Shatter

Chapter 1- Origins

This is the story of how I became a hero, and a criminal; a fighter, and a fugitive. How I change the world for the better, and for the worst. It all started back when I worked for NASA in the California Headquarters in a secret facility where I was hired to make a special research on gravitational pulls in different environments. But something went totally wrong, or more accurately said, different than the expected results.

“We would like to know if your are interested on a special project?”, said  Michael Davis, a head administrator in NASA.

“Yes Mr Davis. What subject are we researching this time?”, I replied.

“ We understand you have made advancements on the research of gravity. I was a bit skeptical at first… as far as I am aware we can barely understand what gravity is or its behavior. But after seeing your credentials and your marvelous work on  magnetic fields, I am sure you’re not just making this up. Why exactly have you been researching gravity?”, he glanced at me still with uncertainty in his eyes.

“Well Mr Davis…”, I couldn’t believe that I had such a privilege. For many years I had been exhaustedly investigating the idea of control of gravitational pulls. But Mr. Davis was right, gravity was not a force that just explains itself.  One of the four most fundamental interactions of nature, relatively understood by Newton, and here I was attempting to control it. “I believe that the understanding of gravity will be of great benefit to NASA. My research has led me to the conclusion that it is very possible to control gravity, creating an advantageous milestone for us. Think about it, we can walk the moon the same we walk the Earth, we can float or say fly. We can even suspend flying objects from falling towards Earth.”



He took some time to think.  “My job is to make sure the funds and resources are used wisely, we think your goals are worth the expense. So we are relocating you to a secret facility not far from were you work now. This facility will be used for the sole purpose of your research and experimentation. All employees working their will answer to you only. We don’t want anyone to know that we are messing with gravity, the next thing we need is another controversy on how we will make a black hole that will result on the destruction of our existence…”, rolled his eyes sarcastically. He continued: “All research will be kept in this facility for safety. You will be given a budget of 4 billion dollars which you will use solely for the project at hand. Any questions? “

“Do I have a say on this? I mean you’re already talking about relocation. I didn’t even accept this project yet”, I demanded, although inside I found myself athrill for having an entire facility revolving around my research.

He took a moment to think. He seemed irritated at my reply. “You are scientist. Not a normal either, you’ve made discoveries far beyond a young man like you has. Twenty Five years old and already helped an automative company create its first floating car using your research on magnetic field shifts. Now, you’ve moved on to a new and much greater project.We are giving you the opportunity to speed up your research and we are giving you all the resources for your experimentation.”  Then he looked straight into my eyes and asked:  “Mr. Darwin, would you really reject  this offer?”

I thought about it, but there was nothing to think about. “No… but this means more work, change of lifestyle… well what I am trying to say is: Will there be some sort of compensation for all this?”

He looked away, less irritated now. “Of course. Once you start working in the facility your salary  will be tripled. Don’t forget also, that if you’re successful  in your endeavors you will be remembered as one of the greatest scientists of this generation. What do you say than Lionel?”

“Well like you said, how can I pass such an opportunity! “

“Mr. Darwin you’ve made the right choice. Please come back tomorrow morning. Since this a secret project we will need you to sign a couple of confidentiality agreements. You will need some training, this will take the entire day. I hope that’s ok.”

“Of course”, convinced I replied.

“That’s all then Lionel”, he got up and shook my hand.” We will see you tomorrow morning at 8 am.”

“ Yes, tomorrow morning it is”, I put my hands in my pocket to hide my excitement and walked away.



Six months later, I had made final preparations for the experiment: Manipulation on the force of Gravity: Test #1.  This experiment will test if the possibility to control, even at a minuscule level, was conceivable. My study was focused on the bonds that connect atom together to create molecules. The force within these bond could shift the way the force of gravity works with the human body and its attracting object. But is probably best I don’t explain the details, because what happens next is the reason I run away and live under the shadows.

“Are you sure you want to experiment on yourself?”, my worried co-scientist uttered.

“Why not?!”, I said.

“This is our first test. What if something goes wrong? We have test subjects who are ready for the final test. Let’s use them instead. “

“We are at the brink of an amazing discovery. If anyone is going to be the first person to control gravity, I rather it be me. Besides I trust my work. What can possibly go wrong?”, as I got my self ready to enter the test room.

“Couldn’t you have invented a device? Why test on yourself? It can kill you.”

“We’ve been through this already. Our body works like a device. We all have electrical currents, a smart processor and even better: it restores itself. Devices will work, but they will eventually break. Nothing is a better host than our own body. So would you stop worrying.”

“Whatever you say, your the expert”, not convinced and still very worried.

I was ready to enter the room now. They gave me a spacesuit (they wanted to make sure astronauts can use this ability). The room I was about to enter was made out of titanium. We weren’t sure what the gravity fluctuation will do. If anything would happen, we would try our best to contain it into this room. I had been subject to many intakes of a special fluid that assimilates with the body. So if my research was correct I would have been able to control the gravitational pulls around me with my brain. I was nervous, very nervous.

“Ready?”, I was asked through a speaker.

“Yes.” The time was at hand. I concentrated. I knew it wouldn’t be easy, but it was possible. It was the same as learning to walk and then later run, and soon enough bike. I kept on concentrating. I felt my heart beat raising. My arms were shaking. “Anything?”, I demanded.

“No, nothing yet”, I heard the monotonous reply.

Maybe it doesn’t work, I thought. I tried again. This time concentrating even more. I felt my arms shaking again,and my heart was beating as if I ran two miles in those couple of minutes. I kept on concentrating. I felt dizzy, then I lost power on my legs. I recover quickly but tired. “How about now?”, now exhaling.

“No. Are yo ok? You don’t have to continue, we can continue this experiment on a test subject.”

I got irritated, I hate his unnecessary worries. Now I was concentrating on that. On how much I despised how some belittled my work. Arms were shaking again. I screamed right before I passed out: “Argh!”

I woke up with a huge headache. I was in the infirmary of the facility wearing a hospital gown. My co-scientist was there waiting for me. “ What happened?”, I inquired.

“You fainted during the test.”

I smiled: “ I guess you were right. I should probably made a machine instead.”

“No it worked, well sort of.”

I got up quickly, put my hand on my head. It was still aching. “It worked? Wait how long I been here.”

“Five minutes. I’m actually surprised to see you awake so fast.”

“How they change me into this gown so fast?”

“You were naked… when they brought you here”

Now I was very confused.  “ What? “

“See when we were running the test. You fell down, you looked exhausted.”

“Yeah, I remember that.”

“Then you kind of got up. The next we know your clothes disintegrated, sort of like an explosion. There was no fire, it just exploded and then disappeared. After that, you were laying on the floor naked.”

“Well that is embarrassing. Ok I need to see the video.”

“Don’t you want to rest.”

“No, I want to know what happened exactly”. We went upstairs, I was holding a pack of ice on my head. We went into the computer room. We looked for the camera files and play the video of the experiment. It was exactly as he described it. The explosion, or what look like an explosion. I was trying to figure it out, but it didn’t make sense. Why didn’t I float or sinked, instead my suit had disappeared. “How is that possible I had a space suit? You know how thick those are? It just disappeared into thin air”. My partner looked back at me looking for an answer. Then he turned his attention at my hand that was holding the ice pack, and he move back stupefied. Then I realized the feeling of the cold surface of the pack was no longer there. In fact I wasn’t holding anything anymore. Now I was stunned.

“Your ice pack it just disappeared. Like the suit.”

I heard what he said, but I was still figuring out what just happened. The next thing that happened was stranger. The ice pack was materializing ,particle by particle, on my hand. I couldn’t believe it.

“Ok, now that’s cool. This is amazing!”, he touched the ice pack with uncertainty, checking if it was solid.

“Stand away from me!”, I shouted. “ I made a space suit disappear, I don’t know what I am capable of. Please, for your safety.”

“Can you control it?”

“ I think…” I looked at the ice pack. Than I concentrated. The ice pack was disappearing and reappearing.  The same way it did before. Then I destroyed it once again, and let the particles float in above my hands for awhile until I brought it back to its original form.

“How are you doing that?”

“I thought I was controlling gravity. Instead I control the bonds that hold molecules together. Oh this is extraordinary!”

“ We are going to be famous. Rich! Let me call the NASA administrators”, he reached over for the phone.

“No, let me rest. If they find out, they are going to want to run tests on me. I’ll call them tomorrow.” I went to my room to have some rest. But I couldn’t sleep, thinking of what was possible with this power. It was exhilarating to think of all the possibilities. Then I continued experimenting with things around my room. My desk had some pencils thrown around, I dismantled them into particles and brought it back together. I did it again, but this time a heard a noise. It was the wind, but it still scared me enough to forget what I was doing.  The pencil was gone and I couldn’t bring it back. I went to the kitchen and tested my power on a toaster. I turned it on, and the walls heat up and turned red. Then I proceeded to disintegrate it, the same happen as before and  it disappeared in a explosion of particles, except this time there was a flash of light. I’m guessing it was the electricity flowing through it. I brought it back together, the toaster looked the same but the walls were red and there was no heat. That is when my power began to worry me.

So I made a last experiment. I had a some african violets in my bedroom. I was afraid what will happen, but I made an attempt anyway. I stared at the flowers, destroyed it, and immediately put it back together. Nothing seemed unchanged. Seconds later, the flower’s petals slowly directed downwards and some fell out. It took me a couple of minutes to figure out that it was dead. Then my thoughts on being famous faded away. All I could think about now was this power in the wrong hands. How easily it would be to make someone disappear, to cause destruction. It wasn’t hard to control, but I was much afraid of my powers. I could not allow this to continue. I had to destroy it, before any selfish being would get ahold of it.

At night, usually is empty at this time, I entered the building where all of my research had been saved. To my advantage none of it had been transferred to another facility.  There were some guards around the perimeter, but they were far from the building. I took a flashlight with me, because it was dark. I turned off the alarm, and checked if anyone was in the building( the alarm was on when I came in, so I already expected no one to be around, but I had to make sure ). The facility was a three story building with lots of glass windows. The third and second floor were clear. In each floor I made sure every computer was destroyed, I also disintegrated key walls around the building. I then proceeded to go to the room where all the servers were kept,wiped them all and crumbled the hardware. I felt the building coming upon me already. I didn’t accomplish to control gravity, but it was gravity that would do the work for me. I weakened the supports of the building.

“Hello? Anybody there?”, cried a wandering guard.

I had not planned this, nor  did I expect it. The building was already unstable, it would come down any minute now. I would survive, because I can just disintegrate any debris coming my way. But he was innocent, he didn’t have to die. This got complicated really fast, this was a NASA facility and I couldn’t leave any evidence that it was me. I panicked and use the wall’s particles to create a coating on me (Yes, this was my first superhero costume). I shouted: “You have to get out of here fast! The building is coming down.”

He pulled out his gun at me: “Stand right there”.

“ You have to get out!”, I hurried him. He didn’t listen and he kept the gun pointed at me.

The third floor starting collapsing with a bursting noise. The guard panicked and thought it was a gun shot. Then he pulled the trigger. I immediately raised my right arm, the coating on my arm disappeared and the bullet that was coming my way turn into thin air. Now the guard was frightened. The second floor collapsed. Everything was happening too fast, I wasn’t sure what to do. My heart beat started raising just like it did the first time. I ran towards him and yelled out: “Duck! Duck now!”. I raised both of my hands up and saw the roof collapse over my head.  The guard ducked, and out my hand this sort of force came out. The walls started breaking. It was like it was raining dust and rocks. All kinds of stuff were falling: desks, computers, machines, being destroyed as they reached the ground. The force that was being released from my hands served as a shield to me and the guard. Debris were disappearing right before my eyes, until all of the building came down.

“ You saved me!”, the guard was in between scared and confused.

“Don’t mention it”, I said heroically.

“Who are you?”

I couldn’t reveal my identity, so I quickly thought: “Atomic Man, that’s my name”. Atomic man?! Seriously? That was such stupid name. I should have just stayed quiet. I heard the sirens of the cops,  so I ran as fast  I could. By now I got very good at controlling my power, because I released my outer coating without making my clothes disappear. I was much exhausted from destroying the building, and need it a place to rest at least for five minutes. Most of the guards were too busy examining what just happened, so I went into the small station they had in the entrance. I rested there for a little bit. I heard some guards talking about the incident.

“Did you hear any bombs?”, said one of the guards.

“No. It just came down. The odd part was that one person survived. No debris were found around that area, only him. Like something protected him. It’s a miracle.”

“Here we go getting religious again. Why would anyone want to do this anyway?”

“I don’t know but whoever it was, they were powerful. Without heart. I mean look, they brought the entire building down. All that valuable research shattered, and the building also shattered…”

“ I think the police are here we should go meet them”, the first guard interrupted and they both left.

Shattered, that is what I did. How come I couldn’t come up with that then. My name is Shatter. I am no ordinary hero. But it was here where it all started, and where I wished it would have ended.

I walked through the wall again.  I noticed a police car that was unattended. I shattered the door and put it back together. Then I turned on the car. In the whole commotion, nobody noticed me driving away.