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Copyright © 2016 Third Eye Games

All rights reserved under the Universal Copyright Convention. No part of this book may be reproduced in part or whole, in any form or by any means, without permission from the publisher, except for brief quotes for use in reviews or copies of the character sheet.

www.thirdeyegames.net

Published by Third Eye Games in Tampa, FL

ISBN: 978-1-944487-12-6 (Softcover)

ISBN: 978-1-944487-13-3 (Hardcover)

Written and Created by Elizabeth

Chaipraditkul, J. Fryer, Darrell Hayhurst,

Eloy Lasanta, Michael Lyons

Editing by Carol Darnell

Proofreading by Robert M. Everson and

Morgan Weeks

Layout and Typesetting by Eloy Lasanta

Cover Art by Allen Morris

Interior Art by Jann Galino, Jonny

Hin-kle, Allen Morris, Carlos Torreblanca,

and Brian Fajardo and Joshua Panelo of

Gunship Revolution

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Table of Contents

Chapter One: Year Three

Timeline of major events of AMP: Year Three

Chapter Two: The War We Made

How each Affiliation is handling the war, and views from the US and Overseas

Chapter Four: Rising From Ashes

Mechanics behind AMP: Year Three

4

46

76

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2016 Summary

By 2016, AMPs were no longer a secret and the world was just grasping the idea of people with superpowers. Some had a sincere interest in AMPs, hoping to learn more about them and see what they could do, but the vast majority of people were terrified of them.

State of the Country

At the start of 2016 the United States, under the leadership of President Carpenter, enact-ed the AMP Registration Act. The act requirenact-ed anyone with powers to register with local au-thorities. Hundreds of AMPs with nothing to hide agreed and registered. Soon, ‘Do you have something to hide?’ became a regular saying, inferring AMPs who did not register were plot-ting something.

As the months progressed, the fear of AMPs grew worse. Stores began to refuse AMP cus-tomers and tests were done in school to identify AMP children early on. They needed to protect their people, so the government signed a bill permitting virtually anyone to own a gun. Amer-ica’s sweetheart, Jennifer Stewart, came out as being an AMP capable of manipulating glass on the set of a movie she was filming. This did not stop California from revising their AMP laws, making them so strict that most of Hollywood moved to the more progressive Hawaii, which became known as New Hollywood.

In response to the insanity happening on the mainland, a new AMP group formed in Hawaii, calling themselves the Nā ‘Aumākua. These Ha-waiian AMPs became protectors of the islands and made Hawaii the safest state for AMPs to live. They crushed the Typhoon’s drug trade and

removed all UHF forces.

The American political scene was also facing elections. Alongside the Democratic and Republican parties, a new political group joined the race: the New Humanist Party. Head-ed by Harry Lewis, the New Humanist Party seemed to have a level-headed approach to AMPs, wanting to protect the American people from threat, and therefore Harry Lewis won the election for President.

Just days before, on the first of November, All Souls Day, something amazing happened. The spirits of the dead rose from their graves and spent a day with the living. Spirits were not the only things to rise from the grave, how-ever. President Aldridge was spotted walking the streets, but most shrugged off the idea that someone could truly come back to life.

Heroes and Villains

Present day Kairam, known to the media as the Time Assassin, had no allies and was on the run for a crime his future self had committed. When all hope seemed lost, he met an enchant-ing woman who called herself the Matriarch. She offered Kairam solace and friendship, if he would only in turn help her organization, Typhoon.

The fear of AMPs deepened in the Ameri-can people and the United Human Front (UHF) profited from this. Shavar Stephens took con-trol of the group, directing their forces away from random acts of violence and towards a strategic campaign against AMPs. He coined the term ‘unhuman’ for AMPs, a term that be-came devastating to them.

At the same time, the government rolled out their own response to the AMP threat, the Tac-tical Response and Containment Agency (TRAC). TRAC’s mission was to find and contain harmful

Chapter One:

Year Three

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Chapter One: Year Three

AMPs. They were the protectors of communities and at the forefront of the fight against AMPs.

Reeling from the loss of Critter, who was taken from the Seekers, Doctor Luminous awoke to his own AMP abilities. Suddenly, he was able to track other AMPs. Emboldened by his newly found abilities, he took a personal squad of Seekers to track Critter down. During his search he met a group of renegade AMPs who called themselves Retribution.

Retribution was led by an AMP named Spearfinger. Disgusted by the secret AMP fight-ing rfight-ings and disillusioned by Conduit’s refusal to do anything about it, she swore vengeance on any anti-AMP group. This split the Change-lings in half, and her half became a force to be reckoned with.

Typhoon expanded their control over the black market and began manufacturing a new drug called Bliss. The market for AMP drugs grew and Typhoon was happy to flood the mar-ket with as much product as possible. They used their considerable financial power to keep the government occupied elsewhere and made sure they silenced anyone who stood against them. Under the Matriarch’s leadership there was little Typhoon could do wrong and business was only on the rise.

While TRAC fought AMPs for the American people in the light of day, there was more to the organization than met the eye. A top-se-cret, highly-classified task force was created to see if there was something more that could be done against AMPs. This task force was headed by the Houndmaster, a man with cybernetic im-plants that gave him control over his Hounds, AMPs fitted with special TRAC control collars. The Houndmaster program was highly effec-tive and all AMPs who were not slaughtered by the Hounds were brought to a secret exper-imentation base, the Chamber. Hounds became known as TRAC Elite to the public, as these en-slaved AMPs became the face of AMP/Human relations.

The leader of the Changelings, Conduit, was captured and put on trial, a big win for the Amer-ican government. The world had already found Conduit guilty, and he found no need to defend himself… confident with his place in this story,

taking the anger for AMPs onto himself to hope-fully save others. He was imprisoned and also secretly shipped to the Chamber. Eventually, Ret-ribution tore into the Chamber, and Spearfinger killed the Houndmaster to free the Hounds. Con-duit fled with his companion, Lockjaw, who had escaped his own turmoil as a Hound.

Doctor Luminous closed in on Critter near the end of the year, finding a journal Critter wrote where she shared what it was like to feel herself slip away mentally. Critter ran away in fear of what she may do to her loved ones and sought to isolate herself. One of her greatest hopes was that the Seekers would continue to help lost AMPs. Doctor Luminous had taken a dark road to find his beloved. Critter would not recognize the man he had become… so he re-solved to do the right thing and returned to the Seekers of Enlightenment.

While Doctor Luminous was on his quest to find Critter, the Donohue School for the Gift-ed swellGift-ed in numbers. AMP children from all walks of life came to the school either fleeing from or wanting help to control their new pow-ers. The Headmaster, Breezy, tried her best to provide a good education for the children and keep them safe, but with the growing numbers the school was taxed. Nick Czernek returned to the school after there was nothing more he could do on the political stage, and helped Breezy with the care of the children.

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2017 Timeline

January 2017

Do We Not Bleed?

January 10

The violence that gripped Minnesota began at a grocery store in the town of Small Lake. At 8pm on a Tuesday evening, an escaped Blast-er used their powBlast-ers to blow up cars, hurling them towards a local store. While cars, glass and shrapnel flew at innocent grocery store patrons, additional mayhem occurred. Their companion with intangibility left customers split in half by walls, shelves and glass doors in the frozen foods aisle. When the police finally made it to the scene some thirty minutes later, most of the grocery store staff and customers were dead, and the escaped AMPs had moved on. Only two days later, after the AMPs had sated their need for vengeance upon the town that housed their jailers, they set their eyes on the rest of the state.

Some escaped AMPs joined Retribution. Their emancipation was not enough, they wanted their pound of flesh from Saps, and Spearfinger promised them all that and more. As the escaped AMPs left Small Lake, Spear-finger held a small forest rally. She spoke as equals to all who listened and told them of Retribution’s plans.

“I ask nothing of you, but to every Sap who would see you in chains: I demand your free-dom! I refuse to let our people hide in the dark while the government’s actions go unpunished any longer. I will not allow us to become incar-cerated, experimented upon and used. We will show them our power, and that we are not the AMPs to mess with!”

There was a group who Spearfinger’s words did not sway, however. These AMPs were so tor-tured, so wronged, so maddened by their time in the Chamber that the only thought in their mind was revenge. They too set upon the state, but with only destruction in mind. Reports flooded in from far and wide of deaths and de-struction all at the hands of AMPs.

TRAC agents dispensed through America

did not have the funding promised to them yet. For now, the agents had to make do with what they had, and that was not much. From this chaos, and TRAC’s inability to cope with the present threat, many AMPs took to the streets. Rather than causing destruction, they used their powers to protect their friends, families and co-workers. These were not professional, heroic rescues, but normal people trying to do what was right in a country gone mad.

Way Back Home

January 14

Scraping through Georgia mud, Conduit dug up a cache of clothes and canned food buried months ago. Ripping through sealed trash bags, he opened up their small bundle of treasure. Tossing a clean shirt to Lockjaw, his best friend and traveling companion, both men slumped against a tree. Catching the shirt and taking off what was left of his jacket, shot to pieces by UHF members who had been following them through the state, Lockjaw smiled at his friend through the bullet holes.

“Yup, that went to crap,” Conduit sighed hit-ting the back of his head against the tree.

“You can say that again buddy. At least I’m not in a collar anymore,” Lockjaw laughed.

“We almost had it.”

“Almost had what? You mean at the Cham-ber?” Lockjaw questioned, his stomach growl-ing with a deep hunger.

“No, I mean before. The Changelings were al-most perfect. I know we alal-most had it. And now…” Lockjaw rolled his eyes. “Get the hell up.” Lockjaw stood up holding his hand out to Conduit. “You had a sham trial, we were called dogs, hounds — whatever — and now we’re run-ning away from gun-toting maniacs. Today’s shit is the same as yesterday’s shit.”

“But it shouldn’t be like this!” Conduit showed his frustration.

“No, it shouldn’t. And you know who taught me that? You. There’s a better way than the constant fighting and violence, right? We can have a life outside of this craziness, with oth-ers who undoth-erstood us, right? Do you think it’s a coincidence you led us here, just outside

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lanta? Last year you saved me, introduced me to the Changelings and gave me a new life. You gave the Changelings a new life and then you left. We both did. That’s messed up and we need to fix it. We need to find our people and get them to safety.”

Conduit smirked, taking his friend’s hand, “I thought I was the inspirational one?”

“Well, you can’t have all the epic moments,” Lockjaw smiled back.

The Chamber reaffirmed the necessity for the Changelings to remain hidden, and the most vulnerable - the AMPs who physically could not hide who they were - to be protected. During his trial, Conduit was battered and torn apart by a world he tried to distance himself from. The Chamber restored his soul, his goals and his purpose. Hide and protect. Conduit set out to make contact with what was left of the shattered Changeling network.

From the Ashes

January 25

Amanda Schenfield managed to pull her-self from the wreckage after the attack on the Chamber. Amanda’s body was repaired from the damage it took. Her hand would never grow back, but there was no time to mourn the loss of the physical, when she had more cerebral problems to attend to. While trapped under the wreckage of her failed experiment, Amanda had an epiphany.

She began reevaluating their progress and wondered where she had gone wrong with the Hound program. Amanda helped TRAC from the age of 16, because she believed it was the right thing. She wanted people to feel safe, to feel protected; and the Hounds were the most efficient way to go about this. Amanda real-ized she had not accounted for all variables. The battle she was fighting was much larger than feeling safe - it was humans versus AMPs. These were two creatures who would always

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be at odds with one another, on a biological level. If she was going to rebuild the Hound-master project, there could be no half mea-sures or mercy this time.

The Houndmaster was alone. He had acted with autonomy and was therefore weak. Thus, Amanda finally saw the main flaw of the orig-inal blueprint. Five new Houndmasters would work as a pack, beholden to one another; Their strength would be in their numbers.

Bred from the mind of a twisted young woman, a new group of Houndmasters were created. Amanda chose the strongest, most loyal, fanatic TRAC agents. Those who had their families broken by AMPs and been fight-ing from day one. The pack was complete, and soon, with the completion of their upgrades, would be unstoppable. Much of the Chamber’s underground foundation was still useable once the rubble was cleared, so they could re-build without the need of a new facility.

Following the remains of a trail left in Small Lake, TRAC followed the destruction through the state. One by one, they rounded up the Hounds unlucky enough to be found and replaced their collars. It was not too long be-fore the Houndmasters’ underground kennels were full once more.

For Man There Is Nothing

January 31

“And for man there was nothing left. And for man the only hope was death.”

The police of Burley, Idaho encountered these words scrawled on the wall of Justin Blacksmith’s home. The man was found dead, as was his family, the bodies of his wife and two children tied to their chairs at the dinner table, each one having suffered from asphyxiation. Justin, seated at the head of the table, died from a single self-inflicted bullet to the skull. It was an obvious murder-suicide. Investigators found no signs of foul play, but did discover a small stack of journals in the shed filled with rantings by Justin, who was terrified of the local AMP in-ternment camp set up outside the city.

The Blacksmiths were a picture of the per-fect American family, sadly torn apart by the AMP threat. Each news channel wanted their piece of the Blacksmith’s tragedy and spun a dif-ferent story. However, each story had the same sentiment - a man driven to perform horrors because of the AMP threat. To quell the media circus, local police agreed to release text from the journals to the press, but they went missing from the evidence locker.

The United Human Front saw a prime op-portunity in Burley and sent representatives to help the locals fend off the press. The UHF shielded the Blacksmith’s extended family from press intrusions and allowed their funer-al service to take place uninterrupted. Instead, the UHF drew attention away to a press con-ference near the internment camp, warning of the threat within.

Days later, in another small town, another family was found dead in their home. Each had ingested a lethal dose of poison while eating dinner. There was no crazed note, but “For man there was nothing” was scrawled on the wall once more. The phrase Justin wrote was taken up by Saps terrified of the AMP threat. These were good, law abiding citizens, who wanted nothing more than for things to return to how they once were. For some, there seemed to be only one solution - death.

February 2017

Earth for All

February 2

The country was in shambles and the Ma-triarch could not have been happier. The work she put into inciting fights, hooking AMPs on her drugs and extorting the right people - it all paid off. Who said the American Dream was dead? The President had helped her with this. Of course, it made things more danger-ous, but the Matriarch saw it as a win. The threat of TRAC was never to be taken lightly, but Typhoon could operate with relative ease by distracting the group with other AMP at-tacks. People were more miserable than ever and that meant money. The world getting you

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down? Escape with Bliss.

Things were going well, perhaps too well. There was a small border dispute with a rogue band of AMPs who eluded her grasp, but that was soon to be taken care of. This new group was led by Ripley, a person she regretted ever knowing; how easily she had forgotten him un-til he started causing problems. The wound Rip-ley left in the Matriarch cut deep. It was not one that could be measured in stitches or scars, but in betrayal. When the man she loved tried to sell her secrets to the highest bidder, the Matriarch was kind enough to let him live. Sure, when he woke up the next day he didn’t have any memo-ries, but he was alive. Few who crossed her were awarded such a luxury.

The pain of that betrayal jolted her back to the present. She wasn’t one to rest on her laurels, and she commanded Kairam to take her into the future. The Matriarch needed to know if her in-vestments would pay off. Every step, every plan, it had to come to something fantastic - for her. Clicking a perfectly painted nail against the base of a syringe, she gave Kairam his daily dose of War Path needed to access his enhanced powers.

Fueled by the drugs coursing through his veins, Kairam pulled them both through time with a snap. No sooner had they left did the two re-turn, as a step through time is but a second in the present. The Matriarch fell to the ground clutch-ing the $3000 carpet in her penthouse suite and screamed at the top of her lungs. She punched the floor repeatedly in frustration and anger, pounding until her hands were bloodied and bruised.

The sight of her blood staining her once per-fectly white carpets and tailored suit snapped her into reality once more. She straightened her suit and turned to Kairam, who cowered from her outpouring of fury, “‘Earth for All’ is bad for business. There will never be peace be-tween Saps and AMPs; there is too much blood in the water. Or at least, there will be.”

Seeker Found

February 6

Doctor Luminous returned to the Donohue School for the Gifted. Taking a month to de-compress and reflect on who he had become, returning to the Seekers of Enlightenment was catharsis. He had sacrificed his ideals chasing a person who did not want to be found, and knew now that was wrong. There was much the Doctor had to make right.

Unfortunately, the school was all but in ut-ter shambles. Breezy, the school’s Headmasut-ter, had seen to most of the children’s needs, but the mansion was bursting at its seams. Nick Czernek set about using his reasonable con-tacts to get funding and protection for the school, but there was only so much he could do while still keeping the children hidden. The older children, teenagers who were dumped at the school by their parents or fled to the school with nowhere else to go, were getting antsy. The Law of Attraction put them all on edge. They were desperate to head into the world, a world they felt so very isolated from.

“So, you’re back,” Were the first words ut-tered by Breezy before she embraced Doctor Luminous. Rather than break down a man who had sacrificed so much, Breezy instantly for-gave him… that was her way. The school need-ed him, and he was her friend.

The Donohue School for the Gifted was first and foremost a place for children to learn how to control their powers. Doctor Luminous knew that for the school to persist, it had to change. He split the students into groups, taking the eldest and most competent students to a satellite cam-pus in Virginia, called Holly House. He learned of Holly House from Breezy who spoke about their expansion attempts in 2016 that had been thwarted by the UHF.

When Doctor Luminous arrived at Hol-ly House to retake the campus, he brought a group of young adult AMPs he called the Aegis Squad. In the forests surrounding the house, the Aegis Squad and the UHF clashed forc-es, but the essentially non-existent gun laws meant the group of teens were severely out-gunned. The fight was drawn out and bloody,

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but the Aegis Squad not only prevailed, they also took down the UHF with no casualties. A group of gangly teens with no real combat ex-perience accomplished this feat with the sim-ple, innocent ideology of youth: it is unconscio-nable to kill a fellow human being.

They secured the house for the Seekers once more, and Doctor Luminous began to train the teenagers intensely. It was clear the teens got lucky and were untested. Jacob would make sure they were trained, and he knew their ide-als (and the secret promise he made to Critter) would keep him in line. AMPs didn’t need an army, and the world didn’t need something else to fear. What everyone needed were heroes.

Broken Heart

February 14

In 2015 Jay’s teeth began to grow until her mouth turned into a maw. Since then, Jay’s teeth never stopped growing and her skin grew grey scales. When the country went to Hell,

Jay and Leigh fled to the bayou behind their house. Leigh didn’t want her girlfriend to have to register as an AMP, and she knew Jay wasn’t a deadly threat like the news said. What Jay and Leigh really wanted was to be left alone, to live together and enjoy their life. However, with each passing day Jay’s condition got worse.

A local UHF group soon heard about Jay and Leigh and began to harass the women. Leigh tried to reason with them, but it just egged the group on as they threw bottles through the house windows. Finally, Jay had enough — she could not stand the calls of ‘monster’ and ‘croco-dile’ any longer. She ran outside and used brute strength to flip over one of the heckler’s trucks.

The harassment escalated over and over each time Jay confronted the brutes. She felt a part of herself slipping away, until finally, on the 13th of February, Leigh and Jay sat huddled on their cellar floor. Jay’s forehead slumped against her girlfriend and within the black orbs of Jay’s eyes, Leigh swore she saw a glimpse of

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the woman her partner once was.

The two women heard tires roll up their driveway. Jay could feel each footstep on the gravel, she felt it in her chest, her head, beating against her like the thrumming of her heart. The sounds of guns cocking clicked against the windows of the house. Leigh pulled Jay closer, her hands now dwarfed by the way Jay had mu-tated… their last true moment together. Leigh looked into her partner’s eyes and the darkness within them narrowed and focused. A guttural roar ripped itself from the house and the UHF members stopped in their tracks. Gunshots echoed through the bayou, screams of pain and anguish following closely after.

The 14th of February, Valentine’s Day, was a beautiful day for a picnic. The day was filled with sunshine, laughter and love. The small park seemed isolated from the craze that had gripped the nation. All at once the peace was broken. A gargantuan, clawed menace tore through the trees. Its thick, grey hide was cov-ered by a blanket of viscera and blood. The creature’s eyes were jet black and its maw was filled with jagged, protruding teeth. The crea-ture attacked and massacred all the picnickers before they had a chance to run.

When TRAC Elite came to the scene and took down the beast, they said it was as if the crea-ture ran at them wanting to die in its rampage. Thus, the mutated creatures who began to crop up around the US were named: Rampagers.

Something Out of Nothing

February 17

The string of deaths by human fanatics who feared the AMP threat continued into Febru-ary. While only three families had taken the plunge so far, killing themselves in fear of the AMP threat, the fourth family found was truly disturbing.

Family of Five Found Dead

The St. Louis Gazette would like to issue a content warning for our more sensitive readers. The following article is highly disturbing.] A fam-ily of five was found dead in their home yester-day morning in St. Louis. At first glance, officers

on the scene believed it to be a suicide, following the string of recent family suicides that began in Burley, Idaho. The fact that the phrase “For man there was nothing” was scrawled across the fam-ily’s wall was evidence of this.

However, this morning new information has come to light. Upon inspection at the coroner’s office, it was revealed the family did not die by human hands. While each suffered a single bullet wound to the head, the family members died from internal bleeding caused by some-thing that left no external marks.

An inside source tells us the police depart-ment is looking into a local unhuman gang pre-viously only known for selling illicit substances. What these AMPs would have against an inno-cent, law-abiding human family has yet to be seen. The police have promised more on this tragedy in the coming days.

This reporter wonders - what is next? With the violence against humans increasing, when will the unhumans stop? When will our gov-ernment provide the protection they promised? How many more good people must we lose?

Chamber Reopened

February 22

“Free me within the chambers of dogs.” Charon heard the words sung to him as he sat huddled in a dark cellar. Above him, floor-boards creaked with the sound of metal-clad feet stomping over them. However, Charon’s at-tention was not focused in this world, but the next, the world of spirits and ghosts that spoke to him on a daily basis.

TRAC was closing in on him. Using the pow-ers of Radiant, a recently recaptured Hounds, there was nowhere Charon could hide. A bright light fanned across his body and hushed tones were whispered above. They had found him, and his powers were as good as belonging to the government.

“Don’t shoot! I’m unarmed!” A meek voice called from the cellar, as TRAC agents cau-tiously trained their guns towards the sound. When the cellar door was opened, a young man stood there waiting for them. They bound and collared him, and the last Hound needed for

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the program was finally caught.

On February 22nd, the Chamber was com-plete and reopened. The town of Small Lake had also been rebuilt and outfitted with a state-of-the-art defense system. If the Chamber was going to be attacked again, they would see it coming. A celebration was held in Small Lake to commemorate the new Chamber, a facility at the forefront of the protection of humankind.

Development immediately began on power armor to put humans on par with AMPs. Other than being the newest frontier of engineering, the power armor was a new frontier for political alliances. Making their alliance official, the UHF and TRAC promised to bring the protection of humanity front and center with their new proj-ect. With their combined powers and resources, there was little that could stand in their way. These two allies were determined to show the best humanity had to offer. Sanctioned by the government, TRAC and the UHF working togeth-er meant it would be only months until the AMP threat was dealt with. They had already begun development on the main weapon in their arse-nal - Resistor Power Armor Suits.

March 2017

Tuning In

March 3

Lookout was a well-known if somewhat ec-centric personality in San Francisco, running a local access cable program lovingly known as “The Spook Show.” He did card readings, séanc-es and taught a new-age meditation technique called “Tuning” that led some practitioners to hear muffled voices, whom they erroneously assumed belonged to deceased relatives. Look-out had been doing this for years, but really became noticed after All Soul’s Day, so much so that he dropped out of sight amid rumors he was an AMP.

It was these rumors that drew Kaitlyn De-veraux to pay a visit. She introduced herself as Rapture. She had amassed a small fortune as a “Dreamweaver,” but she was growing increasingly disenchanted with the work, and was no closer to her real goal. She shared her belief that she was

connected to a being from another plane named Lilith, and she wanted to speak with her. She had seen Spook Show and wondered if Lookout had the answer. He agreed to try.

Rapture took quickly to Tuning, and on March 3, something unprecedented happened. They found that during the trance not only could Lookout and Rapture hear one another’s thoughts, they could also speak with a third presence: Lilith! Lookout was convinced that Lilith was a split personality fragment with-in Rapture, and was fascwith-inated that he could communicate with it directly. With only mild concentration, they could continue speaking, and deeper Tuning made distant, muffled voic-es barely audible.

Rapture found a new goal, unable to phys-ically interact with Lilith but comforted that she now could at least hear her voice. She set off to find the strongest of those distant voices they could hear when Tuning. The trail led her south to Los Angeles, where she found a tight-knit compound of believers who called them-selves “The Saved.” Their leader called himself Savior, and it was his voice she could hear.

At first her story amused him, but once she convinced him to try Tuning, they found that he could hear not only Rapture and Lilith, but also Lookout, who had never left San Francis-co. None of his people found the same results when they tried to Tune, and Rapture, Savior and Lookout realized they were on the verge of something extraordinary. Something that had to be explored together. Savior left his com-pound to go with Rapture and find other voices.

In Defense of the Reno Act

March 13

Editoral published in the L. A. Times, by Dr. Joseph Roberts M.D.

Yesterday President Lewis signed Public Law 115-1, what we all know as The Reno Act. And if you’ve spoken out in favor of it, you’ve prob-ably been called a Nazi. First let me be clear: I am no Nazi. There is much that I disagree with President Lewis and Congress about, but in this case they got it right despite themselves.

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Title 3 is the controversial part of the act, the section that declares: “For public safety, agencies may use means to detect the presence of AMP genetic markers (as defined in Title 2) without recourse of privacy of property or infor-mation. Presence of these markers shall be con-sidered just cause for remand until such time as the marker is rendered safe or eliminated.” Which basically means that you may be arrested and detained solely for being an AMP. No crime is necessary, and there are many shouting voices equating this to ethnic cleansing, one step away from concentration camps and armbands.

Except this is not an ethnic group being tar-geted. It isn’t a socio-economic group. This isn’t about hate, or even fear; it is about public safe-ty. When any two people carrying this marker come into close contact, they are driven tempo-rarily insane and kill or destroy anything around them. That isn’t prejudice, that is scientifically observable fact. Your friend and neighbor who carries this marker is the nicest person you have ever met, but they are a ticking bomb.

More problematic will be Title 6, which outlines internment safety regulations and offers financial support to states who follow the guidelines. I, for one, hope that our state will take advantage of the support to create a humane detention center. These are people with a malady, not monsters. Just remember when people are talking about these so-called “camps”: this is not Jews being rounded up or blacks being segregated, it is a public health issue. When someone with the marker is refus-ing to be identified or treated they are know-ingly putting the lives of everyone around them at risk, like a mother refusing vaccination for her children. It isn’t just about her rights. It may not be politically correct, but our govern-ment would be criminally negligent to not act on the threat at all.

So for once I say: well done, Mr. President!

Paradise Lost

March 19

Holoholona, leader of Nā ‘Aumākua, nodded sternly at his team. It was time. They glared back, the passion and fury visible in their eyes. He saw no fear, no doubt and no weakness in them. He hid his smile. They were holy. They were Nā ‘Aumākua, and they were taking back the land once and for all. They had defeated TRAC and Typhoon at every turn; were these haoles with their guns any different?

The first hours were the easiest. Schofield Barracks fell in minutes. Even as the attacks be-gan the soldiers seemed unable to believe any-one would dare. Holoholona dared. The haoles had managed to field only two of their tanks in time, and both were melted by a gesture from Pahoehoe. Soon the word arrived, Wheeler Air-field had also been dealt with. A good start.

As the day wore on, their enemies seemed to finally awaken from sluggish slumber. Three of his finest died in an instant, not through any act of heroism, but from a single burst of gunfire. But not Pahoehoe. She was burning so brightly, so hot that even uranium cores va-porized before touching her. Streets slagged around her, and she waded in lava towards the troops, lighting them aflame with a look. She was beautiful.

Holoholona never saw where the bullet came from, but it shattered his shoulder and removed him from the fight. He had never been too weak to stand before, and found he did not like it. Now bleeding and on the ground, the leader of Nā ‘Aumākua finally felt doubt. He could hear helicopters and saw his friend Alika’s head vanish. A sniper, the same one who took his shoulder? Nā ’Aumākua’s demands had been delivered. Holoholona felt they were so close to victory. If they could just beat these toy soldiers, they could completely reclaim the land. He hoped desperately that the other teams were faring better. As Holoholona’s fear and despair rose, Pahoehoe burned brighter and brighter. She stood alone against an army, and he felt his faith swell.

Then the ground shook. Winds battered ev-eryone, then smoke, then hot ash. Holoholona

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felt the ground shake, and heard screams. And in that moment, he knew the islands would be cleansed. The haole interlopers would flee, but the faithful would remain. A pure land again, one they could protect.

Hours later, Holoholona could see the let-ters of “New Hollywood” burning in the dis-tance. In the center of a mile-wide crater, a human shape cooling into a statue of volcanic rock. Pahoehoe. Now she would be a sacred place, her sacrifice never to be forgotten.

Cool Clear Water

March 24

Almost lost in the media blitz surrounding the violence and evacuations on all the Hawai-ian Islands, was a story of conspiracy that would eventually have momentous consequences. Much of Arizona, including its two largest cities, gain most of their potable water from a single source, a massive aqueduct called the CAP. For the last year, increasingly vocal fanatics claimed chemical trails in the air and water from the CAP were infecting residents with materials to turn them into AMPs. Eventually, just to quiet the groups, the EPA did a study of the water and discovered something entirely unexpected: no-table amounts of Clarity OTC.

An investigation was launched, and on March 24th, when it seemed likely nobody would notice, the results were announced. A group of wealthy, private investors funded large purchases of the drug, and governmental corruption allowed them to introduce it into the system. The resulting scandal led to sever-al impeachments, but no jail time.

Incidents of AMP violence stemming from the Law of Attraction notably increased after the tampering stopped, culminating in the Mesa Massacre. Within months, other states were looking at openly adding Clarity to wa-ter supplies, using fluoridation as a precedent. Scientists and social commentators are still mixed as to whether this is a violation of any rights or whether the effects are even notable enough to warrant the cost.

April 2017

TRAC Fights Back

April 8

Donna Cather became the first of the re-placement Houndmasters to come online, al-lowing TRAC to field a proper strike team of Hounds for the first time in months. In the inter-vening months, they’d been gaining intelligence and meticulously planning for the return of the Hounds, so anticipation was high. April 7th saw her pass the last safety inspection and marked the official reactivation of Alpha Team. On April 8th, the team was dispatched to capture a com-pound of Retribution holdouts, which they did with no casualties and no escapes. Two days lat-er, another compound was taken, but this time their Hounds were recuperating and coulndn’t assist in the takedown. Two targets had escaped and three lay dead. The two operations had net-ted over a dozen new Hound candidates and TRAC morale remained high.

Further operations went smoothly: a num-ber of single-target grabs and a response to a Rampager attack in Maine. Within months, a second Houndmaster would be ready, and then a third. April also saw a reunion of sorts when Radiant’s team of Hounds was dispatched to recover The Lance, spotted in Texas. He bare-ly escaped across the border with help from his old friend, Ripley, now with an organization calling themselves the Crossovers. Radiant wanted to pursue, but she was already near-ing the control envelope. The Houndmaster recalled her and her team before she could go too far.

Re: Phase 3

Dated April 13

Intercepted transcript of meeting between Dr. Shavar Stevens (Appropriations) and TECH Answers CEO Sturgiss Visser and Research Director Dr. Andrew Harter, who once worked for the US government. All three have been flagged as persons of interest associated with the UHF investigation.

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V Harter: I must again protest the notion of

putting a man inside. It’s actually far more efficient to- <voice cut off>

V Visser: Look, this is about winning on so-cial media as much as it is about winning on the streets. You put those things out there with nothing in them and they’re abominations. You put them out there with carefully chosen, marketable personalities inside, and they’re knights or rock stars. V Harter: Fine. Perhaps after marketing has

won the ‘hearts and minds’ we can up-grade to proper drones. Not that anyone could tell the difference really.

V Stevens: Please, we’re getting ahead of ourselves. This meeting was to determine the viability of your prototype.

V Harter: Prototypes, Dr. Stevens, we have five working models undergoing tests. Control cage dismemberment incidents are down to under 5%, and all but one of those has been deemed pilot error. Coat-ing the entire shell in materials from the Chamber samples provided has proven unfeasibly heavy, but as an interim solu-tion we’ve mounted large plates on one of the framework’s arms. The result has proven extremely resistant to all AMP emissions. We’re calling them ARC shields. V Stevens: Now that’s interesting. If only we could get those light enough for a per-son to carry without hydraulic assistance. How is the thing’s endurance?

V Harter: Currently operating time is around 12 minutes.

V Stevens: 12 minutes?!

V Harter: But we expect that to improve con-siderably. We have one power pack with a 7-hour endurance at peak operating capac-ity. I’m certain within months we’ll be able to improve the design to the point where it won’t explode when shaken violently. V Visser: Let me cut you off there, Doctor.

So you see Shavar, certainly there are still kinks, but nothing insurmountable. With

your approval we will be ready for field testing within a month.

V Harter: <makes noise>

V Visser: Within a month. These suits will be the answer to the unhuman problem. The only question is whether your gov-ernment has a contract for them or not. Exclusive would, of course, increase the unit price. Hmm, perhaps we should give one away as a publicity stunt. Unarmed of course. Amalhe, capture this and send that idea down to marketing.

The Mesa Massacre

April 28

As Clarity levels dropped in Arizona, area ten-sions rose and Law of Attraction incidents led to escalating TRAC responses. But all that fad-ed to background noise when three Rampagers went berserk at the same time in Mesa. Local police were immediately overwhelmed. TRAC first responders were stopped cold, and even-tually President Lewis had to authorize military response to stop the carnage. Single Rampagers had sowed destruction before, but this was the first time multiple AMPs had been triggered at once, and the chaos increased exponentially.

Two days later, a fourth Rampager appeared in the same area, and a week later, a fifth, leav-ing Mesa lookleav-ing more like a war zone than a suburb. The entire area was cordoned off, and researchers worked desperately to determine why so many Rampagers had appeared in one place, and if this was a harbinger of things to come elsewhere. Eventually, the forensics tied all five Rampagers to a single gang, called the Whiskey Fists. Rumor had one of them had been given The Choice and took the Seeker se-rum, but none of the gang were known AMPs, based on what authorities managed to piece together later.

The only thing evident was the devasta-tion. Dozens of buildings were smashed and condemned. When two AMPs fight, sometimes people get hurt in the crossfire, but this was different. The Rampagers targeted and crushed anyone they saw. Fire-fighters and rescue

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May 2017

New-New Hollywood

May 1

Jennifer Stewart considered herself one of the lucky ones. Almost a year after her press conference, during which she had announced to the world she was an AMP, she watched news of the devastation and recovery efforts on New Hollywood from her Vancouver penthouse. She’d decided against a move to politically vol-atile Hawaii — like many of her friends had — to attempt to rebuild her career in more moderate Vancouver, a longtime filming destination for Hollywood studios.

Canada’s inaction on the “AMP problem” was a blessing to American expat AMPs who flocked to the north before border restrictions tightened immigration. In late 2015, Canada had ousted a conservative government in fa-vor of a liberal-minded majority Parliament. As the AMP crisis escalated, the new government promised to uphold national security with-out repeating the atrocities of their swith-outhern neighbors, although they had dithered on mak-ing any major decisions.

This put Jennifer and other pro-AMP ce-lebrities in a position to build a quiet network of advocates and allies who could shepherd refugees of America’s AMP crisis into waiting communities in the Canadian Rockies outside Vancouver, while petitioning for federal action.

Vancouver’s growing film industry, bol-stered by the destruction of New Hollywood, was churning out films at an unprecedented pace; the world craved distraction from the onslaught of death, destruction and horrors. In May, while working on a film called Blood Cell, about a dramatic romance between an AMP woman and a Sap man, Jennifer received a call from Nick Czernek who, with Doctor Luminous’ blessing, offered scientific aid to the growing AMP communities in the Rockies, and proposed Donohue-model schools to help them adjust to their abilities. This would require some com-mitment to the cause on her part.

Jennifer wasn’t sure if she was ready to put herself back into the spotlight as any kind of sonnel were rent limb from limb, and fleeing

civilians only seemed to incite the beasts, drawing them deeper into heavily populated blocks. The area’s police were butchered, and even three TRAC Elite were killed before the creatures were finally put down by A-10 Wart-hogs scrambled from Davis-Monthan Airbase. In the end, all that was left were questions, ac-cusations and bodies amongst the rubble.

Conduit’s Journey

April 29

It had been a month since Conduit had found the child, crying and alone in a small town that was completely condemned after a Rampager blew through it like a tornado. He assumed her parents had been killed, but the darker corners of his mind taunted him that people were ugly, and she could have just been left behind. After all, she was different. That had become painfully evident in the short time he had known her.

When he first laid eyes on her a month before, she was practically feral, snarling and wearing a swatch of Seeker uniform like a loin-cloth. She was gnawing the bloodied corpse of what looked like a FEMA worker, and when she charged him every instinct he possessed screamed at him to fight for his life. Instead he silenced that instinct and stared the child down. Even if it meant his death, he wasn’t go-ing to lash out at a little girl.

At first that’s how it seemed their meeting would end. She bit, clawed and pounded Con-duit until he was on the edge of losing con-sciousness. And suddenly she stopped and start-ed sobbing. After that, they were inseparable. So long as Conduit was nearby, the girl was passive, curious. If he wasn’t around, she became crazed. So he was always sure to stay close.

In the scant month they’d been together she’d started speaking and had grown several inches taller. She was learning and growing so fast he began to wonder just how old she actually was. He’d set aside the scrap of uniform she’d been wearing. It could be meaningless, a trophy from some AMP she’d torn apart. But in case it wasn’t, he’d have it for when she was older, and perhaps it would mean something to her then.

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AMP activist. She’d just gotten a sympathetic agent, and had only started rebuilding her ca-reer. She promised Czernek she’d think about it, but was torn as she gazed out over the Vancou-ver waterfront from her apartment. She kept thinking of that age-old adage that “the right choice is usually never the easy one.”

Ballad of Power

May 7

Hello Mr. Gray,

Here’s what marketing’s come up with for the commercial release. Mr. Markus has personally vet-ted the script, so as soon as we get your approval, we’ll go ahead and start shooting with the proto-types. Our friends in the UHF and TRAC are quite excited about this. We’ve got plenty of preorders already… and we expect it’ll really turn the tide for the feds, so expect a party when this launches. Obviously, we’d like your thoughts on the ad since you are providing much of the funding. Respond when you have the chance.

Candy Nelson,

Chief Marketing Officer, Ballad Applied Research

Night. Suburban family home. A frightened family huddles in their house as thuggish AMPs attempt to break down the door.

V V/O: Are you tired of being afraid?

Rock song starts. Metal glints out of the darkness. CLOSEUP: Curvature of the armor,

high-pitched whining as the energy blast-er powblast-ers on. Thugs turn. WIDE SHOT: Resis-tor Model steps forward, shining. Thugs acti-vate their powers, grinning. A Fuse Model and Breaker Model step out from the darkness be-hind the Resistor and advance in unison. The thugs look worried.

V V/O: Now you can level the playing field with the all-new Resistor Power Armor.

WIDE SHOT: Battle, AMPs defeated, Resistors

stand over the AMPs as the family rushes out of the house. Little boy is picked up onto the shoulders of Resistor model as dawn breaks on the neighborhood.

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sive amounts of electricity into the disabled suit, which caught fire and fell aside, the chest cavity where the pilot sat falling open. The Rampager fled as a greasy plume of black smoke emanated from within.

Without cutting the feed, the cameraman approached the suit, caught site of the charred corpse within and began to gag, “No… That smell!” He then dropped the camera and vom-ited before the feed was finally cut.

Ballad assured investors this was an anoma-ly, and that all suits were protected against the worst of AMP powers, but the site of the black-ened, agonized face of the Breaker pilot became a black cloud over the Resistor brand.

An Unexpected Visitor

May 20

Kairam was used to the initial War Path withdrawal symptoms; the sweats, the shakes, irritability, anxiety and fatigue. The Matriarch gave him just enough for a good high, but without turning him into a raging psychopath; however, the fixes were few and far between, probably on purpose.

This, however, was new. He didn’t think hal-lucinations were common, but there he was, standing in front of himself. But this was a different version of himself. It was Kairam, but wizened, tired-looking, though lean and strong; the man who had killed President Aldridge at the beginning of last year.

“W-who are you?” Kairam stuttered.

A stupid question, but a small smile played across the man’s face. “Short answer is… I’m you. Kind of. It’s easier if you call me Paradox.”

Paradox sat on the edge of Kairam’s bed and, with a wry smile, said, “I don’t have much time. You’ve seen the future and you play an import-ant part in shaping it. If the Matriarch has her way, the future’s gonna turn out very differently. My job is to show you how to escape that.”

“But… where? … When are you from?” Paradox smirked, “That’s the question, isn’t it?” He picked up a cup of water on the bedside table and tossed it. Kairam flinched, but felt the shift of time from Paradox’s very will, and V V/O: Coming soon to suppliers all over

the country, Ballad CEO Greg Markus ex-plains why he’s so excited about this new development from the leading manufac-turer of AMP-suppression technologies. President Greg Markus at a Ballad press conference.

V Mr. Markus: Unhumans have created an era of danger and destruction. My family’s company, Ballad, has worked hard with the United Human Front and the US gov-ernment to provide peacekeeping tech-nologies to protect the average citizen. But I’ve heard time and time again from the American people how they’re tired of running scared from the unhuman terror and they want to see real action from the people who are supposed to be protect-ing them!

WIDE SHOT: The three models on the floor

of Ballad’s Pittsburgh factory.

V V/O: Preview pricing and features of Bal-lad’s heavy-class power armor: Break-er; our medium-class, a new standard in combat prowess: Volt; and our popular light-class: Fuse, on Ballad’s website. Sign up for preorders and power armor cours-es where available. Ballad: The Sound of Power.

After Ballad’s commercial aired, the media and online world were aflame with Resistor enthusiasm akin to the reaction a sleek, luxury sports model would receive on a grand scale. The company organized a number of wildly popular public demonstrations, and even began to record battles in the armor against Rampagers.

The rollout of the Resistor brand had been going smoothly until a Breaker suit failed in a spectacular fashion battling a Rampager in the suburbs in California; worse still, that failure was live streamed on every major news sta-tion. The Rampager emitted an electro-mag-netic pulse, frying the suit’s electronics despite protections against EMP attacks. The camera watched as the AMP continued to pump

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watched the cascade of water slow in the air. “Hold onto it,” Paradox said, standing. “I know you can do it, because I can.”

Kairam focused on the flow of time. There was a waver as Paradox let go, but the water merely lurched forward slightly before Kairam could catch it and slow the flow.

“Good. You have these abilities. Use this to get what you need from them,” he held his hand out and cupped some water in his palm. “Once you’re out of her grasp, you won’t be able to get War Path as easily,” Paradox said. He turned to the wall. The space twisted and Kairam could see another place that looked so familiar, but he didn’t know where.

“Use this to escape her. Follow your in-stincts, you know what you need to do.” Par-adox stepped out of the room and was gone, just like that.

Kairam sat, unable to accept what had just happened. He flexed the new power, quickening a bubble of time around him. As time buzzed about him, The Matriarch’s influence over him began to dim, wearing off as time sped up, and he saw himself for what he was. A tool. A thrall.

The next time the Matriarch’s thugs showed up to deliver his ration of War Path, he slipped out of time, took the drugs and a gun, and walked out of his prison of a year, trusting he’d get himself where he needed to go. Time and space accommodated, shifting for him as he took that first step.

Kairam found himself underneath a turnpike, in the shadows. A group of homeless people gathered around a small fire nearby, but when Kairam focused, he could see growths and ap-pendages that marked them as AMPs, Change-lings. One man appeared out of place, dressed in ragged clothing and sporting a wild beard, but no other remarkable features. Kairam slipped out of time and appeared before them in the firelight, addressing the bearded man.

“Hello, President Aldridge,” he said to the man, trying to keep his voice neutral amidst the panic his appearance had caused. The others fell backward, uttering surprised curses or threats.

Tim Aldridge’s eyes went wide as he re-coiled away from his killer. “It’s you! Kairam Hamdan! But… you’re dead!”

“I’ve heard the same about you,” Kairam smirked, “and it’s easier if you call me Paradox.”

Memorial Day

May 29

The Lion of Africa wouldn’t stand out among a crowd, whether he was in downtown Kampa-la or downtown Manhattan. He appeared to be an average person of middling age, height and appearance, but here was a man who people claimed had single-handedly saved Sudan from tyranny and united his country in a period of increasing prosperity. Even his enemies and de-tractors had to admit a certain level of respect, even awe. Although he was met with adoration everywhere he went, decorated and honored throughout the world, in front of the collection of American Senators he was met with icy silence.

Vice President Eleanor Klein had invited him to make a special speech on Capitol Hill for Memorial Day, in hopes of brewing sym-pathy for AMPs in the face of an international hero. The visit had the opposite effect.

“On this day, when you honor your fallen soldiers, remember too who they were fighting, and who sent them to fight their fellow global citizens,” the Lion of Africa finished his speech before stepping down. Afterwards, C-SPAN was full of widely anti-AMP politicians practically spitting with rage. The media had no trouble finding politicians who wished to voice their opinion, many of whom denounced the Lion of Africa and the Vice President. A Memorial Day evening speech by a Virginia congressman con-tained the most widely broadcast phrase in the ongoing coverage of the Lion’s visit: “This man is a tyrant, plain and simple, and little more than proof that absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

Washington was a disappointment to those who hoped a reasonable voice from a recog-nized hero would make a difference, and his entourage watched as the Lion became dis-heartened, seeing the fate of American AMPs corroding before his eyes.

The day after the speech, the Lion of Africa received a phone call from an expat and for-mer Afor-merican sweetheart, Jennifer Stewart.

“I’m a big fan of your work,” she practically

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sang into the phone.

The Lion had to admit he’d never seen any of her movies, and Stewart laughed. Stewart, on be-half of an informal network of Canadian pro-AMP activists, invited the Lion to speak about his life and accomplishments in a Canadian tour. The Lion flew into Vancouver to travel cross-country before ending in Ottawa, planning to continue on to an AMP Rights summit before the United Nations General Assembly early next year.

June 2017

Ground Zero

June 2

A rally in Indianapolis, Indiana for the Cin-dy Williams Bill - a pro-AMP bill that sought to strengthen privacy rights for AMP-positive citizens, named for a young girl who murdered after a false positive - turned cataclysmic. A scuffle just outside of the rally between an AMP and a UHF fanatic devolved into a fire-fight after TRAC soldiers reached the site.

While most of the overt AMPs were gunned down, a dozen of them took shelter with civil-ians in an office building and were trapped as evening settled over the city and martial law was imposed. A delegation of Aegis Squad ar-rived after the Seekers got wind of the conflict, but instead of saving the day, they were merely drawn into the fight when attempting to pro-tect civilians, assumed to be reinforcements for the trapped AMPs. TRAC Elite and backup agents arrived ahead of the National Guard, attempting to detain any AMPs in the fight. In-stead, they only added to the chaos as the fight spread further. A phalanx of Retribution brawl-ers, led personally by Spearfinger, descended on the fight looking for only one thing: blood.

The leaders of the Aegis Squad on hand did what they could to broker peace, but could do little more than manage flimsy temporary alli-ances. When a Rampager crashed through a high school, threatening a dozen displaced families who sought shelter in the gymnasium, the group joined TRAC agents on hand to put the beast down. Seconds after the Rampager’s defeat, TRAC turned on the young Seekers, but were driven off

by the angry families they had just saved. Downtown Indianapolis devolved into a war zone, and the National Guard set up a cordon around the city, evacuating civilians as best they could. The situation became more heated when TRAC, hunting for a fleeing Changeling, accidentally stumbled onto a Typhoon ware-house, and the criminals were forced to fight to protect the illicit weapons stashed within.

Retribution showed up soon after with promises of aid, and together Typhoon and Ret-ribution members systematically slaughtered the TRAC soldiers before turning on each oth-er ovoth-er the warehouse, doing little more than reaching a stalemate for the building as the city burned around them.

On the third day, strange figures in power armor with abilities not unlike those of AMPs, landed in the middle of the war zone, though no one could tell where their loyalties lay as the battle mounted in intensity. Out of nowhere, dozens of Rampagers appeared as the fight-ing continued. Each faction received reinforce-ments, and each one refused to stand down as high-rises toppled and fire blazed through the suburbs. For a few days, the city experienced a total blackout. The only sign anything still lived in what was left of Indianapolis was the pitched battles visible through the haze.

By the end of the week, the greater Indianap-olis area was little more than a smoking crater, with thousands dead. The devastation was unlike anything the United States had seen since the Civil War, and anti-AMP panic across the nation escalated further, with fears it would happen elsewhere. The Cindy Williams Bill was roundly rejected. Conspiracy theorists on all sides claimed agent provocateurs from the UHF, or Retribution, or the Seekers, or TRAC started the fight just to further their own goals and sow chaos.

The one win coming out of Ground Zero were the civilians who publicly praised the Ae-gis Squad’s selfless sacrifices and defense of the innocent in the face of death and destruc-tion, all the more impressive because of their youth. Young AMPs, a few Changelings and Retribution members from the region flocked to join the Seeker offshoot, and fan groups cropped up online, treating many of the

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bers with the reverence of reality stars. Even after each of the other groups fled af-ter taking massive casualties, the Aegis Squad remained behind and aided in the rescue and cleanup effort. A report submitted to the Seek-ers reached Doctor Luminous, alerting him to the ferocity and significant number of Rampag-ers. He and a team of Seeker scientists flew in to investigate the scene and treat the wounds of any injured Aegis Squad members.

In his investigation of the Rampagers, Doc-tor Luminous did a routine analysis of the DNA found at Ground Zero, hoping to put a face to the name of anyone in the battle. Surprisingly, he found the match he had hoped for… his lost love, Critter.

Despite his renewed focus on the altruistic work of the Seekers, and the increasing public support of the Aegis Squad, his flame of ob-session returned. He needed to know what had happened, and how Critter was involved.

Two Presidents

June 8

President Lewis sneered at the disheveled wreck of a man before him in the Oval Office. “They tell me you’re the President of the Unit-ed States,” he said, smirking.

The man claiming to be Tim Aldridge turned up in one of the internment camps outside of Richmond, Virginia without explanation, no documentation processing him inbound and no medical records. He appeared completely out of nowhere, claiming to prisoners and soldiers that peace was possible, which Lewis knew was a red flag for an AMP plot. Last year, a rumor had gone through what was left of the press that the dead president had been roaming the countryside, so soldiers were ordered to bring him in for ques-tioning ASAP. Lewis also insisted on confront-ing this fraud himself, even though a DNA test had confirmed, for all intents and purposes, this was President Aldridge. There were enough DNA anomalies for denial.

Lewis wasn’t particularly bothered. He knew an AMP ploy when he saw it. The man had been searched and searched again, but had nothing more than the rags on his back.

“So who sent you? These Seekers of En-lightenment? The Changeling freaks? The Ma-triarch and her Typhoons?”

Aldridge couldn’t even meet his eye. “I’ve met some of the greatest people I’ve ever known among each of these groups. I’m an en-voy of peace.”

Lewis scoffed. “If you really are Tim Aldridge, then you know firsthand that we’ll never have peace with those creatures.”

Finally, Aldridge looked up and met Lewis’ eyes. At that moment something happened. Something President Harry Lewis couldn’t pro-cess in the last seconds of his life. There was a flicker at Aldridge’s side. For a split second, a smiling figure stood behind him. Handed him something. Then disappeared.

“You’re right, Harry.” Lewis scowled as Al-dridge raised a gun wasn’t there a moment ago. “With you alive, there can never be peace.”

A single bullet ended the life of Harry Lewis, and a rain of bullets ended the life of Tim Al-dridge for a second time.

The Floating Nation

June 26

Late in June, Admiral Jeff Troutman of the United States Navy presented a report to a Con-gressional Naval Subcommittee on the increas-ing activity in the Pacific Ocean. Apparently, in the wake of Hawaii’s destruction at the hands of AMP militants, many of those displaced had tak-en to the sea and united into a massive flotilla, a floating island made up of haphazard structures built atop boats and ships, lashed together us-ing anythus-ing they could find.

Observing from afar for a period of time, the Navy had finally deemed the flotilla a non-crit-ical threat. Many of the people living aboard the artificial island appeared to be AMPs, but there did not seem to be any formal military force. Instead, the inhabitants were striving for basic survival and safety. Wanderers flocked to the new marine-bound region with life-sus-taining gifts of plants, livestock, building ma-terials and soil, using their powers and skills to cultivate land in a matter of weeks. The Navy had identified two human leaders, a

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mer captain of an Arctic research vessel, and a high-profile Hawaiian marine biologist, who worked in conjunction with three AMPs.

Surprisingly, the Naval operation believed they had been observed by aquatic AMPs, but no act of aggression had been taken. The most astounding development the Navy team ob-served was that the floating island accepted new people, but some, exclusively AMPs, were sent to a ‘quarantine’ area to prevent confron-tations due to their natural, mutual aggression. This, Admiral Troutman concluded, was an ex-ceptionally important policy and one the fed-eral government could adopt as a means for peaceful integration of AMPs into American communities.

The Congressional subcommittee did not see it fit to adopt this policy, but had the rare streak of good will to simply extend the sur-veillance period instead of confronting this ap-parent new nation of AMPs with force. After all, every AMP who wasn’t on American soil was one for whom the American government was not directly responsible.

“Admiral,” one congresswoman intoned in the closing moments of the hearing, “You’ve re-ferred to the island as ‘the flotilla’ throughout your report. Is there another name by which it is known?”

The Admiral shrugged, “It may be a fancy, congresswoman, but we’ve taken to calling it Atlantis.”

July 2017

Faceless Day

July 1

Since the first appearance of Faceless, the vigilante had proved lethally effective at com-bating AMPs and anti-UHF interests, leaving a trail of mysterious deaths and assassinations in their wake. For months leading up to July, a UHF-funded publicity consortium called The Fravashis Group (TFG), had been conducting an enormous PR campaign anticipating a fabricat-ed holiday, Unitfabricat-ed Humanity Day — coinciding with Independence Day celebrations in the US. However, because the Front had put so much

time and energy into the Faceless as a sym-bol, including distributing children’s Faceless masks and offering Faceless combat courses in different communities — as a recruitment front — most people used a different name for the UHF’s celebrations: Faceless Day.

Events proved especially popular in the United States, where rallies coincided with the Independence Day weekend. Larger cities held humongous rallies where thousands of people donned Faceless masks and prominent an-ti-AMP politicians raved against the unhuman threat, their hatred heightened by the assassi-nation of President Lewis and the desolate war zone where Indianapolis once stood.

UHF leaders had a special announcement in store for their supporters. Broadcast live from Pittsburgh to rallies across the nation, Dr. Shavar Stephens himself addressed rampant rumors that Faceless was actually an AMP by revealing the Faceless were legion, a group of highly trained UHF operatives. “The Faceless are the most exceptional of humanity,” he pro-claimed. “They sacrifice personal acclaim and cheap heroic stunts to help preserve our way of life. They are willing to confront the unhu-man threat because they see unhuunhu-mans for what they are: abominations and a threat to human existence.”

Hate crimes against AMPs and sympathiz-ers reached an all-time high that weekend. Pro-AMP counter-protests were attacked by mobs of people wearing Faceless masks, im-ages of AMP lynchings went viral online. This, in turn, inspired protests against the vigilante actions of the UHF, with moderate politicians and pro-AMP leaders the world over calling for sanctions against the human rights viola-tions of the UHF. This was countered simply: only humans qualify for protection by human rights. However anonymous the Faceless were, the face of the human revolution was revealed, and it was truly ugly.

References

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