3) Wanted Man
The next morning I got up to feed my chickens and set up Chester with some feed so he wouldn't bother me while I cleaned out his stable. The old horse that had belonged to my Grandma before she gave me the ranch was the last remaining one of my grandparent’s original animals. The rest of them had passed on over time after my grandparents had gone on their world tour and then retired to be close to my parents down in Florida.
They still came up to visit several times a year. And Chester was always here to greet them.
The old horse had triggered when he broke his leg, only a Regen 1, but it was enough for him to heal his leg and live well into his twenty seventh year. I had high hopes he had quite a few more years in him even though his muzzle had gone white with age.
He still moved pretty well, and he may have gotten a little bit of powered strength as well. Maybe a Brute .5 which was at least enough to deal with the geese. It had been four generations of Brute 1 birds with foul tempers hogging the pond.
I made some regular cash with the eggs. Geese made good guard dogs, and a goose that could bite down on a coyote and toss them over a fence were a very good guard dog. Just remember to feed them by hand so they want to protect you.
The city had paid my grandparents to deal with them after the growing city reached the family ranch, along with the sentient group mind mice in the attic, and the talking crows. All of which except the mice got fed the same vitamin enriched feed as the chickens. It was some genetically engineered super soybean that I got at cost from Core Values, the chain store created by the Rank 5 stone and metal former that had established and built Concentric city without bothering to buy the land it stood on first.
Not that you could buy land in a national park, my family was only here because we predated the park.
He did in fact pay afterwards. Rather generously since it was pretty easy to become rich when you can find and pull gold and other precious materials right out of the ground. The government passed a special bill to allow it in return for him agreeing to not to build any further into the park, which also allowed them to save face by not having the very existence of the city continue to be a show of defiance.
It wasn’t until noon before I pulled out a brand new burner phone and went to Fakemail.com to see if mort1188 had gotten any mail.
From: [email protected]om
Header: Psychic entanglement
[So I’ve been told that, unlike telepathy, we weren't communicating mentally directly because of a Superpower. It was because we were two people in the same body once I came back to life. I need to know how much of my thoughts you could pick up. And how much of a connection we have now.
I’m sorry I have to press this on you after you saved my life, but I'm freaking out over the fact that a guy I don’t even know may have access to everything that goes on in my head.]
From: [email protected]
Re: Psychic entanglement
[I wasn’t aware of you or your mind until I detected a dead body near you, then I could feel your emotions. I tried to talk to you but the connection wasn't there anymore. At least not on that level. I think I may have only detected that body because it made you think of me, which opened the connection to let my powers extend to an area around you.]
From: [email protected]
RE: Psychic entanglement
[That sounds about right. Let me try something this afternoon after I get out of school.]
Mid-afternoon my senses were suddenly flooded with the presence of dozens of dead bodies. “Oh god, what happened.” My dogs, Fafnir and Muffin, stopped suddenly in their play fighting to stare at me as I half sat, half fell into my rocking chair on the front porch, and reached out to one of the dead.
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
Opening its eyes I found myself in a body that was wearing only a sheet inside of a dark, silent, and cold chamber just large enough for a corpse to fit into. I took the time to sigh. “Of course. The morgue.”
Taking a guess on feet in first, I reached over my head to knock three times on what I hoped was the door. Even through the steel panels, I could hear a definite pause in some conversation before I gave an additional shave and a haircut knock.
After another significant pause, and no two bits knock, the door opened.
Looking up, I could see Shimmer and two other super teens. Manifest, an Asian kid with orange hair shaved on the sides and a bulky uniform in dark blue with a white trim. Transporter 4. Fable, a thin black girl in a rather plain looking set of normal clothes. Illusion 4 bordering on a 5 since her illusions crossed over into reality manipulation and seemed to act independently.
The illusionist jumped back with a squeal when I tilted the old dead woman's head back to get a better look at them. Manifest looked fascinated while Shimmer just seemed pleased that I had shown up. “See, I told you it would work.”
She nodded to herself. “I want you to join my team.”
I had the body croak out a “Wha-huh?”
The young woman nodded to herself again, like my response had been expected. She pulled out the sliding drawer fully out, while I rolled the corpse’s eyes. Fable took another few steps back to where T-Rex was dressed in street clothes and leaning against a wall with his arms crossed, looking like he definitely didn’t want to be here.
That makes two of us buddy.
Manifest stepped up. "Do you want me to help you down?"
I shook the corpse's head. "She's still cold, it will take a little longer for me to be able to get her up let alone keep her standing. Now what are you talking about with a team?"
Shimmer seems to unconsciously strike a pose. "All four of us are inheritors and have spent our whole lives being called the little princesses or princes because people had looked to our parents for leadership.”
“Now it’s our turn to step up and become the leader of our generation. I even got a name picked out for our team. The Royals.”
That got some groans and eye rolling from the other three and a wry grin from Shimmer. "We're still workshopping the name. But you can contribute so much. Manifest can get wounded people to medical help in time to help the injured. But with our mental link, I can get you to people that can’t be saved in time or with regular medical help. Together we can save lives.”
Her eyes got big as she clutched her hand together. “What do you say?”
I sat up, clutching the sheet in front of the dead woman’s chest out of respect. Then I stared at the young woman with the dead one’s eyes. "I am thirty seven years old. I am not joining a teenage super team."
Ignoring her disappointed look I laid the corpse back down and snapped its finger at Manifest before pointing at the interior of the corpse cabinets. "Shove her back in please."
Then I opened my eyes back on my porch and straightened up enough to tumble Jenny the cat out of my lap. She vanished off somewhere else before I could apologize. Transporter 2. The mice keep feeding her to keep her from stalking them, and it kept her coming back.
A moment later I sensed a bunch of corpses. Then their presence faded away.
Then they were back and gone, and back again.
I closed my eyes and leaned back in the rocking chair and opened the old woman’s back in the morgue.
Manifest grinned down at me. “She doesn't take no for an answer.”
I stared back at him. “Team royal pains more like.” I sat the corpse up again and turned it to glare at the young Super girl who glared right back at me and showed me the stick. “Are you going to do the right thing willingly? Or am I going to tell my parents about the creepy middle aged guy who was inside my body?" She grinned halfway through that.
Hrmf. “I saved your life little girl. And thirty seven isn’t middle aged, especially for a regenerator.”
She gave me a serious look. “That’s why I know you are going to agree to join the Royals, you’re a good guy and you want the chance to save more lives.”
Fable spoke up. “Can you do anything other than heal dead people?”
Then she flinched when I looked over at her. “I triggered by dying. I got Bruiser 2 and Regeneration 2 while I’m in my own body. But I think it’s only because it's just another body I can be in, the same as the dead.”
T-Rex spoke up again, almost confrontational, but not all that hostile. “No one in the registry has powers like you. Lazuri is the closest and he's just an Regen 5, he can regenerate from being dead. This is a lot more than that. And you can't be him since he was in New Orleans when Coal Train went on his rampage.
I stared at him for a moment before I put the name together with the smoking guy. Black smoke, hits and screams like a steam train. Makes sense.
"I'm not all that trusting of the government. After all, I do live in Concentric."
That got some understanding nods.
The super called Core had just plunked himself down on the corner edge of Yellowstone Park and built himself a thermal core tap for energy as well as a Arcology called the Palace for himself and anyone else with powers who wanted a safe place to live. It soon grew to take over more of the national park as well as two nearby states and it was only after two generations of government attempts to do something about it that an agreement was reached for him to do a few hundred hours of community service each year, repairing and updating national infrastructure on a massive scale, that the city was granted official status as a Federal District.
Most people thought that had been his plan all along.
The city grew pretty fast in the early days due to it being a refuge for people getting targeted by intolerance and harassment for having powers, not to mention government sanctioned kidnapping.
When Light Knight and Bravada, Shimmer’s parents, moved here it pretty much solidified the city as a refuge for rebels, iconoclasts, and all around independents.
Including a lot of G pluses, the Geniuses whose inventions had made the modern world.
Core’s determination to lay out his city in every broadening circles eventually reached my family ranch. So to be fair, I never choose to live here. Here choose me.
But it did suit me. And so did saving lives.
“I’m not wearing a costume.”
Shimmer has a very annoying smirk.