The PRL Event: CZS Prelude 2
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Detective Paul Young has seen a lot of incredible things in his life, but nothing compares to the vision of Ivan Santana floating and glowing in the parking lot.
Ivan realizes the incredible nature of the display, but he does not have the words to explain himself.
“I didn’t know you had a boyfriend.” Young says. It’s a much easier issue to address than the glowing and floating.
“He’s a nice guy, I promise. He just has a temper,” Ivan sighs and he knows that Clay was right before, “and I haven’t been very good to him lately. This really isn’t his fault.”
Clay is out cold in the parking lot and Young helps Ivan carry him inside before taking Sonny to the hospital. Before he leaves Ivan, Young says earnestly, “You fellas take some time to get things straightened out, but we got a lot to talk about. I’ll check up on you later. Don’t be floating around or glowing in the meantime. And if he can’t control himself, maybe locking him up is the best thing for everyone.”
The sun is up and Ivan walks Young to his car to apologize to Sonny.
“It doesn’t surprise me that you got superpowers,” Sonny says, “but I can’t believe you would waste your time with a hot head like that.”
“That’s not a fair thing to say. I understand and I’m sorry for this, but this isn’t him. He’s changing in ways that he doesn’t understand and he’s having trouble controlling it.”
“Take care of yourself superman.” Sonny says as Young drives off.
Clay’s not a hothead. Ivan thinks as he goes back to his apartment. Clay is asleep in his bed and Ivan cuddles next to him. I did this to you.
For Ivan, the mysterious manifestation of the powers that allows him to levitate, glow, and control people’s bodies, can be traced back to the day of the shooting that left him in the hospital. He was only shot in the leg by the gunman who had killed his neighbors, and it seems that he survived because his powers manifested in that moment. Ivan had been meditating and focusing on attaining an enlightenment that had eluded him to that point in his life and it made it easier for him to deal with stresses from his family and his volunteer work, but he had no reason to believe that the result of his new found focus would give him superpowers. Even his shaman grandfather was just a man with his peyote after decades of devotion to his commune with nature. But something had changed for Ivan as he stared down that gunman. He felt that he was giving suggestions to the gunman that he reluctantly obeyed, and when Clay was out of control in the parking lot, he had been able to do the same thing, before Clay was able to turn the tables. With the gunman, Ivan’s heart was racing, his adrenaline was flowing, and he experienced a new sensation in his mind. That must have been the start. And in the moment when he was shot, his new powers had somehow sought out Clay, the man that he loves. Ivan had caused this entire situation and he knows that he is the source of Clay’s anger and confusion.
Watching him sleep peacefully next to him, Ivan cries like a baby. He had never imagined that he would meet someone who made him feel as happy as Clay does, but there he is, willing to toss aside any obstacle in their way so they can be happy together. Ivan wonders why it had been so easy for him to leave Clay. Sure, there were good things that he hoped to do, a woman in unbearable agony that he felt needed his help, but Clay made him happy from the day they met. The only times they had any problems were those times when Clay felt that Ivan was threatened. When it was just the two of them, Ivan didn’t care about anything else. He spent so little time with his family then that he got into arguments with his mother who depended on him for extra help when his father was working. And when Ivan was frustrated with her demands, he told her that he loved Clay because he knew that it would break her heart to have a gay son. She was furious and Ivan was kicked out of his family’s apartment. It was in the heat of those emotions that Ivan sensed the woman Crude who had made her way back to the apartment complex that she owned. And after she had killed two people, she fled the complex in a flash and Ivan struggled to keep up. He tried to do to the woman what he had done to the gunman, but nothing slowed her pace, her fear, her aggression, and soon Ivan was in TN. He hated to leave Clay, but there was a part of him that thought things were too good to be true between them. He was always worried that Clay might realize that there were more attractive, less complicated and self centered guys who would love him, and Clay might find them by chance when he was going about his day. His intense feelings for Clay included the same jealously that Clay let fuel his rage, but Ivan had been largely able to manage it because of Clay’s devotion to him. There was the time that a female cashier at a grocery store flirted with him in front of Ivan, and he was upset because he perceived her brazenness as a disregard of his connection with Clay, as though the thought that the two men could be together was ludicrous. Ivan held Clay’s hand because Ivan didn’t think he was aware of the flirting and he was being nice to the woman to return her kindness, and Ivan smirked at her. “Don’t work too hard,” he said as they left.
Ivan wakes up in the late afternoon without realizing that he had been asleep. The bed next to him is empty and he calls for Clay.
“You OK?” Clay says when he rushes into the room, sweat forming droplets on his face.
“I’m good. Where were you?” Ivan stands and they hug.
“Working out in the living room.”
They kiss and Ivan feels his mind pique.
Meanwhile, at the Knoxville Police Department
Detective Young is sitting at his desk, trying to ignore the doughnuts that a colleague had bought. He isn’t just resisting the stereotype, he has been trying to be more healthy thanks to the woman, Sandra, who was turning out to be more than a temporary roommate. She hounded him to eat better and she felt comfortable doing that because they had lived together in Young’s house since the disappearance, and subsequent murder, of her son more than a year before. The two didn’t have a romantic relationship, they were more like brother and sister and she was so grateful that he had been there to help her cope with her loses, that she cleaned his house and cooked him meals.
Just when Young is about to give in to the temptation to go for a doughnut, a man walks up to his desk. He is a young white guy in a button down shirt with a skinny tie, and he wears his credentials on his breast pocket. NC DPS SBI, North Carolina Department of Public Safety State Bureau of Investigations. Young stands to greet him with a handshake.
“Long way from home, and I see you got the whole alphabet on your badge there, must have some big news for me.” Young says jokingly.
“It’s news,” the man says smiling, extending a hand and he introduces himself. “I’m Adam, Adam Altman. You’re the detective that’s been catching those CDC bodies?”
Young nods. Those bodies are hard to forget. “I haven’t really gotten a good look at ‘em up close, but the pictures are horrific.”
“Well, the good news is, we finally caught the thing responsible.” Adam explains as the two men sit. “I’m here because the thing, the woman, if you can still call her that, has killed ten people in a trail that starts in the middle of NC and ends here.”
“A human woman did that?” Young asks. His disbelief is tempered by the vision of Ivan floating.
“Yes sir, she’s on her way to the university hospital at Duke. She’s something else. I don’t know what options she has, might be best just to put her out of her misery. We teamed up with the TN bureau and we’ve been tracking her, but something must have happened to her last night. We only got her because she was injured. She’s so fast.”
Young is stunned that something so dangerous managed to infiltrate his community unnoticed.
“I came to you,” Adam says looking over his shoulder to be sure that no one is in earshot, and he moves to the edge of his seat, “because we might have a problem that the lab coats don’t want us to know about.”
“Go on,” Young says, intrigued.
“I don’t want to cause a panic, and I know about you because of your reputation and I know you can handle it. Hell, I’m hoping you can help me process it.” Adam seems to be very nervous. “I overheard some of the scientists who took the woman say that she might be contagious. And I don’t mean that she has a cold. I mean, whatever happened to her is a contagious disease that might be on the loose in the general population. I know I don’t have it, whatever it is, they tested our blood and everything even though they didn’t tell us why. But who knows who she came into contact with before we managed to catch her.”
Young doesn’t know how to process the information.
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