Super Genetics

He forced himself to continue watching the memory, but knew distantly that he wasn’t paying attention. A haze seemed to settle over his thoughts, like they were trudging through mud.

Even though that hadn’t been him screaming—not exactly—it still dug into his heart to witness the raw trauma in his younger self. For the first time since he’d begun decoding memories within the roses, he could maybe, possibly, understand the need to hide away this specific memory.

After the rest of the memory played out, he ejected and took a moment to calm his mind.

But no matter how much he tried, all he could think about was War Crimes’ sly smirk, his hand around younger Terry’s shoulder, and the words he might have whispered into his ear.

With a thought, he exited his father’s rose and entered his own. That first memory called to him and he answered. The scene resolved just as it had for his father, though now he inhabited the body of his younger self.

No matter how he tried, there was no way to fast forward the memory. He mentally gritted his teeth, forced to watch his mother die for a third time, until he finally reached the part of the memory where War Crimes walked over to him. He was turned away from his mother’s body, just where his father had left him.

War Crimes put an arm around Terry’s shoulder and bodily moved him until he was forced to stare at his dying mother. His younger self was too numb to push back against the revenant’s shepherding, but his own mind seethed.

“Knowing your mother, she’ll remove this memory from your brain.” The man crouched down, meeting him eye to eye. “That’s what they do, see? The Fairways are slavers and your mother is more Fairway than she’d care to admit. Manipulating memories to control you is no better than Terrence himself. I doubt she’ll ever personally witness this memory of yours—it would be too traumatic.” He chuckled darkly. “So this will be just…between…us.” He punctuated each word with a sharp jab to the chest. His smile spread wide—too wide, manic even. “I enjoyed killing your mother, see? I especially enjoyed doing it in front of you. In front of your father.” His hand twitched, now, his smile twisting into a rictus grin. “And if I could, I’d blow your little brains out right now.”

Terry could only stare back in horror, stunned silent in front of War Crimes’ deranged rant.

Sanity seemed to return, the revenant’s hand stopped twitching. His teeth flashed in his usual wry smile.

“I killed your mother, you little brat. When you finally remember that, come find me and put me down—”

His head shot up just as James tackled him to the ground. Fists smashed into his face. Then, the screaming began.

Terry ejected from the memory, then the rose entirely. His forehead was beaded in sweat, his palms slick, his heart drumming against his chest. He wiped his hands against his jeans, then took a shuddering breath.

He felt Tania’s gaze at his side and flicked his eyes over. She guarded her expression well, but he couldn’t help but notice the worry there.

He shook his head at the unasked question and turned away to look out the window. Talking right now felt like a monumental task and he silently thanked Tania when she didn’t press the issue.

Once his breathing and heart rate were under control, he considered War Crimes’ words with a detachment that surprised him. Something about the way the man had spoken had triggered a realization inside Terry’s mind.

War Crimes was unquestionably evil and he couldn’t blame servitude under the Emperor for that—the man had chosen his moniker for a reason. But did that justify forcing him to serve as a revenant for potentially forever?

And Terry wasn’t fooled by the man’s manic appearance inside that distant memory. It had been an act, a ploy. He’d played the role of the rabid dog, hoping that an older Terry would one day take him out for good in a fit of revenge.

End his servitude.

Did I even want to anymore…by letting him live, I prolong his suffering. But by killing him, I avenge my mother…and myself.

It was too confusing, the emotions blurred inside his mind. Those were questions for another time—he didn’t have the power to kill War Crimes regardless.

All he could do was focus on the here and now. And that meant he had to finish witnessing his parents’ memories.

The next memory started in his parents’ bedroom. He realized almost immediately that he’d heard this argument—even if he hadn’t seen it.

His mother was returned as his revenant now and the tension between them was obvious. She asked—begged—to take his memories.

“We’ll go back to how it was before,” she pleaded.

As the memory faded, his father finally relented.

Now, James was in their bathroom, sitting on a stool in front of the vanity.

He was perched on the edge of that stool, his leg bouncing with clear anxiety. He was staring toward the vanity mirror, his eyes burning green.

As Terry’s perspective came to a halt, he watched as his father began to speak to himself, his eyes glued to the mirror the entire time.

“I make this proclamation of sound body and mind. My wife…is dead. I knew it would happen and I agreed to her…” His voice caught and he cleared it. “Her death. As we planned, she is now my revenant…”

His eyes trailed away and he suddenly stood up. Terry watched as he did a circuit of the room, checking the shower stall, the bathtub—even inside the linen closet. When he returned to the stool and looked back at the mirror, his lips were set tight. “As you can tell, there’s no one with me. There’s no possibility of compulsion or Hypnotist influence—not at our rank. I say this to myself in order to make it clear…I am making this decision of my own free will.”

Terry watched in confusion, not understanding what decision he was talking about. Turning his mother into a revenant?

The memory continued and James’ eyes softened.

“Penelope and I both agreed that she will have free rein to alter my memories…to remove any evidence or indication that she is my revenant.” He visibly swallowed, closing his eyes for a moment before continuing. “It takes a lot of trust to give away unfettered access to our mind, but this is what’s best for our family. To the future me…I hope you understand.”

The memory cut off and Terry found himself floating back above the void.

So dad had been fully complicit the entire time…

It didn’t completely surprise him, but he did feel a rush of anger threaten to consume him.

Nobody asked me for my consent…

Green balls of light danced in the void and Terry forced himself into the next memory.

His parents were on the couch in their sitting room, their hands linked tight.

“I’m going to start.” His mother’s tone was tight, her eyes searching James’ face closely.

He nodded briefly, holding her gaze as her eyes sparked silver.

Aura shifted to his senses, nearly powerful enough to remind Terry of the Emperor. It seeped into his father’s own aura and the man flinched. Slowly, James’ aura began to change. Almost as if paint were splashed into a pool, his mother’s aura began to tint his father’s. The whole while, his father had his eyes clenched tight, perhaps resisting the impulse to fight back.

After a few minutes, his mother’s aura peeled back and his father blinked slowly, as if awakening from a deep sleep.

“Pen? You okay?”

The sadness in her eyes was impossible to miss. She bit her lip, nodding even as a tear slipped free. The memory ended and Terry floated in the void, trying and failing to understand the decisions his parents had made.

What kind of life was that? he wondered. Constantly altering the inherent experiences of your husband and child to hide the trail leading back to your death. It must eventually have become so wearisome…

The rest of his father’s rose contained simple memories—instances where the memory distortion failed or was too slow to alter his father’s senses before he spotted something out of the ordinary. In those cases, his mother was forced to extract it and encode it in the rose.

He slipped free from his father’s rose and pulled his mother’s from the backpack. For a while, he simply stared at it, terrified of what he might find.

His own rose had been traumatic to uncover for obvious reasons, while Mesmer’s had been tragic in the sense that he no longer respected his longtime mentor. But his father’s had felt more sad than anything. It was a glimpse into a man whose love for his wife transcended everything—even his own autonomy and sense of self.

But what would he find inside his mother’s rose? Would he go crawling to his father, begging to be turned after witnessing whatever resided inside her hidden memories?

There was no world where he didn’t find out. Even his own System had been guiding him toward this moment. With trembling fingers clutching the rose tight, he accepted the notification to decode the final white rose.

[The White Rose] Quest Complete

4 of 4 White Roses decoded.

Calculating reward…

Rather than wait for the System to finish, he simply entered the rose.

Immediately, things were different than the other three roses. Instead of a single row of memories like he’d come to expect, his mother’s seemed to be categorized into columns. When he approached one of the columns with his mind, he knew intuitively that the dozen memories here were all childhood trauma. He moved to another column that was marked as Fights with James. But the one that drew his eye first, was a column stretching dozens of memories long. As he approached, a message seemed to stab into his brain:

DO NOT CONSUME

He balked at that, instinctively turning away from those specific memories as if there were a Hypnotist compulsion tied into the warning. It took him a moment to realize what had happened and he stubbornly returned to those memories. The warning flashed again and he felt his mind try to steer him away, but he fought the effect, maintaining focus with dogged determination.

After a minute where his mind yo-yo-ed back and forth, the push eased off and he was able to slide into the first memory of the taboo category.

His mother came into view and Terry instantly recognized the palace around her. She was in a familiar hallway, heading toward his grandfather’s throne room. Quiet voices echoed from a nearby door—whispers that should have been lost, but were enhanced by her superhuman hearing.

“I received a Quest this morning.”

The voice was familiar and his mother faltered—both at the speaker and the subject.

“Yes.” Another familiar voice. “I spoke with the Giver and they agreed to pull you into the Quest.”

Terry couldn’t understand how the two of them were able to openly discuss their Quests, let alone collaborate on one. But even more shocking than that, was the name they used and the implication of a being capable of pulling someone into a Quest. And judging by the dawning look of horror on his mother’s face, she was just as shocked as he was.

“But why?” The voice was unmistakable now; his father’s anger was clear in the tone. “War with Topeka serves no purpose!”

“It is not our role to question the Giver,” the Emperor hissed. “Ours is to obey.”

Before Terry could process what he was hearing, his mother was reeling away, her face drawn in open shock. A few stumbling steps led into a full sprint and Terry’s disembodied mind was pulled along as his mother sprinted down the palace halls.

She ran past servants, ghouls, and human guards, stopping for nothing. When she was back in her room, she collapsed against the wall, her breathing frantic, coming in heaving gulps.

Her eyes focused on something before her, wide and terrified.

“No…” she breathed. “I can’t…” Her face shifted, her eyes narrowing now. “I won’t!”

He realized that he was missing something in the exchange—some System message, perhaps.

She shook her head angrily.

“Take it back. Now!”

He shifted his perspective, angling until his view was mirroring his mother’s. She was staring at the wall—at nothing, really.

Her hand waved in front of her with a dismissive swipe.

She was clearing a System notification, he realized.

“Anything else.” She was sobbing now, her voice tight. “Anything in the world. But this…I can’t…I’d never…”

A moment of silence passed and Terry felt his frustration mount as he realized he was missing half of the conversation.

His mother’s eyes hardened now, her lips set tight even as tears cut down her face.

“I will never kill James. Not in a million years. You might as well end me now.”

What…?

His mind felt tossed about, unable to anchor to reality.

Why had she said that? Had her System given her a Quest to kill dad? If so…why?

“You can push notifications as much as you want, I’ll never—” She cut off, her eyes shutting tight, her jaw clenching. A spasm shook her body, her fists balled at her side.

Terry watched with impotent rage as her System tried to shock-collar her into submission.

Moments passed and the spasms finally relented, her breath exhaling violently as the pressure around her lungs eased.

She drew in deep, heaving breaths, her whole body trembling.

“Fuck…you…”

Another spasm took her and she cried out, collapsing to the floor. Nearly a minute passed and Terry felt the memory digging at his heart. Then, another minute passed, and it was too much to watch.

Give in, mom. Just give in…

When her System finally let go, she lay there, shaking uncontrollably, her eyes staring distantly at the ceiling.

He watched her with bated breath, praying she would stop fighting, but knowing she wouldn’t.

More waves took her, but she continued to fight back just as hard, never giving an inch to the creature torturing her. Eventually, it became too much for him and he had to back out of the memory.

In that inky void, he regarded the memories arrayed beneath the DO NOT CONSUME tag. Dozens of them…

He finally understood why his mother had chosen to become his father’s revenant; why she had schemed to end her life.

All to avoid this kill Quest forced upon her by her System.

She must have known that becoming a revenant would countermand her System. It made sense, now that he thought about it. Whipvine, Mesmer—even War Crimes—were all under the Emperor. They had never demonstrated any need or capacity to work on their own Quests.

Death was her safe haven from all the pain being forced upon her.

His mind went blank with rage toward her System. An instinctive part of him knew that they shared different Wakers. He couldn’t imagine the Weaver torturing him over and over again into compliance. That being had been vast, towering, and nearly incomprehensible. But woven through the unquantifiable strength and power of its aura, had been a clear thread of respect. His System had taken the effort to shape itself into a pleasing form, calm his thoughts when it sensed his panic, and coach him through his choices to one that it knew would result in the most good. His Feed Wichita Quest only compounded the evidence that his System wasn’t the same as the cruel being that had tortured his mother into what was basically suicide.

He felt that deep within his bones.

Calm slowly returned as he hung inside the void of her rose. He couldn’t consume anymore of those memories; the sight of his mother in pain physically hurt him. Nor could he face the cheerful atmosphere of his friends outside of the rose.

So, he simply sat inside that void, working through his thoughts.

The suddenness of her flight and the events that followed had distracted him from what had started all this. She’d stumbled upon his father and grandfather openly discussing a Quest—something which shouldn’t have been possible, with the exception of the Singularity Quest.

Not only had they been discussing a Quest, but the Quest itself had been to purposely go to war with Topeka. To what end?

I suppose it helps to know that the war was something forced by grandfather’s System and he wasn’t just a war-hungry bastard. Not much, but it helps…

Which led him to another thought: just how much of the Emperor’s actions were predicated upon his System and his given Quests? Starving Wichita? Killing Flore? Inviting the sanguine to prey on his city?

It didn’t absolve the man; he had made choices, the same way his mother had made hers, despite the consequences. But he also found himself wondering which actions lay with the man and which were at the behest of his System?

The final piece that his mind considered was the name they had used. The Giver had clearly been some sort of moniker. He might have suspected it was some powerful super, but his father had said the Giver had assigned him a Quest.

I always thought we had the same System. Even though the Weaver told me many others existed, I assumed…

Assumed wrong, apparently.

Meaning he didn’t share a System with either parent or the Emperor. Would he be forced into conflict with them more than he already had?

He remembered his current Quest and felt that he had his answer.

His Free Topeka Quest could only put him into further conflict with the Emperor, Wichita, and…his father.

For some reason, that thought didn’t bother him as much as he thought it might. He supposed he had been working against his family since the moment he Awakened. And he couldn’t find fault in the Quest itself; freeing a city from the control of two warring factions sounded noble to him.

He didn’t know how he would do it. Didn’t know how long it would take.

But unlike his parents, his System hadn’t disappointed him yet. And for now, that was good enough for him.