Altered Ch. 08 Pt. 02

*Any sex in this story is between adults 18 or over.

*Please note that I often use ALL CAPS to indicate an emphasis on words in dialogue. Also the use of single quotes around dialogue indicates that the dialogue is not spoken but rather communicated through other means such as psychic thought transmissions.

*Once again, thanks to Alwaysready64 and PASTMASTER for their help editing this.

******

The attack on my father's base didn't go as planned. The Illuminati needed a couple of days to prepare for the attack and by the time we stormed his base it was found to have been hastily abandoned, only being left with a skeleton crew (mainly janitorial and office workers). My father escaped, but in his haste, he left most of his experiments and an armory full of weapons and tech.

Among the experiments, strapped to a gurney, we found Anya in a coma. She had signs of a recent C-section, but there were no signs of our children. I hoped and silently prayed that our babies were OK. If they were still alive, I knew I'd find them.

We didn't find Tanya in the base and I could no longer see Tanya's psychic signature; although a trail she left behind led to a helicopter pad on the roof. Wherever she went, it was far enough away that I could no longer track her.

The Illuminati took Anya to one of their 'special' hospitals, and I was assured that she would receive the best care possible. I wanted to take her to my base in Colorado but I didn't have a way to do that with all of the Illuminati surrounding me everyday. Regardless, priority one was to stop my father before he did any more damage. As powerful as I was, at that moment, I would have traded all my powers for the ability to heal her.

An agent of the Illuminati let me know that they had tracked my father to a 2500 square mile area of ocean in the vicinity of the Caribbean. They guessed he was either on a boat or a submarine, since his signal was slow moving. I could have tried to track him myself, but I needed to get close enough to him first. The problem was that when I got there, I'd need a boat or sub. He'd have some sort of defenses setup, so I'd likely have to battle my way to him, and fighting him on water had me at a disadvantage.

That wasn't even the biggest problem, although the Illuminati had some sway with the military, my father set off a worldwide panic with his revelations, so the military was busy protecting national assets against rioting, and the Illuminati was busy protecting their own. That meant I didn't have a lot of help coming from either and I couldn't afford to expose my own 'followers'.

A video was distributed, purportedly from the OEC, explaining the secret outbreak and exactly how it would affect the populace. The ensuing chaos set off a worldwide panic bigger than 911. It didn't happen right away, it kind of snowballed. For days, people were in shock and disbelief, but the government, in all their wisdom, decided to tell the truth for once. So, it was confirmed by the CDC and WHO that the virus had indeed spread across the globe, and people got pissed.

Many blamed the 'government', it didn't matter which, but most blamed the US. Some blamed the ultra-rich and others whoever they could. Most were just taking advantage of the mood to push their own agendas. After the initial shock faded, riots began and governments all over the world were struggling just to keep order. Some governments were in danger of being overthrown and a few that were already unstable fell into civil war.

All flights all over the world were suspended in a hopeless attempt at quarantine, but the perpetrators were very thorough and there were no safe havens. The quarantine efforts were fruitless, but the authorities needed to show they were doing something. The fact was, there wasn't any way to determine hot or cold spots other than direct testing through a microscope. It didn't help that the only outward sign of the virus was infertility. Testing was further complicated by the fact that the virus was causing mutations in human male sperm that was unique to that person, so one couldn't simply come up with a litmus test and get a positive read. The hardest thing was getting random samples of semen on demand in the first place, if you could even imagine the logistics of that. Ultimately it didn't matter though, everyone they tested were infected, what they needed was a way to find the ones that had been exposed to the virus and yet were immune to its effects.

Anna, Rita and few of the Illuminati elites met with me in conference. I wanted resources to go after Nigel and they wanted to know everything I knew.

A powerful head of the Illuminati, by the name of Tahini Simmons, walked into the conference room like she owned the place; her arrogance sickened me.

"What do you know?" she demanded.

"Let's get right down to it then, shall we?" I replied sarcastically, she just stared at me expectantly. "I'll tell you whatever you want, just ask."

"What was your father's endgame?" she asked.

"I don't know, I am still gathering clues..." I lied, but only slightly, I was 90% sure I knew what this was all about. "When I see him, I'll be sure to pry it out of him."

"So, what DO you know?" she seethed.

I had a good idea of what they already knew by the psychic interrogation I had with one of their higher ups, so I decided to share what they already knew so I wasn't really giving anything away and yet still 'cooperating'.

"For me, this all started in Mexico..." I started, and I went over what I had gone through since Mexico, outlining the things I found out along the way. I didn't mention the memories my father implanted in my head. I didn't trust the Illuminati nor did I trust what was in my head. To me the Illuminati were only one step down from the OEC.

"I need to confront my father, and get access to his research on the virus. With it, I might be able to find a cure..." I answered.

"That goes without saying." Rita said, and I gave her a look of disappointment.

Rita and I had been at odds for quite a while. After the riots started, I insisted that Nigel was not the one that set off the virus. I got why she was angry and bull-headed, to her I was defending Hitler. But I was just using logic. Using the virus to set off a worldwide panic would actually go against Nigel's plans. He had the virus for a different reason and it was a failure. Why he kept it, I don't know.

Whomever sent out the faked media blitz of Nigel releasing the virus, made it seem that he set it off recently. But even as fast acting as the virus was, he would have had to have set it off months before his supposed terrorist declaration, in order for it to have spread as far as it had. Not only that but he would have had to have people all over the world to help him circulate it. His organization and resources weren't large enough, nor far reaching enough to do that. He was only able to do most of what he did because of Illuminati backing.

I let her know my reasoning; but she wouldn't hear it. Despite our not seeing eye to eye and the fact that I only knew her for a short time, I expected a little more loyalty from her. After what we went through, and the fact that I saved her life, I was left feeling betrayed.

"No shit?" I asked sarcastically, and Rita soured visibly. "We triangulated his general vicinity, based on cell phone pings off of four nearby islands. I need to get there - yesterday!"

"You want our help? Then you need to help us, Mr. Thompson," Tahini interjected, trying to take control of the conversation once again.

"I don't NEED your help, Mrs. Simmons! I have other allies to call on," I said, "Im only here to help you because it's the right thing to do. But I get the feeling you're not interested in returning the favor."

The Illuminati in the room not only had psychics working for them but they had hidden head gear that prevented mind alterations such as mind reads, puppetry, and memory alterations.

But what they didn't know was, their tech no longer fully worked on me. The headsets prevented me from manipulating their mind, but I had found a frequency that got past their filters and could still hear her conscious thoughts. It wasn't the same as a memory read in that I couldn't read anything in their brain, only what they were thinking at the time, but it was still an advantage.

"Nate," Anna pleaded, trying to get me to cooperate. "Please, we need your help."

"I told you all I know... I like you Anna, you've been nothing but good to me since we met. But Mrs. Simmons here isn't like you."

"Why do you say that?" she asked.

"I don't need to read her mind to see her every intention. She isn't a very good actress," I said smugly. "She already has a plan in place to betray me, I don't know what it is and I came here in good faith. I'm curious to know who got the 30 pieces of silver. I see it wasn't you... so that leaves..." I turned and looked at a shamefaced Rita.

The truth was, I was expecting a trap of some sort. If it was any consolation, at least they didn't want to kill me only capture me.

I might be powerful, but I wasn't a god. I could still be killed. My best defense, wasn't the ability to kill but to hide and for the first time in years I was completely exposed to my enemy.

Tahini looked smugly at me then confidently at the others in conference and said, "He's lying, I have..."

"A PND [psionic noise disruptor] device embedded in your ear?" I interrupted. "Yeah, I know. But tell me this Tahini, last night when you were fucking Bob Chambers, your next-door neighbor, was your husband aware of it... is he just a helpless cuckold, or just ignorant of your trysts?"

She looked surprised and flabbergasted and started whispering into a small mic in her lapel.

"I may not be able to read your mind, but I can read the psychics in the other room... I can see what they saw..."

The PNDs can protect someone from mind manipulation but it also blocks them too. The device disrupts the psychic wave around someone's brain, such that a psychic could not use a PND to protect themselves and simultaneously use their abilities. The purpose of the psychics next door was to read me and they couldn't do that and protect themselves.

These psychics were weak and I could easily destroy their minds but I thought of the Matrix and put their minds in an endlessly looped scene. The more times they experienced the scene the more confused they would get. If they didn't break out of it, (or I didn't release them), they would likely go insane.

"What?" she asked, trying to play dumb.

"The four psychics you have on the other side of the door," I said, for clarity. "One of them's your daughter, right?"

She paled. We all agreed to keep psychics out of the meeting of course I also agreed not to use my abilities in the meeting but it was all moot once they started probing me.

"She knows all about your affair," I said, smugly. "And... more. I really don't care about all of that really, who you screw over is your own affair. That is, until it's me."

A man dressed in a gaudy green and orange outfit, burst into the room, "Ma'am... your daughter... she seems to be having a seizure."

I saw fear in her eyes, and she looked toward me imploringly, "Let her go! ... Please?"

I nodded, "Fine, but tell them to back off or I swear I'll destroy their minds."

Tahini rushed from the room to check on her daughter, leaving us alone.

"Why?" Anna, asked.

"She has no intention of helping me. She fears me, and that which we fear..."

"I see," she said, as if she suddenly accepted the truth.

'I suggest you leave,' I sent to Anna. 'I have a bad feeling about this and it's better if you are far away before the shit hits the proverbial fan.'

'But I am one of them...' Anna thought.

'You are one of the Illuminati but not one of THEM. Leave me, I can take care of myself. She is so pissed at me right now she isn't thinking clearly, so go while you can.'

'Is there anything I can do for you?" she asked.

'If you can, make sure Anya is OK. Secure her if you get the opportunity, they might try to use her against me."

Anna got up and hurried out of the conference room. Rita looked at me with tears in her eyes, and mouthed she was sorry and quickly followed Anna.

A furious Tahini rejoined me in the conference, along with a squadron of guards. I found her whole human superiority complex to be ironic in that her daughter was psychic meaning her father had to have been Ataruian.

"How dare you!" she screamed. "No one - TOUCHES - my daughter!"

"She started it," I said, trying to sound childish, partially to mock her, but also to distract her and buy Anna time to leave the building.

"She'll be fine," I soothed, "Besides, it was YOU that put her on the frontline. If you didn't want her hurt then you shouldn't have stuck her in the line of fire."

Her face was beet red, but it turned from anger to consternation and finally she regained her composure and was back to business. The squad she had surrounding her all had psionic protection, state of the art body armor that looked like regular clothes. They all wore black suits, double breasted with wing tipped shoes. To me they looked like a group of Men in Black. They were armed with all kinds of advanced weaponry: Microwaves and sonic guns, flamethrowers and mini rail-guns. I wanted to laugh at them, but I didn't want to antagonize them more than I already had.

"Enough of this charade," she said, blowing the air out of her as if to rid the rage she held inside.

Here comes the pain, I knew it was coming. I'd have to bear the pain and let them take me, I needed to give Anna and Rita enough time to escape. Resistance was futile at that point, they were prepared for me, Rita let them know what to expect, any attempt at resistance would result in disaster.

The room filled with a red mist, the squadron quickly donned gas masks and put one on Mrs. Simmons. I felt myself weaken as the mist did its damage. I sucked in the gas and staggered. I felt drunk, well as drunk as I had imagined being drunk to be.

Then the sonic and microwave blasts started, and it felt like my head was about to explode. The mist slowed my reaction enough where I couldn't put my defenses up in time. I howled in excruciating pain; it was worse than being shot. It seemed to fire all of my nerve endings at once. It felt like I was on fire.

It went on and on for awhile, until finally my eyesight began to fade, I lost all of my senses and was no longer aware of my body; all I had left was awareness of being. That's when I saw myself, I was floating above my body looking down and witnessing the squadron rush over to me with some nasty looking titanium manacles they used to secure my hands and feet.

I could hear and see everything they were doing, as my astral projection floated around like I was Casper the Friendly Ghost. Out of all the abilities that were awakened in me, I never thought I'd ever use astral projection.

Astral Projection isn't like what you see in the movies. You don't see other souls floating around, you don't achieve nirvana and/or a higher plane of existence. When most people think astral projection, they think the spirit leaves the body and a ghost-like apparition that looks like you floats around in the sky. But what astral projection really is, was the psionic ability to project the conscious mind away from the body. You have no physical form; you are just able to see and hear at a point away from your body - the stronger your ability the farther you can move your conscious mind. I of course was powerful enough to be a master at it, Nigel would have had it no other way.

The reason I say that astral projection is not spiritual is, that if it were, one would be able to survive outside of one's body after the body died. But that wasn't true in this case, the body and mind are what makes the projection happen. You could not achieve projection without either. I was able to project because my mind was still active, the drugs just robbed me of all my senses, but it was like I was in a waking coma. I think they wanted my mind active so they could interrogate me with psychics.

"Take him to sector 49," Tahini ordered.

"Ma'am," the soldier confirmed.

"Maybe, if he is reunited with 'daddy' we can get some answers," she said, more to herself than anyone else.

I watched as they brought in a Hannibal Lecter looking dolly and quickly strapped me to it. They hooked me up to an IV, pumped me full of drugs and carted me off.

My body would naturally eject the IV and countermand the drugs unless I told it not to so I tried to rejoin my body and did my best to control my body's functions. However, as soon as I joined my body, I still had no control over it. I tried to gain sensation, but nothing worked, no matter how hard I tried - the drugs were too strong. I had one trick left up my sleeve but if I used it, my cover would be blown, so I held back for an alternative.

I floated above my body once again, and tried to gain an advantage.

They loaded me up into a helicopter and away we flew. I have no idea how long we were in flight, time seemed unimportant in astral form. There were no windows so there were no landmarks to gauge where we were going. The best I could do was listen, but all of the dozen or so soldiers surrounding me, were quiet as a grave, all intensely staring at me, weapons drawn. All of them knew what I was capable of, many of them lost friends and acquaintances in battles against me, and I didn't blame them one bit - I was the boogeyman.

I had no other senses besides sight and sound, so the only thing that alerted me to our descent was a red light that turned on indicating the passengers prepare for landing. I tried to pass through the wall of the helicopter to see what was outside but I couldn't seem to do it. It was like, not being able to see what was on the other side prevented me from seeing the other side, it reminded me of the boy who was invisible when no one was looking.

The red light turned green and the soldier all unbuckled in a flurry of activity. One made sure my straps were still secure and two hoisted me diagonally, then pulled me out then down the ramp of the Chinook.

I looked up and saw that we had descended into an underground facility within an enormous cave filled with stalagmites and stalactites. The hole, through which we had descended, was still slowly closing, then finally closed with a loud boom. A whole platoon of troops joined the squad and rushed me off, weapons drawn.

The cave seemed to go on for miles, but not far from the helipad was a slew of three-storied buildings underneath the 200 ft ceiling above. Once the platoon got me to a large building, the platoon split off into squads and two took position outside of the building while one rushed inside to scout the path to wherever they were taking me. The others took positions surrounding me, while they continued to ferry me through the building.

I floated above my body the whole time. It was like a video game third person camera view. We took an elevator down to a lower level, wound our way through the stark white hallways, past rooms that reminded me of zoo cages in that the hallway walls were made of thick glass which I guessed had a reflective coating on the other side. I had seen this setup before, at the OEC base I took over in Colorado. It made sense that they would share some layouts since the OEC was funded by the Illuminati and designs were probably standardized.

My escort was met in a hallway by a few lab-coats with clipboards, who led the way to a thick glass-walled room much like the others except it had a big X shaped apparatus standing vertically in the room. It had many leather straps as well as titanium fasteners. Off to the sides there were monitors and various tubes that looked like electrocardiogram type equipment sticking out of the walls.