished.
“Oh, so you can break anything?”
“This isn’t the time.” Ace chided. He directed her attention to their side of the conference table. “To your left, that’s-”
“I know who they are.” She said, motioning toward the three sitting down the table from her. “Unless you’re going to give me real names or true powers…” She tried.
“Their public profiles are plenty, for now.” Ace diffused.
Catherine stood now. She made a motion with her hands indicating for everyone to rise, then headed for the exit. As the group filtered away from the table, Audrey made intentional movements to cause each of the Metamorphs to her left to pause before passing her. She shook their hands and offered niceties.
U.S. Capitol, Rotunda
January 25, 2034
Reynard dove toward Ace. He managed to push him several feet from where he had stood. The ground beneath his former position shattered into millions of fragments of polished marble. They spewed chaotically across the echoing chamber of the Capitol’s Rotunda, defacing prestigious oil paintings and glass encased artifacts.
Audrey took a defiant step forward, despite orders for her to observe from the rear flank. Hestia put a firm hand to Audrey’s chest, pushing her backward and nearly knocking her over.
The two groups were at a severe standstill, with the sanctioned metamorphs at a notable disadvantage. The saboteurs were maintaining a field of what appeared to be sharpened debris. They were managing a whirlwind of marble and stone in a defensive semi sphere around themselves. Some of the flying fragments were clearly from the floors and banisters of the room, but other pieces seemed darker, dirty, older.
Hestia was creating a dense pressure field around the attackers, in an attempt to block their ability to fire debris from the barrier as deadly projectiles. They were managing to defy it somehow, causing the mind-bending effect of the debris sphere.
The three terrorists within it yelled orders to one another, Audrey noted. Their disagreements grew in volume and intensity as their makeshift tornado-like barrier continued to press in closer and closer on them. Every few seconds it rebounded in size before shrinking again. Two of them were holding their arms outward in a show of focus.
“Those two, it takes both of them!” Audrey yelled to her allies.
Hestia spared a quick scowl in her direction in consideration. The barrier rebounded severely in that moment, growing to twice its former diameter. The third assailant was kneeling with both hands pressed against the floor then standing and raising his palms toward the ceiling in rapid cycles.
After the fifth cycle, the floor started to break again. The cracks started within their protective field before expanding violently toward Audrey and Hestia’s position. Reynard only had time to yell,
“Up!”
Audrey grabbed clumsily at Hestia’s underarms and pushed her air-limb against the floor desperately. They flew twenty feet into the air, swaying from side to side as the marble beneath them shattered under her invisible hand.
Several pieces of marble, molded into long blades, fired toward their new position. Audrey braced herself to be impaled. Instead, Hestia pushed a field between them to intervene. This caused the field around the assailants to falter and expand to half the size of the Rotunda.
While holding Hestia mid-air, Audrey realized she could create multiple limbs, all lined with transparent nerves of their own. She imagined it large and thick with its own pressure. As she reached toward the terrorists, the nerves were tattered and severed by the makeshift blades. She couldn’t help but to wince at first, then scream as she defiantly continued toward them.
The new limb became useless and dispersed in the counter field. She made two more. Audrey screamed as she felt the rips and tears of her unperceived torrents. Hestia doubled her focus, realizing Audrey’s attempt without understanding its nature. This doubled the challenge to Audrey as her limbs fought against the pressure field.
She discovered her strength could pierce both the assailing and the protective fields. Limb after air-limb fell into tatters as she created a litany of assault against both obstacles. They pierced further and further until she was able to push one of the two individuals holding the rapturous poses backward from within their defensive mechanism.
His body was immediately caught up in the spinning debris. His clothing was torn away immediately, then his flesh was flayed rapidly in layers until the man was half skeleton. The debris field sank after a few seconds, enough time for his screams to rise and grow desperate.
When the semi sphere fell uselessly to the ground, the man was silent, unmoving. The two remaining foes started aggressive motions that cracked and shifted the materials around them, but the effort was futile.
Hero leapt toward them, his expression was even, his limbs nearly relaxed with the lack of effort. With one swift motion, he cleared the distance between the two forces. His blonde hair was swept backward as he crossed the remainder of Hestia’s pressure field. His cape, worn for the public hearing, was pressed against his red, white and blue body suit as if soaked as he entered the extra-gravity.
He landed gracefully on top of the shoulders of the terrorist who had been worshiping the floor. The man sank under Hero’s weight. With an easy kick, not unlike the motion of a two-step, the worshiper’s skull was half caved in. Blood splattered across the Rotunda, reaching across its width.
The other man looked in horror at Hero, attempting to retreat, but falling down on his back. Hero hopped from the corpse and approached him. Hero bent down and lifted the man by his padded black jacket. With a gentle back hand, he swiped across the man’s face, causing him to fall limp within his grasp.
The obliterated Rotunda fell quiet once Audrey and Hestia landed, braking gusts of wind guided them to the floor.
To break the new pressure of silence, Audrey said, “Guess we only needed one for questioning.” To the group.
“Be quiet.” Hestia ordered, with a leading glance toward a wall-mounted camera. “There’s no telling why they were here.”
Audrey considered the facts. Most of the Metamorphs were scheduled to speak to congress today, accompanied by the President. It was fairly obvious, but she now considered that these were notes for the SCIR.
Over the next few hours, the press were allowed in to photograph and question the squad in small waves. Reynard handled the media, keeping Audrey close, a protege to manipulation, obfuscation.
2:00AM
DOMS Underground Facility #1
Metamorph Quarters
Audrey sat on the edge of her bed, replaying the day’s events on repeat. She had given up on sleep almost immediately. She pieced fragments of the truth together, as they unwound themselves in response. It was common knowledge that adversarial and unsanctioned metamorphs existed, excused through “leaks” and “copycat algorithms”. Yet, the most fervent insistence today had been not acknowledging their origin. Reynard dodged the question, insisting on her silence, even when she broached the subject later, away from prying eyes.
When they had arrived at headquarters, which was built just above where she now sat, she was sure there would be a debriefing with Intelligence. An update, an exchange of data, something. Nothing.
Audrey thought of Ace. He was lauded as a high tech sensory agent. That persona fell apart as soon as the veil was questioned. He could administer Algorithmic Mutations. Sensory only was an obvious lie, in retrospect. A house of cards caught in the wind. She considered the possibility that he was uploading data to Intelligence remotely, hence the lack of communiques.
She didn’t buy it. Something was still hidden underneath the layers of these subterranean truths. She jumped at a knock on the door, broken from an hours-long trance.
“Come in.” She announced. The room’s computer unlocked the door, a heavy click.
As the door shifted open, Ace was standing on the other side. He crossed the room quickly, standing before her. He reached for both of her shoulders and began to press them both toward the bed.
“WOAH! Wrong Te-”
“SH!” He insisted in her ear.
Audrey was repulsed by the man pressing on top of her, but transfixed by the potential for espionage. She waited for him to whisper again, while imagining tearing him apart with severe winds.
Ace pressed his lips lightly to her neck. The little hairs there stood on end as her disgust grew. He moved his head in a heady show of romance, inching up to nibble on her ear. She turned to face him and closed in until their lips grazed.
“This better be good.” She uttered at minimum volume. “Or you’re dead.” She threatened.
Ace buried his face underneath hers, against the blanket. His mouth was completely obfuscated from all angles. “Reynard can’t read your mind if you visualize potent memories.” He moved his head back to grazing her face and dared a kiss.
She faked a smile and kissed him back. He returned to burying his face beneath her turned expression and continued, “Practice. Maybe we’ll talk again.”
Ace moved to sit up. As he did so, Audrey reared back and slapped him square across the face. “No, I can’t!” She performed for the theoretical cameras.
Ace held his face. The pain that appeared there was no act. “I understand. I shouldn’t have…” He trailed off. He bowed deeply in front of her before running out of the room.
Audrey sat up and gripped the blanket tightly. Her cheeks were blushed, a convenience for convincing the unseen boogeymen. Though, in truth she was burning for more information. Her heart raced, not with lust, but a yearning for satisfaction. Her suspicion’s piled on top of her, unwelcome advances, heaving their affections against an embroiled mind. She stared at the closing door. Her heart beat rapidly in her chest, a cunning wolf discovering its quarry.
The lies subducted, another level filled with questions, theatrics. Nothing was true, only suggested. She recalled her father’s study potently. A room filled with books to the ceiling. She recalled his lamentations every time he found piles of them scattered around her sleeping form in that office.
She had greedily devoured the words of Niccolo Machiavelli, Sun Tzu and their like. Words of wisdom and warfare filled her imagination and stretched its limits from the first time she had realized; surviving wasn’t a given, not in the hollow places of comfy mansions, not against the tide of jealous mothers and scheming attorneys. Her future had been bought and sold countless times before she was a teen. It was only by cunning that she had survived the plots to control or ruin her.
“A fox to recognize traps, and a lion to frighten wolves.” Audrey whispered.
Thanks for reading. The final part in this short series will arrive soon, answering questions we dare not ask.
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This story really takes off in the second part. The idea of an underground movement taking unauthorized control of the mutation technology takes the plot into an interesting direction.
The tension you keep in your stories through withholding information are always great; I'll definitely be reading part three.