Stuck

Same damn song in my head. It hurts, I gotta get it out of there

A Series of Interviews

Interview  Violet, 1

"Thank you for making time for us today. We will try and make this short"

"No problem. I'm here to help" With a practiced motion she put out her cigarette neatly in the ash tray before her. The smoke and smell lingered in the air, the craving spiked with it but her mother always told her it was rude to smoke and talk to people. Wasn't becoming of a young lady, she said. With the echoes of motherly teachings in her head, she smiled curtly and straightened in her chair, cursing the clearly sexist upbringing she had and herself for not fighting it now. 

"Of course. Like I said, we don't want to keep you long. Before we get started," with his own practiced motions the man seated before her reached over a square tape recorder set in the middle of the table and pressed the button to record. Growing up, she saw this kind of thing before and romanticized hard clicks and whirring of tape as the cassette spun up to record the femme fatale but since it was digital the click was subdued and the whirring was replaced by a digital counter ticking off the seconds. Not as dramatic. "This is Special Agent Alex Jones and Special Agent Taylor Bell on the fifteenth day of May 2006. This is interview one for, please state your name for the record..." 

She was immediately flustered. Years of talking to officials like this, and her mother with her stern looks pushing her on, taught her to give her full name clearly and with just enough volume to hear it and remember it. This was not the time or place for that. "I'm evoking Statute 58 and withholding my given name and instead using my assigned name. My name is Violet Flash." The man at the table, Alex, smiled at her politely but Taylor remained unfazed in the corner of the room. His big arms folded over each other across his chest. The tough guy she thought. Strange to have someone in here to intimidate her she also thought. There must be more to Taylor than she was led to believe. 

"That's fine Ms. Flash. Do you mind that I call you that, Ms. Flash?"

"I prefer Violet if you will. Ms. Flash is something my mother would call me." He smiled politely again. The look was there, but there was no emotion behind it. To her it seemed more of dance step in some complicated routine over an actual non-verbal exchange. It was most certainly for her but it was a cheap gift, something you gave because you had to. 

"Violet then. Thank you again for coming down Violet. We only have a few questions for you. Let's get right into it then. Do you remember where you were on April third of this year? More specifically around the hours of nine and ten thirty p.m.?"

"Yes, I was out on patrol as is required in my contract. I would have called it a night around 11 so I would have been no more than ten miles from the Dome." The response was natural. This had become a daily routine for her, telling officials where she was that night. The boys and girls at the dome wanted her well rehearsed and calm before this "voluntary" meeting down at the station. They wanted it to come out so smooth that even if it were a lie there would be no way to tell. They had more than a vested interest in it. 

"I see that," he was rifling through some documents contained in a clean, tan folder on the table next to the recorder. He had lifted the edge closest to her high enough that she couldn't read the text on the papers there. A tactic designed to make her feel uncomfortable and more likely to tell the truth as they may already have it. She knew it for what it was, a bluff. The only folks that would have that information wouldn't give everything to the lawmen before her. At least not without some major headaches and more than few subpoenas. "Can you tell me specifically where though?" He closed the folder carefully to keep up the illusion. She feigned interest as he did so to play her part as well. 

"Specifically? Probably around the 10th and Skyline area. That's a rougher neighborhood, but I don't to tell you boys that, so I like to patrol around there before shift change to maybe squeeze in some overtime." She dialed up the charm on that 'boys' line, laid it on thick using what her mother called feminine wiles to try and get a bead on the 'boys'. They didn't change at all besides Alex's perfunctory polite smile. Taylor remained a stone in the corner, leering over at her from the small shadow he had nestled himself into just before the interview started. That's it, she thought. These boys are professionals. 

"Yes, down by Mission Apartments." He tipped his hand a little. They only people she knew who knew that information were at the Dome so either someone else knew or someone had loose lips. Either way, he sewed the seeds of doubt. Luckily for her, she had planned for something like this. 

"That sounds about right. I've got essentially a blind up there,"

"Funny you say it like that."

"Excuse me?"

"A blind. That's something a hunter would say." His voice was polite and cordial but she could smell the bait in the water. These boys were pros but were they also anti-meta? Were they just trying to get a rise out her? They clearly had an agenda that went much deeper than just a "casual sit down" like what was described over the phone. This was getting hostile before it even started. She had to play it cool. 

"It's just a term we use. In our class, stealth is a big deal. If they don't see us before we see them, it's more likely that no one gets hurt that shouldn't." A line she used to believe, once upon a time, but could still pretend was something she meant. She had hurt people, and led to people getting hurt. He nodded his head and leaned back in his chair easily. Laughing he said,

"Ain't that the truth. Discretion is as much our game as yours obviously." This felt genuine but made her cold. She had heard stories about what these 'Special Agents' did no more than a couple decades ago. While Alex here was still no doubt in diapers 'round then, Taylor most definitely was not. There were more than a few Meta humans that disappeared in those days with hard men like Taylor knocking on doors. Leaning back forward to fiddle with the folder, Alex continued. "So you're at Mission, a not so quaint little place, and you're in your blind. Do you see anything? Hear anything? The murder of Johann Cross wasn't too far from there." Now it starts she thought. Using his real name, his birth name, was a dig. Even in death, the Meta's names were supposed to be protected but he used it freely. She knew him, knew him very well for a little bit then not so well and it took her almost a year of sleeping beside him to get that name. Anonymity was their life, it's what kept them alive and breaking that was a major insult. She couldn't get a solid bead on this guy. In the halls leading to this room, they were cordial. They shared a coffee, talked shop and he held the door for her. She didn't even feel his eyes rounding their way around her not so hidden curves that the lines on her suit accented intentionally.  Yet here he was trying to step on her toes and pull her tail like a child wanting to see the cat hiss. She prepared for it but that didn't mean she was comfortable with it. 

"No, I didn't know about Dyna Man's passing until after it was reported at the Dome I'm afraid." It hurt to say his name. It had been more than two years since she said it out loud but saying it again now felt like the good days. So much so that it really hurt her when she remembered the context. He was gone. Like really gone. He wasn't just on another bender somewhere on the other side of the road half in the bottle looking to screw whatever had a pulse before him. No. He was in a box ten floors below where she slept when not immediately on duty. 

"Nothing? Johann wasn't a small man, wasn't even just a man. He was like you. Him going down wouldn't have been easy." This time Taylor moved. Quietly he stepped forward and placed a small envelope that was hidden in his giant hand in Alex's. The move was to smooth and well timed to be something that just happened. This was even beyond practiced. As he moved forward, Violet could feel a pressure pulsing off Taylor. A heat almost. His eyes never left hers as he backed up quietly to his former spot, arms crossing back over each other like two pythons coiling together. The pressure she felt receded with him and she made a guess that he wasn't entirely human. As soon as the thought popped into her mind, his mouth turned up ever so slightly. A telepath. She shot him a quick glare and set about making her mind more difficult to unravel. Through her training at the dome, she was taught that telepaths don't really read people's minds as if they were books. Rather it was more akin to picking up bits and pieces of various radio broadcasts as someone is spinning the knob. The really good ones could slow that knob down and even control it but it took a great deal of effort. Discerning and ingesting someone else's thoughts was no easy task as conscious thought wasn't linear. It was a cacophony of memories, thoughts, emotional response, inner monologues and images that were relevant to the true reader and almost nothing but garbage to anyone else. His smirk told her he had at least a small hold on the knob. 

"Yes. Nothing. His death," she caught herself from choking on the word, "was too sudden. From what I understand, he didn't even know that someone was trying to kill him." Alex's eyes relaxed a little as he feigned some sympathy, or at least she felt that it was phony. They sat in silence for a couple of seconds, Alex letting her process what she said like a good actor listening to the distraught damsel in some high school play. Her revelation was supposed to shock him and he was supposed to be moved by her courage to say it. He played the part masterfully. 

"That's true. It's still unclear how it was done but toxicology shows that he had ingested more than a few cocktails that night. Was it normal for him to drink on the job like that?" 

"No." This answer was a lie and wasn't. Yes, he had started drinking a lot more, even kicking back more than a few while out on patrol, but that wasn't really "normal" for him. No, something changed him. The sweet man she had once known had become a shell, a shallow asshole that pushed her away. She felt herself drifting into nostalgia and pain too late before risking a glance back up at Taylor. His face was rigid and emotionless and she didn't know how much of that he overheard. "Well, it wasn't normal for him but it was something he was caught doing more than few times lately." This was also rehearsed. The Dome knew it would come out, that one of the most powerful Meta's in the game had a problem that came in brown paper bags, so they instructed her to be truthful to a point about it. They had rehearsed the almost reproachful way she would deliver it too. As if she were letting them in on some little secret. They seemingly took the bait and leaned forward sympathetically, she felt like it was more theater. This interview was anything but simple.

Interview Timothy, 1

"No, it didn't go down like that." Timothy took another nervous sip of his coffee. The bitterness was overpowering but the bite barely made it through his nerves so to him it was like mana from heaven. 

"Then tell us how it went down." Special Agent Taylor said to the jittery man before him without looking at him and straightening his thin black time across the slab of muscle that was his chest. Tim's eyes followed the movement of his hands and unconsciously swallowed and took another sip of the overcooked tar in his paper cup. 

"He was already dead when I got there. I'm just support, you know? I'm the guy who comes, after the big boys and girls do their thing get their medals and leave. I'm used to working alone, with nobody around 'cause all the action is already over." 

"So you're saying you didn't see him alive that night? That's strange. That's not what your report said." This time Taylor tapped the overfilled folder before him on the table. His thick finger rapped the cover three times in a slow, exaggerated motion. Tim knew they were putting the pressure on him. He could feel it and it made his stomach tie itself in knots leaving a bile taste in his mouth and sweat oozing from his massive pores. Tim was the kind of man who stood out in parties by being the only one as far from them he could. He hated having eyes on him and he hated being the focus of others. Growing up he was always, Timothy the quiet one, little Timmy the shy, Tim the weird, Tim the nutter. He didn't mind. The negative press people gave him put a distance between himself and others and that suited him just fine. 

"Yes. I saw him breathing but he was breathing his last. He was more dead than alive at that point, if you follow my meaning." He took a chance to look at their stern faces, their steely eyes burning back at him. Taylor was the bigger of the two, built like an ox that's been jammed into an expensive suit with his muscles fighting the seams of his pressed white shirt and them barely winning. His face was a slab, a tombstone with no inscription to be read. Something about his eyes though made Tim nervous. He hated looking at eyes, avoided it if he could, but he knew had to read them. Always have. These eyes were reading back though, reading back too deep that it made Tim's skin crawl and pull tight across his scalp.

"So. Walk me through it then, in your own words." 

"Like I put in my cleanup report, I walked on him lying there." Tim collected himself, "he was lying there covered in blood. I could right away see bullet holes in his suit which was strange as I know those things are bullet proof. I was going to administer first aid as is the rule when it grabs me by the arm..." Tim was back in that moment. The man he had worked with for almost ten years was lying before in a pool of his own blood. His hands were shaking as he applied the gauze to the small circles of torn flesh and hardened fabric. He had managed to stuff the sealant in one when there was a strong hand about wrist. Before today, his partner had only touched him once before and that was the greeting handshake. The man on the ground knew him, or got to know him well enough to know that physical touch was something that bugged quiet Tim, shy Tim, weird Tim. 

"Looks like I left another mess for you Tim old boy" His voice was barely a whisper, with gurgle in the back that sounded like he was speaking with phlegm in his throat. "Sorry 'bout that. Take it out of my pay again." He laughed heartily, as heartily as he could with holes in chest, that ended in a coughing fit that seemed age him by hundreds of years. 

"Don't speak." Tim didn't shake off the hand that now barely clung to his wrist, it was cold and clammy but he didn't mind. He knew it would be the last time. "I'm going to get these holes plugged and the boys in white will be here to get you on your feet again. I'm,"

"No my friend. Not today, not this time. No, this time they got me and they got me good." The hand that wasn't feebly holding onto Tim's wrist was fumbling with something black and cylindrical on the ground opposite from Tim. Tim was beginning to remember looking over at it, when alarm bells went off in his head. The memory stopped, he stopped it, 'cause he felt eyes. Eyes peeking over his shoulder and leering around from the shadows. He couldn't put his finger on it but he knew to trust his gut and so he snapped out of the memory. 

"So, he grabs me by the arm and whispers some things to me. Things I barely understand just that I should 'watch out for Sam'. I don't know who he was talking about, I don't know anyone named Sam or Samantha or anything in between." He pushed those words into the front of his mind, the cylinder filed away for the moment under years of dusty memories like sweeping a broken vase under the rug. 

"That's all? Just 'watch out for Sam'?" The man standing in the corner spoke up, Alex Tim remembered, as Taylor seemed a bit dismayed if not confused. The facade had been temporarily broken, a chip off the stone that was this sum' bitch's face but it was enough for old Tim to log away. He hated people, being around them specifically, but that didn't mean he didn't know them. 

"Pretty much. I patched him up best I could but I knew. I held the bandages there and felt his heart beat, what was left of it, come to a stop." Tim was transported back to that moment. That moment when he no longer felt the barely perceivable pump that was his friend's last gush of blood from his nearly obliterated heart. He couldn't hide that one away. That was an Everest he would never climb, never in his life. Death wasn't a stranger to him and he wasn't to it. They had an, interesting relationship to say the least so it seemed more pointed when it struck home for him. It was other's partners that died. Not his. Not under his watch. "Look, I wanna help you boys but all I know was that someone was waiting for him. Someone who knew where he would be, when, and how to pierce that suit. Those bullets won't be normal as I'm sure you already know." He took one last big gulp of coffee. The bitterness getting to him now as the nerves wore off. A new emotion flooded him, one that scared him but had its uses. Revenge, or the need for it, bloomed in him like the blood the blossomed from his friend. Deep and crimson it warmed him as it grew. The hands that he could barely keep still were now folded gently on the table. His muscles, though wiry, began to warm and flex like pythons under his clothes. This was his area. He would be cleaning up soon. 

Interview: Slate, 1

"Was there anything else we could get you? Something to eat?" Alex was sitting leisurely with his jacket draped over the back of his chair and his feet on the table. The smell of the fine espresso in his hand filled the room with a rich, nutty aroma. Sir Slate loved the smell of coffee. It reminded him of being back on the farm. Back when daddy would brew the morning's pot just before sunrise to signal that another day was set to begin. He was thirteen when he had his first cup and it had become a routine right then and there. His daddy liked it strong and black and bitter. As a boy, it wasn't his favorite but he grew accustomed to it over time as the sores on his hands grew and turned to blister and finally to callouses. The way he saw it, it was all in becoming a man, learning to like strong coffee and hard work. It wasn't until his abilities woke, after he was drafted, that he had the opportunity to try anything else. Luckily, he had a momma that taught him it was okay sometimes to enjoy the finer things in life. Coffee sweetened with some sugar or turned pale with some warm cream was treat he shared with her whenever daddy was away. 

"Another espresso would do me fine. If it's no trouble."

"No trouble at all Sir!" Without a word, the bigger man in the back slipped out of the room without making a noise, no doubt on his way to get another espresso. Sir Slate sized him up, the two stood almost eye to eye with Slate being the victor if only just barely. Their arms and chest were nearly identical and he envisioned how he would take him on if he had to. The man was big and square, like the boys in Corps and he could tell he knew his way around a fight. He would have to be more tactical with him, maybe feign the leg takedown but catch him with and an uppercut to arm bar when he dropped that leg back. He never let himself rely on his dominating strength though. His abilities came in on the battlefield and by then he knew how to handle himself well enough without them. He also learned not to take them for granted as he daddy always told him everything you have now could be gone tomorrow. Cherish them now, use them now, but learn how to live without them now too. "Anything for you. Now that we are alone," Alex paused to look around quickly and lean forward, "you were my hero growing up. Kind of the reason I joined the Bureau." Sir Slate blushed, his already rosy cheeks taking on a hue that would be considered more fiery, and leaned back in his chair while stretching his arms behind his head to flex his massive muscles while "getting comfortable". A little trick his dad taught him when he was old enough to begin courting the local girls. Now, he did it for his fans. 

"You gone and made me blush son. It's always good to hear I helped someone else do some good!"

"You did, I remember as a boy watching you. Watching the news shows about how you stopped that robbery in Dayton. How you stopped that armored truck from driving away, robbers and all, with just your bare hands? Incredible stuff. Now, I don't have those abilities, unfortunately, but I help where I can." Alex could see the red grow deeper in the simple man's face before him. 

"Yeah. That was a dozy. I wasn't even sure I could stop it, not moving that fast at least." Slate knew he could, he had stopped a tank before while on that hill in the jungle, so that truck was nothing. That wasn't exciting though. It was more exciting with some danger. Tall tales 'round the campfire was what he loved the most about growing up in Montana. The chill of the air telling him season's changing and the cattle needed to be brought back to the barn for winter carried the laughter and smell of bacon and beans into the night air as the four men there told the same stories but with added dangers, bustier women, and more beers downed each time. Tall tales all of them but all with truth. That's what he felt now, after all these years of using the same line, that it kind of was the truth. 

"It surely was." Alex leaned back into the same casual arrangement he was in earlier just as Taylor walked back into the room with the steaming cup dwarfed in his giant hand. Slate took it from him in such a way to show him just how big his hand was as well. Alex silently caught the little exchange as he sipped from his own cup. 

"So tell us Sir, what can you tell me about Dyna Man. Did he seem odd to you? Did he seem like the kind of guy to get mixed up in something he shouldn't have?" Alex waited until Slate was already sipping gingerly to ask the question. 

"Dyna Man," he raised the inflection on man to show his indignation, "was a bad seed from the start. Sure, he was strong and he was fast, probably the fastest around, but he was trouble. He was the kind of guy that slapped a dame on her rear as she walked by expecting her to like it. Never liked the boy." Slate put down his drink carefully, as if the motion from hand to table might destroy it. He learned real quick with the strength he has that control was very important. "Now, I hate speaking ill of the dead but maybe the boy was doing things that weren't as savory as his publicist would have the world believe."

"How so?" Alex urged him on. 

"Well, first of all his daddy dodged the draft back in the '60s. He didn't fight like I did and I think that attitude gets passed down. Dyna Man didn't want the job. He didn't want to work to see a better world. He just wanted to run fast and get his name in the papers, maybe get some ladies in his bunk if you excuse my phrasing. He was in it for the glory and not much else."

"So you weren't friends?" 

"Ha!" Slate boomed, shaking the class in the observation mirror lightly in its frame. The reflections of the bigger agent in the back wavered a little too much but he didn't notice. "No sir we were not. We had patrols close to each other but I kept my distance. I was cordial mind you, wishing him good morning and good evening when I saw him but friendly we were not."

"Could you tell me anything specific about him that stood out to you? Like did he have a probably with drinking, was he talking to any unsavory people, stuff like that." Alex again waited for Slate to take another deep drink from his cup. The steam was still billowing from the surface but he showed no signs of discomfort from the heat. After savoring the taste and breathing in the aroma, Slate conceded what he knew, or at least what he had been told. 

"One night, as I'm packing it in for the night, my cleaning boy comes up to me and says that he saw something funny. Now mind you this is the same boy that cleans some of the messes that get left behind by us, and boy, some of the things he's seen working for others would leaving me without an appetite I can tell you now so when he says something set him on edge it got me wondering." Slate told it like one of the tales by the bonfire out there under the big sky. The drama in his voice, the implication of what this boy had seen, and the effect of leaving the listener hanging on every word came back to him. Alex had subtlety shifted forward to hear more. "He says to me, 'Hey Slate, you know that boy Dyna Man?' I tell him sure, I know him, and he says, 'well I saw him in Violet's territory the other night.' That's not too weird I tell him, often she needs help with her patrol but goes on to say that he wasn't in his colors. That he was down there in plain clothes. Now, I know you boys know that the Skyline area isn't a place someone up to good would be hanging out in." Slate was practically salivating telling the story. The intrigue, the drama, the handsome and stalwart hero at the end. It was all so perfect.

"We know the area well enough, unfortunately." Alex said with a snort of confirmation from Taylor. They both saw the hungry glimmer in Slate's eye to keep going. They knew how to reel this particular fish in.

"I bet! Some stories we could share but back to the task at hand. Now, Dyna Man was down there but he weren't Dyna Man this time, no, he was down there as Johann Cross." He paused for effect with the name drop. It technically wasn't common to know the names of the men and women behind the masks. The men's stunned faces gave him a deeper pleasure than he would ever admit

"So you knew his real name?" Alex looked back at Taylor it what Slate would think would be a look of awe but was really a blank stare. We all had our stories to tell it said to Taylor who seemed nodded his head to play along with the ruse.

"Yeah, might want to jot that down if you boys don't already know it. Anyways, my cleaner says that Dyna is down in the barrows sans mask. Said he recognized him because of his voice. He had one of those voices that didn't sound too big but he liked to use it, you know? Like a little yappy dog barking in a small room. Anyways. He says that he was down there doing some moonlighting for Ms. Violet Flash to make some extra coin when he hears that voice. Now as I'm sure you boys know, that section, especially the Barrows, was her stomping grounds. She has her little roost up in the hotel on the corner, pretty good vantage point too. Anyways. He decides to follow him. Johann shouldn't know him, never worked with or for him, so he's just another face in the crowd. He follows him for about an hour as Johann I guess just sulks around in some alleys, talking to people here and there as if he's looking for something." As Slate is talking, he is hungrily looking at Alex who while he is telling his tale is scribbling quickly on a steno pad in front of him. Re-energized, Slate presses on.

"So he follows him around for another hour or so, getting bored but sticking to it like a good little scout, when he slips into Club Crimson." At this, Alex does actually snap up a bit against his wishes. Thankfully it's the reaction Slate was hoping for so no love lost. Maybe a little for himself but Alex could worry about letting little reactions like this slip later.

"Club Crimson you said?" Alex with his composure regained looks up at a practically being giant in front of him. The hero's chin was jutted out as if he were posing for a poster to get young men to join the fight against evil in distant lands, his hair was fiery red and perfectly combed on the top his nearly perfect face. A man truly cut from stone was his tag line but all Alex saw now was a greedy little boy with a treat above a hungry dog waiting for him to beg. He could see the lust in those blue eyes, the pure satisfaction that he knew something the boys interviewing him did not. He hated it but knew the information would be invaluable so he gave in. He looked up at him hungry waiting for Slate to feed him.

"That's right. That little cesspool of a bar. Now, don't get me wrong. It in itself is pretty nice little club. The building is old, built around my grandpa's time but the people who frequent it are not the kind of people you would want to be rubbing elbows with unless you were looking for something bad." Slate took a minute for his illustration to set in as he took a heavy drink from the glass in front him, downing the whole thing in one noisy gulp. Alex reached over without breaking eye contact an refilled it. Slate nodded a polite thank you and pressed on, "so my cleaner walks to the door just as Johann makes his way past security. Now, I like my cleaner, he's good at his job, but that don't mean he's always been a good boy. We all have our pasts, right?" At that second the smell of smoke and burning flesh fills his mind. Somewhere in the jungle are the pops of semi-automatic rifles with screams responding. He looks down and the desk is gone, the room is gone, he is gone. He is back in the god forsaken jungle, rifle in hand. The cool night causes goose flesh to stretch across his arms and the bright moon peeking through the trees gleams off his pointed bayonet. The woman on her knees before him has tears on her face and is clutching something to her chest wrapped in blankets. It wiggle..

"We all do indeed." This is Taylor's turn to speak. The first time Slate has heard his voice and suddenly he is back in the quiet little room with the large metal table before him. The two men are staring back at him, waiting, and he clears his throat and sniffs loudly. The smell is this room is clean but there is a hint of smoke maybe?

"Yeah. My boy, he's been around the block a few times and he has seen and done some things. Some things that even I would be hesitant to try but I guess that's just the kind of guy that gets into a job like that. So anyways, he waits for Johann to get past the door, smoking and shooting the shit with some boys outside, before he makes his way inside. They know he's a cleaner but he's what he calls a neutral player. He only cleans the messes, he never makes them, so they let him in with a nod and slap on the back. Inside, my boy does good and sniffs for his quarry. He finds him at the bar, getting chummy with some lady my boy finds very familiar."

"Ms. Flash?" Alex interjected.

"No. She wouldn't be caught dead in there. I know with that suit she isn't the kind of woman to turn down the 'intimate' dancing that goes on there but she's smart enough to know not to drink where she hunts. Boys there could spot her ass from the moon so it definitely wasn't her." Slate's eyes glaze over with a different kind of lust as he adjusts himself in his tiny chair, the frame groans as he does so with Taylor quietly groaning the same way.

"So who was it? Who was Dyna Man talking to at Club Crimson?" Alex was on the edge of his seat now, both in character and in earnest. This was news to him. Nobody had real eyes on Dyna Man before his death, no one that came forward anyways, and here he was with a lead and this man was fixated on some woman's ass who was less than half his age.

"'Don't know the broad, or maybe I do' he tells me." Slate casually mimicking the cleaner's voice, heightening the little lisp he has due to a cleft pallet. "Said he recognized her but couldn't put a name to a face. You can ask him 'bout her. She sounded like a little too much of a tart for my taste but Dyna Man seemed impressed."

"Okay. Did he say what they were talking about? Did he seem distressed at all?"

"My boy says they looked friendly. More chummy actually, 'brother and sister' he called them. They was close but not kissing close I guess. Says he watched them for a few minutes yukking it up at the bar, guess he found a table in a 'quiet' corner and sipped his beer while he watched. After about ten minutes or so, she passes him something under the bar." Again, the lust in Slate's eyes burns as the two men can't help but lean forward a bit, even the somber Taylor there in his nook.

"What did she pass him?" Alex asked.

"Well, my boy never saw, couldn't see actually but from what he says, things got real interesting after he got that little love note under the table."

Interview Violet, 2

"So you said that he developed a drinking problem?"

"Yes. I mean we all drank now in then. Hell we had our bars and they had theirs and we all kicked back a few to get ease some of the wounds and to reminisce, but we knew when to draw the line. We all did."

"Until he didn't?" Alex asked. His voice had sympathy in it, ever felt genuine, but Violet knew better than to fully give in. 

"Yeah, until he didn't. I got him a couple times in my neck of the woods, in costume with the smell of alcohol on his breath. I reported him," she shot a look down at the folder before the agent asking her questions, "as I'm sure you know. I didn't want him to get in trouble..." she trailed off. 

"But you didn't want him to get hurt." Alex filled in. 

"Something like that." God how she wanted a smoke but the ancient yellings of her now deceased mother still rang in her head. 'Never smoke in front of men while talking', she chastised her. Makes you seem cheap an un-ladylike. They don't listen to the words coming out of your mouth if you give them images of things going into that mouth. "What we do," she collected herself and remembered what they told her at the Dome, "what we do isn't for everyone. Everyone has their limits and it's possible he may have reached his." This was one of the lines the boys at the dome came up with but it wasn't something she needed written for her. Sometimes she felt on the brink herself and with Dyna's passing...

"So you're saying he broke?" Alex's voice pulled her out of her head.

"Something like that. We all have our limits, like I said, and it would seem that his came up a bit sooner than he expected."

"Were you in contact with him during this time? Did he make an effort to meet you?"

"No. At least not officially. As I'm sure you know, he was picked up a couple of times in my neck of the woods but the police. Drunk and disorderly, couple of fights, stuff like that. I'm sure it's in your report." What she didn't tell them was the importance of the locations and who he fought. He only got drunk at the bars she had taken him to before, getting so bad as to cause a scene and he ended up knocking the teeth out of a street vendor that harassed her whenever she was in plainclothes unprovoked. He was trying to send a message in his own, violent, little way. Who was she to judge though? Their lives were violence and they were selling it wholesale. Maybe old, once sweet, Johann got tired of being told who the buyer was and went rogue, make a business for himself.

"What about unofficially?" Taylor, the big man with grave eyes and a chin so rigid she could easily see him as being the model for an amateur sculptor as features were close to stone anyways. She chuckled privately at the little image she gave herself. Johann would have thought it was funny as well.

"Unofficially? Maybe. During those times he was erratic. The times he was busted he made sure to make a scene. Almost always on the police blotter, his name was, so it was hard to miss. Maybe he was looking for help from the people who would know him the best. Of course, the charges would either be dropped or quietly settled out of court, but this made the Dome nervous." She felt herself going a little off script. She wasn't supposed to say how they felt, how it was starting to look like Dyna Man was about to involuntarily get his privileges revoked by his actions. They were supposed to provide support, counseling, medical treatment for injuries (or addiction), or whatever else a contractor would need. They had billions subsidized by the governments that hired them to take care of these expenses as well as multinational contracts with agencies that represented the metas as if they were track or football stars. Where them killing a bunch of gangsters some night was no different than a young QB throwing a handful of touchdowns at Saturday's game. No, they were supposed to take care of them and yet here they were with a star QB going off the reservation and throwing more than just touchdowns against the general population.

"I wouldn't doubt it," Alex responded, "he was one of the best. Incredible service record with at least three commendations from The President. An shining example who then became a black eye for the organization and those it represents. A loose cannon." There was something in the way he delivered this speech that Violet did not like. Throughout the interview his tone, while more than likely an act, sounded sympathetic and caring. He was the man just trying to figure out how things went so wrong but now...now he was self righteous and his words were pointed like a spear looking for the heart. There was an air of condescension as well that she didn't care for. She had heard this tone many times before. Discrimination against the Metas has been around for as long as they had. It started as a small but vocal few that saw them as abominations, creatures not made from God, but had blossomed into almost a class war. They were seen as citizens above others, above the law. While she couldn't disagree fully, hell Dyna was let go with essentially a warning for walking up to a man selling gyros on the corner and hitting him so hard he spent months getting a new jaw fit, but they, she, couldn't help being born how they are and when. These are the times you live in, her mother used to say, and you either learn to live in them because they will have no problem living without you.

"Yes, he was a fallen star to say the least but..." she cut herself off. She didn't need to defend his actions to him. She couldn't really but she felt that even if she could, the athletic man with the charming, almost snakelike, smile in front of her wouldn't listen. "Like I said. Breaking points."

"Indeed. Can you tell me about the nature of your relationship?" Alex expertly changed the subject. She could see that this was a vein he wanted to dig deeper into, speaking ill of the dead, but apparently had the grace enough not to. No, she thought, not grace. No, he had a job to do and didn't want to get into petty insults that would only hinder it. While it gave her no satisfaction she did have to appreciate his resolve.

"Our relationship? Well, as I'm sure you have read our relationship was brief. Over about a year before all this happened."

"Could you elaborate? Were you two intimate? Was it serious or was it something more casual?"

She smiled curtly. She knew what this meant. "You asking if we dated or just had sex?" She was no stranger to being blunt. Growing up as attractive as she was she had heard many foul things said to her about her that this was only one more. One more little barb from a society that wanted their women easy but not because they wanted it.

"I'm simply asking what you thought it was. I know that you too shared a room on more than evenings but didn't live together or announce your involvement." Alex said this all just as bluntly as if he were just saying the time while looking down at the paperwork before him with the Dome's letter head. She knew what that meant. It meant that she, or her or both of them, were being watched. The rule was if two metas decided to get into a relationship together, they had to announce it. Something about rules against fraternization but she always felt is more of a genetics thing. The boys at the Dome in their clean lab coats still didn't exactly know how they came to be or why. There was some evidence that the traits she and the others had, the things that elevated them above the normal human condition, were somewhat hereditary and she had an inkling that they wanted to have a more 'controlled' mating practice. Everyday in that damn place made her feel more like a monkey in a zoo and now here she finds out that were being spied on. It wasn't surprising but it was inspiring either. The knowledge nestled itself as a hard little lump in the pit of her stomach and made her feeling like cleaning her apartment as soon as she got home. Actually, she thought, she might not even want to sleep there again.

"Yes, we were intimate on more than one occasion but that's just how it goes. When you are the way we are, sometimes its easier to find solace in someone who already knows. It makes the 'getting to know you' part much easier." This was a bit more insight than she wished to give. It pained her to talk about her relationship with Johann and she knew her tone of voice gave it away. She could see Alex quietly lapping it up.

"No judgement here," Alex said with Violet not really believing, "we are just trying to get a picture of the mental state he was in just prior to his death." That word stung and she managed to catch herself from wincing noticeably. It was hard to believe to think that he was gone. The man was a goddamn legend, she thought. She was one of the few old timers, 'just barely young one' he would say to her when she ribbed him while sharing a bed. I'm not that much older than you he would tell her. Now, she would always be older than him. It was a sad realization that hit her harder than she cared to admit. Mother be dammed she thought as she clumsily fumbled for another cigarette from the silver case hidden in a small pouch on her waist-belt.

"His mental state? I can't say that I know other than it obviously wasn't good." She fumbled more with the lighter, Alex was about to reach over and help her before she got the damned thing open and alive with it's small, controlled flame. She could feel this interview, no, that wasn't the right word. This interrogation, yeah that's the right word, she could feel this interrogation going more off the rails as she kept talking. She could feel it all just bubbling up beneath the surface waiting to explode out. When she was younger, her mother had taken her and her brother to see some geyser, Old Faithful maybe, out in the middle of this forest. It was so long ago, and she was so young so all she remembered was the anxiety she had waiting for the thing to go off. She remembered how her mom kept saying it was coming, that it was almost here, that it was going to explode and how it all terrified her. She expected the world to end that day and all she could remember was the sound of her mother laughing as she cried. She didn't understand. This was the geyser all over again.

"We can see that. It says here that you and him stopped meeting sometime about two years ago. Would you say that was an amicable split? Was it a mutual decision?" Alex pried gently at the seams. He was trying to peek beneath the surface of her, thinking she was vulnerable. She grinned slyly as she knew this trick. Guilt was something that was served up hot and fresh once upon a time for her. When her mother was in the hospital slipping into a not so quiet senility.

"No. I called it off with him, but you knew that already. It's in the file. If the number of times we 'shared a room' was in there it should also be noted that I ended it, whatever it was." These words didn't hurt so much. She had loved him. Loved him dearly, but something had broke inside him. Something that couldn't be put back together even by some of the most powerful people in the world. He had become toxic. She knew it, Johann knew it, and it really came down to who was going to pull the trigger first. When he left, he was heartbroken but wasn't angry. That was what hurt her the most though. He knew was bad for her and there was nothing that she could do for him.

"Yes, that's right. I remember reading that." Alex look dismayed as he said that and she simply toyed with the end of her cigarette, leaving little bits of ash on the table in the most un-ladylike ladylike way she could. She had an image to protect but no asshole in a suit was going to make her feel bad for breaking another man's heart. She did right by her and that's all there was to it, let that smug little bastard and his brute in the corner keep underestimating her.

"Yes, I'm sure. We broke it off about two years ago and I didn't really hear from him in the time in between then and now. We left each other notes at the Dome, sent the requisite emails and such but kept everything strictly professional." She took another drag on her cigarette and let it calm her nerves. She knew the things were bad for her but she always liked the way the made her feel. Not the nicotine, no, it was more the aura they seemed to give her. It was as if she were some husky voice femme fatale speaking from the shadows with only the glowing cherry of her cigarette exposing her face to the wornout private dick that was asking questions. There was something so glamorous about it all that it elevated her beyond the stress. Growing up, she was always told that she was vain, that she relied too heavily on her looks. This was all true but, why not? Her mother always said that using what you had should never be used against you. Being smart and using your advantages wasn't exactly something to be ashamed of, it was survival. So now, all these years later, she carefully adjusted her form fitting suit and nonchalantly made sure that her hair was just in the right spot. She leaned and moved in such a way to show off every curve and angle she had and caught Alex slip a little by buying what she was selling. Inside she laughed. They were all the same deep down.

Agent Taylor coughed and Alex stood up, faced him and nodded. To Violet he said, "Excuse me Violet, I have something that I need to attend to at the moment. My associate Special Agent Taylor  Bell will continue in my absence." With another subtle nod to Taylor, the smaller man quietly left the room. Taylor slowly made his way from the corner to the chair his partner had just vacated. The legs creaked and groaned under his weight. The light, now having a chance to show his face, revealed a mug that may have been coarsely carved from stone. Crags and valleys filled the landscape on the left side in what looked to be a blast scar. Violet had seen enough of them to know what it was, battle wounds. With little imagination, she could visualize that the scaring marked more than just the left side of his face giving him more of topographical map look. Under her breath she giggled at the little imagery and filed it away for grins later. Mother always said, don't say mean things about people behind their back unless alone.

"Ms. Violet. In the time leading to deceased's death, were there any signs that he may be in trouble? Trouble either professionally or not?" His voice was the sound of heavy tires on gravel. It was dull, and grating but with a consistent tone. It reminded her of the lectures she had to endure in boarding school all those years ago. The decrepit old men with smoking strained voices, the irony was not lost on her, droning on and on about something or another all while trying to peek up the young lady's skirts. It was not a pleasant memory for her and she simmered on it more with each word he spoke.

"Trouble? Dyna Man? Trouble was his middle name if you excuse the stereotype. He was a man who could never settle, if you know what I mean. He always had to find the one loose corner and start prying up at it until it all came off. Trouble was something he was in, it was something he caused." She took the last couple of drags and starred stoically back at Agent Bell. She knew his type as well. Hard as rock but not in the places where her "wiles" had any effect. No, flirting with him would be akin to flirting with a statue. It took the fun out of it for sure and she felt herself deflate a bit.

"Could you be more specific? Anyone who would want to hurt him, kill him?"

"Of course! It's our job to get into people's, excuse me, dangerous people's way. By the very nature of what we do we make people upset with us. We receive thousands of death threats everyday. We have arch villains for godsake!" She felt her temper rise a bit and used it. The boys at the Dome did tell her to make it compelling but to obfuscate. She wasn't directed to lie, that would be against the law after all, but she did have to be forthright about everything either, nor did she want to be. Who were these men to just come poking about when he's gone, gone is such a violent way? She didn't know them before today and now she's expected to spill the beans on one of her most personal friends in such a shitty room? Hell no, she thought. She wouldn't hide the truth but was sure as hell going to make them work for it.

"Anyone specific. Anyone that, with your knowledge and expertise, that you would classify as an immediate threat?" His voice and timber never changed. It just rolled out like that proverbial tire running down the road. The man must be a hoot at parties she thought.

"Specifically? Maybe. He was after some heavy hitters on his side of town. A quaint little outfit that called themselves the Sons of Lucifer. A bit ostentatious for my taste, the name, but they did things that made it fitting. They were, are still, very bad. I assume you have had run ins with them before?" Taylor responded with a cold, metronome like head nod as she continued, "he had found one of their drug ops not too long ago. Maybe two months ago now, but he made a big show in tearing it down and leaving the guards in not so good shape. You know, he didn't kill any of them but he certainly made sure that their lives would not as good going forward, it you catch my meaning." She lit another cigarette and continued. "He made a big show about leaving them tied up outside for the cops when they arrived and even did a press meeting about it. Normally, we do those things at the Dome, where we can be sure high powered rifles aren't pointed our way from quiet rooftops  but he held it right there. Right in front of the torn up warehouse with the men squirming on the ground behind him as they started carting them away in various ambulances. He was something else. A peacock who just got his plumage in, he was showing off," she fought the urge but she couldn't help the smile that popped up at the side of her mouth, "yeah, he was something else."

"So you think a member of that gang went after him?"

"Huh? Oh, sorry. Maybe. That was the most recent and flagrant act he did to anyone in the months leading up to his death." With that word, her little day dream was shattered. Thinking back on him, with his shit eating grin and carefree attitude, made her smile. There was a man who could keep up with her, she thought. There was a man who wasn't boring but in saying 'his death' she was reminded of all the past tenses that would describe he now. There was no more future for him, for them and that hit harder than she expected. She coughed to catch herself from crying.

"I see that he was quiet in the weeks leading up to his death. At least, there are no after action reports for him during that time." Taylor rifled through the dossier before him like a man who had already memorized everything but didn't want anyone else to feel bad by not having to re-read.

"That's right. He went quiet. We all do sometimes, sometimes it's mandatory, but he just went quiet."

"Did he contact you during this time?" There was a sudden change in pressure in the room. Like when a storm begins to draw up on the horizon, but there were no clouds here inside. She felt like she could see them though and they were rearing up behind Agent Taylor. It was at this moment she noted that there was a pressure coming from him, some kind energy that resonated out at specific instances. She wondered if it was the intensity in his eyes or the dominating force his body and face seemed to scream out but she also wondered if it was something else. Something more than human. She chose her words carefully.

"Yes and no."

"Care to elaborate?" She could 'see' the clouds behind him surge and bound up on each other as the pressure intensified. She could feel it wash over her, probing her, looking for a way in. It made her feel violated and disgusted and she shifted uncomfortably in her chair, trying to distance herself from him. A spark in his eye and a nearly imperceptible twitch in his stone like face caught her attention just before the pressure eased off. Like a light switch being thrown she felt it disappear so fast she would find it hard to argue that it was even there in the first place. Her instinct screamed at her though, it the not so subtle way that it does, and she forced herself to remember, to trust in her feelings. This man was much more than he appeared to be and she felt that she had made a small, but significant victory. Understanding was always half the battle and now she was more clued into her interrogator. That was more fitting, this was more an interrogation than an interview. With that revelation, she felt the gears of her mind slip into something more cold, something more akin to the lizard part that drives us to or more basic instincts. No longer would she flourish and toy  with these boys, she had realized too late that she was under a more refined microscope. 

Updates

NanoWrimo has started and I'm off to a decent start. I like where it's going thus far but I'm out of practice, I can feel it. It's like running, once you stop for awhile every step is a struggle, every breath a gasp. I will complete it though. I have to. I've been wanting to do it for years so I just need to buckle down and complete one.

For life stuff, Halloween was interesting. It was our buddy new pals birthday and I didn't wish her a happy bday nor did I feel the urge. It's odd because I did like her but didn't? I don't know. It's funky with her but I am curious about she feels about the whole thing. Obviously pretty damn grumpy.
My costume, a derivative of leather face complete with creepy as hell mask and fake chainsaw, was hit. I took first in the costume contest. A first which is weird considering there was a time I was dressed up as a giant hamster with a trucker hat and didn't even place...What can I say though. I wasn't that popular in high school. Did go downtown with C and had some fun joking around down there.

Looks like my China trip is getting more real. I got the letter from the Chinese company inviting me over, a requirement for the travel visa, and got some dates too. Looks like it won't be until December so I will be in China during winter...That's just fucking nuts. I never thought I'd go to China and here I am getting the stuff ready to fly over there.

Made a new friend and chatting with more people at work in a more social setting. It's been pretty fun especially hanging with E. She's pretty solid and is actually surprisingly not as edgy as she appears to be. It's just so weird that she hangs out with someone like B so much when he's clearly so sexist. Although, to be fair, his roommate is way more progressive and less assholey.


Well, that does it for this one. Later gator.