Red Pipes Chapter 4: Dr. Thorne
Posted by: KMBannon Post date: May 19th, 2012
“Angel, you’ll have to get someone else,” Dr. Thorne said before Angel could even ask her question. Most people were confused by this, and Dr. Thorne did her best to go through the social mores of listening to questions that she already knew people were going to ask, but never with Angel. Angel would have considered such consideration condescending.
“But, Kitty, and don’t you dare yell at me for calling you Kitty because I need a metahuman right now, not a doctor, you’re the only one I trust. Blister is in trouble, and I need to know what is making her suicidal.”
“Stop,” Dr. Thorne said. “You need to know why she’s suicidal? Bring her to a psychiatrist. I can’t diagnose her.”
“But you’re one of the most respected neurologists in the US! You teach at Columbia! You can do a mind scan and figure out everything that is wrong with her!”
“And if you take her to the emergency room, you can find a, and this is very important, a psychiatrist, that can do the same thing. If it turns out she’s suicidal due to, I don’t know, a brain tumor or a parasite, then bring her back. Otherwise, she needs a psychiatrist.”
“Yes, but don’t you want to see if she has the same damage?”
Dr. Thorne paused. She did want to see if she had the same patterning as the others. But was it worth the risk?
“After she sees a psychiatrist and is emotionally stable, I’ll check her out. As she is, I would get an incorrect scan.”
“Captain Far-Eyes wants to keep this investigation between as few people as possible.”
“Is this his second sight telling him this?”
“He doesn’t need second sight to know this needs secrecy. He trusts you. Besides, a psychiatrist can’t say whether or not what’s ailing her is mental or physical and considering her history they’ll assume it’s mental. And it probably is, mostly, but we need to know what the Pipers did to her.”
Dr. Thorne sighed and closed her eyes. She read Angel’s emotions, her brain chemicals sending off small signals that she picked up as anxiety and fear, the fear the most palpable of her friends emotions.
“I’ll do it,” Dr. Thorne said. “If only to prove she needs a psychiatrist.”
As soon as Dr. Thorne saw Blister she was confused. This didn’t happen very often. She had the medical training and the psychic powers that could analyze most things, but there was something off about Blister. Something unexplainable, at least by her.
“Dr. Thorne? What’s wrong?” Angel asked.
Dr. Thorne sent Angel a small telepathic message to be quiet.
“Are you psychic?” she asked the girl.
“Huh? No,” Blister said. “I just have poison breath.”
Dr. Thorne made a note. Psychic powers would make sense. The girl was mentally ill, and she was exuding the illness. But she wasn’t psychic. Something felt wrong, something beyond just mental illness.
“What’s wrong with me?” Blister asked, her voice higher.
“I need to ask you some questions before I can answer that,” Dr. Thorne lied. She could touch the girl’s head and figure out everything that was wrong, physically, at least, but that technique was disallowed without other questions. Besides, asking the right questions put her patients at ease, and made Dr. Thorne certain that her scan, which she could do after all the questions, was correct.
“Do you feel suicidal?”
Blister put her knees together and held her hands tighter. She felt nervous, more nervous than an average person. Perhaps some sort of anxiety disorder? But that still didn’t explain the strange aura coming from her.
“Sometimes. I think about suicide, how easy it would be. I’ve never made plans, though. And I’ve never cut myself. Or made myself throw up. So… maybe I’m not. I don’t know.”
Small lies, mostly truths. She had made plans, but never anything concrete. But she still had to ask.
“When you’ve had these thoughts, you’ve never bought sleeping pills or made any other arrangements?”
“No!”
“Do you have these thoughts now?”
The girl hesitated. Dr. Thorne knew. She needed to be hospitalized immediately. She was suicidal, and would hurt herself or others. But that was what confused her. Dr. Thorne had been trained to detect certain mental disorders to ensure that her patients had the right treatments. The girl didn’t feel massively depressed or massively anxious. Was it PTSD? But why would it show up now, when it seemed she had recovered enough to finally talk? Why was talking about her experience making her slide so much?
“Yes,” the girl whispered.
Dr. Thorne jotted more notes, then looked at her patient. Something didn’t feel right.
“Blister, how did you get that name?”
“Huh?”
“Just follow me… How did you get that name?”
“Well…” Blister hesitated. She moved a fingernail to her face, only to find a mask once again blocking her. “I have poison breath, and it causes boils and blisters. I mean, I can control it, most of the time, unlike my mom. She’s… a rare case.”
“Your mother, her nickname is Aconitum?”
“Yeah, her breath has the same chemicals as that plant. As does mine, but taking her name seemed strange. I just want to be myself, you know?”
Dr. Thorne nodded as she jotted notes.
“Are you still suicidal?”
Blister blinked at her, then looked at the sky.
“No… I… I’m not. But… that… that doesn’t…”
“It does make some sense. I just need to ask a few more questions. How does your time with the Pipers make you feel?”
Blister didn’t answer.
“What did they make you do?”
Silence.
“How do we contact them?”
Blister covered her ears.
“Who was Mother Goose?”
Blister began to rock.
“Who else is still with the Pipers?”
Blister began to cry.
Dr. Thorne rushed over. She needed to be calmed down. Other doctors would have to talk her down, but a quick touch to the head would temporarily bring her down to a treatable level. But the moment she did, the world went black.
Red Pipes Chapter 3: Blister
Posted by: KMBannon Post date: May 4th, 2012
Blister tapped the table, waiting for her lawyer to show up. She knew that even without the Glamor Chip she looked fine. Her thick, slightly wavy brown hair fell to down her back, and her piercing blue eyes made her beautiful. But she was still self conscious of the burn on the back of her neck and the scars on her hand. Across her mouth was a surgical mask, put there once she was identified as having poisonous breath. She no longer felt like Blister; she felt like Lisa, the scared girl sold by the Pipers into a life of sex, shame, and death.
A strange woman walked into the room. Dressed in a well-tailored dress suit and sporting long hair, this woman couldn’t be a cop.
“Blister? I’m your lawyer, Angel,” the woman said, holding out your hand. Blister kept her hands on the table. Angel put down her hand and sat across from her.
“They want me to interview you first. Is that OK?”
Blister nodded. Angel opened up her folder.
“According to my notes, you turned yourself in for conspiracy to murder a James Kutchik. Is that correct?”
Blister scratched at the table and nodded again. Angel looked up from the folder, and waited a second.
“Are you having trouble speaking?”
“No,” she whispered.
“Are you scared?”
“Yes.”
“Why did you turn yourself in?”
Silence.
“I can’t help you if you don’t talk to me.”
Blister started rocking herself.
“I told her not to. I told her not to,” she muttered.
Angel put her hand on the girl’s knee. She looked up, and stared at Angel’s eyes. Angel’s arm was stretched just a little bit farther than a normal’s would be, and her eyes were so much more tired than her face let on.
“Blister. Please. I want to help you. I know that you know the location of more Pipers, and it’s very important that we find them before the Swords.”
Blister stopped rocking and nodded, but then immediately turned back to the table.
“Mother wants revenge,” she whispered. “But they still have my friends. We need help, Angel. Mother can’t give them that.”
Angel sat down again. She waited for Blister to talk.
“I did bad things. We all did bad things. We had to. To survive. Not all of us adjusted. Some broke through the haze of drugs. Some… some enjoyed it. Didn’t need the drugs. Didn’t need the… change.”
Angel started taking notes. Her tape recorder was on, but she needed to feel the pencil in her hand to know it was real. A victim was speaking. They had never spoke before.
“They gave me something. Something weird. I was compelled to do anything told to me by specific people. Even if I knew it was morally wrong, it hurt too much to ignore. So I did wrong things. Terrible things. But it didn’t feel real. Like a nightmare that I couldn’t wake up from. Even after I was rescued I couldn’t escape the haze; although the drugs were supposed to target individuals; instead it targeted roles. It wasn’t until recently that it started to lift. I could ignore orders from my mom, my teachers, the bullies… but it wasn’t enough. Wasn’t enough.”
Blister burst into tears. Angel reached across the table and patted her shoulder, and the girl calmed down.
“I’m sorry,” Blister said. “You must think I’m pathetic.”
“I don’t,” Angel said. “You’re not pathetic. You must be strong to break through the horrors of your life. Listen, I can get them to push your questioning back to after I can get a doctor to look at you.”
“No!” Blister yelled, jumping back. “You have to save them. You have to.”
“The children?” Angel asked.
Blister shook her head as she held her ears.
“No, no. The Pipers. Save the Pipers, save my friends. Kill the Pipers, kill my friends. Help me. Stop her.”
“Do you want to talk to the police?” Angel asked. “I can help keep you from getting into legal trouble, but I need to know how you’re mixed up in this.”
Blister looked at Angel. How could she explain? If she spoke, her mother would go to jail, her need for vengeance overriding her concern for the law. How she helped tell her mother where the Piper was. How she told her mother how to find others. And there were her friends, still bought, sold, and held by the Pipers. Her mother could not rescue them; she wasn’t even sure the police could. But she had to try.
“My mother told me that if I was ever in any kind of legal trouble, I was to call you. I don’t think I really am; I can prove that my mom took advantage of my mental condition.”
“You could end up in an asylum…”
“I don’t want your help,” Blister said, returning to scratching at the table.
“You… don’t want my help?”
She shook her head. How to put this…
“I want you to help my mom.”
Angel paused.
“I… see. Legally, you can’t be compelled to give evidence against your mother.”
“But I have to, if I’m going to help anyone.”
Angel sighed and leaned back in her chair. Blister knew she was going to give up on her. Everyone else had. “Go and live your life,” they told her. But how could she when so much had happened.
“When the time comes, I’ll talk to whoever I have to to get the charges brought down,” Angel said. “Convince her to cooperate, that sort of thing. Keep you out of a crazy house, if need be. Do you want me to bring in the police now? To question you?”
Blister looked around the room. Behind Angel was a mirror, most likely a two way. Behind the glass were the cops, waiting for Angel to complete the consultation prior to questioning. Blister nodded.
“Before you get the cops to question me, can I ask what your power is? Mom just said that you weren’t human, and were all the more trustworthy because of that.”
Angel shuffled her feet, then got up and opened the door. Perhaps it was the wrong question to ask. Two policemen entered. One stood straight, glasses perched on his nose, his clothing pressed and clean. The other was taller, female, with large brown eyes that seemed to see Blister down to each pore. Around her neck was a brace. Blister vaguely remembered hearing on the news about some villain called 3XHGH thrash some cops. The girl must have been involved.
“Blister, this is Snapshot and Eagle Eyes. They’re the investigating officers for the Pied Piper case,” Angel said, calling the glasses one “Snapshot” and the large-eyed girl “Eagle Eyes.”
“Capes?” Blister asked. Capes were the names for the superhumans acting with the FBI. They were more showy than the state Superhuman police forces, each with their own costume. Though popular with the normal public, the supers sneered at the show.
“No,” Angel replied. “The Capes will be coming soon, but we need a case first.”
“So you guys have nicknames too?”
“Most people in the superhuman community go by nicknames, yes. Norm names just don’t cut it. But it’s time to get back to work.”
The two cops sat across from her. They both opened up notepads and took out pens, then without looking up Eagle Eyes asked the first question.
“Full legal name and any nicknames you go by?”
“Just Blister is fine,” she said.
“You have to give your legal name here unless if you feel it would interfere with your right to remain silent. Considering your position, answer it,” Angel said.
“Lisa Strong. I’m sorry, can I take off this mask?” The string was irritating the back of her neck. Besides, she turned herself in. Why were they treating her like a criminal?
“Sorry, no can do,” Snapshot said. “So long as you have poisonous breath you are considered armed. Normally you would have a mask that would restrain you a lot more. The mask you’re wearing now is a sign of trust. Keep it on, please.”
Blister looked at Angel, her eyes pleading. Angel barely shook her head ‘no.’
“Do you recognize this woman?” Eagle Eyes asked her, pushing a photograph of the corpse Angel had found by the Hudson a few days ago.
“Mother Goose? She’s dead?” Blister said.
“Mother Goose?” Snapshot said. “Can you elaborate?”
“I… I only knew her for a little bit. She was…” Blister made tiny circles with her pointer finger by her head, “not entirely there. We’re not quite sure whether she was crazy or brainwashed. Told us stories. Promised us we’d be showered with blessings if we just listened to our captors. Probably the nicest of the Pipers.”
“Are you defending a Piper?” Eagle Eyes said.
“Well, yes. I mean… It’s not like… she was… there…”
The four sat in silence for a moment. Snapshot took a deep breath.
“Who was the Piper the Swords killed?”
“A… a contractor… they called him. More of a pimp, really. I’d… rather not talk about it…”
“I think what my client is trying to say is that she knew from her experiences while under the thumb of the Pipers that this man was a pimp. It would be inappropriate to ask her how she knew.”
Angel turned to Blister. She knew there was going to be a ‘however.’ There was always a ‘however.’
“Blister, you may be asked to reveal how you knew later, especially if this goes to court.”
Blister wanted to bite her nails. She gripped her hands harder instead.
“That’s fine. I’ll be dead before then anyway.”
Angel’s hair curled, then relaxed. Why did her hair react to that?
“What do you mean by that?” Eagle Eyes asked.
“Because my other friends started remembering. Or the drugs stopped working and were killed for it. They’ll know I spoke. Or the memories will cause me to go over the edge. I know that it’s not good that I remember.”
“We’ll protect you,” Eagle Eyes said.
Blister shook her head.
“Protect someone who wants to live.”
Angel put her hand over Blister’s.
“Careful. You’re beginning to sound suicidal. If you need help, just tell us, and we’ll get you help. But, please. Lives depend on what you’re saying. We can get you help when you finish.”
Blister considered. She had seen the movies; the crazies being shocked into complacency, the stupid psychiatrists blaming it on the mothers, the happy endings that made her hurl.
“Can we continue?” Blister asked as she hid her shaking hands beneath the table.
“Yes,” Eagle Eyes said. “What was his name? You said what he did; what was his name or nickname?”
“Mistress just called him Black Heart. I don’t know his real name. I described him to my mother. I… I don’t… I don’t want to say… I don’t mean…”
“Calm down,” Angel said. “Think about your words carefully. But don’t lie.”
“They weren’t supposed to kill him,” Blister muttered. “But he took a cyanide pill, before we could question him.”
“How did you find him?”
“The… the Swords… they have ways of getting information the cops can’t use…”
“Torture?” Eagle Eyes asked.
“My client will remain silent on that matter. Remember who we’re investigating, Eagle Eyes,” Angel said.
“We found out from an… er… child… rapist… about which pimps he used. I recognized the description of Black Heart right away. He told us how to find him. I wanted to go to the police right away but they convinced me not to…”
“You’re not the one being investigated now. How did you find Black Heart?”
“It was… complicated. It involved calling a certain number and sending money to a certain account. But we caught him.”
“Do you know how to find other Pipers?” Snapshot asked.
Blister nodded.
“I’m… beginning to remember. It’s as if a fog is slowly dissipating. Names. Descriptions. But it hurts to remember. It hurts to speak.”
“Can you tell us about this Mistress? She went missing after the fire. None of her victims would describe her. Nor the… abusers… either.”
“She was about 50 years old. Long nails, long brown hair,” Blister felt herself begin to shake. “Her eyes were… were…” Blister shook her head. “I’m getting a headache. Don’t I need to repeat this to a sketch artist?”
“Yes,” Eagle Eyes said. “Just one more question. Do you know why the other children won’t speak?”
Blister scratched at her arm.
“There was… a man. No… several. Maybe…. maybe just one. But he forced us to take these drugs. He would tell us what we needed to do. What we needed to remember or not remember. Who we were. We tried to fight it. But it shaped us. Warped… warped…” Blister turned her head to the side. She felt the bile rise to her throat.
“That’s enough,” Snapshot said. “You said… it felt like it… shaped you?”
“I know it’s hard to understand, but most kids completely changed personalities. Some became tougher, or angrier. I was made meeker. I’m still fighting it. It made us see things. Not regular drug hallucinations. We felt what was described. Each threat felt like it was being done then.”
“Putty,” Snapshot muttered. “It sounds like Putty.”
“It sounds like torture!” Angel said.
“It’s different, though,” Snapshot said, ignoring Angel. “Putty doesn’t generally cause hallucinations, and LSD would have caused unrelated hallucinations. This must have been done by a psychic in conjunction with…”
“But that’s impossible!” Angel said, standing up. “Putty is a new medicine! Back then it was barely… barely…” she sat back down.
“Barely even in trials?” Snapshot finished.
“Barely even a thought. It was science fiction, nothing more,” Angel said. “Besides, crystals could be used to do the same thing, although there’s more danger than drugs and you would need a very, very accurate teleporter.”
“So then Dr. Thorne was right. We’re looking for a psychic,” Eagle Eyes said.
“Not just any psychic. Someone who could manipulate thoughts, who was involved in the Putty trials, or a psychic and a teleporter” Snapshot said.
“We’re looking for a doctor, then,” Eagle Eyes said.
“Don’t leave town,” Snapshot said. “We’ll need your help.”
“Does that narrow it down?” Blister asked.
“Yes. No. I don’t know. But we have a case.”
“I want her seen by Dr. Thorne,” Angel stated.
“I agree,” Eagle Eyes said. “Blister, do you submit to this?”
Blister nodded. It wasn’t like she could say no.
Red Pipes Chapter 2: Angel
Posted by: KMBannon Post date: December 12th, 2011
It had been a long time since Angel could leave the office at six. As one of the few lawyers willing to tackle the often strange and absurd laws concerning meta human rights and responsibilities she was often swamped with work. Her moral and ethical stances didn’t help either with easing her workload, as she would take cash-strapped clients as well as the rich ones. And it wasn’t like she needed the money; her parents made sure of that. So she kept taking clients and fighting the good fight. In the courtroom, of course.
But before she left she grabbed a bottle of windex and went to her favorite picture-frame. Whereas the rest of her legal team would make sure their diploma-cases were always dust and fingerprint free, cleaning them every ten minutes as if any dirt would cause their degrees to disintegrate, Angel took the same care with this one newspaper clipping. In the frame that she cleaned for at least the tenth time today was a full-page story about her and her mother, “Gold Wing,” taking on the “Pied Piper Kidnappings.”
It was the last, and most important, case her mother ever worked on. Angel was only fifteen at the time; a teen prodigy trained from a young age to take over her mother’s duties as hero, detective, and icon. Then, her nickname was “American Angel,” as back then Angel’s favorite way to shape-shift was to give herself massive white wings which she combined with her father’s tech to fight and fly.
But as she cleaned, it wasn’t that proud day she thought of. No, instead of remembering her and her mother standing on that platform, full of hope and pointless promises, she remembered the second time the Pied Piper struck.
The first kidnapping occurred in Camden, the second in New York, the third in Boston. A teleporter brought them in while the kidnapping was in progress along with about fifty policemen. It should have stopped that day. Her mother was leading, with Angel in the back, ensuring that nothing went wrong without putting herself in harm’s way.
When her mother rounded the corner Angel heard the gunshot. She thought nothing of it. Shapeshifters heal quickly, and they can turn their skin bulletproof. The last thing she expected was for her mother to fall. But no matter. Perhaps she was surprised. Maybe she lost her footing. But once Angel saw the wound, how it refused to heal, how the new skin formed, congealed, and burst, she knew something was wrong. With the rest of the cops chasing the kidnappers, Angel called for help. It was the last time her mother would act as a Cape; as an agent of the meta human arm of the FBI.
Cancer. Her mother had only been shapeshifting her arms and legs because the tumor in her breast interfered with her shifting. Rather than go to a doctor she hid it, convinced the tumor was a death sentence, wanting to die in the field rather than in a hospital bed.
“Ready to go, Angel?” Kitty asked.
Angel jumped and turned around.
“How many times must I tell you, Kitty? Teleport outside my door and knock! You almost gave me a heart attack!”
“You know it was me,” Kitty said, patting Angel’s shoulders. Kitty was still in her work suit, a purple button-down blouse and black pants, but she had left her white coat at the office. Her hair was wavy, but calm, and looked to be naturally relaxed, and her make-up was barely noticeable. She could just wear a glamor chip, but Kitty preferred not to, claiming the chip led to nothing but vanity. Angel knew how much work and money was spent on Kitty’s hair, make-up, and clothing, but such was the cost of being human. Not that she knew, of course. Angel was a Mestaclocan; a shapeshifter of “Mayan” ancestry, although the rest of the US referred to her as Fey, even though it was inaccurate. Only shifters of the English Isles were Fey. But because that’s what English speakers were used to it became the name of all shifters, even though a Kitsune was nothing like a Mestaclocan or a Fey.
“Still scared me,” Angel muttered as she wiped the last streak off the frame.
“Ready for a Doctor Who marathon tonight? We’ve almost caught you up to this season,” Kitty said, bouncing as she asked.
“How are you so pleasant now? You were a downright grouch last night, telling me not to call you Kitty and insisting I call you Dr. Thorne; trying to be ‘normal’ in front of a bunch of meta humans. How crazy.”
“It was three in the morning. And it’s hard to be grouchy when it involves Doctor Who.”
“You’re so British, Kitty,” Angel said as she put the windex away.
“Anyway, Stephen is watching Tanya tonight–”
“Why didn’t you hire a sitter?” Angel asked.
“Well,” Kitty bit her lip. She usually had a quick response to anything.
“You’re not freaked out by that Piper, are you? Someone killed a bad guy, Kitty. Vigilante justice. And it happened two decades ago.”
Kitty looked down and shuddered.
“I won’t lie. When all of that was going on, I almost wanted to go back to England. I almost did. But I couldn’t get the sort of training I could get here; I would have to hide my powers. England actually cracked down on meta humans due to what was going in America. My… our world flipped upside down.”
“Yeah, I know. I worked so hard to find the Pipers before…” Angel sighed and shook her head. “I did my best. My mother knows that.”
Angel wiped the last streak off of the picture.
“Let me just lock my office, and then let’s go home. You brought the DVD’s with you, right?”
“I left them at your house, remember?”
Kitty and Angel left the office. Seeing as everyone else had left Angel locked the front door.
“I do like to fly, but teleporting is faster. So… if you wouldn’t mind–”
Before Angel finished they were already at her house.
“You read my mind, didn’t you?”
“No need. Any nitwit could have figured it out. Now, exhibit A for why my home country is better than America.”
Angel rolled her eyes.
“You don’t mind if I shapeshift, right? Staying in human form is so restricting,” Angel said, stretching her arms as her body changed. Within a few minutes she had transformed herself into a large, grey cat with a fluffy tail.
“I love how you ask me, then shapeshift anyway,” Kitty said.
“Oh, bite me. Humans are so awkward– hey!” Angel said as Kitty scratched her behind her ears. “I’m still me, you know.”
“Aw, you know you like it.”
“Just pop in Doctor Who,” Angel muttered, purring despite herself.
The two sat on the couch, Angel allowing herself to be petted like a common house cat. But before even five minutes passed Angel’s phone rang.
“Can you get that? I don’t have thumbs at the moment.”
Kitty looked at the screen.
“It’s Detective Snapshot.”
“Oh. Can you answer it while I transform back?”
Kitty answered, ignoring Angel. Angel had learned years ago that transforming while naked was not socially acceptable, even among close friends.
“Hello, detective. This is Dr. Thorne. Gabriel Rocco will be here in just a moment. No, this is the right number… Ugh, fine. Angel will be here in a moment.”
“Ready,” Angel said, pulling her bathrobe around herself.
“Sit down,” Snapshot said. “I have some… bad news. And you may have a client.”
“I’m sitting,” Angel said as she sat next to Kitty.
“We found another Piper. The Swords killed him, then set him on fire in front of the police station.”
“The Swords? How! They’re just a gang!” Angel said.
“You and I both know they’re more a group of vigilantes than a gang,” Snapshot said. “And I know you joined them, if even for a little bit.”
“I was infiltrating them!” Angel said. “My mother wanted me to stop them before they became organized. But then she died and I quit.”
“Even so. We brought one in. Her mother, ‘Aconitum,’ knew you. Does that ring a bell?” he asked.
“A… a little bit. But I can’t represent her. I would only do it to trick her into giving up more information about the Pipers.”
“That’s why she wants you,” Snapshot said. “She turned herself in; she wants to make a deal. But she wants to make sure she’s not shafted. We want to make sure we get what we need, and we can’t talk to her if she wants a lawyer. You know the Swords. You know the case.”
Angel sighed.
“What’s the girl’s name?”
“Blister.”
She rubbed her eyes. Blister. Aconitum had talked about her daughter a million times. Back then, her daughter was merely Lisa, too young to have a nickname. But, in a sick way, Blister made sense. It was her blister-making breath that attracted the Pipers to her.
“You guys want me on this case, don’t you?” Angel asked.
“On the Swords tossing a guy on fire at us? No, we know what we need to know to convict the people in charge. The continuing Pied Piper case? Cold Case is screaming for us to reopen it. And he wants you in. He knows you’re not a Cape anymore…”
“A consultant,” Angel said. “I’ll be a consultant. I’ll hammer out the details with Blister, get her to talk, tell us the rest. Maybe send her back to try and convince the Swords that killing what’s left of the Pipers isn’t smart, that sort of thing.”
Snapshot didn’t respond.
“Hello?”
“Just come,” he said, and hung up.
Red Pipes chapter 1: Snapshot
Posted by: KMBannon Post date: November 25th, 2011
Snapshot adjusted his collar in the rear-view mirror. He was a detective; a stickler for details. He couldn’t go to the scene of a crime looking as if he couldn’t even see that his collar was uneven. It didn’t matter that he hated dressing like this; appearances were very important. No costumes, no casual clothes. Snapshot’s unit, the Meta Human Investigation Team, or MHIT, were not the caped crusaders of old. Their job was to stop supernatural crime where they could, investigate crimes in which the perpetrator was believed to be a meta human, and protect the weak. Still, he wished he actually had powers.
“You’re not fighting the bad guys, Snapshot. You’re a detective, and the best we got. It doesn’t matter if you can shoot fireballs, your memory is what we need,” Sargent Hard Ball had said.
Snapshot supposed it did make him feel a little better. But not by much. Working with MHIT with no powers, just a memory barely bordering on the meta human, was a little strange; and fairly disheartening. His father, Darkfire, was well known for his crime-fighting abilities and his ability to manipulate fire. Darkfire was known to drive men mad with the things he could force them to see in the flames. Or he could make them so lost they found themselves in the middle of a group of police, ready to be arrested.
But Snapshot didn’t inherit his father’s abilities; at least, not all of them. He had a wonderful mind and an eidetic memory. But he had no ability to control fire; his inability nearly costing his hands . So, even though he couldn’t physically go after the meta human bad guys, when he graduated from the Police Academy he found himself in special training for MHIT. His knowledge and friendship with Capes, those who worked for the army as meta humans; Masks, vigilantes who never kept the law from stopping them from doing good; and MHIT higher ups assured him that he would have a place on that team.
As Snapshot got out of the car he looked at the scene. The body was down by the river, washed up during the storm. The rain was falling in sheets, keeping away the press and onlookers. There was too little light for a crime scene; normally floodlights allowed them to study the scene of the crime even at night, ensuring that the trail would not go cold for a want of light. Everyone’s face was eerily pale, like the cold sapped the color from everyone’s skin.
“Glad you could make it, Snapshot,” the District Attorney, Cold Case, said.
“Thanks, Cold Case. Another girl got washed up?” Snapshot said, immediately regretting his words. If the DA was here, it must be huge.
Cold Case rolled his eyes.
“Come on, Snapshot, now is not the time for jokes.”
“Shouldn’t we wait for the CSI guys to finish up?”
This whole thing felt weird to him. His shivering was not from the cold.
“Normally, yes. But there’s a few things I want you to see. Now.”
They walked under the caution tape and towards the water. One of the crime-scene photographers was knee-deep in the water, the flash lighting up the shore.
“Hey, wait,” Snapshot said, “Where’s all the lights? Why are we all walking around with flashlights? Where’s the floodlights?”
“After I show you the body and get it into a body bag we’ll light up the area. What I’m about to show you stays only in the force, got it? The force, and Angel.”
“Why would we–” he stopped talking as Cold Case’s flashlight fell across her left shoulder blade. Even with the low light he could see the bright-red tattoo of a mouse playing pan pipes.
“The Pied Piper Cult,” he whispered, “It can’t be.”
“It is,” Cold Case said. “At least, we think so. She was likely one of the members. All the victims had black pipes, and all of the members had red.”
Cold Case motioned for the body bag, then turned around.
“But that was decades ago!” Snapshot said. “And we haven’t found any victims or cult members in years! Why now? Maybe she was a member, but got murdered for something else?”
“Possibly. But perhaps we should investigate before ruling out that angle,” a female voice said from behind Snapshot. He turned around to see a twenty-something female Latino with long, black hair wearing a grey coat standing next to a thirty-something, short, African-American woman with glasses. He recognized the Latino as Angel, lawyer and meta human advocate. She was also a shapeshifter; not really a woman, or a human for that matter. But she presented herself as one, and that was enough for him. The other woman, who seemed to be in a losing battle with the rain, her hair, and a plastic rain-hat, was a mystery.
“Angel! Glad you could come! So, you’re thinking what I’m thinking?” Cold Case said.
“Yes, this tattoo is likely due to her being connected to the Pied Piper Kidnappings.”
“How the hell did you already know?” Snapshot asked.
“I called it in,” Angel said. “I saw it while flying home.”
“How did you… oh right, shapeshifter, nevermind.”
“Now that we’ve established our guesses about what’s going on, perhaps you can explain who that woman next to you is,” Cold Case said. “I thought I told you to come alone!”
“My friend,” she said, pointing to her African-American friend, “is Dr. Caitlyn Thorne, neurologist and Telepath. I know it’s a long shot, but I want to see if Dr. Thorne, can cull up any old memories from our friend.”
“That sounds dubious, Angel,” Cold Case said.
“Let me explain,” Dr. Thorne said with a slight British accent. Perhaps he was wrong about the ‘American’ part. “All of the victims we’ve managed to rescue or find have all had certain things in common. They have all had black pipes tattooed onto their left shoulder blade. Whether we find them in the garbage, red light districts, or embalmed in a lab they’ve had that tattoo. Second, all of the victims were between the ages of infancy and fifteen when they were taken; this woman is far too old to have been a victim herself. And, finally, the live victims have all had signs of their brains being messed with. You all know this, but what you may not know, Snapshot, is that I studied some of the brains of the victims we found, and I found a strange pattern. It’s hard to explain, but alive or dead there’s a certain… signature. Seeing as she’s recently dead, I may be able to pick it up.”
“You think she was a victim, doctor?” Cold Case asked.
“No,” Dr. Thorne said. “At least, not in the way you’re thinking.”
Dr. Thorne kneeled next to the corpse, looking it over. Her eyes glazed over, then she started to touch the corpse’s head.
“Stop!” Snapshot said, but Cold Case grabbed his shoulder.
“Let her. She needs to do this, and it would help much more than putting her in an MRI or autopsying her brain. She can guide us later to find what she finds. This will help you get started. Besides, seeing her work is quite amazing.”
Dr. Thorne closed her eyes and kept her hands on the corpse’s head, one hand on each side. All the lights dimmed and the air hummed as she read the corpse’s mind. Once done she opened her eyes and the lights went back to normal. They were still glazed over as she spoke.
“There’s damage to her brain in areas that would have caused her to become abnormally submissive and complacent. This appears to have been done intentionally, and in a matter like we’ve seen with the other Pied Piper victims. I was not able to recover any memories, but the damage happened about fifteen to twenty years ago, fitting into the pattern we’ve seen so far.”
“Can you tell what caused the damage?” Angel asked.
“Judging from the placement of the injuries, it was done on purpose. Due to a lack of external scars or other injuries I would say it was caused by a telekinetic empath, likely a neurologist or psychiatrist.”
“What would have allowed this sort of thing?”
Dr. Thorne squinted her eyes tightly.
“When I first looked into this, I thought that someone very powerful was doing this. Or that they used LSD to ‘soften’ them, like it was theorized. I’ll need an MRI before I can confirm my new theory,”
Dr. Thorne moved her hands onto the corpse’s neck, then to the its chest. She squeezed her eyes tighter, then relaxed.
“There’s extensive nerve damage to her lungs and heart, likely an attack by a telekinetic. It could also be time, but it’s doubtful. Other nerves seem to be intact.”
Dr. Thorne opened her eyes and looked at the DA.
“Strike that from the record, please. That sort of damage might have come about from being drowned.”
“Noted,” he said.
Snapshot stared at the scene. He knew it was up to him to make a joke, lighten the scene, but it seemed wrong. And no matter how great his mind was, he doubted he would have picked that up. Sometimes he wondered what he was doing here. Now was one of those “sometimes.”
“You done, Kitty?” Angel asked.
Dr. Thorne rolled her eyes.
“Even my husband calls me Dr. Thorne when I’m working.”
“Sorry, I keep forgetting you’re British,” Angel said.
“Well, Dr. Thorne, are you finished? I want to go to bed at some point tonight,” Cold Case said.
“Yes,” she said, getting up. “Nothing else I can do. We’ll need the pathologist to find anything more.”
“Wait, you can figure out all that and not the cause of death? Or her last memory? Or who killed her?” Snapshot asked.
“Neurologist,” Dr. Thorne reminded him. “Not pathologist. Also, she’s dead. I don’t have the means to find her memories anymore.”
“Ah.” Snapshot said nothing else. Despite having grown up among meta humans mind-reading was something he was not familiar with. And it was difficult for him to know what they were actually capable of; Capes, Masks, and MHITs were apt to boasts and tall tales. It was difficult even for him to separate what was true, especially with this mysterious power.
“No nickname for you, Dr. Thorne?” Cold Case said.
“Ugh. You American Paranormals and your nicknames. Seriously, DA Petrolio, why must you go around as Cold Case. Hell, even Angel does it and she’s a damn lawyer!”
“Traditions don’t die easily, Dr. Thorne,” Cold Case said. ”Before we had badges we had costumes, capes, and disguises. Nicknames give us a sense of identity that names like ‘John’ or ‘Jane’ just can’t live up to. It tells others our powers, our roles, and how we have decided to fit into the community at large. It’s why even those with ‘normal’ jobs like Angel and I have different names than what we are born with.”
“You all sound like a gang to me,” Dr. Thorne said.
“Now you’re being mean, Kitty.”
“Perhaps you just need a better nickname,” Snapshot suggested. “Like ‘Mind Sweeper’ or ‘British Invasion.’”
“Kitty is short for Caitlin. No other nickname is needed. Especially not for anything official.”
“Perhaps ‘The Royal Guard’ would suit you better,” Snapshot blurted. “You’re certainly stuck up enough for one.”
“Well, unlike you blokes, I was raised in a cultured environment in which even the strangest paranormals were expected to act like adults, and not silly children playing superhero.”
“I thought you moved away from England because you found it too restricting,” Angel said.
“Nonsense,” Dr. Thorne said. “It was because I…” she paused, then glared at Angel. “I guess in some respects you’re right.”
“Oh yeah, superpowers are banned from being used in medicine and law enforcement over there, aren’t they?”
“It’s true,” Dr. Thorne said. “Most meta human culture is ignored or downplayed. The again,” she paused and looked at the corpse with the strange tattoo, “perhaps it is for the best. We Britons have never had a tragedy so bad as the Pied Piper Kidnappings.”
They all paused, looking at the bagged corpse and the riverfront. There was no denying that the first clue in over a decade was a dead end. Who were the Pipers? Why did they kidnap children. No one had a clue. And Snapshot was not eager to reopen the case.
“Snapshot, is it?” Dr. Thorne asked, breaking the silence. “How do you fit into MHIT? Do you flash a bulb until they give up? Does your memory cause them to freeze in place like a photograph?”
“He’s an investigator. There’s no need for powers. But he usually puns up a storm,” Cold Case said. “Snapshot, what is eating you today?”
“Normally I would have said something along the lines of ‘looks like the Piper got played’ or ‘she’s washed up.’ But considering we’re dealing with the Piper, I guess I’m a bit spooked. Seeing that, it’s like seeing a ghost. I have goosebumps on my goosebumps… well, more like fear-goosebumps on my cold-goosebumps but you get the picture.”
“But that’s when we need to laugh the most,” Angel said. “It reminds us of what’s good in the world.”
“That may be true, but laughing at this seemed insensitive. The Pied Pipers kidnapped so many children and drove the meta human community apart. And then it just stopped. The Pied Piper is practically our bogeyman now, and then something like this happens and wait, no, it actually happened.”
“You were pretty young, weren’t you?” Angel asked.
“Yeah. Just a kid. My best friend got taken, then the next week we went to Grandma’s, got a house in Westchester, and we never went back to the city. Any city.”
“Sorry to hear that,” Angel said.
“It was a long time ago,” Snapshot said. “Getting upset over my friend dying now is pointless. I barely remember him.”
“But you are upset,” Dr. Thorne said.
“Spooked,” Snapshot said, burying his face into his coat. “Not upset. I just want to know who killed her so that we can be certain that this has nothing to do with the Pipers. And I know it’s only a slim chance that this killing is unrelated, but I can hope.”
Angel nodded.
“Understandable. Cold Case, unless if there is another way you need us to assist, I think we should be heading home.”
“Yeah, my daughter doesn’t like it when I’m not home,” Dr. Thorne said. “She has nightmares, poor girl.”
“Thanks for your help,” Cold Case said. “Snapshot, you go home too. We have a busy day ahead of us.”