Superhero Detective Series (Book 2): The Missing Exploding Girl Page 11

  The two people walked towards my office. I got that itch in the back of my skull I sometimes got when I was about to have visitors. ESP was not part of my powers, but I still got premonitions of danger from time to time. Maybe it was a genetic relic from an earlier time, back when humans were prey animals as much as deer or gazelles were. I ignored my premonitions at my peril.

  “Shadow,” I said softly, “I think we’re about to have a couple of visitors.” Out of long habit, I mentally checked the bowl of water I always kept on my desk to make sure it was full. It was. I had filled it with fresh water just hours before as I did whenever I went to my office. I never knew when my powers might need a water source.

  In the blink of an eye, Shadow was standing beside the hinges of my closed door office. I barely even saw her move. It was almost as if she teleported from being seated on the couch holding her book to standing by the door holding her gun. She really was fast when she wanted to be.

  I slid open the right top drawer of my desk, the one that contained the loaded Beretta semi-automatic pistol with the safety off and a round in the chamber. I rested my hand on the lip of the drawer. I did not pick the gun up, though. Perhaps my potential visitors were harmless. Perhaps someone was sending me a strippergram. Though I considered it unlikely, I didn’t want to shoot an innocent naked lady by accident. Female nudity should be encouraged, not discouraged by waving a gun at it.

  The door opened. A wall of costumed flesh stepped inside. This was no naked lady. My hand wrapped around the gun in the desk.

  The man who had come in was tall, but perhaps a bit shorter than I. His imposing size came from his width and the sheer mass of his body. Muscles rippled like waves under his skintight dark blue costume as he moved. A matching mask completely covered his face except for his mouth and eyes. His eyes looked as friendly as a hippo’s. He wore over the blue outfit a dark brown vest lined with pockets. Perhaps that was where he kept the protein powder he probably needed to maintain his massive body.

  Behind that hulking brute followed a man who was as different from the first one as the day was from the night. The second man was not wearing a costume, unless his was a lawyer’s costume. He was dressed in a three piece dark gray suit and wore a dark red tie. He was white, of around average height, and had black hair with grey at the temples. His hair was stylishly and expensively cut. If I had seen him on the street, I might have thought he was the CEO of some company, or maybe a partner at a big white-shoe law firm. Unless, that is, I had seen his eyes. There was something wild and dangerous about his eyes, a look I had seen before in the eyes of mafia heads and religious zealots. This man was no lawyer or CEO.

  Shadow pumped her shotgun. The sound was like a cannon going off in the room. She had it leveled at the head of the man in the suit. The two men turned a bit, and saw her standing behind the door. She closed the open door with her foot so she could see the hulking man better. That man took a step towards her, but he froze when she gave him a hard look without taking the gun off of the other man. I would have frozen too. The right look from Shadow would stop a charging rhinoceros in its tracks.

  “The one whose brains I’m about to splatter against your wall is the Pied Piper,” Shadow said to me. “The walking steroid is called Bonebreaker.” She smiled slightly. The smile did not reach her eyes. “Take a guess as to what his superpower is.”

  I had my gun out now, and pointed at Bonebreaker. I probed his body with my mind. Over sixty percent of the average person’s body is water, which is how I was able to sense the approach of people. Bonebreaker’s body chemistry was different, though. His body still had some water in it, but nearly as much as usual. There was something unusual about his makeup that made him as distinctive to my powers as a lit green lightbulb in a row of white ones. I hoped he could be shot as I doubted my powers would work on his body type.

  As for the smaller man, his body chemistry was typical. I could have killed that one with my powers if he made a wrong move. Made the blood in his heart explode, maybe.

  “Bonebreaker?” I said. “Subtle name. Let me guess, your power is flexing. Or is it conjuring rainbows and butterflies?”

  Bonebreaker’s lips tightened. But, the Pied Piper was the one who spoke. He seemed completely unfazed by the fact a shotgun was pointed at his head.

  “Now, is this any way to treat guests?” he said. His voice was deep, rich, and perfectly modulated, like someone who had once taken formal voice lessons. “You are Truman Lord, I assume?”

  I nodded my head in acknowledgment. I kept my eyes and my gun on Bonebreaker.

  “I understand you have been looking for me,” the Pied Piper said. “Or, more to the point, looking for a young woman named Clara Barton. My colleague and I are just here to talk. Perhaps we can raise a flag of truce and you can lower your weapons. I promise neither Bonebreaker nor I will make any hostile moves.”

  “Shadow?” I said inquiringly without looking at her. She knew the Pied Piper and I did not.

  “He’s a megalomaniacal lunatic, but his word is good,” she said. “If he says he won’t attack us, he won’t.”

  I thought about it. They said you got more flies with honey than you did with vinegar. I never completely understood that expression, though. Who the heck wanted flies? Bullfrogs, perhaps? It would not hurt to talk, though. Maybe I would learn something which would prove to be useful later.

  I shrugged mentally, and put my gun back into my drawer. When she saw me do this, Shadow lowered her gun as well until the barrel pointed at the floor. I did not close my drawer, though, just as Shadow did not put her gun down. Trust was all very well, but you could not shoot a supervillain with trust in a pinch.

  “All right,” I said to the Pied Piper. “Have a seat. We’ll talk.”

  He smiled at me amiably, as if it were the start of a beautiful supervillain and Hero friendship. I would not be exchanging birthday cards with the man anytime soon, though. I made it a point to not get too friendly with Metahuman terrorists. You were known by the company you kept, after all.

  The Pied Piper sat down in the client chair closest to me. He crossed his legs, adjusting his pants’ fabric so the crease was just so. His black dress shoes were so shiny I could have shaved in them. Bonebreaker remained standing, as did Shadow. Bonebreaker eyed Shadow warily. Shadow’s face was placid the way it often was and vaguely vacant as she looked at both nothing and everything all at once.

  The Pied Piper looked at me appraisingly, just as I looked at him. There was a palpable force to the man, a charisma that was hard to deny. I had the feeling that regardless of the group the Pied Piper joined, he would wind up being the leader of it. It was a shame he wasted his obvious charms as the head of a murderous cabal of terrorist supervillains.

  “Your nose looks like it has been broken a few times,” the Piper Piper finally said. “Plus, there’s a bit of scar tissue around your eyes and your ears have seen better days. Did you used to box?”

  “I was a mixed martial arts fighter for a while,” I said.

  “Were you any good?” he said.

  I smiled at him.

  “I have a feeling you’re going to find out soon enough,” I said.

  He smiled back at me. He did not seem the slightest bit intimidated by me. I supposed that was only fair: I was not intimidated by him either.

  “Perhaps I will at that. I did a little fighting myself back in the day. Amateur boxing, in my case,” he said. He paused. “I have been looking into you, Mr. Lord. I must say I’m impressed. You combine a powerful and versatile Metahuman ability with brains and doggedness. Your talents are wasted working for the Unevolveds.”

  “Whom should I be working for instead? You?” I asked. I was pleased by my correct usage of the word “whom.” My high school English teacher would have been impressed. The Pied Piper seemed far more impressed by himself than he was by my diction.

  The Pied Piper smiled at me again at my question.

  “As a matter of fact, yes. The
human race is on the cusp of a new age, the Age of the Metahuman. The time when the Unevolveds reigned supreme is over. We Metas can control minds, split atoms with a thought, and tear down buildings with our bare hands.” The Pied Piper nodded his head in my direction. “Or, in your case, control the elements. How can the Unevolveds hope to stand against us? We are everything they are, plus so much more. We are the pinnacle of human evolution. The automobile ended the use of the horse as a means of transport. But, when the automobile first came along, the farrier did not know his day was done. It was, though, just as the Unevolveds’ day is done. They just don’t know it yet.” The Pied Piper’s eyes gleamed almost feverishly. I realized at that moment the Pied Piper he was no con man, no lying demagogue with a scheme to empower or enrich himself. He actually believed what he was saying.

  “That’s why I wanted to come here and meet you face to face,” the Pied Piper said. “I’m here to give you, as one of my Metahuman brothers, an opportunity to join the winning side, the side of history and destiny.” He glanced over at Shadow. “Shadow, too. More and more Metas are flocking to the banners of the Metahuman Liberation Front by the day. They realize the Unevolveds are oppressing us, trying to keep us from using our God-given powers, trying to keep us from unlocking our full potential and from reaching our destiny.”

  Like far too many leaders, the Pied Piper was full of himself and liked to talk. I thought I would use that foible to get some questions answered.

  “Is that why you used Clara Barton to kill and injure all of those people at Dupont Circle?” I asked. “To help Metahumans unlock their full potential?”

  The Pied Piper shook his head quickly as if shooing away a buzzing fly.

  “The incident at Dupont Circle was intended to be a demonstration, an indication to the Unevolveds of our power. By striking in Washington, D.C., we wanted to send the message to them we could strike at them anywhere, even at the seat of their government.” The Pied Piper shook his head almost sadly. “Unfortunately, that message got muddied by so many other groups stepping forward to take credit for the explosion.”

  “You say it was a message,” I said. “Others would say it was a terrorist attack.”

  “Whether someone is a terrorist or a freedom fighter is all a matter of perspective,” he said smoothly. “Had the United States’ Revolutionary War gone differently, George Washington would have been condemned as a terrorist and a traitor. Remember what Benjamin Franklin said to the other so-called Founding Fathers before the signing of the Declaration of Independence: ‘We must all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately.’ But, Franklin, Washington, and the others were not hung because they won. Because Washington was on the winning side, history says he was a patriot and the father of his country. History is written by the victors. As sure as we are sitting here, Metahumans will be victorious in their struggle against the Unevolveds. We will be the heroes, the patriots, the fathers of a new age.”

  “Why take Clara Barton?” I asked. “If you are right, Metahumans taking over from normal humans is as inevitable as the sun rising. Why take a girl away from her family?”

  The Pied Piper made a face.

  “It isn’t much of a family. John Barton is a religious fanatic and a Metahuman bigot,” he said. I almost interjected that it takes a fanatic and bigot to recognize another one, but I kept quiet. “Whereas Meghan Barton is a nonentity, completely weak and under her husband’s thumb. They do not deserve a Metahuman treasure like Clara.

  “When I heard what Clara could do, I thought her abilities would be useful in our cause,” the Pied Piper said. “I considered simply taking her away from the Bartons, but realized that would cause too much of a stir. Not only would the police get involved, but if the Heroes’ Guild heard a young Metahuman had been abducted, they might search for her as well. I decided the safest course would be to offer Mr. Barton money to let me take his daughter.” A look of contempt passed over the Pied Piper’s face. “Barton jumped at the chance to sell his daughter to me. It just further demonstrates how degenerate and brutish the Unevolveds are. I did Clara a favor by removing her from that household.”

  “Did Clara voluntarily blow up the Dupont Circle subway, or was she under the control of your powers?” I asked.

  “Alas, Clara is still young and foolish,” he said. “She still believes the rubbish the Unevolveds preach about all people being equal and how if you’re nice to people, they’ll be nice to you back.” His eyes flashed with anger. “They preach those things, but they do not practice it. Look how they oppress Metahumans through the so-called Hero Act.

  “So Clara has not accepted the aims of the MLF. Yet. As she matures, I am confident she will come to see the truth and accept the fact that she and Metas like her are the natural rulers of this world. So, yes, Clara was under my control when she destroyed part of the subway station. When she is not under my control, we sedate her to prevent her from foolishly attempting to escape from us and returning to her rubbish family.” The Pied Piper’s eyes gleamed maniacally. “Despite all of her explosive power, would you believe Clara has not yet reached her full potential? We have been analyzing her biochemistry. In time, we think she will exceed the explosive power of Joseph Tilly himself, the man who single-handedly ended World War Two. Yes, Clara will be quite an asset to us. Quite an asset indeed.”

  “So you’re going to use her to kill more innocent people? Like the people in the subway?” I asked.

  The Pied Piper smiled tightly.

  “They are hardly innocent. They are a part of the anti-Meta and discriminatory power structure, even if they are not fully aware of it. Weren’t the people of Germany who stood idly by while Jews were imprisoned and murdered as complicit in those crimes as the Nazis who actually carried out the atrocities?” he said. He shook his head. “Even so, I did not relish hurting those people, even if they were but mere Unevolveds. I did not particularly dislike it either, though. Do you care when you step on a roach? Does a builder care about the ants he kills when he builds a house on an anthill? I am building something great, Mr. Lord, a bright new future where Metahumans reign supreme. The deaths of a few Unevolveds do not matter. I would kill millions more of them if I had to. I will kill millions more if they get in my way. Clara and the powers of hers we are in the process of augmenting will aid me in that. You and Shadow can aid me in that, too.”

  The Pied Piper leaned forward in his chair a bit.

  “By all accounts, Mr. Lord, you are no fool. Though Metahumans are but a sliver of the total population, we are to the Unevolveds as they are to worms. Metahuman supremacy is inevitable. It is not a question of if, but rather, a question of when,” he said. His eyes were ablaze with an internal fire. “Will you join us? Will you help us usher in the dawn of a new and better age?”

  I stared at the Pied Piper. Maybe he was right. Maybe Metahumans were the next stage in human evolution. Maybe we would eventually leave regular humans behind much as modern humans left their primate ancestors behind. But, if those things happened, I did not want them to happen thanks to the tactics of men like the Pied Piper. I did not want the blood of innocents on my hands.

  “No,” I said. “You’re not a freedom fighter. You’re not some Metahuman savior or a latter day George Washington or someone who is going to usher in a golden age. You’re a thief, a kidnapper, a terrorist, and a murderer. You’re also a coward. Even suicide bombers are brave enough to blow themselves up. You use children to do your dirty work for you. I’m not going to join you or follow you or help you. I’d sooner follow that cockroach you mentioned. What I am going to do is take Clara away from you and return her to her family. If I have to stomp on you instead of that roach in the course of achieving that goal, so much the better.”

  The Pied Piper recoiled at my words as if he had been slapped. The mask of suaveness and urbanity dropped for a moment, and I got a glimpse of savagery and raw ambition. Then, as quickly as it appeared, it was gone, replaced with a bland look of almos
t disinterest.

  The Pied Piper looked at me steadily, like a boxer sizing up an opponent. After a bit he stood up.

  “Then let the games begin,” he said. He turned and walked towards the door. I did not try to stop him. I would let him leave, and would then tail him to find out where he went in the hopes he would lead me to Clara.

  But before he opened the door, the Piper Piper paused. He turned back to look at me.

  “Oh, I almost forgot. Do me a favor and take a look out of the window,” he said.

  I just gazed at him without moving. I must have looked at him with suspicion. The Pied Piper shook his head with disgust.

  “Don’t be silly. I am not going to attack you,” he said. ”I said we were under a flag of truce earlier. I am a man of my word,” he said.

  My gaze flicked over to Shadow. She still had the shotgun in her hands pointed at the floor. She was looking nowhere in particular, but I knew she was really looking everywhere all at once. She would keep an eye on the two men while my back was turned.

  I mentally shrugged and spun around in my chair to look out of the window. The view was the same as always. Paper Street was below, and a high-rise was across the street. Everything looked the same as it always did.

  “What exactly is it I’m supposed to be looking for?” I asked. “Your conscience?”

  “Look to the right. At the building next to the high-rise,” the Pied Piper said.

  I shifted my gaze. The pale brick building next to the high-rise was only four stories tall. Something on the roof of it drew my eye. Actually, it was not just one something. It was three somethings. Three small figures were on the roof, standing dangerously on the edge. They were children. From this distance, the oldest of them looked to be ten or eleven.

  “Those children you see are under my control. I didn’t get their names or ages. It doesn’t matter—they’re just Unevolveds anyway,” the Pied Piper said contemptuously. The way he said “Unevolveds,” he made it sound like a curse word.