We're celebrating Klordny Week, Superboy!

Enemies again.

June 3
[Aberrant] The Pantheon (consisting, at this point, of the Apostle, the Apothecary, Bounty, the Confederate [filling in for Epoch], Geryon, ibn'Mahmoud, Leviathan, the Mathematician, Narcosis, Orzaiz, Scripture, Shrapnel, Sin-Eater, Swarm Queen and Synapse) meet in council at a hidden retreat hosted by the Count (they are brought in by Blinker, the only Terat with whom Orzaiz shares the location). Topics of discussion include a review of the various Teragen cliques, what precisely is going on with Project Utopia, and how to use Utopia's newly-revealed weaknesses against it.

Actually, this first day is/was mostly about "catching up with fellow Terats we haven't seen in months and meeting newcomers to the movement," as the count will describe it when he opens discussions tomorrow. Today's discussions have been mostly civil, but with tense undercurrents among the various cliques, according to Leviathan's epilogue to the second of two essays circulating among Terats at mid-year. (The first, by Santiago, covered the movement's history from N-Day to the Null Manifesto; de la Rocha takes it from the Halloween Surprise to the present.)

Synapse logs in and out of the meeting, as he is spending much of his time trying to persuade Saxon to join the Teragen.

I'm not sure where I got this impression; the evidence for it seems to have evaporated from my copy of Aberrant: Teragen, even though I swear I've found it on other readings.

Edit June 4: I've since realized wherein the evidentiary basis consists, and it's not much. (It'll be in tomorrow's posting.) We don't actually get datestamps for either day of Saxon's captivity, so in fact, it may already be over by the time the meeting starts.

( Here's what happens during it, anyway. )

In a communique to Director Thetis (double-encrypted, Navajo Daedalus 3), baseline Proteus agent Ruiz gives an overview of his interactions with two Utopian novas: engineer Dr. Piotr Enrikssen and someone referred to only as Cocharin.

Enrikssen's ever-expanding intellect needs new stimulation, and Ruiz suggests "the new games of chance from Hattori's pet project" as an option. Cocharin's on "a schedule that allows her to use her matter-transmutation abilities on a regular basis without any real quantum-bleeding or signs of stress." She's taking Slidergate in a Proteus-approved way, having "expressed worry as to what the 'rogues' might indeed try." He's working hard on being friendly to her, and "regular non-nova company... seems to break down any self-imposed feelings of 'being different.'"

We twist your DNA, we like our work...

1963
[Aberrant] Altaz Zia, later the Terat known as the Apothecary, born in Budapest, Hungary.

He was working as a bioengineering researcher for Horizon Pharmaceuticals, which had ties to Æon's Triton Foundation and, as such, access to nova test subjects. In fact, according to his Nova Philes writeup (in Aberrant: Teragen), he was the one who proposed the use of nova "specimens" to advance baseline knowledge of the biological sciences. (This may be exaggerated, but at the very least, he was happy to profit from such experiments.)

He certainly wasn't expecting to be as intrigued by them as he became. Unaware of md_donighal's views on the subject of humanity's evolutionary destiny, Zia came to see novas as representing perfection. "In 2001, he made a startling discovery: Taint was not a problem but the key to unlocking novas' potential, and with this, he erupted."

He gained an enhanced intellect and a greater degree of emotional detachment. He diverted Horizon funds to set up Heartland, a private taint research facility in Nebraska complete with an associated town (presumably Hastings). The town came to be populated by sympathetic baselines who wanted their tainted relatives to be capable of living relatively normal lives. They provided cover for the subterranean facilities that were the real heart of Heartland. It was also in 2001 that Zia made contact with the Orzaiz-Santiago roundtable, which would not become known as the Teragen for another two years.

By sometime this year, Triton had noticed some irregularities in Horizon's books, but it took a T2M Americas investigation to flush Zia out into the open. He did a runner, but Triton cut their ties to Horizon because of his malfeasance. It didn't matter to the Apothecary; he had everything he needed.