Episode 1, Part 4: The Poor Wandering One

ROM squinted. “What?”

“Vagabond was kidnapped into sex ring. Probably grew up in that ring. If Vagabond hasn’t bullshitted us completely, Merryman is the guy who bought him. Instead of just renting for the hour.”

            That slapped the woman so hard she sat back, hard, in her chair. “Wha--? A sex ring? Where’d you get that?”

            “It’s the case file I stole all this from,” Orbis said, still raving. “A pedophila network.” He turned and—

            ROM rose, and grabbed his hand. “Don’t you go after Vagabond.”

            “That’s exactly what I am going to do.”

            “Jus’ wait. Think! Why didn’t Vagabond say anything about this? Ever think about that?”

            “Because the man is crazy!”

            “Yeah,” ROM said, calmly. “He is. And that means he’ll fry you as much as look at you, if you get all Navy SEAL on his ass. You wanna take that on?”

            Orbis stared at her grip on him until she got religion and let go. “I. Want. My. Life. Back.”

            “Fine. Same here. Getting my life back? All for it. But if Vagabond’s been holdin’ out, you gonna need a hell of a lot more than that photo.”

            “San Francisco Police Department,” Bo announced, bursting into Dr. Veracruz’s office. “Is the doctor in?”

            The secretary was at his back. “I’m sorry, Dr. Veracruz! I told him you were busy—“

            “What the hell?” Manny said, rising at the noise. “Bo? I’m with a patient—”

            The cop rounded on the young woman, eyed her all of two seconds, and said, “Here’s why your life sucks: It’s all your fault.”

            Manny gawked. “BO! Ms. Williams, I do apologize for this officer—“

            “Vagabond lied,” Bo hissed. “From the start, he lied. Why do you think he gets so nutty around you?”

            That shut him up. Manny paused. “Ms. Williams,” he said at length, “this is Officer Bo Bronsky of the SFPD, for whom I consult on occasion. I’m afraid I have to cut this session short. We won’t charge for this round.”

            As the two women walked out and closed the door, both heard Manny very uncharacteristically yell to the officer “What the fuck is wrong with you?!”

            “Vagabond was kidnapped and sold into a human trafficking ring.”

            Manny’s voice caught his throat. “What?” he croaked. “When did that happen?”

“When he was a boy.”

“How the hell did you find that out?”

            “I really wish you could see right now,” Orbis muttered. “I came across a photo from an investigation. One we were told to stop.”

            “Stop? Why—“

            “The photo is Vagabond. Maybe seven years old, but it’s him. ROM aged the photo.”

            “Age progression is inexact at best—“

            “It’s him!” Orbis pressed. “He was bought and sold and he never told us. He’s never told us anything about his past. The only thing we know about his life is at and after Merryman’s assassination.”

            “Assassination? It was a drive-by—“

            “The hell is was. Merryman was eliminated.”

            Manny held up is hands. “Whoah, whoah, whoah. Let’s back up. OK, let’s just assume you’re not a raving lunatic pulling shit out of thin air and what you say is true. Why ‘eliminate’ him?”

            Orbis crossed his arms. “My best guess—“

“’Guess?’”

“—is that he was going to come clean about boy-Vagabond. At first, I thought Vagabond was a kept boy exacting revenge. Now I think he was completely fucked up to begin with, and went off the deep end when Merryman got shot. Vagabond keeps talking about how ‘they got Paul,’ but he never gave any hint on who ‘they’ were. We never asked because it looked like an anonymous drive-by. Because he’s never said, we’ve never figured it out! It was a needle in a field-full of haystacks.”

Manny was quiet for a moment, mulling the idea, trying to get things in a linear progression. “OK. Let’s start over. Hypothetically, why would Vagabond keep something like that a secret?”

Orbis recalled ROM’s dime-store psychology that, nevertheless, had a twisted logic. “I don’t think Vagabond wants admit what happened to him. He may be the world’s most powerful psionic, but he’s still a victim of abuse — and in total denial of it. But he wants to find Paul’s killer. He has two…I don’t know, ‘drives’ that are working at cross-purposes. He wants to forget whatever it was that happened to him when he was trafficked, and still find the killer, and I’ll bet you that killer, or killers, are members of the ring.”

Manny crossed his arms. “That is a pretty out-there theory, Bo.”

Episode 1, Part 3: The Poor Wandering One

            “That wasn’t a great print,” ROM said of the original image. “The computer cleaned it up, but there was some guesswork.”

            Orbis nodded. “Ok. How old would you say he is? Say, seven?”

“Eh. Give or take. Sure.”

“Cool. Can you age him by, say, 20 years?”

            “No problem,” ROM mused. Her fingers flew over the keys. Tikka-tikka-tikka… “But it ain’t going to be exactly like what this kid looks like now. And he’ll still be smilin’, since he was in the original. There was guesswork before, and there’ll be even more now. I mean, don’t they compare the kid with the parents and go from there?”

            The man nodded. “I’ll deal. Go for it.”

            “OK, Mista Man. This’ll take a few seconds.” ROM replied, and hit “Return.” Lines of light passed over the child’s head, and it began to spin and blur, as it aged and “grew” larger to the head of a young man. “OK,” ROM mused, looking at her screen. “Approximate age is 27.” She glanced over at the image and did an instant double take, her eyes wide. “You are shittin’ me.”

Orbis was already staring, his face an inhuman mix of satisfaction and rage.

“And, hey,” she said, “what’s say we grew his hair out and dye it black?”

            “And let’s assume he looks as if he’s done a few rounds of steroids to bulk up,” Orbis added, his voice dangerously chipper.

            With measured, deliberate strokes, ROM quietly set the new parameters.

            It was Vagabond. Even with all the compu-guesswork. It was Vagabond.

            The two were utterly silent for several seconds before ROM spoke. “Never saw him smilin’ befo’.”

            “That son of a bitch,” Orbis whispered. He paused. “THAT SON OF A BITCH!” He grabbed the photo off the scanner, practically breaking it. ROM wanted, very much, to be just about anywhere else—now. “Can you burn that to a CD?”

            “Uh. Sure. What—“

            “That asshole has been lying by omission from the start!” Orbis raged. “And we fell for it! And for what? To ‘psychically shield’ us from kidnappings or attacks that never came? Bastard!”

            “Orbis, get a grip…”

            The man focused such a baleful glare on her that ROM’s voice curled up and blew away in her throat. “Hit Missing Persons. I can’t. I’ll be watched. I had to get all sanctimonious on my sarge about burying this. He’ll have eyes on me. ‘Young Vagabond’ has to be in some database somewhere. Then, hack into Paul Merryman’s bank account records. And assume something is being hid or has been covered up. I don’t care what you have to do. Pull up everything about that man.”

            ROM whirled around to the computer. “But what am I lookin’ for?”

            “A large monetary purchase.”

            “How big?”

            “Anything over 10 grand.”

            “Why?”

            Photo in hand, Orbis turned to leave. “Because I’m betting Merryman wasn’t his lover. He was his owner.”

The Poor Wandering One: Episode 2, Part 3

“Uh-oh, it the police,” Romeesha muttered, pronouncing the word “poe-leece,” a pause between the two syllables. Then she grinned.

“Love you, too, Miss Was-Just-Illegally-Hacking-the-Pentagon,” Bo said, grinning back. 

“Bitch gotta earn a livin’.”

“Gotta sec?”

Romeesha smiled again. “Sure. Come on in. What up?”

“You’re good with software, right?”

“That a joke?”

“Go with me on this,” Bo pressed. “You’re good, right?”

ROM stopped, turned, saw the seriousness of his expression. Crossing her arms, her eyes narrowed slightly. “Better than good. You need me to write something for you?”

Orbis shook his head. “I need you to age someone for me.”

She wasn’t expecting that question. “Say what?”

“Law enforcement does it all the time,” Bo explained. “Say a kid goes missing 10 years ago. They can take a picture of that kid and ‘age’ it to show what he might look like today,”

“Oh, right! I got you,” ROM, replied, brightening. “But you got computers down at the station. Or the FBI—“

“No. I can’t do that. Not with this,” Orbis took from his backpack a print out of a photo. The child in it, a smiling little blond boy, could not be more than seven years old. But it wasn’t the age that took ROM back. The child was naked. And tied up.

ROM stared at the photo quietly. She held it for several seconds longer than she should have before she finally spoke. Searching for the right thing to say, she began, “This kid is—“

“Yes.”

“Why is—“

“Stop.”

ROM looked up to see a face devoid of any humor.

The woman slowly rose her eyes to the man. With a tilt of her head, they headed to the basement.

Without a word, ROM quickly opened a small panel on the wall behind the light switch and pressed a series of codes. There was a flash, followed by a low buzzing. The hologram vanished, revealing ROM’s lab. With equal lack of ceremony, she sat down in front of the screen, her fingers flying over the keyboard.

There was a low buzzing.

“Ok, scan is complete,” ROM announced. Orbis was the perfect Navy SEAL: he was born paranoid. He’d see conspiracies in a flower garden. And take them out. “We clear. Now why can’t you manipulate that photo yo’self?”

Bo sat down. “This is from a cache of evidence my department was ordered to bury.”

ROM blinked. “’Bury?’”

Orbis was quiet. He opened his mouth to speak, and then paused again. Finally, when he did speak, it was in a very low voice. “I got this photo from a human trafficking case.”

“Somebody want you to bury that?”

“Yes. Somebody powerful. Somebody powerful above the law.”

ROM stared at the man. “Who?”

“I can’t say. I’m not sure. I stole this photo from the file. Stole a few more, too.”

The woman’s face turned slightly to the side, her eyes focused on the man, who, until 15 minutes ago was not a goody two-shows, he was THE goody two-shoes. Class validictorian, never drank until he was 21, and then never drank after that, first in his class at West Pointe, never smoke, a die-hard teacher’s pet—if it weren’t for the fact that he was gay, he’d be absolutely the biggest pain in the ass ever. He made Buddha look bad. “You? Stole? This?”

“I really don’t think I should tell you any more.”

“Orbis, who is that kid?”

The question was dodged. “Can you age it?”

            “No problem. But why?”

            “Just age the photo. You’ll see if it is who I think it is. If it isn’t, you can just write me off as a crazy person.”

            ROM knew when to cut the sass and get to work. She placed the photo on a glowing glass panel and beams of light passed over it, top to bottom and side to side.

            “Pull it up on the screen.”

            “I’ll do better. You watch.” She pointed to what looked like to two glass disks, one over the other. With a high hum, they pulled away from each other, and the glass took on a faint, pink glow. “3D holographic projection.”

“How did you and Miss Gwen get all this in here?”

            “Secret,” ROM replied slyly.

            “She designed all this?”

            “And built it. I did all the programming.”

            “This must have taken years—“

            “Weeks.”

            “Do you ever get out and have, you know, fun?”

            ROM looked at him, wided-eyed. “That? From you? ‘Sides, you shittin’ me? That was paradise!”

            Orbis had seen a lot in his time, but these girls were just plain weird. He was about to say so when the holographic device beeped chirpily, and in a puff of sparkles, the head of child appeared. ROM had, thankfully, instructed her computer to not show the boy bound. His face simply hung in the air, suspended, perpetually smiling. You’d never know what was happening below his neck.

Episode 1, Part 2: The Poor Wandering One

“You son of a bitch. You’re dropping Chu’s case,” Bo snarled, bursting into Renard’s office. There was another man there. Bronsky turned to him and said, with every word a threat: “Get. Out. Now.”

Renard rose from his desk, and one glance from the SEAL, a decorated man who killed two al Qaeda fighters with his bare hands told him that as far as Bronsky was concerned with the delegation of power, the former soldier was letting Renard boss him around. One was a policeman, the other a Navy man, and this would not be the first time rank was thrown around. Though he had been thrown out of the SEALs for being gay, Bronsky had the nasty habit of thinking he was still on the team.

“Excuse us,” Renard said to the other man, who made a hasty exit, glaring at the officer.

Before Bo could even get a word out, Renard, by only holding up a finger, resumed control. “That, Officer Bronsky, was unprofessional.”

Bo, hardwired to follow orders, heard half his brain telling him to shut up and get out, and yet somehow managed to listen to that other half. “Chu had a case. It was cut and dry. Human trafficking. And you told him to drop it.”

“Officer Bronsky, you don’t know all the facts.”

“OK. Tell me.”

Renard glared at him. “I’ve given you a lot of leeway—“

“This has nothing to do with ‘leeway!’ People’s sons and daughters are being bought and sold. How can you drop a case like that?”

Renard sat down. “I appreciate your passion for justice—“

“Do not condescend. To me”

“—but this isn’t your case, you haven’t the authority, and you are way out of line.”

Bo stared hard at the man, the image of moral indignity. “How. Why.”

Renard gave him a hard look. “Conversation over. Get out.”

Bo’s mouth spasmed, but he left none the same.

The evidence locker.

Jesus, what am I doing. Bo looked at Chu’s evidence files. This is stealing. Evidence. I’ve even never stolen a candy bar.

His trip from Renard’s office to the locker was one of complete moral corundum. If the case was dropped, one of two things was going to happen. Either is was going to be filed away, or destroyed. Bo didn’t even want to think about that last one, but if a case was so unceremoniously dropped, it meant somebody wanted to go away. Far, far away. As if it never existed.

And Bo Bronsky was nothing if not a moral man. Ask anybody. Of course he was moral. There really was no “maybe.” Things were right, or they were wrong. There was no gray. Right. Wrong. Good. Evil. What was “maybe?” How could you be a little bit wrong? Or a little bit right? Sure, there are extenuating circumstances, but still. Still, you were right or you were wrong. Kings and gods have been wrong. Nobody said anything. Look what happened.

And because he was a moral man, he grabbed a handful of files and folders from the box, slid them up under the bulletproof vest under his shirt, and scuttled out. He went the rest of his shift with them plastered to his stomach from sweat.

Nobody said anything.

Nobody called him in.

They were still in place at quitting time and he said nothing and left as fast as he could and no one stopped him and he could believe what he was doing.

Bo sat, very quietly, in his apartment. On the couch. Staring at the unopened files. On the coffee table. Everything was neat and perfectly cleaned. Colton wasn’t in. Omri had mentioned something about a photo shoot with him. Why not? Not too many liquid-metal covered men out there. Considering what walked down the runway these days, Colt may have a career after all…

Tangent.

Damn it. My mind never wanders. God, what am I doing?

 What on earth could he do with them? The case was closed. Dead, anyway. It’s not like it could be re-opened. Not without more punch than a rookie cop, or even an ex-SEAL, could muster. He hadn’t even gone through them yet. He just stared at them.

He opened a folder.

Photos. Evidence. Fucking hell. Children. Teens. Tied up. Bound. He closed the folder, repulsed. Too late, it was in his head now. Ping-ponging. He felt, vaguely, as if he had trespassed. Seen things that could not be put back in the dark again. As if a part of his innocence was suddenly gone. I’ve killed people and I think that.

He opened the folder again.

More photos. Case notes. Transcriptions. He stopped. What had he seen? Something. It triggered a latent response. A dawning of some sort. He flipped back through the photos. Where. Where. Where. Here. Him. A blond boy. Terrified. Smiling. Hands behind him. Bound. Naked.

“oh my god.”

Episode 1, Part 1: The Poor Wandering One

OK, a little refresher: The characters you just read about all just came through a serious battle with another figure, the mysterious Vagabond. Paine reduced to a madman in the throws of withdrawal. Orbis shot. Pitch Black in a coma so deep the only way to bring him out is to kill him and revive him.

So what happened?

Read on.

Poor Wandering One

David Perry

“Ugh.”

“Yeah.”

“Now that’s a killshot.”

The body lay sprawled on the sidewalk. The head—well, the remnants—blossomed from the neck in a splatter across the pavement. The back of the skull had practically been pulverized, liquefying the brain, but leaving the face eerily intact, but “unwrapped” from the bone, leaving the body horridly moonfaced.

Bo looked at his partner. “I think cause of death is going to be easy with this one.”

“It was a professional hit.”

Detective Chu rose a brow. “Professional?”

“Oh, yes,” said the coroner. “Officer Bronsky was right. He’s the SEAL, right?”

Chu looked at the body. White male, early forties. Medium height and build. “Yeah, he is. Dammit.”

Now Lydia rose a brow. “You not like him?”

“What? Oh, no. This guy was an informant for us.”

“Well, somebody found him out,” Lydia replied. “Did you find the bullet?”

“Forensics is still at the scene.”

Lydia turned back to the body. “Well, I’ll tell you this: With this kind of damage, you’re looking for a sniper bullet. Standard issue just can’t do this. That Bronsky knows his guns.”

Chu shrugged. “SEALs do.”

Captain Bruce Renard was talking with Officer Bronsky when Chu entered.

“Detective Chu.”

Bo rose and nodded to the other man.

Continued Rendard. “Bronsky was first on the scene. He suspects it was a professional hit.”

“He’s right,” Chu replied. “Autopsy confirmed it. Forensics has found the bullet yet, but Lydia’s sure it was a sniper.”

“She already diced him?” Bo asked. “That was quick. Why the rush?”

Chief and Detective exchanged dark looks.

And Bo caught it. “What? What did I just ask?”

“His name is Jerry Cook,” Renard replied. “He was an informant in a case.”

“You’re gonna need a new one,” Bo remarked. Then he put two and two together. “Informant? Professional hit? Hoo, boy.”

“There goes the star witness,” Chu said, slumping into a chair. “At least we have the eviden—“

“Officer Bronsky, would you excuse Detective Chu and I for a moment?”

Bo immediately got up, fought the old habit of saluting his superior officer, caught a very odd look between the two men, left, and like any Navy SEAL with a slight paranoid streak, hung outside the office within earshot.

Of course, the shouting match that erupted between the two men did not quite require what the world calls “subterfuge.” It brought the entire room to a halt, even if it did simmer down very quickly. Detective Dexter Chu charged out of the office, slamming the door so hard Bo was sure the glass would break. His face was pure anger.

Sargent Renard, a few seconds later, came out of his office, his expression one Bo couldn’t indentify. “Um…,” Bo started. “Sir?”

“Nothing, Officer Bronsky,” Renard replied coolly. His face seemed to made out of candlewax. “Return to your duties.”

Interoffice chatter being what it was, Bo knew Dex was working a major human trafficking ring case. While he may have been a former SEAL, Bo was still just a rookie cop, so he wasn’t privy to all the fact, but it was clear the investigation hit a serious bump. He wasn’t up on is legal procedure, but even if a star witness was iced, in the hands of the right D.A., it could be spun to make a better case…

“Dex?”

The man looked up to see Bo. Chu threw his shirt into his locker.

“Aren’t you still on-shift?”

“I’ve been given the day off.”

Bo shifted his weight uncomfortably. “Your case. You were ordered to drop it.” It didn’t take a genius to figure it out. Dexter Chu was a decorated officer, and one of the most level heads in the precinct. He didn’t have tantrums unless the rug was yanked out from under him. “Why?”

Chu scowled. “I was reassigned.”

Bo rose his brows. “What?”

“Renard thought that my ‘immeasurable skills could be put to better use elsewhere.’”

“He said that?”

Chu shot him a glace. Yep. He said that.

“But…but, I mean, you had a strong case. You were working on it for a year and a half! There’s photo evidence!”

The other man yanked his jeans on. “Yeah, well, probably not for much longer.”

“What?”

“D.A.’s dropping the case.”

Bo blinked. “That doesn’t even make sense.”

Chu slammed his locker shut. “No. Doesn’t.” He passed the rookie without ceremony. “Doesn’t.”

LAST CHAPTER

Meltdown, Orbis & Whirligig

VAGABOND

            A tremor, he thought as the stylist made headway through the tangle of his hair. What else could have shaken the earth like that?

Funny that nobody else seemed to notice it. He had been having that eerie feeling all day, that nobody seemed to be noticing anything.

Combed out, it was almost to his waist. He never cut his hair, after all. It had be so long since he had seen the near white-gold shade, he had almost convinced himself he had been a brunette. He had never cut it since since since since since sincesincesincienissccceeeeeeeeneee

            And he could have sworn he could still hear that man screaming. It was just off in the distance, like birdsong, or the collective cry of crows. It vexed him—he didn’t know why—while he got his hair tackled.

            Clothes, he thought. I’m going to have to get some of them—

            OW!

            Damn knots. He was still woozy. Still overwhelmed by the senses. Even the most minute things, a bump, a stubborn knot in is hair, was enough to nearly send him over the edge. He saw stars; tried to play it off. Actually it was a miracle he was able to get out the door. He spent half the day just trying to get out of the bathroom. Muscles and sinews that had not been used for….however long it wasSssEEEEEEEEEEEEE…suddenly found commands and bio-electrical impulses coursing down their nerves. And his body woke up. It was too much.

            And now he was sure of it: he could still hear that man screaming. No one else seemed to notice, though, in their blithe, accommodating manner. What, is he following me? This has got to stop.

           

           

            OhGodOhGodOhGodOhGod

            Oh

            GOD.

            Bo was on the floor. He just…crumpled. He put the key in the lock. He opened the door. And he just…crumpled.

He’s been shot. Oh god. He’s on the floor. He’s been shot. He’s been shot. Oh god oh god oh god. He’s been shot. Oh god. Oh Jesus.

            Nash Thibideux, transfixed, could only stare at Bo’s body. This was a Navy SEAL. Weapons specialist. Martial arts master. And he could generate a few inches from his fists spheres of pure, diamond-hard energy that could grind through steel. Deflect bullets. But only if he saw them coming. Now he was spawled, ugly, on the floor of the hall.

Whirligig, who had followed Bo from the day he fell out of the sky and landed in the bay, was in there, in the apartment. Total puppy, but a total blank-slate, a complete amnesiac. Bo even had to give him a name, ‘Colton Grabowski.’ The last name was his mother’s maiden name, the first from Bo favorite porn star. Colton was an “anthroid,” a living being completely saturated with a nearly impervious liquid computer. He could spin around the center of his gravity so fast he could fly or grind his way through anything. But he was out cold. The fight with Vagabond damaged him so badly he lapsed into a stasis-state while his body repaired itself.

And Nash himself, he was MELTDOWN. He was Heat Incarnate. He could fly, could vaporize stone and metal. There was no limit to how hot he could get. He was probably the only female-to-male transgender thermophile. And he could hear his brain screaming. Fire danced down his arms and legs. And he could not move. God help me, I can’t move. He’s been shot. He’s been shot. He’s been shot. He’s been shot. I can’t move. He’s been shot.

            That’s when he saw the silencer and barrel emerge from the doorframe.

            Move, Nash.

            He had been standing off to the side of the door while Bo unlocked it.

            Nash, move.

            The killer didn’t know another was there. He was coming out to look at the body. The gun was coming out of the door.

            NASH! MOVE!

            He’s been shot.

He’s been shot.

He’s been shot.

He watched Vagabond go through the whole ritual, blearily. He wasn’t even sure if he was really seeing, or it was just some sort of haze. He’s done something to me, he knew. He knew he was terrified, and yet it was all like looking at something from so far away. He knew he had to run. He knew he had the power to do it. But it was all so far away in his mind. He couldn’t reach anything, couldn’t touch anything.

so

far

….a…way….

So he watched Vagabond. He was vaguely aware where they were. Warehouse. Screaming. Ruined. Burned out. Raining. Screaming. Water falling through the roof. Vagabond, naked, standing in the falling water. Using his power to change his black hair blond. Screaming. Pieces of wood, metal flying, raking through his hair. Took all day. Screaming.

And then Vagabond turned. Looking right at me. Coming up to me help no picking me up with his mind screaming no no things flying everywhere no no help Mirrorball Scepter help help oh god help speaking in my mind

“Time to go, Benji Whitcombe called Tug-of-War. Time to go forever.”

Chapter 1, Episode 17

Stephanie waved her hand. “I’m sorry. I mean, no. Brent is the best guy I know. He’s just so unlucky.”

            “So you’ve said.”

            “And he never complains. More and more shit is thrown on him, and he never says a word. It’s like he’s God’s whipping boy. He didn’t even tell me he was broke.” He mind was wandering, spiting out random facts.

            “He’s in financial trouble?”

            “He’s a disaster magnet.” She was flaking out.

            The detective thought a moment. “Does he owe anyone money? Maybe a loan shark—“

            “Oh, God, no. He wouldn’t even know where to look or who to ask.” Stephanie inhaled. “I don’t have any idea who did this. No idea why. I know he didn’t deserve it.”

            “Well, take that up with God,” said the doctor. “As for the World of Men, Mr. Xenos is listed as serious.”

            “Will he die?”

            “We’ll do everything we can, ma’am.”

            She knelt to Brent’s side. “Brent?”

             “He was rambling before we put him under.”

“Rambling? Rambling what?” both Stephanie and the officer asked.

            “He kept saying ‘I never told you.’ And he was laughing.”

            Brent was shaking. Tears brightened his cheeks. His eyes focused on something not in the room, and Stephanie and Omri were no longer there.

            Stephanie, and not just her, pleaded with Brent to talk to Manny. But it was like the man imploded. When she suggested Manny ‘get into Brent’s head’—“Can’t you…um,” she asked, “just go in and fix the damage?”—Manny almost fell off his chair. Forcing himself in would be like another assault, he said. And considering Brent’s powers, Manny didn’t want to take the chance of pushing Brent further over the edge. They already had the thoroughly-snapped Vagabond. The position of “Super Crazy Man” was already filled.

Stephanie had wandered the streets that night and found herself, inexplicably, in front of a church. Saint somebody of the holy whatnot rama-lama-ding-dong. An admitted lapsed Catholic, she nevertheless wandered in. It was a small place, intimate. It had been ages since she had been in a church.

            There were no illusions. She knew she wasn’t the world’s best Catholic or even Christian. But she always had offered up a prayer now and then. Never for herself. She was a tough broad. She could take care of herself.

            Brent had often been in her prayers. Then all of them. The first few had been that he be granted some respite. When that didn’t work, Stephanie changed tactics and asked if there was some plan behind it all, some benefit that, ta-dah!, would make it all worthwhile. Then she started pleading. Finally, she began to ask, outright, if this were all some game getting very tired of.

            And, in the end, she wondered, that, as creations of another thing, if that creator considered all the emotions of its creations as ultimately artificial and thus, not legitimate or worthwhile.

            She knelt, looking up at the Crucifixion, but before she made the Sign of the Cross, her hand froze in midair, and she rocked back on her heels, slumping. Standing, she came from behind the banister and walked up the steps of the altar. Up to the cross itself.

            She slapped Jesus right across the face. And turned her back and left.

But Manny did confirm what Stephanie had long suspected. Brent was often called paranoid, or a misanthrope, but it wasn’t that Brent was suffering paranoia or even misanthropy.

            He was, for every waking hour, terrified.

            Brent was a panophobe. Pathologically afraid of everything. He had the power to swallow a city whole. He could sink islands, maybe even continents, and raise them again. Solid, molten, or even vaporized, stone and metal were to him like humanity was to fate. But he could not walk out the damn door to do it.

            And then there was Omri, who was just plain infuriating. Sure, he was a world-famous fashion photographer. Sure, with his concussion-power, he could create battering-rams of out “thin” air…or water, earth. And sure, he was genuinely, truly, whole-heartedly in love with Brent. And would not say anything. Probably the one thing that might give Brent some sort of “anything” to look forward to, and Omri always found some reason, some goddam stupid reason, and would not say anything. And Brent, far too paranoid, far to filled with hate, to believe it from anybody else. He’d see it as a trick. By the few people he actually could stand to see.

            So nobody did anything. Said anything.

            That’s why he walked away from everything. That’s why he lived in a boulder. He was a shut-in. He could simply sink into the Earth, as deep as he needed. He was perhaps the one person Stephanie knew that could literally run away from it all. What could hurt him a mile beneath the surface? How could anyone, Vahagn, Vagabond, anyone at all, hunt him down, when he had the entire planet Earth to hide in?

Omri didn’t know what do to, but he heard his voice continue to speak. “They’ll be coming for us.”

            A look of low-level panic skittered across Stephanie’s face.

It was Brent who spoke, then. “I’ll bet my bottom dollar on it.” And he drank his wine, all of it, in one go.

And you know what the amazing irony of it all was? Brent, having long taken the name Quartz, was the only one of them, of all of them, to beat Vagabond. Every time.