My Super Secret Life…. Diamond.

*(This takes place between chapters 11 and 12.)

Paradise City, Orange-town, 4:22 PM

It’s after school and I’m coming out of my favorite comic shop having my chocolate milk and make my way to Galaxy dog so I can do my usual, escape from my life with food and the pages of my favorite comics. I know, super geeky but even in this day and age there’s tones of us.

Us being the overweight losers that life passes by. It’s not fair in the slightest. I’m smart, no genius but I’ve got good enough marks on stuff I’m scholarshipped to one of the best schools in the city.

I can’t transfer out because my folks would kill me. Why would I want to transfer out?

The answer to that comes from me getting hit by several milkshakes as two cars full of the elite kids throw stuff at me laughter and yells from the guys and giggles a squeals from the girls.

“You shoulda moved fat ass!”… “Freak!”…. “Geek!”…. “Loser!” Some of the guys.

“Eeeew stop being gross!”….. “You’re fucking disgusting!”….and of course they carouse “Loser!” with the jock guys.

It hurts really, I mean getting bullied and picked on hurts. Being this way hurts, you get shunned by a lot of people when you’re like me. Yeah I could diet and exercise and I’ve tried, but it’s too hard to do sometimes when you try to work out and stuff and run or bike or swim hearing the jeers from the people who bitch at me for not being just like them…It’s really hard to be motivated when you hear stuff like “Earthquake.” and “You’re crushing the frame.” and “Whale.” And honestly I’m not strong enough to work through it and work through the heartbreak.

Add that to the stares you get, the looks from the pretty people. Did you know when you’re like this there’s some people that actually avoid you, move as far away from you on the sidewalk as they can from you. And not one bit of food you buy healthy or not matters because whatever you buy they still look at it then at you and judge.

Oh there’s cures, yeah cures for being fat and stuff, nano-tech treatments and even gene-treatments if you can afford either of them. They cost in the I’ll never be able to afford it category.

So yeah that’s the great joy of being Terry St. James.

I get inside and start getting cleaned up then go and get my junk food to drown myself in. I’m right in the depths of hating myself and then losing myself in the food and the fantasy of the comics to take me away from what’s been my life so far. I just sit in my corner and mope.

I leave and go home and my folks aren’t home either so I just go to my basement bedroom safe haven and put on some music and cry.

***

School sucks and my week is pretty much me hiding and living with the rest of the freaks and geeks. We try to be sort of elitist in our own right doing that disdain thing from the safety of numbers towards the popular kids and the cheer leaders and the jocks. I swear we’re here though just to put their academic scores up.

I’m watching them as the guys go over what was on the TV and the computer feeds and forums. Movies and sci-fiction and fantasy stuff.

They’ve got these lives that are just so fucking perfect really. Money, good looks, popularity.

It’s pretty easy to hate them all.
I hate them as much as I hate myself.

***

I’m going through the books in the back of the library. They’re a rare thing really comparatively, expensive too. Ninety percent of everything is downloaded now anyways but print’s never gone out of style. I love books even though I can barely afford the few used paperbacks that I’ve gotten.

But despite my love of books people use the stacks for all sorts of stuff. Like this drug deal…I hear one of the jocks talking to this black kid I don’t know, actually I can see them and it’s Jake Stevens but the other kid is in these weird clothes a leather coat and a really large hood but high quality everything else.

Jake says. “You got the stuff?”

“No, not with me. The money comes first.”

“What’s gonna keep you from just booking with my money.”

“My boss. They are very particular about things being on the level Mr. Stevens.”

“Yeah whatever, so this stuff the real deal?”

“Yeah, A.O.-100, will alter your genes to produce a scale of change in you that by-passes the genetic governors.”

“Yeah, yeah it’s super juice. It won’t get detected on scans?”

“No…they won’t detect it on scans and you’ll keep improving as your genes get perfected.”

“Awesome, so where’s the stuff.”

“The money first.”

“Here, here’s the fifty grand down payment.”

“You do know you are on the hook for the rest.”

“Yeah when I’m bringing in inter-colonial baseball star funds I’ll be able to pay the ten million off no problem.”

I’m thinking holy…fuck! Ten million! But if this stuff’s real….then it might just…

“Well that’s good then, you should be able to get me some tickets once you’re famous then.”

“Sure dude no problem. So where is it.”

“Here in the books, It’s in Bennett’s Genetic Theory.”

I get up from where I’ve been kneeling and slip away and find the book. I catch sight of the hooded black guy leaving and I can hear Jake mumbling and grumbling trying to find the book of course looking under B instead of the sciences section. I get to the book first and find a small black case like a pen stuffed into the spine. I open it seeing a needle full of a strange fluid. I close it back up and hide from Jake and anyone else who might see me and I make my way out of there seeing Jake talking to the librarian because he can’t find the book.

I leave and catch a glimpse of the black kid on a skate board and he’s cruising off the campus going pretty fast…I also notice he’s never put a foot down to move the board?

He reaches out like he does it all the time and snags the back of a hover truck and get whisked away really quickly. That’s not normal, he’d have to be enhanced to do that. This needle has to be the real deal. Jake might have been going to use it to boost himself to become an even bigger jock but this might just make all the shit I’m going through.

I know, I know it’s dangerous.
It’s stupid.
And I’m pretty weak for even doing this.

But…

I’m just so tired?
I’m so tired that I’m not even sure I’d care if this A.O.-100 stuff kills me or not.

I leave campus and skip the rest of my classes heading home. Just to keep them or anyone from finding out I stop at a gas station and use the men’s room and sit in one of the stalls and stare at the syringe.

Jake was in the hole for ten million for this. It has to work, it has to be the real thing.

My hands are shaking as I think about doing it.

I can’t.

God I want to but I can’t…I’m too scared.

I put the needle back in it’s thing and I head out to the main part of the garage and over to the pay-phone. I press the police button, I wait and there’s a lady cop that comes on the line and the small screen.

“PCPD what’s the nature of your call?”

“Hello, I’d like to turn in some evidence….uhm…of….uhm a drug buy…”

“Please stay where you are at sir we’re sending officers to meet you there.”

“Uhm okay…”

“Sir of what nature is the evidence?”

“I…I…uhm got the drugs, uhm drug?”

“It’s just one unit of the drugs sir?”

“Uhm yes, something called A.O.-100.”

“Alright sir I’m forwarding the information to….” her voice drifts off for a few seconds. Then she comes back. “Our officers please stay on the line with me.”

“Uhm Okay.”

I stay on the line with her and three police cars show up and the cops come in looking for me. It’s only seconds before I’m bustled into one of their Aero-cruisers and me and the needle are whisked away to The Octagon.

I know, but I’m not under arrest but being brought in for questioning. I’m just blown away at the tech and the cruisers. Their like a standard ground car only the wheels pull in and cover up and a combination of micro-jets and thruster along with a mag-lift carriage lets them reach a ceiling of about five kilometers and reach speeds of up to five hundred KPMG. I’m a geek and these things blow me away. The standard Aero-car is rated for about half the ceiling and speeds.

The Police Aero-cruisers are the closet thing I think I’d ever see to a military craft and I enjoy every second of the ride even really getting excited when the do a few small police formation moves to impress the kid.

We get to the Octagon which I should explain is the PCPD total city wide headquarters along with Aero-EMT and Fire and the central courthouse. It’s like twelve floors high and three sub levels deep and was created off of the idea of some military structure from ancient earth. It’s almost temple like with steps all the way around it and these huge lady justice statues at each corner of the Octagon.

There’s green spaces and parking lots all around the building but from the Octagons western face there is this huge green space and a reflecting pool that goes westward from the end of the parking lot and at the other side of that park rising up with no other high rises for an entire two kilometers is The Tower.

I mean I see these things on the bus sort of but from the air, to be here is just…I’m having such a fan boy moment.

Right up until we’re landing and heading inside and who do we pass in the hall!…Overdrive and the newest guy Titan! It’s so cool! They’re both really big guys, Overdrive’s over six foot and built and big but Titan’s over seven feet tall and if you can have lean muscle on a guy like him that’s it. I catch a glimpse of his eyes and they’re gold or bronze with almost a shimmer of yellow glow beneath them…he’s sporting a new look, sort of. Leather pants and bell bottom boots, leather ring fighter gloves without the fingers and heavy wrist wraps but for a shirt or tunic or whatever he’s just wearing a big baggy black zip up hoody and bare chest underneath. No mask either, like he doesn’t care who knows what he looks like and he’s his own man.

Yes, I know fan boy much, I know but he took down some major psycho on live TV with a boot to the stones.

I mean he saved some of the PC Champions butts.

It completely offsets the interview and me being nervous and even more nervous as Dad and Mom are called in from work to be here with me. I’m lucky as their not upset dad actually smiles and passes me a Shooting Star (Soda similar to Mt. Dew.) “How you holding out Terry?”

“I’m okay Dad. I just, the whole thing just rubbed me the wrong way and I couldn’t let Jake and that other guy get away with it.”

“Well, it never hurts to do the right thing and if the sports teams are dosing then there might be faculty involved, I thin k it was smart to call the police. I’m sure we can get a note for you to give to the office for cutting if they’re going to do the same for me and your Mom.”

Overdrive’s there with the police conducting the interview and I tell them everything that I heard and worked with the sketch artist to do up a drawing of the black kid. I think Overdrive knew who he was but he didn’t say much.

It was a little weird but cool at the same time and while I was waiting and the police were talking to Mom and Dad I overheard Titan talking to Overdrive about Jake. He knew a lot about Jake. Too much…Oh…Oh…holy crap…Titan goes to my school! It’s the only way he could know so much about Jake. I temper my freak out with a smile on my face as I hear Titan say.

“He’s a major jerk off, one of those I play sports so I’m a winner types. He struts like his dick’s the size of the baseball bat. I can see him juicing if he thought he could get away with it.”

There’s a definite rush when one of the cities Supers thinks one of my tormentors is as much a piece of shit as I do. You really can’t buy that kind of validation.

I have to sign witness statements as well as a non-disclosure thing but hey that’s cool.

The day still climbed even more when we went for supper as a reward for me being a stand up guy and stuff at Super-chicken and I went home happy for a change. It was likely the coolest day of my life.

***

Jake’s fall from grace didn’t happen. There was only my testimony on the exchange but they were investigating, sort of. The entire Athletics Department was called in for drug and DNA testing.

It was really freaking glorious to see those on high taken down a few pegs and there was a lot of freaking out and a lot of fancy lawyers and rich parents freaking out and everything. About a dozen different kids got cut from various teams for gene-tweaking.

It wasn’t the drug stuff but Vishanti Bio-tech. See the Vishanti are one of the alien races that have made contact with mankind. They’re lightly grey skinned Hindu aliens sometimes blue toned that had visited Earth’s India in the ancient past and gave them the starts of their culture.

Anyway, the Vish are really advanced in medicine and stuff like Bio-medical stuff, cloned organs and regrown limbs and cybernetics. They’re also big time merchants and offer augmentation to a point by gene-tweaking people. Nothing major because of some kind of galactic laws and colonial laws but it’s as forbidden as shit when in comes to sports.

Turns out that a lot of the kids with wealthy parents got tweaked to help them out in sports. It’s not detectable unless you’re looking for it very specifically.

Yeah a whole lot of us underdog types are reveling in how the mighty have fallen.

It was a really good day.

***

I’m getting home off the bus when I see the black kid just down the street on his board. I try to run to catch the bus to get back on it and I’m too fat, too out of shape to catch it so I run…I run down the alley closest and keep running.

I know stupid, I should’ve kept to the main streets where there were witnesses. I shouldn’t have run. I mean at the time, It might have just been coincidence. I saw him behind me once, then I though I lost him. Then I fell; my left leg wouldn’t work because there was a long nasty looking knife through my thigh, through the bone and then he was there standing over me.

“Normally I’d kill you and you’re entire family but since there really isn’t a point in killing a baker and his wife I’ll cut you some slack Terry.”

Oh fuck he knows my name…

“Normally, you’d just be a small fish and not worth my time but Terry, Terry, Terry, you cost me a lot of money, and you cost my boss a lot of money and even more.”

He kicks me in the guts, oh god it hurts. He does it over and over again I try curling into a ball and he works my back over, my lower back. I trying to cry, trying to scream in pain, there’s a flick sound and a blade pop’s out of his boot.

I’m too fucked up to run and….

No one should ever get to smell their own blood that much, no one should ever get to smell their own intestines and the stuff that’s in them. I lose consciousness….

***

“Take the body and dump it.”

“Where.”

“Take him to the pit.”

“Gotcha…. Fuck Damian you couldn’t leave him a little less fucking squishy?”

“Just do it. And don’t get caught.”

“I can avoid the cops.”

“It’s not just the cops you’ve got to worry about. The Alchemist is what you’ve got to watch out for.”

“He’s not going to care if I dump this shlubb off in his hole.”

“No, likely won’t David but he’s always looking for new test animals.”

“Oh….fuck, gotcha.”

I remember hearing that exchange, Damian…the guy that killed me is called Damian.

***

There’s light.

Bright lights.

Ow.

They hurt and kind of makes me feel like a Mogwai.

I try to move but can’t, I sort of try to move around a bit and I can’t. I’m too hurt, there’s too many tubes in me.

Then there’s a guy in goggles and a mask, a surgical mask leaning over me… there’s a moment I’m staring and things come into focus and he…he…he’s got four arms and all of them have things in them.

I faint, or get knocked out…. I here this. “Good well now we shall begin.”

***
More voices.

“Do we know what the hell is going on with him?” I think that’s Overdrives voice.

“No, we have no idea what the hell the Alchemist did to him besides patch him up.” This voice is a woman’s.

“He’s not human anymore is he.”

“As far as we can tell yes but there’s new organs that we don’t have a clue to what they are inside Terry right now and they’re spreading these new cells throughout his body.”

“Is he contagious?”

“No, they’re tuned to his bodies specific bio-electrical energy, the die off and become inert outside his body.”

“He’s repairing really fast.”

“Their repairing everything as they’re taking over the cells in his body.”

“Like Nanites then?”

“Like carbon crystal ones then.”

“Like…?”

“Like exactly like I said.”

“Is he going to get changed into whatever these cells are from?”

“We’ll have no way of knowing that, they might stop once he’s healed up or repaired in this case.”

“Can his parents see him?”

“Yes, like I said these other cells die off without his energy to sustain them. It’s why he’s no it a bio-hazard field any more.”

“Good, I’ll let them know the good news what little there is.”

“Drive, you got to rein him in.” ……….This was Titan’s voice.

“Who Ty?”

“Shroud, don’t tell me this wasn’t his idea.”

“Titan…”

“No, I saw the sketch the kid did. That might be some teenager but that’s Trask’s gear. Shroud knew, you all knew and staked this kid out there like a goat.”

“We had a detail on Terry, we didn’t know if this kid had any real connection to Trask.”

“That’s weak Drive, weak.”

“Titan, you don’t get to start lecturing us about stuff you don’t know anything about. A call was made. Trask has a lot to answer for. I didn’t like it but it was a shot we had to take in case this guy led us to Trask.”

“Whatever…”

I cough trying to talk and break up the argument. The woman’s voice is closer to me now. “Gentlemen, you’re disturbing my patient.”

“The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few…or the one.” I kind of croak out.

I hear Titan. “You’re lucky Drive, we all are he can pray or whatever.” I can’t help the weezy laugh that’s coming out of me.

I hear her. “It’s a character quote Titan, though it was nearly a religion at one point.”

“Uhm okay. Terry?, Terry can you here me?”

I nod.

“I’m glad you made it through, just rest okay? Let Dr. Burke take care of you.”

I can’t see him but give a thumbs up.

I hear them both leave and they’re bickering down the hall. I sign and it hurts, the more awake I’m getting the more it hurts.

“How’s your pain Terry?”

“Oh…it’s fine, I’m the one that sucks.”

“Well you’re keeping your spirits up.”

“I’m fucking high and in shock doc.”

She laughs. “Well let’s not have you over doing it and stuff, I’m giving you a mild sedative and you can try to sleep through it.”

I give her the thumbs up.

I don’t even feel the needle as I drift away.

***

Weird dreams….

Camera flashes in the dark of my head.

“Clear!”

Oh…

That’s not good.

“Hold her down!”

“Give me the adrenaline!”

“Shit the needle broke!”

Her…

I can feel people grabbing me.

Her…

There’s a hand on my boob.

Not Moob, not a fat boy breast but a boob, a breast, my breast…there’s a very freaking me out inadvertent squeeze.

“Ow!!! Jesus! Get off of me!”

I’m awake and I’m up and free of the bed in a torn Johnny shirt and It looks like I threw everyone around the room.

I’m panting and I see Mom in the doorway looking freaked. “Terri, please Terri, stop you’re safe…No one’s going to hurt you. You’re safe.”

I stare at her and the catch myself in the mirror, I look like me if I had a sister weight and all…the only difference is that my hair it’s almost blue or blue with lots of white in it. And my eyes are both grey almost silvery like human eyes if they were made of glass?

I’m a girl…

I didn’t ever get the whole Super thing…and turned into some hottie, no I’m as overweight as ever…

It feels so much worse than it did before it’s like one more hard kick to everything that’s happened before. I know I shouldn’t be thinking overweight girl’s worse than an overweight guy but I live in the real world and yeah…it’s worse, much worse and…and… and I don’t faint but fall back on my bed and it breaks, I just broke a hospital bed…

I burst into the worst tears of my life…

I feel my Mom hold me and I lose it even more and do that off your nut screaming crying into her lap.