Sholly Fisch - Gen13.pdf - Sholly Fisch - widez2

Gen13

Version 2.0

By Sholly Fisch

Release Information

Version 1.0 released in DOC, HTML & RTF

Most hard breaks removed as well as hypens from the scan

Some OCR errors are still in place…sorry!

GEN13: VERSION 2.0

An Ace Book A BP Books, Inc. Book

PRINTING HISTORY Ace mass-market edition / June 2002

WildStorm Productions, an imprint of DC Comics.

AH rights reserved. GEN13, all characters, the distinct

likenesses thereof and all related indicia are

trademarks of DC Comics. Edited by Dwight Jon Zimmerman.

ISBN: 0-441-00946-8

This one's for Suze,

the love of my life,

who's been waiting far too long

to have a book dedicated to her.

CHAPTER ONE

Two months ago...

Martin Cheswick hated children.

In fact, Martin Cheswick had always hated children, even back in the days

when

he was a child himself. In the slum neighborhood where he grew up, the young

Cheswick had been a tubby, unpopular kid—not smart enough to be the teacher's

pet, not coordinated enough to be an athlete, and not funny enough to be the

class clown. His size and slowness made him an easy target for the petty

cruelties of the older, stronger bullies who took delight in tormenting him.

Even at the time, Cheswick knew full well that it wasn't that they were after

his lunch money or anything like that. It couldn't have been; he never had

any

to steal. He didn't really understand why they did it. It seemed as though

they

did it simply for the sake of doing it.

It wasn't until many years later that, in retrospect, Cheswick realized that

the

main reason for all of his beatings and victimization probably had nothing to

with him personally. Those kids had spent their young lives in the same

filthy

slum he had. In all likelihood, they made his life a living hell just to help

them feel better about their own.

Not that it changed his feelings, of course. With each new humiliation,

Cheswick's loathing for the children around him had grown, day by day. But

the

clincher came in one particular incident that, even fortv-five years later

still

caused him to fight down a shudder when he thought of it.

Page 1

Cheswick had taken to experimenting with different ways to leave school at

the

end of the day, and alternate routes to walk home. He hoped that the

roundabout

paths would keep him from running into his tormentors. If he could stay out

their sight long enough, then maybe, over time, they'd forget all about him.

Or,

at least, maybe they'd find a new victim to take his place.

Lately, Cheswick had been ducking down the school's back stairs to slip out a

basement exit. He'd circle around the blank wall at the side of the school

and

head down the alley behind the diner, the tattoo parlor, and the bail

bondsman.

Once he made it to that point, there was no way to avoid having to come out

into

the open, but it was only a short sprint across the street before he could

squeeze past the fence by the grocery store to reach the back yard of his

apartment building and the safety of home.

The route had been working pretty well for the better part of a week—well

enough

to make him a little too careless—when it happened. Cheswick was halfway down

the alley, right between the diner and the tattoo parlor, when he found

himself

surrounded by the very gang of kids that he'd tried so hard to avoid. (Even

an adult, their smug, mocking voices still echoed in Cheswick's memory.)

Despite

their cruel smiles, they weren't happy about the tubby kid who thought he

could

outsmart them. They decided to teach him a lesson.

He was garbage, they said. And there was just one place that garbage

belonged.

He struggled pointlessly as the bigger kids grabbed him, lifted him up, and

physically threw him into the half-full dumpster behind the diner. Before he

could react, they slammed the lid and somehow jammed it closed. Cheswick

shouted

ami pounded on the metal as their jeering laughter faded into the distance.

For over an hour, Cheswick was trapped in the dark, thrashing around amid the

grease and slime from dozens of cheap meals. The stench of rotting food

filled

his nostrils, making it difficult to breathe. There was little danger of

suffocation; the seal on the rusting dumpster was far from airtight. But that

didn't make it any more pleasant.

Still, the smell wasn't the worst part. Thanks to the greasy bits of leftover

food, the pitch-black dumpster was infested with countless numbers of

cockroaches. The roaches had no particular interest in the human who'd

invaded

their feeding ground, but at the same time, they had no hesitation about

crawling across his body on their way to their afternoon meal. There were too

many to kill them all, and it was too dark to be able to stay away from them.

His skin clammy with sweat, Cheswick quickly realized that he'd better keep

his

eyes and mouth tightly closed if he didn't want any of the vermin crawling in

accidentally. Tears streamed silently down his cheeks as the terrified youth

wore his hands bloody, banging loudly cm the lid in an attempt to force it

open

or at least attract attention. It took forever until the owner of the tattoo

parlor finally heard the noise and released the filthy, trembling boy back

out

Page 2

into the daylight.

That was why he hated children.

The years had brought many changes to Martin Cheswick. True, he still wasn't

particularly athletic or funny, and his doctor hounded him regularly about

finally getting serious about a diet. However, as he grew to adulthood,

Cheswick

had discovered that his shortcomings held little weight in the light of his

many

successes. He'd grown up to become a powerful, influential man. A man whose

decisions affected millions. A man to whom people paid attention. Yet, even

so,

none of it erased the traumas of the past, and none of it changed the fact

that

he still hated children.

So why was he visiting an after-school program?

The answer was actually quite simple. Whatever his personal feelings might

be,

Senator Martin Cheswick was a consummate politician. And this was an election

year.

All of which meant that when the invitation came to visit an after-school

program designed to keep preteen children off drugs and off the streets of

New

York City— and one supported by private donors instead of the government's

bank

book, no less—there were no second thoughts to delay Cheswick's reply. The

Senator promised to be there with bells on.

Not to mention a mass of photographers in tow.

At first, when they pulled up in front of the building, Cheswick wondered

whether it was his driver or his secretary who had made the mistake. He'd

never

heard of an after-school program in a Wall Street office building before. To

Cheswick, the towering structure of glass and steel seemed much more suited

mergers and acquisitions than to "rap sessions" and inane babbling about this

week's pop stars. However, his aide did a quick check of the building

directory,

and assured him, a moment later, that they were indeed in the right place. He

and Cheswick rode the elevator up to the seventeenth floor.

Even as they stepped off the elevator and Cheswick pasted a well-practiced

smile

across his face, they were greeted by welcoming committee comprised of three

the little brats and their teacher. Not surprisingly, the taciturn youngsters

let their teacher do all the talking. She was a slender woman whose glasses

and

tightly pulled-back hair accentuated the severity of her features. Her

sensible

business suit told Cheswick that she truly was a teacher by training, and not

just another earthy-crunchy social worker out to save these children from the

big, bad world. He grasped her hand in both of his own and shook it warmly.

The program itself was housed in a converted office suite down the hall from

the

elevator. As though trying to confirm Cheswick's earlier thought, the teacher

acknowledged that it was an unusual location for this sort of program. But

the

owner of the building was one of their benefactors, and one doesn't argue

with

an offer of rent-free space in Manhattan.

As they entered the office space that housed the program, an assortment of

bored

Page 3

news photographers responded by lazily raising their cameras into position

and

setting off the requisite barrage of flash bulbs. Cheswick looked around the

main room, nodding as though he genuinely cared about what went on here and

approved of the effort. The conversion of the space seemed to have consisted

primarily of hanging anti-drug posters on the walls, furnishing the place

with

game tables and pinball machines, and placing chairs and couches at angles

that

had been carefully calculated to encourage conversation. About a half-dozen

preteen youths were already sitting quietly on mats on the floor, and the

three

from the hallway silently joined them.

Moving with a smooth confidence, the teacher stepped up in front of the group

and began to talk. Well, that cleared up the order of the agenda, at any

rate.

Realizing that his own turn to speak would come later, Cheswick's first

inclination was to remain standing at the side of the room. But if there was

one

thing that Cheswick's media consultant had drummed successfully into his

head,

it was to always go for the photo-op. So instead of standing where he was,

Cheswick eased himself down to the floor with an awkward grunt to sit among

the

children. He felt proud of the air of caring and "just plain folks" that he

was

sure the action conveyed.

By this point, the teacher had already begun to warm to her speech. She

droned

on and on about the program ami the good work it did. She praised the

generous

backers who made their work possible and made such a difference in the lives

these children.

In short, it was the usual.

Since the odds of finding anything interesting in the speech were roughly

equivalent to the chances of finding solid gold nuggets in his shorts,

Cheswick

decided to pass the time by picturing the teacher naked, instead. Just like

an old, black-and-white movie, he imagined himself tossing away her tortoise

shell glasses and letting her dark fall freely in a cascade over her

shoulders.

The suit was next, peeling slowly off her body to reveal the smooth skin

beneath.

Actually, Cheswick decided, once you got the teacher out of her all-business

attire, she was really quite attractive. In fact, she reminded him of

someone.

He couldn't quite place who it was, though. Was it someone he knew? He met so

many people these days that he couldn't be sure. Or perhaps it was the

reference

to old movies, bringing up half-remembered images of some actress or

something

from long ago.

Before he could pin it down, Cheswick snapped out of his daydream at the

sound

of his name. The teacher was wrapping up her own speech now, and segueing

into

his introduction. Cheswick struggled a bit to get to his feet, but managed to

Page 4

standing next to the teacher by the time she extended a hand to wave him on.

Once again, Cheswick shook her hand warmly and took his position before the

group of youngsters. He looked out over his audience with a smile that masked

the discomfort he felt. It wasn't just the idea of talking to a group of

kids;

he certainly didn't enjoy that sort of thing, but he had done more than

enough

of it in the past to be able to deal with it now. No, it was something more

specific, something about these kids in particular. Usually, he'd found young

audiences to react to the presence of a famous politician and camera crew in

one

of two ways: Either they would get so excited that they couldn't sit still

and

would spend half the time mugging into the cameras (cutting into his own

exposure, he noted with more than a touch of resentment), or they would

succumb

to stage fright and be silent as stone until the visitors were gone and they

resumed their normal routine.

At first, Cheswick had assumed that these children fell into the latter

category, and that their silence was simply due to their own nervousness. But

now that he was looking at—and more important, genuinely seeing—their faces,

realized that there was more to it than that. Their signs of anxiety within

them. Instead, their expressionless faces seemed to reflect total apathy. As

far

as Cheswick could tell, the children seemed to regard him with all the

interest

that they'd give to a wad of used chewing gum on the sidewalk.

Cheswick couldn't tell what was wrong. Did they sense his opinion of them,

somehow? Had he said or done something to let his true feelings slip?

Whatever it was, he couldn't afford to drop the ball in front of the cameras.

With only a moment's hesitation, he launched into his prepared remarks.

"Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, thank you for inviting me to speak

here

today. It's a pleasure, every once in a while, to have the chance to speak to

people with IQs higher than the ones I usually find in Washington."

Cheswick chuckled at his little joke. But he was the only one.

"Seriously, though," he continued, "I am thrilled to have the opportunity to

honor the fine work that this center does in offering children alternatives,

broadening their horizons, and steering them toward the straight and narrow.

I have often said, children are our most precious natural resource, and any

investment in our children is an investment in our future.

"I look out at your bright faces, and I see die promise of tomorrow, mingled

with fond memories of the past You might not believe it to look at me, but I

was

once your age, too."

This was the point at which Cheswick's media consultant had suggested creating

photo-op by making physical contact with one of the children. Cheswick bent

over

and reached out toward a towheaded boy in the front row. The boy showed as

little emotion as the rest, but had the advantage of being within arm's

reach.

Cheswick ruffled his fingers through the boy's hair...

And screamed.

It took a moment for even Cheswick to realize that the scream had come, not

from

the boy's mouth, but his own. Even so, however, there was no question why he

was

Page 5

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