Cassie: Part 2

“OK. Go for it.”

With the number of times they’d poked me already, it seemed pointless to refuse now. Besides, if some of the weirder parts of my genetic heritage had been activated, I wanted to know.

It all came down to Dr. Mind. All of his life, Dad kept on fighting a Nazi brain in a jar. The guy (if you can call a brain a “guy”) always had minions, and the last time, he created an army cloned from Dad’s DNA. He brought the entire League together for one last mission (they’d all retired). They defeated the clone army, destroyed Dr. Mind , and found a gender-swapped girl clone in the complex.

No one ever found out who the additional X chromosome came from, and it was obvious he’d replaced some of the “junk DNA” with junk DNA from somewhere else.

They’d been trying to figure out what Dr. Mind intended for years. The CIA sent people to the lab in Brazil, but never found his notes.

I think the original Rocket took them, and if he did, I bet Nick knows where they are. He’s probably already read them.

Dr. Wilson stuck the needles into my leg, one after the other, barely giving me time to notice. It hurt, but not for long. Skin closed over the wound almost as soon as he pulled the needle out.

Mom asked, “When will we know?”

“If anything’s changed? Maybe a week. We’ve got more data to compare now.”

Mom sat up a little straighter. “What kind of data?”

Dr. Wilson opened his mouth, stopped, and said, “Agent Ruiz,” (Mom never used Kowalski at work) “I’m not sure she’s got clearance for that.”

“The Heroes League is in the FBI’s hero program just like the Defenders groups. I’ve got the same security clearance Guardian does.”

Unless he’d gotten a higher clearance than normal Defenders, but saying that wasn’t going to help.

He took a breath. “Don’t spread this around. We’ve been using the Cabal’s tech combined with DNA tests to find candidates for the Goldstein process, and it works. After all these years with two successes, three if you count Richter—”

“Richter,” Mom said, “was not a success.”

Dr. Wilson said, ”He was fine physically, but I know, I know… The incomplete psych profile wasn’t our fault.”

Mom’s mouth tightened, and Dr. Wilson kept on talking.

“Well, after years without success, we’ve got five. Plus, compared to using the Power Impregnator, there’s a 30% increase in effect with the Goldstein process. That’s only with the traits the process is supposed to enhance though. If the candidate,” he glanced at me, “has extra qualities, it doesn’t affect them at all.”

“What the fuck? You’ve got a Power Impregnator? Where’d you get it?”

He stopped talking. I guess I didn’t have high enough security clearance to know that.

* * *

Mom had a small apartment in D.C. She didn’t stay there all the time, but often enough that it was better to have her own apartment than a hotel room.

Someone had turned a big, old house into several apartments. Mom’s looked out over a busy road.

I sat on the futon in the living room, both feet on the ground and hands balled up into fists. Mom stood at the door to her bedroom. We weren’t happy with each other.

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.”

Mom began to raise her hands in the air, and then dropped them. “My job is to keep things like that quiet. My job isn’t keeping you informed. We shouldn’t be talking about this here, or anywhere.”

Like I was going to let that go. “The ‘thing’ we’re talking about caused a lot of problems. It might be what made Red Lightning go crazy, and now they’re using it on more people. Do you want crazy people with powers running around out there?”

22 thoughts on “Cassie: Part 2”

  1. There’s a double word that shouldn’t be there;

    “No one ever found out who the additional X chromosome came from from”

    Go me for finding a mistake 🙂

  2. nice Alice In Wonderland reference. also i am scared of the power impregnator but not quite as scared as i am of the power juice.

  3. DWwolf: Not really. Isaac Lim probably does, but it’s not generally known. The journal of Red Lightning’s that the government got a hold of included incomplete plans for a power impregnator, but someone (probably directed by Lim) deleted the bits with identifying information before it got sent out.

    Silas: Thanks. Fixed.

    Mazzon/Captain Mystic: I didn’t instantly get that. It’s been a while since I read the book (or saw a movie version).

    1. I dont see the our guys letting a power impregnator out in the open even if or rather especially if its the governments hand. Wouldnt want an abominators type scenario here on Earth. I wouldnt be surprised if thats where they did get one. I wonder if Lee’s people would be drawn to a high concentration of their tech being used.

  4. speaking of Lee, while you are doing these perspective series I would really like to find one from Lee’s point of view. It would be really a lot like this one podcast I must recommend called the Byron Chronicles from Darker Projects.

  5. DWwolf: All interesting speculations… We’ll see what happens with that.

    Captain Mystic: I want to do one from Lee’s perspective. I’d also like to do one from Larry’s (the Rhino).

  6. Yes, crazy people with powers. Who wants them running around? The scenario is almost laughable. Heh. Heh heh…ha…hahahahahahahahahaa hahahahahahaahahahaha haahahahahahaa hahahahaha hahahahahaha hahahahahahaha haahhahahahaha hahahahahaha hahahahahaha hahahahahahaha hahahahaha hahahahaha hahahahahahahaha hahahahahahahaha hahahahahaha hahahahahaha hahahahaha hahahahahaha hahahahahaha!

    So, as I was saying before, why can’t we make a giant artillery cannon that fires diamond-tipped drills with nuclear warheads on the back end? I’m sure there’s some super-villain ruled countries out there that could use it. If not them, there’s always North Korea. I’m not sure about giving them any more advanced nuclear delivery tech than their current “giant rubber band” line of research, however.

  7. I actually wouldn’t want one from Lee’s perspective. He’s this other being, not really human and reading from his perspective has potential to lose that feeling about him. If that makes sense?

  8. hmm Silas, I do see your point, I just think that Gunther Lee whoever is a really fun character and I would like to see how he thinks and how he sees the whole picture.

  9. The problem is that human beings see things a certain way. To get inside the head of and convey the thoughts and experiences of a being of an existence far beyond humanity is going to be difficult. If it’s too normal, he loses some of the mystique of being the huggable Lovecraftian horror of the series. You can’t make it too wierd, either, because people still have to understand it.

  10. hey does anyone of any Lovecraft etexts online (preferrably free) only asking since I cant read print but have always wanted to read Loveccraft.

  11. should have thought to look at gutenberg, lol. also not sure if i can read kindle because not sure what format i can convert that to (doc pf whateva) but will try. thanks a lot Jim! I owe you one.

  12. If you read the site, person with complete works available has done so via PDF as well, I think.

    And no problem.

    That said, Lovecraft’s work only left copyright in 2009 apparently.

  13. You’re right, Bill. I must build a giant machine that blasts out the Birthday song for whole cities to hear at once while it is still under copyright!

  14. @Captain Mystic: You should check out http://calibre-ebook.com/
    It’s a free program that can convert file formats as well as organize a library that tracks which books are currently loaded on your reader. I have a Pandigital reader and it meshed perfectly with it using the generic reader option and after upgrading to Android o/s it still works fine.

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