Supercide, Chapter 2

• Note: This is a chapter from my entry for NaNoWriMo. It's a first draft and thus editing is minimal, at best. Criticism is welcome, but understand no serious editing efforts will take place on this story until after November. I'm just posting this as is so I still have some content to post while trying to finish the challenge.

---

The more damage assessment Simon did, the more he realized the true extent of Ben’s plans. Ben hadn’t been satisfied with just taking the completed serums. He had taken the unstable ones as well. That presented multiple problems.

The physical prototypes were the main form of measured progress with the unstable ones. Recreating those to continue testing was going to take even longer, so he would need to give up on pursuing those again until he had his standard body of work reestablished. He had been so very close to the super intelligence serum, too. If that one had been closer to completion and he still had it, he could refabricate all the serums in a single day rather than meticulously over a course of months.

Running a hand through his hair as he poured through his documents, he refocused on what he had to prove his life’s work. As he had been expecting, his phone rang and he grabbed it only midway through it’s first ring.

“Yeah?”

The man on the other end was silent in disbelief before responding to such a blunt greeting. “...Yeah? YEAH??? Are you even remotely aware of what is happening in the news?”

“Yeah, Ben used his access to rob me blind. Already submitted a police report, but I’m currently gathering evidence. He’s in violation of a million agreements right now, most obviously the non-disclosure agreement. We can lawyer up and hit him with-”

“DO YOU THINK ANY OF THAT MATTERS???”

“...well, it’s the law. But I do understand the point I know you are about to make.”

“Precisely. He let the cat out of the bag. Our controversial project is out in the public square, and everyone is going to be asking questions. Has it occurred to you that we had fought very hard against the bigwigs to NOT have your work classified as biological weapon research? Government agents, wealthy bureacrats and lobbyists, competitors… at any time this could have blown up in our face and gotten us all canned. And what do you know? It looks like it did blow up in our face. Weapon research of this scale is not going to look very good for a company that also makes pain relievers and depression medication.”

“It’s not a weapon. Though… yeah, I guess most of them have military potential. Never really looked at them that way.”

“…you aren’t making your case very well, you know.”

Simon laughed weakly. “Do I really need to prove myself to you? You helped fund me for years. We can sort this out, just-”

“No. I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but I just left a meeting with those same bigwigs. We are enacting the denial clause.”

“What? No! That’s-”

“We had it in the contract for a reason. We are cutting all ties with you and your work. Don’t go public with any of our dealings with you, or we will sue for everything you have.”

The rest of the morning was similar. None of his business partners wanted to be part of this without having control over the marketing and monetization. They knew what he did.

Ben was going to ruin everything, and there was nothing that could be done now.

---

Simon contacted his usual research partners and online collaborators. Most had no idea what he had been working on, but they knew he was an independent researcher of some repute. He tried to explain to some of them that he had created the serums being now displayed on international news, but no one really believed him. Apparently, he was not along in making such claims.

The moment the news had hit, others started claiming the same thing. They, just as Simon had done, released documents trying to show they had the research to back it up. Some of them must have been working on at least tangentially relevant projects, because Simon could definitely see the credibility if he didn’t have his own inside knowledge on the situation. It infuriated him, because he just needed some money and time. He could produce results, just like he had done before.

He started getting the completely expected pushback. Any documents he published got pulled down, citing spam concerns. He explained to multiple admins through multiple emails on multiple platforms that his evidence was genuine, and definitively not spam. No word back within several hours, and likely not at all. There was too much fake evidence being thrown around for his own claims to seem credible. He sighed; a change of tactic might be necessary.

Many years of giving pitches had served him well in refining his little song and dance. He quickly printed out some promotional material, created a couple displays, and took to the street. He made a beeline straight for a highly traversed public plaza, right in front of a giant fountain. Setting up his multiple boards displaying a summary of his work, he drew stares from passersby as a small crowd began to gather. He finished setting up, and began his presentation.

“Greeting, ladies and gentlemen! I assume most of you are wondering who I am and what I am doing here… Believe it or not, it was I who created the super serums now be brandished on the world stage.”

People mumbled with incredulity towards the claims, but he continued regardless. “My name is Simon Kongroo! I’m an accredited scientist across multiple fields, with a long history of work! But these last two decades, I have worked tirelessly to create a new form of biological advancement. Imagine, if you will, humans having the strength to punch straight through steel, or propel themselves through the air! Telekinesis, pyrokinesis… the sky is the limit, literally and metaphorically! I cracked the code, and I had several working prototypes with meticulous documentation on how they work! But they were stolen from me by my assistant…”

The crowd began to disperse as he tried to regain their attention. “Please! I can offer shares in the revenue, but I just need some initial funding! My equipment was sabotaged, and the physical prototypes I had were all stolen! By my estimates, I just need five hundred thousand dollars and two months to recreate…”

The crowd was basically dispersed, but almost completely unnoticed by those that briefly remained was the suits all rushing him to dissassemble his disply. Simon was outraged. “Hey… hey! You can’t do this! This was my work, I was the one who-”

A man with black glasses and a red tie cut him off midsentence as he served Simon with a very official looking paper. “You are to cease and desist immediately. All talk of super powers is deemed a public disturbance. You are the third person we have shut down today, and though I wish I could throw the book at you for your reckless endangerment, I’m under explicit orders to let you off with a warning.”

Simon was not speechless for long. “Have you lost your god-damn MIND?! You can’t censor my first amendment right in a public space! Everything I have said is completely verifiably true, and you call it… RECKLESS ENDANGERMENT?!”

“I don’t know if a single thing you have uttered is true. But we have had riots over unverified chemicals being suggested to give people super powers. People have died, and many more have been injured. We have at least several cases of people injesting these unknown substances and suffering all manner of horrible side effects. Usually it’s just street drugs with food coloring, and we are cracking down on such behavior. We are confiscating your materials, and if we find you doing this again… expect jail time.”

Simon was legitimately speechless as they toted his hastily constructed props away. He got into his car, and left. There was nothing more he could do.

Sitting at home with all the lights off was all he wanted to do now. His name, peppered alongside other opportunistic crazy people, was dragged through the mud by multiple news outlets. The calls started coming in, calling him a terrorist as well the more garden variety crackpot. He was used to being called crazy until people saw he wasn’t just talk, but never had his detractors been so numerous, organized, and hateful. He shutdown his social media presences, and setup heavy filters on his email that still only managed to reduce the flow of hate. He completely disconnected his phone line, and drew his blinds shut to try hiding from the angry mob outside. Simon was so enraged, he had no problem shooting the head off the first person to set foot on his property, but they did no such thing. They simply yelled at him from the street, constantly. Such protest was protected by law, just like his own promotional campaigning was supposed to have been protected.

How could this happen? How could everything have gone so wrong? His creation could have revolutionized the world. It probably still would. But it was going to destroy him in the process. He could just go back to his previous job. Creating patents for mundane improvements to mundane drugs, and slowly crawl his way out of debt. He might be able to retire without being in abject poverty, but it would take an enormous amount of work. Did he even have it in him? To watch his creation slowly tear the world apart as it was wielded by people who had no idea the implications of such a concept, all the while he toiled away in obscurity just to keep the lights on?

It reminded him of something he once heard someone say. Steve Jobs made more beneficial change in the world than Mother Teresa. He created a technology that vastly improved quality of life for everyone. It made him fantastically wealthy in the process, just like what was supposed to happen to Simon. But Simon was also aware of rumors that Steve Jobs stole his ideas from others, leaving them to forever watch their innovations be used for profit of someone else. Such an existence was torture.

Simon wracked his brain. What could be done? Could he fix things? The existence of super powers would follow a very predictable course if they popped up in an uncontrolled manner. Arms race by multiple nations. Diplomacy deteriorates as paranoia and distrust builds. Some ill advised scientist creates a dangerous prototype that produces the human equivalent of the nuclear bomb. Maybe literal explosive suicide soldiers, but mainly just people wielding extreme power before their sudden death on the front lines. Populations will be devastated, and so will infrastructure.

The deployment needed to be concurrent, in multiple free nations, and with everyday people slowly being phased into the group. But the way it was handled, many small groups were going to wield all the power immediately. Sure, trends move towards that, but this was going to expedite the deterioration.

Something snapped in his mind, as he laughed to himself in the dark. It was clear now. He had nothing else to live for. His reputation was ruined, his life destroyed. He no longer had any family, and Ben was his closest friend and confidant before turning traitor. His finances were going to be in shambles soon with his expenses and sudden unemployment and ostracization.

Only one thing remained. Vindication. Satisfaction. Vengeance. They wanted a bio weapon? He would give the world a bio weapon.

He had studied the attempted bio weapons of the past. Pathetic. Transmission rates were garbage, and lethality rates were below one hundred percent. He could do better. He would to better. Super strength, a bio weapon? Flight? Those were conveniences, maybe tools. A weapon wasn’t just usable to kill, it is designed to kill. Fighting in the opposite direction had been his entire point; make something that doesn’t ravage the life system. Making something with the express purpose of destruction? Simple.

The world was going to be cleansed one way or another. The genie was out of the bottle. But Simon hoped that maybe, just maybe, he could still be the one to gain control over the genie before he was one of the casualties.