SCI Stories, Book 4 Prologue (Patreon)

Book 4 – Stars’ Fall

Prologue – Controls

In the aftermath of the Second World War, when superpowered individuals had proven once again to be both a valued asset and a clear and present threat to the national militaries of the world, the Superhuman Control Initiative was reorganized into its current form from the wartime Superhuman Wartime Resource Group. But the public fall of the French colony of Madagascar to Le Suzerain, and the very strictly confidential existence of the Raven, a shapechanging spy and agent provocateur working for the KGB to stir up trouble and spread information networks in the West caused the human leaders of the SCI to become worried about possible ‘subversive elements’. If a superhuman began working against the needs and good intentions of the US government, and the humans it represented, then what could be done to stop them? The Iron Patriot was a war hero during the War, but what would happen if he was turned, and convinced to turn traitor? With his powers, who could stop him?

With concern at the forefront of their minds, the SCI’s Council of Directors came together to create the Office of Countermeasures and Prevention. OCP’s directive was to formulate controls that could be put in place without the general superhuman populace knowing they existed, to ensure that ‘rogue’ supers could not become a threat to the Government or the humans of the United States. Other offices in the SCI would work on the ‘carrot’ that would entice superhumans to join the SCI and play by the rules, as well as ensuring their continued loyalty to the Government. OCP would provide the ‘stick’ that could be used to smack down any would-be revolutionaries or superhuman supremacists before they could threaten the human population of the country.

The first problem that the OCP encountered was that there were too many different kinds of superhumans for any one method to be a faultless defense system. No matter how refined they made any solution, there were bound to be those who would be immune to it, or could make themselves immune to it. Worse, that same varied nature of superhumans meant that there would undoubtedly be someone out there that could wrest control of any systems they put in place, effectively giving them the ‘keys to the kingdom’.

To say that such a situation was not ideal would be an understatement of cataclysmic proportions. So, the men of the OCP threw out any ideas of a single, top secret system to stop rogue supers. Instead, they would have multiple projects in place, following different attack vectors. A superhuman might be immune to one kind of attack, but two or three different styles of attack? That was a different story entirely! So, they focused their efforts on three projects: Project Reaper, Project Omega, and Project White Star.

Project Reaper was the first of the three projects to progress from planning stages to actual funding being put in place for research and development. The goals of Project Reaper were simple: find a way to install remotely-controlled ‘kill switches’ in as much of the superhuman population as was possible. This way, if a superhuman rebelled or tried to suborn the US Government, they would have an instant offense ready to take out the bad actor.

Of course, there were problems to this approach. Once used, the knowledge of the kill switches would undoubtedly spread unless severe information control efforts were taken. If superhumans knew that the kill switches existed, they would be understandably upset. Worse, there were legal issues that could, potentially, be used to threaten the existence of the SCI itself if the truth of such a system were to be made public. To this end, the OCP recommended that other offices within the SCI develop teams of loyal supers, like the vigilantes and local teams that had already started flouting the law in the name of protecting the common people, and giving them official standing, so that superhumans could see superhumans dealing with rogue superhumans as the first line of defense. Reaper would be the weapon of last resort in most cases.

Using superhuman scientists whose loyalty had been ‘guaranteed’ by various means, including mental rewriting, Reaper took on two forms, which the OCP eventually managed to get into all superhumans registered with the SCI, fully 75% of the superhuman population of the United States. The first was known as ‘carcerands’, and were, in essence, cell-sized pockets that floated in the target’s blood stream, and were filled with poison, designed to release their packages at a predetermined time, which would kill those infected if they did not get regular checkups to retrieve and replace the carcerands (done as a secret part of ‘routine physicals’). The second was far simpler, and more brutal. An explosive the size of a grain of rice was slipped inside the individual’s skull. Such a small explosive would not be enough to cause collateral damage, but it would effectively destroy the super’s brain, killing them.

Project Omega was the true last ditch, worst case scenario, nuclear option. Unlike Project Reaper, which could be targeted at only disloyal and rebellious superhumans, Project Omega was designed from the beginning as a way to completely wipe out the superhuman genome from the human race using biological warfare. Naturally, the use of such a weapon would be considered a war crime of the highest order, but Mutually Assured Destruction was the word of the day at the time, and it was decided that it was better to have a final solution, and never use it, than to need one, and not have it. More than a few superhumans who had been sentenced to death or life in prison for various offenses became test subjects for Project Omega over the years.

Unlike the other two projects, which were blacker than black, as far as projects went, Project White Star was always meant to be an open secret. This was due to the perceived need for the SCI to have some means of controlling supers that ran amok. The idea of a corps of loyal mentalists, the most powerful in the country, who could go in and sort out troublemakers, was never officially announced, but never officially denied, either, allowing it to be a lightning rod for speculation and conspiracy theories, diverting attention from projects like Reaper and Omega.

Officially, the White Stars were the SCI’s elite enforcement division, the most powerful mentalists available to the country. In reality, they were simply conditioned to be loyal, and provided with psychic ‘back doors’ into all superhumans who had been registered with the SCI. These back doors allowed them to maintain their image of being the elite, but now, they were about to get their first major test.