Creative Tuesday – Bleedfeeders Chapter 1

“Writing”, 22 November 2008 (Photo credit: ed_needs_a_bicycle)

In another effort for me to get all thematic on this site (and to get ready for NaNoWriMo), I have started Creative Tuesday (if I think of a more alliterative title, it will change).

This week starts Bleedfeeders, a short (9 chapters) story that’s based off characters I created in City of Heroes (set to shut down in 2013, though I’m really hoping not).  The main character has already appeared on this site in an untitled short story that I posted earlier.  I had also posted this on my Writer’s Block blog, but since I am working on merging that blog into this one, it will be closing down.

CHAPTER 1

Tempest Solaris thought about buying a car. He really didn’t need it. His natural plasmic form allowed him to get from place to place with little trouble. But he considered buying a car to better fit in, to conceal the fact that the police department’s new star detective is not only was he not from Earth, but not even humanoid.

Regardless, Solaris made his way to the crime scene. He didn’t get called out to them much, which was his preference. He usually preferred to specialized his cases, choosing those that dealt with members of his own race, exiled to Earth much like himself. Still, the odd case did cross his path, much like he figured this one was. He made sure that he “solidified” beyond the police lines; the last thing he figured his fellow officers could deal with was the fact that he was a plasmic alien. Well, he wasn’t really sure if that were the case. This city has seen its fair share of odd encounters, mostly super-powered beings choosing to help fight crime. It was a concept that was alien to Solaris, himself an alien. So, it didn’t strike him as odd to see a figure on one of the upper ledges of a nearby building. He couldn’t see much of the figure; he stayed in the shadows. What he could see was that the figure wore a full face mask with long wild hair erupting from the top. As he tried to see more detail, the figure moved further into the shadows, out of view. Solaris shook his head.

“What do we have?” he asked Detective Harris as he approached the police line. Harris jumped, not even realizing that Solaris had walked up behind him.

“Dammit, Temp, don’t do that to me.” Solaris half smiled.

“Sorry,” he apologized, often forgetting how silent he can move, “What do we have?” Detective Harris pointed to the young woman laying on the ground.

“DB, female, late teens or early twenties.” Solaris moved in a bit closer. He was still getting used to how Terrans looked to him, but he could tell she was very young. Even in his own race, a young death was a tragic one.

“Cause of death?” he asked, looking over the girl. She was quite attractive, for a human. She dressed like she had been at one of the clubs, though Solaris really wasn’t sure which. Terran night life wasn’t something that interested him all that much.

“That’s the odd part,” Harris replied, “We can’t tell. There’s not a mark on her.” Solaris frowned.

“O.D.?” he asked. If it was an overdose, it wouldn’t be the type of case that interested Solaris. Cases like that kept him from keeping track of other members of his race.

“We’re running a tox screen now, but we didn’t see any sort of track marks on her.” The detective bent over, “We did find these, though.” Solaris looked at the girl’s neck, right where the detective was pointing.

“Are those burn marks?”

“You tell me, Temp,” Harris replied, “We really haven’t been able to tell.”

“Photos?”

“Naturally.” Solaris really didn’t care about the photos. He was capable of remembering the marks without the visual reminder. Though, he had not really seen anything like the marks before. They didn’t look like burn marks, more like bruises. But there definitely was something odd about them, something that made even Solaris think they were burn marks.

On a lark, Solaris decided to shift visual spectrums. It was nothing that the other officers on the scene would have noticed. All he was doing was allowing his eyes to see a spectrum that the humans couldn’t. What he saw, however, was not what he expected.

In this shifted spectrum, the girl had a black hue. It was a common shade amongst the Terrans since they lacked the energy that Solaris’ own body was composed of. The spectral shift often allowed him to find the hidden members of his race from the Terrans.

What was unexpected were the random blue splotches in the black hue, seemingly emanating from the two wounds. Solaris recognized the energy signature instantly, there was no way he couldn’t. All members of his race on Earth possessed the splotches, at least, at first.

It was the bleed. Tempest could not deny that. Except that humans couldn’t catch the bleed. No “solid” could. Only plasma based beings, like Solaris, like his race suffered from the bleed.

“Light of the suns,” Solaris cursed. Was it possible? Did the bleed jump races? Considering how contagious the bleed was to his own race, if it jumped raced and began infecting the solids, then they had a real problem. That was putting it mildly.

“I need to bring in a specialist to look at the body,” Solaris remarked as he stood.

“So, this case interests you, Temp?” Solaris nodded.

“More than you could possibly imagine.”