Soulcore Volume 1

By Gary Lumpp

"What is the Soulcore?" What if the human soul was a form of energy that science has yet to understand? High school student Nathan Claymore is about to discover that not only is the power inside his soul astounding, it's also destined to destroy the world. Recruited by a substitute teacher named Mr. Trent, Nathan learns how to unleash the fire burning within his soul with hopes of protecting those he loves. Nathan works alongside others who have already perfected using their "SoulCore," capable of everything from flight to mind control. But when Nathan learns of his destiny as the World Killer, can he stop it from happening and save everyone he cares about...along with the rest of us? The first in the SoulCore series, the story is influenced by everything from American comics to Japanese manga and tells a tale of super human abilities without the capes and tights.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gary Lumpp
• Release date: Aug 22, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476485430

Gary Lumpp

Award-winning screenwriter with scripts that include the international feature "Serbian Scars" starring Michael Madsen and the independently produced and directed "When Heaven Comes Down."

Book preview

SOULCORE

by

Gary Lumpp

Copyright 2012 by Gary Lumpp

Smashwords Edition

ISBN-10: 1475247451

ISBN-13: 978-1475247459

Chapter One: BEFORE THE STORM

I had the dream again last night. Most people have dreams about flying; floating between the clouds and soaring above the land. But mine is different. I’m simply standing there, high above the concentration of rundown buildings and broken up streets I call home. It’s as if I’m standing on a glass floor strong enough to hold my weight, and if I want I can run and slide across it for as far as the eye can see. But that doesn’t happen. My feet remain there, firmly planted on nothing but the air. There’s something in my right hand but I can never quite make it out – it’s something big, and for some reason I think it’s sharp. But the sunlight glaring off of it makes it impossible to see –

And that’s when I wake up. The dream is over because I know it’s just a dream. We haven’t seen the sun shine in years.

The morning ritual around our house was in full swing like any other day. Gramp was reading his newspaper, with headlines blaring something about The Great East’s energy reserves and that storms were headed towards Chicago yet again. Gramp’s caretaker Tina was yelling at him about something in Cantonese, enough for me to know that she was in another feisty mood. How someone in such a small package can make so much noise is a mystery to me. She’d stand in front of the oven, her jet black hair in a long ponytail halfway down her back, pretending to cook while she waited for the eggs to boil. Neither Gramp nor I ever dared to ask her how old she was. All we needed to know was that she was born on the Fourth of July, although we figured that was just a random date she picked out so we’d get her something from one of the Conglomerate’s clothing outlets on the other side of town.

Nathan, tell your grandfather his eggs are almost ready, Tina bellowed at me, her voice loud enough for the neighbors to hear, much less Gramp. I was busy getting ready for school, forced to keep the bathroom door open to try and clear the fog from the mirror long enough that I could at least run a comb through my hair. Tina would always try to walk up behind me and feel my hair, commenting how soft and fine it felt compared to hers. At least that’s what I imagined she was saying, since her English hadn’t improved at all in the decade since she came from what used to be called China. When they sealed off the mainland and created The Great East she was one of the first to leave, and somehow she ended up here with Gramp and me. Now I can’t imagine life without her.

If what they say about family members looking like each other I wasn’t too disappointed with looking like Gramp. Back before he became a semi-retired citizen Gramp was known as Detective Lincoln Claymore, Chicago Police Department. Strong jaw, twinkling blue eyes, and silver hair that somehow made him look younger instead of older. Gramp said I got my green eyes from my mother but we were never able to figure it out for sure. He said my blond hair and swimmer’s body came from my father, although I’ve never spent a minute in a pool of water.

Leave the boy alone, he’s primping, was Gramp’s retort to his caretaker. While they weren’t married those two carried on like a married couple, and somehow it felt right. Even though he was a Catholic from Arlington Heights and she was a Buddhist from Hong Kong they could relate. Sadly there was a part of me thought it was because it felt like the world was going to end any day now and they had decided to ride out the storm until everything fell apart.

Grabbing a granola bar from the cabinet and stuffing it in my book bag I dashed through the kitchen in hopes of not having breakfast forced on me again. Nothing against Tina’s cooking, but the last thing a junior in high school needs is to have a hard-boiled egg rear its ugly head in the silence of study hall.

Did you want me to take over the register after school? I asked Gramp as he turned the page of the paper. He looked so serious as he perused the headlines; I wanted to snatch it away and force him to listen to music or go take a walk instead. And if I did, he’d kick my butt harder than any man in his sixties has a right to be able to do.

Tina says training first, then the register. I can hold down the fort until then. There was such a confidence in his voice, even when talking about the most mundane things that made me envious. Would I ever earn that kind of timbre?

He let the paper flop over as he extended his hand. The departing handshake was a ritual we had done since I first met him. Gramp believed that a handshake could tell you everything you needed to know about a man and made sure I knew how to present myself. But I couldn’t help but think he was always just a little disappointed when I shook his hand.

As I said my farewells to Tina and headed downstairs past the front of Gramp’s liquor store on the first floor I could see the paper was right. Storm clouds hung heavy in the sky outside. Storm clouds always seem to hang heavy in the sky nowadays.

Once again I found myself going out of my way on the walk to school, past the abandoned field where I was born. Granted it wasn’t always a field covered in slabs of concrete and weeds taller than a man – a state of the art hospital once stood on the ground. Everyone says since I was a newborn there’s no way I could possibly remember, but whenever walking past this site the memories flood back. At first the newspapers reported that it was a freak tornado that had touched down and destroyed the hospital. Later they revised it to a storm burst accompanied with a gas line explosion that brought the building down. In my mind the whipping winds and scorching flames still hovered within my memories. Two hundred and fourteen people died that day sixteen years and eleven months ago. Only one survived. They found me underneath three stories of rubble and bodies. The miracle baby.

At first they didn’t know what to do with me. Bouncing around foster homes and eventually ending up with a military family I was carted around the globe, living on Army bases and only hearing scant details about my parents and what had happened. Eventually DNA tests were done and they connected me to Gramp, a widowed Chicago cop due for retirement and preparing to buy his own bar. Instead he was a new father, opting to open up a liquor store so he could spend evenings taking care of me instead of hanging with his fellow Brothers in Blue.

When he broke his hip Gramp joked that he could have crawled to the hospital just up the street but when I was born I brought the whole building down around me. Tina was assigned to help him with his rehab and eventually moved in with us as his full-time caretaker – and more importantly, his buddy. So I guess Gramp having to go five miles away to the new hospital worked out in a way.

Nobody ever rebuilt on the lot of land where the hospital once stood. For years it was treated like a mass grave until every body had been removed and returned to their families. Now it was a patch of grass, dirt, and broken bottles behind a ten foot high cyclone fence. But every time I walked past, it felt like every person’s soul was whispering to me, encouraging me to move on. So I did. Until the next walk to school.

Sirens blared in the distance, the new norm for around here. Chicago was one of the few cities still trying to hold on to some semblance of what the United States used to be like, but it was clear things were changing. The police force was understaffed and over-worked, something Gramp complained about regularly. He told me about how there used to be things called public school, where kids like him went to get an education regardless of social status or family wealth. It seemed like a novel idea, especially as I walked through the main doors of the Ronald Reagan Learning Annex. We grew up thinking that everything was somehow owned and operated by The Conglomerate, and that’s just how the way things were.

By the time I made it to my locker my best friend Marty had already tracked me down. Martin Franklin was the first person to introduce himself to me after Gramp took me in. One of the few African-American kids in school, Marty was even more pessimistic about our future than Gramp. Of course he’d never let a teacher catch him talking like that. Instead he was known as Smiley, his chubby cheeks only outshined by his brilliant smile and chestnut eyes. Marty was an unabashed nerd, spending most of this time either on his lap top or on his phone.

Did you hear what happened in The Great East this morning? were the first words out of his mouth. Good morning, Marty, was my response. Sorry dude, morning. But did you hear? Word is they’ve got intel on that energy source. This could be huge.

He waited for me to get excited, and I felt like I let him down when I wasn’t. Conspiracy theories might have been Marty’s stock in trade, but it wasn’t mine. The web page he showed me on his phone said something about Old China and how they were able to replace fossil fuels, but I figured if it was important enough Gramp would tell me about it later while we waited for the next broke down customer to buy another fifth of bourbon.

You know Nate, you really should pay closer attention to world events, was the typical browbeating I’d get from Marty, and he was right. My response usually involved being more concerned about affording college and if there was even a job out there for me, devolving into even more talk about how The Conglomerate was behind it all and Marty was this close to cracking the case.

But today felt different. Marty, The Great East is a total black out. No broadcasts get out of there. Tina told me about the security structure they were building when she got out. It’s probably a hoax. At first Marty let it soak in that I had actually responded, but that big grin of his came back in an instant. A hoax? he asked, You want to talk about hoaxes? After that I zoned out, Marty babbling on about the connection between Bigfoot and the Catholic Church.

Instead my focus went down the hallway to Desiree Campbell, better known as Diz. She had her hair down today, which looked fantastic. Never would the thought have crossed my mind that looks mattered when it came to being attracted to a girl, but when it came to Diz I couldn’t help but find her gorgeous. Wavy blond hair just past her shoulders, just a dab of makeup to give the appearance of not wearing any – Marty and I both knew if anyone in our class made it into the upper ranks of The Conglomerate as a sales manager or a vice president it would be Diz. She had it but she didn’t know it, which made her all the more attractive. Or maybe she did know it but didn’t flaunt it, which would make her even smarter than we thought.

Snapping fingers in front of my face broke me out of my trance. "Man, get it together. Diz catches you looking she’ll bust your ass