Aberrant: Prometheans Unbound - Fiction: The Colony

[Alex Green]

The Downfall of Horton: Stage One: Background Checks.

The Colony, ‘Bob’ to his friends, worked through the night on his current ‘hobby’. The work day he’d spent at the clinic or in support of it. The evening he’d gone bar hopping but business/pleasure had been over by 2am, and a nova who didn’t sleep needed to kill that ever recurring enemy, boredom. It’d be easier if he didn’t have to hide, but sooner or later publicly being on the go for 24/7 draws attention, and he didn’t want that. Anyway this needed to be done and might as well be done away from prying eyes, even his colleagues.

Only by habit did he bounce all his searches off an anonymizer site to make his electronic trail harder to follow. At this stage everything was still legal and the chances of any trails getting back to him were slight. Given time, skill, and desire, it was almost silly how easy it was, the average citizen would probably be appalled at how much information about them was legally and publicly available.

The Reverend Theobald Horton. Age 45. Currently of East Lansing, Michigan. Formerly of the United Methodist Church, kicked out about a year ago.

One of Bob’s components told him the United Methodists were pretty liberal on the religious spectrum. Married clergy, female ministers, pro-minority rights, “Love thy neighbor and support Project Utopia”. Not the background one would expect from a COMA anti-nova organizer… but he did leave the church.

No, he took many of his members and started his own. Complete with web site. This was one of the weakness Bob was exploiting here, churches were about community and being open and gathering the flock. They probably had ways to deal with spies, but that wasn’t relevant.

Three children. Girl, Victoria, age 18. Boy, David, age 10. John, baby boy, less than a year old. Wife, Mary, age 41. All still living in the same house.

The hours passed and the Reverend’s life took form. His address, phone number, a video of him giving a speech, his new church’s phone number and how old the building was. How long he’d been married, 23 years. The schools he’d gone too. Missing was the link that made him start hating novas, missing were other important pieces in an investigation, like his overt connections to COMA’s militant arm. Largely that came down to following the money, and was more than Bob could do right here. On the other hand, Bob was less interested in finding all the pieces than creating ones he liked.

There were lots of options here for what Theobald was going to do in this exciting new chapter of his life. In public in front of cameras he could erupt, transform into a demon and slaughter his congregation. He could kill people who’d used nova healers. His daughter could turn up pregnant and/or join a nova cult or start making porn movies. His wife could leave him for a nova, or he could leave his wife for a nova. But each of those ran risks of encouraging anti-nova stances or of backfiring. As unspeakable as it was, plan “A” was probably still the easiest and least risky.

Shortly after the sun had risen, Bob felt that he was forgetting something and realized it was money. Money was the root of all evil, so it was best to involve Theobald in it as part of the main plan. Good accounting practices separate church finances into two treasurers, one for incoming cash and one for out going, and neither of them related to the Reverend. On the other hand, this was a brand new church, and probably funneling money to a shadow group. Both of those implied a lack of sound accounting practices. Three hours and several phone calls later, Bob had a name of the person who dealt with the Church’s money, Mary Horton.

The Downfall of Horton: Stage Two: Preliminary Moves.

After the plane touched down Bob gained 20 years, 20 kilos, and switched sexes before renting a car under the theory that housewives were pretty much invisible. “He” kept that form for the entire ride from O’Hare to Grand Rapids. The trip took about two hours longer than it needed to, “he” stopped at a fairly large number of gas stations and restaurants looking for what he needed. Automated cameras, automated money tellers, hotels, and drive-thru type places with the windows and cameras placed just so. For this he made a log, in Polish, one day soon he’d probably have to drive this route in reverse and leave a trail of electronic bread crumbs.

“He” arrived in Grand Rapids on Saturday and spent several hours familiarizing himself with the roads, how to drive to church, the good Reverend’s house, his bank, the various schools, the police station, the dog pound. Goodwill furnished some reasonably respectable clothes which “he” wouldn’t need till tomorrow. At the end of the day he turned into a medium sized female deer and watched the Reverends house for a while. No dog and as far as he could tell he was the only nova there, although there was an electronic security system which he accidentally triggered and then walked away from.

[Alex Green]

The Downfall of Horton: Stage Three: Field Research.

,,

Sunday he went to both services as well as the Sunday school, wearing the housewife form and the Goodwill clothes. The clothes were to avoid making the rookie mistake of obviously wearing Eufiber. Bob again didn’t sense any other novas around. The Sunday school was interesting, Horton gave a long question and answer session about the evils of novas in modern society. He was a good speaker, intelligent and even charismatic. Bob’s feelings still told him this was shockingly fundy for a former Methodist. Horton also had some personal habits in speaking and behavior that Bob made mental notes about.

At the second service ‘he’ was able to sit next to the big man’s family. Bob did observe some tension between the daughter and the mother, but didn’t judge it was significant. They seemed to like each other, no obvious problems, other than the fact that Bob was going to wreck their lives. That thought give him more of a twinge of guilt than he was expecting, and not for the man or the boy. The survivors were the ones who would feel pain. Bob pushed the thought aside, as awful as this solution was, all the other solutions were unacceptable, and he hadn’t chosen this fight. The big man had chosen to be a player, and chosen his enemies poorly. After Piper Theobald probably figured he was going to martyr himself.

Getting Horton’s finger prints was easy. Getting the daughter’s and the boy’s was slightly harder but only slightly. The hymnals had plastic covers, he came back after the service and stole the one they had used. By the time the day had ended he’d shook hands with each of them and even chatted a bit. “He” was watched of course, as an outsider he would be, but he, or make that she, hadn’t even been the only new comer to the service. As always, he fit in and made casual friends easily. Everyone felt he was a spiritual ‘sister’. The two men who Bob mentally tagged as “bodyguard” didn’t give “him” more than a few extra looks.

The Downfall of Horton: Stage Four: Act without being noticed.

On Monday he took the form of a very friendly, but obviously lost, medium sized black lab and followed the family around until they did something about it. They took him in, fed him, and then took him to the pound. “Escaping” was trivial. As usual for such places, it was open to the general public and he just walked out and called a Cab. The minor mystery of what happened to the dog would remain just that, a minor mystery. If anyone cared enough to investigate they’d write it up as shoplifting or something.

Bob paid cash for the video camera and other supplies, including the hotel room and then spent several hours practicing. With the help of a magnifying glass, finger prints could be duplicated. Even better, while it wasn’t possible to shapeshift into two separate people, it was possible to shift into a monster that looked like them from the knees up with the body masses connected off camera. The acts themselves were disgusting but only in an abstract, theoretical sense. No matter what the appearance, this was something he was doing to himself and that made a difference. One or more of Bob’s originals must have been pretty good with photography since he got the result he wanted the first time he’d hit the record button. It was hard work though; by the time he was done he was out of juice. Mentally Bob pushed back his timeline by one day.

On Tuesday he purchased a computer and then made three copies of his CD. Finding a kiddy porn magazine store was one of the harder parts of the mission and took no less than four hours, but it was time well spent. They even had back issues. He didn’t wear Horton’s face on this one, the porn should give the appearance of having been collected for a while. Then he planted Horton’s finger prints on every page of every magazine, and on the original CD, and then he put his son’s finger prints on the copies and packaged them for mail, again leaving the son’s finger prints on the package material. A cut up magazine and newspaper created the message “Please stop him” with Horton’s name and address, and also created addresses to the local police, a local news reporter, and a national news muckraker.

Drop these in the mail and everything hits the fan maybe two days later… or maybe not. People could be slow to believe. Bob had some extra time so he made another father and son CD in a storage space rental. This time he also let the camera “accidentally” see a magazine. Then the camera, computer, and left over gear went into the garbage in three different dumpsters. He dropped the packages in the mail at 4am. The clock was now ticking. The car was left in the rental lot and a cab drove him to a gas station a half a mile from Horton’s place. The friendly black dog walked to the house with lots of evidence sealed in a garbage bag in an internal pouch.

[Alex Green]

The Downfall of Horton: Stage Five: Consume and assume.

In theory, making “the touch” was more complex than normal. He couldn’t just knock on the door and hope Theobald answered because if the wife or kid answered the door he wasn’t willing to do anything to them. He had to get Horton alone, but if he messed up he had to be able to back away without messing everything up. He didn’t even know whether the children would leave for school first, or last, or even be driven by Horton. Horton might not be alone at all. Luck could play a big role here and Bob needed to count on it going against him.

Bob-the-friendly-black-dog knocked over the Horton’s garbage can and waited on the driveway next to the house to see what would happen. Theobald Horton opened the garage door, spotted the garbage, and walked over to fix it. Distracted, he never even saw the black dog slip into the garage. Theobald fixed the can, walked back into the garage, and the twelve foot tendril that was Bob the dog’s tongue lunged out and touched him, and Theobald Horton sort of collapsed into the tongue. After a moment Bob-the-new-Horton walked over, picked up the clothes lying on the ground, found the car keys, and drove off.

The Downfall of Horton: Stage Six: Investigate from the inside.

He stopped in route to the church to retract his Eufiber and put on Horton’s clothes, and to examine the contents of his wallet. Pretty typical stuff; picture, bank card, insurance card, two credit cards, an ATM slip, and a little cash. The back of his driver’s license had a couple of what looked like an account names with passwords, but didn’t say what they were to. Then Bob drove to work at the church. When the church secretary showed up “Horton” told her he felt like his stomach wasn’t working so he’d probably be throwing up in a few hours, and she should hold his calls and meetings.

Searching “his” office produced a computer that needed a password… on a hunch he tried the passwords from the card and one of them worked. Probably this meant Horton reused his passwords. A hand written log book containing Horton’s church speeches was on his desk, and Bob seriously considered leaving a handwritten note… something along the lines of “I’ve gone to join other Michalites who understand that men have needs because I know my actions will be misunderstood and there will be a witch hunt… it’s only the evil of aberrants that makes it impossible in this society for a man to fully express his love…” but that seemed laying it on a bit thick, and when this hit the fan serious hand writing experts would take apart that letter and might prove it couldn’t be his. Since making a good forgery would be difficult, Bob drafted a rambling, obviously just started and not even close to being finished letter on the computer titled “Apology”, saved it, and then deleted it without emptying the trash. Otherwise, searching his computer was wasted time and revealed nothing other than a church budget. Searching his physical files simply generated too much information. Maybe there were names of shadow COMA members in there somewhere, but finding it in a timely manner was unlikely so Bob didn’t try. Searching his desk was more rewarding and produced a bank vault key, probably at the same bank as his ATM slip.

On the way out he chatted with the rest of the office staff, they were all sorry he had to go home and start throwing up. He made sure to run his hands through his hair the way Horton did a couple of times and then he left. At the bank he told the manager he wanted to see his box, and in it were cash & some gold coins. Bob checked his account totals (which also gave him the account numbers), made arrangements to cash out his accounts, and then left. In theory they required a week’s notice for cash conversions, in reality they could probably do what he wanted with the day’s notice he gave them. On a hunch he had told them an amount far more than was in his accounts. Better too high than too low.

At home Mary was sympathetic to Theobald’s plight, and he spent several hours throwing up, lying on a couch under some blankets, or hiding in the bathroom. Hiding under the covers Bob let his shapeshift relax and recharged his pool. Eventually Mary took the youngest and went shopping, and Bob searched their bedroom and found nothing of interest, although he did leave things of interest. His magazine stash and the two CDs fit into a shoe box in his closet. A file cabinet told him they had an etrade account, but Mary came back before he could look further.

Eventually the other children came back, and he let Mary coax some food into him, which he continued to expel food with the extra muscle he built into “Horton’s” stomach. At 4am he got the chance to access their computer, and found their etrade accounts were linked and his passwords from the license were for them. He left orders to sell every stock. He also found Mary really did have access to the Church’s accounts and he got some of their checks.

[Alex Green]

The Downfall of Horton: Stage Seven: Destroy and leave.

The next day he “stayed home from work to recover” and while Mary was busy with the dishes, he accessed the computer to transfer all the money in all the accounts to a single spot, which he then transferred to another bank. He even called from the house phone to confirm the transfer. At 10:30 he and Mary had brunch and he told her he loved her and he’d go to work.

The next three hours was spent closing accounts and converting money. The Church account only yielded five grand from a forged check. Disappointing really, Bob felt sure with a few more days he could get far more by transferring monies, but it was time he judged he didn’t have. The family personal accounts, if that’s what they were, yielded about a quarter of a million dollars in cash and gold which went into the children’s athletic bags. This seemed large, one of his component selves told him that the numbers didn’t add up. Bob wasn’t sure they weren’t laundering money for the shadow arm of COMA. The feeling he got from being Horton was a lack of surprise that the money was there, but that didn’t provide specific details or background.

At 2:20 he went to the main office at David’s school and told them there was a personal emergency, David’s uncle was dying, and that he needed to take David out of school right away. At 2:45 the two of them were on I-131 South to Chicago. Bob-Horton and David got out at one of the gas stations Bob had scouted earlier for fuel, the one with the video cameras. “Theobald” paid with his credit card and “accidentally” left “his” cell phone there. They stopped at 4:30 for dinner at a fast food place, again one with a camera, and ate. Again he paid with “his” credit card. After they left, Bob thought David was starting to get nervous. Maybe he was having second thoughts of this unknown uncle in Chicago, or despite Bob’s acting skills perhaps he’d made a mistake and David had figured it out. Or maybe Bob was tired of being Horton, getting low on juice and looking for a reason to end this.

Bob turned David into a pile of clothes getting back onto 131. He abandoned the car a few miles later in Michigan City and picked up a rental still using Horton’s face. A two hour rest in the parking lot of a big box retailer went a long way to restore his juice. Just to be careful he paid cash and wore a new face when buying the new money bags. At O’Hare he ditched the car, cut up the cards and papers, and put the clothes into a couple of dumpsters. By the next day the media frenzy had begun.

[Alex Green]

Submitted for XP

[Alex Green]

Downtime: After Chapter 1. Bob has mostly been waiting for Envy to be attacked… mostly. But he also has some side projects.

The Colony reflected, not for the first time, that it was fortunate for Envy that Bob had both a high boredom tolerance and could ‘create’ his own amusement. Right now even guard duty was interesting as he explored his new power. Smells were colors. That was Envy’s doing. About a week ago, right after the civil war started, Envy had asked him what happened when he added animals to his Colony. Fortunately Bob had managed to change the subject without having to admit that he’d never tried that. A little bit of research later and with the investment of a few hundred dollars Bob ‘adopted’ some dogs, including a bloodhound from the dog pound. The second and third dogs were bland. They didn’t add anything new and their minds were empty, with no mental development. Not ignorant like a child, but simply… bland. They didn’t taste very good and they filled without satisfying. Dogs were apparently unflavored junk food. While they didn’t actually taste bad, in the future Bob wouldn’t willingly consume them. Despite what their owners might think, dogs weren’t sentient. The reason dogs were so alert was they had nothing on their minds but watching the world.

But eating the first dog, the bloodhound, had been amazing. He opened up a new world to Bob. Smells were REAL, colors were not. Smells told of history, of dominance, of sex, of food, of identity. There was so much new sensory data that Bob was still trying to make sense of it. Some of it came with canine instinctual cues. The smell of rabbit was “prey”. Dog food smelled like “meat” which meant “food”. Where it got complex was unlike a real dog, Bob had a mind and could interpret data. The newspaper seller smelled of something that wasn’t food or prey, but without knowing what cigarettes smelled like to a dog, Bob had to make an educated guess. Then there were the things he couldn’t guess at. An old homeless man smelled of an unhealthy rot. Bob was pretty sure he was dying, but what he was dying of Bob had no idea. Cancer? Failure of some organ? Something else? Could it be cured via Healing? Here the Colony was doubly cursed, he lacked the exact medical knowledge to connect the other symptoms he could see to any disease, and he also lacked the information of what the various diseases smelled like. This wasn’t the sort of information the Colony could simply assimilate, baseline Doctors lacked the sense he was using. Clinic duty was going to be informative.

During the day he stood guard duty. Sometimes he wore the form of a friendly black dog, sometimes he was Envy’s daughter, sometimes he was Envy himself. During the evening usually Bob was off duty and would go scavenger hunting or trolling for girls in bars. Picking out girls was easier now with the nose, even if it didn’t make picking them up easier. Dogs had it much easier in that regard, the human animal’s social skills were the equivalent of the peacock’s tail.

So far in the scavenger hunt Bob had failed a highly embarrassing three times. Bob never enjoyed losing, but he supposed it built character and showed he was a team player. The way the game worked one of his fellows picked a skill, like speaking Navaho, doing Elvis impersonations or playing classical piano. Bob then had a limited amount of time to learn the skill, and considering his other duties this was a problem. Another rule was he could only absorb one person and was to avoid locals. Extra points were given for going after nobodies. Navaho was an outright botch. Bob had found a Navaho Indian who did carpentry and other odd jobs. He should have been perfect, if anyone missed him then the guy was already an alcoholic and a drifter. The problem was after absorption Bob had discovered to his dismay that his Navaho Indian didn’t actually speak Navaho. Elvis was a puzzling miss, Bob had never been able to get the guy alone during the time limit. He couldn’t prove anything but he strongly suspected one of his fellow Terats had fixed the game somehow.

The classical pianist was the one where he had mixed feelings. He’d found someone, and it turned out that she was young, and attractive, and Bob’s nose told him he should do other things with her. So he did. It took several hours but he seduced her. After sex, several of his internal drives and missions came into conflict. He could absorb her or leave her and there were strong arguments for both. Eventually the consensus The Colony reached was they could live without being a classical pianist. He’d keep an eye on her and see whether or not he’d made a mistake that morning. He’d run out of time and lost the scavenger hunt but he might very well have turned up ahead in the larger game. On other hunts he learned how to speak Latin, Klingon, and he’d picked up competency in several musical instruments including glasses of water.

The clinic was taking off… like that was a surprise. It was instantly both profitable and popular. Profit was easy, the demand for Healing, especially organ restoration, FAR exceeded demand. After word got out that they were the real thing they had more traffic than they could manage. Out of habit Bob had created a new identity for the local healer. His healer identity looked like a 14 year old red head, sort of a ‘young Mal’ with no other powers other than Healing. This gave the clinic an obvious (but wrong) weak point if someone wanted to take advantage of it. The clinic being popular was a surprise to Bob, but Mal was surprisingly popular and the existence of the clinic was generally viewed as a good thing. Flare had, of course, converted the non-denominational sanctuary into a Mal worship site with all the trappings. It saw a lot of use, even in the baseline community. Sometimes Envy could be persuaded to hang out in the clinic and Bob could combine partial guard duty with healing.

(Submitted for XP)