Origins # 4: Wild Cards

This story starts with one person, the alien from Takis who would be known on Earth as Dr. Tachyon.

Takis was in many ways, much like feudal Europe, except that they had highly advanced technology, and among the elite - telepathy.

But for one family, telepathy wasn’t enough.

They studied the genetic quirk that had given them telepathy, and mostly thanks to the work of Dr. Tachyon, they eventually found a way to trigger their full potential, a virus that would overwrite the target’s DNA.

There was only one problem, the trigger responded randomly, sometimes it gave extraordinary gifts, but far more often it resulted in terrible deformities, or death.

But at the same time, they had made another remarkable discovery.

A planet with beings who were genetically identical to themselves, a planet called Earth.

The idea of using it on the inhabitants of Earth came to be accepted, and a ship was dispatched to perform the task.

But Dr. Tachyon objected, followed in Baby, his own sentient ship, fought against his own family, and killed them, but the container with the virus fell to Earth, and his ship was too damaged to track it, so he landed on Earth in New Mexico, hoping to get help from the humans.

He succeeded, but unfortunately, the virus and its container had been stolen by a ruthless man, who planned to fly the container up into the sky above New York City in a dirigible. Having no regular aircraft capable of climbing high enough, the authorities called in the most famous pilot from World War Two, Robert Tomlin, also known as “Jetboy”.

Jetboy was so called because he was the owner and pilot of the very first jet airplane, which is why the authorities thought he had the best chance of stopping the villain. Unfortunately, Jetboy was only partially successful, and the virus was unleashed over New York City.

The virus was given the name “Wild Card” because it seemed that its effects were random. About nine in ten people who caught it died, and those people were referred to as those who had “drawn the black queen” and of the survivors nine in ten developed terrible mutations, and they were referred to as “Jokers”. A lucky few, about one in a hundred, developed powers, and soon they were known as “aces”.

The American government decided to take advantage of these aces, and soon had recruited four individuals. But the “four Aces” as they were called, would only have a brief moment in the sun before being stopped by Senator Joseph McCarthy, and by the betrayal by Golden Boy, one of the four aces.

Despite this, there would be more Aces, and even Jokers, who would play a part in the history of the world, and no one would ever forget the day Jetboy failed, Wild Card Day.