Altered Ch. 03

The study showed the increase in bone strength also led to increases in muscle strength. The body could take more damage and test subjects were able to survive falls from great heights; one test subject successfully jumped off of a five-story building and landed with very little bone damage. They even tested 100 'jumpers' (they were most likely thrown out of a plane) and one subject survived even after reaching terminal velocity. The hardness of the bones also lent the test subject the ability to do more damage in combat, hitting with the modification was compared to the difference between hitting with a wooden stick vs a metal pipe.

********

"Wow, that explains a lot. No wonder those guys I hit crumpled so easily, I 'literally' have an iron fist," I thought. "It also explains how they cut off my finger, either they cut me at my tendon or the smaller bone, and despite being harder, I was still not able to resist the bolt cutter they used to snip it off."

The internet cafe was an hour from closing by the time I finished up with reading the materials on graphene bones. The psionics research was the only other file that were not encrypted. I'm guessing since it came directly from my father, I would have to view them later.

I decided to get a hold of my father through the deep web and see if he could tell me anything more. I especially needed to know about the Illuminati, since they were after me. Don't get me wrong, it was nice to know more about my abilities but my immediate danger was still imminent.

My father was using an encrypted email system on the dark web called Protonmail. Everything on Protonmail is end-to-end encrypted, a method that allows only a single end user to see the contents. With all contents being end-to-end encrypted, only you can see your email. On top of this, Protonmail ensures they run their emails in a zero-knowledge environment. Even if they wanted to read your communications, they would not physically be able to, only you can unlock the encrypted contents. Protonmail is not only secure on the software side but on the hardware side as well. Protonmail operates out of the jurisdiction of Switzerland, a country with some of the strongest privacy laws throughout the globe. They also own and operate all their own hardware.

*****

Email to my father

Hey dad, or what should I call you? I don't know if you care about me or ever did, but I used to believe you did. I hated you for a long time for what you did to mom. Now even what I believed about you and her are all muddied. I need to know what's going on. You owe me that much at least.

I've killed over 20 mercenaries sent to capture me for some reason. They were holding the orphans hostage! They beat grandpa pretty badly and put him in the hospital. They killed Duke and Popi [orphanage dogs]! They controlled me like a puppet and raped a friend of mine with my body! All that was once good in my life is now being taken away. I just want to know who is doing this and why. Is there anything you can tell me?

Your son? Nate.

*****

Reply from my father an hour later

Son, I just wanted to say that I am sorry, if I get to say nothing else I wanted you to know that. Second, it's true you are not genetically my son, but you are my son no matter what, whether you hate me for what I did or not. I have been trying all of your life to protect you.

As you may have guessed already, me and your mother were never married, not really. She was a researcher like me who volunteered to raise you. It's true, I did hit her from time to time and really there is no excuse for it. I want to say that I'm sorry.

Even though I can't excuse myself for what I did, it wasn't always black and white like you were always presented. Your mother is a psychic, she has been manipulating your memories all your life. She isn't an evil woman or anything, it was her job and she was ordered to do it. If she failed to do her job, she would have been killed, so don't blame her too much. To her credit, she did give you good memories compared to the horrors that were perpetrated on you.

If you are going to understand her job then you have to understand who she worked for. The Illuminati has existed for centuries; its primary purpose has always been to protect the wealth of the richest of the rich. Up until recently, the Illuminati were primarily men, as men have always controlled the wealth of the world, with only a few exceptions.

Since the rise of feminism, women have won equal rights, the right to vote and not be treated as property of men. With it, women started gaining wealth, mostly through traditional means like marriage. Women started getting half of all the wealth of their spouses through divorce, since women normally live longer than men they would also gain wealth through the death of their spouses. There were even a few 'black widows' and recently a few actually earned their money (like Oprah Winfrey, yes Oprah is one of the poorest members of the Illuminati).

The Illuminati at one point lost quite a few members. In order to keep their power and influence, they started to admit women. Once women got their feet in the door, they started to get more and more women into the Illuminati. These powerful women, over the years, eventually took over the Illuminati and as of today there are no men left in the organization.

My father was part of the Illuminati and was a vocal opponent of one of their leaders, a lady by the name of Bianca. When dad and mom mysteriously died a couple of years after you were born they secretly left me most of their money. I have been working for the Illuminati since I graduated college with my degree in molecular biology. Even though I knew they killed my parents, I had no proof nor any way to get the proof. I decided to work against them from the inside, when I learned of their newest project, I knew I needed to get involved somehow.

You see, you were not the first super-human created by the Illuminati, they created ten before you. However, you were the first to have been born of a woman and raised in a 'normal' environment. All of the other super-humans had developmental issues, they were often hard to control and their emotions were retarded, this often happens when you are raised in a lab. Given no real identity and raised with no love, six of them became sociopaths and all of them developed mental issues ranging from schizophrenia to homicidal psychopath.

Most of the 10 were killed, two of them 'escaped' with my help. I went to the board after the last of the 10 raped nine researchers and killed more than 20 others (a few it even raped and killed). I call it an 'it' because it is neither a male nor female. The super-human can morph into any kind of human they desire. You see, son, you can be male or female, black or white at will. You are only blond haired and blue eyed because you subconsciously wanted to look like your mother. Your sex was encouraged to be male for reasons I'll mention later.

Mentally you have a male identity, you were raised as a boy so that is what you identify yourself as. Even though you may never want to be female, you can and your offspring will all be able to switch between sexes at will also.

The two escapees were never given true identities, just numbers. The last time I saw them, they were both female but that was more than a year ago, they could look like anyone now. Neither one was raised to be male or female - unlike you - and they have no problems switching their identities and sex whenever it suits them. I wish I could give you information on how to change your identity, but if you can figure out how to access the encrypted files then would know more. It might be something you can figure out how to do yourself.

Even though the others were not modified like you were, they are the closest you have to relatives: they are your species. They are not your clones, you did at one point have clones but I think they were all destroyed. The others heal fast but they don't have nanobots that speed up the process exponentially the way you do. They are stronger and faster than humans but they aren't close to your strength or speed. They do not have 'toughened skin' nor 'hardened bones' and they definitely do not have psionic abilities. They are as smart as you and unlike you are sociopaths. I shouldn't say they are totally sociopaths, they do care for each other, however they feel no empathy for humans; as a matter of fact, they think they are lower than animals. Hopefully, they never become your enemies.

Another major difference between you and them besides your mental states is they are both sort of sterile. When they were created, they had not perfected the new DNA sequencing yet; although their eggs can produce offspring they cannot produce viable sperm despite being able to change sexes. They would never reproduce with humans, they despise them, to them that would be like fucking an ape. They cannot have children since they won't mate with humans and together they are sterile. I believe you or one of your offspring could impregnate them, so their future is not totally bleak. One advantage they have over you is they do not have a hyperactive libido and, as far as I can tell, they do not want children, but if they did change their minds they just might hunt you down.

As far as the Illuminati organization goes, they own hundreds of businesses and even a few countries. They have their mitts in almost every first world country's politics. The exact businesses they own I don't know, I only know the ones related to you and that is all on the flash drive.

The Illuminati are ruled by committee, they don't have a hierarchical structure except in each committee. Most of the women in the society are trying to protect their wealth but over the years they have decided to take on pet projects. Essentially, all of them believe that the Earth is doomed one way or the other, it's just how the doom is to come and how to solve it, is how they are divided.

There are three distinct groups within the Illuminati of any note, specifically these are the ones that directly affect you since it is these three who have created you.

The first group believes that no matter what we do, the Earth is doomed and they want to colonize space. They needed a being that could survive harsher environments, that could be adaptable and even survive long bouts in space. They wanted this being to guide humans to the next frontier.

The major factors for survival in space are the ability to survive a cold, weightless, airless environment full of radiation. The better equipped you are to handle these things the more survivable space travel will be. My fast healing took care of the radiation sickness, the graphene-hardened bones took care of bone loss due to a weightless environment and you even have ways to survive extreme temperatures that humans couldn't handle. Your body is able to stay conscious for more than 15 minutes in a vacuum. I don't have the specifications as to how the temperature differences are handled - nor how you can survive without air for so long - but I'm sure if you get those other files decrypted you will find out.

The second group doesn't believe that colonizing space is feasible, so they want to evolve mankind by creating a superior being that could procreate with humans. They could have created a being that had four arms, a tail or wings on its back, but man creates gods in their own image. They didn't want these new beings to repulse mankind and be threatened by them, so they made them look like humans. You were specifically created by them to spread your seed to as many humans as possible. Over time your offspring would exponentially expand and take over the world, they would have super high libidos, they would be stronger, disease-free and even be more attractive; nature would take its course.

The third and thankfully smallest group wants to take over the world with military might. They want to create a perfect soldier, one that will be able to infiltrate the enemy and wreak havoc from within. They want their soldiers to be able to fight in any condition, be the perfect assassin and follow orders. Even though they are the smallest group they have the most ruthless leader, Bianca, and I believe they are considering drastic measures in secret. The world isn't safe with them scheming, even the other factions of the Illuminati are not safe from them.

Listen son, I know you love your mother but she works for them. I know you don't trust me but please learn to use your psionic defenses before you see her again. If you need to hide, I have been diverting funds from their accounts for years and squirreling it away into an account for you, disguised as an inheritance fund. You tell Dave you need access to your money and he will give it to you. I put the fake trust provision to throw off dogs sniffing around.

Good luck son, love dad

*******

OK, so I'm a billionaire because my father embezzled money from the Illuminati, not because I had a precognitive financial planner. Everyone's fantasy is to win the lottery it seems, and no one wants to just give someone else their money, so when you get presented money in a somewhat reasonable fashion it's easier to look past all the suspicious aspects.

Besides pouring through shit loads of boring technical documents and really inane videos on animal testing, I had been thinking about what to do next. I now knew the Illuminati's motivations but I didn't know who they were, where they were or even how they operated. Maybe I needed to stop them or even help them, but I needed to know more about what they were doing and their plans. I could either be free of them or make the choice to join them, but in either case it would be my choice so getting out from under their thumb was job one.

I saved the files on psionics to my tablet, then uninstalled all of the software and deleted all of the files from the computer. I then ran a program that would zero out all the deleted files and empty space.

I went back to the motel and was surprised that the girls didn't call me all day. When I got there the SUV was gone and I got a little worried.

When I got into my room there was a note on the floor, I don't know why they didn't text me. The note said that they went to a bar down the street - called Diana's - to get some drinks, they would probably not be back until later.

I sent Irene a text, "Hey, how are you gals doing?"

"Good, we are over here getting a few drinks."

"OK, do you think she would want to talk to me yet?"

"We'll see how things go tonight, her mood seems to be lightening a bit."

I decided to read up on some of the psionic research files when I heard a knock at the door. My skin crawled and I knew something was up. I brought forth my third eye and looked at the energy around me; I saw a bright burning light on the other side of the door and beside it was a dark void. This couldn't be good.

I pulled out my assault rifle, "Who is it?"

"Honey, it's me."

It sounded like my mom, this had to be a trick. How could my mom be here?

"Mom?" I took out my Glock, sensing something wasn't right. "Who is that with you?"

"There is nobody here except me. Open the door..."

The room was on the ground floor, there was a window that looked out to a parking lot. There was no peephole in the door so I to peep through the window. All I could see was what looked like my mom, but she wasn't my mom, she had a bright aura surrounding her like I saw through the wall, and the dark void aura was surrounding empty air.

I tried to rack my brain as to what was off about my mom. Then it hit me, this woman was taller and my real mom stopped calling me honey years ago. I wasn't sure who she was but I decided to face her head on.

I put my gun in my waist behind my back once more. I opened the door and stepped out to greet this mystery lady.

"Mother dear!" I exclaimed with my hands up in the air, as if to give her a hug.

She looked a little perturbed and I used the confusion to quickly scan the area for snipers, police or other ne'er do wells. My heightened senses allowed me to do this in less than a second. I brought my right hand around her back to bring her in for a hug and my left reached around to the back of her neck. I grasped her neck firmly then pulled her head backwards as if to dip her in a dance; halfway into my lean I had my weight on the ball of my left foot, I kicked right in a swinging arch into the black void aura and impacted something heavy.

Out of thin air a body appeared, flying backward six feet landing on the hood of a pickup truck parked a space away from my window.

"Who the fuck are you!" I demanded.

I was gripping the imposter so tightly that she wouldn't have been able to tell me if she wanted to. Her face turned a shade of reddish-purple and I had to shake myself back in control. I eased up on her, letting her get air as she was uselessly pounding on my chest and arms trying to free herself.

The other body on the truck hood turned out to be another woman upon quick glance and she rolled off the hood onto the ground, unconscious.

"Talk!" I roared, pulling out my gun and pointing it at the other woman on the ground.

"Wait! Wait! Please, we aren't your enemies!"

"Then answer my question! Who the fuck are you and why do you look like my mother?"

"It's hard to explain in a few seconds, but to answer your second question I don't look like your mother," she admitted.

Her bright aura disappeared and a second later it was like I saw her with different eyes. She no longer was a blonde-haired bombshell with big breasts, instead she was a petite brunette woman with olive-tanned skin; she looked like she could be Brazilian.

"Will you let go of me, I need to check on my sister!" she pleaded. "We aren't armed..."

I let her go and shoved her toward her 'sister'. I put the gun back in my waist and strolled towards the two girls. I leaned in, observing the woman, checking her sister's pulse. She didn't look like she was breathing.

"Let me!" I offered, and I proceeded to give her 'sister' mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

After administering CPR, she finally started breathing on her own again. I picked her up and took her into the hotel room. I was really surprised that we hadn't drawn a crowd. I guess I was lucky that it all happened so quickly no one really noticed. I set her down on my bed to rest and the imposter followed me into my room, shutting the door after her.

"Look, I'm sorry we tried to deceive you but we saw you on the news and we weren't sure how dangerous you would be." She pulled a chair next to the bed and sat in it, then started stroking her sister's hair. "My sister thought it was a bad idea to try and fool you, I guess she was right," she sobbed.

"My mother knew I hated her calling me honey, she stopped doing that years ago..."

"Sorry about that!" she cried, pulling her knees up into the chair. "I didn't know I would look like your mother I swear; my ability doesn't let me see who I look like."

"What do you mean your ability?" I queried.

"I am a telepath of sorts, not a very powerful one but I can make people perceive me to be someone they love or hate. I don't know who it will be, just whether they love or hate this person. I even sound like them to the person being affected."

"And your sister? How was she invisible, was that an ability also?"'

"No! She has a special suit that bends light around her, you might have broken it."

"Shouldn't we take her to the hospital?"

"No, please, she'll be fine, she heals fast; she'll be up and about in a couple of hours."

"No one heals that fast, as hard as I kicked her, she probably broke a few ribs."

"You do!" she blurted. "I happen to know you heal WAY faster than us. I saw the news footage."