Super Genetics

As he approached the first swirling vortex, he felt pulled along as if by the tide washing into shore. The scene materialized beneath him—a dark alley buried in garbage, the moonlight illuminating it just enough to show two men.

His perspective dipped from above, angling for one of the men—Mesmer. He was younger, barely older than Terry, his clothes reminiscent of an era nearly a hundred years past. The other man was older and much larger, and it was clear at first sight that he was approaching Mesmer with violent intent.

As Terry’s perspective neared, he didn’t find himself pushed into Mesmer’s body like with his own memories and instead found himself perched nearby as an outside observer.

The larger man was pressing deeper into the alley, corralling Mesmer into the dead end. And as Terry watched, horror filled his entire being.

The man was unbuttoning his pants.

“Don’t fight me, boy or it’ll be worse.” His words slurred and there was a slight stumble to his gait, but the size difference more than made up for that.

Younger Mesmer was wide eyed, clearly vibrating with adrenaline and terror in the dim moonlight. His back hit the far wall and he whipped his head around in surprise. The man came closer, a lecherous smile on his lips, his hands reaching out tentatively as if approaching a cornered animal.

Terry almost pulled out of the memory right then and there. The implication of what he was witnessing was too terrible to watch. But as he readied to pull his mind away, Mesmer flipped open a pocketknife and with a strangled cry, rammed it into the man’s gut.

His attacker let out a gust of breath, as if he’d been punched. When he looked down at the knife stuck four inches into his belly, he growled in anger. Before he could react, Mesmer pulled the blade out, then rammed it home again with a sobbing scream.

Then again. And again.

He rode the man’s body to the alley floor, stabbing over and over again as he cried terrible tears.

Terry pulled his mind away, the shock of the violent murder affecting him even without the sensations of his body.

He found himself floating above those violet vortexes, his thoughts having difficulty processing what he had just witnessed.

It wasn’t that he blamed Mesmer—the man had clearly been poised to attack him in the worst possible way. What had him reeling was that this was the first memory in a line of a hundred. How many were like this? Just what kind of life did Mesmer live that he had been forced to kill a man as a young teenager?

He held off from diving into the next memory, preparing himself for another scene just as brutal as the first. But after a few minutes, the urgency of the moment urged him forward; Mesmer could arrive and catch Terry in the act at any moment.

The second vortex waited and he jumped into the memory with a desperate courage.

It was daytime and the young Mesmer didn’t look much older than the other memory. There were three other teenagers with him and they were herding a younger boy into a similar alley in a twisted transposition of the first memory.

Horror dawned on Terry like a white-hot torch had been pressed to his mind. He prayed with everything in his being that that was where the similarities ended.

He prepared to pull back from the memory, refusing to witness something so brutal and callous. But as the scene evolved, he was relieved—in a sick way—to see that Mesmer and the older boys simply robbed and beat the younger one, leaving the kid unconscious but alive and otherwise untouched.

The third memory wasn’t much better. Neither was the fourth.

He whipped through Mesmer’s brutal childhood, learning that the man had been an orphan during the Great Depression, scrapping and robbing to survive. As the memories shifted into early adulthood, the methods grew more sophisticated—though just as deplorable.

Mesmer was a conman, a grifter, and the occasional mugger.

When Terry witnessed the first memory of Mesmer’s time fighting in World War II, he had to abort it prematurely. Skipping along, he found that the bulk of the middle memories were reserved for that terrible time.

He skipped dozens of memories, until they finally shifted into late adulthood, where Mesmer spent much of his life in prison after attempting to rob a bank. He had murdered a hostage when the police caught him and they had locked him up and thrown away the key.

Then, the Call happened, and the man gained the superpowers that eventually came to define him. There was no memory explaining how he escaped prison, but Terry could imagine in the chaos of the Call, it wouldn’t be too difficult for a Hypnotist.

Terry went into this stage of the man’s life praying superpowers were the catalyst for a change; that Mesmer realized the error of his ways and turned over a new leaf.

Unfortunately, the reality was much bleaker.

With his Hypnotist powers, the schemes and cons from his pre-prison days became trivial. Terry watched as Mesmer coerced, manipulated, and often compelled others to do his bidding. He made women fall in love with him, then dumped them by the wayside when they eventually bored him. He compelled bank tellers to rob their own banks, then let them take the rap when they were caught. And when push came to shove, he murdered those that he couldn’t compel.

He was only two-thirds through the memories when it became too much. The man that he had admired, considered a friend and mentor, was not this man. His perception of Mesmer was entirely poisoned and he felt an aching hole in his chest at the loss.

Pushing past the history of violence and cold manipulation, he shot forward to the end, homing in on that latest memory added to the rose. He resolved to live that last memory, then leave this rose and never come back. If that didn’t satisfy the stipulations of the Quest, well…

He just had to hope it did.

The last memory revealed another dark alley—a common theme in Mesmer’s life, it seemed. The man himself looked older, very much like he did right now, which filled Terry with trepidation.

This memory is recent, he realized.

As the scene resolved further, Terry spotted movement at the alley mouth. Mesmer was waiting just inside, clearly in anticipation of this other person’s arrival. The darkness was pervasive and at first Terry couldn’t see who had joined Mesmer.

Then, a dim light flashed into existence, a magical torch perched in the second person’s hand.

The shock of that face staring back at Mesmer, eyes unfocused as if in the grip of his hypnotism, was too much for Terry. He immediately ejected from the memory, his thoughts twisting like a leaf in the storm.

No…no, no, no.

It couldn’t be. The memory had to be falsified, doctored in some way. His mind refused to accept the implication of what he was seeing.

After a few moments of stark denial, it became abundantly clear—he needed to see what came next.

He reluctantly returned to the final memory in the string of vortexes, his perspective diving back into that dimly lit alley.

Flore’s face was under lit by the magic in her palm, revealing the look of someone in the grips of complete infatuation.

Her voice broke the silence, a shy reluctance in her tone.

“I don’t usually do this, but I don’t know…there’s just something about you…”

Mesmer gave a sad smile, nodding his head in a knowing way.

“I understand completely. Come closer, love. Let me get a good look at you.”

She smiled sheepishly, stepping into the alley as she brightened her magic.

“You’re stunning,” Mesmer breathed, running his hand along her cheek. The sadness was unmissable in his voice. “I’m so sorry.”

Her face scrunched in confusion.

“Wha—”

A sickening crunch filled the alley as Mesmer reached up and violently twisted her neck. The shock registered on her face at the last second, her eyes wide as she slumped lifelessly to the ground.

That last look of horror was immortalized on her features, her mouth agape, the whites of her eyes uncomfortably visible.

“I’m so sorry,” Mesmer whispered.

Then, he began staging her corpse in the exact way Detective Kramer had described to Terry. He forced himself out of the memory, unable to witness a second more.

He didn’t know for how long he hung there in that colorless void. His mind felt short circuited, his thoughts unable to coalesce into anything past pure horror.

A feeling of betrayal permeated his entire being, shocking his mind into a static state that refused to function properly.

Then—after some unmeasurable amount of time—the rage began to rise.

You son of a bitch…you goddamn son of a bitch…

Every fiber of his being wanted to rip away from the rose, hunt Mesmer down, and end him with all the powers at his disposal. If he took the man by surprise, he might even be able to do it.

But beneath the violent urge, the red-hot rage threatening to consume him, was a core of cold iron. An ice-cold foundation that crystallized into a dispassionate and calculating thread that permeated his thoughts.

From that cold-iron core stemmed a few realizations. One, Mesmer had staged the murder of Flore to implicate the sanguine. Two, Flore wasn’t chosen at random, implying that Mesmer knew about Feed Wichita—though he might not necessarily know of Terry’s involvement.

But more importantly than all of that, was the final realization…

Mesmer was the puppet. And there was only one man capable of pulling his strings.

With that realization stemmed another: I need to see more…

He leaned upon that cold-iron core, steeling himself to dive back into the horror of Mesmer’s memories. Once he was back above those swirling vortexes, he moved to the second-to-last memory and dove in.

He immediately recognized his grandfather’s throne room. The man himself sat upon his throne, plain-clothed and without his scythe or bone mask. Kneeling before him were both Mesmer and Whipvine and Terry could tell right away that the two revenants were in the midst of an argument with the Emperor.

“Can we not pick someone else?” Mesmer was asking. “I can find some deplorable murderer and—”

“That won’t work and you know it.” The Emperor’s tone was more casual than Terry had ever heard, though there was a thread of weariness weaving through it. “The light Elementalist’s death will serve us two-fold. We’ll cripple my grandson’s operation and turn him against the sanguine in a way that no common death would.”

Those words stabbed into Terry’s mind, but before he could process the information, Whipvine was speaking.

“Let’s skip all this political play! Send me, Fletcher, and Patricia into Blood Alley. The sanguine will be rooted out by the morning!”

The Emperor slammed his fist on the throne, his face twisting in rage.

“How many times have I told you! I can’t be seen going back on my word with the suckers! It’ll cripple my reputation in the Underworld.” He took a deep breath, knuckling his eye for a moment before looking up. “They need to be seen as making the first move. By killing Terry’s Elementalist, we can spin it as an attack on Terry himself. And if I know my grandson, he’ll force a confrontation, allowing us to step in and evict the sanguine.”

No one spoke for a few tense moments, then Mesmer sighed heavily.

“I understand that, Terrence. But I only ask one thing: don’t make me to do this. Please. Send Fletcher to deal with the girl.”

Terry was surprised to hear the sadness in his grandfather’s voice when he replied.

“Sebastian, my old friend. I appreciate how hard you’ve worked to put your past behind you. But you and I both know that Cillian is a blunt instrument and possesses none of the finesse required to pull this off. If I were to ask him to stage her body, he’d put a bullet in her head and call it a day.” He sighed, shaking his head softly. “I’m afraid this is a job only you can complete.”

Terry watched as Whipvine flashed Mesmer a worried glance. The Emperor sat stone still, waiting for the revenant to speak. When he did, it was with steel in his voice.

“Then I request that you compel me. I do not agree to this, nor do I want this on my conscience.”

Whipvine’s scars danced as his eyes went wide. In contrast, the Emperor’s narrowed, a look of anger passing over his face before he set his lips.

“Fine. If it’ll absolve you of your guilt, I will.”

Aura lit up from the Emperor, encompassing Mesmer’s completely.

The memory ended as the compulsion took hold.

Terry didn’t dive into the next memory, needing a minute to process what he had just witnessed.

It didn’t surprise him to see how ruthless his grandfather could be—it only confirmed what others said about the man. But what did surprise him was Mesmer’s ultimatum to the Emperor. Regardless of what either man said, it didn’t absolve the revenant in Terry’s mind—not by a long shot. In fact, the more he considered it, the more he believed it to be evidence of Mesmer’s cowardice. The entire string of memories were evidence of that. A string of choices made by a weak and amoral man who couldn’t dare to face the consequences of his actions. Who hid the painful truths inside a magical rose rather than face them head on.

A feeling of disgust engulfed him and he ejected from the rose entirely.

[The White Rose] Quest Updated

2 of 4 White Roses decoded.

As he returned to his body, the notification didn’t ask if he’d like to remove the memories, which surprised him. Perhaps that only worked when the rose held his memories.

He regarded that rose clutched between his fingers, feeling the disgust shift into a sense of loss. Mesmer was not the man he had thought he was. His grandfather had proved himself a terrible bastard. Even Whipvine had known about the plot to murder Flore.

There are no heroes in Wichita, he realized. Only a cold-hearted bastard scrabbling to maintain his tenuous hold onto the power he has. And the slaves who serve him.

I will be that hero. But every second I remain in this palace, I’m complicit.

I can’t stay here a moment longer.

He turned for the door, resolved to leave the palace for good, but froze in shock as he came face-to-face with Mesmer.

The revenant had a sad look on his face, as if understanding that he had just lost a friend.

“You’ve finished, then?” he asked quietly.

Terry felt the white-hot fire rise, threatening to eclipse that cold-iron core. But he forced in a deep breath and tamped the fire down, letting that ice spread through his veins.

“I’ve seen enough. After the first couple dozen, I skipped around, thinking to salvage some scrap of respect for you.” He shrugged, shaking his head. “You can imagine how that went.”

Mesmer had a pained expression on his face, but Terry didn’t feel a hint of sympathy for the man.

“Did you watch the final memory?”

There was an undertone to that question that put Terry on guard. He tensed, understanding the implication of Mesmer’s powers.

“You plan on raping my mind like you’ve done to so many others?”

Mesmer reared back, his aura fluctuating erratically. Terry felt his body react, anticipating Mesmer’s power washing over him to steal everything he’d learned in the past hour. But instead, the revenant’s face simply dropped, his eyes glistening as if tears were beginning to form.

For some reason, that angered Terry more than anything else.

“Save your goddamn tears, Mes. Either wipe my mind or get the fuck out of my way!”

He stirred his own aura, not content to let the memories go without a fight, despite his words. But Mesmer didn’t react, didn’t reach out to try and invade Terry’s mind. The tears slipped free and he stepped back, shaking his head.

“No, Terry. I won’t fight you. I love you like my own son.”

Terry scoffed, preparing his aura to activate a Skill.

“You’re a coward, Mes. It’s too late for you. But it’s not too late for Wichita. You may be content watching it wither and die, but I’m not!”

With a finesse fueled by pure hate and determination, he coaxed space apart, feeling it react like it never had before. The portal split the air before him with a quiet whoosh and he felt the accompanying exit portal form in his bedroom across the palace.

Without saying another word, he stepped into the portal and emerged inside his bedroom.

A notification appeared before him, but he felt empty inside as he read it.

Skill upgraded!

High-Efficiency Light and Matter Transportation (E) upgraded to D-rank.

Error. No appropriate Affixation slots available. Capping Skill to E-rank. Rank up to unlock an appropriate Affixation slot.

His body betrayed him, tears slipping free from his eyes. He shook his head angrily, sending them flying as he grabbed a bag and began shoving clothes into them.

He couldn’t stay here a second longer. He was leaving the palace.

For good.