Fragment by Paul G Swanson (me reader .txt) 📕

plan.
As though realizing what it was, Seth whirled around and saw what Tio had in mind. He had coated the wall behind him so that he could see Seth's silhouette, and therefore a perfect target. What happened next seemed to be in slow-motion. Tio pulled back on the trigger and Seth ducked, rolled forward and jumped. Tio shot again and this time pulled twice. The balls of wax shot from the barrel and exploded dead center on Seth's chest. Seth landed face first and didn't bother to get up at first.
"Huh, he got him." Somie broke into a cheer and chuckled. Moumoru stomping down the stairs was cause enough for them to turn around and see who it was.
"Hey guys. What the hell are you doing?" He asked when he saw the two human shaped glow sticks in the center of the room.
"Target practice." Somie explained to him.
"Looks, uh, interesting."
"Oh, yeah. Tio just got him good."
"Right, well put a hold on it for now. Psylix sent me to get you all, and I'm supposed to bring you to him." Seth finally got up and clapped his hands. The lights blinked to life temporarily blinding them.


Psylix watched him, and Zeke knew it too. It seemed as though he couldn't care less what Psylix thought. Several times Psylix though he saw a shimmer escape the shades but it was always gone before he had time to look dead at it. It escaped him when Zeke stopped staring at him. He felt as if they had met before. Of the hundreds, no thousands of people he had met, he scarcely came across someone he had trouble remembering. But this guy, seemed to elude his senses. Perhaps they hadn't met.but yet maybe they had.
"So, Why are you staring at me?" Startled Psylix looked behind and then realized it was Zeke. He almost sounded offended. "Is it the way I dress?"
"Uh," He tried to think of an excuse and decided on the first thing that came to his mind, "Yeah, it's kind of intense."
"Intense, huh." He laughed at the idea. "I guess that's one way to say it."
Psylix turned his attention from the vaguely familiar being, back to the debris spread across the floor.

* * *

It had long since it had given up on Signus' body. One day it had simply fallen apart. Human bodies it seemed, just were incapable of supporting themselves for prolonged periods of time.
Now it lives inside a machine of its own design, and had spawned a dozen replicas of itself so far. It monitors and gives orders to the rogue space colonies as well, as the perfect leader. As all information is sent out and received digitally it never gets the chance, nor would it want to, meet any organic interlopers. Such isolation allows it to be both inhumanly fair and cruel at the same time.
Such time consuming projects could only be accomplished by such a sophisticated computer as itself.
The twisted mind he had parasitically inhabited had given rise to such unique ideas. It just had to try some of them out, after all they seemed so logical. Humanity should not be allowed to govern itself, all human leaders were corrupt and therefore must be punished. While it would save those plans for later it just ran the colonies unless something that would require its focused attention comes up.
Something like Tio Rhimes. In the past, when it drove Signus like a vehicle, it had stumbled across information regarding a certain child. Upon continued research it found out just how dangerous this child could become if he only understood it himself. Now that the beacon had been sent from the planet Earth; such a despicable place, it was glad it was the one that gave the evacuation order by manipulating the public; it knew that the boy needed to be terminated. And soon. The boy's IQ levels were stated above the genius level and if he should learn his about abilities it wouldn't be long until he realized just what he needed to do. It had already dealt with the child's three brothers, only one remained now. It had already sent a killer but it wanted to be sure the job would get done. The boy's friends could prove troublesome. He was with in the company of his old host body after all. A flicker of anticipation surged through its circuits.
Seth was a radically powerful human, he had fast reflexes, strength, and a will that could bend steel. But he was still human, and all humans can die because they can bleed. The Karren was nothing to worry about, just as fragile as normal humans, but the Labdian it had no clue about. All it knew was how long the beings ears measured, it knew nothing else about him. Then there was the Atrion to consider. Not much was known about their race because they died out so quickly after being discovered. It was better to throw caution to the wind after all.
In its mind, or rather its database, it searched. Capable of several billion calculations per second, it found two more agents that would get the job done, nearly instantly. It formulated the message and sent it along in less than a second. Such a menial task should kept left to a lower echelon level of machines, but as the humans say, 'if you want it done right you have to do it yourself.' If it was capable of laughing it no doubt would have found this mildly entertaining.
The orders had been sent to the second and third enhanced humans to ever have undergone the mutation. A change that metamorphosed the body into something greater. Not quite a machine and not yet human. The word Cyborg also failed to do it justice.
"It's time for a hunt" It said in a mechanical voice, and with its well polished frame, it formed a sadistic smile.


Albert Green had simply been a normal man until they abducted him. After being tortured and had the promise of death of his family thrown in his face he submitted to the surgery. Back then, he was a middle aged balding African American. He had never done anything wrong and held a clean slate when it came to the law.
"Darwin wants you!", "Don't you want to be something more?", "You might as well be in the first group to become higher beings, don't you think so?!", "Darwin is holding your family hostage so cooperate or they die!" They had said all of these things, starting from the most passive and gradually became more aggressive the more he resisted. He really wanted nothing to do with that company, but he never really had much choice. Do it, or they die. That was really all there was to it. It wasn't really like flipping a coin, he had no choice; join them or die alone.
Albert was given super human strength and had been forced into the assassination business. When the E-mail came, he just sighed and picked up his enormous rifle, slung his massive ammunition canister on his back and left for his ship. He didn't care why they had to die, that was none of his business. He just knew they had to die for a reason. It was best he didn't ask for one, not that they would give it to him anyway. That was privileged information, and he was not a privileged man.
His heavy footsteps echoed off the empty corridor walls. With each step the floor cracked below him. It wasn't that he was doing it on purpose, it was more or less due to the weight of his equipment.
Off to Space colony Alpha.
Oh, happy day.

* * *

Moumoru stepped into the chamber and whistled. Normally when he saw something he thought was cool he would have yanked out the lucky coin and done some trick, but he lost it in the explosion, so he settled for a whistle. A lot had already been repaired. The lights had been fixed and the entire bottom floor was cleaned up. Psylix waved down at them from the second floor. Zeke poked his head over the third floor railing and without much enthusiasm vanished again. He pulled out a chair and sat down in it throwing his legs up and propping them on the desk.
He beckoned Sarah, Seth and Tio in. Tio glanced around without saying much. Seth ignored Moumoru and proceeded up the steps to Psylix. As he reached the top he saw the man next to Psylix and cried out in surprise. "Boss Man?"
"Huh?" Orwen stepped closer to him as if confused and the also bleated out in surprise. "Seth? Is that really you?" He held out a welcoming hand and spit his new cigar on the floor. "Didn't recognize ya with some much hair. That to hide the-" He started out, but instead finished it with "you know?" Instead of speaking Seth just nodded and took the mechanical hand in a firm hand shake.
"Good news guys." Psylix called down to everyone, "This place is our new home and you've all got your own rooms this time." Zeke again poked his head over the railing and disappeared once more as if he was hiding. "Lets just get this thing fixed up, pronto. Best to get out of here before whoever destroyed my beautiful ship finds out about this one."


Over the course of the next two weeks Tio and Seth continued practice while the rest fixed what they could inside the ship. Tio had gotten quite good in a short period of time. Seth was almost scared of him. The boy had an air of negativity he didn't trust just yet. But despite that had had given Tio a special gun that he made himself.
It shot out pure energy. It was designed to grind up capsules of highly reactive elements. The resulting gunfire was something of a small controlled nuclear bullet. When Tio first fired it he was more surprised by the way the barrel spun just before firing, the second time when he was thrown back seven feet he noticed the kick, and on the third shot he stood in awe on the massive explosion his little hand cannon held.
Seth gave him ten capsules after saying that it would probably be all that he would ever need and that he had graduated 'Kicking Ass 101' with flying colors. It was time to get back to the ship. It was late and they had been out all day.
Seth was extremely impressed that Tio had been able to get so many hits on him so fast. The guy had never trained before in his life, his body shouldn't have been able to even keep up. Somehow he had