The year is 2078. In 2010, there was a terrible war. World War Three occurred. The powers of the Middle East, allied with Japan and China unleashed hell upon the United States of America, which had grown increasingly tyrannical over the ages.
The Middle-Eastern Brotherhood, along with the Asian Coalition defeated the power of American soldiers. The U.S. was no longer a super power. The world had changed. Now, America was almost a third-world country. The new master of the universe was Japan, which emerged unscathed and infinitely powerful from the struggle.
There is something which the rest of humanity did not know. During World War Three, several of the world's nations tried to genetically engineer the perfect soldiers. Over a thousand of these genetically-enhanced men and women escaped from their creators, into the general population. Since then, the world has never been the same. Men and women with super powers walk the earth, and the rest of humanity hates and fears them, even six decades later.
Billy Grover walks through the halls of Amherst. The young man seems deep in thought, as if he had the weight of the world on his shoulders. Anyone looking at him would have seen an ordinary youngster, but the person looking at him was someone very much like himself, someone who was different from the rest of humanity, his old buddy Alison Gray.
Billy is a college student attending the University of Massachusetts. He's a young black man who is very much interested in becoming a police officer someday. His father, James Grover is a sergeant with the Boston police department. His mother, Eleanor Brown Grover is a corrections officer down in Plymouth County jail. As you can see, law enforcement runs in the family. Young Billy Grover intends to follow in his parents footsteps. That's why he majors in Criminal Justice down at the U.
Billy Grover has always been the studious type. In high school, he won himself an Academic scholarship, thanks to his high test scores on the MCAS Exam. He is new to the Amherst campus. The place is really nice and he loves it. It's so different from Plymouth, the small town where he grew up. He comes to the city as a youngster full of hope and dreams. His goals are set. He wants to get a Bachelors degree in Criminal Justice at Amherst before heading to the Massachusetts State Police Academy at New Braintree to become a State Trooper.
This guy has his entire future all planned out. At Amherst, he runs into some rather familiar faces. One of them is Alison Gray, his high school buddy. How to describe Alison Gray? She's a five-foot-ten, self-described 'funny but funky' girl with dark brown skin and short hair bleached white as bone. This somewhat thick and curvy beauty hails from Plymouth and attends Amherst on a basketball scholarship.
Alison Gray comes from a rather impressive background. Her father, Zeke Gray once played for the New England Patriots football team. He is currently the athletic director at Boston University. Her mother, Jessica Almond Gray is a former Olympic athlete who went into the world of politics where she made a name for herself. Jessica Almond Gray is a member of Congress. Alison Gray loves both of her parents and although they try to shield her from the world, they really should not bother.
Alison Gray is different from other gals, you see. At the age of eighteen, Alison Gray could run a distance of twenty five hundred miles in less than one hour. How is that possible? Alison Gray is a super human. Yes, super humans do exist. Men and women who are genetically different from the rest of humanity. It's not quite like in the comic books. Today's super humans were hated and feared. The police would shoot to kill any super human spotted in public using his or her super powers.
Alison Gray, the fastest woman in the world, didn't care about the rules. She could run so fast that she could become almost invisible to the naked eye. Faster than a speeding bullet. Her powers were something she kept secret, even from the parents who adopted her and gave her a loving home. The only person who knew about her was her best friend Billy Grover.
Alison smiled as she spotted Billy Grover walking through the halls of Amherst. Even though he was such a cute guy, he never seemed to have a girlfriend. Also, he was always studying. He was actually the valedictorian of their high school, back at Plymouth high. Yeah, the dude was brilliant. Alison knew there was more to the academically gifted stud than met the eye. For starters, he was a superhuman, just like her.
Alison had seen Billy in action before. The six-foot-two, 230-pound black stud could lift up to five thousand pounds when he really wanted to push himself. His body was almost indestructible. One day, while they were walking together, There was a major traffic jam. Some crazy woman drove into a man's car in a fit of road rage. Before long, cars were flying. Alison and Billy were walking home from school.
A Mercedes flew at them, hurled by a Mack Truck. Inside the Mercedes was a man and his family. Billy reacted faster than Alison would have thought him capable of. He caught the flying Mercedes before it could go off the road and into the lake. This young man caught a car like it was a toy and put it down. Alison quickly whisked him away. That's when the two best friends revealed their secrets to each other. They had been pals forever but Alison never would have suspected Mister Nice Guy Billy Grover of being a genetic superhuman like herself!
Since that day, they were inseparable. Alison learned that both of Billy's parents knew their adopted son was a super human and they were okay with that. They accepted him just the way he was. Alison's powers only manifested themselves after her eighteenth birthday, halfway through her last year of high school. Billy's powers had developed a bit earlier. He was so different from her. Alison had the Gift of Speed. Her sole power was the ability to move at superhuman speeds. Her buddy, though, was something else.
Billy had a whole set of powers. He was incredibly strong, and could lift up to five thousand pounds when he wished to. He could also run quickly, though not as fast as Alison. He could run at a top speed of two hundred and forty miles per hour. Her speed more than doubled his, any day of the week. What he lacked in speed he made up for in other areas. Alison had seen Billy get hit by a truck and even walk through a burning building without suffering any injuries. His body was invulnerable, there was no other explanation.
Alison smiled as she recalled all of those memories. Yes, she and Billy had known each other for awhile. They were good pals but had very different worldviews. Alison wanted to meet other super humans and join forces to end the government-sanctioned discrimination they faced. Super humans were seen in pretty much the same way early twenty-first-century Arab terrorists had been treated by the American public. Most Americans felt that the only good superhuman was a dead superhuman.
"Hey, Billy," said Alison. " Where are you going, buddy?"
Billy turned around. He looked at her, and smiled. " Hey, Alison. How are you doing? I didn't notice you were there."
Alison grinned. " What, you were too busy checking out white broads to notice a fine sister walk by?"
Billy scratched his head. Alison smiled wickedly. She loved seeing him blush. That's Billy for you. Mister Nice Guy, the original super polite geek of the week.
- " So, what are you doing later?" Alison asked. "After classes today, I mean."
Billy shrugged. " I thought I could go home and chill a little bit, maybe call up a few friends and see what's up."
Alison groaned. Billy had this habit of spending way too much time at home. If he wasn't studying hard, he was either reading a book for the fun of it or Talking on the phone with his relatives across the country. He kept in touch with his cousin Ivan, a native of New York attending NYU and his other cousin Vanessa, a native of the Bronx who worked as a police officer in that same town.
"Dude, come on. It's Friday night and you're going to stay home?" Alison exclaimed. "You're eighteen, man. You're young. You've got to enjoy life."
Billy looked her up and down. " What did you have in mind, Alison?"
Alison grinned. " I was thinking we could head to Boston, hit the clubs and party, you know?"
Billy rubbed his thumb and index finger together, and raised his eyebrows.
"You inherited a lot of cash I don't know about?"
Alison grinned. In the time that it took Billy Grover to blink, she took off at super speed. She ran through campus, and went to the outlying town of Amherst. At the bank, she saw a robbery in progress. As the terrified bank employee, a nervous young man, handed the cash to the robbers, a masked man and woman dressed in black, Alison snatched the cash and zapped back to Amherst.
While on her way back to the school, where Billy had yet to finish blinking, Alison had counted the money she had 'acquired' from the bank thieves, a total of five thousand dollars. Smiling, she went back to standing in front of Billy Grover. The tall young academic looked at her, still waiting for an answer to the question he asked an eye blink ago.
"Yeah, I've got some green," Alison said. " In fact, I want us to go hang out in Boston, since Amherst is so boring. Come on, dude. My treat."
Billy Grover stared at her. " Uh, I don't know about that."
Alison looked at him. Billy was so cute but could be so stubborn sometimes, plus he lacked imagination and played by the rules too often. He needed someone like her to spice up his existence.
Alison snatched Billy's necklace from his neck. It was the silver wolf's head necklace given to him by his deceased grandfather. It meant a lot to him. He stared at her, and crossed his arm.
"Give it back, Alison," he said calmly. " I'm not playing with you." Alison smiled at him.
" I will give it back to you, but under one condition. Catch me if you can."
With that, the girl with the Gift of Speed took off at super speed. Groaning in frustration, Billy followed her. Alison ran through the town of Amherst, with Billy in close pursuit. Laughing, she ran faster and faster, though not at full speed. Then, she hit the highway. Once there, she raced through the roads, heading south, toward Boston and its glittering lights.
Finally, Alison found herself in downtown Boston, standing in front of the historic Loews movie theater. The centuries-old establishment still looked good, overlooking Boston Common. Yeah, her favorite city still looked pretty good to her. A couple of minutes after she got to the city, an angry-looking Billy arrived, hot on her trail.
"Hand me back my grandfather's medallion!" He said. " Now!"
