Super Reporter System - After Detroit

Chapter Type: Character Development

"So, what does it feel like, being the strongest American in the nation?" Tae asks during the press conference.

Humility. Muscleborn knows he has to show humility at this point. Still, good to know this kid gets it.

"I'm not sure that physical strength has much use in the modern world, but yes, it does feel good to be the best at something."

Yes, yes. Focus the reporters on the strength, not the healing ability. As long as they are distracted by raw power, they'll forget the true danger is his ability to take hits and keep on going. Even Red Dragon doesn't have that.

He keeps answering the innane questions these people have for him, but they don't get it. They don't understand. Except for that one kid. Taeson. Muscleborn is sure he has a last name, but why bother? The kid is local, with the Huntsville Express.

He'll be at ground zero if Muscleborn ever needs him.

#

Brian is surprised that Darius Cochrane has already been remanded to a mental hospital. He is less surprised to learn that Darius is a regular at the hospital, and that they feel he has a history here.

Alcohol induced psychotic disorder and dementia, is the official term. Brian writes it down, so he won't forget it later.

[Or you could just remember it.]

'Yeah, because I have perfect memory?'

[False. However, your short-term memory is largely accurate.]

The doctors and nurses here don't seem to suffer from bad memories; most of them know Darius by reputation, if not by name. Darius has been in and out of the hospital for six years.

"We see and are concerned with his downward spiral." An orderly confides in him. "But, what can we do? We sober him out, give him medicine, but as soon as we release him, he's back on the bottle again."

Brian knows he's supposed to agree with this orderly, to build up empathy and gather information. "Maybe assign him a therapist?"

"We've done that; he makes an appointment or two, and then just falls off the grid."

Falls off the grid? What kind of shitbag thinks like that?

[False. The orderly has a point, they are going beyond their duties to try to help Darius Cochrane. What more would you recommend they do?]

'Get him a more thorough detox, for starters. Just drying him out and letting him go isn't doing him any good.'

And then they can see him in his room. With brown crayons, he is repeatedly drawing a heart-shaped face with the eyes at the edge of either bulge.

"That doesn't look much like a grey alien." Brian says, sitting down in the room. Again, he knows he's supposed to be cordial and professional, but this story is already triggering his anger.

Would Darius still be here if he were Caucasian?

[Unlikely. Caucasians still have…]

'SHUT UP, SYSTEM! This is something I need to work through on my own.'

[By your command.]

It is shameful, Brian thinks, that simple things like health care are still denied to people based on skin color. He wants to fight this issue, but hatred isn't something you can just hit on the nose.

Darius looks up at him. "I ain't drawing no cartoon alien, son. I'm drawing what I saw. Something that opened it's mouth and hissed at me."

Brian takes a look at the pictures that are more than just the head. It sure looks like something that would end up in a comic book to him.

The 'alien' looks just that; alien. It's like someone took a log and attached other logs to make a long thin spider with the mis-shapen head on top. In its 'arms', it carries a pair of swords, serrated and large.

"So, this is real?"

"I swear it. I know I didn't talk to Jesus, and I haven't won a million dollars from my uncle. The president didn't step out of a Toyota Camri to make sure I was okay. None of that other stuff. But this- this was REAL."

"Okay." Brian says, "How can you tell the difference?"

"It's hard to explain. When I dream things up, they're dreams." He massages his right buttock. "This thing was real. It could touch me. It could HURT me. If I hadn't run when I did, it would've killed me."

"This is the knife wound you had when you reported the alien to the police?"

"It wasn't any knife. They got pictures of it. Ask them to see the pictures, and then tell me you think that a knife did that."

"All right. So, what else can you tell me?"

"No, you don't believe me, not yet. Go see the doctors. See the pictures, and then come back."

"Okay, I'll go ask to see the pictures."

"And then come back."

Brian is pretty sure there's no story here, so he doesn't promise to come back.

But the photos do show that SOMETHING tore its way through Darius' right butt cheek. Something that left a ragged wound. It is similar to one that Brian has seen before, when a tornado tore through a house and a woman was hurt by various household items.

There was no tornado last night, though. Brian asks for a copy of the photo, and is turned down.

'System, you got this?'

[System has a copy of the photo.]

'What makes a wound like that, System?'

[Inconclusive. Nothing in your memory should make a wound like this.]

What it looks nothing like is a chainsaw. Brian and System both miss the connection. The police are not alerted. The first survivor of the hunt is ignored, for now.

#

Claire is busy getting the story of the next victim, a man who was putting out trash from the local Publix.

It doesn't look right to her, though it takes her a while to realize why.

The earlier sites had been within sight of wilderness; this site is deep within buildings, not a spot of bare earth in sight.

The killer, for whatever reason, is expanding their ritual. And that, Claire realizes, makes her very nervous.

What should make her nervous is that the hunter is asleep within her line of sight. She doesn't see them; she isn't looking for them. She still thinks it's just a crazy person with a chainsaw, just like the police do.

Just like the public does.

#

Chase Talbot doesn't think it's a chainsaw. Something noisy like that would be heard at two of the murder sites. No, this is something quieter.

And, Chase thinks, faster. Nobody heard any of the victims call for help. That, to him, says both an ambush, and a quick kill.

These are things he recommends to the police. He reminds them that he is just the FBI advisor on this case; it will still be their hard work that cracks it open.

The bureau has a bad history of that; a lot of their early decades were built upon stealing every iota of credit they could; it's a debt that the current FBI is still paying off.

But if they can stop these nightly attacks, Chase doesn't care if Charley the Tuna gets the credit. What brand of tuna does he represent again?

Odd, Chase thinks, where the mind goes. He wraps up his presentation, and gets back to looking at his maps. All of the kills are within a mile of where Zerdt crosses I-565; but whenever the police set up patrols in an area, the kill happens outside of it.

That, to Chase, says the person has contacts with the police. He has a list of two hundred sixty-five suspects. Right now, he's eliminating those experience tells him are too physically weak to perform these crimes.

He has no clue how far outside his experience these incidents actually are.

#

Taeson works on his laptop as his flight returns to Huntsville, to home.

He's not sure the words he's writing are the entire story. He witnessed the tests; shouldn't he also tell the story of Muscleborn's childish temper tantrums?

Honestly, Muscleborn doesn't impress him. Sure, he's one of the top twenty-five stable meta-humans in the United States. But he's just…

He isn't bulletproof, Tae realizes.

Tae grew up with comic books, superhero shows, and even superhero movies. What good is a superhero who dies when you SHOOT them?

He realizes that his expectations are unfair; how could meta-powers, a real phenomenon, compete with human imagination, with human expectations?

They can't, and that's possibly why meta-humanity just doesn't catch the imagination the way their fictional predecessors do.

Still, the lunkhead got his fifteen minutes of fame. There's nothing about him that Tae finds unique, or even interesting. In a world where women fire heat beams from their eyes, what good is it to be able to punch through steel?

Sitting not even seventy meters away, Muscleborn has that answer.

He types into his cell phone: 'When will my suit be ready?'