Subject 12

by S. W. Douglas

  I tried to take a deep breath and had to stop myself from coughing. Dust still coated my throat and I thought I saw a small gray cloud puff out of my mouth when I exhaled.

  "Jesus! We need help over here! Now!"

  Alright, that sounded more like it. It definitely came from the street, too. I had to do something if I was at all capable --- those people were hurt because of me and that didn't sit at all well with me. I had to help.

  I lifted my right leg and began to take a step forward, but as soon as I put all my weight on my left leg my knee buckled with an incredibly sharp pain and I fell, barely catching myself with my hands before faceplanting myself. The shock to my shoulders was quite surprising, even though hindsight told me I probably should have expected it. I'd pushed myself past whatever limits I'd thought I'd had and found how much further I could go, but in the end I'd found the final wall anyway.

  I'd been thrown through it, yes, but I'd still found it.

  "Somebody, please, we need help!"

  Where the hell was everyone?

  I stood up again, faster than the last time and without the wall as a support, but I fell back down just as fast. I had to struggle to get back into a seated position, again using the wall for support, wincing as every joint complained at the pressure I was putting on them to turn myself over.

  "Fuck me, there's blood everywhere! Somebody, help! Please!"

  Every super's powers manifested themselves differently. That not only meant there were a great variety of powers but different ways of them working, with or without side-effects. Jumpers, for example, disappeared and reappeared in ways unique to the jumper in question. Some vanished in a puff of smoke, some with a thunderclap, others silently and with no visual events. Some faded from view, some seemed to shrink until they just weren't there anymore, and at least one in Guild employ exploded into a purple goo that stained everything around it for six hours, five minutes, and fifteen seconds before fading. Wherever she appeared a blue powder started accumulating and wouldn't stop till it coated everything in a large circle surrounding her jump-in point.

  She called herself Splat. Her services weren't often called for.

  Why this was important has escaped me for the moment.

  I rested. I didn't have much choice. My head lolled against the wall as I tried to recover enough I could move again. After two false starts I wanted to make sure I wasn't going to have a third I couldn't get up from. I didn't know how long I was there like that, the sun mercilessly burning into my half-closed eyes, before a shadow fell across my face.

  I looked up but my eyes were too dazzled by the sun behind whoever it was standing over me to see anything. I found I could move my arm so I shaded my face, but I couldn't see much more than I already had.

  "Christ! Someone, please! There's so much blood!"

  "Someone better help him," I said thickly, my hand falling back into my lap. "I can't move."

  "I think you've done enough, son," came a familiar voice. "Best put your mask back on so we can get you out of here."

  I could see other shapes in the glare. Hard shapes. They'd clustered around and weren't moving much. The threat implicit in their presence was obvious even to my addled brain. I didn't like it.

  "Someone help the civvies," I said, ice flooding my veins but strength returning to my limbs as my overtaxed adrenals started their factory work again . "Someone help them now."

  "We will, son. We will. But you have to put your mask back on, alright?"

  "Help them now." I saw someone bend over the lump that was Clarence. "Touch him and so help me I'll break you in half." I found myself rising to my feet, almost without conscious decision. "Lay one finger on him and I swear by all that's holy I'll drop half of you in Alaska and the other half in Paris!"

  "Relax, son." Jackhammer's voice had taken on a very nervous edge. "Just relax. Felix is a healer, he's just checking to make sure---"

  I cut him off with a vicious swipe of my arm. "Fuck that. He'll be fine. The civilians we hurt won't be. Someone get their lazy ass out there and start patching the norms up or so help me all of you will wish you had."

  I'd just threatened about twelve supers, several of whom had sworn oaths to bring Grid Iron's killer to justice, and I'd meant it. Hormones pumped into my system so fast I could feel them seeping out of my pores, even as the smell of ozone that had clung to me started to thicken to the point of near-tangibility.

  "You ain't wearin' your mask, son." His voice sounded almost pleading as he reminded me of my mask again. "Why don't you put it back on? Please."

  I looked from face to face. They were nervous, hesitant, and even outright afraid, but they all looked very determined. They recognized me, that much was obvious. Both as Hammer, the stranger on the stage who had spoken so well and as the man who'd killed Grid Iron, Speedfreak, and the warlock; the man who had violated their sanctum, murdered their comrade, and been whisked away without punishment or word, yet had spoken at the memorial with the most revered members of their Guild; the man who had just kicked holy hell out of The Justice Fiend and was now threatening them as well.

  And they were standing up to me. My respect for them went up a notch. It'd be a shame to have to kill any of them.

  "Son, please, just put your mask on." His voice was thick with emotion.

  I caught the eye of one of the men around me. I knew of him, though I hadn't seen him at the memorial. If I hadn't caught a glimpse of him at the after party I would have been surprised to see him here. Tritilan was his name. Greatly respected for his fight against the crime syndicates that had almost taken Los Angeles over, he was one of the more vocal in his public decrying of Grid Iron's murder, and had sworn vengeance for the murders in front of me at the party.

  "Please, son." Jackhammer's voice broke. "Please."

  Our eyes locked for a second. Tritilan nodded slightly, looked down at Clarence, blinked, looked back at me, and rolled his hand forward while inclining his head as a gesture of respect.

  "Son," Jackhammer began but stopped.

  The mask. What was so goddamn important about the mask?

  I looked down at my hand. More accurately, I looked at the wad of dark cloth just peeking out from either side of my fist. Clenched in my curled fingers it was just a crumple of fabric, but when placed over my head it became so much more. It was a symbol, a mark of something greater than itself.

  It was also a fig leaf, I realized, designed to hide the shame that my face had become.

  I stared at the mask as it unfurled in my palm, at the same time a freezing numbness began crawling up my limbs towards my heart. The mask looked like nothing more than a hood for a man to wear before the noose tightened around his neck; placed there to keep those standing before him, screaming for his blood, from being disturbed by the sight of his face during his death throes.

  I looked up, disgust filling me and pushing the numbness away. Tritilan caught my eye and nodded shallowly but quickly. His eyes kept darting from the mask back to my face. There was something about the look on his face. Something desperate.

  "Goddamn it," came the voice, as if from far away, the note of surrender in it touching me in ways I didn't understand. "Put it on, son."

  The crowd had tightened around me. They were no less afraid but they seemed to have reached a consensus. Any moment now they were going to strike.

  I found myself nodding. If I was to be executed then I was going to wear the mask. Maybe they wouldn't see the pain on my face, and maybe I couldn't spit in theirs, but goddamn it they'd see the hatred in my eyes before I died.

  To a man they took a step back when I moved. I stretched the mask between my hands, pulled it over my head, and let it snap back into place before anyone could finish taking a breath. By some miracle the eye holes lined up properly, but I barely noticed. My fists clenched, my teeth gritted, staring at the play of light in the golden hair of a super I didn't recognize, I tensed myself for what I knew was coming.

  "Bring it," I breathed.<
br />
  Tritilan glanced at someone behind me for half a second before visibly relaxing and smiling. Before I could wonder what was happening I noticed everyone else I could see was starting to relax as well. They still looked guarded and ready to defend themselves, but something had changed. I could feel the tension oozing from the air.

  "Whew. Y'all had us scared there, Hammer." Someone off to my right turned around and I heard the distinct sound of a foot burying itself in someone's gut, complete with a pain-filled grunt. "Now, would it be alright if you stopped lookin' like you were about to kill us all?"

  "He ain't dead, but he ain't in good shape neither," someone said a little louder than necessary. A slight turn of my head showed a man with a green half-cape standing over Clarence. He kicked him again and I could see the smile on his face. "Bastard did a good job on the prick." He cleared his throat and spit dead-on into The Justice Fiend's open mouth before turning around and inclining his head at me.

  What. The. Hell? I let most of what I'd pulled to myself bleed away. It was a lot easier than I'd thought it would be and the sudden relaxation nearly made me collapse. Holy shit, I was worn out.

  Jackhammer appeared at my side and smiled when I turned to face him. I could see how nervous he was but the relief on his face was just as obvious. "Is he alright, son?"

  "Fuck if I know," I said shaking my head violently to try to keep myself awake. "Probably. He's tougher than a nickel steak, I know that." I leaned in as close as I dared and spoke as quietly as possible. "What's going on?"

  He put his hand on my shoulder and quickly turned it into a one-armed hug. "Tell you later," he whispered.

  The others started drifting over to the most recent recipient of my attention and all did a credible job of poking and prodding him. Most of them rather roughly.

  Well. Nobody ever said The Justice Fiend was well-liked. Or liked at all, really. Or even not-hated by everyone who worked with him.

  Each of them made some gesture in my direction that seemed to indicate respect and approval, but as soon as they had they broke for the street, presumably to help the civvies.

  Jackhammer didn't join them and I was in no shape to move. In fact, as soon as they'd left my sight I found I couldn't hold myself up any longer and I staggered, nearly collapsing on Jackhammer. He wasn't expecting the weight and he stumbled a bit before he could catch himself.

  "Let's get you inside," he said, half-carrying, half-dragging me toward one of the holes in the wall. "You look like shit, son."

  "Yeah," I heard myself say before the darkness washed inwards and carried me away. "Kinda feel it too, you know?"

  I awoke to a petite, dark-haired woman dressed in a cheerfully-patterned set of surgical scrubs emblazoned with the five-pointed, encircled star that said she was a member of the Guild's medical corps. The six crimson teardrops tattooed under her left eye, cascading down her face, marked her as a healer.

  Don't ask me why they all had those tattoos. They simply did, much the same as a Yakuza had enough ink to write a novel. I'd heard two stories about why they had them and I wasn't going to lend credence to either until I knew more, though the way magic users gave me the heebie-jeebies the chances were I wouldn't ever find out --- and I was cool with that. The first one was that each teardrop signified a person they'd sacrificed in order to gain their powers. The other said they were to mark the number of people they'd loved and lost that they should have been able to save. It was a macabre thing, if either was true, but they were all a strange bunch anyway.

  Necromancers, they used to be called. Strange and macabre went with the territory.

  I searched her face for any sign of emotion, or even recognition that I was now awake, and saw none. Her lips moved silently as, I realized, her fingers slowly traced intricate patters across the sides of my face.

  "I'm awake now," I said, trying to lift myself off the bed or table I was laying on, only to find myself restrained rather tightly. The cold bite of steel at my wrists told me I was handcuffed down.

  "What the hell is going on?" I asked the room at large. The healer kept working her mouth as her fingers left warm paths across my cheeks and forehead. I tried to catch her eye but failed so I addressed my next question at her in the hopes it'd have some kind of effect.

  "You might want to back off a little. I'm going to be getting up in a moment and I don't want you to get hurt in the process."

  She showed no sign of hearing me, but a moment later she seemed to finish what she was doing and stopped touching me. Instantly a burning sensation started at the point of my nose and streamed downwards, across my face, and before long had covered every part of my body. I found I couldn't move, my scream frozen on my lips, as the pain worked inwards, seeking my very core.

  And then, just as suddenly as it had begun it stopped and my breath rushed out of me in relief.

  "I will unhook you now," the healer said quietly. Her voice was nearly devoid of emotion. "I did not want you to hurt yourself when the regeneration started."

  "Thank you," I said, a little breathlessly. "I can see how I might have done that."

  "You are welcome," she said, a little sadness encroaching on her otherwise-numb speech.

  The straps opened quickly and the handcuffs came undone at the touch of a tool I'd never seen before. I caught the slightest hint of an ultrasonic hum as she touched its tip to some predetermined spot. I sat up and rubbed my wrists, glorying in the total lack of pain in my back.

  "Please," she said as I swung my legs over the side of the table, "try not to get into another fight with Clarence any time soon. I found it very difficult to fulfill my oath when I was asked to make sure he would recover. If I have to actually heal him I do not know if I could bring myself to do it."

  I smiled thinly, dropping to the floor. "I'll try."

  "Thank you," she said, bowing slightly. "It is my pleasure to serve. I have been instructed to make you wait here till you are sent for. In this I will also serve. Please do not try to leave before then or I will stop you."

  I gave her an appraising glance.

  "If you don't mind my asking, how are you planning on stopping me if I intend to leave?"

  She waved her hand and I fell to my knees, all strength rushing from my body faster than I could suck a breath of air.

  "Like this," I heard her say though I didn't see her lips move.

  I was fading so fast I couldn't even find it in me to fight. I could feel my life draining away, even my will to live disappearing so fast and thoroughly there was nothing left, no reason to go on. I slumped further to the floor, finally collapsing in a mewling heap as I surrendered to death's cold embrace.

  "So please," she said, "do not attempt to leave."

  I was on my feet, swaying slightly, one arm braced against the wall to keep me upright, but I was standing under my own power. My lungs screamed in protest at the breath I'd been holding far too long.

  "What the fuck was that?" But I knew. Oh, how I knew.

  "I am sorry. I have found it is far faster to show than to try to explain." She put her hand on my face, a soothing warmth infusing her touch. I tried to pull away but found I couldn't. "Unlike some of my fellows I take little pleasure in exercising that side of our powers, but I also do not hesitate to use it."

  Goddamn warlocks. "I'll remember that."

  "Good. Now, please take a seat. The aftereffects of the illusion are far less severe than the real draining would have been, but they are still unpleasant. You will feel weak for a few more minutes but you will be fine soon."

  Real draining? "If I'd tried to leave, which one would you have used on me?"

  She had begun to walk to a stainless steel desk on the other side of the room but she paused long enough to reply in that deadpan voice she somehow managed to swing like a sledgehammer, turning to face me as she did so. "We only give one warning. I would have tried to stop before you died, but the draining is not meant to be stopped once begun. Much like an orgasm, once you reach that point
, it just keeps going."

  I looked at the bloody teardrops on her face and nodded. She flickered the barest hint of a smile before turning back around and resuming her trip.

  I suppressed the shudder but couldn't stop the cold chills running down my spine like a waterfall.

  I'd kept a close watch on the clock, it being easier to watch than the cold eyes staring back at me from across the room, and I'd waited twelve minutes and twenty-two seconds before someone knocked on the door.

  I'd tried to ask Jezebel (she finally told me her name) why she wasn't out helping the injured civvies but she had merely blinked. I'd started counting the blinks by then and, in the entire twelve minute span, she blinked three times. Each time, momentarily, when her eyes opened afterwards I could have sworn her eyes had a vertical pupil. Further attempts at communication were almost as effective, so I'd given up.

  Not having had much experience with healers I didn't know if this was normal or simply something weird about her. Either way it was slightly unnerving. When added to the already creepy feeling magic users gave me, I wondered if I'd have felt more comfortable with The Justice Fiend yelling at me.

  There was something menacing about her aura, though I shuddered to use that phrase; it felt like a tiger on a chain, pacing inside a small cage, remembering the glory of a kill years old.

  Strength had returned to my limbs very shortly after her little light show. The memory, however, was going to last a lot longer.

  When the knock came I was startled but I tried not to let it show. Jezebel's finger jabbed something I couldn't see on her desk and the door slid open with a mechanical buzz.