Different Strong

by Nat Kozinn

  The mine is pitch black, but Ben’s always prepared and pulls out a pair of home-made night vision goggles. The device amplifies the tiny bit of ambient light that exists even deep within the mine. His hearing and vision properly enhanced, he begins his descent into the bowels of the mine. He does not move quickly; equipment was left strewn about, creating many hazards and obstacles to avoid while he tries to silently move through the near-dark tunnel. Slowly but steadily, he closes in on the murmuring voices.

  Ben turns a corner and is blinded by what looks like the sun. When he takes off his goggles, he sees it’s just a small WormLight lamp. The lamp illuminates two men sitting at a table, a chess board between them. Each of the men has a handgun on their hip.

  Ben stops, rests his hand on a disgustingly slimy wall, and listens.

  “No, I don’t want to play again. I’m going to blow my brains out if I have to play another game of chess with you. I swear, I’m going on strike if they don’t get us some think.Net access down here,” the younger of the two men says.

  “We’re hundreds of miles from the closest Metro Area and a half mile underground. I hope I don’t need to explain to you why that isn’t going to happen. But go ahead and strike, you think you’ll be hard to replace? Sitting on your butt all day babysitting is a sweet gig. I bet the guys who used to work in this mine would trade you their sore back and cut-up hands in a second. Maybe the guy they replace you with will be better at chess. Trust me, even guard duty gets a lot worse than this,” the older man answers.

  “We’re aren’t guards. We’re protectors, Petey.”

  “I don’t know why they even need us, that girl isn’t going anywhere. I’m sure after living in the Non-Assisted Area she’s just happy to get three square meals a day and a book to read. She reminds me of my youngest. If she had a book, World War III could have started, and it wouldn’t have bothered her at all. Let’s say no one was surprised when she became a librarian, the old-school kind. There still are a few of them,” Petey says.

  The hearing amplifier in Ben’s ear picks up the sound of someone breathing from a door behind the two “protectors.” Ben needs to find out the identity of the girl being guarded.

  He doubles back towards a fork in the mine and follows a different shaft until he reaches the end. Once there, he pulls out the vibration-generating device he used to break the plate glass in the Ultracorps office. He fiddles with the knobs, changing the frequency and setting a timer, then drops the device and hustles back towards the chess-playing guards, nearly slipping and breaking his neck on the damp rock floor several times. He scrambles and hides in a nook, pulling himself in just before his vibration device begins emitting low, deep thumps.

  “What the hell is that?” the young guard asks, instinctively putting his hand on the gun on his hip.

  “Relax, junior. It’s not an angry mob coming for the kid. It’s coming from somewhere in the mine, something must’ve been left on and finally broke down,” the older guard answers.

  “What’s that noise?” a high-pitched female voice calls from behind the door the men guard.

  “It’s nothing, sweetheart. A problem with some of the equipment. We’ll go take care of it,” the older guard says, then the pair head towards Ben’s device.

  Once they are far enough away, Ben walks past their chess board and opens the door they were guarding, revealing a small, sparsely furnished room. There’s a young girl with blonde hair who could not be more than fifteen or sixteen. She’s laying on a mattress on the floor, a book open in front of her. She lets out a little shriek at the sight of Ben.

  “Who are you? What do you want?” she asks, her voice trembling with fear.

  “Sorry to scare you. I’m the new guy. Petey told me to watch you while they went to go check on that racket,” Ben says, in a calm, reassuring voice.

  “Okay. I hope they turn it off soon. It’s hard to read with all that noise,” she says while she buries her face back in her book.

  “What are you reading?”

  “My favorite book, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll,” the girl says, holding up the cover to prove she’s telling the truth.

  “A lover of the classics, how fantastic. This mine is a little like a rabbit hole,” Ben says with a laugh.

  “I haven’t seen a Cheshire cat, or giant caterpillar yet, just old machines and cold, dirty walls,” the girl replies.

  “Yeah, it’s not too homey down here I guess, though it beats the Queen trying to chop your head off.”

  “That’s the one part that sounds like my life, except it was a whole town, not one fat queen.”

  “Is that right?” Ben says in a dismissive tone. He assumes she’s being a dramatic teenager.

  “Everyone I knew wanted me dead,” the girl says as tears start to well in her eyes. “I can’t even blame them. I almost destroyed the whole town.”

  “Now how could a little girl like you do something like that? I don’t believe it,” Ben says in his best reassuring voice, which isn’t all that good.

  “You should believe it. I’m a Different, one of the dangerous ones. I can make the ground shake, and I’m not very good at controlling it. That’s why I couldn’t stay in Los Angeles. At least out here I only destroyed some wood huts. If I had been in the Metro Area I would have knocked down tall buildings and hurt a lot of people,” the girl says, stifling back the tears.

  “You used to live in the Los Angeles Metro Area?”

  “Yeah, before they knew how dangerous I was. Once they did the test, they knew I couldn’t stay. My father sent me to live in De Sota. It’s not as nice as Los Angeles or any of the Metro Areas, but at least everyone was safe. Or I thought they were.”

  “Who is your father?” Ben asks.

  “I’m not supposed to say,” the girl says looking down at the ground and shaking her head.

  Ben thinks for a moment, then wipes the flesh-covered make up off his right hand, revealing his Mark of Differentiation.

  “See I’m a Different like you. You don’t have to be afraid,” Ben says, still holding up his hand as if the tattoo means he couldn’t possibly be a liar.

  “You’re like me? Can you help me control it?” the girl says, her eyes wide, ecstatic at the thought.

  “Maybe, but I have to understand who you are and what you’re doing here.”

  “My name is Jessica Hayes,” Jessica says, slowly enunciating like she barely remembers how to say it.

  “You’re Jessica Hayes?” Ben asks. Now his eyes widen. “And your father is former governor Robert Hayes?”

  “He’s not the governor anymore?”

  “No, and I think I might be figuring out why,” Ben says with a grin that is wildly inappropriate given Jessica’s despair.

  15

  Let us be clear Mr. Stillman, this offer should not be mistaken as vindication for your crimes. You have benefited from a unique combination of circumstances. Highly respected individuals have endorsed the notion of your release in order for you to serve the public good. These people have put their reputations on the line. If you fall back into your old habits, if you continue to believe you are above the law, they will not speak in your defense again. You have been granted a second chance that few in your position are fortunate enough to receive. Do not squander the opportunity.

  Assistant District Attorney Laura Vance Plea Agreement with Gavin Stillman

  >>>I spent a long time searching on think.Net Gavin, trust me. It was a 7.62x54mmR shell. From what I could learn on think.Net, the shooter was probably using a Dragunov sniper rifle, a Cold War-era piece of hardware.

  <<
  >>>Maybe he doesn’t know the Cold War is over and Mother Russia is mostly a nuclear wasteland. Or maybe he’s not simply a psychopath, he’s a psychopath who has enough money to afford expensive toys. Or he has a wealthy sponsor.

  <<
  >>>That’s what I’m
trying to figure out. I’ve got a list of the gun shops that might carry such heavy-duty weaponry, but it’s going to be hard to get them to talk. That’s not the kind of weapon anybody is going to be in a hurry to admit to selling. Nobody buys a sniper rifle for self-defense.

  <<
  >>>Good advice, and nice line. I’ll see what I can do as regular old Maria. It’s probably for the best. I think the captain has heard enough of my theories. There was a reason I wasn’t out at that last call. It was in my precinct, and I was on duty. I should have been working the perimeter but nobody called me out there.

  <<
  >>>I thought he was covering for whoever is drugged those Differents?

  <<
  >>>I don’t like Rose either Gavin but you’ve got a big hole in your investigation. Motive. What does Rose have to gain from drugging random Differents and covering up for a killer?

  <<
  >>>A chat with the captain. My favorite. Good luck.

  I end the call. Captain Murphy looks annoyed.

  “Sorry about that. It was a personal call,” I say.

  “Who were you talking to? Considering your parents aren’t around, you’re a convicted felon, and you’re locked up in here all night, I would think it’s hard to make friends,” he pauses. “Don’t answer me. I find it unsettling that I can’t tell you’re lying even when I know for a fact you are. It makes me question how good a cop I am or ever was.”

  “Okay, I won’t answer.”

  “Did you know that Differents’ think.Net call logs are not subjected to 4th Amendment protections? Not that yours would be anyway, considering you’re on parole. That means I can see all of your calls, Gavin. I know you’ve been spending a lot of time talking to a female L.A.P.D. officer. And since I also know you personally, I’m going to go ahead and assume she isn’t your girlfriend.”

  “Is it necessary to insult me?”

  “No, but it’s damn satisfying after I find out you’ve been lying to me. Didn’t we go over this? You were supposed to fall in line,” Captain Murphy says and sticks his finger in my face.

  “It’s not against the terms of my parole to have a friend who is a police officer.”

  “You know I told you to drop it, and your friend isn’t just any police officer, she’s the resident conspiracy theorist. She’s already been reprimanded several times for conducting rogue investigations of her own ridiculous theories.”

  “It isn’t a ridiculous theory. She’s on to something. There have been Differents showing up dead all...”

  “Stop! I don’t want to hear it. We’ve already got enough trouble getting along with the L.A.P.D., thanks to your love of pounding on their officers. If they find out you’ve been helping one of their troublemakers, they’re going to stop what little cooperation they already offer. If we aren’t getting any calls, this office is going to get shut down and the entire OEC Field Office Program won’t be far behind. Is that what you want, Gavin? Do you want to go back to being a lab rat? Don’t forget, that’s after you finish out your prison sentence.”

  “What if she’s helping me find who killed Linda’s son?”

  “What do you mean? And keep your voice down, she’s in the other room,” Captain Murphy says. That hit close enough to home that it gave him pause.

  “That’s what I was going to tell you. There’s a serial killer out there and he’s targeting Differents. I’m pretty sure that’s who killed Martin. It makes a lot more sense than a mugger who uses a sniper rifle for a weapon.”

  “First someone was drugging Differents now someone is killing them? Let me guess who’s the suspect at the top of your list, Detective Rose, the overweight assassin. There’s no point in arguing with you Gavin, so let me just be clear, you aren’t ‘The Vigilante’ anymore, you aren’t ‘The Beast Slayer.’ You are Gavin Stillman, OEC agent and parolee. If you aren’t willing to follow orders like Gavin the OEC agent, then Gavin the parolee is going to become Gavin the prison inmate. Is that clear?”

  There are a thousand things I want to say right now. I want to tell Captain Murphy what a joke he is. I want to tell him that he’s a figurehead who exists to make people feel safe while we agents actually run the show. I want to tell him he hasn’t done anything resembling real police work in ten years, and now he’s another useless bureaucrat. But I don’t. Having complete control over myself comes through once again. I give him the answer he wants to hear.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “See, that wasn’t so hard. Now why don’t you hit the gym, and do some of that training Victor is always riding you about.”

  “Yes, sir,” I say again and head towards the gym.

  I feel a voice in my head, but I didn’t accept a think.Net call. Curiosity overruns my natural paranoia and I let the thoughts into my head. Did Nita find a new way to contact me?

  >>>Did you mean it? Do you think your serial killer murdered my Martin?

  <<
  >>>I’m a Telepath, I don’t need think.Net to talk to you. I’m my own mini think.Net. Now answer my question. Do you really think the serial killer did it, or were you saying that to appease the captain?

  <<
  >>>Are you close to catching him? Do you have any leads?

  <<
  >>>That might be something I can help with. I’m the one who locks up the place at night and checks to make sure you didn’t leave when I come in the morning. I can also access your think.Net files with your location data and the list of calls you made. I can alter those records.

  <<
  >>>This old dog still knows a few tricks. I was part of think.Net before you were a glimmer in your Daddy’s eye. I remember enough to fool those young whippersnapper Telepaths they’ve got working today. I’ll wait a few days for Captain Murphy to cool off. Then I’ll start leaving the doors open at night.

  <<
  >>>Say you promise to catch the son of a bitch.

  <<
  #

  I breathe deep and my lungs fill with air that tastes of freedom. I haven’t been out at night in weeks, ever since the new Governor took over and stopped inviting me to parties. I’ve missed walking the streets of the Los Angeles Metro Area at night. I might be the first person to ever have that thought. The streets out here smell like garbage, maybe because they are covered in it. It doesn’t matter to me. I can ignore those odor molecules. I’m happy to have the chance to do that.

  I hope my new disguise keeps working. It kept everyone off my back during my Oasis Burger lunches with Ben. My previous old-man look is famous now, so unfortunately it wouldn’t keep me hidden. It feels a little weird to be keeping all this water in my face, but I definitely don’t look like myself. I look like a fat guy who lost a lot of weight but it hasn’t hit my face yet.

  I look down at my glove-covered hands, the second part of my crime. Covering my Mark of Differentiation is specifically outlawed in the Different Acts of 1986. But I figure, what the hey? In for a penny, in for a pound. It’ll just be more years added to my sentence. A real possibility considering I’m breaking my parole to stalk a police officer.

  I’
ve been watching Detective Rose for over an hour. Maria told me where to find him. He was on call for a murder. Is it weird that I’m relieved the call isn’t about another dead Different, just a normal twenty-year-old dead man? I tell myself that it’s as big a tragedy that he died, but I don’t believe it. I know I care more about my own kind, and I don’t like that.

  Detective Rose doesn’t seem to care very much about the dead kid either. He doesn’t spend any time investigating at all. I hear him say, “Another junky getting what he deserved.” It makes me question what I believe about Detective Rose. Maybe he hasn’t been holding up the investigations because he’s part of conspiracy. Maybe it is just good, old-fashioned, incompetence and indifference.

  I watch him stand around for another forty-five minutes, cracking inappropriate jokes and acting like an all-around ass. His still wired-shut jaw isn’t stopping him from gabbing. Finally, the Strong-Woman comes and carries off the body.

  He tells the officers around him, “I’m going to walk the beat. I’m on think.Net if you find anything. Don’t forget, if there’s another call tonight it’s Santiago’s, unless it’s a big one.”

  I’m assuming a big one means another dead Different. I watch Detective Rose go out and walk the beat. Apparently, that means walking five blocks to a local café and sitting down to eat. It must be a criminal hotspot. I find an alley where I have a view through a window, and I watch Rose while I hide in the shadows.

  He orders, and the waitress comes back a few minutes later with a plate of fried Manna and a cup of coffee. He starts shoving the thin strands of fried carbohydrates into his mouth. He has to suck each tube into his mouth individually because he can only open his jaw slightly. He’s making a mess all over himself. And I thought I already disliked him. I have to tell myself I’m doing this for a good cause, otherwise I’m not sure how much someone would have to pay me to watch this.