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Pariah 1: New Arrival
(Void)
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Pariah #1: New Arrival Perils of Azure City By Void ****** Published by Void Copyright 2014 by Void Cover Illustration by Isikol Everything contained within this story is a work of fiction, and comes under the blanket of fantasy. The story contains graphic and explicit adult scenarios depicting sexual and violent themes that may be offensive to some readers. Nothing depicted in this story is intended to glorify or encourage the reality of that content - it is all purely fantasy. Names, characters and places within this story are used fictitiously or are products of the author's imagination. Any resemblances to actual persons, alive or dead, or locations, or businesses are unintended and coincidental. All characters depicted in this story are aged 18 or over. This story is intended for an adult
audience ONLY. Only read if you are aged 18+. Keep out of the reach of minors. Contents Pariah #1: New Arrival Perils of Azure City Azure City There are worse places, to be sure. There are ravaged warzones, cities built solely on corruption, and whole countries that have known nothing but abject misery and hell - I have seen these places. To compare Azure City to them would be... unjust. No, Azure is something else, something altogether more elusive to pin down. Where there are places that are wholly defined by the worst aspects of this world, Azure defines itself on the end of both spectrums. The very best mixed in with the very worst, like a set of scales barely managing to keep balance between two unimaginable counter weights - always threatening to lurch violently to one extreme or the other. It is a city at odds with itself, ever teetering on the edge as its polar identities clash. Perhaps it is the disparity between these extremes that makes Azure seem so distasteful. Here there is true virtue and humility, and it stands in stark contrast to the avarice and filth that it rubs shoulders with. Many a journalist - and politician - enjoy describing this as a city of black and white, with clearly defined borders marking out where stands the purely good, and where lie the objectively evil. The reality, though, is that the two inevitably mix, leaving a city of grey that is trapped in twilight and prevented from reaching the soaring heights of its potential. The worst people of this world mingle their lives with the best of us. And there is suffering. The advent of the meta human, which started around thirty years ago, has only exacerbated the situation. The cause is uncertain, and still a topic of great debate between academics. The main arguments sway between an irregular solar flare, a natural step along human evolution, alien intervention, or a combination of one or both. Whatever the cause, the effect was undisputable. A very small minority of people across the globe began exhibiting powers and ability beyond the ken of conventional science. What made it that much harder to understand was the lack of any universality to it. A girl in Peru has the ability to morph her body into the shape of any other human, while a boy in France can control the flow of electricity, while in China an elderly woman suddenly has the ability to possess people - there was no order to it, no sense. The meta human was understandably feared and coveted in equal measure. The need to understand how it was possible, to understand how they do the things that they do caused many to be persecuted in the early years. Whether by fear or curiosity, or likely both, many metas were severely mistreated; unethically experimented on, imprisoned indefinitely, or simply executed. Any chance at reasonably integrating them into society was woefully squandered. There were conflicts. Some were people pushed too far, finally lashing out and fighting back. Others were malicious men and women who used their newfound power as license to circumvent the law and further their own ends. Others still were simple accidents by those who were ill-equipped to manage their powers. These events widened the schism and hardened attitudes on both sides. Those metas that didn't go underground were usually hunted by their own governments. Despite it all, I have some sympathy for the governments and corporations that stepped in. How do you regulate the man that can turn invisible at will? He can break your laws and do so without your pre-established measures from preventing him. Do you simply hope he will obey the law by sheer power of good will? What happens if he does break the law? What happens if he turns to terrorism? There could be no single failsafe because each meta was different and would need different precautions specifically suited to them in order to contain them. It was a problem that left no easy solution, I acknowledge that. If you pressed me on the topic, I might even admit that I don't know what should have been done. I might admit that. Whatever the case, what was done was all wrong. It led to the vast majority of modern day metas being exiled figures living beyond the scope of civil justice. Many turned to crime. Many turned to things even worse than crime. The situation spiralled, perpetuated, and the world is now a much more dangerous place for it. Especially Azure City. Perhaps it was the allure of the big city, the promise of a bright new start at the pinnacle of the western world. More likely it was the pre-established criminal cartels that riddled the city like a pox. Maybe you came to hide, maybe you came to work for a criminal syndicate, maybe you came to find others like you - but you came to Azure City. Over the years Azure City seems to have called out to the meta world, and it has become something of a focus point for the exiles. The conflict for Azure's soul seems a fitting metaphor for the conflict within meta society concerning what their place is in the world. Maybe that's why they like Azure. I think that is why I came; my own uncertainty over my place in the world. What better place could there be to decide that than Azure City, where the good meets the bad? Perhaps I just came to hurt people... or to protect people - I have certainly done a fair amount of both since I arrived here. My name is Evelyn Lawson. I was born twenty-five years ago to unassuming parents in a nice little town out in the backend of nowhere. My early life was quaint - it was nice. I developed my meta abilities around the age of three, when I blew out the kitchen wall rather than my birthday candles. It wasn't until many years later that someone gave a name for what I do. Telekinesis. It's a fancy word simply meaning that I can move objects with my mind, given enough focus. Without clear focus I can't do anything more than the average human being, but with it? I can connect with a point at the centre of my attention and create force. During those early years I did all that I could to keep my powers hidden. My parents knew what awaited me if the truth ever came out, and they did their best to teach me to control it to the point that it wouldn't spring up when it wasn't welcome. It would still pop up now and again, but for the most part we coped. It was good. It was a good life. Then one day, nearing my sixteenth, a group of drifters came to our town. Each one of them was a meta. They were kids, really, none older than twenty-one. They were crazed; drunk on power, and filled with both fear and anger from the recent persecution that they had suffered. They had excuses. Of course they did. They ran amuck, doing as they pleased, exerting their will on people that they now considered beneath them. People suffered. My home town, the place of my serene childhood, was changed into a nightmare. When real authorities turned up to challenge them the resulting conflict pulverised what was left of the town that hadn't already fallen to the hedonistic ravages of the drifters. When the smoke cleared the survivors of the drifters had scattered and fled, and one of the most notorious chapters in early meta history had been finished. The siege of Everwood Springs. It took everything from me - my family, my friends, my home, the future woman I might have become. The things I had seen in that time tormented me together with my utter helplessness to prevent it, to protect myself or the ones I cared for. I was left with a lot of anger. Anger at the animals who had destroyed my life, anger at the government that could not protect us, anger at society for allowing this chain of events to take place, and most of all I was angry at myself. I was consumed by rage - I would have drowned in it. I took to a life on the road, foolishly trying to find the remains of the gang in order to enact some kind of vengeance. I didn't care about hiding my power; I only cared about using it to hurt the people that had wronged me. In that time my misguided anger caused me to do a number of things that I'm not proud of, and I would certainly have spiralled down that path had someone not stopped me. My saviour was an unlikely one. I had finally tracked one of the gang down to a drug-running biker cartel operating out of an abandoned rest stop in southern Texas. My plan then was to simply confront them and do as much harm as I could until I was unable to do more - be that because they killed me, or because I killed them. When I arrived they had all already been beaten senseless and lay sprawled on the floor at the feet of the greatest man that I have ever known. |