H.E.R.O. - Metamorphosis

by Kevin Rau

Lance used the H.E.R.O. cell phone to find out where the county jail was compared to where we were.

  He said, “We’ve got time, how about you two fly there, I’ll leap.” I could see he wanted the extra time getting used to his jumping techniques. He was still having problems using the right amount of push off to get where he really wanted to be at the end of each jump.

  He might have the right idea there. I should practice flying with fast turns and stops to get used to how to do it. I could have kissed glass earlier today when I flew up from the accident scene.

  I ran my right hand down Rael’s chest and around his waist. The form fitting suit made it nice to touch him. He put his arm around my shoulder; then I stepped off into the air. Whatever this flight power was, I felt extremely glad that I didn’t have to hold people up by sheer arm strength alone. Oh, I was much stronger, but it was just more comfortable holding someone loosely. More like a hug, or very close dancing.

  His nose tickled my ear, and I caught him deeply smelling my hair. With no one else nearby it was easy to focus, or listen closely to his thoughts. He had a much finer sense of smell than anyone else I’d been near since my thoughts were no longer alone. I looked through his mindview; the city looked very different through Rael’s eyes. It was far brighter, or perhaps just less dark. The sound of cars, music and shouting were crisper to my ears … or his ears.

  I made his mindview larger, so it covered my visual space, and flew using his eyes for a while. He suddenly shifted where he looked to an area off to the side and I threw my legs forward, slowing us suddenly. He immediately shifted his view back to me, and I heard my heart beat racing loudly through his ears. He said, “Are you all right?”

  I pushed his mindview back, letting it float back off to the side of my visual space as usual.

  I said, “Sorry. I was looking through your eyes when you changed where you looked, fast. I didn’t expect it.”

  He said, “I thought you said what we were thinking was like a television screen floating in the air?”

  “It is, unless I pull it up really close and replace my own vision with yours, or what you are thinking. Most people that aren’t coming up with a mental visual just show what they are seeing in their mindview. You see and hear so differently than I do, it was interesting to try.”

  “Huh. I know I see in the dark far better than I used to. Everything looks clear to me, almost like daylight.”

  “Yeah. Kind of a bummer losing out on the beautiful scene the city lights make at night though.”

  “Gain some, lose some, I guess.” He shrugged. “It might make a good stealth spy technique someday, if you can keep viewing through someone from a distance.”

  “I suppose, if I can hold onto a mindview at a distance.” I jabbed my knee up again to pick up speed and flew us to the county jail.

  The jail was easy to spot from the air; it was part of the Metrocity Prison complex. Rael pointed, “Armed guards on the towers. Fly down just above the main street and go in slow, let’s land in the parking lot, a ways out from the entrance.”

  I followed his direction. I enlarged his mindview for a moment. He watched the guards closely. They were well aware of us. More than one had a large rifle trained on us as we approached. I shrank his mindview again and slowed to land. We landed, and waited in the parking lot for Lance to come. It took him a few more minutes; then we saw his yellow and red costume leap from a building top some distance away.

  It amazed me to see him arrive. He should have crashed to the ground; instead his legs absorbed the impact as though he had jumped down a few feet at most. He stood straight and walked to us, grinning the entire time. His muscles rippled as he walked. I debated that loose clothing or a coat would have made him look even larger, but the form hugging costume showed off the power in him. He was an impressive sight, a titan amongst men.

  We turned as a group and walked to the main entrance. Agent Carson reached the gates before we caught up. The heavy front gates opened, a man in a suit flanked by two guards wearing body armor and carrying machine guns stopped to greet us.

  Agent Carson shook his hand and said a few words while we closed the distance. I listened carefully, and I could pick up their mental words more than their speech. He explained that we were the heroes he had called about.

  Up close the machine guns were even more impressive. The barrel was larger than a normal machine gun, at least from pictures and movies.

  Agent Carson nodded to us.

  The suited man said, “I’m Warden Jamis. Welcome to Metro Prison.”

  Lance stepped forward with his hand out, “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Warden. I hope this is the first of many meetings in our attempts to help Law Enforcement.”

  The Warden’s eyebrows raised, and he slowly took Lance’s hand. Lance’s thoughts focused on not closing his hand. It surprised the Warden that a super bothered to shake hands. Rael stepped forward to shake hands; at least he didn’t have his claws out. I shook his hand as well, having determined that the Warden wouldn’t appreciate being hugged.

  As we walked in, another pair of armed and armored guards followed us from the rear. Per their thoughts, they had standing orders about escorting visitors, especially supers, so as to minimize potential dangers from us.

  We marched with our entourage into the jail building. The Warden led us into a high security area. The bars blocking off sections were over an inch thick, and several clear barriers delineated sections next to the bars. Each gate closed and relocked behind us as we moved into the area. Cameras hung at intervals along the ceilings.

  Rael said, “I take it these bars are strong enough to restrain a mutant, and possibly a brick?”

  The Warden stopped, grabbed a bar, and looked at Rael. “This is an alloy, not just iron or steel. It will handle the strength of almost any mutant we’ve seen, and many bricks. So yes, it is a very strong material. In some cases we have to use other measures to keep a super in check.”

  His mindview displayed images of drug therapy, special super-thick restraints, and rooms coated in different materials. I asked, “Are there any legal problems with the unusual measures? For example, keeping someone unconscious continuously?”

  The Warden stared at me. “No. The Metavillain Law that passed five years ago solved the majority of issues here, as it did with the claims of overaggressive members of the H.E.R.O. program during the apprehension of super criminals.”

  That’s right; I remember reading about it now in a law class. Some criminals were being released because the heroes that apprehended them supposedly used too much force. The lawmakers used the evidence that the criminals escalated the situations to the point where the heroes needed to be able to match them, or the criminals would never be apprehended. I don’t recall reading about the prison system being changed, but it makes sense.

  We arrived at an interrogation type room that I’d expect police to use. Cameras hung in all four corners of the ceiling, and the stereotypical mirror wall took up one side. The table was made of extremely heavy duty metal, and bolted to the floor. Four oversized, but plain, chairs were also bolted to the floor around the table. Large rings were part of each chair on the back, apparently to chain someone to.

  The Warden stated that he would have the first mutant brought in. Lance offered to help if they wanted someone strong and armored to control the mutant. “Thank you, but my men can handle it. Wait here.”

  I saw in his mind, that he had supers as elite guards on staff.

  Agent Carson looked at me. “Do you need us to do anything special to interrogate them?”

  I replied, “Interrogate them as you normally would. We need them to think about the location where they would bring new mutants back to. Locations where they’ve stayed at … addresses especially. Why they did it as well. Make sure to give them a little time to think on each question. Hopefully their mind will wander and I’ll hear it. Shoot, do y
ou have a pen and paper?”

  One of the men handed me a pen and paper.

  “I’ll need to stand near him, or behind him, and it’s best if everyone else at least stays on the other side of the table so I don’t get too much noise. It’s already bad enough with just us, add in the mutant and any other security and it will get worse for me.”

  About five minutes later, the door opened, and guards ushered in an obvious mutant. They moved him to one of the chairs and locked leg, body and arm shackles to the chair and floor.

  He had one horn in the center of his forehead. His eyes appeared bloodshot, with odd red veins running to the iris. He snarled, and all of his teeth were pointy. His forearms had small spikes running up them. His eyes shifted between each of us in the room.

  The Warden said, “Do you need guards in the room?”

  Agent Carson replied, “No, thank you. With three supers in the room, I believe we’ll be fine.”

  Warden Jamis smirked, “He heals reasonably fast; you won’t need to worry about some physical damage being done.”

  He walked out, motioning his men to follow him. I marveled at his thoughts about how we could handle the mutant. He could care less about some scumbag that attacked other people, or if we hurt him.

  Rael stepped up to the table and set his hands on it. The fingers elongated into claws. “You were with the group that attacked the hospital?”

  “Go to hell, hero lover.”

  “Too bad you weren’t good enough for your boss, what’s his name?” Shrinker, and it’s a she. How original. I wrote it down and nodded to Rael.

  Rael continued, “What good is kidnapping a bunch of mutants? We mutants are the scum end of the supers in town. You should have captured the good looking supers.”

  The mutant yanked at his chains and bared his teeth. “Screw you, pretty boy. I don’t see any bad marks on you.” Ah, they are collecting new supers that will be sympathetic to their hatred for heroes and normal people. I nodded to Rael slightly again.

  The guy became really angry. Angry at us. Angry at normal people. Angry at good looking heroes. Angry at himself for getting caught. Angry for not killing off all of the non-mutant supers in the hospital.

  He irritated me. Nothing like a jerk that thinks he can go kill people and be all right with it. My eyes narrowed as I watched the criminal from behind.

  Rael said, “So what’s the plan with them, huh? What’s a dumbass punk like you, who can’t even avoid getting caught plan to do with a bunch of kidnap victims? Maybe the boss knew to replace your stupid ass before the night began.”

  The mutant roared and shook his chains, trying to free himself again. His anger was almost blinding, it made my skin tingle.

  Rael screamed, “Where are they being held, you sack of shit!” His eyes went completely black, and it seemed like his teeth were longer as he yelled. Small fin-like spikes grew out of the back of his forearms. I believe I even saw similar spikes at the very top of his forehead, but his long hair covered the area well.

  Whoa! He’s really mad, oh, no, that’s me! I concentrated on calm, everyone calm. It was very hard to focus on calm when I was so pissed off as well. Damn this mutant, I’m getting mad because he’s mad!

  It didn't work well. Rael leaped across the table and choked the mutant, who struggled to free himself. Lance grabbed Rael’s shoulder and pulled back. Rael wouldn’t let go, he continued growling at the mutant. Blood trickled down the mutant’s neck where Rael’s claws dug in. Lance grabbed harder, and the sound of crunching came from his shoulder. Rael withdrew and stood a step back from the mutant. Rael growled as he moved his left shoulder.

  Rael said, “I’m going to rip your arms off if you don’t tell us where the damn hideout is at. Where are the kidnapped mutants being held?” He grimaced in pain and glanced back at Lance, anger in his eyes.

  The mutant just wouldn't calm down. I felt waves of anger from his large mindview. Damn it, I've had enough, I need to use fear on this guy.

  I pushed Rael back from the mutant, he held firm a moment before letting me move him back a foot.

  I stepped around to the right of the mutant and put my right leg over his so I stood over him. He snapped at me with his mouth in an attempt to bite me. It just made me angrier. I grabbed the horn on his forehead with my left hand, drew back and slammed my right fist into his nose. He stopped for a moment, slightly stunned. Blood ran from his nose. I punched him again in the jaw.

  I mentally grabbed his mindview and pulled it close, and then went in, summoning my pack of big mind tentacles as I went in. I saw his image of himself in there, and grabbed at it with my tentacles. He bit and clawed at some of them, but I had a lot of tentacles out, and they wrapped him up.

  I shoved further into his mindspace, finding a similar central room to Gina's, with large doors. I guessed at the largest door again being the memory door and slammed him against it repeatedly until the door crashed open. I screamed at him, “Where are the mutants being held? Where?!”

  Some of his memories were of attacking helpless people. Some he tortured and raped. He ate at least some of them. Oh my god, that's a damn disturbing sightseeing the visual of eating someone from the cannibal's viewpoint. Finally, memories I sought came to the front, images of an old warehouse down by the river. He remembered an empty interior, with a space planned for cages along the walls, and a reinforced pit with bars over it in the center.

  He struggled violently against my tentacles in a bid to free himself. My tentacles slammed him around against the wall and floor of the chamber. In a fit of desperation he clawed and bit at the tentacles. One of the larger ones ripped in half, he burst free of them and rushed at me. He backhanded me with the spikes on his arm and I felt pain. Blood sprayed from my face and mouth as I fell onto my back. Even in here, it hurt like I’d actually been hit with those spikes and muscled arm.

  He leaped onto me and punched me in the stomach, the spikes stabbed into me and I cried out in pain. Even though he didn't seem as strong as he appeared out in our actual bodes, he still hit hard. I'm hoping he's a lot weaker mentally than physically. My tentacles dragged him off me, and I wrapped up his arms and legs, holding him in the air. I stormed out of the chamber with him. I hoped that the rooms were in a similar order to Gina's, and headed to his emotion chamber. I used his head as a battering ram, smashing him against the door repeatedly until it burst open. It didn't tear off its hinges, as with Gina though.

  I walked near each pool, sensing happiness, such a tiny pool there, sadness, anger, ah, here was the one I wanted ... fear. I held him aloft with my tentacles, and threw him down into the pool. If I could feel some of an emotion standing next to a pool, being in it had to be far worse.

  It was. He shrieked with such emotion that I could swear he was the victim in a horror movie. He surfaced a few times, and swam toward the shore where I stood. I directed a large tentacle to smash him on the head, submerging him. I felt more than heard the utter terror he was feeling. He didn't surface again while I waited, so I marched back out of the room. His screams echoed through his mind. He deserves every damn second in there.

  I walked back into the memory center to look at his memory of the warehouse. My stomach and jaw certainly hurt like I’d been punched and stabbed, hard. Forget asking him, I’ll rip the memories out. I dug into his memories, looking at each floating video, speeding through it and pushing each away until I found one with the location of the building, at least by foot. He hadn't spent much time looking at street signs and addresses.

  My jaw hurt, and I was still angry. Then, I noticed something in his memory of the warehouse that I hadn’t seen before. A memory of his leader, Shrinker, as she spoke to the mutants before they went to the hospital. She directed two of the mutants to gather metal bars and create cages. Tonight they would capture the new mutants, tomorrow they would kidnap humans to force the blood thirst on the new mutant
s after they went hungry for a few days.

  Let’s see, so ‘tonight’ would have been last night. That means that this evening they are out capturing humans for food. So we have a day or two before they start killing the people.… There had to be fifteen or twenty mutants with them in total, including a huge four armed monstrosity, its lower arms ended in swords rather than hands. This mutant cheered along with the rest, hoping to feed on at least one of the victims.

  They planned to feed helpless people to each new mutant. They would kill innocent people in order to corrupt some unfortunate who happened to change into a mutant instead of a non-mutant super. A fire erupted around me, my anger materialized it seemed. I waved it outward, sending a wave of destruction through his memories. Energy poured out of me, wreaking havoc, and continued blasting outward through the immense chamber until finally, I spun on my heels and walked out into the central mind chamber. My steps weren’t steady; the blast really seemed to take something out of me.

  I felt the ongoing terror and heard the mental shrieking from the emotion chamber. I was extremely wore down; I didn’t have the energy to deal with helping or harming him further. Serves you right for planning that against people. The mindview hovered above this central chamber. I launched back up through it, exiting his mind.

  The shift back to my own vision shocked me. I stumbled clumsily back onto the table, and my visual of the mutant swung in an arc to see the ceiling. I felt my head bang onto the table, and everything went black.

  Hands shook my shoulders. My head felt groggy. A high pitched screaming wailed through the room.

  Something dripped down my cheek to the back of my head, and my jaw hurt.

  I opened my eyes. Lance leaned over me, looking at my face. I lay on the table. How did that happen? I heard him think “Welcome back, how do you feel?” I was sure I didn't hear it out loud, the screaming didn't let up.

  I blinked slowly at him a few times. My mouth hurt; I touched it and it stung. I jerked my head back at the touch, and banged it on the table. My glove came away from my cheek bloody. I sat up slightly and looked at the mutant. He was the one screaming. He looked beat up. Blood ran from his mouth, nose and ears.

  Lance lifted me off the table by my shoulders, and carried me out of the room. The door shut out the majority of the screams. He set me down on my feet out in the hallway. Lance's mindview showed that my cheek was torn up, as though claws or something had hit me. My stomach hurt as well. Lifting the oval opening by my belly button showed stab wounds in my stomach. They still bled, though the shirt showed no damage.

  Rael said, “Are you all right? You blacked out.”

  I said, “I … huh?”

  “You fell unconscious on the table, how do you feel?”

  “Tired. My jaw hurts, so does my stomach.”

  Agent Carson said, “What the hell did you do to him?”

  I blinked at him a few times; thinking came slowly to me. Finally I said, “They are in a warehouse, he doesn't know an address, but I think I can find it.”

  He repeated the words slower this time, “What did you do to him?”

  “I threw him into his fear pool. The place his mind draws on for fear. I beat him into it and left him there.”

  “Oh, great. Is he going to get over this?”

  I still spoke slowly, “I have no idea. Who cut me?”

  Lance said, “No one did, you reacted like you had been hit, and the wounds appeared.”

  “We fought in his mind. My tentacles versus him.”

  “You have tentacles?”

  I shrugged, “I visualize it that way. They helped me break doors inside his head.”

  Lance's mindview largely replaced my vision. I reached out my hand to lift my chin before realizing I didn't need to reach, and simply twisted my head to show my neck. My neck wasn't damaged, though it had quite a bit of blood on it.

  Rael put his hand on my back and asked, “Who cares about that murderous scumbag. Did you get anything out of him?”

  My head slowly cleared; I wished the pain would fade. “Yes. I know what the path to the warehouse looks like, and the building itself. I'm sure I could fly around and find it, it's near the river. They are kidnapping a bunch of normal people to use as food, to force the mutants to get hungry and attack them. They are building a bunch of cages and a pit in the warehouse.”

  The screams stopped from the room. All of us looked at the door, and then at each other. Agent Carson opened the door and looked in at the mutant. He was slumped in the chair, though we could see him breathing. He was alive at least.

  Agent Carson looked at me. “I've heard of Psycom doing some kind of 'psychic blast' at enemies, but I've never seen a psychic do what you just did. It's a little disturbing.”

  Anger flared in me. How dare he say I'm disturbing, when that sicko ate people? I saw in everyone's eyes that my eyes began to glow golden as though being backlit from the inside. I stabbed my finger at his chest, “I'm not the disturbing one, Agent Carson. That sick bastard ate people, and I saw it happening from his viewpoint. He murdered numerous people, and was all too willing to capture normal people to feed to these new mutants. Ugh, I can't get these sick images out of my head now.” I hit my forehead a few times with my palm until Lance grabbed my wrist.

  Lance said, “He ... ate people? You saw him eat people?”

  I couldn't get the visual out of my head now that I'd begun thinking of it. I fell to my knees and retched. It especially hurt with the stab wounds in my stomach and damage to my mouth.

  Rael said, “He was thinking about people he'd eaten when you stood over him?”

  “No, they were memories.”

  “So ... you can see more than just what people are thinking right now?”

  Someone stepped up to me and handed me a wet cloth. I wiped off my mouth, and then stood up. “Thank you.” It was an employee of the jail I hadn't seen yet.

  Great, I didn't mean to let that out yet. I sighed and looked off to the side, away from everyone standing there. “Yes, I can see memories. I can replay them like a video.”

  “How far back?”

  “I have no idea; I haven't tried looking very far back into someone's memory. Most of that jerk's memories seemed very recent. But the memory room was huge, I'm sure I could have wandered around, had I wished.” Oh, crud. I wonder what my explosion of fire is really going to do in there. I hadn't been thinking much about it at the time, I was just pissed off and wanted to lash out at him. The memories it hit seemed destroyed, and it had to hit a lot of memories. Will that give him amnesia? Could I wipe out specific bad events from someone that went through something terrible?

  Rael said, “Are you okay, Psystar?”

  He snapped me out of my reverie. I blinked and looked at him, “Huh? Yeah, I'm fine. I was just thinking about what I'd seen. Speaking of, did you grow more spikes in the room? I don't see anything odd now.”

  Rael said, “Yeah, they went away after I calmed down. It's a little worrisome.”

  Agent Carson said, “Psystar, are you interested in having me put in your file that you can help with interrogations? Or at least cases where we need to find something someone has hidden?”

  I looked at him, “What do you mean?”

  “Think of a kidnapping, where we can get a hold of one of the kidnappers. I don't work that type of case, but the F.B.I. would absolutely love someone on retainer that could do that. There's such a small time factor in those cases that if you can't pull a rabbit-out-of-the-hat trick the person often isn't found.”

  “Yeah, I'd do that, I can break the sound barrier when flying too, so I can get around pretty fast. I won't help unless they've captured someone though. I can't work off from a note or voice recording or such.”

  “I'll make sure that note is in there. It would just frustrate the authorities on hand if you were called in and couldn't help. You haven't discovered any preco
gnitive or post cognitive abilities?”

  “A precognitive can see the future, right?”

  “Exactly. A postcognitive can see the past by handling something, or touching someone.”

  “Huh. I already see too much, I don't want to get past and future flashbacks, thanks.”

  He went to work on his handheld. It was obvious that he added the information to my file as we stood there.

  Lance's mindview showed my face healing nicely. That relieved me.

  Rael said, “So, what's the plan? You and I fly down to hunt down the warehouse? Spartan jumps there and waits in the area for our call?”

  Warden Jamis interrupted, “You're finished interrogating them already? You've only interrogated one.”

  Lance said, “I'm with the Warden. Let's interrogate at least one more. The next one we can mention that we already know of the warehouse.”

  I thought a moment, “Actually, you could mention the warehouse, the cages they are building to hold humans for food, the empty cages they plan for the new mutants, and the feeding pit. I'd think all of that is bound to make someone think of the building. And their leader is named Shrinker.”

  The Warden motioned to his men, “Bring the prisoner back to his cell, we'll bring the next in.”

  The guards secured the unconscious mutant and carried him off. They were just as cautious with him unconscious as they appeared to be when he was awake.

  Agent Carson motioned for us to re-enter the interrogation room. By the time the next prisoner was brought in, I had cleaned the blood off my face and stomach with the wet cloth. My wounds were healed by the time they arrived.

  They locked the mutant securely to the chair and left again.

  Lance said, “So, where were the kidnapped mutants being brought?”

  The mutant stayed quiet, merely watching us. His thoughts betrayed the warehouse, but not the address or street.

  He continued, “We already know about your warehouse down by the docks. Too bad you were dumb enough to use one on an obvious street.” The mutant didn't think of a street name, but he didn't believe it was so obvious, even being located next to the unused fish market building. I motioned for Lance to pause.

  I wished I could rewind the memory he was thinking of, and found I could pull the full memory to a person's mindview as if I were in their memory center. I dug into the memory. I could see the buildings nearby, and side views of the fish market. They always used a side entrance, where the shadows made it hard to see anyone entering or leaving. Crates were left near the door to also make it harder to spot.

  I asked, “How many of these failures did your group capture at the hospital, Spartan?”

  Lance answered, “I believe six, unless the two I punched through the outer wall were also apprehended.”

  His thoughts went to the secondary mission of killing non-mutant supers. He believed they were successful on that goal, if not a total success. He also believed he would be broken out of prison by a horde of mutants.

  He never said a word. He was less bestial than the first mutant, and knew that speaking might give away information. He studied Agent Carson, Lance, and Rael carefully. He planned on hunting them down and killing them, possibly feeding on them. He didn't look back at me much, he would have had to crane his neck way back, and he didn't view me as a threat, being a woman.

  I said, “He's given me everything we need. By the way, thanks for being so calm, Hazen. It made interrogating you so much easier.”

  His head snapped back to look at me, his eyes were large with worry. I smiled at him.

  “We can go now. By the way, his name is Hazen Plachetka, if you want it for your records.” I stepped back around the table, next to Lance.

  The Warden's men came in and took him away. He didn't struggle. His thoughts still showed his confidence that he would be broken out.

  I said, “Warden, he's extremely confident that he'll be broken out. He was told in no uncertain terms by his leader, Shrinker, that all of them would be.”

  Warden Jamis nodded. “Was a timeline given?”

  “No, but if we are successful it will be a moot point. We'll have captured more or all of them.”

  Lance said, “Freeing the captives has to remain our priority though.”

  We left the jail facility after thanking Warden Jamis for his aid. He wasn’t in a good mood when we walked out. My warning about an impending attack on the facility left a bad taste in his mouth.

  Chapter 34 – Home

  Rael’s Viewpoint