Part 2: Chapter 1: Trust

I did not trust Patrick or Alana. I would have told them all of this if I’d felt confident that their motives were strictly moral. What if they were the ones that wanted to use Stasis for their own means? What if Patrick’s backers were major pharmaceutical companies that feared Stasis was effectively controlling sickness and health by having the ability to re-engineer humans?

What if both the CSNCD and Patrick’s people were merely the third party in all of this? Patrick may very well perceive the CSNCD as a sinister organisation hell bent on social engineering and the CSNCD more than likely viewed Patrick’s network as a potential barrier to the next phase of humanity and were denying people the right to choose what was best for them.

Both parties had been selective with the information that they had fed to me. I held all the cards at this table and I was not willing to join in their game just yet.

Patrick had suggested a way out of my Stasis cycle with a solution that was now formulating in my head. It was something that I had thought hopeless until my last ditch plan to trap the unknown visitors in Stasis.

“We are nearing Gamla stan,” said Patrick, “The transition will take place about 5 minutes. We will park this car in the transition zone and leave you alone.”

I nodded at this slightly unexpected turn of events. “Don’t worry, we will be monitoring the car at all times.”

I interpreted this as meaning that we had been tracked here somehow. Patrick and Alana exited the car and left me to await my transition. I sat there with a nervous adrenalin that I was not accustomed to. Something was wrong with this whole situation. It felt so staged and convenient. Perhaps they knew what I had done inside of Stasis all along and they were setting me up for a return to my destruction.

I didn’t have to think about this for long at all. I was leaving. I would attempt to return to the CSNCD and garner answers from them. I had 48 hours to get back to London and I knew where a private jet was located.

I attempted to open the door.

It was locked.

This was their plan all along. I’d fallen for their deceit from the moment Alana had approached me in Bilbao. I tried to break the windows, but the glass must have been bulletproof. I could feel a rage forming inside me, a burning fire storm of pure anger. Something was happening deep inside me that I could not control. It felt like the start of a transition, yet was completely different at the same time. It was like I was transforming, yet there were no external changes. The fire continued to burn stronger. I tried to fight it, but something told me to fight my captivity. I hit out at the nearest window. Instead of showing no signs of breaking under my puny punches a minute or so earlier, it shattered. I was shocked at my own strength. I climbed through the space that I’d created and got out of the car. I heard a click underneath the car and instantly went into a sprint beyond a speed that humans are generally capable of.

Seconds later, the car exploded.

My recently discovered ability had enabled me to move far enough away from the scene of carnage. A brief glance was all I could afford. That over, I pressed on. I had to get back to the airfield before Patrick and his duplicitous cohort did.

I found that I could only sprint in short bursts of ten to fifteen seconds. This was not adequate. I was doubting that Patrick had waited around to see his plan come to fruition. Likewise, I did not imagine that he was here for the culture. I had not seen them get into another vehicle, so I was at a severe disadvantage.

I was once again reduced the car theft, though this time I could not be patient. I had to take the first suitable option that I came across. And by suitable, I meant fast.

I had always had a strong dislike of Porsches, but at a time like this I could not afford to let my aesthetic issues ebb away at my tight schedule. As the car approached the red light, I made my move. I tapped on the driver’s side window and hoped that the driver would wind it down rather than ignore me.

I was in luck, the window came down. Still feeling that my strength was far over regular capacity, I reached in, unlocked the door and grabbed hold of the driver and yanked him out. The shock on his face at the speed of my movements ensured that there was no struggle. I was away before a protest could even register.

I focussed all my attention on navigating through the traffic at maximum speed. My brain was mapping out gaps in the traffic and anticipating pre-emptive movements that I might have to make should other vehicles suddenly deviate from their expected path.

To an onlooker overhead, the path I took through the other cars would appear to have been programmed. I responded instantly to commands that had barely even registered as a synapse. They would not have even considered that the person behind the wheel was driving a car for the first time. I just knew how to drive as soon as I had sat down in the driver’s seat.

I was hoping that this would ring true if the jet was still at the airfield. I was positive that I really should avoid hijacking a plane at this stage. I followed the route that had been taken a few hours earlier and eventually arrived at the airfield.

I drove onto the runway and was relieved to see that the jet was still parked on the runway with the door open and steps down. I was not so relieved to see that it was being guarded by two armed guards, as one theory I was very reluctant to test right now was whether I was bulletproof.

I revved the engine. I had glimpsed an opportunity that required the super strength that I had experienced earlier rather than the processing power of my brain. I tapped into this strength and started to feel the physical change inside of me.

Rather than head straight to the jet, I first needed to make a small alteration to the Porsche. I drove at speed to the hangar entrance and opened the driver’s side door at the last second. It ripped from the hinges in a shower of sparks and shattered glass.

I manoeuvred the car back to where I had been seconds earlier, came to a halt. So far the guards had yet to react to my actions, more than likely not wanting to waste their bullets from distance.

I revved the engine again. It was a one shot stunt that was practically an elaborate suicide attempt. I accelerated and deviated towards the left of the jet. Driving in a parabola, I approached the jet. This is when the shooting started. My energy was channelled into my actions. The bullets rained in, the windscreen was obliterated before my eyes, but my plan was already in action. I put the car into a spin far enough from the jet so that the resultant crash would not damage it.

When the open door was about to face the door of the plane, I rolled out. A moment later the car flipped. I was straight on my feet and dashed towards the steps of the jet as more shots were fired in my direction. I was inside and had the steps up within seconds. My brain had already taken full control over my body from the super strength before I had entered the cockpit. I instantly knew how to take control of the jet and more importantly, how to fly it.

In under a minute since rolling from the Porsche under a hail of bullets, I was in the air. It was only then that the pain of a bullet wound registered in my brain.

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