Indigo Rising

New prescription drugs in the US cost more than heroin and cocaine, a fact not lost on the Ustinov mob. Hoping to go “legitimate,” this mob pays the world-famous geneticist, Harry Pembroke, millions to develop an overpriced “antidepressant” Derek volunteers for the resulting “drug trial” Unfortunately, Pembroke has lied to everyone: he is really using Derek to incubate a DNA-altering virus that he hopes will create a master-race — planning to harvest it from his brain. Pembroke’s mob-financiers lose patience and kill him, unwittingly saving Derek’s life. The virus spreads to Derek’s friend, Alessandra, and they develop superpowers beyond anything Pembroke imagined. The virus alters their DNA, permanently turning them into a new species (homo indicus). Their main superpower is their ability to enter the spirit world, a domain from which all other realities are easily accessed. Thoughts and ideas are sounds and images in the spirit world — making them telepathic. They can also travel in their spirit-bodies to physical locations and summon their physical bodies — i.e., they can teleport. They can also summon an earlier healthy version of their bodies — i.e., they can reset from injuries. They also have an enhanced sex drive (involving pheromones) because Pembroke wanted his new species to “be fruitful and multiply.” Their main weakness: their telepathic ability makes them empathetic. They quite literally feel other people’s pain — sometimes unbearably so. When the mob discovers the virus’s powers, they want to harvest it from Derek's brain — waging war with the young couple. They have to accomplish this before Derek’s immune system destroys the virus (two weeks at the most, maybe sooner). When they discover Derek’s weakness (empathy) the Ustinov mob threatens innocents to get him to do their bidding, thwarting his telepathic ability by enlisting a Chechen terrorist whose identity is unknown to him (and even to them). In the end, Derek undergoes an excruciating brain biopsy that allows Ustinov to be infected with the virus (without killing Derek). Ustinov’s efforts to enter the spirit world are thwarted by spirits of the countless people he has hurt and murdered. For Ustinov, that world is a nightmarish Hell, preventing him from using his superpowers. Enraged, Ustinov shoots at Derek, who beats him to death. Derek then teleports Ustinov’s corpse thousands of feet in the air above an active volcano and drops it into a lava lake.