The Pariahs

By Jimi Holmes

Jack Winters had always dreamed of being one of the Chosen, but had never had enough money to get a power chip installed.
Until Now.
After saving up to buy one, he wakes up in jail with no recent memories. When he gets broken out by the most hated terrorist group in the country, he's faced with the choice of joining them or being cast back into the hands of the authorities that already have his execution scheduled. As he gets used to his new life and abilities, he faces threats from all angles. There are many who believe him to be too powerful to be left alive.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jimi Holmes
• Release date: Dec 31, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311576361

Jimi Holmes

I'm just a guy who likes to write stories. A few of my shorter ones can be found on my blog. I live in Florida with a wife and two daughters. I try to live the simple life, but fail miserably in several respects. I mostly write Fantasy and Science Fiction, but I like to dip my pen in other pots as well. For NaNoWriMo 2015 I put together a mystery. I've been tossing around an idea for a horror tale as well, written a few pages here and there.

Book preview

Paul fell into a crouch behind the bar, while fragments of colored glass rained around him. He had no idea how the Enforcer had learned about this meeting, but that didn't matter. What was important was that the bastard was here now, and Paul had no idea how he was going to get out of this one. Escaping the Crusaders? Nothing to it. Eluding the Templars? More difficult, but doable. Slipping away from the fastest man in the world? Virtually impossible.

Paul was an athletic black man who appeared to be about twenty five years old, with tightly corded muscles along every inch of his six foot, two inch frame. More tightly corded than was physically possible for any normal human, but Paul had an advantage. He could mentally control the tone and shape of every part of his body. He was a shifter, though that was unlikely to be enough to save him in this case. The Enforcer was on a completely different level. Paul could easily outdistance Olympic sprinters, but compared to his current foe, he would appear to be moving in slow motion.

He was just stalling and he knew it. He had no escape. His only solace was the knowledge that his friends had made it out. If he could hold off the advancing squad for a few more moments, Tracy and Henry would be safe. He needed a way to make his foes believe they were facing more than just him, a single shifter. If they knew he was the only one left, they would send half the team in pursuit of his friends. As the gunfire stopped, he looked around for an answer. It came in the form of a pair of wooden planks that were left over from when the proprietor of this bar put in the new hardwood floor he was crouched on.

He grabbed three bottles of the strongest booze that were still left intact and popped the tops. Ripping shreds from a bar towel, he fashioned a trio of Molotov cocktails. Using a couple other bottles as impromptu fulcrums, he set the boards down, end to end, like makeshift seesaws. Lighting the wicks of his new weapons, he placed one at either end and took up a position in the middle, holding the third. Saying a silent prayer to whichever deity might be listening, he simultaneously kicked out his feet while throwing the bomb in his hands, hoping it would look like they were coming from three places at once.

He hunched down lower as he waited for a raging inferno to erupt. Five seconds passed and he raised his head to find out why he hadn't heard the crashing of glass and the shouts of terrified Crusaders. The Enforcer might have been able to keep his cool in such a situation, but the little guys should have panicked. As he looked up, he came face to face with the Elder he feared the most. Three hundred pounds of solid muscle wrapped around a skeleton almost seven feet tall stared down at him. In his cinder block sized fists were three lit bottles of the barkeep's finest moonshine.

I saw these flying through the air and thought you might want them back, the massive man growled.

Paul put up his hands, suppressing a smile. He may be caught, but he had bought his companions enough time to disappear.

Chapter One

Lunch time, a gruff voice said from somewhere that seemed very far away.

A man slowly awoke, unsure of exactly where he was. A rough scraping sound brought him more fully to consciousness.

He gently opened his eyes, his head pounding, his mind unsure whether what he was seeing was dream or reality.

Around him appeared to be three solid concrete walls, mostly covered in crudely drawn graffiti. Marks indicating that at some previous time Jeff were here spoke volumes about the literacy of the previous occupants of this room. When he turned and saw that the fourth wall was made of metal bars that extended from the ceiling to just above the floor, he realized he was somewhere he would rather not be. From his viewpoint it looked very much like a jail cell.

Which was exactly what it was.

He sat up on his poor excuse for a bed, which was a thin sheet of metal jutting out from the wall. On it was a large, lumpy plastic bag filled with only God knew what. He could only hope that the filling didn’t consist of Jeff or any of the other people who had occupied this room at one time or another. He was very careful to keep his head down as he rose as there was another bunk not three feet above the one he was lying on.

He looked down and found the source of the scraping noise that had helped rouse him from his slumber. A plastic tray had been slid beneath the bars of the non-concrete wall. The person who had done the sliding had been none too careful about the process, as a substantial portion of its contents had been spilled onto the floor below.

Even after careful consideration he still couldn’t decide exactly what the food was supposed to be. Nothing quite like it had ever crossed his vision before. It was almost like it was in the disturbing gray area between gruel and snot, not quite either but with the worst qualities of both.

The thought of food made him realize just how hungry he was. He gingerly reached down and picked up the tray. He brought it slowly to his face to inspect it more fully, giving it an experimental sniff.

That turned out to be a mistake.

The odor of the slop was something impossible to describe with any degree of accuracy, though the fact that it smelled worse than it looked was quite a feat in itself.

The man dropped the tray to the ground, splashing its vile payload across the already dirty floor of the cell.

Before he could stop himself, he was bent double, painfully vomiting into the mess. The burning in his throat told him that he hadn’t eaten for some time, as it was pure stomach acid and bile coming up, with no hint of a solid chunk to be found.

When he finally managed to get the retching under control, he realized just how much pain he was in. It wasn’t just his head that was pounding; his entire body felt as if he’d just gone through a series of battles in the arena and had been mercilessly beaten by professional gladiators for days on end.

He looked down at himself and noticed for the first time that his clothes were torn and dried blood was caked into the fabric. He couldn’t be sure whose blood was all over him, but considering the agony coursing through his body, it seems a logical guess that most of it was his.

He lifted his shirt to see just what kind of condition he was in. He was shocked to see that, while he had many injuries, most of them appeared to have healed over. He had scars here and there that he didn’t recognize, and most of his torso was covered in hues of black, blue, and yellow, but there was a distinct lack of the fresh, open wounds he was expecting to see. Unless he’d been in the same clothes for weeks, someone must have healed him after the ordeal he’d been through, whatever it was.

The man racked his brain for some kind of explanation for what was going on and came up blank. Had he been jumped in an alleyway on his way home from work? It wouldn’t have been the first time that he’d fallen victim to the punks in Capital City’s seedy underbelly. Never before had they beaten him to quite this extent; usually they were simply happy to club him in the head and steal everything that wasn’t part of his body while he was unconscious. He had heard the occasional reports of some more extreme criminals who actually would steal parts of your body. Everyone had heard the stories of people getting knocked out and waking up with their kidneys or liver missing, if they woke up at all. Even worse was your fate if they suspected you had a power chip installed. They had no qualms about splitting your skull open to take possession of those rare and expensive pieces of hardware.

Thinking about black market power chips brought a flood of memories to the man.

The last thing he could recall before waking up in this hellish place was the culmination of more than a year of saving every spare credit he could. He had given up drinking to speed up the saving process and he had finally come up with the ten thousand credits he would need to realize his lifelong dream.

Ever since he was a child he had dreamed of becoming one of the Chosen, those rare individuals who had been given the gift of power beyond the normal human capacity. Some were born with one of these wondrous gifts, while others bought them. There were a variety of powers available for the discerning customer, but the more potent ones carried much heftier price tags. It’s much easier to kill a man who can change the color of his skin, than one who can electrocute you if you get too close.

The man had chosen to become an adrenal. This power would allow him to flood his system with insane quantities of adrenaline at will. When activated, he would become faster, stronger and more able to shrug off physical damage than any normal human. His body would still get injured in the typical way, but he wouldn’t feel it until after he'd let the effects subside. This held particular appeal to him as he had always been a rather scrawny individual.

He slowly began to rise, slipping a few times in the mess he had made on the floor, agony shooting through his arms and chest every time he had to catch himself. He knew he needed to be more careful. If he fell in that state, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to muster the strength to get back up.

The short walk to the small mirror above the sink was excruciating. Every step almost brought him to his knees, and when he finally managed to get a look at his reflection, he decided the trip hadn’t been worth it.

He barely recognized the person looking back at him. He had been a tall, thin man with mousy brown hair, blue eyes, and a thin nose. While he was still tall and his hair color hadn’t changed, it did look even more disheveled than usual, and had dried blood matting it to his head in a few places. On top of that, his blue irises were surrounded by deep red where they should have been white, and his nose was now flattened against his face, a sure sign that it had been broken.

As he stared at his reflection, he knew something was wrong, something was out of place, but he just couldn’t put his finger on what it was. Whatever it was, his pain-addled mind couldn’t work it out. Too much was wrong with his situation, and he was in too much pain, for him to discern exactly what it was that his subconscious noticed in his reflection.

He gave up and trudged back over to the bed, knowing that he was thoroughly defeated, despite having no idea who or what he had been defeated by.

Perhaps the surgeon he had gone to for the implant had simply beaten him senseless and taken his money, or had turned him in to the authorities. The first was more likely as the latter would have implicated the surgeon as well, and the only people the church hated more than civilians with illegal implants were the ones who installed them.

There did remain the possibility that the chip had been successfully installed, and he was now an adrenal. If he could activate the power, it would lessen his pain considerably and maybe help him focus his mind on remembering some clues that might tell him how he’d gotten arrested.

He was trying to use his mind to force adrenaline into his bloodstream when he discovered what he should have noticed in front of the mirror.

A massive surge of electricity blasted into his body from a metal collar that had been placed around his neck. He yelled out in surprise and pain. It must have been there as a strong deterrent to stop people from using their powers to escape.

Well, it worked.

As he lay there recovering from his most recent painful experience, he reasoned that he must have had the chip installed or the collar wouldn’t have reacted the way it did. The question now was what had happened to him after the surgery and why couldn’t he remember it.

What the hell do you think you’re doing in there?

The imprisoned man recognized the voice as the same one that had awoken him for lunch. He looked up to see an overweight, balding man in a beige guard’s shirt with dark brown slacks. The patch sewn onto his right sleeve read: Capital City Sin Rehabilitation Facility.

The prisoner's heart skipped a beat. This was the maximum security prison for the worst of the worst. This was where they housed mass murderers, serial rapists, and terrorists. This was a place that very few people ever came out of, unless it was in a body bag.

Now he was even more confused. He had concluded that perhaps after having acquired his new power, he had gotten drunk to celebrate and had gotten into a fight, most likely over a woman. He did have a weakness for the ladies, and most of the trouble he’d ever had in his life directly or indirectly involved the fairer sex.

I’m talking to you! What are you doing in there?

The obvious impatience in the guard’s voice brought him back to the issue at hand, though he had no answers for the irritable man. He merely shrugged his shoulders and hoped that it would be enough for him to be left alone.

The obese guard shook his head with a look of disgust etched on his face.

You Pariahs make me sick, he said as he spat through the bars onto the prisoner’s face. You all say that what you’re doing is for the good of the people, but how can a stunt like that possibly help anyone? I was so glad to hear of your execution tomorrow that I signed up as part of the team. I want to be the one to cast the first stone.

The guard was laughing as he walked away, but the noise barely registered in the man’s thoughts. Executed? Pariahs? What the hell is going on here?

At least he had heard of the Pariahs. They were a group that vehemently opposed the church, spreading (sometimes very convincing and accurate) propaganda about corruption, all the way from the lowest members of the Crusaders, right up to the Elders themselves. While he must admit that he was sympathetic to their struggle, he had never even met a Pariah, much less aided them in any way, but if they believed him to be a member of that group, that explained why his death was already scheduled. For the Pariahs, there was no judge or jury, simply executioners, ready with heavy stones to end the threat once and for all.

He was about to scream out his innocence and deny any involvement with the nefarious group when the alarms started blaring. Wailing sirens that nearly deafened him with their undulating din.

The guard who had spat on him previously came rushing past, shouting about a break out in progress.

The man looked across the hall to the bright sunlight streaming through the tiny, barred windows and wondered who could possibly be brazen enough to attempt something like that in the middle of the day. Either they were desperate or stupid. Perhaps both. Whatever the case, they were likely to be dead very soon.

His opinion of their chances changed very quickly when he heard a wet thud and saw the fat guard slide quickly past his cell, face down, leaving a smeared trail of blood in his wake.

These were clearly not amateurs.

A group of three somewhat shabbily dressed people walked up to his cell door. The apparent leader was an athletic, severe looking woman with olive skin. She was flanked by two men. One was a svelte man of average height, while the other was a short, stocky individual with wispy, gray hair.

It was the small man who approached. He laid his hands on the bars and closed his eyes. After a moment the door clicked and came open just a crack. The woman then stepped forward and pushed it the rest of the way clear.

Come quickly, we haven’t much time, she said.

The blood stained man looked around, stunned. These people had come in here to save him? He had no idea what he had done, but apparently he had made some powerful friends in the process.

Took you guys long enough. I almost had to eat that crap they try to pass off as food in here, came a deep voice from above him.

He watched as a pair of legs wearing perfectly creased khakis and black leather loafers swung down from the bunk above. This man had been in there the whole time without him knowing and had heard his disgusting activities. He suddenly felt terribly ashamed of himself.

The man from above dropped lightly to his feet, just beyond the radius of the mess on the floor and began walking toward the open door. He was a handsome black man with chiseled features and an impressive presence.

Take me with you, the bloodied man heard himself say before he even realized he was speaking. I don’t know why I’m here and I don’t want to be executed tomorrow.

The black man stopped and turned. He considered his cell-mate before turning to the taller of the two men who had come to his rescue. The rescuer stared at the injured man for a moment before speaking.

He speaks the truth Paul. He is not an evil man and we can always use more adrenals, unskilled as they may be.

The man on the lower bunk was stunned. He knew that the slim man must be a telepath, but it was still impressive to see how much he had gleaned with but a few seconds of probing.

Paul nodded, seemingly in agreement with the telepath. Besides, it’s not in my nature to leave an innocent man to die. Charlie, can you get these damned collars off of us so we can be on our way?

The small man shuffled forward and laid his hand on Paul’s collar. There was a click and it opened. He was an energist, someone who could control electricity. He pulled it from Paul’s neck and then he did the same with the other man’s.

Come on then, Paul said. We haven’t got all day now. We’ll get you away from here and sort out the details later.

Are you sure about this Paul? the woman said. Any man who can’t keep his lunch down will be of no use to us.

Have you tried the slop they serve in here Gallina? Paul asked. I threw up the one time I tried it too. He’ll be fine once he’s not in here.

He extended his hand to the disheveled man on the lower bunk, helping him to his feet. The man winced as he rose, trying not to appear weak, but failing miserably.

I can see that whatever happened to you tore you up pretty good, but we have to hurry. Can you walk?

The man nodded and moved as fast as he could to keep up with the group.

They were heading out of the facility, through doors that should have been closed but had been opened by the small energist upon the rescue team's arrival. It wasn’t long before they were outside and moving quickly toward the parking area. As they approached, they stopped behind a small building that looked like a tool shed.

Gallina poked her head around the edge to see if the coast was clear. When she looked back, her expression showed that it wasn’t. Twelve guards with automatic rifles are between us and the bus, she stated, as if it were a trivial matter.

The telepath nodded and stepped forward. He stuck his head out to survey the scene and gunfire erupted. The injured man jumped at the noise, expecting the telepath to fall to the floor dead, having been spotted, but he simply turned back to the group and nodded once more. As they came out from the cover of the shed, the terrified adrenal saw a dozen dead guards, who had apparently opened fire on each other.

What a brutal power telepathy could be.

They raced to board the ancient bus. It looked as though it may have been yellow at some point, but decades of neglect had taken away any possibility of a uniform color. Gallina jumped into the driver’s seat while Charlie went for the seat just behind. His seat had two burnished metal bars in front of it. He grabbed onto them, one in each hand. As soon as his hands were in place, the electric engine came to life and the bus started moving, even before the others had found their places further back.

So you really don’t know why they had you locked up? Paul asked as they fell into their seats.

Well I recently had an adrenal chip installed, the man responded. But I don’t remember anything after that, and I don’t know how I got all these scars and blood stains all over me. I don’t even know how long ago that was.

Well it’s Wednesday now and you were already passed out in the cell when they threw me into it last night around ten.

They hung on tightly as Gallina performed a left turn far too quickly, and probably illegally. For a moment it felt as if the wheels along one side had left the ground, but the bus rocked back onto them and they