A Twist of Destiny Bk. 01

The technician looked past my shoulder at Dr. Lamb, which annoyed me a little, but he obeyed once the doctor gave him a curt nod. On the video, as it played back 1/10,000^th of a second, we watched me slowly grab the rounds out of the air and hurl them back at their point of origin, one at a time. The gunman gave a low whistle of appreciation and the technician muttered, "Wow. Never seen that before!"

I turned to Dr. Lamb and said, "See? No harm done. I knew where I was aiming."

Dr. Lamb looked at me and then back at the video monitor, which had been paused, and then back to me again. "Maybe I should just sit down with you and have you tell me what you're capable of and save us a lot of time and trouble."

I smiled at the elderly German scientist. "Didn't I already do that? And, besides, wouldn't that ruin all the fun?" I paused for a beat and then said, "I would like to make a request, though." She cocked a curious, expectant eyebrow at me. "I need some balls. Steel ball bearings, about this big." I indicated the size I wanted with my thumb and index finger, creating a circle about an inch in diameter. "I'd be happy with twenty of them, but ten will do just fine for the time being. Get that for me, doctor, and I'll show you some more neat tricks."

"Alice!" Dr. Lamb called out loud to her assistant, who was watching us on the security monitor in the adjoining room, "How long do you think that'll take?"

"About ten minutes, Doctor Lamb," a young woman's voice said over the speakers.

"We'll be waiting in here," was the good doctor's reply.

True to her word, Alice (a plain-looking, mousy young woman whose hair had been pulled back into a straight pony-tail) walked into the large chamber about ten minutes later. She carried a tray upon which ten steel ball bearings, all approximately about an inch in diameter, rolled around lazily. I picked one up and inspected it, trying to gauge its weight. I'd estimate that it weighed about five ounces, perhaps a touch more. Hardly without thinking about it, a pouch formed itself at my waist and I dropped the steel ball into it. Eight more quickly followed the first and I held the tenth in my hand. "Set up the .50-cal again," I said as I started to walk back to the line. "Let me know when you're about to fire."

Almost as soon as I got back into position, standing fully erect, Dr. Lamb told me that they were ready, locked and loaded. "Make sure the camera's on," I told her. "Fire when ready." A second later I saw the muzzle flash from behind the barrier and I immediately felt time slow down for me. I saw the round moving ever-so-slowly across the room and I slapped my hand, the one holding the steel ball, out to my side and felt the ball reshape itself into a long, sharp sword. I got into position directly in the path of the .50-cal round as it approached me, held the sword up at the ready, and waited for the round to get right in front of me. Once there, I brought the sword down swiftly and the .50-cal round was split cleanly down its middle, cutting it in half. The two halves of the round split away from each other and each half followed its own new trajectory to slip harmlessly past each side of me. As soon as I heard them slam into the wall behind me, I felt time snap back to normal speed and willed the sword in my hand to go back to its original shape as a steel ball. I walked towards the barrier as I placed the bearing in the bag to join its brothers.

As I rounded the barrier I saw that the doctor was already watching the replay with everyone else standing behind her. The gunman's mouth hung open in awe, the technician just stared at the screen with a lop-sided grin on his face and Alice seemed surprised as they all watched me slice the bullet before it could even reach me. Dr. Lamb turned the face me when the replay was over and fixed me with a peculiar look, the wheels within her mind already spinning.

"What can you create with those things, I wonder?" she asked rhetorically.

I reached into the bag and produced another ball. I held it tightly in my hand, closed my eyes and focused on a .45 automatic pistol in my mind. When I opened my eyes there, in my hand, was exactly what I'd envisioned. "Guns, apparently," I answered.

Dr. Lamb's gaze narrowed as she looked at the weapon in my hand and then back up at me. "Do you know how a weapon like this works?" she asked.

I willed the weapon to turn back into a steel ball even as I replied, "In general principle? Sure. I have an old Springfield back at home in the States and used to clean it all the time. But I've never actually taken it completely apart, though, if that's what you're asking."

"I am," she said neutrally and gave a nod to Alice, who was frantically scribbling more data down on a notepad. "I wonder... do you think you can make more complicated devices with those things?"

I shrugged. "I can try." I looked off into space as I tried to think of something suitably more complicated than a firearm and decided on a cell phone. I don't have the first clue about how a cell phone works, so that should be sufficiently complicated enough. I closed my eyes and focused on trying to turn the steel ball into a cell phone. When I opened my eyes, much to my surprise, that's exactly what I was holding in my hand. It looked just like my personal cell phone, complete with decals, except a lot cleaner. I handed it over to Dr. Lamb for her own inspection of the device.

She turned it over in her hand, slipped off its back covering and saw the battery inside it. She placed the covering back, flipped the phone over and pressed the power button. I think we were both equally astonished when it actually came to life. She looked up at me, handed the phone over to Alice while she kept her eyes fixed on mine. "Take that to the lab and have it looked over, scanned and thoroughly inspected. I want to know if it can make calls and do whatever it's supposed to do. I have a feeling, though, that it can. Do you realize what you've done, NightShade?" she asked me pointedly.

I gulped and nodded my head slowly. "I think so," I answered. "Better keep lead bricks away from me, huh?"

She pursed her lips, making them into a thin line. "Indeed," she said coolly.

Chapter Ten : Meeting

The rest of that day was spent discovering, one at a time, some of my other new talents. I exhibited flight, strength, telekinesis, the ability to increase my own mass, low-level telepathy (I get could sense something that was like a mix between emotions and intentions from people) and teleportation (the last, I realized, was a slight modification of my ability to travel through time, but I didn't indicate that). All of these feats came to me pretty naturally except for teleportation, which required me to have at least a general knowledge of my destination's landscape. And even though I could easily exhibit those abilities, there was no way to reliably measure them within the complex due to its confined space. Eventually, Dr. Lamb reasoned, I would have to go outside and we could resume our tests using GPS to track my flight speed, large objects for me to lift and GPS again to measure the limits of my teleportation ability.

The real show-stopper, though, was when I turned myself into a woman. While I was exhibiting my ability to increase my body mass, Doctor Lamb asked if I could change my shape, too. On a lark, I touched the person closest to me, which happened to be Alice, and concentrated on making myself look like her. It turned out, however, that I not only looked like her, I had altered my DNA to mirror hers completely. I still had my other abilities and brain patterns, but on every other level I was Alice- even my voice sounded like hers. With some experimentation we learned that I could alter my genetic structure for short periods of time (about two hours maximum) and even sort of blend myself so that I could exhibit both male and female characteristics. At the time it was just an exhibition of the ability but after awhile I realized that being able to do that posed a lot of other interesting possibilities of a far more personal nature. I'm sure that Doctor Lamb had considered those possibilities, too, but didn't feel the need to explore the more debauched notions that came to mind. Neverminding the fact that poor Alice couldn't bear to look at me directly the whole time. She seemed far more at ease around me once I was back to my normal appearance. I'm not sure if they noticed that, as a matter of personal vanity, the length of my penis had considerably increased. I figure that if I had the ability to alter myself, I might as well make the best of it. If anyone did notice it, they were discrete enough to not say anything about it out loud.

By the end of the day Dr. Lamb realized that she had her work cut out for her and told me that, the next day, I would get a chance to meet the rest of the team while she took some time to study what she'd already learned and developed a plan for testing my other abilities in a controlled way.

I finally felt exhaustion creeping in on me and, that night, took the opportunity to sleep. It was a dreamless night and I tossed and turned more than usual, but when I woke up (at 0600) I felt incredibly refreshed and hungry as a bear. The nurses were a little surprised to see me when I approached their desk and inquired about dinner, but they got something down for me in short shrift, which I ate quickly. I also asked for something I could use to contain a stool sample. They gave me an especially large zip-lock bag and told me to use my imagination.

It was Alice who came to retrieve me that morning, which was a little disappointing. "Doctor Lamb is already awake," the mousy assistant told me, "and looking over yesterday's notes. She'll probably be busy most of the day, so she's instructed me to introduce you to the rest of the team. So if you'll come with me, please...?" She waited for me in my doorway expectantly.

As I walked beside her down the hallway I quietly said, "I'm sorry about yesterday."

Alice glanced at me with a quizzical expression. "Why should you be sorry?"

"Well, I noticed how you seemed a little uncomfortable around me when I copied you. I honestly didn't expect that to happen. Really, I don't know how it happened. I just-"

"You were relying on your instincts," Alice said casually. "I'll admit that, yes, it was a little... strange to see... myself like that, but I understand that you weren't trying to upset me. It's a very interesting ability, though. Unprecedented, really. If used in the context of your assigned missions, it would likely be very useful."

"Well," I replied, "I just don't want you to think that I was taking advantage of you or anything. Your skin is yours and I like mine just fine."

She stopped us there in the hallway. "NightShade, while I appreciate your attempt to make me feel okay about what you did yesterday, I assure you that I was okay with it long before you said anything this morning. I'm a scientist and I learned long ago to accept things on an objective basis. As a woman it surprised me a little but as a scientist, which is my first and primary role here, I have no personal feelings about it one way or the other. In point of fact, you, to me, are merely a subject of observation. You're a very likeable and kind person but not really my type. So please keep your focus on yourself and don't worry about me. Understood?"

"Oh! You- ah, crap. No, you misunderstand me entirely, Alice. I'm sorry. No, I'm not making at pass at you or anything. I'm happily married. It's just that... well, I expect that we'll be seeing a lot of each other here and I just didn't want there to be any discomfort since we're co-workers, after a fashion."

Alice nodded. "I see. That's perfectly sensible. In that case, thank you." She seemed to size me up more carefully. "Dr. Lamb is right: it is difficult to remain objective with you." With that, she continued down the hallway and I fell into step right beside her.

She led me into part of the complex that seemed like a whole other wing. I followed her down a hallway and I could hear some shouting among a serious bit of destruction on the opposite side of the wall beside us. Eventually the wall gave way to a very long observation window, which was probably made of extremely thick Plexiglas. I saw three individuals- a light-brown-skinned woman, a thin guy and another male best described as a walking landslide- running around inside a massive gymnasium, dodging various types of attack individually and as a team. It was like something out of a comic book, The Danger Room that the fictional X-Men trained in, but nowhere near as advanced. I stopped cold in my tracks to watch while Alice seemed like she'd seen it all already. She probably had.

The woman, dressed in a form-fitting jumpsuit and an actual katana strapped to her back, propelled herself into the air as a rocket was fired at her. Behind her stood her gigantic teammate, who punched the rocket's nose with an upper-cut and, off to the side, the thinner man projected a fine stream of water at the rocket from his hand. The weapon fell to the ground in two pieces. Almost as soon as it hit the floor with twin clanking sounds, a new threat came at them: a veritable arsenal that rolled at them on tank treads. It immediately opened small-arms fire on the large man, who was caught off-guard.

"That's Tank," Alice told me as we watched the action. "He's not the brightest bulb in the box, but fairly resilient."

Tank reflexively put up a thick arm to shield himself from the onslaught of weapon's fire and let out a shout of anger and frustration. Apparently the bullets couldn't penetrate his skin, but he still felt them and didn't much care for it. Still holding his arm up defensively, he bent down to pick up the warhead of the previously destroyed missile, reared back with it in his hand and hurled it with all his strength at the robot firing at him. The result was explosive: the robot disintegrated into a thousand pieces. Threat nullified.

Out of the ceiling, however, cannons dropped down and began to fire on all of the team members at once. The woman seemed unconcerned with the attack and deftly dodged the stream of bullets being fired at her while still in mid-air.

"That's Aventine," Alice supplied. "Very fast. She projects energy beams using light as her power source. For now she's the team leader."

Aventine seemed to glow then and, in a literal flash, a beam of blinding light erupted from her clasped hands and found its target. The cannon firing at her stopped functioning. It had been melted.

"And then there's Leviathan," Alice said, her voice sounding strained, like she didn't approve of him at all. "His main ability is aqua-kinesis, the ability to manipulate water. He can also phase-shift, which makes shooting him rather pointless. Watch."

I shifted my gaze to the young thin man, who hadn't moved from where he stood. He was leisurely inspecting his fingernails while hundreds of bullets passed harmlessly through his body, like he was a ghost. When one of the bullets zipped through his head, however, a look of annoyance crossed his features and then he regarded the gun seriously. The heat from the damage done to the now-molten gun that had been attacking Aventine triggered the fire-suppression system and water started to fall from the ceiling. Leviathan opened his arms wide and the water being sprayed from the sprinklers suddenly stopped falling. In a few seconds the water coalesced into a wall that appeared in front of him. That didn't stop the gun from firing at him, however, so he directed a micro-thin jet of water at the gun, which sliced the weapon into tiny pieces like a knife going through butter.

"High-pressure water jets," Alice explained, "are a hundred times more efficient and destructive than even laser beams. Actually, water pressure is used to custom-cut plates of titanium in large factories."

While Leviathan dispatched the threat, Tank had crouched down directly underneath a third gun turret, holding his arm as a shield once again while he looked at the weapon as it continued to fire at him. With a loud grunt he pushed himself off the floor, his fist pulled back, and, when he was almost face-to-face with the gun, punched the barrel of the weapon forcefully. The barrel bent from the impact of the punch and exploded as Tank fell back to the floor, where he landed like a rock on one knee. I could feel the impact of his landing through my feet.

"Tank can't fly, but he can jump pretty high," Alice said. "While his solution to the attack was definitely effective, it lacked grace. Which, I suppose," she added airily, "is perfectly natural for him. He's not a graceful guy."

With the threats all neutralized, Aventine floated back down to the floor and looked directly at us. "Hi, Alice," she said congenially. "Got a new playmate for us?"

Alice glanced at me and then tapped a button next to the observation window. "His name's NightShade. Dr. Lamb wanted him to meet you and maybe see if his abilities work well with the rest of the team, if you're up for it."

Aventine smiled sweetly and waved to Alice. "Sure! Send 'im on in! We're just having some fun in here, aren't we, boys?"

"It's a party," Tank bellowed.

"Says you," Leviathan countered. "I haven't had a drink in weeks. But the chicks are all right."

I walked further down the hall, following Alice, until we reached a thick door. She pounded on a large button and the door slid open to admit me into the room. When I stepped inside, it closed behind me, leaving Alice safely on the other side. I walked towards the center of the room where the trio waited for me, Aventine in front, Tank on her right and Leviathan on her left. "NightShade," I introduced myself, my hand outstretched. "Army."

Aventine took it in a strong grip and smiled. "Aventine," she replied. "Air Force."

Tank stepped forward with his own hand out, which fully encompassed mine in the way a small child's might get enveloped by a gorilla's. "Marines," he grunted. "Call me Tank."

"Sounds like the name fits," I quipped as he released my hand. He hadn't squeezed, I presume because he was worried that he might somehow hurt me.

Leviathan stepped forward, then, and said, "That's the only thing that fits him. Everything else has to be specially made. I'm Leviathan. They yanked me out of the ocean to join this outfit."

"Navy," I clarified. "Makes sense, considering your ability. So... is this where we'll be training or is it more like an exercise room?"

Aventine cocked an eyebrow at me. "Isn't it big enough for you?" she asked.

I shrugged. "It'll do, I guess."

"Ho-ho-ho!" Tank laughed with a friendly smile. "Look at the Army guy! Size isn't everything, you know."

I sized him up carefully. He stood at about seven feet tall and looked like he weighed somewhere close to four hundred pounds, all of his mass being comprised of muscle and bone. "Coming from you, big guy, that's a mouth full."

"Don't mind Tank," Leviathan put in. "Typical Marine: always challenging people, to see how much spine they've got."

I nodded and returned a friendly smile at Tank. "Trust me: you'll find that I've got a lot more than meets the eye. And I've got spine for days."

Tank grunted. "All right, pip-squeak. Let's see what you've got. Hey, Alice! Punch up Level Four!"

Aventine spun around to face the Marine. "Are you crazy?! Belay that, Alice! Level Two!"

"Hold on a second," I cut in, loudly enough to stop Alice from doing anything. "What's wrong with Level Four?"

Aventine turned to face me. "What you just saw us up against was Level Three. Two people who work well as a team could beat it pretty easily. That was just some exercise for us. Level Four is meant for three people and we've all gotten our fair share of lumps even working as a team. I won't let you try to tackle it on your first day."