Nick froze and thought his heart stopped when his stepfather hit the floor. Mizuno however brushed himself off and walked away. Paul caught his breath, swore, and got to his feet, fists clenched.
“You really want to go little guy?”
Mizuno forced a laugh and asked, “Do you earnestly believe you could teach me a lesson?” Paul charged him, fist cocked, but Mizuno ducked, took a step forward and threw the man into a wall. “You spend one-hundred and five hours of your week asleep,” Mizuno began while Paul recovered and threw a left hook, which Mizuno evaded, “Sixty-two hours in front of that mind-numbing box,” Mizuno took a step backwards to allow Paul’s kick to miss him, “And your last hour producing waste and bathing.” Paul clutched one of the many beer bottles and lobbed it at Mizuno. He caught it, set it on the bookshelf behind him, and continued, “What could you possibly know that I already don’t?” He briefly glanced at Nick, but returned his gaze to the man when he threw another bottle, with which he repeated the process. “Hey Nick. Do you want to learn something sad about your stepfather here?” Paul charged again while he yelled, though this time Mizuno seized his arm, kicked his ankle in, and coerced him to the ground. He took a seat on top of Paul and continued to restrain him while he spoke, “He hasn’t had a job in over three months, has been collecting unemployment checks, and has been lying,” he emphasized the final word by tightening his hold on Paul, “To you by saying that they’re checks from his job.” Mizuno finally let go of him, stood up, and added, “He’s hoping he can live off of you by wrapping you up in this wasteland he calls home by making you feel obligated to aid him.”
Paul struggled to stand and cussed at Mizuno. “How did you know that? You little bastard…must have been spying on me…”
Mizuno chuckled and said, “You’re not that bright are you? You should have at least taken a whack at the correct answer, considering how much television you watch. Granted, you don’t watch the news, so how would you know about current events anyway?”
Paul glanced over at Nick, who still tried to digest what he’d learned, “Don’t believe him. He’s a lying son of a–”
“I highly doubt he’s going to listen to you Paul. Nick’s a smart kid, and I know he knows what’s true here.” He turned his back on Paul as he began to leave the room, but Paul charged him.
Nick moved in front of Mizuno and threw his stepfather to the ground. Paul looked up at him and cursed, “Who do you think you are? You little b–” but Mizuno stopped him when he took the man off the ground and hurled him into a bookshelf piled with empty bottles.
Mizuno walked over to Paul, gripped his shoulder tightly, and whispered, “I know what you’ve done to Nick and his late brother. I know that Nick is only colorblind in his left eye because you beat him so badly once that he had to undergo a very risky surgery to replace it. And I will only say this once, if you ever think about harming him again, I will come back here and I will take this gun,” which he pulled it out of his jacket, “I’ll place it against your back like this,” he said as he flipped the man over and pressed it near the bottom of his spine, “And I’ll shoot you in a way that’ll leave you crippled for the remainder of your wretched life. I’ll harm you so you won’t die, so you’ll become far more worthless than you are now, and at the end of your meaningless existence, I’ll be sure to see you off as you travel down river to your eternal hell.” He put the firearm away, flipped Paul over, and asked, “Do you understand me?”
Paul stared blankly at the Japanese man. He spat at Mizuno, who in turn took the ashtray from the small table adjacent to Paul’s overturned chair and threw it in his face. Paul didn’t have time to react and the ash covered his face and eyes. He screamed while Mizuno left him there on the ground.
Mizuno stood up, wiped Paul’s spit off his face, and walked over to Nick. He retrieved some money, gave it to him, and told him to lay low in a hotel somewhere for a while. “I wouldn’t be so cruel as to leave you here now that I know everything about this worthless scrap of meat.” His eyes flashed and he told Nick he’d see him tomorrow.
Paul wasn’t through though; he ran after them, but Mizuno was long through toying with him. He landed a clean blow in Paul’s gut, swung around him to strike him in his left kidney, kicked in his knee, and rammed his skull into the edge of the wall. Mizuno didn’t bother to see whether Paul was out or not; he simply adjusted his gloves once more and headed for the garage door.
Nick didn’t move. He only looked at Paul’s still body on the ground and asked, “Is h-he…”
“He’ll be fine,” Mizuno muttered. “Let him figure things out on his own for once.”
---*---
Chapter 16
September 8th, 2029
10:05 AM
Tokyo, Japan
Drake sat in his cell with a smirk when the two detectives walked in. He’d managed to discover his ability and eagerly wanted to display it and expedite his release. The detectives shut the door behind them once they entered and noticed a spot of rust on the door that hadn’t been present before.
“When did that happen?”
“That’s just it,” Drake told the detective, “I can rust metals instantly.”
He asked if the men would like a demonstration, which they both welcomed. Drake walked over, set his hand on a part of the door that hadn’t been rusted, and concentrated. Within moments, the paint on the door chipped away and the metal rusted very quickly.
Both of the detectives were amazed by the display. Neither said a word until Drake asked them, “Does this annul my case?”
Obata said they weren’t sure. “We’ll contact the right people and see where things stand,” he said. He looked at Amano and asked if they could tell him the other development.
Amano looked at Drake and said, “They managed to prioritize the forensic examination of the gun Seattle police believe killed Tony Winchester and the results came back.”
“My fingerprints didn’t match, did they?”
“No, no they didn’t.”
Obata took a breath and added, “With the sudden appearance of super powered individuals there is some possibility of the individual being something of a shape shifter, which would explain your appearance in Seattle at an impossible moment for you to be in Seattle.”
“It would also explain the tattoo on the individual,” Amano murmured.
Both men agreed to expedite their conversation and the revelations there to the authorities in the United States. Before they left Detective Amano told Drake that barring some unforeseen evidence he should be released very soon. They left and Drake returned his focus on what actions he would need to take once he’d returned to the United States.
---*---
7:08 AM
Bothell, Washington
Nick fled Lynnwood after the revelations Mizuno unearthed about Paul. He didn’t feel safe, even in a hotel room a city away where Paul wouldn’t be able to find him, assuming Paul even wanted to find him. It was the same hotel Nick’s mother would take her two boys whenever she and his stepfather were fighting and on two occasions Victor was the one who brought Nick there when things were very bad. As such, the hotel didn’t bear fond memories.
All Nick brought with him was a few sets of clothes, his school work, a cell phone, the fake passport and other forms of identification that Mizuno forged, the wallet with his real information and the money Strom bestowed him, toiletries, and his motorcycle. Nick kept everything he could in a duffel bag which sat at the foot of the bed he hadn’t used. Nick sat in one of the chairs away from his bed with his head in his hands. He had dark marks under his eyes and as desperately as he wanted to sleep he doubted he’d find any relief in it.
Someone banged at his door and told him to open up. “I know you’re in there Nick.”
Nick’s pulse raced slightly at the sudden interruption, but he calmed down when he realized it was only Mizuno. Nick walked over to the door, unlocked everything, and would have let him in had an obese man in a
baby blue bathrobe from across the hall not stopped them.
“Would you two shut up?” the man barked. He took the ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign from off his door knob, wagged it at them, and said, “This means that I’m sleeping, so keep it down.”
Mizuno scowled and immediately berated him, “You weren’t asleep you pig, you were in there doing lines of coke with your best friend’s cow of a girlfriend.” The overweight man paled when Mizuno revealed, with clarity, the activity he partook in. Mizuno continued by telling him that if the heavy man bothered them once more he’d take the straw the man used to snort his cocaine and jam it into his eye.
Nick watched as the porky fellow retreated into his room and locked the door without a word of protest.
“Don’t worry about him Nick,” Mizuno began while he passed Nick and walked into the room, “The man’s a coward and is too worried about anyone learning that he’s banging his friend’s girlfriend.”
“You don’t think he’s going to retaliate at all?”
Mizuno shook his head. “Even if he did, I think you and I could deal with him.”
“What if he comes to the door with a gun?”
Mizuno shrugged and said it wouldn’t matter. “If he did try that, which he wouldn’t as we’re in a hotel filled with other people and security cameras in the halls, you’re bulletproof and I’m too talented to let some fat-assed drug dealer kill or even wound me. If he did bother us again, I would do exactly what I said I’d do to him.”
Nick locked the door anyway and took a seat on the bed while Mizuno took the chair Nick sat in earlier. Mizuno started by telling Nick that Bruce did an investigation into a few parts of the Winchester Corporation’s headquarters. “He hasn’t found anything substantial, aside from additional details about how Tony Winchester acted prior to his murder, though, as stated before, nothing noteworthy.”
“Then we’re still in the dark about all of this?”
Mizuno nodded.
“Are we ever going to make any progress and actually find the person who killed my brother?” Nick flatly asked.
Mizuno groaned, “Yes Nick, we will. I’m sorry I haven’t apprehended our charlatan yet, but investigations take time when I can’t walk up to the alleged criminal and determine if they are innocent or not. Whoever the killer is, they’re able to blend in anywhere, so this will take time, unless one of us happens upon someone with a serpent tattoo on their arm.” Nick glanced away and apologized. Mizuno rubbed his eyes and forgave him, “This is simply detective work, only with a bit of a science-fiction spin to it.”
Nick kept his head down and massaged his temples and expected his mentor to continue, though there was a break. He peered up at Mizuno for a moment, though he found the man deep in thought and frantically scribbling notes into a small spiral bound pad of paper.
“What do you write in there that you can’t remember on your own?”
Mizuno didn’t offer a reply. He continued to jot notes and after a solid minute he flipped the cover over the pad and stored the paper and pen back in his coat.
There was a second knock at the door and Nick immediately created an army green and charcoal gray Walther P99. Mizuno stopped him and told Nick it was most likely the pizza delivery man. “I ordered before I came, as I assumed you hadn’t eaten.” Mizuno rose from his seat, opened the door far enough to retrieve the pizza without revealing the gun Nick still gripped tightly, took out a fifty dollar bill, paid the deliverer without the desire for change, handed the box to Nick, and shut the door. “I got half pepperoni and mushroom for you and half vegetarian for me, though you can have some of mine if you want it.”
Nick let his weapon vanish into a cloud of smoke and thanked him. They each had a slice before Nick asked, “Do you have any idea who killed my brother?”
Mizuno admitted he had some speculation, but said he wanted to refrain from any revelation until he was certain. “But Bruce and I have managed to gather some information that has been quite useful. Basically, we learned that your brother, Tony Winchester, a man named Mark Ross, and a handful of others worked on a project known only as Regenesis.”
Nick frowned, “What is that?”
Mizuno confessed that he only knew a few details. “Regenesis was a prototypal drug that, had it been successful, would have been able to cure various types of cancer.”
“How did you discover that?”
“I’ve watched the security footage of the night Tony Winchester was murdered and he and the charlatan spoke of it, though briefly.”
“Is that why Victor was killed?”
Mizuno only shrugged. “Until we find the one responsible, everything is speculation. However, I would assume it is the reason, considering that’s why Mark Ross and Tony Winchester were murdered.”
Nick fell silent while he ate another slice of the pepperoni and mushroom pizza. He then asked, “What did you mean last night when you were talking about me?”
“About how you’re only colorblind in your left eye?” Mizuno asked while he wiped his mouth off with the back of his gloved hand. Nick nodded and waited to take another slice until he heard what the Japanese man had to say. “You were three when this all happened, so that’s why you don’t remember anything about it. Paul was laid off from his job and as such he drank far more than he normally did and one night he came home pissed off and drunk as hell. Your mother was out at the time and you were irritating Paul because you cried over some broken toy. He tried to shut you up by shouting at you, but that of course only made you cry more, and that only made him angrier.” Mizuno paused for a moment before he reminded Nick that Paul always tried to curb his anger and that it was the first time he’d ever physically assaulted either Nick or his brother. “He nearly killed you though,” Mizuno whispered. “Victor was asleep in the back of the house, woke up when he heard the commotion, and found you bleeding from your eye and Paul passed out on the floor beside you.”
Nick’s gaze fell to the floor. “I didn’t know that.”
“I never met your mother, but I assume she wanted to keep it from you so you wouldn’t look at Paul in such a bad light,” Mizuno told him.
“What happened though?”
“Victor called an ambulance, they managed to get you to the hospital and patched up before you lost too much blood, stabilized you, and one of your neighbors called your mother and alerted her to the incident.”
“How do I have two eyes though?” Nick stopped him. “I thought it was impossible to replace eyes.”
Mizuno wasn’t sure how to answer him. “It should be, by all means. There are thousands of things you’d have to accomplish to replace a single eye and if even one of those thousands of necessary measures failed you’d be left blind.”
“What happened then?”
Mizuno let out a breath and told him about a doctor named Avis Willows who performed the surgery. “She worked on a theoretical procedure to replace damaged human eyes with other human eyes, there was an extenuating circumstance where another child near your age had died in a car accident on the same night, and Doctor Willows wanted to take the risk to replace your lost eye. She received permission to salvage the organ from the dead boy’s parents and once your mother gave her consent, Doctor Willows operated and managed to have the first successful complete eye replacement in history. You’re only colorblind in your right eye because you were born that way. That’s also why the iris in your eyes are slightly different.”
Nick took a breath and asked how he could have lived his whole life and never known. “If I’m the only person to ever have a successful–”
“Let me stop you Nick,” Mizuno cut in. “Firstly, you are not the only successful transplant patient, and secondly aside from someone in the field of medicine no one would know that off handedly because it’s such an obscure fact. Can you even name the first successful heart transplant patient?” He gave Nick a moment to admit his ignorance in the matter before Mizuno filled him in, “Louis Washkansky, in December of nineteen-s
ixty-seven.”
“How many other people have had successful surgeries like this?”
Mizuno told him there were only a few others.
“Then if the doctor managed to replicate the surgery more than once, why isn’t the surgery more common?” Nick asked.
“For starters, the surgeries weren’t all performed by her, which makes cross examining the various methods confusing and nearly impossible to figure out exactly how it worked once or even more than once. There have been many attempts to replicate it, even by successful doctors, but nearly every case resulted in failure.” Mizuno told Nick he wouldn’t bore him with the medical talk and simplified it, “Basically the surgeries wouldn’t have been successful without external aid.”
“What do you mean?”
“This is just a theory I have, but I believe there was someone akin to a healer involved in your surgery as well as the others,” Mizuno told him. “Beyond that I don’t think it’s possible.”
Nick rubbed his eyes and asked another question, “Do you know why my mother stayed with Paul if he nearly killed me?”
Mizuno shook his head. “I don’t. I would assume it had something to do with his ability to work more than she could as well as the fact that it was his house and had she left with you and Victor you all would have been without a home.” He admitted that he was unsure of the reason she stayed. Mizuno took another piece of pizza and changed the subject, “I know you want to go out with Amy later on, so we need to finish eating and head out. I need Strom to teach you a few more things and you need more practice with your ability. He’s also going to add a few dozen firearms to your arsenal too. Afterward I’m going to teach you how to hold your own in a typical bar fight and then how to drive a stick shift, so we need to get moving.”
Nick didn’t argue. He nodded, ate some more, and thought about what Mizuno told him. Mizuno on the other hand ate, retrieved his notepad from his coat pocket, and studied and added to his notes.
---*---
3:15 PM
Impact (Book 1): Regenesis Page 36