EVO Universe 1: The First (16 page)

She walked the streets of Houston with no real objective at first other than to avoid familiar digs she use to go to, which was pretty easy because when she neared a place, a memory would pop out of nowhere, and she would just turn right around. Houston was big, but she had forged a life there, and it was not going to let her forget it. Going to “friends” was out of the question, other than Charles everyone else thought she was dead to rights guilty, and she was sure they would not handle the miraculous change within her as easily as Charles did. All of her family was back East in New York, contacting them in anyway shape or form would most likely alert the local and Federal authorities to her location. For now aside from Charles, she was alone and on her own.

Instead of wondering around aimlessly until he got out of work, which would heighten the chance of either running into someone that might remember her despite her appearance or the FBI, the police or whoever else might be looking for her. She decided to go to the one place, where she was sure she did not have a memory yet.

Houston National Cemetery, she could not attend the funeral, she made sure to buy some flowers on the way. He would never have admitted it, but he liked sunflowers and lilacs. The caretaker was nice enough to point her in the right direction. She took her time getting there; as she neared it, her heart fell deep into the pit of her stomach and never came back out.

“REST IN PEACE FIRST LIEUTENANT ROBERT OLIVER MATHESON…LOVING BROTHER…WONDERFUL SON…YOU WILL BE GREATLY MISSED” April 1, 1973 – June 26, 2005. Seven years of their life together, erased with the words on that tombstone.

Despite the justification, it hurt her to the point she could not hold back the tears. She knelt down and ran her hands against the tombstone; someone had been there maintaining it, probably Mrs. Matheson. She gently laid the flowers down; and kissed the tombstone. It did not help as she broke down crying; it was not fair, she should have been there, she should have been able to see his face before they laid him into the ground.

Anger and pain ravaged her heart, so many things robbed from her, and she did not know why. She raised her fist wanting to hit the tombstone, but remembered she would probably smash it to bits.

She let out a screaming sob frustrated that she could not even do that. All she could do was clutch her belly, rest her head against the cold of the tombstone, and ride it out.

She must have sat there for hours; eventually the caretaker stopped by and noticed her.

“You okay Miss?” he asked out of concern.

She came to her senses wiping her eyes, and got up dusting herself off.

“I’m fine, thank you” she threw on a fake smile, praying he did not notice her from some old news footage.

The caretaker, a nice slender old man with silver horn rimmed hair adjusted his glasses as he looked at the grave.

“I remember this young man,” he said wagging his finger, “Damn shame what happened to him. I heard his wife got what she deserved.”

“Yeah, I heard too,” she huffed looking off in a different direction. It would have almost been comical if it did not drive the dagger deeper.

“Can I ask how you know him?” the inquisitive old caretaker asked, no doubt making conversation because he had a fairly lonely and creepy job.

“He was my best friend,” she sighed, “from college.”

“Sorry for your loss,” he said somberly.

“Thank you,” she smiled, “Take care of yourself.”

She walked away knowing that this was another place she would never return to.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Back at Charles Hampton’s house she did not bother tell him where she actually went. It was just another memory she had to lock away. She was in half a daze as Charles enthusiastically went over his findings that day. He ranted on for about half an hour until he realized she looked disinterested in what he was saying.

“Soph? Sophia? You okay?” he asked a little hurt she was ignoring him.

“Yeah, you said you never saw anything like this in your life, there was enough adrenaline in my blood to kill fifty men or the equivalent of twenty full grown bulls, and I have a mutated DNA with a quadruple Helix.” She recited effortlessly, “Please…continue.”

His hurt look turned to one of annoyance, having a superhuman memory also made her a smartass, “As I was saying, the blood cells you gave me are very much alive and healthy.”

Sophia gave him the “That’s obvious” look based on the fact that they had already covered the blood not coagulating after being exposed to the elements for days a half hour ago.

“Yeah I know we covered that…I also discovered that,” getting to his point, “You also don’t have any white blood cells or platelets.”

Sophia Dennison knit her brows in confusion as she finally got into the conversation now switching to doctor mode herself, “Then how am I fighting off…”

“Diseases and infections?” Charles finished her sentence, “I wanted to find out as well…so I introduced a common cold virus to the blood cells. Those cells wiped out the virus in a matter of seconds with extreme prejudice. For most of the day I was like that kid that wanted to find out what else we could stuff down the toilet bowl before it clogged up…I introduced almost every strain of virus to your blood including Ebola and H.I.V…and your cells destroyed them all.”

“Great…I’m Wolverine,” remembering the name because she went to watch the first movie with Charles, she remembered liking Halle Berry’s character, and getting annoyed when Charles started complaining in the middle of the movie about the violation of some of the source material.

“No…you’re better than him,” he explained, “I decided to do it in reverse. I dropped one drop of your blood in a test tube of blood both infected with the H.I.V and the Ebola virus combined…you blood wiped out everything while replicating itself, both strains and the infected blood…it did it until it was the only thing left in the vial.”

“So you’re telling me I have the cure for every disease known to man in my blood; and I’m guessing that my red cells are not only fighting off diseases. They’re also responsible for repairing my body at such a rapid rate now that I no longer need platelets…i.e. why there’s no scar tissue when I heal,” she was now in full doctor mode forgetting about this morning, “It still doesn’t explain how my body recognizes a threat and then instantly changes to adapt to it.”

“I’ve been thinking about the events of what happened during your execution and escape,” Charles said hesitantly, “and I have a theory I’d like to try on you.”

Charles pulled out a large gun like spray canister from a shopping bag labeled “Carter’s County”, to which Sophia knitted her brow not so sure she wanted to be Charles’s guinea pig.

“What is that?” she coiled back in her stool seat.

“Bear mace,” he swallowed hard, “Pleases…don’t kill me.”

“What…?,” before she could ask what the hell he’s planning, Charles immediately sprayed her in the face with a full blast of mace, instantly Sophia screamed in sheer agonizing pain, something she hadn’t felt since leaving the prison. Immediately she sprung to her feet knocking over the stool she sat on and sledgehammers half of the breakfast nook right off. Hampton dived for cover to avoid one of Sophia’s powerful swipes.

“What…the…?!” she screamed.

“Just give it a second!” Charles begged cutting her off before she dropped the F-bomb.

“Give it a second?! You stupid son of a bitch!” she roared, “In a second I’m gonna break your neck once I can…”

Instantly Sophia’s eyes began to fill up with white foam, the foam then turned into liquid form running not just from her eyes, but from her nose as well, she then drew back and hocked up a massive spit of thick yellow stuff at Hampton’s feet making him coil back disgusted. As she wiped her face with the sleeve of her jacket, she realized how quickly the pain had left her and that she could see clearly again. Without hesitation, Hampton hit her with another blast of the bear mace, aside from the irritation of getting wet this time it had no effect on her as it did before.

“You’re gonna keep going till I make you eat that right?” she said baring her teeth.

Charles quickly stopped tossing the can far away handing her a kitchen towel which she snatched from him to wipe her face, “Sorry…really sorry…but this proves my theory…you’re not a Marvel…you’re a DC.”

“What?” she asked again confused not understanding his comic book jargon.

“Fanboy reference…actually you’re kind of both since you have,” Charles got excited about to go into an explanation.

Sophia put a hand up stopping him, “Charlie…I don’t care.”

“Right”, he coughed getting back to business, “Basically your body not only makes you immune to all forms of diseases and gives you extremely hyper regenerative healing. It improves and builds defenses ensuring that you can’t be physically hurt the same way again…during the execution they put you to sleep, stopped you from breathing, then they stopped your heart…but brain activity usually continues for a couple of minutes.”

“Fighting to stay alive,” she remembered.

“This means the source of this defense mechanism making changes to your body is most likely your brain. It probably has developed some higher independent function commanding your body to build defenses when attacked; it’s the most logical theory. My guess is the Sodium thiopental knocked you out because it wasn’t an initial detrimental threat to your system. You would have probably woke up after the pancuronium bromide, but then you got hit with the potassium chloride,” he hypothesized.

“This “higher independent function” knew it was under attack and determined that a massive adrenaline rush would jumpstart your heart and lungs restoring oxygen and nutrient to the brain while it dealt with the toxins with you.” Charles went onto explain with some excitement, “I’m also guessing your cells have the ability to analyze foreign threats to your system and send data to your brain which dictates how best to handle the threat. Again, this is all theory, when you got shot up; just as if it would a virus, the cells probably analyzed the slugs still within you. This higher independent function probably determined that the best way to prevent injury like this again after your cells repaired you was to increase the density of your skin to repel bullets in the future. I wouldn’t be shocked if it took some of the properties of those slugs and just added it to your genetic code in order to do it; naturally it would have to do it to the rest of your body like your bones, muscles, and other organs for you to properly function, which is why you increased in weight…”

Sophia shot him another dirty look, Charles remembered how she almost fell out when she found out she now weighed four hundred and eighty-seven pounds due to the density increase. Superhuman or not a woman’s weight was still dangerous territory to cross.

“Which is why…you have great superhuman strength among other things”, he swallowed hard trying to let her see the brighter side while making a mental note never to bring up her weight again.

“And it kind of makes sense, physically due to exercise and nutrition we’re far more superior than our ancestors thousands of years ago…our bodies do have chemicals and properties inside of us to take us to a superhuman state…we see it every day in athletes, gifted people, and hormonal imbalances like gigantism. Your body just has the ability to do it without the negative side effects that can kill you. It also does it on a
maximum
level. Pain is definitely one of your triggers…I didn’t know to what magnitude so I went with bear mace just to be sure,” Charles explained with a big smile trying to find the humor in blasting his best friend with mace.

Sophia glared at him not finding the joke, making Charles step back a bit taking another mental note to stop putting his foot in his mouth around her.

She decided to change the subject before she hurt him, “So if I hadn’t been executed or shot.”

“You would be well…you…without your additional abilities,” was his hypothesis, “But with a very…very long lifespan…you’d probably outlive everyone on this planet...at your current stage I’d say you definitely will…I don’t even think you’ll even age at this point.”

Sophia walked over and sat down in Charles’s sofa with a blank look on her face and an unimaginable weight in her eyes. An apparent misconception that everyone would be thrilled with the prospect of living forever, not that she did not fear dying, but the possibility of living forever just was not normal. Charles somberly walked over sitting on the arm of his lounge chair to be there for his friend.

“Charlie…the only thing I can think of that can do this is a virus…but I don’t possibly see how I was infected,” she said without looking up.

Charles had a face as if he wanted to say something, he had an idea of how she was infected, but he decided not to go there, as she clearly was not in a good place.

“It’s not like you’d know,” Charles got up sitting on the arm of the sofa getting closer to her, "This isn’t the type of virus that makes you sick…you can’t get sick…you’re like a female David Dunn.”

Sophia narrowed her eyes looking up as she caught his comment, “That’s another fan boy reference?”

“Uh…yeah…point is,” Charles hesitated choosing his words carefully, “I think you’re skating over the possible origin of this entire situation…all of this leads back to one night and one obvious person that this is all about.”