6.02
An Imago of Rust and Crimson
Chapter 6.02
The air smelled of the sea, with cold winds coming in off the Atlantic. I shivered as I walked to the nearest drug store. I needed a sling for my arm. And while I was there, I could send Sniffer to find Natasha. Even if the bird woman sent one of her crows to find me, she wouldn't be able to find where I lived.
The fluorescent bulbs overhead hummed and Isolation whispered in my ears as I picked out enough random things to hopefully hide what I was really interested in. Something for my chapped lips, something sweet; oh, maybe iron supplements might be useful given how much I seemed to wind up bleeding. Once I'd put a selection of things in my wire basket, I paused in front of one of the mirrors, pulled my hood up, and pretended to be trying on a pair of sunglasses.
The cold and the squalor of the Other Place embraced me as I exhaled Sniffer. She looked down at me, her eyes mournful and her nostrils flaring. There wasn't really enough space in here for her, but she propped herself up on her too-long elbows. "Find me Natasha and show me where she is in the mirror," I whispered. The reflection showed me what she was seeing, following a blurred rush through city streets until she arrived at a police station. Sniffer paused before a pale and twitchy Natasha who was wearing a pair of big overarm gloves, like the ones they made violent prisoners wear.
Good. She deserved it. And I knew where the police station was. She wasn't far at all. Of course, she was surrounded by cops and they'd have all kinds of security there, but it couldn't hurt to take a look around. Well, okay, it could hurt a lot. Cops had guns, and last time I'd got into a police place, the bird lady had been there.
But this time I had a new trick.
Once I was outside the drug store, I managed to put the sling on. The wind picked up as I made my way towards the location Sniffer found.
The police station was up against a small square, that'd been half turned into a parking lot. The old redbricks loomed against the dark grey skyline. I considered whether the playground was a good place to start - but, no, that'd just be weird and not safe. I was going to be leaving my body behind.
Instead, there was a greasy spoon two doors down. The air smelled of coffee, bacon, fries and just a hint of over-cooked egg when I entered the warmth. The place wasn't even a third full, which was perfect for what I wanted. The woman cleaning up coffee cups from a just-emptied table glanced over at me. "Just take a seat anywhere," she told me. "Order at the counter."
"Thank you," I said, taking the corner seat where neither she nor the kid behind the counter could see me. I wasn't going to take risks, though, so I wrapped myself and the table in Isolation.
The red vinyl squeaked as I sat down, and I made myself comfortable as best I could. Adjusting how I sat, I made sure there wasn't any pressure on my hurting shoulder. I rested my head against the wall, and yawned.
Then I crawled out of my mouth.
The cold of the Other Place grated itself against me. It felt like the depths of a Maine winter. Once again, I was an iron-nailed, butterfly-winged creature of my nightmare world. Only the chain attached to my navel kept me tied to the grey shell I spent most of my time in. This time, though, I was taking better care of it. Rather than just abandon my body, I'd found it somewhere nice and warm and soft.
And this way, not only would nobody see me, but I wouldn't have my useless body complaining about how much my shoulder was hurting while I was concentrating on other things.
I took a deep breath, visualising the last thing I'd need to make my image complete, and exhaled. The Other Place spread out from my mouth, crawling over my face and taking form. It calcified into a blank white mask, then expanded out into the same dirty white dress as before. I might have been a bodiless projection-thing, but I was still a cape. Having a costume was important.
Looking around, I made one last check. Isolation was still doing its thing. The shrivelled-up eyeless boy behind the cracked counter paid me no attention; the bloated woman with arms sprouting with rotten poppies had forgotten I was here. With my hands in my pockets, I left the diner and made my way to the police station next door.
The Other Place reflection of the building wasn't a happy place. It was taller than it should have been, with an extra storey haphazardly slapped on the real-world roof. The windows had teeth that were long enough to meet as bars. Wet sounds came from the security cameras as beady blue eyes peered out at the world. Vile-smelling fluids had wept from cracks in the bare concrete skin, leaving mucky streaks all the way down its front. There was something feral about it; something like an out-of-control beast. Fear oozed from the people walking in the front door; fear clung to the cops heading out on patrol. The whole building was wrapped in a dark haze – and it'd been like that for a long time. The cops were scared and the people who dealt with the cops were scared.
I inhaled and tasted the air. The fear smelled old. Things had been like this for a long, long time. But it'd been building up in layers, and recent events had added a thick new coating that got on everyone who worked here.
Cold shivers ran up and down my spine. A part of me wasn't sure whether this was a good idea. But I couldn't chicken out now. Still, the sight of the building freaked me out enough that I headed around the side and entered through the parking garage, passing lines of filthy, rusty cop cars. Their engines breathed like living things. The fear was so thick in the back seats that I could see the spectral figures of countless prisoners, bound by misty chains of sick, paralytic panic.
My wings made noises like crumpled tinfoil as I explored the police station. A flare of fire marked two cops arguing with each other in low voices, while tired grey-faced flaking monsters ate garbage in the canteen. The walls were bare and sprinkled with nonsense-writing. In some places unseen pipes had burst, spilling stinking waste across the floor. Some of the more pig-faced cops were covered in that squalor, like they'd wallowed in it. Smoky fear was everywhere.
Someone had to do something. That much was obvious. When all the cops were letting each other's fear soak into one another, they'd be living on the edge. All it'd take would be one of them panicking at the wrong moment, and… well, we'd have another Phoenix Massacre on our hands.
I let my fears escape and breathed out Phobia. Her dirty red smock was stained and sooty, and her screaming open mouth seemed to be watching me.
"I want you to," I considered how to put this, "I want you to thin out the fear here. You just… you just have to make it less oppressive." I thought about what I'd done to Dad. That had been a mistake. "Don't take too much from anyone. I just want you to make it so they're not poisoning one another. So everyone's a little calmer. So no one gets hurt."
Phobia sucked in a hissing breath and turned to get to work. Her too-wide mouth was inhaling the fear as she crept around. I hoped that'd help. I had other things to do.
I needed to see what was real, not some abstract otherworldly depiction of events. It took me several attempts and no-doubt strange facial expressions before I managed to shift my vision in reverse and peer back into reality. The too-thin air prickled against my face, feeling uncomfortably hot. When I looked down, I realised I didn't have a body. I wasn't even a pair of floating eyeballs. That made sense. My eyeballs were hopefully where I'd left them, back in the diner. It still made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. Or possibly the imaginary hair on the back of my imaginary neck.
There wasn't time to think about that. Any existential dread would have to wait until later, because I didn't want to leave my body alone too long. Invisibly pacing the corridors, I found a pair of cops who were gossiping over coffee and sent a pair of Ideas to nudge their conversation.
"... oh yeah, so I saw Eric earlier," said the thinner one. He had foam on his moustache; his uniform was sweat-stained. Most people couldn't see the black-red oil dripping from his hands, but I could when I sunk down to check his Other form. He'd killed. At least once, and recently. Phobia lurked behind him, drawing off the thick haze around him.
"Oh?" asked the other one; overweight, Hispanic, balding, shirt damp around the armpits. He nursed his coffee like a man pulled out of freezing water, all hunched over and huddled in on himself. He had too many eyes in the Other Place and wouldn't stop twitching. I wondered if that meant he was like Luci in some way.
"Yeah, he was over here for a transfer. He looks like shit, if I gotta be honest."
"No shit. That's what happens when you wind up in Ormswood." The fat one paused, lifting his head up slightly. "Wait, I heard there was someone in the cape cell. Was he over for that?"
"Yeah, 'parently they still ain't fixed their one since that breakout. So they offloaded one of their perps on us."
"Aww, shit. I just want to go home after today. I'm falling asleep." Balding slumped back in on himself. "Hope the fucking feds come pick 'em up soon, before Jane starts calling out names for extra duties."
Foam Moustache rolled his shoulders. "The para lawyered up fast. Or maybe her parents did - I dunno, she's just a kid. Last I heard her attorney was going nuclear over in Sullivan's office. But what Eric said was that this whole thing was shady as fuck. Like, he said she kept on trying to confess to things. Like being involved with that whole mess with the dead kid at Winslow."
"Oh Jesus, that sounds like a mess." Balding downed the contents of his mug. "I can't deal with this shit. I need more coffee, then I'm going to try to look busy until my shift ends."
"Wise choice, man." Foam Moustache pulled himself to his feet with a grunt, one hand on his back. "Wish I could do the same, but I'm not getting off until midnight." He stretched. "At least things are feeling a bit less tense around here. Maybe things are on the ups."
They wandered off, and I sunk back into the Other Place to think. Tash had a lawyer? I hadn't asked her to do that. Maybe she'd called her dad. But at least she was trying to confess. And the cops didn't have a clue what was going on, which wasn't exactly surprising. I had the suspicion I'd fucked up by not making Megumi stay to talk to the cops, though. The other skinheads might be playing the victim. I'd need to put an end to that, and to do that I'd need to find what her attorney was doing.
I managed to find 'Sullivan's office' by poking one of the cops in the brain to head over there, then slipped through the wall while she stood by the door wondering what she was doing. Foam Moustache had said they were going nuclear in here, and while that seemed to be an exaggeration I could still feel the tension in the air. Sullivan was a short African-American man, with greying hair. His carefully trimmed beard and fussy reading glasses didn't look like they should be sharing a face with a nose that'd been broken several times. It was like a furnace in here with the heaters on full blast, but he hadn't rolled up his sleeves. Overhead, the dusty ceiling fan lazily spun.
"Like I said," he said in a deep baritone, with a clear New York accent, "she was read her rights. Her confessions are our business. They were freely volunteered - not a product of interrogation, so there's no legal..."
The attorney was middle-aged and bald on top. Fat jowls hung under drooping features. He resembled nothing as much as a kicked bloodhound. "I'm sorry, but that means nothing of the sort." He scowled, only deepening the wrinkles. "Natasha has clearly been affected by some kind of parahuman power. She's the victim here. Any so-called 'confessions' or 'admissions' are meaningless. She's being compelled by whoever did this to her."
My blood ran cold. Oh no. But… I hadn't affected her mind at all! I just made her want to confess! The attorney shouldn't be allowed to do something like this!
"Don't play games, Martinson. We know she was there involved in skinhead gang activities. We've got confessions from her associates too. And we know she's an unregistered parahuman, which is an aggravating factor."
The lawyer balled his hands into fists. Sullivan couldn't see it because he was keeping them below the desk, but I could. "Being a parahuman isn't a crime and neither is being unregistered. My client has been illegally affected by parahuman powers and has been mind-controlled into giving a false confession."
"You claim she has. That'll be established when it goes to court."
"She's not freely and voluntarily testifying," Martinson said, ignoring the cop's objection. "In that cell, you've got a teenage girl who was brutally assaulted by gang members in a home invasion, and then psychologically tortured by a Japanese villain. She should be in a hospital, not in the station."
"She is a suspect and an unregistered parahuman," Sullivan repeated. There was a weary note in his voice. "Her injuries have been checked. She refused medical treatment while demanding to confess."
"How can you check her injuries? You're keeping her in solitary confinement!" Martinson's voice rose in pitch. He sounded like a squealing pig, I thought bitterly.
"A visual inspection was performed. She's an unregistered para and needs to be treated with caution, and," and Sullivan leaned forwards, "you're the sort who'd be getting on my back if we'd sedated her so we could safely inspect her."
"She's a sixteen-year-old girl who's been attacked! This is ridiculous!"
"We've called in PPD support, and they're sending a PRT cape to help. They would've been here sooner, but there's always a wait for calling out a PRT these days – it's not our fault. They have the tools to safely approach her, diagnose her for parahuman influence - if any - and treat her injuries."
"I'll need to be present for that, as her attorney," Martinson said quickly.
"Yeah, of course. Now, will there be anything…" His desk phone went off. "Sullivan. What is it?" He paused. "Right. I'll be right down there, along with the attorn… oh, he's headed up already? I'll take Mr Martinson there, then." He put the phone down. "The PRT has arrived. If you'd like to follow me, we'll meet them at the isolation cell."
The two men rose, leaving their glasses of water behind them. I trained behind them unseen, heading down the stairs and down again. The cells were underground, and the distant noise of the road bled through from above as a dull bass rumbling. The corridors were painted an institutional pale blue, and smelled of sweat, aniseed, and cleaning fluid.
"I hope your PRT man hasn't touched her without me being present," Mr Martinson said. He sounded like he was just short of gloating. "There'll be…"
"Yeah, yeah, I know the rules. We're almost there, and… you three are the PRT?"
There was a trio waiting by the cell; a suited man, a female paramedic, and a costumed cape. I thought the cape was a man, but it was hard to tell. They were wearing a suit of heavy padded armour, with a glowing red cross on their helmet where there should have been eyes.
"Agent John Butcher," the man in the suit said in introduction. If I had to guess, the fed was in his late thirties, his sandy blond hair cut short to make it less obvious that he was going bald. He had a pair of dark shades sticking out of the pocket of his navy-blue suit. I couldn't help but notice he was missing one of his little fingernails and wondered what'd happened to cause that. "I'm the leader of this PRT. Sorry for the delay. Things are hectic today and we've only just got back from another callout on the other side of town."
"Julia Bowers," said the paramedic, nodding stiffly. She looked sallow under the fluorescent lights, like she might need her own medical treatment. Or maybe she was just tired, given her heavy lidded eyes and dark bags under her eyes.
"Sir Sense," said the cape, his voice giving away his sex. "Parahuman specialist on loan from the FBI. I'm here to check for signs of mental intrusion."
Crap. I needed to get Penitence out of Tash's head. The attorney might try to use it to get her released if they caught it. Ducking sideways, I walked through Mr Martinson as he carefully wrote down all of their names. Shrugging off the uneasy sensation that gave me, I stepped through the wall into the cell. On the other side of the wall, I heard a muffled, "I'm Mark Martinson, and I'm Natasha's attorney, here to witness things."
A pair of dull blue eyes met mine, and for a moment I almost thought Natasha could see me as I emerged from the wall. But no, it was a coincidence. She was just staring at the wall, curled in on herself. Her hands were locked up in full-arm gloves, tied together at the wrists, and she didn't look comfortable. Good, I thought, but I didn't fully mean it. She just looked pathetic. Even when I sunk back into the Other Place, her beautiful golden hands were wrapped around her body. There were no handprints anywhere in the room.
I reached out, and placed my hand on her brow. Penitence felt cold and sharp in there, squirming in her mind. With a sharp inhalation, I drew my monster out, pulling it back into my brain where it belonged. She didn't respond to that. You'd think that she might have cheered up or something, but maybe my monster had spawned a little Penitence of her own in her skull.
In retrospect, I'd made a mistake back in the apartment. I should have gone in the back with Glory Girl, rescued Megumi, and got out. But I'd wanted to punish the skinheads for the kidnapping. And because of that, they looked like the victims.
And it hadn't even been Natasha's plan. I'd… I'd need to think about this. I kept on blundering into things. Back before she'd died, my mother had talked to me about the difference between punishment and justice. She'd been speaking about the cops and the prison system – and how they were rotten – but maybe I should have been listening to her too.
With a sigh, I stepped back towards the corner of this room. It looked cleaner than most of the rest of the Other police station. I guess it wasn't used much, so there wasn't time for feelings to sink into the walls. Still, there was enough graffiti scrawled over it, saying things like whAT diD i dO ROng? and wHaT r THey GOinG 2 Do toO Me? and DO NOT MOVE.
Wait. I blinked. That bold, stencilled writing was on top of rest of the graffiti. It was in a different hand. And I didn't think it'd been there when I'd glanced over the room before.
The bottom fell out of my stomach. The door ground open, rust flaking from the hinges. And in walked two grey men and someone who didn't look like a monster at all. The only beauty on the 'cape' was his helmet. The rest of him was entirely grey. The paramedic was the same - traces of sea-green beauty in her bag; the rest a colourless, flaking thing. But Agent Butcher looked almost exactly the same as he did in the real world. Almost. Because his suit here was black rather than navy blue, a third eye stared out from his forehead, and he had that strange glow that made him seem more real than the surrounding area.
He'd been feeding on parahumans or tinkertech. Because he was someone like the bird woman. Or Kirsty. Or me. He was the three-eyed man to me now. He might be able to change his name but the Other Place would always recognise him.
The fake-cape grey man stepped forwards, fiddling with something on the side of his mask. But it was all a lie, just as much as that 'cloaking' button I'd given Glory Girl. The grey men were in the FBI and PPD; fake parahumans who relied on technology. I kept my eyes on Agent Butcher the three-eyed man, who'd gone all quiet and was leaning against the wall. Almost like he was trying to avoid blissing out on Tash's beautiful golden light.
Which… I wasn't doing. It was nice - beautiful, even - but it didn't hammer its way into my forebrain like it used to. Was I getting too used to looking at parahuman powers? Or was it something else? The golden fire did look dimmer than it had before…
No time to think of that. I wiped my mouth on my sleeve. Dammit. Dammit. Dammit. I… I didn't want anything really bad to happen to Natasha. She was just too pathetic. Tash deserved to be in juvie, not whatever the grey men and their masters might do. Both the three-eyed man and the bird lady had the glow, so maybe he'd feed off her if I left him alone.
"Scanning in progress," the fake cape said. "Agent Butcher, initial readings indicate it's a situation 32b."
"That's to be expected - she's definitely a parahuman. Telekinetic… matching with the reports." I was almost a little bit impressed. I suspected that number meant nothing at all. It was just a way for him to provide the answer. "Are her powers interfering with the scan?"
"Yes, sir, I'm getting waveform distortion."
"I was afraid of that." He turned to the attorney. "Scanning for parahuman mental tampering is prone to contamination when the subject is a parahuman. This is going to take longer than I'd hoped. We're going to need to give her a call-response check to check."
"What does that mean?" demanded Mr Martison.
The agent gestured over at the goggles and headset which the grey woman was unpacking from her bag. There wasn't a trace of parahuman power on it. He fiddled with his badge in his hands. "It means she wears this and we show her certain images and record her responses. It's a way of detecting someone under the influence of parahuman powers. We just need you to agree and we can get started."
"Well, if we can get this out of the way… yes." I blinked. Had that been something moving between the two of them? He'd done something. Something that didn't have a parahuman glow.
"Thank you for your compliance," said the grey woman.
"Well, then can you have someone bring a seat?" asked Mr Martinson. "I have to be present for this."
"Very well. In the meantime, Sullivan, can we talk?" the three-eyed man said. "I can't do much until they finish the checks, so I'm going to get a coffee. I've been on my feet all day."
"I have paperwork to do, Butcher. I'll show you where the coffee machine is," said Sullivan.
"Much obliged."
For a moment I hesitated, unsure of who I wanted to follow. Watch the interrogation, or find out what he had done? In the end, I decided the three-eyed man was the dangerous one. He was the one I had to keep an eye on. I almost called Phobia back as backup, but I held off. She was doing good getting rid of the fear around the station. At first they were just talking about the weather and sports, but once they were well out of the hearing range of the attorney the agent cleared his throat. "So, this Martinson man. Do you know him?" He had his badge in his hands, and was fiddling with it. The metal caught the light.
"What, personally?" The three-eyed man shook his head, and Sullivan frowned. "Oh, you mean, is he known to me?"
"Yes. This is off the record, so we can talk freely."
Sullivan grimaced. "Yeah, I've seen him around here a few times. Mix of things. Some DUIs, a domestic abuse case a month or so ago," he wagged his finger as they set up the stairs, "and yeah, that big thing with the 'stolen' guns from that gun shop a year back. Speakin' off the record? I hate his guts, and I'm betting he's kicking himself I'm duty officer tonight 'cause other people wouldn't stand up to him. He's got connections among the local cops, the ones who've been in Brockton all their careers. We got pressure from the chief to drop that case. Not enough evidence my ass - someone pushed him."
"Interesting. Off the record, again," his badge gleamed in the stairwells lights, "if you had to say who was behind that theft…"
"Skinheads, and I don't think it was a robbery," Sullivan said immediately. "We found a bunch of those guns later in Iron Eagle hands. I'd bet my paycheck that Jerrick's Guns is dodgy and gave the skinheads the guns then got it written off as a robbery and claimed the insurance - but they said it was a robbery by one of the NY gangs and that's what it went down as on paper."
"Interesting. Very interesting."
I had to agree with the three-eyed man. That was interesting. And I could see what he was doing. In his hands, his badge was more than a bit of metal. It was a stamp, and it'd printed TALK on the other man's forehead.
Sullivan blinked. "But that's strictly off the books," he added, hastily. "Couldn't prove it. Maybe he's just someone who's cheap enough that he gets used by skinheads a bunch."
"Yes, yes, of course. You've got to obey the chief when you don't have proof." He fiddled with his badge. OBEY wrote itself on Sullivan's forehead, over the top of TALK. "Thank you very much. You can get back to your paperwork."
The cop walked off, looking slightly bemused. Silently, I shifted in place, bouncing up and down on my toes. My nerves were humming. What was he up to?
"What are you up to, I wonder?" the three-eyed man said to the thin air.
No, he hadn't. His third eye was open; focussed; attentive. Looking in my direction. He'd said it to me.
Chapter 6.02
The air smelled of the sea, with cold winds coming in off the Atlantic. I shivered as I walked to the nearest drug store. I needed a sling for my arm. And while I was there, I could send Sniffer to find Natasha. Even if the bird woman sent one of her crows to find me, she wouldn't be able to find where I lived.
The fluorescent bulbs overhead hummed and Isolation whispered in my ears as I picked out enough random things to hopefully hide what I was really interested in. Something for my chapped lips, something sweet; oh, maybe iron supplements might be useful given how much I seemed to wind up bleeding. Once I'd put a selection of things in my wire basket, I paused in front of one of the mirrors, pulled my hood up, and pretended to be trying on a pair of sunglasses.
The cold and the squalor of the Other Place embraced me as I exhaled Sniffer. She looked down at me, her eyes mournful and her nostrils flaring. There wasn't really enough space in here for her, but she propped herself up on her too-long elbows. "Find me Natasha and show me where she is in the mirror," I whispered. The reflection showed me what she was seeing, following a blurred rush through city streets until she arrived at a police station. Sniffer paused before a pale and twitchy Natasha who was wearing a pair of big overarm gloves, like the ones they made violent prisoners wear.
Good. She deserved it. And I knew where the police station was. She wasn't far at all. Of course, she was surrounded by cops and they'd have all kinds of security there, but it couldn't hurt to take a look around. Well, okay, it could hurt a lot. Cops had guns, and last time I'd got into a police place, the bird lady had been there.
But this time I had a new trick.
Once I was outside the drug store, I managed to put the sling on. The wind picked up as I made my way towards the location Sniffer found.
The police station was up against a small square, that'd been half turned into a parking lot. The old redbricks loomed against the dark grey skyline. I considered whether the playground was a good place to start - but, no, that'd just be weird and not safe. I was going to be leaving my body behind.
Instead, there was a greasy spoon two doors down. The air smelled of coffee, bacon, fries and just a hint of over-cooked egg when I entered the warmth. The place wasn't even a third full, which was perfect for what I wanted. The woman cleaning up coffee cups from a just-emptied table glanced over at me. "Just take a seat anywhere," she told me. "Order at the counter."
"Thank you," I said, taking the corner seat where neither she nor the kid behind the counter could see me. I wasn't going to take risks, though, so I wrapped myself and the table in Isolation.
The red vinyl squeaked as I sat down, and I made myself comfortable as best I could. Adjusting how I sat, I made sure there wasn't any pressure on my hurting shoulder. I rested my head against the wall, and yawned.
Then I crawled out of my mouth.
The cold of the Other Place grated itself against me. It felt like the depths of a Maine winter. Once again, I was an iron-nailed, butterfly-winged creature of my nightmare world. Only the chain attached to my navel kept me tied to the grey shell I spent most of my time in. This time, though, I was taking better care of it. Rather than just abandon my body, I'd found it somewhere nice and warm and soft.
And this way, not only would nobody see me, but I wouldn't have my useless body complaining about how much my shoulder was hurting while I was concentrating on other things.
I took a deep breath, visualising the last thing I'd need to make my image complete, and exhaled. The Other Place spread out from my mouth, crawling over my face and taking form. It calcified into a blank white mask, then expanded out into the same dirty white dress as before. I might have been a bodiless projection-thing, but I was still a cape. Having a costume was important.
Looking around, I made one last check. Isolation was still doing its thing. The shrivelled-up eyeless boy behind the cracked counter paid me no attention; the bloated woman with arms sprouting with rotten poppies had forgotten I was here. With my hands in my pockets, I left the diner and made my way to the police station next door.
The Other Place reflection of the building wasn't a happy place. It was taller than it should have been, with an extra storey haphazardly slapped on the real-world roof. The windows had teeth that were long enough to meet as bars. Wet sounds came from the security cameras as beady blue eyes peered out at the world. Vile-smelling fluids had wept from cracks in the bare concrete skin, leaving mucky streaks all the way down its front. There was something feral about it; something like an out-of-control beast. Fear oozed from the people walking in the front door; fear clung to the cops heading out on patrol. The whole building was wrapped in a dark haze – and it'd been like that for a long time. The cops were scared and the people who dealt with the cops were scared.
I inhaled and tasted the air. The fear smelled old. Things had been like this for a long, long time. But it'd been building up in layers, and recent events had added a thick new coating that got on everyone who worked here.
Cold shivers ran up and down my spine. A part of me wasn't sure whether this was a good idea. But I couldn't chicken out now. Still, the sight of the building freaked me out enough that I headed around the side and entered through the parking garage, passing lines of filthy, rusty cop cars. Their engines breathed like living things. The fear was so thick in the back seats that I could see the spectral figures of countless prisoners, bound by misty chains of sick, paralytic panic.
My wings made noises like crumpled tinfoil as I explored the police station. A flare of fire marked two cops arguing with each other in low voices, while tired grey-faced flaking monsters ate garbage in the canteen. The walls were bare and sprinkled with nonsense-writing. In some places unseen pipes had burst, spilling stinking waste across the floor. Some of the more pig-faced cops were covered in that squalor, like they'd wallowed in it. Smoky fear was everywhere.
Someone had to do something. That much was obvious. When all the cops were letting each other's fear soak into one another, they'd be living on the edge. All it'd take would be one of them panicking at the wrong moment, and… well, we'd have another Phoenix Massacre on our hands.
I let my fears escape and breathed out Phobia. Her dirty red smock was stained and sooty, and her screaming open mouth seemed to be watching me.
"I want you to," I considered how to put this, "I want you to thin out the fear here. You just… you just have to make it less oppressive." I thought about what I'd done to Dad. That had been a mistake. "Don't take too much from anyone. I just want you to make it so they're not poisoning one another. So everyone's a little calmer. So no one gets hurt."
Phobia sucked in a hissing breath and turned to get to work. Her too-wide mouth was inhaling the fear as she crept around. I hoped that'd help. I had other things to do.
I needed to see what was real, not some abstract otherworldly depiction of events. It took me several attempts and no-doubt strange facial expressions before I managed to shift my vision in reverse and peer back into reality. The too-thin air prickled against my face, feeling uncomfortably hot. When I looked down, I realised I didn't have a body. I wasn't even a pair of floating eyeballs. That made sense. My eyeballs were hopefully where I'd left them, back in the diner. It still made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. Or possibly the imaginary hair on the back of my imaginary neck.
There wasn't time to think about that. Any existential dread would have to wait until later, because I didn't want to leave my body alone too long. Invisibly pacing the corridors, I found a pair of cops who were gossiping over coffee and sent a pair of Ideas to nudge their conversation.
"... oh yeah, so I saw Eric earlier," said the thinner one. He had foam on his moustache; his uniform was sweat-stained. Most people couldn't see the black-red oil dripping from his hands, but I could when I sunk down to check his Other form. He'd killed. At least once, and recently. Phobia lurked behind him, drawing off the thick haze around him.
"Oh?" asked the other one; overweight, Hispanic, balding, shirt damp around the armpits. He nursed his coffee like a man pulled out of freezing water, all hunched over and huddled in on himself. He had too many eyes in the Other Place and wouldn't stop twitching. I wondered if that meant he was like Luci in some way.
"Yeah, he was over here for a transfer. He looks like shit, if I gotta be honest."
"No shit. That's what happens when you wind up in Ormswood." The fat one paused, lifting his head up slightly. "Wait, I heard there was someone in the cape cell. Was he over for that?"
"Yeah, 'parently they still ain't fixed their one since that breakout. So they offloaded one of their perps on us."
"Aww, shit. I just want to go home after today. I'm falling asleep." Balding slumped back in on himself. "Hope the fucking feds come pick 'em up soon, before Jane starts calling out names for extra duties."
Foam Moustache rolled his shoulders. "The para lawyered up fast. Or maybe her parents did - I dunno, she's just a kid. Last I heard her attorney was going nuclear over in Sullivan's office. But what Eric said was that this whole thing was shady as fuck. Like, he said she kept on trying to confess to things. Like being involved with that whole mess with the dead kid at Winslow."
"Oh Jesus, that sounds like a mess." Balding downed the contents of his mug. "I can't deal with this shit. I need more coffee, then I'm going to try to look busy until my shift ends."
"Wise choice, man." Foam Moustache pulled himself to his feet with a grunt, one hand on his back. "Wish I could do the same, but I'm not getting off until midnight." He stretched. "At least things are feeling a bit less tense around here. Maybe things are on the ups."
They wandered off, and I sunk back into the Other Place to think. Tash had a lawyer? I hadn't asked her to do that. Maybe she'd called her dad. But at least she was trying to confess. And the cops didn't have a clue what was going on, which wasn't exactly surprising. I had the suspicion I'd fucked up by not making Megumi stay to talk to the cops, though. The other skinheads might be playing the victim. I'd need to put an end to that, and to do that I'd need to find what her attorney was doing.
I managed to find 'Sullivan's office' by poking one of the cops in the brain to head over there, then slipped through the wall while she stood by the door wondering what she was doing. Foam Moustache had said they were going nuclear in here, and while that seemed to be an exaggeration I could still feel the tension in the air. Sullivan was a short African-American man, with greying hair. His carefully trimmed beard and fussy reading glasses didn't look like they should be sharing a face with a nose that'd been broken several times. It was like a furnace in here with the heaters on full blast, but he hadn't rolled up his sleeves. Overhead, the dusty ceiling fan lazily spun.
"Like I said," he said in a deep baritone, with a clear New York accent, "she was read her rights. Her confessions are our business. They were freely volunteered - not a product of interrogation, so there's no legal..."
The attorney was middle-aged and bald on top. Fat jowls hung under drooping features. He resembled nothing as much as a kicked bloodhound. "I'm sorry, but that means nothing of the sort." He scowled, only deepening the wrinkles. "Natasha has clearly been affected by some kind of parahuman power. She's the victim here. Any so-called 'confessions' or 'admissions' are meaningless. She's being compelled by whoever did this to her."
My blood ran cold. Oh no. But… I hadn't affected her mind at all! I just made her want to confess! The attorney shouldn't be allowed to do something like this!
"Don't play games, Martinson. We know she was there involved in skinhead gang activities. We've got confessions from her associates too. And we know she's an unregistered parahuman, which is an aggravating factor."
The lawyer balled his hands into fists. Sullivan couldn't see it because he was keeping them below the desk, but I could. "Being a parahuman isn't a crime and neither is being unregistered. My client has been illegally affected by parahuman powers and has been mind-controlled into giving a false confession."
"You claim she has. That'll be established when it goes to court."
"She's not freely and voluntarily testifying," Martinson said, ignoring the cop's objection. "In that cell, you've got a teenage girl who was brutally assaulted by gang members in a home invasion, and then psychologically tortured by a Japanese villain. She should be in a hospital, not in the station."
"She is a suspect and an unregistered parahuman," Sullivan repeated. There was a weary note in his voice. "Her injuries have been checked. She refused medical treatment while demanding to confess."
"How can you check her injuries? You're keeping her in solitary confinement!" Martinson's voice rose in pitch. He sounded like a squealing pig, I thought bitterly.
"A visual inspection was performed. She's an unregistered para and needs to be treated with caution, and," and Sullivan leaned forwards, "you're the sort who'd be getting on my back if we'd sedated her so we could safely inspect her."
"She's a sixteen-year-old girl who's been attacked! This is ridiculous!"
"We've called in PPD support, and they're sending a PRT cape to help. They would've been here sooner, but there's always a wait for calling out a PRT these days – it's not our fault. They have the tools to safely approach her, diagnose her for parahuman influence - if any - and treat her injuries."
"I'll need to be present for that, as her attorney," Martinson said quickly.
"Yeah, of course. Now, will there be anything…" His desk phone went off. "Sullivan. What is it?" He paused. "Right. I'll be right down there, along with the attorn… oh, he's headed up already? I'll take Mr Martinson there, then." He put the phone down. "The PRT has arrived. If you'd like to follow me, we'll meet them at the isolation cell."
The two men rose, leaving their glasses of water behind them. I trained behind them unseen, heading down the stairs and down again. The cells were underground, and the distant noise of the road bled through from above as a dull bass rumbling. The corridors were painted an institutional pale blue, and smelled of sweat, aniseed, and cleaning fluid.
"I hope your PRT man hasn't touched her without me being present," Mr Martinson said. He sounded like he was just short of gloating. "There'll be…"
"Yeah, yeah, I know the rules. We're almost there, and… you three are the PRT?"
There was a trio waiting by the cell; a suited man, a female paramedic, and a costumed cape. I thought the cape was a man, but it was hard to tell. They were wearing a suit of heavy padded armour, with a glowing red cross on their helmet where there should have been eyes.
"Agent John Butcher," the man in the suit said in introduction. If I had to guess, the fed was in his late thirties, his sandy blond hair cut short to make it less obvious that he was going bald. He had a pair of dark shades sticking out of the pocket of his navy-blue suit. I couldn't help but notice he was missing one of his little fingernails and wondered what'd happened to cause that. "I'm the leader of this PRT. Sorry for the delay. Things are hectic today and we've only just got back from another callout on the other side of town."
"Julia Bowers," said the paramedic, nodding stiffly. She looked sallow under the fluorescent lights, like she might need her own medical treatment. Or maybe she was just tired, given her heavy lidded eyes and dark bags under her eyes.
"Sir Sense," said the cape, his voice giving away his sex. "Parahuman specialist on loan from the FBI. I'm here to check for signs of mental intrusion."
Crap. I needed to get Penitence out of Tash's head. The attorney might try to use it to get her released if they caught it. Ducking sideways, I walked through Mr Martinson as he carefully wrote down all of their names. Shrugging off the uneasy sensation that gave me, I stepped through the wall into the cell. On the other side of the wall, I heard a muffled, "I'm Mark Martinson, and I'm Natasha's attorney, here to witness things."
A pair of dull blue eyes met mine, and for a moment I almost thought Natasha could see me as I emerged from the wall. But no, it was a coincidence. She was just staring at the wall, curled in on herself. Her hands were locked up in full-arm gloves, tied together at the wrists, and she didn't look comfortable. Good, I thought, but I didn't fully mean it. She just looked pathetic. Even when I sunk back into the Other Place, her beautiful golden hands were wrapped around her body. There were no handprints anywhere in the room.
I reached out, and placed my hand on her brow. Penitence felt cold and sharp in there, squirming in her mind. With a sharp inhalation, I drew my monster out, pulling it back into my brain where it belonged. She didn't respond to that. You'd think that she might have cheered up or something, but maybe my monster had spawned a little Penitence of her own in her skull.
In retrospect, I'd made a mistake back in the apartment. I should have gone in the back with Glory Girl, rescued Megumi, and got out. But I'd wanted to punish the skinheads for the kidnapping. And because of that, they looked like the victims.
And it hadn't even been Natasha's plan. I'd… I'd need to think about this. I kept on blundering into things. Back before she'd died, my mother had talked to me about the difference between punishment and justice. She'd been speaking about the cops and the prison system – and how they were rotten – but maybe I should have been listening to her too.
With a sigh, I stepped back towards the corner of this room. It looked cleaner than most of the rest of the Other police station. I guess it wasn't used much, so there wasn't time for feelings to sink into the walls. Still, there was enough graffiti scrawled over it, saying things like whAT diD i dO ROng? and wHaT r THey GOinG 2 Do toO Me? and DO NOT MOVE.
Wait. I blinked. That bold, stencilled writing was on top of rest of the graffiti. It was in a different hand. And I didn't think it'd been there when I'd glanced over the room before.
The bottom fell out of my stomach. The door ground open, rust flaking from the hinges. And in walked two grey men and someone who didn't look like a monster at all. The only beauty on the 'cape' was his helmet. The rest of him was entirely grey. The paramedic was the same - traces of sea-green beauty in her bag; the rest a colourless, flaking thing. But Agent Butcher looked almost exactly the same as he did in the real world. Almost. Because his suit here was black rather than navy blue, a third eye stared out from his forehead, and he had that strange glow that made him seem more real than the surrounding area.
He'd been feeding on parahumans or tinkertech. Because he was someone like the bird woman. Or Kirsty. Or me. He was the three-eyed man to me now. He might be able to change his name but the Other Place would always recognise him.
The fake-cape grey man stepped forwards, fiddling with something on the side of his mask. But it was all a lie, just as much as that 'cloaking' button I'd given Glory Girl. The grey men were in the FBI and PPD; fake parahumans who relied on technology. I kept my eyes on Agent Butcher the three-eyed man, who'd gone all quiet and was leaning against the wall. Almost like he was trying to avoid blissing out on Tash's beautiful golden light.
Which… I wasn't doing. It was nice - beautiful, even - but it didn't hammer its way into my forebrain like it used to. Was I getting too used to looking at parahuman powers? Or was it something else? The golden fire did look dimmer than it had before…
No time to think of that. I wiped my mouth on my sleeve. Dammit. Dammit. Dammit. I… I didn't want anything really bad to happen to Natasha. She was just too pathetic. Tash deserved to be in juvie, not whatever the grey men and their masters might do. Both the three-eyed man and the bird lady had the glow, so maybe he'd feed off her if I left him alone.
"Scanning in progress," the fake cape said. "Agent Butcher, initial readings indicate it's a situation 32b."
"That's to be expected - she's definitely a parahuman. Telekinetic… matching with the reports." I was almost a little bit impressed. I suspected that number meant nothing at all. It was just a way for him to provide the answer. "Are her powers interfering with the scan?"
"Yes, sir, I'm getting waveform distortion."
"I was afraid of that." He turned to the attorney. "Scanning for parahuman mental tampering is prone to contamination when the subject is a parahuman. This is going to take longer than I'd hoped. We're going to need to give her a call-response check to check."
"What does that mean?" demanded Mr Martison.
The agent gestured over at the goggles and headset which the grey woman was unpacking from her bag. There wasn't a trace of parahuman power on it. He fiddled with his badge in his hands. "It means she wears this and we show her certain images and record her responses. It's a way of detecting someone under the influence of parahuman powers. We just need you to agree and we can get started."
"Well, if we can get this out of the way… yes." I blinked. Had that been something moving between the two of them? He'd done something. Something that didn't have a parahuman glow.
"Thank you for your compliance," said the grey woman.
"Well, then can you have someone bring a seat?" asked Mr Martinson. "I have to be present for this."
"Very well. In the meantime, Sullivan, can we talk?" the three-eyed man said. "I can't do much until they finish the checks, so I'm going to get a coffee. I've been on my feet all day."
"I have paperwork to do, Butcher. I'll show you where the coffee machine is," said Sullivan.
"Much obliged."
For a moment I hesitated, unsure of who I wanted to follow. Watch the interrogation, or find out what he had done? In the end, I decided the three-eyed man was the dangerous one. He was the one I had to keep an eye on. I almost called Phobia back as backup, but I held off. She was doing good getting rid of the fear around the station. At first they were just talking about the weather and sports, but once they were well out of the hearing range of the attorney the agent cleared his throat. "So, this Martinson man. Do you know him?" He had his badge in his hands, and was fiddling with it. The metal caught the light.
"What, personally?" The three-eyed man shook his head, and Sullivan frowned. "Oh, you mean, is he known to me?"
"Yes. This is off the record, so we can talk freely."
Sullivan grimaced. "Yeah, I've seen him around here a few times. Mix of things. Some DUIs, a domestic abuse case a month or so ago," he wagged his finger as they set up the stairs, "and yeah, that big thing with the 'stolen' guns from that gun shop a year back. Speakin' off the record? I hate his guts, and I'm betting he's kicking himself I'm duty officer tonight 'cause other people wouldn't stand up to him. He's got connections among the local cops, the ones who've been in Brockton all their careers. We got pressure from the chief to drop that case. Not enough evidence my ass - someone pushed him."
"Interesting. Off the record, again," his badge gleamed in the stairwells lights, "if you had to say who was behind that theft…"
"Skinheads, and I don't think it was a robbery," Sullivan said immediately. "We found a bunch of those guns later in Iron Eagle hands. I'd bet my paycheck that Jerrick's Guns is dodgy and gave the skinheads the guns then got it written off as a robbery and claimed the insurance - but they said it was a robbery by one of the NY gangs and that's what it went down as on paper."
"Interesting. Very interesting."
I had to agree with the three-eyed man. That was interesting. And I could see what he was doing. In his hands, his badge was more than a bit of metal. It was a stamp, and it'd printed TALK on the other man's forehead.
Sullivan blinked. "But that's strictly off the books," he added, hastily. "Couldn't prove it. Maybe he's just someone who's cheap enough that he gets used by skinheads a bunch."
"Yes, yes, of course. You've got to obey the chief when you don't have proof." He fiddled with his badge. OBEY wrote itself on Sullivan's forehead, over the top of TALK. "Thank you very much. You can get back to your paperwork."
The cop walked off, looking slightly bemused. Silently, I shifted in place, bouncing up and down on my toes. My nerves were humming. What was he up to?
"What are you up to, I wonder?" the three-eyed man said to the thin air.
No, he hadn't. His third eye was open; focussed; attentive. Looking in my direction. He'd said it to me.
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