Part 1 is here, part 3 here, and if you want to start at the beginning of The Becoming…

And that was that. It felt as though we’d made a deal with the devil. Just as we had been warned, the others sneered at us.

“It’s just so gross,” I once overheard the other Electra comment one day, “the very thought of one of us married to a Bigfoot.” She said that last word as though it tasted bad. “They sleep together and everything. It makes me feel sick to my stomach.”

I had to note that it made her feel anything. I wondered whether that was specifically what Havoc was afraid of. There were very few creatures like us among the staff, and the vast majority of them were normal humans. From what I could tell, the exceptions were mostly like us; their treatments had failed to wipe their minds, so they were bribed into working for Deep Hawk and intimidated with the thought that they couldn’t rejoin normal society. I itched to get to doing something. I had no idea how long it had been since the last time I’d seen the sun.

Claire and Jovious had come to our training room for some actual instruction that was devoid of the mind and body altering treatments, or the theatrics that we’d seen in the beginning. Jovious and I sat to the side of the room as Claire and Naomi worked. Claire Placed a log on a pedestal and opened a can and began sprinkling it on the floor. The can scattered small pieces of metal. They looked like six-inch sections of piano wire. She sprinkled them in a fifteen foot trail between Naomi and the log. I’d seen her practice this exercise before, but she had gotten a lot faster with it. It no longer took a lot of concentration as it had at first. Once Claire stepped clear, Naomi raised her hands to her sides. Sparks showered from the corners of her eyes as she stared toward the log. Obeying her will, the pieces of wires rose up into the air and aligned themselves into two neat rows that extended from her hands to the log. Her eyes glowed white. The moment the rows of wires touched her fingers, there was a loud crack and a bright spark, and the log ignited.

“Very good,” praised Claire, “now can you put them back into their container?” she joked.

Naomi took a deep breath and scowled. Each wire pivoted until they were all vertical and then they snapped together into a bundle. Naomi whipped her gaze at the can and it slid across the floor to where the wires floated. It then elevated and enveloped the bundle of wires. the fire in Naomi’s eyes faded as she walked up to the can of wires and pulled it out of the air with her hand. She took it to Claire who blinked in disbelief.

“Wow!” she said as she took the can, “I was joking. I didn’t think that was even possible.”

“Don’t mess with me,” warned Naomi playfully, “and don’t ask me to do something unless you mean it.”

“Well,” Claire was visibly flustered now, “let’s call it a day for now.”

“Ssshall we?” projected Jovious.

Claire hit the flaming log with an extinguisher. We took the room as she and Naomi sat down.

“You have gotten very good at invisssibility,” praised Jovious, “today, we will sstart with human dissguissse. When you firsst met me, I dissguisssed myssself as General Havoc.”

“I remember that,” I thought back to him.

“When you get good, you will be able to imperssssonate sssspecific people. However, you will find that one or two formsss will come more naturally and will be easssier to hold for long periodsss. Now, concentrate and envision being ssssmaller, hairlesss, a man.”

I closed my eyes and concentrated. Shorter than six feet. Wearing clothes. Finer hair on the body and some hair on the head. Accessories even. I felt warm. I suspected that my psychic projection was working. My suspicion was verified by a snicker from my wife. Jovious didn’t vocalize very often, but he gurgled in approval. Or, was he laughing at me? I opened my eyes and looked in the full-size mirror that I used for these exercises. It was easier for Sasquatch to see through the psychic disguises, but the projections even worked in a mirror. There before my eyes was a man. He was about four feet tall with a hunched back. He wore very thick glasses that made his eyes look tiny, and a trench coat. On top of his head was a tweed fedora. I reached up and pulled the hat off to find a thin, comb-over. This was not at all what I had in mind. I thought the form that would come naturally might look something like my previous human form.

My surprise must have been obvious to Jovious who assured me, “It iss pretty unpredictable what your mossst natural disssguisse will turn out like.” He chortled.

“But I look stupid,” the voice that came out was shrill and sounded like an old man. This elicited more laughter from Naomi, who was joined this time by Claire.

“Yesssss,” thought Jovious, “and what man would ever guess that sssomeone who lookss as you do would have ssssuch great power as you do?”

I had to admit, the furball had a point, “And I sound stupider than I look!” my voice actually cracked at the end.

Jovious reflected, “Fasscinating! Ssssince Sasquatch do not talk, I did not know how a voicce could be generated in a man disssguisse. It isss a good disssguisse.”

Naomi blurted out, “you look like a moleman!”

“That’s it,” I said as I clamped my eyes closed and tried to force myself into concentration. Maybe I’d forgotten a little too much of what it was like to be a mostly normal human being. Let’s go for something taller than Moleman but shorter than Bigfoot. Muscles and a tan. If I can look however I like, why not live it up? No comb over. It felt like it was working, and I knew something had happened when Naomi howled with laughter. I opened my eyes and heard a baritone voice with an exotic accent say, “Now what is it?”

In the mirror, I saw the man on the cover of every paperback romance novel I’d ever seen a lonely old lady reading. He wore a pair of burmuda shorts with no shirt. The arms and chest were sculpted with the tell-tale signs of a gym and personal trainer. Gold curls of hair rested around the shoulders. “Oh, that’s even worse! I’d rather look like the pigeon feeding Moleman!” Everyone in the room seemed to think this was the most hilarious thing in the world except for me. I released the disguise and melted back into giant ape-man. The others were just beginning to compose themselves when Havoc came through the door.

“Alright you two,” he addressed us, “I think you’re finally ready for a dry run.”

Naomi and I looked at each other inquisitively and looked back to Havoc.

“You’ve been working hard and have learned a lot about your new abilities. I had some of my guys hide an object and I want to see if you can retrieve it.”

I probed Havoc’s mind. His was a little harder to read than many, but still not impossible. I could tell that they had hidden an aluminum briefcase that was marked “PROPERTY OF DEEP HAWK”, but I couldn’t tell where it had been hidden.

“What kind of object?” asked Naomi.

“You’ll have to ask Reid,” he winked at me, “I suspected you’d try to cheat. I don’t know where it is. I specifically had them hide it in a location of their choosing so it wouldn’t be too easy on you.”

“It will still be easy for us,” I confidently announced.

Havoc let out a skeptical guffaw, “whatever. Use your powers. Do whatever you have to do to get the object and bring it back as soon as you can. Step one was to identify what the object in question is, which you’ve already used your powers to determine. Keep it up.”

“Hey,” I asked, “I’ve learned to disguise myself as a human. What’s keeping me from just moving out and living among people?”

“If you can call that human,” Naomi mumbled.

“First of all, even if you could keep up your disguise twenty-four seven, your psychic projections won’t fool a camera,” General Havoc explained, “if you just went out to live somewhere among people, I guarantee you that people would come up with family pictures with Bigfoot walking in the background. Every backup camera on a truck or RV would reveal your true form. Plus, not every person will be fooled by your projections. The disguise works well for short-term stints such as this one, but you can’t live on it by itself. Besides that, what is Naomi supposed to do? She looks more human than you do, but she’s not exactly normal looking anymore.”

I looked at my wife. He was right. With her coal colored eyes and hair in contrast with her vampiric porcelain skin, there was just no way that she was going to blend in with regular people anymore. As Havoc walked us to the door, he offered more advice, “try to avoid people for the most part. Find food and water, and shelter if you need it. At all costs, avoid confrontations.”

“So, we don’t even get supplies?” Naomi asked.

“Only what you have with you now,” said Havoc.

The two of us stepped out the door into the blinding sunlight. We turned back toward the door. Havoc said, “good luck you two.” And at that, he locked the door behind us.

This is the sequel to The Becoming, which I serialized here over the last couple of months. The previous nine installments were just a weird dream I had one night. As a testament to the power of the human subconscious mind, I recall getting up that night to use the bathroom and having the dream when I went back to bed, so the entire thing came about in only a couple hours’ time. It was so random and epic and weird that I had to write it up and share it. And, it had so many loose ends that I kind of had to continue it with my waking mind. You can start at the beginning here, and the last installment can be found here. Again, next week when it publishes, part 2 will be here.

General Havoc returned to the control room where Shelby met him. He carried a heavy air of worry as he proceed through to his office and Shelby followed him in. “What happened?” she asked him.

He sighed, “She made me cut off pursuit.”

“Well, that was pretty obvious,” Shelby pushed.

“We’re going to have to convince Reid and Naomi to work for us,” he declared resolutely.

Shelby asked, “so you’re going to hire them?”

“I don’t really have a choice,” he answered her, “they seem to trust you more than about anyone else. Would you be so kind as to get them for me?”

I awoke to a knock at the door to our quarters. I didn’t even know that I had fallen asleep. When I realized what was going on, I leaped to my feet and approached the door. “Who is is?” I demanded.

“It’s Shelby,” came a voice from the other side of the door, “can I come in?”

I looked at Naomi, who sleepily nodded her head as she sat up on the edge of the bed. I opened the door, and before I could say anything, Shelby began talking to us, “I know that you two are angry right now, and I know that you have a lot of resentment towards General Havoc and the other people who work here, but please do try to keep an open mind. Havoc wants to meet with you and talk about some options.”

“Options?!?” I cried, “our options are none of his business! We’re leaving this place and never coming back.”

“To do what, Reid?” Shelby asked, “you are an eight foot tall ape. Are you going to just go back to your suburban lifestyle? Are you going to get a job waiting tables? You know, they don’t even really build cars or homes sized for your stature. Please just at least hear Havoc out. As much as I hate what’s been done to you, it is done. We can genuinely help you at this point, if you’ll let us.”

She had a point. I sighed, “fine. We’ll hear him out. But, I’m not going to rule out the possibility of burrowing our way out of this building to go and live in the woods somewhere.”

This is how we found ourselves at a table in a conference room that we didn’t previously know existed. Havoc was at the table with us, as were Shelby and a couple of men that we hadn’t met before.

“Reid and Naomi,” said Havoc, “I would like to apologize for the way you’ve been treated.”

I really hated this guy. “I would like to run your head through this table,” I muttered at him, and then out loud, “don’t you think that we deserve just a tad more than a simple apology?”

The man to Havoc’s right had a notebook that he scribbled some notes into.

“Yes I do,” Havoc said. “We can offer you a real opportunity here. We can certainly use your talents.”

“We’ve heard all of this before,” Naomi said, “that’s how you led us into this mess in the first place. The real question is, why in the world should we help you?”

“Fair enough,” Havoc said, “I feel like we can help each other.”

“And,” I interrupted, “you owe us some answers. Why’d you call off your thugs yesterday?”

Havoc sighed deeply, “well, all of us answer to someone. I was instructed to cut off pursuit and to make ovations toward you.”

“I don’t think that word means what you think it means,” Naomi stated flatly, “why did you try to brainwash us? Why did you turn us into the things we are now?”

“It’s difficult to explain,” said Havoc slowly and deliberately, as though he was calculating every word, “the program tends to work better when our front line individuals are devoted to the establishment primarily.”

His cold attitude toward the ‘front line individuals’ made my scalp tingle with my rage, “You are kidnapping people, brainwashing them, and deforming their bodies without their consent. How many laws are you breaking; both codified laws and natural laws? Can’t you see that this is wrong?”

Havoc stared at me for a moment prior to answering, “everyone who enters the program does so of their own free will.”

“Your program is misrepresented, and you use drugs to influence your volunteers,” I corrected him, “give me one good reason we shouldn’t walk right out that door and never darken it again.”

“Reid,” Shelby said, “I tried to tell you earlier…” and then, Havoc cut her off.

“Reid,” he said, “you are a Bigfoot. Where are you going to go? Naomi, you are an Electra. Where do you propose that the two of you will go together? If you stay here, we can give you a life. You will be paid handsomely and your every need will be taken care of. You both have abilities now that you didn’t have before, and we can help you learn how to use them to their fullest.”

“We will not be separated again,” Naomi said resolutely, “that’s my first condition.”

“Agreed,” I crossed my arms.

“Done,” Havoc said.

“Ever,” clarified Naomi, “when we train, we train together. If you have to make changes to the very facility to make that happen, then that is my condition.”

“And, we get to leave anytime we see fit for whatever reason or no reason at all, at our option, with or without notice,” I added.

“That’s a lot to ask,” noted Havoc.

“Dude,” I snapped back, “you have to understand that we have suffered some pretty heavy violation at your hands. We are not your little mindless puppets, and these are our conditions to assure we don’t get screwed anymore.”

“No, that’s not it,” Havoc said, “Electros work with Electros and Sasquatch work with Sasquatch. What you’re asking us to do is completely restructure the social structure of our teams.”

“Figure it out,” Naomi said, with a few sparks showering from the corners of her eyes. I still didn’t have any clue what all she could do now. The sparks were subtle, but took me by surprise.

“We will,” Havoc cautioned, “but you will likely hear about it from the other creatures working here. They’ve all been conditioned to do this one way, and they won’t easily accept what you are proposing. We can mitigate that to an extent by making you staff and giving you staff quarters instead of general population quarters.”

“So,” I clarified, “if we leave, we’ll be outcasts. If we stay, we’ll be outcasts. We’ll be together either way though? I can live with that.”

Havoc continued, “there is going to be friction, but if your friction spills out and causes issues between the Electros and the Sasquatch in general, we’re going to have bigger problems.”

“Do you have a frog in your pocket?” snapped Naomi.

“All I’m asking is that you make an attempt at keeping the peace,” General Havoc flushed with suppressed annoyance. Turning to the man to his left, “can you prepare their new quarters in the staff section, and begin whatever we need to give them their own training area?”

The man gave a speechless nod as he stood up from the table and left the room.