by James Damm
Outside, dozens of agents listened to every word of the conversation, desperate for any intelligence Alice could give. The reality of the conversation in the room jarred with how it looked from the outside. To them, the encounter involved an adult speaking to a child. Inside the room, Juliet knew no childlike innocence remained. But she knew better than to waste a question.
“Why did John let himself die?”
“A question with too many layers,” Alice retorted. “This is a game, not a race to the finish. Have fun! I’ll help you out. Let’s see if you, as a detective of sorts, can figure it all out yourself. Why would John come in the first place? Well Juliet, after saving the world for over a decade, John had saved millions of lives. Yet John also missed saving the lives of millions by being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The United Nations did their best in putting him where he needed to be, but there were so many missed opportunities. Every time there was a mudslide in Afghanistan, John remained geographically absent for a fire in Beijing. Little John couldn’t save them all and it tore his self-esteem apart. Appetite gone, insomnia because of his experiences, he sought a little girl in a mental institute because he wanted to dream about the future too. Two months later and he’s being stabbed to death with his permission.”
“What did he dream?” Juliet asked on instinct.
“My turn,” Alice corrected. “Tell me about your love life.”
A lump formed in Juliet’s throat. Had any of the conversation been news to the little girl, or had Juliet just been an actor reading from a screenplay? Outside, Juliet could read the thoughts of the hovering agents. They judged and waited for the reply. Rather than being alone in the room, Juliet suffered on a stage in front of an audience. The cost of the truth would be her dignity. The tapes to be replayed a thousand times by anonymous accusers. “I don’t have one, I haven’t dated ever, really.”
“Juicy,” Alice beamed, and within a flash her eyes were pressing for more. “Go on.”
“From the age of sixteen there’s been no off tap for other people. Any friend I ever had, I’m exposed to them at their worst. If they want to maintain a relationship with me at all. People become freaked out at the prospect of having their innermost thoughts exposed. So I’m alone mostly, I run and work-out and stick to solo sport that doesn’t need other people. Dating-wise? How can I ever be intimate with someone, trust someone, when I know every white lie they ever tell?
“Even a month back, a man began chatting to me in a queue for coffee. Flirting, but not heavily, I could hear his attraction in his thoughts. He seemed genuine, nice and for a little while I genuinely considered taking him up on his advance. But as I was paying, still in front of him in the queue, he considered whether his ex would be jealous if rocked up to a friend’s wedding with me on his arm. Right there, as always, I hear the truth. On some level, any relationship I’d have with this man would be predicated on revenge. So I stay alone, I like it that way, it keeps things simple.”
Juliet’s stomach churned after her latest confession. It exposed a queasy uncertainty as Alice ripped layers off her. But she had to be strong if she dallied or delayed – there was the very real possibility that the game could end with no answers beyond the basics.
“The only person on the planet who can read minds,” Alice echoed. “Lonelier than anyone.”
“What did John dream in those final two months?” Juliet replied firmly.
“The future,” Alice laughed. “And it’s not very nice for us.”
“Us?”
“What links the two stories you just told me? The story about your father, the lack of relationships?”
Juliet genuinely had no answer.
“A little girl dreams the future, she ends up in a mental asylum. An Italian man can shoot fire out of his hands, we encourage the violence in him. The world’s lone mind-reader mistrusted and kept isolated. John, the best of us, unable to live his life out in the open,” Alice acknowledged out loud. “They fear us, the normal people out there. Maybe they should.”
“But how does that link to the dreams?”
“John hoped to witness upcoming incidents and disasters, thus being in the right place to stop them. Dreaming about the future doesn’t work like that. The visions work like normal dreams, unplanned and erratic. The future John saw involved humanity making those with super-abilities extinct. They turn on us, on him, and it gets nasty. Talk of forced cures and registrations. Very Hitler, very Holocaust. Eventually it hits a breaking point and we fight back, John fights back and the war to follow kills a billion. It’s not just us versus them. That would be too black and white. Populations take sides and civil wars erupt. It’s like being a witch back in the old days – drownings, burnings and crucifixions. Before too long, we forget what it is we’re really fighting for. It’s survival. John spent two months dreaming about that future in his head before it all got too much.”
At this stage Juliet, Juliet’s mind was a mess, her self-esteem in tatters. Behind the glass and the recordings, individuals she didn’t even know would study her, this interview and this encounter for years. Juliet’s greatest shame, insecurities and her innermost life laid bare for examination.
“From what I’ve seen, the case has obsessed you, consumed your life and every waking moment. Why are you miserable? Why have you chased this so hard?”
“To learn if the burden of this ability is all worth it,” Juliet admitted with as much honesty she could muster. “I have dedicated ten years of my life to investigating crimes. Murder, violence or terrorism offences. Every day, I sit on one side of a glass interview room attempting to get into the heads of those under suspicion. A decade is a long time to spend inside the thoughts of terrible men. Every day a new man enters, takes a seat, and I hear all about the evil and rage in his acts. And you know what? The seat never stays empty for long. I often loathe my ability, the path it has forced me down. The only thing I can cling to is that, somehow, it serves a purpose I have stopped seeing.”
“Well, you’ll like my next answers,” Alice laughed. “Go on. Ask why John let himself die? It’s about time.”
“He thought his death could stop the apocalypse, the one you both dreamt. Somehow bring humanity together?”
“Close,” Alice acknowledged. “But a biblical optimism. No, John did not die selfless or a martyr for humanity’s future. That’s still a little too optimistic. John understood the inevitable truth. No matter how big, how strong or how powerful he became, nothing can stop human nature. A plaster to a far bigger wound. Humanity cannot tackle the root cause of the pain. Resources run thin, individualism takes over and humanity tears itself apart. We cannot stop the dark future to come. The truth took a while, but when John got the reality into his thick, confident head he checked himself out – the biggest player in the game removed his participation. He knew we need to lose.”
The answer stunned a drained Juliet to silence.
“If you think this story has a happy ending, you haven’t been paying attention to the news,” Alice said as her commanding laughter returned.
“Why murder and not suicide?” Juliet threw her last question into the mix as the realisation dawned on her. “He used Casper like a prop. Why couldn’t the coward just do it himself?”
“A suicide raises questions that demand an explanation. A murder by a drug addict? Nobody bothers to seek the explanation, and they never trust the one they get. This truth you’ve heard, the genocide to come, they’ll allow it to happen. We’re both dead and there’s no way to stop it. They wipe us out. John just made sure that the death toll remains a few hundred rather than a billion. Humanity steps out of the dark chapter unscathed and can finish the book. He was their true saviour.”
As Juliet glared at Alice, she took a moment to dip into her head. Every word had been the truth. The face she stared into, with the clouded eyes, pale skin and devilish grin laughed once more. A deep, conceited and manic laughter Juliet could no longer tolerate. Throwing her chair back, Jul
iet stormed out of the room, leaving the melody of hysteria behind her.
Tears streamed down Juliet’s face and as others came to approach her, she shoved them away. Her frustration boiled into anger. Through the crowd she eyeballed Helen, even the figure of absolute control forced into uncertainty. Juliet’s wrath turned in her direction.
“How many of us are there?” Juliet screamed at Helen, sympathetic rather than cold for the first time since they’d met.
“Three hundred and sixty-two individuals with known super-ability traits across the globe,” Helen stammered. Her eyes flicked between needing to meet Juliet’s and avoiding them.
Three hundred and sixty-two murders to stop a war that would kill billions. They were all like lambs destined for slaughter.
“Did you know?” Juliet barked at Helen, but the thoughts bubbling in her mind revealed the truth. The revelation from inside the room was news to the ears of anybody listening. John instigated his murder to save humanity from itself.
Beyond the scenes in the room, Juliet questioned the brutal logic. The philosophy reminded her of an injured human’s limb being amputated to save the rest of the body. Yet had the doctor considered the endgame? The poison in the body deep enough to rot a limb – did the removal secure survival? Maybe humanity limped on longer, but how long for? Did the dreams reveal the eventual cost?
Juliet stormed away from the crowd of agents and intelligence personnel that gathered, their thoughts and voices distant as their attention fixated on the events in the room. The truth repeated in Juliet’s mind. The death of John Fitzgerald had been closer to a suicide than a murder investigation. In an act of cowardice, John opted to die rather than fight the future emerging across the globe. Could Juliet do the same? At some unknown point, the public would come for her. An angry mob through the streets, to come and kill her and impale her on hooks. All to eradicate an ability in her body she never chose, never asked for.
A fire exit stood before Juliet, a single door between the facility and the outside world. Beyond the cold metal, a world changing its nature and priorities awaited. Juliet pushed other voices and thoughts to the side. Only her own monologue mattered. Thoughts and feelings mattered now, as the voices of all those nearby dimmed. Could she do it, wait to die?
Or would she fight back?
Keep in touch?
Thank you so much for buying this book! I hope by making it this far that you’ve enjoyed it.
Once a month I send a newsletter with what I’ve been up to, with blogs posts, exclusive content, and writing progress. If you’re interested in any future books I publish, this is the place to keep in touch!
I hope to see you there. Just visit https://www.jamesdamm.co.uk/newsletter/
Please leave a review
If you’ve enjoyed The Superhero’s Murder, I would be grateful if you could take a couple of minutes to leave a review on the book’s Amazon page.
This is my debut novel, and I’d love to hear if you’ve enjoyed it!