MAJOR DEEJ UNIVERSE

A middle-class American teenager, Terry always lusted after the 'thrills and chills' of outdoor sports and winter events.

 

By 8 years of age, Terry was snowboarding diamond trails in Vermont while his parents sipped hot chocolate in the lodge talking science with their fellow colleagues.  By age 15, Terry was a regional champion in Utah for skiing and snowboarding.  He trained hard, partied hard and spent most of his time with his snow buddies ('snow buds').  One thing Terry swore never to do was drugs.  This was a personal issue with him, seeing that his older brother died of a drug overdose as Terry watched it happen in front of him when Terry was 10 years old. Nonetheless, Terry was allowed to do as he liked, even though his academic grades weren't as good as they should have been.  Terry mostly stayed with his 'extreme' friends at their homes, winter lodges or, as it seemed most of the time, sleeping out of his car, driving at breakneck speeds to get to school on time, squeak through his necessary classes and burn rubber in the school parking lot at the end of the school day to be with his extreme friends and get to the slopes. At age 18, Terry barely graduated high school and decided he was going to be an extreme winter sportsman for the rest of his life. Although his goal came true, it wasn't the way he expected.

 

While in the middle of the ski season, working towards a national championship in Extreme Skiing, Terry had been tearing up the competition at the Summit Heights Ski Resort where the championship event was being held. Terry had a home town advantage in that he grew up near the ski resort and knew every nuance of the slopes.  He also knew most of the competitors, since they were all his friends he'd known for years. While touring around the country, they'd all live together at a ski cabin, sharing good times, beer and plans for their next awesome stunts. Terry was a terror on the slopes, fearless and athletic. Regardless, each of Terry's friends always helped push each other to be better each times they hit the slopes.  They were like brothers.  As far an Terry was concerned his 'ski bum' friends were more like family to him than his own parents who rarely, if ever, checked in on him.

 

Hours away from a final heat in a half-pipe short ski competition, Terry got a call from his parents, urgently demanding to meet them in the parking lot.  Surprised that his parents deemed to even show up at one of his competitions, he went to the parking lot looking for them.  After a few minutes of searching the parking lot (and getting a bit upset at their timeliness), Terry was about to walk away when his parents' SUV came screeching through the parking lot coming to a brake-locking stop right beside Terry.  Terry's mom rapidly handed him a package through the SUV's rolled down window and told him to read the card inside and to get out of Utah as fast as possible, adding on she'd call him soon.  His mother gave him a final look like only a loving mother could if she were just about to see her child for the last time.  With that, his dad launched the SUV back out onto the main road, tires ripping through the mud and rock in the parking lot at each turn along the way onto the main road. Terry had never seen his dad drive so haphazardly and began to worry what was going on.

 

With the fairly large package in hand, Terry realized he was due to start the heat in mere minutes and started sprinting to the ski resort's gates.

 

That's when he heard an explosion from down the road.

 

The explosion came from the same direction his parents' SUV has heading.

 

Terry dropped the package and ran down the road, pulling off his ski gear and suit to help him run faster.  Terry was one of the first few people on the scene.  His parents' SUV was an inferno.  It had crashed into a tree on the side of the road.  Terry ran up to the SUV to try and save his parents, but all he could see through the flames were the unmoving and burning bodies of his parents.  The flames were too intense to even get withing 10 feet of the vehicle forcing Terry back onto the road.  Haunted by the image he just saw, Terry looked away in disbelief, trying his best to get the image out of his head, but the image was almost burnt into his mind.  Seeing his parents' bodies burning in front of him was an image he knew he'd never be able to shake.  As Terry tried to focus on anything else but the image of his parents' death in his mind's eye, he looked down the road he'd just run from.  Flaming debris and a blast mark on the pavement were upward of 100 feet before the accident.

 

Something happened before his parents' SUV hit the tree.

 

Something explosive.

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Being a skier and a winter sport daredevil, Terry always had to be a quick-minded guy on positional awareness and being able to survey the terrain before him.  After surveying the road, he quickly realized something happened to his parents' SUV in middle of the road first before it hit the tree.

 

Just as Terry was about to piece together what might have happened to his parents, the police and fire department showed up, cordoning off the area and police taping the lookey-loos off from the accident, including Terry.  As such, Terry wasn't able to see more than what he'd already seen as the SUV's fire was put out by the firemen.  What Terry DID see were two black sedans with men in black suits watching further down on the other side of the road, eyeballing everyone on the scene, especially Terry. That's when Terry's friends showed up at the crash site, equally stunned by what just happened.  They consoled Terry, but Terry knew this wasn't an accident, but had no way to prove it.

 

After the SUV's fire was put out, the men in the black suits remained.  Terry knew something was up but knew better than to go off half-cocked on these men.  The police began to take statements, for which Terry questioned along with the other on the scene...except for the men in black suits. During the questioning, Terry mentioned the SUV belonged to his parents and only mentioned that his parents showed up to wish him well on his competition before they drove off; to where, Terry stated, he didn't know. As the scene was cleaned up, the men in the black suits walked up to the police officers, pulled out their wallets to show the police their IDs and started giving orders to the police and remaining clean up and crime scene investigation crews.  All evidence was handed over to the men in the black suits.  Within an hour, the scene was clear, his parents' SUV remains were towed away and the authorities left, as did the men in the black suits.   Terry's friends brought him back to their ski cabin on the ski resort and kept him company, unsure what to say other than how sorry they felt for him.

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After an hour of being a son of dead parents, Terry answered a knock on the cabin door.  It was a girl he'd once dated that worked at the resort's ticket booth.  Tearfully, she said how sorry she was to hear about Terry's parents and offered up a string of promises to help him with whatever he needed during this sad time.  She also presented him with the package he'd dropped in the parking lot.  She saw him drop it and run to the crash scene and was kind enough to retrieve the package and get it back to Terry when he returned, only the situation wasn't as flirty as she intended the moment to be when she was going to hand him back his dropped package.  She hugged him and left.  Terry's friends remained quiet, not knowing what to say.  Instead, they simply placed a hand on Terry's shoulders while looking away, letting Terry know they felt for him.

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After a few minutes of re-composure while packing his things (knowing he was now going to have to return home to take care of funeral arrangements and other heavy things he didn't want to think about), he looked at the bulky package his parents gave him.  It quickly hit him what they'd said minutes before they died when his mom handed him the package...

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...read the card inside...

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...get out of Utah fast...

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...I'll call you soon....

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As he remembered her words, he was also assaulted with the image once again of his parents burning in the SUV.

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He winced at the image, trying to get it to shake from his mind.  It was an image that hurt him to the core, but knowingly would be the last and only image he'd ever have whenever he'd think about his parents again.

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To offset his distressing images and the tears in his eyes, he tore open the package to get his mind off the pain.  It suddenly hit him that his birthday was next week and that this may have been a birthday present for him.  His parents had done that before...sent him his birthday gift through the mail while they were out 're-engineering' some other damn government toy to 'make the world safe', which seemed to be his parent's motto and obsession over the last five years of his life.

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What Terry saw in the package caused him to actually mutter a 'whu...??' under his breath.

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Inside the package were some goofy looking sci-fi type white and light blue gloves, boots, belt and a small metal pack with straps on it, probably to wear on one's back.  In the box was also a roll of $100 bills and a store-bought ancient analog cell phone still in a dusty plastic case and a phone card worth 100 minutes of calling time, as well as his mom's prophesied 'card'.  It was a cheesy Hallmark birthday card with a lot of writing on the inside and back of the card.  Reading it, the card had an image of a cartoon-like dog dressed as a construction worker with a primer box with a word balloon saying "It's your birthday today...", with the inside unveiling a pop-up cartoon-like explosion with the words"Have a BLAST!  Happy Birthday, Son!" emblazoned on it. 

 

Seeing the image of his parent's car engulfed in flames once again shot though his mind.  Gritting his teeth, Terry read past the ironic message and started deciphering his mother's terrible penmanship on the rest of the card.  On the inside and back of the card, his mother wrote:

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Terry,

 

I'm sorry this has been tossed at you, but your father and I are in trouble.

 

We were on our way to meet with a group of people who we hired to protect us until we can talk to the FBI about what's in this package.  Unfortunately, we are being followed.  We can't be caught with this package.  We need you to safeguard it for us.

 

These are re-engineered alien weapons.

 

DO NOT WEAR OR USE THEM!  THEY ARE DANGEROUS!

 

Follow these directions:...

 

That's when another knock came to the cabin's door, interrupting Terry's reading of the rest of the card.

 

One of Terry's friends went to open the door, just as Terry stuffed the card and the contents of the box into his own already over-packed backpack, hiding the box and card from plain sight.  Terry tried to tell his friend to wait, but by that time, his friend opened the door.  Standing in the doorway were the same men in black suits he saw at his parent's accident scene; all three of them now with guns drawn.

 

Terry cried out to shut the door, but it was too late - his friend who'd opened the door was shot twice in the head.  Terry's other cabin-mates scrambled in what seemed like slow motion, moving about the room, all the while, Terry was nearly frozen with fear for the first time in his life.  As one of the men in the black suits pointed his gun at Terry's head and asked, "Are you Terry Talcot?", one of Terry's other friends whacked the gun-wielding, black-suited murderer in the back of the head with his snowboard, sending the killer flying over Terry's bed and face-first into the bed's  metal post. Sadly, that same friend that just saved Terry's life  received two bullets in the back of his head from another of the three killers.  Terry's other friends tore out of the cabin, barely escaping the bullets fired at them. At this point, only Terry was left with the two remaining killers, guns bearing down on him.  That's when the most unlikely Calvary came to his rescue.

 

LEGACY CORPORATION.

 

Two men dressed in ski gear walked in and killed the two remaining gunman with head-shots.  Both ski-gear clad men walked up to Terry, with one stating, "we'd been hired by your parents to get them to safety.  Seeing as how they're dead, the mission now shifts to you and what they gave you.  C'mon, boy, get up, get your gear on and lets get you and the package safely where you both need to be".  Terry was numb with fear and adrenaline.  He didn't know what was going on and was completely vapor locked.  One of the two from Legacy Corp slapped Terry across the face to get him out of his state.  Terry scrambled around, grabbing his backpack asking if they were going to kill him.  The two looked at each other, smirked and said, "if we'd wanted you dead, you'd be dead already, but that's not why we're here.  Your folks got into some big trouble and we were called in to get them out.  Unfortunately, we didn't make it in time. However, they called to tell us to instead escort you to Houston, Texas with the package since they were being tailed.  It seems these three here on the floor had the same idea to do to you what they did to your parents.  Now, are we clear on this or do I have to drag you to the van?".  Grabbing his backpack and quick pacing out the door with the two Legacy Corp gentlemen (code-named "Agent Tango" and "Agent Victor"), they made their way to the van in the parking lot.  Terry's friends only watched in muted shock as they saw Terry motion to them to keep silent about his departure.

 

In the van, Terry asked several questions confirming Agents Tango and Victor's intentions. When Terry asked about the contents of the package and why his parents were killed over it, both agents stated 'the less you know, the better off you are'.

 

After about a 1/2 hour of driving on back roads, taking in all that had happened thusfar, Terry finally broke out the birthday card from the package and read the rest of it:

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...Follow these directions: 

• Two men from Legacy Corp will be there shortly to escort you to Houston, Texas.  Do EXACTLY what they say!

• Throw away your phone and all games and gadgets-Laptop too!

• No using your credit cards-use money in the box

• Activate flip phone in the box ASAP. Wait for us to call you; don't call us.

• Don't tell anyone about what is happening, esp. your friends!

• Legacy will get you where you need to be.  We'll meet up with you there.

• No junk food!

• Keep flip phone charged!

 

Remember when you were little and we used safety passwords so you knew who to be safe with?

 

New password =TRUTH. They don't know password, run.

 

We're sorry Terry! Trust us on this tho! Lives are at stake!

 

Stay safe. We'll call soon. If we don't talk before your birthday, Happy Birthday, baby boy!

 

Love you, Terry!

 

- Mom and Dad

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That's when Terry asked Agents Tango and Victor what the safety password was, which both agents said in unison, "Truth".  With that, Terry broke down and began to cry, taking in all that had just happened.  After a few minutes, Terry re-composed himself and asked the agents if they were ready for whatever was to come.  Both responded in unison, "Hell yea!", as the van drove on to Houston...but not without incident.

 

Over the next 23 hours, Terry and Agents Tango and Victor went through a litany of high speed evasions, gunfights, helicopter chases, explosions and even blowing up a bridge (a story that will one day be told in far greater and fantastic detail!).

 

After the 23 hour ride, the bullet-ridden, highly damaged van arrived in Houston with the Agents Tango and Victor and Terry.  Agents Tango and Victor had been shot, beaten, bruised and bloodied along the way, however, thanks to Terry donning the alien-like cold weapons and pack during their journey's battles, Terry was able to save their lives as well as quickly learn to master the use of the very 'cool' cold generating devices.

 

Upon arrival outside of a base being created for the American Patrol super-group, There, Terry and Agents Tango and Victor parted ways (Agents Tango and Victor did, however, give Terry a Legacy Corporation card with a number to call on it should he ever need their services again).

 

CIA agents escorted Terry into the American Patrol base (acknowledging the correct safety password) and began a long debriefing about everything that had happened.  The company his parents worked for was not actually responsible for Terry's parents' deaths, instead it was a secretive faction therein that worked for a super-hero killing international organization known as The Exterminators, who'd intended to use the cold weapons against all super-powered and alien beings to capture, study and eventually kill.  In the base, several super-powered American Patrol team members watched the proceedings, offering Terry whatever help he needed once the debriefings were done.  At the end of the debrief, the CIA took the cold weapons and pack into custody.

 

For the following two weeks, Terry dealt with his parent's funeral arrangements, his ski friends (and the funeral arrangements for the one who was killed), and his family's estate. 

 

By the end of the second week, everything was completed, thanks to the volunteered help of the American Patrol team members. 

 

In one last meeting to thank the American Patrol super-group for helping him, Terry was asked if he'd be interested in joining the American Patrol. Terry laughed at them and said, 'as what? Cool ski dude who can mop floors faster than most janitors?  I don't have any super-powers, magic or for that matter those cool alien-like ice generators I wore for like, what, one day?  Thanks, but no thanks."

 

With that, Doctor Warder, leader of the American Patrol and an arcane magic user, shook hands with Terry, but as Terry was about to leave, the doctor told Terry he had a present for him, pulling a gift-wrapped box out of from somewhere in his cape.  Terry thanked him and opened it on the spot.

 

It was the alien-like cold generator gloves, boots, belt and pack, as well as a cool costume and a helmet.

 

Terry upon seeing the box's contents screamed in excitement for the first time since before his parents' deaths. Elated, Terry walked up to Doctor Warder and said, "Ummm, I thought this was, like, classified CIA stuff that the Exterminators were killing people for?"  Doctor Warder said that a 'note' was sent to all known Exterminator sites telling them that G.U.A.R.D. had figured out how to remotely shutdown the alien ice generator unit, and as such, all law enforcement, military and GUARD units now knew exactly what frequency to use to fry the unit's alien circuitry, making the generator units basically worthless to have. As such, the Exterminators no longer want it."

 

Terry then asked, "well, if that's so, then this unit here is worthless as well, right?", to which Doctor Warder explained that that particular unit was reverse-engineered and re-calibrated by GUARD so that the circuitry wouldn't fry at all.  There is no other unit like it...well, except in blueprints at an ultra-secure GUARD location that is, should a replacement unit ever be needed to be built.  You can thank a VERY influential "Major" for making that all happen.  Maybe you'll get a opportunity to meet him and thank him yourself one day".

 

Terry then said, "soooo....is that offer still open for me to sign-up with the team...?", which Doctor Warder nodded to.  Terry, once again shouted hoots and hollers that echoed in the halls of the American Patrol's base.

 

Still standing in the foyer of 'their' HQ, Terry didn't waste any time and undressed right there in the lobby in front of HQ staff and interns, donning his new hero suit.  An embarrassed Doctor Warder tried to follow Terry around the lobby and cover him up with his cape, but much to the joy of a few onlooking female interns, he failed in 'covering up' most of Terry.  With that, Terry slide on an ice slide out the lobby and in less than 10 minutes, bagged his first gas-station robber.

 

When Terry handed the robber over to the police, the officer asked Terry his name...which Terry said, 'oh, that's secret', to which the officer rolled his eyes and asked again, "no, what is your OTHER name?".  Terry went blank...until he overheard the robber muttering that he 'had the chills after fighting with that iced-up hero', for which Terry replied back to the questioning officer, "Chills. Yep, Chills will do for a hero name.".

 

Today, Chills is now a registered superhero and a member of the American Patrol.  He's also become Utah's official superhero and continues to maintain his secret identity so he can still complete in skiing and snowboarding events, of course, without, the super-suit. To add to that, he recently placed 2nd in the X-Games Ultimate Snowboarding competition and is looking to go for the gold in the next winter Olympics.

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