Super Genetics

Despite Crunch’s near-constant presence, loneliness still managed to creep its way in. He and his father had left things…well, not great before he’d gone off to invade Topeka. And even if Terry was still miffed the man had left without a word, he couldn’t deny it, he missed him.

He woke up with a bug in his brain, a buzzing need to see his father—even just digitally. He knew it wouldn’t hurt as bad as seeing his mother and maybe it would scratch the itch of loneliness infecting his thoughts. Throwing his covers off, he glanced over to see Burgundy standing just inside his door, the ghoul’s attention pointedly fixated on the wall.

“Morning, Burg,” Terry called over as he went to his computer. He had started openly referring to his regular ghoul bodyguards by the nicknames he had picked out. He had given learning their native names a fair effort, but had only managed to butcher them entirely. Crunch had let him know that they didn’t mind the nicknames, anyway.

“Good morning, my prince.”

“Did I do anything interesting while I slept?” he asked casually as his computer booted up.

“You have nightmares,” Burgundy replied, his eyes still glued to the far wall.

Nightmares? He didn’t recall having any nightmares. Granted, he didn’t exactly feel well rested, but he assumed that was just natural tiredness.

“Huh, weird,” he said. Turning his attention to his computer, he opened a search page and typed in his father’s name. The search results populated with a series of news articles about the Free-City of Wichita’s counter-invasion of Sol’s Topeka. The first article showed a picture of the Emperor, with Terry’s father at his side.

Unfortunately, his father was in full super armor—a set of personally crafted bone armor similar to the Emperor’s. Even his face was covered with a bone mask that blocked everything except his eyes. Unlike the Emperor, his father’s eyes were not two glowing red embers, but simply his father’s eyes. Still, it didn’t exactly fill the hole in his chest, so he continued searching.

It turned out that his father had almost no images on the web. Unlike his mom, who had had an entire superhero career before marrying his father, the Commander of the Unliving Legions had always been the Emperor’s subordinate and was mostly pictured in full regalia—mask and all.

But he did find one picture of his father unmasked. It was an engagement announcement between the prince of Wichita and the superhero icon, the White Rose herself. His father—much younger—was standing shoulder-to-shoulder with his mom in her superhero costume. In the picture, he was staring at Terry’s mom, a clear longing in his eyes. His mom, in contrast, looked unhappy to be there.

He studied the picture for minutes, trying to read between the lines of her guarded expression. For as long as he could remember, his parents had been madly in love. Sickeningly so, in fact. To see her distant expression at their engagement announcement made him wonder if what he knew of his parents was simply what they had allowed him to see. Had there been fissures in their relationship that they kept from him?

But a memory flashed in his mind. A memory of his father a few days ago, leaning heavily against Terry’s desk, sobs wracking his body. There was no mistaking his father’s love for his mom. He scolded himself for the thought.

Returning to the search bar, he typed in ‘White Rose.’ More articles populated, along with a dozen images of his mom—both in costume and in regular clothes. Her smiling face seemed to be looking right at him and he felt his throat tighten.

One of the top results was an article about Sol’s attack, Emperor Necroton’s response, and the death of the White Rose. Though his heart physically hurt, he clicked on the link.

The article was basic, running through the sequence of events, but glossing over the death of his mom. All it said was that Siren and the White Rose had killed each other.

What interested Terry were the comments at the bottom of the article.

[NecroKid27]: long live the white rose!

[DillonK]: the princess was a saint

[anon12345]: She never belonged here. Bet she was a mole sent by Sol.

[DillonK]: then whys she dead, dummy

[anon12345]: the emperor found out, duh! Tied off a loose end.

[alfie_rose]: theres zero chance siren took out the white rose. She was a middling B-grade. The rose was a powerhouse A-grade.

[necroton-fan-69]: exactly! Everyone knows siren was only a knight because she was sol’s side piece

[throwaway9032]: then who killed the rose?

Terry read that question over and over again.

Then who killed the rose?

He found himself wondering the exact same thing.

Clicking on the add comment button, he was redirected to create an account for the news site. He filled in fake information with a temporary email he made in a few minutes. For his username, he used RoseBud. Though he realized it was stupid to use any identifying names or pieces of information, he thought the name was ubiquitous enough and wouldn’t tie back to him in any way.

Replying to the commenter who had asked the question, he typed in:

Any theories?

And pressed enter. He switched tabs and began searching for any info on the invasion’s progress when his speakers dinged. At first, he couldn’t figure out what had prompted the notification sound. He didn’t have any messengers open or any alarms set. But then he noticed the bouncing tab he had just left. He flipped back over and saw that the commenter had already replied to his question.

“That was fast,” he muttered to himself.

But as he read the response, his eyes narrowed. Instead of a normal reply, there was a hyperlink over the words: try here. Nothing else.

He hovered over the link, examining the preview URL to make sure it didn’t open some virus or lead to something dirty. But his confusion only increased as he examined the URL.

“Necrotalk forums?”

He hadn’t heard of the site, but it seemed harmless enough. Opening the link, he saw that it led to an online forum discussing all sorts of things happening within the Free-City of Wichita. But, at least recently, all the threads were understandably related to Sol’s attack, his mom’s death, or the invasion of Topeka.

As he combed through the dozens of active threads, it became apparent that this forum was a hotbed of conspiracy theories and half-brained conjectures. He even passed over a thread authored by an anonymous poster suggesting that the White Rose had had an affair with Savage, with Terry as the result. That was why the Emperor had personally reaped the super and added him to his revenants.

Despite the ridiculous nature of the theories and discussions in most of the threads, he couldn’t pull himself away. He had too many questions and these threads—though ridiculous—served as a sort of lifeline to his burning curiosity.

And they weren’t all inane ramblings. There was one user named IBelieve that he saw commenting across multiple threads that Terry found had some intriguing questions. Questions Terry wondered as well.

Creating an account for Necrotalk, he used the RoseBud alias once more. As soon as he received the confirmation, he sent a private message to IBelieve.

Hey, saw some of your comments. I feel like you’ve got some really interesting ideas. Up to chat?

He waited a few seconds, half expecting IBelieve to respond instantly like the user on the news article had. But after a few moments, he shook his head with a wry smile.

“Not everyone is a thirteen-year-old boy with all day to troll forums,” he muttered to himself.

He idly combed the Necrotalk forums for anything else interesting and found a thread discussing the fallout from Sol’s attack. The thread starter claimed that the blast radius had been much larger than reported and that the farmlands had been completely scorched.

Others responded asking for proof or simply calling the poster out for lying. One person had typed:

Don’t you think it would be tough to hide the fact that all our food was poisoned?

The area surrounding the Knights of Sol’s attack had been cordoned off, the poster claimed, so they couldn’t get photos or video. In fact, the entirety of Wichita’s farms had been restricted to essential personnel only.

Good thing Terry was a prince.

It was time for Terry to get out of the palace and do something other than mope about or troll the web. It was time for him to visit the place his mother had been killed. It was time to visit the farms.

Turned out, it was one thing being the prince, and entirely another getting your well-meaning bodyguards to take you into known danger.

Crunch, Bloodstain, and Burgundy had—very politely—argued with him for twenty minutes. And they had made great points. The fallout from Sol’s attack still lingered, the air might be toxic, the bulk of the army was occupied over a hundred miles away, and so on.

But what had finally settled the debate was a single question from Terry.

“Did the Emperor expressly forbid me from going there?”

That had given them pause and the three ghouls had a quick—but lively—private discussion in ghoulish. Though Terry’s lessons were going well, they spoke so fluently and didn’t slow the tempo like they usually did for his human ears. And of course, their auras were inscrutable.

After a few moments, Crunch turned to him and though half his face was melted from Sol’s attack, his pained expression was unmistakable.

“We take prince to survey fields,” Crunch said wearily. Terry’s face lit up, but the ghoul held out his hand in a very paternal gesture that indicated he wasn’t done yet. “On few conditions.”

Terry was too excited to consider what that could possibly mean. “Fine, fine,” he replied hurriedly. “Whatever you say.”

Two hours of preparation later, Terry was hot, sweaty, and extremely annoyed.

He and Crunch were bouncing around the cabin of an armored attack vehicle. Outside, Blood and Burg—along with a dozen other ghouls Terry had seen around but hadn’t named—were following on foot with loping strides. Inside the vehicle, Terry was wrapped head-to-toe in a hazmat suit, his air supplied by a tank clipped to his back. Underneath the suit, he had on a bulletproof vest. The combination of the two, plus the heavy tank on his back, made it impossible to get anywhere close to comfortable. The sweat was dripping into his eyes now, and it took all his self-control not to rip off the helmet.

In front and behind of the vehicle were two pickup trucks. The beds of each had .50 caliber machine guns with human guards manning the weapons. Strong enough to penetrate the skin of any super below A-grade that didn’t have a power specifically centered around toughness.

Terry thought it was overkill. The Knights of Sol had been routed. Savage and Siren were dead and no one had seen or heard from Scourge or the Shadow. As far as other supers were concerned, Sol had initiated the attack and though most considered Necroton a villain and a dictator, Sol’s optics weren’t much better. None in the supers community seemed inclined to do anything about it.

And the idea that normies could assault his team of ghouls was laughable. Even an average ghoul could tank low caliber gunfire and move faster than the fastest human. The only real threat to Terry were lurking supers—and the claustrophobic layers of the hazmat suit and bulletproof vest threatening to drown him in sweat!

To distract himself from the annoyance, he glanced out of the narrow window to examine the city. Other than his mother’s funeral parade, he hadn’t been out of the palace since the attack. Not that the promenade really counted as out of the palace, but it sort of counted in that it led out into open air.

But actually being out in the city proper was a completely different experience. Though it was midday by the clock, the sun had yet to return since the Emperor’s working. A heavy darkness reminiscent of the after-midnight hours oppressed the city. And even if the sun hadn’t been obscured, the fog bank seemed to cloy eerily to the ground, creating a head-height wall that was impenetrable to the human eye. The streetlamps were tiny pinpricks of light against the sea of fog and the headlights of the caravan didn’t fare much better.

During a time when there should have been hundreds of people on this very street going about their business, Terry hadn’t seen a single one. And he didn’t blame them. The midday darkness and the unnatural fog created an environment that was not welcoming to the living; Wichita was finally a place where only the undead could thrive. It made Terry wonder about the future of the city and brought to mind Crunch’s words from the day before.

Hunger bigger than loyalty.

And what about safety? Sunlight? A freedom from fog that smelled of death? He was surprised a mass exodus hadn’t occurred already.

He pushed those thoughts away rather than face the reality of what the future held for Wichita. He knew that one day he’d be strong enough to make a difference for his people, but that day wasn’t this day.

The vehicle jerked suddenly, pulling him from his thoughts. The ride had been bumpy, to say the least, and he felt like the driver kept tapping his brakes. And when Terry peered through the front windshield, he noticed the brake lights of the pickup truck ahead flashing erratically as well.

“Is everything alright?” He had to yell to be heard through the suit.

His human driver glanced back, then cursed as he was forced to slam on the brakes again to avoid rear ending the lead truck.

“My apologies, my prince!” the driver called back. “The fog makes it impossible to see more than a few feet ahead.” Then, under his breath, he added, “I think this damn fool is lost…”

“Lost?” Terry asked. “Isn’t it nearly a straight shot?”

He couldn’t remember the exact route he’d taken the dozen or so times he’d left the city, but he hadn’t remembered this many turns.

“Pardon, my prince. There was an accident at one of the junctions and we had to divert.”

“An accident? Was anyone hurt?”

The driver hesitated, glancing back at Terry before remembering to keep his eyes on the road. “I…I’m not sure, my prince.”

“I check when return, my prince,” Crunch added from beside him on the hard bench.

The boy nodded. “Please, Crunch.” To the driver, he added, “If you see another accident, pull over, will you? We have a first aid kit here and I’m sure the emergency services have their hands full with the darkness and the fog.”

He noticed the driver’s eyes flick up to meet his in the rear-view mirror, then flit away just as fast.

Did I say something wrong? he wondered.

“My prince,” Crunch said. “I request not stop. Dangerous already.”

Terry turned to face the ghoul, his brow knitted in confusion. “You want to drive by people that could need our help?”

“Honorable, my prince. But no visible. Easy be hit when out of car.”

Terry understood his point. The fog lay so heavy that the only safe place was inside a vehicle—especially one as heavy and armored as this one. But how could he sleep at night if he passed by an injured person when he could have helped?

“These are my people, Crunch. What kind of leader would I be if I left them to suffer in the dark, wondering if help was coming? That’s not what a superhero would do and it’s not what an Emperor would do.”

“What are your orders, my prince?” the driver called back.

Terry glanced toward Crunch and the ghoul nodded once. Though Terry was in charge, it still filled him with pride that the ghoul had come on board.

“Radio the lead truck. If they spot another accident, cordon off the area with the flares in the back. Position the trucks on either side so if another driver does come in too fast, they hit vehicles and not people.”

The driver’s eyes met his once more in the rear-view mirror, and though Terry couldn’t be certain, he felt the expression on the man’s face was one of approval. He tried not to let that balloon up his head too much, but he couldn’t help but feel a sense of pride deep inside his chest.

With renewed focus, he scanned the passing streets, his eyes peeled for any people in need.