Plot synopsis
Randy O'Brien first encounters David Landers when he is wheeled into the hospital in incredible pain. Landers rages until two dark arms spring from O'Brien's torso that restrain him long enough for O'Brien to give Landers a tranquilizer that renders him unconscious. The two compare their experiences, and O'Brien reads a classified ad for the Clinic for Paranormal Research, a facility designed to help individuals who have acquired strange abilities. He relays the information to Landers, and they travel to the clinic under assumed names. They are at first convinced of the clinic staff's sincerity and are enrolled into therapy group C, where they meet Walters, Beck, Cuzinski, Harrington, and Fenzl. Late one night, O'Brien's antibody intrudes on the clinic staff, at least four of whom are paranormals themselves, and learn the clinic has plans to make an army out of them, to be led by Philip Nolan Voigt, the clinic director.[4]
Therapy group C fights off the clinic staff and the paranormal Hackbarth, who can manipulate others' nervous systems. They escape into the night[4] and over the next few months, the paranormals adjust to life with their powers. They are eventually apprehended by bounty hunters and returned to the clinic.[5] O'Brien and Landers, the last two to arrive, find that their friends' memories have been modified not to remember their escape or the ulterior motives of clinic personnel. O'Brien and Landers defeat Voigt and he disappears from the clinic,[6] although he later reappears to successfully run for President of the United States in 1988.
Without Voigt and his senior staff (Hackbarth is in a coma, memory-manipulator Charne was choked to death by an Antibody, and telepathic Speck was shot)[7] to surreptitiously maintain order, paranormals at the clinic soon form their own special interest groups/gangs (such as one composed of teenagers, and another of African Americans).[8] The potential for disaster is soon fulfilled, and law enforcement comes in to shut the clinic down, killing many of the patients in the process.[9] By this time, most of the reformed therapy group C (along with a few other residents of the clinic) left to find Walters, who had run to Pittsburgh where his family had been caught in a major disaster.[10] Except for Scuzz, the Displaced Paranormals begin to work with the government after all male paranormals are drafted into the United States Army following the destruction of Pittsburgh, believed to be caused by a nuclear weapon.[9] Female paranormals become highly sought-after assets for other agencies like the CIA. With the exception of Walters, who continues in the Army, the other paranormals either go AWOL or leave the CIA and many of them move into
While in the city, some ongoing romances play out, while other paranormals decide to become part of a superhero team.
When the war is over, the paranormals (who had not been cured) return to lives that are as normal as they can be.
