Ch05En: Episode 1
William Dickstein
Ch05en: Episode 1
By
William Robert Dickstein
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PUBLISHED BY:
Ch05en: Episode 1
Copyright © 2013 by William Robert Dickstein
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This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.
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Many thanks to Daio Lamers and Charlie Dickstein, who helped me edit and revise this story. Extra thanks to Daio, who provided all of the beautiful artwork. Also, special thanks to my mom. She thinks my writing is cool.
KEEP READING AFTER THE END FOR PREVIEWS OF CH05EN: EPISODE 2 AND CH05EN: MEGATECH.
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In the not too distant future…
Scientists at the Max Plank Institute for Molecular Genetics will map out a gene given the markers of Ch05En.
The Fate Gene
A latent Ch05En gene destines someone for greatness. Maybe you'll be a rock star, or CEO of a Fortune 500. You might save somebody's life, or give birth to the greatest supporting actress of all time.
Maybe you'll be a superhero.
Those with powers often join the Global Society of Superheroes, known more commonly as the GSS. These people become Capes. They are our protectors in a world of infinite possibilities.
A world where the terrorist organization known as The Aggregate lives to instill fear in the masses.
Welcome to the world of Ch05En.
Where we're one suddenly-activated Fate Gene away from total salvation...
Or complete annihilation.
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Ch05en: Episode 1
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Open – Curious Stranger
Third grade was twelve years ago, but I still feel bad when I think about kickball. How many years does it take to stop feeling bad about breaking a little boy’s nose? He is basically an adult now. He can vote. Lives alone. People call him “Sir.”
He fights crime, even.
Most of the people who left Orchard Elementary don’t recognize Scott when they see him on television. They didn’t break his nose. I did. So even though Scott wears a nylon body suit with inlaid fiberglass and armor plating, and a facial helmet which blends into his skin to change its color and texture, I know it’s him. I know that nose. I’ve done worse things since third grade. Many without a second thought.
For some reason, I still feel bad.
It’s probably because the rest of Scott is perfect. His physique is chiseled. He can bench press a house. Literally. They cut a house in half and bolted it to either side of a barbell. He completed ten full reps on Channel 8 news. A house isn’t even his max. Scott can fly. He has some kind of natural magnetic field around him, strong enough to carry pretty much anything. It also keeps him nearly impervious. There were reports recently in Thailand saying some local kids had seen Scott simply look at a pair of thugs before one of them burst into flames, but it was a hoax. And you know what? Scott’s eyes are beautiful. They’re better without heat vision.
Scott’s powers manifested when he was fifteen. I wasn’t there when it happened, but if you pay attention, you can put together what went down from multiple sources. The official story, for the public, is that Scott was simply another Chosen. Someone born with a destiny pre-determined for greatness. This story is the easiest to accept because Chosen are all around us. Science figured out fate over twenty years ago, after living for hundreds of years believing that achieving greatness was a matter of hard work. People used to think it was luck getting in the way when they performed superhuman strengths. They believed serial killers and sociopaths were random events in nature. Then some scientist published some paper in 2025 with irrefutable evidence of a gene the scientific community called Ch05En. And suddenly people all over the world were testing themselves and their children to see if they were genetically predisposed towards some kind of greatness. Those who are become known as Chosen.
My story for Scott, which I put together from accidental encounters, the news, and police reports, is that his gene activated fully when he was fifteen. He only lived a few houses down from mine. It was 4am on a Tuesday in the middle of summer break when I heard that unmistakable pop pop pop of gunfire. What else are you to do at fifteen, in the middle of Caucasian-dominated suburbia, but run outside as fast as you can to see where the commotion is coming from?
The three shots I’d heard had come and gone quickly. The noise bounced around so much, I had no idea which house it was from. Police reports would later confirm the shots were fired in Scott’s home, but only after I had confirmed that for myself. I walked in a straight line from my front door, not even thinking to put shoes on. I remember the ground was warm. Warmer than it should have been. I wouldn’t know why until two years later, when the theory of gravity was disproven by a scientist named James Warner. James proved that the cosmic pull we see is a result of magnetic fields contained within all matter, rather than matter’s ability to simply create a pull. A separate experiment, published in a journal no one would ever read, showed evidence of magnetic fields sometimes interacting in a manner similar to friction. There was another word for it. I don’t remember what. The end result was heat. Turns out you don’t need solid matter for particles to heat up enough for our skin to feel them. I didn’t know it then, but it is easy to see now that when Scott’s magnetic field fully manifested, it formed a radius wide enough to include the entire neighborhood. The resulting magnetic friction was what I was feeling under my feet.
I stood in the middle of the road, no other sounds discernable to myself. It was stupid to be so out in the open, nothing but air between my face and the possible flight path of an additional bullet. I hadn’t even remembered to grab a shirt. I just stood there in my shorts, feet quickly dirtying, my insatiable curiosity and hormonal need for danger getting the better of me. My desire kept me patient.
Then, sirens.
We lived four minutes away from a police station. Our local fire department was only a block over and you could see St. Ed’s hospital from where I was standing. The ambulance came around the bend of the block, and I stepped back onto the sidewalk. I watched as people’s lights turned on in their homes. I saw them looking on from their front porches and stepping out onto their lawns. Right minded individuals all of them, they’d somehow all managed to put on their shoes or sandals. I remember having no one to talk with about how curiously warm the ground felt. Not that they would have listened.
Before long, two paramedics were wheeling Scott’s mother from their home on a stretcher. You knew it was her, in spite of the bag she was in. She was remarkably tall. If gasps were currency, we’d have all been rich. Old-lady Jefferson kept saying it was a, “Damn, dirty, no good shame.” I miss her now that she’s gone.
Following Scott’s mother was his father. Also on a stretcher. He was in a similar bag, though it was noticeably smaller.
Then Scott was out of the house as well. He had cried so much and so hard by then, vessels in his eyes had burst. They were nearly all red around green irises. But if this was Christmas, it was a sad one.
The news marked it as a murder-suicide. Scott’s father, Henry, killed Scott’s mother, Samantha. Then Henry turned the gun on
himself. Police said only two bullets were recovered. I never told anyone that I had heard three shots. Police on scene that night didn’t ask too many people what had happened. I guess we were one house too far, nobody even tried to ask me what happened. It’s obvious now that Scott’s magnetic field caused the bullet coming for him to be misdirected or stopped in some way.
I had figured it out when I saw Scott on television for the first time, as Brass Man. He was wearing his brass suit and mask, a giant “B,” on his chest and back. And in his first ever on-camera interview, with what I assumed was a freshly pressed and cleaned uniform, was the bullet. Right in the center of his forehead, crushed as if it had hit something. When reporter Jenny Withers asked Brass Man why he wore a bullet on his forehead, he said it was his, “Reason for fighting crime.”
When you have the right information, solving puzzles can be easy.
Not many people are actively trying to discern who Brass Man is. He’s only one of hundreds of capes and villains. One of thousands of Chosen. Heck, I’m a Chosen. You’d never know it, my gene hasn't activated. My passion is pizza delivery. I live to drive a pizza pie fresh out of the oven to your front door.
But when my mother announced she had caught her recent nemesis, telling my father and myself that her “plan to garner uranium would not be so easily thwarted this time,” I was worried. I knew her recent nemesis was Brass Man. Neither my father nor I were surprised when we saw a young man in a brown and red colored suit strapped to a giant metal slab, magnetic dampeners pointed at him from all directions.
There was a pang of guilt when Scott looked over at me. He had an intense, knowing look in his eyes. It was easy to recognize me. My gene is still latent. I don’t hide myself. My father isn’t a Chosen, and he had coached our kickball team. My mother cheered when I kicked the line-drive that broke Scott’s nose. And that was before she’d become a super-villain, when my father was still the breadwinner.
Of course, I could do nothing to stop my mother. And I wouldn’t even try if I could. I’ve accepted her evil ways. And I love her. That’s what it means to be a family.
So as the laser fired up and made its slow descent towards Brass Man, and his gaze matched mine and his muffled screams escaped from the rag shoved in his mouth, all I did was shrug.
Sorry, Scott.
That’s my mom.
