Titan Thomas Read online

  Titan Thomas

  By Travis Loveday

  Copyright 2017 Travis Loveday. All Rights Reserved.

  Email: [email protected]

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Cover design by James Wooten.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1: Getting Woke

  Chapter 2: Stranger Danger

  Chapter 3: Conspiracy Theories

  Chapter 4: The Big Jerk

  Chapter 5: Resistance HQ

  Chapter 6: Facing Fears

  Chapter 7: Aggressive Investigation

  Chapter 8: Hero Training

  Chapter 9: It’s Dangerous to Go Alone

  Chapter 10: Most Wanted

  Chapter 11: Planning Stage

  Chapter 12: Entertaining the Guests

  Chapter 13: Rescue

  Chapter 14: Showdown

  Chapter 15: Showdown Part Deux

  Chapter 16: Truth

  Chapter 17: Be Prepared

  Chapter 18: The Return of the Unrivaled

  Chapter 19: Old Friends

  Chapter 20: Code Names

  Chapter 21: New Recruits

  Chapter 22: It’s a Trap

  Chapter 23: The Truth is Revealed

  Chapter 24: Family Reunion

  Chapter 25: Inferiors Strike Back

  Chapter 26: In Captivity

  Chapter 27: The Final Battle

  Chapter 28: A New World

  Chapter 29: New Faces

  Chapter 30: Hostile Territory

  Chapter 31: First Contact

  Chapter 32: New Enemy

  Chapter 33: Epidemic

  Chapter 34: Prisoner

  Chapter 35: Experimental Subjects

  Chapter 36: Communication

  Chapter 37: The Great Escape

  Chapter 38: Homecoming

  Chapter 39: Guerilla Warfare

  Chapter 40: Unexpected Allies

  Chapter 41: Mothership

  Chapter 42: A New World Part Deux

  Acknowledgments

  Part One

  Chapter 1: Getting Woke

  When I found a hard disc like shape in my right ankle I went to the doctor. He said it was just a cyst and nothing to worry about unless it started causing me problems. I grew up reading comic books (Spider-man and the X-Men were my favorites), so a couple of years later when my right foot had started going slightly numb, I told my wife Lauren, “Hey, I think that mutant power inhibiting chip they put in me is messing up my foot!”

  She’s a physical therapist, so instead of being amused, she took a more clinical approach. “The cyst is probably impinging on the nerve and making your foot go numb. You need to go to the doctor and get it removed.”

  My wife and I met on a blind date years ago that I refused to go on, until my best friend forced me to go. We had a lot in common. We were both twenty-eight years old, both only children, and both had lost our parents in our early twenties. My mother died of breast cancer and my dad of a heart attack soon after. Lauren’s parents died in a car accident. She is intelligent and beautiful, with dirty blonde curly hair and the bluest eyes I have ever seen. How I ever ended up with her, being a balding dirty blond with a beer gut even though I don’t drink alcohol at all, I will never know. She is definitely leading lady material, and I am no leading man; more like the goofy, comic relief sidekick. And she is a great cook. When you combine that with my work at home IT job, it makes getting rid of this non-beer belly a challenge.

  I replied to her advice, “And when they take it out, my powers will activate. I can’t wait.”

  I was trying to joke around, because I hate doctors and the thought of getting cut to have something removed makes me queasy. I watched ER with my hand up over the screen during scenes when they were working on people, knowing it wasn’t real. When I walked into the family room one day and Lauren was watching an elbow replacement on the Surgery Channel, I almost passed out.

  I prayed that God would get me through this. I am a Christian, but not a really good one. Lauren calls me a cussing Christian. I went to the doctor and sweated it out as the doctor gave me a local anesthetic and removed the cyst. My foot stopped going numb, and no powers ever activated. Oh well, back to real life.

  The years went by, and Lauren and I had two kids. Christopher was a blessing, a blond haired little angel. He got my hazel eyes (isn’t that how you describe the color of eyes that have no real color?) and my love of video games. He is a typical “tween” that wants to be a YouTube star someday. A couple years later, his little sister Catherine came along. She was also a blonde who got her mother’s beautiful blue eyes and love for playing sports. I like to watch sports, especially football (my username on almost any online site is TitanThomas1973 after all), but Lauren actually played soccer and softball in high school. I was never a jock. Lauren and Catherine are not what you would call ‘girly girls’. Catherine loves basketball and martial arts and loves to read, both fiction and history. Both children are very intelligent. I bribe them for straight A’s in school.

  Since Lauren and I had lost our families, we were thankful to have made another family together. I was also sure to impart to my children my love for comic book movies. They were all the rage, and Marvel was actually making an Avengers movie. I couldn’t believe it. The kids and I were thrilled. Then at a normal dental checkup, the dentist found something weird in my X-ray. It was some kind of abnormality in the left side of my jaw bone. I have always been what some people would call a pessimist. I would argue that I am a realist. It doesn’t matter if the glass is half full or half empty, someone will have to wash it and it will probably be me.

  So, I immediately thought, “Oh great, I have cancer and I will die before I ever see the Avengers movie.”

  Lauren was the voice of reason, as always. “It’s probably just a cyst or something. Don’t worry about it until we know what we are dealing with.”

  I said, “You’re right. It’s probably just another mutant power inhibiting chip that my body is rejecting. Now I will finally get my super powers when they remove it.”

  We prayed about my latest health scare and I went to the doctor about it. I must have been really excited for the Avengers movie, because Lauren told me that was all I was talking about while the oral surgeon was putting me to sleep to remove the growth in my jaw.

  “You better not kill me before I see the Avengers”, I allegedly said under the effects of anesthesia.

  It turns out that it wasn’t cancer, just an odontogenic keratocyst (don’t Google it, it’s gross), and I still had no super powers. I survived to see the Avengers nine times in the theater. I saw it once with Lauren and the kids, and then several times with Christopher and Catherine or just Christopher or just Catherine. I would go with whichever child I could convince to say they wanted to go again. We saw all the other great comic book movies that have come and gone as well. But now, the cyst has come back, and I sit here in the waiting room with Lauren as the oral surgeon is about to remove it again. With the exception of the receptionist, we are the only people there.

  “I can’t believe there aren’t more patients for such a big city as Nashville” I said to the receptionist as I was signing in.

  The receptionist is a new one. She is young, probably in her mid-twenties, and attractive. I noticed her bright pink nail polish as she took the sign in clipboard from me.

  She replied, “Oh sugar, this is our last day before we take a couple weeks of vacation. You are our only appointment. You get the VIP treatment today.”

  We have been waiting for 20 minutes. I hope the kids are having fun at the babysitter’s. They are out of school for Fall Break, but it is a warm day for October, so they are probably playing outside.

  “Alright, for sure this time I am getting my powers”, I say nervously,

  Lauren rolls her eyes. “You are going to be fine, you goober”, she says, and goes back to looking at her smart phone.

  “Thomas Wesson”, the receptionist calls. “The doctor is ready for you.”

  I walk down the hall to the operating room with the doctor and sit in the dental chair. The room has a white floor and tan walls, with a couple of landscape paintings purchased from some gallery that specializes in office wall art. The too familiar antiseptic smell of the room makes me nervous.

  “Please Lord, don’t take me yet”, I silently pray.

  The doctor and his assistant start the IV. I start to get the giggles from the anesthesia, as I always do, then shortly, everything goes black.

  I feel a buzzing in my brain.

  “How many chips have they pulled out of this guy?” I hear someone say, but not really with my ears. It is more like the voice is coming from inside my head.

  I hear a different voice in my mind, “This is the third. Cysts keep growing around them. After they removed the two they put in all the Unrivaled as children, they implanted another, assuming it was a bad batch of chips. Now, they aren’t taking any chances.”

  “Why didn’t we kill him before removing the chip? What if his powers kick in?” the first voice asks.

  The second voice answers, “They want them to kick in so they can get a sample of his blood with the activated neurotransmitter. It may be a unique power that the Leadership Council doesn’t yet have in their database. Once we get that, then we can kill him.
Don’t worry. The anesthesia will keep him asleep. We are totally safe.”

  What? They want to kill me? Why? What the hell is going on?

  The second voice speaks again, “The blood is testing positive for active Unrivaled neurotransmitter markers. Go ahead and administer the potassium chloride. The lab will do more tests to nail down what abilities this guy would have had. I will go tell his wife that he had a bad reaction to the anesthesia, and unfortunately, we lost him.”

  My eyes pop open and I scream “NO!”

  The doctor and assistant fly back from the chair, slam against the wall and fall unconscious. I am still groggy from the anesthesia and a little unsure if I am dreaming or if this is really happening. I feel a buzzing in my brain again, and suddenly, I see myself on a video screen. I hear thoughts “Oh darn, he woke up before they could terminate him.”

  I watch as a feminine hand with bright pink painted fingernails pushes a button under a desk. I realize I am inside the mind of the receptionist. She looks up and a police officer comes in and says to Lauren, “Ma’am, there has been an accident at your children’s babysitter. The kids are OK but I need you to come with me right away.”

  “But, my husband is in surgery”, Lauren says.

  “We will leave an officer here to bring him when he wakes up.”, the policeman replies. I see the cop take Lauren by the arm and lead her reluctantly out the door.

  The receptionist turns and I see through her eyes four men come down the hall toward my operating room. The men are dressed like some kind of counter terrorist unit. All black body armor with black rifles and helmets. The receptionist says “Be careful, he seems to have TK powers.”

  I am back in my own mind and see the unconscious doctor and assistant on the floor to each side of my chair. The brain buzz comes back and I hear in my mind, “We go on three. ONE, TWO….”

  I scream “NO!” again and throw my hand out toward the door. The door flies out into the hallway, and I see two of the soldiers down and out underneath it. The other two black clad men come in one after the other with their guns aimed right at me. I throw both hands into the air as I yell, “Don’t shoot!”

  Both of the guys fly up and crush the foam ceiling tiles above them then fall violently back onto the ground. They are now unconscious too. Chunks of broken foam float down from the ceiling, but I seem to be safe for the moment. As I look around I notice that blood is dripping out of my mouth all over my t-shirt with the Giant Size X-Men #1 cover art. Of course, why would they bother sewing up my gum where they removed the cyst, they were just going to kill me. I grab some gauze pads off the table next to my chair and stuff them in my mouth, then begin to stumble toward the door.

  Brain buzz. I am back in the receptionist’s mind. She picks up a handheld radio and says, “Team One is down, repeat Team One is down. Target is an extremely powerful telekinetic. Send backup now.”

  I am back in my head again. I stumble down the hallway and into the waiting area. I look at the receptionist and hear her thoughts in my mind as my brain buzzes slightly. “Please don’t kill me, please don’t kill me, please don’t kill me.”

  She turns and looks toward the hallway behind me, and I instinctively dive, or to more accurately describe it tumble, over the couch in the waiting area as a three round burst of rifle fire hits the wall in line with where I was just standing. Another piece of office wall art is destroyed by the gunfire.

  Big brain buzz and I am inside one of the new operators’ heads. He is holding his gun pointed toward the couch that is serving as my cover. I see through his eyes as the receptionist exits the waiting area in front of the new guy. I am now convinced that this is real, and they want me dead. Since I can see what these people are seeing, I wonder if I can control them in some way. I think about making the soldier whose mind I am in look around. At first, he shakes his head quickly, like a fly had flown around his face. He was resisting me, but I try again, and it works. I see two other armed men on the other side of the entrance to the waiting room. I turn my new puppet to look behind him to see one more soldier. It looks like I am facing another four man team. “Two Alpha, what’s the plan?” one of the team members across the entrance asks. I aim the puppet’s gun at those two and fire a three round burst into each man’s face.

  Suddenly I am back in my own head. I peek over the couch to see my puppet has been shot in the back of the head. The fourth and final soldier is leaning around the corner with a strange light shining from underneath his helmet. I hear him say, “This is Team Two Delta, Team Two Alpha, Beta, and Gamma are down. Target is also demonstrating mind control ability. Activate your telepathic jammers and send more backup now.”

  I try to take control of Two Delta, but I can’t. With my brain buzzing, I try to project into his mind, but some kind of static kicks me back into my own. He fires a three round burst just as I duck back behind the couch. As I cover my head I see a hand grenade land in the chair across from the couch. Instinctively, I think about throwing the grenade back at the soldier, when it flies back over the couch all on its own.

  There is an ear splitting boom, and I feel a burning pain in the back of my left shoulder. With my ears ringing, I reach around and feel a small piece of shrapnel in the meat of my shoulder. I get up to see that the grenade had ended up back in the hallway and all of Team Two is now dead. The fragmentation grenade did a lot more damage to Two Delta than it did me. The couch turned out to be better cover than I thought it would be. A fire alarm is blaring and water is showering from the sprinkler system in the office. I run out the door and join a group of people evacuating the building. As we get to the bottom of the four flights of stairs, I hear shouting from above. I look up to see the first four black clad soldiers forcing their way through the crowded stairs toward me. Team One must have recovered. I don’t know what is happening, but I know I have to get out of here and then find my family. As I run toward my truck in the parking lot, a Geek Squad van pulls to a stop right in front of me. The door slides open and I see a guy with black glasses and a black beard wearing a contraption on his head. It reminds me of the thing Doc Brown was wearing when Marty first found him in the 1950s in Back to the Future.

  The man says, “Get in.” As I stand with my mouth open in amazement, he and another man in the van wearing an identical device grab and pull me into the vehicle. The van begins to speed away.

  Chapter 2: Stranger Danger

  My sister and I are hanging out at the babysitter’s house while my mom takes my dad to get his ‘mutant inhibitor chip’ removed for the third time. He can be so embarrassing sometimes. We are playing outside with Nerf guns while Mrs. Jackson fixes lunch. I am pretending to be Deadpool and Catherine is Black Widow. Nerf guns aren’t as fun as the real thing. I have done target shooting with a rifle with my dad several times before. He said I was really good for an eleven year old and called me Deadeye.

  Mrs. Jackson’s house is fun to play at. It is a large red brick rancher style house in the middle of a huge field and the neighbors are so far away you can barely see their houses. Mr. Jackson used to raise horses, but when he died, Mrs. Jackson sold all the horses, but couldn’t bring herself to sell the house and property. There is plenty of room to run around.

  Mrs. Jackson is a great babysitter. She is a really good cook, almost as good as my mom. She also lets us watch YouTube videos on her big screen TV. She even likes Good Mythical Morning. She almost always wears an apron when we are here. Dad says she reminds him of Pearl the housekeeper on Diff’rent Strokes. I had no idea who that was, so I Googled her and found out the actress also did the voice of Mrs. Puff on SpongeBob. So now, I can’t look at Mrs. Jackson without thinking of Mrs. Puff.

  “Christopher, Catherine! It’s time for lunch!” Mrs. Jackson calls over the distant sound of one of the neighbors running their lawn mower.

  Catherine and I start heading in from the back yard when we see a black Chevy SUV pull into the driveway. We always like to hide as a joke when people that we don’t know come to the house because of ‘Stranger Danger’, so we crouch down behind the bushes in the side yard. Two men in black suits, one over six feet tall and the other about five and a half feet tall, get out of the SUV and walk up to Mrs. Jackson who is standing on the front porch. The short guy is balding (worse than my dad) and has black hair. He has a big nose and is pretty ugly. I immediately think of him as Shorty. The bigger one is blond and definitely a leading man type. Catherine would probably say he was cute. I would call him the Big Guy.