Aberrant: The Middle Children of History - Going down a Copper Mine, going down, down, [FIN]

[Rorx]

Bang, bang, bang, went a fist on the door.

“Come on Daz, rise and“, the shout seemingly extra loud in the quiet urban close, with the sun not showing above the mountain rising over this part of the city.

“Here's your coffee Daffydd, now keep it down. Most of my neighbours were up until at least 2 this morning, as you should well know by now.”

Darren let the grinning, unperturbed Daffyd into the hallway of the small terraced house and lead him into the kitchen.

“Did you bother having breakfast, or were you too caught up with the dream of catching me unready for today’s caving? By the way, you've still got some shaving foam by your ear there.”

“Yeah, well, I have caught you a couple of times in the past.” Daffyd replied as he brushed the offending foam away, then took a sip of his coffee. The guys were right, Darren had definitely changed over the last week or so. You could see that he had more muscle mass than before simply by the fact that his old familiar t-shirts looked tighter on him, and his jeans showed some definition of the muscle below, rather than being slightly loose.

“I agree you have, but mostly when you came straight from the club and were hung over as hell, but back to the more important question, did you want to grab a bite here before we head off?”

Darren could see the answer in his mind before Daffyd gave it, just like he had been following Daffyd’s thoughts since he accidentally stumbled across them earlier on this morning when he had idly where Daffyd was and what he was up to. At least it seems that Daffyd is unaware I can snoop on his thoughts, otherwise things could get awkward very quickly. Looks like I can’t carry on trying to ignore what has happened to my body, I’ll have to get some tests done I suppose, but it looks like somewhere over the last week or so I went Nova!

“No thanks Daz, lets just hit the road eh? It’s about a half hour drive from here to the old copper mine we’ve got lined up today.”

“Did you get all the licenses or permissions sorted out this time? I don’t want a repeat of that other time, we barely got off without a fine.”

Maybe I should pretend I haven’t and try to talk him into going anyway? Nah, it would only put a downer on the day, and I’d end up having to go through all the paperwork, and more to, convince him I had done it if he insisted.“Yeah, don’t worry, it’s all in order this time.”

Darren gives him a long look, “Ok, Daffyd, you look like your telling the truth this time, but I haven’t forgotten the stunts you’ve pulled in the past.”

Well it’s pretty conclusive that I’ve got some telepathy that the subject apparently can’t detect. I’ll have to check on the information available on other ‘psychic’ or at least telepathic Novas. I wonder if I’ve got anything else I can do, so far it appear to be a boosting of my general abilities, the talking to animals stuff I noticed the other day at work and now the Telepathy.

[Rorx]

"It's all covered I'm telling you." Daffyd protested.

"Yeah, ok. Now do you want anything to eat here or shall we hit the road." He hasn't eaten yet, too busy trying to catch me out, the berk.

Daffyd downs his coffee, repressing a gasp as the too hot drink goes down his throat.

"Nah, lets hit the road, I'll go bring the car round." I've got a Snickers in the car, that will do me 'til we break later on.

"Fair enough, I'll grab the gear."

As Daffyd disappeared out into the empty close, Darren went into the back room of the small terraced house he lives in and grabs the pre-prepared backpacks off the wall hooks, one of climbing gear and one of scuba gear. The ease with which he picks up the 20+kg bags one handed and maneuvers them out of the house only serves to underline the concerns of his friends.

I suppose I'm going to have to get this checked out and made official before rumours start flying and trouble starts heading my way, but there is no way I'm going to let Utopia get there hands on me after the stuff they found in Bahrain those years ago. Ysbyty Gwynedd (OOC Gwynedd County Hospital) should be able to cover it in conjunction with the University, although I'll have to vet them to check that Utopia don't sneak someone in.

"Come on Daffyd, hurry up and open the boot."

"Hhumph, hang on a sec." Jesus, I thought I'd have time to eat that bar before he got the bags out here.

The trip out to the mine passed with little of interest, Daffyd had the radio on trying to stay awake and starting to regret skipping breakfast, while Darren pretended to doze in the passenger seat. In fact he was trying to feel where his on/off girlfriend was to practise his Telepathy, and to try to test the range of it.

[Rorx]

Darren had an enjoyable 5 minutes when they first arrived, watching Daffyd squirm and try to sort out the forms that he hadn't bothered posting for permission to climb and dive in the depths of the mine. Eventually, Darren had to cut through the problem by producing his Park Warden ID and filing a slightly newer issue of the forms.

Then it was simply a matter of shifting the gear over to the furthest of the old mine lifts and getting it on. Darren moved all of his own stuff on the first run, then helped Daffyd finish moving the rest of his on a second trip. Darren didn't need to use his teleptahy to tell that Daffyd was still upset about being bailed out of his situation with the forms, on the other hand he also had to ackowledge that it was all his own fault.

Once in their wetsuits, scuba and climbing gear they headed down in the framework style lift. You couldn't afford to be scared of heights without a solid floor and 500ft to go down before they had to move through the tunnels to get to their starting location. On the other hand the pitch blackness around them concealed the drop below them, but that only seemed to make it worse. As people down the ages have done when faced with the fear and the dark they talked and joked too loud, and inevitably tried out the place for echoes. In the end the bump at the bottom came as a surprise as they reflected on some of the more stupid stunts their associates in the Bangor University Mountaineering Society (BUMS) had gotten up to over the last year.

[Rorx]

"So we gonna try to press on from where we go to last time down here?' Says Daffyd as they clamber out from the lift cage.

"Yeah, I want to take a look at that river we found, and perhaps see if we can follow it out towards the bay."

Darren was referring to an underground river that they had found a further 200ft down, about local sea-level from what they could work out, that seemed to be headed towards the local bay by Great Orme's head and the town of Llundudno.

"It's a strangely good feeling to be in the quiet down here, don't you think Daffyd?" said Darren, with a sense of relief evident in his voice.

"yeah, I suppose so." replied his companion, missing the point entirely. Unbeknownst to Daffyd, Darren was referring to the quiet not only of the usual sources but to the radio/tv, ultrasonic and infrasonic background that had been humming away, mainly in the background since his quiet eruption a week or so beforehand. The sense of a vast array of mental voices just beyond 'hearing' was still there, as it was at all times, but even that felt more manageable down here.

"You know, Daffyd, I think I could get used to the quiet down here."

"Yeah? Well, maybe, but the cold and the dark would do my head in."

"Hmmm, yeah I suppose so. Lets move on then."

It wasn't until Daffyd had referred to it that Darrn had noticed that although he knew it was cold down here, he didn't feel it at all. In fact he felt pretty much as comfortable as he had in his centrally heated house over breakfast this morning. Another change, I wonder if that's it, being immune to the cold or if there is other aspects to it as well?

Half an hour later they had followed the mine shafts and levels a further 100ft into the ground and reached the chasm which had lead them down, through a roundabout route, to the river somewhere below.

[Rorx]

"Ok, who is going to go first this time?" said Daffyd as they finished putting SCUBA gear on and wrapped ropes over thier shoulders.

"Tell you what, if we do make it along that river we are not going to want to leave a load of our stuff behind here. So I'll belay you while you climb down the chasm and then I'll free climb down to meet you once we have the odds and ends down there. How does that sound?"

"Utter madness mate. Let's do it!" Daffyd replies with a grin and a sshake of his head.

With all that new muscle he can probably do it no trouble as well. Jeez, he looks like he doesn't even notice the gear he's already carrying, and this lot is about as much as I can manage and still have a decent of climbing rather than just being lowered down.

That decided they quickly rig a belay rope system and Daffyd starts down the face of the chasm. The rock is slick with damp and occassional running water in places, but there are plenty of deep hand and foot holds to partially compensate and so it only takes him 15 minutes to make it the 100ft down to a small ledge by the underground river. While Daffyd finishes putting his facemask on and checks his airflow, Darren coils the belay rope over his chest and back and starts down the rockface. He had made it down the first 25ft in very good time, too good in fact, so he paused to examine his handholds and grip more closely. With more surprise and a shake of his head he realised that another development had come along.

"Huh! The human gecko now?"

His hands seemed to stick to the rock surface despite the slickness of the water running over it in places (OOC Adhesive Grip).

Suddenly Darren caught a rumble rapidly building in the subsonic range where silence had been before.

"Grab hold of something Dave!"

Daffyd had no time to reply, and barely any to react as the chasm started shaking with the tremor of a nearby earthquake. His feet slipped on the damp, slick surface of the ledge and he tumbled into the cold subterranien river. Luckily he had his SCUBA gear on already as the weight of his gear sent him under briefly.

[Rorx]

Darren wasn't so lucky. He had started to get too used to the Adhesive grip and so was unprepared when the surface came away from the rockface still attached to he's hand. Falling backwards he bounces several times to and fro against the too close chasm walls before splashing into the river amidst other falling debris. Despite banging his head and a variety of limbs on the way down Darren didn't feel to bad as he plunged into the water. His legs buckled as they hit the surface of the water and the air was knocked from his lungs as his 40kg of equipment dragged him further down.

[Rorx]

He quickly clamped his mouth shut, but was too late to get any air, just more water. Fighting down the rising panic, Darren drifted further down into the freezing cold, dark water, his headlamp had smashed against his head during the fall. Taking a few seconds to gather his thoughts, Darren could hear the air escaping from the SCUBA tank on his back and he struggled during his descent to twist enough to grab hold of the tank. When he was able to get a good hold on it the damage to the valves and gauge was obvious to the touch, the damage it and he had taken bouncing between the surfaces of the chasm on the way down had been too much for the tanks integrity. Darren was unable to hold back the string of expletives that resulted on discovering this, and it wasn't until several had already come out that he realised that he should probably be drowning by now! The fact that he wasn't, and indeed seemed none the worse for the lack of air, caused another string of expletives around a huge grin.

Daffyd dove down after Darren as soon as he realised that he had fallen into the water, but the cold, dark and danger from falling debris slowed his search. By the time that he spotted Darren by the trail of air bubbles streaming up toward the surface a minute or more had gone past, and he was surprised, to say the least, to see Darren starting to climb the side of the rockface towards the surface. He got a greater surprise when he noticed that Darren wasn't using the SCUBA tank that was streaming air from the gauge on its top, but didn't seem disturbed as he climbed out of the river up the rockface, still carrying the heavy load of gear he had been climbed down with originally. He broke the surface at the same time as Darren, and spluttered, shouting and swearing as he tore of his SCUBA mask.

"Jesus Darren, you Ok? How the f#*k did you manage to climb out of there?"

Darren turned, still clinging to the rockface as he traversed across to the ledge that Daffyd had slipped from during the earthquake. He called as he climbed, "Yeah, I seem to be ok. I got a bit banged up on the way down, but seem ok overall. As to how I climbed out, just the usual one hand or foothold at a time."

"Come off it, you couldn't have held your breath for long enough!"

"Ok, lets get to the ledge, then we'll figure out what to do next."

[Rorx]

Arriving at the ledge Daffyd looked over the areas where Darren had been hit, but could find no signs of damage despite the dirt and moss stains that showed that the hits had occurred as Darren said during his fall into the water.

"There's nothing significant showing here, despite you hitting the chasm wall hard enough to bust your tank's gauge. God you've got a thick head."

"Yeah, maybe that's it." Darren replied thoughtfully, then he visibly came to some sort of decision.

"Ok Daffyd, I've got some news for you, but keep it to yourself for a while if you can. A week or two ago I started noticing some changes, as I'm sure the rest of you have done more recently, and I'm fairly sure by now that I've become a Nova. Yeah, I know there was no big then to trigger it, and no obvious display of power, so I don't blame you for looking so dubious."

"You're right I don't believe it, come on show me your powers then. You can't can you. I know you've bulked up a bit, but that's just the gym and steroids, so don't try to claim any different." Despite his words Daffyd was thinking that it would explain a number of things, but he had never been one to accept what anyone said without hassling them about it.

"Yeah, ok lets go through it shall we. No, I don't seem to have any flash fancy powers yet, but I'm stronger, quicker, healthier and I think more intelligent than I was before. In addition i notice things a lot more now, and I've found that my hearing range has increased a lot. As well as the sub and supersonic range I even seem to be able to listen in to radio stations including the police band. That's how I was able to shout to you to hang on before the quake hit us. I heard a rumble in the subsonic range just before it hit. What else? I can call animals to me, although I doubt that would be of any use down here. I noticed coming down the rockface just before the quake hit that I seemed to be able to sort of stick or cling to the rock when I was climbing, maybe I could show you that. No, I know, when I was in the water I should have drowned, but instead found I didn't need to breath under the water. If your not convinced by now I could go jump in the river for 5-10 minutes if you want."

With a rueful shake of his head Daffyd admitted defeat, "Ok, Ok, I believe you. In fact I reckon you must be harder to hurt than before as well, because the blow that did your tank in must have hit your head on the wall as well, but apart from some dirt there was no sign of it happening. So what does that mean for us here and now, what should we be doing?"

"Thanks, I'm glad you took it so well, but as I said, please keep it to yourself for a while. I don't want those guys from Utopia sniffing around if I can help it. As to here and now, i suppose we better see about geting back up to the surface, or at the very least letting them know that we are ok. We don't want them to decide they need to send a rescue team after us when there is no need."

45 minutes later and they had made their way back up the chasm and through the tunnels/levels of the mine back to the lift shaft. During that time they had discussed all the changes that Darren had noticed as and when they had happend. Finally pinning it down to the weekend of the Tomorrow People marathon.

Unfortunately, when they arrived at the lift area it was immediately clear that the lift was out of action, given the number of head to torso sized rocks that had crashed down into and through it.

"Well, it looks like we might need some rescuing after all." Said Darren with a shake of his head.

"Shame you didn't get the ability to fly."

"Yeah, I've thought that as well, but on the other hand we don't know if the shaft is blocked higher up as well."

[Rorx]

"It's ironic really, here I am sitting down here with a Nova, and he can't get us out of here."

"Yeah, I know, but I'm not sure if I know al my powers or not yet, I didn't know I didn't need to breath anymore until I happend to be stuck underwater for a prolonged time. It's not like this stuff comes with a manual or anything you know."

Daffyd move slightly away from the lift shaft they had both been looking up, settles down on a pile of rubble and starts getting his packed lunch out. His next comment is muffled by the snadwich he is stuffing into his mouth.

"It's a shame you didn't get stuff like those Tomorrow People from that marathon you had that weekend."

[Rorx]

"Actually I've never tried doing that kind of thing, I suppose I hadn't thought of it. Well you never know, let's give it a go."

Standing Darren walks about 10ft from Daffyd and tries to think how to approach his first attempt at teleporting.

Ok, in the program they never have any trouble doing this, just think where you want to go and they are there, but how do you define where you want to go? Well, it could be somewhere you can see from where you are, lets try that in a minute. It could be somewhere you've been before and can picture well, the improvement in my sense will help there. Actually perhaps the improvement in my senses is a suggestion that I do have teleport. Lastly, judging from the show they must have been able to do it based off distance and direction or coordinates or similar. Get the data from TIM and then go, that's how they did it most of the time. Right. Lets try it then, just a short hop back to where I was sitting. So close my eyes and try to remember everything I sensed while I was there... the relative positions of the lift and debris around me, the acoustic sense of space coming from the lift shaft behind me and to my right. Now imagine that I'm still there and try to push myself into that image. One, two, three...

The universe felt like it lurched for a second, and when he opened his eyes he was indeed standing back next to Daffyd, who was still in mid-jump to his feet shouting stage.

"Jeezus, Daz, you did it!"

"Yep, it seems I did. Now with some practise perhaps we'll be able to get out of here, so sit back down, shut up, and let me concentrate."

After another couple of jaunts around the area they were in, gaining in confidence, Darren disappeared again, leaving Daffyd on his own for almost 30 seconds before he reappeared.

"Shit man, don't do that! I was starting to wonder if you were going to come back for me!"

"Yeah, well don't panic. I managed to get all the way home from here, so at least we know we can get to safety. Now we've got to see how much stuff I can take with me, and whether that is going to be able to include you. Otherwise I'll have to just go for help and then come back."

Another 5 minutes of tests with a couple of carefully chosen combinations of packs, ropes and large debris and Darren felt sure he could take Daffyd with him, although not an awful lot more.

"We'll leave the packs and stuff here for now, I'll come back for them another time. I'm starting to get pretty knackered in some strange new way, so if we are going to do it soon it needs to be now, or we give it a break for a couple of hours then try it. What do you reckon Dave?"

"Go for it, the batteries won't last another couple of hours and I don't fancy being stuck down here in the dark thanks."

"Ok, just remember it was your choice. I'll aim for the car."

Hugging Daffyd tightly to him and concentrating on the battered 4x4 that Daffyd owned Darren once more shifted himself across the Universe, this time bringing another person with him.

"Christ man, you did it!" shouted Daffyd joyously when they reappeared next to his car, before turning to kiss the bonnett of the vehicle.

"I'll tell you what though I don't reckon on doing that enough to get used to it if you don't mind."

Darren didn't get a chance to repsond immediately as they were then spotted by some of the people who had been called out to rescue them from the collapsed mine and the local media that had followed the scent of a story were on to them...