Don't count on me to update this. Synopsis: Christine often wonders what it is like if nobody had abilites. How would that world be different? After selling her abilities in a controversial deal, she found her life getting more complicated than before. It is not as if she wanted to be "special". If only people, just let her live the way she wanted to live. Because, being average is fine. Genre: Adventure, Futuristic, Superpower Table of Contents Chapter 1 Chapter 2
Spoiler: Chapter 1: Selling you goddamn soul Chapter 1: Selling you goddamn soul Christine pulled down on her grey hoodie as she walked out of the facility. She was wearing too little and the winter wind was harsh. If she could will it, she would have wanted to walk with the warm sun blazing on her face and ugly crows cawing in celebration. It has been three fucking years. Three years of being like a lab rat. Three years of experiments. Three years of explaining to those bloody idiotic scientists how their algorithms should work. The final product had a success rate of 88.993%. She would consider it a damn successful project. Now, they had their showcase. It was the essence of her ability; it was the culmulation of the multiple brain scans they did on her; they called it the ARS (Ability Recognition Scanner). It was a maddeningly unoriginal name which came out of a naming competition in the department of shitheads. Legally, they could only use her brain scans for the development of the ARS but who knows what they did with that data when nobody was looking. Twenty-three years ago, there were no legistration on how governments all over the world could obtain or use private data. It was common for people to disappear but most definitely reappear somewhat different. Conspiracy hunters said that they were brainwashed, cloned and replaced or had their abilities sealed or stolen. To nobody surprise, those nutjobs got it right. Then, an organisation - The Blank appeared and now life had became like this. Maybe it wasn't their original intention, but a new market was created. Christine had sold her ability for a sum of $200,000. Considering the 24/7 nature of her 'job', she was probably paid below minimum wage! Despite that, more than being mad about it, she was relieved. She was very cold but relieved. She breathed the fresh air filled with manufactured ozone. This was the smell of freedom! She finally had no obligations to the citizens of Libertas, she no longer have to be 'protected' by the Libertas Security B Squad, she no longer have to look at gruesome crime scenes with detectives at 3am in the morning. She coughed a little from inhaling too much of that frigid air. With the $100 note that Dr Murco bestowed on her, she considered her meal options. She was sick of the carefully calibrated meals she had each single day for every day of those three years. All she wanted now was to grab a delicious set of SurHealthy bacon burger with cheese fries and an apple pie. She imagined herself munching down slowly on that crispy apple pie, looking out of the glass walls of the fast food resturant, staring at the people on the streets. Living, moving, people who did normal average things. If it wasn't so expensive, she would have opted to erase all her memories of dealing with crazy psychopaths, deviants, murderers, whatnots. It would have helped if she was genuinely interested in this sort of criminology work. Unfortunately, her only dream was to live on a yacht and design AR environment for children playsets. She had only tried to apply for a similar job once, but was promptly rejected because her ability set did not 'fit the necessary requirements' for the job. The company disappeared from the market after two years and she could only hope that it was due to the changing demands and not because of her all-too-powerful brother. She finally reached the nearest SurHealthy resturant. When will she be able to afford the 'Teleport' genetic modification skill set? There were risks but the cold had numbed her rationality. She ordered her set and sat at the perfect seat, munching on her perfect apple pie. Life was good! Just then, a train came plummeting down from the sky! Before it hit the ground, it stopped midair. Someone was using telekinesis. It sucked that Christine immediately knew it was that grey-haired dude with hipster glasses and horrid pleated pants. She stopped herself from processing all that useless data. She stuffed her burger into her sling bag, swallowed the apple pie almost whole and ran out of the resturant with the fries and her drinks in her hand. She ran as quickly as she could, away from the commotion. She won't let herself get trapped in the police station again!
Spoiler: Chapter 2: Notoriety not Fame Part 1 Chapter 2: Notoriety not Fame Part 1 Christine flagged down an Autocab. There were vehicles that actually have to be pilot but they were only for hobbyists and Christine could never wrap her head around that. Thank god for Autocab - fast, efficient and safe. If only they could fix the issue where each AI in the cab could choose their own radio channel to express their self-developed sentience. Her cab apparently liked emo-angsty techno rock. As Christine left the scene, the commotion continued. Evren, the grey-haired man in fakish hipster wear lowered the train to safety as the passengers ran out. Those that could escape by other means were long gone from the scene. The police arrived in seconds. Such incidents were not uncommon and usually resolved through the cooperation of everyday Libertas citizens. They were usually one-off incidents caused by normal people who had lost their tempers or had a bad day. Surprisingly, if there are no causalities, the culprits are usually sent off for mandatory therapy. Sometimes, they were planned protests or even marketing stunts. But what the authorities fear the most was ideological terrorism. Even today, Libertas laws on privacy are enforced by the faceless, nameless group called The Blank. The Blank showed the world their existence, and they did not fade into oblivion, instead they continue to exist as a vigilante group ensuring that the governments do not overstep the boundaries set by them. Perhaps because the governments all over the world had failed to curb the power of The Blank. They feared that this will give rise to more anonymous groups or powers with their own agendas. For Libertas, a nation which relied on the people' trust in the Government, which relied on law and order, which relied on a basic principle that abilities should not infringe on another person rights, the government could not even imagine allowing their citizens to entertain any thoughts of anarchy. There are many people with precognition abilities but not all were attuned to such incidents and futhermore, with the complication that they could see different and multiple outcomes, the police could only use their abilities as a reference or starting point. Evren was glad that he had saved a total of thirty four people' lives. This was going into his karma credit. He smiled as he thought about the rental discount he will get for six months. Yes, thirty four lives were just equivalent to 40% rental discount for 6 months. When your neighbour can blow fire out of his mouth, you can understand that people die quite easily. The police took down his statement after processing his memories. They collected the memories of a few other witnesses too. If they ran an analysis of the memories, they may be able to find the culprit. That would take about three to four days. The detective on duty was a lean suspicious looking man, he had been mistaken for as a criminal umpteen times. His name was on a sewn label on his uniform, it read Sgt. Groigner. Just then, Sgt Groigner got a telepathic call from the forensic department. "The Forensic team will bring in a new technology into the field today. It is called the ARS. They will provide you the name of the suspect. See if the culprit match what you can find with memory analysis." Sgt. Groigner grunted. He suspected that many of his Forensics colleagues will be made redundant soon. He was really more of an enforcer than a detective. Memory analysis, Reactivity sensors, Truth Serums... Ability based technologies (ABT) were used to automate the investigation process and so most detectives usually just collect evidence and let the technology do the work. If there were 10 suspects, ABT could be quickly used to get the culprit to confess. Sgt. Groginer was not stupid but he was hired because of his Encase ability. There are many ability cancellation devices but different devices are for different abilities. Patent restrictions made it difficult for an integrated cancellation device. An Encase ability that use dimensional isolation is a considerably rare skill and Sgt. Groginer rarely failed to catch his target. Most detectives have rather good incapacitating abilities but in the worst case scenarios, they will activate their nanobots to kill. Nanobots are registered with their user and can be controlled by the users' mind... TBC
Eumm, can you please make the title chapter not in the spoiler? I can't see the rest of the chapter title for chapter 1, for example like this : Chapter 1 : the kambeng of kambengman the kambeng, kambeng begin Spoiler blablabla the end