Working Title: In the Land of the Blind
© 2008-2010 James Callaghan. All Rights Reserved.
Prologue
Day Zero
They lay on their backs on the hood of Ramiero's battered old hand-me-down car, two teenagers gazing at the stars. It was a clear night, and the Ripple was plainly visible in the heavens. They held hands shyly, the silence equal parts awkward and comfortable.
Ramiero snuck a look at the girl, who was looking skyward. Amber was beautiful, her hair a dull copper color, her skin tawny and lustrous; his eyes tracked to the swell of her breasts under the light dress she was wearing and immediately he forced them away.
He didn't understand her interest in the Ripple; the heavens held little attraction to him. But her interest made him study up. He knew it was heading to Earth, but no one knew what it was or what it would do to the planet when it arrived. The news guys said it was just a curious, maybe purely visual phenomenon and counseled calm, even as they noted that scientists were a little concerned with the wavefront's speed.
"They say it might reach the moon tonight," Ramiero said haltingly, his English uncertain. He'd spent several minutes composing the sentence in his head, and he regretted the attempt even as he made it.
"It's beautiful," Amber said at the same time.
They looked at each other, both startled by the others' speech. As quickly, embarrassed, they both looked away; Amber to the sky; Ramiero to the moonlit field they'd parked in. He pretended to examine a nearby bush and trying to ignore his burning ears; he wondered if she would let him feel her breasts later, when they got to the making out part of their date. The thought made his cheeks flush, increasing his discomfort.
He tried to keep his breathing even, but he couldn't take his eyes off the bush, even as he was acutely aware of the pressure of her thigh against his, of her hand in his, her skin cool and dry. His own hand was becoming clammy with nervous sweat, and he was torn between wanting to wipe it off and not wanting to break contact.
He was glad he'd brought her here though; it was isolated and dark, ostensibly perfect to cater to Amber's interest in the Ripple, but in reality well suited to Ramiero's own interests.
Then Amber gasped. He turned his head so quickly his neck popped loudly in the silence.
"What happened?" he said, looking anxiously at her. She didn't respond; her eyes were wide, her mouth slack. Ramiero followed her gaze and froze.
Seconds ago, the RIpple had been a strange fluctuation across a wide band of the sky, the effect like looking at stars reflected on distant, choppy water. Now the moon itself was affected; the silver disc elongating and bifurcating; its light splintering into a trillion argentine shards. The rest of the night sky fared no better; constellations were sundered or compressed into alien configurations. Some stars seemed to vanish, others to swell.
It dawned on Amber first: "If it's filling the whole sky..." she breathed. "Ramiero, it must be really close!" She pulled her hand away from his and rolled off the hood. "We shouldn't be outside," she said as she fumbled with the door. Ramiero was still frozen, staring at the hallucinogenic sky. "Ramiero, we need to go back. I want you to take me home, please!"
Ramiero came to himself at her cry and looked at her. She was frantic, crying. She got the car door open and scrambled inside. He rolled off the hood and lunged for the door handle, her panic infecting him. He forgot about her breasts, her thighs. She was afraid, and he had to protect her.
Amber pushed the door open from inside; Ramiero pulled it the rest of the way and slid into the car. He fumbled with his keys, shooting glances out and up, seeing the loco light show intensify. Amber's panicky breathing loud in his ears.
And then the Ripple was upon them, catching them in a wave of unreality.
To Ramiero's terrified eyes, the steering wheel, his hands still gripping it, flowed away from him; his arms were stretched painlessly to three times their normal length. At the same time the car seemed to compress horizontally, the roof crowding down on their heads. Their nerves were on fire, screaming signals to their brains that made no sense. Ramiero looked at Amber and found her staring at him, her mouth open in a soundless scream. One of her eyes was nearly a foot wide, one of her breasts protruding almost a yard from her chest; her legs seemed endless, disappearing into the shadows of the footwell that was now several yards away. Ramiero's eyes skittered back to his own hands which were still clamped to the steering wheel. He could feel the cool plastic under his fingers but his white-knuckled fists were tiny in the distance.
And then everything snapped back to normal with shocking suddenness. In unison, both teenagers threw open the car doors and leaned out, stomachs heaving. The vomiting seemed to last forever; some of the stomach acid went up Ramiero's nose, making his sinuses burn and his eyes water even more. His whole body was shaking and weak. He wanted to check on Amber but he couldn't muster the strength to sit up or turn to look at her.
He took a deep breath, determined to try, and that's when the second wave hit.
This one was like the first, only worse. To Ramiero it seemed to last forever, yet he was frozen with his eyes still screwed shut and his mouth open. He was still drawing in breath, and it seemed like his lungs were limitless in capacity as his inhalation continued into eternity.
Once more the world snapped back, but when Ramiero opened his eyes, reality seemed warped, stretched out. Everything was the same as always and yet... not. Their car was illuminated, but not by moonlight. This light was harsher, brighter. It wasn't silver but rather a mixture of colors.
Ramiero felt the car shift slightly as Amber got out of the car. He followed suit, shaky legs planting feet that felt like a stranger's into the hard-packed dirt of the lane. He stood and looked around. He saw It almost at once. It was only a few yards away from the car, on the passenger side. It was white in the center but the edges were all colors; the light it cast was like sitting in church, awash in the radiance of stained glass windows.
Amber was already approaching it, her face alight in terrified wonder. "Amber," he called. "Be careful!"
"It's so beautiful," she said. She raised her hands, looked at them bathed in the peculiar light. She was entranced. "I can feel the light," she breathed. "I can feel it with my hands." She turned, her eyes bright. "Ramiero it's like silk----are you glowing?"
Ramiero had been walking around the back of the car, approaching Amber and the thing cautiously. At Amber's words, he stopped in his tracks, perplexed. She was staring at him now, her hands still gripping the light. Ramiero raised his own hands to his face, his eyes widening in shock.
Warm golden light was pouring from deep within his skin. He could still see his hands and the skin itself; there were light and dark patches. He pulled up his shirt; the effect was all over his body. He was glowing, casting light like the sun. He stared at himself in horrified wonder. He looked up at Amber. "What is happening to me?" And then his shirt caught fire. And his pants, and shoes. Ramiero screamed in shock but before he could react further, his clothes were burned away, ashes floating on the wind. The fire hadn't touched him.
His glow outshone the thing now, his radiance spreading. As was the heat. The dry grass along the side of the dirt lane began to smolder. Amber was sweating, her breath coming hard in the sudden heat. "Ramiero, what are you doing?"
"I don't know!" he cried. "I am not doing it!"
A loud crash made them both look toward the car. Its paint was blistering; the wheels melting. The noise had come from the back windows shattering.
Eyes wide, the two looked at each other. Then Ramiero shouted: "RUN!"
Amber turned in slow motion. Ramiero wobbled around own his heel and lurched away, in a different direction. As he ran, his fear grew, as did the terrible glow in his skin. His footprints were clearly outlined in fire; grass and trees even yards distant broke out in spontaneous flames.
Then he tripped, and the world exploded.
Chapter One
THEN
Every great Event across all the Fictions includes a catalyst. No one has really figured out why this is yet, but it's documented truth.
Definitions, people. You should note these down. Event: A major turning point in the evolution of humankind. This typically involves evolution of some or all humans into what we call Numinai: People with abilities not considered within the range of baseline humanity. In other fictions, the terms for such people include "mutant", "metahuman", "posthuman", "specials", "powers", and the ever-popular "freaks".
Fiction: Any one of the different planes of reality, some much like our own, some not. In the past, these were of course stuff of science fiction stories and comic books (much like the Numinai phenomenon). Some postulated that fictions were merely different timelines; for example, an alternate timeline where Hitler won World War II.
We now know it's a lot more complicated than that. Fictions have been contacted which are almost identical to popular novel series, movies, comic books, and so on. That's in addition to what could be considered much more closely related "alternate timelines". So we don't know what they really are. We only know they're out there, and we can travel amongst them.
But the point of all this, class, is that the Event is not the catalyst. The Event is what happens as a result of the catalyst. People get so wrapped up in the Event, that they forget about the catalyst. In some fictions, that catalyst was the advent of the nuclear bomb, and the attendant radioactivity unleashed. In others, it was First Contact. In still another, a sort of "mini-Event" occurred with every solar eclipse. They still haven't figured that one out; nor have we.
A catalyst is almost always a significant threat to life as we know it, the possibility of the End of Everything. It's never something so simple as the turn of the millennium, nor can it be considered to have happened when the advance is solely technological.
Our catalyst was, of course, the Ripple and the concomitant Rifts in the fabric of reality.
Many of you are too young to remember that day. But everyone knows what happened next: The Event.
That Event shaped our world as it is today. Our world is still evolving, mind you; our society is still being rebuilt.
Some people think that the Manhattan Incident is the turning point, is what should be considered the Event. But remember your definitions! The Event is the advent of superhuman abilities in a significant percentage of the human population. In our fiction, that percentage was unusually high: over half. Add to that another fifteen percent who gained technological advances from other worlds. Add to that the influx of alien life forms via Rift-related displacement.
In other fictions the numbers run something on the order of 50-70% of the population being directly affected on a regular basis following an Event. That means even if someone doesn't personally develop abilities, up to about two-thirds of the population personally knows someone who does or are directly influenced by someone who does.
In our fiction, those numbers went up to 100%. Near as we can tell, not one human being on the planet wasn't directly and profoundly affected by the Rifts in the decade that followed.
And society nearly collapsed as a result.
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