Hi, I’m New!
Sarah got out of her mom’s van in the massive parking lot fixed to the side of the large federal building. It was late afternoon as she finally walked through the sea of vehicles to start her journey, as all superhumans did these days. If they didn’t want to be arrested, anyway.
I’m doing the right thing… right?
Sarah thought as she got closer to the front double glass doors. She hadn’t driven straight to the DOSA detachment office. After she fled her home, she had driven around for a couple of hours to clear her head after she accidentally used her powers against her mom. Also, the things she said about her father, even though she truly believed those things, felt terrible about it. Just remembering the words that came out of her mouth about him made her sick inside her stomach. Her guts grumbled and roiled as she remembered what she said and had thought about the man that raised and loved her. The man she didn’t understand anymore.
Why couldn’t he have been here for this? Maybe he would even know what to do, I mean he did study supers all the time. Maybe he’d have some insights.
Sarah smiled at the thought as she remembered her father, the way she did before she started to feel all the things she couldn’t deny. That feeling of protection and comfort he always gave her, and the love she always felt around her with her father. Deep in her heart, through all the anger and resentment, she missed him. She longed for things to be different.
Sarah sat down on the front steps leading into the cold concrete that housed her future. She started crying in silence in the darkening evening as she finally let it all out. She knew her dad was dead. She knew she would never see him again. The image of his face disappearing in that parking lot as they fled from the leviathan haunted her mind.
*Two Hours Later*
“All right, Miss Smith. Can I call you Sarah?” the scrawny middle-aged man with black horn-rimmed glasses, too big for his face, asked. His black hair was slicked back into a fifties greaser look. His pointed nose was a magnificently stable foundation for his overly large glasses to rest.
Sarah smiled, no signs of her tears from out on the steps, “Yes.”
“15 years old, and you just recently developed,” the thicker blonde-haired woman spoke. She wore similar glasses that actually fit her face. “Have you ever acted in a public capacity?”
The two DOSA agents sat across a desk from Sarah as they went over all of her paperwork. Registering with the government agency was no small matter and everything had to be documented. They wore similar black suits with white dress shirts. Very few variations in the design except for the differences in the cuts for the female form.
Sarah looked at the two nameplates: Agent Doorson, and Agent Doorson. Completely identical names as well as appearances. Well, in the clothes anyway. Physically they were opposites. Sarah thought that maybe they were brother and sister… or married maybe. That would make more sense. Some kind of dynamic government power couple. They were an odd pair.
“No,” Sarah answered. “I didn’t know I was superhuman until a day ago.”
“Right, and why aren’t your parents with you? You are a minor, and therefore need their consent,” the pole of a man said.
“My Mom didn’t want me to register. We kind of had a fight about it…” Sarah trailed off.
“And your father?” The blonde woman asked.
“He’s… he’s gone,” she spoke, immediately looking down to hide the moisture welling up in her eyes.
“Apologies, Miss Smith. Without parental consent, I’m afraid you cannot begin any programs that we offer. However, you can still be examined and registered. We can begin that process now.” The government lady offered.
“Okay,” Sarah said in agreement.
“We’ll just need a few more signatures and we can begin the process.”
A few minutes later, Sarah was whisked away from the initial check-in desk with the Doorsons, who then escorted her to the next step in the registration process. It was an easy procedure. Just a simple blood draw. As the Doorsons walked Sarah to the medical wing of the facility, Sarah began to realize that there were many others in the building being escorted by DOSA agents as well.
“Are all these people getting registered too?” Sarah asked the lady-Doorson as she motioned around the swath of civilian-clothed people and their escorts.
“Yes. There has been quite an uptick in the registration of previously unclaimed superhumans. Some are young like yourself, and even some older in years. The leviathan attack has made them come out of the woodwork. Everyone wants to be of use if another one appears.”
This ring true for Sarah as well. I'm those quick moments in the parking lot, with a towing leviathan standing over them, Sarah felt helpless. She had never felt so powerless in her life. Everything that followed with her family just added fuel to the fire. When her powers awakened, she to felt an undeniable need to help. She felt the ability within herself to help people and save lives when disaster struck. If she could save others, and protect other little girls’ fathers from being killed by creatures or natural disasters, she would.
It's nice to see others coming out. Especially older people. They must have been hiding their whole lives until now.
Sarah thought as she looked at a much older man with dark skin and grey hair and a beard. He wore reading glasses on his elder face, but he still walked with purpose. Sarah wondered what his power was.
“All right,” the bean pole man said as they rounded a corner into a phlebotomist lab.
“Hello,” the white lab coat-clad woman said as she flipped back to the front page of the lab orders, “Sarah.” She looked back up from the page and smiled kindly.
“Hello.”
“So we’re gonna draw some blood today, huh?” she was very personable. “My name is Mia, and I will be running your lab work this evening.”
The Doorsons handed over a few more papers from the initial check-in.
“Do you need anything else from us?” Bean pole Doorson asked.
Mia smiled at him now, “No, I think we’ve got everything we need.” She waved the odd couple off and it was just Sarah and the phlebotomist in the small medical room.
Mia walked calmly back and forth between some cabinets and drawers as she gathered the tools of her trade.
“Have you had blood drawn before?” Mia asked as she prepared her things on a small counter beside the chair Sarah was now sitting in.
“Yes, I gave blood at the high school a few weeks ago.”
“Good, so you know what’s coming. You aren’t afraid of needles are you?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Wow,” Mia said astonished. “You are very polite. You don’t see that much these days.”
Sarah smiled, “Thank you.”
“Your parents should be proud,” Mia said, bringing a slight knot in Sarah’s throat. “Oh, I have to ask. Will your abilities prevent me from drawing a sample today?”
Sarah snapped up quickly, unsure. “Um, I don’t know. I don’t think so.”
“Well, let’s just give it a try,” she said as she finished rubbing the iodine on Sarah’s inner elbow. “I'll count to three, and then you’ll feel a slight stinging sensation. Ready… one, two, and three.”
The burning of the metal needle piercing Sarah’s skin made her wince, but she held back any kind of response, trying to be tough. She didn’t want to show any weakness.
“And we’re off,” Mia said as she began filling four separate vials through the needles connection port.
She was a seasoned expert at her job. Aside from the burning of the needle’s first bite, Mia maintained complete control over every part of the evolution and had the needle back out of Sarah and all bandaged up within moments. She placed the blood samples in a plastic bag that was stapled to the paperwork and given to another lab tech to take for examination.
“Alrighty,” Mia smiled as she degloved and washed her hands. “now that's out of the way, let's talk about your abilities.” Mia grabbed a series of forms out of her desk in the corner of the medical office and a pin from a cup and sat back down across from Sarah. “How would you best describe your abilities?”
“Um,” Sarah was dumbfounded. She didn’t know what to say. It was all kind of a rush, and she had even failed initially at recreating her strength. “I got really strong yesterday. I knocked a tree over and then I punched another one and my fists blew right through it.”
“So some form of superhuman strength,” Mia wrote down on her paper.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
“Not just that. I also had a moment yesterday where I got really angry and all the dishes and furniture in the kitchens started rattling around without touching any of it. I’m not sure what to call that,” Mia admitted.
“Hmmm,” Mia tapped her pen to her chin thoughtfully. “Interesting. Not many superhumans have more than one ability. It is possible that those two things are just different expressions of your true ability.”
“How do you mean,” Sara asked, not sure she was getting the point.
“You might have an ability that is very rare, or unheard of altogether, that we might not be able to identify easily. Some superhumans in the past have demonstrated many different abilities that were just different manifestations of the same power.” Mia set her pen down on her clipboard as she explained. “Take one of the big heroes, Art Jensen. He has what we call psychokinesis which can look a lot like other abilities if you see him do certain things. He can levitate objects, light things on fire, and do all sorts of other stuff. His one power lets him do things that may come off as something else. Like how when you have a sore throat, you might think it’s a cold, but it’s actual strep,” Mia smiled, a little proud of herself for that one.
“I understand,” Sarah accepted.
“So, for now, I will just put ‘Power Unknown.’ We can fill that in when your blood test gets back,” Mia said. She crossed a few more T’s and dotted some I’s, and then placed her papers down. “Usually this is where we take you to a testing room and have you show us your abilities, but I think we can put that off for now. You look tired, and a little hungry. How about we get you some food, and we can set you up with a temporary lodging inside the complex until your results come back and we can proceed with registration.”
“Is that normal,” Sarah asked slightly nervous and feeling homesick for the first time since she arrived.
“Completely. You came in slightly later in the evening so our night lab crew might take a while to process your sample. We have quite a few recruits as I’m sure you’re well aware.”
“Okay… I guess that will be fine.”
After a short elevator ride and a quick walk down a corridor, Sarah had closed herself into a pretty nice little room. It was a single queen-sized bed with a refrigerator that had some water, a few snacks on the counter, and a hot plate of food already waiting for her on a coffee table. Mia dropped off the young girl and left her to get some rest. Sarah destroyed the food that was left for her, filling herself to the brim. She took a shower and then put her same clothes back on. She wished she would have planned better for this, but she did leave in an angry huff.
Sarah layout across the bed, trying to fight off the feelings that were creeping up on her as the silence of the night washed over her. She hadn’t thought about the details of everything while she was registering. She had tried to compartmentalize everything and just focus on the task at hand. Now that she was alone, she couldn’t stop thinking about her dad. She missed her father, and couldn’t stop picturing his face in the parking lot the last time she saw him.
Sarah had always been a restless sleeper, but tonight was different. As she tossed and turned, she couldn't shake the feeling of dread that had settled deep in her chest. With each passing minute of sleep, her dreaming mind was plagued by a new vision of her father's death.
First, she dreamed that he was killed in a car accident, his body mangled beyond recognition. Then, she imagined him falling from a great height, his screams echoing through the air as he plummeted to his death. In another dream, he was attacked by a swarm of angry alien insects, his body covered in painful stings followed by some kind of uncontrollable allergic reaction. He couldn’t breathe as his throat closed, and there was nothing Sara could do to help him.
As the night wore on, the nightmares grew more and more vivid. Sarah saw her father drowning in a vast ocean, his arms flailing helplessly as he struggled to stay afloat. In another dream, he was trapped in a burning building, the flames licking at his skin as he cried out for help.
Each time Sarah woke up, her heart was pounding in her chest. She tried to shake off the fear that had taken hold of her, but it was no use. The visions of her father's death kept coming, one after another. Then the last dream descended on her. She was pressed up against the glass of the van, watching as her father got further away. The van sped away from him, and the towering behemoth stomped toward Jake. Just as the fog that blanketed the area almost took him out of view, the gargantuan foot of the tentacled horror came crashing down on her father. The leviathan stood atop a graveyard of bodies in the parking lot. The newest body was her dad, and she would never see him again.
Sarah’s eyes ripped open as there was a rapid knock on her door. Once her eyes adjusted to the room, she saw the destruction around her. Chairs were turned over, trash was scattered all over the room, and the TV that used to hang on the wall was somehow sitting in the bathtub. It looked like someone had come in during the night and ransacked the place. The only sign that something strange was afoot was the perfect oval shape around Sarah’s bed. It was like a force field that had kept any sort of debris from moving past a certain line in the sand. However, the invisible wall had collected and dropped a slew of junk from around the room and turned it into a strange bird nest of sorts. As soon as Sarah’s eyes had opened a few hovering and spinning objects dropped to the floor and loud bangs. That's when someone kicked the door in.
“what's going on in here,” Mia frantically barged in. “Sarah we've been trying to get in for the past 30 minutes. Are you ok?”
“I'm fine...” Sarah gasped trying to catch her breath. “I was having nightmares. It was...” she trailed off remembering the horrors that she couldn't escape in her sleep.
“One hell of a nightmare,” a DOSA agent tagging along with Mia said under his breath as he looked at the chaotic debris around the bed.
A few more hours in a DOSA agent’s office by herself was not what she had in mind. Sarah wanted to go home. She wasn’t sure she made the right choice in coming here. The nightmares made her miss her family, the ones she had left. How had she been so selfish in leaving them? Little Jack and Phoebe needed their sister more now than ever after losing their dad. She wanted to leave. That’s when the door opened.
Two Strange men appeared with Mia as she reentered the office.
“Sarah, I have some people that want to meet with you.” Mia slowly introduced her. “This is Darrius and Art. They are some old friends. You might recognize them from the news.”
The man with grey in his hair stepped up first, “Hi, I’m Art. Welcome to DOSA.”
His firm grip latched onto Sarah’s hand and shook it vigorously.
Sarah nodded, “Hi, I’m new. My name is Sarah.” She knew exactly who these men were. You couldn’t look up anything about superheroes without coming across these two. They were from the original hero days, before the government takeover. This was The Manipulator and Cyber-War. Both are from the Chicago Knights. Sarah wasn’t the fan, that was her dad. But, she had seen enough of his stuff to know a lot about these two.
The tall black man didn’t say a word as Art spoke, he just watched Sarah intently. She thought she could see the faint flickering of lights deep within his eyes. She brushed it off as a reflection or something.
“It’s nice to meet you, Sarah. Mia here has told us about what happened to you last night and we thought we’d come out and meet with you.”
Sara looked incredulously at Art. “Me, but I’m nobody. You’re top-rankers in DOSA. Why would you come out here to meet me?”
“You’re quick,” Darrius spoke for the first time. He pushed off the desk where he was leaning and stepped towards the girl. “We heard about what happened last night in your room. We also heard about your blood tests.”
Blood tests. What about my blood tests? Sarah wondered.
Mia stepped in, “SO we got your results back and we didn’t find any genetic markers that indicate superhuman abilities, or any unusual cellular activity that we normally see. We ran your blood through every test conceivable, but we came up with nothing.” Mia smiled, “I tested another kid two days ago that had genetic markers and all he could do was grow his hair at will.” Mia’s face took on a more somber look, “So you see what I’m getting at Sarah. It’s not normal for a superhuman to have no genetic markers. We’ve only ever seen that one other time.”
“And we all know how that turned out,” Darrius spoke coldly as he referred to the terrorist known as Man.
“But I’m not,” Sarah could feel a cold chill go down her spine as she put pieces of a puzzle together in her mind. They were here for her because they thought she was a threat.
“You have no reason to be afraid of us, Sarah,” Art raised his hands in a calming manner. “It is highly unusual. Unheard of really. But, you are a rare case and we would like to offer you an invitation to DOSA Lebanon. We want to show you what we can do for you, and help you learn what your abilities truly are. We can help you,” Art spoke earnestly, trying to assure her they had good intentions.
Darrius had a different approach, “Don’t have any misunderstandings, DOSA is a government agency. If you join us, you will be a government agent and have to follow the rules and regulations outlined in the Superhuman Reform Act. You won’t answer just to yourself, but to a team, and superiors that have no abilities. If you have loved ones then your actions may affect not just yourself, but them as well.”
Sarah thought Darrius was almost trying to talk her out of it like he was coming across as mean only to warn her not to. Art however seemed optimistic about it. Sarah didn’t understand why Darrius would say those things if they were trying to recruit her.
Mia spoke up, “This is very rare, Sarah. Two top-tier heroes from the old days don’t just show up for recruits. DOSA has your blood sample and is going through it with a fine tooth comb. They want to know how you have powers but don’t show any kind of signs. If you go with these two, they can get you in and on the right path before someone else within the system does.”
“Like who?” Sarah asked, warily.
“Like those that would see a little girl as an exploitable resource, or a lab rat,” Darrius spoke coldly.
“What?” Sarah was aghast, her blood running cold. “Who would…” She didn’t know what to say.
Art told her the truth, “Not all within DOSA have good intentions. Some are trying to find a path to a goal. And, when the end justifies the means… it would be a bad time to be alone and a person of scientific interest.”
“If you come with us, I can protect you from anyone like that. They may come sniffing, but that’s all they’ll do. You can learn what you can do with us, in Lebanon.” Darrius was kind of warm and protective for a second. It took Sarah by surprise.
Art was looking at Darrius with proud eyes like a father who saw his kid do something honest and kind.
Darrius glared at him in quick disgust, which brought a smile to Art’s face.
“Why aren’t they here now?” Sarah asked. “If the government already has my blood sample, how are you here first?”
“Darrius can intercept messages in and out of DOSA, and really the whole internet. He knew what was happening pretty quickly. But,” Mia said, “as I said, they are both old friends. I called them as soon as I read your results this morning.”
“Why?”
“Because I knew what this would mean for you. I knew the trouble it could cause. We saw this a long time ago. It caused the whole…” Mia was cut off.
Art waved a hand subtly at Mia, keeping her words at bay. Sarah realized that something had happened in a past that all three of these adults were tied together in. Even Darrius had a look on his face that knew they couldn’t talk about it out loud.
“It is very important that you go with these two. They are good men, and they will take care of you until this settles. I fudged the paperwork so your name isn’t tied to your family. You were a ‘youth ruffian’ that walked in off the street. I shredded your old paperwork so no one would know.”
That’s when it really set in for Sarah. These two top-tier superhumans and a government DOSA agent were helping her evade someone or some group within DOSA. If they knew about her blood and abilities, then they would come for not only her, but her family. A pit grew in her stomach almost instantly. What world was she living in? Only a week ago she was in high school and her biggest problem in life was that she was embarrassed that her dad was an unemployed lay about.
A black portal appeared in the small office, cloaked in a haze of swirling indigo energy. Two men stepped out and materialized in the now cramped office.
“This is Kody and Kyle,” Art gestured to the identical twins standing across from Sarah.
Sara waved awkwardly, unsure of how to deal with all of this as well as meeting two of the men that secretly hung on a poster tucked away in her closet. They were much older now than they were when the poster was made before she was born, but Kody and Kyle Rivers were still just as dreamy as they had always been to her. Whenever she tried to speak up again, her brain didn’t cooperate.
“Hi I'm new.”
The twins grinned in amusement but didn’t say a word.
“Let's get to Lebanon. We can fill you in, and talk more specifics there,” Darrius said, stepping into the portal behind the twins.”
The Rivers twins stepped through and then Art stepped up to Sarah.
“Its literally just walking. You won't even feel anything. Its pretty amazing once your through to think about the distance you've traveled instantly.”
Sarah stepped to the black pane of energy and took a deep breath.
“Good luck,” Mia wished to her.
Sarah looked back and smiled to her. “Thank you.” Then she stepped through, and the portal closed.