Different Strong Read online

  “What’s the plan? What’s handling it “right” mean to you? How do we get to St. Louis?”

  “We don’t. I do. I’ve been a fugitive for five years. I know how to move around being without being caught. You’re on parole and a celebrity; you would never make it. Besides, I’m sure Nita is still watching you like a hawk. But this bird is free to fly.”

  And with that, he drops his mop and runs to the stairs. There goes his disguise.

  #

  Right as the Fonze is about to do his signature move and fix the jukebox, I hear a blood-curdling scream. It didn’t come from this episode of Happy Days. I log off of think.Net and hear more wailing. It’s Linda.

  I run into her office and see Linda collapsed on the floor. She’s in the fetal position, and it seems like she’s struggling to breathe. Could she be under some type of Telepathic attack?

  “Captain Murphy, help!” I yell, then turn my attention to Linda. I lean down and put my hands on her shoulders, and give her a gentle shake. “Linda, are you okay? What’s wrong?”

  “They killed him. They killed him,” she whispers.

  “They killed who, Linda? They killed who?”

  “Martin. They killed Martin. Oh my God, they killed my little boy,” Linda says then goes back to wailing like it took every ounce of her strength just to say those words.

  #

  Linda is walking at an exceedingly slow pace. It’s like she wants to relish the last moments she has before she knows for sure her son is dead. Until we get there and see the body, it could all be a mistake. Maybe it’s someone who looks like Martin, or maybe he was hurt, not killed. I can’t imagine being a mother whose only hope is that her son is badly injured.

  We get to the crime scene and are greeted by a sight I’ve seen way too many times lately: a bunch of cops surrounding the corpse of a Different. I spot a familiar face in the crowd, but not the one I wanted to see, Detective Rose. He’s got a black eye and his jaw looks like its wired shut. I’m surprised he’s back working already. I assumed he’d milk his injuries for as long as he could. The detective spots the three of us coming and steps forward to intercept. My instinct is to beat the crap out of him again, and arrest him for murder and drugging those Differents, but if I try that, I’m the one who’ll end up in handcuffs.

  “No! No one called you. Leave!” Detective Rose says through his wired-shut teeth. He emphatically points us away from his crime scene. He is not going to let us through.

  I want to make a smart-aleck comment about his jaw, or what he thinks would happen if we go at it again, but now is not the time. This is not about me. This is about Linda and her dead son.

  “Relax, we aren’t looking for any trouble. Somebody from your precinct called because he might be this lady’s son. She’s needed to identify that body,” Captain Murphy says and points at the sheet.

  Detective Rose is stunned. That was not one of the possibilities he expected to hear. He’s experiencing some other emotion I’m having trouble understanding. Is it fear, or maybe guilt? It’s hard to read his expressions with his jaw wired shut. He finally stammers a response.

  “I’m sorry,” Rose says to Linda and it sounds like he actually means it. “Her. Not you two,” he says and indicates she can come through.

  “You’re kidding, right!?” Captain Murphy yells, his face turning beet red. That happened quickly.

  Another cop in a trench coat walks up.

  “What’s going on here?” the cop asks.

  “Nothing, Sergeant. Protecting the crime scene,” Detective Rose says.

  “We have reason to believe the victim is the son of this lady here on my right. She is an OEC agent, our Telepath,” Captain Murphy says.

  “Ma’am, I am sorry for your loss. Please, come this way. All of you,” the sergeant says immediately changing his tone.

  “But Sarge, I know this guy, he’s going to want to poke around,” Detective Rose says and points at me.

  “So what? Let him. What’s the harm? You said it yourself we don’t have any leads. Have a heart, Detective. This lady’s kid just died. You might not like the OEC, but they are officers of the law. We’re all on the same side. I’d want them to let me through if it was my son lying under the sheet at their crime scene,” the sergeant says.

  We’re lucky the sergeant is here. Besides orders from a higher ranking officer, the only way Rose was letting us through was if I broke his jaw again. Rose slowly steps aside.

  We walk past the crowd of police officers towards the body which is covered by a sheet. Linda pulls it down and reveals his face, or what’s left of it anyway, most of it was ripped off by the bullet. I get visions of Robert White’s head being blown off right next to me. There’s still enough face to tell who the victim is. It’s Martin. I recognize him from pictures Linda showed me on think.net. Linda recognizes him too. She lets out a horrific noise no one should ever have to hear, let alone be forced to emit.

  Everybody turns away to give her a moment with her son. I tune what she’s saying out of my hearing. She deserves that. Captain Murphy approaches one of the nearby officers.

  “Is there anything to go on? Do we know what happened?” Captain Murphy asks.

  “Not much. We’re guessing robbery gone wrong,” the young officer replies.

  “A robbery gone wrong? Are you nuts? Did you see his face? No handgun did that. That was large caliber bullet, not some junky’s peashooter,” I say.

  The officer shrugs. “That’s for the detectives to worry about, not me.”

  I wish Maria were here, not this useless excuse for a human being. Maybe she can still help though. I need the assistance of someone who knows how to analyze crime scenes and cares enough to do it. I log on think.Net and think about talking to her.

  >>>Maria, I need your help. I’m at the body of another dead Different. Your fellow officers think it was a robbery gone wrong, but this guy’s head was nearly blown clean off. I think our killer has upgraded from a knife to a gun. What evidence should I be looking for?

  <<< Another body? This guy is a machine. What does the blood spray look like? Is there just blood around the wound, or is it spread further out?

  >>>It’s everywhere. It looks like a Jackson Pollack painting here.

  <<<We’ll have to hold off on the art walk for a little while. Large caliber bullet and wide blood splatter is indicative of a long range shot from a rifle. If someone is shot from in close, even with a high caliber hand gun, there isn’t much blood spray because the bullet doesn’t have time to accelerate. This sounds like an assassination, not a robbery. Do you see the bullet slug? That would help us identify the caliber of bullet that was shot.

  As tactfully as I can, I walk around the body. If he was shot with a rifle, the assassin probably shot from above, up on one of the nearby roofs. That means the bullet would have continued on a downward trajectory after passing through Martin’s head.

  “We should look for the bullet slug in the ground,” I instruct Captain Murphy. He starts doing as he’s told. I do the same.

  It doesn’t take long for Captain Murphy to say, “I found something.”

  I head over to where he’s standing and look at a divot in the old asphalt. It’s the right size and shape for a bullet. But something’s missing, the slug. It looks like someone dug it out of the ground. There are scrapes around the hole. This killer really is a pro. I feel a presence over my shoulder. I turn around and see Detective Rose.

  “We found where the bullet went. But there’s no slug. Do you think a junky-mugger had the foresight to cover his tracks like that?”

  Detective Rose leans over and inspects the hole in the ground, or at least acts like that’s what he’s doing. He furrows his brow in the way people do when they’re pretending to think.

  “Sorry Beast Slayer, maybe you should stick to fist fights with your fellow freaks and leave the detective work to the detectives. This is no bullet hole. The shape’s all wrong. Just one of many potholes in our crumbling s
treets. We could use one of your kind to fill ’em in. Do you have any friends that crap out asphalt?”

  It seems like he’s purposefully trying to goad me. He can’t be insane enough to want another fist fight with me. Maybe it’s something else. Maybe he’s trying to make me focus on my anger towards him, not my investigation. It’s not going to work. If I decide not to get angry, I won’t.

  “If you say so,” I tell him. I walk away and go back to my think.Net call.

  >>> I found where the bullet slug was, but somebody dug it out of the ground.

  <<<This guy knows what he’s doing. Okay, well if they were taking this investigation seriously, the next order of business would be trying to recreate the trajectory of the bullet by drawing a line from where the bullet went through the victim’s head, to where the bullet landed. Then we’d follow that line to possible shooting locales.

  >>>I might be able to do an amateur’s version of that job.

  I look at Martin’s body. He’s almost six feet tall. If I assume he was standing upright when he was shot, I can imagine the trajectory based on where he was standing and where the bullet hit the ground. It’s a rough estimate, but it points to a roof across the street.

  <<< I found the building the shot came from.

  >>>Go try to find some more clues then, detective.

  Without a word to anyone, I walk through the crowd of police to the building in question. It’s in bad shape, and there’s a condemned sign in the window. Before I head in, I turn back and see Detective Rose watching me. He averts his eyes when I turn around. I ignore him and head into the building.

  The stairs are crumbling. I step slowly and carefully in case they collapse under me. My fear was warranted; one of the steps gives out as I walk. I catch myself on the handrail. I keep going and step over a stair that has already fallen loose. I look at the handrail next to that step. The dust has been touched. Someone else caught themselves on this handrail recently.

  I make it to the top of the steps and open the door to the roof. I go over to the ledge where the assassin would have fired from, but I don’t see anything. The debris up here looks like it hasn’t been touched in years. I smell for gunpowder, but don’t detect any. Maybe I was wrong.

  “What are you doing up there?” Detective Rose yells up. “If you do find anything, don’t touch it. This is my crime scene. I can’t have you tampering with evidence.”

  He seems awfully concerned I’m going to find something, considering how certain he was that I was dead wrong just a second ago. I know he’s involved in the druggings, is he involved in these murders too?

  “Just a theory. Looks like you were right. There’s nothing up here!” I yell down.

  I turn to walk back down stairs, when it occurs to me that I’ve never tried to draw a trajectory in my mind before. Perhaps I wasn’t quite as accurate as I’d like to think. Maybe the shot didn’t come from the roof. Maybe it came from one of the lower floors.

  I make my way down to the top floor. There are three apartments facing the alley. One of them has its door closed. The other two looked like they were looted and left open long ago.

  I try the door, and it’s locked. Strange, but lots of doors in Los Angles lock automatically. It was not a safe place even back before the Plagues. With a little effort, the door gives way. The rotten wood makes it easy. As soon as I step inside the apartment, I know I’m in the right place. The unmistakable stench of gunpowder fills my nose.

  I walk over to the corner of the apartment and spot an area where the dust has been recently been disturbed. It is right next to a broken-out window. I’ll have to thank Maria for teaching me to look for that sign. I’d love to think I’d have thought of it on my own, but attention to detail is about experience as much as focus.

  I search the area where the sniper was sitting. I spot a shiny piece of metal. It’s a shell casing, definitely from a rifle bullet. What kind of pro goes through the trouble of digging out a slug from the ground but doesn’t bother picking up a shell casing? I put the casing in my pocket. I’ll be keeping that piece of evidence from Detective Rose.

  >>>Maria, I found a shell casing. I’m going to send you the image on think.Net. We finally have a real clue.

  14

  Log of Notable Nita/Ultracorps Activity Week 213

  Gavin provided information that extra-Manna products are being rerouted to supposedly closed copper mine.

  Theories: Mine is being used to house dangerous Differents Ultracorps wishes to keep hidden, possibly The Beast, but not likely. Going to St. Louis to figure it out.

  Ben stands on a desolate street corner looking up at an elevated rail track. He’s carrying a length of ForteSilk rope with a hook on the end. He is outside the bounds of the Metro Area in the ruins of old Los Angeles, an area formerly known as West Covina. The buildings here have all collapsed and surrendered to the encroaching prairie. Deep in thought, Ben mutters calculations of complex equations involving velocity, vectors, and angles of approach. He’s even accounting for wind resistance. The arithmetic is paused by the sound of a train approaching. Its deafening boom is the result of a vessel moving at incredible speeds. Ben twirls the grappling hook in his hands to build up his own speed, does a few final mental calculations, and lets the grappling hook fly at the precisely determined moment needed to hit the speeding train.

  Despite his calculations, his throw is not even close. This was not the matter of a few decimals off or a one he forgot to carry. He missed by many factors of many magnitudes. Unless he can learn to throw the rope at five hundred miles an hour, it simply isn’t going to happen.

  A new approach is required, perhaps one that spares Ben’s ego.

  He needs a way to get out to St. Louis, and the transcontinental train is his only viable option. These trains are separate from the Slug; they allow for travel between the Metro Areas. The system consists of a single raised Maceo Steel rail. The rail is covered in Move-Oil, a Different-made lubricant that is the most effective ever created. The train is powered by what is essentially a giant wind-up motor. A Strong-Man turns a dial to twist a ForteSilk coil, which unravels and accelerates the train to a top speed of eight hundred miles an hour, a little faster than most wind-up toys.

  The lubricant allows the train to maintain much of its top speed for some time, but air resistance does eventually slow it down. That’s why there are boosting stations between the Metro Areas where a Strong-Man winds the train back up. The location of these “boosting stations” is kept secret from the public, but Ben had access to the map when he worked for Ultracorps, and he memorized the locations like he memorizes everything else.

  Since the grappling hook plan failed in spectacular fashion, Ben is forced to institute Plan B, making his way out to the closest boosting station, which is about a week away on foot. There the trains will be stopped, which should make it much easier to hitch a ride. A zero for speed is an easy variable to account for. He could buy a ticket like a normal person, but he needs to make a stop that’s not on the official route. A passenger disappearing from a train would be cause for concern, one that Nita might eventually investigate. Ben wants to find out what’s going on in that mine, and he doesn’t want Nita to know he knows, or even suspects anything.

  Whatever is happening in that mine must be important. It was producing almost a hundred thousand dollars worth of copper a day. Ultracorps isn’t going to shut down a profit center like that willy-nilly. Ben told Gavin that The Beast might be held there just to keep the boy interested, but after the information Gavin found out about the Manna deliveries, it’s actually an outside possibility that The Beast is there. Whatever is going on, Nita doesn’t want people to know about it, which means Ben has to know, which means a long walk to the middle of nowhere.

  #

  It’s time. Ben hits a button on his chest to deploy a parachute from his backpack. He’s violently ripped from his perch atop the speeding train and lifted into the air, exposing his body to such extreme g-forces his
lips are forced open and more than a few bugs are shoved down his throat. The force knocks the wind out of him, leaving him gasping to get a breath large enough to spit out the bugs. While he’s still in the air, he sees a maze of smaller train lines that service the copper mines in the area. He solves the maze and spots the mine he’s looking for, the one furthest out from the rest. The perfect place to keep somethings, or someones, hidden.

  Ben lands with a thud, but he’s still smiling, even with trouble breathing and the unexpected insect snack. He’s going to find out something Nita doesn’t want him to know, and that will be worth enduring many more hardships. He pulls a small blanket from his pack and picks out a comfortable-looking pile of dirt. As excited as he is, he needs rest to be ready for the challenges he’ll soon face. It turns out that it is difficult to sleep while fighting hundreds of miles an hour winds atop a train car. He takes out a Manna Bar from his pack and scarfs it down. Then he sets the alarm on his wristwatch, a watch he’s quite proud of. It’s powered by his body’s own movement, a design he invented. He then closes his eyes and begins the near-impossible task of falling asleep while still giddy about the coming day. Ben might be a Different, but even he has limits on mental miracles.

  #

  The outside of the mine looks like a set from one of those Pre-Plague Westerns. There’s equipment scattered everywhere. Mine carts, pick axes, drill-looking things, and several other machines Ben can’t identify. Whatever happened here happened fast; there’s still copper ore in one of the mine carts. That isn’t something that would be left behind lightly. If that ore were refined, it would be worth several thousand dollars. Ben spends a moment considering the logistics of taking the ore with him before deciding the risk isn’t worth the reward. Plus, he really doesn’t have the proper equipment for smelting.

  He turns his attention to the task at hand. With his recently improved and shrunken hearing amplifier in his ear, he steps into the dank, dark tunnel of rock. He listens as he gradually turns the amplification level up. There isn’t any drilling or hauling or pick axing, the mine is definitely shut down, but at the maximum amplification level, he can make out a few muffled voices coming from deep down. Someone is still here. Ben intends to find out who.