Champion City

All the Power in the World Chapter 2

It took only a few days for Doctor Gehirn and Bridgette to start their work. A lab already awaited them just outside Federation, and Tuffman had lab workers already at work on acquiring much of the necessary equipment. Bridgette threw herself in to setting up an air-tight security system while Gehirn started to rebuild his research with only a handful of scattered notes.

It only took him three months to prepare for the first round of live tests.

Despite her cool, practiced demeanor, Bridgette found herself nervous as a nurse scrubbed her with an abrasive soap. It made her skin itch, but the thought of what was expected of her in only a few short minutes made her skin crawl.

The nurse threw a loose robe over Bridgette’s shoulders and she pulled it tight as Gehirn entered the room. One of his lab assistants followed only a few steps behind. The assistant pushed a cart bearing a pair of long needles filled with some unknown compound.

Gehirn nodded and the assistant left the room. The doctor picked up the needle and walked towards Bridgette.

“You have absolutely nothing to worry about,” Gehirn said. “The injections consist of only a special concoction of amino acids, especially designed for the process. Only when mixed with the specialized chemicals injected in to the sperm donor will the process truly begin.”

Bridgette gave him a weak grin and hoped that it would be enough to reassure the doctor. The nurse helped her open the robe as the doctor readied the needle. Despite all her past training against torture, Bridgette still closed her eyes as the doctor stabbed the needle in to her abdomen. It was uncomfortable, but acceptable. The thought of what came next though—

She felt her body shudder. The thought of a man touching her—it was detestable. Revolting.

She had performed the act enough times in the past, but always in service of her duties to the Reich. She even could feign enjoyment as was required. But her days of espionage were long gone, and the hospital-like setting of the current experiments didn’t make it any easier to take. She had hoped to live the rest of her life without feeling a man’s touch. Now she found herself selling her body to one while several others watched from afar.

A week passed and each day brought another injection. Another step closer to the end. On the eighth day, she would either have to perform or lose the lifestyle her new wealth would afford.

The morning came and once again the nurse arrived to scrub Bridgette’s body. Bridgette embraced the rough cleaning from the other woman. She wished the nurse could provide the same service after the next act.

She tried her best to at least appear calm and collected s she made her way in to the strange bedroom setup. Until two weeks before it had been an empty lab room. Even now it was mostly empty. Only a large metal platform, covered with a pair of surgical mattresses and a single white sheet, stood in the middle of the room. Bridgette could still detect the heavy scent of the chemicals used to clean the room as she walked to the makeshift bed. A large mirror lined the far wall, and Bridgette knew that the other side lay the main lab, where the research team would watch in voyeuristic glee.

She shivered again at the thought of multiple men ogling her during the already repulsive act. She tried to clear her mind as she sat on the platform with only the hum of the air purifying fans to keep her company. It didn’t work.

The door to the room clicked and slowly started to open. Bridgette sat up straight as she awaited the first sight of her new mate.

Randolph Theodore Tuffman, dressed in a brief white robe that matched her own, entered the room.

He grinned as he saw her. “If I’m going to create the next evolutionary step of humanity, I plan to use only the best genetic material.” As soon as the last word left his mouth, Tuffman opened his robe and let it drop to the floor. Bridgette took in this man before her, wearing nothing but his cocky grin.

Although he fast approached sixty years of age, Bridgette found Tuffman to still be as fit as a man half his age. She found herself looking down from his hairy, muscular chest down to his hard manhood. She couldn’t believe it as she felt herself become moist. Tuffman walked to the platform and Bridgette sighed as he rested his hand on her knee.

His hand moved further upwards as Tuffman leaned in to kiss her. Bridgette ripped her own robe open. She grabbed him by the waist and pulled him down on top of her. She moaned in delight as he entered her and cried out in orgasm as he exploded inside her.

Gehirn smiled as he watched from the adjoining room. He made a note to himself to congratulate Tuffman on his insistence to use the experimental pheromones. As Bridgette continued to fondle Tuffman’s faded erection, Gehirn, with an almost inhuman detachment, only noted to decrease the pheromone concentration in the air.

*****

It took four years, three miscarriages and one stillbirth before Bridgette Asch carried her first child, the first child of the experiment, to term. With the child’s birth, the breeding program entered full swing with several other potential breeders brought in to the expanding facilities. Project: Supergeneration exploded in to a massive operation and Tuffman reveled in his plans to build an army of super soldiers.

Gehirn began work on his severance package. He knew that despite his success something would soon go wrong. Something always went wrong. But he didn’t plan to lose his research quite yet.

It came to a head late in 1963. The report came in to the labs that Randolph Tuffman had succumbed to a heart attack at the age of sixty-two. Randolph’s son and heir Demetrius scoffed at his father’s gross expenditures and started a company wide re-financing. Within days the project’s funding was gone and its shutdown imminent.

Gehirn threw his plans in to action. He abducted the six youngest babies, all less than a month in age, including Bridgette’s week old second child. He would disappear for the next thirty years.

Fearing for her own life and the future of her firstborn son, Bridgette took the two year old child from the labs. Within weeks, she married David Thorington, a middle-aged entrepreneur and associate of the late Randolph Tuffman, as well as one of the second generation breeders. They christened the nameless boy Thom and moved to Titan Heights on the outskirts of Federation. Thorington opened his own electronics firm and Bridgette settled in to the life of a housewife. She hoped to give her child a normal life, far from the experiments of his birth. It was not to be.

*****

June 1973

Thom Thorington grew up an average kid in an average neighborhood. He might have been tougher than most, as neither he nor his parents could remember any incidents with illness. He thought little of it, even when three quarters of the school would be out with chicken pox.

Bridgette Thorington, despite her past, proved to be a doting mother if an inattentive wife. Without the continued exposure to the experiment’s pheromones, she quickly lost interest in her husband’s charms. David Thorington, wholly unaware of his wife’s background before the project, blamed himself. He threw himself in to Thorington Electronics. Twelve hour work days at the office led him in to an affair with his secretary. Bridgette didn’t even notice the repeated signs of the affair. She focused her own attraction on another neighbor, Janice Stark, and began an affair of her own with the housewife.

Thom remained blissfully unaware of his parents’ strained marriage. He grew in to a cocky adolescent. He knew he was strong, and he was always ready to fulfill any challenge provided him. At eleven, he could found little that bothered him physically. He rarely grew tired, he never got hurt, and no one came close to matching his strength. With little need to sleep more than a couple hours a night, he read adventure and crime novels nonstop under his blankets.

If it was not a perfect life, Thom couldn’t complain. Until early in June, 1973.

Bridgette sent her son out to play with the other boys of the neighborhood. Thom quickly organized a baseball game with his friends. The afternoon game started out slow, with neither team getting any kind of lead. Thom pitched for his side, but his focus remained more on not over pitching than getting the win. Some of his friends already whispered about how abnormally strong he was becoming. His father warned him repeatedly to hide any abnormalities, like his strength, whenever possible. Better to fit in. Thom repeated his father’s credo to himself often.

The other boys expected Thom to make a good showing, however. The other team jeered his poor performance at the mound, while his teammates encouraged him to push himself harder. Thom found himself growing frustrated by the whole situation.

It became too much for him at the top of the third. Nathan, Lucille Stark’s youngest, led his team in a series of heckles as Thom came up to bat. The score stood at 1-1 and Thom wanted a home run bad.

The pitcher sent the ball his way. It came in fast, if a little bit low. Thom swung anyway, and he put every ounce of strength in to his swing. The bat struck the ball with a crack. All eyes went to the sky as the ball flew past the outfield and over the field of bushes behind it. It continued over the roof of old Mrs. Meyer’s house and straight in to the pond in the yard. No one dared enter Mrs. Meyer’s backyard for fear of reprisal. And even if they could somehow sneak in, the pond was too deep and far too dirty to ever find their ball back.

With some reluctance, the children went their separate ways, far earlier than planned. They all spoke of Thom Thorington’s amazing hit as they headed down the streets to their destinations.

Thom ran straight home. He was excited about his amazing home run, but worried about how his parents might react to it. Nothing could prepare him for what he saw as he barreled past the kitchen and in to his parents’ room.

Bridgette Thorington writhed in pleasure, her hands wrapped in Janice Stark’s hair. Mrs. Starks moved up and down between his mother’s legs. Bridgette’s eyes flew open as she heard the door strike the wall. She screamed as she saw her son and her sudden movement bucked her lover up and off of her.

Thom ran from the room, confused and frightened by what he had just witnessed. He ran down the streets in tears. He came up to a stop when he reached the bus stop. It gave him an idea. He needed to find his father. Dad would know what to do.

He wiped his tears away as he waited for the bus. He was a man now, he reminded himself. The bus driver said nothing about the tear-stained face of the boy boarding the bus.

Five minutes later, Thom stood in front of Thorington Electronics’ office. He ran through the door and up the stairs towards his father’s office area. He charged past the front room and in his rush, failed to notice the lack of a secretary at her desk.

Thom stopped short as he threw the door open to the office. His eyes met his father’s from across the room. His father looked terrified as he pulled away from his desk and the secretary beneath him. He franticly reached down to the floor to retrieve his slack and underwear. Before he could stand up and say anything, Thom turned and ran from the building.

He continued down the city streets, not knowing or caring which way he went. He just wanted to disappear for awhile.

David Thorington stormed from his office and to his car. He would go home and give Bridgette a piece of his mind. He shot down the road in his Mercedes. He didn’t know why his wife had sent Thom to his office but he had a few words for her about it.

At the same time, Bridgette hustled Janice from her house. The joy of their afternoon liaison had been replaced with worry for her son. Why had Thom come home?

Thom sat in the baseball park and cried. He just couldn’t understand what his parents were doing. He resolved to himself that he would head home. He was strong, he could fix this. With my strength, he thought, I can fix anything.

David stormed in to the house a mere minutes after Janice’s departure. “Bridgette!” His yell rang out through the entire house.

Bridgette cursed to herself. Had David somehow found out? She rushed to her night stand and palmed the Derringer she kept hidden in the bottom drawer.

She heard him thrashing through the house as he moved toward the bedroom. “You goddamned stupid whore! Where the fuck are you? We need to talk, damn it!” David threw the bedroom door open.

He came towards her with a fury Bridgette had never seen in him before. His eyes were wide and his teeth clenched and she knew he planned on hurting, if not killing, her. She raised the Derringer and fired both rounds in to his chest. The bullets didn’t stop David’s momentum and he crashed down in front of her. They fell back in to the bed. David’s limp corpse pinned his wife down.

Thom watched everything from outside their bedroom window. He cried out loud at the gunshots. As his father collapsed in front of his mother, he slammed his fist through the window. Bridgette cried out as her son climbed through the window. Thom saw nothing but his father’s corpse as he moved towards his mother. The first blow caught her in the ribs, and she cried out in pain as they shattered. Thom didn’t hear her or even see her. He continued to rain blow after blow upon his mother. Bones shattered with every impact. His mother collapsed to the floor after the first five, but Thom continued pummeling her body until she was long dead, a broken heap.

Thom stood in the middle of the room several minutes. He tried to weep but no tears would come out. He walked out of the room and in to the kitchen. Without another sign of emotion, he picked up the phone and dialed the number for the police.