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The Prism — Checkmate is the origin story of a new superhero set in London.
A powerful synthetic drug known as Met-X has begun circulating across the city, causing temporary mutations in its users. Crime rates surge as those enhanced by the drug gain unpredictable abilities. Behind the operation stands a calculating criminal mastermind known only as The Grandmaster, who views society as a chessboard and people as pieces to be moved, sacrificed, or promoted in pursuit of long-term control.
When a glowing, rainbow-hued meteorite crashes in the Mojave Desert, it is secured by the Creative Research and Development Laboratory Enterprise (CRADLE) before other global agencies can intervene. Transported to CRADLE’s headquarters on London’s Southbank, the meteorite displays unusual energetic properties unlike any known material. CRADLE’s director, Arthur Kinsey, assigns his most gifted scientist, Isaac Wells, to lead the investigation.
Isaac, alongside biomedical engineer Clara Banks and engineering prodigy Kenzi Nakamura, discovers that the meteorite contains a reactive compound capable of interacting with human biology at a cellular level. Its energy signature resembles the active component of Met-X. It becomes clear that the drug destabilising London may have originated from fragments of this extraterrestrial material.
When The Grandmaster learns that CRADLE possesses the meteorite, he orders an aggressive retrieval operation. CRADLE employees are kidnapped, and the Southbank facility is attacked by enhanced operatives fuelled by Met-X. Determined to rescue his colleagues, Isaac leads a counter-operation using experimental CRADLE technologies and prototype engineering systems. Though he succeeds in freeing hostages, he is gravely injured during the confrontation.
Isaac is rushed back to CRADLE, where he flatlines.
In desperation, Clara reveals she has secretly engineered a prismatic variant of Met-X derived from her research into the meteorite’s full energy spectrum. Unlike the unstable red version distributed by The Grandmaster, her version was designed to stabilise and harmonise the mutation process. With no time for approval or trials, she injects Isaac.
He survives.
Isaac awakens fundamentally changed. The prismatic compound grants him controlled, adaptive abilities tied to energy manipulation and enhanced perception. He becomes the first stable evolution of the meteorite’s power.
Initially conflicted about using his abilities, Isaac realises The Grandmaster is preparing a final escalation: a plan to trigger a chain reaction beneath London using weaponised meteorite energy embedded within the Underground system. The resulting explosion would release mutagenic energy across the transport network, exposing thousands and permanently shifting the balance of power in the city.
Refusing to allow further harm, Isaac adopts a new identity — The Prism — and, alongside Clara and Kenzi, who equip themselves with advanced CRADLE technology, launches a coordinated assault on The Grandmaster’s network. As the team draw out his enhanced operatives across the city, Isaac infiltrates the Grandmaster’s headquarters.
In the climactic confrontation, Isaac uses his full spectrum abilities to prevent the Underground detonation and dismantle the energy core powering the operation. The Grandmaster’s empire collapses, and the immediate threat to London is neutralised.
In the aftermath, Isaac accepts that his transformation cannot be undone. Rather than retreat from the consequences of Clara’s decision, he chooses to embrace his new role. As The Prism, he commits to protecting the city while continuing CRADLE’s research into the meteorite’s wider implications.
Though The Grandmaster has fallen, Met-X has already altered the landscape. Enhanced individuals exist. The technology cannot be erased. The chess match may have ended, but a new evolutionary era has begun.
Checkmate is the first instalment in a planned trilogy charting the rise of The Prism. The series follows Isaac Wells from prodigy scientist to the emergence of a new kind of hero, exploring the scientific, moral and societal consequences of engineered evolution. Subsequent novels, Spectrum and Zenith, expand the scope from a single city under threat to a world reshaped by the power first unleashed in London. Alongside the core trilogy, additional prequels and spin-off stories are planned to explore the origins of CRADLE and the wider emergence of enhanced individuals — forming an interconnected narrative universe known as the Prismverse.
The odds of being hit by a meteorite are astronomically small, but that is where this story begins.
As a teenager, I was on holiday in Tenerife. I sat out on the hotel balcony one warm August night, watching the Perseid meteor shower light up the night sky. I had never seen shooting stars so bright or abundant in my life and settled in for a night of stargazing.
As I laid back on the white plastic lounge chair, craning my neck up to watch the show, I felt a sharp pain on my thigh. Looking around for an insect to blame for interrupting my tranquillity, I saw a small black rock on the terracotta tiled floor beside me.
'That wasn't there a minute ago, was it?' I asked myself.
Picking it up, I noticed it looked charred, like a miniature lump of coal that had fallen from a barbecue. I got up, looking for a plant pot or something that would explain the pea-sized black rock in my palm. Nothing matched it. That's when the brightest shooting star of the night streaked across the sky, disappearing beyond the horizon.
It couldn't be, could it?
Shooting stars are anything from fragments of asteroids to particles the size of a grain of sand, burning up as they pass through our atmosphere and tonight, there were hundreds of these celestial visitors passing right above me.
Without another explanation for the pain radiating through my thigh, I sat back down and squeezed my fist around the small rock and watched its friends fall to the earth.
Almost half a lifetime later, on Christmas Day, I get a phone call from my Dad.
"Your Grandad has had a stroke."
I spent the day alone in my art studio, waiting for updates and trying to process the news. Finally, I got the call that night that he had passed. After refusing the paramedics offer of going to the hospital, he died in his own bed, stubborn and proud to the end.
The next day, we drove to my Grandparents house in Whitstable, England, to help my Grandma and do the things I suppose you have to do when a family member passes. Grieve, support, tell stories, remember the good times.
My Grandad was always a bit of a mystery to me. He was a heavily tattooed former Navy man, but I only really knew him as the man who would write poems and draw his grandkids bespoke, personalised birthday cards every year. We weren't a close family, seeing them only once, maybe twice a year, but when I did, I wanted to know about his tattoos, art, and poems. I wanted his stories.
I didn't realise just how many stories he had until he was gone and we found a locked suitcase under his bed. Upon opening it, we discovered a treasure trove of beautifully handwritten notepads containing stories, poetry, lyrics, diaries and more. We knew he wrote birthday cards for us, but this was a surprise for all of us to find.
Why was it hidden, locked away without telling anyone what he was creating?
The only answer I can come up with is one that made me sadder than his actual passing. He was afraid to share them for fear of judgement or ridicule. His pride overshadowed the storyteller he kept locked inside, only allowing glimpses of his true self to emerge to make his grandkids smile once a year on their birthdays.
I left the next day to travel home, determined to find a way to honour him and not let his legacy stay locked away in a suitcase. If he was too afraid to share his storytelling with the world, then maybe I could do it in his honour. I was already following in his footsteps in some capacity by embracing my artistic side and pursuing a career in that, so maybe I also could write like he did. Perhaps I had a storytelling gene in me too. Only one way to find out.
Over the following weeks, I started putting ideas together on what kind of story I could tell. Ever since that summer holiday when I was hit by a shooting star, I had been fascinated by meteorites. It's the kind of thing Stan Lee would be proud of writing, and it seemed like the perfect theme to create a story around.
By the time I went to my Grandads funeral, The Prism was already being created, and I was able to smile, knowing that his legacy would have a chance to live through me. To have the name Simmons printed on a book and released for people to read and enjoy will be as much for my Grandad as it is for me.
The universe chose to touch me with that small black rock. Something astronomically rare sparked this idea, and my grandad gave me the fuel to help light the fire that grew to become The Prism.
After a long, extraordinary, twisting road to get here, I am proud to say that I am now a storyteller like my Grandad.
At the edge of California's Mojave Desert, the Ridgecrest Police Station was inundated with calls from panicked locals. For a small town at midnight, this raised concerns with the officers working the night shift.
"Hey Chief, we had another call with the same description, a 'rainbow fireball' shooting across the sky. This can't be a coincidence…"
By call seven, curiosity had overcome the officers and they stepped outside and looked up at the cloudless sky. To the south-east, much to the officer's amazement, was a faint streak of coloured smoke on the horizon heading straight into the desert. UFO sightings from drunk town members had always been a source of entertainment to local officers, but tonight was different. In the sky above them was proof and they needed to investigate.
The officers drove east on the 178 for about fifteen minutes. The cold desert night was lit with a blanket of stars emanating from the Milky Way’s dusty spiral and the bright crescent moon in the distance. The only other source of light for miles around was the headlights from the officer's Ford Interceptor as it streaked through the night, following the direction of the smoke above, like an arrow into the desert.
As they got closer to the source of the smoke, a faint glow came into focus.
"What the hell is going on?" wondered the bemused officers as they cautiously approached through the desert's scrubland, now on foot, hands perched nervously on their sidearms.
A deep crater had formed in the desert surface with debris scattered precariously around, the impact trail etched into the dry, rocky floor for several metres. Approaching the crater's edge, the officers peered in. Through the smoke, they spotted a small rock which stood out with a charred black crust. It was emitting a mysterious, enigmatic glow, with every colour in the spectrum radiating from it, drawing the officers towards it like moths to a flame. The unusual object, faintly dancing with colour through the settling dust, was sitting in the heart of the crater.
The mysterious object glowed with an ever changing rainbow of colour. It was hypnotic and the officers took their hands off their firearms and lowered themselves down to get a closer look. As they got close enough to see through the haze, a dazzling light show was clearly radiating off the scorched meteorite.
"What is it, Chief?" asked one of the officers.
"Some kind of meteorite? I've never seen anything like this before…"
The officers leaned in, close enough to feel the meteorite’s warmth on their skin and with eyes transfixed and jaws ajar, one reached out a hand to touch it. A sudden burst of energy emitted from the meteorite which sent the officers flying backwards, throwing them through the air to the crater’s edge ten feet away. The officers lay unconscious against the dirt as the blast of light began to settle and shrink, still radiating with a spectrum of moving colours that seemed to merge and dance like a liquid in the cool night air.
The sound of a helicopter overhead broke the silence as the whirring blades rotated with a rhythmic hum as it got closer.
"Down there, there's something… glowing. I can see headlights too, someone’s already down there."
The pilot's words sent a surge of curiosity through Dr. Arthur Kinsey, sitting in the back in a smart tweed jacket and grasping a carbon fibre cane in his hands. The grey-haired man looked through the window to the same glowing impact site below and with a slight adjustment of his jacket and an excited squeeze of his cane, instructed the pilot in a soft English accent to put the helicopter down as close to the crater as possible. CRADLE emblazoned at the top, below which were their names Lawrie and Ryptik.
The young scientists had been working Stateside on a collaborative project with NASA when Arthur visited. Hours earlier, Arthur had taken a tour of the facility with them as they briefed him on their project. Now they were on a helicopter assisting Arthur on a ‘top-secret’ mission. Looking out at the desert below, they both wondered what Arthur needed them for and how they were going to be able to help.
"Ready chaps? When we land, follow my lead. Bring the digital scanning equipment to map the impact site and any other gadgets you boys have that could help us understand this situation better."
As the helicopter touched down onto the desert floor and the rotors began to slow, the dust kicked up by their landing created a fog that billowed out and disappeared into the sparse, flat desert around them. Holding a silk handkerchief to his mouth, Arthur lowered himself down the steps of the helicopter and touched down with both feet and his cane on the dry, rocky ground. Looking back at the two younger scientists, Arthur pulled his handkerchief from his mouth.
"Never go anywhere without one" he said with a subtle wink.
Pulling it back across his mouth, Arthur walked forward through the settling dust towards the crater twenty feet in front of them.
On the edge of the crater, Arthur put both hands on his cane for support. His eyes lit up at the scene before him. The meteorite was now clearly visible, still glimmering with a spectrum of colours. Arthur’s heart skipped a beat at the possibilities of what this strange object could be. His focus was only broken when he noticed the two unfortunate police officers lying unconscious on the floor with burn marks on their hands. A screen of pale blue light suddenly projected from a machine set up by the two younger scientists, digitally mapping and scanning the landing site. With the analysis completed in a matter of seconds, Arthur told Lawrie and Ryptik to check on the officers and to avoid touching the meteorite.
Arthur pulled out his phone and flipped over the monogrammed case with CRADLE embossed into the black leather. It was now 1am in the cold desert morning and Arthur checked the time in London. Swiping back to his contact list, Arthur tried making a call.
‘Damn, no answer, he’s probably not even at the office yet’ he thought as he looked around at the emptiness of the moonlit Mojave. Trying a different approach, Arthur called CRADLE's London headquarters.
"Yes, good morning, this is Director Kinsey. I need to speak to Isaac Wells immediately…"
Isaac's eyes snapped open as his head bounced off the glass window of the London Underground Jubilee train. The loud screech from the metal rails as the train cornered a bend drowned out the dull noise of the carriages and caused Isaac to grimace. Blinking his eyes and acclimatising himself to his surroundings, Isaac looked at the swathe of commuters waiting on the platform that they were slowing down to stop at.
'London Bridge, two more stops', thought Isaac as he rubbed his forehead and watched the commuters get on the train.
Looking down, Isaac watched the shuffling feet of passengers finding their seats as he pulled out his phone. Checking his messages, he saw a new email from Arthur, which he tapped on to open. 'Damn, no signal down here', he said to himself as he tried to download the file.
Putting the phone back in his pocket, Isaac picked up a folded copy of the mornings Metro newspaper. Today's front page was once again linked to a spate of crime and strange phenomena happening in London.
'Menacing Met-X Mutants Make Mischief In Marylebone' read the headline.
'What a mouthful', he thought as he ripped out the article and folded it up, pocketing it to read back at CRADLE. 'Another article for the wall of weird', he thought as he looked around at the interior of the carriage. Graffiti tags were scrawled and scratched into the walls and windows, reflecting what was happening in London over recent years.
The train screeched again as it rounded a corner towards Southwark, stopping and letting on a new group of travellers. Isaac pulled out his phone again to reread Arthurs text message.
'Get your team together. I've found something in the desert that you need to see to believe. Arthur.'
Isaac must have read this message over and over a hundred times now. The new email coming through only added to his anxiety to discover what Arthur was talking about. As the train pulled into Waterloo Station, Isaac quickly got up and headed to the door. Zipping up his Parka coat, Isaac waited for the doors to open before slipping out ahead of the other morning commuters and quickly walked to the escalators to beat the crowd exiting the station.
The cold skies over London were swirling with different shades of grey as Isaac zigzagged past people walking to work and headed towards Southbank. As Isaac walked past The Royal Festival Hall, he pulled out his phone to try and download Arthurs email.
'Why is the signal so bad around here' he thought as the file began to slowly download. Turning right onto Southbank, Isaac continued to look down, watching the percentage number of the download increase. 'Almost there', he said to himself as he watched the download bar hit 90%.
Before Isaac had realised what happened, he was looking down at the concrete floor. An ache spread across his shoulder as he turned around to see the man who had knocked him down walk away. Dressed in a white suit white, the stranger stood out from the other people walking past. Turning his head to look back at Isaac, the stranger's pale features contrasted the dark eyes shot a piercing, emotionless look down at him before turning and walking away.
As he disappeared into the distance, Isaac slowly turned back. Realising his phone had been knocked out of his hand, Isaac looked around on the floor for it.
"Damn it!" he said out loud as he looked down to the concrete floor at the phones smashed screen. Broken glass distorted the glitching graphics as Isaac tapped it in vain. Picking up the phone and assessing the damage, Isaac stood up and slipped the broken phone into his jacket pocket.
"Another thing for Kenzi to fix," he said to himself.
Rubbing his shoulder, he saw someone on an electric scooter swerve around a group of people and head straight for him. Dodging out of the way, Isaac spun around and found himself leaning against a set of metal railings, looking into the colourful, street art adorned walls of the skatepark. Among the melange of colour, graffiti and concrete ramps, Isaac spotted a small wall painted red with a stencil of a single white chess pawn.
'I've seen this before somewhere else', he mused as he looked at the painting, trying to remember where he had seen this symbol and what it might mean.
A few meters away, a couple of young tourists were taking photos of the graffiti, and Isaac overheard them mentioning the same piece that had caught his gaze.
"If that's a new Banksy, I don't understand it," said one of them before taking a final photo and walking away.
Isaac pushed himself off the railings and continued walking past the skatepark. Looking up, Isaac could see the CRADLE building towering over the surrounding area just beyond Waterloo Bridge. Isaac rolled his shoulder, feeling more frustrated from not opening Arthur's email than having a smashed phone.
Passing under Waterloo Bridge, Isaac looked up at the tall building. Large triangular glass panels reflecting the monochromatic skies above lined the building's exterior, which Isaac called home as he headed towards the entrance.
Underneath a large set of chunky white letters spelling out the CRADLE logo were the words Creative Research And Development Laboratory Enterprise, backlit with a soft blue light above the glass entrance.
'Time to get some answers', he thought to himself as he walked inside.
Clara slammed a drawer in her desk closed as she heard a noise at her door. A tall shadowed figure stood behind the frosted glass doors, and with her heart beginning to race, she turned a key to lock the drawer.
The door hissed open, and Clara let out a sigh of relief as she saw Isaac standing there with his hand on the digital fingerprint scanner. Slipping the key into her trouser pocket and closing her laptop screen, Clara stood up and walked towards Isaac.
"You don't usually get here this early," she said as she saw her friend walk in.
"Coffee?" She asked, seeing Isaac standing there, still in his long green Parka coat.
"Arthur left me a message," he said.
Clara picked up a mug and pressed a button on her espresso machine, which began to whir into life, filling the office with the smell of fresh coffee.
"Let me guess, get the team together," she asked.
"Yeh, pretty much. And caramel latte if you are making one, it's too early for some of us," said Isaac, rubbing his eyes.
"He sent an email too, which I think has information for us to go over before he arrives later."
Clara picked up another mug as she asked, "Can I seen it?"
Isaac pulled out the smashed phone and showed Clara.
"Another one? For someone who invents as many things as you do, you sure do break a lot of them. How about asking Kenzi to help you build a phone that you can't break."
Isaac laughed as he took the coffee from Clara.
"Have you seen Kenzi this morning? Is he in yet?" Asked Isaac.
Clara held up the mug to her chin, smelling the fresh coffee.
"You know most of us get here at nine every day, right?" She joked before taking a sip and feeling her heart rate calm down. Isaac had always been a calming presence in her life since their days together at university. Looking back at her desk, she hoped Isaac hadn't noticed anything.
"I work better at night," said Isaac unapologetically, taking a sip of his sweet coffee. "But Arthur's message was too intriguing. I had to come in. Clearly, I'm not good at this time as things like this happen." Isaac looked down at his phone again as he put the broken device back in his pocket.
"Last I heard, Kenzi was working on something in the engineering department, we don't fix phones in the Biochem labs," said Clara, teasing Isaac, who was closing his eyes as he breathed in the aroma of his coffee.
"Let's head over there together, make sure you don't break anything else on the way," she said. Isaac smiled and headed back into the hallway. Looking back into her lab, Clara tucked her auburn hair behind her ear and, with a few taps on the digital keypad outside the door, locked her lab.
As they walked towards the elevator to head down to the engineering department, Clara put one hand in her pocket and rolled the key between her fingers as she contemplated sharing her project with him. Looking up at her tall friend, she tried to imagine how he would react to her research.
'Not yet', she thought.
Fire alarms blared across the engineering department as smoke filled the back of the hangar-like space. Clara and Isaac got out of the elevator to hear the commotion and quickly ran towards the large entrance to see engineers running around and clouds of fire extinguishers being used at the far end of the cavernous space.
Kenzi spotted Clara and Isaac running through the large glass entrance with concerned looks on their faces.
"Everything is fine, don't worry", shouted Kenzi, walking calmly towards his friends. Taking off his protective plastic hard hat and brushing his messy black hair out of his face, he made it to Isaac and Clara just as the alarms stopped ringing.
"Little mishap testing the weapons system on a new prototype vehicle," he said as he bent down to tie one of the laces on his bright blue converse.
The smoke began to clear at the far end of the double-height space, which stretched across two floors of the CRADLE building. Engineers began assessing the damage and checking on the other machines in the area. With the sirens now off, the usual sounds of mechanical whirring and beeping came back into focus.
"A little early to blow up part of CRADLE, isn't it Kenzi?" joked Clara, relieved to see the situation under control.
"A little early for Isaac to be here, you mean", quipped Kenzi, standing up and straightening his matching blue bow tie and smiling at Isaac.
"Nothing a coffee and a fire alarm can't fix," said Isaac, lifting his mug up sarcastically and smiling back at Kenzi.
"Besides, Arthur has found something in the Mojave and told me to get the team together before he arrives later."
"Arthur is quite the tease," said Kenzi. "And that's all he said?"
"Well, he sent me something to analyse, but this happened before I could download it." Isaac pulled out the smashed phone and handed it to Kenzi.
"Another one?" Said Kenzi, turning the phone over in his hands and assessing the damage.
"That's what I said too," said Clara, nudging Isaac and smiling.
"Hai, yes, I can fix it," said Kenzi, speaking quickly and letting a bit of his native Japanese slip into the conversation as he often did.
The trio headed over towards a set of stairs leading up to the department's mezzanine level, housing rows of smaller labs and offices. As Kenzi walked out in front, he was already getting to work on the broken phone, using a small tool he pulled from his pocket to release the damaged glass.
"Damn, screens damaged inside too," he muttered to himself with his head down, walking and tinkering as he rounded the corner towards his private lab. As the trio entered, Kenzi walked to one of his long work tables and placed Isaac's glitching device down.
While Kenzi got to work, Clara looked around at the myriad of gadgets, computer screens and walls of tools laid out meticulously. Isaac, on the other hand, was drawn to something on Kenzi's desk. Picking up a piece of material hooked up to a selection of wires, Isaac ran his fingers across the mesh of different substances sandwiched together.
"Is it almost ready?" He asked Kenzi, tracing the wires back to a power unit with his fingertips.
"Almost," said Kenzi, looking through a toolbox. Picking up a tiny screwdriver and pushing it into the device, the sim card popped out, and Kenzi placed the broken phone next to a pile of other broken gadgets and robotics that needed electronic surgery. Moving to another section of his lab, Kenzi pulled out a box and opened it up. Taking out the new phone, Kenzi installed the sim card and handed it over to Isaac. Stepping away from the cluster of wires and fabric, Isaac accepted the sleek device from Kenzi and began to inspect it.
"Looks just like the other one," he said, feeling the matte black stainless steel casing engraved with the CRADLE logo and watching the glass front come to life and seeing his familiar home screen.
"Looks can be deceiving," said Kenzi, who swiped the screen to show Isaac a new set of app icons that weren't on his old phone. "Please, open Arthur's email." Said Kenzi, gesturing to Isaac. "I will demonstrate a trick this new device can do."
Isaac swiped into his emails and clicked the download button again. This time, the file downloaded instantly, and the trio saw several files pop up on the screen.
"As I suspected," said Kenzi. "I gave Arthur the same device before he left for America. He is using the new technology I developed for it. Isaac, please select the first file."
Tapping the icon on the screen, a holographic image began to hover above the phone, almost making Isaac drop the new device out of surprise.
"Maybe put it down on the table for this part," said Clara, watching on intently as a projection of the Mojave landing site came to life before their eyes.
Isaac put the phone down on Kenzi's desk as they all crowded around to study the detailed hologram. The small scrub brushes looked real enough to touch as they dotted around the digital sand surrounding the impact site in the middle of the projection. Using a hand gesture, Kenzi was able to zoom in on this part of the image and see the impact site more closely. On one side of the crater, two unconscious American police officers lay slumped on the ground.
Zooming in further, they spotted what Arthur had been talking about. Isaac looked up at Clara and Kenzi, almost dropping his coffee as he stepped back.
"What the hell is that?!”
In the control room for reactor number four, Yuri's concerns were quickly turning into a nightmare. As the minute hand ticked over to 1:23am, alarms began to ring out across the facility as the horrified technicians realised their mistake. The routine safety test he was brought in to oversee had caused something to go drastically wrong, and, within seconds, the nuclear chain reaction began to escalate out of control.
"Nyet, Nyet!" Shouted Yuri as he realised the magnitude of the situation.
"Out, everybody out!"
'I need to warn Anya,' thought Yuri, desperately trying to dial through on the phone to his wife's department.
The reactor's fuel rods blasted apart as the cooling system's water burst into steam. Without the heavy concrete and steel shells that Yuri was so adamant that these reactors should have, there was little defence from the ensuing explosion. The roof was blasted off as the explosion scattered contents of the reactor across the building. Radioactive shrapnel rained down, littering the surrounding area. As the fire raged out of control from what was left of the graphite core of reactor four, Yuri screamed out for Anya.
As the other technicians ran for their lives, a cloud of radioactive iodine-131 from the two hundred tonnes of nuclear fuel housed spread through the power plant, giving the scientists and technicians lethal doses of radiation within minutes. Yuri, alone in the control room, was still desperately trying to connect to the rooms below in a desperate attempt to get hold of Anya. The phone rang and rang with no answer, and Yuri prayed that she had managed to escape already.
Letting out a roar of frustration and fear as the phone lines cut out, Yuri realised he had to get out of the facility and pray Anya had done the same. As he began to run from the control room, a cloud of nuclear particles spread through the air from the enriched plutonium and uranium leaking out. As he ran, Yuri hoped he would find Anya safely free from the hell that now surrounded them.
Below the control room that Yuri was fleeing, an unearthly radioactive ooze began to spread like lava. The molten fuel rods, concrete and metal had melted together in the inferno, which now raged through the cavernous reactor.
Yuri escaped through the smoke and nuclear haze, making it to the facilities exit where some of the lucky engineers had already made it.
"Ana!" He shouted desperately, looking for his beloved amongst the smouldering rubble. Other scientists were laid out on the floor coughing and spluttering as the air above them filled with radioactive smoke through the collapsed roof. Yuri looked desperately for Ana, praying she had made it out before him. With no sight of his beloved wife, Yuri felt a hand on his shoulders pulling him away.
"Nyet! Anya! Nyet!"
“…Father?"
The hand on his shoulder felt heavier now, shaking and gripping.
"Nyet… Nyet…"
"…Father? It's just a dream…"
Yuri rubbed his weary eyes, realising where he was. Feeling his daughters hand on his shoulder, he felt a sense of relief.
"Chernobyl again?" asked Tatiana.
"Da. Every time I lose her all over again, and it feels as real as the night it happened."
Looking down through his blurry eyes at the device on his arm, Yuri felt his blood pumping through the modified dialysis machine. Sitting upright in his oxblood leather armchair, Yuri rolled his neck from side to side, feeling it click as his strength began to return to his body.
"Father, there has been a sighting. Reports are coming in of a meteorite strike in America."
Yuri looked over at the wall of monitors and tv screens filling an entire wall of his office. A number of the screens switched from security cameras to different television news reports, all showing a similar set of videos. Phone footage of a rainbow cloud streaking across the night sky above the Mojave desert had news reporters speculating what it could be.
Yuri's eyes widened, watching the reporters talking over each other as the videos continued to play behind them in news studios worldwide.
"I am leaving to investigate myself", said Tatiana.
"The jet is being prepared. I leave within the hour. If it is what we hope, I will retrieve it for you."
Looking up at his tall daughter standing beside him, Yuri saw Anya's beauty and determination etched on Tatiana's porcelain face. Yuri nodded as he turned back to the wall of screens.
"Rook can handle things in my absence, and Bishop will stay by your side. We will find a cure for you," she said, looking down at the pipes hooked up to her father, pumping the crimson liquid into his arm.
Yuri looked to his side, picking up a piece from the ornate chess set that was mid-game. Holding the white Queen in his hands, he rolled it between his fingers and studied the board.
'What move would The Grandmaster want me to make next?' He thought to himself.
Kissing the crown on top of the piece, he moved it diagonally into a vacant square.
Tatiana waited for Yuri to place the piece and sit back before kissing him gently on the forehead before turning and leaving the room. As she pulled open a large mahogany door, she saw the tall hooded figure of Bishop standing on the landing outside. Nodding at him to enter, Tatiana walked towards the stairs and left.
Closing them behind him as he entered, the heavy wooden doors creaked shut. With an awkward, staggered gait, Bishop walked towards Yuri, who was now switching back and forth between channels on the different screens. Moving behind Yuri's chair, Bishop turned off the dialysis machine and, without saying a word, began to carefully remove the needles in Yuri's arms.
"Have you seen this?" Asked Yuri, transfixed by the news and hopeful that it could be the missing piece he needs.
Bishop nodded, breathing deeply through a mechanical apparatus that covered his lower jaw.
"This could be what we need to complete the Grandmasters work," he said, looking up at Bishop, who towered over him in long robes.
Touching the top of Bishop's namesake piece and spinning the ornately carved ivory on the board, Yuri turned his attention back to the news reports on the screens.
"You know, in 1987, they kept the meteorite strike over Moscow hidden. Told the news it was a failed missile launch. Now everyone has a camera in their pocket."
Yuri coughed, feeling the clean blood back in his body always made him feel groggy before his energy picked up again. Bishop turned and walked towards an art deco style bar set up in Yuri's large living quarters and prepared a drink for his mentor.
"They brought my team the meteorite the next morning, glowing crimson red like flowing blood trapped within rock."
Bishop handed Yuri a drink, who took a sip before continuing.
"I kept my cancer hidden. They wouldn't have let me continue working at the facility if they had known. Malnourished from grieving Anya was the common theory I let them believe. I spent a year researching cures in secret, but nothing worked. I was scared of Tatiana becoming an orphan so young. Then a gift from the skies was brought in with a military escort. They wanted to militarise it somehow, extract its energy, make bombs. Fools."
Yuri paused to finish his drink before handing the glass back to Bishop.
"They would have never let me explore medicinal qualities on it. The true potential of it would have been lost on them or destroyed by lesser minds. I had to get Tatiana and the meteorite out so I could continue my work in private."
Yuri paused for a moment, overcome with a sense of frustration as he recounted the story to Bishop. Balling his hand into a fist, he slammed it on the red leather armrest of the chair, causing the red liquid in the tanks to shake and glow red, illuminating the bookshelves behind him.
"Clearly, I only prolonged my suffering."
Standing up now, Yuri rolled his neck and shoulders, feeling the treatment begin to work and give him back his strength. Bishop picked up Yuri's walking stick, silently offering it to him, but Yuri refused, feeling strong enough to walk around without it.
"The treatment gives me strength for a few days. Let me enjoy that before needing that stick and going through this whole ordeal again soon."
Moving his attention from the news reports about the 'Mystery Mojave Meteorite' as reporters were dubbing it, Yuri stepped back and focussed on the other set of screens. Live camera feeds from different parts of his facility showed scientists and engineers working in different labs. Several camera angles seemed to be coming from high above London and moving across the city. Yuri watched them all, flicking his gaze between different feeds and absorbing the information.
Walking back to the chess set beside his chair, Yuri picked up the white horse piece and turned to Bishop.
"Any news from Knight?" He asked.
Bishop nodded slowly before unfolding his arms and reaching out a hand towards Yuri. Placing three fingers to the side of Yuri's forehead, he began to communicate directly into his mentor's mind.
"Knight has informed me that the drug is becoming weaker. Clients are growing restless. The mutations are wearing off quicker."
Taking his hand off Yuri's head, his voice went silent, and he returned to folding his arms as he awaited a response. Putting a hand up to his head, Yuri closed his eyes and felt a dull pain from Bishop's telepathic message began to ease.
"It's a good job that I've got used to you communicating this way," he said as he looked up at Bishop. Two faint dots of red flickered in Bishops eyes after using his ability to convey the message.
Yuri paced, pondering the implications of a weakened Met-X drug and how he would communicate this to The Grandmaster. Looking again at the video footage of the rainbow cloud being portrayed on the various news channels, Yuri knew he had to find this new meteorite before it was too late.
'Hurry, Tatiana', he thought to himself, thinking of his daughter flying there to investigate.
'Return with a gift for The Grandmaster'.
“The Prism is a must read for all lovers of sci fi, superheroes and a scintillating story. Rich encapsulates his love of the all these elements and brings a story of justice, love and truth out of the page and into your minds, with a sprinkling of out of this world magic intertwined in real life London to keep readers from teenage upwards riveted throughout, leaving them wanting more. Can't wait for the next installment!”
GRACE VON SIN
"Rich has a way of setting the scene so well that it makes you feel you're in the room with the characters. The story kept me intrigued from the beginning. Sci-fi has a new superhero, his name is Rich Simmons."
MARK GRIEF
"Simmons combines his deep knowledge for science with his creative genius to tell the origin story of the Prism – relatable, believable and inspiring for its readers. It would make a great graphic novel and I can't wait to see the story unfold."
JESSIE COHEN
"Reading, for many people like me with a learning disability can be a sort of taboo subject and purposely avoided. Being able to understand the language, feel the writers story and allow my imagination to paint the scene was always an impossible challenge until THE PRISM! This captivating and emotionally gripping sci-fi novel had me continuously hooked from the first page and I can't wait for more. Rich Simmons has skilfully mastered the art of breaking through my taboo fears and managed to make the enjoyment of reading accessible for the masses. He is the true hero of this story!"
HEATHER DENTON
“I like very much the visual component of The Prism, which I have always considered a fantastic wonder of nature. The connection between a meteorite found decades past with a shadowy drug in the present is a very interesting hook also. I am anxious to continue this series and discover where the plot leads next for our intrepid scientists. Now that I have read your story completely through, I can say it was a thoroughly enjoyable tale. The characters are well-developed with their own motivations and alliances, yet you still provide surprises at key points throughout to keep the reader engaged and wondering what might happen next. The pacing is good as well with the narrative gaining intensity and urgency at about mid-point and proceeding briskly. Within the structure of a mystery you have included elements of plausible science, science fiction, spy thrillers, and superhero genres. As I type this I have close at hand a very dear book from my childhood called "Tom Swift and His Tripihibian Atomicar" from 1962. This series provided hours of enjoyment for my generation, and you have captured much of the same experience for a modern audience.”
ROCKY PARSONS
Waiting in a dark alley behind an office block, Carnegie checked his phone every few seconds like a nervous, twitching metronome. Even with his hood up, his faded white hair brushed across his forehead as the wind picked up. Leaning his skinny body against a large recycling bin, he rechecked his phone. His hands were thin, pale and looked far too withered for a man his age as he swiped on his phone to check the screen in case Knight had replied.
Only two months ago, he had been working in an office, had a partner to go home to and a child on the way. Carnegie looked across the alley to a broken mirror that leaned against a brick wall. Pushing his anxious, broken body off the skip, Carnegie shuffled his feet over to get a better look at himself. His once dark hair and olive skin were now a sickly pale grey. His once handsome face and sharp cheekbones now sagged with more cracks in his complexion than the broken mirror he was staring into.
"Why did she have to die?" he said to himself under his breath.
"Why couldn't I stop it. It should have been me. I will make this right, no matter how many attempts it takes."
Carnegie opened his phone's gallery and looked at photos of his girlfriend, swiping to an image of an ultrasound from the last scan they had been to together. After swiping through several more shots, he stopped at a screenshot of a news article. 'Pregnant woman pinned under collapsed construction site tragically dies.' Carnegie stopped breathing for a moment, re-reading the headline over and over, remembering that fateful day. The smell of concrete and rubble filled his senses again, vividly remembering how he tried to pull off the twisted scaffold poles and rubble to get to his love.
'I wasn't strong enough,' he thought as he remembers the police pulling him away.
'I should have saved her.'
Swiping away from that news article, he found himself looking at a photo of another news piece about Met-X. 'London's growing mutant problem fuelled by mystery drug' read the article. Before he could read further, Knight's voice made him spin around, almost dropping the phone from his boney hands.
"Do you have it?" asked Carnegie, an urgency cracking his voice as he walked forwards.
"If you didn't pay over the odds for this, I wouldn't keep fuelling your demise. There are others more deserving of this elixir than you," said Knight, a sense of bitterness etched in his words as he spoke through clenched teeth.
The cracked mirror in the alley reflected two very different men from the first time they met just six weeks prior. Knight admired Carnegie at first. Well dressed, handsome, taller than Knight when he stood with a straight back and, despite the obvious sadness in his eyes, Knight felt the drug would be used to give help Carnegie achieve some kind of hidden ambition. With his back now hunched over and with a hood covering his withered pale face, Carnegie was looking up towards Knight, who looked down with a disappointed pity.
Carnegie opened his wallet and pulled out a large wad of cash. Knight’s tattooed hand reached out and took the money, placing the briefcase on the floor before counting the dirty notes and slipping it inside his jacket pocket. Pulling out a packet of cigarettes, Knight took his time selecting one and placing it between his lips before carefully lighting it. Carnegie stood frozen, anxiously waiting as he watched Knight exhale smoke. Knight enjoyed this part of the transaction, taking his time to read his counterparts and toying with their emotions like a cat playing with a mouse before making the fatal blow.
Knight picked up the briefcase and moved over to a stack of wooden pallets, where he unlocked the case and released the red glow. The graffiti on the alley’s concrete walls basked in an ominous crimson glow as Knight pulled out two full syringes before closing the metallic case. The red light now emanated from Knights hand as he looked down at Carnegie.
"I have a feeling this might be the last time I see you," said Knight as he handed Carnegie the Met-X. "Double doses can't be sustained and you are clearly on a one-way path to your own destruction. Try not to take too many others out on your way."
Knight pulled the briefcase from the pile of wooden pallets, took one last disdainful look at Carnegie and turned to walk away. As he put his hand up to take the cigarette from his lips, he shook his head as smoke exhaled from his mouth.
“What a waste”, he thought as he threw the cigarette butt into a puddle and turned the corner. Pulling out his phone, Knight sent a text to a contact with just a red siren icon as the name. Swiping to share his current location, Knight added two eyes with the word 'now' before closing his phone and continuing on his way.
Carnegie now stood alone in the alley, looking down at the two glowing syringes in his hand. As he looked up at the cracked mirror, he saw himself reflected back in multiple shards, and each one looked more desperate with every crack. The glow disappeared as he pocketed the syringes as he headed deeper into the alley to a door that was held ajar by a discarded brick. Turning a corner inside the building, Carnegie headed towards a staircase and began to climb. With every step, his heart began beat harder with the exertion and it felt heavier in his chest. As he continued to rise, he gripped the syringes in his hoody pocket tighter as his weakened body ascended floor by floor until reaching a fire escape at the top of the stairs. Walking out, Carnegie found himself on the roof . He walked to the edge, looking down from the seven-floor building at the streets below. The sound of traffic rumbled below as the grey skies broke to reveal slithers of pale blue with sharp rays of light.
The cold grey rooftop was suddenly basked in sunlight as the swirling skies broke overhead and Carnegie felt a wave of warmth wash over his pale skin. Pulling out one of the syringes, the deep crimson glow from the alley now shone a brighter, vivid red in the light. Carnegie rolled his head back and closed his eyes to feel the warmth as he pulled up a sleeve. Putting the syringe to his mouth, he calmly bit the plastic lid from the end and spat it on the floor, revealing the sharp metallic tip. Squeezing his fist to find a vein, he pushed the needle into his arm and injected the Met-X.
A familiar burning sensation washed over his body and made him drop to his knees, clenching both fists and trying to fight through the initial reaction. A blinding pain quickly emerged as he felt every muscle begin to tighten into a full-body cramp as the mutation took hold. Muscles cracked and stretched as they grew exponentially. He felt as if his entire skeleton was moving under the pressure of the growing muscles which now filled out his once baggy hoody, making him look more like a bodybuilder than a junkie. As he opened his eyes and pushed himself off the ground, the warmth he felt was no longer the sun which had moved behind a cloud, but the sweat dripping from his burning flesh as the expansion of his body had made his skin feel as if it would rip if he moved too fast.
Carnegie felt his heart rate start to slow as the wave of pain began to subside, as he got used to the new body he found himself inhabiting. He felt strong. How he wished he had been the night of the tragic accident that took his partner. He slowly walked forwards, rolling his shoulders as he felt the large muscles settle into place and feel more natural.
Standing on the edge of the rooftop, he looked down at the busy streets of London. As the drug continued to pulse through his veins, Carnegie twitched as he felt an unbearable urge to use his temporary abilities. He closed his eyes, hiding the flickering red that flashed through his irises beneath his eyelids as he remembered the first times he had taken the drug. Fits of rage had ruined the previous experiences as he battled with grief, taking his powers out on himself. Running into traffic, hoping to be hit and end his pain, had only resulted in cars bouncing off him and jumping off Tower Bridge into the Thames had no effect besides leaving him with wet, cold clothes after the drug had worn off hours later. As he stood here now, Carnegie calmed himself as he fought off the twitching fibres in his muscles.
Screams from the street below filtered up to the roof. Carnegie’s eyes opened widely, looking desperately for the source. Obscured slightly from view, he began to make out scores of panicking people running away from something he couldn’t see. The sounds of distant sirens now became apparent, growing louder and louder. Gunshots now ripped through the air, causing more screams. Carnegie ran to the side of the building and jumped down, landing on a roof below. He continued to run, jumping onto a fire escape on the edge of the adjacent building and dropping down to the alley below, where he ran into the street in the opposite direction from the fleeing pedestrians.
Carnegie quickly found himself at the centre of the commotion and discovered the pandemonium was coming from a bank. As he looked around for the police , he heard screams inside the building and further gunshots. A blue haze of flashing lights drew closer to the bank. Before they or anyone could stop him, Carnegie ran inside.
Almost immediately he was met by a balaclava-wearing thug, who he quickly tackled against a wall, knocking him out instantly. The sound of bodies crashing into a wall drew the attention of the other men inside. Carnegie had to quickly push himself off the first man and dodge a sledgehammer that was now swinging towards him. As the head of the hammer crashed into the tiled floor, Carnegie pulled it from the masked assailant and hit him in the ribs, knocking him down.
Gripping the sledgehammer tightly, Carnegie walked further into the bank where he saw several scared hostages cowering on the floor and several more balaclava-wearing individuals who turned their attention towards him. Behind the masked men stood two more individuals that instantly stood out. Unarmed and unmasked, the two men looked at Carnegie with flickering red eyes, almost amused at his audacity .
One of them was younger, and despite his ghostly pale skin and short white spiked hair, Carnegie could tell he was Asian. Wearing a white jumpsuit with sleeves rolled up, Carnegie could see that his body was heavily tattooed with red ink designs as dragons swirled through skulls, clouds and water. The other man was significantly older, shorter, just as pale, but far more muscular with a white stubble beard and bald head.
'Met-X' thought Carnegie as all five of the remaining men locked eyes with him.
"Let the hostages go", demanded Carnegie, his fingers twitching as he watched the men in front of him, waiting for someone to do something. The older man laughed and elbowed the younger man in the ribs as they watched Carnegie confront them.
"Hey Guǐ, looks like we've got a hero, and judging by his eyes, a fellow user. Boys, show this traitor how we treat people who turn their back on The Grandmaster."
As one of the masked men lifted a shotgun, Carnegie threw the sledgehammer forward and dived for cover behind a small marble partition. The sledgehammer knocked the gunman down, causing him to shoot into the ceiling as he fell back. Dust and debris fell from the ceiling as the other two henchmen lifted their weapons and began to fire into the marble wall. Dust fell from the ceiling as debris flew up as bullets crashed into the smokey grey patterns on the marble. The sound of sirens outside was now drowned out by gunfire and bullets breaking against the stone.
Carnegie sprung from the other side of the small, damaged wall and dived forward to tackle the gunmen from the side, like a big cat attacking its prey. His new strength allowed him to jump high above them, dodging the trail of bullets, crashing into them from, sending them both into an unconscious heap on the ground.
The two unmasked men stepped forward now, confronting Carnegie, who had recovered the sledgehammer from the ground and was getting back to his feet. With their focus now fully on him, Carnegie signalled to the handful of hostages to get out of the bank.
"Go, now!" he shouted, pointing at the bank's entrance behind him.
As the hostages got up and ran towards the door, the taller of the men began to lift his hands, twitching his fingers as pieces of the broken marble began to rise into the air around Carnegie.
"Show him why you are a ghost, Guǐ," said the older man who took a step back.
“Róngxìng. With Pleasure.”
Guǐ’s tattooed arms shot forward, directing a barrage of levitating debris towards Carnegie. Carnegie swung his sledgehammer as fast as he could around him, beating away some of the larger chunks, but smaller, sharper pieces broke through and cracked into his body. Letting out a cry of anguish, Carnegie dropped the sledgehammer and fell to his knees. Blood began to flow from a slew of cuts that now decorated his body as he gasped for air.
As Carnegie tried to catch his breath, he looked up to see the older man's arms begin to glow orange. Guǐ moved out the way and let the older man step forward as the orange colour began to pulse through his chest and hands like lava flowing beneath his skin. Carnegie began to feel the heat radiating from his body as the colours grew brighter and more intense.
"Let me show you why they call me Pyroxene", he said as his whole body began to glow like an erupting volcano, burning all the hair off his skin and creating a toxic smell of burnt hair and sulphur in the bank.
Guǐ stepped forward again after recovering his energy, but kept his distance from the heat of his older mentor.
"Zhǔnbèi hǎo. Ready when you are", said Guǐ, looking over at Pyroxene, whose face looked to be in agony as the heat overwhelmed his body.
Thrusting out his arms, the skin on Pyroxene’s body seemed to liquefy and become molten lava. Letting out a roar of pain, he clenched his fists tightly together and the lava surrounding his skin began to crystallise under pressure. As long shards of black crystal began to grow, Pyroxene opened his eyes, now glowing an intense red, as his body’s lava glow had now cooled leaving his skin black and charred. Moving his arms and throwing a fist forwards, the shiny black crystals began to break free from his arms and hurtle towards Carnegie.
Diving backwards, Carnegie's beaten, bloodied body narrowly missed a large crystal that smashed into the remains of the marble wall behind him. Guǐ now used his abilities to lift one of the crystals and aim it towards Carnegie from above, who dodged out of the way again. The large crystal smashed into the tiled floor just inches from where he had landed as he continued to roll backwards. Getting back to his feet, Carnegie saw the two men in front of him team up to create one last black crystal, the size of a baseball bat that emerged from the hands of Pyroxene and thrust forwards with more force by Guǐ's telekinetic abilities.
Before he could move out of the way, the large crystal hurtled directly towards Carnegie's chest, which he attempted to catch and stop the impact, but the force and weight of the projectile sent him crashing through the bank's windows to the street outside. A sea of blue flashing lights filled the street outside the bank as police cars blocked off the area. Laying in the street surrounded by broken glass, Carnegie began to stir from the force of the impact. His heart beat fast and hard, hurting the inside of his chest like a hammer blow with every pulse of meteorite infused blood that flowed through his body. The effects of the drug was now wearing off and he began to feel every cut and impact from the fight. People watched on from behind the barricade of fluorescent yellow police cars and officers, whose bright yellow jackets appeared green under the flashing blue lights atop their cars.
As Carnegie lay there, one officer ran forward to check on him. Holding his chest tightly, Carnegie grimaced as he saw the officer kneel over him. Looking up at his name badge, Carnegie spoke to officer Blanc.
"Are the hostages safe?" he asked.
The officer looked down and said, "Yes, they're all safe."
Smiling through the pain, Carnegie closed his eyes and said, "I saved them, now I get to see you again."
As his arms slumped to his side, Carnegie's body was now back to its original size and the red light from his eyes faded to darkness. As the officer checked Carnegie for a pulse, he also checked his pockets, pulled out the remaining syringe of Met-X, and pocketed it. Looking over at the other officers, Blanc signalled them to swarm the bank. As armed officers ran past Blanc, he switched the frequency on his radio and made a call to someone.
"Knight, I have one of your clients, the same drop off as last time.”
CHARACTERS
VISION BOARD
