Monday, July 6th, 2009, 2:17 AM
James's Apartment
1247 Riverside Drive, Apt 4B
James sat cross-legged on his living room floor, police scanner crackling beside him as he cleaned his knuckles. The skin was split in three places from tonight's work...seven dealers, two pimps, and one very surprised loan shark who'd thought an alley behind a Chinese restaurant was private enough for breaking kneecaps.
"Unit 47, we've got another one," Detective Harvey Bullock's gravelly voice cut through the static. "Corner of Hob's Bay and Morrison. Six suspects, zip-tied, arranged in what I can only describe as a fucking gift basket for the prosecution."
James smiled, pressing an ice pack against his swollen knuckles. Bullock was developing quite the vocabulary when it came to describing crime scenes.
"Same MO as the others?" came the responding voice.
"Same everything. Note says 'Courtesy of a concerned citizen,' suspects are unconscious but breathing, weapons confiscated and arranged nice and neat." Bullock's frustration was bleeding through the radio. "Whoever this guy is, he's making us look like amateurs."
That wasn't entirely fair. The Metropolis Police Department was competent enough when they weren't dealing with problems that required superhuman abilities to solve. But James wasn't about to send Bullock a sympathy card.
"Captain wants you to open a file," the responding officer said.
"What am I supposed to call it? 'Mystery vigilante who makes our jobs easier'?"
"How about 'Friendly Ghost'? Cameras never get a clear shot, just shadows moving around."
James chuckled. Friendly Ghost. He could live with that.
The scanner crackled with more chatter—domestic disturbance on Fifth Street, break-in at a jewelry store, the usual litany of human misery that kept Metropolis's finest busy. But underneath the routine calls, James caught references that made his blood run cold.
Word was spreading.
Not just about him, but about the vacuum he was creating. Three weeks of systematic takedowns had left gaps in the criminal ecosystem, and nature abhorred a vacuum. Bigger players were moving in, bringing resources and firepower that made street dealers look like amateur hour.
His phone buzzed. Text from Kevin: Doctor P is moving product tomorrow night. Building 47, like I said. But he's got company now. Serious company.
James typed back: How serious?
Guys with military gear. Energy weapons. Shit that glows in the dark.
Energy weapons. James felt something cold settle in his stomach. He'd been operating under the assumption that Metropolis's criminal underworld was still fundamentally human. Apparently, that assumption was wrong.
Another text from Kevin: There's something else. Heard them talking about the Man in Black. They know about you.
Of course they did. James had been leaving a trail of unconscious criminals across three districts for weeks. Anonymity was a luxury he'd already lost.
What kind of bounty? James typed.
Fifty grand. Each. Three different crews putting up money.
James set down his phone and considered this development. Fifty thousand dollars was serious money in Suicide Slum. The kind of money that would bring professional killers out of the woodwork. The kind of money that meant he'd graduated from nuisance to genuine threat.
Good. He was tired of fighting amateurs.
Monday, July 6th, 2009, 8:43 PM
Suicide Slum
Rooftop Above Morrison Street
The first assassination attempt came while James was surveilling a drug corner that had reopened after his visit last week. Professional work, no amateur would have gotten close enough for James to smell his cologne before making a move.
The assassin was perched on a fire escape two buildings over, rifle with a scope that probably cost more than most people made in a year. Military training, from the way he controlled his breathing and heartbeat. Ex-special forces, maybe, or someone with similar experience.
James could have taken him down quietly, could have ended the threat without bloodshed. Instead, he decided to send a message.
He dropped from his perch and scaled the building face like a spider, using handholds and ledges that would have been invisible to normal vision. The assassin never saw him coming.
"Nice scope," James said, materializing behind him.
The man spun around, trying to bring his rifle to bear in the cramped space of the fire escape. James grabbed the barrel and twisted, metal screaming as it bent into an impossible angle.
"Expensive equipment," James continued conversationally, examining the ruined weapon. "Someone's taking this seriously."
The assassin reached for a sidearm. James caught his wrist and squeezed until bones made interesting sounds.
"Who sent you?"
"Go to hell," the man gasped.
"Fair enough."
James grabbed him by the collar and dangled him over the edge of the fire escape. Four stories down, concrete waited with the patience of inevitability.
"Let me rephrase that," James said. "Who sent you, and how many more are coming?"
The assassin's tough-guy act lasted about three seconds before gravity and good sense took over. "Torrino! Anthony Torrino put up the bounty!"
James knew the name. Mid-level crime boss who specialized in loan sharking and protection rackets. Old-school organized crime with delusions of grandeur.
"What about the other two bounties?"
"I don't know! Torrino just said there were other crews hunting you too!"
James pulled him back onto the fire escape and zip-tied his hands behind his back. "Here's what's going to happen. You're going to tell Torrino that his money isn't good enough. Tell him the Man in Black says hello."
He left the assassin for the police to find, along with the usual note. But this time, he added a postscript: "Tell Detective Bullock that the hunters are being hunted."
Tuesday, July 7th, 2009, 11:32 PM
Industrial District
Building 47
The warehouse squatted in the darkness like a concrete cancer, surrounded by empty lots and abandoned buildings that spoke of economic decay and municipal neglect. Perfect cover for the kind of business that required privacy.
James perched on a neighboring rooftop, listening to the activity inside. At least twenty people, based on the heartbeats he could distinguish. Vehicles arriving and departing on a regular schedule. The hum of machinery that suggested serious operations rather than casual drug dealing.
And underneath it all, something that made his enhanced senses scream warnings.
Energy. Alien energy, crackling through the air like static electricity before a thunderstorm. Whatever was happening inside that building, it involved technology that definitely wasn't from Earth.
James activated the police scanner app on his phone, cycling through frequencies until he found the one Kevin had mentioned. The kid was inside somewhere, playing his role as a potential customer while feeding James intelligence.
"Product's moving in thirty minutes," Kevin's voice was barely a whisper. "But they're not just dealing tonight. They're recruiting."
James adjusted his position, trying to get a better angle on the building's entrances. Three ways in—main door, loading dock, and a service entrance that probably connected to the office space on the second floor.
"How many guards?" James subvocalized into his phone's microphone.
"Six on the perimeter. Two at each entrance. But that's not the scary part." Kevin's voice was tight with fear. "The guys with the energy weapons? They're not human."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean they're not human. Gray skin, no hair, eyes like black marbles. And they move wrong, like they're not used to Earth gravity."
Aliens. James felt his mouth go dry. He'd been operating under the assumption that Metropolis's criminal problems were terrestrial. Apparently, he'd been thinking too small.
"Kevin, get out of there. Now."
"Can't. They've got the exits covered, and there's some kind of scanning thing at the doors. They'll know if I try to leave early."
James was already moving, scaling down the building face with the fluid grace that had become second nature. "Stay calm. Stay in character. I'm coming."
"Bartholomew, these aren't street dealers. These are soldiers. Professional killers with weapons that could probably punch through Superman."
"Then I guess it's a good thing I'm not Superman."
James hit the ground running, his enhanced senses mapping the warehouse's defensive positions. Six guards, like Kevin had said. Two at the main entrance, sharing a cigarette and complaining about overtime pay. Two more at the loading dock, playing cards on an overturned crate. The service entrance was covered by a single guard who was more interested in his phone than his surroundings.
Amateur hour. Even with alien technology, human criminals were still human criminals.
James went through the service entrance like a force of nature. The guard never knew what hit him, one moment he was reading text messages, the next he was zip-tied and unconscious in a storage closet.
The second floor was mostly empty office space, but the sound of machinery was stronger here. Industrial-grade ventilation systems, heavy electrical equipment, and something else. Something that hummed with power that made James's teeth ache.
He found a maintenance shaft that led down to the main floor and squeezed through, emerging behind a stack of shipping containers that blocked him from view. The warehouse floor stretched out before him, and what he saw made his blood run cold.
This wasn't a drug operation. It was a laboratory.
Scientific equipment filled the space between shipping containers...centrifuges, analysis machines, tanks full of liquid that glowed with unnatural light. White-coated technicians moved between stations, monitoring readouts and taking notes on tablets that looked too advanced for Earth technology.
And in the center of it all, standing beside a machine that looked like a cross between an MRI scanner and an electric chair, was a man whose skin had a greenish tint and whose eyes burned with phosphorescent light.
Doctor Phosphorus, James assumed. Though clearly the title was more literal than anyone had realized.
"Ladies and gentlemen," Doctor Phosphorus announced to the crowd of potential customers and recruits, "welcome to the future of human enhancement."
James counted heads. Twenty-three people, including Kevin who was standing near the back trying to look interested instead of terrified. Most of them were young, college age or early twenties. The perfect demographic for someone selling dreams of power and purpose.
"The treatment process is simple," Doctor Phosphorus continued, gesturing at the machine. "A brief exposure to controlled genetic modification, and you'll discover abilities you never knew you possessed. Strength, speed, enhanced cognitive function. All the benefits of evolution, compressed into a single afternoon."
One of the gray-skinned soldiers stepped forward, carrying a weapon that definitely wasn't from any Earth military. Energy crackled along its barrel, and James could smell ozone and something metallic that might have been blood.
"Of course," Doctor Phosphorus added with a smile that showed too many teeth, "participation is voluntary. For now."
That was James's cue.
He emerged from behind the shipping containers like vengeance in black cloth, moving fast enough that most of the crowd didn't register his presence until he was already among them.
The first gray-skinned soldier went down with a strike to the nerve cluster at the base of his skull. Alien physiology, but apparently the weak points were similar enough to human anatomy. The energy weapon clattered across the concrete floor.
The second soldier tried to bring his weapon to bear, but James was already inside his guard. An elbow to the solar plexus folded him over, and a knee to the face put him down for good.
"Run!" James shouted to the crowd of potential victims. "All of you, run now!"
Most of them took his advice, streaming toward the exits in a panic that spoke of prey animals finally recognizing a predator. But some of them hesitated, confused by the sudden violence, uncertain whether to flee or fight.
Kevin wasn't one of the hesitators. The kid was already moving toward the service entrance, herding other civilians away from the combat zone with the kind of competence that suggested he'd been in similar situations before.
Doctor Phosphorus raised his hands, and energy began crackling between his fingers. "Impressive entrance, Man in Black. But you're out of your depth here."
"Story of my life," James said, diving behind a shipping container as phosphorescent energy seared the air where he'd been standing.