Spring, 1976, the sun was beating down on the cows grazing in the meadows. The herbivores varied in pattern from completely black to ones that were almost white, with just a few black blotches. It had been an exceptionally hot spring for the whole of Europe, that usual had a very temperate climate, but the farming community was the hardest hit by the drought, crops getting burned on the field, and domesticated animals dying of heatstroke.
A darkhaired woman stood in her backgarden, trying to get a glimpse of her neighbour, a farmer like many were in these parts. She and her husband were still moving into the simple two-story house, in was one of the last building on the outside of a small suburb, right on the outskirts of Amsterdam. Beyond their humble domain lay the vast expanse of grass, locally known as the Green Heart. Here the old way of living was still preserved, at one time the entire country looked like this, a quiet environment rich in plantlife, only sparsely inhabited by a few Dutch. The country was basically the floodplain of Europe, and coming to terms with the constant threat of flooding had shaped this country, and it’s people more than anything else.
So much had changed, in so little time, the woman thought as she had to cover her ears as a Fokker F-28 aeroplane flew overhead. The national airport of Schiphol lay a couple of kilometres away, that had been one of the reasons why they had been able to get this property so cheap. The noisepollution was terrible. Nobody knew that another kind of pollution was also corrupting the healthy community. They all knew about the huge nuclear powerplant that had been build only five year earlier, but despite some protests, most people in the small town trusted their government not to do anything that could hurt them, or their children.
The tractor rumbled past, carrying two bloated cow-carcasses, followed by a swarm of flies who tried to feed on the rotting flesh and lay their eggs in this rich breedingground. Feeling slightly sick at this sight and the putrid odour that now hang in her garden the women turned around and went back inside the house. She needed some rest anyway, she was heavily pregnant and the doctors had expected the baby to arrive 10 days ago. Trying not to worry too much about it, she sat down in her chair, she had faith that her babyboy would know when he was ready to come into this world. Although she hadn’t taken any test to sex the baby, she knew it would be a boy. She had always known.
A few very different screams were reverberating the walls of the tranquil home, caught between Amsterdam and the countryside. First, a loud scream of utter relieve when the women finally gave birth after hours of painful contractions. Next, the midwife let out a highpitched wale of terror as she took her first look at the newborn. The last vocalisation was by far the loudest. A scream of sheer pain and torment, it had come from the slimy, green and hairless bundle that had just taken his first breath.
They named him Johannes, after his fathers farther, and although the little boy had several abnormalities, and was clearly a mutant, both his parents loved him with all their hearts. There was no way to tell what his mutancy would bring the infant, it could be great powers or it could leave him a cripple. What was clear though that the boy was in constant anguish, he cried and screamed non-stop, to the maddening frustration of his parents. His voice caused neighbours to move and to break some of the more fragile furniture that was in his immediate vicinity.
Johannes Bosch, to use the little green man’s full name, was a mutant, there was no doubting that. In his early years he himself was of course completely unaware that he was in any way different from anybody else. He didn’t know that he was experiencing this buzzing and booming world like few men before him. The incredibly sharp senses he possessed had been part of his being when he still lay in his mother’s womb. He had heard his mother talking sweet words of encouragement to the tiny foetus, and because of this he already had a fair grasp of language when he was born. Unlike other infants inside the bodies of the respective mothers, who could only vaguely differentiate the normal night-day cycle, Johannes had seen faint shadows.
Once he was born the full barrage of stimuli overwhelmed his senses and he had to fight to make any sense of the information that was overloading his poor nerves.
This lead to a development that was almost unheard of. Nearly al mutants only get to using and controlling their powers when they hit puberty. Johannes however was in so much pain that his dormant mutantability to control sound became active when he was only a few weeks old. It was a survivaltactic pure and simple. Somehow the little green boy had to shield his ears, to most acute of his senses, from the constant bombardment of noise. It was an unconscious course of action that saved him. Him sonic control took over and placed a permanent protection over his ears, a sort of soundnegating shield. This meant that Johannes could at least lead some kind of normal life.
Even though his mutantpowers had intervened, helping him to cope with life’s many experiences, life meant pain for young Johannes Bosch. The sensations taken in by his eyes would make them burn and sometimes temporally blinded the infant greenling. Only later on in his life would he discover that his eyes could detect colours outside the human spectrum, including infrared.
More or less the same was true for his olfactory perception, which worked in a radically different way from that in ‘normal’ humans. Johannes was born without a nose, not the just the protruding appendage in the middle of the face, but the whole thing, including the nasal cavity. Much like a snake Johannes could ‘taste’ air as it passed his tongue. Unlike a serpent though, he didn’t need to stick his tongue out, but could gather al the necessary information each time he took a breath. Any type of strong smell, or indeed taste could easily overstimulate this organ. The more revolting odours made Johannes sick and could cause him to get physically ill.
Good things too came with being a mutant with an uncanny sense of hearing, an instinctive understanding of all things musical was one of them. Johannes could hear frequencies that were far beyond the human range. This meant he could hear so much more in any musical arrangement, the complex structure that subtle variation in tones made were like an open book to him. From a young age Johannes could perfectly reproduce any music he heard, with just using his voice. Extended vocalchords and near perfect control over them seemed to be a natural part of his mutation, giving him the same range as a concert grand-piano and more, over 12 octaves.
His parents never gave this all a second thought, they weren’t particularly musically gifted themselves. His kindergartenteacher however was a true connoisseur and spotted Johannes’ potential. She advised his baffled parents to get their son to a musicschool as soon as possible, to get him learning to play an instrument. Although the family was on a tight budget, his parent wanted what would be best for their offspring and enrolled him in a classical piano course.
Maybe it was another part of his mutation, or maybe it was just because of his incredible hearing, but Johannes could master any musical instrument he focused his attention on. Piano, violin, Spanish guitar and trumpet, he excelled at all of them. A true child prodigy. He outplayed all his teachers, so he got better teachers and outplayed them as well.
All throughout his first couple of years, his life was filled with teachers, books, instruments and schools. In other schoolsubjects he wasn’t as in front of the rest, except in the courses where his senses gave Johannes a clear advantage. His major passions were music and art. He was free to expend all his time chasing new sensations to experience and learn from. That was until the rest of his mutant powers first reared their head when his body entered puberty, Johannes was 13. Nothing would ever be the same again.
He and his parents had never discussed his mutation much. Johannes had thought that his abnormal physical appearance, his green skin, purple hair, pointy ears and lack of a nose was the main part of his mutation. The fact that his senses were so much better than anybody else’s was just a normal part of it. Soon he would figure out that that was all wrong, but it would be only the start of his full mutantpowers.
A few weeks before his fourteenth birthday Johannes was scheduled to play in Johann Sebastian Bach’s Mattheus Passion. At this annual tradition many a high-ranking politician would attend, as well as other well-known figures. Johannes had been given the lead male vocal part. He was greatly honoured to have such a big part, but he was saddened that he wasn’t allowed to play an instrument as well. For some strange reason this was all Johannes could think about on the way there and during the preparations. Then just moments before the show his gift for music expressed itself in a totally new way. The soft sound of violins went through the old church where the concert was to take place. The tones swelled until they filled the great central hall and more instruments joined to form the unmistakable symphony that was the Mattheus Passion.
All that were gathered there were totally baffled. The concert hadn’t begun, but yet the music was already playing. The only one that hadn’t noticed anything was the young Johannes, he just sat in his chair. It wasn’t long before the other musicians, that were sitting in the green boy’s vicinity figured out what the source of the music was. It was of course Johannes, who wasn’t aware of the commotion he had caused, he was completely immersed in his own thoughts.
The members of the national press who were covering the event picked up on the whispers that were spreading around in the crowd and en masse they descended on Johannes. They stormed at him and started taking photo’s using flashphotography and began yelling questions at the while shoving their taperecorders and microphones in his face. The music suddenly stopped, as Johannes became the target of the inquisitive reporters. He had to shield his delicate eyes from all the flashes with his hands, he didn’t know what was going on, but he wanted to get away from there as fast as he could. He wanted to run, but he couldn’t, the press had him completely surrounded. Question after question was fired at him, he couldn’t make a single one out, let alone answer them. The thirteen year old boy finally couldn’t take it anymore. His green skin began shifting colours, adding more shades of green to the swirling mass. They strokes of pastelgreen were moving faster and faster and then Johannes cried out in pain. The enormous volume of the scream forced the journalist back a bit, they weren’t paying attention to Johannes, just to their ears that were on fire with agony. After only a few moments the noise subsided and some of the reporters wanted to continue their questioning of the little green boy, but Johannes wasn’t there anymore. Then the next screams filled the hall, this time form the crowd that were gathered, the outcries ranged from amazement to fear. Above the heads of all floated Johannes with an _expression of shock on his face. He was flying, he couldn’t believe it. The next day every newspaper in the country had pictures of the flying boy that could make music out of thin air, on their frontpage.
The small country of the Netherlands, better known as Holland by foreigners, had been a nation of traders and discoverers ever since it had won its independence from Spain and one of the most powerful rulers in Europe at that time, Philip II. All along its coastline emerged city after city that were getting rich by the trade in exotic spices, attacking ships of other seafaring nations and of course by the slavetrade. From this time on the Dutch cities would be places of great cultural diversity, but also where fortunes could be made and lost within the same day. Slowly but surely the character that would typify the Dutch in later years was being formed as the country became ever more populated. The Dutch cities became safehavens for the persecuted, like the Protestants who had turned away from Rome, the children of Judea, and the new class of scientists who had started to rediscover the world, against the papal wishes. All these foreign influences weren’t so much welcomed as they were integrated into Dutch society, the tiny country and its inhabitants had to learn and live together. The myth of the tolerant Netherlands had been born.
The first cracks in this self-sustaining myth began appearing shortly after WW-II. To help their countries deal with the devastation and looting perpetrated by the fascist warmachine they looked to so-called migrantworkers to help them out. These workers mostly came from Islamic countries of North Africa. Soon the very Christian society of the Netherlands felt they were under threat of losing their identity. The poor Muslims, and other groups of foreigners for that matter, soon became targets of persecution and discrimination. This feeling of unrest continued to grow during the 70’s and 80’s, but then its focus shifted from the outsiders to their own, the growing number of mutants that were being born in their own families.
This situation wasn’t that bad as long as the mutant population wasn’t getting too large and instead of tolerating them, they were mostly ignored. During the late 80’s and early 90’s of the twentieth century the growing number of mutants, and other abnormal humans, meant that this wasn’t an option anymore. Public opinion turned disturbingly easy, and a set of laws were passed that reduced this portion of society to second-class citizens. These became known as the Gedrochten-wetten in Dutch, meaning the monstrosity-laws.
It was in this environment of growing hostility towards mutants, that Johannes Bosch became something of a national celebrity. After the incident at the annual Mattheus Passion his parents started receiving calls from musicpromoters and organisers of all sorts of concerts, all wanted to make money of this green mutant, as long as his fame lasted. But before his fame would go down, it would first skyrocket.
After his mutant powers had been so openly expressed Johannes realised that he would need to control this newfound power. There were no facilities to help him, or a School for the Gifted run by Charles Xavier in his country, so he had to learn by himself. He found the best way to get to grips with his abilities was to make music. He locked himself in his tiny room practising like mad at making the most incredible sounds and trying to make sound-negating shields. In time he discovered how he could fly using controlled soundwaves that bounced of the bottom of his room and lifted his body up. The enormous concentration this took was best learning experience for his powers and he often floated around for days refusing to let even his parents disturb him.
For the following year Johannes lived the life of an hermit until his parents got a phonecall from the producers of one of the most famous talkshows in the country, they wanted to know if Johannes would like to come and debate the ‘mutant-question’, from a mutants point of view. At that time Johannes was only 15, he hadn’t made a public appearance since the Mattheus Passion incident, but he wanted to speak out, now that he was learning to control his powers.
He and his parent made their way to the city of Hilversum, it was near to Amsterdam, and most TV-shows were recorded there. When the family got to the studio they were greeted by a huge number of protesters, mostly they were the Normalen (Dutch for ‘the normal humans’) who were carrying signs that read “No Mutants!” or “Mutants go home”. Johannes didn’t get it, he thought that he was home, but the quiet country of the Netherlands became more foreign to him every day. He even had to use his powers to form a shield around him and his parents when they got out of the car to go inside the studio. It was like running the gauntlet, the crowds throwing bricks, pavementstones and anything the mob could get their hands on.
Once inside the talkshow quickly started. Johannes was the only mutant there and he was used for targetpractise by the other guest, who basically blamed him and the rest of the mutants for all that they felt was wrong in Dutch society and the world in general. The young boy was pretty shocked by this, but he had learned through his training not to let his emotions take over. He was as eloquent and charming as he could be, he tried explaining what it meant to be a mutant but it seemed no one was willing to listen, they wanted to nail him to the cross. Halfway through the show the angry mob outside burst into the studio, disrupting the live broadcast. Johannes managed to save himself and his parents before the mass of people could get to them.
This appearance on national television made the greenskinned mutant an instant celebrity and he started to get invitations to do more shows. Wisely, he and his parents turned them all down, that was until they were contacted by a representative of Mojo, the biggest organiser of concerts and of all things having to do with music. They offered Johannes a contract for performing music two times a month. This seemed a golden opportunity to turn his destiny around, in stead of being a mutant on the run he could become a famous musician, and hopefully change the public image of mutants. Of course things didn’t turn out that way.
Making music was his gift and now he was getting paid for doing just that. Johannes truly felt like he was fulfilling his destiny in life. Unknown to him and most people was that Mojo Musicpromotions was part of a larger, global company that spend fortunes ensuring that mutants like himself would be ostracised from the societies where they lived. This company was secretly based in Negosha, a small island-country of the coast of Africa that had the strictest anti-mutant laws on the planet and where mutants were no more than slaves for the government to use as they saw fit.
It was a few weeks after his sixteenth birthday that the Mojo Company decided that it was time for Johannes to make his first public appearance after that fateful talkshow. They wanted him to play at the North Sea Jazz festival that was being held in Den Haag (The Hague), they booked him under a stagename and he would do a collection of different pieces of Fusion Jazz. When Johannes inquired why it was he had to perform under the silly name ‘De Dirigent’ (Dutch for The Conductor), the people from Mojo said it was for his own security. They feared that Johannes would get recognised and attacked again, not saying anything about how bad that would be for business. Johannes didn’t really have a say in the matter and had to trust the hand that fed him.
Despite their precautions some people in the crowd walked out as soon as Johannes got on stage, then others started yelling anti-mutant slogans. Undaunted Johannes started his improvisation of a Joe Zawinul track he loved, the yelling subsided as the part of the audience silenced the few that were still yelling. They were mesmerised by the music they heard, unlike anything they heard before. The fact that one young adolescent was creating the sound of an entire jazzband, and without any instruments only added to their amazement. The concert was a huge success and the mysterious Conductor became a prominent figure in the Dutch music-scene.
Success however is fickle and brings things to the attention which were better left undiscovered. It was clear to everyone that had ever attended a concert of the Conductor, that he would have to be a mutant or at least something not like a normal human being. The true musiclovers however managed to enjoy the incredible soundexperience and forgot about how the lonely man on stage produced them. When the attack on Johannes’ public persona came, it did not come form the anti-mutant lobby as would be expected, but from his fellow mutants.
Ever since Johannes Bosch had stepped into the limelight there had been people trying to take advantage of him and his celebrity-status. There had been recordcompanies that wanted to make a quick buck by getting Johannes to record a pop-single, they felt that it would be an instant number one hit. His agent took care of most of these troublesome leaches, mostly because he was an employee of the Mojo Company who were making a fortune off of Johannes. Mojo refused to let anybody near the greenskinned musical genius and started more and more to control every aspect of Johannes’ life.
The group of people that Mojo worked hardest on at not getting access to Johannes were known as the Mutant Lobby, even though they weren’t out on money. The Mutant Lobby wanted to get the young mutant star to be a spokesperson for their cause: the fair and equal treatment of mutants and other non-normal humans. They had tried to get into contact with Johannes from the time he appeared on television, but first his parent had intervened on every occasion. After Johannes did his first shows as the Conductor they doubled their efforts, but in vane. By this time Mojo was calling the shots.
Over the next couple of years Johannes became accustomed to the celebrity-lifestyle and started to revel in it, Mojo catered to his every whim and need. The further he went along on the path of glamour, the more Johannes became detached from everyday life. He had no notion of the world around him, or took any notice of the events that shaped the Dutch and every other society on the planet. Johannes, by now a young adult, typically filled the time between concerts with sex and using drugs, a lot of drugs. For a mutant with his exceptional sensory perception, the mindaltering experiences of the various drugs he took were very intense. He especially delved into the hallucinogenic narcotics. In the Netherlands, with their liberal approach to the consumption of drugs, many had gone the downward spiral from being an occasional user to being an addict and Johannes was nearing the end of this destructive path. He cancelled an increasing number of shows and concerts, because his condition was deteriorating rapidly. This was not to the liking of the Mojo Company, but that was nothing compared to their dislike of the events that happened next.
The Mutant Lobby was a relatively unknown pressure group that seemed to be made up of just a handful of idealists, but in fact it was a globally organised movement backed by a few wealthy benefactors. One of its main goals was the end to the oppressive regime in the island state of Negosha, to bring to light the atrocious conditions in which mutants were forced to life under. One tactic they used was to expose companies that had covert ties to the Negosha government.
The Dutch faction of the Mutant Lobby had long suspected that Mojo Musicproductions was in some way connected to the Negoshan government. A small team was given the assignment to investigate these ties, to expose them and make their findings public. During their research into the murky dealing of this seemingly innocent company they stumbled upon a number of documents and banktranscript concerning a certain musical genius that was making Mojo millions.
Around the time the Mutant Lobby was putting the final touches on the public relations attack on Mojo, Johannes had hit rock bottom. It had been months since his last concert, the money had stopped pouring in and his expensive habits had drained his bankaccount. The head of Mojo was getting more and more impatient with the green mutant, as long as Johannes wasn’t making money he was of no use to them. The board of directors had made the decision to dump Johannes Bosch as soon as possible, but before they could implement their plans the Mutant Lobby set their own plan into action. A viscous media war ensued.
Johannes was completely in the dark about all of this but his parents weren’t.
With some of his first money Johannes had bought his parent a 17th century building in the picturesque historic centre of Amsterdam. The burned red colour of the old bricks contrasted beautifully with the green foliage of the elmtrees that line the many canals in the Dutch capital. At night the stately 4-story building was lit with soft lights giving it a fairytale quality. The beams of brightness cast ghostly shadows when passers by moved through them.
One night two shadows darkened the facade of house. Two figures stood on the cobblestone street looking up at the home of the family Bosch. The slighter smaller of the two moved up the sandstone steps to the frontdoor and knocked twice. The heavy door swung open and Johannes’ mother, Peternella -Nel for short- Bosch emerged from inside. She had a brief conversation with the visitor and let him in, leaving the other figure standing outside.
Once inside the man took of his wide-rimmed hat, scarf and heavy overcoat. He introduced himself as Joris de Groot, a mutant, private investigator and part of the Mutant Lobby. Over a hot cup of tea he explained to Hendrik, Johannes’ father, and Nel Bosch in detail by what kind of company their son was employed. He told them of the true nature of Mojo, their ties to Nehosha and their involvement in the disappearance of tens of thousands of mutants worldwide. This of course had it implications for Johannes, he was in real danger of becoming the next mutant to vanish without a trace, unless the Mutant Lobby would take action. Joris de Groot outlined the plan he and his organisation had come up with. Seeing that they could little else Johannes Bosch’ parent agreed. What could they do? They hadn’t seen their son in over a year, they had the occasional phonecall, but no real contact and the trouble Johannes was in was way beyond their power to help him with.
On the seventh floor of the Amsterdam Hilton hotel overlooking an exotic garden and delicate canals filled with tiny wooden boats, Johannes Bosch had been living for the last two years indulging in a hedonistic lifestyle. It was the same room as where in 1969 John Lennon had held his ‘sleep-in for peace’, staying in bed for a solid week with his wife Yoko Ono. Room 902 had been a steady favourite with all sorts of visitors who wanted to stay at the Hilton, once it had been lovingly furnished in soft pastel colours, a dream in different shades of white. Now it was hardly recognisable. Two years of being lived in by a deteriorating drugaddict had taken its toll. No furniture except for the bed remained most of it broken or tossed out of the window by Johannes in his more destructive highs. Scattered on the floor lay halffinished diners, most of it rotting away, broken glass and all over lay the evidence of a habitual druguser, raging from needles to empty bottles of liquor.
It was well past noon on a chilly wintersday in January when there was a knock on the door of room 902, Johannes was still knocked out, sleeping in his soiled bed and didn’t hear it. The regular staff of the Hilton had become accustomed to Mister Bosch’ habits and had strict orders never to disturb the musical genius. So who was this at the door? After a few more knocks and still now reaction from inside the room the sound of the masterkey being turned in the lock could be heard. The door slowly opened and one man, smartly dressed in a grey three-piece-suit squirmed his way in, his huge frame barely fit through the opening. The giant covered his mouth with his hand when the pungent odour in the room reached his nostrils and he shook his head a few times. Nobody except him and the sleeping Johannes were in the room. With a few huge strides the big man was at the bed, picked Johannes up with one hand, threw the limp body over his shoulder and left the room for the elevator. A frail older woman had been there waiting for the giant, they exchanged a brief look. The woman nodded, they got into the elevator and with a small gesture from the old lady they vanished.
