Episode I The Beginning of it All (Part one)

Whenever you read a comic book, or a book series by an author, or watch a TV show, or practically anything that involves characters who exist in multiple interrelated episodes, one thing usually occurs that you may not be aware of or even conceive of at first. The world grows. What starts out as a simple story about a boy being bit by a radioactive spider and resolving to use his powers to fight petty crime can turn into an epic involving heroes and villains that threaten all of creation. New characters, new ideas, new races, new rules and worldviews open up in a never-ending expanding vista. Even the past grows, as aspects of the backstory are fleshed out.

Such thoughts might have occurred to Phileas McCaffrey that day, had he realized the direction in which his life was headed. Currently, his chief concern was reconciling with his parents and his five-year-old daughter after a rather nasty divorce from her mother. The details of this he kept private, as he was wont to do, feeling that they were of too personal a nature to be discussed with the general public.

Suffice it to say that he had felt betrayed when his parents had sided with his (then) wife instead of him, and when his wife had verbally attacked him and threatened to never let him see his daughter again. In point of fact, he had not seen her in six months, and was just beginning to feel hope that his (now) ex-wife would finally relent.

So it was not surprising that he attributed his strange dreams of abductions and of little white men as nothing more than nightmares expressing his psychological angst.

****

It was also unsurprising that he thought little of an occurrence on Monday, June 13, 1993, when he noticed that his right hand was strangely heavy. He shook it off and decided that he was imagining things.

It had nothing to do with anything but stress, he had assumed.

Yet, as the day wore on, he kept finding that whenever he thought about it, the feeling would come back. He couldn’t understand it.

He worked as a surgeon, and, ironically enough, as a gynecologist. His specialty was doing surgery on the unborn, in new experimental procedures that were intended to heal defects as early on as possible, early in development when they might have the least impact later on. As his hands kept feeling heavy, he began to worry that if it continued, he would have to delay a cleft palate repair he had scheduled for tomorrow.

Apparently, though, that would soon be the least of his concerns.


****

It was also unsurprising that he thought little of an occurrence on Monday, June 13, 1993, when he noticed that his right hand was strangely heavy. He shook it off and decided that he was imagining things.

It had nothing to do with anything but stress, he had assumed.

Yet, as the day wore on, he kept finding that whenever he thought about it, the feeling would come back. He couldn’t understand it.

He worked as a surgeon. His specialty was doing surgery on the unborn, in new experimental procedures that were intended to heal defects as early on as possible, early in development when they might have the least impact later on. As his hands kept feeling heavy, he began to worry that if it continued, he would have to delay a cleft palate repair he had scheduled for tomorrow.

Apparently, though, that would soon be the least of his concerns.


****

Harold Bloom was a bit of a loner. Born to a mostly non-religious Jewish family and having converted to Christianity at seventeen, he had been semi-estranged for nearly seven years. Moreover, he found out that just because he had faith, it did not mean that his personality issues disappeared. He was a bit of a hothead and was always railing against this or that injustice. He had a tendency toward impulsiveness and found controlling his temper to be very difficult.

Despite his college education, he worked moving boxes at a seaport, having decided to take a year or two to “find himself” before embarking on a career in business (his major).

He had been having very troubled dreams recently, mostly involving him being operated on by some strange little white men, like the famous “grays” that all the abduction fanatics were talking about. He also had a vague remembrance of a few humans - or something that looked like humans - talking around him.

He had not yet had a girlfriend or much of any serious friendships other than a few people he knew from college and whom he hadn’t seen since graduation. Most of his free time was spent watching television, although he would pray occasionally (not as often as he ought) or read the Bible sometimes.

He went to a local church on Sundays, but only listened to the sermons. He didn’t bother to make friends.

****

It should have surprised him more to notice that he was glowing, he thought later, but probably the lateness of the hour contributed to his lack of observation and comprehension. It was three o’clock at night, and when he woke up and found the room aglow, he was annoyed at having not only forgotten to put out the light, but at having fallen asleep with it on.

Except that the light was not on. He was the source of the strange luminescene. He looked at himself in the mirror and saw a nimbus surrounding his head. He tried to wave it off, failed, decided that he was dreaming, and went back to bed and back to sleep.

In the morning he was normal.

Or so he thought.

****

Carol Quentin was woken up by the alarm.

She looked around herself. She was in some stranger’s bed again. Not surprising, considering that she had gone to the bar that night with that express intention. She hoped that she could remember his name when he came out of the bathroom – or wherever it was that he was outside of bed.

She slowly stretched and began to put on the clothes that she had at the foot of the bed. She yawned, and began to wonder at exactly which drink her bain had stopped recording memories. Oh well. Maybe the guy had taped their… “session,” she thought.

It wasn’t that she resented the fact that she had been too drunk to remember what had happened. The guy hadn’t taken advantage of her, as her goal last night, had in fact, been to go to bed with a total stranger.

Nonetheless, she was annoyed that she had gone to all that trouble and now she couldn’t remember any of the fun she had (presumably) had last night. Oh well, less drink, more looking for Mr. Right-Now tonight.

As she was thinking about this, the guy came out of the bathroom. Uh-oh. He looked rather mean, and instinct told her to get out of the bed and to keep it between her and the guy. He might get violent.

“Hey, bitch. Don’t ever, I mean ever, fall asleep on me again!”

Hmmm… she thought. Maybe I didn’t have such a good time last night after all. Shoot. And it would have been good, too. The violent dangerous ones were usually the best, as long as she could get up before them and leave before the morning so as to avoid any post-coital wrath. So no sex, no memories, but violent anger. She was zero for three.

The man grabbed the lamp on the nightstand and threatened her. “Come here, now, slut.”

Carol frowned. Not that she was against doing what the guy presumably wanted to do, having not done it last night. However, as much as she enjoyed the risk of sex with dangerous, violent men, she also liked keeping her body mostly intact and functioning, and always thought that risk also included the possibility of not getting hurt. Risk was fun. Certainty of destruction was worse than the boringness of safety.

“Come here.”

“Not right now.”

He hurled the lamp at her. She reflexively held up her arm as he wound up for the throw, and closed her eyes.

She heard a clanking sound, and felt nothing. She opened her eyes and saw the guy on the floor, the lamp at his head. He was bleeding from a gash on the chin, where the lamp had evidently hit him.

She noticed a strange, square-shaped – something at her right forearm. It looked like everything on the other side was covered by a very light green, glowing filter. She squinted at it, and it suddenly vanished, as if submerged underneath some 4th-spatial dimensional water.

She shrugged, glad to be safe, put on her clothes, and left.

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