New Iradia Trilogy: Beast

Chapter One.

We slowly drove- He knew no haste

And I had out away

My labor and my lesiure too,

For His Civility-

Emily Dickinson

For the first time in days, it had stopped raining.  There are advantages to rain, of course.  Nowadays, though, there are more disadvantages.  Ever since the Irradiation, rain had becomes more acidic than ever seen.  It burned now, and took a very intensive process to purify for use.  But because of the near-black grey it was, the rain provides excellent cover. 

The world wasn't a good place to live anymore.  Many years ago, in 2018, the country formerly known as "The United States of America" started a nuclear war.  Only when the world's total population reached barely hovering over a billion people was a ceasefire called.  The war could start up again, at any moment, but no one is willing to finally extinguish the human race.

Only, it wasn't exactly the human race anymore.  Once a generation had passed from the ceasefire, what few humans were still recording history noticed a spike in odd... powers in the general population.  The more radiation around a central location, the more powers were present.  As far as the Recorders understand, each of the powers are unique to the individual, made by the radiation being so powerful and so engrained into their lives that it mutated or altered their DNA.  As the years process, these super humans become known as mutants, or more commonly, Alts. 

But in the Great Plains of the Americas were soon the most populated Human strongholds on the continents.  The Indigenous Americans were once defeated to the brink of extinction by European invaders, and their sparse populations were forced onto small, infertile plots of land by executive order.  Based on placements of the warheads that hit the US, and the sparse populations of the plains, it was one of the most unaffected places by the Irradiation.  With less of an Alt population, Humans flocked to the plains for survival.  Great tribes such as the Sioux, Dakota, and Nez Perce rose from less than 1% of the United States's population to nearly 2% of the human population.  Racism still existed, a petty notion clung to for security and reason for grudges, but it was largely eliminated in the will to survive. This could be seen as a plus, but a new concept arose.

Altism.  The idea that the Alt's were not human and should be wiped out.  That idea was quickly cowed once the Alt population nearly was double of the Human's.  But where it remained, it was black and took over the soul to where it was a passion, a way of life.  One man who let this hatred take over was Abaddon Anderson.  In 2075, he founded Abadonian Labs, a corporation dedicated to experimenting on Alts for, as said in an address to the shell of the American Congress, "Kindling a reawakening in the lost and obscure art of science.  Our findings will influence progress and the rebirth of a true civilization, such as the one our grandparents and their parents told us about.  Science, when embraced by all, is the guiding light for rebirth."

But soon Anderson started taking Humans, targeting them on the basis of their genetic code.  Though only rumours exist of what is happening, there are whispers of transformations of humans to Alts.  These Turns, are rarely seen and seen by mostly thought of to be slobbering monsters in a failed attempt at Alt weaponry, are mostly regarded as a bedtime story to scare children into behaving. 

But, on one fateful day in 2090, one of these Turns escaped.  No one outside of the Lab knew, but the Labs around the continent began fortifying, preparing from an attack by the monster known only in her files as "Beast."

But, on one fateful day in 2090, one of these Turns escaped.  No one outside of the Lab knew, but the Labs around the continent began fortifying, preparing from an attack by the monster known only in her files as "Beast."

No one knows where Beast went, but all of the major scientists that were part of her project were moved to the various labs around the continent, most located in what once were major cities, where Radiation levels had decreased around the blast zone enough so that way it was safe enough to work.  The New York lab is the second-largest in the company, next to the main lab, in a remote area of the Plains. 

The New York Lab, NYL, was run by a portly scientist in his mid-sixties.  Dr. Nord had Pig-like black eyes and a pug nose, a beer belly and smelled like old cheese.  He favoured khakis and button ups, all of which had various miscellaneous stains.  His hair, once a mid brown, had faded to a greasy yellow-white.   Overall, a very unpleasant man.  Today, 03-19-2095, he had been ordered by his superior, Mr. Anderson himself, to go to the main lab on the Plains.  For his own safety, he was traveling in a caravan of armored vehicles dos the streets of what was once New York.  In his vehicle, he was traveling with his favorite supply of perogi, filling the car with the smell of lard and garlic.  Through his heavily tinted window, he could see the hollowed out buildings.  Dr. Nord never left the NYL unless he was ordered to by Dr. Anderson, and watching the shells that once stood for human progess, he remembered why.  Everything ouside his odorous vehichle was covered in dust, disgusting and corroded.  Alts roamed the destroyed city, barabaric tribes that raided anything that passed through the alleyways.  Which is why he, the estemed Dr. Nord, always travelled with such heavily fortified gaurd.  He knew that none of the mangy Alts that roamed around here would dare attack him.

But what he couldn't see through the greyed windows was a small, black cylinder peeking out of a blown out window about three hundred yards away and a half-mile ahead of his car.  The cylinder was actually the long barrel of a sniper rifle, being held by a woman lying prone with her eye peering through her scope.  She was wearing a navy jumpsuit, the leggs tucked into knee-high boots.  Her hair was pitch black, and layed out over her back all the way down to her hips.  The sleeves were rolled up on her skinny, tanned arms, revealing long white scars criss-crossing each other.  She had the high, proud cheekbones, almond eyes, and long face of a Sioux, scarred as that face was.  Her temple had a large, round scar, her cheek had a curved scratch.  The most distunguishing mark she had was a large scar over ler left eye that rendered the eye clouded and sightless.  Her seeing eye was pressed to the scope of her rifle, and she stayed totally and completely still, the only movement she allowed herself was blinking and breathing. 

While her eyes stayed trained to alert her to any movement in the alleyway ahead of her, her mind wandered.  In her minds' eye, he saw the face of the man the bullet in he chamber belonged to.  The pig, the pedophile, the false friend.  In the twenty-five years that she had been ailve, there were only two people she wanted dead more.  Well, only one of them was really a "person", even though he was the most monstorous creature she had ever known.  The other person, she wasn't even a person at all.  She was a Beast.  She was the Beast.  She-

Movement.

The woman snapped back to reality.  She saw the front of a truck crawl over the cracked pavement and her finger tightened around the trigger of the rifle.  At long last, this would complete one key step in her long, long mission.  She could hear the shattering glass, see the pink mist of brain matter and blood that would spray out to the left after the .50 caliber bullet peirced his skull.  He was in the third car.  Dr. Nord.  A small breath of a chuckle escaped her lips and she imagined he would have his mouth stuffed full of garlic-y perogi when she took the shot.  Would the food spray out of his mouth when he died?  Or would it just stay put and dribble out slowly?

The second car passed and her heart started to pound in anticipation.  Backseat window, the faint sillouette of the man with the pug nose and bulldog jowls.  The glass wouldn't stand a chance against the power of her gun.  The third car was in full veiw of her, and a grin crossed over her face as the passenger window inched towards the crosshairs on her scope. 

Suddenly the car was hit on the drivers side, making it roll onto its side.  The woman jumped, looking up from her scope to see the damage, fury rising in her like a fire.  She growled and put her eye to the scope again, seeing a teenage boy in all white jump onto the car, his face contorted in rage.  He ripped the car door off and pulled out Dr. Nord by his hair, and the woman could hear the man screaming from her position.  The boy sped off, so fast he was a blur.  The woman just laid there, breathing hard and trying to control her tempter.  That boy, that child...  Oh, he will pay for what he has done. 

Her prey had been taken, and it was taking everything in her power to stop the Beast from being awakened.