Storm Orphans: The Beginning by Matt Handle

 
     
    Part I
    Progenitor’s Son:
    Tyler’s Story
     
     
     
     
     
    Despite his bitterness over being fired at Biomech, Roger Gibbons had a new job just two short weeks later. A biochemist with his résumé and talents was in high demand, even with the blemish the military goons that had taken over his former firm had added to his record. The new gig was in Orlando, Florida at the Neuroscience Institute. He could have found another position in Atlanta, but the Institute promised a chance for him to do further research on the same type of toxins he’d been experimenting with for the past several years and he thought a fresh start in a completely new environment might be best for everyone, especially Tyler, his 12 year-old son.
    By all accounts, Tyler was a healthy, good looking, intelligent kid, but he wasn’t without his troubles. He’d been suspended from school twice already in the past year for fighting and his mother, Sherry, frequently complained to Roger in private that she thought their son was drifting away from them. He was distant, moody, and often inexplicably angry.
    Roger thought Sherry was a bit overly-sensitive, but he had to agree that Tyler was having a tough time lately. Roger had decided that losing his job might just be a blessing in disguise. The Sunshine State not only promised him a new opportunity, it offered Tyler a new school, a clean slate, and hopefully some new friends in the bargain. So they put the house on the market, packed up their belongings, and followed the moving van onto Interstate 75 South a mere five days after he accepted the position.
    For the first four years in Florida, things were indeed much better. Tyler was soon back to making straight A’s. He grew tall and strong, played junior varsity soccer, and had more than a few girls calling and texting him at all hours of the day and night. Meanwhile, his mother had relaxed into their new home, taken a part-time job as a substitute teacher at the neighboring elementary school, and Roger was impressing his superiors while he made progress deciphering the weaknesses in a variation of the neurotoxin he’d developed in Atlanta.
    But then the troubles began. More and more people around the country were suffering from cognitive impairment, losing their ability to speak anything but gibberish. Some even turned violent. What at first seemed to be isolated cases quickly turned into an epidemic. By 2013, Roger was convinced the increasingly regular reports of these episodes were tied somehow to the work he’d done for Biomech. He spent more and more time in his lab, feverishly looking for both proof and a cure.
    As the violence turned to riots the following year, Roger tried to convince the Institute to go public with his suspicions, but as an entity reliant on public and private donations, his superiors were reluctant to cause waves. Regardless of how dire the situation was becoming, they insisted he remain silent. Eventually, he went to the press with his suspicions anyway, advocating for a thorough investigation of Biomech and their possible ties to a secret government program.
    The Institute fired him the next morning and the papers wrote him off as just another nutty conspiracy theorist. He tried looking for another position, but the word on him was out. Roger Gibbons wasn’t a team player. Roger Gibbons was a poor investment. Then the public health became so dire, it became apparent that there was no point in Roger looking for work at all. The country was falling apart and his career was over.
    So he packed up his family one last time, deciding on a small town about an hour north named Wildwood. Given how dangerous urban centers were becoming as more and more people fell victim to what was now being called the Babylonian Plague, Roger thought the tiny burg was just the sort of place he and his loved ones might ride out the storm in safety. It was anonymous; it was nearly empty; and he found a house in the middle of five acres