[Dominic Weaver]

Surge The best part of “believe” is the “lie”. + Persephone Dean + High Voltage

It was fairly late by the time Dominic arrived back at the office, and most people were preparing to go home. He knew all of them by name, shook their hands, hugged one or two, and kindly waved away their concerns. It was easy to believe whatever Dominic said, especially when he appeared as sprightly and energetic as always. Some looked confused, they’d heard about the crash, but knew little else. What could keep him out of the office for nearly a week? A few friends were waiting in his office, and the apparent leader, the tall, slender man who was his secretary and assistant stepped forward, raising a long finger. “Now Dominic, we know you just want to work, but no one else could believe that you hadn’t been here for so long. We thought it might be nice to celebrate the fact that you at least appeared to have a life.” Gregory winked, and proffered a glass, filling it with a measure of scotch. Everyone else in the office already had a glass. Michelle his partner and Alexander his top rep. Michelle, who was married, but had almost as obsessive an attitude towards work, raised her glass as Dominic held up his. “To having a life.” Dom glared good humouredly at the three, then joined in, tapping his glass to theirs with a ring of crystal. They drank for a moment. “Now stop drinking my scotch and get out of my office.” They laughed, and it was only a few more minutes before he was left alone in his office, to finally get back to work. It was going to be a long night... Dom leaned back from his desk with a sigh, and rubbed at his eyes. Much as he loved his job, reviewing contracts was hardly the most riveting part of it. His computer screen glowed brightly, and he leaned forwards to turn the machine off. That was when things got really weird. There was a strange jolt in his fingers, and a sudden rush of warmth that soon spread to his whole body. The lights above him flickered, and the computer before him beeped warningly, the screen flashing to blue, before it shut itself off. He pushed himself back and away from the desk, his chair spinning away to collide with the low shelf below his window. There had been a hardly detectable blue light coming from his hand, now gone. He still felt great, if anything, he felt even better than he had before, at the hospital. It was beyond healthy now, more… energised, as though he was on enough caffeine to hop him up, but not quite enough to make his hands shake. “Holy shit.” Looked through the glass door at the front of his office to see if Gregory had noticed anything, he crossed the room quickly. What could this mean? He’d put his hand to his computer, and apparently fried the thing? Was it just some sort of mega static charge? A quick tap to the metal handle of his office door instantly disproved that theory. What was this? He felt as though he could run a marathon in about ten seconds, he was almost buzzing with energy and motivation. Buzzing… Had he pulled electricity out of his computer? He shook his head to himself, it was ridiculous, human beings didn’t just spontaneously absorb electricity. It must have just been a freak accident. Even so… it couldn’t hurt to try it again… could it? He reached down to the power button on his computer, his fingers brushing against the USB ports as they found the small indentation. He pressed the button. Nothing happened. He stood up again, and as he did so a spark flew from his hand to the exposed metal of the USB port. There was a crack, a whine, and whisps of smoke began to seep from the vents in the case. Dominic jumped back in shock. He’d pulled electricity from the computer, and then, with another touch, fried the whole damn thing. Now Dominic might not have been the type to read comic books, but he went to the movies, he saw the big blockbusters. He was clever enough to be sceptical, but just imaginative enough to make the impossible leap. “How do I market this?” He had to call the others, no way they hadn’t discovered something like this.

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[Persephone Dean]

Ascendant

Thanking her lucky stars that her keys were still intact, Persephone let herself somewhat hurriedly back into her apartment. The crippling pains she’d been experiencing in the hospital hadn’t returned, having faded to the faintest of simmers over the course of her journey home, and now the overwhelming feeling in her mind was one of relief. Finally. She was home. She hadn’t realised that she’d been missing it until the door was locked and bolted – revelling in the comforting solitude like wrapping up in a favourite blanket.

First on her agenda was a shower – quick, efficient, thorough – and a change into familiar clothing. She sat for a few minutes at the top of her stairs, closing her eyes and enjoying the silence. The strange, knowledge-hungry sensation that had replaced the pain was a minor irritation but not by any means unbearable. It was oddly meditative; gave her something to focus on. Occasionally she would get the same bursts of intense, aimless curiosity she’d experienced in the hospital but she couldn’t quite understand what they meant yet.

There was no rush. She’d get some food, maybe even try and sleep. She could solve this problem in the morning when she was back at her best.

When Persephone finally opened her eyes, another opened within her.

The first thing that she lay this new eye upon was the collection of miniature succulents assembled in an orderly manner beside her bed.

Something was very, very wrong. How could she have been so stupid? The soil was so heavily nutrient-imbalanced that it was practically a crime against horticulture. The solution was obvious, of course. A rescue plan had already mapped itself out in her head before she could even begin to question where that intuition had come from. It felt right though, somehow. Perfect.

Her eyes snapped to the next plant, and the next, and the next, mind whirring.

Sometimes the solutions were at least partial quick fixes, which Persephone acted upon instantly, and sometimes they were added to the end of a very long mental to-do list. She rushed down the stairs, almost hypnotised by the blur of information, and began working her way through the jungle of plants that swamped her living area. Eventually she had even completed a full circle of the balcony and corrected the positioning of her… recreational section.

Even with most of the plants still requiring some improvements, they appeared healthier just as a result of her attention. Once the smugness and satisfaction of a job well done wore off, Persephone began to realise that something was wrong.

Sure, she was good at gardening, but not quite at this level of meticulous detail and precision. She wasn’t sure she’d ever read any books that had suggested even half of the techniques she was going to be putting into practice and when she tried to put her ideas into writing… nothing. The information was stuck securely in her head.

All traces of pain were gone, at least. Even that curiosity seemed sated for now.

What was going on? This had never happened, not before the accid-

Ah.

Persephone plugged her phone in and waited impatiently for it to turn on. Sleep could wait, she needed answers. She needed to know if she was alone in the weirdness continuing to seep into her life even beyond the ward.

Her fingers fumbled shakily for the business card tucked away in the jeans she had discarded earlier. Will may have made some progress in his investigation, she could have rung him, but something drew her to the little black card. Part of her still regarded Dominic as the leader of their ragtag group and reporting back to him seemed both the logical choice and the comforting one.

“Dominic, hi, I think that doctor’s magic medicine comes with a few potential side effects, and not just your standard nausea, headaches and dizziness…”

ψ

[Dominic Weaver]

Surge The best part of “believe” is the “lie”. + Persephone Dean

Dominic had barely hung up the phone to the other three before Gregory put through another call. He was, at this moment, intensely grateful for the fact that his office was as close to soundproof as a room like this could be. This time it was Persephone, the somewhat more collected girl from the hospital. Like him, she had been saved from some sort of awful event, but had little recollection of it. He tapped the button for speaker again, noting that there seemed to be no reaction when his finger tapped the plastic device. “Yeah? Persephone?” Just judging from her opening words it sounded as though Persephone was experiencing some interesting reactions to whatever had happened to them, although she sounded far from excited about it. Not quite how Alice had sounded, or even Mason. It was understandable, he supposed. It was possible that the only reason he hadn’t freaked out was because of the high that his… super power? Appeared to produce in him. He’d never felt more powerful, and it helped that he could apparently throw lightning bolts. He felt like a Greek God. “I’ve noticed… I’ve developed a few side effects of my own, I wasn’t anticipating the kind of redecorating costs they might come with though.” He eyed the scorch mark on his wall, the room was beginning to smell faintly as though something had been burned in here, and judging by the black scar, he supposed something had. His mind was full of the possibilities, of what this could mean for him, for his company, even for the world. “You just need to keep calm Persephone OK. Tell me what’s happened to you? You’ve got… powers then?”

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[Persephone Dean]

Ascendant

She was back on that top step where things had finally come to a head, sprawling in a slightly unnatural manner that came with an ex-acrobat’s flexibility. It had been a good idea to call Dominic. The very second she’d been put through to him and rushed out her introductory statement she could feel the weight lifting from her shoulders. Persephone had always been happiest with a clear sense of order in her life and, just by reporting back to the impressive young man she considered an authority, things felt much more under control.

“Redecorating…?”

It definitely didn’t seem like they were exhibiting the same effects. If anything, Persephone’s home was looking better than it had in a long while – if a systematic jungle of plants was your kind of thing, that is.

“Dominic, thanks, but I’m handling this just fine,” she assured him. It was mostly the truth now. She was almost embarrassed by her initial reaction, even if it hadn’t been that bad considering the circumstances. It had been quite unsettling to uncover this new, untamed side of herself.

She laughed gently at his question. “Powers? I suppose. I wouldn’t have called it that myself. There just seems to be a lot of information in my head that definitely wasn’t there before, and it seems to have a mind of its own.

“Essentially,” she continued, managing to tear herself away from speaking so vaguely. “I have this brand new understanding for plant care which, I know, doesn’t sound very exciting.” A brief pause to shake her head, amused by her own words. “It’s like… beyond logic. I don’t think it applies to anything else, though I haven’t experimented much. Not exactly your standard flashy Superman powers but there’s definitely something there and it feels powerful.”

Casting a brief glance at the indoor garden brought her mental to-do list flashing back into the forefront of her mind. So much to do, so much she still needed to understand.

“Care to explain your own side effects?” Persephone pressed. She wondered if the others were also experiencing their own reactions to the benevolent doctor’s work, and what Dominic knew. Had Will uncovered anything yet? They needed to track down this doctor more than ever.

ψ

[Dominic Weaver]

Surge The best part of “believe” is the “lie”. + Persephone Dean + Still Very High Voltage

Dominic didn’t sound so enthused by Persephone’s apparent ‘side effects’. She had developed super plant care powers? “That’s… what? A new understanding of plants? That’s cool, I wonder what else you can do…” Glad now that he could apparently pick up his phone, and unsure why that was the case, he took it off speaker and put it to his ear, sitting down again at the desk, though keeping his distance from the computer. “OK, well I seem to be turning into…” He paused, as though searching for the right words. “Wait, did you see Spiderman last year? Well I’m basically the villain, minus the blue face.” His mind was already whirling through the opportunities, there were so many things that this could mean for them. They had apparently developed abilities that defied understanding, and the person that had given to them had left no rules or guidance. As far as Dominic was concerned, that meant they could do what they wanted with them. They needed to go viral, they needed to become something so big they couldn’t be ignored. A simple Youtube clip would be dismissed as a hoax, clever CGI, but if they could do something big, there would be no dismissing it. If you’d been in the room with him you would have almost been able to hear the cogs whirring in his head. “Well I’ve organised to meet the other guys tomorrow morning, apparently they’ve got some crazy shit going on as well, we’ve got to meet up and check it all out.”

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[Persephone Dean]

Ascendant

“What else I can do?”

Persephone frowned. She had no idea how to explore her power further. It had become pretty apparent to her that the ability had a very broad reach across the different plant species within her apartment and that it was probably applicable to literally any plant she could possibly encounter. But whether she could actually do anything more with this new understanding, or whether there was another ability still locked up in her head somewhere, she had no clue.

“I’ll experiment and report back,” she said quickly, hoping the doubt hadn’t crept too far into her voice.

Spiderman? Persephone knew of it, had seen posters… But she wasn’t much of a movie-goer and was definitely not aware of any blue-faced supervillains. She could admit to her ignorance, but she was already feeling quite vulnerable so decided against it.

“Ah yes… How’s that working out for you, redecorating needs aside?”

She made a mental note to google the latest Spiderman movie if Dominic’s answer failed to clear things up.

The fact that he was exhibiting an ability on the same level as that from a movie though? Persephone could only assume that it was something remarkable.

“I can meet tomorrow morning, but I need to be at work in the afternoon…” One of her bosses had been utterly sympathetic about her recent absence and demanded that she take the rest of the month off to recover. The other was, quite simply, an asshole and perfectly content to send her back to work the day after being discharged. It was that or her future shifts were sure to be cut.

Meeting the others again would be interesting though. Perhaps they would actually prove useful. So far, she hadn’t been impressed, except by Dominic of course. Will had gone up in her estimations recently too, but how highly would depend on his progress in the investigation. She hoped that he’d at least made some – that shadowy stranger who had saved her life was hovering in the back of her mind like a ghost, as though any second now she would appear and demand her payment.

She smiled and shook her head, chiding herself. No need to be so paranoid, it served no purpose.

ψ

[Dominic Weaver]

Surge The best part of “believe” is the “lie”. + Persephone Dean

Dom shook his head, even though Persephone couldn’t see him at the other end of the phone. It was one of those habits that people tended to keep a hold of while on the phone, nodding or shaking their heads as they spoke, gesturing wildly with their hands, even when the person they were talking to couldn’t possibly see them. “That’s fine, you gotta do what you gotta do.” He was slightly amazed that she was so calm about her new abilities, as though it was just something that happened to her every day. He remembered her talking about her apartment, and the plants she kept there, so maybe understanding more about plants wasn’t such a big change for her. It wasn’t like she was now throwing lightning or bending forks with her skin. Even so, his mind had been racing with the possibilities offered by their new found powers. “We’ve got to find out how it’s affected everyone else as well, no way it was just us.” He smiled to himself, considering just what they could do. It was almost like a movie, maybe Mason would have developed wall-crawling powers. He was a little old to be Peter Parker, but a real life Spiderman would bring in millions of dollars worth of sponsorship. “Is there somewhere you want to be picked up? I can swing by and then we can head out to meet the others, maybe see if we can get to the bottom of this.” They talked for a moment longer, agreeing on a place for Dominic to meet Persephone, then, with best wishes, they both hung up. Dominic poured himself another drink. With the excitement and fresh energy he could feel coursing through his veins, there was no way he was going to sleep well tonight…

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