[Sf] Inhuman (T)

I've been holding this idea in my head for a while, and wanted to finally release it. It's a bit outlandish, so it might get confusing. To help lighten the confusion a bit, here's a short prologue (followed by a LONG chapter.)

Shortly after the dawn of a new decade, the first Inhuman was born. It was regarded as an isolated incident, a random mutation. Then the second one was born. Within months, 1 out of every 10 children born was born as an Inhuman. Governments across the world went mad trying to find a cure, a way to prevent Inhuman births. All attempts failed.

Once the Inhumans grew older, they began to display beastial tendencies. They were stronger, faster, with more attuned senses. They became a danger to humanity as a whole, and so were locked away. Inhumans are still born every day, but they are safely locked away in buildings called "Units." Most humans think the troubles caused by Inhumans are over.

But deep within one of the Units, there is a secret. The Inhumans are not accidents, or genetic mutations. They are the predecessors of something far different...
__________________________________________________ _

It was sunny outside. That was comforting.

If Connor Raymond had learned anything in his years as an officer, it was that bad assignments always started with rain. Criminals liked rain. Perhaps they felt it would wipe off the muck of their crimes.

Of course, here in the Lower City, rain never reached the ground. It was caught up in the crossbars and railways that connected every building of the Upper City. That was why this area had become so filthy; the poor and homeless came here to avoid the rain.

But the poor were not the reason Raymond had come to the Lower City. He had come here to examine one of the most expensive and modern facilities in the world: Inhuman Containment Unit 42.

The Containment building was kept here at the citizens request. “Inhumans had to be treated humanely, but god forbid they be on the same level as us normal people.” Raymond thought sarcastically. Voters thought that keeping the Inhumans down here would keep them out of reach. It wouldn’t.

Inhumans were, quite obviously, not bound by the same limitations as humans. They were born from human mothers, they had human genes, but they were not human. Some considered them monsters, for good reason.

Inhumans certainly looked the part of monsters. They had massive, usually disproportionate muscles. Raymond had seen one with arms the size of tree trunks and legs like popsicle sticks. They weren’t pretty things to look at. The fangs and dog-like faces didn’t help.

Raymond stopped thinking about the Inhumans ugly faces and put his badge in front of the door scanner. He was going to be sharing a room with Inhumans soon enough, he didn’t need them in his head too.

On the inside, he was greeted by the usual sentry of robotic guards. Humans were never employed to defend Units; they broke too easily. Robots were stronger, and much harder to rip in half with your bare hands.

“Welcome to Inhuman Containment Unit 42, Officer Raymond.” The robotic secretary addressed him in its ringing metallic voice. “You are several minutes early.”

“No need to call me Officer. I’m on leave.”

“Negative.” The robot clacked on its keyboard while talking to him. Robots could interface directly with computers, but most programmers preferred to have them use standard keyboards. “According to my records, you were given a new assignment at approximately 14:56 eastern time on Tuesday.”

That was about the time the director of this place had called and asked for his help. No explanation, just a call for help. Raymond was an officer, of course he couldn’t resist a call for help.

“So will the director be seeing me?”

“I shall notify him of your presence at the time of your appointment.”

A nearly invisible door to the side of the room swung open. Doors in the Units were always concealed, to confuse Inhumans.

“I’ll see him now, thank you.”

The director was dressed surprisingly casually for someone of his position. He wore khaki pants and a yellow polo shirt. He extended his hand, and Raymond shook it.

“I’m Director Scott. I’m glad you’re here early. There’s a lot to do and not much time to do it.”

Scott eyed the robot guards nervously and motioned towards another concealed door.

“Let’s continue this discussion elsewhere.”

Raymond had to wonder why he was suspicious of robots. They never betrayed someone they were supposed to obey. The Director led him through the door and into a metal hallway.

“As you know, Inhuman Containment Unit 42 is the most advanced Inhuman facility in North America.”

The left side of the hallway was made of glass. Raymond could see a pack of Inhumans mulling about in their artificial habitat. They looked like wolves with nothing to feed on, sniffing about for something to kill. Raymond knew Inhumans only killed when they were truly hungry, but he couldn’t stop thinking of them as mindless death machines.

“Admiring the Inhumans, are we?”

The Director had noticed his pause. He was smiling faintly.

“I wouldn’t say ‘admiring’.”


The smile disappeared from Director Scott’s face.
“They really aren’t as bad as everyone says.”

They passed through another hardly visible door. The Director had to go through a complex security sequence to get it to open.

“As long as you feed them and give them enough space, they’re really quite docile. Once, one of the Robot guards fell into a pen, and one of the Inhumans helped to get him out. We were all very proud.”

Raymond watched the group of Inhumans out of the corner of his eye. This group was feeding. It was oddly fascinating to watch them rip the flesh right off a cow corpse and eat it raw.

“If they’re so peaceful, why do we hide ‘em away?”

Director Scott opened another door, leading to a third Inhuman pen. These ones were sleeping.

“It is hard to feel comfortable around a beast of their size, Officer. We keep them here for the public’s comfort.”

“And because if you make them mad, they go on killing sprees.”

“ALL animals attack when angered, Officer. Inhumans are just better at it than most animals.”

Raymond didn’t need to be told. He’d been there when the office had found out about someone trying to illegally keep an Inhuman as a pet. When they tried to apprehend the animal-lover, the Inhuman had gotten a bit annoyed. The owner was killed and two officers were mauled nearly to death.

“So we keep ‘em here, and we sterilize them to make sure there’s as few of them as possible.”

Not that the sterilization did much to control the population. Inhumans were still born everyday. They seemed like normal fetus’s, right up until they popped out with beastlike faces and fur.

“Officer Raymond, we do not sterilize them to control the population. We sterilize them for entirely different reasons.”

They had reached the end of the hallway. Raymond looked into the pen, expecting to see something secret and unique. It was just a bunch of sleeping Inhumans.

“So what’s this about?”

Director Scott grabbed a pipe on the wall and pulled it off. There was a keypad located behind it. That was an intense security measure, even for a Unit.

“Give me a moment, and you will see.”

Scott entered the code, and a small patch of metal on the hallways end slid away. It was a fingerprint scanner. Scott put his hand on it, and the hallway’s end slid away, revealing an extension to the metal hall.

“What the hell is this about!?”

“This, Officer Raymond, is why Inhuman are not allowed to breed.”

Raymond reluctantly followed him down the hall. He’d hoped to never get caught up in secretive conspiracy crap like this.

“You see, 14 years ago, at this facility, a pair of Inhumans WAS allowed to breed. The results were…surprising.”

Scott opened one final door, leading them into a white room. From what Raymond could see, there was a lone Inhuman sitting in the middle.
The Inhuman turned towards the new arrivals, examining them with its golden eyes. All Inhumans had those eyes, strangely intelligent and peaceful eyes set in a menacing face. The Inhuman sniffed the air, and stood up. It had huge arms, each nearly as thick as Raymond’s torso. It’s legs were smaller, only half as long as a humans. It moved across the room gracefully, like a gorilla with good posture.

“So who’s this?”

“My name is Myles.”

Raymond turned and bolted for the door, but it had shut behind them. He searched frantically for a keypad, but there was none. He was trapped in here with that thing!

“Calm down, Officer Raymond!”

Raymond turned around, no less calm than he had been before. He pulled his sidearm out of his coat and pointed it at the Inhuman.

“CALM DOWN!? That thing TALKED! INHUMANS! DON’T! TALK!”

Scott tried to push Raymond’s gun away from the Inhuman, but Raymond held the barrel firmly in place, aimed right between the monster’s eyes.

“Glorious way to make an introduction, sir. Nothing says hello like paranoia and a gun to the face.”

Raymond cocked the gun. The click echoed through the white room.

“SHUT UP! You don’t talk, got that!?”

“Just calm down, Officer. Myles is peaceful. More peaceful than you, it seems.”

Raymond kept the gun pointed at the orange-furred beast. He was sweating profusely.

“This is what happens? This is what you get when you breed Inhumans?”

Raymond suddenly felt compelled to put the gun down. He resisted, but the urge to put his gun away grew stronger the more he resisted.

“I would appreciate you not point a gun at my friend, Officer.”

There was someone else in this room. Raymond couldn’t see him, but he was there. While looking around, he saw that part of the room was partitioned off. The voice, whoever it belonged to, was behind that wall.

Myles glided his way over to the wall. He arched his long neck around to look at whatever was behind it.

“Would you like to speak with him, or shall I do it for you, sir?”

“I’ll do it myself Myles. It’ll be nice to see a new face.”

Myles shuffled his way back to the two humans in the room. Suddenly, Raymond could no longer resist the force that pushed him to put his gun away. He slid it back into its holster, and the mysterious force relaxed.

“You see, Officer Raymond, Myles is a normal Inhuman. However, his partnership with our subject has opened up sections of his brain that most Inhumans aren’t capable of using.”

“What? How does that make any sense? Did you do brain surgery on him or something?”

“Tell me, Sir Raymond.” The courteous way the Inhuman spoke was just as unnerving as his appearance. “Did you feel a strange compulsion to put your gun away?”

“Yeah…”

It was all becoming very odd. He doubted the beast was responsible, so that left…the man behind the wall.

“Wait…” He said this to Scott, avoiding the yellow-eyed gaze of Myles. “How did that guy behind the wall know I was pointing my gun at him?”

Director Scott positioned himself casually between Myles and Officer Raymond. He desperately wanted to diffuse this situation.

“Our subject has unique abilities, Raymond. With Inhumans, he is capable of manipulating brainwaves and other neural functions. When his talents are applied to humans, he is merely able to…suggest.”

“This thing, it’s a tele…What the hell do they call those things?”

“Telepaths.” Myles interjected in his deep voice. Raymond was about to thank him before he remembered who -what- he was talking to.

“Telepaths. Yeah, what the Inhuman said.”

“Telepathy would be an accurate description of it.”

Scott began pacing back and forth across the white room. Both Myles and Raymond followed his motion with their eyes.

“You see, theories were put out that Inhumans were the result of an Evolutionary step backwards. That is false.”

Scott stopped, and pointed triumphantly at the ceiling.

“Inhumans are merely the incubation period of a much more powerful, and far more unique, form of life.”

Raymond stared at the orange Inhuman standing next to him.

“So you’re saying Inhumans are a small step backwards so we can take a big step forwards.”

“Not just big. Massive. This is like stepping from Earth to Jupiter, Raymond. Our subject is unique among all creatures of the Earth.”

“Please stop referring to me as ‘Subject’. I was given a name for a reason.”

The subject Scott envied so stepped out from behind the wall. Raymond was glad he had put his gun away, because he would have dropped it now.

“Raymond, this is Connor.”

It was a teenager. A teenage boy had just stepped out of the concealment of the wall. He looked like any other teenager on the planet. 14 years old, brown hair, wearing a t-shirt and jeans. This was humanity’s massive step forward.

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Raymond.”

Raymond felt the push again, this time compelling him to hold out his hand. His brain was trying to process this entire experience, and he was far too weak to resist the push. Connor grabbed his extended hand and shook it. He was close enough that Raymond could see into his eyes.

And they were the golden eyes of an Inhuman.

I like the concept of this very much so and would like to point out a few things:

-- I think it would be better to use something other than quotation marks for thoughts for characters. It may become confusing to readers to see the quotation marks and believe that the character thinking the thought may actually be saying the thought out loud.

-- After a character is speaking, please use a comma between the last word spoken and the quotation marks and don't capitalized the first word after (unless it's a character's name or the word needs to be capitalized). For example:

"Please come here," she said. She then turned and walked away.

"She" doesn't need to be capitalized as it isn't a character's name nor is it starting a new sentence. When a character speaks, you still are continuing on the sentence even after the quotation marks and won't end the sentence until you need to.

However there are times when you don't need a comma, especially when an action follows the quotation. Example:

"Please come here." Turning after she spoke, she walked away.

-- Details in this chapter are good, but maybe you could describe the characters and surroundings a bit more to give readers a slight bit more idea as to what the scene is like, what characters look like (facial features, scars, etc), and so on.

Very good. I'm putting together a sci-fi story myself (the prologue should be up by tomorrow at the latest), I thought I'd check this out while I'm at it. I like it it, kinda has a John Woo feeling to it.

I'm looking forward to the next chapter.

A very intriguing start to the story, the world in which the characters live was very well conveyed and I'm quite keen to learn more about this young Connor chap. Does he have a connection to Raymond? Sometimes I had to double check to see who was talking but that might've just been me. I look forward to the next instalment.

One small thing regarding the thread title, you need to have a rating at the end as described in the rules:

Fiction

To post Fiction on the according subforum, it is required that you include a topic prefix before the actual topic name by choosing it while making your thread, ie:

[Hor] My butt went nuts (G)

[Hor] being the topic prefix, and "My butt went nuts" being the topic name and [G] being the topic suffix.

I've just wacked a 'T' there for now, if you feel it should be rated different then let me know and I can change it. : ) We're just trying to tidy up the fiction sections to make it easier to navigate for people.

Anyway, very interesting story and you can be sure I"ll be back for further instalments.

AML: I know what you mean. I beat myself up for it all the time, but it's how I write. I'll try and correct it in the future.
Sheikah Sage: Always nice to meet another fan of the genre. I'll be sure to give yours a look.
Mr. Spork: Thanks for the help. "T" was the rating I was aiming for anyway. It's hard to have a story featuring a massive behemoth without having at least some violence, after all.

And without further ado, Chapter 2:
_______________________________________________

“He’s human.”

“Not exactly. We already went over this, Raymond.”

Raymond turned away from the two golden-eyed figures and pointed furiously at Scott.

“He looks Human, he acts human, as far as I’m concerned, he’s human! You can’t keep him locked up in here with these beasts!”

“For the record, I choose to stay here.”

Raymond turned back to the boy. He avoided eye contact, scared of those Inhuman eyes in a Human face.

“No. This is completely unethical. I’m calling the station, the mayor, hell, I’m calling the President. You can’t keep a kid locked away in-“

He paused. There was another voice in his head, this time telling him to be quiet. He forgot about his defense of the boy for a moment.

“Stay out of my head, Kid.”

Connor shrugged nonchalantly, and turned away from Raymond. He and Myles went back to the room from which he had come.

“Sorry,” the boy said as he walked away, “I just don’t get to practice on people that often.”

Raymond stared at the back of Connor’s head, then turned to Scott. He didn’t need telepathy for Scott to know how mad he was.

“Be reasonable. I’m sure I can give you a perfectly good explanation for everything that’s happened.”

“Well you’d better start talking, Director. I meant it when I said I’d call the president.”

Scott spun on his heel and followed behind Connor and Myles. Raymond reluctantly tailed the group. He followed them into the partitioned room, and looked around.

There were several computer monitors, a shelf full of books, and two beds. One was normal sized, apparently for Connor. The other was the size of a large SUV.

Myles and Connor were looking at the monitors, each paying attention to a separate one. The one Myles watched was displaying a news feed, Connor was reading a page of recent movie releases, and the middle screen displayed information like the local temperature and weather. It was all surprisingly domestic.

“This is how they spend most of their day. It’s the only contact they ever get with the outside world.”

Myles changed the image on his monitor. It now displayed news coverage of a Cyborg Rights protest. Connor turned to watch it, his curiosity piqued.

“He didn’t actually need to turn to watch it. Connor and Myles share a highly developed neural link. What Myles sees, Connor sees.”

Raymond watched the pair stare at the monitor. He wondered if they were having a psychic discussion or something. Both of their ears were twitching in a strange way.

“So that’s why the Inhuman can talk. Connor lets him.”

“Exactly. Connor uses his abilities to stimulate Myles’ brain, allowing for brain function on the level of an average human.”

Myles used a massive finger to turn the monitor off. He turned around, eying Raymond nervously.

“So I would appreciate it if you stopped thinking of me as a monster, Sir Raymond. I find it offensive.”

Myles trundled past Raymond, giving Scott a silent greeting. Connor stayed behind, staring at Raymond.

“It’s really easy to tell you don’t like him. Whenever you look at him, the part of your brain that controls stress lights up like a rocket-“

Raymond shook his head and pointed angrily at Connor.

“Stop looking into my head, Kid!”

Connor shrugged. He didn’t react to much.

“That’s like me telling you to not hear sound.” Scott walked up and put his arm around the boy, but Connor shrugged it off. “It’s a sense, just as much as your hearing.”

“That’s what makes him so unique. He’s able to sense the emotions and thoughts of people around him.”

“He can hear my thoughts?”

“Well, not literally. But he can tell which areas of your brain are active, and infer your thoughts from that.”

Connor followed Myles out of the room. Scott followed behind like a small child, and Raymond, of course, followed as well. He was sick of them constantly moving around.

“So if this kids so special, why don’t you let more of him come around? Why sterilize all the Inhumans?”

“Raymond, you cannot imagine the chaos that would cause.”

Scott glanced over at Connor. He and Myles were digging around in a cabinet Raymond hadn’t noticed.

“Did you feel how hard it was to resist his control? Could you imagine that multiplied by two, or a dozen? A hundred? No Unit could hold them, no military could stop them, and no authority could control them. One is more than enough.”

Raymond stared at the boy. He was eating a bowl of cereal. The kid Scott regarded as such a threat was eating a freaking bowl of Cheerios. The massive Inhuman eating an entire chicken was the real threat.

“I know what you’re thinking. Connor is a well-behaved boy; he has no desire to manipulate others. However, we cannot ensure that his morals will carry on to every member of his kind. All it would take is one person abusing their powers, and the world would collapse.”

That was a reasonable argument. Whatever Connor was, he was more dangerous than any Inhuman.

“So this is why you brought me here. You want me to keep Connor from getting out, or something?”

“That is not why I brought you here,” Scott made sure that Connor was a fair distance away. Raymond wasn’t sure it was useful against a telepath. “I brought you here to take him away.”

Raymond stared at Scott silently. He really wanted to hear the explanation for this.

“In a few days, this Unit will undergo a required inspection. The inspectors will find this room, and I expect Connor to not be in it when they do.”

“You expect me to smuggle away a telepathic teenager.”

“A telepathic teenager and his Inhuman friend, actually. Connor doesn’t go anywhere without Myles.”

Raymond glared at the huge furry beast. He was eating very politely, but he was still a monster in Raymond’s eyes.

“He’ll never fit in my car,” Myles massive upper body would hardly fit through the door out of the room, much less the door of Raymond’s small sedan. “The boy I can take, but not him.”

“We do have transportation available, Officer Raymond. A high-security armored car is waiting. We’ll excuse it as a shipment of materials.”

“Heh, an armored car, that’ll work. Myles could punch through a tank. If he decides to escape, there’s no stopping him.”

Scott took out his cell phone and pressed a button. “We planned for that. We have brought in some extra security.”

The door Raymond had come into this room through slid open. He considered bolting out of it right now, and leaving this madness behind, but he knew that wouldn’t work. Myles would probably chase him down and eat him.

A steel foot came through the door, followed by another. A metal hand gripped the doorframe. It was a robot. A robot in a trenchcoat, oddly. The coated automaton strode stiffly across the room.

“This is SC201, your security for this expedition.”

SC201 extended its metal hand. Raymond hated shaking hands with machines. They were shaped like humans, but they were stone cold. It was like shaking hands with a frozen corpse.

“No offense robot, but I don’t think one of you is going to be enough. This is an Inhuman we’re talking about.”

SC201 spoke. It had a slight tinge of humanity, but there was no mistaking a machines voice.

“I am not a standard model, Officer. Technically, I am a contraband item. My strength levels are near double the legal amount.”

Double. That might be enough to take on a raging Inhuman. Emphasis on might.

“Okay. I have an over-charged robot on my team.”

SC201 turned its head to watch the boy and his Inhuman friend. They were still eating.

“Why am I saying ‘my team’? I don’t want to get involved in this crap.”

SC201 turned back to Raymond. SC201 had glowing white eyes, the only feature on its steel plate of a face.

“You came recommended by the department, Officer Raymond. They were sure you would accept this mission.”

When Raymond found out who recommended him for this, he was going to shoot him. He knew he could never weasel his way out of this now.

“Fine. I’ll take your kid out for a ride. But as soon as the inspection is over, he comes right back, and I leave this place forever.”

“That’s fine. I expected as much.”

Connor walked in between Raymond and Scott. He headed back into the partitioned room.

“Well, you’re ready to go. Just let me get my things and we’ll head out.”

Myles walked past them too. He stared at the robot while he passed by. The machine returned his stare.

“Wait, no way. Scott said the inspection wasn’t for a few days.”

“A few days we will need to remove any trace that anyone ever lived in this room.”

Connor walked out from behind the wall, carrying a backpack.

“So are we leaving? I’m all packed. Myles may take a while though.”

Myles booming voice came out from behind the wall. He was slightly irritated from the sound of it. Raymond instinctively reached for his gun.

“Damn tiny buttons. We should have thought of this.”

“It’s not my fault you have such big fingers.” Connor slung his pack over his shoulder, and turned towards Myles voice. “Come here and I’ll help you with it.”

Myles stumbled out of the room. He was wearing a suit. The shirt was hanging open unbuttoned. Raymond’s hand dropped off of his gun in surprise. Myles held his arms up as Connor buttoned up his shirt.

“You’ll have to learn to do this eventually. I’m not buttoning up your shirt every time you put it on.”

“I will learn, but we have little time for that now.”

Connor finished buttoning the shirt. Myles put on a massive black coat, and knotted a tie around his massive neck. He looked utterly ridiculous in the suit.

“Why does the Inhuman wear a suit?” SC201's voice was tinged with curiosity. A programmed response, not an emotional one. “An Inhuman in a suit would not cause any less panic.”

Myles examined the lines of his outfit. It fit very well. It must have been tailored specifically for him, because no human suit would fit an Inhuman.

“He wears it to be ironic. There’s a reason he’s named Myles.” Connor joined the group watching Myles. He continued telling his story. “When I was young, and operated on impulse, I used to subconsciously make Myles do things for me. When I was hungry, he’d get me food. When I was tired, he’d carry me to bed. In simple terms, he was my butler. So we named him Myles and bought him a suit.”

That little story stopped all the conversation in the room. Raymond took a moment to examine the boy he’d be protecting.

Besides the yellow eyes, Connor looked pretty normal. Just over five feet, and very skinny. He had brown hair, which stood out very boldly against his pale skin. He obviously didn’t get much sun. He didn’t get much exercise either, apparently. But physical work was probably Myles job.

“We should depart. I project that Scott’s men will need at least 3 days to remove any trace of Connor and Myles’s presence.”

SC201 walked back to the door. Connor watched the robot go, one eyebrow raised. Myles sniffed the air where the machine had just been. Whatever he smelled, he didn’t like it. The massive Inhuman growled at SC201’s back. Connor patted his shoulder to calm him down.

“What’s wrong with the robot?”

“Nothing. Myles just doesn’t like the smell of machines.”

Raymond thought the kid was lying, but he didn’t want to bother with it. He had other things to worry about right now, and they were all walking out the door. Raymond followed the odd trio out the door.

“By the way, Officer,” Scott didn’t look at Raymond while he spoke. The boy kept his golden eyes fixated on the back of Myles head. “Would you mind teaching me to drive while we’re out? I’ve never gotten a chance before.”

Raymond’s trigger finger twitched nervously. He wasn’t sure who or what he’d be shooting on this foray, but he had a hunch it would be himself.