Robert Crane - Untouched

Ariadne leaned forward. “Approximately three hundred and fifty metahumans were killed at a Chinese government facility less than a week ago.”

“That’s…” I let my mind run with the numbers I knew and came back with an answer. “That’s over ten percent of the metahuman population, based on the number you gave me.””

“It is.” She sat back and drew a deep breath. “We don’t know what happened; reports are somewhat sketchy. The facility was supposed to be a training center for the People’s Liberation Army’s metahuman development program. Either they destroyed it after deciding that it wasn’t worth the risk or someone else did it for them. Either way, the meta population took a steep dive last week.”

“Ten percent?” My words were almost a croak, no more than a whisper. “I believe the literal term for that is ‘decimated’.” I had never met even one of the people killed, but somehow I felt a connection to them because somehow we were the same.

“True enough.” Ariadne’s hands landed in her lap. “These are the sort of things that happen every once in a while. We live in a world where metahumans keep their powers secret—unless they’re—”

“Troublemakers? Ne’er-do-wells?” My hands found the padded armrests of my chair, felt the cool metal where the leather padding ended and squeezed it, more out of a desire to feel some pressure than anything else. “Like Wolfe.” I felt him stir in umbrage within me and ignored him.

“Similar.” It was Ariadne who answered, again. “Usually a meta doesn’t openly declare, committing crimes, harming people, unless they’ve decided to start shirking societal conventions and live by their own rules. At that point they’ve become a threat, both to human society and the collective metahuman secret.” She shrugged. “After all, it’s not as though we have something that can make a person forget when they see something crazy—”

“Like some beast rips through a dozen cops in a mall parking lot?” I saw a brief reflection of Wolfe’s grin, like a Cheshire cat, in the window as I turned from Ariadne to Old Man Winter.

“That’s not one we can explain our way out of,” she said. “We had to leave it to the media and the government to spin it.” She smiled. “Did you hear what they finally landed on?” I shook my head. “A biker on PCP and cocaine that was wearing multiple Kevlar vests under his clothes.”

“I suppose he was rather scruffy looking.” I ignored the shout of outrage that echoed through my head alone.

“But it’s at those points that someone has to get involved, for the good of society. Once someone crosses that line, if there’s no one there to stop them, they spin out of control, as though the taste of power over people and freedom from consequence is a narcotic that takes them over.”

“That’s where the Directorate comes in,” I finished for her. “But what about the other groups? They don’t do the same?”

Ariadne looked uncomfortable very suddenly. “Keep in mind our primary mission is policing the metahuman population, not spying on other groups that have metahuman interests—”

“Which is a fancy way of saying what?” I looked at her evenly. “That you don’t pay attention to them? Don’t know who they are?”

“We don’t,” she said. “We’re aware that there are other factions out there, but none of them have strong roots in the U.S. yet, and we’ve been more focused on small scale threats and awakenings than some dread conspiracy—”

“You don’t have a clue about any of them, do you?” I shook my head in near disbelief.

“Not so,” Old Man Winter said from the window. “The boy you have had dealings with—his name is Reed Treston, and he works with an outfit based in Rome. They appear to be a group concerned about government interventions against metahumans but most of their operations are in Europe.”

“What about Wolfe?” I sat up in interest, and I could feel him rattling around inside, almost as though he were holding his breath to find out what they knew about his employer.

“We know less,” Ariadne shared a look with Old Man Winter. “Almost nothing, actually. They’re a group possessed of incredibly strong metas, like Wolfe.”

“And this new guy,” I told her. She looked at me quizzically. “You know, the guy with the metallic complexion? He’s with Wolfe’s outfit.”

She looked to Old Man Winter, then back to me with a furrowed brow. “How do you know that?”

“Well if he’s not with the same group Reed is, then it stands to reason he’s with Wolfe’s group, unless there’s another power out there that wants a piece of me?”

“There are several others,” Old Man Winter said in his low rumble. “None of which we know much about.”

“How is it you guys can be so well informed that you found me but you have no idea who your enemies are?” I sighed more out of disbelief than despair. “You don’t want to know anything about your competition?”

“There’s been a proliferation of metahuman groups in the last few years,” Ariadne said, twisting a lock of her hair around her finger. “It’s something we’ve recently begun to pivot to address, but it takes time to put an intelligence network in place and develop useable intel. We are working on it. But that’s not why we asked you here.” She took a deep breath. “Did this answer your questions about the larger history of metahumans and the role they play in society?”

I hesitated. “Yes,” I said after a moment. “It’s far from complete, but I get the gist. I’m still wondering about a few things—like the Agency, what my mom did for them and how they were destroyed,” I said when she looked at me with a curious expression, “but that’s not something I expect to know the answer to right now, today.”

“It’s something we could cover soon, perhaps in our next conversation.” Ariadne’s hands left her lap and went to a folder on the desk, sliding it across in front of me. “But all that is ancillary, unrelated to the real mission—which is why we wanted to talk to you.”

“I see.” I felt a nervous tension run through me. Did they suspect my involvement in the destruction of the science building? I felt an involuntary shudder inside and couldn’t dispense with the idea that somewhere inside me. Wolfe was suddenly very cagey.

She opened the folder and pulled out four photographs, arranging them neatly in front of me. One was a picture of a family of four, another of a police officer, the next of a young woman not much older than me, and the last of a mother and young daughter. “This is why we’re here. Last year a metahuman named Darrell Seidell went on a crime spree. He was nineteen and already had three felonies to his name before his power manifested.”

She pointed to the family of four, all blond, with two girls. “He staged a daylight break-in at this couple’s home—Rick and Susan Ormann of Champaign, Illinois. Rick was a lawyer, Susan worked for a local bank. They had a nice house, so nice, in fact, that Darrell chose it out of dozens of others to break into. He went there to steal from them—maybe a TV, some jewelry—and he ended up killing both of them, then their kids.” She moved her finger to the picture of the police officer. But not before Melanie, the Ormann’s eight year old daughter, called 911 and this man, Officer Lance Nealey, responded.”

She picked up the picture of the cop, and I couldn’t look away. He was young too, probably in his twenties, around Zack’s age. He had cocoa skin, big brown eyes, a warm smile, and his head was shaved. He was the perfect picture of a cop, the kind of image that was everything my skewed perspective thought a cop should be. He just…looked like a nice guy, there to help. “Seidell killed him and stole his cruiser, escaping the scene. That night he stopped at a convenience store outside Ottumwa, Iowa and ran across this girl, the clerk, Jeannie Sabourin.” She handed me the picture of the young woman and I took it, even though I really didn’t want to and forced myself to look into the girl’s face.