Europe

"Run and catch, run and catch; the lamb is caught in the blackberry patch," Deirdre sang, dancing around her dimly lit room. The white light seeped in through a barred window and made everything look pale and dull, but that didn't keep Deirdre from laughing and smiling. Ever since childhood, Deirdre could make fun for herself (with the help of some invisible friends). Now an adult, imaginary friends were few and far between for Deirdre, but her imagination was still as vivid as ever. And the voices always kept her company.

Deirdre lived in a constant haze of confusion that lifted suddenly in short bursts. She knew where she had first lived, she knew she killed bother of her parents, albeit nine years apart, and she knew that she had lived at the psychiatric hospital for ten years. These are the things she talked about when the voices were silent and the haze had gone. However, this would end with the abrupt natterings of what seemed like thousands of voices. She would startle the doctors, nurses, guests, and patients when she would answer their thoughts. Deirdre revelled in the discomfort she caused people, hearing their innermost thoughts. Her victims didn't share the same enjoyment. She scared them. It had to be more than insanity.

Deirdre's song and dance was abruptly interrupted by the opening of her bedroom door and the entrance of her doctor, Gregory Adams. "Good morning, Deirdre."

She stared and said, "it's rude to enter someone's room without knocking, even if you are having a bad morning."

"It's rude to enter someone's mind without asking, Deirdre," Dr. Adams responded indifferently.

Deirdre giggled and sat on the edge of her bed while Dr. Adams pulled up a chair. She liked Dr. Adams. He was the only doctor who didn't search for an alternate explanation as to how she was gathering information from someone else's mind, and she was rather handsome: brown hair, bright eyes, a strong jaw, and lovely muscles. If she weren't crazy, Deirdre was convinced that the two of them could live a happy life.

Once they were both seated and comfortable, Dr. Adams began: "how are you feeling this morning, Deirdre?"

Deirdre shrugged, "quite well, I think."

"I'm told that you didn't want to eat your breakfast. Why is that?

"I'm still quite full from our feast last night," Deirdre replied, rubbing her stomach whilst grinning wide.

"You didn't eat dinner last night. That's very unhealthy, Deirdre."

Deirdre shrugged, still smiling.

"Do you remember what I told you before?"

Deirdre rolled her eyes. "Skipping meals is unhealthy."

Dr. Adams smiled dryly, "yes, I do say that, and so do all of the other orderlies. I know that you simply refuse to eat, and I don't think nagging is going to change that. You're a stubborn girl. However, that's not what I'm talking about."

Deirdre's smile was gone and her eyes were empty. "If I'm not crazy, then why am I here?" Her haze had lifted and she spoke honestly.

"You're hear because you can't control yourself and other people think you're crazy. You could be out there living your life as a normal person if you could stop listening in on people's thoughts."

Deirdre scoffed, "I'm not normal. I know this because I can hear people's thoughts and everyone thinks I'm crazy. I'm safer in here."

"You're nothing but a caged animal in here. I don't know why you can't see that."

Why doesn't she get it? It's so easy to understand.

Dr. Adams looked into Deirdre's eyes.

You're not crazy.

Deirdre began to cry. She was lucid and comfortable when her mind was filled with her thoughts and only her thoughts, but as soon as her mind began receiving others', which she knew was very abnormal, the haze would return, and she would be left to her own devices.

"Come Deirdre," Dr. Adams sighed, holding out his hand for her to take, which she did, sniffling. "Let's go watch some television."

They walked hand-in-hand to the recreation room where several other patients were gathered around the television.

Present Day:

Tyler was already up when Damion came down to the kitchen. It was still morning surprisingly, because Damion usually did not get up before noon. Tyler simply looked over to him and asked where he was going. "I have to do some business with certain people. Out of country stuff. I trust you have enough food?"

That was an understatement. They had enough spare fridges and freezers, all filled with food. Enough for a few months, and a lot of teleports. And that's not including the other houses and penthouses. "Yep. I will be fine. Just make sure to come back in one piece. And maybe with a new laptop too, to go with the other new laptop".

"Just...stay out of trouble. And don't get caught".

There wasn't any lying or secrets between them. Tyler knew Damion's businesses were not all legitimate, and Damion knew what Tyler did in his spare time. Tyler hunted. He hunted down anyone connected to The Evolutionary Dirictive (seewhatididthere? :3), and disposed of them, collecting whatever knowledge he could along the way. The thing was, the ED was successful in two aspects. One was that his powers were enhanced, and he even gained a new one. The second was that he had become a killer, one with no regrets and no mercy. He felt nothing for those he hunted down, and Damion knew this. But Tyler did feel things for other people. Love and happiness for his brother. Sorrow for his parents, who had both mysteriously died in a car crash. A car crash that had classified reports about it by the Government. And, he felt dispair and the wish to help all those abused or targeted by the government.

Tyler took out some of the files he had gotten only hours ago...

A few hours ago...

A scientist had just gotten home, kissing his wife on the lips and giving their two children a hug. "I need to finish looking at some papers upstairs. Let me know when dinner is ready". He walked upstairs, entering his private study, and closed and locked the door. He took out some papers of various people, some targets, some already subjects, before taking out a report about Tyler himself. "Where are you hiding, Tyler".

"Behind you".

Those were the last words he said before Tyler dematerialized his left arm. He screamed in pain. "Please...please. I have a wife. I have children!"

"So did my father. But you killed him, and his wife, and took their son. Tell me, what happens if one of them show a mutation, huh? An eye for an eye. You killed my father, and his wife, so..."

"No, please! Spare my wife! Please!!"

"Oh, so now you are a white knight? Willing to give your life to save another? You didn't save me..."

Tyler disintegrated his right leg. "Maybe I should take away your children's legs actually? Make them cripples...". There was banging on the door at this point, and panicked yelling. "I will have to do something if they see me..."

"What do you want?!"

"Where is the main laboratory? Who was my overseer? Who is the director of the ED?"

"I don't know any of that! I only know your overseer was a man named Riley Harris! Please...just leave..."

"Remember when I said eye for an eye? You destroyed my life, so I will destroy yours..."

Tyler placed his hand on the scientist's chest, and it just seemed to disintegrate. Tyler collected the papers he had and his bag, and teleported away before his wife managed to break in. Tyler had not been merciful to his family, for he had not completely disintegrated the body. The head, and a severed arm and leg remaining.

Back in the present...

Tyler had already refueled himself on food from that trip. He and his brother didn't deny it, they had broken him in that lab. Tyler held no empathy for any target. When he was on a "mission", he was emotionless and cold. And he was goal focused. He looked at the papers again. "So many victims, so many targets. How are these people this cruel and emotionless?"

(Woah. Super long post. Anyways, Tyler is definently not okay. :3)

Tyler heard the oven go off, and took the steak out. It was cut into bite size pieces, to make it easier to eat. He then moved and reviewed the data he had retrieved. "Ophelia Lawrence, Canadian, and famous. Always wanted to go to Canada. Deirdre Blake, Irish, Telepath, institutionalized for hearing voices. She needs to learn to shut them out I guess. Leila Rosabelle Tan, location unknown, constantly moving., ect. ect. ect. Looks like the ED has some targets. Perhaps...perhaps I should warn some of them..."

He put her picture in a facial recognition program, that would also tell him the last recorded place she was at. In the meantime, he put the pieces of steak in bags mean to keep things hot or cold, and then put them into his bag. He put the special cell phone that Damion specialized for him in his pocket. That phone could not be tracked, accessed wirelessly, or used without his 10 digit password.

He then put his laptop into his bag as well, and walked into the center of the kitchen, before...


...appearing in the middle of the street outside of the Art gallery. "All right. Ophelia seems to be the easiest one to locate, who is sane, so lets deal with her first. She is inside somewhere...lets go find her...". Tyler would be unable to teleport further then a few yards for 10 minutes at least, he figured. He made his way past security (through obvious methods), and began looking.

Its only a popular person in a crowd of hundreds. How hard can this be? At least I know what she looks like. Anyways, lets find a Canadian Celebrity. He searched for about 10 minutes before giving up. Torturing, interrogating, and murdering a scientist who is a father? No problem! Trying to find a person in a large crowd? This was apparently his limit.

He ate some more steak, having decided to teleport back, when he heard someone come down the stairs into the hallway. It was Ophelia.

"Hello Ophelia. My name is Tyler, and I am here to warn you that you have been targeted".

Tyler put down a different cell phone. Not his, but an extra one he got. "That cell phone cant be traced. I will make this short. There is a multi-government organization called the ED. They know who you are, and will have sent someone after you. They go after people with mutations, and they know you have one. They will try to trick you or force you to come with them. Don't let them..." Tyler pulled up his sleeve, revealing a massive scar. He raised his shirt somewhat, revealing a different one. "...believe me. I know. If you have any questions, you should ask them now. I wont be around for much longer..."

Edit: Double post. Sorry.

New York had been exactly the vacation Giacomo needed, plenty sightseeing to do, no language barrier and the food was decent enough too. Not like that vacation near Normandy, even when thinking back he still got cold shivers from the snotty texture of the clams, it didn't help that he had no clue what he had ordered untill the plate with shelled snot was placed in from of him. "Never again" He thought. Unfortunatly he had read the books he had taken with him already, the movie was dull and for some reason in Spanish with English subtitles, and well there isn't much of a view out of the window. There was still a long flight ahead of him, they weren't past the ocean yet and they still had to make a landing in the UK before they would go to Italy. It was sort of late, depending on which timezone you looked at, so he decided to try and sleep.

When he woke up the plane was already making it's descend for the landing. His father was leaning over him to look through the window and had accidentally given him an elbow in the stomach. "Look at all those lights, this must be what cities look like from space." His father said. It had been his first time seeing a city from the sky at night, so Giacomo could understand his enthousiasm, and looking through the window it did look pretty he had to admit. Soon after the seat belts light went on and they strapped in. The plane made a harsh landing and the right side wheels where crushed. The airplane uncontrollably skid over the runway and wingclipped one of the airfields fuel tanks. The plane came to a halt with it's right wing half torn off and ripped through a large section of the fuel tank, both the wing and the tank were leaking fuel. As soon as the plane had stopped everyone rushed towards the exit, the evacutaion slide hadn't fully deployed yet as the first passengers jumped out onto the still half inflated slide.

Only a small group of the passengers was out and into safety when fuel from the tank that steadily had been coming closer to the hot engine ignited a massive fireball that englulfed the aircraft and set the fuel in the wing tank on fire. Soon the entire plane was ablaze. Giacomo who had been trown back by the force of the fireball came back to consiousness, surrounded by dead, charred bodies. He saw someone who was still alive slowly crawling out to the hatch, only to stop moving a few feet from him. As if on automatic pilot he stood up, walked to the man and picked up the body that now showed only a faint sign of life in the form of a irregular, raspy and squeaky breathing. He walked to the hatch shielding the man from the flames with his body. The flames were hot, very hot, but even though they brushed by him and should have burned him it didn't hurt. The rubber slide was torn appart by the flames and lay deflated on the ground below, without hessitation Giacomo jumped out of the plane, still holding the man in his hands. He couldn't roll to lower the force from falling, as it would mean dropping the man. As he landed he realised that he should have broken his legs, at the very least one of them, but it didn't hurt. He walked the man to safety and began to perform CPR on him, a small crystal imbedded itself into the mans chest. He looked up to the emergency workers who stood with amazed looks on their face and said: "Help him first, he is barely alive."

Giacomo stood up as medical personell ran towards the two. Two of the medics stopped yelling to him: "You are hurt, stop moving, you are bleeding all over the place! You'll die!" He looked one of them in the eyes and said: "But I don't feel pain, I can't be hurt." He walked back to the plane and managed to get inside through the broken fusalage. Moments later he came back out with another passenger clinging on the last scrap of life and he did the same CPR to him, while mumbling to the medics who were yelling at him: "I am not hurt, I don't feel any pain. He is hurt, help him." He repeated went into the plane and repeated the process another 3 times each time the medics screamed to him that he should stop and that he was badly wounded. Each time he came out the medics saw more of the flesh had been covered by the in crimson blood stained crystals, yet giacomo didn't seem to realise what what happening to his body. Then he came out empty handed, now barely having any skin uncovered by the crystal. He went to the medics who had been screaming at him for the entire time and lay down.

The medics tried to perform first aid, but they had no idea how to deal with those crystal. All the could do was whipe the blood off the crystals, check his breathing and take his pulse from his carotid. One of the medics lifted up his arm, which now was fully covered by the crystals. When Giacomo was this he slowly came to the realisation that something was wrong. "I-Is, is that my arm?" he slowly asked the medic. It took the medic a second to process the question and what it all meant, he didn't say anything just nodded lightly. Then Giacomo slowly passed out.

The next thing he remembers is waking up inside the facility that later was to become his home and world for several years. "What exactly were you planning to do with him! Bring him to the millitary, they'll know what to do with him! They have scientists, prisoner camps, have the pull to bend some laws and given their interrests in creating super soldiers I presume they would be interrested." He heard one voice from the nextdoor room. "No, he is too valueable. The eyewitnesses and our medical reports, they all show that he can stop the death process, at least temporarly." Another replied. "I hate to admit it, but he's right. Asside from stopping five persons death process for several hours, enough to save their lives. He also seems to have some sort of regenerative system that protects him from even the hostile environments of that burning plane. If we hand him over to the millitary, he might die before we find out what makes all this happen." A third said. "Maybe you are right, but that doesn't change the fact that we have no way of containing him here. How are you expecting him to react to being a test subject and us taking all of his freedoms, when the door is right there." The first said again.

"Maybe you could inform me about the situation before you talk about what you are going to do with me!" Giacomo yelled at the door. "It's awake." The first voice shrieked almost as if in panic. "And now you are calling him an it." Said the second voice with much dissaproval as they walked into the room where Giacomo was. "Sorry, for the cold welcome, and the restraints. What information were you talking about?" It was a smallish man with more a small beard and a bald head who carried the third voice. "Well for starters, what happened after the crash? Are my parents okay? What happened to me? And lastly, why the restraints?" Giacomo asked. "The restraints, merely a precaution. We didn't know if you would be voilent on waking up, afterall some of the medics have bruises from trying to stop you from going back to that plane. And of course, we didn't know if moving around further would cause more injuries, so it was a case of better safe than sorry." A tall and slender man with small half moon glasses said with the voice of the first. "After the crash the medics brought the passengers to the hospital, and brought you to us. We then brought you here..." A fat man said with short blone hair and thick glassed glasses with the second voice. "And then restrained you." The tall man interrupted. "Yes, we did. But honestly we don't have a clue what happened to you. I'm guessing this incident was the first time this happened, right? It's a wild guess but maybe it's a mutation that only after a certain ammount of trauma became active to keep the body alive, but beyond that not a clue. It's some kind of life sustaining ability, hence our purely medical interrests. Just think about it, if we could sustain the life of all patients in the hospital, we wouldn't have to hurry to diagnose and treat, which means less mistakes and a massive decrease in deaths in hospitals." The short man said. "Purely medical? Eh, not important. My parents? How are they? And where are they?" "The morgue." The tall man said, followed by a frown by the short one. "Yes, unfortunatly. They did not survive the crash." The fat man said. "Soooo.... How do you want their remains to be handled, burrial, or perhaps cremated?" The tall man said, Giacomo could swear he heard a giggle from him after he said that. Saddened by the fact that his parents didn't survive Giacomo sighed and then said: "I guess that is a cruelty of fate." "If it makes a difference, among the ones you managed to save there were two parents and a child, not related." The short man said. "It should make a difference, but it really doesn't..... What now?" He asked. After which a long debate followed, at the end of which Giacomo decided to stay at the facility and the scientists opted to get a hand from a few governments to make Giacomo Vernazza officially dead.

The fresh air in the city was great, walking outside on the pavement of the busy streets, taking deep exhaust gasses free breaths of air, it's one of the benefits of a green city, no toxic and carcinogenic fumes being sprayed in your face as you walk the streets, no loud engines, just the humming of electrical engines as the accelerate away from a traffic light. It was something he just could not get used to, he was smack in the middle of a busy city yet no frantic honking drivers or roaring cars, he was sure if he had grown up on the countryside he'd be more used to the relative silence compared to an eternal traffic jams that are typical for normal cities.

It was still half an hour walking to the winery, an economist from the mind had a long conversation with one of his foreign colleagues. In which he mentioned Paradise wine and how rare and valuable it was, and while he was among the very few to have gotten a bottle. Rather he had the bottle stored in a winerack in his basement, to him that bottle was too valuable to drink much like a action figure collector wouldn't dare take a figure out of their packaging. The minds economist laughed and mentioned how the winery still had Paradise wine from it's first production year, and every other production year, in the cellar because the wine just didn't sell well within Paradise. They both knew the winery couldn't just sell all those bottles outside Paradise, because that would ruin the exclusive and elusive nature of the wine, but after some discussion they came with an idea for a wine action, featuring just a few bottles all from different years. It wasn't like there haven't been auctions of rare wines before, and if the amount of bottles auctioned was kept low it wouldn't hurt the image of the wine. All nice when it's two economists discussing it to eachother, but now Giacomo had to convince the winery's owner to play along with the idea.

Giacomo was only through the front gate of the winery before the owner came storming out of the winery's factory doors right at Giacomo. "Oh no, you are not going to to tell me the white wine grape harvest failed this cycle. I'm already running low on white grapes for sweet wines and I barely have any of left bottled." the owner said. It had happened before that Giacomo had to tell him that there wouldn't be any white grapes for a few months, and it was about the time for a new harvest to be ready. Giacomo smiled at the owner and said: "Don't worry Walter, I haven't gotten any bad news about the harvest. I'm actually here for your red wine." "Ah, the Paradise wine... Wait you aren't going to tell me that you want to skip the blue grapes cycle for this year are you? Or that the export price has plummeted? Or that there is something wrong with it?" Walter said in obvious distress, his face couldn't have become any paler than it was after hearing Giacomo mention the Paradise wine. It didn't sell many bottles, but those that were sold made as much profit as all of the sweet wines combined over the year, so it was quite understandable that he was so worried. "Like I said, don't worry Walter. I am not here with bad news. Seriously how have you managed this winery all these years without a heart attack from stressing so much. Now, what I am here for. One of the minds economists had a discussion last night, in which the state of the wines on the outside was briefly mentioned. It comes down to this, they want you to sell some of your stockpile in an auction."
Walter emidiatly reacted. "Sorry, I can't do that. If I sell my stockpile I can't fall back on it if a batch fails, and my customers in the city would kill me for that. And how would you send a bottle as a diplomatic gift if I don't have any left?" "I wasn't talking about the whole stockpile, just a few bottles from different years. I know you make three cases of the wine, simply because at any smaller batch you can't guarantee quality, and you sell one case per year to the outside. That means every year you are stuck with two cases of the wine. We both know between politics and the inhabitants there aren't enough buyers to sell those two cases to, even at the reduced price it's sold for in the city. "As I said, I need a stockpile in case I am unable to make a batch or if it fails. It would probably kill the winery if that happened and I have no bottles stockpiled. I think that more than justifies keeping two cases for the city each year."
"True, but do you really need to have 8 cases in reserve, just for that one case where you lose out on one year of production? I mean we are talking about three to six bottles out of that 48 bottle reserve you have, would that really hurt the winery so much in the long run you think? Just think about it, how many bottles of that first production year could there still be out there, probably not even three of the six you sold that year. Now what do you think they would pay for another bottle of that very first year in an auction. It would likely fetch quite the price, even compared to it's normal price. Three of those older bottles will probably be worth as much as the case you want to sell this year. You'd have a lot of extra money in the bank in case something does go wrong, maybe then you'll relax a bit more."
"Perhaps, you know what I'll do it. And I'll give some of the money above the regular price for each bottle to my employees and the vineyard as a bonus. But while you are here, could you get me an extra ration of white grapes and some honey for next year, I am working on a new recipe for a sweeter and smoother wine, as it seems that's what the locals prefer. I know farmland is limited and we need to be carefull with our foodstocks, but I don't need much." "How much is not much?" "Maybe one kilo of honey and five kilo of grapes. It's just a test to see if my recipe makes a good wine, after that we can always see what comes next." Giacomo sighed and then said: "I shouldn't be doing this with city resources, but given the past success of your winemaking, I'll make sure to squeeze in that extra production in somewhere next year. And we'll contact you later about when that auction will be, just don't think too long about which bottles and how many you'd want to auction. Don't look at the production dates, grab them out of the cases untill you feel it is enough and put them in a sepperate case for the auction and set that asside." "I'll do that." Walter said as he walked back to the doors he stormed out of, while Giacomo made his way off the winery's property.