Chapter 297: Obtaining My New Identity

Monday, February 20 to Friday, March 31, 2006

I was heading for Los Angeles. This is where the ten-fingered, possibly short, Black guy I was going to become currently lived. I don't know who he is yet, but I will in a few days.

I resisted going via Corvallis, instead following the coast south at about 2,000 feet for the two hours it took.

For someone who doesn't have a car, I get a lot of use out of gas stations. Money lasts a lot longer without a car too. When I'd been on the lam from Binion's investigators, my money had quickly drained away, but this time I could cross the country on a couple of snack bars.

Outside of LA, I got a local street map, opened it and asked the attendant, "My mother warned me to stay away from South Central. Where's that exactly?"

I found a hotel that advertised "Cash Only" on its sign and which had a secure landing place nearby. I landed, checked in, heated up and ate half my takeout meal, then went outside to start my scouting.

I cruised around South Central at 400 feet AGL: learning the geography, building exteriors, and about the gangs, such as where groups of guys hung around, how they reacted to strangers, etc. Even though I was flying low over a populated area and there was plenty of light at ground level, some of which leaked up to my level, I was confident of my invisibility. The light at ground level ruined everybody's night-vision, and I was wearing black clothes with a black ski mask and standing upright to minimize my cross-sectional area and making it hard to recognize as a person.

I was particularly interested in Black guys in their late teens, or maybe early-20s, a demographic that was very well represented on the streets. I saw many groups that looked suitable for my needs. I studied them until it got too late and they started going indoors.

I wanted to keep a very low profile this trip, but if I ever need some quick cash, this is where I'll come to get it. I spotted a dozen drug houses on my first evening, and they'd be very easy for me to rob. I could take their drugs too, flying out to sea and scattering them from 5,000 feet. Hitting a half a dozen places in rapid succession would result in some amusing aftereffects for some of the 'victims'.

I flew back to my hotel, happy that I seemed to have plenty of choice.

I spent the next few days doing four things:

1. More scouting. I wanted a gang of about a dozen guys that'd grab at an easy criminal opportunity, but weren't too hardened. Not the young members anyway; I'd be happy if the older members were bad guys. They had to be hanging around the right urban landscape, near a dead-end alley, ideally a "blind" one, with no windows looking into it. There also had to be somewhere else nearby where I could covertly land.

2. Pushing my body to change itself. Turning my skin black was easy; I guess because it knows how to produce melanin (that's what turns white skin brown when it tans, or makes Blacks black). For the moment, I was 'tanning' only on areas covered by clothes. My regenerating finger continued its growth. Proximity, especially when in a déjà vu, showed me that the new fingerbone was well under way, growing about four or five millimeters per day, so 'zooming' down the long bone. It looked like it wasn't starting as a baby-sized finger and then expanding later (as happens with everyone else), but growing a correctly sized one immediately. It had taken my finger-shortening experiment a while to get started, but that test finger was finally showing signs of shrinking. I had been reasonably sure it would eventually - because my body's changes over the years had included a lot of bone shape changes - but it was still great to see. I didn't want to wait a year or two for my disguise to be perfect.

3. I left LA for a couple of days to do some nighttime searching around Oregon's wilderness areas, until I found what I was looking for. A little bit of remodeling and tidying up made it suit me very nicely.

4. With all the above falling into place, I started buying the equipment I needed: one of those wonderful compass/altimeter watches (I got the most plastic one, to avoid it reflecting radar because I'd be wearing it on every flight I made. It functioned wonderfully!), a short length of VERY strong chain with a matching padlock, some stakes (one VERY strong), a large supply of pens and paper, lots of snack bars, bottles of water, a small tent, hammock, and other camping gear.

I didn't rush the execution of my plan, preferring to take it slow and do a good job. That was especially important in my selection of targets, so I spent a lot of nights scouting for the best group of guys that I could find. Three nights before D-Day, I transferred all my purchases to the 'campsite', found and captured my own "goon" - everyone seems to have them so I wanted one too, for the usual reason - chaining him (his gender was something I noticed only by proximity) near the campsite.

^

[[My recent mentions of Blacks prompts me to mention why there are Blacks and Whites - those are good names for them, because that's why they exist. The human race's mammalian ancestors were widespread, but it was in Africa that their intelligence successfully emerged. Living outdoors, excessive sunlight was a killer that struck the fair-skinned people much more than the melanin-protected dark-skinned folk. Kinky hair was important too, because straight hair lets sunlight reach skulls much easier. The result was the evolutionary success of the Black phenotype and failure of the White.

When humans spread to less strongly illuminated climes, their Black bodies received less ultraviolet radiation, thus they created less Vitamin D and many of them developed Osteomalacia (adult rickets). That was particularly fatal for pregnant women trying to give birth. Lighter skinned, less curly haired Blacks had a significant evolutionary advantage in the non-equatorial environments, and it didn't take many generations for Whites to emerge in those locations. Blacks and Whites were superior in their own environments.

Assuming dimensions in which I choose not to intervene, then if the ozone layer gets seriously depleted and human civilization collapses because it can't adapt to the new conditions, then Blacks will take over the world. That sounds fair, because Whites had the last turn.]]

^

Back in LA, I observed my target group closely for a couple more nights, then at 9pm on March 1st, my target group couldn't believe their good luck: God knows how he'd gotten there, but walking down the opposite side of the street was a White guy, wearing a backpack and a shiny, new money belt, dressed in smart clothes, holding a map open in front of him and clearly lost. To make it even better, he was even walking toward the mouth of the local blind alley. Once they'd recovered from their surprise at Christmas arriving early, the gang didn't stop to say a word; they rushed across the street before some other gang saw me.

[I referred to them as "my target", but they were merely a potential target group until this moment. I would have lost all interest in them if they'd sat on their asses and done nothing as I walked past. I would have identified a second potential target group and tried again with them, and if necessary, a third, etc. This group's enthusiastic response, and what they did over the next few seconds, very effectively upgraded their status from "potential target" to "target". I'd had little doubt that would happen - hence my always calling them my "target" - but I want you to know that the choice was theirs.]

I seemed to see them for the first time, and get scared. I ran into the blind alley. I was pursued by happy laughter and my targets. They probably should've been suspicious at my folding up the map and putting it back in my pocket as I ran.

They blocked the entrance, pulled out their knives, and advanced while I backed up against the rear wall.

"Giv'us ya money, motherfucker!" They repeated that in a variety of very macho ways.

I politely inquired, "Do you think using violence to get what you want is acceptable?"

"Drop the fuckin' pack, or we'll slice ya."

"I'll take that as a 'Yes' then."

I quickly checked the few windows that looked into the alley with a sight blob, to make sure they were still barricaded, closed or empty of observers, as they had been five minutes ago. They were, so I pulled my ski mask down while I flipped the gang's plan around.

I needed to leave some bodies behind, and the four oldest were the best choices. They weren't suitable ID providers for me, being too old, too hardened, and quite possibly wanted for crimes. Plus it'd be good to strip the younger guys of their leadership right from the start. So the seven younger guys all got simultaneous, very forceful punches in their unready guts, dropping them to the ground in breathless surprise.

The four oldest-looking guys got punches too, also so they couldn't call out to attract attention. But rather than collapsing to the ground, they stayed upright and started stabbing each other in a frenzy of violence. All my doing, of course. I was holding them up, holding their hands around their knife handles, and pushing their knives into each other.

After a few quick stabs back and forth, I gave the four of them fatal wounds, in the heart twice, sliced one throat, and up into the brain from the back of the last guy's head.

It'd been extremely quick - almost as quick as you could say "stab, slash, slice" - because there was no defense, no jockeying for position, etc. I wanted it over with as quickly as possible.

Three of them were dead already, but the guy with the slit throat was taking a while. I didn't want to take the risk of him surviving long enough to talk, so I lifted his head a few inches, then smashed it down hard enough to ruin his day.

[[I felt so justified in killing these guys that I did it without remorse. They'd attacked me first, eleven-to-one with knives and guns. I know they didn't actually get their guns out or lay a hand on me, but they certainly would have if I'd resisted, which I had the right to do. If I'd resisted, they would have stabbed or shot me, probably to death rather than leaving me able to call the cops. I imagined they'd have killed me even if I cooperated, as I'd seen all their faces and this was right in the middle of their home territory so the cops would quickly identify and find them. I'd spent half my life on the receiving end of violence, over and over again from the same relatively few bullies who also attacked other weaklings, so I had less than no sympathy for bullies. These guys chose to use overwhelming and deadly force to steal what they wanted from me; so I applied their rules back at them.]]

The four corpses had received their injuries too quickly to have a chance of making noticeable noise, but the seven younger guys were starting to get their breaths back now. Three minds NP-grabbed each of them, around their upper-arms and tight enough around their throats to make it hard for them to take a breath and make noise. Another of my minds grabbed all their knives. Usually off the ground, but out of their hands in a couple of cases. I reformed my sled, stepped onto it, and we all shot up into the air.

We tilted over, zoomed up, and then headed for the ocean, me flying about twelve feet above the seven of them, with them lined up side by side. I could proximity sense what they were doing, which was mostly freaking out, trying to scream (I'd only partially relaxed my grips on their throats) and wetting themselves; all of which I ignored.

My handholds on each of their arms stopped them reaching into their own pockets to prevent them grabbing a gun, in case any of them had one. I patted them all down thoroughly while we flew, finding more knives, two pistols, wallets, keys, watches, several rings and necklaces, and other assorted crap. We were over the water now. I kept their wallets and keys (making sure to remember who they'd come from), and dropped everything else. Then I ripped the clothes off them, dropping those too.

Me and my seven possible ID donors turned inland, heading for my prepared campsite. I flew high, at 5,000 feet according to my wonderful new watch, but at only half the speed I normally go because I didn't have enough minds to push such a large group any faster than that. My captives quickly got VERY cold, and then too cold (proximity showed me their bodies failing to cope), so I put a heat blob over them. I didn't give them anywhere near as much heat as they would've liked, so when we landed in their new home four hours later, they were incapable of doing anything more than slumping to the ground.

Their new home was a big hole in the ground in a wild part of southern Oregon. I'd removed everything from the hole (branches, leaves, etc.) and had dug around in it somewhat, to make a flatter floor (it'd been a crevice originally). It was about thirty feet deep, so there was no way they could get out, not unless six of them could stand on each other's shoulders. It was empty of any useful tools, leaving digging by hand as their only choice. Most of the crevice was made of rock, but even if it had been earth, digging out by hand would take many days.

Their home was quite small, so there wasn't room for me to live in it as well (a pity, because that meant I had to chain my goon up nearby. I would've preferred to have him occupy the middle of a larger crevice, but nearby would still work). I turned on the battery powered florescent lantern I had suspended from a stake hammered into the wall high over their heads. I stood on an NP-plate, hovering about twelve feet above their floor, while I steadily dialed up the heat blob I had around them.

They revived after a couple of minutes and were soon having to scramble away from the heat. I picked them up, turned them upside-down, and shook them, just in case I didn't have their full attention.

Having gained their attention, I stopped the shaking then started the first of our many conversations, "Pretty cool, eh? Three months ago I couldn't do any of this shit, but look at me now. Which one of you would like to be able to do this stuff?"

They had no macho crap left - in most cases, no crap at all left - but they were still shocked stupid, so the conversation didn't progress smoothly, not even after I turned them the right way up and put them down. It took a while, but I managed to convey the following points:

• I had acquired my incredible mental powers three months ago.

• I wanted ONE lieutenant who I'd teach how to do what I could do, but at half my strength.

• Every day or two I'd pick the most useless one of them and he'd be killed, just like the TV show "Survivor", except that I'd be providing even more reality than Reality TV does, which admittedly is almost none.

• Eventually all but one of them would be killed. That was certain and there was nothing they could do to prevent it.

• The last Survivor would either be taught my powers, or if I didn't like how he behaved, he'd be killed too and I'd try again with another group. I told them that they were my second group, as no one in the first had behaved the way I wanted.

• They had to be obedient and truthful. Fucking me around would be the same as committing suicide.

I ignored their questions, flicked the light off and rose out of the crevice. I hovered beside the hole at the top, out of their sight but where I could listen to them, watching them with a sight blob.

Their conversation was a chaotic, rambling mess, but I didn't really care what they were saying. I was just studying them to get to know their personalities. I was probably going to become one of these people, unless they were all no good for that purpose, in which case I'd try my luck with another group later. I needed to pick the best one of them, and then be capable of pretending to be him, so I allocated three minds to watch each individual closely, the rest of us getting the big picture.

It took quite a while, but eventually they settled down enough for one of them to suggest they had to kill me. The conversation got so quiet that I couldn't hear anything, so I went to bed in the hammock I'd tied out of sight, high up a nearby tree. I had a good sleeping bag and waterproof cover over the hammock, they had nothing at all, so they were going to have a very unpleasant few hours. I had a tent pitched near the crevice area that I'd prefer to sleep in, but I wasn't going to risk sleeping at ground level until my prisoners were sufficiently cowed.

I woke up every half-hour to do a quick sight blob check that they hadn't thought of some miraculous way out of their hole, but they were well-behaved, helpless prisoners.

I didn't need much sleep, but I had nothing else to do so I took a succession of 30-minute naps until I awoke to find the sun was already up.

I checked my prisoners. They were huddled together for warmth and looking very pathetic. Quite different from how they'd looked when they had me cornered in the alley. I pissed off my goon by NP-prodding him several times. He was going to get some work soon and I wanted him to be in the right mood.

I got out of my nice, warm sleeping bag. It was a brisk morning, so I put a heat blob over me while I floated to one of the bags of food I had suspended from the branches around me (there are enough bears in these parts that you have to put your food in trees. Bears are a nuisance for people in the woods because they'll eat anything).

I put a couple of snack bars in my pocket, was eating from one of them with one hand while my other hand held a bottle of water. Thus apparently unable to defend myself, I dropped silently down into the middle of the crevice, stopping twelve feet above their floor level again, positioning myself horizontally so the most-distant one of them was just within twenty four feet of me.

It was still dark in the hole, so I flicked on the lantern and yelled, "Wakey, wakey." (Okay, I'll admit it wasn't the most awe-inspiring part of my act. It was the start of the day and it just came out.)

Their cunning plan was surprisingly sophisticated, considering how little they had to work with. It took them a little while to wake up and get their heads clear, but then one of them sidled to the side (that being pretty much what sidling does), one got me into conversation with questions, three of them put their hands behind their backs and onto the rocks they must've dug out of the wall in the dark, and a couple moved so they were nearly under me.

All seven of them were poised to leap into action and were mentally rehearsing those actions, so I was not at all surprised when the sidler suddenly yelled "HEY!" and waved his hands. The three rock throwers immediately threw their rocks at my head, as one of the two guys that were close to me cupped his hands so his partner could leap into them and be boosted up to grab me.

I calmly took a drink of water while the rocks seemed to bounce off midair (I'd used NP to push strongly against each rock). The leaping assailant didn't get high enough to reach me, so his hands never banged against the underside of the wide plate of NP-squares I had just below my feet. Maybe they'd been hoping that the rocks would've caused me to lower myself or start to fall.

I gave them a couple of seconds to recover and appreciate their plan's total failure. I floated the stones off the ground and toward the three throwers, offering, "Do you want to try again?"

"Ahh..."

"Go on. I insist. Have a free shot; get it out of your system."

One of them hesitated, but the other two were quick to try again, which shamed the third into trying too. The three rocks bounced off my 'shield' again, falling to the ground.

"In case you haven't worked it out yet, you didn't trap me in the alley; I lured you into chasing me into it. I can fly like Superman, so why would I be walking around with a street map looking lost? I wasn't the least bit worried about being in an alley with guys armed with guns because even bullets bounce off me these days. Your silly little plan of throwing rocks at me had no hope of success."

I let them appreciate how silly they were to throw rocks at a guy that bullets couldn't touch, then I added, "Last night I warned you not to fuck around with me and that I'd be killing you one at a time. So it's time for the first elimination."

I rose up in the air, all of them following after me whether they wanted to or not (mostly "not"). I got us all to hover in a group above the hole. I addressed them, "Just like the TV program, I will eliminate you one by one. The person who's eliminated will be killed unless he can win a fight. With all the guns and knives you carried, you obviously like fighting, so you've got a fair chance. It's one against one; and even Black against Black, so it's a great deal fairer than what you thought you were doing in the alley against me. Let's go have our first fight."

A few days ago, I'd found a large, male, black bear south of here, picking a relatively skinny one, which indicated that he wasn't ready to hibernate. I'd driven a large stake into the ground in a clearing under a rock overhang, and had chained the bear to it on a short chain. He was hungry, thirsty and very pissed off. Not noisy though - that's a Hollywood myth - so he hadn't attracted anyone's attention.

We were in a remote area, so it was unlikely there'd be anyone hiking around up here, but I played safe by taking my prisoners to my 'goon' by threading them through the forest rather than going up and over the intervening trees. My prisoners grabbed hold of tree branches to stop me flying them, but I yanked on them with greatly increased force, scraping their hands raw so they soon quickly learned not to do that.

My 'goon' was only fifty yards away, so it didn't take us long to get there.

I hovered us just inside the clearing, but out of reach of the bear, telling my small - and about to become smaller - gang, "One of you is going to fight my little pet. If you lose, you'll be dead. If you can kill the bear, I'll let you rejoin the group."

I was interrupted by protestations. That was easily fixed: I punched them all in the stomach. They were dangling by their arms at the time, which tightened their chests, so it was very hard for them to get their breaths back.

While they were trying to breathe again, I explained, "I don't give a flying fuck what your opinions are. I'm in charge here and we're playing this game by my rules. You would've laughed at me if I'd said, 'You can't do this!' in the alley; and I'm laughing at you for saying it here. One of you IS fighting my bear shortly. And in another day or two, it'll happen again. Then again and again, until there's only one of you left alive.

^-- "The first fighter will be whoever it was that first suggested you try to attack me this morning. Which one of you was that?" I knew who it was, and knew that I didn't want to take his identity as he was too fat. I'd brought him along to help educate the others into being cooperative.

They staunchly refused to even glance in his direction.

"Well, who is it?"

No answer.

"Anyone going to tell me?"

Nope, no one was.

"You really are VERY stupid people. Don't you think I already know who it is?"

I threw that guy at the bear. Black bears are unaggressive, but this one had been riled for days, plus I'd been poking him for the last five minutes, pulling his hair, tweaking his nose, etc. Now a guy flew though the air and landed on top of the bear, which was the last straw!

The gang member was immediately dismembered; it was a VERY short fight. Bloody though, making a VERY strong impact on the surviving six. I was holding their wrists with NP so they were dangling below their stretched arms, facing the spectacle. In that position it was hard for them to turn away or to stop looking, that level of violence having a sick fascination. I let my prisoners watch until the bear settled down to his feeding, then I took them back to their crevice, dropping them on the floor.

"Think of it this way. ALL of you are going to die, one by one, because there's no way in the world that you can stop me. Even if you had your guns you still couldn't touch me. You're insects that I can swat whenever I want. I can fly you up to 10,000 feet and let you fall, or I can make you so hot you burst into flames," I had several very hot heat blobs approach them, forcing them up against the wall to avoid getting burned. "I can squeeze your head so hard it pops open." I canceled the heat blobs and formed fingertips to squeeze their skulls hard enough to be scary. "I can kill all of you as easy as thought and none of you can put a scratch on me. And, as I said, I AM going to kill you. However, there's a chance that ONE of you - just one - might survive. If he's the sort of person that I want as a lieutenant, then I'll train him to be a superman half as strong as I am.

^-- "Whenever any of you make a pathetic attempt to attack me, my opinion of you goes down. Whenever you make a pathetic attempt to hang on to a tree branch when I'm taking you somewhere, my opinion of you goes down. Whenever you fail to answer my questions - like whose idea it was to attack me - my opinion of you goes down. Every day or two, the person I have the lowest opinion of will get to demonstrate how much fun uneven fights are.

^-- "If the last of you still seems useless to me, then I'll kill him too then get some fresh volunteers. Sooner or later I'll find someone who realizes that I am the BOSS, that my word is the LAW, and that he should bust his hump to do whatever I want. In return for which he'll get to be a superman. If you prefer to be eaten by a bear rather than be a superman, feel free to keep acting like morons."

I floated up out of the crevice and back to my bear. I didn't want him to overeat, so I moved the bear away from the mess he'd made, scooped up all of the big pieces and took them back to the crevice, dumping them at one end, "Just to keep you reminded of what will happen to you if you don't stop fucking around. You'll either learn to do EXACTLY what I want, or you'll end up in that pile."

I left them alone for a few hours, spending the time lying in my hammock reading a book. I'd brought heaps of them up with me, expecting to have a lot of time to kill.

At lunchtime I grabbed a snack bar for myself. I put six more snack bars and a bottle of water in an NP-dish that I kept out of sight as I descended into the crevice. I left their rations outside, where I could get them quickly and impressively. Another advantage of having a 24-foot proximity range was that I could keep the food in an NP-dish without it canceling on me, even though it was out of sight.

I floated twelve feet above them, eating my food and asking, "Have you decided to be cooperative and truthful, or do you want to keep feeding the bear?"

They weren't too eager on feeding the bear. It was a nice bear, and no doubt deserved to be fed, but they preferred it was given nuts rather than niggers. (I can say that now, because I'm intending to become one; nigger I mean, not nut.)

"Okay, let's see how sensible you are. Line up side by side and go down the line stating your names, addresses and ages."

They did that all right, one by one down the line.

"What are your favorite colors?"

"Why dya wanna know dat?"

I gave him an exasperated look, then said, "First, I want you to answer one after the other going down the line and it's not your turn. Second, I am your BOSS, with the power of life and death over you. You DO NOT ask me questions; I ask you. You've now got less chance of being a superman than any of your friends, and more chance of being a bear's lunch. What are your favorite colors?"

I got six answers in rapid, orderly succession.

"Who was your favorite teacher at school and why?"

I asked a whole bunch of seemingly random questions. I had several reasons for doing so: to get them used to answering my questions, to confuse them about what was going on so they wouldn't know in which direction to lie (so hopefully they wouldn't), to learn lots of trivia about their lives, and - when I judge the time right to ask them - to hide the important questions among the others so they'd be more likely to answer them truthfully. For example, I wanted to know whether any of them had outstanding arrest warrants. I didn't want to become someone who would be immediately arrested when I turned up.

I deliberately asked questions that they'd be reluctant to answer, so I could catch them being reluctant. Such as, "How many girls or women have you had sex with?" ALL guys lie about that.

When they looked reluctant, I said, "You've got two choices. Tell me the truth and your friends won't be impressed by you," I thought I was safe in assuming they'd previously lied in the upward direction, "or lie to make yourself more impressive to your friends. At most, one of you is going to survive this. If you lie to me, that'll guarantee your death, so I don't think that trying to impress your friends is a good strategy."