|
If this had been the 1940s, an uncomfortable layer of cigarette smoke would have filled the room, vapors wafted by the slow revolutions of a ceiling fan. The interrogation room had that sort of ambience, the aura of a different time and place, as if someone had taken a sepia toned paint and brushed the scene over with a noir coating in thick heavy lines. For a few minutes, a small office in a New York City police station had become possessed by the spirit of a Raymond Chandler story, a story best told by the angles of people's bodies, by the way they leaned against walls, by the way their knuckles rubbed against the tables. The two detectives thought they were the lead players in the story. They had followed the trail, talked to the suspects, pointed their weapons at the perpetrator, and now were conducting the interrogation. They had done all the legwork: one was a fidgety, burly, seven-years-on-the-force man named Lockhart, and the other was a tall, completely silent, seventeen-year veteran named Brewster. They were big men with heroic, if pudgy faces. Both Lockhart and Brewster towered over the suspect, and here the tale of the two heroic detectives went off-kilter. By all the laws of film noir, the suspect shouldn't be exuding a casual confidence that unnerved the taller detectives. There was neither defensiveness nor defiance in his posture, no nervous bluster covering his true feelings, just a keen, smart look, and short, quiet answers. Brewster said nothing, but allowed his burlier partner to take the lead. It was the bad cop, silent cop technique. "So," Lockhart snarled, keeping his arms crossed and resting on the back of his chair, which faced the accused perpetrator. "Let's see if we understand you, Mr…." This was placeholder speech, not intended as a serious remark or challenge. But the smaller man answered it anyway. "It's Doctor. And you will not understand," he replied, his voice ringing with an absolute certainty in his voice that was usually only found in the fanatical - or psychotic. The suspect's hands, though cuffed, were relaxed as they rested on the table. The detective chose not to address the rebuttal directly. He held up a plastic bag that contained a small kitchen knife with a serrated edge. "You used this to mutilate your victims?" "Mutilation was never my intent," the small man insisted. "Nor are they victims. Unfortunately, the process produces scars." "Process?" the detective said, and added a sarcastic whistle. "Just what process would that be?" "The process that -- any ethical man would tell me that I needed a lawyer at this point," the smaller man replied. The detective, perceiving a challenge, responded with a smirk. "But I'll tell you everything." "I'm all ears." "No, that would be a friend of mine," the man in handcuffs replied, and he actually allowed himself to smile. "The process is telepathy. I'm sure you have some familiarity with it. Most ESPeriencers can perform their feats with the power of the mind…" "That's why they call it ESP," the detective replied, not realizing the nonsensical nature of his answer. Lockhart just needed to say something to maintain the illusion of controlling the situation. "So you're a superhero?" The smaller man gave a laugh that was almost self-mocking. "That's one way to look at it." "Where's the tights?" "Spandex is for the young, detective." "But you're a superhero, right? Who goes around cutting people with knives." "Exactly." "That's real heroic." Lockhart says. "Do you kick puppies too, or put cats on the tops of tree branches?" "I told you that you wouldn't understand," the suspect replied. "Superpowers are unpredictable force of creation, that's what makes them special. Take mine, for example. I can remove a man's imperfections - and that's a wonderful gift - but I need a knife to make the alterations," the smaller man confessed, unhesitatingly. "When I cut into someone's flesh, it forms a psychic bond. It allows me to slice away pieces of their personality, or any other limitations that I perceive. I focus on the parts that encourage people to commit acts of evil." "So you were saving their souls?" Brewster finally spoke from the back of the room. "Praise the Lord!" Lockhart added a slice of mockery to the situation. But the smaller man simply shook his head. "Souls are the province of gods and street preachers," he explained. "The alterations I make have less to do with metaphysics, and more to do with behavioral psychology. I perceive moral flaws in a person's body like a cancer - and I treat them in the same way. Cruelty toward animals? I remove the impulse. Drug addiction? I carve it out of their body. Self-loathing? With a few cuts, I cam slice enough self-loathing from a person's psyche to bring them to functional levels." "So you perform psionic surgery on people?" Brewster wondered. "I told you I'm a doctor." "And that's why you burn them too?" Lockhart rose from the chair and leaned over the subject - a gesture that, though dramatic, had no effect on the interrogation whatsoever. He had seen the report on the telepath's latest victim - cuts and burns. He doubted the burns were self-inflicted. "Sometimes wounds need to be cauterized," the telepath answered. "It depends on the severity of the man's flaws." "You've also molested your victims." Brewster snapped. "I did?" the smaller man wondered, astonished for the first time in the conversation. "We have footage of you kissing one of them." Lockhart insisted. "Oh, that." the short man replied. "No, no. That wasn't a kiss. When I'm dealing with a truly profound sociopath, when someone doesn't have even the hint of a conscience, it's necessary to give him the breath, to breathe a conscience into his body. I take it that you're referring to Mr. Taylor?" "Jed Taylor, yes." Brewster said. The Kitten-Eater, he might have added, but didn't. Wait until the press gets hold of this news, he also told himself. "I suggested that Mr. Taylor turn himself in. I trust he complied?" the telepath asked, but with a slight smile. (He had enjoyed that particular psychic surgery.) "Yes and no," Lockhart replied, and the smile disappeared from the short man's face. "Mr. Taylor came to the station an hour ago. He said he was sorry for everything, then slit his own throat. Died in the ambulance." Brewster explained. "Way to go, Psychic-Man!" Lockhart added. "That was real quality superheroing." The short man bowed his head. Brown locks hung in jagged lines over the man's forehead, and the deep shadows of his sunken eyepits seemed to deepen. "Remorse and serial killers," he said bitterly. "I must remember to be a little more gentle next time." He then looked up at the two detectives and read their faces. "Of course, neither of you are exactly mourning his passing." "Why the hell would we mourn some maniac who kills people just so he can eat their pet tabbies?" Brewster snapped. "Personally, I'm very disappointed in the man's decision." the telepath answered. "You're disappointed?" Brewster wondered. "You wanted him to kill again?" "No, I wanted him to save lives. There's a great evil brewing in this city," the short man informed them. "A demonic, uncompromising, evil." "There's always an evil out there," Brewster said. "This is New York City." "The Brimstone Killings. Is that evil enough for you?" the smaller man shot back. New York had recently suffered over a dozen unexplained murders - and the victims all smelled of brimstone. "You were assigned to the case, weren't you, Detective Brewster?" "I don't discuss my case load with psychopaths." Brewster rebutted. "We need someone who's touched those same levels of depravity to guide us in our struggle against it," the self-proclaimed doctor continued. "Us?" Brewster asked. "Myself, and those I reform, those who are capable of taking the fight to the enemy. We call ourselves "the Differents", though perhaps it should be "the Difference"." How anyone can say that and keep a straight face, Lockhart wondered, but he had known more than a few superhumans and knew just how strongly they felt the pull of their vaudevillian lifestyle. "So you torture supervillains and transform them into good little boy scouts and send them out to track serial killers?" "The process isn't quite that tidy or exact," the telepath replied. "I prune the branches of personal corruption. I can't destroy them completely." "Great." Lockhart moaned. "First he's a psychic, now he's a gardener." "I've heard enough of this crap," Brewster moaned. "Let's take Dr. Blado here back to his cell." "Dr. Blado? At the very least, you can call me Dr. Blade!" the man said, shaking his head. "No, I'd rather be referred to as the Chirurgeon. A medieval surgeon, whose methods are, unfortunately, rooted in a primitive, cruel form of medicine." the small man said. "And I won't be going back to my cell…" Won't be going. The two detectives had spent enough time around paranormals to recognize when a coy remark became a signal. In almost perfect synchronicity, the two police detectives immediately reached for their weapons, drew them… and promptly fumbled them. From behind them, a woman's voice told them in a faint whisper: "Drop your pistols, and stay very still." And the detectives complied, as if that whisper had been the voice of God Himself. The Chirurgeon stood up and held up his hands. "Shackles open…" The Whisper stated, and the handcuffs immediately fell to the floor and clattered on the linoleum. "Thank you," the Chirurgeon told his disembodied compatriot. He began to calmly look through several reports that the detectives had left on the desk. He flipped the pages with extraordinary speed. "You won't get away with this…" Lockhart grunted. The Chirurgeon finished his reading, closed the final report and stacked them neatly on the side of the desk. Then, like a cheap prestidigitator, he cupped the air with his hand, and a thin, stiletto-like blade suddenly appeared in the doctor's fingers. "While I'm here, I may as well give you a good look-see," he added, and he tilted the blade so he could see the detectives' reflections in the metal. The men, glimpsing psychic reflections in the gleaming metal, grimaced. "Racism… alcoholism… anger issues…" the Chirurgeon told Brewster as he read the psychic signals in the man's reflection. "When you're drunk, you throw things at your wife. I can remove that impulse." "Go to hell," Brewster spat back, wondering why the detectives who were monitoring the interrogation hadn't stepped into the room. The telepath nodded - these were disturbing faults, but he reserved surgery for needier souls - and turned the knife toward Lockhart and allowed his reflection to shine. This image was much more dramatic. The detective caught a glimpse of it, shuddered, and hid his face like a vampire from a cross. Brewster, who also saw it, stared at his partner in disbelief. "Well, well," the Chirurgeon stated. "How many bribes have you accepted, detective? Hmmm…" He took a step forward, and made a deep gash in the palm of each hand. The burly policeman screamed and shouted obscenities at the knife-wielding telepath. "Tell Boss Castellani that it's better to have bloody palms than greased ones. Although I didn't remove the urge to cheat on your taxes…" The Chirurugeon paused, briefly examined his handiwork, debated whether the detective needed more work, and quietly pocketed the knife. "Time to leave. May you behave as moral creatures from this moment forward. And beware of the brimstone." "Let's return home," The Whisper whispered, and, like a quiet afterthought, the two Differents passed out of reality, leaving the two detectives to gawk at each other in disbelief. ****** "We have returned," The Whisper announced, as they entered reality once again. The Differents HQ was a small abandoned warehouse in the dock district that had been turned into living quarters: a labyrinth of stacked, abandoned crates, with a few beds, tables and chairs. The fish market, located next door, provided the place with an unpleasant ambience. A horn sounded in the distance, almost drowning out the Whisper in mid-voice. The disembodied heroine remained silent. "Didn't anyone hear the whisper? We're back!" the Chirurgeon exclaimed. "With all the gossip from our friends at the local police department." "I saw it!" a voice in the distance shouted. An older man with a pronounced limp - from the lack of a crow's nest around his eyes, he looked like a man in his early forties, but his silver hair and neatly trimmed goatee beard gave him an older appearance - stepped into the room. He wore a stylized suit with the number "1000" written on a broad necktie, which was almost as good at advertising his identity as a Nike logo on an athlete's chest. "That was an extraordinary mess, Doctor, even by your standards." "Sometimes, the most counter-intuitive plans are the best. I take it that you used a thousand hands to restrain the other policemen?" The Chirurgeon speculated. Thousand-Man nodded. "I felt like giving them a thousand elbows," he said. "Two of those little swine actually bit me!" Thousand-Man's didn't have many weaknesses, but this was one of them. He could project a thousand copies of his body parts around the city, but he felt their pain (and there are few words that adequately describe the pain of a thousand limbs being hurt simultaneously). "They were almost ready to shoot me," the Chirurgeon stated in contrast. "And - even more unfortunately - Taylor is dead." "So I heard," Thousand-Man stated. "Kittens across New York City must be purring in relief." "I miscalculated." "So did I," Thousand-Man responded. "And I used a thousand brains to idiot-proof your plan, remember? Still, it's hardly an insurmountable loss. So what's next? Perhaps I can listen around the city?" The Chirurgeon pondered what little information they had gathered about their enemy. "We need to find the source of that brimstone smell," he said. "Detective Brewster had a copy of the coroner's report for Martin Frum, Victim #11. "The smell lingered for a much longer time than one would expect from a chemical reaction." "That would seem to support our demon hypothesis." Thousand-Man mused. The Chirurgeon paused, unwilling to entertain the thought that had been lurking in the back of his mind for days. "I think Defiler's back." Thousand-Man would have cursed out loud, had the Chirurgeon not removed that impulse (along with many of his other moral failings). "Fine," the elegant ex-villain replied, brushing his white hair, the only sign of the discomfort he felt over his colleague's speculation. "A thousand noses it is." The tall man rubbed his nose, and a thousand noses appeared around the city, sniffing for the stench of brimstone like a trained bloodhound - or (given the unfortunate corners of the city he was forced to sniff) - a trained rat. The Chirurgeon also sighed, then sat down in a large chair, took out a knife, and began to carve tiny flecks of dead skin from his fingertips - slicing away his disappointment. "Suicide," he said bitterly as he realized that even his powers couldn't remove everything. "I should have expected it from a serial killer who eats his victims' kittens. I should have cut away his cowardice." "Lighten up Doc," the fourth member of the Differents said as he entered the room. This man was a remarkable physical presence, which was in stark contrast with the others. He was a huge man, 7' tall from barefoot to the top of his head, a massive chest barreling out of his mountain-shouldered, long-haired frame. He wore nothing except for a pair of athletic shorts, and (by his admission and others) wore them extremely well. He was Samson, the Samson, the so-called mythical hero of the ancient world reborn. Although the fact that he had spent most of the last seven years as a supervillain (until the Chirurgeon had performed his "moral surgery" on him) seemed to contradict his virtuous origins. "Lighten up?" the Chirurgeon winced. "Yeah, lighten up," Samson repeated. "Trust me. I've worked with more than a few serial killers in my day. We ain't missing a thing, not dealing with those sorts of clowns." The Chirurgeon continued to scowl, and finally made a knife stroke on the side of his face, and immediately broke out into a smile. "We need a fifth member," the telepath said, as his distractions were cut away and replaced with a rush of inspiration. "Someone who can help us grapple with evil." "Doc, you got me." Samson replied, pounding his chest with a beefy fist for emphasis. "Grappling's my game. I've gone toe-to-toe with Omega how many times?" "And lost every time…" The Whisper reminded them. "Unfortunately boy, you're our only effective member in a battle against paranorms," the Chirurgeon stated. "I can cut away some of our physical vulnerabilities, but even my abilities have their limits. We need more, someone to assist you." "Well, I could use a sparing partner." Samson grinned. "There's gotta be a Samsonette out there somewhere." The Chirurgeon turned to Thousand-Man, who sat in his chair with a most appalling expression on his face. "Stephen, I'm changing the plan. Switch to a thousand eyes." "Thank heavens for new plans!" Thousand-Man exclaimed, resisting the urge to gag. "Find us a supervillain," Chirurgeon instructed. "Any requests, Doctor?" Thousand-Man asked. "Anyone who's not demonic," The Whisper insisted. "And make sure it's not Delilah!" Samson added, gritting his teeth. There was nothing like a shape-changing seductress who had sworn to bring you back to the dark side to spoil a perfectly good reformation. Thousand-Man nodded, and adjusted his tie, a dramatic gesture that had no bearing on his powers whatsoever. He rubbed his eyes, and the thousand noses that had been sniffing around the city vanished, replaced by a thousand eyes - which almost immediately widened. He swallowed hard. "Concentrate…" The Whisper intoned. "There's no longer any need for that, my dear." Thousand-Man stated, and then added with extreme hesitation. "Doctor, I just may have found us a fifth member…" To Be Continued in… "The Fifth Wheel Stings!" |