Superhuman: Dead America

Christopher Nuttall
Cover Blurb

Superhumans!

They fly through the air, lift entire locomotives in their hands and smash through tanks as if
they were made of paper. Loved, hated, they have become part of a very different world,
where superpower changed the world and the next war will be a superhuman war, fought out
for dominance over the entire planet.

But now, someone has done the impossible and killed America, one of the most-loved
superhumans in the world. As SDI Investigator Matt Tracker starts to investigate, he finds
himself at the centre of a deadly plot…and realises that New York City might be the
battleground of the First Superhuman War.
Prologue

This is how it all started.

Back in 1979, there was a girl who was due to be burned for the hideous crime of being raped
by a man. This would have passed unnoticed, except when they lit the bonfire, the flames
somehow merged with the girl and lashed out into the village, killing every man, woman, and
child. The girl had somehow gained powers over fire; after completing the destruction of her
village, she vanished into darkest Africa.

Naturally, no one believed a word of the story, until the next super-powered human appeared.
And then the next. And then the next…five years later, there were seven hundred known
superhumans in the world, changing the very balance of power by their mere existence.
Superhumans changed the world; from the streets of America to the snowstorms of Siberia, to
the darkest heart of Africa to the jungles of Bangladesh, superhumans provided a challenge to
the established order. Today, in 2010, there are over seven thousand superhumans in the
world; some good, some bad, some trying to remain unnoticed.

Superhumans like me.

My name is Mathew Tracker.

I am an investigator for the Superhuman Defence Initiative.

This is my story.
Chapter One

“America is dead,” the General said, as I was escorted up the stairs.

“Really,” I said, keeping my voice level. I don’t like teleporting at the best of times, but the
General’s summons had been very firm, impossible to refuse. I took a long breath, allowing
my senses to start searching for information, and allowed myself the luxury of a wisecrack.
“We may have the Beckham family over here, but that hardly means that we’re about to die.”

The General regarded me with the kind of look normally reserved for particularly dense
soldiers, before turning to beckon me into another room. He’s a strange figure, tall, thin and
lanky in the way that many ex-infantry men are, with grey hair and very sharp blue eyes. I’ve
known him for nearly twenty years, a man who was at Camp Pendleton when it was attacked
during the early days of superhumanity and who has since then devoted his life to controlling,
guiding and if necessary terminating superhumans. He wasn't a superhuman himself,
although there are plenty of people who would have questioned that happy assumption, but
he was never intimidated by men with the power to fly or shatter a tank with a single punch.

A strange man, the General. America is lucky to have him, and at the same time, America
would like to pretend that he doesn’t exist and isn’t really required. He walks in the shadows
and answers only to the President and the lucky person who holds the once-coveted position
of Director of the Superhuman Defence Initiative; his very name is largely unknown to the
public. He prefers it that way.

“This is no time for humour,” he said, as we entered the room. The sense of death grew
more…pronounced as I saw the body lying on the ground. “America is dead.”

I blinked. “This is America?”

The General looked slightly – very slightly - embarrassed. “The uniform includes a hood that
keeps his face concealed,” he said, reminding me. “This is one of the Americas’, if you like.”

The body on the ground was black, a dead ringer for whoever played Captain Sisko in that
short-lived Star Trek series. The man had once been handsome, in a mature kind of way, but
now his face was contorted in an ugly mixture of shock and pain. His body had been
muscular in the way that makes other men jealous and leaves them feeling inadequate, but
now, the cause of death was all-too-clear. Someone had punched a bloody hole through his
chest and into his heart.

Something about it struck me as odd, but I left it for the moment; I find that my mind works
better if I try to sneak up on a problem, rather than trying to solve it through brute force.
Context is everything, so I glanced around the bare room, noticing the presence of a single
bed and washbasin, but little else. The room seemed only fit for someone who could afford
nothing better, or wanted a private little tryst with his mistress; the one element of interest
was a photograph of America in full costume.

I ignored the General’s growing impatience and studied the image. America had been one of
the first government-supported superhumans, according to the official news; when Fireman
quit the first superteam, America stepped up and took over what became the public SDI
superhuman task force. He wore an outfit designed to show the American flag, covering all
of his face; I could easily believe that someone had been able to push several superhumans
into the role, and no one would be any the wiser. It made me wonder just who was wearing
the mask these days.

I turned back to the General. “Do we know what he’s doing here?”

“No,” the General said, his voice showing the faintest tinge of suspicion. He might as well
have shouted his suspicions from the rooftop; I can read a person’s mood just by being near
them. “What do you think?”

I shrugged. “I dare say he wasn’t mugged,” I said. I wasn’t trying to annoy the General, but
I wanted time to think. “What do you think?”

The General eyed me suspiciously. “This man – Marvin Lofting – was rated at Level Seven,”
he said, a droll note running through his voice. “Do you think an ordinary mugger could
have killed him?”

I shook my head. The superhuman power scale is somewhat subjective, being a combination
of raw power, endurance, and – more practically – how difficult any given superhuman is to
kill. I rate out as a Level Two, despite my own nature; Level Seven suggested some degree
of invulnerability and certainly immense physical strength. If I recalled correctly – and
perfect memory is one of my gifts – America had also possessed some degree of laser vision
and super-senses. A mugger might have tried to pick on him, but it would have been the last
mistake that poor bastard ever made.

“There’s already some interest from outside,” the General continued. “I need you to tell me,
as quickly as possible, who killed him and why.”

I leaned down and scowled. America might have had almost all of the powers in the
Superman-class, but I didn’t; my powers were much stranger. I have a…well, a super-
awareness of the area around me, a sense that lets me know every last detail of my
surroundings. What’s the point of that, you might ask; why would that be useful? Think
about it; I can look at someone – anyone – and tell if they are lying to me. I can touch an
object and learn much more about it than anyone else could, at least without a full scientific
examination. I could sniff someone and tell them, right down to the minute, when they last
had sex. If a girl is interested in me…believe me, I’ll know it. More practically, if I get into
a fight, my opponent can’t help telegraphing their attacks to me.

It took me several months to learn to control my powers. The sudden burst of sensory
information left me in a coma and it took a week before my brain adapted enough to allow
me to wake up. I can still remember the shock of looking at the pretty nurses and seeing, at a
level I cannot really describe, their innermost secrets. I spend most of my time alone, well
away from anyone else; I don’t have a permanent girlfriend or wife. All couples sometimes
have a moment when they think that they’re making a mistake…and I’ll know it when
someone thinks that about me. I prefer prostitutes; they, at least, are honest about being in it
for the money.

“I guessed that much,” I said, as I started to concentrate and open up my senses. I’m more
dangerous than most superhumans would guess; I can look at one of them and see their
weaknesses. Most superhumans have at least one weakness; America, at a rough guess, had
still needed to breathe. “Give me a moment to think.”

The General backed off as I forced my mind to concentrate. The sudden torrent of
information surprised me, in a way; I never fully understand how my powers work. It’s the
same with almost every superhuman; you ask a flyer how he or she flies and they won’t be
able to tell you. I know things without actually knowing how I know them; America came
here, he wasn't alone, the sense of the other is almost…

Alien?

I can’t believe it. There is plenty of nonsense being written about the origin of superpowers,
including the claim that they’re caused by an alien virus or genetic modification programs
started by little grey aliens, but no one has produced a single piece of proof of alien life. I
know that there are some people, Pure Humanity for one, who claim that superhumans are
aliens, but its nonsense. The…sense refuses to fade; something happened here that was well
out of the ordinary.

The General didn’t believe it either. “Impossible,” he said. The scorn in his voice didn’t
surprise me in the slightest. “How many other people were here when he died?”

I concentrated, grimly, trying to peer through the unknown sense. Whoever did this to
America – this America – was clever; whatever they had used was fouling up my senses, at
least at some level. I had the definite sense of at least two other people, apart from America
himself, but I couldn’t even tell if they were male or female. What had America been doing
in this place anyway? He wouldn’t be the first superhuman to have groupies – female
groupies – who were prepared to sleep with him, but even so, this was an unlikely place for
such trysts. The groupies normally insisted on their target wearing their outfits…and
America, lying there, was wearing normal civilian clothes.

“I think there were two people,” I said. I stood up and wandered over to the bed; it
practically reeked, but not of America. The substance that had been used to cover their tracks
was weaker here, but I wasn’t convinced that the people who had used the bed – the hundreds
of people who had used the bed, unless my senses were deceiving me – were actually
connected to the murder. “Jumper brought me right here, so where exactly are we?”

“It’s an apartment block,” the General said, unhelpfully. I scowled; the presence of the SDI
would have told any newsmen that whatever had happened, a superhuman was involved.
“No one saw anything, no one heard anything, no one so much as guessed that there was a
dead body in here…you know the drill.”

“You didn’t see me, you didn’t hear me and you can’t prove it anyway,” I agreed. A thought
struck me. “Wait a moment; no one saw anything?”

“No,” the General said.

It was obvious, in hindsight; superhuman conflicts are not quiet. A guy with the comparative
strength of a steam locomotive, capable of breaking a tank with his bare hands, able to fly
faster than a speeding jet fighter…that guy isn’t going to go quietly. If I had hit him, I would
have broken my hand on his chin; someone with the power to hurt him would have sent an
invulnerable body smashing through the apartment and crashing through walls. I had
attended a clean-up at a university following a particularly nasty sparking and the damage
had been awesome, as if someone had set off an entire series of bombs, rather than one
maddened superhuman.

“How did they manage to hurt him without bringing down the ceiling?” I asked, returning to
the dead body. On a hunch, I clenched my fist and held it over the gaping wound; it was just
a little smaller than the murder weapon. A superhuman can be a weapon in his or her own
right, a living weapon of mass destruction. Ever since Slaughter was unleashed on Central
America, for reasons that looked good at the time, people have feared insane superhumans.
No wonder Pure Humanity is so popular.

“Good question,” the General said. “Do you have an answer?”

I stroked the wound thoughtfully. The fist – and I was convinced now that it had been a fist –
had punched right through invulnerable skin. It didn’t add up; the force required to inflict
such damage would have sent the body flying through the wall, except it hadn’t done
anything of the sort. Hit a normal person with that sort of force and their body would literally
disintegrate.

“No,” I admitted, grudgingly. I hated failure, particularly when it was my failure. “Tell me
something; what’s this guy’s life story?”

“He used to be a policeman for the NYPD, but he got thrown off the Twin Towers by a
superhuman and just sparked then rather than hitting the ground,” the General said,
thoughtfully. “He registered almost at once and was rapidly recruited into the covert team
and then, when the first America started talking about resigning, took on the cape and cowl.
Five years later, he stepped down himself, returned to his home with his wife and two kids,
and then…well, we only heard from him from time to time.”

I smiled. “When you needed him for a mission?”

“Yes,” the General said. A superhuman can normally write their own ticket; someone with
America’s power levels would be much in demand right across the world. “He was actually
doing some work with black kids from the poorer parts of the city, helping to convince them
that there might be a life for them that didn’t include gangs and random sudden death at a
young age; all in all, I would have said he was a model hero.”

“It wouldn’t be the first time that someone we considered above suspicion caused problems,”
I reminded him dryly. Something was nagging at my brain, but what? “Did he have any
enemies?”

“America has lots of enemies,” the General said grimly. I thought about it; if the murderer
had known that he was targeting America, why not go for whoever was currently wearing the
cape and cowl? Did the murderer know whom he was targeting? I couldn’t believe that it
was just a random hit that had included someone with the power to actually hurt a Level
Seven superhuman. That would be stretching probability too far. “I don’t know if he actually
had enemies in his civilian life.”
“Someone hated him enough to inflict such injuries on him,” I said. It made me wonder;
what was I missing? “Was he having any problems with his powers?”

“Good thought,” the General said. “He didn’t report any problems when we last spoke to
him, and I must say that there is very little evidence of superpowers fading, but that might be
one reason why he was injured so badly. Are there any inhibitor drugs running through his
bloodstream?”

I leaned closer and allowed my senses to creep over the body. The South Africans, under the
Apartheid regime, had been the leaders in ethically-questionable experiments to produce,
control and terminate superhumans. Years after the Apartheid regime had fallen apart in civil
war, we’re still dealing with the results, from several superhumans who were the victims of
various experiments to sterilisation drugs that somehow ‘accidentally’ got into the water
supply. Doctor Death, as he had been known, had actually succeeded in producing a drug
that reduced superpowers for a short period, but there were no traces of any such drugs
running through America’s body.

“No,” I said finally, grimly. If there was a superhuman murderer out there, he or she had to
be odd indeed. “I don’t know how they did it.”

The General nodded. “I want you to find the person who did this,” he said. I had rather
guessed that, although I suspected that he had hoped I would sense something that would lead
us directly to the killer. “There are worrying diplomatic problems involved.”

I lifted an eyebrow. “The United Nations is going to be holding a conference on superpower

within the next month,” the General admitted, when pressed. He knew better than to try to lie
to me. “There are more superhumans in New York than ever before and the last thing we
need is for them to start lashing out in panic. The city might not recover from such a battle.”

He paused. “And they’re going to know pretty quickly that a superhuman was killed,” he
continued. “I bet you dinner at the place of your choice that the Mayor will start using it
soon, if he hasn’t already, to score points for the forthcoming election. Mayor Hathaway has
ambitions to become the President and intends to run as soon as he gets the nomination.”

“If he gets the nomination,” I said. Politics were chancy things in a world of superpowers
and superhumans. Mayor Hathaway’s grand plan, to turn New York into the superhuman
capital of the world – as if it wasn't that already – would upset a lot of applecarts. I pushed
that matter to one side and started to concentrate on coming up with a plan. “I’ll start by
interviewing as many people as possible and seeing if I pick up any traces of that smell
anywhere near them.”

The General nodded, his mind clearly elsewhere. “We need a solution quickly,” he said,
simply. “Whoever did this harmed one of us, a person who worked for the SDI, and they
cannot be allowed to get away with it. Find him, Matt, find him so that the covert team can
deal with him and then we can put the bastard on trial.”

“After finding out how he did it, I suppose,” I said. Superpowers bring out the best and the
worst in us; for everyone like America, or myself for that matter, there’s some bastard out to
cause trouble or terror, or merely profit himself. If there were a way of removing powers, or
even limiting them, without the inhibitor drugs, the SDI would sell its collective soul to get it.
“Of course,” the General agreed. He had to control some of the superhuman population and
it was never an easy job. Many of them refused even to admit that the SDI had any authority
over them that couldn’t be enforced, daring the SDI to take direct action that might leave
thousands of people dead as collateral damage. Something like this would be a godsend.

That led to another thought. The SDI wasn’t the only group that would have an interest in
developing something that could inhibit powers. “I think I’ll talk to the Humanists as well,
just to see if they know anything.”

The General beckoned Jumper over. “Take Matt somewhere away from the eyes of the
press,” he said. Jumper, a young man with teleporting powers, nodded once. “Matt, find this
bastard; we need to send a message.”

As Jumper took my hand, I nodded. There was no questioning the message the General
wanted to send.

You don’t fuck with the SDI.

Chapter Two

Central Park, I had often felt, had been spoilt by the introduction of a platform for political
speeches. Mayor Joe Hathaway had visited London during one of his frequent trips away
from his constituency and had been impressed by Speaker’s Corner, or so the story went. It
wasn't the only story surrounding the Mayor of New York; he is, according to his supporters,
a natural leader and a great war hero. The latter is all the more remarkable as there was no
war going on at the time. Mudslingers had been pointing out this little discrepancy for years,
only to discover that Hathaway himself had never claimed to be a great hero, or at least
nowhere in public.

And New York loved him. Hathaway – a short fat man with an enormous voice – satisfied
their demands for spectacle. Hathaway had been a junior politician when the first
superhumans appeared and he had rapidly turned them into his personal cause. He had taken
the lead in the condemnation of the CIA and Vice President Bush when it was revealed that
they had used a superhuman serial killer as a living weapon of terror and had actually worked
hard to encourage other superhumans to immigrate to New York. The NYPD, under his
insistent prodding, had handed out licences to more superhumans than any other city; I had
heard that at least twenty-seven superhumans had been officially deputised in New York.
New York, in fact, is perhaps the only place in the world where you can expect to run into a
superhuman on a daily basis.

“And I pledge that this foul hate crime against an innocent superhuman will not go
unavenged,” Hathaway was proclaiming, in full Yosemite Sam mode. He really needed a
Bugs Bunny to put the wind up his kilt. “I promise you that I will do everything in my power
to bring the person responsible to justice!”

I glanced at my watch as Jumper vanished again. I’d been with the General, at the crime
scene, for nearly an hour; the news had spread rapidly. Hathaway wasn't telling anyone very
much, to be fair; he might know that a superhuman had been killed, but not much about who
that superhuman had been. The SDI would keep quiet about the identity of America –
perhaps flying the third America around New York – but the odds were that Hathaway would
find out in the end. He had been Mayor long enough to have his cronies scattered right
through the NYPD. One of them would have told him everything the NYPD knew about the
case.

“God help us all if he becomes President,” I muttered, and turned to leave. Hathaway’s voice
echoed in my ears as I left the park and kept walking, drawing in my senses as much as
possible; New York might also be the home of the electric car, but the streets still smelt pretty
unpleasant to me. As I walked, I pulled a mobile phone out of my pocket and made a single
call, before killing time in a small café. It would take some time for my friend to get ready to
meet me and I knew better than to surprise her.

I skimmed through the New York Times as I drank a cup of dubious tea. I had developed a
taste for tea while in England, but it’s difficult to get a good cup of tea in America, even in
New York. I have a friend in England who posts me tealeaves from time to time, but even
that doesn’t quite satisfy. I have to be careful what I eat and drink, these days; even the
blandest dish is a flavourful feast for me. A good vindaloo curry has been known to come
close to putting me back in my coma. From time to time, I experiment, but mostly I just have
to keep my food bland. The newspaper didn’t have anything interesting to offer, mainly
comments about the UN’s plan for a discussion of superpower and remarks about how it
might boost Hathaway’s chance to park his oversized arse in the White House.

“Interesting,” I muttered, trying to read between the lines. The UN has never been capable of
controlling superpower; the more unstable a state is, the more likely it is that superhumans
will affect it badly. We’ve been lucky; the worst that happened is that two people who were
hotly tipped to become President, George HW Bush and William Clinton, lost any chance of
an election victory. Russia – the former Soviet Union – suffered badly from rogue
superhumans and their fury at how they were treated; many other states, such as Iraq and
Bangladesh, have superhumans controlling them directly. Africa is being torn apart by
superhuman-led war.

It made me wonder just what the UN thought it was doing. There were plenty of proposed
resolutions against superhuman activity, none of which had done a blind bit of good; it wasn’t
easy to regulate superhumans at the best of times. Secretary-General Clinton might have had
something in mind, or maybe he just wanted to talk endlessly about the issue in hopes it
would vanish; there was no way to know. The paper was completely uninformative.

My phone buzzed once and I started to walk again, heading into Yonkers. A lot of rich people
lived in the area, including several superhuman celebrities, but the person I had come to visit
was unknown to the general public. As far as I knew, only myself, the General, and a couple
of others even knew of her existence. She lived by herself in a small townhouse that was part
of a gated compound; Yonkers had something of an issue with racial tension and groupies
coming to see their superheroes. I was buzzed through the gate, walked through a small
garden that was almost a park, and then finally tapped on her door. The door opened
automatically – I sensed the sudden shift in the electromagnetic field that indicated that
several dozen sensors had been activated, allowing her to get a look at me – and then I
walked into the main room.

She sat there, sitting with her legs crossed on a sofa, surrounded by her toys. The room was a
nerd’s paradise; computers and computing equipment lay everywhere, linked together
through network cables and her own remarkable mind. The room had heavy air conditioning,
but even so, it was surprisingly warm; the heat from the computers provided all the heating
anyone could want, or need.

Her brown eyes lifted up reluctantly to meet mine. She was short and slight, an Arabic girl
wearing a headscarf and a long shapeless dress that hid almost all of her form. She was
pretty, in a way, but I knew that she had been through a traumatic period when she sparked
and her powers developed. Even now, she didn’t talk to many people directly, choosing to
use her affinity with computers to chat online; her powers, the ability to somehow talk
directly to computers, made her one of the most formidable information-hunters in the
business. There’s no secret on a computer hard drive that can be kept from her.

Layla Ibrahim, otherwise known as the Nerdette.

“Welcome,” she said. Her voice was soft and warm, but I know that she didn’t mean it;
company of any kind is actively distressing to her. If I made a move towards her, whatever
my intentions, she would almost certainly panic completely. Whatever happened to her – and
even I don’t know – it was clearly bad. “It’s about America, I take it?”
“Yes,” I said. Layla would have read the files as quickly as the General imputed them into
the SDI’s computers. I have a suspicion that the General has someone else like Layla on his
staff permanently, otherwise he would have had to shut her down before she did something
really dangerous. “I need to know everything you can tell me about him and who might want
him dead.”

Layla’s eyes seemed to fade slightly as she communed with her computers. I could see the
electromagnetic fields surrounding her, the humming field of information streams flowing
from the Internet, but I couldn’t read them for myself. I couldn’t handle that sort of
superpower, even if it seems to leave Layla as a mere Level One; her insight into how a
computer works made her the greatest hacker in the world.

“America II, born Marvin Lofting, 1970,” Layla said, concentrating. Like me, she draws vast
amounts of data from her power; she had to learn to control it and sift through the input as
well. “Good education, father in business, mother apparently a police dispatcher, a jock with
a string of basketball trophies, declined a scholarship for some unknown reason and joined
the NYPD in 1990. Sparked four years later, registered himself, but insisted on keeping his
identity a secret; he joined the SDI soon afterwards and took on the role of America.”

“There’s little new there,” I protested. “Is there any reason why he might have been killed?”

Layla smiled. It was a cute, little-sister-like smile. “He has several superhuman enemies, if
that’s what you mean,” she said. “He fought that gang of superhuman thugs in Chicago and
waged war against drug smugglers and Pure Humanity. He’s credited with capturing one of
their masterminds, although judging from the reports here, it was actually the covert term that
did most of the work.”

“As always,” I said. The SDI operated two superhuman teams; the overt team and the covert
team. The overt team got all the limelight, the babes and the quickie movie deals; the covert
team did most of the actual work. “What happened after he left?”

“There’s no sign of him leaving under a cloud, or any blacklisting,” Layla said, after a
moment. “Apparently, he met and married Jackie Tyler, who became Jackie Lofting; they
had two kids fairly quickly. They’re both registered as superhumans, but no clues as to their
actual powers” – she laughed – “and get this; they’re named Jane and Jack.”

“I would have thought that Rose was a better name,” I deadpanned. “What about his life out
of bed?”

“That’s the interesting part,” Layla said. “He’s recorded as doing some teaching and
education work on the side – coaching a sports team and generally providing young African-
Americans with a father figure – but very little else. I ran a spending analysis and he doesn’t
spend that much on drinking, smoking, or anything illegal that I can find, but he has two large
batches of cash that were paid into his account.”

“Interesting,” I said, after a moment. Still waters tend to run deep in my line of business.
“Do you know who paid him?”

“The SDI paid him one large cash payment; five hundred thousand dollars,” Layla said, after
a moment. “It wasn’t taxed or anything, so…that’s odd.”
“That’s odd?”

“He never touched it,” Layla said. “It’s just sitting in his account collecting interest.”

I considered it. “Does he – did he - know it’s there?”

“I can’t say for sure,” Layla said, “but given that the money was paid into a fairly basic
government account, like many other superheroes use, I’d guess that he did know that it was
there. His other payments from the SDI, as America, were paid into that account and he took
those and invested it for his children. I can give you a full credit rundown if you like.”

I listened as she outlined details that shouldn’t have been known to anyone outside America
himself and his bankers. “Interesting,” I said, finally. “What about the other payment?”

“I don’t know,” Layla admitted, and I could tell from a thousand cues just how much she
hated admitting that. “The money was paid into his name through a prominent Swiss bank,
apparently from one of the accounts that are permanently left without any accessible data on
who actually owns them.” Her lips twitched. “They’re paranoid about people like me, with
good reason.”

“I can see that,” I said, dryly. “How many people wanted him dead?”

“Several dozen supervillain-class superhumans,” Layla said. “The problem is that most of
them are definitely locked up and under heavy guard. There are a couple of his villains, from
his time as America, still running around, but I don’t think that any of them had the power to
actually kill him in such a manner. If he had personal enemies from his time as a policeman,
one of them might have planned to drug him and then kill him, but you apparently didn’t find
any traces of drugs in his system.”

“The General filed his report, then,” I guessed. It still refused to make any sense; policemen
did tend to pick up enemies, particularly the good ones, but how could a common or garden
criminal have hurt a Level Seven superhuman? The Soviets, back in the early days, had
faced a Polish superhuman on a similar level…and had had to destroy Warsaw with a tactical
nuclear weapon to kill him. I was fairly sure that no one had done that to New York; after all,
the city was still intact. “Speaking of which, did he have any enemies in the SDI?”

“None that I’m aware of,” Layla said. “There’s some mention of his risking his life
unnecessary, but the General clearly didn’t feel the urge to boot him out of the overt team; on
the whole, it looks as if he was a genuine hero. There are a handful of references to a trip
overseas, to Africa, and another to the Middle East as part of a deployment to Kuwait, but it
doesn’t look as if the overt team ever engaged anyone during the covert struggles. He was
offered a position in Africa on a permanent basis, when he left the overt team, but declined
it.”

She snickered. “Apparently, he had little patience with the kind of thinking that suggested
that racism was the source of all of our problems,” she said. “He fought Jim Crow once, and
Black Panther.”
I smiled back. The Black Panther had been sued by Marvel Comics afterwards, even though
he claimed that the name had really come from the terrorist group from the sixties, rather than
the comics character; it had been something of a pointless exercise, not least because the
bastard had been executed after he had been caught, tried, and sentenced to death. He’d also
been penniless, but I guess that Marvel had wanted to make a point; if you were a
superhuman and wanted to dress up as a comic book character, you had to pay them for the
use of their character. There are at least four Superman-impersonators out there and only one
of them, as far as I know, pays any royalties to DC.

“But the only other possibility is Pure Humanity,” Layla said, after a long moment. I could
have basked in her smile for hours. “America – this America – was involved with foiling
some of their terrorist plots, so they certainly have a motive for getting rid of him. The
Humanists have a large presence in New York, so maybe you should take your portable lie
detector and go ask them.”

“That portable lie detector is in here,” I said, tapping my head. The SDI hasn’t told anyone
about what I can do – hell, there are people who don’t think I’m a superhuman at all – and
that’s a good thing; there are laws against using telepaths to interrogate people. I’m not a
telepath, but some sly bastard of a lawyer might just try to convince people that I’m close
enough to a telepath to actually throw out my testimony. “Has the forensic team turned up
any clues as to how he died?”

Layla touched the side of her cheek with one finger. “Nothing,” she said, her voice puzzled.
I shared her puzzlement; there are only three ways to beat a superhuman, particularly one of
that power level, and none of them seemed to have been used. Cheating…well, if it had been
done, I couldn’t see how it had been done. Brute force…would have left the entire block in
ruins. Nuclear attack…would have left a chunk of the city as radioactive ruins. “They’ve
told his family that he was killed, but the General has apparently ordered them taken into
protective custody; the official reason is that whoever killed their husband and father might
come for them as well.”

“I think it’s more a case of keeping them away from the press,” I said. The General wouldn’t
want publicity that might imperil the secret of America. Whoever was wearing the cape and
cowl now would have to be protected as well. “I’d better chat to them before they start
selling their stories to the press.”

Layla printed off the address and passed it over to me. “That would be a wise move,” she
agreed, dryly. She was coming to the end of her tolerance for company, even through her
voice hadn’t changed at all; I knew it and she knew that I knew it. “Who else are you going
to see?”

“There’s too much going on here,” I admitted. If there was a link to Pure Humanity, that
would be a worthwhile investigation, but I didn’t like the possibility of an international angle.
There are several nations run by superhumans these days and some of them know as much
about superhuman powers as we do. The General might have set me up to take the fall if
something went badly wrong. “Can you do me a favour?”

Layla quirked her eyebrow. “I need a list of the main superhumans and superhuman groups
here,” I said, thinking ahead. That smell, that sense, from the apartment might be the only
clue I had. “Can you forward that to me after I interview his family and the Humanists?”
“Of course,” Layla said. She leaned forward. “Was there anything else?”

Someone else would have been fooled; I knew better. “No,” I said, and stood up. I could
trust her to keep digging for possible information that had been left in deep cover. “I’ll see
you again once I have run out of leads to follow up.”

I didn’t glance back as I left.

It would only have upset her.

Chapter Three

No one knows where the superpowers come from. Ever since the first confirmed report of a
person possessing superhuman powers appeared, everyone from governments to mad
scientists has been trying to discover the source of the power…and failing. I’ve read
speculation from a thousand different sources, ranging from radioactivity in the atmosphere,
following the atomic bombs that ended the war with Japan, to alien DNA that had somehow
reached Earth. So far, no one has managed to prove their speculations to anyone’s
satisfaction. All we really know is that the gifts are granted during times of incredible stress
– a sparking – and then the new superhuman is…well, superhuman.

I reflected on that as the taxi drove back through the streets of New York, towards one of the
SDI’s safe houses. America had been falling from a great height, utterly beyond rescue, when
he had sparked; he, like me, had to have been under great stress…and the power he had been
granted had been enough to save his life. Mine hadn’t been under the same conditions…and
my powers had almost killed me. I could remember it perfectly, no matter how much I try to
forget; I had been on a training exercise out at Fort Hood when I had sparked.

The idea had been simple; we – the trainees – had to avoid the attentions of a lot of big bad
Marines and escape, heading out of the training area. I was nervous – in fact, I was more
than a little scared – and I knew, just knew, that the Marines and their dogs were right on my
tail. I had been hiding under some branches, trying desperately to ferret out information from
what little I could hear, knowing that it would be useless because the Marines could move
very quietly…and then something had clicked in my head. There had been a sudden torrent
of information pouring into my head, and then I blacked out; I only recovered a few weeks
later.

I smiled bleakly. There had been a funny side to it; the Marines who had been closing in on
me had been accused of actually hurting me, and they had been looking at a long term spent
in Leavenworth before I had recovered and testified in their favour. I’d also been learning
more about using my abilities, mainly practicing on the nurses with deductive skills that
Sherlock Holmes would have envied, and when the SDI asked me to work for them, I was
more than willing to agree.

“Just around this corner,” the taxi driver called back, breaking me out of my thoughts. The
safe house was right on the edge of New York, close enough to a police station so that help
could be summoned quickly in an emergency, but there were no signs of guards or heavy
security. There wouldn’t have been; anything that might have attracted attention would have
been very dangerous, particularly given just who was on the list of SDI enemies. “That’ll be
twenty dollars, sir.”

I paid him, stepped out of the cab, and walked up towards the door. I knew who had gone
into the house just from extending my senses a little; two young children who smelled of their
father, a pair of older women, and a handful of others. Some of them I knew personally – the
General had had me sniffing several operatives without their knowledge, just so I would be
able to track them if necessary – and others were new; it had been too long since I had last
been in an SDI base. There’s a reason I live on my own, but even so…

The man who opened the door wore civilian clothing. I wasn’t fooled for a moment. “Card,
please,” he said, his voice very firm. He would have started his career as a Ranger or a Navy
SEAL, before transferring to the SDI’s non-powered combat force, a group of elite soldiers
trained to respond to superhuman threats. They were the best of the best; fighting a
superhuman opponent didn’t have to be an automatic death sentence, but even so, the
casualty rates were often high. Even someone like me, with very little in the way of
additional physical strength, would be difficult to handle under the right conditions.

“Here,” I said, without hesitation. I didn’t rag on them; they were braver men then I would
ever be, even with more powers. “I see that Chief Cordova has paid us a visit.”

He nodded. “General said that you would talk to her first,” he said, as he passed back my
card. “She just turned up in plain clothes and demanded to talk to the family.”

I went into the living room; an attractive, dark-skinned woman looked up at me. Chief Isabel
Cordova is one of Mayor Hathaway’s cronies, a young policewoman who ended up rising to
the level of police chief. We’d met before, on an entirely unrelated matter back when I had
been spending more time with the General; she was a hard-ass determined to prove that she
hadn’t gotten the job just because she was Hispanic. With those superhumans in Latin
America and the frequent clashes along the border, life wasn’t always easy for those of
Hispanic blood.

If she remembered me, she didn’t show it. “I have to talk to the family,” she said, shortly.
Her voice admitted of no hesitation or nonsense, even though we were both on shaky legal
ground. I was tempted to ask her how she knew where to find them, but given how many
contacts the Mayor had, it probably would have been a waste of time.

“I have to talk to them first,” I said, pasting a polite smile on my face. There was no point in
aggravating her…well, not more than a little, anyway. “The SDI has jurisdiction over
anything to do with superhumans.”

“After which I have to talk to them,” she said, firmly. I was honestly not sure what to do,
even though I was tempted to tell her to just fuck off back to the Mayor. I didn’t want her
present when I interviewed the family, but at the same time, I didn’t know if she would be
useful or not. Dressed in civilian clothes, she would have had much less of an impact than if
she had been wearing her uniform, but they would probably know her by sight. “Please
would you make that happen?”

“I’ll ask them if they want to talk to you,” I said, tiredly. It had been a long day already. I
leaned closer to her, monitoring her through a dozen senses she probably didn’t have the
slightest idea existed. My file was secured and sealed; only someone like the Nerdette could
have gotten at it, and I doubted that the Mayor had someone like her in his pay. “Answer me
a question; did the Mayor know about him before he died?”

She nodded; I could tell that she was telling the truth. “He apparently wanted him to take a
more active political role,” she said, still being truthful. I had to remind myself that if the
Mayor had lied to her and she believed it, it would look as if she was telling the truth. “His
work with black kids was having an impact and the Mayor was hoping that it could be
expanded.”

I doubted it – the problems facing those kids couldn’t be defeated by a superhuman swinging
his fists – but chose to allow it to pass. “Thank you,” I said. “I’ll talk to the family now and
then ask them if they want to talk to you. Under the circumstances, I don’t think that they can
be forced to talk to you, but I’ll check with the General and find out.”

The guard lifted an eyebrow as I came back out of the room. “Call the General, find out what
he wants to do with the family and if he wants them talking to her,” I ordered shortly. He
nodded. “I’m going in to see them now.”

“Yes, sir,” the guard said. “Will you be requiring anything for the interview?”

“No,” I said. I’d have preferred to have conducted the interview in their house, somewhere
where they felt comfortable, but that option didn’t exist any longer. By now, the Press would
have started to stake out the building in rotation, ensuring that if anything changed, they
would know about it. It was sadistic, really, but anything that involved a superhuman was
news in New York City. They’d lost their husband, father, and privacy on the same day.

I’d thought about interviewing them separately, but it wouldn’t have made a difference, not
with my powers. The room the SDI had set up was simple and very comfortable, leaving
Jackie sitting on an armchair and the kids perched on a sofa, watching me with nervous eyes.
I could see the slight play of superhuman energies over them, granting them powers as well;
the children of superhumans often ended up with powers themselves.

Jackie herself was darker than her husband, a slightly younger version of Adjoa Andoh, her
face streaked with tear marks. She missed her husband badly, I could tell; she was in honest
mourning for him. Her two children both looked upset, but they didn’t fully understand, not
yet, that their father would never return. They were both preteens; I thought, briefly, of the
small group of really young superhumans the SDI had shut down and wondered if they would
try something stupid like hunting down their father’s killer themselves. Both of them looked
as if they would be high powers, but how high? Until their powers manifested, there would
be no way to know for sure.

“Thank you for coming,” I said, as kindly as I could. None of them were suspects; at least,
none of them were suspects yet. “My name is Matthew and I’m here to investigate what
happened to your husband.” Jackie nodded once, too upset to speak. “I need to ask you
several questions and then I need to find out what you want to do in the near future.”

Jackie laughed bitterly. “I’ve watched enough police movies to know that the wife is always
a suspect in such matters,” she said, her voice low and bitter. I knew then that she hadn’t
killed him; there had been no sense that she was trying to cover anything up, or deliberately
push me away from considering her as a suspect. “Please just ask your questions so that we
can get away from it all.”

It looked as if Isabel Cordova was going to be disappointed, I thought, but I let that slide.
“The first question is fairly simple,” I said. “Do you have any idea what your husband was
doing the night he was attacked and killed?”

Jackie hesitated. “I don’t know,” she admitted, finally. “Something had been bothering him
for a while, but he wouldn’t tell me what it was; I thought that he'd been pushed into taking
on another mission for the SDI, but that wasn’t the case. He’d always told me before when
they – you – had wanted him to fly off on a mission, but this time he just wouldn’t tell me
what was bothering him.”
“I see,” I said.

“He wasn't having an affair or anything,” she protested, before I could even frame the
question. “I know that he wasn't having anything like that; he wouldn’t have done that to us.
We had made love the night before and…well, I hoped that it would have made me pregnant
again, but…”

The two kids, showing the semi-deafness most kids use when confronted with the matters of
their parents actually…doing it, looked disgusted. I didn’t really blame them, but, once
again, Jackie was telling the truth. She might not have known if her husband had been
having an affair, but there had been no hint that America, at least, had been having sex in the
flat where we found him, dead. I allowed myself to sniff her, trying to match her scent to her
husband, but the strange compound in the room, over his body, made it hard to be certain.

I shrugged. “How did you two meet in the first place?”

Jackie smiled through her tears. “We had both gone to the same school,” she said, making
me smile in return. “It was love from the day he put that worm in my shoe, but of course we
expressed it through arguing and bickering until we turned thirteen and hormones started to
sing in our blood. We spent time together, lots of time together, and he turned down a chance
to go to a really good college to stay with me. We married when he became a police officer
and…well, we had the kids a few years later.”

“I see,” I said. I pressed on a little. “When he sparked, did you have any trouble with your
life?”

Jackie would have blushed if she had been white; I could see the heat rising to her face. “I
was a little worried that he might hurt me,” she admitted, more than a little embarrassed.
“Oh, he never beat me or hit me, but I was worried that, you know…”

I smiled at her expression. Before the first superhuman appeared, someone had speculated
that if a real superhuman appeared, one of the results would include making the poor bastard
celibate, unless he became like Slaughter, who hadn’t cared how much death and suffering he
left in his wake. Think about it; when a human male orgasms, he loses control of his
muscles. A normal human can sometimes hurt their partner without any sadistic intent at all;
a superhuman should crush his partner, rip her right open and blow off the top of her head, all
at the moment of greatest joy. It doesn’t happen in real life, although no one is quite sure
why; I suspect that subconsciously, there is greater control of the powers than most people
understand.

“But, apart from that, I was proud of him,” Jackie continued. “I was terrified that he would
come home in a body bag one day, but I loved him for making the choice. I couldn’t tell
everyone that my husband was America, but I didn’t want the kids to grow up in a fishbowl,
so I kept the secret and waited for him to come home each day, praying that he would be
alive. When he chose to quit, I stayed with him and we moved back into New York, where
we started to raise our kids.”

I nodded. “Speaking of kids, do you know what he was doing with other kids?”
“He had this…sense of black brotherhood,” Jackie said, ruefully. For the first time, I caught
a sense of…something else, almost like disdain, surrounding her. Her dark hand waved in the
air. “I think it must have been a guy thing; he had been a self-made black man, even before
he gained superpowers, but somehow he felt responsible for some of the younger black kids.
He wasn't related to any of them, apart from my kids of course, so…”

She shook her head. “There’s a sports hall in one of the worst areas and he intimidated the
gangs into leaving it alone,” she continued. “He taught them several games and actually
pushed others into trying to become soldiers, or policemen, or even other careers…some of
them would even have made it. The Mayor actually wanted him to take on a role in
regenerating the area and driving out the gangs; it’s hard to imagine any of the gangs actually
trying to fight him.”

“Was he engaged in any illegal vigilante activities?” I asked. It never fails; every so often,
there’s a superhuman who thinks he can play the dark avenger and use their powers to clean
up the town. It never lasts long and normally ends in tragedy. People like to think that
problems are simple and a few fists in the face will end any problem, but it’s much more
complex than that; America would have needed real support to rebuild the area.

“I think that all he did was scare a few gang leaders,” Jackie said, after a moment. She had
lied to me, then; I knew it. What had America been doing there? Did it provide a motive for
murder? It might…except that brought us right back to the question of just how he had been
murdered. “He wanted them to leave his sports hall and his children alone, so he scared
them.”

She shook her head. “Most of the kids will just slip back into darkness,” she said, shortly.
“They’ll forget him and go back to sniffing coke and trading their bodies for food, just like so
others.”

“We’ll do something about it,” Jack said. The boy – older than his sister by a year – leaned
forward. “We could make sure that the sports hall remains intact.”

“No,” his mother said firmly. It saved me saying something like that; the SDI would have
had to shut them both down if they had tried, if they had survived the attempt. Like I said, an
inexperienced superhuman can be dealt with, if not easily. “You’re both staying with me.”

I wouldn’t learn anything else from her. I’d have to talk to her later about his enemies,
particularly ones who might have personal reasons, but that would come later. I wanted to
check out the Humanists first. They had the most logical motive and they might even have
the means to kill him.

“I have to ask if you would mind talking to the Police Chief,” I said, and sensed Jackie’s
reaction. Of course – and I cursed myself for the mistake – her husband would have known
Isabel Cordova from his pre-superhuman career. “You don’t have to speak to her, but if you
want to talk, she’s here.”

“I see,” Jackie said. “What are you going to do now?”

“I’m going to carry on the investigation,” I said. “I’ll talk to you again later.”
Chapter Four

I left Jackie and her children to the tender mercies of the police chief and wandered back into
the sealed room, where I accessed the SDI’s private communications network. I was fairly
certain I knew where I was going, but I wanted to check before I left the safe house; Layla
would never have let me forget it if I had to call her just to get the most current address. The
Humanists move around a lot, which makes a great deal of sense in their line of business; in
New York, they are either loved or hated. Mostly, they’re hated…and not entirely without
good reason. No one likes someone telling you that you’re wrong…and the Humanists do
that all the time. New York is the city of superhumans, and the Humanists are very much
against superhumans; they just don’t go together.

The file told me little that was actually new. This particular chapter of the Humanists – in
some ways, they’re very much like a secret society – was eighteen years old and had moved
it’s location seventeen times in the last five years, currently being based in one of the
skyscrapers of Manhattan. The SDI knew of several hundred members in the state of New
York, but as the Humanists are, in effect, a political party and pressure group, they don’t have
any requirement to publish their member lists. I skimmed through the remainder of the file,
called a taxi, and drove off towards the Humanists current location. I wasn't too surprised to
see the line of protesters gathered outside, nor the line of New York’s Finest preventing the
protesters from breaking into the building; it wasn't that hard to deduce that the Humanists
had a motive for killing a superhuman. The court of public opinion, obviously, had passed
judgement on the Humanists long before any legal court could pass judgement on them.

I shook my head as the taxi came to a halt. The media would be having a field day today,
digging up all kinds of dirt on the Humanists, who might be as innocent of the murder as I
was. They might have had a motive, but there was still the nagging question of just how the
murder had been committed; by the time the media had finished passing judgement, it would
be a case of them having gotten away with the murder…a murder that they might not even
have committed! You’ve got to love the American media; only in America can a person’s
reputation be destroyed casually, as easily as ordering dinner.

“We’re only allowing residents into the building,” the policeman said, as I reached the thin
blue line. There was no compromise in his voice, but I could tell that he was nervous;
policemen don’t like protest marches or rioting mobs. It would be too easy for someone to
get hurt and then the NYPD would get the blame, whatever had actually happened. “I’ll need
to see some ID.”

I passed him my SDI card and waited while he examined it, cowering inside; I don’t like
protest marches as well. Hundreds of people shouting out their Cause of the Month slogans
can be terrifying, particularly when you don’t agree with it; mobs don’t know how to
compromise. A mob is only as smart as the stupidest person in it, and believe me, that makes
some mobs pretty thick. There’s strength in numbers, but only against a normal human;
America couldn’t have been killed by a massive mob of protesters, not even if they managed
to hold him down on the ground.

“The Chief said that you might be coming,” the policeman said. He waved towards the door.
“We’ve evacuated most of the building, but some of the residents, including the Humanists
themselves, have decided that they’re safer inside. Good luck.”
“Thanks,” I said, and walked into the lobby. It was a fairly typical skyscraper for the area; it
would be owned by a small firm, who would be hiring out the space to companies and
residents that might want a small base in New York. The larger firms and political parties
have their own buildings, where they have complete control over the surroundings, but the
smaller firms or those based away from New York prefer to hire office space. This place was
designed to impress visitors, in a bland kind of way; I found the directions to the Humanist
offices and followed them, concealing my amusement. The building might have been almost
empty, but I could feel impressions of every kind of human activity, coming from all around
me.

The sign on the door said, simply, HUMANIST PARTY. I paused to consider it for a
moment, remembering how many crimes had been committed in that name, and then stepped
into the office itself. A pretty receptionist looked up and revealed that she wasn’t that pretty;
there was a nasty scar running down the side of her face. She didn’t stand up and I saw why
instantly; she was sitting in a wheelchair, part of her body broken and useless.

“My name is Tracker,” I said, shortly. She looked suitably disgusted at my ID card. “I need
to see the local boss at once.”

“Please take a seat,” the receptionist said. “I’ll inform him that you’re here and he will come
to meet you.”

I sat back and waited. The Humanists themselves are defined by their opposition to one
thing; superhumans. There are three types of Humanist; those who are terrified of
superhumans, those who have been hurt in a superhuman battle, and those who suffer from
superhuman-envy. The latter are the worst, because it only takes one look to know that if
they had superpowers, they’d act much worse than any superhuman, real or imagined. The
middle group, like the receptionist, are people who get caught in the middle of a superhuman
battle; when superhumans fight, ordinary people get crushed like ants. The first group…well,
let’s just say that they’re racists; it’s the easiest way to look at them.

But why, you might ask, are the Humanists interesting? The Humanists, in some ways, are
the public face of the group known as Pure Humanity, although they deny this and there have
only been a few connections drawn between the groups. Pure Humanity is a terrorist group,
plain and simple; like the Ku Klux Klan, they are opposed to a group just because of one of
their attributes. In this case, superpowers; Pure Humanity, if you believe the propaganda it
sprouts, sees superhumans as alien invaders, people who have to be brought down by any
means necessary.

The receptionist called out to me as another man entered; I had sensed him from the moment
he had stepped out of his office. “Agent Tracker, this is Director Zinnia,” she said. “He’s the
current head of this chapter.”

“Thank you,” I said, extending a hand to the director. Director Benito Zinnia didn’t look like
much, but his handshake hid deceptive strength; it was hardly superhuman level, but he
clearly kept himself in shape. “I am investigating the murder of Marvin Lofting, as I assume
you know.”

“Of course,” Zinnia said. His voice held only a very faint trace of an accent, only the
slightest hints of Little Italy could be heard in his voice. His face was weak-chinned and
slightly unfinished, but there were hints of real character under the fleshy face. “Normally,
we would insist on a search warrant and our lawyers present, but under the circumstances, we
have nothing to hide at all.”

“Of course,” I echoed. I followed him into his office; unsurprisingly, it was larger than any
other office in the building. Zinnia didn’t look as if he was the type to be equal in all things.
I knew from his comments that he didn’t mind me searching the office; there hadn’t been the
slightest trace of bluff in his attitude. I play poker enough to know what a bluff feels like and
Zinnia wasn't even hinting that he was hoping that I would fail to take up the lead.

He sat down in front of an imposing desk, a near-perfect copy of the one in the White House,
and smiled at me. “Please, take a seat and a drink,” he said. I shook my head; I can’t really
drink anything too strong. “Now, what can I do for you?”

“The murdered superhuman, Marvin Lofting,” I said. I didn’t dare use the ‘America’
codename; I wanted to see if Zinnia knew it without being prompted. If the Humanists knew
that secret, why hadn’t they told the world? “Did you know about his existence?”

I watched the interplay of expressions on his face. “I knew about him, yes,” Zinnia said,
finally. He was telling the truth. “A highly-dubious personage, really.”

I lifted an eyebrow. “Really?”

“Of course,” Zinnia said. I was starting to hate his use of those words. “We monitor the
activity of each and every superhuman within New York, from the foreigners who have come
here as refugees or part of Clinton’s folly, to the more home-grown superhumans. It didn’t
take us long to notice that…Lofting was playing the black avenging vigilante and terrorising
gang leaders.”

There was no trace of any real racism in his words; he was making a point. “He was using
himself to reshape the area,” he continued. He might have been outraged, but it was an odd
kind of outrage. “He was using his powers to bend the area to his will. He was, obviously, a
person who presented a clear and present danger to the area.”

I lifted a single eyebrow. I was rather proud of that trick; it had only taken me a few years to
learn how to pull it off. “Given the nature of…the people in the area, and the area itself,
wasn't he doing New York a favour?”

“Maybe he was, but there’s a reason we have laws and regulations,” Zinnia said. There
seemed to be no trace of contradiction in his voice. “The law does not exist for individuals to
take it into their own hands, no matter their…emotional connection to the area or their
powers. Sooner or later, Mr Lofting would have ended up doing something quite silly and
gotten a lot of people hurt.”

“That could provide a motive for murder,” I said, after a moment. Zinnia’s face remained
very calm, but I sensed the sudden flash of anger underneath his words. I wondered about
asking him directly and kept it back for a moment. “What did you intend to do about it?”

Zinnia kept his voice under very strong control. With anyone else, the act would have
worked. “We were gathering information that could be used when we brought a suit against
him,” he said, his voice cold and very certain. “Our mandate here is to gain evidence that
could be used to press the government into taking stronger action against superhumans and
preventing them from becoming a terror to ordinary people.”

I smiled. “Mandate?”

“Of course,” Zinnia said, again. I sensed nothing, but conviction in his voice. “We have a
mandate from the people to prevent the further abuse of superpower!”

“I don’t understand,” I said, knowing that I had judged Zinnia correctly. Like all fanatics, he
wouldn’t hesitate to educate the infidel about his Cause or his religion. “I know that there are
a few supervillains out there, but why are you against superpower in general? They can’t
help being superhuman, can they?”

I watched as he totted up possible arguments, trying to deduce what would impress me.
“Superpower is dangerous,” he said, finally. “For every superhuman who sparks into
existence, there is always – often - a dangerous effect, like the case of several nerds who
spark and accidentally on purpose kill some of their tormentors. They rapidly become drunk
with power and turn into worse menaces than their tormentors. They sometimes even lash
out beyond their tormentors, like that poor bastard in Washington who literally killed half of
his school.”

I remembered. It had been an election issue, back when President Cheney was trying to be
re-elected; half the country wanted the former nerd to fry, the other half thought that his
tormentors had got what was coming to them. The trial had been bitter, but the outcome had
been inevitable; the deaths of the bullying jocks might have been self-defence, but the
remainder of the school hadn’t deserved to die. The SDI had had to bring the bastard down
by naked force and then, after his trial, he had been quietly executed.

“It’s also destabilising,” Zinnia continued. “Africa, in particular, is torn apart by

superhumans, who fight it out to control larger and larger gangs of normal humans. India and
Pakistan have serious problems with superhumans. Iraq has become a superpower that
dominates the Middle East because of a superhuman who killed the last ruler of Iraq and took
over. Because of him and the people in Latin America, we’ve become much more isolated as
a country, with clashes along the border occurring too frequently for comfort.

“And what about normal humans?”

I blinked. “What about normal humans?”

“I used to want to be a prize-fighter,” Zinnia said. It wasn’t exactly a lie, but there was little
real truth in it; it hadn’t been an ambition he had held for very long. “What’s the point of
having all that training, all that effort spent in building up my muscles, if some wanker with
superpowers can beat me and a dozen other fighters with ease? What’s the point of being a
runner if a speedster can outrun you with ease? What’s the point of going into the military
when the next war will be a superhuman war, fought by superhumans, against superhumans?

“What’s to stop superhumans ganging up on us real humans?”

I considered the question thoughtfully. “Superhumans are still humans,” I said. He hadn’t
twigged to my nature and I felt no inclination to enlighten him. “Why should they want to
start enslaving the remainder of the human race?”

“What do you call Iraq?” Zinnia countered. “Or Latin America?”

“In the case of the former, the guy running the place has done a much better job of it that that
guy who started the pointless war with Iran,” I said, after a moment. “In Latin America…we
did send them Slaughter.”

“My point exactly,” Zinnia said. “We introduced a superhuman into the mix and it ended up
blowing up in our faces.”

I shuddered. Slaughter was dead, long dead now, but his legacy lived on. A Level Seven,
maybe even a Level Eight, superhuman, Slaughter had been criminally insane and utterly
ruthless. He hadn’t been interested in power or influence; he had only been interested in his
own pleasure and satisfying his twisted desires. The original American superhuman had
beaten him, trapping him somewhere even he should have been unable to escape, until the
CIA had come calling. There was an inconvenient spread of communism, or so they
believed, in Latin America…and Slaughter seemed the perfect terror weapon to put a stop to
it. Everything had worked out fine, until Slaughter had been caught in the act…and had been
beaten to death by the same superhuman who had locked him up in the first place.

But his legacy…he had prompted the development of a superhuman team in Latin America,
one that had pushed our influence back out of the area. President Dukakis had accepted, in
effect, that the United States would no longer have any influence over the area, leaving the
former OAS to take control of Latin America and Mexico. It now presented a major problem
along the southern border…and had promoted the development of several private attempts to
seal the border.

“True enough,” I said, neutrally. At least he wasn't raving about how we were all alien
invaders. “I need to ask you several questions; did you have Lofting killed?”

Zinnia glared at me. “We do not have people killed,” he snapped. “I didn’t even know that
he was marked for death until he was killed.”

He was telling the truth. I wasn't that surprised; Pure Humanity probably wouldn’t have
trusted Zinnia enough to bring him into their inner circle, not as exposed as he was to a
possible telepath. “Second question, then,” I said. “Do you know anything about compounds
that might limit or eliminate superhuman abilities?”

Zinnia hesitated. “Apart from inhibitor drugs, I have heard some rumours, but nothing
concrete,” he said slowly. He wasn’t exactly lying, but there was something about his
manner that sent alarm bells ringing in my mind. He knew something, but what? “There was
a report of something that could be used as an area weapon against superhumans, something
that came out of a laboratory somewhere, but I don’t know anything else.”

He knew something, I was sure of that now, but what? I pushed. “Nothing at all?”

“Only rumours,” Zinnia assured me.

“Final question, then,” I said. “Do you know of any links to Pure Humanity?”

Zinnia’s eyes flared with anger. “I hate those bastards,” he thundered. At least half of that
was overacting. “They give us a bad name! If I had a link, I would have handed him over to
the Mayor by now, do you understand me?”

“I see,” I said. If he knew something, it wouldn’t be easy to force it out of him. “Thank you
for your time.”

“Of course,” Zinnia said, all oily sophistication again. “You will let me know if I can be of
any further assistance?”

“You’ll be hearing from us again,” I assured him, and stood up. “I’ll take a look around the
offices and show myself out, if you don’t mind.”

I had been monitoring the environment for any trace of the strange compound from the
murder scene, but as I glanced through an entire series of officers, something became very
clear. Whoever had killed America, however it had been done, hadn’t been anywhere near
the Humanist office building.

I scowled. The General was not going to be pleased.

Chapter Five

“We have got to stop meeting like this,” I said, as I sat down on the park bench next to the
General. It had been two days since I had last seen him, days spent interviewing people and
nights spent tossing and turning while I tried to think. “People will think we’re spies in a Len
Deighton novel.”

“Shut up and listen,” the General said. I knew what he was about to say before the words
came out of his mouth. “There’s been a second murder.”

I stared at him. New York has plenty of murders, but only one kind of murder would get the
General’s attention. “Another superhuman murdered?”

The General nodded grimly. “Yes,” he said, shortly. He’d called me to meet him, which
suggested that the new victim wasn't that far from here. “I think it’s the same person, but I
need you to take a look at the body.”

I ran through a mental checklist of superhumans in New York City. “I understand,” I said.
“Who was it who got bumped off?”

The General stood up and started to walk back into Manhattan. “Manna,” he said, grimly. I
frowned, not understanding for a moment; Manna had been the food God had provided to the
Israelites while they were wandering in the desert. It twitched off a line of memory in my
head and I remembered the superhuman that had borne that name. “That’s…pretty bad.”

“You’re not kidding,” I said. Manna had been unusual in a world of unusual superhumans,
someone who had gained the power to somehow alter foodstuffs and other organic materials
on a molecular level. He'd sparked in Bangladesh during the cyclone disaster and had kept
thousands of people alive during the disaster, before becoming of the Eight Pillars, the secret
group of superhumans who ruled Bangladesh from behind the scenes. The SDI knew about
their power; their people, as a general rule, didn’t know who really ruled them, but some of
them were starting to suspect the truth. Manna, also known as Manesh Husaain, had been
famous, a national hero, a noted speaker at the UN…whichever way you looked at it, it was a
disaster.

“I don’t kid,” the General said, as we walked towards a building that was already surrounded
by New York’s finest. I yawned, unable to keep myself from a wave of tiredness; it had been
a mistake to pick a hotel where there was so much information lying around. One of the
maids had a relationship with one of the bellboys, the kitchen staff might not be being paid to
poison the customers, but they might end up doing that anyway unless they cleaned the place
better, and the hotel manager was extorting sex from two of his customers. I had already
resolved to report them to the health board when I left. “He’s dead and…hell, it might be a
coincidence, but I don’t buy it.”

The General was waved through the cordon without any hesitation; I hunched down and tried
to look like an assistant. You can’t be a secret agent if everyone knows about you. I could
hear the Mayor pontificating on the other side of the building and tried to look even more
inconspicuous; if I was lucky, the General and the Mayor would end up expressing a frank
exchange of views.
“This is one hell of a diplomatic nightmare,” the General said, as we entered the building
itself. I had heard about the meeting from the Nerdette; Manna was going to address a UN
select committee on the issue of averting famine in Africa, although I doubted that he would
have pushed for the full-scale superhuman intervention that would have been required to
clean out all of the rogue superhumans in the continent. “To all intents and purposes, a head
of state has been killed, on our watch.”

My mind was still elsewhere. If Jackie was to be believed, and she had been telling the truth,
America had felt a link with Africa. Perhaps he hadn’t been one of the idiots who believed
that it had been the white man who had ruined Africa, but if he had had an interest in Africa,
might he have considered leading an intervention in Africa? Had he been killed to prevent
him from leading such a team? Had such a team even been assembled?

The General scowled at me. Bangladesh isn’t a country that one expects to be a superpower,
not like us or the British or the Russians; it’s near a powerful neighbour and suffers badly
from floods, storms, and worse. It also has at least twenty superhumans working as part of
the Eight Pillars, who have actually managed to stabilise their country, burn out most of the
corruption, and establish Bangladesh as a reasonably effective country on the world stage.
We have way more in the way of superhuman firepower – the SDI overt term outnumbers the
Eight Pillars alone – but it could get very nasty. It might even prove what everyone keeps
saying; the next war will be a superhuman war.

“My mind was elsewhere,” I said, grimly. I replayed the General’s words in my mind and
scowled. “What do you think they’ll want us to do?”

“The Eight Pillars used Manna pretty effectively,” the General said. “They’ll want the person
responsible handed over to them, assuming that we catch him, but again, I don’t know if we
can actually find him before we hold the conference.”

I looked over at him. “General,” I said, “just what is this conference about?”

The General didn’t bother to try to lie to me. “There’s a great deal of concern about the
chaotic state of Africa spilling out of control and into the more…civilised regions of the
world,” he said. “We handled superhumans pretty well, and so did Europe and even to some
extent Russia, but everywhere else, superhumans are changing the face of the world. Do you
know that, last year, Europe turned back thousands of immigrants from Africa?”

I shook my head. Europe was a paranoid continent these days, ever since the USSR had
blown Warsaw into flaming debris with a tactical nuke. The European Union had built a
competent military force, nuclear weapons, and a set of superhumans from all of the
European nations. They also only had the Mediterranean Sea between them and the chaos in
Africa; Algeria, Libya and the remaining North African states were all convulsing under the
impact of superhumanity. Hell, I’d even heard that Europe had been considering offering
Iraq economic support if General Al-Ramah, Protector of Iraq, dealt with the North African
problem in his own style.

“There’s a plan afoot to actually make a major attempt to solve the African problem,” the
General said. “The idea was to recruit a few hundred superhumans and begin targeting and
removing superhumans in Africa, starting, perhaps, in North Africa. I didn’t think that the
idea was brilliant, but the President is prepared to give vague support if the UN wants to
recruit American superhumans.”

I held up a hand to prevent him opening a door. “Do you think that the first victim might
have been killed to prevent him from joining such a team?”

“It’s possible,” the General conceded, reluctantly. He didn’t really believe it; I could tell.
“Who benefits?”

I thought about it…and came up short. If we had been planning something for Iraq, or
Bangladesh, or Latin America, then it would have been understandable. They would have
every interest in stopping us and they would have probably had the resources to launch
targeted killings of suspected participants…which still left the question of just how America
had been killed. But Africa…? Who would want to prevent the UN from operating in Africa
– apart from the average warlord, superhuman or not, of course - and possess the ability to
kill two superhumans?

“I don’t know,” I admitted finally.

“Find out,” the General ordered. I sensed the concern in his tone and nodded grimly as he
pushed open the door. The smell hit me at once. “Find out before a third superhuman dies.”

The body lay on the ground. This time, the wound was different; someone with a limited
level superhuman strength had smashed the man directly in the face, knocking fragments of
bone back into his brain. Death would have been almost instantaneous, I realised as I studied
the body; the poor old man had died without a chance at defending himself. There had been a
rumour going around the community that Manna had had at least some ability to defend
himself – I could see several offensive uses to his powers – but whoever had killed him had
moved too quickly for him to stop. A speedster?

I opened my mind and cursed; the smell, the strange sense of…alienness that I remembered
from the first body was present. I ramped back my senses and concentrated on sight,
studying the body. Manna had been a typical older Muslim man, his skin dark brown,
wearing a grubby white robe, skullcap, and neatly trimmed beard. He had had a kind and
understanding face, like a bearded Ghandi, but that face had been shattered beyond repair. I
suspected that it was definitely the same killer – the fist damage was almost identical – but I
couldn’t see how he had managed to get through security. Had he been invisible?

I shook my head and looked up at the General. “It’s the same person,” I said. I’d stake my
life on it. “The smell’s the same as well, but I can’t pick out anything else over it, nothing
that could allow us to know who did it.”

“Something designed to limit your senses?” The General guessed. “Why would they do
something like that?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted. I wasn't used to my senses failing me and the experience was an
unpleasant one. This…substance, whatever it was, had to be targeted to make tracking the
murderer down difficult, but by its very nature, how could it be missed if I walked past the
murderer in the street? I can walk past a girl who had taken two baths and a shower and tell
you to the hour when she last got laid; there should be no way that the murderer should be
able to hide from me. “What about security?”

“They didn’t see anything,” the General said. Why was I not surprised? “The security in this
building was provided by the United Nations – something that the Mayor came up with – and
apparently it suffered a hacking attack at just the right moment to limit it’s…functionality.
No one noticed anything was wrong, but Manna was back here, alone, giving praise to
Allah…when his murderer killed him.”

I scowled. The one thing that you should never do, if you’re a target, is behave in a
predicable fashion. Any half-intelligent enemy will be tracking your actions, working out
any patterns and using them to decide when you will be at your most vulnerable. A devout
Muslim – and Manna, by all reports, was very devout indeed – prays five times a day; it
would have been the perfect moment for anyone who wanted to kill him to strike. How many
enemies did he have?

“Good question,” the General said, as I completed a sweep of the room. There were
thousands of impressions in the room, but the strange substance that was confusing my senses
made it hard to deduce which one belonged to the murderer or team of murderers. “Do you
have any more?”

I looked over at him. “I was interviewing the Humanists,” I said, “and he had heard a rumour
of some new discovery that could weaken superpower. Do you know anything about it?”

“There’s always rumours,” the General said, thoughtfully. “There are a couple of new drugs
being patented and there’s some progress being made on an implant that would make it
impossible for someone to use their powers, but it’s not exactly a safe process yet. I don’t
know…”

He broke off as the door opened. I knew who it was before his booming voice came after us.
“Oh, my God, the rumours are true,” it boomed. “General, there has been another death on
your watch!”

“Your Honour,” the General said, as Mayor Hathaway marched in, his police chief following
him like an angry bull. I allowed myself to wonder if they were lovers, but they reacted to
each other more like teacher and student. Isabel Cordova had to be hopping mad right now;
the investigation was firmly in the hands of the SDI, which meant me. “I trust that you are
not expecting me to know the targets ahead of time?”

The Mayor’s voice didn’t quieten at all. It was like standing next to a loudspeaker. “The
person responsible for this horrendous crime must be caught and punished,” he proclaimed.
Hadn’t he said exactly the same thing when America had been found murdered? “This is the
second superhuman death within as many days, General; who’s going to drop dead next?”

The General’s lips thinned alarmingly, taking on an extra-pinched look. “If I knew, I would
be able to detect a pattern and a motive for the crime,” he said, very coldly. I could hear the
fury under his words and hoped that the Mayor wouldn’t try to press it any further; it
wouldn’t do anyone any good at all. “There seems to be very little connecting this victim to
the last victim.”
“Perhaps we have someone going around knocking superhumans off at random,” the Mayor
proclaimed. He was still speaking as if he was at a public meeting. “Have there not been
people who have tried to kill people from a certain class before?”

The General fixed him with a gimlet stare. “You may have noticed, sir, that a superhuman is
a harder target to kill than anyone else,” he said. “The murderer may be just on a random
spree of killings, but the selection of the targets suggests otherwise. This victim was inside
UN security when the murder was committed…”

“And you have failed in your duty to keep this person safe,” the Mayor thundered. His voice
became more aggressive. “General, I demand a result within the day!”

“Would you like me to pick someone at random and have them executed?” The General
asked sharply. “These people are not under the protection of the SDI; the first victim chose to
live without protection, the second was under the protection of UN Security, which was rather
inadequate. Would you like me to take all your precious delegates into protective custody?”

The Mayor’s face purpled. “There are over five hundred superhumans in New York and all
of them are possible targets,” he snapped back. “Some of them are here with diplomatic
immunity, others have important engagements here, still others have to live here to remain
safe. You can’t take them all into protective custody!”

I saw it, then; the Mayor was terrified of how it would hurt his chances in the coming
election. He’d made himself famous as the superhuman Mayor, the greatest friend that
superhumans had ever had, and now they were dying in his city. If a few of them stood up
and said that their friends had died because of the Mayor’s failures, he could forget about
getting the nomination. It made me smile slightly; doubtless, he would be much less
concerned if the victims were common or garden humans.

The Mayor was still ranting. “If something happens to these people, it could mean a war,” he
thundered. “I won’t let that happen on my watch!”

I spoke before the General could say anything. “Your Honour, do you know who might have
had a motive to kill either of them?”

The Mayor managed to look both angry and self-important at the same time. “New York
Public Advocate Bryce is the most likely person to want them both dead, or at least out of
here,” he said, referring to Henry Bryce. I considered it; the Public Advocate, the de facto
Head of the City Council, wasn't known to be a friend to the Mayor. He was sometimes
regarded as a non-entity – his post wasn't that important, unless there was a tie or something
bad happened to the Mayor – but I knew that the last Public Advocate had gone on to be
Governor. “You should question him at once.”

“I’ll get to him,” I promised. The Mayor had told the truth then, but judging from the feeling,
it hadn’t been the complete truth; he might have just intended to get Bryce in hot water rather
than anything else. I made a mental note to ask the Nerdette to investigate both Bryce and
the Mayor himself. “Did you order them both killed?”
The Mayor glared at me. “No,” he said finally, biting off the word. He turned to share his
glare with the General, who didn’t look impressed. “I have a special instruction for you; your
investigator is going to get a partner.”

“A partner?” I asked. “I don’t need a partner.”

“You’re going to get one now,” the Mayor said.

“The SDI has jurisdiction here,” the General said. “I cannot allow the NYPD to interfere
with the process of the investigation.”

“The new partner isn’t from the NYPD,” the Mayor said, his voice barely hiding a victorious
leer. “It’s someone from the Eight Pillars. They put in the request to Washington and the
State Department just okayed it. You’re going to be working with a Major General Rani
Azad. I assume you’ve heard of her.”

“She’s on the suspect list,” I protested sharply.

The General smiled. “Your Honour, do you want to have the fox join the hunting dogs?”

“Then I suggest you hurry up and clear her,” the Mayor said simply. “This case is starting to
take on a very disturbing tinge, and the sooner we have someone we can blame for the
murders, the better.”

With that, he swept majestically out of the room, followed by his loyal police chief.

“Bastard,” I said.
Chapter Six

I found myself cursing the Mayor under my breath as I was shown into the Bangladeshi
Consulate. The SDI might have wanted me to use a partner from time to time – and indeed
there was a support staff I could call on from time to time – but I preferred to work alone, not
least because any partner might as well have been naked in front of me. I’m not a telepath,
but most people tend to think of me as one, which means they think I’m reading their mind
half the time. I honestly don’t know why; judging from half the telepaths I’ve met, most
people’s minds aren’t worth reading.

New York’s position as the headquarters of the UN and superhuman capital of the world
ensured that it served as a centre of power, both for open diplomatic relations and the under-
the-table secret discussions that make up the real work done in New York, while the press is
distracted by the latest ambitions of the delegates in the main building. Every nation in the
world – at least every stable nation in the world – has a consulate in the city, linked directly
back to their home countries, where their government officers can live, work, and sometimes
stay out of the firing line back home. We used to have an entire series of offices belonging to
various African nations, but the only ones these days that are actually open belong to Sudan
and Pretoria. The other African states are endlessly torn apart by civil war; when you
consider the size of Africa, you might get an idea of the scale of the problem. I have a private
suspicion that some elements, perhaps including the SDI, have been encouraging the chaos;
we wouldn’t want that many superhumans sweeping out of Africa and across the world.

It’s not just governments that have bases in New York, of course; the various superhuman
teams, media corporations and thousands of corporations have their own representatives
within the city. Each of the former, at least, have their own band of groupies surrounding
them, mainly teenage girls eager to give up their virginity to one of the more famous
superhumans. I know of several superhumans who have given in to temptation with their
teenage fans, screwing them high above the clouds, and one who became really perverse.
One of my missions for the General was to kill a popular superhuman who had become far
too fond of children – without letting anyone know what had happened to him, or why. The
bastard’s action figures and autographed biographies are still selling for millions of dollars.

The Bangladeshi Consulate would not have been out of place in British India; an imposing
building that, I couldn’t help noting, would be fairly easy to defend for a long period of time.
A SWAT team would have real problems taking the place in a hurry, although the USAF
would probably be called in to handle it, if we actually did end up with a war on our hands.
Mayor Hathaway might have been the toast of the city for convincing the various delegates
that they should pay for their own buildings, but there were important people in Langley who
wanted his scalp for it; a building we had built, at the expense of the US Government, would
be much easier to bug if we wanted to know what was going on inside. I showed my card to
the guard, taking the moment to sweep the area for any traces of the strange smell, and found
nothing. The guard summoned another guard, who escorted me up the stairs and showed me
the pictures on the wall. I got the impression that he wanted to show them off; they showed
the modern history of Bangladesh…

Or at least the official version of it. Bangladesh, according to the official history, had been
lucky enough to use the cyclone disaster as a spur to developing the country, incorporating
various superhumans into the country as both defenders and workers. The former military
government had been replaced by a semi-democratic government and it had worked to crush
superhuman warlords, Islamic fanatics and Burmese invaders, building Bangladesh up into a
country that everyone could be proud of, even calling back thousands of emigrants to add to
the country’s knowledge base. It was the success story of the nineties, with a growing GNP
and a middle class.

The unofficial version was much more interesting. The SDI had pierced it all together,
carefully; the group known as the Eight Pillars wasn't just working for the Bangladeshi
Government, they were the Bangladeshi Government. Their leader, a telepath, had built the
new civil service through the simple method of executing anyone who started to become
corrupt, while he had also brought together enough superhumans to provide a dedicated
superhuman strike force, rather like the SDI. The future of the country would be interesting –
a term I use in the Chinese sense – as the middle class of the country is growing in power and
starting to ask questions, such as who is really in charge of the country?

“The Major General has been waiting for you,” the guard said, as we reached a set of doors.
They looked tough enough to withstand a superhuman, although I doubted it; the SDI has had
contingency plans in place to deal with any superhuman threat. The guard wasn't scared of
her, I realised, and smiled; perhaps it wouldn’t be so hard after all. “I hope that you do find
who killed Manna.”

“I hope so too,” I said, as the door opened. I extended my senses as I walked into the room;
there was only one person in the room, sitting at the desk facing me. She stood up and
walked around the room to meet me as I took in the torrent of information; Major General
Rani Azad was a bundle of contradictions. I could see the interplay of superhuman energies
surrounding her, even through the simple uniform she wore with a black headscarf, but past
that…

The last Bangladeshi I had met had been a daughter of two people who had fled Bangladesh
and come to live in the United States. Their daughter had been short, slight, and very dark;
she’d been quite pretty, but far too short for me. Major General Rani Azad was, at a guess,
around forty, but she looked twenty; she was almost as tall as me, with a much stronger body.
That shouldn’t have surprised me; her powers included super-strength, flight and a certain
degree of invulnerability. I knew, despite her headscarf, that her hair was long, but curled up
neatly into a bun…and that she was, despite her smile, in mourning. Her eyes were the most
striking part of her appearance; they were pitch black, without any hint of brown or blue.

“Thank you for coming,” she said, her voice low and soft. Her accent wasn't that
pronounced, but I could hear it; it wasn't an unpleasant accent at all. “Where are we going to
start?”

I held up a hand. Rani, otherwise known as Agnyastra, was a suspect, like it or not. She had
killed at least seventeen other superhumans with her bare hands – that the SDI knew about –
and that made her dangerous; most superhumans don’t tend to have anything like real combat
training. Like the computer games player who inputs a cheat code to make his units
invincible, most superhumans are never placed in a position where they are at serious risk of
losing their lives. Rani was different; as a woman, she would have been doubly offensive to
the more conservative factions in Bangladesh.

“That depends,” I said, monitoring her as best as I could. She held herself under very tight
control, but I could sense the tension. No one knew exactly how she had gained her powers –
she had lost her memory, according to the story – but the dead body near her suggested that
she had been kidnapped, probably with evil intentions. “What did the Mayor tell you?”

Rani’s face twitched. “That I could accompany you on your investigation and help you track
down the person who killed him,” she said. If she knew that there had actually been two
deaths, she didn’t show it. “I understand that Washington agreed to our request.”

“In a manner of speaking,” I said, grimly. “Major General…”

“Call me Rani, please,” she said. “I don’t have much time for formalities these days.”

“Rani, then,” I said, trying to put her at ease. It was a fool’s errand. What I was about to tell
her wouldn’t put her at ease, but right on to the defensive. “Are you aware that you’re a
possible suspect?”

Her self-control was very good. “That was pointed out to me,” she said, softly. I could feel
the effort she was exerting in controlling herself. A thousand different cues testified to the
depths of her feelings. “How can I prove myself to you?”

It was a good question. “How much did they tell you about me?”

“Very little,” Rani admitted. “They gave me a name, Mathew Tracker, and little else.”

“I need you to talk to me,” I said. “Did you know anything about the first murder victim?”

“Mr Lofting?” Rani asked. “I met him once, while he was working for the SDI as a covert
operative, back in India.” I felt my eyes widen. “There was an incident involving one of the
avatars in India and the trouble was starting to spread across the border, so we got involved.
The SDI had its own interest in the area, so they asked us to cooperate and we agreed; Mr
Lofting was their agent.”

“I see,” I said. She didn’t seem to think of him as an enemy, but her tone was tainted by
some degree of caution. I cursed mentally; a telepath would have known just what she was
being cautious about, but I didn’t have that option without much more probing. “Do you
know who killed him?”

“No,” she said, and that was the unvarnished truth. I allowed myself a moment of relief; if
she was innocent of that murder, she was probably innocent of the second murder. “I mean, I
have some suspects, but none of them should have been able to kill him in such a manner.”

In other words, she’d gotten no further than I had. “Interesting,” I said, neutrally. I wasn't
quite prepared to trust her yet. “How did you meet Manna?”

Rani’s eyes flickered. She had loved the older man, even through she had seen him as far
more of a father than a lover. “He was caught up in the disaster and somehow ended up with
the ability to turn plants edible,” she said. It wasn’t the most precise description, but it meant
more to her than any amount of technobabble. “He was desperate, somehow, for something
to eat and ended up trying to eat some plants, only to discover that they were edible. He fed
them to the others and found that he could purify water as well, so the entire group survived.”
I smiled. “I’m surprised they didn’t get scared of him,” I said. “What did they make of
him?”

“He was keeping them alive,” Rani said, dryly. “When they were rescued, finally, he
volunteered to remain and help out with the rescue effort, so my government asked me to
look after him. It was back when there were several superhuman warlords left in the country
and he would have been a prize in the struggle, so I ended up trying to educate him about the
world. And then…”

She broke off for a moment. “He killed someone once, with his powers,” she admitted. It
had been a secret from most people, although the SDI had known; Manna’s powers had once
killed a superhuman by turning him into gelatine. There was a certain irony there, I felt;
Muslims aren’t allowed to eat gelatine. “I destroyed the remains and we kept it a secret.”

Not well enough, I thought, but kept that to myself. “How many enemies did he have?”

“A day ago, I would have said that he had no enemies,” Rani said grimly. “He wasn’t…you
know, someone like me, but someone who had dedicated himself to saving lives. There are
thousands of people, maybe even millions, who are alive today because of him and his gifts;
he was set to address the UN on helping to create newer farmland to keep people alive. “

She hesitated. “We beat most of the Islamic fanatics back during the time of struggle,” she
said. “But still…did you know that he had once been a Mullah?”

I quirked an eyebrow. “He used to be the village mullah, from what he said from time to
time,” Rani said. “After he sparked, he was never quite the same; he never preached in any
of the mosques, he never involved himself in any Islamic activities, he never helped us to
write fatwas to counter the torrent of abuse coming out of the Middle East…he was awfully
conflicted.”

I nodded in understanding. Old-style religion never managed to get to grips with the
superhuman. The Vatican had issued several condemnations back in the earlier days, trying
to keep down the numbers of active superhumans, while both Judaism and Islam had
problems handling people with gifts. It wasn't an unknown problem; someone who had spent
their lives condemning something – homosexuality, for example – who then found
themselves as one of those they condemned tended to have problems facing up to themselves.
Manna had known that he was good, hardly a demonic monster, but old habits died hard.

I shook my head. Islamic fanatics were hardly a problem these days, not with Iraq
dominating the Middle East; even Iran was playing nice with us. The Protector of Iraq hadn’t
hesitated to send tanks to the Saudi border to demand the surrender of one Osema Bin Ladin
after the bastard had orchestrated several bombings in Baghdad; that had come to an end with
the chop of an axe, in front of his palace. Even if a fanatic had wanted to kill Manna and had
the ability, why not use it against the Protector, or even Rani herself?

“I see,” I said finally. I’d have to take it up with the Nerdette and others, maybe even asking
the General to encourage the other delegates to accept some protection, but truthfully I was
more than a little stumped. There were too many possible targets for us to stake them all out
and wait for our enemy to reveal himself. There was one final question to ask. “Do you
know who killed Manna?”
“No,” she said, bitterly. Again, it was the truth. “I should tell you that there is a great deal of
anger back home about his death and they want results, quickly.”

“I want results, quickly,” I said, simply. I stood up and started to pace around the room,
trying to find a clue…and just incidentally trying to see if I could pick up any traces I might
recognise. “Do you know anything about any new discoveries that might inhibit
superpowers?”

Rani watched me without particular concern. “Not really,” she said, softly. That was a lie. I
was certain of it. “The Soviets used to invent some kind of device, a psi-system, for use
against superhumans, but I always thought that it had been a failure.”

I scowled. The remains of the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics were littered with
the debris from the USSR’s desperate attempt to gain a handle on superpowers before they
were overwhelmed by other nationalistic superhumans, like the one in Poland. They’d
actually had a major program of research into the paranormal before the first superhuman
actually appeared – one line of thought was that superhumans appeared because of Russian or
German experiments – but far too much of what they had thought they had known had proven
to be misleading. The sudden appearance of real test subjects had allowed them to make
progress, but it had come too late for anything that might have saved the USSR from
collapsing under its own weight.

“I need to know if there is some way of inhibiting powers without the use of drugs,” I said,
pushing at her. “Do you know anything about that?”

Rani made a decision. “Truth – one of our telepaths – was once able to implant a command
into a superhuman’s brain,” she admitted. That was true, but was she telling me that to
distract me from her previous lie, or was the new story something that they had wanted to
conceal? “The guy had powers that could be very useful – he was a healer – but he was mad
enough to enjoy torturing people instead, so Truth pushed a command into his head.”

I shuddered. That was the fear everyone had when confronted with a telepath. “I see,” I said,
carefully. No one really trusted telepaths, certainly not the courts; the Humanists had filled
our minds with so many fears about them that we never dared trust them. “What happened to
him?”

Rani scowled. “The command didn’t take for very long,” she said. I could sense the distaste
in her tone; her body language was uncomfortable, almost repelled. “It drove him mad, in the
end, so we ended up having to kill him and conceal the truth.”

“Smart,” I said. She wasn't involved in the murders, at least; I didn’t have any grounds to
refuse the command to take her with me. She might be interesting company, but then, she’d
have her own agenda as well. It would be better to have her with me then have her running –
or flying - around on her own. “Go get changed into civilian clothes, Rani, and then we can
get going.”

Rani blinked. “Civilian clothes?”

I laughed. “I don’t want to get noticed,” I said. “If you go wearing that uniform, everyone is
going to know who you are, and if that happens, our chances of finding anything will be
completely non-existent. We have to pretend to be normal until we actually know who we
are hunting.”
Chapter Seven

I had expected Rani to take a while to get changed – in my experience, girls normally took a
long time to get dressed – but she was back outside within five minutes. I spent the time
placing a quick call to the Nerdette, asking permission to bring Rani with me when I next
came to visit her, and thinking about our next step. With her around, I couldn’t just wander
aimlessly, looking for the scent; I had to visit the other remaining suspects and focus on
seeing who might have a motive to kill both superhumans. Pure Humanity still seemed like
the most likely suspects, but even they would have had problems killing Manna and America;
was there any weapon available to them that could reduce a person’s superpower?

Manna was more understandable, I supposed, as my mind race through what I knew. He
might have had his powers, but he hadn’t been invulnerable; someone could have come up
behind him and cut his throat with a knife. They hadn’t; they’d hit him hard enough to kill
him, but not hard enough to vaporise his body. That shouldn’t have been able to kill
America; the level of force required to kill him should have been noticeable on the Richter
Scale. The apartment should have been sent crashing to the ground, the entire block should
have been wrecked…but it hadn’t happened at all. The pair of superhumans had died, quietly
and alone.

Rani entered the room and I had to smile at her outfit. The uniform was gone; she wore a pair
of loose blue jeans, a loose shirt, and a headscarf. She wouldn’t that that unusual on the
streets of New York, although that outfit would attract some interest in some of the less
cosmopolitan areas of America; it made her look surprisingly attractive. I kept that off my
face as I looked her up and down, and then nodded once; it would do.

“It’ll do,” Rani echoed, when I said that out loud. “Isn’t this what American teenagers
wear?”

“Sometimes,” I said, after a moment. The overall message of the outfit was that she was
having an identity crisis, although that wasn’t uncommon among people who looked the same
age as she did. America was the melting pot where people of different ethnic groups and
religions blended together; it wasn't uncommon to see such strange combinations of clothing
on the streets. One of the superhumans I knew from the SDI had been of Indian descent –
Native American, not a real Indian – and he, born on one of the reservations, had had real
identity issues. “One final point; on the streets, you do what I say, understand?”

“Certainly, within reason,” Rani said.

I let that pass as we slipped out of the consulate, passing the gathering crowd of pressmen and
mourners who had come to signal their grief at Manna’s passing. There was no sign of the
Mayor yet, but it wouldn’t be long before he was there, proclaiming that justice would be
done, eventually. No one batted an eyelid as we passed; I’m not an easy person to describe
and Rani looked like a teenager, rather than a superhuman. It would be neat if the pressmen
came up with their own explanations of our presence, but sooner or later, someone with a
sharper mind than the others would notice that I had been present at several of the places
involved with the investigation.

Rani smiled at me as we walked back into Manhattan. “How did you become the SDI’s
investigator anyway?”
“It’s a long story,” I said. I was unwilling to discuss everything with her; intelligence work is
a pain in the butt because it’s never easy to tell what will give the enemy the clue they’re
desperately seeking to put their part of the puzzle together. She had probably looked me up
in the public files and found nothing, hopefully concluding that I was a normal human, but
she was smart enough to guess that I might have some superpowers of my own. It didn’t help
that she was, in effect, a senior government officer. “What happened between you and that
Zarmindar guy?”

I sensed the flicker of mixed fear and triumph in her mind. “He was one of the warlords who
set up a little kingdom of his own, in Rajshahi province,” she said, grimly. “That was just
before I appeared myself, but by the time we had gathered the Eight Pillars together, he had
become a major threat to the remainder of the country and had decided that he was a god.”

“A common delusion,” I said dryly. There had to be dozens of superhumans who went
around believing that they were divine, either because God Himself had touched them, or that
they were gods. One of the more bullshit origin stories is that their real father had actually
been…well, insert your favourite God here. As that British fantasy writer put it, their
mothers had in fact been entered by nothing more remarkable than their father’s penis.
“What happened to him?”

Rani scowled. “He really had it in for me,” she said. “One day, he kidnapped me, dragged
me off to his fortress, and declared that he intended to make me his queen. I broke out – the
drugs we had sent him for inhibiting superhuman powers were rather unreliable – and beat
him into submission. A year or so later, we executed him and finished the task of hunting
down the remainder of his people.”

“I see,” I said. She was telling the truth, but there was an undertone of dark amusement; I’d
bet good money that she had allowed herself to be captured. “Are there any of his people
left?”

“I don’t think so,” Rani said, after a moment. “He wasn't one of the guys who wanted to
gather other superhumans; I think he only wanted me because he wanted a heir and back
then, everyone thought that a normal woman couldn’t carry a superhuman child to term. He
had thousands of normal humans serving as his thugs, but I don’t think there were any other
superhumans with him who could have presented a major independent threat on their own.”

“Someday, that story is going to have to be told,” I said. I thought of a writing guy I’d met
back in Edinburgh. Perhaps he would write it up, add a few more hot babes, and win a
writing prize again. “Do you have any other enemies?”

“I don’t think I’m well-liked in Iraq,” Rani said. “Is there a point to this…?”

“Always,” I said, as we reached a street. The NYPD had been preparing for hours; I wanted
to see it before we hailed a taxi and went back to Yonkers. “You might find this of interest.”

The first superhuman appeared, flying low, but waving cheerfully to each and every pretty
girl as he passed; personally, I think that America III overcompensates a little too much. I
looked at the figure and wondered who was wearing the mask these days; did he know that
his predecessor had been killed only a few days ago? I’d have to talk to him soon enough;
the General would set it up. Three Hispanic superhumans, from Mexico, passed us next; Fray
Tormenta, La Alacrana and Super Barrio. They were members of the Latin American
superhuman group; I was surprised that even Mayor Hathaway had dared to invite them.
They weren’t popular at all in the south.

“Perhaps he’s just torpedoed himself,” I muttered, and smiled.

The next flypast was a group of SDI superhumans, all part of the overt term, followed rapidly
by Invincible and Napoleon, British and French respectively. The three Supermenler passed
next, their faces showing no trace of the legal struggle that was being waged between Turkey
and DC Comics. The crowd was cheering louder now as a red-and-yellow speedster flashed
past, leaving a sonic boom in his wake, and then the paid superhumans followed. They wore
the comic book uniforms – Superman, Captain Marvel, even Batman – but they were paid to
play them, rather than get out there trying to help people.

“They’ve never worked a day in their lives,” Rani muttered grimly. I could only nod in
agreement. A superhuman of that level could more or less write his own ticket in America.
“Your people are lucky like that.”

“I think I like you,” I muttered back. “There’s only a few more to go now.”

Captain Teao flew past, waving to the crowd while distributing teabags around with a
flourish; his claim that drinking tea had given him superpowers made him one of the most
controversial superhumans in the world. I wasn't sure how that had worked; maybe he had
almost drowned himself in tea, or something stupid like that. The members of the World
Metahuman Organization came up at the rear, led by their leader, Guardian Man; I knew that
he was a permanent pain in the arse as far as the SDI was concerned. There’s nothing worse
than someone who thinks that their superpowers make them better than anyone else.

“Time to leave,” I said, and led Rani back into a side street. “We have to find a taxi and get
back out of here.”

Rani looked at me. “I could fly us to wherever you want to go,” she said. “Why not…”

“You don’t know New York,” I said, waving a hand around to make my point. “Someone
will see us, take a photograph, and then the secret will be right out there in the open. There
are entire newsrags out there that print news of superhumans; they might not recognise you,
but they won’t hesitate to tell the world about you.” I took a breath. “And if they do
recognise you, they won’t hesitate to come up with a story for explaining why we are
together…”

“All right,” she said, as I hailed a taxi. “We’ll play it your way.”

She said nothing while the taxi driver, showing the same lack of concern for safety and
regulations as any other New York taxi driver, raced through the streets in a manner
calculated to worry foreign tourists. She wasn’t bothered; the worst that could happen if he
actually managed to crash his cab would be her clothes being torn off. It would take a lot
more to harm her…like the vast number of superhumans who had just arrived in New York.
The Mayor had been organising it for months; there had to be well over a thousand
superhumans in the city now, some of them very dangerous.
A thought struck me. “Rani, what do you think of the Mayor?”

“Your Mayor?” She asked. “I only met him twice, both times at a reception; I’m honestly
not sure what to make of him. He wasn't that impressive a figure, but he was certainly
interesting in some ways; I think he was very interested in superhumans.”

“He’s known for being something of a groupie,” I said, my thoughts elsewhere. Someone – I
forget who – had said that a person who was not a socialist at sixteen had no heart, but a
person who was still a socialist at twenty-five had no brain. I’d heard the saying before I
sparked and had never bothered to go back and look it up. It applied to superhumans as well;
a person who wasn’t awed with them during their teenage years had no sense of wonder or
teenage rebellion, a person who wasn't more than a little scared of them at twenty-five was
blind. “Was he interested in you as a person?”

“I don’t think he was interested in me as a woman,” she said. For the first time, I detected a
trace of very real embarrassment in her voice. Did she have anyone, back home in
Bangladesh? “It was strange, as if he was awed and impressed and scared at the same time.”

“Strange fellow,” I said, and went back into my thoughts. Was the Major involved somehow
with the mystery killer? I wouldn’t have put money on it; I’d as good as asked him outright
if he knew who was behind it, and he hadn’t set off any number of mental alarms. He had
called hundreds of superhumans to New York City, something that made him unique; most
Mayors and Governors would have tried to keep superhumans and superhuman conflict out
of their city.

Rani looked down at me. “Who are we going to see?”

“A friend,” I said, as the taxi pulled up outside the gated compound. “Come on; she won’t
thank us for keeping her waiting.”

I was curious as to how the two women would react to each other, but rather to my
disappointment, neither Rani nor Layla showed any real reaction. Layla would have spent
the time since I had called her digging up information on Rani and the remaining Eight
Pillars, but Rani knew nothing about Layla the Nerdette. They had at least two things in
common, so maybe they would get on better than I had expected.

“I went through the information on Manna,” Layla said, once the two women had exchanged
surprisingly sincere greetings. Layla didn’t seem to be too scared by Rani; I guessed that
they had both been through similar experiences. “There aren’t that many people who would
want him dead and have the ability to do it. I do know that Iraq was interested in recruiting
him and actually sent a representative to New York to meet with him, but as far as I can
determine, they were never actually able to meet with him. He died before they met.”

Rani tilted her head. “How sure are you of that?”

“It’s hard to be certain, but the representative was a normal human and I have pulled together
enough of a record for him to be fairly certain that he never went anywhere near Manna,”
Layla said. She’s utterly deadly as a researcher; you just can’t grasp how much of a footprint
someone, anyone, leaves in the modern world. If you go walking down Main Street with an
independent air, you can hear the security cameras declare, there’s that guy over there. The
FBI tries to pull it together, but the ACLU opposes it; Layla, not having to worry about
legalities, could do most of it in her head. “I have several periods that are unaccounted for,
but I don’t think that any of them were long enough for them to meet, nor are there any traces
that he entered the building.”

“But someone buggered up their computers,” I said. “What did you find out about that?”

“You’re not going to like it,” Layla said. I knew what she was going to say before she said it.
“It was an inside job.”

I cursed. “Are you sure of that?”

“Yes,” Layla said, flatly. “The UN’s computer system leaks like a sieve, but I was able to
recover some of the records of the intrusion from the ROM memory that had been set up to
provide a record of what happened, if something went badly wrong. Any hacking attempt,
even by someone like me, would have left a record, even if it wasn't obvious to a casual
inspection what it actually was. This intrusion occurred through a standard computer
terminal within the building, loading a small sabotage program into the system; at the right
time, the program started to provide cover for the intrusion attempt. Two people entered the
building, without a valid permit, and they were allowed in anyway.”

She paused. “It was very well done,” she admitted. “I could have done better, but this
person, this hacker, was clearly very good. They passed through the building, entered the
prayer room, killed him – there’s no cameras in that room, mores the pity – and left again.
Half an hour later, the alarm was raised; it was far too late.”

“Shit,” I said. “Do we know who was the insider?”

“No,” Layla said. “They used an administrator password to gain access, one that was
apparently the property of the security staff; need I add that no one knew about it? I can’t
trace it back any further.”

“I’ll see the General,” I said, grimly. “He can haul in the entire staff and sweat them until we
find out who’s behind it. That person will probably give us a link to someone more senior
until we find the person who’s actually killing them.”

Layla frowned. “Do you know if any other superhumans have been targeted?”

I blinked at the question, and then thought about it. “No,” I said. It was a worrying thought;
I had assumed that there was something linking the two victims together, but what if there
had been nothing linking them together? Manna…killing him would be bound to start
causing trouble, but America? He’d been retired, out of the picture; had his murderer known
that? If not, had they thought they were targeting the real America, or were they simply
targeting superhumans at random?

“I don’t know,” I admitted. If we took both of their names out of the equation, it was still too
odd to be certain; Manna had been well-protected, which meant that the effort to kill him had
to have been planned well in advance, but if someone had that kind of inside knowledge, then
why didn’t they knew that Lofting had retired? “Did you compile that list for me?”
“Here,” Layla said, passing it to me. I skimmed the list quickly; it was a list of fringe groups,
if not outright villains, who might have a motive to hate America – in both senses. “If they
were targeting superhumans at random, why Manna?”

She had given voice to my thoughts. “Why not Manna?” Rani asked. “Killing him has upset
a lot of people.”

I winced. “Maybe that’s the point,” I said grimly. If I were right, then at least one more
famous superhuman would be targeted; maybe Pure Humanity was just trying to make a
point. If it was Pure Humanity; there still was nothing in the way of real proof. “They just
want to upset people.”
Chapter Eight

The General eyed Rani with a gimlet eye.

“This is a secure compound,” he said, as we met him just past the security posts. To all
outside eyes, this base is a compound that belongs to the New York National Guard, but God
help the guardsman who tries to enter when the base is active. There are thousands of hidden
bases scattered over America; I have a theory that some of them have actually been forgotten
about by the Pentagon. “Do you have clearance to enter?”

“The State Department cleared her to follow me around,” I said. I had my own doubts as to
the wisdom of the course we had set – bringing all of the UN employees out here – but that
was in the past. “There’s nothing particularly sensitive here.”

The General snorted. Superhumans aren’t jet fighters or heavy-duty bombers or aircraft
carriers; we don’t really need a large support element to do our job. The SDI operated a
handful of bases for the overt and covert teams, several research bases and a handful of other
bases for purposes that even I didn’t know, but there should be nothing here for Rani to see
and take home to Bangladesh. If the civilian employees had been brought here, anything that
was even remotely sensitive would have been cleared out first.

“The whole exercise was a gigantic waste of time and money,” he said, as he led the way
down a long sloping corridor into the basement. The base had been fitted out to serve as a
temporary restraining area for superhumans and superhuman groupies; one particular
superhuman had shown the ability to convince people that he was their leader. There hadn’t
been much more to him than that, but it’s not easy trying to stop a mob of people from tearing
you apart without hurting them, particularly when they’re under a form of hypnotic control.
“Have you ever heard of a woman called Simone Larroche?”

“French?” I guessed. “No, I’ve never heard of her.”

Rani shook her head as well. “She was a computer programmer, recruited from France by the
United Nations and sent to work in New York,” the General said. “Two days ago, after the
program was inserted into the UN’s computers, she boarded a flight from New York to Paris;
apparently, her mother was ill and she needed compassionate leave. The aircraft suffered
from a problem over the Atlantic Ocean and came down in the middle of the sea; by the time
we got anyone out there, the aircraft was completely lost.”

I shuddered. There are several superhumans working SAR missions at any one time, along
with a surprising amount of Coast Guard, USN and foreign military units. Everyone would
have pitched in to help if there had been a disaster, but if the ‘problem’ had been something
like a bomb on the aircraft that had detonated at just the right moment, everyone onboard
would have been killed. It’s harder to destroy an airliner than most people think, but if you
detonate a bomb on a flying aircraft, it’s going to come crashing down. In this case, if there
were any survivors of the bomb, they would have been killed when the plane hit the water.

The General nodded towards the line of one-way mirrors lining the walls. Inside each cell,
there was a single UN employee, being held for as long as they could be legally held. I
doubted now that we would find anything useful from them, but we had to go through the
motions, just in case Simone’s death was a wild coincidence. I allowed my gaze to pass from
cell to cell, tracking older men, younger women, several people who had been students on
work experience programs before they had found themselves incarcerated…the experience
would probably sour them for life.

Rani had a more practical question. “How long can you hold them for?”

“It’s something of a grey area,” the General admitted. “When a superhuman crime is
involved, the SDI has legal authority to hold a person for a week, if there is evidence to
suggest that they might be involved in the crime. Half of this lot, however, have a certain
amount of diplomatic immunity, so we’ve had to deal with various Ambassadors and get
them to agree to put it aside for a while. I don’t think that any of them are actually involved,
but we have been putting together a picture of the suspect.”

I scowled. “Do any of this lot have any connection to the Humanists?”

“One of them is a paid-up party member,” the General said. “He’s only a security guard,
however, so he doesn’t seem likely to have served as part of an inside job. The others…half
of them claim to be Manna fans, or groupies of one superhuman or another, while the
remainder just don’t really care. It’s just a job for them.”

“How very human,” I said. “And our mystery girl?”

The General showed us into a cold office and dumped a file in my lap. “Simone Larroche,
born 1985, Paris, France,” he said, as I opened it. “Got high marks in computing and
anything related to international use of information technology; went to a university and got,
again, high marks. Went to work for a company trying to set up a network in Africa; the
company went bust in 2004 because of the general collapse of Africa at that time. Recruited
by the UN as part of the French contribution; checked out thoroughly by the Direction de la
Surveillance du Territoire – no obvious reason to hate superhumans. Came to New York in
2005, appointed one of their computer operators; there might have been some cock-sucking
involved, according to one of her fellow workers.”

He shrugged as I skimmed through the file. The DST had done a good job; everyone says
rude things about the French, but the DST are as charming and ruthless as any other secret
service in the world, second only to the Mossod for sheer bloody-mindedness. I was
expecting some big event in her past that would have provided a reason to hate superhumans,
a rape, a murder, or a sparking event that had claimed the lives of people close to her…but
there was nothing.

“The DST checked up on the mother,” the General said. “According to their doctor, the
mother was poisoned, but she should make a full recovery; they’re trying to track down the
person responsible now. We’ve been promised access as soon as they catch him – that was an
Air France aircraft that went down – but I’m not hopeful. It seems likely that Simone was the
person who inserted the bug and they killed her to cover their tracks…

“They,” he snapped suddenly. “Who are they?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted, and ran through my activities over the past few days. “I think that
whoever did this has some access to the SDI’s database, General; they knew enough to target
America II and then Manna, all the while without leaving any clues.”
I broke off as a thought occurred to me. “I think I know, at least in part, what happened,” I
said. It made a certain degree of sense. “Someone like Rani here who hit a normal person
would shatter their skull, right?”

“Right,” the General and Rani said together.

I steepled my fingers in my best Sherlock Holmes manner. “But if she hit America, she
would merely smash him through a few walls, right?”

“Yes,” the General said slowly. “What’s your point?”

“It’s the curious case of the shattered skull of America,” I said, grinning. The General gave
me a reproving look. “Ah, but the skull wasn't shattered, was it?”

“No,” the General said, tiredly. “Is this getting somewhere near a point?”

I smiled. “Why didn’t his chest shatter?” I asked. “If something happened to his powers,
why did the blow that struck him not go right through his chest?”

The General was no fool. “Because it wasn't hard enough to shatter his chest,” he said. “Are
you suggesting that we’re not looking for a superhuman?”

I nodded. There are some surprisingly strong people out there without ever actually reaching
the superhuman levels of strength; I once met a Marine Sergeant who could literally pick up a
jeep with his bare hands. I dread to imagine what his fists would have done to my face;
would they have done something like someone had done to Manna?

“The case seems to revolve around the loss of superpowers,” I said. “America’s
invulnerability failed and rendered him vulnerable. Manna’s own defences, his ability to hurt
someone trying to kill him either failed or he never had a chance to strike out at his attacker.
I go there…and I can’t track the killer, not even slightly.”

“Very clever,” the General said. “So, who do we go speak to, when it comes to finding the
person responsible?”

“Good question,” I admitted. I shared a long glance with Rani; I might have gotten that far,
but how could I find the person behind the killings? “I’m not sure.”

“We’ll have to bait a trap,” Rani said. She smiled mischievously. “We give them something
they want, a target they cannot pass up, and then we wait for them to attack.”

“I may have a target for you,” the General said. “Are you aware that America III is in New
York?”

“We saw him earlier,” I admitted, remembering him flying in the parade. “Are you
suggesting using him as a target?”

“Perhaps,” the General said. “I thought you might want to speak to him, so I asked him to
remain here.”
He made a call on his desktop phone while I composed myself. The SDI’s official publicly
claimed that ‘America’ was a white male, thirty years old, with long dark hair and a strong
chin – in effect, just like Clark Kent. It had amused me when I had first seen it; it was a good
thing that DC had never cottoned on to it. Lofting, however, had been black; no one had seen
his real face at all, any more than they had seen that of America III.

Up close, the uniform was the same as always, that of an American flag covering his entire
body. It was a perfect target, one of the reasons I have always disliked the prima donnas of
the overt team; they tended to draw fire as if there was nothing that they couldn’t handle. It
fell over a body that was muscular enough to depress me, giving just a hint of the sheer
power contained within the body; I refused to look at his body on principle. It would only
depress me. There was a moment, giving us just long enough to take in America’s public
appearance, and then he pulled the mask off, revealing a more common face and a slightly
superior smile.

The General performed the introductions. “This is America, Steve Milton,” he said, nodding
to America. “This is Mathew Tracker and Rani.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Milton said. His voice was calm and very composed. “I understand
that you are investigating the murder of my…predecessor?”

“That’s right,” Rani said. She wasn't affected by his intensely masculine appearance, for
which I was eternally grateful, although I wasn't sure why. It wasn’t as if I was interested in
her. “I believe we met once during those problems in Indonesia.”

Milton gave her a long appraising look. “I didn’t recognise you like that,” he said, after a
long moment. He seemed more concerned to see her than I had expected. What had
happened between them, if anything? “Agnyastra; it’s been a while.”

I coughed. “There isn’t much time,” I said, grimly. “Mr Milton…”

“Just call me Steve,” he said, his face splitting into a charming smile. “America is just a role
I play, and Mr Milton s my dad’s name.”

I shrugged. “How did you end up becoming America?”

“The truthful story or the line of bullshit the SDI cooked up?” Milton asked. “I was going
climbing up a mountain to impress a girl, something that should have gotten me into her
panties. The guide claimed to know the mountain like the back of his hand, but as he was
wearing gloves at the time, the idiot led me right off a cliff. I just fell and hit the ground hard
enough to kill me, except I was unharmed and flew right back up to them.”

He shrugged. “I was so dazed it actually took me several minutes to realise what I had just
done,” he admitted, with a self-deprecating smile. “Once I got them all back home, I started
trying to play hero, which ended when Marvin turned up, told me to stop being an idiot and
sign up with the SDI. A few years later, Marvin retired, trained me to take his place, and I
donned the cape and cowl.”
He waved it with a flourish. “Since then, I have just been the best America that I can be,” he
said. “One day, I’ll retire and go on to do something else, but until then, I’m having a hell of
a time.”

I wasn't amused. “Is there anything you don’t like about the role?”

“I wish that I could get drunk,” he said. He had lied then; there was something he didn’t like,
but that wasn't it. What was it? “Oh, and I don’t get that many babes; Marvin had his wife…
shit, Jackie, how is she?”

He’d said it too quickly. “She’s upset,” the General said, shortly. “Matt?”

I looked over at Milton. “Why don’t you get too many babes?”

Milton glowered at me. “Because they want to fuck America and I’m not America,” he said.
“I’m just someone playing at being him. It’s worse than that bugger who wears the
Superman cape and that daft bloody underpants on the outside uniform; I’m not great, I’m not
noble, but…”

His voice ran off. “Did you like your predecessor?”

“He was…intense, man,” Milton said, again, too quickly “He believed in what he was doing,
I mean, he really felt that he was doing the right thing.”

“And wasn't he?”

“I think that he decided that America wasn't doing much towards doing the right thing,”
Milton said, after a moment. “I mean…America is really someone who flies around,
rescuing kittens from trees and occasionally foiling bank robbers, but that doesn’t really do
much. I remember when we were called to help save a gag of jocks from a sparked nerd and
him saying, afterwards, that the jocks had it coming. I mean, he was a decent guy who only
wanted to do good, so…he gave me the uniform, went off with his wife and…well, we stayed
in touch.”

I nodded slowly. I had a feeling that there was something important here, if only I could ask
the right question. “What did you say to each other?”

“Oh, sometimes he advised me, or aided me with a problem,” Milton said. He shook his
head. “Not that there were many problems for America to solve; the bastard doesn’t work
like that. He sees a problem, hits it, picks up the girl and flies off into the sunset. No real life
problems for him. There were a couple of times when I went to visit, in full uniform, his
sports hall; the kids there all wanted to grow up and be like me. I could hear him sniggering
behind his smile; he’s the one who got away.”

Rani looked at him. “Why don’t you just find something more meaningful to do with your
life?”

Milton didn’t answer.

“What sort of enemies did he have?” I asked, into the silence. “I mean, was there anyone
who might have it personally in for him, someone who might hate Marvin rather than the
man who wears the cape?”

“Most of his enemies came after me as if they didn’t know that I had changed roles,” Milton
said. “Eaglehawk, Poison and Darkness hated Marvin, but when they came after me, I don’t
think they realised that I was a different person to their enemy. The only people who might
have hated Marvin enough – and had the ability to recognise that Marvin and I were different
people – would be the Guerrilla Girls.”

Rani laughed. “Guerrilla Girls,” she repeated. “Are those the people who tried to come into
Bangladesh a few years ago?”

“Probably,” Milton said. “Back then, they were the main pain in the arse for a lot of people,
girls with superpowers and radical feminist views. Some of them were quite decent in their
own way, others were right little Miss Fussy-Pot-types; most of them hated men and had even
sparked because of male attacks. They launched several raids into Saudi and the other
Middle Eastern states, either because they felt that women were being oppressed or because
they just wanted to make the headlines. I wouldn’t be surprised if Bangladesh got targeted,
but…”

He laughed. “Do you know why they never tried to set up a state of their own in Africa?”

“No,” I said. “Why not?”

“Because they don’t have any conception of long-term planning,” Milton said dryly. “I mean,
think about it; they have enough power, if they all worked together, to knock out any number
of warlords, maybe in Nigeria. In that godforsaken place, there are enough vital resources to
give any state a solid base, but do they try to take it to set up their feminist paradise? Do they
heck!”

He sighed. “But yes, they’re the ones who might want to kill Marvin himself,” he said.
“They always seemed to have a particular hard-on for killing him, preferably slowly and
painfully.”

“We’ll talk to them next,” I said, to Rani. “Thank you for your time, Steve.”

He caught me by my shoulder, his arm like steel. “Matt…if there’s anything I can do to help,
just call,” he said, firmly. “Marvin didn’t deserve to die like that.” He paused. “And if your
plan involves using me as bait, don’t hesitate; whatever I can do, I will do.”
Chapter Nine

What would you do if you thought that you had been oppressed all your life?

It’s a common delusion – and sometimes, too often, it’s not a delusion – and everyone in the
human race gets it from time to time. What would you do if you thought that people were
picking on you for some reason, something you couldn’t help, and nothing seemed to change
that? What would you do if you were picked on because of your race, your sex, your colour,
your nationality, your religion?

And what would you do if you suddenly discovered that you had superpowers?

The Guerrilla Girls were, as the name suggests, all women, all of whom believed that they
had been oppressed or that other women, across the world, were being oppressed. Their
leader, the radical ultra-feminist who called herself Warrior Girl, claimed that she had been
the victim of a kidnap and murder plot right out of a bad thriller novel, although the SDI file
cast doubt upon that claim. There may be plenty of people prepared to believe the worst of
religious extremists, but Warrior Girl’s story seemed too good – or too bad – to be true; she
claimed to have been kidnapped, raped, and then threatened with death, whereupon she had
sparked, gained superpowers, and proceeded to take a bloody revenge upon her tormentors.

I shook my head as I finished reading through the file. The Guerrilla Girls, who numbered
around twenty superhumans – all women – in their number, and countless adherents, not all
of them female, around the world, had their main operating centre in New York. They
provided a refugee for countless women who actually were abused, although some of the
reports suggested that not all of the women stayed there forever; they tended to find the girls
a little off-putting. I’d have shut them down long ago, but the Guerrilla Girls are surprisingly
popular in Washington, mainly after they endorsed that senator from Arkansas. For every
human conviction that they are superior, there’s a superhuman group; white supremacists,
black supremacists, religious fanatics, atheist fanatics…dear God, if the superpowers really
do come from a religious source, may He have mercy on us for what we have done with them
in His name.

Rani snorted as she read the file over my shoulder. As far as she was concerned, the Guerrilla
Girls were just playing at fighting for female rights; she had been doing that ever since she
had sparked. Bangladesh enjoyed the second-highest levels of female literacy and political
activity in the Muslim world, and most of that was because of Rani’s influence. Not unlike
the Protector of Iraq, her invulnerability had saved her from being assassinated by a fanatic
and she had therefore been a real role model to countless girls. I read the brief biography of
Warrior Girl again and knew who I would prefer to have at my side.

“Idiots,” she muttered, as we reached the second covering the Guerrilla Girls and their
overseas activities. They were banned in a dozen countries, including China, Russia and Iraq,
mainly for causing trouble and engaging in what the governments concerned called terror
attacks. Several members of the group had been arrested by the SDI’s overt team – led by the
now-dead America – and they certainly had a motive for wanting him dead, although I
wouldn’t have thought that they were real suspects in the case.

“It’s always the one you least suspect,” Rani said, when I told her that I suspected that we
were wasting our time. “If they have a motive, why shouldn’t we suspect them?”
I frowned, unsure of how to explain; I liked her enough that I didn’t want to give her any
offence. An average - non-superhuman – woman is generally no match for a man in a fair
fight, all other things being equal. Training, discipline and experience made up for a lot – and
I’d met my fair share of female soldiers who could have kicked my ass around the training
mat – but if the man had equal training and so on, the woman was dead. We had taboos about
beating up on women for a reason, although there was no shortage of bastards who didn’t
seem to share them, but overall the only thing that made the Guerrilla Girls more than another
protest lobby was their superhuman nature.

“They’re superhumans,” I said, seriously. Rani looked at me with an expression that said that
she thought I was starting the obvious. “Why would they want something that reduces
superpowers when it’s what makes them so important?”

Rani nodded once. The Guerrilla Girls had several dozen outstanding warrants filed against
them by everyone from the former Warsaw Pact to the International Criminal Court. Take
away their superpowers, put someone with real balls in the White House, and the Guerrilla
Girls might find themselves standing trial in The Hague. Whatever their motives for taking
on America, they could have swarmed him with their own superpowers, rather than looking
for something that could be used against them as well.

They wouldn’t have had any motive to go after Manna, unless they were indulging in a form
of anti-Muslim spite; he had been a Mullah once, after all. I didn’t think that the Guerrilla
Girls would have known that – I hadn’t known it until Rani told me – but the Guerrilla Girls
did have a real grudge against the more hardcore Muslim countries. They had been the
loudest voices calling for sanctions against Saudi Arabia and Iran before the Iraqis invaded
Saudi Arabia in the wake of its collapse into anarchy. The Iranians were our friends these
days, although the Guerrilla Girls didn’t hesitate in pointing out how it was just like a man to
get into bed with a woman they didn’t like, just for a quick shag.

Their headquarters rose up in front of us, a building they had funded through sponsorship and
the occasional advertising deal. Every company in the world wanted their products endorsed
by a superhuman, the more famous the better; the Guerrilla Girls had endorsed an entire line
of feminine care products, although not all of them liked the idea. There had actually been a
faction feud in the movement over the issue of endorsing perfume and make-up; some of the
radicals had detested the thought of supporting what they saw as items that enslaved women.
The remaining Guerrilla Girls had built their base with the funds, a building large enough to
hold thousands of people, mainly women in need of a better home. As far as I knew, only a
handful of men were allowed into the building.

“They must be coining it,” Rani said, shaking her head with awe as we stepped out of the cab
and stared up at the imposing gates. They were decorated by an image of a female warrior
woman – they’d had an image of Wonder Women, but DC had made them take it down on
pain of introducing them to the worst possible kind of human, the lawyers – and looked
imposingly large and solid. “How do we get in?”

I smiled. “Why don’t you fly us over the gate?”

I’d been flown before and Rani didn’t feel any different to the others as she lifted us both
over the gate, coming down in the park. Closer to the building, as three guards – all female –
raced towards us, it was easier to grasp just how large it was; it must have cost them well into
the billions. The guards were eying us with some alarm; judging from their reactions, none
of them were superhuman and they didn’t want to try taking on a pair of superhumans if there
was a choice. I flashed them my best smile and they flinched backwards, one of them even
falling over and landing on her behind.

“We’re here to see Warrior Girl,” I said, as calmly as I could. I really don’t like fanatics of
every stripe. They looked more nervous of Rani; up close, they could tell that she was the
real thing, and they were just pretenders to her throne. “I believe that we have an
appointment.”

The lead guard looked as if she were about to argue, but another guard muttered in her ear,
trying to speak softly enough that we didn’t hear her. I heard her perfectly; she named us,
semi-accurately, as the meddlers from the SDI. The leader looked us up and down, trying to
be intimidating, and then abandoned the effort.

“Follow me,” she said, and led the way up to the building. The other guards scattered around,
heading back to their duties; I suspected that one of them would place a call in to Warrior Girl
and her inner circle as quickly as possible. They would want to know that we were on our
way, unless the guards wanted to let them be surprised…and that didn’t seem likely. The
guard’s voice seemed to take on a sharper edge. “This is a high security building, so please
don’t go wandering off on your own.”

My eyes trailed the guard’s behind for a moment, and then I turned my head and started
glancing from side to side as she opened the door, leading us into the building. It was like a
massive school, in some ways, with all-girl classes being taught everything from science to
self-defence. The guard received new orders through an implant – I could tell by the sudden
change in her attitude – and she gave us a longer tour, stalling. Rani met my eyes for a
moment and I shook my head; if they were rousing Warrior Girl out of bed, there was no
point in disturbing her before she was ready to see us, at least, not yet.

There were no men, anywhere; the girls were being taught by other girls. Some of the pupils
were older than I was, some of them seeing me and flinching away from me in a manner I
found distinctly alarming, if not threatening. Everyone wore the same uniform, something
that was almost, but not quite, unattractive; we walked through a series of laboratories while
the guard prattled on about nothing.

“We hope to remove the male completely from reproduction,” she explained, and I could
sense the pride in her voice. It was odd; I can generally tell a lesbian from a bisexual or a
straight woman, and she wasn’t a lesbian. “We notice that most broken homes involve men
and therefore we intend to reduce their participation in female life, to the point, in fact, where
they have to court us.”

I gave her my best unimpressed look. “Don’t we have to court you anyway?” I asked. My
rather unique nature gave me an insight into how men and women thought about things,
something that most people lacked and tended therefore to regard the world through idealised
eyes. “I always knew that courtship was something men put up with to get laid?”
She sniffed. “Typical man,” she said. “If the urges of the female soul could be satisfied
without them, we would have much more bargaining room for the endless war between the
sexes.”

The guard received another signal and changed her demeanour again, leading us up a long
stairwell into a massive waiting room, the kind intended to remind the visitor that he is
nothing, but scum in the eyes of the person making them wait to see him. Or, I guessed, her
in this case; the Guerrilla Girls clearly didn’t want us to have ideas above our station. It was
a good thing that our station was much higher than theirs.

The meeting room itself was much smaller and cosier; three superhumans sat there, waiting
for us. I had no difficulty in recognising them; Warrior Girl herself, Femme and Terrifica.
They were the current leaders of the Guerrilla Girls, people who had directed the movement
and remained in charge, mainly because of their superpowers. The SDI report had suggested
that they were even encouraging some of the people who came to them for help to worship
them, although I doubted it. That might have been a step too far, even for the Guerrilla Girls.

“It was pointed out to us that we should see you,” Warrior Girl said. There was nothing
welcoming in her tone; her body language was stiff and formal. She was astonishingly
muscular and self-possessed. “Do not be under the delusion that we are interested in any
discussions with you; state your request and then depart this building.”

I took a breath. “I am a duly empowered investigator for the SDI, investigating a pair of
murders; Marvin Lofting and Manna,” I said. I wanted to know how they would react to
America’s real name, but they showed little reaction. “What do you know about the pair of
them?”

Warrior Girl looked at Rani, trying to ignore me. “Why are you wasting your time in a male-
dominated world when you could be helping us?”

Femme chimed in. “And why that stupid name?”

I tensed at the anger in Rani’s tone. “Agnyastra means firearm in Bengali. The military
practically raised me, and I was Ershad's gun,” she snapped, cold ice in her voice. “I fought
and kept his faction, the least corrupt faction, alive through the troubles. Criminals,
separatists, corrupt politicians, Islamists, Maoists, Burmese fought them all. The chaos was
mostly over when the cyclone that killed five million hit.”

Her voice darkened. “It could have been much worse and we all knew it. Even administrative
work, to me, is fighting. Fighting the chaos that almost consumed us all!”

I spoke before anyone could explode. In this case, the explosion might have been literally an
explosion. “Did you have any reason to kill Marvin Lofting?”

Warrior Girl was still glaring at Rani. “The man was a man, but a good one,” she said,
reluctantly. I could hear the sincerity in her tone. “While he was working in Hell’s Kitchen,
he saved countless women from being raped, or sucked into the gangs, their lives destroyed
in a burst of violence that would have ended them. We have heard nothing, but good of him
from the women who have come to us from there; why would we want to kill him?”
Rani took a guess. “Because you were jealous?” She asked. It was a neat point, I
acknowledged; people like the Guerrilla Girls didn’t care for rivals to their cause, even if it
was just someone presenting a different way of life, or proof that not all men are bastards.
“What about Manna?”

“Again, what possible motive do we have to kill him?” Femme asked. She looked
surprisingly female in appearance, but I knew that she was much more ruthless than anyone
would have guessed. “His activities saved the lives of countless women who would
otherwise have died, or been subjected to the lusts and loathing of men.”

Rani glanced at me. I nodded. It might be possible that some faction within the Guerrilla
Girls had assassinated them, without the core leadership knowing of it, but if Warrior Girl
was telling the truth, such a move would have provoked a split within the organisation,
something that would have torn them apart. It was easy to justify killing rapists, or
oppressive religious figures; it was much harder to justify it when the target was a popular
man with their people.

“The common aspect of the cases seems to be an effect that limits superpowers,” I said,
keeping my voice as calm as possible. The Guerrilla Girls had contacts, lots of contacts, in
Washington; they would know if something was being developed that might change the
superhuman balance of power. “Are you aware of anything involving such an effect that
might not be known to the general world?”

Warrior Girl seemed to blanch slightly; no one else would have sensed it. “There was a
curious report,” she said, as if she was talking to herself. I could hear the doubt in her voice;
she wasn’t deliberately lying, but she knew that she didn’t really believe what she was saying.
“A father whose daughter turned superhuman gave her capsules that contained an inhibitor
drug. They melted in her stomach and…well, when she absorbed them into her body, they
kept her powers down.”

“I see,” I said. Had someone slipped America a time-release pill? I dismissed it after a
moment’s thought; neither my senses nor the forensic investigation of the body had revealed
any traces of drugs within his bloodstream. Unless someone had developed a drug that
worked even after it had faded away – a breakthrough on a massive scale – neither of the two
superhumans had been drugged. “What happened?”

Warrior Girl smirked. “In the end, she built up an immunity to the drug and her powers burst
out of her again,” she said. “She flew away from her father, who had wanted to suppress her
and oppress her, and then came directly to us, where she is loved and cared for by many.”

“Doubtless,” I said. It had been a waste of time. I should have listened to myself and taken
Rani somewhere else, somewhere where we might find out more about America. Perhaps
Hell’s Kitchen would be a good place to continue the investigation. “Thank you for your
time.”

“You may stay with us, Rani,” Warrior Girl said. Her voice was almost beseeching, as if she
was pleading with her to forget Bangladesh and come join the Guerrilla Girls. I couldn’t
blame her – if she did, the Guerrilla Girls would have scored a huge coup – but Rani didn’t
seem impressed. “We could help you to develop your full potential.”
Rani’s eyes flared. “You’re children,” she snapped. She pointed a finger to her eyes. “My
eyes were dark brown originally. I lost them fighting Zarmindar. When they grew back the
next year they were like this. What do you offer women, but endless strife and the conviction
that they’re superior? How are you any better than those you fight?”

With that, she stormed out of the room.

Chapter Ten

“Well, that was an interesting waste of time,” Rani said, as we sat together in a café and ate a
small snack. I would have normally ordered a bacon sandwich, but had decided instead to eat
a cheese toasty, out of respect for her. Anyone who could tell the Guerrilla Girls where to
shove it had my respect. “Why does your country allow them to operate here?”

“That rather depends on whom you ask,” I said, grimly. “One line of thought is that they’re
too powerful, too numerous and too popular simply to be squashed out of hand. If they really
do have twenty-odd superhumans, they’re going to be difficult for the SDI to deal with if they
really get out of hand, while America always loves an underdog. Another line of thought is
that we have freedom of speech here, and as long as they don’t actually break any laws in
their little attempts to do away with the male, they’re free to do pretty much as they please.”

I shook my head. “We’ve had artificial insemination for years,” I said, dryly. “It’s not as if
they’re looking for anything new.”

“Maybe they want a way of turning a man into a woman,” Rani said, after a moment. She
shook her head dryly. “Do you know there’s a superhuman in India somewhere who does
just that? He can turn himself into a woman and back to a man at will.”

“Scientists have been turning inadequate males into fake females for years,” I said, rolling my
eyes at her. She smiled thinly. “I don’t think that the Guerrilla Girls are going to find any
way of changing basic human nature, so…”

Rani shrugged. “What are we going to do next?”

I glanced down at my watch. It was mid-afternoon. “I think we’re going to visit Hell’s
Kitchen,” I said, after a moment of thought. “That’s where America used to run a sports hall
for kids, so I dare say that we’ll find people we can talk to, or find clues that we can use to
see who might have been profiling him.”

“It’s a second waste of time,” Rani insisted. “Why don’t we visit some of his old villains and
see what they have to say about his death?”

“We’d have to visit The Rock,” I said, grimly. “I’ve put in a request for the General to
consider, and I’m sure that he’ll allow us to visit, but it takes time to get through all the
paperwork. They don’t just let anyone in The Rock, not after that shape-shifter almost bust
several dozen prisoners out, and we’re going to have to submit to all kinds of security tests,
including a telepathic scan.”

“I can’t agree to that,” Rani said.

“Then don’t come,” I said, as I finished the last bite. I would have agreed with her under
other circumstances, but The Rock was too dangerous a place to visit without taking every
possible precaution that could occur to a paranoid mind like the General’s. The superhumans
in there were never meant to see the light of day again; most of them would have been
executed, and would be once they had worked their way through the tortured legal process.
“If there’s anyone there with a reason for hating him, the General will get us access and we’ll
find out if he knows anything about the situation.”
“There are secrets in my head,” Rani snapped, not taking me seriously. The hell of it was that
I partly agreed with her. “I don’t want someone spying on my thoughts.”

The thought reminded me of the Humanists and I smiled. We might have to raid their offices,
properly this time; it wasn’t as if we had an abundance of other clues. People just weren’t
comfortable around telepaths, even those who only had limited abilities; I would have
thought that Rani would be used to them by now. She worked with a telepath, the one who
led the Eight Pillars, on a regular basis.

“I know just how you feel,” I said, as I paid the bill and led her back out onto the streets.
New York has never let me down for a taxi yet; I waved cheerfully at one and smiled at the
driver as he pulled up beside me. I was careful to state the destination once we had actually
gotten into the vehicle; it wouldn’t be the first time that a cabby had tried to drive off once he
found out where I wanted to go.

“Hell’s Kitchen, please,” I said. The cabby’s neck stiffened alarmingly. “Murdock Street.”

Rani said nothing as the bright lights and clean streets of New York gave way to the darker
lights of Hell’s Kitchen. Every so often, Mayor Hathaway talks about trying to reclaim the
area, but ever since a pair of superhumans tore chunks of it apart, no one has really been
willing to invest the billions required to pretty it up. There’s a dark underside to the
American Dream and it lives in Hell’s Kitchen, a haven for drug lords, gang members, illegal
immigrants and much worse. Even the Dark Guardian doesn’t come here very often; Hell’s
Kitchen represents the type of problem that cannot really be solved by bashing it with super-
strong fists. I compressed my senses down as far as they would go; the streets told a grim
tale of murder, drug abuse, and violence.

“I suggest that you bear in mind that you’re invulnerable,” I muttered to Rani. The people
here are more like animals than anything human; they would see her as an attractive target.
“I wonder if…”

The taxi turned a corner and I saw the sports hall ahead of us. For a moment, I was almost
touched; it was festooned in tributes and mementoes of the man who had built it up from
almost nothing and created a place where poor black kids could be kids, rather than junior
gang members. I remembered what America III had said about how his predecessor had
wanted to help people and knew, then, that I’d been wrong. The people of Hell’s Kitchen
weren’t animals after all.

“Stay here,” I ordered the driver, as we got out. “I’ll pay you when we get back.”

I ignored the daggers he was glaring into my back and opened my senses, slightly; there was
an air of pregnant possibility in the air, a sense that everything was about to go to hell. When
the cat went away, the mice would come out and play, and now the cat was dead. A man who
had seemed invincible had been killed…and the people he had intimidated out of the area
would be coming for their pound of flesh. I knew enough of the gangland mentality to
suspect that the sports hall wouldn’t remain intact for long.

The door was open and we slipped inside. My senses revealed that there were at least forty
people in the building, half of them girls; we hunted through the corridors until we
encountered a harassed-looking black man who seemed to be in charge. He studied my ID
with some interest, frowned at Rani, and then led us both into a small office.

“I’m Jake,” he said, simply. His accent was faint, but very definitely southern. The room
shook slightly as a ball bashed against the sidewall. “I’m sorry about the basketball game,
but they have a competition match coming up in a week and they want to practice for it. It’s
not good for the girls – they like doing their homework here – but needs must when the devil
bites your head off and shits down the hole. What can I do for you?”

“I need to talk to you about Marvin,” I said, sincerely. “I understand that this place was his
idea?”

“We used to say that we came up with it together, but really it was all his idea,” Jake
admitted. “He flew down one day, took over the building and hired a few dozen workmen to
spruce it up and turn it into a proper sports hall. We’d known each other from back when
he’d been a copper, so when he asked me to come work as an administrator, I couldn’t really
say no.”

Rani smiled charmingly at him. “What exactly do you do here?”

“I used to just run the place, mainly,” Jake said. “Marvin, God rest his soul, was always out
there trying to be a big brother and a father figure to most of the kids. These young men
generally don’t have fathers; they leave their mothers, get bumped off in one gang-fight or
another, get locked up, or worse. The poor bastards – mostly literally – don’t learn how to
behave from someone with a real interest in their futures, but people who use and abuse
them.”

For a moment, I saw his desperation hiding under his chatter. “The average boy who comes
here is somewhere between eight to eighteen,” he said. “By fourteen, he may no longer be a
virgin; he may even be a father. He might have AIDS, despite the cure that they invented;
he’s not rich enough to buy it for himself. From his birth, he will have been steeped in a
culture of violence where a man’s life is cheap and a woman’s body his for the taking, unless
she has a powerful protector. This place was trying to give them all something new to do
with their lives, something that might change them for the better; we have several dozen truly
astonishing success stories from here.”

I felt a moment of pity. “What sort of success stories?”

“There were some who went to join the army or the police,” Jake said. “That’s a courageous
decision around here, but Marvin encouraged him; he had the idea that if the NYPD included
people who actually knew what was going on here, there might be a great deal less crime and
drug abuse. Others went on to get jobs, proper jobs, although that’s not easy; do you know
that if you’re an unmarried girl with three babies, it’s actually more sensible to stay at home
and try and collect welfare checks than go to work? Most of them want to work, for their
pride, but there are fewer jobs here than you might think. I have a small staff of older boys
here, ones who can be trusted, but apart from us, the only source of regular employment lies
with the gangs.”

He shook his head. “God help us all,” he sighed. “This place will be firebombed within the
week.”
I made a mental note to call the General and ask if we could assign someone out here to do
protection work. Somehow, I rather doubted that the Dark Guardian or someone more
photogenic would be willing to come out here; sane people wouldn’t want to be here without
an armed escort of Marines or Navy SEALS. Mayor Hathaway might take up the cause if he
was prodded, but I suspected that his tame police chief – if she was any good at her job –
would try to talk him out of it; it would merely expose an NYPD team to gang attacks.

“I’m sorry,” I said, sincerely. “What sort of enemies did he have?”

“Every gang leader hated him,” Jake said. “Some of them started to send out muscle to deal
with him, but Marvin was always too strong for any number of thugs, even the ones who had
been imported from Russia to help strengthen the organised crime syndicates out here. Most
of them ended up dead or in hospital, while Marvin would burn the gang leaders with his eyes
and force them to stay out of here. The bastards kept their heads down; oh, some of them
tried to strike from a distance, but it never worked.”

He put his head in his hands. “I don’t know what I’m going to be able to tell the young
folks,” he said. “They come here because it’s safe and now…it’s not safe.”

We slipped out the door and wandered through the sports hall. It was larger than I had
understood, back when we walked inside; we passed a basketball court and watched as a
dozen young men, representing all colours of the human race, fought it out for supremacy.
They looked…nice, in their way; they didn’t have thuggish looks or scars on their faces. A
small group of girls and younger boys cheered them on from a distance; it was friendly, even
with the pressure of the big game coming up. I had always hated sports in my school – I
could never be bothered with a team game mentality, and now that I was a superhuman I
wouldn’t be permitted to play in a team game – but this sports teacher was a good man.

“You didn’t ask him about Manna,” Rani said. There was a sharp tone to her voice. “Why
not?”

“It didn’t matter,” I said, my mind racing. Like it or not, I was going to have to go to the
General – after visiting the superhuman criminals – and ask him for a proper search of the
Humanists lair. The only other option was setting a trap and baiting it, and if there was an
inside component to the job, they might know it was a trap in advance. “He didn’t know
anything at all.”

Rani looked at me. “Are you sure of that?”

I didn’t answer the question as we glanced into a smaller hall; this one filled with desks and
children. The children were mainly sitting at their desks, the older ones helping the younger
ones; Jake had said that they were doing their homework. Others were playing board games,
or talking in low voices; it was all very quiet and peaceful. I caught the eye, for a moment, of
a young black girl with long dark pigtails…and saw her future in her gaze. Poor bitch.

“Let’s get out of here,” I said, suddenly very angry. I was prepared to place money on the cab
driver having decided to fuck off and leave us in the middle of Hell’s Kitchen; we’d have to
walk or fly out. Jake had been right; the children here deserved better, and the person who
had helped them – the only level of superhuman response to a very human problem – had
been murdered. I clamped down hard on my senses as we passed through the doors and
stepped out onto the streets…and then alarm bells started going off in my head.

“Get down,” I snapped, throwing myself to the ground as an ice cream van trundled past. It
set off all my senses at once, even before I saw the machine gun being pointed out of the
serving window, aimed directly towards the sports hall. I shouted at Rani to get down,
forgetting myself as the machine gun opened fire…and the bullets bounced off her body. She
moved forward, astonishingly quickly, and I heard metal crumpling under her fist as she
ripped the ice cream van to pieces. I pulled myself to my feet, watching as she yanked the
driver, the gunman and a man with his hands tied behind his back, before picking up the van,
tossing it down the street, and destroying it with a burst of light from her eyes.

I had to laugh. I had forgotten what she was.

“Well done,” I said, as I examined the three captives. They were all staring at her, and
somehow I didn’t think it was because of the rips in her clothing. Their eyes followed her
crushing the remains of the machine gun in her hand and dropping the crumpled metal on the
street. I started with the tied-up man, because I suspected that he was innocent, but I’d have
to confirm that before letting him go. “Who are you?”

“Cole,” he said, between gasps. I had my senses tightly fixed on him now; if he told a lie, I
would break a finger. “They took the van and drove here and…I don’t want to die!”

“You’ll die if you breathe another word,” the gunman snapped. Rani caught him by the neck
and squeezed just enough to choke off his air for a short period. “I…”

“Get out of here,” I snapped, cutting his bonds before turning to the gunman. Up close, he
would have been a handsome man if he hadn’t been so badly scarred. Judging from his
appearance, most of the scars had actually been self-inflicted; he had wanted to look tough.
“Why did you do that?”

“It was the boss’s orders,” he gasped, pleading. I have never liked the ‘I was only following
orders’ defence. “He said that it was time to teach that thick nigger a lesson and if anyone got
in our way, we were to kill them and…”

His voice broke off as he saw my face. “There were children in there,” I snapped. “Kids!
Why the fuck shouldn’t we just kill you?”

He looked a little more confident. “You can’t because my mates would sue your ass,” he
leered at me. “Your bitch and you would end up sharing a cell with the worst of us and when
you got out, no one would look at you again.”

I found a pressure point on his arm and pushed it. “Go back to your boss,” I said, tiredly. His
screaming hurt my ears. “Go tell him that this place is still protected and if he puts any more
pressure on, we’ll tear him into his component pieces, understand?”

He stared at me, eyes wide. “Yes, sir,” he said, in-between gasps of pain. I turned to the
driver and gave him the same message, before nodding to Rani. She took their right hands
and squeezed them, hard. The bones were crushed into powder.
“May as well ruin their sex lives,” I said, as they fled, screaming. They hadn’t been prepared
for superhuman violence. Very few people were. “Do you actually think we made a
difference?”

“You Americans are crazy,” Rani said.

Chapter Eleven

Even I don’t know where The Rock actually is, although the common line of thought is
Alcatraz Island, a former prison island out in San Francisco. That’s almost certainly
nonsense; no one in their right mind would store dangerous criminals in such a location,
particularly not the kind of superhuman prisoners that The Rock holds deep within the Earth.
The Guerrilla Girls might have been a little bit eccentric, shamelessly profiting off their
superhuman status to push forward their own agenda, but the people held within The Rock
were truly evil. Imagine the worst of the worst serial killers, someone like Ted Bundy or
David Berkowitz, people who raped, tortured and killed with impunity…and then imagine
them with superpowers.

Now do you see why the General’s hair is going white?

I found myself tensing as the aircraft came in for a landing. It was one of the new USAF
supersonic jobs, capable of holding a cruising speed of over Mach Three; a superhuman that
had gone to work for the Stunk Works had pioneered the technology in person. It could have
transported us almost anywhere within the United States in the hour we’d spent onboard; the
secret of The Rock would remain secure. My best guess was that it was somewhere well
away from everyone else; if the prisoners managed to break out, every superhuman in
America would be drafted into putting them back in their cage or killing them in the process.
Personally, I would have carried out the Eight Pillar method myself and simply executed
them, but all criminals deserve a chance at a fair trial, even super-criminals. Or so they keep
telling me.

The thought makes me nervous and I look over at Rani; she was just as nervous herself. The
people trapped in The Rock are the superhumans who went right beyond the pale and
committed horrendous crimes. Even so, I know the unspoken reason for keeping them alive;
we might need them one day. Back in the years when there were only a few known
superhumans, the CIA used Slaughter as a living weapon; I wouldn’t put it past the General
to consider, at least, using some of the people in The Rock as persons of mass destruction.
One of the persistent nightmares these days is war with Latin America and their
superhumans; that’s why there are so many problems down along the border with Mexico.
The superhuman defenders might have started out with the intention of driving the hated
Yankees out of Latin America, but they became, slowly but surely, oppressors in their own
right. Thousands upon thousands of people want to flee Mexico these days; thousands upon
thousands of Americans don’t want them flooding north into the United States. Sooner or
later, it’s all going to blow up…

“You may depart the aircraft,” a cold metallic voice states, without a trace of human feeling.
“Please be aware that you are entering a secured compound, operating under the SDI
Protocols for securing dangerous criminals; do not attempt to leave the presence of your
escort, or tamper with any of the systems. Any breach of the Protocols may result in your
arrest and sentencing under Protocol Thirteen, with a minimum penalty of twenty years in
jail.”

I tuned out the remainder of the legalese as we descended the ladder and stepped out into the
hanger. The aircraft had parked completely within the hanger, denying us any sight of the
outside world, just in case. The air was cold and completely scrubbed by environmental
stations, rather like a giant space station; I suspected that some form of odourless nerve gas
had been prepared for release, as a final desperate measure. If Pure Humanity knew where
the prison actually was, they’d try to nuke it; for once, I found myself in complete agreement
with them. Living weapons or no, the people in The Rock were too dangerous to be allowed
to live. There were hundreds of superhumans without their criminal tendencies or psychotic
delusions about their own selves; we didn’t need them at all.

I winced as I felt a tickle at the edge of my brain. I hate telepaths; the telepath might have
just done a surface scan to prove that I was who I claimed to be, and that I wasn't under any
kind of duress, or he might have read all of my secrets out of my mind. Rani muttered a
curse under her breath in Bengali as she was scanned too, before we focused our minds and
kept walking; the telepath wasn't even in view.

The man greeted us at the edge of the hanger. He seemed alone, but I could tell that we were
being targeted by a dozen weapons; his face was grim and completely expressionless. I
focused my senses on him and learned that he was nervous, both about escorting us through
the prison and about the prisoners, which proved that he was sane, at least. Sane people
know to be scared of the prisoners within The Rock.

“Welcome to The Rock,” he said. He didn’t mean a word of it. “My name is Patrick and I
am here to escort you to the prisoners. Do not attempt to leave my company or the security
sensors will record your absence and automated weapons will attempt to stun you. If that
fails, they will ramp up the violence until they take you out, one way or the other.”

He turned and walked through a door and into the corridors. We looked at each other and
followed him, down a series of endlessly drab and grey corridors, each one completely
indistinguishable from the last. The air quality didn’t improve as we moved deeper; in some
ways, it remained as still and quiet as air in a grave. We passed through security systems,
some overt, others well hidden, and finally reached the core of the complex, the prisons
themselves.

It wasn’t easy holding a superhuman prisoner, I knew; the higher power levels couldn’t be
held in a normal prison at all. Even someone like me would be tricky to hold, although I
suspected that as my usage as a living weapon was minimal, I’d simply be quietly disposed
of, rather than keeping me around. It made me wonder just how many prisoners there
actually were; of the total superhuman population of the world, how many were there in this
prison?

“Classified,” the guard said, as we stopped outside a door. It was unmarked, but I could
sense the faint traces of electronic information running over the door and wished that I had
brought the Nerdette with me. She would have been able to actually read the information.
“Please bear in mind that the prisoner in this room is considered extremely dangerous and if
he attempts to take you hostage, we will not negotiate for your freedom.”

“I understand,” I said, glancing over at Rani. She looked unconcerned, but I could tell that
she too was nervous. “Open the door.”

The door hissed open, revealing a second cell inside; lights blazed down on a man lying on a
bed. His pale blue eyes snapped open as he stared at us, dark malice flashing within them as
he took in Rani’s dark form, but he didn’t bother to get up and greet us. It was easy to see
why; he had been chained to the bed, with a long tube stuck in his arm and another pair
diving under the sheets to a place I didn’t want to think about. It probably broke any number
of human rights rules, keeping him like that, and I didn’t care; Jim Crow was rated as one of
the most dangerous superhumans in the world.

I studied him thoughtfully. He’d been the second real superhuman to turn criminal; in his
case, he’d been a white supremacist and a fully paid-up member of the Ku Klux Klan. If his
story was to be believed, some brave black man in the south had finally had enough of him
and tried to drown him, only to discover that the bastard had sparked and turned into a super-
strong monster. He’d spent the next few years stalking and killing black families, with a
personal body count in the hundreds, before a certain superhero beat hell out of him and
dropped him in jail. He’d escaped, been recaptured, and then sent to The Rock. Since then,
he had been kept in the cell, doped up to prevent him from regaining most of his strength,
while the hero who’d brought him down…had been murdered.

“I don’t talk to mud people,” he said, eyeing Rani. “You should know better than to soil
yourself with her touch.”

His record said that he had raped black women as well, but I didn’t bother to rise to the bait.
He was a sad little man who was only dangerous because he was a superhuman. If he hadn’t
sparked, he would have died, along with the others in his little KKK group. Instead, he’d
ended up in a place that he wouldn’t be able to escape from, unless some do-gooder
convinced the jury that he had actually reformed.

“We have some questions to ask you,” I said, shortly. Jim Crow laughed. “If you answer the
questions truthfully, we can arrange for you to get some kind of improvements to your cell.”

He laughed again. “And why should I answer your questions?” He asked. “Why should I
not lie?”

“If you lie to me, I’ll know it,” I said, and started to focus my senses on him. His smell was
appalling – the guards would hose him down from a distance, rather than coming anywhere
near him if they could avoid it – but his superpowers were definitely weakened. The chains
would have stopped an elephant from moving. “What happened when you met America?”

The story spilled out of him, punctuated by rude comments and racist insults directed at Rani,
but there was nothing new in his words. I asked him about people who might have wanted
America dead and he gave me a list of names, all people I knew to have been enemies of the
first America, rather than the second. He’d been on the run, again, killing as he moved and
finally local police had tracked him down. When America had arrived, Jim Crow had tried to
fight…and lost.

“He was a nigger,” Jim Crow said, trying to spit towards us. It took me a moment to realise
what he had said. He had known that America II had been black? “I tore off some of his
uniform when we were trading blows and the bastard was blacker than the night.”

I kept my face blank. “Did you ever hear of anyone who might be developing a new way of
inhibiting powers?” I asked. “Anything really new?”

He leered at me. “Bring her here and let me stuff her and I’ll tell you,” he said. I folded my
arms and waited. “I was never a connected superhuman,” he said finally. “The only inhibitor
drugs I know about are the ones that they pump into my bloodstream, and trust me, when I
get out of here, the bastard who came up with them is going to suffer.”

“He vanished in South Africa six years ago,” I said, and we left the room. The guard closed
the door behind us and watched us while we gasped for breath. “The next one, please?”

The second door hissed open, revealing another prisoner; this time, it was a girl. Frigid
Bitch, as she called herself, was tall, with hair so blonde that it was almost white, and literally
controlled cold. She would have been very useful if she had worked in places that were too
hot, cooling the air and helping to create ice, but instead she had become a killer. No one
knew what had happened to her to make her spark, but it had left her an accomplished
murderess; there had been too many bodies with ice crystals in their brains. According to the
police report, she had been a babysitter…and slowly, but surely, she had killed her way
through the children. She would have remained undetected, but whatever had driven her to
kill kept pushing at her, forcing her finally to leave a trail a blind man could follow.

Unlike Jim Crow, she had run with a gang of other super-criminals during their first escape
from the law. She was connected.

“So, visitors,” she said, her voice soft and welcoming. I knew about her reputation, but even
so, she looked like the stereotypical girl next door, rather than a mass murderess. Her
powers, if the reports were to be believed, were much harder to deal with than standard
superpowers; one guard who had allowed himself to be seduced, climbing into bed with her,
had been frozen to death despite all the drugs running through her system. “They don’t let
me have any visitors these days.”

“I have some questions to ask you,” I said, swallowing. Looking at her, it was much harder
to believe that she was actually a murderess, who had killed at least seventeen children and
twenty-one adults. She gave me a ‘come hither’ smile and I ignored it as best as I could.
“What do you know about America?”

We ran through all of the questions and, once again, she knew nothing…until she got to the
point about inhibiting someone’s powers. “Oh, that’s easy, honey,” she said, giving me a
wink that would have had her flogged in a less permissive society. “I used to run with
HARDCard, you know, and the bastard was so fond of hurting me that I used my powers to
cool him down a lot.”

She winked at Rani. “Hey, doll, did you know you can freeze a man’s penis to the point
where you can just break it off and use it as a vibrator?”

I sensed Rani’s quivering disgust beside me. HARDCard had been a Level Five superhuman,
if I remembered correctly from the files I had gone through as part of my SDI training; he’d
been invulnerable and, although not super-strong, had had one hell of a punch. No one knew
what had happened to actually kill him; he’d been a thug and cheap muscle, nothing more
serious. If she was telling the truth, we knew now what had killed him.

“No, I didn’t,” Rani said tightly. “How did you drain his powers to that point?”

“You know what,” Frigid asked, “you need to get laid. I mean…really get laid.”
I pushed forward before Rani could say anything. “HARDCard was invulnerable,” I said,
softly. I had the feeling that I had stumbled onto something useful. “How did you manage to
hurt him like that?”

“It was quite easy,” she said, mischievously. “What are you going to give me in exchange?”

I glanced around the barren cell. “A television and maybe some video recordings?” I asked,
after a moment. It wasn’t as if I could actually get her out of The Rock; the General would
have my balls for breakfast if I even thought about it. “What else would you like?”

She pretended to think about it. “I’ll send you the bill later,” she said, after a long moment.
“The bastard liked making me hurt, so sometimes he just forced me down, so one day I stuck
back and cooled him down inside, in his head.” She giggled. “He’d never seen that coming,
so when his brain got cold, his powers just couldn’t compensate; he banged his toe and
howled as if he had been shot in the chest.”

“Typical man,” Rani commented, dryly.

“I couldn’t let him recover, so I froze him,” Frigid said. “Was that what you wanted to
know?”

“I don’t believe it,” Rani said, afterwards. “She wants what?”

“Never mind,” I said.

We spent several more hours interrogating prisoners who might have known America II and
had a personal grudge against him. Some of them were surprisingly talkative – the guards
rarely talked to the prisoners they couldn’t afford to start thinking of as humans – and others
refused to talk. The Lizardly thought that it was impossible to take powers away and thought
that was sad; his body wasn’t one that anyone would find attractive. Flaming Moe thought
that no one could have killed America. Dice Girl claimed to have been raped by the guards –
she was lying – and refused to talk until we got her a lawyer. The Awesome Bulk complained
about the food. Giant ranted and raved about how America had put him in The Rock, while
the shape-shifter Molly Everyone tried to pretend to be Rani, a pretence that was somewhat
spoiled by the handcuffs that had been firmly keeping her hands behind her back.

“We leaned one thing,” I said, as we started to head back towards the aircraft. The less said
about the last set of prisoners, the better, really. They were the real living weapons.
Personally, I thought if our survival depended on them, we would be better off losing the war.
“We know that it actually is possible to have a person’s powers deactivated.”

“Through freezing their brains,” Rani said, softly. She stroked her chin thoughtfully. “Do
you think that she knows more than she told us?”

“I don’t know,” I said. I had thought about asking the telepath to take a peek inside her mind,
but as Frigid Bitch was certifiably insane, she might sent the telepath insane as well.
Telepathy is one of the worst superpowers, no matter what some people say about it;
telepathic contact isn’t always one-way. There have probably been more telepaths than we
know about, but a lot of them will have spent their days in a lunatic ward, trying to shut out
the voices in their heads. “I wonder if…”
I cursed as my mobile phone vibrated softly. “Hello?”

“Matt,” the General’s voice said. “I need you back in New York at once.”

I knew what he was going to say before he said it. “There’s been a third murder…”
Chapter Twelve

There was no mistaking the body.

“That’s Warrior Girl,” Rani said, sounding as stunned as I was. The founder of the Guerrilla
Girls lay on the ground, an ugly slash marking her throat where it had been cut right open. In
life, she had been impressive; in death, even in her full regalia, she looked smaller, somehow.
“What the hell happened to her?”

An older man rose up from near the body. “If you want my considered professional opinion,”
he said dryly, “she died from having her throat slashed open by a knife.”

“That’s enough, Torqumada,” the General said, crossly. His heartbeat was beating faster than
I’d ever heard it, and somehow I didn’t think that it had anything to do with Rani’s presence,
or that of a dozen onlookers. This entire business was going to look jolly bad on his resume.
“Matt?”

I leaned closer and ramped up my senses. I had expected it, but the same sense, the same
smell, was in the air again; I pushed at it, trying to force it to get out of my head, but it
refused to fade. I had known what Warrior Girl had smelt like, from our brief meeting, but
even her smell and that of her blood was covered up by the strange alien scent. Whatever it
was, it seemed to be designed to confuse my senses, which was odd; did they know that I
would be called in?

“Nothing,” I said, with sudden bitterness. I stood up and paced around the room, hunting for
something that might give me a clue, but there was nothing that I could isolate. The killers
had picked their locations carefully; I had hoped for a familiar scent I could cross-reference
with the other murder locations, but there wasn't anything clear enough to pick out and keep
in mind. “What happened to her?”

A slight girl who bore more than a passing resemblance to Rani herself flinched under my
gaze. “She…Warrior Girl was due to address us girls on the subject of feminist thought and
how we could become women in our own right,” she said, nervously. A student teacher, then;
Warrior Girl had died inside a school. I saw Mayor Hathaway’s hand somewhere in the entire
business. “She flew down, came to this room to freshen up and prepare her speech, and when
she didn’t appear, I came to find out what was keeping her.”

I scowled. Teenagers, the smelliest humans in the world. The school was rank with their
smell, the sense of bursting hormones, shameless lusts and loves and sporting attempts.
Some impressions jumped out at me, others seemed to flicker right on the edge of my
perception, but overall it was just a confusing mess. The killer had known exactly what he
was doing, which meant…what? An inside job; it had to be an inside job, but who?

Doctor Torqumada coughed loudly. He was a member of the covert team, a doctor who had
literally been able to heal his patients with his powers. I’d seen him before, back when I
worked more openly for the SDI; he was not only a trained doctor, but literally a miracle
worker. When one of the stronger superhumans was injured, and it did happen, it was
Torqumada who normally saved their lives. A normal doctor couldn’t really do it; it’s very
difficult to seal together steel-hard skin.
“I have examined the body,” he said. He was also a one-man forensic team. “There are a
collection of fibres scattered around her throat and back, each one consummate with the
material used to make a pair of gloves. I believe that she was taken from behind and held
tightly for a few seconds, while the knife was drawn across her throat. It cut without any
problems at all and…well, she bled to death within seconds.”

The General scowled down at the body. “Was she molested in any way?”

Torqumada shrugged. “I don’t believe so,” he said, shortly. “Sexual activity of any kind
leaves a mark, but there’s very little here that suggests that she had sex recently, under any
conditions. She seemed to have reverted to a normal human type long enough for her killer
to slit her throat; the bastard put her down and then fled the room.”

I looked over at Rani for a moment. “We saw her two days ago,” I said. The case was almost
a week old and we were no closer to finding the murderer. This death might just be enough
to push the balance over into chaos. How would the superhuman community respond to this
latest death? “She never mentioned anything about giving a talk at this school.”

“I’m not surprised,” the General said. His face twisted in bitter memory. “She wouldn’t have
given anyone the time of day if he had a penis attached between his thighs.”

There was a story there; one day, I’d get it out of him. “This is a school,” I said, grimly.
“Did we recover anything from their security systems?”

“A localised EMP took them all out,” the General said shortly. “Again, the device was
somewhere within the school itself; the alert that should have gone out to the NYPD
somehow failed to be sent out. By the time that anyone realised that they had a problem,
Warrior Girl was dead and her killer…”

“Killers,” Torqumada said. I stared at him. “I’m convinced that there were at least two
people involved in the affair.”

The General looked at me, disappointed. I felt it like a blow; I should have been able to tell
him that and my powers had failed. It struck me, then, as the General started to detail how
the NYPD had started to question everyone who might have been involved or even present
within the school; if my powers had failed, why hadn’t Torqumada’s powers failed? Had they
failed?

“Doctor,” I said, stepping over and interrupting the General in mid-discourse. I pulled up my
leg to reveal the burn where Acidic-Man had spat a small drop of acid at me and almost hit
my genitals. “Can you work your magic on this wound?”

“You really have to stop dropping acid,” Torqumada said, with what passed for a sense of
humour in his mind. I refrained from kicking him, a restraint that should have won me a
medal or two. “Let’s see…easy.”

I have never liked the feeling of Torqumada’s fingers somehow passing into the wound and
healing it from the inside; it felt strangely invasive and unpleasant. This time, I was glad of
it; my acid-burn healed up within seconds and I even got a burst of extra energy out of the
deal. He withdrew his fingers and waggled them in front of my face.
“Strange,” I said, and explained my reasoning. My powers had failed, but Torqumada’s
hadn’t failed; why? “What’s going on here?”

The General’s right hand woman stuck her head into the office. “General,” Colonel Jasmine
Richards said, “the Mayor is on his way up into the office.”

“Oh joy,” the General said. “Tracker, you and Rani make yourself scarce in the staff room;
I’ll talk to him for the next few minutes.”

Rani rolled her eyes as soon as we were alone together. “That woman…did she deserve that
fate?”

“No one deserves to be murdered,” I said, as the junior intern in the staff room poured us both
cups of tea. They were hardly decent teas, but I drank mine anyway, thinking as fast as I
could. The Mayor was going to put the General through hell, or at least he would try; the
bastard wouldn’t be happy unless everything was going perfectly. “Hang on; I need to make
a phone call.”

I could vaguely hear the Mayor’s words as I waited for her to pick up. On impulse, I
extended my senses and listened as he shouted at the General, who didn’t sound intimidated.
The General had seen combat; the Mayor held no real terrors for him, not when some of the
people who wanted him dead could crush tanks and smash through walls in their own right.
We’d seen some of them back at The Rock. I made a mental note to ask Torqumada to look
for ice crystals in the victims’ brains – just in case – as the phone was finally picked up.

“Hi, Matt,” Layla said. I wasn't surprised; I might have a SDI-issue phone, but Layla
wouldn’t have any problems cracking the user ID. “Is it true that you’ve just lost another
one?”

“Yes,” I said, shortly. “How did you know?”

“It’s already being reported on half a dozen blogs and CNN is going to run with it in twenty
minutes,” Layla informed me cheerfully. “The death of Warrior Girl is going to be big news;
ten gets you twenty that every one of those brats you have under lock and key will be selling
their story to the media within an hour.”

“No bet,” I said. It wasn't as if we could lock up all the schoolchildren, even if they were
teenagers and therefore guilty of something on general principles. “I need you to run a cross-
reference; someone – anyone – who looks even vaguely suspicious.”

“Of course,” Layla said. “I’ll call you as soon as I find something.”

Rani was looking worried when I sat back down next to her. “Have you thought about who’s
being targeted?”

I lifted an eyebrow. “The first victim is someone who’s a retired famous superhero, but under
the circumstances, they might not actually know that he was retired,” she said, her face
creasing in bitter recollection. “The second victim is pretty much a national hero and a
pacifist; the one person he killed in his life was an accident. The third victim is a famous
pain in the butt, an idol to many girls who have never seen the real thing, and a political
power in her own right. Noticing a through line here?”

“They’ll all famous,” I said, feeling depressed. I had cursed my powers in the first weeks
since I had them – once I’d gotten out of the coma, of course. Now, without them to depend
upon, I almost felt naked. “Oh, and they’re all superhumans.”

“Famous superhumans,” Rani said, shortly. “Can you think of a better set of targets if you
wanted to really upset the superhuman community?”

I thought about it. Manna had people – including Rani – who burned to avenge his death.
Warrior Girl had the remainder of her little group and thousands of devotees around the
world. If we left America out of it…but was he merely the first target? If they thought that
they were targeting the ‘official’ America, they would certainly have expected to really piss
off the SDI. As it happened, they hadn’t gotten the real America, but had they known that?

I allowed my mind to expand? What if…someone had developed a weapon, a compound,

something completely new…that turned superpowers off for a short period of time, rendering
the superhuman vulnerable to a conventional attack? Had Marvin Lofting, far from being
taken for America, merely been selected as a convenient test subject? My mind boggled at
the thought of anyone regarding a Level Seven superhuman as merely a test subject, although
that had been exactly what Doctor Death had done back in South Africa, but if we left
America out of the equation…?

“That makes a certain kind of sense,” I said, and explained. Logically, the next target would
be someone else who might help push the situation over to boiling point, perhaps to a
superhuman war. Who? I skimmed through a mental list of superhumans, but they would all
have considerable protections, not that they had done much good in this case. “I wonder…
could it be someone trying to sabotage the Mayor’s prospects?”

Rani shrugged. I didn’t like the Mayor, but I was fairly certain that he wasn't actually the
guilty party here, not with his very career built on pandering to New York’s obsessive love
affair with superhumans. He had enemies, people like Bryce who would want him to end up
knocked out of the Presidential race, but would one of them place their career on the line to
launch a murder spree? Or, worst of all, was the weapon something from the SDI’s own
laboratories?

I dismissed the thought with an irritated shake of my head. The General would have been
delighted to have such a weapon, but he wouldn’t have launched a murder spree, nor would it
be possible to hide such a weapon from him. The unknowns had their own link within the
SDI, someone feeding them information, but I couldn’t see the SDI as being directly
responsible for the murders.

“Matt,” the General said, as he approached us. I had sensed him as soon as he entered the
room. “Do you have anything to offer me?”

“Very little,” I admitted, not looking up. I outlined my own conclusions and Rani added
some of her own. “If we’re right, another prominent superhuman is going to be targeted
next.”
“I worked that much out,” the General said, crossly. “The Mayor wants to place in
investigation in the hands of the NYPD.”

I had to laugh. “Can he do that?”

“Technically, no,” the General said. “Anything to do with superhumans falls into the SDI’s
jurisdiction, so the NYPD shouldn’t be involved, but now…he’s been on the phone to
Washington, nagging the President into granting him new powers, if there are more murders.
He also wanted the SDI overt team here, providing additional protection for the delegates
before the conference falls apart completely.”

Rani looked up with interest. “I thought they were already here,” she said. “We met America
and two others took part in the parade.”

“I’ve summoned the others here,” the General said. He scowled; the overt team is meant to
look good, rather than actually do something that might upset people. “I’ve also called
several members from the covert team here as well, on the theory that they might come in
handy if it does come down to superhuman war.”

I shuddered. “I hate to suggest it, but have you thought of simply cancelling the conference,”
I said. “Old Bill’s a reasonable man; if you suggest it and maybe remind him of our success
rate so far, maybe he’ll decide to cancel the conference and send them all back home.”

“Some of them live here anyway,” the General said. He shook his head. “I brought that up
with the Mayor, but apparently the President is very keen on the conference actually taking
place, which is a little worrying when you think about it. What secrets regarding Africa are
so sensitive that I’m out of the loop?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “All it means is that there are hundreds of possible targets for our
killers and we don’t have the manpower to cover them all.”

“And most of them are convinced that they would be safe in any circumstances anyway,” the
General added. For a moment, we all shared the same thought; all-out superhuman war in the
streets of New York. Manhattan would be shattered if nearly a thousand superhumans went
at it, hammer and tongs. “Matt, find me someone to blame…”

My phone buzzed before I could come up with a suitably cutting reply. “Hello,” I said.
“What can I do for you?”

“I found a possible connection,” Layla said. The Nerdette sounded very excited at finally
having produced a possible clue. “Have you ever heard of someone called Barbara Roth?”

“No,” I said, puzzled. “Who’s she when she’s at home?”

“Judging from her appearance, she’s just the type of girl you’d be interested in,” Layla said.
She rarely teased me – or anyone – and when she did, it meant that she was so pleased with
herself that she had forgotten her past. “Brown haired, quite pretty in a distant sort of way, a
single mother through her husband having snuffed it in a superhuman conflict, some years
ago.”
“I see,” I said, coldly. “What’s your point?”

Layla’s grin came through her voice perfectly. “This woman’s daughter goes to the school
where Warrior Girl was murdered,” she said. I felt the first spark of real hope as she
continued. “In fact, according to her social security and IRS records, she serves from time to
time as a teaching assistant there.”

I thought instantly of the assistant who had invited Warrior Girl before remembering that she
had been blonde. “Go on,” I said. “What makes her stand out?”

“She also bought a ticket to hear Manna speak at the UN,” Layla continued. “She should
have attended the speech the day before he died, but there’s no proof that she was actually
there, although I’ll keep digging. I haven’t been able to find any connection between her
and…oh, hell; Lofting’s children go to the same school as well.”

“Fuck,” I said, astonished.

“And that’s not the best of it,” Layla said. “Guess where she works normally?”

“The Humanists,” I said, taking a wild guess. “Am I correct?”

“Yep,” Layla said. “She’s apparently a work assistant there, although the bastards have their
main computers isolated from the Internet, so I don’t know what they’re doing with her in
reality.”

“I could kiss you,” I said, and smiled. “General, we have a lead.”

“Get the overt team ready,” the General said, as he reached for his own phone. I had seen
him in action before; a single barked command and superhumans, highly trained soldiers,
sailors and airmen – hell, for all I knew, they included the League of Women Voters – would
move into action. “We’ll catch them before they have a chance to escape.”

I watched as he headed off, talking with one side of his mouth and smoking a cigar with the
other. I had the unfortunate sense that our celebration was premature; it all looked too good
to be true. It was exactly what we had been expecting.

I really have to start listening to myself.

Chapter Thirteen

One thing you have to hand to the General, when he wants to organise a military or civil
police operation, he doesn’t mess around. While we were being escorted down to the cars
and meeting up with dozens of SDI operatives, he was on his mobile phone, barking orders
into the speaker and threatening the person on the other end with instant death if they failed
to carry out his orders. I pulled Rani back into a second car as the SDI team moved out,
leaving the job of cleaning up in the school to the NYPD; they wouldn’t think us for that.
The schoolchildren, those who had been there at the time, were being interrogated, but I
suspected that none of them would have actually seen anything.

There are two ways, really, to launch a police operation in a suspect location. The first
method involves charging in with guns blazing, which has so much potential for going wrong
that police forces around the world won’t use it unless they have a very good reason,
normally involving a clear and present danger to hostages. The second method is far simpler;
the assault force will seal the building, carefully evacuate the surrounding area, and then
move in. I doubted that the Humanists would put up any armed resistance, but in America,
there are literally millions of people with guns. It wasn’t unknown for receptionists to
conceal weapons under their desks; if there was a life-threatening situation, they might be
needed. I watched as the line of unmarked cars appeared, parked around the office building,
and the team spread out.

“I’m into the building’s security systems,” an agent reported, working from a small laptop
and looking over at the General. “We have complete access; the suspects are still in their
office.”

I glanced up at the sky. It was growing slowly towards twilight, but the Humanists didn’t
seem to be showing any signs of closing down for the evening; with Warrior Girl, one of their
prime enemies, down, they’d be thinking of what they could say about her on their website.
Somehow, I suspected they would be complimentary; Warrior Girl had been one of their pet
hates, ever since they had been fooled by the altered pictures of her naked. Someone else had
posed naked, and then someone with few morals and even fewer scruples had fiddled with
them to make it seem as if it was her. The Humanists had ended up with egg on their faces
and had vowed revenge.

“Good,” the General said. “Matt?”

“Keep the superhumans back,” I suggested, my mind racing ahead. If by some dark miracle
the Humanists did have something that reduced superpowers, the superhumans would be
caught by surprise and perhaps even wiped out. The reputation of the SDI would not survive
a failure of that magnitude. “I suggest sending in the non-powered teams first and keeping
the superhumans in reserve.”

“I hope you’re right,” the General said. Perhaps he’d been having similar thoughts; he didn’t
bother to tell me to piss off or simply sent in the superhumans anyway. I hoped I was right
too; hard entry is one of the most dangerous operations any combat unit can carry out and
superhumans, particularly the invulnerable superhumans, can do it with much less risk.
“Team One; sound in.”
“We’re in position,” the team leader said. An invisible, almost unnoticeable, web was being
woven around the office block. If the Humanists came out fighting, they would have their
heads handed to them. “I confirm ROE alpha-delta-three.”

Rani gave me a questioning glance. “Limited force only, no lethal force unless there’s no
choice,” I muttered. The SDI didn’t like such rules of engagement, but the one thing we
weren’t expecting to meet in the Humanists office was a superhuman. A normal human, no
matter how well trained, could be subdued fairly quickly. “If we’re lucky, we can take all of
them alive and completely unhurt.”

The General nodded. “I confirm ROE,” he said. I could hear the nervousness in his tone,
although no one else would have heard the slightest flicker of doubt; Stonewall Jackson had
had nothing on the General. “Base, confirm that we have clearance…”

“The NYPD has been informed,” his aide said. “There are three tac-squads on their way
now, and a large force of ordinary policemen are being assembled and will be with you in the
next twenty minutes.”

“Long enough,” the General said. If the Humanists had a link into the NYPD, and the odds
were good that they would have one, they would almost certainly pick up on the preparations
for a raid. They might even know the target. “Team One; go!”

The practiced fury of a commando raid spread out in front of us as the vans pulled up to the
kerb and the soldiers got out, running into the building with their weapons held at the ready,
shouting as they came. The computer hackers acted at the same time, knocking down both
the security systems and the internal communications, hopefully preventing anyone from
issuing a warning. I could track them as they raced up the stairs and burst into the Humanists
office, smaller groups racing through the other offices and arresting everyone they found
there, just in case. The SDI had considerable authority to do just that, but I knew that the
ACLU was going to have several different kinds of fit over it when they found out; young
and helpless women being manhandled by soldiers has always been good to get the outrage
flowing.

I listened as reports came back through the communications network. Each of the soldiers
was outfitted with several thousand dollars worth of communications equipment, allowing
them to share what was happening instantly; the General could, in theory, have micro-
managed them almost perfectly. He kept himself under tight control, even though he could
have issued orders at will; he had had to learn to trust his junior commanders. Not every
commanding officer learned that lesson; they tried to micro-manage without any clear idea of
what was actually going on.

“The building is secure,” the team leader said finally. “There was no effective resistance.”

“Excellent,” the General said. I shared a glance with Rani; neither of us thought that it would
be that easy. Pure Humanity had survived several attempts to wipe it out of existence; in a
world where telepaths could be used for battlefield interrogations and people like me existed
in the dark corners, that was no small achievement. “Have everyone not in the Humanist
office moved down to the lobby and held there; inform them that they have been caught in the
middle of an antiterrorist operation and that we will free them as soon as possible.”
He altered his radio. “Tell the NYPD I need the coppers now,” he ordered. “I want this
building completely sealed off without any bloody media vultures getting through the
cordon.”

“Yes, sir,” his aide said. “They’ll be there in a few minutes.”

“Come on,” the General said. “Let’s see what we have bagged.”

The interior of the lobby looked as it had looked when I’d been there before, with the
exception of the forty-two people kneeling there, their hands firmly handcuffed behind their
backs. They didn’t look relaxed at all; they were almost certainly innocent bystanders who
would have to be released fairly soon, but for the moment, we had to be certain. I caught the
eye of one terrified middle-aged man and wondered just why he was so terrified; there wasn't
anything to be scared about, was there? I made a mental note to find out why he was so
terrified of being arrested – he’d probably been up to something illegal and thought that all of
the attention was for him – and followed the General up the stairs into the Humanist office.

The team leader saluted as the General arrived. “We have seventeen prisoners, sir,” he said.
“They include the primary suspect; we’ve separated her from the others.”

I allowed myself a moment of relief. The Nerdette had confirmed that Barbara Roth had
gone into the building, but the security systems hadn’t been linked to the Internet; a wise
precaution, as it turned out, but a frustrating problem for us. If she had taken even minimal
precautions when she left the building, she could have been well away from the city by the
time we hit the building.

“Good,” the General said. He led the way into the main office; I saw both the crippled
receptionist, still in her wheelchair, and Director Benito Zinnia. Zinnia was trying hard to be
brave, but he was terrified; a man like him always feared what he had done or would have
done to other men. “Mr Zinnia; a pleasure to meet you.”

Zinnia tried to look as assuming as he could, a tricky task when someone was in handcuffs,
and glared at the General. “This is a completely illegal action,” he protested. I had the sense
that he had been genuinely surprised by the raid; there wasn’t even a flicker of awareness that
there would be a raid in his mind. “You have finally overstepped your authority.”

The General cut him off. “You are all under arrest, under the various regulations governing
the actions of the SDI,” he said. “I am obliged to warn you that anything you say may be
used against you in evidence.”

Zinnia fixed a lethal gaze on the General. If looks could kill, which was quite possible for
several hundred superhumans, the General would be ashes on the floor. “And, prey tell, what
charges are you arresting us for?”

The General looked at him. “On suspicion of being involved with the deaths of three
superhumans,” he said. “Or are you trying to tell me that you are unaware of the death of
Warrior Girl?”
“We don’t kill people,” Zinnia snapped. I cursed under my breath; unless my senses were
deceiving me, he was telling the truth there, or at least the truth as he saw it. “We’re a
political party, for God’s sake; we’re not in the business of killing people!”

“That must make you unique,” the General said. Zinnia bit off a bitter moment of dark
humour. “Matt?”

I leaned forward. “Did you kill Warrior Girl?”

“No,” Zinnia said. I cursed again; I had hoped that his bigotry, against superhumans, had
been great enough for him to literally start treating them – us – as subhuman. The direct
question, however, had provoked an angry response; he didn’t know anything about it. “I
don’t even know who killed her, or who’s framing us.”

“Enough,” the General said, and led us both into the side room. “What did you learn?”

“He’s telling the truth as he sees it,” I admitted, grimly. At best, the SDI was going to come
out of this entire affair looking like idiots. “He didn’t kill her and he doesn’t know who
actually killed her, but I think we’d better talk to Barbara Roth.”

The General nodded. “Come on,” he said. “We can’t hold them for longer than a week, so
we’d better make the best of it.”

Barbara Roth proved to be pretty, or she would have been pretty if she hadn’t looked so badly
shaken. The Nerdette had been right; she was just my type, but I’ve never been into sadism
or bondage; handcuffed, frightened out of her life, there was little attractive about her. The
guards hadn’t done anything to her apart from shoving a gun in her face and handcuffing her,
but her emotional state was such that she expected them to break out the rubber hoses and
other torture devices at any moment.

“Be gentle,” I muttered, as she looked up at us. I’d skimmed through what information the
Nerdette had been able to gather on her, but that had been patchy; the only clue of real
interest had been that Barbara had lost her husband to a superhuman conflict. I leaned closer
and took in the scents surrounding her body; she didn’t seem to have taken up with anyone
else since then, which wasn't that unusual for someone who actually had a caring heart. I’d
seen it before; they through that they were somehow responsible for the death of their
previous partner and refused to get involved with anyone else.

The General scowled. “You talk to her,” he said. “We’ll just watch.”

“Barbara,” I said, as calmly as I could. It was like talking to a wild animal; you had to be
gentle and firm at the same time. “Barbara, do you understand what’s happened to you?”

Her eyes were filled with bright tears. “I’m under arrest,” she said, sobbing slightly. The
tears were genuine tears. “Who’s going to look after my kids?”

“I’ll have a person sent round to look after them,” I said, nodding to the General. The media
would figure it out sooner or later; by then, the kids would have to be in protective custody,
for their own good as much as anything else. Warrior Girl’s death – and their mother a
suspect in her death – would make their lives unliveable. “My name is Matt; I’m from the
Superhuman Defence Initiative.”

She shook slightly. “What do you want from me?”

“You’re a suspect in the deaths of three superhumans,” I said, grimly. I wasn’t sure how far I
could push her; unlike the other people we’d talked to, she was on the verge of a complete
mental breakdown. A telepath might find out more, but his evidence would be inadmissible
in court. We’d have to find other pieces of proof before we could put her in front of a jury. “I
need you to answer my questions as thoroughly as possible.”

She didn’t reply. “Warrior Girl is dead,” I said. The name meant something to her. “Who
killed her?”

“I don’t know,” she said, her voice sick with the conviction that she wouldn’t be believed. I
believed her; she was innocent, telling the truth, which meant…that our lead had just fizzled
out. I ground my teeth silently in rage; whatever else happened, we had gone haring down
the wrong path. “I don’t know.”

“It’s all right,” I said, placing a hand on her shoulder. She needed the human touch, more
than anything else; she had to know that I believed her. “I do believe you…”

She rattled the handcuffs. “Then why am I still under arrest?”

There was something there; an emotional resonance. She had expected to be arrested…why?
“You tell me,” I said, carefully. Had she been knowingly used to create a false lead. “Why
would we arrest you?”

“Because of all the information I gather,” she said, through tears and gasps. I felt my heart
almost stop for a moment. “I came here because they killed my Charles and no one did
anything to stop them, so I came here and…that bastard Mayor turned him into a deputy.”

I winced. Superhuman violence occurred on a scale that was almost beyond imagination…
and it almost never, as the comic books claimed, took place in conveniently uninhabited
buildings scheduled for being knocked down. There were dozens of American superhumans
who had started a career as superheroes, only to discover that people got hurt just by being
too close to them; they tended to be deputized by the local authorities, recruited into the SDI,
or sometimes violently shut down. You can’t have a person like Superman or Batman in the
real world, even if they do possess superpowers; someone has to be accountable for their
actions. Mayor Hathaway had been busy; New York had almost a hundred superhumans on
the police rolls. Idiot.

I forced myself to return to the subject at hand. “What sort of information do you gather?”

“On superhumans,” she said, her voice slightly more collected now. “I wanted to find a way
to hurt them, but the boss wanted us to remain non-violent, so we concentrated on gathering
information on the different superhumans around the world, information that could be used to
handle them if necessary. Did you know that the first guy who died had a history of
intimidating people in Hell’s Kitchen?”
They’d all been gang leaders, but I held my peace. “I went to hear their talks and collect
information,” she said. “I wanted to know everything about them…Warrior Bitch is going to
try to indoctrinate my daughter into being a little princess, while she tells young men that
they might as well cut off their penises…”

Told, not tell, I thought grimly. She wasn’t using the past tense.

Rani stepped forward. “What did you collect about Manna?”

I met Rani’s eyes as Barbara stumbled through an explanation. She might not be the killer,
but she had gathered information that could be used by the killer, information that could be
used to pick a location for the murder. Had someone managed to gain access to her database?
I’d have to check with the Nerdette, maybe even bring her into the building and have her link
directly into the database herself; had someone used her to draw crosshairs over the targets?

I leaned forward. “Barbara,” I said, carefully, “at the moment, you’re in serious trouble. The
information you gathered was used to kill the dead superhumans, and that makes you partly
to blame. Are you willing to help us track down the murderer?”

She didn’t have the strength to bargain. “If you keep my kids safe,” she said, shaking. The
General looked at me and nodded; we could do that. “I’ll help you…”

There was an almighty crash and then the wall shattered inwards; I yanked her off the seat
and sent her crashing to the floor as something – someone – smashed right through the wall.
My senses almost overloaded and I focused on controlling them long enough to find out what
was going on; someone had just burst right into the room.

“Where is she?” He demanded. There was no mistaking the dubious spandex outfit or the
grim note in his voice; I felt Barbara whimper beneath me. “Give her to me, now!”

Dark Guardian.
Chapter Fourteen

“Do you not hear me?” He demanded. “Give her to me!”

I clenched my teeth as I pulled myself back to my feet. Dark Guardian is one of the
superhumans who dresses up like a drama queen; dark outfit, dark cape, even darker mask
covering his face. I think he’s watched too many Batman movies in his youth, although
Batman never had any actual superpowers; his outfit almost, but not quite, infringes
copyright. The SDI wasn't interested in taking him on the overt team, despite pressure from
the Mayor and Dark Guardian’s agents; Dark Guardian is simply too much of a wannabe
alpha male to work well with others. There are too many superhumans who think that their
superpowers make them God; it’s not as if power brought them any real responsibility. If
Mayor Hathaway hadn’t deputized him, the odds were that he would have ended up in The
Rock sooner or later, like the other unfortunates there.

The General took a step forward. There was no real fear in his body. “No,” he said, flatly. I
wondered if he knew who Dark Guardian was, under the mask; the law only requires
deputized superhumans to divulge their identities to the Mayor and the Chief of Police. “She
is under arrest for involvement and will be treated as a suspect…”

“She as good as killed them personally,” Dark Guardian thundered. I extended my senses
again and cursed under my breath; the bastard wasn't too tightly wrapped at the best of times,
and now he was downright unstable. It made me wonder; just what had the Mayor been
thinking when he offered him the badge? Perhaps Dark Guardian had managed to take
photos of him in a compromising position or something…or maybe the Mayor had never
realised how dangerous Dark Guardian was. “She needs to be punished for her crimes.”

The General stared him down. “She will be interrogated, placed in front of a jury, and
then…”

“Some rich lawyer will get her off on a technicality,” Dark Guardian snapped, cutting the
General off again. Don’t you just hate the way superpowers make some people act? It would
have been funny if part of me didn’t agree with him. “You know how people regard
terrorists; by the time she comes to trial, the groupies will be out there in force and they’ll
convince the court that she’s nothing more than a victim of circumstance.”

I reached down for my phone. This was going to get really ugly, really fast. “I can’t let you
take her,” the General said, calmly, but I could sense his growing concern. “We need to know
what she knows.”

“We’ll get it out of her,” Dark Guardian said. “I know a telepath who can dig through her
mind” – Barbara whimpered; telepathic rape was the fear of the decade – “and we will find
out who’s behind the murders before we track him down and kill him as well. Give her to
me!”

I found my senses sharpening rapidly; Dark Guardian stood in front of me, an invulnerable
flying bastard, charged with superhuman power. I hunted for weaknesses as he moved and
found very little that I could use; Dark Guardian was rated at Level Seven, if not Level Eight.
His file said nothing about having any long-range offensive capabilities, but it wasn’t as if he
actually needed them; he would be very difficult to stop without them. My hand touched the
phone, trying to key in an emergency code…and Dark Guardian lunged forward, shoving the
General out of the way with a sickening crack. I had only a second’s warning and threw
myself back, knowing even as I moved that it was too late, and then Rani smacked him as
hard as she could. The bastard was sent smashing back through the wall, like America should
have been thrown when he had been killed, and Rani caught me.

“Never mind me,” I snapped. My senses were fully awakened now and I could tell that Dark
Guardian had already managed to stop his helpless flight before he crashed into another
building. “Don’t let him take her!”

My phone felt moist in my hands; I was more nervous than I had thought. “This is an
emergency,” I snapped, as I heard the thunder-cracks of two superhumans going at it hammer
and tongs. “Get America up here now and get the entire area evacuated, now!”

I scooped up Barbara with one hand as the General pulled himself to his feet, blood leaking
from his arm. Dark Guardian had snapped it with ease, more or less accidentally; I leant him
some support as we stumbled out of the office. The noise was terrifyingly loud; Barbara
moaned once and then fainted, even as I yanked her across my shoulder. She was a lucky
girl; if she had been awake, she would have known just what was going on around us, and
how much danger we were in.

“Get the prisoners out of here,” I snapped, cursing Dark Guardian under my breath. Rani was
rated at being a Level Seven herself, but she had more experience; would it count for much
against Dark Guardian? Being completely nutty was one hell of an equaliser; insane men
will conceive of things that no sane man would dare to even imagine. The soldiers, some of
them completely new to superhuman conflict, stumbled as the building shook around them; I
judged that one of the combatants had been knocked into the building again. One of the
soldiers took the General and escorted him out of the building; he’d have to see the Doctor
before it became much worse. “Move…”

The ceiling smashed down, only a short space from me; Dark Guardian emerged from the
smoke. His mask was intact, but I knew that he was furious; he advanced on us with a grim
inevitable motion, daring me to do something to him. I would have happily killed him at that
moment; if he were here, that meant that Rani had been stunned, at least. Could he have
killed her?

“Give her to me,” he snapped. I was starting to wonder if he knew any other lines. “She
killed my friend!”

I forced myself to stall. “Which friend was that?”

“Marvin,” Dark Guardian snapped. He meant the second America; had their paths crossed in
Hell’s Kitchen? I found it hard to believe that he would actually have approved of Dark
Guardian, not from what I had heard about him. “I will have my pound of flesh and…”

A blue, red and white streak shot past me, too quickly even for me to sense before it was too
late, and something crashed into Dark Guardian. The two superhumans smashed through the
wall and were gone; only the thunderous noise of them exchanging punches could be heard. I
caught Barbara’s unconscious body in a stronger grip and ran down the remaining stairs and
out into the streets, hoping that the third America would be able to keep Dark Guardian busy
long enough for me to get her away.

The noise was much louder out in the streets. I glanced up and saw three of our modern gods
locked in battle. Rani was alive, thank God – or Allah, in her case – and she was still
fighting, trading blows with Dark Guardian, who fought back with a mixture of calculated
tactical fighting and sheer insanity. America looked as if he was fighting according to a plan,
but I knew better; most superhuman battles at that level tended to be endurance contests,
rather than tactical contests.

I spied a prisoner van and stumbled over to it. “Get her out of here,” I snapped at the driver,
dumping her unceremoniously in the back of the van. The normal procedure was to secure
her to the seats, but there was no time, not now. “Take her to the SDI centre and tell them to
get what they can from her!”

The noise of the battle was growing louder. The NYPD were working desperately to get as
many people away from the battle as possible, but I knew that there was no way they could
evacuate the entire area that might be affected. Dark Guardian was outnumbered, but he
wasn't dying easily; I watched as he caught hold of America and forced him down towards
the ground, hard. They slammed into the ground and triggered what felt like an earthquake,
sending shockwaves out right across the city. A moment later, Dark Guardian was back in the
air…and a furious America was right behind him.

My lips twitched. If nothing else, this very public appearance would suggest that rumours of
America’s death had been gravely exaggerated. I could hear America shouting to Rani, but
Dark Guardian’s ranting kept overpowering it; the man was more than just a little unstable, he
was completely unstable. I had a thought and waved him towards the tarmac, hoping that he
would see and take the hint. A moment later, I knew that I’d been wrong about this new
America; he could think for himself.

“Down,” he shouted, and forced Dark Guardian down towards the street, his heat vision
melting the tarmac before they drove into the melted mess. Dark Guardian seemed to twitch
and threw him off with a kick, but it was too late; the melted tarmac was solidifying rapidly
over his face, cutting off his breath. It was one of the easiest ways to kill a superhuman, but
what we didn’t know was simple; did Dark Guardian need to breath?

Rani watched as Dark Guardian flew up, his hands desperately scrabbling at his head, and
then he fell, down towards the ground. She screamed at America to catch him and the
younger man caught him, saving Dark Guardian from plummeting into the ground at a vast
speed; I ran over to the body and confirmed, rapidly, that he was still alive.

America looked as stern as a man can look when he’s wearing a mask. “Dark Guardian,
under the powers invested in me, I am formally arresting you for attempted lethal assault on
an officer of the SDI, the deaths of at least seventeen bystanders and causing countless
injuries,” he said. I could taste the anger under his words; he’d been taught to keep his
powers under careful control and Dark Guardian had mocked all such precautions. “You
have the right to remain silent, you have the right to an attorney, but please bear in mind that I
am authorised to use lethal force in the event of you attempting to break out or otherwise
resist arrest.”
“He’s not out of it,” I warned, grimly. At least the immediate crisis was at an end, although I
was certain that there would be another one as the superhuman community became more and
more scared for its very existence. The killers only had another six thousand, nine hundred
and ninety-seven to go before they had wiped out every superhuman on the planet; for
superhumans, that doesn’t sound like a lot. “The Doctor can get some inhibitors into his
bloodstream…”

Dark Guardian attempted to thrash and America put his foot firmly on his chest. “Shut up,
you,” he snapped. “Sir, I believe with the General out of it, you’re in charge. What do I do
with him now?”

I looked over towards the mob of ambulances and cursed. The media would be having a field
day; I could sense well over a hundred people within the ambulances, people who had been
badly injured in the fighting, merely collateral damage as fat as the fighters were concerned.
Torqumada would be able to save many of their lives, but life as they knew it was over; they
would never trust a superhuman again.

“Torqumada can inject him with some inhibitors and then we can move him to a holding
cell,” I said, tiredly. I waved towards the Doctor and he came ambling over. “Doctor, this…
person has to be kept down.”

“Understood,” Torqumada said, flatly. Dark Guardian struggled, but without enough oxygen,
it was hard, even for him, to muster his strength. He was injected with both a power inhibitor
and a sedative. “The General will be fine, Matt; I repaired all the damage and got him back
on his feet.”

“Good,” I said. “Now…”

“You can’t take him anyway,” a familiar voice said. “Dark Guardian is a legally deputised
police operative.”

“Good evening, Isabel,” I said, keeping my voice as calm as I could. “What exactly can we
do for you?”

“I want you to release that man at once,” Chief Isabel Cordova said. “Dark Guardian is a
legally appointed officer of the City of New York.”

And she, I recalled, might well know who he was. “You have got to be out of your mind,”
America said, before anyone else could speak. For the moment, I was quite prepared to let
him talk. “This…bastard is responsible for at least nine deaths, a direct assault on an SDI
officer and maybe even much more.”

“And you and me both know that there’s absolutely no chance that he’ll see the inside of a
jail,” Isabel snapped. There was no give in her voice, but I had a sense of weakness, as if
something wasn't quite right. “He has a certain amount of permitted fatalities…”

“He’s not bloody allowed to go around assaulting officers of the law,” America snapped, and
I heard real anger in his tone. He had liked and respected the General. “I have a duty to take
him into custody and find out what he knows and just what else he might be guilty of before
he does it again.”
“Quite right,” a voice said. The General was stumbling over, leaning on one of his soldiers,
but his voice was as firm as ever. He sounded as if he was very, very, angry, but keeping it
under firm control. “I don’t know what was going through your head when you gave him a
badge and permission to work as part of your police force, but I think you made the wrong
call.”

Isabel coloured. Against her skin, it looked spectacular. “The decision was made as a result
of the concerns caused by the sudden appearance of post-humans with demonic tendencies
that might have had an effect on the state of the world,” she said. I took a moment to puzzle
that out. “In the event of more superhumans coming to the Big Apple, it was decided that we
should enlist as many as possible to our cause, the cause of protecting this fair city from any
harm.”

“You’re a grand future ahead of you as a politician,” I said, grimly.

“The local affairs of the State of New York are none of your concern,” Isabel snapped,
ignoring my jibe. “I must insist, now, that you release him into my custody.”

“Actually,” the General said, mildly, “the affairs of the State of New York are my concern,
particularly when they involve superhumans. I must remind you” – I could hear the contempt
in his voice – “that when the Federal Government made all matters relating to superhumans a
Federal concern, they granted the Superhuman Defence Initiative wide-ranging powers
covering anything to do with superhumans. That you have limited powers to…deputize a set
of superhumans does not impinge upon my overall powers and responsibilities.”

He waved a hand around the scene, focusing on the damaged buildings and the small, weak,
dead bodies that were slowly being brought out of the building. “Now, I confess that I care
very little about your local politics, but I suspect that an incident like this will not go
unnoticed by your local people; the very same people who voted Mayor Hathaway into
power. They will want to know just what happened, why, and why someone gave a badge to
a certified manic. It would be in your best interests to cooperate with me, and putting him
back on the streets within hours would not be cooperating with me.”

She flinched slightly. “Legally, you have no right to demand that I just return him,” he
concluded. “If you want to complain, you have to do it through the Mayor and the Federal
Government. You would be quite within your rights to complain about me taking him out of
your jurisdiction, but I cannot simply hand him over to you.” He paused, just long enough
for her to open her mouth. “And if I were you, I’d start thinking of some really good excuses
for when the people start demanding explanations.”

He walked off and we followed, leaving Isabel behind. “Matt, what did you do with her?”

“I sent her to the local base,” I said, shortly. America, carrying a stunned Dark Guardian,
held him out like a prize. There were people staring at him from a safe distance; somehow, I
suspected that many of them would no longer look at him in quite the same way again.
“What do you want to do with him?”

“We’ll move him to the temporary holding facility,” the General said. He looked up at me.
His face was willing me to understand. “Something is very rotten in the City of New York.”
“A rotten apple somewhere,” I guessed. He gave me a sharp look. The General doesn’t
approve of levity in the field. “What do you want us to do?”

“Talk around and find out just what’s going on behind the scenes,” the General said. He
glanced at his watch. “It’s only a couple of days until the conference opens; I want to know
what’s going on before it’s too late. I’m going to have to call in the reserves; I think we’re
going to have more incidents like this one and the next one might not be so easily contained.”

“Yes,” I agreed, looking back towards the wrecked buildings and shattered lives. The people
there had been lucky; if every superhuman in New York had been involved, the city would be
reduced to rubble. “The next one might not be so easy to deal with.”
Chapter Fifteen

“But of course the Mayor has his ambitions,” New York Public Advocate Henry Bryce said,
as he sipped a cup of tea in front of us. “Everyone knows that he wants to be President in the
next term of office.”

“Really,” I said. “Why does he feel that he has a chance?”

Bryce sat back with the air of a lecturer. He was older than I had expected, around thirty; an
up-and-coming upper-class boy whose voice spoke of nothing, but the best schools and
education in the country. I had researched him before visiting, with the help of the Nerdette,
and Bryce was titled old money; literally. Several of his cousins on the English side actually
held aristocratic titles and his wife was fond of referring to herself as Lady Bryce, although
never in public. He looked almost like a caricature of James Bond, right down to the perfect
black hair, black dining suit and rose in his buttonhole. His smile was wide, bright, and
completely insincere.

I disliked him on sight. The post of Public Advocate was almost useless, from a political
power point of view, but as a stepping-stone, it could serve as a way to move to higher
positions. It also had the advantage that while Bryce was first in line to succeed the Mayor if
something happened to him, he wouldn’t have to take any responsibility for problems
himself; he was free to condemn the Mayor’s handling of the Superhuman Murder Mystery –
as the media were already calling it – as much as he liked. No one would call him on it.

“It’s really quite simple,” he said. “The majority of people who try to become President have
tended to serve as Governors first; a person who serves in the Senate has a voting record
behind him that he has to live down, somehow. Reagan was a Governor…Cheney was a
Governor…I think there hasn’t really been an exception for quite some time. Of course,
Cheney had the distant advantage of not being President Dukakis, but even so…”

He shrugged, expressively. “The Mayor is, of course, quite an important figure in New
York,” he explained. “But, for the rest of the country, they rarely hear about him in the news
unless he screws up big time or does something very heroic, and that imposes limitations on
his voting base. A politician without at least some appeal to the overall country, a
countrywide ready-made base of support, is one who won’t have any guaranteed voters for
the coming election. The newer parties, the ones that don’t last very long, can experiment,
but without a critical mass, their candidates tend to vanish without trace.”

I considered it. “Ross Perot didn’t vanish without trace,” I said. “How do you account for
him?”

“He didn’t win the election,” Bryce said, dryly. “Put simply, each of the political parties will
whittle down the possible candidates until they get someone they can broadly support, and
then they will back him to the hilt. If they have the White House already, they will generally
support the President unless he stands down, but if not, they will focus on building up their
candidate as much as possible. These are some smart people out there, with their pocket
computers and their lists of supporters, financial contributors and grassroots campaigners.
They are focused on just one question; can the candidate get elected?”

I laughed. “When does democracy get a look in?”

“When the two candidates finally start going at it,” Bryce said. “You’ll be given a choice
between a Republican, a Democrat, and sometimes, very rarely, an independent. Each of the
candidates will have an awesome machine behind them, trying to gain funding, support and
tactical votes, while destabilising their opponents as much as possible. The mafia has nothing
on an American presidential election.”

He lit a cigarette and blew a perfect ring of blue smoke. “A lot has changed over the last few
years,” he admitted. “The Internet, for example, puts more supporters of various candidates
in touch with each other, without going through the established power-brokers. I suspect that
in the next five years, everything will change remarkably, but for the moment, some
candidates have been able to raise surprisingly high amounts through the Internet, something
that gives them an unexpected boost. I actually have a theory that the next few elections will
go to the party that masters the potentials of the new technology.”

I had to smile. “Why don’t you point that out to them?”

He smiled back at me. “And ruin my own chance at using it?”

Rani laughed. “Don’t you have any conception of party loyalty?”

“Of course not,” Bryce admitted, honestly. “I’m a politician.”

I cleared my throat. “How does this all relate to the Mayor?”

Bryce took another puff from his cigarette before answering. “His Honour has ambitions, as
I said,” he said. “The main problem is that he cannot go too far up the ladder without
shattering his ambitions; if he gets offered a safe seat as a Senator or Congressman, he’s in
real trouble. What he wants – needs – is to do something so spectacular that he suddenly
gains a support base right across the country.”

I took a wild guess. “The conference,” I said. “That’s what he has in mind.”

“Precisely,” Bryce said. He grinned at me and winked at Rani. By now, most of the world
would know who she was, civilian clothes or not. They would have seen her struggling with
the Dark Guardian. “You have to understand; there are certain factors that play well to
American audiences, particularly those who don’t entirely associate themselves with
America. Take the black vote, for a start; there’s no black candidate, so why hasn’t one ever
been put forward, seriously?”

“I would hate to deprive you of the fun of telling me,” I said, dryly. “Why has there never
been a black candidate?”

“Because all the racists would vote for the other party,” Bryce said. “The same goes for a
woman, or a Hispanic; the sad fact is that white middle-aged males have an unbroken success
rate at winning the Presidency. But…if you can do something for the black voters, you have
their support…provided that the ‘something’ doesn’t cost too much.”

He shrugged. “There’s a general perception that the vast majority of blacks in this country
live on social programs,” he said. “It’s bullshit, but the perception exists anyway, so it has to
be dealt with. Someone who pledges to fund new regeneration programs with federal funds,
which means taxpayers money, won’t get very far, but a program that might actually help
Africa? They love it.”

I frowned. “But I thought that the conference was Bill Clinton’s idea?”

“You poor child,” Bryce said, without any real malice. “At such levels, the issue of power
and responsibility becomes a little hard to define. As the military puts it, success has a
thousand fathers, while defeat is an orphan. Even I couldn’t tell you just who actually came
up with the idea for the conference, but the Mayor certainly made it his own, even though
technically he has little authority over the United Nations.”

I remembered the string of complaints about the UN staffers and their behaviour, and nodded.
“So, what’s his endgame?”

“If the conference is a perfect success, the Mayor will have a strong chance at winning the
nomination for the 2012 election,” Bryce said. “You will note that he’s chosen superhumans
as his cause, in a way, and that brings him the votes of their groupies, but if there are a few
more incidents like the one you two saw, he’s popularity is going to go down the tubes. I
wouldn’t be too surprised if the Humanists start pressing for a recall election within the
week.”

I remembered watching Director Benito Zinnia on television. “I bear no hostility at all

towards the SDI,” he’d said, magnanimously absolving us of all blame. “I place the blame
squarely on Mayor Hathaway and his irresponsible polices towards persons of mass
destruction!”

“I see, I think,” I said. “How many superhumans has the Mayor had deputised to the city?”

“Truthfully,” Bryce admitted, “I’m not sure, and that’s rather worrying when you think about
it. The laws are intended to provide some cover for their secret identities, but if they started
to be a problem, the people overseeing them would turn what they know over to the SDI and
then the SDI would deal with them. You see…back when superhumans started to appear, the
idea was that they could actually serve as public guardians, provided that they answered to
some oversight. Many registered and joined up, but not always within the same limits; Police
Dude, for example, serves as a regular police officer, while Dark Guardian was merely
registered and did his own thing, rather than being paid for his work. It’s a tough call to
make; someone like that will work whenever he feels like working, rather than nine to five or
whatever.”

Rani frowned. “Why was Dark Guardian even given a badge?”

“You’d have to ask the Mayor,” Bryce said. “If there were problems with him back then,
God alone knows what he was thinking, but with the murders, everyone is on edge at the
moment.”

“True enough,” I said. Despite the fact I didn’t like him, I was starting to suspect that Bryce
was actually innocent in the affair. “What would happen to the Mayor if everything blew up
in his face?”
“That would depend on if the city was still standing,” Bryce said, with a dark smile. “If it
was reasonably intact, the City Council would probably recall the Mayor and kick him out of
office, which would torpedo his chances of becoming President. He’s already got some
issues going with them, starting with the entire Dark Guardian fiasco, so he might be recalled
and lose an election. If that happens…well, that’s the end of him?”

I nodded. “How many enemies does the Mayor have?”

Bryce smiled dryly. “At the moment, I’d say everyone who was nearby when Dark Guardian
went bonkers,” he said. “Apart from that, he’s got his fair share of enemies on the City
Council, as well as several people who want to take his job, Republicans who want to ensure
that his plans for running for President get scuttled before they get too far advanced, everyone
who hates the UN…it would probably be easier to make a list of everyone who doesn’t hate
the Mayor.”

I stroked my chin. The feeling of stubble reminded me that I hadn’t shaved for a few days.
“Does he have any enemies who would have the resources to create something new in the
way of anti-superhuman weapons?” I asked. “Are there any mad scientists who he’s
spurned, or something; people who might want revenge?”

“This isn’t a bad science-fiction movie,” Bryce said, severely. “All jokes and comic book fun
aside, the Mayor has a surprisingly clean background; I would have said it was too clean, but
I’m a cynic. He has a bunch of supporters who tell lies about him, but as far as anyone has
ever been able to determine, he has never endorsed them personally. Apart from that…there’s
a small South African community somewhere in upstate New York that would definitely have
a motive; the Mayor opposed their presence because they were racist bigots.”

He shrugged. “I would have said that the Humanists provided the most likely candidates, but
even they seem to be innocent,” he concluded. “Or, I suppose, I could be a suspect. Do you
suspect me?”

“Not yet,” I said, meeting his eyes and keeping my senses focused on him. “Did you kill
them?”

“No,” Bryce said. “I don’t even know who killed them. I just want him caught and punished
before someone else dies.” He paused. “The Mayor doesn’t get on that well with his wife;
apparently, she’s a silly woman who spends most of her time shopping and yakking away to
her friends on the phone. They don’t have any children – his decision, not hers – and that
grates on her.”

I lifted an eyebrow. “And you know that…how?”

“You’d be amazed what some people share when they want to complain about their partners,”
Bryce said. “The Mayor’s wife gets very talkative when she gets more than a little gin inside
her system. There was even talk of her going to join the Guerrilla Girls or something stupid
like that; that can’t have pleased the Mayor, not after he spent so much effort on luring them
into coming to New York in the first place.”

I would have bet half my salary that Bryce had been hoping that she would tell him
something interesting about the Mayor that he could use for blackmail material. Instead, he’d
found out information that was probably useless, even if the Mayor’s career survived the
murder spree. If the Mayor were abusive to his wife, it would blow his career prospects out
of the water; Americans tend to think that a man who abuses his wife is the lowest form of
cad imaginable.

I formed a question in my mind. “Was he abusive to her?”

Bryce hesitated. “I don’t think so,” he said, after a moment. “I don’t think she was ever hit,
or beaten, or anything…but I don’t think that he was interested in her as anything other than
a…accessory, someone to wear on his arm when he went to functions that demanded a
hostess, or something. He paid for her shopping and never bothered to question the bill, but I
don’t think he was fulfilling her emotional needs.”

Rani leaned forward. “Was he having an affair?”

“Not with another woman,” Bryce said. I looked at him suspiciously. “There’s a certain kind
of person who finds power, true power, more intoxicating than anything he can get between
the legs of a woman, no matter how skilled she is at bringing him to the boil. He would have
left her to have an affair with the White House, but not for another woman; she, on the other
hand, might have had an affair. I honestly don’t think he would have cared.”

“It would have reflected badly upon him,” Rani said. “He might have felt compelled to take
action.”

“True,” Bryce said. He looked at his watch again. “Is there anything else I can do for you?”

“No,” I said, recognising the dismissal. “Thank you for your time…one question.”

Bryce smiled. “Of course,” he said. “What do you want to ask?”

I held his gaze. “Did you have an affair with his wife?”

“Cheeky question,” Bryce said. I smiled as I saw the answer in his body language. “I’ll see
you next time.”

Rani smiled as we went back out onto the streets. “Was he having an affair with her?”

“I think so,” I said, and we laughed together. The General would probably take the
information and bear it in mind for the future. The SDI might want to use it one day to
blackmail Bryce into doing something for us. “What did you think of him?”

“Typical power-mad politician,” Rani said. She rolled her eyes. “I’ve met a lot of people
like that and most of them brought ruin to Bangladesh. Why do you Americans tolerate
them?”

“It takes a real idiot to seriously damage America,” I said, thinking about some of the
Presidents we’d had. Of all of them, only James Buchanan had brought the country to the
brink of ruin and done much to make the Civil War inevitable. Nixon, who had been
threatened with impeachment, and Dukakis, who had cost us much of our influence in the
Middle East and Latin America, hadn’t hurt the core of America.
My mind was running elsewhere. “I think that it’s time we started setting a trap,” I said, and
met her eyes. She didn’t deserve to be placed at risk with me. “If you don’t want to be
involved, then…”

“Please don’t insult me,” Rani said, and spoilt the effect a little by winking. She really was
quite pretty when she smiled. “I’ve been in more danger than you have ever been in your
life.”

“Maybe,” I said, remembering some of the missions I’d done for the General. This one, with
Dark Guardian and everything, was proving to be one of the more peaceful missions,
although I thought that that would change if we couldn’t find the killer soon. “Were you
planning to attend the conference?”

“Manna was planning to attend,” Rani said. “I was just going to be his escort. Someone else
will be sent over to represent Bangladesh, but I wasn't going to attend.”

“I think we should attend,” I said. “You, I, America and the General, and we’re going to tell
everyone that we’re right behind the murderers…and it will only be a matter of time before
we catch them and skin them alive.”

“And provoke them into action,” Rani realised. “If they take the bait…”

“They might come after us,” I said. “If they do that, we will both be in danger, but we can
arrange it so that we are tracked constantly by the SDI and when we’re attacked, they can
rush soldiers in to help trap the murderers. The other possibility is that they’ll go to ground
and…well, at least people will stop being killed.”

“It sounds like a bit of a…desperate plan,” Rani said. I could only nod in agreement; she was
entirely correct. It was a desperate plan, born out of a growing conviction that I was wasting
time and chasing my own tail. “Is there anything else we can do?”

“We can keep turning the superhuman world upside down,” I said, simply. “We’ll go
everywhere, find people who might have a motive to hurt any of the three victims, and
demand answers. I have a nasty feeling, however, that we’re running out of time; I expect
that there will be a fourth murder any day now.”
Chapter Sixteen

The new United Nations building had been paid for, partly, by contributions from various
superhuman groups; the General had once told me just how much money they earned in a
year and I had been astonished. Warrior Girl had been worth, personally, several billion
dollars; her group had been quite astonishingly wealthy, both in cash and property. That sort
of money bought friends; there were right-wing nuts who believed, quite firmly, that it was
all part of a giant plan to have superhumans take over the world. I would have believed it
myself, were it not for the fact that I had met superhumans and knew perfectly well that no
grand scheme for world dominance would last longer than it took for them to start arguing
over who was in charge.

I shifted uncomfortably in my suit. I don’t like wearing a hired suit, but the only alternative
was to wear my uniform, and I had sworn off wearing that long enough. I didn’t carry an ID
card, trusting in the guards to know who I was; the people I was here to see and be seen by
would also know who I was. The General himself lurked towards the rear of the room,
passing almost unremarked; it’s strange, given just how many people his work affects, how
few people actually know what he looks like. Attention was focused on David Bar Elias, the
politically-appointed Director of the SDI; his real job, the General had once explained, was to
take the blame for anything that went wrong. The position hadn’t been the same since
Condoleezza Rice took the rap for a superhuman registration scheme and was sacked by the
then President.

“You look fine,” Rani said. I had expected her to come wearing her uniform, but she had
worn, instead, a reasonably demur dress. She didn’t represent Bangladesh, not formally; the
Ambassador and the staff from the Embassy were handling that themselves. The massive
room held hundreds of people and, despite my best efforts, I had had to stay as far from the
rest of them as possible. I could be aware of everything about them with very little effort; my
senses would have told me more than I wanted to know about their lives and careers. “Where
shall we start?”

“The General,” I said, shortly. I’d caught the hand signal from the General; we slipped into
one of thousands of side rooms, each one guaranteed bug-free. I scanned the room with my
own senses anyway and found nothing out of place. “Sir…”

“We went through Barbara Roth’s life with a fine-toothed comb,” the General said, shortly.
“It turned out that she had been ordered to gather information on every superhuman in New
York and actually did a pretty good job. We could have done it better, but then, we’re
professionals. The information itself was stored in a special server in their office and
someone – person or persons unknown – hacked into it.”

I scowled. “The hacking would have been planned in advance,” I said. “Did you send them
to the Nerdette?”

“Someone else, just like her,” the General said, enigmatically. I lifted an eyebrow, but he
refused to be drawn. If there were another person with…technology-linked superpower, the
Nerdette would be delighted to meet him, or her. “The hard drives had been rigged up by the
guy who built them, running his own version of Linux, which is a curious coincidence. It
was very clever, or so I’m told, when someone made a link from a specific computer, with a
specific code, it gave up all of its information without needing any further passwords, or
recording any data about the person accessing the files.”

I swore. Microsoft might not have been the same since someone – the same person who was
working for the General, perhaps – had started to release free versions of Microsoft’s
software, but there were only a few types of basic programming around for computers. If
someone had configured an operating system of their own, something that I knew some SDI
operatives actually did, it would be much harder to use to trace someone who knew the
system. The general public doesn’t know just how much information was collected on them
every time they went online – it would only upset them – but a system designed not to pick
up such information wouldn’t be able to betray it’s user.

“It also had a pretty nasty self-destruct device attached to it,” the General continued, his voice
darkening. “If it had gone off in the SDI building, you’d have found yourself reporting to
someone much lower down the chain; as it was, we were able to deactivate it and access the
information. I think there’s little doubt that Barbara was the link who provided the targeting
information.”

“Maybe,” I said, shortly. It looked that way, but had she actually done anything wrong? Any
competent lawyer could make her appear the victim of SDI incompetence, or malice, or
perjury; all she had done was gather the information without, it should be noted, any clue as
to what use the knowledge would be use for, once the end user found it. “Did she agree to be
scanned?”

“Reluctantly,” the General said, and I could hear the distaste in his voice. “We had one of the
telepaths take a look at her and she’s telling the truth; she didn’t have the slightest idea what
use the information would be put to. We’ve agreed to give her protection if she isn’t charged
with anything, but frankly, if we charged her on what we know, we’d have to charge half of
the media reporters out here.”

“Only half?” I asked. “You say that as if it were a bad thing.”

The General shook his head. “I’ve brought in all of the overt team and many of the covert
operatives,” he said, softly. “Are you sure about this insane plan?”

“I don’t see any other alternative,” I said, as the intercom started to buzz, calling us all into
the main speaking hall. Even Clinton hadn’t been able to have the conference held in the
main hall, but the opening speeches would be held in front of everyone. If Bryce were right,
the speeches would be meaningless; the real decisions would be made in little rooms like this
one. “We need to lure them out of hiding and bring them into the open.”

The main speaking hall was standing room only; everyone who was anyone was there. I saw
the Mayor and his wife from across the room; for a moment, I met the eyes of his wife, and
saw just how bored she was. Bryce had been right; she wasn't being abused, but her life was
hardly very simulating. Others flooded into the room, pausing to look up at the first speaker,
Secretary-General Bill Clinton himself. It made me wonder if he was actually happy;
Clinton’s life was one of almost, but never quite, fulfilled promise. He'd been a hopeful to be
President one day, but had lost the election; his wife might have her own shot at the
Presidency, but I doubted that she would get though while he was Secretary-General. That
was an interesting married life…
“It has been nearly thirty years since the first superhuman walked upon this Earth,” Clinton
said, his voice echoing out across the room. The years hadn’t been kind to him; never a
particularly fit man, he was starting to run to fat. It might have been something to do with the
woman who claimed that he had harassed her – or something – back when they had both been
younger, but no one was really interested in the sex life of the Secretary-General. “In that
time, we have seen many achievements; we have seen Iraq become a model among nations,
we have seen Bangladesh become the most exciting place in East Asia, we have seen peace in
Palestine, we have seen democracy spreading rapidly through Eastern Europe…”

I sensed a vague sense of irritation from the Eastern European representatives. None of them
would forgive the Russians for the destruction of Warsaw, or the years of repression; they
were building up their own superhuman forces as fast as they could, along with former Soviet
nuclear weapons and other surprises. Clinton’s attempt to promote the end of nuclear
weapons had earned him enemies; no one would give them up with the Russian bear in their
backyard. As for peace in Palestine…the less said the better.

“But we have also seen a dark underside,” Clinton continued, after spending ten minutes
talking about the glories and successes of nations that had adapted to the presence of
superhumans. “In Africa, we have seen the growth of superhuman gang warfare,
superhumans setting up their own private kingdoms and territories, killing thousands upon
thousands of humans and shattering the ecosystem of the area. Hundreds of different kinds of
animals have been hunted to extinction by those gangs, thousands of refugees have been sent
fleeing out of the continent and the chaos is threatening to spread further into the world. We
must do something!”

He pounded the stand to make his point. Call me a cynic if you like, but I suspect that it’s
mainly the question of the refugee issue that’s actually providing the driving force for the
conference. Iraq doesn’t want more of them, Europe doesn’t want more of them, Australia
doesn’t want more of them, we don’t want more of them…where are they going to go? There
are even racist superhumans out there who have been sinking refugee boats, in a vain attempt
to stem the tide…

And when you consider just how large Africa really is, you might see just how large the
problem really is. No one knows for certain what’s going on in some parts of Africa, other
parts we know all-too-well what’s going on there; with the handful of a few minor states,
Pretoria and Sudan, for example, the remainder of Africa is in a state of permanent chaos. It
makes me wonder; Africa is one of the places where, even now, there hasn’t been anything
like the expected level of exploitation. Was the real point of the conference to rid Africa of
anyone who might protest its exploitation?

I wanted to ask Rani, but I left it as Clinton concluded his long speech, calling for the
deployment of an international superhuman task force to clear away the native superhumans,
followed by the deployment of a major relief effort to save the lives of the natives, whom he
made it sound were on the brink of extinction. I didn’t buy it; someone like America could
sweep away any number of tribesmen armed with AK-47s, but taking and holding ground
was another matter. It would require a massive number of conventional soldiers to hold the
ground and where would they come from? Who would want to provide them for a long and
thankless task?
“These speeches are growing rather repetitive,” Rani muttered in my ear, as an hour passed
with various world statesmen making speeches. I watched through my own senses as they
spoke, noting the ones who truly believed and the ones who suspected that it was all going to
fail anyway and going through the motions. Femme appeared, in the place of the murdered
Warrior Girl, and made an emotional speech on behalf of a woman from the Congo, someone
who had come to their attention two years ago. Unless they’d gone to rescue her personally,
the odds were that she had died, perhaps soon after the picture had been taken. Time and tide
wait for no man, or woman; superhuman or merely human.

“It’s almost over,” I said, as Clinton stood up again. His second speech was brief and
surprisingly disciplined; he outlined the goals of the conference, invited everyone to join him
in a small snack, and thanked everyone for coming. “Let’s mingle.”

The room was forming into three groups; politicians, superhumans, and media-types. The
superhumans were talking to each other, their discussions occasionally punctuated by
shoving; a group of superhumans had to be escorted out after their claims to be descended
from the final survivor of a doomed world was laughingly dismissed. The media types were
trying to interview both superhumans and politicians; we paused in front of three different
stringers and told them that we were on the trail of the murderers and would bring them to
justice pretty soon.

“That’s good to hear,” one of them said, before spying Clinton making the rounds. “Do you
suspect anyone in particular?”

Clinton rescued us, unintentionally, before I had to tell him something. We made our escape
as gracefully as we could and walked right into Mayor Hathaway, who seemed to be the belle
of the ball. His wife might have been bored right out of her mind – I caught some of the
glances she was throwing at the serving men and women and knew what she was thinking –
but the Mayor was enjoying himself. If Bryce was right, the Mayor might be a more serious
player than any of us knew; had Clinton really suggested the conference, or was it the work
of the Mayor? Clinton had believed most of what he had said about the need to help Africa,
but was it his idea, or that of someone else?

“I understand that you have a lead,” he said, as he drew us both over to a corner. Bryce was
right, I saw; Rani looked very pretty in her dress, but he didn’t spare her a glance…or any of
the scantily-clad superhuman women, even the one whose superpower involved keeping an
outfit on despite the gazes of half the men in the room. “Can you share it with us?”

“We never discuss the progress of the investigation, but we found various clues that will lead
us directly to the murderer,” I told him. I found it hard to believe that the Mayor was
connected with the murders, but was it my imagination, or had he just flinched? Perhaps the
Humanist threat to sue him personally was having an effect. “Once we have completed the
investigation, we will pick them all up and put them on trial.”

“Excellent,” he said, his belly shaking as he slapped me on the back. You can always count
on politicians to display false bonhomie when you least want it. “I shall spread the word and
reassure everyone that they are safe with me in New York!”

Rani winked at me. “Why do you want the conference so much?”

“Because New York is an international city and should be the centre of our attempts to deal
with the remains of the Cold War,” the Mayor said, only part-seriously. “We have hosted the
United Nations for a long time, but while the Soviet Union existed, we faced the world in a
state of endless confrontation, which cost us the trust of the Latin American states and created
a problem for us. For the nations, like the United States, that have managed to absorb
superhumans, it’s not a problem, but for every success story like Bangladesh, there are a
dozen failures.”

He paused. “If we could work now to start rebuilding the parts of the world that have been
devastated by superhuman conflict, we might be able to solve many of the world’s problems,”
he continued. “If we can clear out some of the worst groups in Africa, we would be able to
supply aid to the stricken areas and save thousands of lives.”

Rani considered it. “Don’t you think that you’re being a little over-optimistic?” She asked.
“Who appointed your people the guardians of morality?”

The Mayor’s face slipped slightly. “It’s not a question of morality,” he explained, “although I
would like to believe that morality is involved somewhere. In Africa, the state – states – have
basically collapsed completely, a long slow process that started in South Africa and spread
north. If half of the reports are true, then there are literally millions of people dying or
becoming refugees, and heading north into more stable lands. This gives us something of a
problem; we cannot allow the chaos to spread, but what produced the chaos lies within the
continent itself.”

“I’m confused,” I said, after a moment. “Why do you want to interfere?”

“Because it’s the right thing to do,” the Mayor said. “Do you know AIDS? We found a cure
for it amid all the research into the genetic makeup of the human race, looking for something
that might trigger superhuman powers. Do you know how many cases of AIDS we get in the
United States these days?”

“No,” I said, exchanging a long glance with Rani. “How many cases do we get?”

“Almost none,” the Mayor said. “From time to time, someone will come in from Mexico or
Africa with AIDS, but we just give them the cure and some time to rebuild their bodies
afterwards. How many lives do you think are lost through AIDS in Africa?” I waited for the
answer. “Thousands, perhaps more, are lost in Africa because of AIDS. We could wipe it out
as we did smallpox – God knows that it’s a lot harder to catch than smallpox – but we can’t,
because of the chaos. Who there could organise a mass curing program for the survivors?”

He bowed to Rani and ambled off, his wife in tow. “That…man wants to be your country’s
next President?” She asked, as soon as he was out of earshot. “How much of that did he
believe?”

“He believed some of it, but not to a great extent,” I said, carefully noting the Mayor’s
reactions for further thought. He might have been willing to do something about the issues in
Africa, but not to the extent of placing his own future on the line. If I had expected the
conference to produce something, I was going to be disappointed, or maybe not. There were
superhumans at the conference and some of them were idealistic. Who knew…?
My phone vibrated. “Matt,” I said, seeing the General’s caller ID. “Sir?”

“We’ve lost another one,” the General said. The grim note in his voice chilled me. “Room
10372; come at once.”

“Understood,” I said, grimly. Rani saw my face and understood instantly. “Who is it?”

The General told me.

Not for the first time since the murder spree had begun, I wanted to find a bomb shelter and
hide. This one would really send the balloon up.
Chapter Seventeen

“I want the building completely sealed, now,” the General snapped, as we stared down at the
body. It had been a young man, pureblood Arab in appearance, someone whose face we all
knew from television. I had known of him for years and I had wondered, one day, if we
would meet. “I don’t want anyone leaving the building!”

I watched as the general issued orders, before turning to look down at the body. The man –
hardly a man, almost still a teenager – had sparked during the troubles in Yemen, but had
chosen to ally himself to the Protector of Iraq and serve as his foreign minister. It was odd to
have a superhuman in such a role, as opposed to using them for intimidation purposes, but
almost everyone agreed that Babylon – as he called himself – was a decent person and a
respectable diplomat. Unlike many superhumans, he took – had taken – no pleasure in
intimidation or violence.

“I knew him,” Rani said softly. I nodded in understanding; she would have met him when
Iraq attempted to secure better relationships with Bangladesh. “He was a good man who
prayed regularly and didn’t go to Bahrain for fun and games like so many others. Who would
kill him?”

I scowled. Bahrain was something of a pleasure island in the Middle East, although it was
losing its reputation as Iraq liberalised and the remains of Saudi reluctantly followed suit.
Young male Saudis had used to visit the island-nation along the causeway and experiment
with drink, drugs and female company, before returning home, often with new and interesting
sexually-transmitted diseases. The Saudis had threatened the nation from time to time before
Iraq had invaded; the Iraqis hadn’t bothered to try to shut the island down. Why would they
have bothered?

“I don’t know,” I admitted, feeling my teeth clench. It was questionable if the General had
the authority to order the United Nations sealed off – the UN was supposed to have its own
security staff – but under the circumstances I suspected that Clinton wouldn’t raise any major
objections. The Iraqis were major contributors to the United Nations, although I'm not sure
why; he wouldn’t want to upset them that much. “Did he have any enemies?”

Up close, the cause of death was obvious; he’d literally had the back of his skull smashed in.
The same smell was surrounding the body, hanging in the air and mocking me with its sheer
pervasiveness, as we had found at the other murder scenes; I found myself almost gagging on
the smell before I forced it down, scaling my senses back to avoid throwing up in front of
Rani. The effort had been for nothing; I hadn’t sensed anything, but that smell. This time,
even the body’s own natural scent had been obscured; whoever had done this knew that I was
after them.

I held her eyes. “I think they meant to mock us,” I admitted, and scowled. We’d been telling
everyone that we were on the verge of a breakthrough, but we didn’t really have a clue as to
who was behind the murders. Maybe they’d done it to tease us…or they’d done it because of
something entirely different; maybe they hadn’t picked up on our stories. It wouldn’t be the
first time that an exercise in misleading someone had gone completely unnoticed by the
intended target.
The General was still arguing over the phone. “Mr Secretary-General, the murderer might
still be within the building,” he snapped. At a guess, the Secretary-General was having
second thoughts about holding the conference. “Someone here might have killed him and we
have to find him before he gets back out into the city!”

I suspected that it was a pointless endeavour. Judging from the condition of the body, death
had occurred around half an hour ago, rather than immediately. If that had been true,
thousands of people might have entered and left the United Nations building; security was
always flimsy in the midst of a conference, particularly when the delegates were supposed to
be able to look after themselves. The General might have to show that he’d taken all
reasonable precautions, but in the end, he would probably end up getting the blame. If
someone had meant to derail the conference, they’d probably succeeded.

“That moron is finally deploying his security forces,” the General said, as he returned to look
down at the body. “The Doctor is on his way, but…Matt, tell me you’ve found something,
please?”

“I might have done,” I said, and clenched my fist over the wound. It was the same as
America’s wound, back at the beginning; the wound had been caused by a fist slightly larger
than my own, perhaps even stronger. Babylon’s superpowers had failed him as surely as
those of the other victims had failed them; a single punch should have resulted in the attacker
breaking every bone in his hand. “The killer might well be the same person…”

I ignored the General’s snort and stood up, circling the room and hunting desperately for
clues. Once again, the target had been selected carefully; even I couldn’t pick out any clue as
to which of the people who had used the room had been the murderer, while my senses failed
completely anywhere near that smell. Something kept nagging at the back of my mind,
trying to convince me that I was missing something important, but what? The smell wasn’t
moving; it hung in the air like some demented cloud, rather than obeying the natural order
and fading away. I’d seen gas used as an area denial weapon before, but this was…odd.

“I think I want to go take a look back at the original crime scene,” I said, thinking aloud. The
General raised an eyebrow. “I think I might have stumbled on something.”

The General didn’t ask me what, much to my relief; I wasn't sure that I could have put it into
words. “I want you to interrogate his aide before the press or Clinton get their hands on her,”
he said. “It’s lucky that the girl was able to find one of the SDI team and report it to him,
rather than the security staff here, or maybe they would have covered it up completely.”

I nodded and allowed him to urge me from the room. We passed Doctor Torqumada as he
arrived, before he showed us into a small room that was used, in more normal times, as a
resting room for the staff. As generally happened in such large organisations, there was little
in the way of luxury, but it was surprisingly comfortable. I had expected an Arab aide, but,
much to my surprise, the aide turned out to be a blonde-haired girl from America, around
thirty at a guess. It was easy to guess why Babylon might be interested in her, but as I came
closer, I couldn’t smell any hint that they might actually have had a relationship.

“I'm sorry to disturb you,” I said, as gently as possible. Her grief for her boss was genuine, I
saw; I’d been to too many places where the grief was nothing, but an act. Babylon had been
a good man, in his way; he’d treated his staff well. “I do have to ask you some questions.”
“He’s dead,” she said, her voice almost breaking. She had loved him in a way. “Why did
that have to happen?”

I glanced at her nametag, which read HONEY. “Honey, I need to ask you questions while the
details are fresh in your mind,” I said, carefully. Rani reached over and put her hand on
Honey’s shoulders, sharing a moment of womanly sympathy. “How did you come to meet
him?”

“He used to run a company over here and his father was fond of saying that it would give him
experience,” Honey said. I lifted an eyebrow; that wasn't in the legends, or the official origin
story. “His father was someone really big in Yemen and wanted to keep his son out of the
country because of the civil war, and his son made it big. I got hired as a receptionist for him
and…”

Her voice trailed off. She really had loved him, even if they had never shared a bed or
anything other than polite formalities. No, I realised, they’d had a genuine relationship built
on mutual respect, trust, and maybe even love. It would have been interesting to see where it
went if he hadn’t been killed…

“He went back home and started to invest in the new Iraq once the Protector appeared,”
Honey continued. “He loved his adventure sports, so one day, he went hang gliding and the
hang glider was sabotaged by someone and he fell…but he didn’t fall for long. As one of the
new superhumans, he went to work directly for the Protector and most of the country’s
economic boom was due to him.”

I kept my face blank through carefully effort. With unerring direction, the killers had found
someone whose death would have even more shocking implications than that of Manna, or
Warrior Girl. The United States had…issues with Iraq, it was part of the reason that we were
going through an extended phase of forgive and forget with Iran; we had never quite forgiven
them for humiliating our allies back in 1991.

“I stayed with him as his aide and followed him around the world,” Honey said. “One day,
he came here at the orders of the Protector and went into his rooms for private meditation.
When I came to fetch him, he was dead!”

She broke down again. “She’s telling the truth,” I said, grimly. I had hoped that she was
lying, but instead she was telling the truth, which meant that she was an innocent in the affair.
How had the enemy gathered that intelligence? Barbara Roth couldn’t have hoped to have
that level of access, could she? I found my mind racing…and then I found myself wondering
if the killer had simply picked a target at random, but even that would be one hell of a
coincidence.

“I gathered that,” Rani said. Her lips pursed grimly. “Honey, dear, did your boss have any
enemies?”

“There were dozens of threats against his life,” Honey said, through her tears. “The Islamic
fanatics hiding in Iran hated him and swore his death. The bastards finally got him and…”
I cursed under my breath. Honey was telling the truth, again, but I suspected that she was
jumping to conclusions. That’s the problem with my gift; I cannot determine if someone is
telling the truth because it is the truth, or because it’s something they believe to be the truth.
It’s not much better when they lie to me; I know when they’re knowingly lying, but why? I
don’t have any way of learning the motive behind the lie.

“That can’t be right,” Rani muttered, and I was inclined to agree. Iraq had crushed radical
Islam by beheading several known terrorists and making it very clear what would happen if
any of its neighbours tried to support the terrorists. The Protector might have replaced us as
the Great Satan, but as he was an unkillable superhuman, the fanatics had generally refrained
from doing anything, but sniping at him from a safe distance. Even if they were involved…
why hadn’t they targeted the Protector himself? Why fuck around with America, or Manna,
or Warrior Girl, when their real target was in the habit of sunbathing without any security at
all?

“I guess not,” I said, after a moment. “Honey, what did your boss want at the conference?”

Her eyes, glistening with tears, met mine. “I can’t divulge his secrets,” she said, but I knew
that she knew something. “I can’t…”

I saw her future in her eyes and scowled. “Honey…I need you to tell me what he wanted
here, what might have given them a motive to kill him,” I said. Had Honey unwittingly been
the conduit for the information? “What did he want with the conference?”

“He wanted to ensure that Iraqi interests were protected,” Honey said, an accurate if not
entirely useful comment. “I think…the Protector wasn't that interested in supporting a
peacekeeping mission, but he didn’t want something that would spread into chaos, not with
that woman’s kingdom in the Sudan, or radical fanatics hiding out in parts of Africa. He
wanted a say in what happened, so he was prepared to offer some support in exchange for
that say…”

“Ah, politics,” I said, wondering what Bryce would have made of that. Clinton’s grand plan
– or the Mayor’s grand plan – was likely to come crashing down around their ears if everyone
who actually could do something was reluctant to get involved. The League of Nations had
nothing on the United Nations when it came to people turning down requests for armed
soldiers. Put bluntly, so few people cared about Africa, and those who did didn’t command
large armed forces. “Who knew that he was going to be alone and…miss the opening
speeches?”

“Smart guy,” Rani commented. I kept the smile off my face with the ease of long practice. I
would have avoided the opening speeches if possible. “Honey, who knew that he wasn’t
going to be with others?”

“He had declared his intentions to the Secretary-General, as he was obliged to do under the
unwritten part of the UN code,” Honey said, after a long moment. “He would have told the
staff to give him some room, so everyone might have known. I knew, of course, and so did
the caterers, but…sir, everyone might have known.”

“Shit,” I said, crossly. I had hoped to narrow it down, but it wasn’t going to be possible, even
through we’d go for a full breakdown of everyone in the UN, just in case. You want to keep a
secret? Don’t tell anyone; the more people who know a secret, the greater the chance of the
secret getting out, one way or another. I could almost picture it; somewhere in the UN, there
was a person who had had a few drinks and boasted that he was serving Babylon, who had
been smart enough to declare that he would miss the opening speeches, unaware that he was
marking him out for murder. That man wouldn’t even know what he had done; he might not
even be aware that he had done anything?

I took a breath. “I’m going to have to ask you to remain in New York for a few days,” I said,
wondering what she was. She might have been born an American, but was she still an
American citizen? She wouldn’t have diplomatic immunity, regardless of her citizenship, but
if she had other ties to Iraq, holding her would be a diplomatic nightmare, unless we had solid
proof connecting her to a crime. “We may have more questions to ask you.”

“I understand,” she said, without any trace of a lie. She was still shaking with grief and
delayed shock; I summoned Doctor Torqumada and ordered him to give her something to
help her sleep, before looking for the General. He was arguing with the Secretary-General
about the security, although the argument didn’t seem to be violent yet; I suspected that it was
all futile. The killer was long gone.

“What have you found?” The General asked, as soon as he saw me and made his escape from
Bill Clinton. “Please tell me you found something useful.”

“Rather the opposite,” I admitted reluctantly, and explained that there were too many people
who might have known that Babylon was going to be alone. “I don’t think that there’s any
point in trying to search the United Nations from top to bottom.”

“We’re going to try anyway,” the General said, but I could sense the grim awareness that it
wasn't going to happen in his eyes. The UN was a diplomatic building, technically not even
American soil; the SDI wouldn’t be able to search the building on their own bat, and almost
every nation who maintained rooms and offices in the UN would object to the SDI clumping
around, doubtless taking advantage of the situation to do a little spying. “I’ve pushed the
request up to Washington, and I’ve informed the Iraqi delegation so they can push Clinton as
well, but…”

His voice trailed off. I could see, inside now, just how old he was. There wasn't anyone
braver when it came to a fight; those medals he kept in his private office weren’t for show,
but honestly earned. Give him a target to take and he’d take it or die trying, but finding such
an elusive foe was taking a toll on him. Sooner or later, our enemies would slip up, but
would that come in time for the General?

“We need to leave the building,” I said, as simply as I could. “I have a hunch I want to check
out before it’s too late.”

“Good,” the General said, as his phone rang again. He picked it up and listened, occasionally
saying ‘yes, sir,’ before closing it again. “That’s the bad news; despite all the pressure that
we and Iraq can pour on, the UN building is not going to be searched by anyone, but the UN
security staff.”

I scowled. The UN security staff have a bad reputation, mainly undeserved, for being more
heedful of politics than is sensible for a security organisation. They would search all the
public areas and do it very well, but they would leave all the areas that had diplomatic
immunity, even the areas that belonged to countries too weak to protest. That only left a few
thousand safe places in the entire complex.

“I see,” I said. I still wanted to play my hunch. There was also a second problem, one I
really wasn't willing to admit to, but it was there. “I’ll let you know as soon as I have a
result.”

I couldn’t bear to stay there any longer.

Chapter Eighteen

“Has it occurred to you that it could be the General?”

I blinked at her. The General had given us an SDI unmarked car and we had visited each of
the murder sites, in turn; the strange smell had remained in the air, only fading very slightly
and taking other smells with it. I was starting to suspect if it was something other than a
smell, perhaps the remains of a strange weapon, but my senses kept insisting that it was a
smell. Whatever it was, it lingered; they’d moved the bodies, but the smell remained. It
make cigarette smoke look like nothing; when a smoker imbues his own outfit with cigarette
smoke, it stinks…but this stuff really clung, but wasn’t easy for anyone else to detect. I could
smell it, dogs could smell it, but normal humans could barely smell it.

“I beg your pardon?” I demanded, not in the mood for games. The smell, whatever it was,
had sunk so firmly into the bodies and the surrounding area that it was playing hell with my
senses. “What did you say?”

Rani looked at me through her dark eyes. “The suspect might be your commanding officer,”
she said. I felt a wave of shocking dark anger. “He’s in charge of the SDI, he has access to
all the results from the SDI’s labs, and he has a motive to hate superhumans. Why wouldn’t
he want to kill a few of them off? Why wouldn’t he want to kill a few of us off?”

I bit down hard on my anger. “It’s not him,” I said, simply. “I know that for a fact.”

“And how do you know that?” Rani asked. “It looks to me as if you – we – are constantly
going down false trails, and who better to steer us down them than the man you work for?”

“I don’t think you quite understand,” I said, turning to face her. Her concern, at least, was
sincere; she wasn’t doing it to be unpleasant, or to separate me from the General. “I can tell,
always, when I’m being lied to.”

She raised both her eyebrows. “It’s my talent,” I said, grimly. “I am always aware of what is
going on around me and what happened recently around me.” I pointed a finger over at the
wall. “Even in the semi-darkness, I can tell there’s a bloody spider over there, hoping that
we’re going to get lost so that it can keep on spinning its web. The landlord needs to check
that wall over there; I can tell that it’s on the verge of collapse because of poor repair and
limited support. I am so closely attuned to anyone when I talk to them that I am very aware,
all too aware, of their emotional state.”

Rani studied me for a long moment. “Are you telling me that you know everything about
me?”

I shook my head. “I know what you’re feeling,” I said, shortly. I wanted to explain it to her,
but how could I explain it to her when I could barely explain it to myself. Her superpowers,
at least, were nice and simple; mine were far less obvious. Back when some of the lesser
powers started to appear, it was even hard to determine if some of them actually did have
superpowers, particularly X-Ray Eye Man. “If you lied to me, knowing that it was a lie, I
would know about it.”
I hesitated. “I don’t really understand how it works,” I said. “Part of my brain just processes
the data and gives it to me as information, rather than giving it to me all at once. I went out
like a light the first time my powers sparked, just to preserve what remained of my sanity;
even now, it’s sometimes hard to concentrate on one target when there are so many other
targets around.”

“But the General knows about your abilities,” Rani pointed out, unconvinced. “If he wanted
to deceive you, could he not do it?”

“The General would not have called me in if he didn’t want a solution,” I said, firmly. “I
listened carefully to everything the General told me and everything he told me was true, as
far as he knew it. He wasn't weaving a careful story intended to deceive me, but telling me
the truth; he would have known, of course, that trying to lie to me would have been
impossible. There are some people, sociopath-types mainly, who might be able to hide a lie,
but even they wouldn’t be able to hide it for long.”

“A sociopath,” Rani said. She wanted to change the subject; I wasn’t sure if I wanted to let
her. “Do you think that that is what we’re dealing with?”

“I’m not sure,” I admitted. “A sociopath, based on my senses, shows no remorse at all over
his crimes; indeed, at some level, most of them are incapable of admitting that they are
crimes, even to themselves. They might not see killing someone as murder, in the same way
a black person could be lynched down south back in the sixties, but I could ferret out the truth
merely by monitoring their emotional state. Even if they were so warped as to believe that
killing a superhuman isn’t even killing, let alone murder, I would be able to deduce the truth.

“But at the same time, many sociopaths are incapable of thinking in terms of what happens if
they get caught,” I continued. “They either see the crime as justified and therefore don’t
think about the dangers of getting caught – there’s no risk of arrest, as far as they can tell – or
they’re convinced that everyone is out to get them and take extremely paranoid precautions.
Our killers don’t fit either of those profiles; if they were imbued with a psychopathic hatred
of superhumans, there are dozens of easier targets out there. It’s like breaking into the White
House to have your way with the President’s daughter when you could just visit a brothel.”

Rani laughed. “Has that ever happened?”

“The President is the best-protected person in the world,” I said, remembering one exercise
when I had had to slip through the defences. They’d caught me, me! “If they tried, it would
thin down the rapist population a bit.”

I cleared my throat. “The General, if he had a weapon that could reduce superpowers, would
have used it to deal with real threats,” I concluded. “He wouldn’t have gone off and targeted
superhumans whose deaths would threaten us with war, not when there were so many other
targets here. He’s a tough son of a bitch with extreme right-wing views, but he’s neither
insane nor stupid.”

“All right,” Rani said, defensively. “I’m sorry I mentioned it.”

“Don’t worry about it,” I said, seriously. I glanced around, one final time, at the room where
America had died and led the way back down the stairs. The SDI had kept the area sealed
off, housing the former inhabitants in hotels for as long as it took, but we wouldn’t be able to
keep the area sealed for much longer. The Mayor was talking about turning it into a
monument, but New York has too many monuments to superhumans already. “I think we
have to go see Layla again…”

My phone rang. “Hello, sir,” I said, as the General’s name popped up on my screen. “I found
something interesting about the crime scene.”

The General cut me off. “I have to send you out of the country,” he said, grimly. “Guess
who wants to meet you?”

I could think of quite a few people who wanted to meet me, but it wouldn’t be like the
General to send me directly into their hands. “I don’t know,” I said, although judging by the
General’s tone it was something bad. I liked phones for the same reason I liked the Internet;
it was possible to allow yourself to believe that the person was who they claimed to be, not
something that I could in real life. This time, I would have been happier if I could read more
into his voice. “Who wants to speak to me?”

“The Protector of Iraq,” the General said, shortly. “He apparently rang up the State
Department in person – not through his Ambassador – and asked to speak to the person
handling the case. That’s you, so I’m going to have to send you to Iraq.”

I rolled my eyes. “Sir, with all due respect…”

“It takes you away from working on the case,” the General said. “I know, and I put that
directly to the Secretary of State, but in this case, he overruled me. This entire problem is
causing vast turbulence in international affairs; you should have heard the shit-storm in
Washington over the United Nations. I need you to get to Iraq as soon as possible.”

I thought about it. There was someone I could talk to about getting there very quickly, within
hours, but I would have to go to him through the Nerdette. If Jumper could have teleported
us both there, I would have asked to use him, but he only had a limited range.

“I’ll take care of it,” I said. I didn’t want the murderers thinking I was going to be gone for a
while, even though my presence hadn’t deterred them from murdering Babylon. Part of me
hoped that they would believe the stories and keep their heads down; the remainder of me
considered that wishful thinking at best. “I’ll let you know what happens when I get back.”

He wished me luck, trusting in me to deal with it, and closed the connection. I smiled over at
Rani as we got into the car. “Guess where we’re going?”

Rani shook her head as soon as I told her. “I don’t want to go there,” she said, grimly. “Can
you leave me here with the Nerdette?”

Layla was surprised to see us again so soon, but once we explained, it was clear that she’d
made a breakthrough of her own. “I tracked down part of the pipeline that the unknowns
used to hack into the Humanist databank,” she said, cheerfully. “Do you want to hear about
it, or do you want me to call Johnny now?”
“Both,” I said, and waited while she placed the call. There is an entire underground network
of superhumans and Layla serves as the hub. She could call him and ask him to give me a
lift. “What did you find?”

She leaned forward, smiling slightly. “There are millions of computer shops in the United
States, but only a limited number of computer producers,” she said. “The equipment that the
Humanists used, apparently, was a perfectly clean hard drive; unformatted, un-programmed,
without even a kernel that could form part of a new system. The producers do that
purposefully; they want their equipment to be pristine and completely without spy programs.”

I nodded. There were millions of ways to make someone’s life unpleasant through computers
and hackers knew most of them, but the real problems could be caused by software
companies, who tended to insert special programs into the operating systems and using them
to gain access, or gather data, often without the victim having the slightest idea of what was
going on. The standard security software didn’t see them because they were already part of
the system’s architecture; it wasn’t so much putting the foxes in charge of the henhouse so
much as having the little bastards build the henhouse, leaving a tunnel underneath the ground.

“But I managed to trace some of the components,” she continued. “I got the details off the
General and started to hunt for their sources; they came from several manufacturers, all of
them completely pristine. They were sent to several separate computer shops and, according
to their records, were sold on a few years ago.”

“I see,” I said. “Do we know who bought them?”

“Not directly,” Layla admitted. I wasn’t surprised; computer shops take cash and don’t really
care what the buyer does with the equipment. Most people regard computers as…well, not
really toys, but they don’t grasp how much damage someone with bad intentions can cause
with one. It’s not something like a gun shop, where everyone can see the potential dangers
involved in giving a weapon to a psychopath, but something much more subtle. “I tried
running an analysis of the spending patterns, but it wasn't anything like detailed enough; if all
of them were Pure Humanity, we’d have a civil insurrection on our hands.”

She grinned. “So I tried running it backwards,” she continued. “What they might not have
accounted for was that they didn’t have a dedicated line to that server; they couldn’t have
risked anything like it without someone getting curious and wondering why a single server
needed such a dedicated line. Again, most of their computers were specifically rigged to
deny any chance of tracing the signal, but their addresses were automatically stored anyway,
just in case.”

I nodded impatiently. “I didn’t think that we would get very far, but I managed to trace it
back through a set of nodes and servers until I reached an anonymizer, an anonymous proxy
server,” she continued. “What most people don’t know can hurt them; this one actually kept
records of who used it, if not where they went afterwards. I traced the times and compared
them to the times when the dedicated server was access and found seventeen possible
matches, so I researched them all. Only three of them cannot be accounted for.”

Rani held up a hand. “I don’t understand,” she said. “Do you know who’s accessed the
system?”
“Voila,” Layla said, as she waved a hand in the air. A giant plasma screen lit up, displaying
an image of a tall white man, somewhere around his late thirties, a young girl in her teens and
an elderly Chinese man. “These three accessed that server through the public library system,
overriding the protections built into the system in the libraries.”

“It can’t be all three of them,” I protested. “Which one is it?”

“I don’t know,” Layla admitted. “They could have accessed the server, or they could have
been looking up child porn; I went through everything I could think of, but the anonymous
proxy server refused to give up any further information. The only reason that these people
are suspects is that they accessed the anonymous proxy server during the time the dedicated
server back at the Humanist office.”

“All right,” I said. “Who are they?”

“I wish I knew,” Layla said. “The libraries don’t keep information about who uses their
computers online. I think that the SDI would have to follow that up and find out who they
are before they vanish again.”

“I’ll pass that on to the General,” I said. There was a dull thud from upstairs. “Is that him?”

“Yes,” Layla said, grimly. I sensed her sudden fear of being crowded and winced. “Rani and
I will pass the information on to the General; you have to make a flight to Iraq.”

She’d never taken me upstairs before, but there wasn't much time for glancing around, not
when one of the most impatient superhumans in the world was waiting for me. Johnny
Sputnik is an urban legend, someone the world at large would prefer to forget exists; NASA,
in particular, has come to the point of almost offering to contract out his killing to someone.
His exploits – including buzzing the space shuttle and landing on the moon, before dancing
around the moon buggy – made him their number one enemy, but he’s harmless; most of the
time, he just flies around, causing no harm to anyone.

Up close, he looked younger and slimmer than I had expected, but then, Johnny Sputnik has
always been a loner. I was surprised to hear that he even talked to the Nerdette, but she has a
talent for talking to some people, particularly through computers. He looked like a typical
geeky teenager, but someone who could literally fly at high speeds and survive in space
without a spacesuit wasn't to be underestimated. No one was certain just where he stood on
the power scale, but he was, at the very least, a Level Seven. There was a moment as his
force field enveloped me…and then we were out of the townhouse, flying around the world
in eighty minutes.

Johnny Sputnik said nothing, even as we flew so high that I could see the curve of the Earth;
he rarely talked to anyone. I had never liked being flown by someone else, it meant
depending on someone else’s goodwill, but now, to see the world as Johnny Sputnik saw it, it
might be worthwhile. Rumour had it that he had occasionally carried someone with him and
shown them the world, in exchange for sex or just company, but where he’s involved, it’s
impossible to separate fact from fiction. I could make out the shape of Africa, of Europe, and
finally that of the Middle East, the cradle of human civilisation. For a land that so many call
holy, there has been a terrifying amount of blood shed; there are times when I wonder if God
looked down one day and decided to remove his blessing. It would certainly explain a lot
about the area.

Iraq rose up ahead of us at terrifying speed…and then everything twisted around, turning Iraq
below us as my perspective changed. It was strange; caught within Johnny Sputnik’s field, I
felt nothing, not even a change in temperature, but my head kept insisting that it was falling.
I closed my eyes for a long moment and when I opened them again, we were hanging just
above the ground, facing a man sitting on a chair. There were others nearby, but he took up
all my attention; I recognised him instantly, as I was supposed to…

The Protector of Iraq.

General Abdul Al-Ramah himself.

Chapter Nineteen

Once upon a time – and if this were a morality story, I would have a trite little moral for you
here – there was a man called Saddam Hussein. We called him ‘so damn insane,’ but we
pretended to like him anyway, largely because he had launched his armies into Iran, a state
that had humiliated us and needed to pay. Eight bloody years of fighting later, Saddam
declared victory and withdrew with his spoils; barely enough land to bury the dead. No one
knows for sure how many people actually died in that war, but we do know that it produced
something remarkable; it produced a superhuman.

From what we put together later – the Protector of Iraq is, for obvious reasons, one of our
most important potential enemies – the then Colonel Abdul Al-Ramah took part in Operation
Ramadan, an ill-planned Iraqi offensive with typically bloody and inconclusive results.
Somewhere in the midst of the battle, he sparked and became bullet-proof, as well as several
other powers. Suspecting Saddam’s reaction – this was a man who executed Generals for
being too successful as well as unsuccessful – he kept his powers to himself and kept working
away on winning the war. He might have been able to win it single-handedly, but instead he
chose to remain hidden, until after the war. He was a professional soldier, even in a country
where professional soldiers were regarded with suspicion, and he knew that they hadn’t really
won anything. One day, he kissed his wife goodbye, walked into Saddam’s Palace to a
regular meeting with Saddam – who was plotting to invade Kuwait at the time – and crushed
his neck with a single hand. As bullets bounced off his skin, he turned to look at the
assembled officers and pronounced that he was in charge and anyone who didn’t like it could
stand up and take their best shot.

And they did. Abdul Al-Ramah proved to be smarter than most of them – Saddam had had
most of the smarter Iraqis removed – and he was superhuman, invulnerable and almost
untouchable…oh, and he had the support of most of the army as well. Blaming Saddam for
Iraq’s woes, he promptly cancelled the invasion plans, crushed any resistance in Iraq, and
then started threatening both Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. He scared the shit out of them – an
invincible soldier who couldn’t be harmed – and they bowed down to him, agreeing to write
off Iraq’s debts and provide reconstruction funds. He had proven, with Babylon’s help, to be
an effective administrator; in 1991, he signed the Paris Peace Accord with Israel, formally
ending the state of endless hostility between the Arab World and Israel. It had earned him the
hated of radical factions in Palestine, but he was still superhuman…and, as he was inviting
Palestinians to come work in Iraq, he was surprisingly popular in Palestine itself. When
Saudi Arabia imploded and gave up the ghost, Iraqi army units charged over the border and
seized the oil wells, bringing his rule to the torn nation. Iraq was now, in all senses, a
superpower.

“Welcome to Iraq, Matthew,” he said, as I studied him. “I’ve heard a great deal about you.”

His English was perfect, with just a trace of Sandhurst hidden there; he’d studied there before
the war with Iran had broken out. He was displaying himself to me openly, allowing me to
study him; every girl I have known has wanted to sleep with him, and up close, it was easy to
understand why. He was not only handsome, in a fashion that would be sure to have female
eyes following him everywhere he goes, but secure. I had hated that ‘rich kid’ attitude for
almost all of my life, but Al-Ramah wore it well; it helped that he had survived numerous
assassination attempts without so much as a scratch. Ever since he had had Osema Bin Ladin
executed on the palace steps in front of him - Osema Bin Ladin had been a terrorist from
Saudi who had been driven to fury by Iraq’s dominance of the region – the fanatics had
contented themselves by blazing sermons and insults from a safe distance.

“Thank you,” I said carefully. I wasn't blind to the implications of him having requested a
private meeting, or of the State Department agreeing to the meeting; I had wondered,
somehow, if the Iraqis were behind it. That made about as much sense as Islamic fanatics
being behind it; there were much better targets for the weapon. Iraq, in particular, was
controlled by a superhuman; he wouldn’t want to create a weapon that could strip him of his
powers, would he? Logically, he had nothing to do with it…

But logic and reason didn’t always apply to superpowers.

“I wanted to talk with you in private because I kept picking up a great deal of nonsense on the
diplomatic side,” Al-Ramah continued, his face carefully blank. His underlying feelings,
however, revealed no hostility…but a disturbing sense of anger. Babylon had been a friend
as much as a subordinate and his culture, his very upbringing, screamed for revenge against
the murderer. At this rate, we’d be cutting the bastard up into several parts and distributing
him around the world. “I also understand that I am a suspect and I wanted you to have the
chance to interrogate me, free from all onlookers.”

I looked at him carefully. “Have you developed telepathy now?”

“I know people,” Al-Ramah said. I nodded; anyone who grew up in a very dangerous place,
and survived, would end up being hyper-sensitive to what was going on around them. I’d
seen it happen before with children from abusive homes, or orphaned children; it wasn't much
of a stretch to imagine that someone would develop a similar capability in Saddam’s Iraq.
“You will be looking for the common thread that ties the victims together and to do that, you
will have to ask me questions.”

I nodded. If he knew what I could do, he had to know that he couldn’t lie to me. That didn’t
mean he’d tell me everything. “Why are you, personally, interested in the conference?”

He considered for a moment; I’d asked that with some forethought. If his answer were
different from Honey’s, it would suggest…what? “I’m not that interested as a general rule,”
he said, finally. I half-wished that Clinton had been there to hear him. “The former rulers of
the Holy Cities spent their money there and helped spread the chaos; I would prefer not to be
involved at all. However, the problems that are spreading into Egypt threaten the existence of
my state and I would prefer to be able to handle the problems at one remove.”

His lips quirked. “Am I telling the truth?”

“Yes,” I said, thinking rapidly. Politics could never be ignored, even by a superhuman
dictator who could get whatever he wanted, just by issuing an order. He’d set up ‘consultive
councils’ all over Greater Iraq – now incorporating the remains of Saudi Arabia – and they
actually provided some limited democracy. Iraq was the success story of the region; a nation
that had reached first-world status and had achieved amazing freedoms compared to the last
two dictators. If his people wanted an intervention in Africa, they might get one. “What did
you think of Babylon?”

“You mean,” he said dryly, “did I kill him?”

I showed no reaction. “I didn’t kill him,” he said. “I didn’t order him killed; I didn’t put him
somewhere where I expected him to be killed.”

“You’ve read my file,” I said, annoyed. The answer had been completely comprehensive and
completely truthful; it was also almost a taunting comment. “Does everyone know about me
these days?”

“I had a friend of mine pull it out of the SDI’s files,” Al-Ramah said, teasing me. His friend
would probably be on an aircraft out of America by now; the General had told me that he
intended to search the entire SDI for the insider, assuming that the insider actually existed.
He hadn’t told me anything I couldn’t have guessed. “You’re quite an interesting person, Mr
Tracker.”

“Call me Matt,” I said, feeling – for the first time – hopelessly out of my depth. “What did
you think of Babylon?”

Al-Ramah paused. “He was a good and decent man and there aren’t enough of them,” he
said. “Thanks to my predecessor and the House of Saud, a lot of people in my country lack
the mental flexibility to actually serve me well. I have, in Saudi Arabia, a lot of people who
are no good for anything, but brute labour, just because they were never allowed to get a
proper education. Others gained their former positions by sucking up to the Royal Family
and wouldn’t know how to give a honest report if their lives depended on it.

“Babylon had earned his money honestly,” he continued. “There was a time when he had one
of his people, a lowly worker, hurt by this rich and powerful pop musician.” He paused.
“Why do you Americans listen to such trash anyway?”

“I think they’re rebelling,” I said. “What happened?”

“As I heard the story, the singer hurt the girl and then several others when the security staff
tried to stop him,” Al-Ramah said. “I know men who would have let the man get away with
it; Babylon hunted the guy through the courts and completely broke him – no record deals, no
lifestyle, nothing, but vague memories of a life he led for a while. The girl herself got much
of the compensation money; I believe that she set up a beauty parlour, but she could never
work in it herself.”

“I beg your pardon,” I said. “Why?”

“She’s been scarred,” Al-Ramah said. He rubbed the side of his cheek thoughtfully. “Would
you trust someone with a razor near your throat if they have a scar?”

“I like to think that I would,” I said, smiling. “What happened to him?”

“Babylon?” He asked. “I asked him to come and work for me, along with several other
superhumans from the Middle East, and he accepted. He handled some smaller tasks, then
larger ones, then he ended up becoming my main diplomat…and now he’s dead.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. There was something in the way he said that that sent my alarm
bells jangling. “Did you and he ever have disagreements?”
“Sometimes,” Al-Ramah admitted. There was a rueful note in his voice. “There were times
when I’d go out of my way to provoke them, just for the pleasure of the argument; when
you’re in my position, it’s very hard to get someone prepared to argue with you. I have a
wife, but she doesn’t really argue…

“Oh, he felt that I was being too harsh at times and at other times he felt that I wasn't being
harsh enough,” he continued, after a moment. “I broke the power of the clerics and he felt
that I was merely storing up trouble for myself in the future. I handled outside investors
lightly and he felt I should have pushed them harder. We agreed on Israel and making a
peace deal that would give us a peace we could live with, but he felt that I should have
insisted on permanent access to the Dome of the Rock.

“But he could have left my service at any time,” he concluded. “It wouldn’t have killed him
to leave, not like…”

“I understand,” I said, slowly. He’d been telling the truth about liking arguments, which
made me smile inside; I understood just how he felt. Someone in his place would have real
problems getting a proper argument, not when he could have someone who spoke an
imprudent word beheaded, if he didn’t tear his head off personally. “Who would want him
dead?”

“I like to think that there’s no one who would both want him dead and have the ability to hurt
him,” Al-Ramah said. “There were several businessmen back in Yemen who had their noses
put out of joint, as you Americans say, by him, but I couldn’t see them killing anyone.
They’re too close to me. He actually knew Manna, you know; they met back in Bangladesh.”

I lifted an eyebrow. “Do you know Agnyastra?”

He grinned. “I heard she was serving as your partner,” he said, needling me. I had to smile
at the masculine thought he showed me through his body, not that I would have dared to take
liberties, of course. “I met her once, back in the day; that was nearly seven years ago and the
less said about that, the better. Just one thing; remember, she’s smarter than she’s beautiful
and she’s very pretty indeed, so just because she plays the dumb sidekick doesn’t mean that
she’s dumb.”

I shook my head. “She actually has done most of the things attributed to her,” he warned
dryly. “That makes her very special indeed.

“But as to who might have killed Babylon, I don’t know who could have done it and who had
a motive,” he admitted. “It’s not like it was back in 1990, when there were only a handful of
superhumans; there’s no shortage of them now. The method of the murder is particularly
distressing, under the circumstances; what happened to that Dark Guardian guy in the end?”

“He’s currently helping us with our enquiries,” I said, unwilling to discuss that for the
moment. I had an idea in mind for Dark Guardian if everything else went to hell, or the
General might want to add him to the little collection of living weapons out at The Rock.
“What exactly do you mean?”
Al-Ramah looked at me for a long moment. “The world rests on a series of pivots,” he said,
very seriously. “Governments hesitate to push at those pivots for fear of altering the delicate
balance of power; terrorists, by contrast, don’t hesitate to try to knock at them, trying to alter
the balance through sheer force of will. One of those pivots, now, is superhumans; the
presence of superhumanity has altered the face of the world, but has also stabilised it in a
different form.”

“I suspect that the people in Africa would disagree,” I said, thinking hard. The General had
said something similar, but why…oh shit. “What do you mean?”

“America and Europe had the internal stability to cope with the first superhumans,” Al-
Ramah said. “Russia, China and even my own country have many more problems with
superhumans; a superhuman here can join up with me, leave the country, or die. The Chinese
have a state of semi-permanent unrest because they cannot give the superhumans what they
want without altering the face of the country permanently. For Africa, the countries couldn’t
survive the pressure of superhumans and just shattered; the superhumans exerted their power
as far as they could reach, personally.”

I tried to avoid the thought that kept trying to form in my brain. Al-Ramah had made a point,
perhaps the most important point; the system of government in Iraq had continued to work,
despite the change in leaders. The bureaucrats – government by desks – had remained at their
posts and kept working; Al-Ramah had merely expanded their levels of responsibility and
held a few executions to convince corrupt workers that perhaps it was time to get honest.
Bangladesh had been lucky; they’d had a telepath and the Eight Pillars to rebuild their
country…

“If order is to be maintained, then it might be handled carefully,” he continued, his eyes
watching me closely. “We used to know the rules of international affairs, only when the first
superhumans appeared, the rules changed. The pecking order vanished and we all had to get
used to a new world. We adapted…but when survival isn’t a requirement, does it matter how
chaotic the world becomes? What would happen if superhumans went to war?”

The nasty thought forced its way into my brain. Was that the objective? Did the killers want
to spark off a major superhuman conflict? There were supposed to be around a thousand
superhumans in New York now – I doubted that was true, but what if it were perfectly true?
What would happen if they all went to war? What if…the Guerrilla Girls attacked someone
they thought had supported the killing of Warrior Girl? What would happen if Rani tried to
attack someone she thought was responsible for the death of Manna? What would happen
if…?

“Who benefits from chaos?” Al-Ramah asked, his voice soft and low, almost seductive. I
almost shivered and focused my mind on my surroundings. “Who would have a motive?”

“Pure Humanity,” I said, coldly. I had always suspected that they were the most likely
suspects, but I had thought that even they would have to be completely out of their minds to
start such a spree of murders. I had tried to understand the targets, but if the purpose was to
get all the various superhumans out for blood, then…

I could see it clearly; the groups heading out for war, while the SDI tried to stop them,
starting a major fight right inside New York City itself, maybe elsewhere. By the time it
finished, if it finished, the city would be in ruins and most of the population would be dead,
or fleeing the burning city. There hadn’t been a major superhuman conflict ever; this was
completely unknown territory…

And if there really were someone international behind it, would they want to kill most of
America’s superhumans?

I looked up at him. “Who is behind this?”

“I wish I knew,” Al-Ramah said. His voice was slowly returning to normal. “All I can tell
you is the oldest piece of advice in the book; who benefits?”

I scowled at him and then waved to Johnny Sputnik, who fell out of the air towards us. Al-
Ramah nodded once to him and then held out a hand. “May Allah go with you,” he said.
“Find the murderers and stop them before they stop you.”
Chapter Twenty

“That person wanted to marry me,” Rani burst out, after I had finished telling her what Al-
Ramah had said. “He had this idea about how it would bring our two nations together.”

I looked at her. “Is that actually true?” I asked, dryly. “Did it bring the two nations closer
together?”

“Well, if you call being at daggers drawn closer relations, than yes, it did,” Rani said. I could
tell that she was joking. “More seriously, I turned him down and all the girls in the Eight
Pillars keep asking me where I put my brains at the time.”

“I thought he was already married,” I said, puzzled. “Did he intend to make you his second
wife, or something?”

“I think he was having delusions of grandeur or something,” Rani said. “Does it really
matter?”

“It’s funny,” I said. She clenched a fist and waved it in my direction. I held up my hands in
surrender. “All right; we didn’t learn anything really useful, except the people behind this
want chaos and lots of chaos…and that there might be an international dimension
somewhere.”

“It does make one wonder why someone would bother,” Rani said. She looked over at Layla;
they’d used the time involved to get to know each other a little better. They did have a lot in
common. “Was some country miffed because they hadn’t been invited to the conference?”

Layla shook her head. “It’s very much an open conference,” she said. “Anyone who wanted
to send a representative could have done so without having to convince everyone that their
presence was somehow vital. Switzerland and Australia, for example, didn’t bother to send
any representatives to the conference. The real decisions will be made in private, but
formally, at least, everyone who had an interest in superhumans and Africa got the chance to
come.”

I rolled my eyes. “Just how did they expect to get anything done?”

“I think that the idea was to look good,” Rani said. She stood up impatiently. “Have you
decided on what we’re going to do next?”

“We’re going to speak to the three possible suspects Layla identified,” I said, thoughtfully. “I
called the General and spoke to him; now that we know who they are, I think that just you
and I should go, unless something goes badly wrong. Layla, who are they?”

Layla nodded slowly. “The elder man is called Wang Xilai,” she said. “I checked up on his
records and apparently he came to the United States only ten years ago, became a citizen a
year later. There’s nothing embarrassing on his records, but as he fled China, there wouldn’t
always be anything to find. The girl is called Sharon Jones, a teenager of seventeen years;
just your type, really.” She stuck out her tongue at me. “And the man is called Malcolm
Kottwitz, apparently an insurance salesman for Bonny and Cleveland Incorporated, but has at
least one black mark on his record.”
“Insurance salesmen,” I muttered. “Do you think that all of this has been cooked up to sell
insurance?”

“It would make a better motive than some lunatic trying to start a war,” Rani said, after a
moment. She hadn’t realised that I was joking. “Could someone literally plan to destroy
New York to collect on the insurance?”

“I doubt it,” I said, glancing at Layla. “What’s this sudden interest in my sex life?”

“It’s not sudden,” Layla protested, her face split from end to end by a smile. “I’ve always
been interested in your sex life.”

I pushed the conversation to one side before it went somewhere I didn’t want it to go – never
let them give you to the women – and focused on the matter at hand. “We’ll start with the
girl,” I said, shortly, and ignored Layla’s snort with as dignified an air as I could manage. “I
think she’s probably innocent, but we’ll check her out first as it will be harder to do that
quietly, not after everyone knows who we are now. Once we clear her – if we clear her –
we’ll see to the elderly man, and then the younger man.”

“Works for me,” Layla said, shortly. “Let’s go.”

The driver took us directly to the college, passing a memorial parade for Warrior Girl, and a
march by the bald-headed League Against Hairdressers, before we pulled into the college.
Layla had been on the phone to them; by the time we arrived, Sharon had been pulled out of
her class and held in the principal’s office. It wasn't unusual, I guessed from the resigned
looks of the staff; a lower-tier college like this one would have no shortage of run-ins with the
NYPD. I was only surprised that she hadn’t demanded a lawyer; there are kids out there who
carry lawyer cards and insist on calling them as soon as they get into trouble. Most of them
then try to charge the lawyer’s services to the NYPD.

Kids these days. Love them or hate them, you can’t kill them at random.

Sharon herself turned out to be very much a girl, on the cusp of final womanhood; small,
slight, blonde and very scared. The minute I saw her, I was convinced that she wasn’t
involved with the case, although judging from the way she moved, I suspected that she was
involved in something else. It wasn't my concern, but I made a mental note to have Layla
check her out more thoroughly; God only knew what was going on, or if we could do
anything about it.

“I’m Matt and we’re investigating a serious crime,” I said, as calmly and reassuringly as I
could. I showed her my SDI card and she showed little reaction. “I have to ask you some
questions; do you understand?”

I ran through the rest of the spiel, watching her carefully; she had to be involved in
something, but her reactions were…odd. “You go to the local public library every day,” I
said, “and you use a standard proxy server, which goes by the entertaining name of Piss Off
And Die, Nazis. I need to know what you use it for.”
She flinched, almost as if I had hit her. “My boyfriend,” she said, through breathes. “My
parents…they don’t like him and they don’t like us talking to one another, so they don’t let
me use the computers at home and they bribed the library staff into reporting what I do with
the computers at home.”

I exchanged a glance with Rani. Sharon was telling the truth, sort of; she was certainly
telling the truth as she saw it. I didn’t believe that the library staff would have told her
parents what she was doing on the computer, but she believed it; it made me wonder just who
her boyfriend was, and why they didn’t like him. I pushed a couple of questions at her, just to
find out what was happening, and ended up more mystified than ever. If they didn’t like her
boyfriend…was it any concern of theirs what they did together? It wasn't a question I was
competent to answer.

“Don’t worry,” I said, finally. We had gone haring down the wrong line and that was bad. “I
don’t think you’re in any trouble, so…”

I shook my head as she left, too young or innocent or scared to even give me a sassy twitch as
she walked out of the room. Kids these days grow up fast; for everyone in this building who
might become something interesting, there will be ten who will waste their lives, or die early
because of violence, or…we left the building, after informing the principal that it was an SDI
matter and reminding him that telling anyone, even her parents, would be a criminal offence,
and got back into the car.

Rani scowled as the car motored back out onto the streets. “Do you think she was being
abused?”

“Not physically,” I said, absently, cursing myself. Sharon might have been a scared little
mouse, but she didn’t have anything, but a vast guilt complex. Poor girl; we had scared her
to death for nothing. “Mentally…maybe, but there’s nothing we can do about it.”

There are millions of people in the world, each one with a similar story.

And people ask me why I live alone.

Wang Xilai proved to live in a small flat; we climbed up ten flights of stairs, introduced
ourselves, and he was more than willing to welcome us in. He didn’t live in Chinatown, but
just outside it; apparently, his contact with the main Chinese community was limited,
although as we made small talk, he referred to a Frenchman who had married his
granddaughter and taken her to live in France.

“I have to ask you about your activities,” I said, after he had insisted on giving us both a cup
of tea. Chinese tea isn’t to my taste, but I drank it anyway; Rani drank hers without
comment. “What exactly do you do with the proxy server?”

He looked at us for a long moment. Wang could have put the ‘inscrutable’ in the
stereotypical Chinese, but he was an open book to me; part of him was more than a little
scared, but it was a defiant kind of scared, not pathetic cringing, even inwardly. He came to a
decision and held my eyes; there was a hint of real nobility in them, something that won my
respect.
“You are American government, yes?” He asked, finally. I nodded. He hadn’t sounded as if
he hated the American Government, which probably made him unique in America. “I go
online to provide support for the cause.”

I blinked, feeling that I had lost the plot somewhere. “I came to America from China in the
wake of some of my family being purged for having a suspected superhuman in their ranks,”
Wang said, his voice starting to sound more Chinese. “My family had been wealthy, but
when the Party decided that it no longer trusted us, we were broken and half of us ended up in
internment camps. Our businesses were taken from us, some of our business partners in the
West were induced to break their ties with us, and some of us were arrested and beaten. I
took what I had left and bought my way to America.”

I glanced around the flat. “You seem to have enough money now,” I said, carefully. People
living without visible means of support were regarded as suspicious on general principles; a
basic spending analysis, run by someone like Layla, could turn up a hundred possible
suspects from their money alone. “How did you manage to earn money here?”

Wang gave me a perfect smile. “My family always put some money aside in a Swiss bank
account,” he said. I remembered the money that had been provided for America by an
unknown partner and felt my blood run cold…or was it a coincidence? It might well be just
that, or it might be something more sinister. “Once I had established myself, I was able to
draw on those funds to provide myself with this place, which is really all I need.”

He paused. “But I kept thinking that someone had to stand up and coordinate all the activities
in China,” he said softly. “One day, I made a contact, then another contact, and then I started
work on forging a unified protest movement. If China was united, then the Party would be
crushed, but instead…”

I nodded once. The Chinese Communist Party had been trying to liberalise and repress at the
same time, a delicate balancing act that had been completely ruined when the first
superhumans appeared in China, some of them protesters facing gunmen at a place called
Tiananmen Square, others farmers out in the hinterlands, still others Tibetans or
representatives of other ethnic groups. The situation was completely unstable and was only
likely to get worse; unlike the Iraqis, or us, the Chinese had failed to adapt to superhumans or
co-opt them all. If someone actually did manage to unite the various opposition movements,
the Chinese Communist Party wouldn’t stand a chance; the civil unrest had already damaged
the Chinese economy beyond easy repair.

“So you understand,” Wang said, nervously. His face showed nothing still; he would have
made a devilish poker player, although not against me. “What are you going to do with the
information?”

I hesitated. Technically, I should inform the General, who would then pass the information
upwards to the State Department, maybe even the President. We had tolerated movements
like Wang’s before – there was that group out on in San Francisco – but Wang was alone and
almost friendless; I could see the State Department selling him to the Chinese without much
in the way of remorse.

“As far as I’m concerned, you’re nothing to do with my investigation,” I said, grimly. It
wasn't technically a breach of my working agreement with the General; I could tell him that I
had simply cleared Wang of any involvement with the affair and leave it at that. “I would
advise you to keep your head down for a few months, but…”

Wang surprised me with a laugh. “I’m over ninety years old,” he said, very dryly. He didn’t
look it; judging from appearance alone, I would have put him at fifty. He certainly hadn’t let
himself grow fat and ugly like many other older men I know. He didn’t really feel old, even
to my senses. “Just how much longer do you think I have to live?”

I had to laugh. No one has yet developed immortality as a superpower. “True enough,” I
said, seriously. Wang might one day be tracked down by the Chinese and assassinated, but…
it wasn't my concern at the moment. I’d have to decide later if I wanted to bring him to the
General’s attention or not, but that could wait. “We’ll see you again later.”

“Number Three?” Rani asked, as we got back into the car. I looked over at her in surprise.
“Or do you want to call it a day and go get some sleep before we visit Malcolm Kottwitz?”

“I’m good if you are,” I said, as the driver took us back out onto the streets. I had gone
halfway around the world in less than a day and back, and I still felt more than a little dizzy.
“Do you want to get some sleep?”

Rani shook her head. “I just want to get it over with,” she admitted. I heard the grim note in
her voice and understood the underlying message; we were running out of time. That had
been the point the Iraqi had tried to make as well; if we failed to reassure the world, the
superhumans would start gearing up to protect themselves. “I heard from Truth today.”

Truth, the telepath who headed up the Eight Pillars. “The conference is on the verge of
collapse,” Rani said, softly. “If we don’t find out who killed Manna quickly, it could have
a…bad effect. If our delegation leaves the conference, other delegations will leave and that
will cause the conference to collapse. The situation back home might explode; unless we
deliver a result, there are going to be demands issued and threats made.”

I scowled. Thirty years ago, the idea of Bangladesh threatening the United States would be
laughable; today, with superhumans involved, it was a great deal less funny. If it came down
to blows, the remaining nations of the world would take sides and the superhuman war would
break out. I remembered some of the criminals we’d seen in The Rock and shuddered, before
I realised something else; Rani had seen them as well. If there was a war crisis, she would
never be allowed to go back home, and she had to know that. It could get unpleasant.

Malcolm Kottwitz proved to live in a small house in the suburbs; neat, very pretty in a vague
sort of way, with a garage and a car. I wouldn’t have thought that being an insurance
salesman would allow someone to have such a properly, but according to Layla, Kottwitz was
old money, the scion of a family that would probably have arranged for him to have the house
to impress clients. I’d skimmed through the information she’d sent to us, but there was very
little on Kottwitz that was worth knowing, certainly no connections to superhumans. The
only note on his file of interest was a speeding ticket from back when he was fourteen. There
was nothing to suggest trouble, but…why did I have the feeling that I was being watched?

I opened my senses as wide as I dared and breathed in suburbia. Kottwitz used a car that ran
on electric power; the cars that had come into widespread service when Iraq had started to
dominate the Middle East. He came in and out of the house each day, sometimes with a
female companion; there were at least three women who came to see him regularly. I smiled
bitterly; perhaps they worked in shifts, or maybe one day one of them would come in at the
wrong time and discover that she was being two-timed. He had a security system that was
surprisingly advanced, but there was still nothing to suggest that anything was wrong…

And the door was open. I cursed and ran forward, already suspecting what I would find, and
ran into the house. It seemed quiet and peaceful, but I could sense it, something…I ran into
the kitchen and saw the body on the ground, and then the smell hit me directly. Everything
went dim around me; it was as if my body had suddenly been swaddled with cotton wool. I
realised what was happening, too late; my powers weren’t working! Something was badly
wrong…I heard Rani crashing to the ground and then I heard her cry out in pain and shock…

And then something hit me on the back of the head and I fell into blackness.
Chapter Twenty-One

My head hurt, badly. My mind kept producing weird images flashing across the back of my
eyelids, just before I slowly started to return to awareness. Memory kept pushing at me,
trying to warn me of danger, and then I remembered, suddenly, what had happened.
Someone had crept up on me from behind…and that was meant to me impossible. My
eyelids jerked open, revealing that I was sitting in a basement, tied to a chair.

“Welcome back to the land of the living,” a voice said. It sounded as if the speaker was
speaking through cotton wool; there were hardly any traces of thought or feeling. I tried to
draw on my powers to understand him and realised, as my blood ran cold, that my powers
weren’t working. The smell, the presence, the whatever it was…it was overriding them
somehow, leaving me…only human.

I felt hands touching mine and twisted my head; Rani was sitting in another chair, back to
back with me. I tried to twist my head enough to check up on her condition, but if she hadn’t
broken free, then her powers weren’t working either, leaving us both at the mercy of our
captors. Somehow, they’d gotten us away from our support; how the hell had they done that?
They shouldn’t have been able to move us out of the house before the SDI combat teams
crashed in, intent on recovering us. I looked down and realised that I was naked, apart from
my underpants; all of my equipment had been taken from me. They hadn’t left anything to
chance.

I heard Rani moan in pain. “I’m here,” I said, as reassuringly as I could. I remembered her
cry of pain and horror; how long had it been since she had felt real pain? Dark Guardian and
her had fought on equal terms; it had been a long time since she had fought in the campaign
against Bangladeshi superhuman warlords. “How are you feeling?”

“Sore,” Rani said, her body twitching against mine. If we had been alone, I might have been
able to untie her, even without looking at the knot, but with the man in the room, how could I
do anything without being noticed? “How are you?”

“You’re really not very good at coping with pain,” the newcomer said, dryly. Reluctantly, I
lifted my eyes and saw him, standing there in the semi-darkness. “I would have expected no
less from one of…your kind.”

My eyes went very wide as I took in his appearance. He was…weird, almost inhuman; for a
crazy moment, I wondered if we were really dealing with aliens after all, before common
sense reasserted itself. He was terrifyingly disproportioned, as if someone had drawn him as
an exaggerated cartoon figure; his arms and upper body were muscular, but much larger than
his head or his legs. I knew what he was; there was only one thing he could be and look like
that.

“You’re a Boerbul,” I said, in disbelief. I hadn’t considered that they might be involved
somewhere in the entire affair. “I thought you were all dead!”

The Boerbul glared at me. They’re probably the most disgusting products of the Superhuman
Era; they had been created in defiance of ethics, logic and reason. The South Africans had
wanted to find the cause of superpowers and had dissected black superhumans without the
slightest trace of remorse, or success. They might not have found out how to create real
superhumans, but they had discovered that if they implanted superhuman organs from real
superhumans into normal humans, they ended up with some level of superhuman abilities.
They also ended up with serious problems; some of them had been completely insane, others
had ended up with their bodies collapsing under the pressure of the superpowers – his legs
shouldn’t have been able to hold him upright – and some had gone nuts over having black
organs implanted into their bodies. They’d tried to make people believe that black men were
actually a separate species to white men…and the Boerbuls had regarded their creation as
rather like using animal organs to heal a human body.

I glared back, unwilling to be impressed, even if something was wrong with my powers. The
Boerbuls had scattered when South Africa collapsed; a handful had gone to work for Pretoria,
a handful had joined various groups fighting it out in the remains of Africa, and a handful had
simply vanished. The South Africans hadn’t been the only ones interested in dissecting the
superhumans, but even the Soviet Union or China hadn’t come close to matching the sheer
scale of horror that the Boerbuls had produced. I dread to think what Hitler and his gang of
bastards would have done with superhumans.

“I survived,” he said, his voice shaky. Deprived of my powers and feeling sore, I could only
rely on what I could hear in his voice, and I suspected that he wasn’t quite sane, or right in
the head. How many of his friends had he lost to such experiments? “I survived and found a
new cause.”

“I don’t understand,” Rani said. It struck me suddenly that his taunt about how her kind
didn’t cope well with pain hadn’t been referring to her superhuman nature, but to her skin
colour; the Apartheid era had been full of lies like that. The bravest man I ever met had been
as black as the night. “You should be dead!”

I nodded. The Boerbuls had never been stable. This one’s appearance was a result of the
superhuman coming into contact with the normal human inside…and growing right out of
control. Eventually, he should have died; it had been nearly a decade since anyone had heard
from any other Boerbul. It was inescapable, but terrifying; might someone actually have
started to produce new Boerbuls?

“That would be my fault,” a new voice said. A second shape appeared out of the semi-
darkness, a young man dressed all in black, right down to dark gloves. He had the presence
to carry the look off, but there was something in his eyes I didn’t like; he was scared of us,
particularly me. I didn’t understand; we were powerless, tied up and nearly naked…and he
had a Boerbul for protection. What was there to be scared of? “I found a way to stabilize the
process.”

Rani twisted her head; for the first time, I realised that there was blood running through her
hair. She’d been hit hard enough to break the skin covering her skull. It worried me; I’m
used to physical pain, but she had never really been hurt for a long time, and pain can be
shocking when you’re unprepared for it.

“You created more of them,” she said, flatly. “Don’t you know that there are UN resolutions
against that?”

“I’m not some mad scientist in a basement,” the newcomer said, irritated. “I merely took a
dying Boerbul” – he nodded to his friend – “and found a way to halt the process of
degeneration that would have, eventually, torn his body apart. Instead, with the process held
frozen, he can act almost like a normal superhuman.”

There was something in the way he said it that made me wince. “You’re Pure Humanity,” I
said. I had seen the same kind of irrational fanatical hatred before. “Why are you working
with a Boerbul?”

The Boerbul scowled. “Because we hate you as much as the normal humans do?”

“Normal humans?” I repeated. It clicked suddenly as I looked up at the newcomer. “You’re

a superhuman yourself!”

“I thought that your powers were neglected,” he said, very coldly. He stepped closer and the
strange smell grew stronger, pressing in on me. “You do not have any ability to follow my
actions.”

“No, I used logic and reason,” I said, pulling it all together. That smell…it wasn't just a
smell, but the sign of him using his powers! No wonder it hadn’t faded; I had picked up on it,
but I hadn’t understood what I was seeing. “You’re a superhuman with the power to interfere
with other superpowers.”

“The power to reduce them or turn them off at will,” he said, coldly. I felt my blood run cold,
even as puzzlement kept me focused; a superhuman with that kind of power would be the
General’s wet dream. He would have given his soul to get someone like that working for
him; the guy could have expected literally millions of dollars in salary, if he had come to the
SDI and proved that his powers worked. “I have your and her powers firmly deactivated.”

I took a breath. At least I knew better than to depend completely upon my powers. “Very
clever,” I said, seriously. It was quite clever and I should have seen it earlier. I’d even had a
clue; back at the murder scenes, the Doctors powers had worked perfectly, despite being near
the smell. “But tell me something; given that you’re a superhuman yourself, why are you
working for Pure Humanity?”

I laughed, pushing him as much as I dared. “Really, that seems a little silly,” I said, taunting
him slightly. “That’s just like having a black man joining the Ku Klux Klan. What makes
you so interested in working for a bunch of people who want you dead?”

His eyes flared slightly. “I didn’t know what I was for a while,” he said, sharply. I could
hear the anger in his tone and hoped that he was one of the types that couldn’t resist at least
some boasting. Superhumans tended to boast a lot about their powers, but this one was new,
very different from Rani or me. “Back at my school, there was a bastard who spawned on a
locker room floor, someone whose idea of fun consisted of giving me atomic wedgies every
week. I’m sure you know the type.”

“So you were bullied at school,” I said, dryly. I could sympathise with him, but only up to a
point. “What does that have to do with Pure Humanity?”

“You weren’t there,” he said, his voice shaking. “You can’t imagine what it’s like to be a
social outcast because someone keeps picking on you! You can’t understand what it’s like to
go through life knowing that every girl in the world calls you an ugly gnome, and every guy
who wants to be friends with the bastard keeps making your life hell…and knowing that
you’re just too good to bring in a weapon and blow them all away!”

“I hardly think that refraining from murdering other children makes you a hero,” I said. He
would talk to us because, at bottom, he wanted us to understand. “What does this all have to
do with superhumans?”

“One day, the moron went up a hill and fell down a cliff,” he said. “I’d loved to have been
the one who set him up, but I wasn't the only victim; someone sabotaged his climbing ropes
and left him to die.” He laughed bitterly. “Or maybe he just didn’t set himself up properly
and nearly killed himself; he was certainly stupid enough to do that.”

He shook his head. “But it doesn’t matter,” he said. “Instead of falling to his doom and a
long stay in hell, the bastard sparked and became superhuman. Oh, he kept it a secret long
enough to win the championship” – superhumans weren’t allowed to take part in normal
sports – “but eventually we all knew what he was, and well…having your pants pulled down
is even worse if the guy doing it is superhuman. One day, he was trying to shove my head
down the toilet and I couldn’t even hurt him and then…”

I took a wild guess. “His powers deactivated,” I said. “You sparked yourself.”

“I didn’t realise at the time,” he admitted. “I didn’t know what had happened because he was
still stronger than me without his powers, even through he dropped me and left me there. It
was the end of my time in that hellhole anyway, so I went on to a different college from him
and thought no more of it, until I accidentally caused another superhuman, Flamewar, to lose
his powers.”

“Shit,” I said, genuinely shocked. Flamewar had been surprisingly popular and his death a
complete mystery; he’d been found smashed into a pulp on the ground, years ago. The SDI
had reluctantly concluded that he’d had a fight with another superhuman and lost
spectacularly; no one ever found a trace of whom he’d been fighting. “What did he do to
you?”

“I wanted him to suffer and die,” he said. “He was just another superhuman, after all. I’d
met an anti-superhuman group in College; we were sick of them all, their powers, their
attitude, the contempt they have for us normal pitiful ants scurrying around on the ground,
and they helped me to work out what I could do. I went underground, met up with a small
cell, and waited until we finally had a chance to hurt large numbers of superhumans in one
swoop.”

I considered his words. “What did they do to you?”

“One of them treated me like dirt and ruined my life,” he snapped. “What did the others do
about it? Nothing! The bastard is out there somewhere, flying around and pretending to be a
hero, adored by women and sleeping with every damn starlet he can see, and what happens to
those he stood on?”

Rani gasped in pain as she moved. “You killed my friend,” she snapped. “What did he do to
you?”
“He was a superhuman,” he snapped back. “What does it matter how good or bad he was?
How do you think your countrymen feel when they see you flying high overhead? Somehow,
I don’t think that they think you’re so great; there’ll thinking that that bitch has a cushy job
because she was lucky enough to be born with superpowers. How much do we allow
superhumans to get away with, just because they’re superhumans? Do you know how many
people Dark Guardian has killed?”

He pushed on without waiting for an answer. “He’s killed at least fifty people that I know
about,” he said, thundering as he paced around. “What happened to him? Nothing. The
Mayor knows about this and did nothing; his tame mistress in the police department knows
about this, and does she carry out her duty to protect the public? Hell, no; why would she
want to prosecute a superhuman? Heaven forbid!”

I’d had a nasty thought. “Dark Guardian was the superhuman who picked on you?” I asked.
I wouldn’t have thought that that was likely; my brief glance at him had suggested that he
was more of an unforgiving type rather than a bully. I’d met the type before; he would treat
most people well, as long as he didn’t consider them evil. The definition of evil, of course,
was his. It included people who got in his way. “Is that why you’re so mad at him?”

He looked back at me. “What happens when he feels like killing someone and there’s no
criminals around to kill?”

“Then why don’t you join us?” I asked. “The SDI exists to prevent superhumans from
becoming a serious danger…”

He laughed at me. “You’re funny, you know that?”

I scowled. I don’t like being mocked, any more than the next guy. “I sometimes have been
known to crack a joke or two,” I said, shortly. “What’s so funny about that?”

“Answer me a question,” he said, his face twisting into a smile. “If someone developed a
system that could render nukes completely incapable of exploding, how eager do you think
the United States Government would be to share it around the world?”

“I’m too tired for analogies,” I said, wishing that the throbbing in my head would fade. I
don’t normally get headaches when I live on my own, but the effects of his power were
pouring at me, digging into the side of my head and hurting me. “What’s your point?”

“The SDI doesn’t exist to stop superhumans,” he said, very coldly. “If that were true, those
freaks you have out at The Rock would all be killed right now, and others on the streets now
would be hunted down and killed. The SDI exists to co-opt superhumans and force them to
serve the interests of the nation, whatever those interests are, and believe me, they are not
going to put their weight behind a plan to exterminate superhumans when they need them.”

He scowled, and then smiled, inviting me to share the joke. “No one is going to build a
massive army of sentinel robots and send them out to exterminate superhumans while the
superhumans remain useful,” he said. “The ordinary people get caught in the middle and
suffer, and die, while the superhumans remain too useful to simply dispose of, if they can be
disposed of. Even if the SDI was ordered to exterminate the superhumans, what about the
remainder of the world? Would Africa have become such a sinkhole of chaos if superhumans
had never come into existence?”

“No,” the Boerbul said, before I could speak. His voice sounded more African now. “Back
then, everyone knew their proper place and stuck to it.”

I looked over at the superhuman. “Do you really want to ally yourself with someone from the
most racist regime in history?”

He shrugged, unconcerned. “All monsters together, then,” he said, as he turned to leave.

“We’re going to interrogate you quite thoroughly over the next few days, so please abandon
any thoughts of getting out of her; you can’t leave my sphere of influence. We destroyed
anything that might be used to lead the SDI here, so…”

“At the risk of sounding like a comic book character, “I snapped, “you’ll never get away with
this!”

He laughed. “You’re making a mistake,” he said, dryly. There was a new note in his voice.
“What makes you think I want to get away with it?”
Chapter Twenty-Two

“Shit,” I said, as soon as they had left us alone. “Rani; how are you feeling?”

“Bad,” she said, pain leaking into her voice for the first time. “What happened to our
escort?”

I’d been thinking along the same lines myself. The SDI had been following us as we checked
out the three possible systems; they should have come bursting in as soon as something
happened to us. Even at the worst, they should never have allowed at least two people to
leave the building, carrying boxes large enough to hold a pair of bodies. They’d followed our
path, so how had the pair avoided their attentions; it should have been impossible. If they
had managed it, somehow, then we were in real trouble; without our equipment, it was going
to be hard to actually escape.

“I don’t know,” I said, carefully testing my bonds. If I had been conscious when they had
tied us, I would have flexed my hands to force them to give me some loose bonds when I
relaxed, but I hadn’t been even remotely awake at the time. Even so, they hadn’t thought it
through very well; there is a reason why handcuffs and plastic ties are used by the military
and the police. If I’d been in their place, I would have handcuffed us to the wall, or
something much firmer than a chair.

I cursed under my breath as I felt out our position. We could get the chairs onto the floor
easily enough, except we would still be stuck to them. I couldn’t feel out any bonds holding
us to the chairs themselves, but that wasn’t needed; they had pinned our arms to hold us to
the chairs. We wouldn’t be able to have the leverage we would need to free ourselves, but
even so…they’d underestimated us. I felt myself smile bitterly, even through the pain; they
had thought that we depended on our powers. I knew better than that; as a low-order
superhuman, I knew far more about using my body than anyone who had found themselves
blessed with high-order powers.

“It was an interesting development,” I said, as calmly as if I were ordering lunch. I wanted to
keep her calm, but I also wanted to keep them thinking that I wasn't trying to escape, or get
up to anything stupid. “That Boerbul…do you understand what happened to him?”

Rani twitched slightly as she felt my fingers pressing against her hands, but kept her voice
calm. “That guy must have managed to limit his powers somehow,” she said, thoughtfully.
She still sounded more than a little shocked; losing her powers like that had been an
unpleasant surprise to her. Superhumans don’t lose their powers very often, mainly through
the use of drugs or head injuries, but when they do they can act worse than a normal man
who’s suddenly lost the ability to walk. “Could that be possible?”

I hesitated; I’d just found part of the knot. “I studied the SDI reports on the handful of
Boerbuls who fell into our hands,” I said, carefully. “They hadn’t sparked, but they’d had the
superpowers inserted into their bodies, which couldn’t handle them; for every halfway
success story, there were at least ten disasters. In the long run, the superhuman energies they
drew upon proved limited or dangerous; they simply never had the ability to control them.”

My mind raced as I found the end of the knot. “It’s not really possible for a superhuman to
seriously hurt someone through intimate relationships unless they mean to do it,” I said,
trying to keep myself from showing my excitement in my voice. If I pushed her bonds just
right…I might be able to free her before anyone could react. “If a superhuman sleeps with a
girl, he doesn’t actually hurt her unless he wants to hurt her; it’s rather like a hypnotic
command. You can’t be hypnotised into doing something fundamentally against your will,
but you can be tricked into doing something, perhaps through suggestions that all is not as it
seems.

“But a Boerbul doesn’t have that kind of inbuilt protection,” I continued. “They don’t have
perfect control over their powers and they don’t always understand what they have.
Sometimes their powers combine; the superhuman and the human parts of their body merge
together, or they rip each other apart. Like candles, they burn brightly, but they’re burning at
both ends. Those we studied were almost suffering from a kind of superhuman cancer; their
bodies were just ripped apart by the superhuman organs that had been grafted into their
flesh.”

I worked, carefully, on her bonds. “Did Bangladesh ever try to make additional
superhumans?”

“No,” she said, truthfully. I wasn’t sure if my powers were returning or if I knew her well
enough by now to be certain that she was telling the truth. “There were quite a few people
who tried to put themselves in mortal danger in hopes of sparking, but we discouraged it as
best as we could; people just kept dying.”

I laughed, darkly; the United States had it’s own fair share of ‘Unleash Your Inner
Superhuman’ programs, promising the buyer their own superpowers if they signed up with
them, but all they really did was a program in which the poor bastard would be tossed out of a
plane without a parachute. Sometimes it worked; most of the time, the poor bastard – poorer
now that he had paid for the treatment – smashed into the ground and turned to jelly. It
doesn’t stop people from lining up to try the process…

Rani twitched again. “What about the SDI?”

“The official SDI view is that attempting to create Boerbuls would cause more problems than
it solved,” I said. The SDI did, along with almost every research laboratory in the country,
carry out research into superhumans and how they got their powers, but no one has found a
safe way of passing the superpowers on to the volunteer. If we did find a way of triggering a
sparking at will, it would change the world…”

I smiled. I’d found out how the knot went together and carefully started to untie her. The
knot was a military-standard knot; bloody difficult to for the victim to untie, but fairly easy
for someone else to untie them. The Boerbul had probably worked for the South African
BOSS; a secret police force that made the Gestapo look meek and mild. They hadn’t just
oppressed people unlucky enough to be born black, but anyone whom they suspected to be
showing the slightest amount of liberalism, communism, fascism, Judaism and pro-
Americanism. Their conviction that they were the final guardians of civilisation had led them
to carry out appalling crimes against humanity; I wasn't going to give the Boerbul the
slightest chance if I met him in a fair fight.

“Would it be a good change?” She asked. I could feel her excitement as I pulled at the rope,
forcing them to loosen and fall away. “What now?”
I scowled at her. Hopefully, they wouldn’t realise what we’d done, but in their place I would
have stuffed a visual sensor or a camera into the room, just in case we managed to get free.
She moved surprisingly quietly as she turned in her chair and started to work on my bonds; it
was easier for her to undo me as she could see what she was doing. A moment later, I stood
up and padded silently over to the door; it was open and there was no sign of our captors.

Rani caught my hand. For a moment, I was distracted by her in her underwear, and then
dragged my mind back to the present. “Stay very quiet,” I ordered, as we slipped out into the
corridor. “I don’t want to hear a sound…”

I’d wondered if we were being held in the same house that we’d entered, but it was clearly a
much larger safe house than I’d realised, one that was probably a converted warehouse.
Terrorist groups don’t bother to put up flags or mark their territory in any way, but even they
needed a base, somewhere to touch ground with their operators. If we could get out of the
base, we’d have at least a chance at finding a telephone and calling down the wrath of the
SDI on their heads, but in their case, I’d guard the exits carefully.

“This way,” I guessed, hearing voices coming from behind us. We moved quickly down the
corridor, half-stumbling in the semi-darkness, until we reached a large room that seemed to
be used for weapons training. I smiled as I saw it; there were no guns, or bombs, in the room,
but only older weapons like staffs and strange weapons from Japan. I blame it all on Batman,
myself; there are hundreds of people who are daft enough to think that if they master a
particular weapon, they will be able to handle themselves in a battle with a superhuman. It
sometimes works…but most of the time, it leads to bloody disaster. “I think…”

“Stop,” someone shouted, coming at us. I saw the Boerbul and cursed; I could also see the
exit. “Stop or get crushed!”

“Get out of here,” I snapped, as I picked up one of the staffs. The Boerbul was a terrifying
figure, even in the half-light; an over-muscled man ranting at me in a language I didn’t
recognise. His great hands reached out for me as he lumbered towards me and I saw, clearly,
that he hadn’t been the murderer. Maybe my powers were creeping back into existence, or
maybe it was just the look on his face, but there was no way that this one could have slipped
through security to murder his targets. “Rani, get out of here; I’ll hold him off!”

She had enough sense to vanish as I held up the stick, wishing I’d spent time learning to use it
instead of combat, SEAL-style. The SEALs know hundreds of different ways to kill
someone, but the Boerbul was probably strong enough to shrug off most of them. Did he
have any real combat training? If BOSS had created him, they might well have taught him
how to use his new powers to best advantage, but how much would he remember if he’d been
in hiding for so long? He didn’t seem to be able to fly, or move at speedster speeds; I silently
thanked heaven for small mercies as I met his charge, slipped aside and tripped him up with
the staff. He hit the ground with a sickening crunch, a roar of pain…and then he was on his
feet again, madder than ever.

That should have broken the staff, I thought, as he lunged at me. This time, I stepped aside
and brought the staff down on the centre of his forehead, producing a wooden thump, but no
collapse. He’d probably had had something implanted into his brain; the later generations of
Boerbuls had been quite ingenious, in a certain sickening way. A while back, DARPA came
up with a kind of implanted armour for a soldier, but after the first four test subjects died,
they kind of lost enthusiasm for trying to develop the process any further. The South
Africans hadn’t cared about the costs the black test subjects paid for their research; their
desperation to keep their white man’s paradise – provided that you thought the same as they
did – intact had led them to try all kinds of experiments, including some that would have
made Hitler blanch. I blame genetic engineering myself; the scientists had come up with a
theory that would allow them to genetically engineer a virus that would strike down all non-
whites, and the regime had thought that it was a wonderful idea.

“All I have to do is hit you once,” he said, swinging at me with a meaty fist that was several
sizes too large to be real. The very force of his movement sent him into a spin; he almost
collapsed as he moved, catching himself before he could fall to the ground. “Once I hit you,
they’ll be picking up pieces of you and your jig-jig-bunny from here to Baghdad.”

“If you hit me,” I said. He was right, but at the same time, he was clearly having some real
problems. I guessed that he hadn’t faced a real opponent before, only people who saw him
and panicked; his appearance was terrifying enough to scare most people to death. There’s a
certain kind of bully who bullies because no one dares to stand up to him; when they are
challenged, they fold faster than America on laundry day. “At this rate, you’re more likely to
hit yourself in the face.”

I had to keep provoking him. If he started to think, he might just manage to get ahead of me
and hit me. “You’re having some conflicts in your mind,” I pushed. “Don’t you know you’re
half-nigger?”

He roared with rage. “My improvements were designed by the geneticists,” he snapped at
me, and lashed out again. This time, he hit the wall and punched a hole right through it. I
rolled back, feinted to the left, and then entangled his feet once again with the staff, sending
him to the ground. “There’s no fucking kaffiar in me!”

I laughed, as mockingly as I could. “You know better than that,” I said, dryly. “If they’d
succeeded in growing superhuman organs, they’d have made thousands of you, but instead…
they only had a few hundred. Why? Because they only had a limited number of coons to
harvest for their organs, didn’t they? Did they tell you that you were created in a test tube?
Why did you believe them?”

“My parents died in a fucking coon terror attack,” he snapped, as he rolled over and dodged a
thrust at his throat. I had to end this quickly, but even so…where was the power-dampener?
Where was Rani? “What did you Americans do when we were threatened by communist
Jews from Israel? You sold us out to nigger whores from Moscow!”

There was little logic in his words now. “You can’t beat me,” I said, as nastily as I could. It
would need a nastier attack now to push him right over the edge. “I’m pure Afrikaner, a
descendent of people who left South Africa, and you’re a bastard son of a doped-up nigger
barbarian from the tall trees. You don’t have a chance against me!”

He roared and came right at me, crashing right into the stacked weapons, and I took my
chance. He wasn't completely invulnerable, not with his body the way it was, and I used a
knife to slash once across each of his knees. He howled in pain and lunged at me, his piggy
eyes going wide with pain, and I slashed out at his eye. My knife went into the eye…and
stopped; somehow, there was something in there preventing it from reaching his brain. His
hands went to his eyes – the eyes, like the groin, are a place where someone will try to defend
and heal them, no matter how useless it is – and pulled out the knife, but it was too late. I’d
blinded him in one eye.

“Enough,” I said, as calmly as I could. The Boerbul would be on the verge of shattering
completely, torn apart by so much pain and stress on his body. There’s only a certain amount
of pain you can inflict on someone before their minds give up completely and either black out
or take refugee in madness. “If you surrender, I can have you treated and you can live out the
rest of your life in comfort. If not…”

He pulled himself up by main force, blood streaming down from his eye, and leapt at me. It
surprised me, just a little, and he clipped me; if I’d had my powers, he would never have
managed to surprise me like that. He sent me crashing across the room, but before he could
move again, he fell backwards and collapsed, howling in pain. I pulled myself to my feet –
something was definitely broken, probably a few ribs – and staggered over to him. I was
going to crush his throat, but there was no point; his single eye was wide, staring up at
nothing.

“Impressive,” a dispassionate voice said. The new superhuman, the power-dampener, was
standing there. He had seen me beat his friend to death – almost to death; he was still
breathing – but he didn’t look in the least annoyed, or worried. “You beat him with your bare
hands.”

I glared at him. “Don’t you care about him?”

“I cared very little for him,” he replied, calmly. “A man of such urges isn’t exactly the sort of
person you’d want to bring home to mother, would you?”

“You hate superhumans,” I said, trying to get on his nerves. “I think you hate your own
existence.”

“But I have such a lot to hate,” he said, coldly. “Why was a superhuman bully allowed to run
around for so long?”

I wasn't in the mood to play nice, not with pain leaking through my body and broken bones.
“Damn you,” I snapped, angrily. He didn’t show any reaction at all to my fury or even the
murderous look in my eyes. “Give up now and I’ll try and convince the General to blame
everything on your dead friend.”

“I think I would prefer to continue my operations,” he said, calmly. He glanced upwards

sharply. “Your friend has managed to call for help, so I think I’ll take my leave, so au revoir
until we meet again.”

Before I could stagger to my feet and lunge at him, he vanished in a flash of light.

“Cheat,” I said, outraged. That answered the question of how we’d been moved from one
house to another. “You didn’t tell me you were a teleporter.”
Chapter Twenty-Three

Rani flew into the air, glorying in her powers.

“She’s really quite impressive,” the General said, as we watched. Someone had found her a
coat, but she still looked surprisingly vulnerable as she flew around in the air, America
keeping pace with her and watching her through his hood. The SDI superhuman response
team had been there in moments and Jumper had bought an entire set of trained soldiers with
him. Even so, it had been too late to catch the new superhuman before he had vanished.

“Yes,” I said, without much interest. Doctor Torqumada had repaired my broken bones and
worked hard to prevent my body from overloading, but my head still felt as if it had been
stuffed with cotton wool. My powers were returning now that I was away from the influence
of the new superhuman – our enemy still had no name – but even so, I still felt awful. “What
have the forensic teams found in the building?”

The General looked over towards the warehouse. The Pure Humanity cell had set up base in
a disused warehouse, which had apparently been hired by a martial arts group looking for
somewhere where they could train in peace. The SDI would follow it up, but my guess was
that it would prove to be another false trail; we were up against a capable opponent.

“Very little,” he said. The Doctor had wandered off to examine the remains of the Boerbul,
leaving us alone to talk properly to one another. “We’ll go through it bit by bit, but…hell,
you should see the bodies.”

I blinked. “Bodies?” I asked. “He killed other superhumans?”

“No, women,” the General said. “There were at least three female bodies in the warehouse; I
suspect that they must have been killed by the Boerbul and left here to rot. If we’re lucky, we
might pick up some DNA links that will allow us to actually identify our mysterious power-
drainer, but until then…”

I scowled. There had been proposals to keep a DNA record for every citizen in the country
for years, but even with the introduction of superhumans into the mix, the ACLU had always
scuttled the proposals. It was hard to blame them, when such a database could be easily
misused, but at the moment it was an irritation. Without it, unless our mysterious opponent
had had a run-in with the law before, it would be much harder to track him down.

“General,” Torqumada shouted, from over inside the warehouse. “Come and have a look at
this!”

We wandered over, back into the wrecked training area, where Torqumada was examining the
Boerbul. I’d hurt him badly and I was surprised that he’d survived, but somehow he was still
breathing, if badly. I guessed one of the researchers must have tried to graft a healing factor
into his body as well, or maybe it was the result of his friend’s manipulations, but somehow
he wasn't dead. Rani fell out of the air and came over to join us, peering down at the still-
breathing Boerbul.

The General’s concerns were, as always, practical. “Can you keep him alive?”
“In a manner of speaking,” Torqumada admitted. I blinked at the self-doubt in his voice.
“The monster was created through a forbidden procedure; a procedure forbidden because, in
the end, it always killed its subject. This one should have died a long time ago…”

“I said that,” I injected.

“But instead some of his superhuman organs were induced to reduce the amount of energy
they used,” Torqumada said, ignoring me with the ease of long practice. He’s no respecter of
persons, even of me; the only person who he is consistently respectful to is the General. “It’s
really quite fascinating, as this prevented them from mutating and attacking the remainder of
his body, but even so the level of tissue rejection was quite high. Frankly, I'm surprised that
he lasted as long as he did, even with the treatments of his friend.”

He paused as his hand touched the Boerbul’s forehead. “This one also has a number of
techno-biological systems implanted into his body, comparable to some of the early work that
DARPA did under Project Midnight,” he continued. “The levels of safety are so low that,
again, I am honestly surprised that he lasted so long; the implants are powered, directly, by
tiny amounts of radioactive material. The healing factor graft was intended to counter the
exposure to radiation, but the radiation was actually affecting the superhuman organs as well.
The USSR and South Africa did experiment with using directed radiation to kill
superhumans; I suspect that the South Africans must have intended to use it as a failsafe. If
he went mad or evil, they could kill him at will.

“But on the whole, the combination of the pain caused by the grafting, the surgery, a growing
and very unpleasant form of cancer and several other causes finally reached into his head and
attacked,” he concluded. “We might manage to get something from him if we use a telepath,
but I don’t think that there’s anything I can do to restore him to wakefulness.”

Rani looked over at him. “Are you saying that he wants to die?”

“It’s been known to happen,” Torqumada said, without visible emotion. “The man has been
effectively tortured every day since they implanted this…vile witches brew of natural and
unnatural grafts into his body. I think he was on the verge of outright insanity even before
Pure Humanity found him and put him to work; it’s quite possible that they used his pain as a
spur to action.”

“What he wants doesn’t matter,” the General said. “I need him awake and talking.”

Torqumada looked at him. “I don’t think you quite understand,” he said. “This man’s
condition is in terminal decline and the best I can do is slow it down a little. I do not think
that he would return to wakefulness, no matter what we do to him, and I do not think that if
he somehow did manage to return to wakefulness he would be able to talk to us. It would be
much more likely that he would be a retarded monster than anyone we can talk to.”

He hesitated. “The best thing we could do now would be to kill him and save him some final
moments of agony,” he concluded. “I don’t think that any telepath would be able to extract
anything from such a mind, even if there is a mind left in there; the cells are breaking down
and the only thing keeping him alive is the superhuman healing factor, which is failing.”

The General scowled at him. “Very well,” he said. “Is he the murderer?”
“I don’t believe so,” I said, as Torqumada glanced at me. “His fists are much larger than the
fists that hit America; the damage would have been much more extreme if he hit him. I don’t
think that he could have cut Warrior Girl’s throat either, or something else like that; there
would have been much more damage on the body. I think that the power-drainer has at least
one other accomplice.”

“Maybe two,” Torqumada said. “We don’t always understand what superpowers go together,
but I can’t see teleporting as being tied in with an ability to shut down superpowers. Would
Pure Humanity have added a teleporter to their ranks?”

I exchanged a long glance with Rani. The power-drainer would have had real problems
getting accepted into Pure Humanity, but Pure Humanity was a terrorist group; it had various
cells and chapters all over America. In a world of telepaths, it survived by being brutal,
careful, and very precise; even today, only a handful of the top leadership had ended up in
custody. There were a handful that had killed themselves rather than be taken alive; two of
them had even gone so far as to use mind-wipe drugs on themselves, rather than let telepaths
read their minds.

It didn’t make sense. The power-drainer had certainly possessed the anti-superhuman point
of view, discoursing endlessly on how superhumans had ruined his life, but even so…he was
a superhuman himself. He might not have been able to fly, or had been super-strong, but he’d
certainly possessed at least one superhuman power. I remembered, grimly, something the
Protector of Iraq had mentioned to me and scowled; there were fanatical Islamic or Hindu
groups out there that wanted to suppress women, but had no objection to using women for
missions.

“They may not have been having him there willingly,” the General said, after a moment. He
glanced deeper into the warehouse. “They were keeping at least one other person prisoner
here; that person might have been a teleport-capable superhuman.”

“That can’t be right,” Torqumada said. “What’s to stop them from jumping out?”

Rani’s voice was bitter. “If someone has the power to inhibit superpowers in others, they can
certainly keep someone’s superpowers under control, or use them as puppets,” she said.
“Could a teleporter escape in the seconds they might have before it was too late?”

I nodded in understanding. Teleporting is one of the more worrying superpowers; the

teleporter can go anywhere and do anything from robbing a bank to kidnapping a wealthy
heiress out of her heavily-guarded mansion. They’re rare, fortunately, but the handful that do
exist tend to get co-opted into one group or another pretty quickly. If one existed and had
been keeping out of sight, maybe he had been kidnapped by Pure Humanity and put to work
for them.

“We’ll have to start seeing if we’re missing a teleporting superhuman from somewhere,” I
said, grimly. I rubbed the side of my head, wishing that it would clear; I felt as if someone
had started adding to the cotton wool in my head. According to the General, we’d been out
for a day; they’d burst in, too late, to discover that we had vanished. The thought reminded
me of something and I turned to the General. “Did you find anything interesting at Malcolm
Kottwitz’s house?”
“Actually, we found some information of interest,” the General said. “According to what we
found, dear Mr Kottwitz was very involved in the local Humanists, but left for some reason…
and there wasn't a single hint on the files we recovered that that was the case. I don’t think
that anyone back at the office would have remembered him, but I’m not actually sure that he
was an official member, but he was a very enthusiastic supporter. I spoke to his boss and he
said that Kottwitz had been involved with a superhuman-related case that had gone bad and
ended up costing Kottwitz his chance of promotion at the company.”

“Bastard,” I said, with some feeling. People shouldn’t blame the messenger; in the long run,
they just get less mail. Insurance companies tend to class superhumans up there with Acts of
God, something that makes their customers nervous; it’s one thing to pay vast premiums for
safety, but paying them and then getting nothing for it is something entirely different. There
had been a Senate ruling, eventually, that superhumans counted as being in the same league
as criminals and terrorists, at least when it came to damages, but even now, it was still going
through the courts. “I guess he had a grudge then against superhumans?”

“I think so,” the General said. I rolled my eyes; for every halfway decent superhuman in the
world, there were five who were arrogant arseholes. “From what we found, he was asked to
monitor the database that Barbara Roth was collecting and, from time to time, download the
data, burn it onto a CD, and then leave it for someone to pick up. My guess is that they
panicked when we searched the Humanist Building, decided to kill Kottwitz before he could
be interrogated, and ran into you…or maybe it was a trap.”

I silently cursed the detour to Iraq. If we had gone directly to Kottwitz’s, he might still have
been alive and able to testify. “Maybe,” I said, grimly. I had wanted to provoke a reaction…
and at least I’d had a look at our killer. He was the pivot of the whole business; get rid of him
and then…well, maybe there wouldn’t be any more sudden failures of superpowers, or…

No, I thought, shaking my head. Now that the General knew that it was possible, he would
start looking for another power-drainer, one without such a large chip on his or her shoulder,
and put him to work for the SDI. Others would be doing the same, trying to locate others
with the same powers…and the balance of power would alter once again. If, of course, we
survived the next few months; we might have seen one of the killers, but we didn’t have him
in custody, not yet.”

I yawned. “Get some sleep,” the General said, looking over at me. I wasn't inclined to argue
with his tone, not with my head all musty. “Go back to your hotel, sleep off the experience,
and I’ll see you in the morning. And you’d better be sober.”

“Slave driver,” I said, and staggered out of the warehouse into the afternoon warmth. The
tarmac was looking nice and inviting and I was tempted to just lie down and forget about
everything when Rani came up behind me and caught me, just before I pitched face-first onto
the ground. I tried to clear my head and failed. “Wazzup?”

Rani held me for a moment. “I'm going to get you home,” she said, and picked me up before
soaring effortlessly into the sky. It was different, very different, from being carried by
Johnny Sputnik; Rani didn’t produce a force field of her own that extended around me. The
cold rushing air kept me awake, but I was still on the verge of drifting off when she flew
through my hotel window, placed me on the bed, and withdrew to her own room. I was so
tired that I was barely aware of her departure.

It was the next morning before I woke up, feeling much better, so I checked the news and
swore. “Reporters in Washington today have confirmed that the responsibility for solving the
Superhuman Murder Spree in New York has been passed to the NYPD, apparently after a
complaint by the Latin American delegates regarding SDI hostility towards their people,”
Quirky Watkins said. She’s blonde, dumb, and only has the job because the interviewers took
one look at her and lost all blood flow to the brain. “Mayor Hathaway said today that he was
sure that the NYPD could produce results.”

“Bastard,” I snapped, and looked around for something to hurl at the television screen. There
didn’t seem to be anything in reach, but a pillow; I threw that anyway and completely missed
the screen. She continued to speak, showing an awesome amount of cleavage as she spoke,
and I ground my teeth in rage.

“This decision comes in the wake of a lawsuit launched against Mayor Hathaway by the
Humanist Party of New York, whose office was destroyed, along with the entire building, by
a conflict between America and two superhumans of unknown identity,” Quirky continued. I
felt my jaw hit the floor; everyone knew that it had been Rani and Dark Guardian who had
been present during the battle. “Mayor Hathaway has denied all responsibly for the affair and
has reportedly said that the Humanists provoked the affair.”

“Fuck it,” I said, pulling myself out of bed. My head, at least, felt clear; I realised, rather
ruefully, that I was still in my underpants and the coat the SDI response team had given me. I
leaned closer to try to listen, but the newsreader didn’t know much more, or maybe she
wasn’t telling what she knew. If she had somehow missed the fact that it was Dark Guardian
who had gone nuts, then someone had probably ordered her to keep her mouth shut, or else.
“What on Earth is he playing at?”

I tried to focus through my shock, thinking; Bryce had said that the Mayor had ambitions.
He’d never get the nomination if he was implicated in the affair, so the Dark Guardian affair
was going to be swept under the rug, perhaps with some attempt to blame the entire thing on
the Humanists. I could see how it would go, now; the uniform that Dark Guardian wore was
so covering that it would be easy to argue that there was someone else under the uniform that
day, or something other piece of nonsense that would muddy the waters enough for twenty
years. He wouldn’t need that long to secure the nomination, and then Dark Guardian could
be rehabilitated…or killed. Was the Mayor ruthless enough to kill Dark Guardian for the
sake of his own power?

The answer might well be ‘yes.’

I staggered into the bath, had a long soak, while I thought. I had the feeling that I was right
on the edge of discovering a real clue, another real clue, if only I could put it all together. I
hadn’t quite shaken off the effects of the power-drainers power; for some reason, I understood
now, he marked the area in which he used the power with that strange…smell. It wasn't a
smell, not really; smell was the only way my brain could comprehend it. That thought led
neatly to a second thought; he had claimed that he had sparked during a bullying incident, an
event that was surprisingly common, and…
“Oh, shit,” I said aloud. I could be wrong – I hoped I was wrong – but if not, I knew exactly
how to find the power-drainer. I pulled on the dressing gown as I climbed out of the bath,
allowed myself a moment to try and talk myself out of it, and then went to find Rani. If I was
right, there was no time to lose…

The General was going to be really unhappy.

Chapter Twenty-Four

“I see,” Rani said, as she buttered a piece of toast. “How much authority do you have at the
moment?”

“I honestly don’t know,” I admitted, taking a bite of my own dry toast. I can’t really eat jam
or other heavily flavoured food, not without scaling my senses down as far as they would go.
I didn’t want to risk it with our enemies still out there. “The Mayor might have taken over
the investigation, but even so, I am the investigator and you’re my sidekick…”

Rani snorted. Sidekicks had their place in the superhuman world, but the more mature
superhumans tended to disapprove of them, not least because they tended to be uncontrollable
or convinced that the world was black and white, with the obvious conclusion that they were
the good guys and anyone else the bad guys. It was technically illegal to deputize any
superhuman unless they were over twenty-one, but it was a law, I suspected, that was ignored
more often than it was heeded.

“The General will be up in Washington, pulling arms and kicking butt until we find out just
what’s going on, but until then, as far as I’m concerned, I still have the authority to
investigate according to what we’ve found out,” I continued. “If you don’t want to stay with
me, say the word and you can go back to the consulate.”

“I’m staying,” Rani said, shortly, taking a bite herself. “You’re not getting rid of me so
easily.”

I didn’t mention half the problems she might face if she stayed with me; she had proven
herself good company, as far as I was concerned, and I needed her. Call me selfish, if you
like, but if there was something I’d learned over the last few days, it was that nothing was
quite what it seemed.

“Fine,” I said, trying to sound unhappy. Her grin showed me that she wasn't convinced, nor
should she had been. “I came to an interesting conclusion last night.”

“I see,” Rani said, as I finished outlining my theory. “Do you have any proof of this?”

“I thought you’d ask that,” I said, cheerfully, “so I went through the SDI database with some
help from Layla. There are only a handful of possible superhumans who could fall into the
right age range, but of those, only one of them gained his powers in a manner comparable to
what our strange friend told us.”

Her face twisted, as if she had tasted something unpleasant. “You’re placing a lot of faith in
his word,” she said, shortly. “Matt…I don’t want to be rude, but are you sure that you believe
him? Your powers weren’t working then, any more than mine were; are you sure he wasn't
trying to send you down a false path?”

I hesitated. “I know that personality type,” I said, finally. I did have real insight into the way
many people thought, even without my powers, I was sure that I knew what type the power-
dampener had been. It wasn't unknown among members of more normal ethnic groups,
either; people who were marginalized by their own group tended to side with other groups
against their own. Everyone wants something from life and if they don’t find it in one cause,
they will find it in another. “He wanted us to know what he had gone through to create him,
so that we would understand; he wanted to be understood and accepted.”

“I don’t think that anyone who strips a defenceless woman to her underwear can be
accepted,” Rani said, after a moment. I shrugged; I regarded it as something they had had to
do to ensure that we weren’t followed, something they hadn’t really had a choice about doing.
Rani took it a lot more personally; nudity meant more to people from her culture than it did to
me. “You sound as if you feel sorry for him.”

“If you want to understand someone, walk a mile in his shoes,” I said. “If he feels himself a
permanent victim, then he has that as a motive for killing superhumans, but I think there’s
someone else behind him.”

“You didn’t answer the question,” Rani said. “Do you feel sorry for him?”

“Partly,” I admitted, choosing not to argue. “I understand what it’s like to be bullied, back
when I was young, but he isn’t going after his target, but every superhuman in the world.
That’s why I think someone is behind him, the real murderer, or someone who wants to use
him for their own purposes.”

Rani stared at me. “The real murderer?”

“I watched him carefully,” I said, cursing the power-drainer under my breath. Normally, I
know if someone has murdered someone, but if I were dealing with a fanatic, I wouldn’t find
it so easy, even with my powers. Murder stains the soul in a way that killing someone in self-
defence, or war, doesn’t, but a fanatic might not regard killing someone as murder. “I don’t
think that he was the one who actually committed the murders, merely the one who rendered
them helpless while his compatriot struck.”

“I see,” Rani said. “Does that make him innocent under American law?”

“Hell, no,” I said. “He’s going to fry for this.”

I finished my breakfast slowly, knowing that I had just lied; if we took him alive, the General
would want him to add to his store of living weapons. I had thought, before we learned his
story, that I wouldn’t care…but now, I wondered. If he had confined himself to murdering
Warrior Girl, perhaps he would have gone down in history as a good man, but with so many
dead bodies lying in his wake, it hardly mattered if he had been the person who killed them or
not. He had made their deaths inevitable.

“Come on,” I said, as the bellboy arrived to tell us that our driver had arrived. “Let’s go
beard the lion in his den.”

The SDI maintained a facility in every American state – and several in foreign countries I’m
not supposed to know about – that serve as both a base for the SDI’s superhumans and a
rallying point for the country’s other superhumans, who are supposed to rally around the flag
if there was a major threat to America. It’s something that has never been tested; no one is
sure if groups like the Space Cadets, the Night Crawlers and the Guerrilla Girls would come
to support the flag, or if we would want them if they did. The first group, at least, were
pathological liars; their claim to be the children of aliens who visited Earth back in the past
had been rejected on the grounds that none of them could provide any proof for their claims.

I had called ahead and requested the pleasure of his company, but I hadn’t cleared it with the
General, not least to spare him the consequences if everything went badly wrong. I didn’t
think that it would go to hell, but we were in uncharted waters; no one had ever acted in the
way I was going to act. The station commander showed us personally into a briefing room
and asked us to wait; a moment later, America dropped in neatly through the skylight.

“Matt,” he said, before noticing Rani. Somehow, I was sure that his face, hidden under the
mask, had developed a shit-eating grin; they had fought together, and, for some of the more
powerful superhumans, that was a powerful aphrodisiac. “And you, beautiful.”

He kissed her hand, removed his mask, and sat down with a flourish. “I got your message,”
he said, after a moment. “What can I do for you?”

I steepled my fingers together, rather like Sherlock Holmes, and faced him directly. “I need
to talk to you about your schooldays,” I said, watching him carefully. He was surprised at my
question, and more than a little puzzled, but he wasn't scared or worried. “Remind me; how
did you get your powers?”

I could sense his puzzlement as he answered. “I fell off a mountain and…well, didn’t hit the
ground,” he said, his voice betraying his confusion. “If you don’t mind me asking, what does
that have to do with the price of tea in China?”

“Nothing,” I said, seriously. He stared at me, wondering if I was wasting his time, and if so,
why? “When did you register as a superhuman?”

His eyes narrowed slightly. “In 2000,” he said, carefully. He was nervous now, I knew it;
I’d read his file with the greatest of care. It wasn't required, legally, for a superhuman to
register with the SDI, but it was very common, particularly for ones intent on a career in the
public eye. “What does this have to do with anything?”

I leaned closer. “And when exactly did you get your powers?”

“It wasn't my idea,” he said, defensively. I had touched a nerve there, but was it the one I
wanted to touch? “I didn’t want to do anything wrong!”

I sighed inwardly. “And what did you do wrong that wasn't your idea?”

“I was on the sports team,” he admitted, carefully. “Look, it wasn’t my idea; my coach
wanted a victory, so he told me to keep my powers a secret for a few months and help them
win the victory he wanted desperately for some reason. We won and a year later, I left
college anyway and went to work for the SDI and…”

“I see,” I said, stroking the tips of my fingers together. It was a disturbing movement to the
right kind of person; for all of his power, the third America wasn't a very complex person.
“Why did you reveal yourself in the end?”
“My family finally found out about my powers and Dad had a few words with the coach,”
America admitted. “Sir, that was years ago.”

“There’s no statue of limitations on some offences,” I said, thinking about how much danger
the coach had placed his fellow players and his opponents in on the playing field. He might
as well have outfitted his players with an Abrams tank each. The results could hardly have
been less bloody. “How many of your fellows knew that you were superhuman?”

America hesitated. “Almost all of them,” he admitted, finally. “It was just kept a secret from
people outside the college.”

I felt my lips twitching. If the mysterious power-drainer had thought logically, he could have
just betrayed his enemy to the SDI; there was a reason why superhumans were banned from
competing in sporting contests. America’s career, and that of his coach, would have gone
downhill so fast that he would have ended up in the gutter.

“Answer me a honest question,” I said, as I pulled a slip of paper from my pocket. “Do you
recognise this person?”

I’d sketched the power-drainer as well as I could; sketching is something of a hobby of mine,
aided by my perfect memory. I watched America as he looked down at the picture, his body
twitching slightly in remembrance as he looked into the past. The image wouldn’t be that
different from what he’d been nine years ago, but even so, it wasn’t a certain way of
identifying him. It was merely the best lead I had.

“I would prefer not to talk about it,” America said, finally. “It’s something that I would prefer
to forget.”

“It’s come back to bite us all,” I said, keeping my face blank. Inwardly, I was shouting in
delight; my guess had paid off completely. “What happened between you and him?”

“Marvin beat it out of me,” America admitted. The former America had obviously
disapproved of some parts of his protégé’s past. “It’s not something that we should talk
about…”

“You don’t have a choice,” I said, flatly. “There’s little point in having you raked over the
coals for the cheating in the games, but this is something a little more serious. This person
was left, thanks to you, with a pathological hated of superhumans, something that might be a
great deal worse because he’s a superhuman himself.”

“He couldn’t be,” America said, genuinely shocked. I lifted an eyebrow. “He never tried to
fight back and…”

I held up a hand. “I don’t care about why you did it,” I said, untruthfully. “I need to know
what happened, and why.”

America lowered his gaze. “I knew him when we went to the same school,” he said, trying to
look repentant. He was repentant, I could tell, but at the same time he was trying to justify
himself to me. He might as well have tried to justify rape or murder; it wasn't as if he had
engaged in a harmless little prank. “I didn’t like him; he got on my nerves and looked a dork,
so from time to time I would do things to him, little things.”

He paused. “They were nothing, really,” he said. “I didn’t mean anything by it, but…”

I was tempted to become judgemental – or even Judge Mental, a rather irritating superhuman
from Texas – but I kept the urge in check. “He just seemed so irritating to us, so we used to
treat him like dirt and…there were times when my dad found out about it from the teachers
and roasted my behind for it, so I blamed him for it and took it out on him. He was just so
nerdy and unsuccessful and laughable and…”

“Stick to the facts,” I snapped. “What did you do to him?”

“Everything,” he said, miserably. “I used to take his lunch money, or mocked him endlessly,
or…”

“Right,” I said, unwilling to hear any more remorse. “And what happened when you got your
powers?”

“I…well, he hadn’t be able to fight me anyway, so I just went on,” he said, grimly. “He…
well, one day, he had been bugging me and I was having problems at home and…the coach
was unhappy with me and…”

“I have a question,” Rani said, suddenly. “Why didn’t any of the teachers do anything about
you?”

“They wanted us to win,” America said, glumly. “It seemed so important at the time.”

“I’m sure it did,” I said, remembering other sporting scandals I had read about in the papers.
“So, what happened between the pair of you that you didn’t want to remember?”

“I didn’t mean to hide it from you,” he said, protesting. “I didn’t put everything together
until you started to talk to me now.”

“Never mind that now,” I said, crossly. “I need to know what happened between you?”

“I was…angry, as I had said, at everyone,” America admitted. “It’s not that easy to hide
superpowers while trying to use them, not when that’s the point; he had had me using my
gifts without making it obvious that that was what I was doing, and it wasn't working that
well. I left, in the end, and wandered though the school; in the end, I bumped into him,
literally.”

“Really,” I said. “Go on.”

“I was mad, as I said, and there was something about his face that just got on my nerves,”
America said. “I grabbed him, pushed him into the toilets, moving at super-speed, and I was
going to shove his head down the toilet. He was terrified, kicking out and me and screaming
and…I didn’t mean to hurt him, not really…and I had him there and then I got very dizzy, as
if my head were filled with cotton wool, and then I found myself losing my balance in the air.
It hurt.”
My eyes narrowed. “Didn’t you think that that was something important?”

“I used to have a small problem with my head,” he said. “When I was back in kindergarten, I
used to get dizzy spells a lot, until I was around ten years old. It wasn't something new for
me and I didn’t dare take it to the nurse, not when it might lead to our secret being
exposed…”

“It would have come out if you ever got into the major leagues,” I said, thoughtfully. The
General was going to go through the roof; a superhuman who might have solved one of the
most pressing problems in the world, and he’d been alienated until he had gone to work for
the opposition. “They would have given you a full medical check-up as part of the
scholarship program.”

“I got offers from several places,” America agreed, grimly. “I turned them all down, after we
had won the games, and went public to the SDI. Everyone who knew what I had done – what
we had done – kept their mouths shut; no one wanted us to lose the cup again. I met Marvin
later that year and he knocked some sense into me.”

I nodded grimly. It wasn't easy to discipline a superhuman, but clearly the previous America
had been up to the task of teaching a young and foolish superhuman how to behave. Overall,
he had clearly succeeded, but even so, this new America had made a major series of mistakes.

“I don’t think that I am particularly interested in revealing what you did in the past, at least
when it comes to winning games,” I said, after a long pause. “What I am more interested in
is what you did in the past.” I shook my head. “We have nerds sparking all the time because
of people like you; if you don’t know what ugly duckling is going to become a swan, why do
you make enemies of them?”

“I don’t know,” America said. “Sir, I am willing to make a full confession to the General and
come clean with everything.”

“Not now,” I said, shortly. “I just need one detail from you.”

I tapped the picture I’d drawn. “This man,” I said. His eyes looked down again at the image
I’d produced, but he didn’t really look. He didn’t have to look. “Who is he?”

America covered his eyes. “His name was Chris,” he said. There was no trace of deceit in
his voice. “Chris Kelsey.”
Chapter Twenty-Five

“I heard about the Mayor’s action,” I said, to the General. “Do you still have a job?”

“That hasn’t changed, much,” the General said, crossly. “What has changed is that the NYPD
investigative department is going to take the lead on tracking down our mysterious power-
drainer.”

“We have a name now,” I said. “We put it together using SDI knowledge…and that was
something that the NYPD couldn’t do. What are they going to do if they encounter a second
Boerbul somewhere out there?”

“Scream for help,” the General said, dryly. “I understand that the Mayor has been trying to
organise a superhuman posses to help with the investigation, although there’s much less
enthusiasm for the effort than he was expecting, now that we know that there is a power-
drainer involved. For some reason, some of them are scared of losing their powers…”

I snorted. “The effect wasn't permanent,” I said, shortly. That said, if a superhuman lost his
or her powers at the wrong time, the results could be disastrous. “Are ickle them scared of a
few cuts and bruises?”

The General didn’t smile at my baby talk. “I can’t really place the overt squad on a higher
alert status than they already have,” he said. “All we can do is wait for the next murder, and
once it happened, hopefully clear up the mess. The Mayor’s career is on the line here; he’s
not going to let the murderer beat him if he has something to say about it, but I don’t think
that he does. If there actually is a teleporter out there, working for them, then they must have
the ability to move much faster than the NYPD could react.”

I nodded. You can’t trace a teleporting superhuman, or follow them through the teleport
jump; the only way to stop one was to shoot him before he could jump out and escape.

“Are there any missing teleporters?” Rani asked, more practically. “Is there someone
missing that we might be able to track down?”

“There are several teleporting superhumans out there who aren’t even registered,” the
General said, grimly. “Most of them are criminals, of course; the ones we do have registered
have all been accounted for by a quick check.”

He shook his head. “What did you find out about our mysterious power-drainer?”

“We got a name, for starters,” I said, and smiled. “There’s a chance that it might not be the
same person, but I think that the circumstantial evidence is very strongly in favour of Chris
Kelsey and the power-drainer being one and the same. That gives us a chance of tracking
him down and stopping him before he manages to pick off another superhuman.”

“Everyone is so paranoid at the moment,” the General said. “Why wouldn’t he keep his head
down?”

“I think,” I said, “that his hatred of superhumans is enough to make him want to carry on,
particularly as he isn’t the one actually killing them, merely the one draining their powers.
We’re going to have to talk to his family and find out where he might have gone, but I think
that we can expect another murder, pretty soon. If someone else is pushing at him, he might
want to remain underground, but he won’t be allowed to do anything of the sort.”

“Then you still think that there is a deeper game here,” the General said. “Who do you think
is behind it?”

“I’m not sure,” I confessed. “Pure Humanity seemed the logical suspects, and they certainly
did have the motive and the speech right, but I’m wondering, now, if someone else stood
behind them. There’s nearly a thousand superhumans in New York at the moment; might it
be that the objective was to force them all into war?”

“But who benefits?” The General asked. “Only Pure Humanity would seem to benefit,
because it would prove that they were right about superhumans being dangerous, but the war
would destroy the city.”

“I know,” I said. “It’s just…it’s not like Pure Humanity to use superhumans, even a Boerbul;
they tend to hate using them as much as their mere existence.”

The General nodded grimly. “I’m going to talk to the President,” he said, “and try and have
the conference cancelled. If we can disperse the number of possible targets right across the
world, they will have a much harder task finding targets that are actually meaningful, on more
than a personal sense.”

He stood up. “Go track him down, whatever it takes,” he ordered. “Don’t worry about the
NYPD; take whatever you need and find the power-drainer before it’s too late.”

“He won’t be able to cancel the conference,” Rani said, as we headed back down the stairs
and into the car. “There’s too much at stake. No one will want to look like they’re fleeing a
threat, or a danger, and the real movers and shakers won’t want to abandon their real talks.
They’re not going to leave.”

I nodded grimly. “I’m going to talk to his family,” I said, shortly. Layla had tracked them
down for me. “I take it you still want to come?”

“Stop trying to get rid of me,” Rani said. “I’ll stick with you until we find the bastard or we
both get caught up in the war and killed.”

I snorted as the driver took us both out of New York. The drive took longer than I had
expected, but we spent it reviewing the information that Layla had dug up on our mysterious
opponent, starting with his career after leaving college. He’d gone to work for a computer
company – he’d certainly have had the skills to create the system we’d found back at the
Humanists office – and had apparently dropped off the radar after a few years. He’d clearly
started, Layla told me, to operate a protection routine; his electronic footprint had shrunk to
almost nothing, while his records had faded out of existence. There were plenty of people
who didn’t like the thought of leaving a trail of any kind, but it wasn't easy to avoid creating a
trail without actually working at it; everything someone does tends to be noted, and
computers allow investigators to put it all together.
“If you buy something at the local store, they keep a record of it if they know who you are,” I
explained to Rani, as I went through the records. “If you purchase…say, a cream cake,
they’ll have a record of it; if you purchase one a week, they’ll put it into their files and try to
make you offers based on what you eat. If you buy enough drink to drown the Titanic, they’ll
know it as well…and that sort of information can be very useful. If you buy more food than
one person can reasonably eat, you’re either as fat as a lord or you’re buying food for
someone else.”

Rani rolled her eyes. “What does this have to do with the investigation?”

“It’s so easy to pay for something with a credit card,” I said, seriously. “It allows them to
learn who you are, where you live, if you’re going into debt, if you’re bonking someone or if
you’re alone, or…any time someone makes a purchase with a credit card, it’s a way of
showing where you are at that particular time. Every since they figured out how to read a
person’s biometric signature without an intrusive or messy process, it became even easier to
track someone. Everyone leaves behind an electronic footprint, unless they’re very careful,
and few people would do that unless they’re obsessed privacy nuts, criminals, or terrorists.”

I grinned. “It’s not exactly proof, but it’s an interesting sign that we might be on the right
track,” I said, thoughtfully. “Under the circumstances, we have more than enough evidence
to visit his family and ask them a few questions; hell, we might be lucky enough to catch him
there!”

“I don’t think that will happen,” Rani said, dryly. “Would he really be that stupid?”

“We caught several terrorists that way,” I said, seriously. “There’s an entire electronic
blanket covering America, just looking for little slip-ups like that one, something that we can
use to track the bastards down and arrest them. Never underestimate the stupidity of the
average terrorist; their great advantage is also their great weakness.”

“Just like superpowers,” Rani said, softly.

“And,” I added, “if his family tell him that we’ve been here, it might spook him.”

The house seemed to be perfectly normal; a four-bedroom, two toilet, one kitchen, two cars
house out on the suburbs, too like the previous house we’d visited for comfort. I checked
around first, examining the garden and looking for signs of a second trap, but I found
nothing; even so, I waited for a long moment before we stepped up to the front door and
pushed the bell. There was movement inside the house at once, but it was nearly a minute
before someone came to the door; a middle-aged woman pushing retirement age, with grey
streaks in her hair and all the signs of easy living in her body. She would have been pretty
when she was younger, but now, she was older and, perhaps, wiser.

“My name’s Matt Tracker,” I said, holding up my identification card. I wondered if she
would recognise my name, but there was no hint of recognition, just surprise and puzzlement.
“I’m from the SDI and I’m investigating a superhuman-related affair. I was wondering if I
could talk to Chris?”

There was a definite flicker of concern there. “I’m afraid that Chris isn’t here at the
moment,” she said, carefully. “Might I ask what is going on?”
“I’m investigating a series of murders and I have reason to believe that your son might be
involved,” I said, grimly. “I have to ask you some questions, if your son isn’t present; do you
know when he will be returning?”

“He doesn’t live here any more,” she said, sharply. She hadn’t even invited us in to sit down.
“I’m Martha and I believe that I would like a lawyer.”

“Mrs Kelsey, I’m a duly accredited investigator for the SDI,” I said, as calmly as I could. “I
have the legal authority to ask you whatever questions I like, without a lawyer present,
particularly as you are not a suspect in the affair. You may, of course, refuse to answer them,
in which case I have the authority to arrest you and take you into the nearest station, where
you will be subjected to a telepathic scan.”

I was bluffing, partly; the General wouldn’t ok a telepathic scan under such circumstances,
any more than he would ok torture or even naked violence. “On the other hand, you could
answer my questions and then we could get it all over with, as soon as possible,” I continued.
“Please, your son might be in very real danger, and he may need our help.”

She wilted and led us into a sitting room, laid out with military precision. I’ve known drill
sergeants who would be less neat and tidy than Martha apparently was, with everything
firmly in its place and held where she wanted it to go. There was a photograph on the mantle
and I examined the five figures in the image; Martha herself, someone I guessed was her
husband, two girl…and Chris Kelsey. I knew it, then; we’d gotten it right. I heard Rani suck
in her breath and knew, then, that she agreed.

“Very well,” she said, sitting down in a large armchair with all the grace of a queen. “How
may I be of assistance?”

“Do you know where your son is?” I asked, after a moment. “It is really very important that
we speak to him.”

“No,” she said, and I knew she was telling the truth. There was little hesitation in her voice,
but she was still wary of us, not without reason. “Chris moved out after he got a job of his
own and the only contact details I have for him are an email address. He started off on this
secrecy kick back when he was a student and would hardly ever tell us anything about his
life.”

I took the email address; Layla would have to look at it and see where it led. It wouldn’t be
easy, I suspected; it was a basic Hotmail address, something that could be accessed from any
computer with an Internet connection. It might also be more complex than that; unless
Kelsey had decided that there was no chance we’d ever track him down, he might have
programmed in all kinds of redirection tricks into the account. He certainly had the computer
skills.

“I see,” I said. “Do you know what he did?”

“He graduated from college with excellent computer skills,” she said, with some very real
pride. “A little later, he was picked up by a company, which then decided to put him to work
developing their own operating system. He got a high salary, spent some of it on us, and then
moved out into his own flat. I was hoping he’d find a wife somewhere, but there was no sign
of that; he lived on his own, as far as I knew. We never even got to see his new house.”

I could guess at the reason for that. “And when was the last time you heard from him?”

“He was here for Dan’s birthday,” Martha said, after a moment’s thought. “We have
birthdays in the same month, so he came and stayed with us for a week and then went back
home again. It was nice having him home, but he seemed so preoccupied all the time; he
kissed me goodbye and then just vanished. Is he in trouble?”

I asked her bluntly. “Is your son a superhuman?”

“No,” she said, and she thought she was telling the truth. “There have been a couple of
sparking-events near here, but none of them involved us. Dan would have been so proud;
he’d known the original Fireman and would have loved it if one of his kids had followed in
his footsteps.”

I understood, suddenly, part of the complex web of emotions that drove him. “What did he
think of superhumans?”

“My son?” Martha asked. She hesitated, just long enough for me to tell that she was
deciding what to say. “He wasn't very fond of them; there was one at his school and
apparently he knew him personally. He wouldn’t tell us much, even with Dan pressed him
for information and inside knowledge about him; my Dan is something of a superhuman fan.
There was a time when Chris came home with some Humanist literature and Dan put it all in
the shredder and ordered Chris to be proud of the American superhumans, who would defend
us all from the Mexicans.”

I blinked. “Defend us all from the Mexicans?”

“Dan’s company lost a lot of money when Mexico nationalised all of the American-held
property south of the Rio Grande,” Martha said, angrily. “He almost lost his job over it and
blamed it on the Mexicans and their superhumans, who had encouraged them to hit America
in the pocketbook.”

I scowled. It was true enough, and yet it wasn't the full story. These days, there were
massive patrols right along the border between the United States and Mexico, intent on
preventing illegal immigration, which had become a flood since Mexico had turned into a
bizarre socialist state under the Latin American superhumans. A lot of people had suffered in
the south and they were angry.

“I see,” I said, finally. “Did you know who the superhuman actually was?”

“Not really,” Martha admitted. “The person didn’t really make an issue of their identity; it
was more of an everyone knew, but no one knew kind of thing. This isn’t the sort of place
where everyone peeks into everyone else’s business, not when there are so many people
around here. It was just something to be proud of.”

“How did Chris do at school?”

“Academically, he was brilliant,” Martha said, with obvious pride. I discounted some of that
as parental boasting, but even so, he had obviously done well. There are few occasions
worse, for any parent, than sitting next to someone whose kid has gotten lots of awards –
when your kid has nothing. “Socially…he had few friends, I used to try to get him to play
more with others, but he wouldn’t go out of the house. He tried to talk to Dan a few times,
but Dan never had any time to spare for what he called whining…”

I could see it all now; Kelsey hadn’t had anywhere to turn to, but the Humanists, and later
Pure Humanity. How much did he blame on his parents? “I need to see his room,” I said,
choosing to leave judgement aside for the moment. “I need to see what it was like.”

The minute I walked into the door, the smell of ionised air hit me, again. “Thank you,” I
said, looking around for something that might have belonged to him without having been
tainted by the smell. There was nothing that I could find, even in his older set of clothes or
books; the young Chris had obviously been obsessed with superhumans, maybe even to an
unhealthy degree. He even have a copy of the banned Superhuman Diary, a rant that had
been banned for being every kind of ‘ist’ under the sun, as well as having been a fake. Had
he known that?

And most of the press clippings involved superhuman violence and collateral damage.

“Thank you for your time,” I said, as we left the house. I passed her a business card. “If
Chris does contact you, call us at once.”

I didn’t think he would, but it was worth trying; I opened my phone and placed a call to
Layla. “Layla, I…”

“You have to get back to New York,” Layla snapped, before I could tell her what I wanted.
“There’s been another murder.”

Why was I not surprised?

Chapter Twenty-Six

I’ll say one thing for the NYPD; when they want to go at a crime scene, they go at it properly.
The body, a superhuman known as ‘Punching Guy’ – have we really run that short of
interesting codenames? – lay on the steps where he had fallen, a bleeding set of wounds in his
back. He had been shot several times at close range; like all the others, his powers had
simply failed him. The body was surrounded, effortlessly, by hundreds of policemen,
scientists and newspaper reporters, the latter being kept a safe distance from the body itself.
It was a shame that Rani had had to go to the Bangladeshi Consulate; she would have
distracted attention nicely from myself.

“I’m sorry, sir,” one of the policemen said, as I entered the area. The smell was detectable
even at this range, hovering over the body like a noxious fume, which I supposed it was.
“I’m not allowed to allow anyone entry unless they have been cleared by the chief
personally.”

“Then call her over and ask her,” I said, looking around for her. She was standing in front of
a set of television cameras, informing reporters that the NYPD was right on the track of the
killers and would be arresting them as soon as possible. It almost made me sick; she didn’t
know what we had found out, and probably wouldn’t have cared if she had known, but she
was promising them the world. The mayor’s gamble was about to explode in his face.
“There she is; call her.”

“I can’t interrupt a live performance,” he said, unhappily. He was just a dispatcher, someone
who had been turned into a public relations officer rather than a real cop; he was right out of
his depth dealing with a crime scene. “I can’t…”

“Fine, I will,” I said, and started to head over to the reporters. He stepped out of my way
quickly and I smiled in triumph as I wandered over to the body, looking down at the wounds
and watching as the pathologists worked on the dead body. I silently wished them luck as
they removed the bullets from the wounds, preparing to compare them to the NYPD’s vast
record of known criminal firearms, but I doubted that it would actually matter. By now, the
gun was probably scrap metal somewhere in Africa; the teleporting superhuman might have
been able to push it that far.

Up close, Punching Guy hadn’t had anything like the imagination of some superhumans; he
wore a cape, a mask that covered half of his face, and that was it. He had worn a red
uniform, now stained with his blood, but it had been unmarked and completely
unimaginative. I didn’t think that was a bad idea – there are far too many superhumans who
are complete drama queens – but even so, he had been…boring. Why had he been targeted?

I scowled as I examined the body, careful not to get involved with the forensic experts as they
paced around the body, looking for clues. I could still smell the effects of Kelsey’s power and
winced as it made my head hurt, but even I could tell that there was something different about
this murder; it didn’t fit the pattern. America had been famous, Manna had been famous,
Warrior Girl had been famous, Babylon had been famous…and Punching Guy wasn't famous
at all. Layla had run a quick check for me; he'd only had a couple of fan sites on the Internet,
one of them probably run by himself.
My lips twitched bitterly. The world’s superhumans were famous, so they attracted fans,
groupies, and stalkers, just like other celebrities. The really famous ones, like Warrior Girl or
Fireman, attracted hundreds of admirers and had an entire range of sites dedicated to them,
from fairly tasteful information sites to really sleazy sites including faked nude pictures – and
some that weren’t so fake – and information about them. A superhuman, even a B-list or a C-
list superhuman, would have an excellent chance of finding a willing partner for the night;
like all famous people, there were people who would sleep with them just because they were
famous.

But Punching Guy hadn’t been that famous. He’d had only a couple of fan sites. As far as I
knew, the SDI had never been interested in recruiting him; had he been merely a target of
opportunity, or something much more sinister? He wasn't even the kind of serious attention
whore that many superhumans were; I hadn’t even heard of him – and I’m supposed to know
every active superhuman – until he had been murdered.

“He was killed by four bullets in the back,” a doctor said, stating the bleeding obvious. I
looked up to see Isabel Cordova, the police chief and the mayor’s personal hatchet-woman,
standing nearby. Her eyes met mine at the same moment and they jumped slightly; did she
know that the mayor had ruined the investigation, or was she merely surprised to see me?
There’s a certain kind of person, in any organisation, who climbs up to the top on someone’s
coattails; her loyalty to the mayor had gotten her the job. That didn’t mean that she was
incompetent, but it could mean that she wasn't the best person for the job.

“I see,” Isabel said. I detected heavy sarcasm in her voice; at least she knew that there could
hardly have been any other cause of death. “Is it really him?”

“The blood and DNA matches up,” the doctor said. “If it’s not Punching Guy, then there’s
something extremely weird going on.”

“Keep looking for clues,” she ordered, and stalked over to me. She wasn't an expert at timing
her walks; she moved just a little too quickly to be intimidating, a sign that she knew that she
wasn't on solid ground. “What are you doing here?”

“I am empowered to investigate anything relating to superhumans,” I said, as calmly as I

could. “This is a dead superhuman; ergo, it falls within my mandate.”

“The NYPD has primacy now,” she snapped. “We have to find the killer you managed to
lose quickly!”

“I know who the killer is,” I said, icily. “I need to talk to you about it.”

“My office, ten minutes,” she said, and left without a backwards glance. I followed her with
my gaze for a long moment, and then turned to walk into the NYPD headquarters; Punching
Guy had been killed very close to them, something that I was starting to think was a
deliberate ‘fuck you’ gesture. It would be just like terrorists, when one particular group of
policemen was replaced by another particular group of policemen, to try and test the waters
and the determination of their new opponents.

It wasn't a surprise to see Isabel’s office; it was larger and more luxurious than any other
office in the building, or, for that matter, the General’s own office back in Washington. If
Isabel was a kept woman, in at least one possible sense of the word, she was well-kept; the
mayor had been kind to her. I took a seat and waited; it actually took her fifteen minutes to
come, so I busied myself with reading the papers on her desk. There was nothing interesting
at all…

“Fine,” she said, as she entered the room and sat down behind her desk. I had thought about
taking that chair for myself, but it would have been childish. “What do you know?”

“Tell me about Punching Guy first,” I said, shortly. I needed to know what she knew about
him. “Was he one of your deputized superhumans?”

“Yes,” she said, her voice still as sharp as my own. “He sparked a few months ago and
signed up with the New York Police as a superhuman, taking some training from us and going
out onto the streets as Punching Guy. He doesn’t have that much of a reputation, which was
fine by him as he had a wife and kids, but the people who worked with him said that he was a
good person and a fine soldier.”

“Really,” I said. “Did anyone want him dead?”

Isabel shook her head, her voice softening slightly. “He wasn't that much of a superhuman,”
she admitted, carefully. “He had some degree of strength and some invulnerability, but he
couldn’t fly or move really quickly, whatever happened. He was good as a hard-entering
specialist because he could soak up bullets like a sponge, but he didn’t have the powers to be
a real great superhuman, not like Dark Guardian. Does that answer your questions?”

“Partly,” I said, studying her. “How many people knew that he’d been where he was?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “He did try to patrol a bit, like Dark Guardian or New York
Gal, but on the whole, he didn’t have the mobility of some of the more powerful
superhumans. In the end, we all decided that it would be better if we could keep him on call
for situations that required his presence, but otherwise allow him to get on with his life in
peace. He didn’t want to be super-famous, if you’ll pardon the pun, so it suited him fine.”

“Clever,” I said. “Why was he in uniform today?”

“We had called all of the superhumans we have, the ones we’ve given an NYPD badge to,
back into service when the murderers started to happen,” Isabel said. “Punching Guy was
one of them, but we hadn’t given him anything specific to do, so I think he was on his way
back to the police station when the killer struck.”

She shook her head. “He wasn't like Dark Guardian or someone with a real list of enemies,”
she said. “The closest thing he had to an arch-enemy was some drug lords who tried to kill
him once; he survived, ran them down, and beat them to death. There was an investigation,
but as they had very obviously started it, he was cleared of any wrongdoing. I don’t think
that they would have been involved with his death.”

“Maybe not,” I agreed. Criminals and terrorists worked together, the former being used by
the latter, more often than people understood, but unless Punching Guy had been targeted as a
favour to the drug lords, it was hard to see why he would have been targeted as anything
other than a way of saying fuck you. “I need to talk to you about Dark Guardian.”
Her face went very still. Her face had once been pretty and even now, it was still something,
but she had it under very tight control. It would have fooled anyone, but me – or a telepath;
I’d accidentally on purpose worried her. The NYPD had been very embarrassed by Dark
Guardian, hence the snow job that was trying to convince the world that Dark Guardian
hadn’t been involved. I’d asked Layla to look at Dark Guardian’s fan sites and most of them
had rubbished the idea that their hero might have been somehow involved in such a chaotic
disaster.

“As you know,” I said, “Dark Guardian was involved in the disaster at the Humanists office,
regardless of the bullshit the mayor is trying to get everyone to swallow. How was he
recruited and what did he do to convince you that he was worthy of a badge.”

She glared at me; it was partly an act. “As you know,” she said, “it is within the authority of
the civil authorities to deputize anyone to the cause of law enforcement, provided that they
respect the law. We do not have to discuss that with you.”

I fixed her with my best intimidating look. “We are not talking, here, about rounding up a
posse of armed civilians to hunt down and kill an outlaw,” I said. “We are talking about
recruiting a potentially dangerous superhuman and giving him the keys to the city. I hardly
think that they compare in terms of possible danger.”

I scowled at her. “Why didn’t you consult with us about him?”

Her face twisted. “What could you have done?”

“We could have offered to check him out first,” I said. The military has a great deal of
experience with people in dangerous situations, far more than civilians with fancy degrees,
some of which conclude that soldiers are really just sociopath-type monsters who shouldn’t
be allowed anywhere near anyone you don’t want to kill. That’s nonsense; soldiers are
capable of being far more than just mindless killing machines, hell, no Special Forces team
would actually want mindless killing machines. I doubted that Dark Guardian would ever
have been allowed onto the SDI teams for any reason short of complete disaster. “What
happened when he appeared?”

Isabel tensed slightly. “We’d heard about the existence of another superhuman for several
months before he made his appearance,” she admitted. “He had been patrolling the city and
killing the occasional criminal or drug lord; the first time we heard of him was when he saved
a rape victim from her rapist by tearing the man’s penis off and leaving him to bleed to death.
This made him a hero and when he finally made contact, we were determined to recruit him.”

She paused. “The Mayor had declared New York to be the city of the superhuman, so when
this one started to become famous, it was easy to decide that he should be used as a positive
step, and it would give us a handle on him,” she continued. “The woman he saved had turned
him into a hero; she actually spoke out in his favour, told the world that crime rates were
down and there were far fewer rapes, and started to raise money for his legal defence. You’d
be surprised at how many people supported her; the mayor saw the writing on the wall and
insisted that we gave him a badge.”

I scowled. “You are aware that a violent superhuman should have been reported to the SDI?”
“That would have been very unpopular with the voters,” she said, candidly. I was surprised
at her honesty. I had expected her to try to lie, or maybe she knew enough about me to know
that it would be futile, or maybe she wanted to prepare the ground to defect from the mayor’s
camp. “If the mayor had handed him over to you, he would probably have lost his position in
a recall election. There are plenty of people like that scrumbag Bryce, prepared to shove a
knife in his back.”

“Oh,” I said. “What happened once he signed on with you?”

“He continued to patrol the city and responded, more openly, to disasters,” Isabel said,
slowly. “He operated mainly in the darkness and rarely gave any interviews, but in the end,
we managed to convince him to give an interview or two to the New York Times. He was still
never a very open superhero, and from time to time we found the remains of people he had
killed, but most of them were only criminals.”

I ran my hand through my hair. “You’re insane,” I said, flatly. “It’s not his place, or anyone’s
place, apart from a jury, to determine if someone, anyone, should get the death penalty.
People, even superhumans, aren’t meant to take the damn law into their own hands.”

“We needed him,” Isabel said, sharply. “It’s easy for you to make such a judgement, but for
most of the citizens of New York, he was cleaning up the city and punishing criminals. You
try being a common citizen, seeing revolving door prisons and criminals, even super-
criminals, back out on the streets time and time again. If someone gets the death penalty, it
means that they won’t be back, and that will deter others…”

“Or make them resist more harshly when they’re finally caught,” I said, unwilling to argue
further. There are some people where you just know that there’s no point. “What happened
to him in the end?”

“You took him down and carted him off to jail,” Isabel snapped. “He didn’t take the news
about the first murder very well, although he was indifferent to Manna’s murder, but he was
furious to hear about Warrior Girl’s death. I believe that they had had some kind of
relationship in the past, but I always thought that that was a little odd; she wasn't really the
sort of person to have a relationship with anyone.”

“I’m going to have to talk to him,” I said, thoughtfully. I’d had an idea. It wasn't a very good
idea, but at least Dark Guardian was expendable. We could do without him if it all went to
hell. “How do you intend to explain how he was recruited by your people?”

“We did insist on him going through a psych test,” she said, defensively. I shrugged my
disbelief; she might have meant it, but superhumans can be very different from normal
humans, mentally, that a civilian psychologist wouldn’t have a hope of digging into one of
their brains. Someone who can conclude that soldiers are remorseless killers wouldn’t
understand a superhuman at all. “He had a Manichean view of good and evil, regarding
people as wholly good or wholly evil, but he wasn't evil himself.”

“My enemy is never an enemy in his own eyes,” I misquoted, and stood up. The Dark
Guardian would probably never be allowed out of The Rock, unless the country itself was in
danger and needed its living weapons. “Thank you for your time.”
Outside, I started to walk back towards Central Park, when someone called to me from high
above. “Hey, Matt,” Rani said. I looked up and saw her…and one other. “Have you met my
new friend?”

I had to smile. “Hi,” I said, as I saw her. She really was an astonishing sight as she fell out
of the air and landed in front of me. “What are you doing here?”

“Well,” New York Gal said, “I live here, of course.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

It is said that there is no one more beautiful, in all the word, than New York Gal.

I didn’t know if I would have agreed – my senses make it hard for someone who is just a
pretty face to get the better of me – but New York Gal is really something. She stands a little
shorter than me, a teenaged girl on the verge of bursting out into womanhood, wearing a
cheerleader’s uniform with a shockingly short shirt. Blonde hair streams down in tresses,
contrasting with the uniform and adding light to her form, her face heart-shaped and
absolutely perfect in every way. She’s the sort of girl you expect, somehow, to be a complete
bitch, and yet she’s loved by New York and the world, a person with no stain at all on their
soul. She’s their angel and even I, looking at her as she smiles at me, am affected by her
presence.

Her true age is uncertain, but her first appearance was over a decade ago; a young girl
bursting out into superpowers, making a debut in the city of superhumans. Even now, she
still looks barely sixteen – as far as anyone can tell, she hasn’t aged a day since she sparked –
but she manages to combine sex appeal with an all-American girl veneer that makes her the
darling of the world. She really has done most of the things they credit her with, but even
looking at her, it’s clear that she lives up to her reputation. Unlike so many other female
superhumans, she isn’t hunted by men, or hated by women; she’s someone that you cannot
help, but like.

“Welcome to New York,” she said, her voice as soft and warm as honey. I reach out with my
senses and realise that she means every word. The SDI has tracked her activities with the
greatest of interest, but she doesn’t seem to have skeletons in her closet or demons in her
past; I have even heard that she has remained a virgin just to set a good example to other
young girls. There are few men who dare to claim to have slept with her, unlike the tales told
about other female superhumans, even Warrior Girl; she’s just…too special to soil in such a
manner. “Rani informs me that you’re the person investigating the murders.”

I wanted, insanely, to protect her from the world. She’s rated as a Level Eight, at least; there
shouldn’t be anything that could make her vulnerable, not when her skin is harder than
diamond. The power-drainer would kill her with ease, but would even he make an exception
in his mad crusade against superhumans for someone like her? The outfit she wears might
leave nothing to the imagination, but it seems somehow sacrilegious to imagine what she
might be like, lying naked and welcoming on a bed; somehow, she gives off cues that
suggests that she’s everyone’s best friend, but no ones fuck-bunny. What would happen if our
enemy came face to face with her?

“Yes,” I said, swallowing. There are people who think of her as a goddess and it’s easy to see
why. “I’m supposed to be tracking them down.”

I sound like an idiot, but she pretends not to notice. She glows, next to Rani’s dark skin, but
even so, she doesn’t seem to outshine her. Rani is beautiful too, but it’s a different kind of
beauty, but even so…she is accepted in the light of the golden goddess. Her hair seems to
shine of it’s own accord - knowing her, it just might do that – casting a light over the scene.

“I have some information for you, then,” she said, and floated over towards a park bench.
There are people staring at us now, from all over the place, but she ignores them all as she sits
down and crosses her legs. Rani gives me a push and I walk over to join her, choosing to sit
at a respectful distance; with her, it’s easy to forget that she’s a superhuman. “Do you know
that there are people considering a mass search for the power-drainer?”

I feel a shock of alarm that wakes me up completely. “I take it you mean a superhuman
search,” I said, carefully. It wouldn’t be easy; there are plenty of superhumans, like myself,
who have enhanced senses, but even so…finding someone who didn’t want to be found and
took precautions would be far from easy. “Where exactly do you intend to search?”

New York Gal gave me a surprisingly innocent smile. “The city, of course,” she said, dryly.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea at all, but Femme and Kickboxer are pushing it pretty loudly,
and the Mayor is actually talking about deputizing all of the superhumans who are willing to
remain in the city into the NYPD for the duration of the emergency. They want to search the
entire city…”

I laughed. “They do know how large the city is, don’t they?”

“I think they just want to do something without looking as if they’re running for their lives,”
New York Gal admitted, her face twitching back into a smile again. My senses were finally
starting to get a read on her, even though she was capable of controlling her body language
and presentation better than anyone else I’d met. Under her smile, she was a very scared girl,
someone who might have acquired enough enemies to have a very good reason to fear the
loss of her powers. “They don’t care about the damage to the city.”

I put my head in my hands for a long moment. If they did, the SDI would have to stop them,
and if it got out of hand, the carnage would be terrible. The mayor couldn’t allow them to
carry out the search, whatever else happened; it would be so far outside his powers that it
would be difficult to tell who would get to him first. The Federal Government, back in
Washington, would be furious, the SDI would be furious, and his own people would be
furious. It would be insane, insanity on a scale beyond understanding; his hopes of winning
the nomination would shatter into a billion pieces. He had to be out of his mind.

The image spread through my mind. If they really started to manhandle people, the political
disaster would be terrifying; the telepathic riots would be nothing compared to the backlash
that it would cause. People had rioted and lynched suspected terrorists – as far as I knew,
they had only managed to kill a real telepath once – just because they had felt violated on a
very basic level; what would they do if they had superhumans poking their noses into their
private lives? It would start a citywide riot.

“That cannot be allowed to happen,” I said, looking up into shining blue eyes and hoping that
she understood my point. “It would completely destroy the cause of superhumanity.”

“I understand,” New York Gal said, sitting back on the bench. I met Rani’s eyes for a long
moment and knew what she was thinking; New York Gal was wasting time, our time. “I
don’t know how I can stop them.”

“By finding out who’s actually behind all of this,” I said, shortly. “Who do you think is to
blame?”
“I thought that it was Pure Humanity,” New York Gal said, twisting her face into a
disagreeable look that still managed to be awesomely sexy. “Those people call people like
me abominable unnatural monsters, just because we fly and do things they wish they could. I
saved many of them from a lynch mob once and did they thank me?”

“I’m guessing no,” I said, slowly. Something had just occurred to me. “Who told you that it
was Pure Humanity?”

“The media kept going on about it,” New York Gal said, dryly. “The Mayor, however,
confirmed it in his speech, promising to hunt down Pure Humanity before they got more
people killed, and all of the superhumans cheered. What…is that important?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted. There was something buzzing at the back of my mind, but what?
I knew something, but it wasn't coming into focus; what had happened and why? It kept
nagging at me. “Did he offer any proof?”

New York Gal shook her head. “When a public official speaks, he speaks the truth,” she said,
showing either astonishing naivety or a certain amount of dissembling. She seemed to
believe it, but she was holding herself under such tight control that she wasn’t relaxed at all.
“Why would he have lied to us?”

“I don’t know,” I said, slowly. This is another reason I hate superhuman vigilantes; they tend
to come crashing in and beat up the person they think is guilty, which isn’t always the right
person. We have courts of law to establish guilt and innocence, with telepaths and improved
lie detectors to help prove that someone is actually telling the truth; we don’t need
superhumans handing out rough and ready justice in anything if it can be avoided. Batman
wouldn’t have lasted a week on the streets; Spiderman would have been thrown in the nearest
SDI secure compound and left to rot. “What exactly did he say?”

“He said that Pure Humanity had masterminded the killings using some new process that
could limit superpowers,” New York Gal said. “Is that important?”

He doesn’t know about the power-draining powers of Kelsey, I thought, coldly, before logic
and reasons asserted itself. He had to know; he would have had access to the General’s
reports and known that we were looking for a power-drainer, even if he didn’t have access to
the name of the suspect. If he knew that, and he must have done, why not share that with the
superhumans? Was it just an attempt to serve as a crowd-pleaser, or was something more
sinister involved?

“Maybe,” I said, keeping my thoughts to myself. I would have to discuss it with Rani later.
“Answer me a question?”

She gave me a look that would have put another woman in jail. “Anything,” she said, her
voice breathy and soft. Rani rolled her eyes; I caught her expression and smiled ruefully at
her. “If I can help, I will.”

“Tell me something,” I said, slowly. “What do you know about Punching Guy?”

“Bob?” New York Gal asked. I hadn’t known his real name; I had intended to leave the
follow-up on that to the SDI’s more formal investigative team, mainly because I was
convinced that it was a false lead; Punching Guy had probably been a target of opportunity.
Her voice was grief-stricken. “I barely knew him, but he was always a nice kind man, always
careful and willing to do the right thing.”

Rani leaned forward. “You knew who he was?”

“In the community, you don’t often have many secrets from one another,” New York Gal
said. “If you worked openly as a superhuman – a superhero – you got to meet the others
pretty quickly, unless you worked completely on your own. The ones who were deputized by
the NYPD were often introduced to us and we actually spent a lot of time in our clubhouse,
just talking and sharing stories.”

She nodded towards the tall skyscraper that served as a base for them. “You can’t really
understand it unless you’re up there,” she said. “If you wake up and find out that you can fly,
that’s really something, but if you work with others who have the same talents, you either get
along with them or you hate them and move out within the week. Punching Guy was nice, in
a kind sort of way; he chatted to everyone, but wasn't always keen on trying public stunts.
He just wanted to do good.”

“I see,” I said. “What happened in the end?”

“He wasn't interested in public posing, so when he decided that he was going to operate only
on call, he remained with his wife and children rather than move into the clubhouse and stay
with us,” she said, without particular concern. “His eldest daughter looked up to me, I…”

She broke down for a moment. “I’m going to have to go see her,” she said, grimly. “He
deserved better than to die with a bullet in the back of his head.”

“He was shot in the back,” I said, remembering my old sergeant, who was fond of remarking
that the back was the right place to shoot someone. He’d been a sniper, so perhaps that was
understandable; snipers had little regard for fair play when they tried to pick off enemy
commanders and agents at long range. “One final point, then, and then we can conclude this
for the moment.”

“Of course,” she said, wiping her cheek. “What can I tell you?”

“Tell me about Dark Guardian,” I said, watching her carefully. “How did he fit into your
little clubhouse?”

She scowled, just for a second; the expression looked unnatural on her face. “He didn’t fit
into us at all,” she said, crossly. I could hear the disdain in her voice. “He popped up around
six months ago and made a name for himself by killing and hurting people. We heard about
him and tried to find him, but we didn’t have any luck in finding him until he introduced
himself to the mayor and got a badge. That gave him access to the clubhouse, but…”

She clenched one perfect fist. “There was something wrong with him,” she said. “I won’t
say that he was anything, but a perfect gentlemen to me and the other women on the team, but
he wasn’t quite with it. He hurt people he saw as bad people and I think that he actually
enjoyed it, and he didn’t have to hurt most of them, not when he was rated at somewhere
around Level Seven.”
I nodded; the problems with the power scale were well known. “You don’t have to hurt
people,” she repeated, trying to hammer the point home. She nodded towards a jogger
running on the other side of the path. “That man might as well be a china doll to me; I could
touch him and break every bone in his body, but I don’t have to do that. I don’t have to put a
fist through his chest to stop him, not when he doesn’t have any way to actually hurt me; I
could just catch him and hold him until he surrendered.

“But Dark Guardian liked hurting people,” she said. “He would go on patrol, invisible in the
darkness, until he saw a crime and descend upon it like a massive superhuman bat. He would
land on the criminal, free their victims, and then hurt the criminal, often breaking their bones
or tearing off arms and legs. I don’t know why someone didn’t make a much bigger issue of
it; a certain amount of harm is accepted, but there was far too much in how he acted. I don’t
know…”

She shook her head, sending golden light showering everywhere. “In the end, we got
together and told him to stay away from us,” she said, finally. “The publicly people had
wanted him and me to work together, as some kind of demented light and darkness idea, but
in the end, we told him that if he came near us again, we would club together and hurt him.
He just flew out the window and…well, that was the last we saw of him until he started to
tear apart the Humanist’s building.”

“I see,” I said. “Did you know who he was?”

“Nothing, not even a clue,” she said, and scowled. “You have to understand, not all of us
shared everything; we were there mainly to serve as support and company for each other. If I
had problems, I could turn to one of the others to help, but Dark Guardian had no real friends
among New York’s superhumans, particularly not the criminal element. They hated him with
a passion unmatched by anything else.”

“You speak of him as if he was already dead,” I said, softly. “Is there a reason for that?”

“I want to never see him again,” New York Gal said, firmly. “What do you want with him?”

“Very little,” I said, slowly. I wasn't about to share the details of my plan with anyone, yet; if
it failed, the blame would fall directly on my head and no one else. “What are you going to
do now?”

New York Gal looked over at the small crowd, just out of earshot, some of them holding slips
of paper or autograph books for her to sign. “I’m going to spend a few minutes signing
things, and then I’m going to visit Bob’s wife and kids. I owe that to her, I think.”

She headed over to the crowd and was soon lost in their number, insofar as someone who
literally glowed with light could be lost. “Nice girl,” I said, to Rani. I kept my voice as blank
as possible. “What did you make of her?”

“Nice, yes,” Rani agreed dryly. I quirked an eyebrow; was it my imagination, or was she a
little jealous? “What do you want to do now?”
“I think it’s time we went and had a talk with Dark Guardian,” I said, darkly. “I have
something in mind for him that he would be perfect for doing, or getting killed in the midst of
it all.”

“I see,” Rani said, carefully. She didn’t look as if visiting Dark Guardian was high on her list
of priorities; he wouldn’t be happy to see the person who had put him in jail. He would be
more likely to want to kill the pair of us. “What does this have to do with finding Kelsey?”

“Perhaps nothing,” I said, thoughtfully, reviewing my thoughts in my mind. I had missed

something important, somewhere, but what? “And, Rani, perhaps it means everything.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight

“No,” Dark Guardian said, “I don’t want to see you. Piss off.”

I ignored him with the ease of long practice; if I can ignore the thousands of unconscious
cues people send out without knowing that I can read them on a conscious level, I can ignore
him trying to be tough. It helped that I knew that it was an act; I could feel how nervous he
was, alone and trapped without his powers. He had no idea where he was, or what had
happened to him since Rani and America had battered him down and choked him; he had no
way of knowing how to escape. The SDI compound had been built, at vast expense, to
contain superhumans even more powerful than himself; even at full power, he would have
problems escaping.

I studied him long enough to make him nervous. Like most superhumans who rejoiced in
super-strength, he was muscular enough to pass for a pro-wrestler, or the popular conception
of a Special Forces soldier; his prison outfit barely contained his muscles, even with most of
his strength dimmed by inhibitor drugs. His long dark hair, cut back in a vaguely military
style, fell down around a harsh face and dark eyes, both of them staring at me with the
intensity of a fanatic. He would have fitted in well with the puritans, or another repressive
society; he believed that it was his duty to cleanse the world of sin. The Mayor had been out
of his mind allowing Dark Guardian to fly around without real supervision; I would have
locked him up in The Rock just on general principles. He was just too dangerous to be
allowed to remain free.

But I needed him.

“Allow me to set the parameters of our conversation,” I said, finally. I leaned back in my
chair, as if I were discussing something of such minor import that I didn’t have to actually
think about what I was saying. It would, if I had judged him properly, irritate him, perhaps
even focus his mind on what I was saying. “You were arrested in the attempt of making a
murderous assault on one Barbara Roth, a suspect in the superhuman murder spree…”

“She was responsible for their deaths,” he snapped, unwilling to allow me to speak to him
without trying to interrupt. “She had to be punished.”

“Your attempt to arrest or kill her resulted in considerable property damage,” I continued. We
would address what happened regarding Barbara Roth later. “In the process of your arrest,
you killed or injured over thirty people, all of them innocent bystanders, and destroyed over
five million dollars worth of property. You refused to listen to reason or orders from superior
officers and finally had to be battered down, choked into submission, and carted off to this
compound.”

“I want a lawyer,” he demanded, suddenly. “I know my rights and…”

“You do not have rights,” I said, calmly. He knew I wasn’t scared of him and that drove him
mad. “You have been caught in the act of causing the aforementioned deaths and damage,
arrested under the SDI protocols for superhuman criminals and new sparking events; your
guilt is a matter of record. A secret session stood in judgement of you, removed your links to
the NYPD, and decided that you would be condemned for your crimes.”
I was lying; he might have been proved to be guilty, but we hadn’t even started the legal
proceedings to transfer him to The Rock, for permanent incarnation. The Mayor was stalling
as best as he could, trying to keep a lid on what had happened to him and get Dark Guardian
freed from his confinement as soon as possible; I didn’t want to think about the legal
nightmare that that would unleash, particularly with the Humanists lawsuit against the Mayor.
In his place, I would be trying to have Dark Guardian killed or swept under the table, which
was odd. I had only met the Mayor a few times, but I would never have said that he was
stupid, so why was he acting stupid?

“You can’t do that to me,” he snapped, furious. I could hear the hidden outrage and
desperation under his voice. “I have a permit to operate as a crime-buster…”

“You have quite an interesting file,” I said, calmly. We hadn’t been able to get any files out
of the Mayor – I was starting to suspect that there weren’t any files – but we had taken
fingerprints and, naturally, had shared them with the FBI and various other government
institutions. “Born in 1982, with the love of Christ; quite literally, in your case, as your
mother belonged to a doomsday cult. Your father, a soldier, rescued you from your mother’s
rather dubious care in 1989; you were seven at the time, and took you into his new family.
Your stepmother was a very religious woman and she took you into her own church, bringing
you up with a strict sense of good and evil. By 1992, you had a string of juvie convictions;
mainly, they considered of assaults on bullies and others.”

“They all deserved it,” he protested. “Even the judge said so.”

“That wasn’t yours to decide,” I said, stung. “In 1998, you attempted to join the Army, but
they rejected you, as did the National Guard and the local State Militia, so you ended up
joining the Guardian Angels as one of their tough guys. You played this game for a year or so
before you assaulted a drug dealer and left the guy for dead; that got you kicked out of the
Guardian Angels and you spent three years in prison before you were released. In 2004, you
married Joanna and…”

His voice was startled. “You know about my wife?”

“I know everything about you,” I said, forbearing to mention that Joanna had been studiously
refraining from enquiring as to what had happened to her husband. “You’ll be pleased to
know that your wife is fine, alive, well, and seemingly unaware that you’re in trouble. It’s
hard to see how she might have missed it, but really…does she matter to you?”

“She’s my wife!”

I smiled and continued. “A year later, you had a daughter, and then a son,” I said.
“Somewhere along the line, you found semi-permanent work as a bouncer in the Bronx, the
worst part of the Bronx. Interestingly, the place where you worked was a gay bar, but you
worked for them and, of everywhere you’ve worked, they were the only people who didn’t
have a single bad thing to say about you. Carl and Lenny were actually prepared to loan you
money towards your defence; why did that happen, hey?”

He glared at me. “If God made them that way, then who am I to say that they’re in the
wrong?”
“Interesting argument,” I said, tasting the dull horror underlying his words. He was…scared
of gay men at a very primal level, just like many other tough guys, but he hadn’t lifted a
single hand to either of his employers or their customers. It spoke well of him, but even so,
he wasn't willingly tolerant, but reluctantly tolerant. “In the end, you left the pair of them
after their bar was firebombed by a group of neo-nazis; a group that seemed to vanish six
months or so ago…would you care to shed any light on that?”

He looked at me for a long moment. “Does it matter what I say?”

“It could matter a great deal,” I said, patiently. “What happened when the bar was
firebombed?”

He lowered his gaze for a long moment. “They didn’t mind me being…you know,
homophobic,” he admitted. “I never liked benders and arse-fuckers; they knew that and they
didn’t care, because I wouldn’t be tempted to join in instead of keeping the riff-raff out of the
bar. I got a couple of offers in the early days, but they soon got the message and left me alone
and…”

He shuddered. “One day, we started getting threats from people who thought that we lowered
the tone of the area or something, which took some doing,” he said, scowling at me. “The
bosses ignored it until it was too late, and then some bastard threw a Molotov Cocktails down
one day, right into the cellar. I was in the cellar at the time, breaking up a fight, and…there
was a wave of heat, and then I was just standing there, untouched by the heat. I didn’t see
what had happened at first and tried to jump up, only to discover that I was rocketing into the
sky.”

“You sparked,” I said, seriously. There was nothing special about his story; indeed, the scale
of devastation caused by the firebomb had concealed the damage caused by the sparking
event. “What did you do then?”

“I managed to get back down on the ground and…they were riding bikes, cheering and
shooting into the bar and gunning down the customers and I got angry,” I said. “I found
myself flying at them faster than I could think, but when I smashed into them, their bodies
just shattered under the impact. They tried to flee and I went after them, killing them all one
by one, moving too quickly for anyone to see; in the end, they all died. I went back to the bar
and managed to look as if I had just managed to escape the explosion as well.”

He paused. “Does that answer your question?”

I shrugged. “What did you do next?”

“Lenny offered to let me come back when they rebuilt the bar,” he said. “I was tempted, but
instead I knew that God had offered me the power to really clean up the city, so I went back
to my wife and told her; she was the only person who knew until I spoke to the Mayor. I
went around on patrol, remaining away from other superhumans, and just kept cleaning up
the city until it was pointed out to me that I should be registered before I drew too much
attention…”

He looked down at the ground for a second, before looking up at me. “And you know the
rest,” he said. “What do you want with me?”
I held his gaze. “There are…issues involved with people like you and me,” I said, seriously.
“You do not, now or ever, have the right to take the law into your own hands. The NYPD
didn’t know anything of your past when you reported to the Mayor…”

I broke off. “What happened when you went to see him?”

“I just walked into the office, proved that I was what I was, and then we talked for a few
hours, and then he gave me a badge and the papers,” I said. “What should have happened?”

I felt my mouth fall open. “That was all?”

“Yes,” he said, puzzled. He repeated himself. “What should have happened?”

I felt my hand running through my hair. “You should have gone though any number of psych
tests first,” I said, in astonishment. For the first time since we had come face to face with the
power-drainer in person, I found myself doubting my senses; if I hadn’t known that he was
telling the truth, I would have called him a liar to his face. “Didn’t he give you a single
proper interview?”

His puzzled eyes met mine. “All he did was talk to me,” he said, carefully. “Now, what do
you want with me?”

I looked at him for a long moment. “We’re looking for someone who has a motive to
assassinate superhumans,” I said, matching his tone. I would have to sort everything out,
perhaps through a private conversation with the General and Layla, but I was starting to
wonder just what I had stumbled into. “You are one of the possible murder victims; popular,
famous and, perhaps, vulnerable.”

“I was going to arrest the person responsible,” he snapped. “You tried to stop me!”

“Barbara Roth was not involved directly,” I said, crossly. I didn’t have time for this. “You
would have killed a person who would have led us towards the person responsible for the
killing spree. I need you to help me track the murderer down.”

“I see,” he said. “What’s in it for me?”

I rolled my eyes. Everyone, at base, is selfish; everyone wants something for himself. “If
you help us, successfully, I will have you freed from your captivity,” I said, tautly. “You
won’t be able, Darren, to continue being Dark Guardian, but apart from that, you get your
freedom and you get to live. We’ll bury you somewhere with a new identity and a free pass
from your crimes; you and your wife can bring up your kids somewhere well away from New
York.”

He scowled at me. “Will I never get to fly again?”

“You will not be permitted to become a crime-fighter again,” I said, simply. “You have
proven yourself dangerously irresponsible, so…”
“And what happens,” he interrupted, “if I tell you to go fuck your Indian girlfriend and get
lost?”

“You will be tried for your crimes, transferred to The Rock, and kept permanently drained of
your superhuman energies unless your country decides that it needs you,” I said, shortly. “If
something should happen to require your services, you may be allowed to leave, but given the
reports on your activities, it is unlikely that you will ever be allowed out of The Rock. In
fact…”

“Fine,” he said, sharply. “I want to leave this damn place, so let’s get on with it.”

“All in good time,” I said, and left the room, leaving him alone. He would take a few days to
build back his power reserves anyway, so he’d have to remain here that long; it would also
allow us a chance to slip some additional tracers into his bloodstream. “I trust that you were
listening to that, Brainy?”

Brainy scowled at me. Telepaths hate being around people as much as I do; most people,
even people as disciplined as the General, broadcast their own thoughts and emotions by
accident. There’s some speculation that the vast majority of people in mental asylums are
there because they sparked into telepathy and ended up going mad because they couldn’t
shake out everyone else’s thoughts from their own. The SDI had a dozen telepaths working
for it and Brainy – rather an obvious codename, I would have thought – was the best of them.

“He’s rather a curious case,” Brainy agreed, as we walked back towards the conference room.
“Are you sure that you know what you’re doing?”

“Not really,” I said, getting a sidelong glance from him for my pains. “Do you have some
reason to be concerned?”

“I did a surface scan of him the first day that he regained conscious,” Brainy said, slowly. I
gave him a reproving look; telepathy is the superpower that operates under the strictest
controls, and scanning anyone without a court order or their permission is technically illegal.
It’s also rather difficult to prove. “There were some signs that his mind had been tampered
with.”

I stopped dead. “Tampered with?” I demanded. “By whom?”

“I have no idea,” Brainy said. I saw him struggling for words; telepaths cannot really
describe their own powers, or at least their results, in words that make sense to normal
people. “I did a scan and there were signs that someone else had intruded on his mind,
but…”

He scowled. “The Russians did some experiments with a mind-ripper,” he said, slowly. The
Russians had done almost as many ethically questionable research projects as the Apartheid-
era South Africans had done. “Their science stamped commands into a person’s brain, but
half the time, their commands were of such force that they literally ripped the victim’s brain
apart. Sometimes, they succeeded, such as when they returned that KGB colonel to us with
orders to assassinate a CIA officer in such a way as to convince us never to trust another
defector. The telepaths who scanned him in the aftermath of his attack reported that he had
been literally stamped on by the mind-ripper.
“But this…is more subtle,” he said. “Truthfully, Matt, I’m not sure if it’s real, or if I’m
imagining it.”

I scowled. The General was going to love this. “If you know anything about this at all, then
tell me, what happened to him?”

“I don’t know,” Brainy admitted grimly. “It feels almost like a post-hypnotic command,
rather than something more forceful, such as that guy who literally lucked into mind
controlling powers. I’m not sure at all what it’s doing in his head, or even if it’s doing
anything; hell, it could be something that his mind imposed on himself.”

I lifted an eyebrow. “People with very powerful minds can literally warp their own minds,”
Brainy said. “If this person has that sort of mind, he could be literally sending himself
insane, or into a corner; that’s not unknown among very religious people. Do you really trust
him to do as you ask?”

“I don’t think that there’s a choice,” I said, after a moment of thought. There wasn't much
time left, and if we got a clear shot at Kelsey, we had to take it before it was too late. We
couldn’t find him, unless we got very lucky; we’d have to try to lure him out and stop him
before his teleporting friend could jump him out. “Do you want to probe further and try to
find out what the command actually does?”

“Not if I can avoid it,” Brainy said. “My only advice is to watch him carefully; whatever he
might have been programmed to do, he’s not aware of it at a level your senses or mind can
touch.”

“This just gets better and better,” I said, coldly. I allowed some of my anger to slip into my
voice. “Thanks a lot, Brainy; I feel so much more reassured now.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine

“Jack, Jill, I want you to track him for every moment of his flight,” I said, seriously. Our
base of operations, high above the ground on a skyscraper that rivalled the Twin Towers for
height, was almost certainly unknown to the enemy. I had picked it more or less at random;
New York was full of skyscrapers, each one trying to outdo the last. “As soon as something
happens to him, let us know so that we can move forward to intercept our friends…”

“Of course,” Jill said, softly. I heard the determination in her voice and nodded to her. I
knew her story; the General had recommended her personally. “We won’t fail in our duty.”

I nodded. Jack and Jill – they had never bothered with silly childish codenames, which made
them almost unique among the superhuman community – were the children of a pair of
superhumans whose lust hadn’t survived the birth of their children. At eighteen, they made a
strange pair, almost identical; if Jill hadn’t had breasts, even I would have been fooled into
thinking that they were twins. They had dark hair – worn longer in Jill’s case – the same kind
of face and eyes, and both wore identical dark suits; the combined effect was rather creepy,
something I suspected that the twins wanted. Their powers were much stronger than they
preferred to admit, but among other gifts they possessed very sharp eyes, ears, and other
senses. They could track someone through his or her heartbeat.

Rani looked over at me from where she was sitting. She looked perfectly calm and even felt
calm; I had to remind myself that she had seen more combat action than the rest of us put
together. She was also the only person, apart from myself, who knew the complete plan.
Everyone else only knew the basics. If I was right, I didn’t dare risk a leak, not now. Not
when I was so close…

The basic plan was quite simple – I had been telling everyone, or at least everyone who
mattered, that Dark Guardian knew who was behind the murders and had the ability to hunt
them down - but if something went wrong, we would have to improvise as quickly as
possible. If what I was starting to suspect was true, the enemy would have to try to kill Dark
Guardian and the easiest way to do that was through deactivating his powers and killing him,
as so many other superhumans had been killed.

“Don’t worry,” she said, as she noticed America pacing from side to side. He hadn’t been
entirely the same since he had discovered what had become of his former victim; his face had
become darker and much more serious. The General hadn’t been happy to find out about his
past, but I had talked him into giving America a final chance; if he helped us to catch Kelsey,
the odds were that his career would survive. “You’ve done everything you can to ensure
success.”

I scowled. I had done some calculation and gone through each and every one of my own
memories from when we had been captives, and made some deductions about Kelsey’s
powers. They had to be selective, at least to some degree, and he had to have them under
very fine control, or the Mayor’s crazy plan to have the superhumans search for him might
just work. They also didn’t work like inhibitor drugs; if someone got outside the effect
radius, his powers would return, assuming that he had possessed superpowers in the first
place. It made Kelsey uniquely dangerous and uniquely vulnerable; his powers were almost
unnoticeable until they were used – and he might even be able to fool a telepath – but at the
same time, anyone would be able to beat him. I had assault teams prepared for an ambush at
every possible location…

If I were right. Rani’s powers had returned once she had gotten out of the warehouse and
reached ten meters from the doors; simple logic suggested, therefore, that Kelsey’s powers
could reach around one hundred meters, at most. I could be wrong – which was one reason
why Dark Guardian was playing the bait – but I suspected that if he lost his powers so far up,
he would recover them before he crashed into the ground at super-speed. If they actually
wanted to kill him, and if I were right, they would have to hit him while he was over a
skyscraper, somewhere where they could bring him down and hold him long enough to kill
him. I hadn’t bothered to share all of this with Dark Guardian, but as long as he carried out
his orders, he should be safe.

“I hope that everyone is ready,” I said, grimly. They nodded, one after the other, from the
experienced to the fairly new. “Good; let’s see how well this works.”

I lifted the radio to my lips. “Dark Guardian, you are cleared to take off and start your
patrol,” I said. I pushed as much confidence into my voice as I could. “Good luck.”

The bargain we’d struck had been simple enough. He would fly around the city, paying close
attention to each and every one of the skyscrapers, until we ran out of patience or until we
drew too much unwelcome attention from the media or other superhumans. If New York Gal
was to be believed – and somehow I found it impossible to doubt her - the other superhumans
were probably glad that Dark Guardian had been arrested, and might not be too pleased to see
him again. If they attacked him, then I had ordered him to come over to where we were, but
unless that happened, he would keep his distance from us.

“I see him,” Jill said, as she settled back to watch. I looked out over the city, but even with
my enhanced senses, I couldn’t see him at all…although I could see a burning streak of fire in
the sky as Fireball returned to Superhero Tower after a long night’s patrol. I had never been
inside the tower before and I had privately determined to visit at some point, just to see if it
matched up to the rumours. “He’s up, up, and away.”

I glanced over at her brother. “Is there any sign of deceit or concern in his heartbeat?”

“Nothing,” Jack said, listening carefully. I think he might have some kind of advanced
controls over his own senses, rather like mine; he didn’t seem to have any real problems
parsing through the entire noise of the city and tuning out what he didn’t need to worry about.
That’s not unknown among superhumans – without some altered senses, many of them would
crash into something before they knew that it was there – but Jack had been careful to keep
even the General guessing about his and his sister’s powers. “I think he’s studiously ignoring
everything – did you bother to tell him about the real danger?”

The jibe passed me by; the two twins might have been practically brought up by the SDI, but
they hadn’t absorbed that much of a military attitude. They’d been well looked after, but
they’d been treated, to some degree, as potential weapons, something that most superhumans
got after they sparked. Back in the early days, when there had only been a few dozen
superhumans on the Earth, every known superhuman was considered a possible weapon, but
now the SDI could afford to pick and choose. It wasn't a perfect system – the living weapons
of mass destruction at The Rock testified to American paranoia – but it allowed some degree
of flexibility in the system.

“No,” I said, shortly. I hadn’t told Dark Guardian about the power-drainer, or about the fact I
considered him expendable in the overall scheme of things; it would only have upset him.
The General had been quite upset enough that I had promised clemency to someone the SDI
should have made a horrible example out of, but even he had been convinced by the fact that
we needed live bait and Dark Guardian’s incarnation allowed us to solve two problems with
one stone.

I shrugged to myself. The other thing I hadn’t told him was that his body had been firmly
infected with tracking devices, nano-technological weapons and a handful of other systems,
just in case. If he lied to me and put on his dark uniform again, we would track him down,
push a button, and watch him drop dead in front of us. In time, the superhuman energies
running through his body would knock them out, but the nanites were self-duplicating; by the
time the process overtook the wave of endless duplication and knocked them out, we would
know just how well he had adapted to civilian life.

“He’s just passing over the Superhero Tower now,” Jill reported, as time started to slip past
slowly. I had learned patience during my military career, but America, Jumper, and Jack and
Jill hadn’t learned it; I smiled at the impatience within their voices as I watched them
carefully. “I can’t see anyone coming out to challenge him.”

“Probably for the best,” I said, slowly. I wasn't sure what I would have done if someone like
New York Gal had tried to interfere, whatever her motives. It would be hard to blame her,
but if we interfered to prevent her from beating the shit out of Dark Guardian, it would have
given away the plan. The media would have noticed and everything would have gone to hell.
“Keep watching him and watch for anything that might suggest trouble.”

She didn’t like me reminding her again, but she ignored it as her eyes tracked Dark Guardian
on his long lonely path, flying high over the city like a giant dark bat. It made me remember
the Bats in Space episode of some science-fiction series I had seen once, back before they
brought back Doctor Who; the Doctor had explained superpowers as being caused by some
technobabble interference of the Cybermen – or something like that. Superhumans had had
their own impact on popular culture; despite the best efforts of many comic-book producers,
the market for comic books featuring superhumans had declined as real superhumans started
to appear in ever-larger numbers. Who would want to read about the prim and proper
Superman when there were real superhumans out there?

Rani met my eyes. “Do you think that they even heard about him?”

“I hope so,” I admitted. “I told a number of people slightly different things, but if some of
them shared the information onwards, as I was hoping they would, then it will be harder to
find out just who blew the whistle on him and his flight.”

I hadn’t mentioned anything about the back-up forces, or even our own presence, not when
that would have definitely let the pussycat out of the bag. The enemy – and I was starting to
wonder if we were actually chasing the right group of terrorists - were terrorists; they
depended, very much, on terrorising their opponents. If Dark Guardian flaunted his
knowledge, such as it was, in their face, they would have to either pull up sticks and vanish –
which might cause ripples that we would notice – or try to kill him, unless – of course – they
suspected the truth. If my first theory was right, they would have every reason to take a shot
at Dark Guardian…and if my second theory was correct, then…their very survival would
depend on killing him.

“Now flying over the financial district,” Jill said, clearly bored. I remembered reading her
record; for all of her powers, she’d lived a sheltered life, brought up by people who had
protected her from the evils of the world. “How long do you intend to keep us watching
him?”

“As long as it takes,” I said, simply. Dark Guardian didn’t have such a terrifying reputation
in the vast skyscrapers that housed the financial companies and the stock exchange,
something that showed just how limited superhumans could be, when faced with a problem
that wouldn’t go away, no matter how many times it was hit. How could a superhuman, even
one who had saved the world from an asteroid crashing down into the planet, prevent the
stock exchange from collapsing and a few tens of thousands of people falling out of work?
Superhumans never had normal lives; once someone sparked, existence as they had known it
was over…and it went to their heads.

I ignored Jill’s snort of exasperation and watched as Dark Guardian came into my view,
seeming to drift through the air as he rose up towards the United Nations building, but
turning before he reached it. Clinton had been trying to keep the conference going,
something that said more about his optimism than his common sense, and so far Washington
had refused to overrule him and insist on the conference being shut down until we found the
murderers. A handful of other superhumans appeared over the United Nations building, but
Dark Guardian ignored him and they didn’t bother to give chase; they knew that the SDI
overt team wasn't that far away. If the Mayor’s plans to have the superhumans search the city
actually came to fruitarian, there was going to be a bloodbath, and if that happened, there
would be almost nothing left of the city.

Another hour passed, and then another; Dark Guardian’s flight produced almost no results.
We saw, briefly, another unregistered superhuman flying up to see what was going on, but
again, Dark Guardian just ignored him. I made a mental note to see if we could find out who
had just shown themselves for the first time, but it wasn't important; a third hour passed
slowly and the watchers were starting to grow tired.

My radio buzzed. “This isn’t working,” Dark Guardian said, harshly. I heard the irritation in
his tone, even though I would have thought that he would have been delighted to have his
flying powers back again. If he had gone to The Rock, the odds were good that he would
have died there, stripped of his powers by drugs and the occasional experiment in surgery.
“I’m tired and I need a rest.”

I scowled. “We all need a rest,” I said, crossly. “Very well; please go land back on the tower
and get some rest. We’ll start again in a few hours.”

I looked over at Jill. “Good work,” I said, even though nothing had happened. We also knew
what needed to be improved in our surveillance operation. It wouldn’t be that hard to make
some real improvements, maybe even add some additional superhumans to the support group.
“I want you and Jack to get a rest…”
I made a mistake; I admit it. The radio buzzed in my ear. “I’m just going to land now,” Dark
Guardian said. The stubbornness in his voice surprised me; it was as if he didn’t even care,
any more, about what I could do to him. “What do you…”

His voice broke off. For an instant, I didn’t realise what had happened, and then I turned to
Jill. “Where is he?” I demanded. “What happened to him?”

She scanned the skyline. “I think he’s gone down on the Jackson Tower,” she said, her voice
on the verge of panic. She hadn’t been in the midst of any really dangerous situation before;
it was why she’d taken her eyes of him, just long enough for something bad to happen. It
was always that way. “Sir, what happened?”

I ignored her as I drew my pistol. “Jumper, get us over there, now!”

I hate teleportation, but Jumper acted quickly; I felt the brief head-spinning session as my
stomach tried to throw up everything I’d eating for breakfast, but it vanished as my
surroundings were replaced by a different tower, the Jackson Tower. It was something to do
with a multinational company or something like that; I hadn’t been paying attention when I’d
heard about it. There was nothing particularly special about the tower’s roof, except for the
sight I’d expected and dreaded ever since everything had gone to hell; a black-clad body
lying on the roof, alone and abandoned.

Rani muttered a word under her breath in Bengali. I ran over to Dark Guardian and checked
the body, cursing as the smell hit me again through my senses; his powers had been stolen,
like all of the others, and it had happened right under my nose. Only one person had known
enough to carry out the strike, which meant…shit. We had been played, and I hadn’t even
realised that we were being played, until it was far too late. Dark Guardian had gone to his
death because of me…

I turned him over and saw the wounds; he'd been shot in the back, several times, by a variant
on dumdum ammunition. They hadn’t broken out of his chest, but instead, they had
expanded and torn his chest to pieces; he had to have died instantly from shock and trauma.
A flight of media helicopters appeared from somewhere, coming down towards us and
filming as I reached over to Dark Guardian and carefully, almost tenderly, closed his eyes.

The radio buzzed. “Matt,” the General said, from his command post. His voice was drained,
dead of all emotion, but I knew him well enough to know that he knew what had happened.
He still had to ask. “What happened?”

“He’s dead,” I said, too tired to say much. A moment of insane humour passed through me.
“As private parts to the Gods are we, sir; they play with us for their sport.”
Chapter Thirty

“Well, that was certainly an interesting disaster,” Rani said, as we watched the television.
The reporter on the screen was reporting on Dark Guardian’s death – as the latest victim of
the Superhuman Killer, a name that the media had given to the murderer. It showed their
normal lack of imagination; would it have killed them to come up with a snappier title for
him? “Why did that happen?”

“I have a theory,” I said, slowly. I didn’t even want to think about some of the possibilities,
but they were starting to become terrifyingly clear. “I think that he was set up to die.”

Rani eyed me suspiciously. “You set him up as bait in a trap,” she said, dryly. “Did you
actually intend for him to die in the plan?”

“Not exactly,” I said, grimly. I’d have to visit his wife and children, find out what they
knew…and inform them that their father had died a hero. We owed him that much. “I think
that someone intended to kill him to send us a message.”

Rani’s eyes narrowed. “What sort of message?”

“Oh, the usual,” I said. “Nyah, nyah, nyah…can’t catch me, so yar boo sucks to the lot of
you.”

Rani rubbed her eyes. “I thought that that was Punching Guy’s death,” she said, icily. “Did
you set him up to die as well?”

“No, but I didn’t expect his death either,” I admitted. “Look, Brainy took a look at Dark
Guardian while we had him in custody, and concluded that someone had tampered with his
brain at some point, very lightly. Call me a bigot if you must, but I suspect that someone with
that sort of ability has to be a superhuman, rather than a more ordinary hypnotist or drug-user.
The touch on his mind was too light to have been caused by a machine.”

“I see,” Rani said, pacing around the room like an angry tiger. “So, what exactly does that
tell us?”

“There was only one person who knew that we were going to be sending Dark Guardian out
along that particular flight path,” I said. I’d organised the flight path to be fairly random, in
hopes that Kelsey and his allies would have to scramble to take a shot at them, something
they could do because they had a teleporting superhuman assisting them. “Only one
person…Dark Guardian himself. He had orders to choose his own path as long as he
remained in the air, so who knew what he was doing, but him?”

Rani scowled. “You’re not making any sense,” she said, coldly. “Why would he give away
information that would lead to him getting killed?”

“I’m not sure that he had a choice,” I said, thinking carefully. “Brainy said that someone had
inserted a post-hypnotic command into his head, but you can’t just…hypnotise someone into
committing a bank robbery, or killing themselves, or going to bed with you; it simply
wouldn’t work because it would be against their victim’s core values.”
“I know plenty of girls who will be very relieved to hear that,” Rani said dryly. “What makes
this different?”

“You can try to trick someone into doing something,” I continued, warming to my theme.
The SDI has researched hypnosis and mind control for years, ever since we found a
superhuman who could literally control people; that particular superhuman had been
strangled by one of his victims, otherwise I would have suspected his involvement
somewhere. “If I wanted to hypnotise someone into stripping for me, I’d have to trick them
into believing that they were alone, or if I wanted to kill someone, I’d have to tell them that
the poison was actually lemonade; even so, the mind would rebel against such control. It’s
one of the reasons why hypnosis doesn’t live up to its billing.

“But if someone is actually capable of implanting a superhuman-style post-hypnotic

command in someone’s head, what else might they be capable of doing?”

“So someone took control of him long enough to force him to render himself vulnerable?”
Rani asked. “Who has that sort of power?”

“I wish I knew,” I said. I glared down at the polished table, seeing my reflection in the wood.
“Follow my logic; someone influenced him into a position where he, for a few seconds, went
right into a planned ambush. That ambush should have been impossible, because it depended
on inside knowledge; the kind of knowledge that should have been impossible for anyone,
even me, to obtain. It might have been a crazy coincidence, but…”

Rani played devil’s advocate. “Are you sure that it wasn't a coincidence?”

“I planned it so that they would have to strike on the fly, if they struck at all,” I said.
“Instead, the forensic examination proved that they spent some time preparing the ambush
and waiting for Dark Guardian to fly overhead, knowing that he would fly over their position,
close enough for his powers to be affected. Go through the sequence of events; we’re getting
tired, he decides to call it a day, and then flies over the building at the precise moment that
we’re dulled and unprepared to act.”

I steepled my fingers in my best genius detective style. “I bet you dinner at a restaurant of
your choice that that command in his head made him report to someone, who then gave him
orders to expose himself at the right time, or maybe it wasn't even that precise; he was told
simply to fly over the building during the period,” I said. “What do you think of that?”

“I never bet,” Rani said primly. Her face creased into a sudden smile. “Even so, how did
his…making the call get missed by Jack and Jill?”

“It wouldn’t have been that hard for him to do it without us noticing,” I said, although that
had bothered me as well. It was too much to suppose that our unknown opponent had
managed to link directly into Dark Guardian’s mind; if he was that powerful, there wouldn’t
be any hope of stopping him at all. Simple logic suggested that he was a great deal less
powerful, or he would be ruling the world by now…and, as far as I knew, the world was the
same old mess it had always been.

Coming to think of it, a madman with mind controlling powers would explain quite a bit
about the world.
I shook my head, dismissing the thought. “We need to trap him somehow,” I said, and found
my mind working overtime. “What happened in Dark Guardian’s life that might provide an
opportunity to implant a few commands into his head?”

We spent the next hour going through it carefully, very carefully. It wasn’t easy at all and,
right from the start, I suspected that it would prove to be completely useless. The general
public would go out of their minds with fear and paranoia if they knew how well Uncle Sam
could track their activities through their electronic footprints, but even so, there were massive
gaps in our knowledge. Someone, like Kelsey, who applied a moderate amount of paranoia
or good tradecraft could ensure that much less was there for the government to find, but even
so, Dark Guardian hadn’t been an easy person to trace. An ordinary person was easy to track;
someone who could fly and move at blindingly fast speeds would be much harder to trace.

I watched as the chart was built up, slowly; Layla had excelled herself once again. If there
was a bombing at nearby train station, computers these days could run through images from a
million cameras around New York, hunting for a particular face and checking to see if they
had seen that face somewhere before, near the scene of the crime. If there was a rape and
murder late at night, cameras would be checked and their memories scanned faster than the
human mind could comprehend, building up a picture of where the culprit had been…and,
almost as important, where he hadn’t been. No one could escape such a dragnet for long,
unless they could fly, but Dark Guardian had been able to fly. He seemed to pop up and
down like a demented teleporter; even New York, the city of superhumans, didn’t have
sensors mounted on the rooftops yet.

“Nothing,” Rani said finally, as we sat back and scowled at the chart. We simply didn’t know
enough about his life to made any real guesses, even though we were limiting the search to
his days as a superhuman, only six months into the past. It was still an astonishingly complex
task and, the more we peered at it, the harder it was to make any kind of sense out of it. His
path, even when he was playing at being a normal husband and father, seemed complex; it
made me wonder what would happen to his wife and kids in the future. “Do you think that
this sort of…brute force attempt is going to work?”

She had a point. “I don’t think that we have a choice,” I said, glaring down at the chart. My
eyes felt like I’d been watching porn from dusk to dawn; sore, bleary-eyed, and tired. I don’t
really have a porn habit, but there are times when being alone really gets to me, and I don’t
have the patience to put up with even a prostitute’s brand of honesty. “We’ll take a break and
start again in an hour?”

“Fine,” she said, as she wandered over to the phone to call room service. I followed her into
the living room and took a seat on the sofa, watching through my tired eyes as she placed an
order for New York pizza. She was surprising me in any number of ways; I had half-
expected her to order curry, and to refuse to be alone with me for even a moment, even
though there was very little that I could do to her. “Pizza suit you?”

I rolled my eyes. “Yes, but nothing too complex,” I said, tiredly. She might love pizza when
she was in New York – although I didn’t understand why she couldn’t order it in Bangladesh
– but anything flavourful was a problem for me. New York is renowned for its pizza, but it is
still an explosion on my tongue and taste buds if I eat it too quickly. “Just a simple one for
me.”
The waiter arrived within moments, his demeanour managing to combine both a cringing
desire for a tip and a disdain that someone – anyone – would order pizza when there were so
many more interesting and expensive items on the menu. The General might be paying for
my stay at the hotel, but I wasn’t in the mood to go nuts; besides, most of the items were
either far too flavourful, or just plain strange. It might be the best hotel in New York, with
rave reviews in the newspapers, but that didn’t mean that I would enjoy it.

“Eat up,” Rani said, as she took a slice for herself and settled back. “You’re really too thin,
you know.”

“Yes, mother,” I said tiredly, as I took a slice myself. At least I wasn't still having an orgasm
every time I took a bite, although there were jokes about superhumans who had orgasms
every five minutes; apparently, we get a lot of action. Captain Orgasm had even been chased
out of the Bible Belt for nothing more than his name. “Why are you so concerned about my
weight?”

“I don’t put on a single pound,” Rani said, something that I knew would make her the envy of
every girl in the world. It was true enough; most superhumans, like New York Gal, tended
towards the ideal of the human form. I don’t have muscles the size of small planets, but even
I am fit and reasonably handsome for my age. “I need to worry about someone else’s
weight.”

I knew that I was being teased. “You don’t have to worry about my weight,” I said, as I took
another bite. It was as bland as they could make it and it was still surprisingly tasty for me,
no matter how snooty the waiter was when he saw what I ordered. My good taste has always
been a vague conception rather than anything else; as long as it’s tasty, prominent, and
enough, I’m happy. I’d sooner have sausages and beans than caviar and champagne. “I don’t
waste time worrying about that myself.”

Rani laughed. “A man with a potbelly looks in the mirror and sees a handsome man with big
strapping muscles,” she said, laughing. In her position, she would have seen far too many
male delusions, although she certainly had the ability to prick them. “A women with a fine
body stares into the mirror and then screams, because she sees fat everywhere.”

“How true,” I agreed, dryly. I knew that most girls were absolutely neurotic about their
weight; one of the girls I’d had a relationship with had been neurotic to the point where she
would interrupt our lovemaking sessions to ask if she was fat. “What does this have to do
with the issue at hand?”

“When Truth can’t think of a solution, he will normally try talking about something else for a
while,” Rani said, sensibly. “You’re nearly as smart as he is” – I scowled before I realised
that she was teasing me again – “and so I felt like I should offer you something else to talk
about.”

“Let’s change the subject,” I said, quickly. I don’t have much patience for girls with weight
issues; in my view, at least, most of them would be much happier if they didn’t worry about
their weight, but about their future. It was easy for almost any girl to get laid if that was what
they wanted; it was much harder for a boy to find a willing girl. Most men have real
problems reading female signals; they see a girl who just wants to be friends as a possible sex
partner, and a girl who wants to be more than friends as nothing more than a friend. “What
else do you want to talk about?”

Rani considered for a long moment. “Why did you never get married?”

I gaped at her. She had managed to surprise me, again. “What sort of question is that?”

“A question that might give me insight into you,” Rani said, slowly. “Why did you never get
married?”

“I have too much insight,” I said, irritated. It might have been one of my crosses to bear, but
I didn’t have to share it with her, did I? Still, she deserved a honest answer. “I look at a girl
and I know what she’s feeling; I know if she’s interested in me as a person, as someone with a
toned and fit body, or if she’s not interested in me at all. I also know the same about guys,
but as I’m not gay, I don’t bother to respond.”

Rani smiled. “It sounds like you have it made,” she said. “I know guys who would kill for
that kind of insight into girls.”

I scowled. “I also know when something thinks ‘oh my god what the fuck have I just
done?’” I said. Rani lifted an eyebrow. “People have strange and conflicting feelings over
sex; everyone, even the people lucky enough to end up with a teenaged nymphomaniac
utterly devoted to their every need, has moments when they wonder what they’re doing. I
blame television myself; the American population thinks that every guy is guaranteed a
Madonna in the basement and the guy who’s only got the ugly sister of three thinks that he’s
been cheated somehow. Even if the sex is perfectly safe, without any risks at all, there’s still
some guilt…

“And I know it,” I said. “I meet a girl, I know she’s interested, so we spend time together and
wind up in bed together, and the whole thing is running along as smoothly as a canoe on wet
grass…when she thinks that she could be with someone else, or that she’s doing something
wrong, or…something. I don’t read thoughts, or else I would have known the actual reason,
but I have never been able to lie to myself. Once someone thinks that, I know, and the game
is over.”

“I see,” Rani said. Her voice held nothing, but polite interest. I was almost disappointed.
“Why can’t you stay with one of them?”

“Because I know that they had doubts,” I said, tartly. I turned the question around on its
head. “Why didn’t you get married?”

Her eyes became faraway for a moment. “I would have been married by now and probably
mother to a dozen children if I hadn’t sparked,” she said, slowly. Her voice sounded more
accented as she spoke of her home; I could detect the presence of a Bengali accent running
through her words. “When they found me next to a crushed man, my reputation was ruined,
even as I became a hero. They…village folk don’t like the idea of the wife being stronger
than the husband, or smarter, or more educated; they prefer women to remain silent and
obedient. When the headman called the military and had me sent to the capital for training in
the use of my gifts, it was clear that I wouldn’t be welcomed back, not even by my father.”
I saw a tear in her eye for a moment. “Since then, I trained and became one of the Eight
Pillars and an inspiration to girls everywhere, but I’m lonely because of my gifts,” she
admitted. “There were a couple of other superhumans who tried to court me, but I was never
interested in them, not even in one of them who would have made a nice and caring husband.
There are actually more sophisticated men from the city, but they would be scared to try to
court me, and what might happen if we end up clashing with them?”

I looked at her. “What will the Eight Pillars do if they really start asking who’s in charge?”

“I don’t know,” Rani admitted. She leaned over and looked at me. “You must be as lonely as
I am.”

I don’t know where it would have gone, but my mobile phone sounded an alert; I found
myself both annoyed and relieved. “This is the General,” the General said, grimly. “Get your
arse over to the UN, now! The shit is about to hit the fan!”
Chapter Thirty-One

We heard the shouting as we flew down towards the UN Building, Rani carrying me in her
arms as we flew as if the devil himself was after us. As we got closer, we could see dozens of
superhumans, milling around in an ugly mood. The General’s command post, I realised with
a shock of pure horror, was stationed too close to the potential riot for company; hundreds of
NYPD officers, showing true bravery and dedication, were driving towards the scene at
speed. I hoped that most of them would be ordered to evacuate the area; if the shouting
actually turned to physical violence, the area would be devastated.

“I’m getting an order from the consulate,” Rani said, as we dropped down to land near the
command post. The noise of the confrontation was growing louder; several groups of
superhumans, including Femme of the Guerrilla Girls, were confronting the SDI’s overt team.
I saw America vaguely in the front lines, looking grim and determined; I could only hope that
it wouldn’t turn into a bloodbath. “They want me to get out of the potential disaster area.”

I looked up at her. “What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to stick around for the moment,” Rani said, grimly. “I think you’re going to need
me.”

I looked at the shouting mob and shuddered. She was almost certainly right. There were
supposed to be a thousand superhumans in the area, and not all of them would listen when
America spoke; some of them even prided themselves on having anarchist views and would
resist any orders issued by a member of the Establishment. Some of the others would be even
more dangerous; the Guerrilla Girls and the Space Cadets, in particular, outnumbered the
overt team.

“I’m glad to have you here,” I said, sincerely, as I ramped up my senses. The mass of
superhumans were screaming at each other – even I had problems picking out individual
words – but if they acquired a leader or a grudge, they would come out fighting. The
situation was so tense that all it would take was one idiot firing a shot at the wrong moment
to cause Armageddon. “I don’t suppose you have any bright ideas for preventing this from
happening?”

“Call up Kelsey and get him to deactivate everyone’s superpowers?” Rani asked. I gave her
a sharp look; if we’d had Kelsey, or someone else with his powers, it would have been easy to
end the confrontation. As we didn’t, it wasn’t really a useful suggestion. “The only other
option would be to have the group talked down, somehow…”

I caught her feelings and nodded in agreement. A crowd is only as smart as the stupidest
person in it, and superhumans, for all of their powers, aren’t always super-smart. Some
superhumans, such as Dark Guardian, were often fanatical or convinced of their own
rightness, others became determined to get whatever they wanted, as if they had a right to it.
If they were scared, because of all the murders, and they started to lash out, most of New
York would be devastated.

We picked our way over to the General’s command post. The SDI operates a small fleet of
vehicles in each of the states; the General, at least, had been smart enough to pre-position a
group of command vehicles near the UN Building, just in case there was a riot. That much
superhuman energy in one place was asking for trouble; his preparations hadn’t been enough
to prevent disaster. We passed a pair of NYPD policemen, both of them sweating enough to
refill a river, and reached the command vehicle; the General was there, barking orders at his
subordinates.

“Sir,” I said, saluting. “What’s happening?”

The General glared at me, before waving a hand towards the developing shouting match. The
entire overt team, seven superhumans who worked out in the public eye, were standing there,
trying to impose a solution by the sheer weight of their presence. I could tell that two of them
were nervous; they might have had the best training in the world, but they were badly
outnumbered if every other superhuman set themselves up against them.

“The death of Dark Guardian started a chain of dominos falling,” the General said, studying
the scene through binoculars. I could follow the action myself; the group still hadn’t
managed to form up into a mob, but it was only seconds from becoming a serious danger to
life and limb. “Clinton kept trying to keep the conference going and I think that that was
what did it in. The Guerrilla Girls demanded that we do something like finding the murderer
and presenting him to them dressed up in tights, but obviously we couldn’t do it.”

I heard the bitterness in his voice. “The Mayor’s insane plan to have them all search the city
had them on tenterhooks and so they started to demand that right, including the foreign
superhumans as well,” he continued. “Some of them told the Guerrilla Girls to fuck off,
others decided that it would be fun to join in and so…we’re on the verge of a riot that’ll make
Woodstock look like nothing.”

“I see,” I said, forcing myself to remain calm. “Have you ordered the area evacuated?”

“Everywhere for three kilometres around the UN Building,” the General said, grimly. “I’ve
called in the covert team and all of the reserves, but not all of them will be ready to handle a
full-scale superhuman battle; half of the reserves will have taken one look and decided to go
on sick leave.”

I scowled. The deputized superhumans were, technically, part of the reserves, but no one had
ever pushed that issue, until now. The General might be within his rights to call them into
action, as indeed he was, but not all of them would accept his orders, particularly given the
way that the Mayor had been playing silly buggers with the entire procedure. They weren’t
really trained to handle anything more than bank robbers and the occasional terrorist.

The noise was growing louder. Normally, the General might give the order to charge the
crowd, but as the crowd was composed of superhumans, it would be a recipe for complete
and total disaster. A mob had to be handled carefully – unless it was in one of those countries
where the dictator thought nothing of gunning down his citizens by the thousands – but a
superhuman mob would end up going in whatever damn way it felt like going and God help
anyone trapped nearby.

“Shit,” one of the General’s coordinators said. “Sir, we have another problem.”

I looked up at the screen and saw…a mob of people, mainly women, coming from one
direction, the home of the Guerrilla Girls. Another group was coming from the west, this one
more equally distributed between male and female; it looked as if a third group was forming
up as the chaos spread across the city. They were groupies, the people who were in awe of
superhumans merely because of their powers; their presence would only increase the body
count when – if – the balloon went up.

“We can’t let them come here,” I said, horrified. They might be idiots, but even idiots didn’t
deserve to be caught in the middle of a superhuman battlefield. “General…”

The General was already issuing orders. “Chief Cordova, I want the NYPD to redirect those
mobs somewhere else,” he said, addressing the police chief. Somehow, I was certain that the
NYPD would try their best, and fail; some of the people in the mobs were carrying weapons
that they would use against the police. There would be some real troublemakers coming out
onto the streets soon, people who wanted nothing more than to cause a riot. “Break them up
somehow; I don’t care how you do it, but hurry!”

“We want justice,” Femme shouted, a cry that was taken up immediately by the others of her
faction. I peered through, trying to pick out who was on what side, but it was difficult to tell
with so many of them undecided. “Bring us the killer!”

“We don’t have the killer yet,” America said, his own voice too high for comfort. He was
scared; I could hear that, and I suspected that others could hear it as well. “We’re looking for
him, but we don’t know where he is.”

I heard the General muttering into his microphone. “And we can’t find him if we’re here,
trying to prevent you from wrecking the city,” America continued, clearly prompted by the
General. “Calm down, remain here and you will be safe!”

“The UN Building isn’t safe,” Femme snapped. “We lost Babylon here! If someone is out
there stealing our powers, we have to catch him before he…”

Someone, a superhuman I didn’t recognise, pushed her aside. “It’s the government,” he
shouted, loudly enough to be heard halfway across the city. “They’re planning to strip us all
of our powers!”

He punched America in the chest and sent him flying backwards, straight into another
building. He was back up on his feet within moments and lunging forward with his team-
mates, trying to stop the newcomer before it was too late, but others were moving forward,
their fists extended for a fight…

And then New York Gal fell out of the sky. She glowed, literally, as she hovered above the
ground, her blonde hair casting light over the scene. Just looking at her made me want to
melt, even as the more rational and dirty part of my mind wondered why her skirt hadn’t
flipped up to reveal her panties; she smiled down at the gathered superhumans and some of
the tension vanished from the scene.

“The NYPD is trying to break up the other mobs now, but there are riots developing in a
dozen locations,” someone muttered to the General. He had to be gay, or the coldest cold fish
in the world; I was still half-staring at New York Gal myself. “The Governor has ordered the
National Guard to assemble, but it’s going to be hours before any of them can get into
position to assist.”
New York Gal’s voice hung above us like honey. “Shame,” she said, as clearly as a bell. It
touched off every gland in my body. I would have done anything just to hear her speak like
that all day. “Is this what the proud tradition of New York superhumanity has come to?
Pushing and shoving and threatening thousands of people, just because you feel a little
scared?”

Her glow seemed to get brighter, offsetting her cheerleader’s outfit. “Why are you scared?”
She asked. “Do you know that there’s nothing to fear, but fear itself? Here you are, looking
for a way to improve the lives of millions of people, and yet instead of embracing them and
finding what they need, you’re on the verge of tearing my city apart. Why do you seek such
harm to the place I love?”

She had to be insane; if I’d tried that, they would have torn me apart. Somehow, it worked
for her; her face, set in a slightly disappointed expression and her very posture convinced me
that she meant every word. She didn’t seem to allow the slightest trace of doubt or awareness
of her own vulnerability to creep into her voice; the noises of the mobs in the distance
seemed to be fading as she cast a spell over the entire area.

Rani elbowed me and I started. For me, at least, the spell was broken. “They are looking for
the killer,” New York Gal said. “Soon enough, he will be caught and punished for his crimes.
How can anyone look for him when you’re here, threatening the very existence of my city?”

She spoke more in sorrow than in anger, and they knew it, cringing inside at the soft gentle
lashing of her tongue, somehow far worse than spending a year in The Rock. I saw some of
them struggling to break away from her challenge, from her perfect blue eyes as they looked
down at them, and saw the self-horror in their eyes as they faced her. Everyone has someone
they don’t want to fail, or disobey, be it their mothers, their grandmothers, or their fathers,
or…and, at that moment, New York Gal embodied them all. She was the ideal superhuman, a
heroine who had nothing bad or even vaguely dirty written about her, and they knew that they
didn’t come up to her standard.

I heard a roar as Terrifica broke free. It must have taken awesome mental discipline for her to
break out of the semi-trance; Terrifica was a lesbian, one of the few actual lesbians in the
Guerrilla Girls, and New York Gal must have had a terrifying effect in her. Terrifica
embodied every stereotype of the weightlifter girl and, as she ran towards a car, no one
noticed before it was almost too late. She caught the car, picking it up with its stunned
occupants, and threw it neatly in a perfect arc towards New York Gal. The car smashed into
her and shattered on her body, somehow not even remotely damaging her outfit, but it broke
the spell. The crowd started to advance again and I saw America, his team, and some of the
other New York superhumans forming up in a desperate attempt to stop them…

And then the Mayor arrived. I didn’t like him and he had been interfering openly in my
investigation – before he’d stolen primacy for the NYPD – but he showed a surprising
amount of physical courage as he strode forward, followed by a bunch of newspaper reporters
and camera men who started to film him at once. His gaze swept across the entire group of
superhumans and found them wanting, studying them coldly, as if they had no place in his
city…
My mind boggled. Did the Mayor hope to avoid some of the blame for this near-disaster? I
couldn’t see how he hoped to avoid it; he’d certainly played a role in suggesting that the
superhumans start searching for the killer themselves, a task that they were perhaps the worst
suited to in the world. What could they do to defeat someone who could turn off their powers
at will? They’d be falling out of the sky like rocks…

At the moment, that didn’t seem like a bad idea.

“This has to stop,” the Mayor said, amid the light of flashbulbs. His voice wasn't as
seductive, in a completely innocent way, as New York Gal’s voice, but even I could hear the
iron determination under his voice. Maybe he didn’t have quite the natural gifts of New York
Gal, but he could make them hear him and come to realise that they were on the verge of
making a real mistake. “This riot benefits no one, but Pure Humanity, the people who want
all superhumans to kill each other off. What does it profit us to rip the city apart if all we
gain is hatred and death?

Us? Had he meant to say us? “I pledge, now that the investigation is in the hands of the
NYPD, that no stone will be left unturned in the search for the killer,” he continued,
apparently ignorant of his slip. “We know who he is and we know why he does what he does,
and soon enough, we will bring him to justice before a fair and impartial court in New York
City.”

I listened grimly as his words flowed on, playing the offended war leader to the hilt. The SDI
should place Kelsey on trial, not the NYPD, but now, it would be difficult to refuse the
request to hold the trial within New York, when it came. How much damage would have
been caused by then? The media and the world’s superhumans would have judged him a long
time before he stood in the dock; if he got a fair trial, it would be a miracle. He was guilty,
but even guilty men have rights; what would happen to him if those rights were lost because
of the Mayor playing games?

“In consultation with the Secretary-General, I have decided that the conference will be placed
on hold for a week, to allow tensions to calm down,” the Mayor said. “I expect that each and
every one of you will find a place to rest and relax, and remain vigilant, at all times, for when
the killer will reveal himself. Until then, enjoy New York instead of trying to destroy it.”

That got a few laughs as the Mayor swept away majestically, allowing the crowd to disperse
slowly and peacefully. America watched with his team-mates as the other superhumans
separated, some of them flying away, others returning inside the UN Building or heading out
to find somewhere to rest. Perhaps they would find a friend and spend some time fucking;
the centre of a superhuman brawl or near-brawl is a very carnal place.

The General wasn’t laughing. “Matt, we came too close to disaster there,” he said, sharply. I
nodded in grim understanding; if things had gone just slightly worse, we would have been at
ground zero. The city would have born the brunt of a superhuman struggle. “It won’t be
long before the tensions start to rise again.”

“And next time New York Gal might not be able to soothe them,” I said, equally sharply.
We’d been incredibly lucky; next time, we might not be so lucky. If Terrifica had been more
alert, she might have been able to really hurt New York Gal. There was bad blood between
the pair of them, although I couldn’t imagine why. “Sir, we might be on the verge of
disaster.”

The General held my eyes. “Find him,” he ordered. I tasted the desperation in his tone and
knew just how close we all were to a war. “Do whatever you have to do. Find the bastard
now!”
Chapter Thirty-Two

“That was too close,” I said, as I sank into one of Layla’s chairs. I felt astonishingly tired,
even though it was mid-afternoon; as the realisation of just how close we had come to
disaster had sunk in, I had started to shake. Rani had taken it a great deal more calmly, but
even she had been more nervous than she let on. “What the hell happened?”

“Someone was trying to orchestrate a riot,” Layla said, calmly, from her seat. She looked a
great deal more relaxed than usual; Rani had to have been an influence on her. “I went
through all of the records; a lot of the hardened troublemakers were called up and placed on
alert for joining in the riot.”

“So it wasn’t spontaneous,” I said, carefully. I had suspected precisely the opposite. “Why
did the riot not explode, then?”

“I think, and I must caution you that I'm only guessing, that someone organised it with the
intention of creating a damp squib, rather than a real disaster,” Layla said. “The calls were
made to them moments before you yourself arrived on the scene, as if the person had learned
about it at the moment when things started to get out of hand and was improvising, but almost
anyone could still have made matters a great deal worse; all they would have had to do would
be to have started making calls ten minutes before they actually started calling people.”

I considered the matter for the moment. “Perhaps they didn’t know about the developing
riot,” I hazarded after a moment. “It started in the UN Building, after all…”

Layla gave me a pitying look. “Everyone who is anyone in New York has a source inside the
United Nations,” she said, her face twisting into a rueful smile. New York is the city where
all of the backroom deals are made; the conference on Africa was merely one single facet of a
jewel that was never clear to anyone, but people like Layla – and Bryce. “They probably
knew that there was a riot being developed before the General caught on and sounded the
alarm.”

“Maybe,” I said. “If they didn’t want a riot, why did they even start summoning up
troublemakers?”

Rani had another question. “And can you use this to trace their identities?”

“I think they wanted to ensure that the situation got bad, but not too bad to be handled,” Layla
said. “It occurs to me that the NYPD had time to get into position and get ready to prevent
more rioters from pouring into the main zone before the troublemakers started to appear. As
for tracing them, I can’t; the funds were provided through a one-time Swiss bank account and
there’s no way to trace them or use them as a lead to the original buyer.”

I cursed the Swiss under my breath. “Isn’t there any kind of pressure we could bring to bear
on them?”

“They’re not exactly in an easy position to threaten,” Layla said, dryly. “Even if the General
went to Washington and pushed for Switzerland to be threatened with a bombing raid or
series of raids, I doubt that it would get very far. Half of the President’s campaign
contributors have Swiss bank accounts; hell, I’d put good money that the President himself –
at least some of his staff – have their own Swiss bank accounts.”

“No bet,” I said. Politics in the United States is a funny thing; democracy must have its day,
but often the person who wins the nomination and their chance to compete in an election is
the person who raises the most ready cash. In every campaign, in my memory, there had
been accusations of financial irregularities and vote-buying – if not outright corruption – and
no candidate has ever survived without mud on his name. I await with trepidation the first
superhuman politician; the Mudslinger. “Is there nothing that we can do?”

“How far are you prepared to go?” Layla asked. “I don’t think that even a classic daring
commando raid would allow us access to their records; from what I’ve been able to discover,
they’re well secured and kept on paper, rather than computers. Anyone would think that they
knew I existed.”

“I hope not,” I said. People like Layla made Internet Banking more dangerous than most
people understood, from the people who hacked into accounts for fun to the bastards who
used virus scams as extortion, trying to get money from gullible users. There was even a
group, online, that supported the chaos in Africa…on the grounds that the famous Nigerian
Spam emails had been halted by the fighting. “I don’t think that the General would permit us
to raid them.”

“Besides, they’re guarded by the Swiss security forces,” Layla said. “They’re not too likely
to allow you to just walk in and talk them.”

“Never mind,” I said, grimly. “Did you find out anything interesting or incriminating on His
Honour?”

Rani eyed me, surprised. “Anyone would think you wanted to get at him,” she said. “What
about our hypnotist friend?”

Layla answered her question first. “The only known person with confirmed superhuman
powers of mental manipulation was confirmed dead, seven years ago,” she said. “The guy –
he never gave himself a codename – had the ability to use direct motor control on a victim,
depending on their determination and force of will; in effect, he made people do whatever he
wanted. He used the power as any male would use it and got himself a harem of girls,
obedient to his every command, until one of them snapped and strangled him to death with
her bare hands. She was the lucky one; the others are still in various mental institutions, after
suffering a complete breakdown.”

She shook her head. “The body was taken by the SDI, but the usual examination of the
corpse failed to show any evidence of what powers he’d had,” she continued. “It required a
telepathic scan to prove part of the story; the same telepath later tried to scan the loony
victims, only to catch their insanity and die a year later.”

I scowled. Telepaths can catch mental viruses from people whose minds they read; if Brainy
had tried to scan a lunatic’s mind, the odds were good that he too would have gone mad. It’s
one of the known limits on their powers; the others often depend on just how powerful the
telepath actually is, or just how close they are to their targets. Some telepaths work only
through touch; others can read a person’s mind at a distance.
“Nuts,” I said. I caught Rani’s eyes and she smiled. “Is there any trace of a second mind
controller?”

“None that I’ve been able to pick up, but frankly, I don’t know if we would find one unless he
came up to the SDI and introduced himself,” Layla said, after a moment of consultation with
her computers. “The one who was killed, seven years ago, was mad enough to enjoy their
torment; it’s possible that he suffered from the effects of a feedback loop held in place by his
telepathy. If someone more careful, or more determined to find victims who might never
know that they had been victims, it might be impossible to find him. Hell, he might even be
running the world and we’d never know about it.”

I exchanged a glance with Rani. “Never mind him for the moment,” I said. “What can you
tell me about the Mayor?”

Layla’s eyes defocused slightly. “His Honour, Mayor Joe Hathaway of New York City,” she
said, as she collected her thoughts and the vast levels of information at her fingertips into one
collection. “A Democrat; he was elected in 2001 as a candidate, promising to change the
very face of New York, and was re-elected in 2005 for his second – and final – term.”

I winced. If there had been a disaster, only hours ago, the Mayor’s pledge would have come
true in a way he had never intended. “The Mayor was born in 1970, which makes him thirty-
eight as of this year,” Layla continued. “He was born to Francis and Yvonne Hathaway as
their second son; when he was twelve years old, his parents were killed by a criminal, who
was later apprehended by a superhuman in a brief encounter. Young Joe and his brother were
taken into the care of an elderly aunt, but as she wasn’t that much with it, Joe and his brother
ended up taking care of her as much as she took care of them, if not more. When his brother
was old enough, he enlisted in the Marines and went off to serve with distinction in various
encounters.”

She paused to take a sip of water. “Joe, meanwhile, served in the National Guard before
being transferred to the army for a year, and then he went into politics, apparently with the
help of Senator Sam Hamlin,” she said. “Hamlin was Old Money in the oldest possible sense
and provided a great deal of funding for the young candidate; Hathaway stood for several
minor positions before trying to become Mayor of New York. I think that Hamlin was
actually trying to re-establish Tammany Hall or some other such foolishness; this was only
thirty-odd years since that came to an end. He lost the election in 1997, but stood again in
2001, and became the Mayor in a landslide victory.”

I lifted an eyebrow. “A landslide victory?”

“I’m coming to that,” Layla said. “Apparently, his predecessor had made a number of very
ill-advised decisions, including several that came out in 2000; he’d been corrupt and had
engaged in criminal proceedings, some of which had even cost lives. Nothing was proven in
time for the election, but under such a cloud, even a monkey could have won the ballot; Joe
Hathaway became the Mayor of New York City.”

I sighed. That was interesting, but it wasn't particularly useful. “Is there anything in his past
that might prove incriminating?”
“There’s very little that could actually be used against him,” Layla said. “He doesn’t drink,
or smoke, or take drugs; there’s certainly no suggestion that he ever experimented back when
he was at college. There were a handful of girls, but all of them were tracked down by
various newspaper reporters and…well, none of them had anything much to say about him
and his sex life. He didn’t have any quirks, didn’t have any weird tastes, didn’t beat them up
or try to molest them…he was safe, but boring.”

“Girls,” I said, dryly. I knew girls who craved excitement in their lives and girls who’d gone
looking for the excitement and it had gone too far. Many of them had ended up regretting it,
others hadn’t survived the experience; there were people who just didn’t know when to stop.
“Bryce did suggest that all he was interested in was power. What about his allies in the
Democratic Party?”

“The Democrats are pretty determined to win the coming election,” Layla said. “It’s hard to
be sure, because so few of the inner circle will have placed their votes - their bets – yet, but
my guess is that his candidacy for the 2012 election will depend upon the outcome of the
conference and just how quickly the NYPD finds the killer. If you find him, he’ll try to take
the credit, but if he fails and more superhumans die, his candidacy will fall apart.”

I looked down at the carpet and shook my head. “What do you think his chances are of
running for President?”

“It’s impossible to say with any certainty,” Layla said. “If he bounces back from this, he has
a fair chance of winning the nomination, but he has at least two other opponents with the
same chance, both of them older and more experienced. If this blows up in his face, he’s
almost certainly not going to have even a slight shot at becoming the President; this is going
to look terrifyingly bad on his resume.”

She smiled at me. “It’s my guess that his stunt today was intended to impress his detractors,”
she said. I nodded; it had certainly impressed me. “He’s one of those people who don’t fear
physical death as much as they feel political death, so I suspect he would have preferred to go
down as a martyr rather than as a complete failure. If he was ever in any real danger…”

I met Rani’s eyes. I knew that the Mayor was a showman, and that a showman can walk into
a room filled with lions and walk out again unscathed, but the lions had been tamed…and the
superhumans hadn’t been tamed, hadn’t they? Had they been looking for a chance to back
down as gracefully as possible, or had something else happened? The Mayor had to be
getting desperate…or, perhaps, he was manipulating everyone involved towards a grand
endgame strategy that would either raise him to the heights of the presidency, or bring him
crashing down into the pits of despair, remembered only as a political wannabe.

“Maybe,” I said, wondering. Was the Mayor planning something desperate? “What about his
wife?”

Layla laughed. “She did marry a cold fish, didn’t she?” She said. “I went through her
records and found…well, boredom. She was born to one of the wealthy families up near
Washington and somehow ended up marrying Joe Hathaway, who was already tipped as a
hopeful for the future. That lot will marry their children to people they hope will enhance the
family wealth and status; I suspect that the poor woman is regretting the day she ever met
him.”
She closed her eyes for a moment. “There’s nothing particularly interesting about her,” she
admitted. “She went to a paying school, did moderately well, and went to a girl’s college in
Washington…and then a finishing school in Switzerland. She does have some sealed records
from back in Washington, but I hacked into them and discovered that she had a lesbian affair
with a friend, something that her parents took exception to and hauled her out of the school
pronto. Once she returned to the States, she went to several parties as a debutante before she
was introduced to Joe Hathaway and urged to marry him.

“Since them, she’s been his wife and his reluctant companion,” she said. “There are some
tiny signs of strain in their marriage, including some adultery on her part, but the Mayor
doesn’t seem to care at all. She wanted children and he was unwilling to provide them, but
she’s stuck with him, either out of a sense of duty or some real affection. I looked at some of
the more recent images taken of her and…well, there’s some very real desperation in her
eyes.”

I considered it. “Is she his assistant?”

“I don’t think that she’s co-Mayor, if that’s what you’re asking,” Layla said. “There are no
signs of her being an active colleague as well as a wife, but it’s difficult to tell from this
distance. I ran a full tracking program on her and she seems to divide her time between their
house and the shopping centres; the last time she left the city was when she went to visit her
parents.”

“She sounds like a prisoner,” Rani observed. I heard the note in her voice and remembered
what she’d told me about women in Bangladesh, before the Eight Pillars became the effective
rulers of the country. She would understand and feel pity for the Mayor’s wife. “What are
we going to do now?”

“I think that it’s time I had a talk with the Mayor,” I said, as I stood up slowly. Every bone in
my body felt as if it were creaking. “Layla, could you rig me up a surveillance device?”

Layla frowned. “You do know that the Mayor’s office is surrounded with the latest and
greatest anti-surveillance equipment?”

“No, I didn’t,” I said. I suppose I should have known, at some level, but I’ve always
preferred to rely on my own senses. “Can you get a signal out through it?”

“Can a bear shit in the woods?” Layla asked. She grinned mischievously. “Of course I can
bounce a signal through it, although you’ll have to leave a relay station just outside the Town
Hall, and it won’t stay there for more than a few days. They run a weekly check for someone
planting a microphone there and the relay system will set off the alarm.”

“I want you and Rani to listen in,” I said, before Rani could say anything. “I want you, in
particular, to concentrate on everything that he might say relating to superhumans and the
case we’re investigating.”

Rani looked angry. “Matt…I should be coming with you,” she said, reluctantly. I heard the
irritation and the hidden angry in her voice and felt a flash of very real guilt. “I don’t want to
waste time just listening…”
“I know how you feel,” I said, grimly. I didn’t dare tell her what I suspected, not yet’ it
would put her life in even more danger than my own. “I have the feeling, however, that we
might make more progress if someone was listening in to the conversation without the Mayor
really being aware that it was happening.”

“Very well,” Rani said, tiredly. She looked over at Layla. “I guess that all men have to have
their fun, don’t they?”

“If he’s right, you could be in very real danger,” Layla said. She understood, even if Rani
didn’t understand at all, not yet. “Let Matt play out the line for a while yet…and see just
what sort of fish we catch at the end.”
Chapter Thirty-Three

The original New York City Hall – more technically, the second New York City Hall – had
been knocked down in 1990 by a rogue superhuman, protesting against something that had
been important to him, but no one knew what it had been. The idiot had bought into some of
the more interesting myths concerning superhumans and failed to realise that if he caused a
localised earthquake under City Hall, while in City Hall, it would bring the building down on
his head. Nineteen years after the attack, there were thousands of theories as to who had
carried out the attack and why, but no one had actually managed to prove any of them. It
seemed likely to remain a mystery for the foreseeable future.

The third City Hall had been designed to give an impression of modernity, and as such, it was
quite hideous. The Mayor of the time, who had spent over a billion dollars worth of
taxpayers money, hadn’t been standing for re-election, which was just as well, as his outraged
citizenry would have voted against him en masse. It was composed of glass, steel, and some
new metal that had been invented with the help of a superhuman, but it’s only value was that
it was literally unforgettable. There was a hawker down by the entrance, trying to sell people
very dark glasses to spare them the horror of seeing the building; despite the best efforts of
the NYPD, he had refused to vanish with his embarrassing – and roaring – trade. It has been
said that the building can be seen from high in space, and that it looks good from that height,
but as the only people who say that have ties to the Mayor, I feel that it could safely be
discounted.

I had thought about calling ahead, and technically I was supposed to do just that, but it would
only have given the Mayor a chance to start inventing excuses, or preparing himself mentally
for the interrogation. I wasn't sure if he would talk to me, but if what I suspected was
accurate, the Mayor would be only too keen to talk to me, if only to pick my brain for
anything the NYPD could use to track down Kelsey. He’d made a pledge to countless
superhumans and…well, I wouldn’t want to be the person who disappointed them. Not, at
least, unless I had a foolproof escape plan and a brilliant disguise.

I walked into City Hall as if I owned the place, flashed my card to the guards, and kept
walking. They talk about high security, but nine times out of ten, the guards will let you past
unless they have something they can use to stop your path or have had the wind put up them
by a sharp and sarcastic inspection. It comes from feeling safe, I guess; people are rarely on
alert in civilian territory, not like they are in a combat zone. I kept walking, passing through
garish corridors, business rooms, and waiting rooms where people waited for an interview
with bitter and twisted bureaucrats, and headed up the stairs. No one tried to stop me,
probably concluding that the guards had checked my identification, and I was writing a nasty
letter to the head of security in my mind when I entered the inner area of the hall. They had
built in a glass door, which would stop a superhuman for precisely one microsecond – and a
normal human for as long as it took to swing a hammer – and given that a keycode, rather
than a living guard. It was, I had to admit, slightly more effective…but as Layla had hacked
the code from City Hall’s systems, it wasn’t really a barrier at all.

They really need to work on this, I thought, as I punched in the code and slipped into the
secured area, where the real decisions were made. Unsurprisingly, it constituted a waste of
taxpayers money in it’s own right; there were paintings decorating one wall, and a series of
expensive artworks in glass containers. I paused to examine them, unheeded by the handful
of civil servants who passed me, before I strode into the Mayor’s private offices. His
secretary, a young dark-skinned woman who would have been attractive if she got rid of the
glasses, stared at me as I walked in, before reaching for an alarm buzzer.

“You don’t need to panic,” I said, assuming an air of boredom. There were no points of
interest about her at all; I summed her up in a moment. Hard working, dedicated, loyal, and
completely unimaginative. The Mayor didn’t even seem to have bothered to chase her
around the table a few times, even though I had a feeling that she wouldn’t have the
imagination to resist; either she was really boring, or the Mayor was dedicated to his political
career to the point where he wasn't going to risk threatening his future by sleeping with her.
“I’m here to see the General.”

“You don’t have an appointment,” she said, even as her hand dropped away from the buzzer.
I added another note to the growing letter I intended to write; she should have pushed the
button first, and asked questions afterwards. “If you want an appointment, you have to clear
it with his staff first and then make a proper appointment through me…”

I favoured her with a smile designed to make her uncomfortable. “And yet, the Mayor will
want to see me,” I said, as confidently as I could. “Why don’t you just call him and inform
him that I want to see him, eh?”

She glared at my condescending attitude, as indeed she was meant to; I wanted her just a little
annoyed with me. “His Honour is a very busy man, Mr…ah?”

“My name is a matter between the Mayor and myself,” I said, keeping my superior tone.
Nothing annoys a civil functionary more than the feeling that they’re being overlooked, or
put down; it helped that that was exactly what I wanted to do. “Please inform the Mayor that
I am here to see him.”

Her lips thinned out to a quite alarming degree, but she reluctantly complied, working her
small panel on her computer, probably sending an image of myself to the Mayor’s desktop
machine. He would have recognised me at once, from when he met me before…and I
guessed that he would be eager to see me, if only to find out how I had gotten into the
building. There was a long pause, and then she favoured me with an attractive smile…which
was completely faked; under the smile, she was mad as hell.

“His Honour has agreed to see you,” she said, tightly. She probably imagined that it was
enough grovelling to prevent me from deciding to complain to the Mayor about her attitude,
although frankly I hardly cared enough about her to make a formal complaint. “His office is
through those wooden doors.”

“Thank you,” I said, with a half-bow. I could afford to be gracious…and it would annoy her,
largely because people like her either walk all over you, or get walked over themselves. I had
proven myself to be someone who could walk all over her; she was probably wondering just
why I hadn’t taken the opportunity to extract a little revenge. “I’ll show myself in, my dear.”

The two doors wouldn’t have looked out of place in Buckingham Palace, but when I stepped
into the Mayor’s office, I was surprised by the sheer display of wealth. The Mayor hadn’t
come from a rich family, even though his wife had, but he had taken the opportunity to
surround himself with beautiful – well, expensive – items. Some of them I recognised,
others, such as a golden egg, meant nothing to me. One was odd – a statue of a rabbit
holding a switchblade in his hands – and one was curious; a poster of a superhuman, Fireman
himself. It was so out of place in the office that it left me wondering if the Mayor’s children
had put it up, before remembering that the Mayor had no children and wasn't likely to ever
have any kids.

“Investigator Tracker,” the Mayor said, standing up and coming around the desk. His body
language was very controlled, but every good politician knows how to make people like him,
if not respect him. His smile and firm handshake – few honest men have that strong a
handshake – was calculated to a tee; I knew that I couldn’t trust him at all, and yet I found
myself impressed. “I have heard good things about you.”

“Thank you,” I said, as if the previous encounter had never happened. For the Mayor, it had
probably been dismissed somewhere into his mind, to remain stored for future leverage. “I
have heard many interesting things about you as well.”

“Don’t believe half of what you hear,” the Mayor said, leaning back against his desk. “I
understand that you drink tea or water, and I have both of them here. Would you care for a
cup?”

I nodded, thinking cold thoughts; the Mayor had probably had someone in the hotel watching
Rani and myself. It wouldn’t be that hard for him to figure out my likes and dislikes from the
items I ordered, and I was certainly of some interest to him and his plans. Making me feel
comfortable was nothing, but a ploy; I was aware, at a very primal level, that the Mayor was
dangerous. Oddly, I found myself trying to compare the Mayor to someone I knew…and
ended up with the Protector of Iraq. It was hard to imagine two less similar men, and yet,
somehow, they were on the same level.

The Mayor poured my tea himself. “I was hoping you’d come in for a chat,” he said, as
friendly as if we were discussing the weather, or our teams in the coming games. “I was
hoping for a report on the investigation.”

I caught myself before I spilled everything out. “I believe that you managed to ensure that
the NYPD gained primacy in the investigation,” I said, as calmly as I could. His face
twitched, for an instant; I got the sense that I had annoyed him in some way. “I am here as
part of a different investigation.”

His face creased in anger. “There is no investigation as important as tracking down and
removing the power-drainer and the remains of Pure Humanity from the game board,” he
snapped. “Why are you here if you’re not looking into that disastrous affair?”

I was tempted to make a smart remark, but I held it back manfully. “I am conducting an
investigation into the life and death of Dark Guardian,” I said, watching the Mayor carefully.
He was the strangest person I had ever interviewed; the more I studied him, the more I found
it harder to make any sense from his non-verbal cues. It was as if he was a total blank, only
showing what he wanted to show; was that just the skilled approach of a professional
politician, or that of something more sinister? “I believe that it was you who cleared him to
work as an active superhuman deputized police officer.”

The Mayor’s face and body remained blank. “I confess that this investigation has no bearing
on the investigation of the superhumans who are dying at the hands of their killer,” he said.
“I strongly recommend that you leave it alone and concentrate on the matter of finding their
killer.”

I met his eyes, feeling my head hurting slightly, and then looked away. “I no longer have
primacy in the investigation of Chris Kelsey,” I said, knowing that the NYPD hadn’t turned
up anything more than the SDI. Kelsey had a teleporter working with him; he could be living
up in a cabin in the Rockies and only coming into New York when he wanted to kill someone.
“My current priority is to find out why Dark Guardian, a person of questionable value, ethics
and morality, was permitted to act as a deputized superhuman.”

His anger, in this case, was real. “Get out,” he snapped. I remained motionless. “I will have
security summoned and I will have you evicted from the building.”

“And then you will be evicted from the building yourself before nightfall,” I said, keeping my
own voice calm. “I am a duly registered investigator working with the SDI; as such, I have
the power to question whoever I want to question, including people of such civil…value as
yourself. If you are trying to impede my investigation, I must conclude that you intend to
avoid responsibility for the issue and proceed at once with a full, open, rigorous and public
investigation of the case. If you refuse to discuss the case with me willingly, then the SDI
will have to treat you as a suspect, and that would mean that you would be removed from
office.”

I could have pointed out that that would cost him his chance at becoming President. I could
almost see the wheels ticking over in his head; if I was bluffing, he lost nothing by evicting
me from the building, but if I was telling the truth, his career would fall down as if someone
had dropped it from the twin towers. There was also a chance that he could get away with
whatever he had done if he cooperated, on the surface at least; that option wouldn’t exist if he
was removed from office while the SDI, the FBI, and a dozen other agencies systematically
ripped his life apart.

“I met Dark Guardian when he revealed himself to me,” the Mayor said, finally. His voice
and face had gone completely blank again. “I had him investigated by two psych experts and
they confirmed that he was sane, fit, responsible, and could be trusted with a badge. Once I
shook hands with him and confirmed him as a deputized officer, he was on the streets and
patrolling until the recent affair with Barbara Roth.”

I felt my head spin, slightly. Something was wrong, but what? “Did you know what he was
doing to criminals?”

“I know that he was amazingly popular with the citizens,” the Mayor said. He leaned out
towards me, as if he was a wise and trusted father, dispensing wisdom to his son. “You must
understand, Matt, that there are some people who are considered too hot to handle by the
people charged with supervising their behaviour, whatever they do, unless they do something
that cannot be denied. I heard only a few rumours about what Dark Guardian might have
done, but because of his popularity, there was no formal NYPD investigation.”

I scowled and forced myself to concentrate. I hadn’t felt this distracted since the day I
realised that there was more to girls than just annoying strangely-shaped men. It was so hard
to focus my mind, but something was very clearly wrong, but what? Every time I tried to
focus on it, it was impossible to focus and find out what was bothering me; it seemed
completely beyond perception.

“Indeed, it seemed to me that Dark Guardian was doing a wonderful job,” the Mayor said,
calmly. I suspected that part of him was enjoying my discomfort, but I couldn’t understand,
for the life of me, how I knew that. His tone was almost hypnotic as he spoke into the air.
“He killed, yes, but they were all lowlifes who had hurt and killed their fellow citizens. The
general public wanted them dead, not sent off to comfortable prisons or slapped on the wrist
by the cops – those cops who hadn’t been bribed by the gangs – indeed, your friend who died,
the first victim, thought that was as well. Dark Guardian’s death was a tragedy for the
city…”

Indeed it was, I thought, and then I caught myself. “I suppose you’re right,” I said, wishing
that my head would stop spinning. “Why do you like superhumans so much?”

“Superhumans like yourself, Matt,” the Mayor said. His use of my name shocked me into
wakefulness, a shock that lasted for all of five seconds before my head started to cloud again.
“They’re part of the world now, something, perhaps, that will change the world. I am old
enough to remember the fear and panic that spread when the first superhumans arrived, but as
more of them appeared, it became clear that they would be hear to stay. And, if they are, why
not New York?”

“Why not?” I agreed. I forced my thoughts to clear through force of will. I was missing
chunks of memory, but for some reason, that didn’t bother me. “What do you intend to do
with your life once you leave office?”

“I could use a man like you,” the Mayor said. “Why not come to work for me?”

“Maybe,” I said, as I pulled myself to my feet. Somehow, I reached the door without falling
down; the Mayor watched me leave without making the slightest comment about my
rudeness, any more than the young harridan at the desk when I staggered past her. My senses
were screaming at me to flee, but I couldn’t even focus enough to walk in a straight line; I
found myself outside City Hall without any clear idea of how I’d gotten there. They had to
think that I was drunk.

A van pulled up beside me and I was helped into the vehicle. “For God’s sake,” the General
barked, in a bad mood, “what the fuck happened to you?”

I splashed enough water on my face to shock me awake and swallowed a pair of stimulants.
“I wish I knew, sir,” I said, as the daze started to fade from my mind. I’d have to study the
recording, maybe with a check-up from Brainy, to know just what had happened to me. “I
may have solved the case with one daring act.”

The General said nothing.

Chapter Thirty-Four

“He did something to you,” the General said. The anger in his voice stung. “What did he do
to you?”

“I wish I knew,” I said, feeling as if my head had been stuffed with cotton wool. The Doctor
had injected me with a stimulant and several other drugs, but I still felt as if I’d been on a ten-
day bender, drinking my way through gallons of beer. It was hard, somehow, to focus my
mind – my perfect memory – on what had happened in the mayor’s office; something had
happened, but my memory was failing me.

Silently, I vowed never to be cruel to a date rape drug victim again.

“Layla printed out a transcript of the conversation for us,” Rani said, her fingertips brushing
the side of my head. Her hands felt cool and welcome against my head; I was starting to feel
as if I was running a temperature. “You might find it of interest.”

I had almost forgotten that I had asked her to listen in to the conversation. The transcription
didn’t ring any alarm bells until I got about halfway through the conversation, where it veered
sharply from what I remembered; somehow, without ever knowing what I’d done, I’d told the
Mayor far too much about the progress of the investigation. He hadn’t thought to ask about
his own status as a suspect, or about some of the other SDI-related programs I knew about,
but he still knew more than I had realised…and I had told him, somehow.

I moaned in disbelief as the General read through the transcription. “You suspected
something like this,” he said, as he finished. His eyes had gone colder and colder as he read;
I would have been happier if he had been screaming in outrage. “What the hell is he?”

“I have completed my scan of Matt’s brain,” Brainy said. He winked at me, reassuringly. “I
believe that someone tried to tamper with it, rather like what happened to Dark Guardian, but
without so much success. Matt…quite literally, wasn't in his right mind.”

The General scowled at him. “Explain,” he said. “How does this differ from your
telepathy?”

Brainy hesitated. Telepathy isn’t an easy thing to explain. “It’s impossible to be certain,” he
said, finally. “A telepath establishes a link between his brain and that of his target, but once
the link is established, he can read thoughts and memories within the target’s brain. The
more powerful telepaths can reach out and transmit telepathic messages to another telepath or
a normal human, but it’s easy for the target to tell that they’re being signalled; the contact
feels very different from their own thoughts.”

He permitted himself a slight smile. “It’s rather like listening to classical music, only to
discover that it has been interspersed with loud and annoying rock music,” he said. “I could
communicate telepathically with you, but I couldn’t convince you that one of my thoughts
was one of yours; I could take information out of your head, but I couldn’t make you do
anything against your will.

“The Mayor, if this record is accurate, may have the opposite ability,” he continued. “I
scanned Matt’s brain carefully and there were no signs that it had been read, but Matt was
clearly influenced in some way, pushed into telling the Mayor whatever he wanted to know…
and then influenced, equally so, into forgetting that he told the Mayor anything. I suspect
that if we hadn’t picked Matt up at once…well, by the time he got back to the compound, he
would have looked perfectly normal.”

Rani rubbed her eyes as she squeezed my hand. “I don’t understand,” she said. “If he can
literally control people, why does he even want to be elected President?”

“The ability must have some limitations,” the General said, coldly. “If he has enough contact
with someone, he may be able to bend them to his will, but it would be much harder to
specifically program an entire crowd, and even if he did, he wouldn’t have enough access to
convince the entire country to vote for him.”

He paused. “Did he leave any surprises behind in Matt’s head?”

“I don’t think so,” Brainy said. He closed his eyes for a long moment; a second later, I felt a
tickle in my head as he scanned me again. I really loathe telepaths. “He may have been able
to put something in Dark Guardian’s head, but there’s no evidence that he managed to do
anything like it to Matt, simply through lack of time. I guess that while he could push
someone, he needs to make the commands verbal, and that didn’t happen, according to the
transcript.”

I looked down at the sheet of paper and shivered. “The bastard,” I said, with feeling. “No
wonder he was so keen to turn New York into the City of Superhumans!”

Rani held up a hand. “That leaves us with one question,” she said. “What are we going to do
about him?”

Brainy glared around the room. “He needs to be removed from office and arrested,” he said,
icily. “This bastard is giving telepaths a bad name and should be shot in the head, rather than
being dumped in The Rock or anywhere that we think is secure.”

The General shook his head, tiredly. “That’s not going to be easy,” he said, through clenched
teeth. His fury was something to behold, but it wasn’t directed at me, but at the Mayor and
the law. “How are we going to prove that this happened?”

Brainy and Rani answered at the same time. “The transcripts?”

The General sighed. “Faked,” he said, simply. “The telepathic scan? Faked. Physical
evidence? Non-existent. Matt’s memories? Unreliable.” He paused. “Anyone noticing a
through line here?”

Brainy stared at him. “Sir…are you suggesting that we let him get away with it?”

“Hell, no,” the General said, his face darkening again. “Prosecuting him is not going to be
easy, however; you should understand that. This man is the Mayor of New York, not some
dumb superhuman caught in the act of robbing a bank, and if we are to remove him from
office and put him on trial, we’re going to need some pretty hefty proof that he is, in fact, the
villain. What do we have? We have vague evidence that any halfway competent defence
lawyer would be able to get thrown out on some technicality or another.”
The General had once studied law, I remembered. “We’re down to a position where it’s
basically Matt’s word against his, and nothing else,” he said. “Ok, we have a transcript…we
effectively recorded a conversation in City Hall without permission, so any lawyer is going to
argue that the entire piece of evidence was illegally gathered…and fake, of course. We
recorded the conversation without a warrant or any permission at all from higher authority –
Matt didn’t even bother to clear it with me – so it won’t stand up in court. What does that
leave?”

He paused. “Telepathic evidence isn’t always accepted in court,” he said. “If we try to put
Brainy on the stand, he’s going to have to convince a jury that he scanned Matt’s brain to the
point where he was entirely certain that Matt had been…interfered with by someone.
Telepathy is often very subjective, so the odds are very good that someone will be either able
to convince the jury that Brainy was having hallucinations, Matt simply believed that it was
the truth and Brainy picked up on that, or that Brainy is simply lying. Even if we did
convince the court that Brainy wasn’t lying, how do we then prove that it was the Mayor?”

Rani scowled. “But he was the only one there,” she pointed out. “Doesn’t that prove
something?”

“The only person there that Matt knew about,” the General said, coldly. “If the Mayor could
get the jury convinced that he wasn't the one who was responsible for harming Matt, then…
where do we stand? There are some people, like Rani and America, who have superpowers
that are easy to verify; all I have to do is shoot Rani to prove that her skin is invulnerable.
The Mayor’s talent…well, he’s not going to provide a free show for the jury, is he?”

Rani clenched her fist. “Are you telling me that there’s nothing we can do?”

“We need to gather evidence that he’s been up to something,” the General said. “It’s not
illegal to have superpowers in this country, although it is illegal not to declare them if they’re
used regularly and in public, but again…we would actually have to prove that the powers
existed. Ten gets you twenty that if we took it to the Federal Government or the State
Attorney, as we’d have to do, they’d tell us to go find more evidence. They won’t allow us to
proceed with an investigation of the Mayor…or, at least, they won’t put their necks out for
us.”

I thought rapidly as the stimulant started to flow through my head. “We have two problems,”
I said, carefully. “One of them involves the Mayor; the second one involves the power-
drainer, who’s still out there somewhere.”

“Has it occurred to you,” Brainy asked, “that the Mayor might be behind Kelsey?”

“I don’t get it,” I said, rubbing the side of my head. “If the Mayor is a superhuman, and
furthermore a superhuman groupie, then why would he start rubbing out superhumans?”

There was a long pause. “Maybe they were just targets of opportunity,” Brainy suggested,
after a moment’s thought. “Maybe the Mayor didn’t bother with any specific targeting
instructions.”
I shook my head. “No,” he said, simply. “I could believe that for some of the targets, but
both Manna and Babylon were well-guarded; their deaths had to have been ordered and
planned carefully by the Mayor…if, indeed, it is the Mayor.”

The General snorted. “Warrior Girl and America – the second America – might have been
competition,” he said, grimly. “I don’t know if Lofting ever intended to run for Mayor, but
he certainly had a small fan base and Warrior Girl…well, her ambitions for the future might
have created problems for the Mayor.”

I rubbed my head again. “But the Mayor will be leaving office at the end of this term
anyway,” I said. He couldn’t get round that, could he? If he was that capable of controlling
people, he wouldn’t need to worry about anything at all. “He wants to run to be President
and he can’t balance that and being the Mayor of New York, can he?”

“Probably not,” the General said. He ticked off points on his fingers as he spoke. “We have
the power-drainer, who may be linked with the Mayor…it strikes me that having his people
run the formal investigation is an easy way to ensure that Kelsey never gets caught.”

“Or maybe he does get caught, in such a way as to make his capture impossible, so he gets
shot,” I added, thoughtfully. “Hell, for all we know, they’re not working together, but
separately.”

“Regardless, we need to stop them both,” the General said. “Do you have any ideas as to
how we can catch the power-drainer?”

“One,” I said, carefully. “You’re not going to like it.”

The General surprised me with a harsh bark of laughter. “I haven’t liked anything since this
murder spree began,” he said. “How many superhumans are dead now?”

I counted on my fingers. “Six,” I said, finally. My head was clearing rapidly now. “There’s
a target that might just lure Kelsey out of hiding, if we present it to him in the right way, sir,
but it will put someone at risk.”

The General frowned. “Who do you want to put at risk?”

“America,” I said, carefully. “They knew each other, back when they were teenagers in
school, and they didn’t have the best of relationships. If we presented America to him as a
possible target, I think he would go for it and try to kill him.”

“He might succeed,” the General said. “If there actually are three of them – a teleporter, a
killer and Kelsey himself – what’s to stop the other two talking him out of it?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “It really depends on just how much of what he told us was true.
If he really is motivated by revenge, then America would pose a tempting target, particularly
if we discard the America covering at the same time.”

The General looked at me. “You want to throw away that secret to trap Kelsey,” he said, very
calmly. “Are you sure that it’s a good idea?”
I hesitated. The Government collected a great deal of money from exploiting the market for
goods based around the America legend. “I think that we have to play it very carefully,” I
said. “One of our people goes after the sports coach, gets in touch with him, and insists that
he makes a full confession to the press, being sure to name America in the process. A few
days later, we will hold a press conference with America, where he will admit that he was
pushed into cheating by the coach…”

“And his reputation goes downhill sharply,” the General said. “What do we do if he doesn’t
show up?”

“Then we’ll have to think of something different,” I said. “We have the entire location
carefully scoped out first, with some of our own people inserted into the crowd and the
surrounding area, waiting for Kelsey to appear. He’s going to be have to come pretty close to
the stage just to shut down America’s powers long enough for his buddy to kill him, so we
should get one clear shot at him. Once we have that shot, we take it…and kill the teleporter
stone dead. Once that’s done, we can capture or kill him, and if we take him alive…”

“He might lead us to whoever is behind him,” the General agreed. “We can turn Brainy loose
on him if he refuses to cooperate, now that we have a state of emergency, so he will talk. It’s
not too bad a plan.”

“Thank you, sir,” I said, as I shook my head to clear the last of the cobwebs. The Mayor’s
powers had hurt me, but now I was feeling much better, maybe even sharper. “Please will
you see to setting up the plan?”

“I’ll have to talk America into exposing himself,” the General said, slowly. “Where do you
want to hold the press conference?”

I considered it. “Superhero Tower,” I said, after a moment. It would be an ideal location for
security purposes; Kelsey and his friends should have no problems getting into a position
where they could launch their attack. Most New Yorkers wouldn’t even think that the
building could be attacked; they regarded their city, despite the presence of so many
superhumans, as invincible. “It should be the best location.”

“Symbolic, too,” the General agreed. “The tower of heroes used as a place where one of the
heroes makes a full confession and redeems himself in the eyes of the world.”

I smiled. “You’re showing some poetic talents, sir,” I said, mischievously.

The General eyed me suspiciously. “And you’re getting back to normal,” he said, coldly.
“I’ll deal with America and make the preparations; you see to getting back in shape for when
the conference comes, ok?”

I didn’t argue; I slipped out of the room, followed quickly by Rani. “Tell me something,” she
said, as she caught up with me. “Are you certain that you’re fine?”

“I think so,” I said, feeling my head experimentally. It didn’t feel as if there was anything
wrong with it, although if Brainy was wrong and the Mayor had indeed done something to
me, I wouldn’t necessarily know about it. How could I defeat an enemy who hung out in my
own head? The very thought was creepy on levels even I couldn’t grasp. “How are you
feeling?”

“Mad at him,” Rani said, her fists clenching again. “How dare he do that to you?”

I lifted an eyebrow. “Thank you for caring,” I said, seriously. It was nice to know that she
cared, at least in some ways; I don’t have that many friends in the world. My powers make
that tricky…hellfire. “How did the Mayor defeat my powers before?”

Rani blinked at me. “What do you mean?”

“I saw the Mayor back during the investigation of Manna’s death,” I said, tautly. “I never
even got a sense that he was involved, or anything else to do with him possessing
superpowers. He might have some powers we don’t know about, or maybe he has something
else up his sleeves.”

I paused as a nasty thought occurred to me. “Were you ever alone with him?”

“I never met him before I met you,” Rani said. I was watching her carefully at that moment;
as far as I could tell, she was telling the truth…or what she thought was the truth. “I only
spoke to him on the telephone.”

“Good,” I said, hoping that my paranoia was misplaced. The Mayor was going to drive us all
crazy. His powers might do just that. “If you don’t mind, I need to get some sleep now,
before the big day.”

“Of course,” Rani said. There was something in her voice, a hint of irritation, that I only
noted on a vague level; my thoughts were elsewhere. “Have a good night.”

I didn’t laugh. I was too busy thinking of something else. If we failed to gain any evidence
of what the Mayor was doing, and it wasn’t going to be easy to just get the evidence we
needed, although I knew who might be able to help me with that task, then he would have to
be removed through extra-legal methods. I would have to remove him myself…and there
was only one way to do that; kill him.

Kill a member of the government?

Did I dare to live the American dream?”

Chapter Thirty-Five

Superhero Tower was everything that City Hall was not and, unlike City Hall, was actually a
worthwhile expense of taxpayers’ money. Someone like me might disagree, with reference to
the millions of people who could have been fed by the vast sums of money that had been
spent on Superhero Tower, but on the whole, at least it proved that good old American know-
how still worked when it came to producing fascinating buildings. Perhaps someone held a
gun to the head of the designer.

It seemed to glow as it rose up into the sky, a massive towering skyscraper designed to look
as if a spider had been busy stringing cobwebs around the building. It wasn’t the tallest
building in the world, but it might well be the most impressive, built almost completely out of
modern materials and sciences that impressed even me. Walking into the building, I was
struck by the impression of walking into a space station; the lower levels of the building were
almost completely taken up by museums dedicated to various superhumans. We paused,
pretending to be a normal couple for a few minutes, to look at the pictures; today, there was
even a celebratory montage for the dead superhumans, even Punching Guy and Dark
Guardian. I doubted that either of them had looked as heroic in their lives, but in death, all
sins were forgiven.

“Idiots,” Rani muttered, as we passed a collection of plastic toys, each one modelled in the
shape of a different superhuman. There were none of the fictional superheroes here – no
Superman, Batman, or Captain America – only real superhumans and their works. It’s
amazing how much money can be made by a superhuman who’s willing to present himself –
or herself – as a real hero, although it’s not always a high paying occupation in itself. It was
the endorsements that really brought in the money. “Is that meant to be me?”

I laughed as I picked up the doll. It was surprisingly demure for its type; I knew of some
superheroine dolls that included clothes that came all the way off, although only for
superhumans who had stripped off and posed for various male magazines. Personally, I think
there should be limits on how various people can make money, although the issues of supply
and demand insure that there will always be a Market for Porn. I’ve seen X-rated movies
involving superhuman sex, including many produced by Lombardi himself, and…well, let’s
just say there’s nothing special about them. I don’t understand some of the weirder kinds of
porn myself; what’s the point of filming an incest scene, or a rape scene?

“At least you got to keep all your clothes on,” I said, mischievously. “How much are they
paying you for the use of your likeness?”

“Nothing,” Rani said, dryly. “It’s supposed to go towards charity.”

I doubted it. It has been my observation, during several investigations into corruption, that
there are two types of people involved in charitable activities; the dreamers and the hard-
nosed realists. The first type tend to get nowhere when they run the charity; the second type
tend to keep more money back for themselves than they hand out to deserving cases, or rig
the game so that they get most of the money without any problems at all. Rani’s likeness
might have raised billions of dollars, but the odds were that only a tiny percentage of that had
reached the people it was intended to help.
We passed several tour groups – by order of the Mayor, the lower levels are open to anyone
who wants to visit – before we reached the main lift and inserted our security cards. The
designers had been smarter than the designers of City Hall; this time, even Layla hadn’t been
able to con the computers into handing out passwords and codes, not least because the system
was a mixture of computer and physical. Without a card, we would have had some real
problems reaching to the higher levels of the tower, let alone to the roof.

I watched, impressed, as the lift rose steadily upwards. The vehicle itself was made of glass,
allowing us to see as the vehicle passed through floors and then out into the outside, rising up
the side of the building, as if by magic. The designers had done that on purpose; instead of
simply having a set of lifts going up and down the centre of the building, they’d had them
curving around the building like a demented water slide system. It was impressive, but it was
also slow…and terrifying if someone didn’t have a good head for heights. I’d seen New York
from above before, but watching as the lift rose higher, it became much more impressive to
me.

Rani laughed to herself. “Is it just me,” she said, “or is there something phallic in the entire
building?”

“Probably,” I said, as the lift came to a halt. The roof wasn't secured at all; it had been
designed as a landing pad for superhumans and the occasional helicopter, so there were no
railings to prevent people from falling off the edge and down towards the ground, far below.
When the roof was used as a place for press conferences, it was given a basic railing, but
personally, I suspected that the staff of the building wouldn’t have shed too many tears if a
reporter had fallen off to his or her death. Again, by order of the Mayor, all press conferences
at Superhero Tower are open to all of the reporters in the city…and that included some pretty
nasty characters.

I pushed the hidden radio in my label. “Jack, Jill, sound off,” I ordered.

“We’re in position,” the two of them said, one after the other. “We’re ready for when the
press conference starts.”

The conference itself was due to start at precisely 1300hrs, but naturally some reporters had
already started to appear, coming up in the lifts and taking good positions in front of the
stand. I’d wanted to run a careful check on each of them, but in New York, that would
probably have caused too many problems; anyone could claim to be a reporter, particularly
since Internet-based news companies started to challenge the bigger boys. There would be
stringers here from all of the major news networks, but others would be young challengers,
searching endlessly for the one massive Watergate-sized story that would catapult them into
the first rank of reporters. Some of them, I knew, had already been escorted out of the
building by security, after having been caught trying to get into the private rooms;
superhumans like their privacy, what little they can get of it.

I listened with one ear to the buzz of their conversation as they milled about, searching for
something – anything – of interest. Two days ago, Coach Chowder – or whatever he was
actually called - had made a public confession about the presence of a superhuman in some of
his games, something that had catapulted him into the top league. Coaching is apparently a
cut-throat business; unless you were spectacularly good, it all depended on whom you knew,
rather than any intrinsic talent. It explained why he had been desperate enough to risk several
years in jail and a permanent ban on coaching; he’d been in debt and the debt collectors had
been drawing closer. We’d slipped him enough of a bribe, I hoped, to make him outspoken
and full of remorse, but even so, people had been surprised…

And when he had publicly named the superhuman he’d used to cheat as the new America –
who the public didn’t know was the third America – then the talking had really started. Even
I hadn’t expected so much chatter and America had gone into hiding, at my insistence, just so
that the only time Kelsey would have a clear shot at him would be at Superhero Tower. The
newspapers did so love to see a hero brought down; half of them seemed to be suggesting that
America should be given the sack at once, while others blamed the coach and claimed that
the bastard was just an attention whore.

I glanced down at my watch. It was almost show time.

New York Gal and the other superhumans of New York had wanted to be there with America
when he made his speech, but the SDI and their publicists had convinced them to stay away,
remaining in their rooms and waiting until afterwards. I had written America’s speech
myself, just so that there would be plenty of time for someone to take a shot at him, and
everything would depend on it working perfectly. Brainy was hidden in the crowd, hunting
for signs of superhuman energies, but even he would have problems picking out Kelsey and
his companions from the crowd. There had to be nearly five hundred reporters packed onto
the roof; how could they all fit on?

Someone shouted the traditional cry of the New Yorker these days. “Look up in the sky,” he
shouted. “Is it a bird, is it a plane…?”

No, it’s a man wearing silly tights and a cowl, I thought coldly, as America appeared in the
sky. He did look impressive, I ruefully admitted, as he settled in towards the ground like a
living American flag; the sunlight caught him and illuminated him as he touched the stand.
For a moment, he did nothing, and then he pulled off his mask, revealing for the first time the
face of Steve Milton. The reporters buzzed angrily to themselves as they sent images through
their networks to match them against images of the cheating team…and then they matched.

“Say it isn’t so,” someone said, just loudly enough to be heard.

“I am Steve Milton,” America said, his voice ringing out over the rooftop. By now, almost all
of America would be glued to the television screen, watching as he spoke to the reporters. It
was a double-edged weapon; if the reporters embarrassed themselves, it would out there live,
but they wouldn’t have wanted to allow their competition to interfere with their plans. “For
the past few years, I have served the United States as America, one of the world’s leading
superhumans.”

He paused, dramatically. I had coached him as best as I could, but Steve Milton would never
have made an actor. “And I have a confession to make,” he continued. “When I sparked, I
was pushed into hiding it for a few months, long enough to win a game for my school. I was
weak and young and desperate for fame and I chose to conceal my powers, just in hopes of
finding that elusive fame.”

The gasps ran around the rooftops. I watched carefully through my senses; many of them
hadn’t wanted to believe it, any more than others had wanted to believe that President Nixon
could have committed many offences in his term in office. They hadn’t wanted to believe
it…and now, I suspected, America’s stock as a genuine superhero had taken a sharp plunge.

“I take full responsibility for the cheating plan and it’s possible disastrous outcomes,” he said,
his voice full of unspoken regrets. He had to sound guilty, if not purely sanctimonious; it had
to push Kelsey into taking action against him. “I have placed a request for a leave of absence
from the SDI, whereupon I will stand trial for reckless endangerment and rigging a game
through the use of my powers. I hope that you will not hold this against the remainder of the
SDI, who knew nothing about it until the coach finally came forward and confessed. I stand
ready to face the judgement of my peers…”

My head seemed to explode as Brainy sent a thought directly into my head. There, he
thought, his voice echoing through my skull. I can’t really explain telepathic messages to
anyone; I not only had the word, but I understood just who he meant by the signal. I scanned
the crowd rapidly and saw, half-hidden behind a brown hat and a reporter’s complex
recording system, Kelsey…and a woman next to him, holding his hand. My powers seemed
to finch backwards as Kelsey drew on his own powers, targeting America, and sending him
reeling back into the stand.

“Take out the teleporter, now,” I snapped. Jill acted instantly, throwing a perfect dart towards
the woman before she could react. She was young, pretty, and she had to be the teleporter; I
was still looking for the killer. I heard people scream as the dart struck her head and injected
her with a very powerful sedative; she collapsed to the ground, stunned as the drug raced
through her system. “Find me the…”

A dozen reporters flew through the air as they were hurled aside by someone forcing his way
through their packed bodies. You cannot believe the level of carnage a superhuman can cause
at such close quarters; cannonballs and machine guns have nothing to equal it as he tore
through them, smashing his way up towards America, who reeled backwards. Kelsey’s
powers seemed to be focused on him, but the mere backwash was enough to affect me; I
barely noticed when Rani hurled herself forward, flying through the air, and struck at the
newcomer with all of her strength.

I saw him clearly, then, as she hit him. He had to be another Boerbul, but this one was
different, stronger than a normal human, but hardly strong enough to start the long process of
destroying his own body. The Boerbul I’d killed had been on the verge of death anyway; this
one looked to have been a far more successful result as he hacked through reporters and
shuddered under Rani’s blow. I winced, expecting her powers to fail at any moment, but
instead she hit him again and his head came off. Once again, a human body had proven itself
unprepared to handle the superhuman…and a weakness had led to his death.

“Where is he?” I demanded, as I turned to scan the crowd again. Everyone was panicking,
screaming and shouting as they were running around like headless chickens, but there was no
sign of Kelsey. I hit the radio in my lapel hard enough to break it. “Close down all the lifts,
now!”

I made a mistake. I assumed that he had to have tried to flee down the stairs, but those were
closed, so if he had tried, he would be trapped like a rat in a trap. When I went to see if he
was there, he wasn't there, which meant he had to be still on the roof somewhere, but where?
If he was among all of the reporters, he had to be hiding in hopes that he hadn’t seen him
clearly enough to identify him, but that wouldn’t last long. I made my preparations and
issued orders, but if I failed after all this, the General was going to have me killed.

“Attention,” I shouted, using the same megaphone that America had used to make his own
announcement. The panic slowly started to abate as more armed soldiers flooded onto the
roof. “This is a military emergency situation, so I want everyone to cooperate and remain
calm. One by one, start filing down the stairs!”

The reporters, stunned and dismayed by the death of at least nine of their number obeyed
grimly; I watched as, one by one, they were checked, identified, and passed down to the
holding area. The odds of finding Kelsey were growing longer by the minute; how could he
have escaped? Had he even escaped?

I looked up as something touched my senses and saw him, right across the roof. Our eyes
met for one moment…and then he was on his feet, straining against the certainty of capture.
He didn’t look impressive enough to have killed six superhumans by himself, but I knew that
looks meant nothing in a world where the most dangerous people could be the most ordinary.
I advanced towards him and he cowered back against the railing.

“It’s over,” I said, as his power reached out to touch me. He blocked my powers again,
adding to the chaos the Mayor had wrought in my mind, but it wasn’t enough to stop me now.
The others, non-powered soldiers, people he couldn’t affect, fell in behind me…and then he
turned to the railing. “Don’t be a fool, man…”

I caught a second glimpse of his eyes…and saw him struggling against a powerful
compulsion. I ran forward, heedless of my own safety, but it was too late; his body flipped
over the railing and plunged towards the ground. I saw a red and blue blur fly past me and
realised, dimly, that America was plunging after him, arms extended to catch his old enemy.
Perhaps he wanted some kind of redemption, or perhaps he wanted to ensure that the
murderer stood trial, or…

“No,” I shouted, realising in a moment of pure horror what was about to happen. Everything
clicked suddenly in my head. “Let go of him!”

It was too late. Kelsey – obeying the final command that had been planted in his head –
reached out with his powers, shut down America’s flying abilities…and both of them fell
towards the ground. I watched, helplessly, as they finally smashed into the ground and
shattered together, leaving nothing, but a bloody mess.

We’re going to need a new America, I thought, dazed. There was only one thing left to do
now, only one person who could help me find the evidence I needed to prove what I had
suspected for a long time now. She wouldn’t be happy to see me again, but I had something
she desperately wanted, so maybe she would agree to talk to me. I had to prove it now, in a
way that not even a team of highly-paid lawyers could disprove…

The mastermind of the superhuman murder spree was none other that the Mayor of New
York.
Chapter Thirty-Six

“And there I was, thinking that you had forgotten me,” Eleanor Mackinnon said, as she faced
me in her cell. “Could it be that you too have come to join the pack of dirty old men who
come to ogle me once a week?”

I studied her through cold blue eyes. She was short, shorter than me, with long blonde hair, a
short jeans skirt and sweatshirt outfit…and her hands firmly handcuffed behind her back.
Eleanor Mackinnon was a thief, but more than just a thief; she’d been caught in the act of
using superpowers to rob a house. It had showed a lack of imagination, I had felt at the time;
someone with her powers could have been much more than the ‘shadow thief’ the media had
dubbed her, before she had accidentally killed someone.

She hadn’t meant, I knew, to kill him. She’d panicked, and discovered a whole new use for
her powers, but she’d still killed his ass. When she’d realised what she’d done, she’d gone on
the run and remained hidden for a week before I tracked her down with my senses, arrested
her, and carried her off to The Rock. She wasn't the normal kind of heartless criminal who
deserved to be incarnated for the rest of their lives, but even so, politically, letting her out
would be pretty tricky.

“You would impress me more if your bravado was genuine,” I said, tartly. I don’t like
teenage girls at the best of times, and Eleanor was one of the more annoying examples of the
breed I’d met. Her powers – she was stealthy and even able to phase herself slightly out of
phase with reality – made her formidable, but she wasn't a real killer. She was actually
treated fairly well in The Rock – she had books, good food rather than being fed through a
tube, and even visits from her family – but there was no doubt that she was a prisoner.
“You’re a very scared little girl.”

She stuck her tongue out at me. “Maybe I am,” she said, sardonically. “That’s what some of
those psychologists said about me.”

I picked up the reports and skimmed through them. I’d read them all carefully while on the
aircraft and noted the many, many, differences of opinion between the researchers. They
hadn’t viewed Eleanor as a human being, but as someone they could use as an experimental
subject for dozens of monographs, some of them doubtless focused on the role of
superpowers in teenage development. I would have thought that her being in jail would have
had an effect on her development as well, but that wasn’t important to the headshrinkers who
wanted to get funding and their own offices in their universities.

“Let’s see,” I said, picking up a report at random. “This one said that you were starved for
attention and stole merely to get your kicks.”

She snorted. “Did they bother to consider simple greed?”

“I would imagine not,” I said, remembering some of the headshrinkers I’d met. They had
been very smart men…and very stupid in ways only very smart men could be. They’d
concluded that the secret to understanding a person and gaining understanding from them had
been to find out what they wanted and give it to them, a recipe for disaster if ever I’d heard
one. “This one here believed that you were abused as a child and recommended that you be
placed in a home.”
“I’d be out of it within a day,” she sneered. “How dare they claim that my parents abused
me?”

“That’s more or less what the commanding officer of this base said,” I said, smiling at her.
“This one’s the real stinker; he recommends a course of spankings, spankings, and more
spankings, to be carried out by some suitably old and disciplined man, who will replace your
father as a father-figure in your life.”

“And I bet I know just who he had in mind for the role,” she said, flashing her skirt at me.
“See what I mean? They’re all dirty old men.”

“Probably,” I said. There had always been an element of voyeurism around headshrinkers. “I
don’t think that that person will be coming back.”

“He better hadn’t,” she said, defiantly. “I intend to sue his ass as soon as I get out of here.
How did he even get in here in the first place?”

I laughed dryly. “My dear Eleanor, if they can give a grant to a person making statues out of
frozen shit, then they can afford to give a grant to someone researching the effects of
spanking on teenaged girls,” I said. “What do you…?”

“I’m not your dear,” she interrupted, rudely. “You put me in here in the first place.”

“True and true again,” I said, shortly. “You did kill someone…”

“I didn’t mean to kill him,” she screamed, her composure vanishing in a moment. “I was
scared and I just…”

“Lashed out and ripped his chest apart,” I said, coldly. I held up a hand before she could say
anything again. “You chose a career, for whatever reason, that put you in danger with both
the law and the people you robbed, many of whom would have simply opened fire if they saw
you. Yes, you claim that you needed what you took, or that you have a sense of social justice,
but really…do you deserve your punishment?”

She said nothing. “I read all of those reports with great interest,” I said, keeping my voice
level. “I also watched as they researched your background. You might have loving parents,
but you didn’t have much in the way of structure in your life, or discipline. I think that you
started to steal purely for amusement and because your moral centre was fucked up, and
somewhere along the line, you sparked and gained superpowers. You could have used them
to make a new career with the SDI or another intelligence service, but instead you decided to
keep stealing; you just moved from shoplifting to stealing from people’s houses.”

I paused. “Tell me something,” I said. “How did you manage to avoid being arrested for that
perfume you stole from that store in 2006?”

She blushed. “Do I have to tell you?” I nodded. “When the store detective grabbed me, I
transferred it into his pocket before he could secure my hands and lead me off to be
interrogated and strip searched.”
I smiled dryly. “I have been empowered to make you an offer,” I said. “Truthfully, as I’m
sure your family’s lawyer has told you, we don’t have much in the way of grounds for
keeping you here. As a thief, but someone still in their teenaged years, you should really be
in a juvenile hall for a few years, but as a superhuman, you need the secure custody of The
Rock. For some reason, keeping you here is regarded as cruel and unusual punishment, but
no one wants to rock the boat.”

“You mean they’re all biased against a teenaged girl wanting to live free,” she said, her voice
becoming airy again. “Who do I have to suck off to get out of here?”

I scowled at her. “I need someone with your powers and abilities to assist me with searching
a large building,” I said, crossly. She was smarter than she acted; she might well understand
some of the implications. This wasn't an officially sanctioned mission, not really. “If you
assist me, you will be recorded as having been punished enough and freed, although you will
be under a great deal of supervision.”

She scowled. “Are you going to be watching me in the bath?”

I ignored her attempt to distract me. “You’re going to be offered a chance to work for the
SDI as a covert operative,” I said. “Once we learn that we can trust you enough to give you
some freedom, you’ll be able to work for us as a normal agent, or you’ll be free to seek your
own employment. If you refuse this offer, you can go back into the cells and stay here until
you’re old and grey.”

“You can’t keep me here forever,” she snapped, angrily. “I’m a reformed character!”

“Not according to half of these reports,” I said, tiredly. “Eleanor, you seem to have missed
something of the point; you’re nothing more than a dangerous superhuman with a murder rap
hanging over your head. Legally, we can keep you here for the rest of your life, unless by
some dark miracle we decide we need you and allow you out of The Rock just long enough
for you to do whatever we want you to do. You’ve had it easy so far, but trust me, if they
decide to keep you in here forever, you’re going to be stripped of everything we allowed your
family to give you and thrown into a very different cell.”

I held her eyes until she flinched back. “I need your help and I’m prepared to pay for it,” I
said. “If you don’t want it, well…”

She lowered her eyes. “You may be thinking of this as a chance to escape,” I said, noting
how her face flickered when I said that. She had been thinking about it; if she had her powers
back, she might have made it too. “You’ll be implanted with a small tracer that will be
activated if you decide not to cooperate and try to escape; that tracer, as I’m sure you can
imagine, will lead us directly to you. We know what you are now…and believe me, it would
solve our problem rather neatly if you were shot while trying to escape.”

“Fine,” she said, angrily. “I’ll come with you.”

“Excellent,” I said, in my best Mr Burns manner. “Follow me.”

I took her on a small tour of the lower levels of The Rock before we headed up to the medical
centre. I was careful to show her some of the worse villains, as well as those who had been
maddened by their superpowers…and a handful of augmented men, the remains of illegal
genetic experimentation back in 2000. She grew more and more nervous as we passed some
of the stranger villains, from the Gorilla – who leered at her and licked his lips – to the
Flamer, who catcalled and shouted out obscene invitations. We wouldn’t have shoved her in
with them, regardless of her crimes, but there was no way that she could know that…

Yes, I wanted to intimidate her. I can be a bastard sometimes.

“I don’t want to end up like them,” she confessed, as we rode up in the lift towards the
Medical Centre. “What are you going to do to them?”

“Keep them in here forever, I hope,” I said, remembering some of the plans to use them as
living weapons. If God were kind, none of the monsters would ever be allowed out of The
Rock until they were all dead, or maybe one day some kindly soul would pour poison into
their water supply and kill them all. “Do you see, now, how much worse it can get?”

“Yes,” she said, as we entered the Medical Centre. The nurse examined her quickly, her
experienced hands running over Eleanor without any sympathy or warmth, before she
injected her implant directly into her skull. Eleanor gasped in pain as the implant settled into
her body; I felt a moment of sympathy that I kept firmly under control.

“It may itch, but it won’t do any good to scratch,” the nurse informed her, briskly. “The
implant is powered directly by your body heat and as such will be with you for the rest of
your life, unless it is removed by a properly trained professional with the right equipment. If
someone attempts to remove it without that equipment, the implant will meltdown in your
skull and kill you beyond any hope of survival.”

“Yipe,” Eleanor said. “Do I really have to have it?”

“Yes,” I said, shortly. Maybe she was good at heart, as some of the headshrinkers had
insisted, but I saw no reason to take chances. She had killed one man and might well kill
more in the future. I pulled the key to her handcuffs out of my pocket and started to release
her. “I should also warn you that I’m bigger, nastier, and much better trained that you, so
behave yourself.”

She started to rub her hands as I pocketed the handcuffs. “What now?”

“Lie down, face-down, on that bed,” the nurse said, as she picked up a set of injection
needles. It was the work of a moment to tie her down to the bed. “Mr Tracker, you may wish
to watch…”

“I don’t,” I said, and left the room. I’d seen someone being forcibly cleansed before and
believe me, it is perhaps one of the most disgusting sights in the world. The drugs that would
be injected into Eleanor’s bloodstream would drive out everything else, from the inhibitor
drugs that had been injected into her to several minor drugs that had been used to limit her
energy; the drugs would be expelled through every orifice at once. Even through a thick
door, I could hear the choking screams and gasps from Eleanor as her body lashed around
against the restraints; she might have hated them, but without them, she would have done
herself a serious injury.
An hour later, the nurse brought her out, dressed in new clothes. She looked pale and wan,
but there was a new light in her eyes; without the drugs, her powers would have started to
return already. She walked as if she was drunk, or as if she had very real problems walking
in a straight line, but I could tell that she was already starting to recover.

“I'm going to sue that bitch for the loss of my clothes,” she said, without real anger in her
voice. She stumbled and I caught her before she fell flat on her face. “She should have told
me to undress first!”

I shrugged. “I'm sure that they will give them back if you want them,” I said, although I
doubted that she would want them at all. The less said about that part of the process the
better. “In any case, the amount of money that you will be paid for this…mission will
certainly buy you enough clothes to keep you happy for the rest of your life.”

“A girl can never have too many clothes,” she said, as she pressed her hand against the table.
A moment later, her hand went through the table and out again; her powers were definitely
coming back to her. “What are we going to do now?”

“We’re going to take a flight back to New York, where we’re going to rest, sleep most of
today and tomorrow, and then get to work,” I said, as I started to lead the way up towards the
hanger. The corridors hadn’t changed at all in the years since The Rock had been established,
but Eleanor looked at them as if they were something new and wonderful. She wouldn’t have
been out of her cell for months on end. “I trust that you are ready to return to civilisation?”

She said nothing as we entered the hanger and faced the supersonic transport aircraft that had
brought me here, until I opened it for her. “Wow,” she said, as she saw inside. “Did you
bring all of this luxury for me?”

“This aircraft was designed for rich and influential people,” I said. I’d stripped it of
everything that could be dangerous, but even so, the pilot had been very nervous about taking
a dangerous superhuman – two dangerous superhumans – on his aircraft. He normally flew
Senators and Congressmen around the country, even to The Rock; he’d never served as a
prison pilot before. The aircraft that had brought Eleanor to The Rock would have been
much less comfortable. “They do so like their luxuries.”

The flight back took nearly three hours; it was a very long three hours. To be fair to Eleanor,
she’d been in prison for the last few years, so she was still enjoying the return to luxury by
the time we landed at a secured airport. As soon as we took off, she found the Jacuzzi and
climbed into it, soaking herself for nearly an hour before emerging to sample the food and
drink on the aircraft. She mischievously offered to allow me to join her in the Jacuzzi, but I
said no without a pang; she might have been very attractive, but she was still a teenaged
girl…and too bubbly for my tastes.

The car impressed her more than I had expected, even though she insisted on visiting a few
shops and picking up some clothes before she consented to return to the hotel, where I’d
booked her a spare room next to Rani’s and myself. She watched as I checked the rooms
with my surveillance detection kit, before leaving her to sleep through the night and warning
her not to try to leave the hotel. I half-expected her to try, just to see if she could get away
with it, but instead she remained in bed until late afternoon. I introduced her to Rani then and
watched as the two girls felt each other out; Eleanor was puzzled by why I had Rani, and
Rani was puzzled by why I’d brought Eleanor out of The Rock.

“So,” Eleanor said, after we’d eaten a large and wholesome breakfast. I had refused to allow
her to waste time and money trying to order as many expensive things as possible. “What do
you want me to do?”

“I want you to help me break into a house,” I said, calmly. Her eyes went very wide. She
had to have guessed what I wanted, but it was still a surprise to her. “We’re going to burgle
the Mayor’s house.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven

“Are you sure that this is a good idea?” Rani said, as we parked the van somewhere near, but
not too near, the Mayor’s vast estate. “I mean…the General doesn’t even know we’re here.”

“Not really,” I said, feeling the cold determination burning through me. I refused to think
that there was a certain desire for revenge in my actions. “I didn’t tell the General more than
I had to because I want him to be able to claim that he didn’t have the slightest idea what that
bastard Matt Tracker was doing with his investigator’s authority.”

Rani quirked an eyebrow. The SDI had managed to claim most of the credit for killing the
power-drainer and his allies, although the bodies had been hastily removed to the SDI’s
compound, as much as to try to find out what had made Kelsey’s powers work as to keep
America’s body safe from being transported through the streets by cheering New Yorkers.
He’d asked, in his will, for his bones to be buried near those of his parents, a touching request
that I suspected that the General would have trouble granting; the Mayor and the City
Council had already formally requested that he be buried in New York. What happened
tonight would probably settle the issue, one way or the other.

“That doesn’t answer my question,” she said, as she examined the small pack of equipment
that I was preparing to use. “Do you think that this is a good idea?”

“Like I said, I think it’s the best idea we have left,” I said, grimly. I’d dumped the suit and tie
I normally wore for a standard-issue night-combat uniform, something that you could buy in
any number of military surplus shops across the United States. “If we can find something
that will lead us to proof we can use against him, we can give it to the General and ram
through a suspension of his authority before he can do something drastic.”

Rani scowled at me. “Drastic?”

I held out a small slip of paper that Layla had passed me. “Yes,” I said, and watched as she
read it. Her expression changed sharply as the import of the message fell into her mind. “I
think that if we don’t move now, we won’t be able to move in the future.”

Eleanor looked up from where she was sitting, cross-legged and looking remarkably calm for
someone who was about to get involved in a second dangerous burglary. “What’s that?” She
asked, her voice calm, but with a great deal of underlying tension. “What makes this so
important?”

“Later,” I said, shortly. The less she knew, the better for her future. “Are you ready to move
out?”

“Your friend was able to get all the information we could possibly need,” she said, impressed.
Her previous robberies had relied more on her powers and dumb luck to succeed; this one,
with Layla’s computing help, would be much easier…unless, of course, the Mayor had
managed to keep some of his security precautions a secret. For some reason, the City of New
York insists on keeping records of what sort of security the city’s officials have, although it
would be easy for the Mayor to tamper with the records. In his place, I’d have left some of
the more advanced systems right off the records altogether, just in case someone managed to
gain access to the files. “What more do we need?”
“Nothing,” I said, shortly. “Rani, keep listening to us; if we get caught, listen as long as you
can, and then get out of here.”

“I understand,” Rani said, as Eleanor stepped out of the van. “Come here a moment.”

I leaned over and she kissed me once on the lips. Her lips felt wonderfully warm. “Good
luck,” she breathed, directly into my ear. “Come back alive or I’ll kill you personally.”

I turned away before she felt the tear on my cheek, and then stepped out of the van myself; it
was time for concentration, not last minute romances. Layla had made contact with the
security systems surrounding the Mayor’s manor, but even she hadn’t been able to deactivate
them completely, not through long-distance access. The systems just weren’t linked to the
regular internet, a simple security precaution that was annoyingly effective. The smaller back
gate wasn't guarded – I walked past it twice with my senses extended as far as they would go
– but it was locked and secured…and guarded by a camera. The Mayor did value his privacy.

“Go,” I hissed, barely audible in the gloom. Eleanor walked forward, as if she didn’t have a
care in the world, and passed right through the gate. It was one of her talents; the other one,
the stealth talent, was even more useful for a thief. For a reason the SDI’s researchers had
never been able to determine, Eleanor simply didn’t register on security systems, or cameras,
or even pressure pads. It was a bizarre power that made little sense, but it worked; she was
almost undetectable, except to the naked eye.

I watched as she walked right into the guardhouse, passing through the wall as if it wasn't
there, and waited for a minute. I’d given her a device that Layla had created, a remote
accession module, and told her to place it as close to the security systems as she could.
Layla, watching through her computers, could do the rest.

“Done,” she said, in my ear. A normal human wouldn’t have even heard a hiss. “The entire
system is deactivated and is being fed lies; if they remove the module without the proper
code, the system will collapse.”

“Good,” I subvocalised back, and slipped into the garden. Eleanor met me as she came back
out of the guardhouse, appearing as nothing more than a shadow in the gloom, and I
beckoned to her; we hadn’t gained entrance yet. We slipped closer, remaining in the
shrubbery rather than going anywhere near the lawn, until finally we could look up at the
Mayor’s house. It was massive, large enough to hold hundreds of people, or stand off an
army; if he had his own security guards in there, it would be hard for anyone who wasn't
superhuman to get him out of there.

My lips twitched. Blowing the house up, on the other hand, would be easy.

I paused as my senses opened up completely. I was suddenly very aware of Eleanor’s female
presence right next to me, and the passage of men and dogs over the last few days; the wind
and the rain had done a good job of hiding or obscuring earlier scents than those. It might be
night, but the garden was full of life; I was aware of insects, birds, and other creatures
moving, unaware of the human presence amongst them. The house itself was black and
cold…
It had been built, according to the files, by someone who had served in the Vietnamese War
and had returned convinced that one day the Vietnamese, in collaboration with the Soviets,
the Red Chinese, the French and the Black Panthers, would invade America, specifically to
take his head back to Hanoi. He'd been one of those rich kids who could have gotten out of
the draft, but instead he’d served his country well…and, when he returned, he had insulted
his country instead by creating the stone and concrete monstrosity that had later been
purchased by the Mayor. It was massive, ugly, and almost impossible to storm; his collection
of guns, when he had finally passed on, had included enough weapons to fight a minor war.
His family had tried to sell the dump, only to discover that no one, not even the army, wanted
it…and it had remained there until the Mayor, during his early days of married life, had
purchased it at a loss.

His wife had planted trees all around it, perhaps to hide it from the world, and so it was easy
to slip up close to the house. We both moved very quietly – Eleanor made almost no noise at
all when she phased through things – and the guards, walking around in regular patterns,
missed us completely. That was careless of them; clearly, the Mayor hadn’t hired the best
bodyguards in the business, or they were merely there to reinforce the automated systems. A
competent Special Forces team could have overrun the building pretty quickly if that was a
sign of just how competent the defenders actually were.

Eleanor touched me gently and pointed towards a side door; I nodded and slipped up to it
carefully, seeking out any sign of the presence of guards on the other side. There was
nothing, so I nodded to her again and she slipped through the door, before she opened it and
allowed me access into the building. The plans we had recovered of the original building had
indicated that this section was intended for the servants, but the Mayor kept them out of the
building rather than having them staying on the sight. I had wondered why he hadn’t allowed
them to sleep in the house, but considering his origins, maybe he had found the thought of
servants rather disturbing. That wasn't uncommon among lower-class people who found
themselves rising to the top.

The house was as still and cold as the grave; I extended my senses as far as they would go,
picking up very little. I wondered, briefly, if the Mayor had fled the city, but that wasn’t like
him at all; there had been a late sitting in the City Chambers and his presence would have
been required. If he knew what we suspected, and I had advised the General to be careful
about what he told anyone else, he would either have tried to bluff it out or run for his life…
and I was guessing the latter. If his powers became common knowledge, the odds were that
hundreds of people would start gunning for him, convinced that they were the victims of his
mental manipulation.

Eleanor asked me a question with her eyes. She had been surprised to learn about my
abilities, although she had already had a good idea of just what I could do; I had used them to
find her, after all. In the darkness, half out of phase with reality, she could have remained as
a shadow long enough to evade anyone hunting for her, but she couldn’t remain out of phase
for long. I’d memorised the plans of the building and now, using a pair of night-vision
goggles, I led her through long twisting corridors, designed to stand off an army, towards the
centre of the building.

The designer had clearly been unhinged, I’d decided; I’d been in army bases that made more
sense than the builder’s design for the future stronghold of America. The builder had been a
prolific writer, warning America of all kinds of perils that awaited it in the future; the
Communist Peril, the Russian Peril, the French Peril, the Chinese Yellow Peril, the Japanese
Yellow Peril…his writings had suggested that he expected some crazy race war in America,
to be followed by an invasion from the east and the establishment of a American Communist
Party and the crushing of American freedoms. By that time, he had been urging people to
stock up on all kinds of weapons, and by his death, he had been on the verge of bankruptcy,
thanks to funding all kind of right-wing groups. His heirs, less radical, had discovered that
all of his friends had vanished along with the money.

But he had put a lot of thought into his defences. The main bedroom, where the Mayor slept,
was part of a suite at the top of the house; it was practically a small apartment in its own
right. The outer layers of the house had been designed for both supporting a defence of the
halls and room-to-room fighting, but inside, there was an inner core of rooms, well-protected
to the point that even a close-range nuclear blast would have problems destroying them. It
had been modified, according to the plans and security details, to serve as a panic room, but
one of those rooms was also used by the Mayor as an office. If there was something in the
house for us to find, it would be there; if not, we were stuck. We had only a few hours before
we would have to withdraw.

The corridors became more luxurious as we slipped into the centre of the house, listening
carefully for any sign of life. The Mayor’s wife was supposed to be upstairs, but wherever
she was, she didn’t seem to come down into the private quarters. The Mayor’s presence was
everywhere, the signs of his wanderings very clear to my senses, but his wife – or anyone
else, for that matter – didn’t come down very often…

I tensed, suddenly. Eleanor blinked at me, but I shook my head; how could I explain that I’d
just scented the unmistakable smell of a Boerbul? The smell was even familiar; it had been
the one that Rani had killed, at the Superhero Tower. I felt a moment of triumph at finally
finding something that proved that the two parties in the mystery were actually linked, but as
we reached the panic room, I pushed the feeling aside. This was no time to get distracted…

The panic room was like all the others; easy to get out of, but extremely difficult to enter…
unless you have someone who can walk through solid matter. Eleanor winked at me and
walked through the safe-like door, before opening it for me and allowing me to enter as well;
we stepped through into remarkable luxury. It reminded me of the Mayor’s office back at
City Hall; it had the same mixture of artworks, the same strange mixture of taste and
complete tastelessness, and the scent of him was everywhere. In any other man, I would have
said that the panic room was where he came to get away from his wife, but he didn’t have to
worry about his wife, did he?

I stepped back to take in the small complex quickly, checking each of the five rooms out in
succession, before returning to the office. The designer hadn’t spared any expense; in the
secure area, there was an armoury, a kitchen, and a food storage room that held enough food
to maintain ten people for a week, a bedroom and an office, which might have originally been
intended as a second bedroom. The office looked neat and tidy, but I saw the small computer
and cursed under my breath. I was going to have to risk making a call.

“Here,” I subvocalised. The signal was very low powered, almost impossible for anyone to
detect unless they knew precisely what they were looking for, but even so, a very sensitive
security system might detect it and raise the alarm. Layla should have deactivated them all,
but if the Mayor had included a second system, we might be on the verge of being caught. “I
need you to get into the system.”

I placed the second remote access device next to the machine and watched grimly as it started
to generate a contact field. I don’t understand how the system worked, but Layla had sworn
on her holy book that it would access any computer system, even if it were completely shut
down by the enemy. It was true that a computer that wasn't linked to the Internet cannot be
accessed remotely, but Layla’s devices should allow her to access it by providing a link to the
system; in the meantime, I started to search the office.

“Stay there,” I hissed, as Eleanor started to wander around. She had simply grabbed valuable
items during her previous robberies, rather than items of any long-term interest; I didn’t dare
simply take anything from the Mayor’s office, not unless there was no choice at all. “Don’t
touch anything.”

She sulked, but I ignored her; for what we were paying her, she could sulk a little for all I
cared. I started to open the drawers carefully, using a thoroughly illegal hacking device to
break into the security locks, and skimmed through the papers there. The Mayor had written
in a form of code, but I had enough experience of codes to decipher most of them without the
help of a computer; the Mayor had been keeping track of superhumans. Barbara Roth had
done that too, I remembered; had she been sending information to the Mayor as well?

The next piece of paper I found made me hiss a swearword into the air; the Mayor had a
complete list of active SDI superhuman field offices, including myself. It wasn't proof that
could be used, not unless we could prove openly that he was gaining the information illegally,
but it provided an angle of investigation. It might be worse than I had thought; if he had the
ability to plant commands in someone’s head, as he had done with Dark Guardian and Chris
Kelsey, he could have programmed someone in Washington to spy for him, all unknowing of
their double lives.

Bastard, I thought, as I skimmed through the other papers. There was something buzzing at
the back of my mind, something I should be seeing, but wasn't – something so obvious that I
should have seen it at once. I know better than to try to force my brain to work, but I was
sure now that I had missed something important, something right behind me…!

Eleanor let out a gasp, a second indistinguishable noise, and then fell completely quiet.

“Good Evening,” I said, without turning around. I knew who it had to be, even though I
didn’t understand how I’d missed him coming up behind us, or how Rani had missed him
entering his house in his massive car. “How interesting finding you here, Your Honour.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight

“You seem surprised to see me,” the Mayor said, a mocking tone to his voice. I reined in my
senses as best as I could; the last time we’d met, he’d used them to attack me. “This is my
house and yet…you are surprised to see me.”

I turned, to see him standing there, holding a small but very lethal pistol. If he had been
closer, I might have risked jumping him, but he was just far away enough to make the
outcome of such an attempt certain. Rani would have been able to get the weapon off him –
bullets would have bounced off her – but I couldn’t move fast enough to dodge a speeding
bullet.

“Very surprised,” I said, as I glanced over at Eleanor. She sat there, her face and eyes
completely blank and unmoving, unaware and uncaring of her surroundings. “What did you
do to her?”

“I merely put her in a deep trance,” the Mayor said, calmly. He lifted the weapon slightly. “I
would be a great deal happier, Mr Tracker, if you kept your hands there I could see them.”

“Of course,” I said, dryly. At his motioned command, I placed my hands on my head.
“Why?”

The Mayor seemed genuinely surprised by the question. “Why what?”

“You organised the death of…seven superhumans,” I said, carefully. “You hired a
superhuman with power-draining abilities and used him to render them vulnerable, but why
would you, a superhuman yourself, work for Pure Humanity?”

Everything clicked suddenly. “You’re not Pure Humanity at all, are you?”

“No,” the Mayor said, dryly. “What do you know about my powers?”

I remembered the sensation from his office and shuddered inwardly. “I think you have some
hypnotic abilities,” I said, glancing over at Eleanor. The sight was chilling. “You’re working
for Future, aren’t you?”

“Finally, he realises,” the Mayor said. “Don’t you think that Pure Humanity would have
better things to do than pick off specific superhumans for their own goal? Pure Humanity
wants to destroy the superhuman; I want superhumans to take their place as the rightful rulers
of this Earth.”

“You’re mad,” I said, coldly. “If you put ten superhumans together, nine times out of ten
you’ll end up with a punch-up, not a cooperative force. That’s why there are so few
supergroups that last longer than a year or so – why do you think that people like them can
rule the Earth?”

The Mayor smiled. “Do you think that I’ll have problems convincing them all to see my own
way?”
“But you couldn’t control everyone,” I said, thinking it through. “Your powers might be
impressive, but they’re limited to face-to-face contact, aren’t they? That’s why you wanted
the nomination and the chance to run for President, because if you became President, you
could meet with all of the leading superhumans and take them over. If that’s true…why did
you organise the killing spree?”

The Mayor laughed. “I found little Chris Kelsey by accident, after he discovered the
existence of his own powers,” he said. “It’s amazing what kind of abilities remain hidden
because the person with them doesn’t have the slightest idea that they have them. He
stumbled into the underworld after accidentally killing a superhuman and accidentally ended
up being discovered by one of Future’s talent scouts.”

I scowled. Future was pretty much the opposite of Pure Humanity, a terrorist group that
wanted superhumans to dominate the Earth. There had been some suggestion that it was
being funded by someone from Latin America, but if the Mayor was running it, that would
explain a lot about how it had gone quiet recently. He’d taken it over and started to use it for
his own plan.

“A little later, that ass in the United Nations has the idea for a conference,” the Mayor
continued. “He calls hundreds of superhumans to the city, including several who are
prominent opponents of war with normal, weak, mortal humans. I back the conference
because New Yorkers demand spectacle in their lives, but I don’t want it to succeed; I want to
get what I want out of it and nothing else.”

I had the feeling, as he spoke, that he had wanted to tell someone for a long time, if only to
gloat about how clever he was. “The first target is Marvin Lofting; I honestly didn’t know
that he’d been one of the people who wore the America costume until I pulled the information
out of you, a week ago. He’d been doing excellent work with the poor children and was on
the verge of becoming a competitor as a superhuman politician. I had him lured to that flat,
where Kelsey deactivated his powers and one of my pet monsters killed him.

“The second target…well, everyone knows what sort of good fellow Manna is, or was,” he
continued. “Someone respected around the world, a hero to us all, the prime candidate for
convincing everyone to live in peace…he had to go. The third, Warrior Girl…well, she had
plans of her own for superhuman dominance; she wanted to raise an army of amazons and
create a world bent to her will, but without her the team she’d created would fragment.
There’s always one alpha dog – or alpha bitch, in her case – holding such groups together and
without her, it’ll fall into infighting and it won’t be a threat for a few years to come.

“Babylon? He was just like Manna; he might have convinced the world to live in peace,” he
said. “I couldn’t have him running around…and it wasted your time by adding to the list of
possible suspects. Punching Guy? He was a decent person, too decent, and he was very
resistant to my charms; he made a suitable target for Kelsey. Dark Guardian…that annoyed
me, I must admit; I had prepared him for my own purposes.”

I looked over at him, hoping that he would lose track of what was going on if he kept talking.
“How does he fit in to everything?” I asked. “What were you going to do with him?”

“You stumbled over the link I’d created to draw you towards the Humanists and Pure
Humanity,” the Mayor said. “They were such good suspects that I didn’t think you’d look
much further if you had a solid link to them, and Barbara Roth provided it. Like so many
other Humanists, she was so blinded by her hatred of superhumans that it never occurred to
her to wonder who might be using her information, or why. You tracked her and her contact
down quicker than I had anticipated, so I sent Kelsey to kill the contact and leave you with
both a dead end and more clues linking you to Pure Humanity, but instead he kidnapped
you.”

I laughed. “Your control wasn't absolute, then?”

“No,” the Mayor admitted. “I can emplace commands and suggestions within people’s heads,
but absolute control requires time and effort, more than I could provide for more than a few
cases. Kelsey had no idea who he was working for – he honestly believed that the great
hulking brute you killed was linked to Pure Humanity – and when he had a chance to tell you
why he was on his murder spree, he took it. There’s a certain kind of mind that always seeks
justification for actions, regardless of how…horrible the actions are, and as I’d given him the
will to assist the murders, I also strengthened that part of his mind.”

The Mayor himself had something of that in him, I noted. “But you escaped, which revealed
the existence of a power-drainer, and I had to improvise,” the Mayor said. “I had always
planned to have the NYPD take over the case, whereupon Isabel would be able to find traces
of Kelsey and finally bring him to justice. He would be shot while trying to escape, of
course, so no one would know that I was involved. However, you escaped and somehow
Kelsey became less willing to heed my suggestions, finally walking right into your trap
because of his hatred.”

I considered it. I’d hoped that he’d show himself because he wanted revenge on his former
tormentor, but if the Mayor was right, he hadn’t been entirely in his right mind. Mind control
is a tricky thing; had Kelsey really been responsible for his actions, or had the Mayor simply
manipulated him into doing whatever he wanted, and then lost control when the command
started to mutate. Humans aren’t robots; the odds were pretty high that the Mayor’s controls
would slip over time, or embed themselves more deeply into the victim’s mind.

“Very clever,” I said, and caught the flash of pleasure from the Mayor. I’d reined in my
senses as much as he could – he’d used them to attack me in his office – but even so, part of
him was delighted at the praise. “So, how did Dark Guardian fit into your plan?”

The Mayor gestured with his free hand. “He came to my office all brimming with
determination to make criminals pay,” he said. “How could I resist a chance to implant some
commands in his mind, not least because if he ever figured out what I was, I’d have a Level
Seven superhuman after me, eh? I gave him the badge with my commands burning into his
mind, so that I could use him as a worker from time to time, and when you found Barbara
Roth, I sent him to distract you.”

I remembered how irrational Dark Guardian had sounded back during the brief confrontation
and shuddered again. He hadn’t been in his right mind either; instead of concentrating on the
fight, or trying to avert disaster, he had been desperately trying to get to Barbara…until he’d
been brought down. The Mayor’s plan had gone dangerously wrong…

“So when he was arrested, you pushed at once for his release,” I said, following his logic.
“Why didn’t you just order him to kill himself or something?”
“He was living proof of what I could do,” the Mayor said. “You suspected that too, once I
made you start telling me things, you told me that you suspected that there was more to me
that met the eye. I couldn’t leave him somewhere where the SDI’s mind techs or
psychologists might take a close look at him and figure out what had happened to him, so
when you started to use him as bait, I arranged his death. It was simple, when he called up
his family, to insert a command into his head and…well, let’s just say that he exposed himself
to Kelsey.”

He paused, dramatically. “And…well, thanks to America’s brave sacrifice, the murder spree
has been brought to an end, my chances of winning the nomination for the campaign have
never looked higher, and my plan has an excellent chance of delivering the entire country into
my hands,” he said. “The only problem that remains is you two.”

“I have a question,” I said, before he could continue. “How did you get back from your
office without us knowing that you were coming?”

The Mayor smiled. “You think Future has only one teleporter in the ranks?” He asked.
“One of my security staff is a secret superhuman; every day, he brings me to the office and
then back here, rather than exposing myself to the enemy.”

“Point taken,” I said. I felt my head spin slightly as he drew on his own powers. “What are
you doing to do with us now?”

“Well, that depends,” the Mayor said. “This lovely young lady is very easy to affect with my
powers. It won’t be hard to work on her to the point where she lives, breathes and works,
only for me.”

“Typical man,” I snapped, irritated.

The Mayor ignored my jibe. “As for you…well, you escaped my controls once before, so
this time…you can either submit to me completely, or you can die,” he said. “If you decide
to submit, I will work over your mind to the point where you will be completely and utterly
loyal to me; if not” – he hefted the weapon – “you will die now and your body will be lost
somewhere far from here.”

I refused to submit to him, now or ever. “This plan is absolute madness,” I said. “What
about the vast numbers of American people who won’t want to live under a superhuman
dictatorship?”

“What about them?” The Mayor asked. “Most of them are sheep; those that aren’t sheep and
have stockpiled weapons…well, what can they do against a high-powered superhuman?
With people who are loyal to me in command everywhere, the country will be taken before it
knows what’s going on…and then...”

I took a wild guess. “The Earth?”

“Of course,” the Mayor said.

“World domination,” I said, tiredly. “How trite. Were you reading too many comic books
when you were a kid?”

The Mayor glared at me. “Submit or die.”

“Before you kill me, there’s something that you should know,” I said, calmly. “There’s a slip
of paper in my pocket; let me give it to you.”

“Keep your hands where I can see them,” he snapped, angrily. “Turn around and place your
hands on the wall!”

I obeyed, bracing myself for the single chance I’d get. If I failed, I would die here, even
through Layla’s hacking would probably get the Mayor caught and jailed before he got too
far. His hands ran down my back, feeling for the pocket, and finally located the flap,
reaching inside and removing several small devices before finally bringing out the folded
sheet of paper.

His voice was suspicious. “What is this?”

“Read it,” I said, calmly. “I think it will answer all your questions.”

I heard the noise of paper unfolding and smiled as the Mayor skimmed through it…and then
made an awful noise. I didn’t hesitate; I moved quickly to one side and then came up
fighting, knocking the Mayor’s gun out of his hand and punching him as hard as I could in
the arm. He gasped in pain and turned on me, his eyes starting to glow faintly as he tried to
capture my mind, but I closed my eyes and fought only with my other senses, slamming
punches into him with sheer brutal determination.

He fought back desperately, trying to hurt me long enough to find the gun, but it was too late;
he was in pain and, physically at least, he was only human. I found his neck and shoved him
down, hard…and only realised, too late, that his neck was about to break. There was a
terrible snapping noise…and then it was over.

Eleanor gasped as I shook her violently. “What happened?”

“Long story,” I snapped. Had the Mayor had time to do something else to her? “What do
you remember?”

“I was sitting there, and then there was something wrong, and then I was just…dozing, and
then you were shaking me,” Eleanor said, obviously coming to grips with the fact she had lost
nearly twenty minutes while she was in her trance. The Mayor’s powers had impressed even
me; for her, used to being her own person, it had to be worse. “What happened to me?”

She caught sight of the Mayor’s body and her eyes went very wide. “Don’t worry about it,” I
snapped, as I started to work with frantic speed. The noise might have been heard further
inside the house; the guards might be on us at any second. The Mayor might have a few of
Future’s superhumans with him as well; they would certainly want revenge for the death of
their leader, if they still had the ability to think clearly at all.
Eleanor stayed out of my way as I found what I was looking for in my pockets; a thermal
grenade. The US Army really doesn’t like using them because in the right – or rather the
wrong – circumstances, they can be as dangerous to the user as they can to the target, but we
were going to need one now. I set the timer for ten minutes, hid it on a trigger under the
Mayor’s body, and led Eleanor out of the house, back towards the gardens.

“Don’t stop for anything,” I hissed, as we picked our way through the corridors. I could hear,
vaguely, a radio, but it was a long way away; no one attempted to stop us as we reached the
door, opened it, and slipped out into the gardens. I was timing it in my head as we crossed
the garden and reached the gates; the timer ran out…and the grenade detonated. The house
was well built enough to survive even that, but the Mayor’s body, his papers, and much of the
interior of the house would survive only as ashes, if that.

The wave of heat touched me and, for the first time, I saw guards running towards the house.
None of them seemed to be superhuman, or particularly well trained, but perhaps they would
be able to save some of the house from being roasted to ashes. I’d probably get a medal for
improving the area if the house came crashing down, but I doubted that it would; the paranoid
who had designed the house had built well. It was ironic that his very house had served as
the base for a plot to bring down his country. He’d be rolling in his grave.

My lips twitched. No one would ever be able to tell what had happened to the Mayor. His
body would be scattered atoms; the forensic analysis might find traces of him, but they’d
never be able to tell just how he’d died, or why. His superpowers would remain a secret; no
one, apart from the handful of us who knew, would ever suspect that there had been more to
the Mayor’s death than random terrorism. Pure Humanity might even get the blame.

I was still smiling when we drove back to the hotel and stumbled into bed.
Chapter Thirty-Nine

They laid America to rest one warm day in New York.

“He served his country well,” Acting Mayor Bryce said, as the crowds fell silent. “He may
have faced controversy, and made mistakes in his life, but in the end he gave his life to save
us all. He was a true son of New York.”

I watched, with Rani and the General, as Bryce continued with his speech. The Mayor’s
death a week ago had had him promoted to the position of Mayor, although he insisted on
being referred to as the Acting Mayor until his position was confirmed by an election. There
were hundreds of thousands of people who had wanted to come to the funeral, including his
family and many of his friends from the SDI…and almost all of the conference delegates. I
could see others too; Truth, from Bangladesh, and the Protector of Iraq…and, unless my eyes
deceived me, Johnny Sputnik was hovering high overhead. The politicians were
recalculating their own positions; the Mayor’s death had resulted in shifts in the power
structure, and some of them would almost certainly benefit from it.

Politicians. You can’t trust them and somehow they’re never in season.

After the ceremony – in which there was no body, as his remains had been transported to his
family’s private plot – we returned to the SDI’s main office, where the General activated all
of the privacy systems before turning to us and demanding a full explanation. He had already
pierced together much of what had happened that fateful night, but I didn’t hesitate to go
through it with him, including the recording that I’d made and the records that Layla had
extracted from his computer.

“It was him all along,” the General said, finally. “I never imagined that he had anything like
that in mind.”

“Desperate men do desperate things,” I said, remembering the note from Layla. You won’t
have heard of the Democratic Steering Committee, any more than you will have heard of the
Republican Steering Committee, but its decisions affect the fate of every American in the
world. The message had been quite simple; STEERING COMMITTEE HAS REJECTED
HATHAWAY, and it had panicked the Mayor. He might have suspected that it had happened,
but until I had told him, and shown him the ID labels that could only have come from the
Democratic Steering Committee, he hadn’t known for sure. His desperate attempt to gain the
nomination had failed. “We’re just lucky that he was caught so soon.”

I paused. “And we have all the information from his computers, and they don’t know that we
have it,” I continued. “We can round up several more of Future’s advocates and active
superhumans now and transport them to The Rock. We might be able to crush them
completely this time, rather than letting them slip away because of insufficient evidence or
something. Overall, it seems to have been a great success.”

“Maybe,” the General said, unconvinced. He held my eyes for a long moment. “Are you
aware that Chief Isabel Cordova and Jane Hathaway committed suicide last night?”

“No,” I said, after a moment. The Mayor’s loyal police chief and his own wife? “Why did
they do that?”
“God knows, or maybe the Mayor does,” the General said. “There have been a handful of
more deaths up in Washington, minor lobbyists, mainly. I don’t know if they were dependent
on him to such an extent as the deaths suggest, but…”

He shook his head. “Officially, Matt, Chris Kelsey was the killer and was part of Pure
Humanity,” he said. “The Mayor’s involvement as the mastermind of the conspiracy will
remain a secret, recorded only in a handful of files…and our memories, of course. Future’s
involvement will also remain a secret; as you suggest, hopefully they won’t realise that their
security has been broken until it is too late.”

Rani looked over at him. “Are you going to just…cover it up?”

“Yes,” the General said, flatly. “We cannot have this leaking out and destroying confidence
in the government’s ability to handle superhuman threats. Only four of us know the full story
and when we die, the story will die with us.”

“I understand,” I said. If the Mayor had survived, I’d have wanted to chase him down in the
full view of the world, but as he was dead…there was little point. “It would also provoke
more anti-superhuman activism out there on Capitol Hill.”

“True,” the General said. “Rani, I cannot order you to do anything, but I must ask you to
keep it to yourself as well.”

“He’s dead,” Rani said, thoughtfully. “There’s little point in telling anyone about him.”

“Good,” the General said, after a long moment. “Matt, I have reluctantly confirmed your
request to have Eleanor Mackinnon cleared of all charges and offered a position on the covert
team. I’m going to have to ask you to supervise her for a while longer…”

“I’m not a goddamned babysitter,” I burst out.

“As she is somewhat undisciplined and requires some proper training,” the General
continued, as if I hadn’t spoken. He probably wouldn’t have cared what I thought. “You may
take a week’s leave as I promised, but past that, I think my successor is going to need you
here.”

I stared at him. “Your successor?” I asked. “What about you?”

“I’m an old man,” the General said, dryly. “This latest crisis…well, it was suggested by
Director David Bar Elias that I had not actually distinguished myself during the crisis and in
fact am getting just a little bit old for the job. I suppose I could fight it – I have enough
friends up at the Hill or in the White House – but it wouldn’t do the SDI any good. I’m going
to go into the reserves this coming December and then probably formally retire next year.”

He shook his head. “I’ve nominated Jasmine as my successor, but I suspect that Director
David Bar Elias and his people will want to nominate their own candidate for the role,” he
said. “I’d prefer to nominate you and if you had the seniority, I would have done so, but as it
is, I’d like you to head up the covert team.”
I felt moved to protest. “Sir, I…”

“Matt, I understand what you’re saying, but it doesn’t change anything,” the General said.
“We all want to work on our own and pick and choose what we do, but not everyone can do
that; I need someone – the SDI needs someone – who can understand the real issues at stake
here. The Mayor’s grand plan was only minor shit compared to some of the problems that we
have faced over the last ten years, and believe me, it’s only going to get worse. Your country
needs you.”

I hesitated. “Can I think about it for a while, sir?”

“Yes,” the General said. He stood up. “You will be interested to know that both of you are
being awarded covert medals for your services, but naturally we cannot acknowledge this
publicly. Off the record, however, thank you, both of you.”

He shook hands with Rani and then ushered us both out of the door. We walked back through
the corridors up to the observation bay, where people could look out at the New York skyline
in-between their duty shifts, and took a seat. Rani leaned back into her sofa and smiled
towards me, but I was the first to speak.

“So,” I said, keeping my voice deliberately casual, “what are you going to do now?”

Rani looked as if she was thinking for a long moment. “The conference has apparently
produced a result, of sorts, so maybe I’ll serve with the Bangladeshi contribution to the
peacekeeping effort,” she said. “I suspect that it will end badly, but at least we will have tried
and Allah will know that we have tried…”

She shook her head. “What are you going to do next? Are you going to take up the General’s
offer?”

“I think I don’t have much of a choice,” I sad, seriously. If the General really was going, and
if his nomination for his replacement wasn't accepted, the SDI was going to go through a
rocky patch. It had worked so well for so long because the person running it – really running
it – hadn’t been a political appointee, but now…the question of who would replace him was
political. How could it be anything else?

Rani smiled at me. “You could always remain on your own as a private detective,” she said.
I had considered that, but somehow, it wouldn’t be really suitable for me. Her voice
tightened. “Or you could come with me to Bangladesh?”

I felt my heart race. I had developed feelings for her, and I knew that she had developed
them for me, but that didn’t mean that it was a good idea to act on them. We’d been pushed
together by the State Department and then by shared danger, but now…could what we had
survive being without the pressure?

I turned and looked out of the window. It was a clear day and I could see Superhero Tower,
standing over the city with all of its flags at half-mast. New York Gal and a couple of other
superhumans were flying through the air, several others could be seen standing on the
rooftops of several different buildings. It was an entire subculture growing up in the heart of
America; it was a subculture that could become very dangerous in the future.
To the west, the Guerrilla Girls were at war; Femme and Terrifica were struggling for
supremacy, now that Warrior Girl was dead and gone. The Mayor had been right, damn him;
in the end, they would pose a threat to the status quo. I suspected that they would have been
exterminated in the Mayor’s America, or maybe they would have led the resistance against
him. The General, too, was right; there were new superhuman threats all the time and they
had to be handled, somehow.

I looked south, towards Latin America, where there was a hostile superpower on our
doorstep. Maybe they had a very good reason to be interested in Africa; I could see them
trying to invite African superhumans to work for them, rather than living in a hellhole like
what remained of Rhodesia. It would give them some additional numbers and, in the current
climate of tension, maybe they would try something stupid. If they did go to war with us…

Would we use the monsters from The Rock?

“I can’t,” I said, reluctantly. The decision hurt more than I had expected. “I’m going to be
needed here.”

“I know,” Rani said. She came up behind me and gave me a hug. I didn’t tense; I knew that
she had literally crushed at least one man to death, but I trusted her not to hurt me. “You are
going to stay in touch, aren’t you?”

“Of course,” I said, as reassuringly as I could. I didn’t look at her through my senses; just for
once, I wanted to try to remain as unknowing and blind as any other young would-be lover.
“I’ll come meet you somewhere in Bangladesh, or maybe somewhere else, maybe…”

“Hush,” she said, and kissed me once on the lips, before turning out onto the balcony. She
turned, once, and I saw, as if for the first time, how well she moved, without a single piece of
energy wasted. She was beautiful. “Not goodbye, never goodbye.”

I watched as she flew into the air and vanished somewhere in the light of the sun.

I don’t know how long I stood there, but eventually I had to close my eyes and walk away,
blinking as I walked back into the darkness. Somewhere out there, there was another
superhuman crime, somewhere there was a murder, somewhere there was something
objectionable…and the General was right; it all had to be handled. What a strange world it is
we live in, a world where men can fly and women can lift tanks in their bare hands…

Oh brave new world, that has such people in it.

The End