Ebb

[TomPravetz]

Get my name into the story and I will ad like mad.*

*Some rules and restrictions apply.

[DAISHI]

I'll name someone with absolute charisma after you :P

[DAISHI]

It was in this world that Agent Jeremy Martinez lived. Young, about 24, he was among the youngest candidates to have been recruited. He was still obviously green, still too prone to making rash decisions and often too hot tempered for his own good. Still, he was learning, and he knew when to keep it cool. He was still working on lower end cases, mostly nonlethals and Gammas, and had done a good job of it for the most part. As a new agent he was partnered to a more experienced agent, Gordie Fiskman, 32 and a six year veteran of the agency. The duo were one of the most welcome pairs in the agency. Martinez was known for his good sense of humor, and Fiskman had a story for every occasion. It should go without saying that they were a hit at office parties.

Martinez had only been on the job for about six months. Young as he was, he'd come into the agency after a traumatic encounter with a Phaser. Phasers could move through walls, passing through solid matter or allowing solid matter to pass right through them. Normally they were considered nonlethals and were subject to monitoring the way all nonlethals were. Had the encounter ended with a simple, unbelievable eyewitness account of seeing a man pass through walls, SYNAI wouldn't have had much trouble on their hands. A simple mindwipe of Martinez and an arrest of the criminal would have been in order but, unfortunately, this particular Phaser had decided to use his powers in a decidedly different way. He'd actually passed through Martinez, something widely agreed to be unwise and potentially lethal. The act of phasing matter through a living being could be excruciating, pushing aside molecular bonds and snapping them back into place. Even without any visible damage to a person who was phased through, internally the victim's nerve centers went into a hyper flare up. The victim could also find themselves experiencing memories or visions that didn't belong to them, a result of intertwining neural networks colliding with one another for all of a second. Martinez could have died, while the perpetrator set off on his escape.

This is where the agency got a nose for Martinez. See, most people would have gone down and never gotten up. Martinez was a little different, though. He'd gone down. To be honest, it would have been impossible for a person to keep standing straight as their molecular fabric was distorted for a moment. The amazing part, though, was that he'd gotten up. As the perpetrator had tried to escape, Martinez had managed to find it in himself to prop himself up, pull his gun and fire. He'd caught the Phaser in the leg, putting a stop to the man's escape, before going unconscious himself. It wouldn't be until later, at the hospital, when agents of SYNAI were able to catch up to both Martinez and the criminal. Martinez had been babbling about the criminal phasing, something that had been chalked up to injuries. Nobody had really believed him, so there'd been no need for a cleanup team at the hospital, no need for mass mindwipes or coercion. Both Martinez and the criminal had been attended to by staff entirely on SYNAI's payroll. From that point, their lives had taken two different directions.

A wipe of the criminal's mind and regular blood transfusions had become required. Because of exposure to the public, including all the chatter that had gone on at the police department, there were many who'd known the man would have to stand trial. Fortunately, SYNAI had no issue maintaining its team of doctors at the prison facility. When the mind was released to the general public, he'd be quickly snatched up for his violent assault on a normal. There was no leeway with the agency on this issue. Supernormals that committed any act of violence on a normal were to be held indefinitely.
As for Martinez, there hadn't been an agent at the hospital who hadn't been impressed by his performance. His resilience and ability to clinch the job had won him their respect. So, soon after it had been arranged for him to be moved to a private room, they'd begun their first debriefing. They'd had a psychologist sent in, employed by the agency, to discuss what Martinez had seen and done in full detail. Nothing would sway the young man from his belief that he had seen what he had seen. This, combined with his ability to follow through with his mission despite the intense agony he'd been under, had made him a potential candidate. The only question had been how he would react to stories of supernormals and the agents that pursued them.

With many, and this included Jeremy Martinez, the thought of an entire population of people capable of extraordinary things was slightly frightening, and slightly absurd. It helped that Martinez had seen an example with his own eyes, had been victim to supernormal powers and was even carrying memories that had nothing to do with his life. Convincing him that these things were real was the easiest part. What they had anticipated would be harder was persuading him to join their ranks.

Maybe it was due to his youth and that impetuous nature of his that occasionally still got him in a bit too over his head, but Martinez had demonstrated no issue with the prospect of joining an organized force that fought against such people. He felt victimized. Undoubtedly, the mix of memories in his mind and the excruciating pain he'd suffered had lent toward his willingness. Unfortunately, too much enthusiasm was a cause for alarm. The agency couldn't afford to recruit someone so hotheaded they'd be uncontrollable. Still, nothing in his record had indicated anything like that. His time as a police officer, though only two years in and remarkably unremarkable, indicated a young man with a fair head on his shoulders. His one sin was that of being a young man, prone to all the occasional miscalculations that entailed. In interviews he'd come across as intelligent, thoughtful and dedicated. So, in the end, SYNAI had put him to the test.

It had taken time. The doctors at the hospital, those not on SYNAI's payroll, had been unable to find a reason why Martinez had been in so much pain following the incident. Being phased through left no damage that could be detected on an MRI or CT Scan. Organs all remained in place, no internal bleeding occurred and there was bruising or scarring. It was Martinez's nerves that were out of sync, and nothing but time would heal that. Unfortunately, without a viable medical excuse, there'd been few options for him in the police force. Of course the department hadn't been about to release him, not right away, but between his complaints of pain that stemmed from nowhere and his initial accusations of someone that could move through walls, red flags had gone up. Unable to perform his job for any observable reason, it had only been a matter of time before he was released.

SYNAI was not about to allow that to happen without supporting him, though. On the condition that he kept quiet about the incident and told no one about what had happened, they'd also pledged to support him financially. True, they'd kept agents on him to ensure that he honored his end of the agreement, but it had turned out to be unnecessary. Martinez had never so much as whispered a word about the agency or his encounter, never again. In follow up interviews with his superiors, prior to his release, he'd denied his original claims. He'd simply been in pain and incoherent, or so he said. It had been enough to win him even further admiration from the agency.

So, over the course of the next month, as his pain gradually subsided and the terror of the intermingling of foreign memories gradually began to fade, SYNAI had once again approached him. They'd kept him afloat, staying faithful to their contract. Following all that, they'd expected he'd submit to the physical testing, a two week test of endurance. Nobody who goes through that testing phase escapes pain free. Marching through heat and cold, exposed to rain and snow, to extreme heat or biting winds, the test was never easy. Martinez though, demonstrating the same internal fortitude that had allowed him to fight against the pain of molecular displacement, had emerged victorious.

His first day at SYNAI's main facility had brought surprises. Agents had been curious to see the newest batch of recruits, and Martinez had been the youngest at 23. What quickly emerged though, over the course of the next few weeks, was the source of the young man's ability to endure. Good humored at every turn, he'd always been able to meet people with a smile and a handshake. In a corporation that was occasionally bogged down by the distressing news of agent deaths or new threats, Martinez had been a source of joy. Those first few days, when he'd been seated at his cubicle and told he'd be dealing mostly with paperwork, he'd taken it with a smile. At the water cooler, he'd had nothing but jokes. It was obvious that Martinez had a resilient personality, one that continued to shine even in dark times. Dedicated and good humored, he'd been a grand addition. He'd walk down the halls of the agency, his blue tie sitting across his white button up shirt, his tanned features sitting beneath jet black hair. Every day he came in with a joke and a smile.

For Agent Fiskman, it had been a welcome change of pace. Fisk was a bit of a health nut but otherwise joe average, a man who'd formerly been a cop himself but had lost some of the shine of his youth. He'd seen enough in the last few years that, while he'd remained a joker and storyteller, he'd also become grim about his prospects of retiring. Things in the supernormal community had gotten worse, not better since he'd joined, and the pace of the agency had only increased as the number of reports had accelerated. Busier had led to more deaths, and Fisk had seen a few of his friends go.

Still, he'd been able to tell when he'd seen Martinez that this was a kid that he liked. He only hoped that the boy would live long enough to take on a younger partner of his own someday, but that wasn't in Fisk's hands. He'd become used to staying detached from his partners, just in case they didn't pan out. Normally that was the case. Either a rookie agent retired after being overwhelmed by the threat they faced, or was killed outright in the field. It was a tough gig, and it had required him to toughen up his own heart. With Martinez though, it had been hard to keep him at a distance, and not for trying either. Fisk had stonewalled Martinez at every turn, keeping conversation short and as professional as possible. It had been hard though, with the kid showing up with donuts one day, or coming in with a load of jokes to tell. His energy was infectious, and Fisk had been unable to keep up the facade. He'd eventually come to terms with the fact that, maybe, he actually liked Martinez. At least, he liked the rookie enough to be contemplating that he might like him.