Different Strong Read online

  “Arnold? I just want to talk. It will only take a minute,” I say in a calm measured voice.

  “No way! I know my rights, I don’t have to talk to you! Please go. I want to forget the whole thing ever happened,” Arnold says, his voice moving from outrage to pathetic pleading over the course of his yell.

  “I’d like it all to go away too. That’s why you should invite me in and answer my questions and I’ll leave quickly. Of course, I could stay out here screaming so all your neighbors can hear us air dirty laundry! Will that help it go away!” I yell in a booming voice that echoes in the hallway of the Ultracorps Employee housing apartment building.

  “Okay, Okay,” Arnold says and pulls the door open.

  He doesn’t look great, he’s skinny as a rail and the cast on his leg is filthy.

  “Are you okay? Is your leg going to heal?” I ask.

  “Maybe in a couple more weeks… Don’t pretend you care about me; tell me why you’re here.”

  “I want to know what happened a few weeks ago. I want to know why you went crazy in that restaurant.”

  “Uh, it’s like I told the detective, some guy I know who likes to party, he handed me a bunch of pills and I, uh, took em,” Arnold says, but he’s stumbling over his words. His face has gone ghost white.

  “A man handed you mysterious pills and you took them?”

  “Yeah, uh, yeah. I know stupid right? Who does something like that? I guess I was bored with my job. I mean all day everyday it’s pick up food from here go there, now go there. It’s a real drag,” Arnold says while looking down at his feet. He hasn’t made eye contact in several seconds, I can see his carotid artery pulse in his neck indicating an elevated heart rate, and he’s rambling. All symptoms the human body displays in order to cope with the stress of concealing the truth.

  “Arnold, you’re lying and you aren’t very good at it.”

  Arnold puts his face in his hands. “He said if I stuck to the story there wouldn’t be any more trouble.”

  “Who told you there wouldn’t be any trouble?” I ask.

  Arnold doesn’t answer.

  “Who?” I demand and get in his face.

  “I don’t have to talk to you. I know the law.” Arnold tightens his jaw and looks away.

  “Don’t you know I’m the Vigilante? I don’t care about the law,” I say and pick myself up to my full impressive height.

  I feel terrible about intimidating this poor guy, but I have a ticking clock. I need answers and I need them now.

  Arnold picks up on my implications and let’s out an exasperated sigh.

  “Fine. He lied to me anyway. He told me there wouldn’t be any problems, but Ultracorps had a new job assignment for me after I got out of the hospital. Waste Picker. If I do ever heal, I get to use my speed to pick through tons of garbage every day.”

  I give him a dirty look that says I don’t care about his problems. That does sound terrible though. I can only imagine the horrors one finds at the other end of the Hoover tube.

  “I don’t remember his name but it was the detective I saw in the hospital. He said as long as I stuck with the story, I’d be on my way and I could stay out of jail. If I didn’t tell the story, he’d make sure I went away for a long time.”

  “What’s the real story?”

  “The real story is that I don’t know what happened to me. I don’t know why I went crazy,” Arnold says and he looks me right in the eyes.

  “There wasn’t a man who gave you drugs?”

  “No. The last thing I remember was eating my lunch, then I woke up in jail and everyone told me I had freaked out,” Arnold says and he believes every word he’s saying.

  “Why did the detective want you to say a man gave you the drugs?”

  “I don’t know that either. But I didn’t have any other explanations for the freak-out and he threatened to charge me with a whole list of crimes. I figured the lie wasn’t going to hurt anybody. Maybe the detective didn’t want to do the paperwork?” Arnold suggests.

  Or he didn’t want an arrest report and the accompanying toxicology scan. Could Rose really be the one drugging the Differents? He was at the gala where the Heater freaked out and he could have stolen the narcotics from the evidence room at the police station, but what’s his motive? What does he have to gain by making Differents go berserk?

  “Uhh, that’s all I know man. Is there something else you need?” Arnold asks and I realize I’ve been standing there and thinking for ten seconds.

  “If anyone but me asks, stick to your story.” I say and head out of the apartment.

  That conversation didn’t take long. I still have time to do what Ben asked and check the Manna delivery records of those mines in St. Louis. I wasn’t sure I wanted to risk it, but after this bit of success, I’m feeling lucky. Maybe I can make some headway in my second insane theory investigation of the day.

  #

  Nobody stops me when I walk into the lab. I pass by the receptionist, who gives me the barest minimum of a wave as I walk by. That’s what she used to do when I came to work every day.. Security isn’t much of a concern in a lab that mostly focuses on food additives and crash test systems for trains. Even less people would have interest in hardcopy files of Manna product deliveries, but that’s just what I’m here for.

  I make my way through the building, keeping my head down so I don’t get spotted and have to answer some awkward questions. Still, I can’t help but pick my eyes up for a second as I pass by my old lab. I spot Dr. Cole and Dr. Wilson hard at work. They’re hunched over a Bunsen burner, and they both looked annoyed. I bet they miss me, or at least I’d like to imagine they do.

  I continue past my old haunts and proceed towards the filing area. Just as I’m about to make it, something I never thought I’d be unhappy about happens. I run into my old friend/crush Sarah, or Crash Test Dummy as we called her. She rides in trains that are crashed on purpose in the lab in order to see what injuries she sustains. One of the possible career opportunities available to Regenerators. Luckily for me, she also moonlights as an organ donor. Back when The Beast gutted me, I needed new kidneys, and she was there to provide them. She walks out of the kitchen and at first continues right by me, but then she stops in her tracks.

  “Well, if it isn’t The Beast Slayer. What are you doing here? I thought you were still on parole?” she asks.

  “One of my old bosses asked me to come down and help him with something,” I reply. Please no follow-up questions, please no follow-up questions.

  “I saw you take out that Looney Toons Heater on think.Net. Impressive work. You keep adding to that hero resume of yours.”

  “Only if I have friends to keep me alive. My partner is the one who should really get the credit for beating the Heater. He saved my life. Getting saved is a pattern I follow. Thankfully I didn’t need any organs this time,” I say, trying to sound grateful for her saving my life after The Beast gutted me.

  “Remember what I said, any time you need a kidney, consider it yours. You keep getting into fights with maniac Differents and you might need to take me up on the offer.”

  “All part of working for the OEC.”

  “Sounds like it beats being a lab rat, in the excitement category at least. Enjoy getting to live your old boring life for one more day. Have some Palm Fries to relive your glory days. I’ll see you around,” she says and walks away.

  That was a relief. It could have gone much worse. I have no idea how much she knows about me accusing Gary of being part of some conspiracy with Nita. I never mentioned her, but it was implied she and my teacher Larry were a part of it. Either she never heard about my accusations, or she’s a hell of an actress.

  I head into the room stuffed with cabinets, stuffed with folders, stuffed with papers. According to Ben, that Ultracorps copper mine shut down too quickly for any normal explanation. He thinks the mine is still being used, just for something else, like holding dangerous Differents, maybe even The Beast.

  Acc
ording to the police, The Beast’s corpse was sucked down the ruptured Hoover main. They claim he was torn to shreds by the debris in the pipe, and that’s why no trace of him was ever found. But what if a body was never found because he didn’t really die? What if Ultracorps, what if Nita, is keeping him hidden from the government? The Beast thought he was talking to God when it looked like he was accessing think.Net. If Nita truly was impersonating the Lord, maybe she has more holy missions for him.

  I know that I can’t be objective when it comes to The Beast. I know I have a whole host of unprocessed trauma and emotions surrounding my first confrontation with that monster, and all of the people he killed before I stopped him. Maybe I am connecting dots that aren’t really there because I desperately want a chance to make up for my past failures. But just because I’m biased doesn’t mean I’m wrong. Ben is insane when it comes to his theories about Nita, but he was right about the water contract.

  No matter what that mine has become, as long as people are working there that facility will need food, which means Manna product deliveries. Ben said he was locked out of the think.Net files, so the hardcopies are our only hope.

  The search does not go quickly. These files are kept as a formality in case of some sort of catastrophic failure of the record keeping Librarian. Nobody has ever bothered organizing the files in an accessible way. I know I didn’t give it much thought back when part of my job was filing.

  It takes me more than an hour of digging to find the files related to the mine. It was receiving regular Manna product shipments for awhile, five hundred pounds of various foodstuffs a week, which sounds about right for a mine and its workers. Those deliveries suddenly stop about a month ago. I can see an order to halt shipments, but there’s no sign of continued deliveries. I suppose that’s not surprising; even if Ultracorps is hiding something, they aren’t going to leave it out to find in the files so easily.

  I start digging through the records of other nearby mines. Ultracorps owns four other productive mines around old St. Louis. As I look through the records, something strikes me about the mine closest to the one that was shut down. On the same week that the deliveries were halted to my mine, the mine next door had a fifty pound weekly increase in their own Manna product delivery. Now maybe some of the workers were moved from the closed down mine to the one next door, but maybe not. Maybe those fifty pounds are going somewhere else.

  That’s enough to feed The Beast, but not by much. I don’t know how Nita would have been able to get The Beast all the way out to St. Louis, or why, but maybe that was the only Ultracorps facility they were confident would hold him. Or maybe they’ve been moving him around so no one finds out they are keeping him alive. Or maybe I’m giving in to paranoid delusions because I’m still angry that fighting The Beast put me in jail and ended my relationship with Becky. I replace the files I was looking at, but not before making sure I’ve memorized every word and number. Then I turn off the WormLight and head out of the room.

  I feel the ground beneath my feet start to shake. Either there’s an earthquake, or Gary is here making his deliveries. I follow my ears to the source of the tremors, and I indeed see Gary. He’s carrying a box larger than I am on each arm. It doesn’t look like it’s straining him in the slightest. I lock eyes with him, and I watch his face run through a wide spectrum of emotion in less than a second. First he’s confused, then I see the beginnings of a smile. He shakes off the smile, there’s a flash of anger in his eyes, and then he turns stone-faced. He keeps walking towards me.

  “Hey Gary, long time no see. How’re your deliveries going?” I ask.

  Gary keeps coming at me without reacting to my words at all. I have to quickly step out of his way to avoid being trampled. I guess he’s still mad at me. He should be. I’m mad at myself for letting Ben talk me into questioning him. I should have demanded more evidence if I was going to believe Ben’s theories. Maria isn’t the genius Ben is, and neither am I, yet we were able to find evidence for our wacko theory about the serial killer. Why couldn’t Ben give me more? I suddenly feel foolish for coming here. I’m risking my freedom and my reputation for some guy who’s at best a little nutty, and at worst a complete psychopath who is angry that he lost his job as Head Librarian to a little girl named Nita. I’ve even convinced myself that some asinine changes in food delivery schedules are meaningful intel.

  I’ve let Ben turn me into an ass yet again.

  #

  “We got another call,” Captain Murphy says. “Don’t worry, it’s not an emergency, there’s no perp on the scene. It’s a dead body. They think a Different might have done the killing. I talked to the officer who took the call, Maria something. She confirmed that it wasn’t a mistake this time. It’s on the corner of Vermont and Pico. It’s your first solo call, be careful. If you need anything, Linda and I will be here.” I can’t tell if he’s being supportive or condescending.

  “Good luck, Gavin. I’m sure you’ll do great. And make sure you hurry back. Martin got the job at WWOR, which means he’s moving back in the Metro Area. I’m cooking tonight in celebration, my world famous Meat Sauce. I sprang for the real stuff. If I’m feeling generous, there might be some extra,” Linda adds with a wink.

  “That’s fantastic news! Congratulations. Now you know I’ll be quick,” I say and walk out.

  I feel a like fugitive as I step out of the OEC office and it feels good. I know this isn’t a real call. I know that the victim is a Different, not the perpetrator. I know that Maria made this call so I can help her, and it was no mistake. That means I’m violating my parole. I’m fine with lying to Captain Murphy; it’s Linda I feel a little bad about. At least she had a good day with her son moving back to town.

  It doesn’t take long to get to the Vermont Ave and Pico Blvd intersection. When I get close I stop the P-train and activate a unique feature available in law enforcement trains. I flip a switch, activating a mechanism that lifts the train off of the top of the tracks and attaches itself to a support beam holding up the tracks. That way, my train stays where I need it while other trains can flow by freely. Regular P-Trains have to stop at the designated stops.

  I drop the ForteSilk ladder, lock the door, and climb down. It’s a couple of blocks to where the victim is located. I get there and see Maria waving me into a taped-off alley. Waving was not necessary, as the crimson river of blood flowing out of the alley and into the gutter is a big clue as to where the body is.

  In the alley I see a young woman lying face down in a massive pool of blood. If she didn’t die from another injury, then she drowned in her own blood.

  “We have to be quick. I waited as long as I could to call it in to my captain, but I had to check in. Detective You-Know-Who is on his way with some more beat cops. We’ve got five minutes tops. It looks like another stabbing,” Maria says diving right in.

  “Just like the first time I met you. Were there any witnesses? How long ago did this happen?”

  “Not very long ago. No one saw the attack. A nice old man saw her collapse into the alley, and she was dead in a minute. All she said was, ‘What happened, what happened?’ before she died. I took the old man’s information and told him we would contact him later. I didn’t want him to see you here.”

  “Who was the victim?”

  “She was some kind of human magnet or something. According to her records, she was used by Ultracorps to find leftover metal in the Non-Assisted Area. She wasn’t anyone important; she barely made enough to cover her Cost Of Living Obligations. No prior arrests, never been suspected of anything. She’s been out of Section 26 for just a few months. It’s hard to believe she made any enemies that quickly.”

  I lean down and stick my finger in a pool of the blood, then I put my finger in my mouth.

  “That’s disgusting; what are you doing?” Maria asks in horror.

  “I’m being a human crime-lab. I can tell if there are any drugs or other toxins in her system, at least the ones I’m familiar with. I used to do this fo
r a living. I was a fast-food tester for Oasis Burger. I would tell them how new artificial additives would affect the product. Palm Fries tasted a tiny bit better.”

  “What’s the nauseating verdict?”

  “It takes me a minute. I have to wait until the blood hits my digestive track. I can move things through my system more quickly than normal people, but it still takes time.”

  “You really know how to talk to a woman, don’t you?”

  “I don’t get to see many locked in the OEC office all night. So what do you say? Should we turn her over? See what killed her?”

  “It’s all you,” she says and throws her hands up. “I’ve already broken enough department rules by contacting you and waiting to call in to my captain. I don’t need to add tainting a crime scene to my list of accomplishments. Besides, can’t you make your fingerprints fall off or something, in case they actually check for prints this time?”

  “I can do something like that.”

  I cut off the blood flow from the tips of my fingers and draw out water from the cells there. It should be enough to obfuscate my finger prints. While I’m in my internal world, I also start analyzing the chemicals in the dead woman’s blood. I tried to describe the process once to my old boss at the Oasis Burger Labs. I told him it’s like how you know that a pin is sticking in your arm, or that a hair is tickling your throat. I can tell these compounds are inside my body, and if I have enough experience with them, I can identify the particular substances. As part of my training as a food tester, I was exposed to a wide variety of toxins and poisons so I would know how to spot them if they made their way into the recipes.

  “Nothing strange in her blood. No poisons or narcotics, at least any of the ones I’m familiar with,” I say as I lean down and flip the young woman over.

  As soon as I turn her over, we can see what killed her. She has a single large stab wound in her chest. It’s placed perfectly. The attacker, found a spot right between the ribs, plunged through one of her lungs, and cut into her heart. This could have happened inside a hospital and she still would have died.