Identity Crisis

This story is unique among my one-shots so far in that it involves a very central character in this world (Query) and doesn’t take place before or during the events of the as-yet-unfinished saga “The Gathering Storm” but after them instead. As such, this story actually reveals some minor plot points not yet revealed in “The Gathering Storm.” It’s not really a big deal, though, because those plot points have been mentioned in some of the “About” and “Bio” entries on this blog.
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The sky was dark as twilight prepared to give way to full night, but the man standing in the courtyard of what had once been the Grand Marquis Hotel was darker still, with the only portions of his ensemble that weren’t black being the red question mark on his full-head mask and a red exclamation point on the palm of each glove.

As he regarded the ornate marble fountain, cracked wide open in two places along the edge, then gazed at the blackened terraces all around, he considered the battle that had taken place here two years earlier and had gutted much of the once-elite hotel. A battle he’d had no part in, but one that almost everyone in New Judah knew about.

He considered the decay and disrepair. He considered the rubbish left behind by the homeless men and women who often camped here and the junkies who often smoked or shot up here. He considered the dead bird three feet from his right boot.

Mostly, though, he simply wondered how much longer he was going to have to wait.

Forty-seven seconds later, five men converged on him from the four sides of the courtyard, all but one of them carrying Uzis and sporting small headlamps.

“Nice night,” Query said amiably, nodding to the one man not openly brandishing a weapon, as four beams of light swayed back and forth and finally all settled on him directly.

“Nice for me,” the man said. “Only nice for you in terms of being a good night to die.”

“Except your men don’t actually intend to kill me, do they?” Query said.

The man squinted at him. “Why do you think that?”

“Partly because if the plan was to kill me, Mr. Haven, the shooting would have already started, and the bullets would be flying down from the terraces above me if you were smart,” Query pointed out. “Mostly, though, because I hacked your email and saw the message to your brother Quinn in which you wrote, ‘I’m going to make Query suffer for a while before I kill him’.”

“Why would you have been hacking my email?”

“Because you did a terrible job of setting up this meeting and making it look like someone needed my help on short notice. The only way you could have made it look more like a trap would have been to send an invitation saying, ‘Your presence is requested for a very special trap’.”

Dennis Haven frowned and squinted even harder, then said, “Well, now that I’ve captured you, I imagine you’d like to know why I went to all this trouble.”

“No, thanks.”

“Pardon me?” Haven sputtered testily.

“I’ll pass on the soliloquy, thanks,” Query said. “Main reason being that you haven’t, in point of fact, actually captured me yet. So, it’s premature.”

Haven spread his hands and regarded each of his men in turn. “Just how do you think you’re going to escape from this?” he asked. “We know you didn’t bring any friends because we’ve been watching the place all day. You walked into a trap with your eyes wide open and without backup. That’s the problem with being a loner, Query: You’re always outnumbered by your enemies. Also, you’re cocky.”

“I’m going to escape simply by Hedwig strafe,” Query answered him.

A furrow formed across Haven’s brow. “What? That didn’t make any sense,” the mobster said.

“It will in a moment,” Query said, and smiled behind his mask as he heard the mini-drone with an owl head that he had named Hedwig descend from above in response to his voice command. His Sensor powers gave him an edge there, he considered—the drone was very quiet and the others wouldn’t hear it until it actually entered the courtyard.

Five heads turned as it did, seeking the source of the muffled propeller sound, and then they cried out as the drone released two dozen micro-ordinances, targeting everyone in the area who wasn’t Query. Then the drone gained altitude again as it swooped away.

“Fuck!” Haven snapped, hissing his pain as he swore. Addressing his men, he said, “If anything comes in here again, forget what I told you earlier and shoot him dead! What did your toy shoot at us? BBs? Are you fucking kidding me? Are you asking for me to hurt you even more before I kill you?”

Query shrugged. As one of Haven’s men fell to the ground, he said, “Actually, I’m asking you to take a nap and give me some goddamn peace and quiet.”

Almost in unison, Haven and the other three men dropped to the cobblestones, weapons clattering against the ground.

Query bound the mobster’s men, then dragged Dennis Haven himself to a corner of the courtyard and stuck him with a needle that brought him to consciousness in a few seconds with a shuddering, gasping start.

“OK, now I’d like to hear why you went to all this trouble,” Query said.

* * *

Swallowing his mouthful of coffee and setting the cup down on the table at which they sat—costumed hero on one side and suit-wearing lawyer on the other—Carl Beacham asked, “So what was it all about?”

“A damned woman,” Query said. “Unbelievable. Turns out Dennis Haven’s main mistress hired someone to get her free of Haven because I guess she decided the jewels and furs weren’t worth the abuse anymore. He was pissed because he particularly liked that specific piece of ass.”

“But that isn’t one of the jobs you’ve been hired for or that you’ve taken pro bono,” Carl pointed out.

“I know. I know my work schedule as well as you know it, Carl. It’s not like I do side jobs without keeping you in the loop.”

“So why did he target you?”

“I asked him the very same thing, and he told me that he had security video showing his lady being led away by a guy all in black with a long coat and a mask that covered his whole head and had a big red ‘X’ on the forehead,” Query said.

Carl blinked a few times and then picked up his cup again, savoring the fragrant steam. “Your mask has a question mark over your mouth, though.”

“Exactly! Told Haven the very same thing. Even asked him if he had a learning disability that made him unable to distinguish letters from punctuation or mouths from foreheads,” Query said.

“Did he?”

“Nope. Copped to the fact that he was perfectly capable of handling basic skills like that, so I slapped him around a bit just for being generally moronic and wasting my time.”

Carl took another swallow of coffee. “So, end of story, then. Mistaken identity and a bad guy behind bars because of it.”

“Hell, no,” Query snapped. “It isn’t ‘end of story’ until I find out who’s running around New Judah dressing almost exactly like me and getting my time wasted by goons with Uzis.”

* * *

The problem with trying to track down someone who dresses almost exactly like you, Query realized, is that you end up getting a lot of reports of people having seen you.

It had been three days of going through street-level informants, posting Twitter, Facebook and StreetWize requests for help, and checking in with random costumed transhumans. But no matter how often he stressed the red “X” on the forehead, what Query ended up with after all that effort were a bunch of reminders of several of the places he’d been over the past week.

The experience made him mourn for the U.S. educational system and reminded him of why eyewitness testimony was often among the least reliable evidence.

The television news reports, newspaper articles about transhuman activities, police reports and the like hadn’t been any more fruitful.

This guy is either very new to the scene or flies under the radar even more aggressively than I do, Query brooded.

Fortunato, whose people had obviously noticed Query’s activity on the street and online, left Query a message asking if he wanted The Whethermen to start hunting the doppelganger down. Query had Carl send the man a curt message to keep away from the matter—the only reason Fortunato wanted to help, Query figured, was to have him owe the billionaire something or reduce his own indebtedness.

And then, five days after the ambush by Dennis Haven, Carl told Query a message had come through his office from the man they’d been begun referring to as X.

“He called you?” Query probed.

“Actually, he used the email account for reaching you,” Carl said. “He apologizes for not realizing you were looking for him. Says he’s been out of town for a few days relocating a domestic violence victim. Wants to know if you can meet him someplace public but quiet, like Whitley Park.”

“Set it up.”

Carl paused. “You think…I dunno…this might be a trap you’re walking into on purpose and maybe you shouldn’t push your luck pulling that kind of reckless move twice in one week?”

“Well, then, I guess I’d better have Hedwig fueled up and re-armed, won’t I?”

* * *

Two men in black stood across from each other. One had a dense treeline at his back; the other the open meadows of the city park—all the better to allow Hedwig a good approach path.

X had already been here when Query arrived, and had said nothing thus far. Query returned the favor—for now—and studied him.

A smooth and utterly featureless black mask except for the single red “X.” Black boots and black gloves. Black unitard. Black flak vest. Long black trench coat. If not for the different symbol and the fact the man was slightly taller and slightly leaner than him, Query might have thought he was looking into a mirror.

No matter how close our appearance, I still don’t feel bad for beating up Dennis Haven a little bit more than necessary; he should still have been able to figure out I wouldn’t try to disguise my identity by changing my question mark into an ‘X,’ Query mused.

“Mind telling me who you are?” Query inquired of the man before him, who simply stood in an at-ease position. He wondered if the man might be recent ex-military and filed the thought away for later digging to find out who was under the mask.

“Name’s Deus X.”

“Soooo…like ‘deus ex machina’ but without the second ‘e,’ I’m guessing?”

“And without the ‘machina,’ too.”

“Naturally,” Query responded drily. “Mind telling me why you dress like me? Because it caused a bit of trouble with Janine Daly’s former beau, who thought you were me.”

“Oh. Sorry about that. Actually, you’re my inspiration. I figured people could tell the difference between a question mark and an ‘X,’ especially if I put it on a whole different part of the mask.”

“You’d think so, wouldn’t you? Go figure. So, I’m inspirational now. Not sure how to feel about that.”

“You don’t just run around beating up transhuman villains or chasing down crooks; you help people or groups that need help. You charge the ones that can afford it and you do freebies for the ones that can’t. That resonated with me. I thought about calling my operation ‘Deus Ex Machina’ since I do like you do and help people who don’t have any other choices for help, but that seemed a bit redundant with my name so I went with ‘In Extremis’ instead.”

“You like Latin a lot, don’t you?” Query retorted. “Actually, a lot of the people who hire me do have other places they can turn; they just choose not to.”

“Well, there’s one other point of distinction between our operations, then, since I only do it for people who are truly and completely up against the wall,” Deus X said.

“Bully for you,” Query answered. “So, you’re not here to apologize because one of your recent jobs got me targeted by Dennis Haven, since you didn’t know that had happened. But you knew I was looking for you, which is a big, bad warning sign to most folks and encourages them to stay away from me. So why did you agree to this meet?”

“Because even if my operation is a tiny bit more noble than yours, you’re way more talented and better equipped. I thought you could be a great resource if I asked really nicely—even if it’s just to get information and intel through you. Thought maybe you could be a bit of a mentor, too. Maybe even lend a direct hand—or fist or kick—in a job now and then.”

“Not great at being a team player,” Query said. “I’m the strong, silent, lonely type.”

“You’re on Fortunato’s team.”

“No, I consult for Fortunato’s team,” Query clarified. “And I charge him an arm and a leg every time I do.”

“Fair enough. It was just a thought. Dreaming big and all that,” Deus X said.

“So, what’s the first distinction between your operation and mine?”

“Hmmmm?” Deus X responded.

“Earlier, you said your whole ‘people with nowhere else to turn’ thing was the other point of distinction. Kind of implies there was a ‘first thing’ you mentioned earlier. Except you didn’t.”

“Oh. That. Yeah, that’s the part that sucks about you not being cool with helping me out,” Deus X said, extending his arms and waggling the fingers of each hand in a “come out” motion.

Three other costumed people stepped into sight from the shadows—not that it was any surprise to Query since he had smelled and heard them with his enhanced senses long before. He recognized one of them—a woman in a red mask and bodysuit, with large, oblong amber lenses over her eyes and a blue musical note over her mouth—as Blue Note. The other two, a man in a white unitard and mask with a gold ankh adorning his forehead, and a woman in a black cloak with orange exclamation points decorating the oversized hood and another one marking her pale cheek, he didn’t recognize.

“Query, meet Golden Ankh, Hyperbole and Blue Note,” Deus X said. “They were theoretically the rest of In Extremis, but they’re not all that hyped to band together unless you’re onboard.”

For nearly a minute, Query simply scanned the quartet slowly, his head tracking one way and then the other, saying nothing and moving no other part of his body.

Finally, he said, “Mentor, huh?”

“Yup,” Deus X said.

“Plus logistics and intelligence help.”

“Uh huh.”

“What do I get out of this?” Query asked.

“The warm and fuzzy feeling of helping some less experienced transhumans help others?”

“Do I look like a Hallmark Card store?”

“Ego boost?” Deus X suggested.

“Thanks, but my ego’s pretty big already,” Query said. “How about being sidekicks?”

“Seems a little cutesy for you, Query.”

“Well, the black hats have pretty much taken over the term ‘henchmen’ and I thought ‘minions’ sounded a little demeaning,” Query teased. “How about we call you ‘associates’?”

“And you’d be working us for your own ends how often?”

“Not very. A few times a year at most. But you’d need to be on-call and move immediately on my ‘go’ unless you were already in the middle of being shot at or pulling people from burning cars or something. And no one knows we’re working together. Ever. No one.”

“Your own secret team? Kind of goes against the whole ‘I’m not a team player’ lone wolf thing,” Deus X pointed out.

“Well, sometimes I find myself dealing with moose and bears instead of rats and sheep,” Query said. “Times like those, the lone wolf thing isn’t a good look. Better to have a pack, then. Or maybe y’all being my buccaneer crew is a better analogy.”

Deus X looked to the other three, eliciting a trio of nods.

“You’ve got a deal, Query,” Deus X said, extending his right hand.

Query shook it, then gripped hard and leaned forward toward the other man’s masked face. “One thing, though. Bad enough that Odium wears damn near the same outfit as me most days, but he’s a villain and I can’t do much about that—plus he has a red mask and no symbol. Ditch your black for Navy blue, wear a shorter coat or a utility vest, and get some eye holes or some visible lenses for your mask. Otherwise, I may have to have my other associate, who’s a lawyer, sue you for infringement.”

A low chuckle from the other man. A release of hands. And an almost imperceptible bow of Deus X’s head.

“Aye, aye, Cap’n Wolf.”

Deus X and Blue Note images based off illustrations of Marvel Comic’s Spider-Man and Spider-Girl, respectively. Source for base image used to create Hyperbole unknown. I think the image I based Golden Ankh off of was one of the G.I. Joe Ninja characters.