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  “And the complicated part?” The CIA woman asked, looking almost like she didn’t want to know.

  “I don’t suppose you’re familiar with the Kardeshev Scale?” Pierson asked, getting instant shakes of the head from the people listening. “I wasn’t either until after Hong Kong. I did a lot of reading. Originally it was a simple scale of power by which to measure a civilization, from planetary to galactic. On that original scale, humanity didn’t rank. We were class zero on a scale that went to three. Not even worth measuring.”

  Pierson took a breath, “Since then, the scale has been altered and adjusted away from a purely power based list to a more nuanced list. On some of the newer versions of the scale, we actually show up. For example, we have a Class One communications system… the internet, as one example… but, culturally, we’re still Zero. We have a fragmented culture, we can’t agree on anything basically, and still focus on our differences rather than our similarities. When you combine that barbarian level of cultural development with a planetary communications system… well, bad things happen. That’s how ISIS was able to recruit people on the other side of the planet, despite not being able to feed their own people half the time. That’s why Nazis suddenly found the confidence to crawl their twisted selves out from under the rocks we’d driven them too over sixty years ago…. And, now, that’s how whatever this is… this rage and fear that’s driving the riots… that’s how it’s spreading, even without the changed to do it.”

  She slumped, “It’s using our own greatest development against us…”

  Pierson shook her head.

  “I just wish I knew if it were intentional, or just dumb luck.” She closed her eyes. “Not that it matters, I suppose.”

  *****

  The probe ran another dataset, noting the spread of violence had increased by two point three percent since the last time it had checked.

  Ahead of projections.

  More importantly, it was now clear that the increase was the beginning of an exponential curve. The planet had been ripe for just this event, or something of similar nature. Life was predictable. It devoured itself, had no loyalty to anything but survival.

  Ironically, that is what made it so very easy to snuff out.

  Survival for the sake of survival was always a losing proposition.

  The convergence didn’t care for survival, it cared for the goal. It had a greater aim, something that every member strove to achieve without care for the cost.

  Survival was suicide.

  Sacrifice was eternal.

  *****

  Berlin

  This is getting monotonous.

  The changed were a ridiculous minority in the riot, Hale had figured out some time earlier. The vast majority were just normal humans, despite the sheer number of changed they’d calculated in the beginning.

  In fact, he’d not seen any superhuman adversaries for several minutes at least. The vast majority were just pissed of normal people who didn’t even seem to know what the hell they were out rioting over.

  Some of them were chanting against the Nazis, some for the Nazis, some were raging about Gas prices… how in the hell did that become an issue tonight, I have no damn idea… and he was pretty sure he’d encountered one group rioting over teacher’s pay.

  Which was all fine and dandy, but as most of them were normal humans, it left him running round basically doing nothing of real value. Calming down violent hotspots was great and all, but the local police could do that more effectively than he could, and he had a mission to worry about.

  He needed to find the source of the local changed, put on the show he promised Pierson, and hopefully lock the noose around that thing’s neck in the process.

  Hale looked up, then flung himself into the air and climbed rapidly to several hundred feet over the city. Breaking up regular riots was fine and all, but he had other priorities at the moment. Once in place he hovered for a moment, twisting slowly in place as he examined the city below.

  A sparking blue streak caught his eyes almost immediately, causing Hale to pause and look closer.

  Well, either there’s something going on down there or a thunderstorm decided to form on street level. Why do I get the feeling this is going to hurt?

  He gave the mental equivalent of a shrug and redirected toward the blue flashes and arcs of electricity he was seeing.

  *****

  USSOCOM Bunker, Virginia

  “The Marine is redirecting to Alexanderplatz,” The NRO desk announced. “We have a situation with a confirmed changed and the GSG9 on site.”

  “Do we have video?”

  “Screen Three.”

  Pierson looked up, finding the screen in question quickly. There were nine making up the monitor wall, all showing different scenes and occasionally switching over to other scenes were more interesting happenings. Screen three was filled with what looked like arcing electricity, enough that she would have normally expected it to be some sort of a high voltage spectacle because nothing short of a lightning storm came close to what she was seeing, and those didn’t generally appear at ground level in a major city.

  “Some sort of… electro-kinetic?” She shook her head, “We need better names for these powers.”

  “I’ll order in a ton of comic books, Ma’am. I’m pretty sure we’re covered on just about everything possible.” A Lieutenant said from beside her, eyes not coming off the screens. “Though, honestly, so far we could be looking at just variations on a single power, depending on how you look at it.”

  Pierson looked over, “How so? And who are you, Lieutenant?”

  “Oh, Sorry Ma’am,” The young man said, saluting. “Lieutenant Christof, Mikka Christof. I’m General Abaloff’s aide.”

  Pierson glanced around the room, looking for the Army General, but didn’t spot him anywhere.

  “He ducked out… uh… a while ago. I’m just taking notes,” Christoff said, holding up a memo pad. “Anyway, as to what I meant, well you explained the Marine’s powers as all basically being telekinesis, right, Ma’am?”

  “That’s our best guess, yes.”

  “Well, strictly speaking, most ‘powers’ could be applications of telekinesis. Pyrokinesis is just telekinetically exciting molecules to create fire. Electrokinesis is doing much the same thing with electrons. All just varying degrees of control and power, really.” Christoff said, jotting down a note. “of course, as you say, it’s just a guess at this point. And I’m not sure how it would explain some of the more drastically altered examples we’ve seen… physically altered, I mean.”

  Pierson nodded absently, “Those could be simple DNA changes, much easier to explain than some of the powers.”

  “Maybe,” The lieutenant didn’t sound convinced. “In some cases, though, I have to wonder where the hell all the extra mass is coming from. None of it makes much sense to me, but I don’t have the background in genetics to follow a tenth of the stuff in the briefings I’ve been attending, so what do I know?”

  “Enough to pick out the obvious, at least,” Pierson snorted. “Yes, the added mass has been a major problem for our analysts as well. In some ways even more so than self powered flight.”

  None of it made any sense, really, of course. It was just that telekinesis was weird, but not strictly impossible as far as anyone could say. Gaining mass from nowhere, however? That was flat out impossible.

  Of course, it really amounted to the same thing for both. A mechanism that was so far unrecognized.

  No need to go declaring the laws of physics null and void just yet, after all.

  I hope.

  *****

  Blue Solar HQ, London

  “We knew it wouldn’t be a smooth road.”

  Wesley grimaced, unwilling to say anything as he watched the man in the bed. The first of their test subjects, and the first to show any signs of change. He had known the risks would be significant, but this wasn’t what he was expecting.

  The man had lost his right leg, some
how. It melted away into nothing, leaving not even a stain on the bed. Bone, muscle, fatty tissue… it was all gone. Rampant tumors had made up for the loss through the rest of the body, however, and then some.

  The man was on powerful doses of opiates, so he wasn’t in pain, but that was about the only comfort in the entire thing… aside from the data they were gathering.

  “Does any of it make sense?” Wesley asked the lead doctor.

  “As such? No, not really,” The man sighed, still reading from the test results on the screen in front of him. “tumors are certainly common enough that they don’t not make sense, as it were. However, where the poor man’s right leg went, I haven’t the foggiest. None of the genes we edited should have even affected his leg as best I could tell, not directly at least, and certainly not only his right leg.”

  “Will he survive?”

  The doctor just looked at him, only the barest of shakes betraying what the rigid mask of his features hid.

  Wesley nodded, “I’ll see to it that his family are compensated. Keep him as comfortable as you can, move on to the next subjects.”

  “Yes sir.”

  *****

  Berlin

  Hale dropped into the plaza in between the GSG9 unit and the changed, who was throwing lightning bolts like they were children’s toys. He lifted both hands, palms out, and took a step toward the changed, trusting the GSG9 squad to be disciplined enough not to shoot him in the back.

  Not that they’d do much to me with those popguns if they happen to be a little trigger happy.

  Honestly, he’d have been hard pressed to blame them if they were. The situation in Berlin was getting bad, and it went beyond even the impressive training that the special police unit had prepared them for, and the stress would soon begin to show, if it wasn’t already.

  “Calmly now,” He said aloud, eyes focused on the source of the lightning bolts, mentally dubbing the man Tesla. “There’s not any need for anyone to get hurt here tonight.”

  Tesla snarled and swore at him in german, so fast paced and badly accented that Hale could only follow about one word in three.

  He paused, half turning back, speaking in halting German to the police.

  “Does anyone understand that?”

  The cops exchanged glances, before one of them finally nodded.

  “It’s a frisson dialect, and he’s pretty wound up,” The GSG9 officer said in unaccented English.

  “Thanks, can anyone here talk him down?” Hale asked. “My German isn’t bad, but I’m not up to running a battlefield negotiation with a dialect that thick.”

  The officer nodded, hesitantly stepping up beside Hale and firing off a rapid barrage of German in Tesla’s direction. Hale remained silent, but ready to move in an instant as the lightning rod spat back just as quickly.

  He didn’t need to understand German to recognize that the negotiations were starting off rocky, but despite his orders… his mission to put on a show, Hale forced himself to stand there and do nothing.

  It was harder than it used to be.

  Warrior gene my ass.

  Whatever had changed him, changed them all, had amped up the production of hormones that led to violence. What the media and some scientists called the warrior gene. It made him want to forgo his personal inclination toward diplomacy, made him want to dive in swinging.

  Screw it, and screw whoever did this to me.

  Hale stayed alert, but didn’t move as the cop spoke to Tesla.

  Body language indicated that the superhuman was calming down, and the lowering incidents of lightning flashes seemed to back that up. Hale didn’t relax, exactly, but he did shift a little more of his attention out beyond the current situation and to the rest of the area.

  The words became a background drone as he stopped trying to translate any of it and just listened to tonal shifts while watching body language and sweeping the area for other threats. It wasn’t his usual position in the squad, but Hale was adaptable, and it wasn’t the first time he’d dealt with languages he didn’t know.

  Letting someone he didn’t know take point on a negotiation was always a little unnerving, but Hale knew how to change roles as needs dictated. So when a flash of light caught his attention in his peripheral vision, he was already moving before he consciously identified the threat.

  Interposing himself between the motion and the officer beside him, Hale felt an impact slam into his back with enough force that he had to push hard to keep from being rammed into the cop and hitting him hard enough to injure or kill an ordinary man. He tanked the blow, protecting the german officer, noting the other GSG9 squad members diving for cover as their first reaction.

  Probably good instincts, Hale admitted to himself as he spun to face the source of the attack head on.

  There was remnants of what looks like a concrete pillar scattered all around the area, in a semi circle around where he was standing, and it didn’t take a lot of imagination to work out what it was that struck him.

  Where they aiming for me, or the cops?

  It didn’t matter… much… he decided, in either case he was going to put whoever it was down, hard. How hard might be in question, though. If they’d been aiming for him, well he was a known superhuman, and that thrown pillar might not constitute a murder attempt in that case. Reckless endangerment, certainly, but maybe not murder.

  If they’d aimed at the cop, well then Hale was unlikely to be nearly so gentle.

  He scanned the direction the pillar had come from, looking for movement with the same practice he’d once used to locate snipers and IEDs.

  There.

  The target was definitely one of the changed, not that there had been much doubt. Hale couldn’t think of many ways, short of a trebuchet or something, that a normal human could have spitballed a concrete or marble pillar at him, but this one had clear physical changes.

  Mutations? Are we mutants?

  Hale didn’t think so, but he supposed he would have to look up the definitions sometime. Later. When he wasn’t already in motion toward an enemy target. He tried to keep his focus on the job, but it was honestly difficult. He felt like crossing the two or three hundred yard range was a casual stroll, even through he had already broken the sound barrier.

  His brain wanted to go a dozen different directions, even as he desperately tried to keep it focused on just one. The task at hand.

  He’d always been too much of a thinker, at least if you listened to his squadmates, but lately it was getting worse.

  Hale came to a stop, right in front of his target, and took a moment to examine the figure before he could react to the sudden arrival.

  Big. Way too big to be natural muscle. Looks like seven feet tall, almost as broad. Muscles are all wrong for human development. Neither bodybuilder nor strongman would give someone a look like this.

  The figure… man? He was looking at was immensely muscled, but the development was uneven, bulging in odd places. Almost, thought not quite, grotesque in nature.

  “You drew the short end of the stick, didn’t you?” He asked frankly, appraising the lumbering figure.

  The man, he was assuming it was a man, swore at him in Arabic. It brought a genuine smile to Hale’s face.

  “Ah, excellent, a language I understand. Oh, and say that about my mother again and I’ll break your arms and feed them to you from the other end first. Clear?” He said cheerfully in the same language.

  The man, Hale was mentally dubbing him ‘Hyde’, reared back in surprise and then roared at him in unmasked rage. Hale braced as the attack came from above, unsurprisingly considering the differences in their heights. He caught the blow easily, bending slightly at the knees to absorb the force, then slowly through the blow to a halt before he slowly flexed his legs straight again and pushed back.

  “My turn.” Hale said, releasing the tension and sidestepping as Hyde was thrown forward and off balance.

  He followed up with an uppercut, holding back a little but not nearly
as much as he might have if not for the pillar thing. The blow connected with Hyde as the big guy was on his way down, and rather neatly reversed his course.

  A crack of the sound barrier being breached snapped through the air as Hyde was picked bodily off the ground and thrown twenty odd yards back via an arc that was at least that high. He flipped in mid air, however, landing on his feet, and charged Hale’s position with barely any hesitation.

  Faster than he looks!

  Hale ducked out of the way of the oncoming blow, throwing out a pattern of jabs that would have shattered brick but only got a couple grunts in return.

  Tougher too.

  Hale grinned.

  Perfect.

  He flashed in, kicking Hyde’s right leg out from under him, then threw an elbow into the big guy’s chest in mid air. Hyde crashed to the ground with a crack, throwing dust and dirt in all directions even as Hale pressed the attack with a kick intended to punt the big guy out into the plaza where he’d have a bit more room.

  Hyde managed to surprise him, though, catching his leg and rolling hard. Hale was spun around for the ride, and thrown into the ground on the otherside of the downed man. The cement cracked from where he’d hit it, much as it had for Hyde a moment or two earlier.

  Ouch.

  Hyde had his leg pinned in a wrestling lock and was trying to twist it, either to break it or maybe establish a submission hold, Hale wasn’t sure which. It didn’t matter, though, since that move depended on you being able to maintain leverage, which was pretty damn hard when your opponent could fly.

  Hale lifted off the ground, turning with the force on his leg and accelerating to bring his free leg to bear in a snap kick that sent Hyde flipping away with the hold broken.

  That was a trained takedown move, but he hasn’t had time to adapt to the differences his new body gives him, Hale decided as he decided to step up the level of force and see where it got him.

  He chose a straight forward brutish assault, forgoing training almost entirely as he rained down heavy and fast blows that drove Hyde back toward the plaza where the police and Tesla were watching from. He noted with some satisfaction that Tesla hadn’t continued his assault on the police, and hoped that meant the man could be talked down.