Questionable Matters

“Are you high, stupid or both?” Wallace asked the man across from him through the steam rising from the coffee cup perched just at the edge of his mouth. “You want to rob The Un-Secret Lair or the Caped Cuisiner? Places that transhuman heroes go to eat.”

“Why not?” Billy shot back. “The prices there are outrageous. Anyone in there has to have a bunch of money on them.”

“I think most of the customers pay with plastic, Billy.”

“Whatever. Point is, the place is busy, I bet lots of people at least are carrying cash for tips, and this is about volume. Plus, no one ever robs cafés and coffee shops and restaurants. They’ll never expect it.”

Wallace stared hard for a moment at his friend, and wondered once again—as he did about twice every month—why he was friends with him. “Billy, please tell me you are not getting your ideas about the best crimes to commit from Pulp Fiction.”

“What? I don’t get it,” Billy said, pursing his lips and shrugging.

“Pulp Fiction. The movie. That’s how it starts. A boyfriend and girlfriend having a talk just like this in a breakfast joint. And they try to rob the place. And then at the end of the movie we see how it turned out, and what happened is the dude and his lady almost get themselves killed by two mobsters in the place, including the illustrious Jules Winfield with his ‘Bad Mother Fucker’ wallet.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Billy, we saw that movie when it first came out,” Wallace said. “Kind of a hard movie to forget, even if we were both 12 at the time.”

“I was baked. I don’t remember shit about that movie.”

“Well, apparently the coffee shop caper bit stuck in your head,” Wallace retorted. “Except for the part where it went bad. Shit, I don’t know what’s worse: That you can’t remember a classic scene like that in a classic motherfucking movie or the fact you’ve never watched it since then.”

“Well, life ain’t a movie, bro,” Billy said. “This will work.”

“I’ve got 100 billion reasons to not want to do something like this.”

Billy slapped the table hard. “Jesus! Man, do you have to exaggerate like that? You gotta feel all special. You couldn’t list 100 reasons, much less 100 billion.”

“I don’t need to list ‘em or name ‘em, Billy-boy. That’s the number of neurons in the human brain, and every single one of them tells me this is a bad idea,” Wallace said. “That’s the kind of knowledge reading grants you, my man. I know how many cells are in the brain. And the fact that none of them in your head are raising red flags about this idea of yours scares me.”

“Give me one good reason other than an apparently very forgettable scene in a movie,” Billy challenged him.

“Just one? Easy. The place would be filled with transhumans.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. Those places are mostly filled with a lot of fanboys, fangirls, wannabes and doubles—plus plain ole normally dressed folks,” Billy said. “And any real transhumans probably won’t raise a stink trying to foil the robbery, because they’re in a place like that so that they blend in and people don’t know who they really are. If Greenguard suddenly steps up, and the real Freak-Easy is sitting right next to him, he risks getting hit from behind…”

“Freak-Easy works New York City; he hardly comes over to this side of the  Long Island Sound,” Wallace pointed out.

“And a trans crook isn’t gonna worry about giving up a wallet because it’s chump change and he won’t want to risk outing himself as the real deal in front of a hero that might be there,” Billy said, ignoring him. “It’s like the Cold War—mutually assured destruction. See that there? You aren’t the only one who’s done some reading, Wallace.”

“Sketchy reasoning, man.”

“Wallace, we knock over a liquor store or bank…”

“I’m not all that keen on knocking over anything these days…” Wallace began.

“You owe me…”

“I don’t see how you see that…”

“Anyway, Wallace, when a person robs a liquor store, they gotta worry that the till won’t have much money and it’s a big, fat wasted effort and maybe the guy behind the counter is the owner instead of some low-wage fuckface, and then maybe you get a shotgun blast. Or you rob a bank and get a little wad of cash with a  dye-bomb in it plus you end up on the FBI’s shit list because it’s a federal crime. A restaurant means a lot of people with wallets and jewelry and shit. Plus whatever’s in the cash register.”

“See? Again. You’re using the same reasoning as in Pulp Fiction.” Wallace noted.

“I’m telling you I don’t remember shit about that shit movie. This is all my own brain working.”

“Or not working,” Wallace groused, sipping at his coffee and glad that the coffee shop they were in right now had almost no other customers to tempt his friend, given how excited Billy was about his “epiphany.”

* * *

Query walked into the Caped Cuisiner, almost immediately picking out three people conveniently clustered at or near the counter whom he was pretty certain were the real thing as far as being transhuman heroes or vigilantes. He knew their habits, patterns and mannerisms well enough, and had spent enough time in here in his Milo Phillips identity or some disguise, to pick them out. Once he got closer, his enhanced senses were able to confirm them by scent.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Query said generally, so as not to focus his attention only on the real transhumans in costume, in case they wanted to stay anonymous. “I thought I’d stop by and share some information that just came my way: Amateur Knight is out and about tonight.”

“Shiiiiiiit,” groaned Brickhouse quietly. “I am not in a mood to bail that geek out. I heard Hardcase almost got killed rescuing that loser a few weeks ago.”

“He did not almost get killed. He did not even almost get injured,” Query corrected him.

“Still, I am not feeling the idea of playing nursemaid to a guy who gets himself into trouble just so he can meet folks like us,” Brickhouse retorted. There were grunts of assent from the two other real transhuman white hats nearby.

“In all fairness…” Query began, then noticed a man at the end of the counter pull the bottom of his red demonic skull mask over his mouth and chin, hastily toss down a fifty for what was clearly a tab of a lot less than that—the food and drink unfinished at that—and hurriedly stand up. Query knew the secret identity of the real Speed Demon but had never had a chance to scent-mark him, so he couldn’t be sure this was the real guy. Still, no paid body-double would be this eager to move along with Query in the room. He had no interest in busting a colorful criminal whose most notorious crimes were grand theft auto, but…

Query stepped over and stopped the costumed man with a  firm grip on one bicep. “The dark green Mercedes—it’s mine. It had better goddamn well still be there when I leave,” Query hissed, and then released the man.

“As I was saying,” Query said, returning to where Brickhouse was, “Amateur Knight is a nuisance, but as idiotic and reckless as he is, he means well and thinks he’s helping. Yes, he’s trying to get to meet a lot of us, but he really thinks he’s a sidekick to every hero.”

Nearby, Wreck Lass cleared her throat. “Well-meaning or not, he puts himself in danger and then one of us has to bail him out or feel guilty that he goes to an ER for some stitches—or worse—if we don’t. And he could get one of us hurt. Least he could do is get some real armor instead of a Spandex silver suit that looks vaguely like a suit of armor.”

“You’re not going to get any argument out of me,” Query said. “I’m just giving y’all a heads-up in case you care. Like it or not, when you decided you wanted to patrol the mean streets in tights, you kinda signed on to deal with annoying shit, too. But it’s your choices,” he said, signaling a waitress so he could order a sandwich and fries to go.

* * *

“See?” Billy said. “There is no way that’s the real Query over there.”

“There are four people no one in this town is ballsy enough to dress up as,” Wallace said. “Janus, Tooth Fairy and Odium on the black hat side, and Query on the white hat side. Look, I hoped you’d get this crazy idea out of your head after a few days. Only reason I’m here while you case the joint is to remind you why you don’t want to plan—much less pull—a job like this.”

“C’mon! Look, it’s all roleplay over there. That Speed Demon who just left isn’t real and the fake Query knows it. They’re acting out a scene. A fake Query wouldn’t put his hand on someone who might be the real thing and the real Query wouldn’t let a crook just walk. And look at how this ‘Query’ is chatting up with those other fakers. Query’s a damned loner. He wouldn’t be having some stupid convo with a bunch of transhumans.”

“Billy, I don’t think you’ve worked out all the possible angles and scenarios,” Wallace countered. “I’m just saying you came here to case…”

“We came…”

“You  came here to case the joint and I came to provide input, and on the first visit here, we have more than one probable real honest-to-God transhuman white hat in the place.”

“Let’s say you’re right, which you aren’t. Even so, look, there’s a Dog Pound or Hellhound over there, so again, no white hat is just going to jump up and make themselves a target to deal with a small-time heist…”

“See? You can’t even figure out if that guy is Dog Pound or Hellhound. Even I can tell he’s neither because it’s just a cheesy furry dog mask and both the villains wear leather masks. He ain’t no one, but that Query is real. Don’t think about coming back here to…:”

“I won’t,” Billy said, sliding a gun across the table to Wallace and standing up to pull his own from out the waistband beneath his sweatshirt. “No need to come back since the job’s going down now when it’s perfect timing…”

Then Billy was standing, gun upraised as he shouted, “This is a robbery! Be calm and cooperate and don’t none of you motherfuckers move or pull any shit or we’ll execute every last motherfucking one of you!”

* * *

Nobody moved, but four people in costume were tensed and poised. One of them though, clad all in black with only a red question mark to adorn his mask, signaled to them with one hand to stand down.

Firmly and calmly, so that everyone could hear, Query said, “I’ve got this.”

Billy looked over at him with an expression of murder in his eyes that Wallace had seen him adopt all too often, even though he’d never actually killed anyone. He didn’t think Query—and he was certain it was the real man behind that mask—was fazed at all.

“You’ve got this, ‘Query’,” Billy taunted. “Do you, now?”

“No, he doesn’t,” came a voice with an angry growl and a little waver. “I’ve goddamn well got this.”

Bill turned his head slightly to see a gun pointed at him. Query stopped his slow approach. Wallace cleared his throat.

“Put your gun down and give yourself up to the nice Query,” Wallace said. “Or I will put a hole in your shoulder. Remember, though, I’m a lousy shot and your chest is really close to your shoulder.”

“Wallace? Man, what are you doing? We’re a team!”

“We ain’t no team here,” Wallace said. “I told you time and again I’m not going to jail and I’m not pushing my luck anymore. I told you I was only coming here with you to show you why this was a bad idea. I didn’t want you to toss me a gun when you lost your mind and started badly misquoting a scene from a great movie you claim you don’t remember. Now, though, I have a gun, you have the attention of at least one very real transhuman, and this shit is all about to end right now.”

“You won’t shoot me,” Billy said. “Just point your gun at the fake Query and let’s get on with…”

“I will sooner shoot you than let that very real Query fuck me up,” Wallace said. “And this job is over. It never shoulda started.”

Billy’s lip quivered. “Wallace? Man…”

“Don’t make me revoke your New Judah privileges permanently, Billy,” Wallace said. “I ain’t never hurt anyone before, and I don’t wanna start with you to make sure no one else gets hurt. Also I don’t think it’s worth it being your friend anymore.”

* * *

In a quiet booth, Query looked at Wallace in silence, then folded his gloved fingers together on the table in front of him.

“My fries will be ready soon, and I have things I ought to be doing,” Query said softly and steadily. “The only thing left to figure out is whether I slap a zip tie around your wrists, too, and sit you next to your buddy to wait for the New Judah police to arrive.”

“I was not down for this heist,” Wallace said. “I didn’t even know he was going to actually improv the whole thing and toss me a gun.”

“Nonetheless, I’m willing to bet this isn’t the first time you’ve held a gun and not the first time you and Billy there have been together when a robbery went down.”

“Whatever might be in my past, I’d like to leave it there. You let Speed Demon walk just now.”

Query glanced out the window and into the street. “Speed Demon left my car alone; you and your friend tried to relieve me and a lot of other people of their wallets.”

“My friend. Former friend, I might add, after this stunt. Not me.”

“I bet I could do a lot of digging and figure out what crimes you committed in the past,” Query said. “I bet the statute of limitations has run out on hardly any of them.”

“Why, man? Why would you do that?” Wallace asked, hating the whine he could hear in his undertone.

“Because I have an idea,” Query said, looking for a moment at the guy in the cheap dog mask off in the distance and then toward the register. “Oh, look! My food is ready and bagged up. So, Wallace, are you coming with me, or would you rather go with Billy and the cops in another couple minutes?”

“Guess I’m riding with you.”

“Great. We have to make a stop along the way.”

“Along the way to where? What stop?” Wallace asked, a nervous flutter in his stomach.

“Wouldn’t want to ruin the surprise,” Query answered. “By the way, what’s your inseam? And do you know your chest size by any chance?”

* * *

The woman ran her fingers through the black and green feathers of the mantle draped across her shoulder and over her chest and upper back, then regarded him through the holes of her domino mask.

“Seriously? This is the favor you’re going to call in?” she sneered.

“Favor number one of two,” Query corrected her. “C’mon—it might even be fun. I need you because your face and costume aren’t plastered all over the media.”

Coldraven looked over at the man Query had with him, wrinkled her nose and tried to suppress a laugh. “And who’s this?”

“A guy earning a ‘Get out of jail free’ card,” Query said. “I’ll fill you in along the way.”

* * *

“Psssst!”

Amateur Knight spun around at the sound, a heavy mace in one hand and a growl issuing from his throat. “Stand down, evild…”

“Relax,” said Query. “Or, rather, refocus. I need your help. There’s someone new and green on the scene about to get killed and you happen to be in the right place at the right time.”

* * *

Amateur Knight pressed onward as Query fell back to cover him, whispering that there was an ambush team behind them.

It’s up to me, Amateur Knight thought. I can handle this.

He rounded the corner and was met with the sight of the lithe, athletic female villain in mask and feathers Query had told him about and whom he’d never seen or heard of before. And hopelessly outclassed against her was…a…a…

Who the hell is this and what is wrong with him?

“Surrender, villainess!” cried a man with a buccaneer-style mustache and goatee, brandishing a rapier and wearing—Amateur Knight could hardly believe the ludicrous sight—a dog suit covering everything but his face. “Lay down your arms and surrender to Swashbuckler Hound!”

Amateur Knight rushed in, knowing that while he lacked finesse at times, he had Brute powers to help shield him from serious harm in a lot of fights—and the woman fighting this newbie, he realized, was fast and agile. “Get clear, uh, Hound!” he shouted. “This is no place for you. Let me handle…”

“Look out!” shouted the man in the dog suit, lunging toward Amateur Knight, “She’s gonna…”

Swashbuckler Hound tripped and fell into Amateur Knight, stumbled past him and crashed into a wall. Before Amateur Knight could right himself, he saw the woman fling something and felt a soft, firm impact against his legs. Then dampness and stretching and gripping. He stumbled and fell himself as he realized a tangler had been thrown at him, completely tying up his legs.

Suddenly, the woman was over him, and a gun was trained right between his eyes. “Good night forever, Amateur Knight,” she snarled, and pulled the trigger.

He wasn’t sure if his ears registered the laugh first or his chest the sudden impact against his costume as the gun shifted position. But he knew both preceded him looking down to see a neon-green stain across the front of his torso.

“You’re right, that was fun,” she called out. “But I’m still mad at you.”

Amateur Knight struggled to turn his body and see who was approaching from behind. Query, with the silly-looking dog-suited amateur right next to him.

Amateur… the prone young man thought.

“Amateur Knight, I’m going to need you to focus on your memory of that bumbling fool drawing you into a dangerous situation and then messing up your approach and almost getting you killed,” Query said. “I need you to remember that forever. Do you know why?”

“Ummmm. Because…uhhh?”

“You’re taking too long,” Query said, cutting him off. “It’s because that’s how every other hero and vigilante in the city sees you, man. And this is the kind of thing we’ve been afraid of happening ever since you started making these forays out at night several months ago.”

“Oh. Uh….”

“No need to thank me or apologize—after all, you gave yourself the name Amateur Knight, so you know you have rough edges, and you’ve clearly been hoping for a mentor. I’ve just mentored you. I’ve brought clarity and understanding to your world,” Query said as he sliced at the tangler strands with a Bowie knife to release the young man. “We do understand each other, right?”

Query couldn’t see the embarrassed flush beneath the mask, but the change in posture told him everything he needed to know, even if it took a bit of time for Amateur Knight to get the words out.

“You want me off the streets, don’t you?” he finally said.

“Amateur Knight,” Query said, “you have at least one thing going for you that my little creation Swashbuckler Hound doesn’t, and that’s actual transhuman powers. But yeah, I need you off the street.”

“I just wanted…”

“Shhhhh,” Query said. “No more words. I want you off the street. I don’t think even this lesson will be able to keep you off them, though, so I’m going to have to insist you be patient while I find someone with enough patience themselves to train you. I don’t want a ‘thank you’ and I don’t want you getting your hopes up. I just want you out of that costume and out of everyone’s hair until you hear otherwise from me.”

“Do I really look as stupid as that guy did?” Amateur Knight whined, looking toward the dog-costumed man, who was pulling off the fake mustache and goatee now.

Query looked from one to the other and back again.

“No, ‘Knight, you don’t look that stupid,” Query answered. “But in comparison, you look as stupid to us experienced folks in the field as he did to you.”

“Yeah, I’ll wait to hear back from you I think,” Amateur Knight said.

* * *

“So, we cool?” Wallace asked Query as he struggled out of the stifling costume.

“We’re a long way from cool,” Query answered, “but I appreciate you cooperation and you have a clean slate with me now. Don’t squander it.”

“I get to keep my New Judah privileges?”

“Yes, Wallace, you get to stay in the city,” Query said. “This isn’t a movie, after all.”

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.
____________________________________________

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.

That Which We Hate

Dirt, he decided, tasted decidedly foul.

All the more so mixed with his own blood.

However, the taste of soil and blood in his mouth—a few stray dry pieces of grass sticking to the bloody split at the corner of his mouth—as least gave him clarity. That was a welcome thing if he was going to get out of this mess. Because when the fist had connected with his face and his face with the ground, he had felt certain he’d be out cold.

“Get up, nigger!” the older teen shouted. He was a senior, and Hugo struggled to remember his name. He wasn’t sure he’d known it all that well even before his brain had gotten rattled.

Jim…Joe…Jack…Josh!

Josh was the name. He played varsity football. But why the fuck did Josh just blindside him? Hugo struggled upward, arms shakily getting him into a push-up-like position, then onto one knee in a crouch.

“I said ‘get up’ you fucking nigger!”

Hugo spat out blood, but was relieved that no teeth followed. “I’m not a nigger,” he blurted. The statement made his gut twist coldly and he felt like a coward. His skin was brown, and he lived in Pouco Brasil—New Judah’s “Little Brazil” neighborhood. That had been the home of his family since his grandfather, after whom he’d been named, emigrated here. A light-skinned Brazilian who married a dark-skinned one and started a life in the United States at the age of 21. An act Hugo’s own father had repeated when he put bachelorhood behind him—marrying an even darker-skinned woman at 23. Almost paradoxically, Pouco Brasil was both a microcosm and a mirror image of Brazil. Like the homeland, Portuguese was the local tongue and skin colors ranged from pink to dark brown. Unlike Brazil, though, the rampant racism toward darker Brazilians was nowhere to be seen—though often the paler denizens of Pouco Brasil transferred that racism onto blacks of African-American rather than Brazilian-American heritage.

Just like I just did, Hugo thought. What a little shit I am. A coward.

“You look plenty black to me, shithead. Get up! Take your fucking medicine!”

“Medicine for what?” Hugo cried out as he stumbled to his feet and shakily took three steps back from his attacker.

A thin blonde girl—a junior named Stacy, came into view. “Leave him alone, Josh. Jesus! There’s nothing going on between us. I’ve barely said 10 words to Hank all semester.”

Hank. She called me Hank, Hugo realized.

“Josh,” Hugo warbled, “the only people who call me Hank are most of the fucking school. And most of the fucking school doesn’t give a shit about me or just doesn’t like me. That’s why I tell them to call me Hank. If your girlfriend liked me and we were doing anything, she’d call me by my birth name: Hugo.”

“Fucking spic nigger, right?” Josh shouted. “Fucking Little Brazil bastard bussed in here. I saw you giving my girl the eye today. I’m gonna fuck you up!”

Josh advanced on Hugo and Hugo backed up more. He wasn’t a fighter under normal circumstances, and he was totally outmatched by a football player, even one who was a receiver or kicker or backup quarterback or whatever the hell Josh was.

Thank God he isn’t a lineman or I probably would be missing teeth.

“I was probably giving the eye to some hot Latina behind her,” Hugo retorted.

“Oh, so now you’re saying my girl isn’t worth looking at compared to some wetback slut?”

Josh advanced faster and Hugo retreated in the same way.

Hugo’s head was spinning, and suddenly the world around him started not to make sense.

No! Not now!

It was something that had been happening a lot over the past few weeks and he’d been afraid to say anything to his dad for fear he’d end up getting looked over by doctors. And he hated doctors, and more so hospitals. His mother had died in one when he was five and the memory of visiting her hours before her death had never left his memories. Nor the memory of visiting his grandfather—who’d driven the both of them off the road while drunk—two days before that and having him die a day later.

Hugo tried to focus, and found the world slipping even farther away from comprehension.

No.

Not the world; the people, he realized, and stopped trying to escape Josh as he realized there was a kind of halo around the older teen’s head. A bubble, maybe? Stacy had one, too. It was like a color but it also seemed like a sound and somehow, Hugo felt like he could even touch it from afar. How can something that shouldn’t even exist be something I can see and hear and touch?

Panicked and not sure what to do, Hugo touched the halo of Josh’s head with his eyes. Or his mind. Or…something. The sensation was both nauseating and exhilarating, and Hugo was almost more curious what would happen than he was afraid of being pummeled.

Josh stopped, and looked confused. And then that confusion became something else. Worry? Hugo wondered.

Then it became something so much worse.

Rage.

Before Hugo could react, Josh was punching him in the belly. The ribs. Over and over. And finally, a blow right to the side of his head that made Hugo’s left ear peal like a church bell. And as the ringing screech reached its crescendo, Hugo hit the ground again.

This time, though, he was unconscious and didn’t taste the dirt or the blood.

* * *

Hugo smiled when Andrea walked into the room. He winced as that made the scab of his injured mouth break open, but he didn’t stop smiling.

A small and rare burst of happiness, even if he was in the place he hated most: A hospital. His father hadn’t even been to visit him yet—apparently, there was something going on at work that he couldn’t get away from.

Or maybe he hates hospitals more than I do and for the same reason, Hugo thought, and that made him feel even more alone. Not to mention more grateful for Andrea.

“Hey, Hugo,” she said, and punched his bicep firmly. “By the way, the doctors told me you didn’t get hurt there, just in case you think I’m heartless. What have I told you about playing rough? What did you do to Josh, anyway?”

“Nothing. He thought I had the hots for his girlfriend.”

“No, Hugo. What did you do? There’s all kinds of talk running around the school since you got admitted here yesterday. They haven’t even suspended Josh because there’s talk you provoked him and he was acting in self-defense.”

“What the hell are you talking about, Andrea?”

“Well, Josh is telling the school you tried to make some unwanted advances on his girlfriend and then you sucker-punched him after school saying you were going to get rid of your competition. But to his close friends, he’s telling some weird stories. Only to a few people, because it’s so weird, but I’ve heard some things because I’ve got my ways, you know. To them he’s saying you messed with his mind.”

“I didn’t…I mean…” Hugo paused. “After he started in on me, when I was trying to get away from him, I started seeing something weird and I guess…I dunno…I think maybe it was something psychic. I’ve been feeling weird lately. Could I be a transhuman?”

“I don’t know, dude, but Josh says you changed.”

“Huh?”

“He told his buddies that suddenly, it wasn’t you there. It was a police officer that looked a lot like you and he says you must have had him seeing things because you hit him with a ‘psychic blast’ that stunned him and that’s the only reason he hit you. That’s his story to his friends, anyway. I think he hit you first. But it’s all bullshit, though.”

“What do you mean…bullshit? How? Maybe I did blast him…”

“Hugo, I don’t know exactly what the fuck Psi crap you did to him, but it wasn’t a ‘blast.’ He’s a terrible liar and only his friends would believe him. I think he did see a cop where you were. Josh hates cops. His stepfather is a cop and beats him silly sometimes. There’s no one he hates more than that guy except his mom for marrying the bastard to begin with. Plus, Josh has gotten picked up by the cops at least three times for drug possession or being drunk in public. If his dad wasn’t a cop, he’d have been in jail a few times already.”

“Great,” Hugo said. “I have a transhuman power that makes me look like a cop? That has to be the lamest shit around.”

Andrea smiled.

She was Hugo’s best friend in high school and had been since fifth grade. Maybe his only real friend in any school. A fellow sophomore and a fellow outsider, though people liked her more than him—he was more than an outsider; more like an outcast. But she was his friend and he kept her close. Maybe because when she smiled, like she was doing right now, the whole world lit up. If he wasn’t so happy being her buddy, he’d probably have been dating her by now.

Or if I wasn’t so chickenshit.

“What?” Hugo asked. “Why are you smiling?”

“I doubt you’d have a power that specific, dumb-ass. But I think it’s cool you might have one at all. And when they’re sure your skull is OK and they clear you to get out of here, we’re gonna find out just what it is you do. I think I already have a good idea. But you’re probably almost right; it’s probably even more useless than making yourself look like a cop.”

* * *

In one of the more heavily forested edges of Whitley Park, Hugo stood 10 feet away from Andrea. She smiled again—that enchanting smile that kept her on the periphery of so many cliques in high school and not as much the loner as he was. There was also nervousness in that smile. But expectation as well. And, Hugo thought, a hope for something amazing.

“What are we doing here, again?” he asked. “And why am I standing so far from you?”

“Here’s what I think,” Andrea said. “I think you’re a Psi and I think you can make people see you as the things they hate most.”

“Okaaaay. And so…why again are we here? And why am I all the way over here?”

“I want you to try it on me.”

“Why?”

“Science. Curiosity. Morbid curiosity, maybe.”

“I don’t want you to hate me, Andrea. You’re the best friend I have.”

“Oh, don’t be stupid. Josh doesn’t hate you any more than he did before—well, maybe a little more, since Stacy broke up with him. Not that I expect that to last. I just want you far enough away so that if I go trying to assault you, you can stop what you’re doing or at least run away until whatever you do wears off. Not like I want to beat you up any more than you already are.”

“I dunno…”

“C’mon! If you’re transhuman, let’s find out. You should probably learn to use what you have so that you don’t get into trouble if it kicks in again. Learn how to control it and shut it off and stuff.”

Hugo wasn’t even sure he could do what he’d done again. And if he could, the thought of Andrea hating him, for even a little while…

“Hugo! Earth to Hugo! Seriously, you need to work on this. And there’s no one else who’s likely to volunteer to be the guinea pig. Do it!”

For a moment, Hugo heard the “Do it!” in Josh’s voice instead of Andrea’s and remembered the senior telling him to “Get up!” He thought of the things Josh had called him. For a moment, he felt a flash of anger toward Andrea, and it made him sick.

And then the halo appeared—the bubble around her head that was tangible to him and calling to him. No, not calling; singing. And there were colors there, or something like colors, because he had no name for some of them—nor for the almost-scent of them that tickled not his nose but something deeper in his mind.

“C’mon!” she urged impatiently.

Hugo touched her there. At the edge of that aura. His mind to hers.

He saw a similar play of emotions on the sophomore’s face as Josh had expressed, and Andrea snarled. Stepped forward. Stopped. Almost lunged at him. There was something wild in her eyes.

Hugo panicked, and tried to disengage from her mind. For a moment, it seemed like he couldn’t. Her halo seemed sticky. It seemed to want to pull him in. But with something like the feeling of a wet, growling rubber band, he was out again.

Andrea’s face was confused. She swayed a bit and he thought she might fall. She blinked. Closed her eyes. Opened them again to look at him. And sighed. Her smile was nervous at first. Then elated. The world lit up as it always did when she smiled.

“Fuck, Hugo! For a moment there, you looked like a person made of damn snakes. All kinds of snakes. Slithering and hissing.”

Hugo didn’t know what to say.

“I hate snakes, Hugo! Godammit, I was right.”

* * *

Hugo’s face still hurt. And his ribs. And his kidney. But his father’s words hurt more.

“Don’t do that again, Hugo,” Eduardo said. “Don’t pick fights, especially fights you can’t win.”

“I didn’t Dad!”

Eduardo waved away his son’s word with a double-flick of his wrist. “Don’t! There aren’t going to be any charges. Your word against his, and that girlfriend of his is the only witness. She doesn’t want to say anything about either one of you. Don’t fuck with another boy’s girl, boy.”

“Dad, I’m telling you…”

“Enough. Son, it’s just you and me, at least for the next couple years, and then you’ll be off,” Eduardo said, a strange hitch in his voice that Hugo couldn’t place. “No one left but you and me,” he added, and Hugo could see the memory of his late wife Monique in the man’s eyes. The memory of Hugo De La Silva. Hugo remembered how it was only weeks after both of them were buried that he’d changed their name to simply Silva, as if to wash away the memory of his own father. Almost as if he knew what his son was thinking, Eduardo put on a pair of sunglasses and mumbled something about going out for a little while. “Just stay out of trouble. Now go. I love you, Son.”

As Hugo headed for his room, he wondered—as he had so many times before—why his father’s voice seemed pained when he said those three words that most boys all wished their father would say—even if they wouldn’t admit it.

* * *

“Why are we here?” Andrea said in Whitley Park, almost exactly where they’d met before two weeks earlier.

Hugo laughed.

“OK, déjà vu,” Andrea admitted with a grin. “We’ve switched roles. Seriously, though, why are we here again?”

“Because something’s been nagging at me, Andrea. There was something more.”

“What?” she said, and now she was intrigued instead of wary.

“When I did that…thing…before…I felt something. Something pulling at me. Like there was another level. But I didn’t touch it.”

“What do you think it is?”

“I don’t know, but maybe there’s more to my power. Maybe I can do something more useful than encouraging people to attack me,” he said with a chuckle. “I figure I don’t need to have a way to make people dislike me more. What do you say? Be my guinea pig again?”

She didn’t hesitate. “Oh why not? Hit me, baby!” she said, and rolled her shoulders back a few times to relax, then clasped her hands in front of her. “Ready when you are.”

Hugo reached toward her again—the aura was easy to pull up now. He’d been able to master the art of perceiving it in anyone at will now without being under duress. He’d also been able to toss away his glasses, though he wore them around his dad. Everyone else he’d let think he was wearing contacts now. He was pretty sure his vision was better than perfect now, but that power—a Sensor power, he guessed—wasn’t foremost on his mind.

As he pressed forward into her psyche, he saw Andrea tense and become angry. Then he let the pull he’d felt before draw him to the next level. No, the next layer. He sensed nothing beyond it, and simply felt that new part of her mind. Stroked it and pushed. Activated it as he had activated hatred before, and hoped it wouldn’t simply make her more angry.

Her demeanor changed almost immediately.

She looked terrified.

But she didn’t run. Unlike the hatred which had spurred her to almost pounce, this terror seemed to root her in place. He wondered what she saw now. Probably still snakes. That’s what he figured. But they didn’t evoke the same feeling in her now. Fear instead of anger.

He didn’t release the connection. It felt comfortable, and since she wasn’t going anywhere and she wasn’t attacking, he figured he could talk to her a bit and then end this.

“I wasn’t sure…I thought it might be…” he started. “I remembered a teacher saying something about how we hate what we fear. Or fear what we hate. Or something like that. From some Shakespeare play or something. Because most people deep down fear something, and that’s why they hate it. Like Josh and cops. And calling me a nigger. He was really just afraid, but I had to push deeper to get that going. You don’t really hate snakes; you’re afraid of them, and we both should have realized that.”

Andrea’s eyes were wild now, and Hugo felt a pang of remorse. He had to break this off now. Why hadn’t he just done it already and told her his thoughts afterwards?

Because this feels good.

That’s what it was. Good. Really  good. Sexual? No, not that. He was inside the walls of her mind and doing this made him feel right. No, that wasn’t it, either.

Complete.

For the first time since he’d been a little boy who still had a whole family, he felt real again. He felt whole.

Andrea was shaking. She was…

Oh God, is she having a seizure?

Hugo pulled out of her mind, and rushed to her as she fell to the ground in the throes of violent spasms. Her mind probably filled with the horrifying, terrifying image of him as a mass of snakes that wouldn’t leave her alone. Filling her with hopeless fear.

Hugo ran.

She needed help. He couldn’t carry her. He needed to find a phone.

Then he ran back to her.

I’m an idiot. She has a cell phone in her purse. I don’t, but she does.

Hugo called for help. And prayed. And waited as he held her shaking body in his arms and hated himself.

* * *

“What the hell did you do to her?” his father shouted.

“Nothing!” Hugo cried. It wasn’t true, he realized, but he hadn’t done any of the things that were running through his father’s mind right now. Of that he was certain.

“What were you doing in Whitley Park? What were you two doing? What did you do? Her parents are angry. They’re talking about the police, Hugo! Did you give her drugs? Did you try to rape…”

“No, Dad! I didn’t touch her. Except when I was trying to help her after the seizure. I swear!”

“Bullshit!” his father roared. Hugo rarely saw his father angry, and this was the first time in years he’d even shouted. Even now, though, the man was restrained despite the harshness of his words. Of all the things Hugo feared, being beaten by this man wasn’t one of them. His father had never raised a hand to him, not even to spank him. “Hugo, something happened. First that football player; now this! What’s going on? What are you into? What did you do?”

Hugo’s mind reeled. He already felt horrible for pushing too far with Andrea. If her parents thought he had done something, he knew the police wouldn’t find any evidence of anything. A rape kit would prove they hadn’t had sex. Her body was uninjured because he hadn’t attacked her. A toxicology report would show her clean; he knew she’d never done anything harder than pot, and even that rarely.

“Dad…I…I’m a transhuman. It just happened. It happened when Josh beat me up. I mean, it came out then; it’s been happening for a while, I think. Andrea was helping me figure out my powers. It just got out of hand.”

For a moment, his father simply stared. Then shook his head. “No. No no no. I won’t have you making tales. Tell me what really happened.”

“It’s true.”

Only one way to prove to him. Only one way to show…Andrea didn’t attack me right away. Dad doesn’t hit me or hardly even yell. I can show him and pull back before he loses control. I won’t push to that second layer…

Hugo reached out to his father’s mind and felt the connection. It seemed as if Eduardo’s eyes squinted and as if some emotion crossed his face. Hugo couldn’t be sure. But he knew he’d done it, and held the connection for a few seconds. He paused.

“What did you see, Dad?”

“What are you talking about, Hugo?”

“What did you see, just now, for just a brief flash? What did I look like?”

“You look like you, Hugo. What are you on about?”

“No. I changed. You saw something else. What did you see when you looked at me just a few seconds ago?” Hugo’s voice was pleading now. He didn’t understand.

“I saw you, Hugo. What the hell else do you think I would have seen?”

Hugo’s breath caught in his throat. For ten seconds, he couldn’t breathe as his father looked on, dumbfounded.

Oh, God. Oh, no.

It was clear suddenly. His father, made motherless when Hugo was just a baby and the boy’s grandmother had succumbed to cancer. Eduardo’s wife, Monique, taken from him when Hugo was only five. Dead because Hugo’s grandfather had been driving her home drunk off his ass. His father raising him since then, all alone. No other family. Everything lost to him. Raising a son with the same name as the man who’d killed his wife so carelessly.

I am the one thing my father most hates in this world.

Hugo probably could have poured his power into his father for hours and the man wouldn’t have struck him. He was that good at bottling his anger. Every single time he’d said he’d loved Hugo, it had been a lie. Hugo was a burden. The greatest pain in his father’s life. His father hated him, and probably didn’t even really know it.

He hates me. My father hates me. I’ve put my only friend into a coma and if she wakes up she’ll hate me, I know it. My father has hated me since I was five and it was just the two of us. I’ve never had anyone but Andrea and I’ve destroyed that now, too.

Hugo realized he was crying. He looked into his father’s nearly placid—if slightly confused—face and realized that the calm affect was just a mask. Behind it was hate.

Hugo turned and fled. Ran from the house. Down the street. Into the heart of the city.

* * *

There had been fear at first.

He couldn’t go back to school; not that he wanted to. He couldn’t go see Andrea; not that she’d want him to even if he could. He couldn’t go home to the lie of a loving father.

He was 15 and alone. Hated and hating himself.

Then, after a day or so, there had been comfort.

He was free.

Always a loner, lucky to have any casual friends at all and luckier still to have had a true friend in Andrea.

He’d managed to call the hospital under the pretense of a being a relative seeking to visit Andrea, just to find out what he could. She wasn’t in a coma anymore—that much he discerned. But she was in the psych ward now, and he wondered what trauma he had wrought. What damage was done to her mind and her emotions.

With no money and no place to stay, he’d become frantic. He’d targeted a guy he thought looked like a shithead anyway. Hugo made the man hate him and then made him afraid of him. As the stranger cowered in a corner of an alley, Hugo took the man’s wallet and ran.

The money carried him for several days, and he was even able to get a cheap room for a couple nights. In the Hollows—the poorest neighborhood and most violence-ridden one in New Judah, lots of hotels took cash and didn’t ask questions. And Hugo knew he had little to fear from those who lived in that place.

Now, more than three days after fleeing his home, he wasn’t sure how he’d ended up in front of the main branch of New Judah’s library downtown. Oh, he knew he’d taken the bus, but wasn’t sure what drew him here. And then he considered how English classes had been one of his few bright spots in high school. Reading and writing. Hugo knew he wasn’t especially book-smart, but he was pretty good at that stuff.

And now he was inside the library. In the reference section.

He was a transhuman. A transhuman with no more family and no friends. His father had worn a mask for 10 years in front of his own son—a mask that looked like his own face. Looking into the face of a son whom Eduardo had so often said had his mother’s eyes.

I can put on a mask, too. A real one. I only have one way to live now—off my powers. No other future. I can put on a mask; maybe a costume. I can survive. Alone. Like I’ve always been.

He was, he realized, the embodiment of hatred. That was his identity now. His self. His future.

But hatred wasn’t enough. The word was too weak. It didn’t express just how freakish and just how wrong Hugo was. It didn’t truly speak to who and what he was.

He pulled a thesaurus from one of the shelves. Flipped through it until he found the entry for hatred. Looked down the list of synonyms, and almost smiled. He found the word he needed.

The name he needed.

I am Odium.

The Gathering Storm, Part 30

[ – To view a list of all current chapters, click here – ]

Chewing thoughtfully on his cheeseburger, Carl realized he probably wasn’t doing it thoughtfully at all. He was considering the scent of machine oil and harsh cleanser in the room. He was blaming it for how his stomach now churned. And as his appetite quickly fled, he realized that all of that—far from being thoughtful—was just a delaying tactic.

There’s something I need to deal with—there are important thoughts tumbling around in my head, but they’re something my brain knows I don’t want to face, Carl considered. So why deal with them when I can sit here and leisurely gnaw on greasy hunks of food like a cow chewing cud?

Query looked up from the fuselage of the drone he was fiddling with, and regarded the lawyer through his mask. “Are we going to get to new business any time soon, Carl?” Query asked. “Usually you plow through your two burgers in no time flat—this second one’s taking you a while. Did Wendy’s use some rancid meat?”

“More like my employer using rancid-smelling and probably toxic substances that aren’t supposed to be used in enclosed spaces,” Carl said, finally setting the remains of the burger down on the table next to him.

Query put down his tools, turned in his chair, and pushed the recently installed bulletproof window behind him up about halfway. “There’s no good angle to get a bullet through that particular window anyway unless you’re in a cherry picker, so as long as no one is waiting to lob a grenade up in here, we should be good. Can we get on with things so I can get back to this without complaints from you?”

“Feel the love,” Carl teased wearily, and regarded the compact surveillance craft occupying all of Query’s desk and extending nearly a foot past each end of it. “What’s wrong with your drone there anyway?”

I’m stalling again, he realized, because I think the new business is what will put my mind where I don’t want it to be—it’s what’s going to trigger a talk I don’t want to have.

“New Judah PD shot at it and got lucky,” Query answered. “Nothing too serious, but a pain in my ass. Seems they don’t like my eyes in the sky. Guess they don’t like the competition for the three drones they have that are twice the size of mine, half the speed and not nearly as cool-looking.”

“Well, next time they should steal theirs from the military like you did instead of settling for first-generation models,” Carl shot back, looking at his half-eaten burger and sighing. “OK, new business, then. I’ve heard from inside Fortunato’s building, but only from one of our parties: Zoe. After a few days, Fortunato finally made a job offer, and she’s got a contract to send me for review.”

“Look it over with the finest-tooth comb you have and don’t let him screw her, Carl. At least not screw her over legally and contractually. I don’t care what other kind of screwing might happen.”

“I’ll keep her safe and solidly armored by flawless paperwork. Don’t worry about that. What you should probably worry about is yourself. Fortunato finally gets your attention and now leaves you hanging for three or four days? What’s he up to, you think? Why so coy now?”

Is this what’s bugging me? Carl thought. Fortunato’s plans? No, there’s no sense of dread. What am I avoiding?

Query paused in adjusting the wing articulation controls in the drone and looked up again. “Partly he wants to make me sweat, because he’s delusional enough to think he can. Mostly he’s busy trying to figure out how to get Zoe in his camp—”

“Loc-Down,” Carl interrupted.

“Hmmm?”

“Just occurred to me you might want to know. Zoe’s codename’s apparently going to be Loc-Down.”

“Cute,” Query said. “She’s got a whole head full of locs that can punch through metal plates and tear you to ribbons when she morphs. As good as any name. Anyway, he’s busy with her,” the black-clad hero continued, “because he knows I’ll sit tight. Zoe’s slippery and he doesn’t want to let her get away. Certainly not until he puts her to work with the plans he’s hatching.”

“Which are?”

“I don’t know,” Query admitted. “I’ve got wonderful intuitive powers, Carl, but I’m not an oracle. Most likely it has something to do with his cousin that took a dive out a window. I think Fortunato wants revenge.”

“On who? Did the guy’s pharmacist give him the wrong anti-depressants?”

“No, Crazy Jane gave his cousin all the right incentives to make the leap to the great beyond,” Query responded.

“How do you figure that? Did one of your birdies see her watching his swan-dive?” Carl asked, nodding to the owl-head-shaped cowling on the desktop that Query had removed from the nose of the drone some 10 minutes earlier.

“Nah. I got hold of some video that shows her making regular visits to the guy. The images were sent to Fortunato privately so he’d know who was responsible. I knew she could unnerve people psychically as well as transmit electrical shocks, but always wondered if she had more powers, given how unstable she is. Guessing this was either some mind control in action or, more likely, she can make people lose their fucking minds. That’s in line with her name, so it seems most likely. Nasty power.”

“I thought she was being held in the Givens facility under high security.”

“You must have been hung over or out of town a few months back, Carl. She was busted out of Givens. Bloody damn job, too. A dozen dead staff or thereabouts—and they took one of the doctors there with them—hard-ass, DA-hired headshrinker named Marcus Blood. No one knows if he was an accomplice or a hostage. Still haven’t found him. Big news. Janus busted her out personally—well, with some of his lackeys with him. Those three scary killer women he’s got and a couple norm human troopers.”

“So, Crazy Jane got busted out, maybe just to do this job against Fortunato’s cousin, which means Janus is behind it all, and he isn’t just going after you but Fortunato, too. Fortunato wants your help with getting back at him.”

“Probably,” Query acknowledged. “But I can’t say for sure yet. It feels like Fortunato has something else brewing. I think he may be trying to form some kind of team, but I can’t tell if it’s just a revenge kick or some kind of vanity project with longer-term goals. I need more data. Which is part of the reason I’m even going to lend him an ear when he finally calls you up to meet with me. As far as I’m concerned, the biggest single threat to New Judah after Janus is Fortunato right now. Man has a God complex and even if he thinks he’s doing good, he’ll probably leave a whole lot of damage in his wake—eventually, his ego and greed always get in the way.”

And there it is, Carl thought, and with a sickening mental lurch, he realized he was finally in the territory he had been avoiding all along. No stopping now…

“With all due respect, Query—”

“In other words, ‘let me point something out something potentially insulting to you’.” Query said, cutting him off.

“Anyway,” Carl sighed. “No offense—”

“Same thing,” Query teased him.

“Jesus! OK, Query, what I’m trying to say is, you’re right that Fortunato has an ego bigger than the city itself, but you’re not in a position to judge somebody else’s God complex. You have a squadron of high-tech, programmable, auto-pilot mini-drones flying around the city, you’ve got a network of informants, you regularly hack into all kind of surveillance systems and all that, and you share hardly a speck of your intel with the police. You know the identities and even the damn home addresses of several costumed whackjobs and you mostly keep that to yourself. You don’t go after them yourself very often, you don’t send other white hats after them very often and you almost never share with New Judah’s finest men and women in blue. Why?”

For several moments, Query said nothing. Carl’s guts clenched, but he didn’t sense anger from the man. Bewilderment, maybe, but not anger. As the sharp cramp in his belly eased, Carl could almost imagine the hero’s eyes blinking behind the mask like a startled cartoon character. The mental image calmed him a little.

“First off, Carl, my personality gives me plenty of right to judge Fortunato,” Query retorted mildly. “If I’ve got a God complex, and I don’t—but anyway, if I have a similarly large ego and level of presumption as Fortunato—then I’ll judge him all day long. Takes one to know one, and I have enough distance from his issues to know when he’s too close to them to think straight. Honestly—and this pains me to admit—the same could probably be said of him sorting out my issues if he knew enough about me to know what I was up to.”

“So why don’t you?”

“What? Share my entire wealth of data with everyone who’s going after the bad guys, you mean?” Query asked.

“Yeah. Because you should be.” Carl’s tone was flat, but still, the sense of accusation transmitted clearly.

“Partly because I’m not God, Carl. I can’t fix everything, and I shouldn’t try to. I also don’t want people knowing just how much I know, because then they’ll start wondering if I’m more a danger than an asset to the city or, if they’re the bad guys, they’ll realize I’m even more a threat to their operations than they know already. I don’t need to be dodging hit squads like the one Janus sent on a regular basis. That shit’s tiring, and I’m getting too old for that.”

Carl said nothing. But the accusation remained.

“But in the end, it’s really about balance,” Query said.

“You think the crooks deserve to have some kind of balance?” Carl spat out. “That’s crazy. A level playing field for them?”

“Oh, hell no,” Query sneered. “It’s not about making things fair for the black hats; it’s about not adding to their numbers, man.”

“Huh?”

“Look, transhumans aren’t crazy per se, Carl, but we’re wired differently. We have issues in our heads—an awful lot of us, anyway. And some of us more than others. Let’s say I handed out my data like candy at Halloween and we cleared out most of the costumed bad guys in the city. What would happen?”

“I guess folks would come in to the city to fill the voids. That what you mean?”

“Worse, Carl. Some of the heroes and vigilantes in the city might fill those voids, too. Without suitable challenges…that is, without enemies that are like them—peers in power, if you will—I suspect some of the white hats who mostly like kicking ass or getting attention might gravitate toward the dark side. Jedi/Sith-style like in Star Wars. A lot of those heroes need an outlet—fighting folks who are like them. Without that, seizing power and misusing their power might start to taste good to them.”

“But some of these black hats are way more of a risk than the average crook, and you let a lot of them continue to run free when you could shut them down. Doesn’t that—”

“Make me feel conflicted? Make me feel like shit sometimes knowing if I’ve misjudged that someone I thought was no big deal might kill a whole bus full of children or a convent full of nuns? Yeah, Carl. My job sucks. But the fact is, no matter how big my ego, I’ve got enough perspective and humility to know that sometimes I need to let nature run its course. I need to remind myself that no one—not even me—can make crime ever go away. We all have our roles to play, Carl. A lot of times, mine is to sit back and keep my nose out of other people’s business—even when I can smell things are going to go sour.”

* * *

Although her work as an assistant district attorney took her to the main building of the New Judah Police Department on a fairly regular basis, Andrea realized this would be her first time going above the fourth floor since she had started the job two months ago. Truth be told, though, that little bit of trivia was only a minor note in her mind right up until the elevator doors opened.

Then she gasped.

The man standing in front of her in a crisp suit-and-tie ensemble might have thought she was gasping at the sight of him, she considered many hours later—he was tall and handsome enough—but what had taken her breath away was the crisp, clean, high-tech appearance of the mostly open-plan landscape of the sixth floor. The rest of the eight-story main precinct building and the other, smaller precinct buildings she’d visited weren’t that much different than what she’d seen in the city of Cleveland’s Division of Police—the offices were neither startlingly decrepit nor were they models of modernity.

But this floor looks like it belongs on the set of some science fiction show, she thought.

“ADA Yates; good to meet you,” the lieutenant said, extending his hand. She took it and gave him a light, quick shake as she exited the elevator car. “Can I get you a coffee?”

“Sure. Black. Do you have a machine that teleports them straight to you, Lt. Greene?” she joked.

He chuckled, low and slow, as he stepped around into a small reception desk and grabbed a cup, pouring from a pot just underneath the counter. “Well, a lot of the officers around here do call this floor ‘The Enterprise,’ but no. Old-fashioned brewing and pouring,” he said, smiling and handing her the paper cup as the steam from it spiraled up in the air between them. “C’mon, let me give you the grand tour. So, I know this is your first time here, or I wouldn’t be your tour guide, but I wanna make sure I show you the right things. I hear that you wanna handle a lot of transhuman cases?”

“Yeah. Is that weird or something?”

“Not at all, Ms. Yates. You see,” he said in an almost boyishly excited voice as he extended one arm in an arc to show off one half of the floor like a gameshow prize, “a lot of this floor is forensics. State-of-the-art lab computers and stuff—the actual labs and clean rooms are a floor above us. Lots of great equipment in there, but that floor looks pretty much like standard police issue architecture. Fortunato actually paid for a lot of this floor as a goodwill gesture to the city. But this—this is what you’re really gonna wanna see.”

He pointed toward the other side of the floor, and led the way to a door marked “SO/GT Div.” Opening it, he waved her in and followed right behind her. It was one of the few parts of the floor that wasn’t open and airy, and there were no windows to let anyone see into this section from the rest of the floor or see out onto the main part of the floor.

“Why do I feel like I’ve been ushered into a secret lair?”

“In a way, you have. This part of the department doesn’t get talked about a lot. I wouldn’t say it’s secret, but it’s probably best if you kind of behave like it is. We talk about it too much, and it may not work as well for us as it does.”

“As what does?” Andrea probed.

“Well, remember how Detective Sergeant Lindemann kind of read you the riot act a few weeks ago about not pushing the department to arrest transhumans on weak evidence?”

“Good God. Is he telling that story all around the department or something? Am I going to be like the village idiot around here?”

“Oh, hell, nothing like that. He’s discreet as hell. But I asked anyone in the department who feels like they have any sense of you or any major interactions with you to come and talk to me before our appointment today.”

“Why, Lieutenant?”

“So I know what your level of knowledge is and what I need to teach you about what we do here. What did Joe tell you was one of the biggest problems about arresting transhumans?”

Andrea sighed and didn’t bother to try to mask the exasperation in her voice. “Making a positive ID and linking them to a crime, since they typically wear masks and gloves—hell, whole costumes that make it less likely they’ll even drop hair as evidence. Plus some of them use body doubles as misdirection.”

“Bingo!” the detective said eagerly. “Even if you get good video, making an ID is hard, because unless the mask is pretty form-fitting, you might not even be able to use facial recognition software to match a suspect to the perp you caught on tape. And that’s why we have the SoundOff Program. That’s the ‘SO’ part of what was on the door back there. We have high-quality recordings of the voices of a lot of transhumans—criminals, vigilantes, heroes, whatever—and we can use those to match a suspect with their voice on file to help make the identification stick when we charge ‘em and you try to convict ‘em.”

With a rush of awareness, Andrea realized what felt strange about this area. Much of it struck her like it was a sound recording studio or radio station.

“But you’d only have them recorded if you’d captured them before, right?”

“Oh, no. We estimate we have voiceprints—good, thorough ones—on probably a third of the trans crooks in town, regardless of whether they’ve ever been caught or even questioned,  and average to middling quality on another third.”

“How?”

“They call us.”

“No, seriously.”

“Dead serious, ADA Yates. Dead serious. Transhumans who put on costumes tend to be the ones most touched in the head. They’re the ones who often want the attention, or why would they put on costumes and give themselves these crazy names? They love to call and taunt us right before or after a crime. Or just to try to strike fear into our hearts when they first enter the scene. Or to complain to us when the press is mischaracterizing them or we’re supposedly slandering them. And of course the heroes and vigilantes call in to let us know there are bad guys to pick up—so we’ve got them recorded and stored, too.

“Attention,” Lt. Greene continued. “The biggest mental block most any costumed transhuman has is a desire—on some level—for attention or validation. So we sometimes know the villain’s name before anyone’s even seen the creep in action in costume, and we have a voice to match to it—all because he called to introduce himself—or herself. We’ve even been able to nab a few who changed their costume and name later thinking it would help them avoid capture, and charged them with the crimes committed under their previous identity.”

“How long have you been doing this?”

“We’ve had this division and this equipment—or earlier generations of it—for a decade, give or take. There are similar centers like this in Manhattan, D.C., Chicago, L.A., Dallas, Philly and Gryphon. Marksburgh flat-out refuses to adopt the technology, even though God knows they need it more than anyone else.”

“And they still call you? No one’s caught on? Surely you have to reveal to the defense and the judge that you have a recording and how it was obtained.”

“Yup.”

“Then why don’t the newer transhuman villains stop calling you and giving you evidence to help identify them?”

“Same reason people see shows on TV like CSI or Law & Order or some cheesy Lifetime woman-gets-murdered-by-crazy-husband movie and know the police have special sprays and lights that can show bloodstains that aren’t visible to the naked eye and yet still clean up all the blood and think they’re free and clear. Or rape a woman without wearing a condom. Or don’t wear gloves even though fingerprinting technology’s been around forever. They’re either dumb, overconfident or want too badly for us to realize how amazing they are. And it’s not like we go trumpeting the fact we have all these technologies—that’s why I say behave like it’s a secret, even though it really isn’t.

“But in the end, who knows?” the lieutenant continued, “Ego? Stupidity? Both? I dunno. Maybe just ignorance in some cases. Doesn’t matter, though. In the end, we have these trans guys and gals on file—and non-transhuman folks who crave attention, too, like serial killers or activist extremists. And that’s where we get into the ‘GT’ part of this division’s name. The GeneTrapper Program. Genetic material when we can get it from a crime a trans villain is known to have been at, cross-referenced with the voiceprint and with the gene records and voiceprints of known associates and enemies. And other stuff, too. But showing’s better that saying, and I’ve got some people for you to meet. C’mon, Yates—let’s show you what you’ve got to work with when you go after these costumed nutjobs.”

Barely even looking at him—her head swimming with the realization of just what kind of people she was about to start making the focus of her work and the strangeness of them—she followed in his wake.

I guess we’re not in Cleveland anymore, are we, Toto? Andrea mused as her guide continued to regale her with tales of technology and transhumans as he led her farther down the long hall. Or maybe I’m picking the wrong fantasy analogy. Maybe I just fell down the rabbit hole like Alice did.

* * *

Pushing a comic book just slightly to cover an errant view of the dull, pitted hardwood of his apartment’s floor, the man leaned back. He admired the wall-to-wall “carpeting” of his small, dingy place in the part of the city known as The Hollows—the sea of comics. This tiny place was more than he deserved, really. Crazy Jane had told him that so many times, even as she stroked his hair and called him her good little puppy. Or her bad little puppy.

In the end, both terms were usually used for the same behavior.

He didn’t deserve this little hovel furnished with nothing but two wooden chairs, a small table, and hundreds of comic books to cover the floors. He didn’t deserve Jane. But in the end, he’d played that small part in her escape because she was his world by then. He needed her. Craved her attention. Even now, he shook with stress over the fact she hadn’t been to see him since two mornings ago, and rubbed his hands nervously across his black-hooded face.

Usually, she’d visit him daily—sometimes a few times in a day—to monitor his progress. To see how he was developing.

Her art project. Her pet project.

Her pet.

And her toy.

Oh, never to play with sexually—such a thought repulsed him. Not because he didn’t desire her. He did. Oh so much. But it would repulse her he was certain. And it would anger Janus, which might cause him to be permanently removed from Crazy Jane’s attentions. He couldn’t disappoint her like that. So he would never overstep that line.

Besides, he could slake his desires on other men and women just like Crazy Jane had taught him. Just as she had molded him to do. Because she’d imprisoned the sanity that had always held him back from glory. She’d freed his mind to the wonder of what others called madness.

But it was really just truth. Problem was, most of society couldn’t handle the truth.

He admired the colorful, paper carpeting of his abode. Comics with Doctor Doom on the cover. Or Doctor Fate. Or Doctor Strange. Doctor Octopus. Doctor Light. Doctor Silvanus. And so many others.

He’d need to get a tarp today. And then a victim. Mustn’t disappoint Crazy Jane, who’d expect him to have some kind of project to show her when she arrived tomorrow. That’s why she was making him wait, probably—he’d been slack in giving her new pieces to admire. It had been a couple weeks now. He needed to find someone new to—modify.

But first, the tarp.

It wouldn’t do to bloody all these famous comic book “doctors.”

Even if his own name was Marcus Blood, M.D.

Dr. Blood.

* * *

Janus looked out through the broad window of the conference room in which he and Underworld were ensconced. Toward the figure sitting outside on a small sofa. Long-legged and busty with silver-streaked dark hair pulled into a pair of pigtails. Black, sleeveless top and plaid miniskirt. Fishnet stockings with a big pair of lacy white garters at the swell of the thighs, matching the four smaller garters on the arms, over black opera gloves. High-heeled red pumps with their own lacy garters. Face shining with pale powder and highlighted with a black circle at each cheek and equally black lips. And to top it all off, contact lenses that made the eyes look red as burning embers.

“I cannot believe you convinced me to let that on my team,” he sighed.

“Our team,” Underworld corrected him. “And you can’t deny the test results and reports. She’s everything I promised you she would be. Her powers are incredible, especially now that my team has honed them with vocal training and couple technological additions. She’s a goddamn work of transhuman art.”

“She? She has a dick. Cleverly secured back between his ass cheeks or not—a dick. That’s a man, and I wish he would act like one.”

“She already agreed to change her name from Shrill to the more intimidating Caterwaul—and go Goth for you so that she doesn’t look too frilly in a fight. And I have to admit, she does Goth so well. She’s made her concessions. I’m not going to make her dress in slacks and a button-down for you.”

“That is not a woman,” Janus insisted. “I cannot believe you are enabling this ridiculousness.”

“She feels like one, and I’m on her side,” Underworld said. “A chick with a dick, as she likes to say. Variety is the spice of life, Janus. I’ve even found a Regenerator who assures me he can get her body to start producing estrogen consistently. With that and a little cosmetic surgery help, she won’t need the padded bra anymore.”

“A fucking she-male on our team. Just what I wanted,” Janus sneered.

“She hates that term; so do I. You know, for someone who wears masks that express some kind of duality and has the name of a two-faced god, you’re awfully persnickety about sexual identity issues,” Underworld observed.

She also observed, silently, that there was a subtle difference to his mask today compared to others he had worn. The forward-facing central part of it struck her as angry and male. On each side were two other faces, one looking right and the other left. Both of them seemed feminine, with one smiling and the other’s mouth exhibiting a more neutral affect.

In a sense, he’s wearing three faces today instead of his usual pair, and it mixes masculine and feminine. A little outside his box and perhaps a sign of confusion. I do believe I’ve hit a nerve and found a new way to make Janus uncomfortable, Underworld considered. And that’s always a good thing for me.

“I’m a superpowered kingpin. I reserve the right to be a hypocrite. I just happen to believe that when it comes to gonads, you play the hand you’re dealt,” Janus said. “Or you go under the knife and change your hand to a whole new one. You don’t mix up two different decks.”

“She likes having a dick. It’s like her big, fat juicy clitoris,” Underworld taunted him in a syrupy sweet tone. “And for a pussy she has—”

“Oh, God, please shut up,” he groaned. “Will he go all the way in a fight if necessary? Does he have the killer instinct?”

“She’s sexy and pretty, not a pushover,” Underworld said. “She’ll perform. She will get the jobs done. She. C’mon…say it. Sheeeeeee.”

“It…has…a…dick,” Janus enunciated slowly. “He’s your responsibility, so just make sure he—”

“She.”

“If I start using ‘she’ and ‘her’ can you promise me we will never again discuss its sexual anatomy or who and what it sleeps with?” Janus said with quiet intensity.

“Oh, of course, my dear,” Underworld said with even more exaggerated sweetness. “That sounds just lovely.”

“Then I look forward to her proving herself. If she fails me by showing the slightest hesitation—if she crumbles at any crunch-time—I will not hesitate to crush every one of her protuberances before I kill her.”

“Fair enough, Janus,” Underworld said with a smug undertone. “You’ve gotta admit, though, she has a great ass and gorgeous legs.”

Janus sighed heavily. “In hindsight, I suppose I should have made you agree not to talk about any part of Caterwaul’s body.”

“Yeaaaaah,” she responded, slowly and softly.

“I think we’re done today,” said Janus. “Tell the others to come back in a couple days and we can finish sorting out the final roster and backup members. Hopefully, you’ll be over your gloating by then. I trust you can see your Goth-tart protégé out by yourself.”

“Of course, darling,” Underworld said as if addressing a small child, her glee at ruining his day a little taking some of the edge—a sliver at least—off her burning daily desire to murder him. “Wouldn’t want Caterwaul to get any of her transvestite cooties on youuuu, would weeee?”

“Go,” Janus snarled, then smiled brightly beneath the angry frown of his mask. “Please go before I forget how much I need to keep you around.”

The Gathering Storm, Part 29

[ – To view a list of all current chapters, click here – ]

It was an alien feeling for Solstice alone in the skeez lab. It wasn’t her first time in such an environment, but usually when she was in a place like this, it was to kick ass, leave soon thereafter and call the cops.

Instead, she was alone and surrounded by all the equipment, chemicals and other accoutrements of a drug lab. All arrayed around her as if they were her own. In a sense, they were now. She’d claimed this place and Query’s hired hands had removed the people who had been here previously. They’d picked this lab out precisely because it wasn’t affiliated with organized crime or any gangs in the area. Just a boutique operation that hadn’t been gobbled up yet partly because it wasn’t really squarely in the middle of anyone’s territory.

Her drug lab.

What a weird damn feeling. And I’ve been here a night and most of a day so it just feels weirder and weirder, Solstice mused. I know the slow tink-tink-tink of the dripping pipe over that metal plate on the floor. I know the squeak of that one ancient ceiling fan. My drug lab. Even though I have zero interest in or intention of slinging skeez.

On the other hand, being the owner and operator of this skeez lab was precisely what Marty the Hun was supposed to think of her. That was the fiction that Query had slipped into ears of a few select people on the street—that Solstice had gone rogue and went over the dark side. That perhaps her crime-fighting before had been nothing more than a sham for winnowing out the competition.

It would be an easy thing for Marty to envision; it would resonate with his black heart, Solstice thought. His bigoted, sexist self would expect just that kind of thing from her, especially being a Goth, Wiccan, Asian transhuman who’d humiliated him and gotten him arrested.

If only he knew I was bi, he’d really think me the scum of the earth, probably.

Creating the notion this was her lab was precisely why she’d been camping out here for more than 20 hours.

By now, Marty the Hun knew where she was and no doubt he still wanted blood. Except now he thought he was doing more than getting revenge. He’d also be taking out someone whose own drugs and money could be added to his own—if, of course, Query’s team hadn’t removed most of the finished drugs and taken the money, too.

I won’t begrudge him the money, even though under other circumstances I would have helped myself to plenty of it after a bust; I’ve certainly gotten major assistance from Query on this little operation, so if he has his own plans for the cash, so be it, she thought. Now we’ll see if his help and this crazy plan Isabella and I hatched gets me killed or if I get clear of Marty’s wrath for good.

The screen of the smart phone Query’s team had left behind for her lit up suddenly, revealing a floor plan of the building and two flashing red circles that indicated someone had slipped in through the front and the back almost simultaneously, tripping a couple of the sensors Query’s people had installed inside the building’s perimeter.

Marty won’t be in the front of the crowd, but he will almost certainly be here with his goons, Solstice reminded herself. He likes hands-on, and given what he’s heard on the streets and from whom, this wouldn’t smell like a trap. After all, he’s been thinking all this time since he got off that I’ve been running and hiding from him, when I didn’t even know he’d been hunting me until Query told me.

Marty the Hun would also be here, she realized, because the lab was too valuable a target to let his crew be running loose here without him.

The intruders didn’t expect her to know they were here, so she moved swiftly toward the rear of the building to keep that edge. Marty wasn’t the type to slip in through the back of anyplace, and she wanted to deal with him last of all. She spotted three men slinking in, wary and guns drawn. Her Attractor powers yanked the weapons from their hands and as they all gave out confused cries of irritation, she tossed a flashbang grenade into their midst and slipped back around the corner, closing her eyes and covering her ears as the grenade made the room a frenzy of light and noise.

She had been a little too close to the action, she realized, as her ears rang and she felt herself sway a bit as she rose to her feet—not even realizing she had dropped to her knees in the first place. She mostly regained her bearings in time to see the butt of a shotgun stock rushing toward her face, and clumsily blocked it with her left arm. Her arm vibrated and throbbed from the impact as she heard the man shout, “Got her for ya Marty!” and swung the shotgun in a tight, hard arc as he added, “Softenin’ her up.”

Oh, Marty wants me intact so he can do me himself—how romantic of him, she thought, and ducked under the attack, dropping to the floor. She lifted her legs, wrapped her ankles around one of the attacker’s thighs and poured an intense burst of thermal energy through them, then ran her ankles down toward his feet, burning his leg all the way down. His pants smoldered and the stench of burning flesh assaulted her nostrils. As he screamed in agony, she used her feet to pull him off balance, and relieved him of the shotgun. Taking a cue from his attack on her, she slammed the stock of the gun into his head half a dozen times in quick succession.

Another man came into view in front of her, bringing his pistol around. She lowered the temperature around him abruptly to startle him and slow him down just a hair, and aimed hastily at his legs with the shotgun. Her  aim was sloppy, but good enough to take out one of his kneecaps, and she hurried over to his prone body to take his gun before he could recover his wits.

“G’night, bitch-whore,” came Marty’s voice from behind just as she touched the pistol, and the shock and humiliation of him getting the drop on her was enough to throw her off. Instead of reacting, she froze for just a moment. Just a moment too long.

I’ll never swing around in time and he’s going to put a bullet into my head and oh fuck and…

Marty grunted, and then his towering body fell onto her, a heavy dead weight. There was stickiness between their bodies and Solstice wanted to retch with the knowledge it was her blood, or his, or both. That she was finished.

But why did he fall? she suddenly considered, and frantically shoved at his body to prepare for another attack. I didn’t hear a gunshot why would either of us be bleeding? She couldn’t dislodge Marty’s body from her own and she began to thrash, keening with fear and rage.

“Calm down,” said a firm and quiet voice, and Solstice saw Query above them, a large Bowie knife in one gloved hand. “Hold still and I’ll cut you free. I shot him with a rubber slug and then hit him with a tangler. You got caught up with the tangler threads.”

There were a few quick slashes, and Solstice rolled free of Marty.

“I took the liberty of trussing up the guys in the back,” Query said, grabbing Marty’s half-stunned body by one arm and dragging him to another room. “Kindly take care of the guy you roasted, please, and the one you shot, while I see to Marty.”

Solstice got the burn victim’s hands behind his back and cinched a plastic tie around his wrists, did the same for the hobbled thug, and then followed Query to the office where he’d dragged Marty.

“What brings you to the party?” she asked. “I thought this was my mess to clean up.”

“I came because I’m not half the asshole I let you think I was,” Query answered. “I don’t like dead peers, not even the young, headstrong, sometimes idiotic ones.”

“Goddamn you’re a charmer, Query. The girl heroes must be throwing themselves at you.”

“Only when we’re sparring or one of them confuses me with one of the bad guys,” Query said, then jabbed Marty in the ribcage. “Evenin’, Hun. How’s it hanging?”

“You’re both dead,” Marty the Hun slurred as he regained his senses. Then, with more gusto: “I’m gonna see you fucked up in every possible way I can think of; both of ya!”

Solstice slipped up close, and got in his face, almost nose-to-nose. “Gonna be hard to do from behind bars, Marty. Especially given how long you’ll be going away, seeing as how I’m going to leave you here for the police with lots of nice, strong evidence that makes it look like you run this place. Judges like to put skeez-cookers away for long, long time. They send lots of cops to skeez busts, Marty. Not a chance that you’ll only have your pet cops on the scene. You get to go down, down, down—for years before you see any shot at parole.”

“Don’t matter, because I hold grudges forever. Same to you, Query. And I got ways to touch people from prison.”

“You’re a pretty decent-sized fish, Marty, but not that big,” Query said. “There isn’t anyone who’s going to have anywhere near the tenacity in going after us on your behalf as you would, even if you can lay hold of money to pay them. And I’m not sure you’ll have much in the way of support from your friends on the outside when the child porn comes to light after your arrest. In fact, you won’t do too well with the guys on the inside when that gets around.”

“I’m not into kiddie porn any more than this is my lab!” Marty growled.

“You may believe in the motto ‘old enough to bleed, old enough to breed,’ Marty, but fucking 14- and 15-year-olds is plenty sick enough for me—it’s kid-fucking—and Query says that shit’s confirmed. Not to mention all those women you tortured and killed thinking they might have been me. So I don’t feel bad at all planting downloads with little kids on your computer—well, the computer that’s going to seem to be yours, especially when we finishing putting your fingerprints all over it. When you do get out someday, Marty—you know, if you don’t get killed behind bars first by a convict who thinks you might fuck his little kid when you’re released—you’ll want to be rethinking this whole concept of ‘If you want something right, do it yourself’ and stick to letting lackeys do the work.”

“Dead! That’s all I got to say to you, bitch.”

“Congratulations, Solstice,” Query said. “You have your first arch-enemy. You know, if he gets out of prison. As my own little gift to honor that occasion, here’s a little of the lab’s cash,” he added, tossing a bulging fanny pack to her. “Also, I’m going to let you take credit for all this. I wasn’t here. You’re the hero who took this place down solo.”

“Oh, fuck no,” Marty hissed. “You’re gonna boost her street rep like that? Oh, no. I’m not only gonna tell everyone I know that she needed your help, but I’m gonna tell them she didn’t take down a single guy tonight and you’re covering for her. Let’s see how long she lasts in the streets when people think she’s a pussy can’t protect herself.”

“You might want to rethink that, Marty,” Query said. “Not one of your guys out there had any wits about him to see me here. And everyone knows I leave dirty, street-level shit like busting drug labs to the younger and more impetuous generation of heroes. Start trying to convince people the big, bad Query was here, and they’ll be thinking you’re the pussy who not only got his ass handed to him by a girl but that he’s not even man enough to suck up that fact.”

“Gosh, Marty, that would go together real well with your new kiddie porn rep,” Solstice taunted. “You’ll be such a bigger hit with the other cons then.”

“Dead,” Marty repeated. “One way, one day. Dead.”

* * *

On her third day in Fortunato’s high-rise, Zoe found herself in what she considered an obnoxiously gargantuan office, finally meeting her benefactor.

“I hope your stay has been pleasant so far,” Fortunato almost purred.

“Can’t complain,” Zoe answered disinterestedly. “Query said if you took me in you’d treat me right. I appreciate that you’ve given me up to four months to stay. Not sure if I’ll put you out for that long, but it’s nice not to have two transhuman psychos breathing down my neck for a while.”

Bowing his head slightly in acknowledgement, Fortunato said, “You could stay longer. Room and board for as long as you like, free of charge.”

“Oh. Really? Sir, I’m not in the market to become a kept woman. Ain’t going for the mistress look, no thank you. No matter how rich you are.”

Chuckling and waving one hand dismissively, Fortunato reached into a humidor on his desk and extracted a cigar. “Do you mind if I partake?”

“Only if I get to flaunt the city’s no-smoking-in-the-workplace laws, too,” Zoe said.

“Fine with me. Cuban or domestic?” he offered.

“Cigar? No. I’ll stick with good old Virginia Slims, thanks,” she said, retrieving and lighting up a cigarette from her purse as Fortunato toasted and lit his Havana with a wooden match.

As he puffed silently, Zoe regarded their slowly growing and mingling smoke for a minute or so before saying, “I’m still not interested in living here as some sort of sex-toy, by the way. Especially now. I’m not attracted to men who smoke.”

“Ironic. And hypocritical,” he said, eliciting only a shrug and a haughty exhalation of smoke from her. “But that’s not what I had in mind. I wish to employ you for your transhuman abilities. Query provided only a very meager file on you. No doubt to pique my interest so that I’d be more inclined to give you shelter in case I decided his payment for hiding you wasn’t good enough.”

“He paid you? Didn’t know his pockets were that deep. I bet your help is expensive.”

“It is. That’s why Query paid me in a currency more valuable than cash. But back to you and me, shall we?” Fortunato said. “I am in need of talented transhumans. You somehow got the very intense interest of Janus, which means you must be something special, perhaps even beyond just the powers Query mentions in the file. I’d like to hire you at a very generous salary and benefits, plus the free room and board I offered. A much bigger suite, of course, than you occupy now.”

Zoe took a thoughtful drag on her cigarette. “I’m not really the costume-wearing and crime-fighting type, sir,” she said through her exhale.

“Please, call me Fortunato. And I think it’s a career you should very much consider, since I’d be financing it. Not many transhumans who put on tights are able to find any kind of benefactor, much less one as flush as I am.”

“I rejected Janus and Underworld and hired Query to get them off my back,” Zoe responded. “They offered a lot to me as well.”

“True, but I think you like to fight—mostly in a verbal or metaphorical fashion but still, you’re a fighter. And I suspect that despite your recent and harrowing little adventure that a big part of you would like to find an excuse to put your powers into action again,” Fortunato said, pointing the smoldering tip of his cigar at her. “And the main reason you turned down Janus and his crew was because you’re not criminally minded. You have too many moral compunctions. Well, about robbing, killing and that sort of thing. You certainly didn’t mind hiding from the NCAA and your college that you’re transhuman. Now that’s something that could come back to haunt you.”

“Let me guess: If I don’t take your generous offer now, my college and the NCAA will conveniently find out about my fraud, and you’ll swoop in with a less generous offer of employment that I’ll have to accept so that you’ll bail me out of the lawsuit they’d threaten me with.”

“That’s a cynical line of thought,” Fortunato said.

“True, too, isn’t it, Fortunato?”

“I know Vanessa approached you. I didn’t know that she put such slanderous thoughts in your head.”

“The fact that you know she talked to me for less than a minute tells me that I should invite Query to my room soon to find the hidden cameras and mics,” Zoe said. “Also, it’s nice of you to confirm that you must have extorted her in some way because she really didn’t give me quite that much detail when she warned me about you.”

“Oh, I’m sure she dropped big enough hints to get your imagination going, Zoe. Allison…I mean, Vanessa…has some issues with me, but I assure you…”

“She dropped the name Allison, too. What the hell?”

“Sorry, it’s her codename for costumed work. Allison Wonderland,” Fortunato clarified. “I sometimes get it…”

“Anyways,” Zoe said, cutting him off, “it was Query who warned me you’d probably make a pitch and I should be on the lookout for possible snares and blackmailing.”

“Query? He has more issues with me than Vanessa…”

“Plus he gave me a file on you, just like he gave you one on me,” Zoe continued. Reaching into her large shoulder bag, she pulled out a manila envelope and tossed it onto Fortunato’s desk. “As you can see, it’s way bigger than the one you have on me. You have an interesting history for someone who’s on the side of the good guys. I think Query left out a lot. You’re probably even a way bigger ass than he’s letting on to me.”

Fortunato set his cigar aside even as Zoe reached over to the same ashtray to stub out her half-smoked cigarette, and he said, “None of that changes anything about my offer or about your circumstances.”

“No, but it changes the nature of our negotiations, Fortunato. I’ve had a few days to think, knowing this meeting was likely to happen after you did the due diligence and digging around about me, and I’ve decided that maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to work more or less on the right side of the law since it’s clear I’m being dragged into this costumed world whether I like it or not. I’d probably have to leave the country to have a normal life in the short run, and I don’t want to do that. I’d also like to make some good money, because I’ve got grad school in my plans and a desire to get through life debt-free and without two bankruptcies like my parents did.”

“What, pray tell, is going to change about our negotiations simply because you expect duplicity from me?”

“First, you’re going to make sure that neither UConn nor the NCAA drags me into the courts, and that means you don’t tell them that I withheld information to get my free ride. It also means that if they come to that conclusion on their own, you’ll do whatever you need to in order to make sure I don’t get sued by the college. Like buy them a new library or whatever,” Zoe said. “You’ll also make sure that no one ties my civilian identity to my costumed one. If I’m exposed, or sued or any of those things I want you to protect me against, you will pay me the equivalent of ten years of my most recent annual salary with you in one lump sum, immediately. A penalty. Or severance. Or whatever you wanna call it.”

“You mean I’ll pay if I’m somehow responsible for any of those things happening.”

“No, you’ll pay regardless,” Zoe said. “Consider it incentive to be very protective of me.”

“That means that you could, theoretically, expose yourself at some point in the future on purpose, at any time in your life, and collect on ten times the last salary I paid you before you left my employ,” Fortunato said.

“Yeah. Well, you need to take risks for big payoffs. I’m pretty sure I’m a five-power transhuman, Fortunato. That’s about as rare as we come. So I’m worth it.”

“You’re more ruthless a negotiator than I expected, Zoe. I think I like you.”

“I don’t know if I can say the feeling’s mutual, but thanks. We can talk about the other details now, but I won’t be signing anything until I have a lawyer look things over. Query’s going to lend me his attorney friend.”

“Oh, how she twists the knife,” Fortunato said with a smile, retrieving his cigar. “Zoe, I might have to watch out or I could fall in love with you.”

[ – To view the next chapter, click here – ]

The Gathering Storm, Part 28

Quick Recap (since it’s been a while since I’ve posted a new chapter in this series):
Thus far in the series, a supervillain named Janus has moved his operations from the West Coast to the East Coast, with designs on the Connecticut city of New Judah primarily, it seems. One of his first acts was to target one of the city’s primary heroes, Query, as well as to recruit a semi-retired supervillain named Underworld. In addition to gathering various villains, Janus and Underworld aggressively and threateningly courted a young transhuman named Zoe, who then sought out Query for protection. Meanwhile, billionaire and former hero Fortunato has been drawn into Janus’ machinations, as well as scheming something himself. Query has fended off Janus’ attempts to abduct Zoe, as well as trying to nudge along a young hero named Solstice in growing up, and he has taken down a small part of Janus’ operation in the process. Zoe ended up unleashing her full powers in the last kidnapping attempt by Janus, and wrestles with the deaths that led to. In the midst of all this, a friend and fellow hero of Query’s, Mad Dash, has found himself in an unlikely romance with a violent vigilante named Ladykiller, who now also dresses up as someone named Honey Badger so that she can occasionally patrol with Mad Dash and not smear his reputation.
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[ – To view a list of all current chapters, click here – ]

Two men in black faced each other across a desk. One in a tuxedo, after readying himself for a charity event; the other in body armor almost from head to toe, eager to be back on the streets.

One seated; one standing. One who no longer wore a mask; one who did. One who was lifting a tumbler of scotch to his lips; one who made almost a show of avoiding the drink that had been placed before him.

“So, tell me, why I would take this young lady in and provide her with protection against Janus and his machinations?” Fortunato asked Query, raising one eyebrow. “No matter how interesting she sounds from this…clearly very abridged…file you’ve given me on her.”

“Because you’ve been trying to reach me so damned hard for days now—well, weeks, really,” Query said, rocking back on his heels a bit with his gloved hands clasped behind his back.

“I fail to see the connection,” Fortunato said in a tone mixing a growl and a purr.

“Perhaps you’re not as smart as everyone thinks you are, then,” Query responded dryly. “Perhaps you’re not even as smart as I thought you were.” He paused for several moments, savoring the growing irritation in Fortunato’s gaze, then smiled, despite the fact the other man wouldn’t be able to see that grin beneath the full-head mask.

“What I am saying,” Query continued, “is that because you are so eager to speak with me about something—a topic that I would successfully dodge for years, until it became irrelevant, given that I find you so odious—and because I want safe harbor for Zoe…well, I will actually begin returning your phone calls and you can tell me whatever it is you want to tell me. Or pitch to me. Or plead for my help on. You’re a man with something in mind; guard her true and I’ll spare you my time.”

“I hate it when you lapse into rhyme, Query. Even near-rhyme. It suggests to me that your mind is getting ready to spin out plans that will confound my own.”

“Plotting and planning by someone theoretically on the side of the angels. Yes, it’s a trait I find pretty irritating in you as well,” Query retorted. “So, do we have a deal? You keep watch over her while I assess things, and I stop putting you off?”

“Doesn’t sound like an equitable trade,” Fortunato drawled, his accent lapsing into something more befitting his upbringing in a Latino neighborhood  than the Wall Street-style tonality he had perfected over the years. “Why could I possibly want that much for you to listen to me? I think you have misread the level of my interest in speaking with you.”

“Well, then, I’m sure I can throw a few shekels someone’s way for some babysitting or some recommendations of someone who can watch over Zoe. Cheshire always knows people…”

“Fine, fine,” Fortunato said quickly and irritably. “Negotiating with you is so irritating, since even my best poker face is useless. She can stay in a suite here in my building for a few weeks if necessary—or maybe a couple months. If you actually listen to what I have to say. Play me off or tune me out and she can hit the streets.”

“Excellent,” Query said. “Although I seriously doubt you could bring yourself to kick her out. Well, I’m all ears right now, even if you can’t see them. Talk.”

“Now I want you to wait for a while,” Fortunato said. “I have an event I’m already late in attending and some things to take care of first before we talk. New business, as it were. Until I settle that, talking to you would be premature.”

“Yes,” Query said. “And I’m sure that ‘new business’ has cafe-au-lait-colored skin and multicolored locs upon her head. And a very interesting—if abridged—file.”

* * *

Solstice couldn’t fault Isabella’s background work about the skeez lab; her stepsister’s research had been impeccable, and the floorplans she had unearthed for the building were nearly spot-on accurate. But apparently, a small bathroom—suited only for a toilet and sink—had been installed in the past year or two. That was the one thing not on the blueprints.

Also on the “unpredictable list” would be the annoying fact that one of the guys working in the drug house was using that crummy little bathroom because, presumably, someone else was occupying the better two toilets elsewhere in the building.

Which also wouldn’t be so bad, Solstice thought, if he weren’t armed and coming out of that bathroom just when she was halfway through a back window trying to slip in unnoticed. Normally, she was quicker on the draw with her chilling powers than people were with guns—especially people who’d just finished taking a piss and still had damp hands from washing them—but a bit of panic set in at her sensation of utter exposure and she thrust herself through the window in an ungainly lunge.

As she tumbled awkwardly to the floor, the man had his gun pointed at her. Her Attractor power took a few moments to focus, so there was no way she could relieve him of his gun in time. Instead, she began to lower the temperature around his body sharply as she kicked over a nearby trash and dodged. The sound of the can wasn’t precisely in sync with the gunshot as he squeezed the trigger, but it was close enough, she hoped, that no one would realize a gun had been fired.

She heard the bullet whiz past her, far too close for comfort, and she pounced—counting on the sudden chill in his muscles to give her an edge—and pinned his cheeks between both her palms as she set her thermal powers to work and burned him severely. It was more brutal than she would have liked, but felt better than killing him outright. The only thing keeping him from bringing attention to their struggle by screaming in agony was her bosom smashed up against his face as she mounted his torso—legs squeezing his ribs hard—and forced him against a wall hard while searing his face.

The awkward and blunt-force assault stunned him just enough to ensure his silence for a moment as she grabbed a mop from a bucket near the tiny bathroom and struck him in the skull several times. For long moments, she stayed quiet and crouched, awaiting an attack but hoping her panicked plan had worked and the whole brief fight had sounded like nothing more than the guy clumsily knocking stuff over.

When no attack came, she gagged him with a dirty cleaning rag and bound his wrists with one of the many plastic ties in a pouch on her belt.

She worked through the lab efficiently—trying to do so slowly even as her pounding heart and throbbing temples urged her to rush—and took out her opponents by ones and twos—five in all—somehow without getting shot in the process. By the time she actually got to the working part of the lab where the skeez was cooked, there were only four people left, all of them unarmed cookers, and they surrendered without hesitation.

Pulling out her cell phone after the last of them was restrained, she dialed up Query. The voice on the other end made a curt greeting, and she couldn’t quite place it. “Hello? Is this the Dark Jerk or is this his faithful sidekick, Portly Lawyer?”

Might as well get a little passive-aggressive dig in somewhere,  she thought.

“I don’t pay Portly Lawyer to answer my phone, and please don’t call him that again. Only I have authority to tease him. Would this happen to be Careless Impetuous Goth by any chance?”

“Yes. Operation Hun is a done deal. Part one, anyway. Can you come pick up the trash and drop off the merchandise?”

“Oh, darn, we’re going to get all professional and official now and cut the witty banter short?” Query said dryly. “In all honesty, I’m glad you pulled it off. Team will be there in less than 10. Good luck on surviving part two.”

“There’s still time for you to join up with me and help out so that I do,” Solstice said.

“Some lessons need to be learned the hard way, my dear,” Query said, and hung up.

* * *

Sitting with her legs drawn up to her chest at one end of her sofa, while Mad Dash wolfed down spoonful after spoonful of Raisin Bran that was filling half of a mixing bowl, Ladykiller blinked several times. “Um…did I hear you right? You want to take me to…a bank? In costume. As Ladykiller.”

Swallowing a mouthful of milk, soggy flakes and raisins, Mad Dash smiled. “Sure! Or as Honey Badger. Or we can do two trips and make it both!”

“Why? Weird date even by your standards.”

“Well, they always give out an iTunes or Starbucks gift card when you open your first new account,” he said happily, a little dribble of milk running from one corner of his mouth back into the bowl. “Way better than a toaster or a hair dryer or whatever they gave out back in the olden days. Well, at least Bank of America gives out gift cards. Not sure about Citibank and Wells Fargo. I’m not a big fanboy of B&A but they have the most market square.”

“Ummm…OK. I have a bank account already. Also, since when does B-of-A give out gifts for opening accounts? Also, don’t you think going to a bank as Ladykiller is a good way to make the guards think the place is about to get robbed? A lot of people assume the worst about me.”

“Well, of course B-to-the-A-izzle gives out inventives,” Mad Dash mumbled through a mouthful of cereal. “Fierce composition for the transhuman customers, ya know. Important market but not the biggest one. Only the national chains have the resources to do that kind of business.”

“I already have an account. At a nice little community bank in my neighborhood here. I’d think you’d be the sort of guy who’d support the little guys, Petey.”

Mad Dash smiled, frowned and smiled again, setting down the bowl. “I’ll finish the rest later when it’s ooper-dooper nice and mushy,” he said by way of preamble, then sat down near her on the sofa, setting his right hand on her clenched knees. “You’ve got an accounting at a bank, sure, but as Sarah. But you should have one for your dress-up self—whichever one. Or both, though I’m not sure what banking rules are about that.”

“Accounts for costumed weirdos like us? What are you talking about?”

“Wow! I know you were a…um…prisoner…um…here for a while, but you’ve been in costume for more than a year now and don’t know about things like Cape Checking and Super-Savings accounts? Masked Moneymarkets? Any of this ring-ding-a-linging any horns?”

“Dash, I’m spending the money of the dead man who kept me here as his sex-slave and have been for the past couple years,” Ladykiller answered. “The only reason I even have a bank account as Sarah is because I had it before I ended up in this crazy life. I don’t think it has more than a hundred bucks in it anymore. I’m an e-payment and cash economy kinda girl these days.”

“Honey-runny, you really, really didn’t care about costumed folks before you jumped into becoming one, did you? Or how they live.”

“Dash…Peter…I still don’t really care about them. I just dress and act like some of them,” Ladykiller said. “And now I date one. Anyway. The bank thing. What the fuck already.”

“Well, my cinnamon sticky bun…the big three banks will open accounts for your hero identity, with checks, debit cards and all that. You can even get credit cards—even loans sometimes—if you’re established enough. It kinda helps when you need to pay for things when you’re in costume, but don’t want to muck with a bunch of cash. I once had to rent a car to get to a meet-up when my boots were on their last treads. Sure, the Hertz folks blocked off an extra thousand bucks on my debit card to cover themselves while I was using the car and didn’t remove the block until a week afterward, but still, I wouldn’t have been able to doo-doo that if I was on a cash ecology.”

“I don’t want to tell them my identity and show my civilian ID and shit, Peter!”

“You don’t need to. Banking privacy for exotic customers law—or whatever it’s called. Don’t you know about that either? The big three pushed that legislation through to get the trans business years ago,” Dash said. “You confirm your identity with a thumbprint scan. Police aren’t allowed to demand print records from the bank to match to their own fingerprint files unless the transhuman is being charged with bank fraud or bank robbery.”

“I can’t believe that all of you would be that trusting. What if the laws change?”

“Do what I do—thanks to paranoia coaching from my buddy-pal Query: Do palm print instead, since police don’t do those. Or you can even do retina scan if you choose Citibank. It’s sort of their point of distinction. Wells Fargo has a voiceprint option. But Citi and Wells don’t have as many flexible account options as body odor of America. Main downside usually is that if your card gets stolen, you’re usually on the hoof for half of the charges to your account, unlike the civilian crowd. That’s the way the banks  help make it less risky for themselves. Also, the monthly fees for us can be a sung of a twitch.”

Ladykiller sighed. “Why would they even do that? How much money can that be worth to them? I mean, the villains wouldn’t dare open accounts there and heroes make lousy money usually—no offense.”

“Sure they would. Well, sorta,” Mad Dash said. “Most of the successful bad guys hire minor transhumans to do low-level hero work part-time for show and then launder their money through them. Use their debit cards. Stuff like that. As long as the money isn’t used for obviously illegal things, the banks don’t care.”

“I dunno. I have lots of money still left from Mister Master’s civilian accounts.”

“Sarah-baby-pecan-pie…you need to get out of here someday. Set up a life away from this. I mean, you were held prisoner here. Raped. Staying here in his old condo and spending his old money—it’s kind of dork and twizzler.”

Ladykiller paused for several moment to process that. She’d gotten better at figuring out his nonsense words here and there, but she was confused. Frowning, she finally ventured, “Dark and twisted, you mean?”

“That too,” Mad Dash said. “Besides,” he added, standing up and holding out his hand, “there’s a Bank of America branch just down the street, I want you to get an iTunes card for opening an account so you can buy me the latest Adele album and a Fruit Ninja app for my iPad, and by the time we get back the rest of the cereal should be really sludgy goodness.”

* * *

Zoe finished her latest chapter of The Girl Who Played With Fire, deciding that while hiding out in Fortunato’s building was as boring as it was safe, at least it offered a chance to catch up on her reading list. The free ride she had been given for the building’s commissaries and the small account set up for her at the gift shops didn’t hurt either. Not even two days into this hiding out thing yet, and she was feeling almost comfortable.

As she slipped the bookmark into the novel and set it down to return her attention to her mocha, she noticed a presumably twenty-something Latina looking directly at her from a nearby table. Before she could decide what to do or say about the unexpected stare-down, the woman got up, walked over to Zoe’s table, and sat down.

“Hi, I’m Vanessa,” the woman said, holding out her hand.

“Zoe.”

“Yeah, I know, and I don’t know if I’m too late yet, but when I heard about a transhuman in the building, I wanted to warn you.”

“I thought I was supposed to be under the radar here—and warn me about what?”

“Only a few of us know about you, and not much about you, at that—I think Fortunato told me as some kind of test. I’m probably about to fail it and get in a lot of trouble,” Vanessa said, then paused to take a breath before a rapid-fire delivery of: “Whatever he offers you, don’t take it. Don’t trust him.”

“He hasn’t offered anything yet, and I wasn’t planning to trust him.”

Vanessa stared hard at Zoe like a frustrated parent dealing with a stubborn child. She shook her head, gritted her teeth and leaned forward.

“I mean it, Zoe!” she hissed. “No matter how smart you think you are, don’t even start up with him. I’m telling you, I know from experience. I’m in a pile of crap so deep I feel like I’m drowning. And he’ll never let me out of it probably. I’ll be Allison Wonderland for him probably until the day I die. He’ll stoop lower than you think to snag you. Believe me.”

Zoe sighed heavily. “Vanessa, was it? Or…Allison now? I’m confused. But anyway, Vanessa, I appreciate your concern. Really. But you need to understand. I’ve been dealing with devils for weeks already, and I wasn’t exactly an easy mark before then. I don’t know how you got in your mess, but just because you stepped in shit doesn’t mean I will.”

Vanessa’s gaze darkened, and she frowned, and Zoe realized she’d just carelessly hit a nerve; the blunt tone of her voice probably hadn’t helped. But with the blood of two men already on her hands and Janus and Underworld sniffing after her, she didn’t have it in her to worry about someone else’s hurt feelings just yet. Still, the awkward silence wasn’t helping her mood, so she stood, turned, and left both her drink and Vanessa behind her as she sought a new place to continue her reading.

[ – To view the next chapter, click here – ]

Burying the Lead

This story is pretty much a direct follow-up to a story I posted earlier in October (my most recent previous piece of fiction, actually), which was titled “Intersections.” Might be worth reading that one first, since some significant things in this story refer directly to events in “Intersections.” Also, there’s a reference in this story to something that happened with a guy named Ringmaster. That story, “Fresh Wounds, Old Scars” can be read here. By the way, any resemblance between the journalist character in this story (and its predecessor) and myself is purely coincidental. Maybe. Or not.
____________________________________________

Meeting a masked man in a secluded area of the city park as dusk crept in—just the average workday of an average journalist…

OK, not average at all, Doug admitted to himself as he approached the rendezvous point, and when I started off as a staff writer at a construction engineering magazine right after graduating from Northwestern, I never would have imagined I’d spend more than 18 years of my 21-year journalism career covering transhumans most of the time. Such a niche segment, and it snuck up on me. Took over just like some evil criminal supervillain genius taking over a city’s underworld.

Tonight’s meeting came—indirectly, at least—courtesy of PoweredPEOPLE, which was PEOPLE magazine’s transhuman-oriented sister publication, and more specifically thanks to the email from its managing editor telling Doug that after nearly a year of no new assignments from them, they had a juicy offer if he could quickly secure an exclusive interview with Asclepius and do it in person so that he could also snap a few digital photos of the “white-hat” transhuman in a relatively un-posed manner.

That’s the advantage of living in New Judah and being a freelancer, when so many of the transhuman publications are based in New York or California. I’m on the ground where a large number of the superheroes and supervillains act out their shenanigans, so I’m one of the guys you call when you need a rush interview with one of them.

He nodded as he caught sight of the man in black scrubs and black domino mask which, along with his brown skin, made him blend into the shadows awfully well right now. But Doug knew where Ascelpius was going to be, and hopefully with the growing darkness, they could have just a little privacy before things got involved and maybe drew attention from a random passerby.

“Evenin’ Mr. Jeffries,” Asclepius said amiably, holding out his right hand.

Doug shook it, and said with a goofball tone of voice, “Nice to meet you again, Mr. Asclepius.”

“Heh,” Asclepius said, both amused and sheepish. “Too formal?”

“Yeah, Doug is just fine. No need for ‘mister,’ especially since you saved my life.”

“The doctors probably would have done fine on you Doug, even as badly shot up as you were,” Asclepius responded. “But when word got out what had happened, there was no way I was going to take chances. You might not be transhuman, but you’ve always been fair with us in your stories. Always a stand-up guy. In a way, you’re one of us, and so you get my patented healing services. Hopefully you won’t ever need them again…”

It was time for Doug to let out a brief, amused snort of his own. “God willing,” he agreed. “But still, I can’t thank you enough for what you did.”

“Well, enough of that, right?” Asclepius ventured, as he sat down on a folding chair he had just flipped open, handing a second, still-folded one to Doug. “We’re here to let you work your reporter thing, and I’ve got to get going in a bit to do my own work. Sorry about the oddball time to meet, by the way. I mostly work nights since the heroes mostly work nights, but I also need to be up during the early- and mid-afternoon for the daytimers, so I sleep in two or three little shifts and frankly, I just got up.”

As if to punctuate the point, he reached for an insulated drink container and lifted it to his lips as Doug sat down in his own lawn chair. The Starbucks Coffee logo was easy to see in the fading light, with its white and green patterns.

“So, where do we start? Whatcha wanna ask me, Doug?” Asclepius asked.

“How about, ‘How do you think your new career of healing the bad guys instead of the good guys is gonna work out?’,” came a woman’s voice from some nearby shadows. As she stepped a bit closer, the dark reds of her outfit made her more visible—looking something like a skintight leather version of a carnival barker’s suit or circus ringleader’s, complete with a tophat.

Both Doug and Asclepius immediately stood up.

“That’s very gentlemanly of you both,” she said. “You probably both want to offer me a seat. But that’s all right, because I’ll just be taking Asclepius and going.”

“Jeeesus!” Asclepius exclaimed. “Ringmaster tried to pull this very same shit to force-pimp me out to the other side a couple years ago! And you dress almost like him! What is this, some kind of tired theme I’m gonna have to rehash every few years?”

“My name’s Sideshow. Interned with Ringmaster, and he’s come on hard times. Sold me all his intel on you, Asclepius, and the contacts he had for selling off your services. His various game plans. Everything. Cost me a hell of a lot, and I had to borrow from some dangerous people to afford it, so I need to put you to work as soon as possible. Let’s go. Oh, and just so you know, I’m pumped up on motion sickness medicine, anti-emetics and a whole lot of other stuff, so if you try some of that reverse-healing crap you did with Ringmaster’s crew on me, I’m going to taser you and drag you by your testicles to my trunk before you can even have an effect on me.”

For several moments, neither Ascelpius nor Doug spoke, and finally the former broke the silence.

“I think you might find me putting up a bit more of a fight than you expect,” he said.

“I don’t think so. What do you think, Doug?” Sideshow asked.

When Asclepius turned his face toward the journalist, he saw a gun pointed at him.

“Doug? Shit. You’re working with her?”

“She offered a lot of money, and after me almost getting killed—not to mention my wife and little girl put in danger—by some people who wanted to use me to get to some of you transhumans, well…seems like a good time to cash out of this line of work,” Doug responded. “Sorry. Nothing personal.”

“Damn, Doug. Damn. This just doesn’t seem like you. Not your style. And after saving your life, too.”

“Welllll…” Doug said. “Yeah…not my usual style.” With that, he turned and pointed the gun at Sideshow. “Not my style at all. I wouldn’t take a penny of your money, lady. Granted, I thought about demanding a percentage upfront and then keeping it after you got hauled away, but then figured you’d be really motivated for revenge against me later if I did that.”

“Good plan, Doug,” Asclepius said. “Besides, you can probably get some kind of book deal out of this. Nice acting, by the way. Wasn’t sure you had it in you. I mean, we had so little rehearsal time.”

“A little theater in college before I realized it paid even worse than journalism,” Doug said.

“So, you warned Asclepius after I approached you with my offer,” Sideshow huffed. “How rude.”

“No, I warned Asclepius before you approached me,” he said. “As if the timing of your contact with me right after Katy’s email from PoweredPEOPLE wasn’t obvious enough, I already knew the email didn’t come from her. Sure, the address was almost perfect, since her last name has so damn few vowels and is so damn long, but even if I didn’t notice a couple transposed letters, she doesn’t call me ‘Doug’ and it hasn’t been a year since my last assignment with them.”

“Excuse me?”

“Yeah, clearly you bought off the magazine’s head IT guy—don’t worry, I’ve got a timed-delivery email Katy should be getting later tonight to tell her he needs arresting. So he set up an account I’d think was from her but that wasn’t hers so she wouldn’t know it was being used to contact me. He shared all her sent emails with you so you could mimic her style and all that. Congrats. Except a year ago, we started getting chummy online and she stopped using her work email to contact me. I’ve gotten all my assignments since then through her personal email. Not to mention she calls me ‘D-Bag’ these days, not ‘Doug.’ Rude, but she does it affectionately. Next time have your inside guy check the messages coming into her account instead of just her sent messages. Pro tip.”

“Hey, don’t help her—she’ll probably escape eventually and do better next time,” Asclepius teased him, then turned his attention to his would-be abductor. “You also should have done enough research to know that I don’t tend to go out without a transhuman bodyguard. The good guys like to make sure I stay intact to heal them. And there ain’t no one here with me but Doug tonight. Shoulda been a tip-off.”

“I’m only transhuman, not perfect,” Sideshow responded. “A lot of convoluted effort the two of you went through, though, to snare me. Why?”

“Kind of personal for me, Sideshow, and so I wanted to talk to you face to face,” Doug answered. “That’s why Asclepius agreed to this. After all, it was you who sent those two goons to abduct me a few months ago, after all, right? Same routine—I was targeted because I have the inside track on how to contact so many transhumans, by straightforward means and special ones. I’m kind of pissed about that, seeing as how my family was threatened in the process and I almost died. Oh, damn! I’m a journalist and I’m only just now telling you what all this is about. I went and buried the lead of my story.”

“I have no clue what you’re talking about,” Sideshow sneered.

“Seriously?”

“No, Doug, I don’t. This is the first time I’ve had anything to do with you. The ‘goons’ you refer to were someone else’s.”

“Shit.”

“Damn, Doug,” Asclepius said. “For a baseline human, you sure are getting popular with the black hats these days.”

“That’s the kind of popularity I can do without,” Doug answered, and realized that aside from showing no recognition in her eyes, there was no reason for Sideshow to lie about the two guys who’d try to abduct him for their boss in November when she was already caught red-handed trying to abduct Asclepius now in March. “Damn. I was sure I was killing two birds with one stone here tonight.”

“Maybe you should consider a career change, Doug,” Sideshow said with a wicked smile. “If you live through tonight, that is. Anyway, Asclepius is right. I should have realized him being out without a bodyguard was odd, and isn’t it also odd I wouldn’t have brought someone along just in case to help me,” Sideshow said in a lilting, taunting tone. “But…what makes you think your pet reporter’s enough protection for you, Asclepius?” And then she spread her arms wide and four associates strode forth—three of them costumed and therefore probably transhuman, Doug and Asclepius realized. The fourth was an unknown, but he was very clearly armed, so in the end, it didn’t matter much.

“You see? I brought friends, just in case. That’s part of the reason I had to borrow so much money from the loan sharks.”

“What makes you think we don’t have friends of our own around here?” Asclepius asked.

“Because while I may have made missteps in some other areas, I’ve had Doug’s email, landline and cellphone all monitored since the start, and I know he hasn’t contacted the police or any other transhumans before meeting you here.”

“Yeah, but isn’t is funny that you still haven’t realized you also didn’t notice I had warned Asclepius beforehand,” Doug noted snidely. “In fact, aside from one email that I sent to him so that you’d know he’d agreed to an interview with me and where, you haven’t seen any other communications at all between us, have you? Isn’t that funny? And yet I warned him and we planned all this. Almost as if I have all sorts of interesting and nontraditional ways to get in touch of most of these transhuman folks…oh, yeah, riiiight. I do.”

On cue, a half-dozen pairs of feet crunched softly from behind their various forms of cover. All costumed. All heroes or vigilantes who regularly worked the streets of New Judah and relied on Asclepius’ healing powers.

“Gosh darn it,” Asclepius said. “Looks like you’re outnumbered, now. And that’s even without the two other white hats still hiding in the shadows. Somehow, I doubt you thought this many moves ahead, given how many other things you missed along the way.”

As the melee began, Doug and Asclepius sat back down on the sidelines of the action, and the latter handed a bottle of beer to the former.

“You know, Doug, you might want to get video of this on your phone,” Asclepius said. “You really should angle for a little book deal, and a viral video on YouTube and UrbVid could help a lot.”

“I like the way you think, Asclepius,” Doug said, and clinked his beer bottle against the transhuman’s stainless steel coffee mug as he fished out his iPhone. “Maybe I can still get out of this line of work before someone else tries to fuck with me.”

Intersections

The perfume of toasted crust, melted mozzarella and sizzling pepperoni was still faintly lingering in his nose—or perhaps just the mere illusion of it as his mind held on to the memory.

Not a new memory nor a strange one. It was the scent of a weekly tradition—Friday night pizza out with his family. His daughter’s warm hand in his as they walked through the darkness of a mid-autumn evening, and then his wife’s fingers slipping more coolly but just as comfortingly into the fingers of his free hand.

A family of three strolling down the streets of a relatively quiet urban neighborhood in New Judah, traffic relatively light and pedestrians milling about on their own journeys. As the conclusion of every Friday night dinner visit to Leonore’s Pizza called for, his journey with the two most important ladies of his life was leading them toward their car, parked on one of the side streets tonight—Oberon Street—with blessed meter-free parking thanks to the timely departure of a big Ford 250 pickup as they made their usual approach toward the main thoroughfare of Abraham Avenue, which Leonore’s and a host of other establishments called home. The gap left behind on Oberon by the truck’s departure had made for one of Douglas Jeffries’ easiest parallel parking maneuvers in weeks, given the family vehicle was a modest-sized and lovingly worn-in—though some might cynically call it “pretty beat-up”—2003 Subaru Outback.

A good night, and one to finish in the usual Friday way with a trip through the drive-through window of the Frosty Duchess.

I just keep feeling every time we go there that Jack and Kim are finally going to get sued over that name by Dairy Queen, Doug mused as they neared the street where the car was parked. Especially if the big-wigs of that chain ever find out they’ve copied every Dairy Queen product and renamed it slightly. Not much distance from a Dilly Bar to a Chilly Bar or a Blizzard to a Hailstorm.

A good night, Doug thought, and he hoped Sharon and Ruby felt the same.

And then they stepped off Abraham onto Oberon, with a sudden shift from dining and retail to quiet graystones and brick townhouses.

The blocked-off road and sidewalks about a quarter of the way down the block was unexpected, with small piles of debris and grimy puddles in between them and the Outback suggesting that a storm sewer had backed up or a sewer line burst while they had been dining. A detour sign pointed to a nearby alley, meaning a short walk to the next avenue over. A man in a white hardhat and orange vest was puttering about, scratching the back of his neck and briefly taking note of the trio as they walked past.

Doug gave him a pleasant nod, and led his family onward.

A small inconvenience that would mean a short trip to the next street, then around the corner and back down Oberon from the other direction. Get dessert, get back home, and then maybe finish his article for Good::Evil, the transhuman-news and feature magazine for which Doug worked as a regular freelance contributor. Much more satisfying and substantial kinds of articles, he thought, compared to the more shallow celebrity-style approach of SuperNews, TransWeek or PoweredPEOPLE—and even more so compared to the sensationalistic tone of Celebrity Crimefighters or excessively militant style ofCostume & Ammo—though Lord knew he’d done work for all of them to pay the bills.

Simple as could be. Dinner, dessert, a little work and then maybe settle in for a movie with Sharon before bed.

Until a van pulled up at the other end of the alley and a man hurriedly got out, as the family reached the halfway point of the alley. Doug felt Sharon’s fingers tense against his own as her urban threat radar went off in her head almost in sync with his own. With a smooth assurance, the husband and wife made a sharp U-turn, pulling Ruby with them.

“Shit shit shit shit,” muttered Sharon, and then punctuated that with a “Fuck” as both parents looked up to see the city worker coming from the end of the alley where they’d entered. Suddenly, the unexpected street blockage made a lot more sense.

A trap.

I bet he was the driver of the pickup who so helpfully provided us a space on Oberon, too, Doug decided as the man in the hardhat approached.

“What do you want?” Doug asked the faux city worker, shocked at how calm and level the words came out, given how much his guts were twisting and his legs quivering at the moment. All he could think about was how this would be a really convenient time for one of the many transhuman heroes he had profiled or written about over the years to swoop in and save the day.

The answer to his question came from behind him, though—the man in jeans and a leather jacket who’d blocked that end of the alley with his van. “Your wife and daughter will keep me company while my partner there takes a ride with you in your car and you go someplace to answer questions for our employer.”

No one was coming. No transhuman heroes. No baseline police. No one. Not in time, anyway.

“I’m just a writer; I can’t possibly have anything you…”

“A writer who knows how to contact a lot of different transhuman heroes in ways no one else knows,” answered the man dressed as a street maintenance worker, pulling out a pistol. “Your wife and girl will be fine with my friend in the van. Safe and sound, as long as you play nice. Now you come here and send them the other way.”

Safe. They’ll be safe. Or so he said.

No, they won’t, Doug reasoned. I bet I won’t live past my questioning, and I’m supposed to trust the bodies and minds of my wife and girl with a criminal?

He was torn, though. The intersection of Oberon and Abraham was so near and yet—with at least one armed man here—so far away. A world away. A nigh-unreachable physical intersection as he stood at the intersection of protecting his family or putting them at risk.

Or both.

Never let yourself be taken away. Never give the criminal control. Fight. Never trust.

“Sharon,” Doug said, very quietly and quickly. “When I say, run with Ruby ’til you can call 911. Now!”

He let go of Ruby and rushed the man with the gun. There was no time to worry if the one behind them was similarly armed. No time to worry whether Sharon and Ruby were running yet—or at all. No time to worry how close the driver of the van was. No time to worry about survival.

Only time to be a human shield and fight a hopeless battle on the slim chance it would buy time for Sharon and Ruby to reach safety.

In a split-second, it occurred to Doug that the man with the gun wouldn’t dare shoot him if his boss wanted to question him. That hope buoyed him.

I’ll ruin his shot and my ladies will get away and..

The sudden heat and weight in his chest seemed all out of proportion to the crack of the pistol just a few feet away from him, and he realized the man must have panicked and shot out of reflex when he rushed him. Doug suddenly wanted nothing more than to slump to the ground, and then wondered why he hadn’t been flung backwards by the impact of the bullet.

Because the movies always lie about such things, he thought almost giddily. Even the sound of the gun isn’t what Hollywood says it should be. So much more “pop” than “boom.”

As the heaviness increased in his chest, and it became so much harder to breathe, he wondered if his lung had been punctured. Wondered how much time he had before he couldn’t stand. Wondered if his family was running and how far they had gotten.

He pressed forward, driven by fear for his loved ones. Driven by desperation. And somewhere even deeper, driven by anger.

How dare you threaten my family. How dare…

Doug pushed forward, and there was another cracking sound, and the world seeming to turn black at the edges of his peripheral vision. A dark halo surrounding him and suffocating him. But he could still see enough to know the man with the gun seemed a little afraid, as if he wondered why the reporter in front of him wouldn’t just fall already. The second bullet seemed to enter in the same place as the first one, Doug thought. The pain seemed less this time, but the heaviness worse.

“Stop shooting him, you stupid son of a bitch!” the van driver shouted. “Stop shooting! We need him alive you moron!”

Doug heard running behind him, but focused on another task.

I need him to stop shooting me I can’t take this my family my family need time stop shooting me.

Pressing up against the man, and feeling as much as hearing the gun discharge a third time, as a hot line seemed to draw itself along the side of his torso—a flesh wound, this time, but the added pain made him swoon—Doug grabbed hold of the man’s gun with both hands, and used the only weapon he had left. He sunk his teeth in his attacker’s throat and bit deep and hard. He heard a shriek, and spun the man around. Bit down more as he shoved with mindless, brutish intensity.

Maybe he thinks I’m a transhuman who won’t die using fangs to rip out his throat if only that were true is my family safe am I gonna die am I…

There was a fourth sharp cracking sound, but this time not a bullet, as Doug realized his opponent’s skull had connected sharply with a brick wall. Suddenly, dead weight was dropping from Doug’s weak grip as the man collapsed, unconscious. The thump of a body; the thunk of a gun hitting pavement. Sounds of feet behind him.

Doug turned in a movement both sluggish and abrupt somehow, like a movie zombie smelling fresh prey, and faced the man running toward him. Refused to fall, no matter how much his chest burned and how much it hurt to breathe. No matter how rubbery his legs and how the world seemed to be sinking and spinning all around him.

Blood in his mouth, Doug heard a voice growling, “One more” and realized with a shock that it was his own.

“One more!” he roared, almost stumbling, red spittle spraying out toward the other man, who was suddenly scrambling to a confused halt, wondering as much as his partner had why this slightly potbellied, balding, middle-aged journalist wouldn’t just fall down already.

Rage is a fuel. Pain is a catalyst. And love conquers pain, Doug thought with a sudden, odd clarity. I have a duty. The blackness at the edges of his vision seemed to become something more clear and sharp, like crystal. Sharp, glassy edges to give him focus and pain to sharpen him and keep him awake. He turned sharply from a street of fading life onto a street of sharp resolve.

“I’m going to chew off your fucking balls and spit them into your mouth and make you swallow them and then I’m going to make you throw them back up,” Doug said in a snarl. “Not done yet.”

If the man possessed a gun, he clearly had forgotten about it. Or decided his would be as useless as his partner’s. He did have a knife in one hand, but that hand was trembling.

“Fresh meat,” Doug growled, feeling the clarity begin to fail him. The world getting ready to collapse on itself. His body ready to collapse with it. “Payback. No one touches them. Not on my watch.”

The second man turned and ran toward the van—Doug wondering if it was fear of him or a certainty that the prize was about to die and he needed to flee before his boss found out.

Doug realized something was weighing down his right arm, and looked down to see a bloody gun in his hand—the one that had already wounded him thrice. How? Had he picked it up? When? Before the man ran or after? Why?

What was a gun for again?

Lazily, almost confused now as to what the heavy metal thing was in his hand, Doug fired toward the running man. Once. Nothing. Twice. Nothing. A third time, and the man stumbled. Doug wasn’t sure where he’d shot him—the hip or lower back maybe.

And Doug strode, reluctant legs marching along despite the protestations of his chest and his blurring consciousness.

No. Not getting away. No more chances. Not again. Police need them both to find their boss. Revenge. Justice. Lesson.

The man got up again to limp toward the van, and Doug fired again, into his right buttock.

Shot in the ass, Doug thought, almost saying the words out loud in a giggle. So absurd. Somehow so appropriate. I can’t let you die, not matter how much I want you dead. But I can’t let you run, either.

Another bullet in the other buttock, and the man went down again, his chin striking the pavement and several white fragments flying through the darkness from his mouth. And then Doug was standing over the prone man, legs wobbling, gun trying so desperately to slip from his grip.

Another shot into his ass, then two into the back of his right kneecap and one in his left knee. And then click after click after click on an empty magazine.

I’m a magazine journalist firing on an empty magazine, his brain babbled at him. Ironic? No…no…ludicrous, maybe. Or insipid. I’m a writer and words fail me in my final moments.

With all the noise, there would be several calls into the police by now, and Doug had a sudden fear he would be shot again, a searing terror that he’d be gunned down as a presumed criminal when the police arrived, and he dropped the spent pistol. Staggered away from the man who couldn’t run now and probably couldn’t even walk—might not even be able to crawl at more than a snail’s pace.

As he walked by the first man, still unconscious, Doug kicked him in the head but couldn’t tell if there was any strength behind it.

He lumbered, and almost fell. Took several steps away from that man, thinking with a ridiculous certainty that he could reach the car well down the block when he got back to where he had entered the alley. Oblivious to the fact there was a cellphone in his pocket; that such a thing even existed and could allow him to call for help.

There was nothing in his mind but agony and exhaustion. Bullets and blades. Victims and villains. And the end of the alley, which he almost reached before he finally fell.

He could see his wife and daughter in the distance, and memories flooded back. His mind sparked again, weakly. They were not nearly close enough to Abraham Avenue to have been safe. Not close enough to be in sight of people who could help. They hadn’t run as far or as fast as they should have. But Sharon had her cell phone out, and next to her face. Making a call 911 probably.

Why didn’t they run farther? Panic-induced stupidity or blind trust in me? Doug wondered, and decided it didn’t matter. Only that they were safe. Or seemingly so. Only that they would live. He wondered as the world turned black if he would live, then decided it didn’t matter.

God,that was stupid, Doug thought, sharp clarity stabbing through him again as sharply as the pain in his chest. All of it. The right choice. Necessary. Maybe even brave. But stupid as hell, rushing a man with a gun. Then facing down a second one.

He took a deep, slow breath and groaned in agony at that simple act. As darkness gathered in his vision again, and he felt his life spilling onto the ground and into the spaces of his rib cage not already occupied by organs and bones—hovering as he did at the crossroad of life and death, he thought: If I survive this, the next question I’ll have to ask a hero during an interview is whether they do what they do because they’re brave.

Or because they’re idiots.

Broken Legacy

A dog face peered intently at another dog face and sighed in an all-too-human way. A human voice, too, issued from the ebony muzzle with a weary, “Why did you do it?”

The other dog-head issued its own human response from its dark brown muzzle: “Do what?”

“Leave a witness,” answered Hellhound from behind the dark, slick, heavy rubber of his canine mask, his eyes hidden behind moss-green lenses but his voice making it clear his gaze was stern and annoyed.

“He was just a kid,” Dog Pound said, unzipping the mouth of his mask’s muzzle area to breathe more freely, his gaze visibly confused through the open eye holes. He couldn’t figure out how Hellhound kept from passing out with only two small nose holes and a thin, short slit where his mouth was. Dog Pound’s own canine-themed leather mask was better ventilated than Hellhound’s by far and even so, he felt lightheaded in short order, especially under exertion.

“He’s still a witness, and you took your mask off, too? You’re an idiot.”

“I doubt he could do a very good job of giving a description and I was about to die of heatstroke; it was a fucking hot night.”

“You go shirtless when you’re on the prowl, you pussy,” Hellhound snapped. “I’ve got a full rubber mask, a unitard and body armor when I go out. Point is, the kid saw your face. Doesn’t matter if he can help the police ID you; fact is he’ll see your face over and over in his dreams. You killed his goddamn father right in front of him.”

“So? At least I killed the person best qualified to be a good witness, and a rich one at that.”

“I took you on as an apprentice to teach you, Dog Pound; haven’t you learned anything? Since at least the ‘70s, we’ve been living in a world of costumed heroes and villains who seem to follow similar memes as in the comics. What happens in the comics? What happened with the character Batman? Bruce Wayne.”

“Dude killed his rich mom and dad in an alley for their money and he grew up to hate criminals. Put on a bat costume and then hunted down crooks and shit, including the guy who killed his parents.”

“This kid could be your future Batman, you stupid shit.”

“Slim chance of that,” Dog Pound said.

“But you don’t know, do you? He could be transhuman for all you know. He might already be a Brain with a photographic memory. He might hit puberty and become an Acro or a Brute and one day track you down and tear you up in a fight. Fact is you left a witness you shouldn’t have. He might not put you away or get revenge on you, but every goddamn witness you leave is one more potential person on a stand to get you convicted or maybe even be your future arch-nemesis. We transhumans are messed up in the head—every last one of us. We’re wired to do crazy shit like obsess about someone who fucked us over and then build a costumed life around it. A lot of us, anyway.”

“Like you?” Dog Pound said. “You never did tell me your back-story.”

“And never will. I’m the master and you’re the apprentice, Dog Pound. We will never be equals. But I do know that you used to have to run dog fights for your crazy uncle. And he made you do bare-knuckle boxing and shit against other kids for money. And you couldn’t resist asking me to teach you the ropes when you put on a mask, because I had a canine theme, too. See? We’re fucked in the head. And the only reason I took you on is ego and vanity. Touched in the effin’ head.”

“All right, all right. I get it. I’m not gonna leave witnesses again. Guess I’d better steer clear of marks with kids, ‘cuz I don’t know about killing no kids,” Dog Pound said.

“Do what needs doing if you’re going to wear a mask,” Hellhound said. “If you’re going to be half-assed about it, get a damn day job behind a desk.”

* * *

Dog Pound awoke in his small house in the middle of the night, realizing someone was there. He stayed as still as he could while trying to get his bearings in the dark, his lean-muscled body tensing—ready to teach the intruder what it felt like to be hit by a Brute, even a relatively low-end one.

“Suit up,” came a soft but firm command from the shadows, and something landed on Dog Pound’s face. Just before Hellhound switched on the light, he realized the other man had tossed him his mask.

“I didn’t think we were on tonight,” Dog Pound muttered groggily, not having seen Hellhound in the three days since his lecture about witnesses, revenge and legacies and whatever the hell else he had been on about.

“We weren’t; we are now. Be ready and be in your garage in five minutes,” Hellhound said. His expressionless black dog mask gave him an implacable air. “We’ve got a really special job.”

* * *

They pulled up to the edge of an expansive estate in one of the few parts of Lark County that wasn’t within the borders of New Judah, and Hellhound motioned his protégé to get out. A few paces away from the side of the road, he said, “Grab the ladder,” pointing to the low grass near the property’s border.

“Why is there a ladder here…”

“Shut up, put your muscles to work and bring it with.”

Hellhound led them to the back of the mansion there, and pointed to an open window on the third floor. Dog Pound was confused for a moment, then remembered the ladder and got it extended and propped up as quietly as he could. Every tiny scrape and click, though, sounded like a clarion going off to him.

When the ladder was in place, Dog Pound scratched at an itch underneath a layer of fresh sweat running down the back of his neck, and whispered, as he looked at the wide-open window, “People this rich, you’d think they’d have air conditioning. Hot night.”

“They do have air conditioning, and it’s on, and it’s turned way the hell up, and they have windows open for fresh air,” Hellhound answered conversationally. “That’s how wasteful and self-entitled rich people are. I’m going up first; come up a few feet behind me. Be quick and be quiet.”

When he finally struggled through the open window, finding himself in a room decorated with posters and littered with robots and action figures, Dog Pound saw Hellhound standing over a bed, his hand over a child’s mouth and a small bedside lamp turned on.

“Take off your mask,” he ordered Dog Pound.

“Why?” he started, and then felt a sharp stab of pain in the middle of his forehead that seemed to radiate down to his eardrums and Adam’s apple.

“Take. It. Off.” Hellhound said quietly, and his apprentice relented, unnerved by the sudden pain and its timing so close to showing reluctance toward his mentor. Turning his mask toward the boy in the bed, Hellhound said to the boy, “Do not yell or scream, or I will kill you and everyone else in this house—your sister, your brother, your mother, the maid. Everyone. Do you know that man?”

At first the child said nothing, then nodded slowly.

“Speak up,” Hellhound demanded.

“Yes,” the boy said timidly.

“How?”

“He killed my dad.”

Grabbing the child roughly by his cheeks with one black-gloved hand, Hellhound turned the boy’s face to look directly into his own mask. “And how do you feel about him doing that?”

The boy’s eyes filled with tears and he whimpered a little, but said nothing.

Hellhound turned back to Dog Pound. “I think he’s a little afraid of what the answer would mean to his safety,” he told his sidekick. “But I can see it in his eyes, underneath the tears. He hates you.”

“How did you find him…”

“You took every valuable thing from his father, and a lot of that value was in his wallet. Not just money and cards, though. Driver’s license, dumb ass. Thought we’d take a field trip. You left a witness who hates you now, and will keep hating you more and more as the years go on, especially now that you’ve paid him a new visit. Someone who will one day inherit a bunch of his daddy’s money. Maybe all of it.”

“I get it already, Hellhound! I get it!” Dog Pound hissed. “It won’t happen again.”

Without a word, Hellhound yanked the boy out of the bed and tossed him through the open window.

Dog Pound thought the sound of the child striking the low stone wall of the rose garden below was surprisingly soft, all things considered. Still, his gut clenched and he felt a little tremor of nausea flutter in his belly.

“What if he’s not dead?” Dog Pound asked haltingly.

“Then you’ll finish the job,” Hellhound responded, “as soon as we get down there. He’ll keep for a couple minutes, though.”

“I swear, it won’t happen again.”

“Yes, it will,” Hellhound said. “I’m going to look up some of his daddy’s friends and track them and we’ll surprise one of them some night after dark when they’re with one or two of their kids someplace dark and quiet. And you’ll kill those kids right in front of me, right after you kill the grown ups. In for a penny, in for a pound. Your messes are my messes, and your hands will be at least as bloody as mine.”

Dog Pound put one gloved hand against the wall to steady himself. Too much, too fast. This wasn’t the kind of thing…

“I can’t do it. I can’t do shit like that, Hellhound.”

A ravaging wave of something like fire and electricity seemed to run through his brain and ricochet off the inside edges of his skull, and Dog Pound almost lost his balance. Then the pain was gone.

“I’m the alpha male of this fucking pack. Don’t forget it. I can give you reminders in pain, or rewards in more pleasant ways. You’re mine, and you’ll do as I say.”

Dog Pound felt a retort on the tip of his tongue, and then felt a tiny lick of pain up and down his upper spine, and bit the words down. Instead, he said, “Yes. Yeah. Got it.”

“I don’t much like the idea of leaving potential vengeance-laden legacies, no matter how unlikely it is that kid would pull a corny Batman-style move from the old comics,” Hellhound said. “But I am liking the idea of the whole sidekick and minion legacy. You’re my bitch. The first of several. You’ll do what I say, and if you do it right, you might be the Beta male, and you might get a taste of any ass I recruit. I’ve got my eye on a wolf-masked woman going by the name of Stalker who’s working Marksburgh right now, and a few other people, too.”

“Teams never work out,” Dog Pound said. “You hardly ever see any…”

“Superhero teams rarely work, because people with morals have trouble funding a headquarters and paying for it and all the bills, and they always want to talk shit out instead of having a strong hand in charge, and they get sued for property damage and all that. You and all the others will be my crew. Not a team. Minions. Dogs to run and jump where I say. Period. Like I said, you can be number two if you start learning my lessons well, or you can be bottom bitch.”

Dog Pound hesitated a split-second, and then found himself tensing for another painful reminder of the power he hadn’t previously known Hellhound possessed. The pain scared him. The prospects of what worse things might come with disobedience scared him more.

“I’m in. Yes. I’m your man…your…your…dog.”

Dog Pound was certain that Hellhound was grinning underneath that thick, black dog mask, and the tone of the voice that issued forth seemed to confirm it.

“Good boy,” Hellhound said, and waved one hand toward the open window and ladder.

The Gathering Storm, Part 27

[ – To view a list of all current chapters, click here – ]

Almost human again, thought Zoe. Almost human. It’s amazing what water—hot enough and copious enough—can do to sluice away the remnants of a day full of horrors.

In the steamy confines of the small bathroom, a towel wrapped around her torso, Zoe looked at herself in the mirror. No one’s blood on her anymore. And on her face, neck and arms—the places people might see when she had clothes on again—she bore only a few scratches. Once she was dressed, it would almost be as if nothing had happened today. As if she’d never been kidnapped and never killed two men and then watched two more die at the end of Query’s gun barrel.

The intertwined mass of dreadlocks—a ropy mass of reds, pinks and light blonde on her scalp amidst those bearing her natural dark brown, almost ebony, color—reminded her too much of today. She wanted all memories of it shoved as far away from her consciousness as possible.

She closed her eyes, concentrated for a few minutes, and then opened them again, noting that the steam had mostly retreated from the room and the towel had slipped a bit down her upper body. She looked upon the  re-colored landscape of her hair and managed a small smile. A minor change, but a new start of sorts. Most of the locs remained their natural deep dark-chocolate hue but about a third of them now were deep purple or dusky orange, and a couple of them a swirled mix of the two. A few ribbons of lavender wove through the other hues here and there as well.

It’s all got to begin somewhere, she thought, and then slipped into the borrowed clothes from Query’s closets. As she walked out into the main area of the safe-house Query had sent her too, Zoe was greeted by the smell of scrambled eggs and sizzling bacon.

Breakfast for dinner. Mad Dash, I think I love you right now. A little of that in my belly and some TLC from this healer Asclepius when he shows up—I do have a few gashes on my torso along with some serious bumps and bruises—and I just might feel fully human.

* * *

Nearly an hour of searching through Janus’ forest cabins had, as Query had suspected would be the case, yielded no hard evidence to track down the criminal kingpin nor disrupt his schemes. He’d removed the hard drives from several laptops just in case, and commandeered all of the cell phones that Janus’ minions had been carrying, but his hopes weren’t high. The web caches, phone numbers, IP addresses and all the rest would likely lead him on a circuitous path to nowhere.

He’d have more freedom to go on those potential wild goose chases later, once he figured out what to do about Feral and then sent Buttress and Peregrine back home. Even dead-ends could yield insights, though those insights would be hair-thin—Janus seemed quite adept at not leaving evidence that could point to him.

On the other hand, Query didn’t make it common knowledge that all of his senses were highly enhanced, so Janus wouldn’t have guarded against that possibility, perhaps. Janus was probably smart enough that none of these men and women had been near his main headquarters, but that didn’t mean they hadn’t been at some key satellite operations and didn’t bear evidence for Query’s investigation. Every strange scent he picked up that didn’t belong in the woods gave him another clue. Every bit of debris or miscellany in a minion’s pocket that didn’t have anything to do with the forest fed him more information.

I have dozens of tiny puzzle pieces, he thought. Sure, it’s a 5,000-piece puzzle and I can only complete small portions of the overall picture, but I’m getting closer, Janus. My intuitive powers can guess at what some other portions of the puzzle are supposed to be. By having as big an operation as you do, you have lots of people. Eventually, I’m going to find one who can lead me straight to you.

Query glanced up at the two small cameras mounted near the ceiling, and then to the table lamp and potted plant with their hidden spy equipment. He’d disabled all four cameras shortly before beginning his search, but he smiled at them all the same.

Hope you liked the show, you son of bitch.

* * *

The growling and shouting had been going on for some time now; when Buttress first came to tell Query that Feral was fully aware again and angry, the response was simply, “Tell him I’ll be out in 10 and then leave him be.”

Six minutes after that, Buttress was urging Query to come resolve the situation since he had created it to begin with. Without even turning his black mask toward the man, Query held up four fingers and then waved him off with several flicks of his wrist.

Query didn’t really need the extra time to do any more searching for evidence—he was done with that. This exercise in delay was in part meant to gauge Feral’s temperament.

It’s also the principle of the thing. I said 10 minutes and I meant 10 damned minutes.

When he emerged from the cabin, Query was carrying a large black duffel, unzipped and filled to bursting, with a shotgun stock sticking out. He let it drop to the ground. In his other hand, he held a spray bottle he had found in one of the cabin’s kitchens.

Peregrine and Buttress’ eyes were drawn more strongly to the bottle than to the duffel bag that held a firearm. In other circumstances, Query thought, he might have found that amusing. The memory of the horrifically mangled body of one of Janus’ minions in one of the cabins, though, squashed all hope of merriment tonight.

“Get me the fuck outta these!” Feral shouted at Query, spittle flying from his lips, straining at the pair of handcuffs and the various nylon ties as he struggled in his kneeling position.

“Calm down, first.”

“Untie me and unlock me or I will rip your goddamn heart out!”

“That’s not my definition of calm. It’s not anyone’s definition of calm.”

“Let me loose you fu…!”

Query sprayed Feral in the face a dozen times; he could almost feel Peregrine and Buttress tense up at the first few squirts. Clearly, it never occurred to them the bottle would be filled with mere tap water.

“What the hell are you…!”

Query sprayed him again, eight more times, saying, “Calm down so we can talk like humans.”

Sputtering as water dripped down his face, Feral half-growled, “I’m not a damn pet on a counter making a mess or getting hair on the couch. Stop trying to humiliate me.”

“I’m not trying to humiliate you, Feral. I am trying to get your attention and appeal to your rational side. I thought this would be a lot nicer than slapping you around.”

“I’m calm now,” Feral answered, his eyes glittering and a snarl teasing at one corner of his mouth.

“No, you’re not, but you’re close enough that I think we can begin to have our talk,” Query said. “I believe I asked you earlier not to kill anyone unless absolutely necessary. I’m pretty sure you could have beaten her senseless instead of shredding her into kibbles and bits. Certainly if you were going to go for a kill, a cleaner and more merciful one seemed appropriate.”

“I was wounded; it sets things off. I wasn’t thinking straight.”

“And I’m concerned that this might not have been the first time, Feral. Is it?”

“Plenty of people don’t deserve to live, Query,” he snarled. “Or deserve to die messily.”

You’re avoiding my question, Feral, even as you show you understand my intent in asking it.

“I’m worried about the ones who did deserve to live and might possibly have met a bitter end at the claws you wear. Maybe a petty criminal or an innocent bystander.”

Feral mouthed neither protest nor confirmation, which was precisely what Query had feared might happen. It was a more damning response than an overwrought denial.

Query reached into a side pocket on the duffel bag, extracted something that looked vaguely like a wristwatch, then took out a charger, and tossed both items on the ground near Feral’s feet.

“When I do finally unlock the cuffs and cut off the ties on you, you are going to put that on,” Query said levelly. “I don’t care where. Wrist, ankle, dick—whatever. You will make sure it is charged at all times and you will make sure you wear it every time you leave your home. Do you understand me?”

“An electronic leash? Are you kidding me?”

Query raised the water bottle. “Are we losing our will to be Zen about this?”

“You have no right…”

“I want to know where you are at all times,” Query said. “I want to know if and when you are in the vicinity of a death or serious injury that is…unjustifiable. If I find a pattern, I will chase you down and we will have words—or more. I suggest some meditation classes and anger management.”

On the periphery of his vision, Query saw Buttress and Peregrine fidget, and without taking his eyes off Feral held out a hand, palm out, to urge them to stay out of it.

“I am a Primal. Hardcore Primal. That’s why I call myself Feral,” the man said to Query in a hard growl. “Being a Primal is my key power. It’s in my nature to be wild.”

“That doesn’t mean you can’t control yourself and set limits. And if that is what it means for you, then you cannot be on the streets doing what you do because you will put innocent people at risk or you will go too far with someone who is just a minor thug and you will cause me to worry at night and make the rest of us look bad.”

“You can’t tell me what to do, you son of a bitch!”

“I just did,” Query responded, “and you need to calm down.”

“I will not calm down, you piece of shit!” Feral roared, a venomous look in his eyes, his torso and head pressing outward as if he thought he could stretch his way through his bonds to reach Query’s throat. The straining effort left him teetering, though he didn’t tumble.

Query dropped the squirt bottle, quickly snatched the shotgun out of the duffel bag, gave it a quick and hard pump and said with a placid voice, “If you continue to confirm my worst suspicions about you, I will put you down like a rabid dog. I suggest you act like a man instead.”

Feral kneeled back onto his heels, closed his eyes and took a few deep, slow breaths. When he opened his eyes again, there was still anger there, and resentment, but the raw fury had bled away.

“Uh huh,” Query said, sliding the shotgun back into the bag. “You can control yourself when you really want to. Thought so. And that makes my concerns so much more salient. Don’t do anything stupid when I cut you loose, and don’t do anything stupid for the rest of your career in costume. We’ll be working on your control and your boundaries.”

Feral said nothing.

“Did you hear me…Alexander ?” Query said quietly.

Feral flinched at the name, shocked to find that Query knew it and wondering what else he knew.

“Yeah, I heard you.”

“Good, because if you don’t want to cooperate with me on this, you either need to move to Marksburgh or somewhere else far away from here, or get used to the idea of being hunted down. Now let’s get you loose and get the hell out of here.”

* * *

There was no overt odor yet, though it was only a matter of time, and Janus hoped he could dispense with the rest of the unpleasantries in time to get the custodial crew in here before the air became rank. Sparing one last glance at the blue tarp slightly behind him, oblong and lumpy as it lay wrapped around the contents, he put his hands calmly on his desk and centered himself for a few moments.

Picking up the handset of his phone, Janus pressed the button for his receptionist and said, “Please send the next one in.”

“Yes, sir,” the young man answered, and Janus could hear his light chains tinkle quietly as he said “You can go in now” and set down the phone in its cradle, severing the connection to Janus.

Janus glanced down at the file on his desk to remind himself of the name of the man now stepping into his office.

“Please, have a seat, Walt,” Janus said, and spread his hands invitingly as the man settled in. Walt’s eyes drifted around the room, confused, and settled on the back door of the office for a few moments.

“Did Kevin go th…” he began, then stopped as Janus lifted a finger to one set of the lips on the two-faced helmet he wore tonight.

“So, Walt, you are my person in charge of logistics.”

“One of them, sir, yes,” he responded nervously.

“Well, among your various duties, you were charged with oversight of the teams in the Langehorne Woods, correct?”

“Yes, sir.”

“So their supplies were your responsibility?”

“Yes, but what…”

“And do you think you adequately supplied them with…ahhh…defensive tools?”

“As well as my budget allowed. More than they would need, I think.”

“Perhaps you didn’t think hard enough. Perhaps you should have suggested some budgetary adjustments.”

“Sir?”

“The team there has been wiped out. The safe-houses there are compromised. Kevin was in charge of communications with that team and I found his defense of his actions somewhat…lacking. I don’t think he communicated my desires well enough to the operatives there. Did you supply them well enough?”

“Yes, sir, I think I…”

“There you go thinking again. But you seem to be doing a lot of thinking now, when I would have preferred you thought ahead earlier. Thought outside the box, perhaps. Anticipated various contingencies like competent trans white hats.”

When Janus paused, Walt fidgeted a little, and then asked, “How big a strike force hit them, sir? Did someone on the team there betray the location? Was it all transhumans in the assault team? There’s so much I don’t know that it’s hard to defend myself to you. If it was more than one transhuman, that wasn’t the sort of thing one could anticipate…”

Janus stood up, calmly stepped past the tarp behind his desk and stood near Walt. “You’re paid to anticipate. You are compensated quite well with other things besides money to anticipate.”

A hand flashed out as Walt opened his mouth to speak, gripping the side of his head firmly. Then a soft, wet, rending sound and a gurgle from the man’s throat instead of words. And then silence, and sluggish lines of gore running down the man’s face and neck toward his torso.

Not as messy as with Kevin; I must be starting to calm down finally.

Janus casually pulled out a second tarp from behind the sofa in his office and deftly whipped it out to lay flat on the ground. No rush. The man’s own clothes would slow the flow of blood and other fluids before they reached the carpet. Then he tipped the chair back onto the tarp, rolled the dead man onto it, and wrapped him tight, dragging him next to his co-worker. Fishing out a tube of Clorox wipes, Janus pulled out two sheets and cleaned a few stray bits of gore from the chair before he set it back up again.

Next time I find your lair, Query, I will have a dozen men fire rockets into the building. No more finesse. I will more than kill you. I will obliterate you for this. You were supposed to already be dead. Why won’t you cooperate?

Janus returned to his leather chair, feeling much less anxious and wondering where Crazy Jane had run off to. He shrugged, sighed, pulled out a new file, and picked up the phone to have his receptionist send in the third and final of the employees to question about this—the one who was supposed to be on top of security protocols for the Langehorne Woods safe-houses.

Maybe she’ll have better answers, Janus thought. It would be nice to send at least one of them back to the offices breathing to show I’m a merciful man at times.

* * *

“Good evening, and welcome to ‘Nighttime RightView,’ Isaac,” Ben Glick said into his headphone as the first caller of the evening was patched into the booth from which he hosted three radio shows a week: mornings on Monday, afternoons on Wednesday and late night on Saturday.

“Thanks, Ben,” said the caller. “I listen to your show at times, and rarely agree with you, but I’ve only felt the need to call tonight with you trying to fire up a race war in connection to transhumans.”

“And how have I done that, exactly?” Ben responded smugly.

“Oh, I don’t know…maybe your insistence on a 50-foot-high wall with snipers and electrified gates along the Mexican border, your call to suspend all immigration and naturalization from Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and Asia for the next decade and…uh…your crazy insistence that there’s a ‘Tex-Mix buffet’ of dangerous transhumans all through the Southwest raping norm women to corrupt peaceful white American genetics…”

“Well, Isaac, Caucasians are decidedly less prone to developing transhuman powers, aren’t they? Kinds of puts us at a disadvantage we need to correct and protect against, don’t you think?” Ben retorted.

“No, not really,” Isaac answered. “Whites are still the overwhelming majority of people in this country, even more so when you factor in white Hispanics. So the number of transhumans here is pretty close to even between whites and non-whites in the U.S.”

“Sure, sure,” Ben said with a patronizing tone. “But the projections say that whites will be a minority by 2050; what’s going to happen then?”

“Whites will be a little less than half the population, I think is what the studies say, and that will still make them the single largest group—not a minority.”

“But the transhuman figures won’t be anywhere near as close to equal then, will they, Zach-y boy?” Ben countered. “And when our not-native-born ‘President’ Obama starts ramping up immigration for his extremist Muslim pals abroad and hands out all sorts of government money to them and encourages them to build big, strong families, and then starts marching our Christian, Caucasian women to the abortion clinics to start slicing into our numbers—well, whites will be a minority well before 2050.”

“That’s ridiculous! He doesn’t have broad powers like that, not to mention he’s U.S. born, no matter what your birther nonsense paranoia, and he’s Christian. People like you…”

“Hey, gotta go to the next caller, Isaac. I’m sure you have an militant Liberal-Islamo-Socialist Party meeting to go to so you can raise funds to get Obama his fascist emergency powers and a lifetime seat in the Oval Office anyway. Don’t want you to be late.”

“Muslim, terrorist, socialist, leftist and fascist? That doesn’t even make any…”

With a slice of his index finger across his throat as the signal, Ben had the technician cut the connection, smiled broadly as he saw a thumbs-up in regard to the next caller, and said, “Hello, John, and welcome to the call-in part of our show. I hope you’re a bit smarter than the last guy.”

“Ben, I’m a huge fan, and I wish you’d put your hat in the ring to run against that pretender in the White House. I just wanna say that…”

Ben smiled broadly, and winked at the technician through the booth’s window, watching the phone lines light up with callers, and knowing it was going to be a flood of contempt for the opinions of Isaac and every other weak-willed idiot out in the world who thought like he did.

* * *

After a 15-minute conversation to catch up, most of which she couldn’t hear—not that it would be easy to understand as Mad Dash lapsed into a string of metaphors and absurdities that confused her, anyway—Zoe saw the Speedster give Query a nod, wave to her and then exit the safe-house.

“Sorry about that,” Query said to Zoe. “I know it’s been a rough day for you but I needed to catch Dash up on things.”

“Oh, I feel a lot better,” Zoe said. “About most things, anyway. Not so sure about this,” she added, holding up a tiny, oblong black lozenge between her thumb and forefinger.

“Yes?” Query said in a tone that was unconcerned but also invited her to continue.

“Mad Dash called over that Asclepius guy on your tab, apparently. Nice guy. Fixed up my boo-boos really good. Also sensed a foreign object that he ‘encouraged’ my body to spit out. Funny—it seems to be in the same spot you ‘accidentally’ jabbed me on graduation day when you helped me off the ground.”

“Yeah, I wasn’t exactly 100% forthcoming about that small ‘mishap.’ I put that there on purpose,” Query said.

“Care to tell me what the fuck it is?” Zoe pressed, her voice gaining an edge.

“Transmitter. Tracking device.”

“So, I didn’t need to be kidnapped, or at least not wake up in a trunk panicked and out of control. You could have saved me all that bullshit and stress?”

“No, not really,” Query answered. “That was mainly an emergency backup plan. It’s a passive transmitter; otherwise, Janus’ people could have detected it and be tipped off that you were tagged. I needed to have something else like one of my flying drones get close enough to communicate with it and make it active. I had someone following you when I couldn’t, like tonight.”

“He didn’t do a very good job, did he?”

“He did a great job,” Query countered. “Kept track of you long enough for me to get a couple drones in your vicinity and make sure you had a rescue coming.”

“He let me get caught,” she snapped.

“It was his job to watch you, not protect you.”

“Yeah, that was your job, wasn’t it?” Zoe nearly spat at him. “Except you wanted me to get captured, didn’t you? So that you could get to Janus. You son of a bitch.”

Query regarded her for a moment through the eyeless black mask, arms crossed over his chest, and nodded slightly. “It was something I considered could happen. If I had wanted it to happen, though, I wouldn’t have saved you the first time at graduation, now would I?”

“You hadn’t tagged me before then, though” she pointed out.

“True, but I have my ways,” Query said. “But yes, I did consider that if I couldn’t stop Janus from succeeding with one of his nabs, I could use you as a way to either get to him or at least get close enough to some of his operatives to gather clues.”

Zoe threw the tiny transmitter at him and watched it bounce off the right cheek of his mask. It didn’t satisfy her nearly enough, so she swept one arm wide to knock over a torchiere-style floor lamp and a side table, along with the small candy dish and a set of coasters that had sat on it.

“Tell me how that makes you any different from that bitch Underworld who’s been trying to get me to join up with Janus and trying to manipulate me into saying yes or scare me into it. How the fuck are you any better?” she shouted.

“I could say that you’ve been getting my services for free, so you get what you pay for, but that wouldn’t even be true, because I’ve gone out of my way to keep watch on you—and Underworld where possible—and keep you from harm and prevent you from being whisked away from my surveillance,” Query said. “What I will emphasize though, is that I’m a shitload different from Underworld because my goal in all this—beyond any desire to use you as bait or gain something from Janus’ interest in you—is to ultimately free you from a threat so that you can make your own life decisions. Underworld’s been trying to snare you; I’m trying to get you free to move on with life as you choose. And then get me out of your life, too.”

“You used me,” Zoe said miserably. “I trusted you and you used me.”

“My plan was never to let you get caught, Zoe. That would have been plain stupid along with being rotten,” he said, holding his hands out, palms up as if in supplication. “You being caught and a teeny little passive transmitter vastly increased my chances of losing track of you altogether. But I considered the possibility you might be successfully kidnapped, and I’d have been a fool not to plan ahead to capitalize on that.”

“Capitalize?” Zoe sneered.

“Face it, Zoe: Regardless of any personal interest I have in taking Janus down, it’s in both our interests for me to find him. He may try to get at you again; he may not. Probably not. This latest attempt cost him a lot in terms of manpower, money and more exposure to me. You’ve become expensive. Going after you is now officially a liability and a loss proposition.”

“All the more reason to punish me by coming after me again.”

“Wrong. He’d come after me because I’m the one messing with him.”

“I killed two of his guys,” Zoe pointed out.

“He doesn’t know that. Also, it’s small potatoes compared to the damage I did. He’ll come after me or one of my few friends if he looks for revenge. I doubt you’re one of my friends after all this, so he won’t pick you.”

Zoe leaned against the back of the nearby sofa and sighed. “You could have at least told me what you were up to,” she said dejectedly.

“A secret backup plan ceases to be secret if I tell someone,” Query said. “And I like my secrets. For what it’s worth, I’m sorry. I’m not sorry I planned things the way I did, because I still think it was necessary, but I am truly sorry for what you went through. That’s the other difference between me and Underworld. She may not be as outright nasty or vicious as Janus, but she likes control. She practically orgasms when she breaks someone or gets them to submit to her will. I don’t get any pleasure from having played you; not even a little bit.”

For nearly a minute, they remained in silence, before Zoe finally broke it. “So, what now?”

“To be on the safe side, I find someplace you can stay that give you a bit more freedom than this little place and even more security. Cute as it is, I doubt you want to spend the next several months here while I assess the fallout and whether you’re still at risk.”

“Any ideas where yet?”

“Yeah, I think I have a place; a person who will make sure nothing happens to you.”

“A friend of yours?”

“No. I don’t like him much at all, but I know you’ll be safe from Janus with him. But for now, you get some sleep, and I’ll fill you in when the sun is up.”

“Where will you be?”

“Right on the couch,” Query said. “I’ll be reading. No one will find you here, and if they do, they won’t get by me. I promise that. I can do that because I’ll die before I break that promise, and if I die, I won’t have to worry about catching shit from you for breaking it.”

Zoe laughed despite herself, and muttered, “I still don’t like you right now.”

“I have that effect on a lot of people.”

“What if you fall asleep?”

“Not a chance. You see—and considering what I’ve put you through, I guess I can tell you what only a few people know—I don’t sleep. And before you ask, yes, I mean that literally. The price for my powers is a brain that doesn’t know how to shut down anymore, even for a few minutes.”

“You know, it’s not a secret if you tell someone,” Zoe pointed out, feeling some satisfaction for using at least some of his earlier words against him.

“It doesn’t need to be a secret, Zoe. It’s just personal. And I don’t share personal with many people. You may not like me, and that’s understandable. But I like you, and I wish we could have met under better circumstances. You’re good people, Zoe, and I want you to step out in the real world with as clean a slate as possible. You deserve that as much as I deserve your scorn.”

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