The Power Broker

by Nick Svolos

  “You ever hear of a guy in his forties gettin’ powers, Conway?” He asked as I sat down in the wooden chair across from him.

  “A few. There’s was this one guy called Anubis. Archeologist who found some sort of amulet back in the fifties. Gave him the ability to communicate with the dead. Solved a lot of murders in Philadelphia…”

  “No, I mean a natural,” he cut me off. “If this guy had an amulet, we’d have found it.”

  I shook my head. “A natural? No, never heard of it. I mean, anything’s possible. Industrial accidents. Science experiments gone horribly wrong or miraculously right, depending on how you look at it. But it’s pretty implausible that a middle-aged guy would just wake up with powers.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I thought.” He started to hand me a file, thought better of it, and instead handed me a form to sign. “I need you to sign this NDA before I can let ya look at the files.”

  I scanned it. It was a standard Non-Disclosure Agreement, only with more dire threats about the legal consequences that would befall me should I disclose any of the information I might be exposed to. Fines, imprisonment, something that might have been the legal term for summary beheading. It was vaguely insulting, but I went along with it and signed anyway. It wasn’t a story I was working on, so the whole thing was pretty much a wash as far as I was concerned. If the cops were doing anything unethical or illegal, I was pretty sure the NDA would be unenforceable, so I figured they just needed to protect their investigation.

  Once that was out of the way, Dawson turned the file over to me. A mugshot of a middle-aged man with a bruised and swollen eye glared out of the file at me. His name was Melvin Jacob Trussell, age 46, currently residing at an address in Beverly Hills. His occupation was listed as a producer for Starstruck Films, one of those boutique studios that make flashy, high-end movies that get a lot of critical acclaim but don’t make much money.

  I thought I’d heard his name before. “Didn’t he make A Time for Crying?”

  He shrugged. “Could be. The missus gave up dragging me to chick flicks twenty years ago.”

  “Hmm,” I muttered. I remembered the sandwiches in the plastic bag at my side. “Say, did you eat yet?” I reached down and plopped the bag on his desk.

  His chunky face broke into a wide grin. “No, we’ve been hammering away at this since Mentalia delivered these guys. Looks like you got a couple extras.” He gave me a hopeful look. I grabbed mine and a bag of Doritos and nodded. He called in the other two cops and the bag of food disappeared. Like I said, human-shaped dogs. Bring food. Just make sure you grab yours first.

  I went back to studying the file on Trussell. His son OD’d on heroin a few weeks back, and he chose to go out last night looking for revenge. Several glossy photos showed the grisly results. Three drug dealers beaten to death in West Hollywood. One of them had his lower jaw pounded down into his midsection. According to Mentalia’s statement, she and Three Dollar Bill caught him while he was pounding a fourth victim into the pavement at the corner of La Brea and Waring. They made short work of him. Her report said Trussell had super strength and flying, but not invulnerability.

  I almost choked on my sandwich. That was the same power set Karl had. I wanted to dismiss it as a coincidence, the case was already weird enough, but my instincts grabbed onto it and wouldn’t let it go. It was impossible, as impossible as removing someone’s powers, but there was a dead teenager who proved otherwise. “Did this guy say anything?”

  “Naw, he lawyered up right away. We’re still waiting on him to show up.”

  I shelved my thoughts on Trussell for the moment. “You said you had two. Who’s the other one?” Dawson handed me a second folder. The mugshot in this one showed a kid with a wide, linear bruise on one side of his face. He looked scared. The file listed his name as Brett Alan Simpson, lived in Brentwood, eighteen years of age, and the occupation line said he was a college student. Whereas Trussell had a clean rap sheet, this kid had a fairly long history of juvenile run-ins with the law. Underage drinking, public drunkenness, speeding, auto theft, DUI. Pretty much any way you can get into trouble with booze and expensive cars, he’d been caught in the act. In each case, his parents or their lawyers got him out of trouble. I didn’t recognize the names of the parents, but I got the impression they had money and connections. The picture that emerged was that of a rich kid who had a tendency for misbehaving and parents with a penchant for bailing him out.

  He was being charged with grand theft, breaking and entering, and about a half dozen other offenses. The camera of a high-end jewelry store in Westwood caught him crashing through the window late Saturday night, grabbing an armload of jewelry from the display cases, and racing out into the night. According to the write-up, the video image of the perpetrator was very blurry, consistent with someone traveling at extreme speeds. Apparently, this guy was a speedster. Suave and Herculene caught up with him after the police were notified of someone trying to sell the jewelry at a local pawn shop. Suave’s account of the capture read like a comedy sketch. By rights, there was no way either of them could have caught a kid with that kind of speed, but he had lousy control over his momentum. They ended up chasing him around Los Feliz until he knocked himself out on a lamp post.

  “Did this one talk?” I asked.

  “Mphf,” Dawson grunted as he swallowed a bite of his sandwich. “Yeah, but it’s mostly lies. Tried to tell us the loot belonged to his family. As to his superspeed, he said he must be a late bloomer. Says he just got the powers last night. A load of crap, if you ask me.”

  I set the file on his desk. “I’m not so sure. I’d be willing to bet neither of them had powers until the last couple of days.”

  “How you figure?”

  “This Simpson kid’s been in plenty of trouble, but never ran away like he had super-speed, right? Speedsters are pretty damned hard to catch, and the LAPD’s caught him plenty. Usually, it takes another speedster. In the report, Suave said that the kid was crashing into things. Hell, that’s the only reason they could catch him, he plowed into a streetlight. That’s a rookie mistake. I mean, they think really fast. When you’re running around at those kinds of speeds, you have to. An experienced guy would never have crashed.

  “As to the other guy, Trussell, it sounds like he was out to get payback on the drug dealers, right? Says here, his son died three weeks ago. If he had powers all along, why didn’t he go all Fists of Justice on them right away?”

  Dawson nodded. “Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. Just wanted confirmation that I wasn’t nuts. So, how’s something like this happen?”

  “I got an idea on that.” I pulled the photos out of the messenger bag and spread them out on the desk. “I took these at the place where Karl Jorgensen died.” I read the address from my notebook as Dawson pulled out a fresh pad and started making notes. “I told you about how Jorgensen was a super, right? Well, if you look at his DNA now, he’s not. His arms have strap marks, like the kind a chair like this would make. See the broken strap? He still had his strength when he snapped that leather. That’s when things went sideways. There was a little mark on his back, too. I didn’t get a picture of that, but it’s in the Coroner’s report.

  “And then, there’s this,” I placed my recorder on the desk and played back the conversation at the drug den. The old cop listened intently as he took notes. He made me play it back two more times until he was confident he’d gotten everything.

  Dawson rubbed his forehead and sat back in his chair. “Christ, Conway, how’d you get all this?”

  “Wrong place, right time,” I shrugged. “I was just working the story. A friend of Karl’s at the homeless camp told me he’d heard of some kind of 'cure’ for powers, and went off looking for it. His personal effects had an address, and I ran it down.” I looked him in the eye. “So, you think you got time to fit this into your caseload?”

  Dawson didn’t answer me directly. Instead he called out, “Sandoval. Powell. Get in here.” Once his guys go
t there, he said, “If you guys didn’t already know it, this is Reuben Conway. He’s a reporter for the Beacon. Conway, why don’t you walk ‘em through this, just like you did for me. You guys, pay attention.”

  I did as he asked, pausing to answer questions when they came up. Once I was finished, the cops silently contemplated the evidence I’d presented while I just stood back and let them take it all in.

  Eventually the one named Sandoval broke the silence. “So, if I’m reading this right, this German guy is some kind of doctor, and he has a way to transfer super powers. And now he’s selling them on the open market, which explains our two prisoners.”

  Powell nodded. “Makes sense. There’d be a lot of money in something like that. How is it we don’t know about this ‘Force’ stuff, Captain?”

  “That’s your next job. Get on the horn with Narcotics and see if they know anything about this. Ask ‘em what they know about Jefferson Plaza, too.” Powell started to leave, but Dawson stopped him. “Actually, scratch that last part. Just ask what they know about a drug called Force. I don’t want them jumping the gun and blowing this. We need to catch these guys in the act.” He turned to the other plainclothesman. “Sandoval, you and I are gonna go work on our little speed demon. I wanna know where he got this stuff.”

  They didn’t tell me not to, so I followed Dawson and Sandoval down the hall. Dawson motioned me into an observation room adjoining the containment cell holding Simpson. There was a small control panel with some buttons and dials, a video screen showing the cell, and a couple of lights indicating that the recording functions were turned on. On one wall was a huge window showing the interior of the “interview room”. Bathed in orange light, Simpson sat facing me in a hard metal chair, handcuffed to a metal table. His face showed no indication that he saw me, so I figured the window was one of those one-way mirrors you see on the cop shows. I’d never been on this side of one before. I took a seat in the chair farthest from the control panel.

  I have to admit, I’d been wondering how the heck they’d managed to hang on to their two superhuman prisoners. The presence of the orange light explained it all. The glow was a by-product of a nullification field, a piece of cutting-edge gear developed by Galestorm Technologies. It generated a radiation field that disabled the superpowers of most naturals as long as they were exposed to it. GaleTech, one of the best high-tech firms on the planet, provided most of the gizmos The Angels used, stuff that came right out of science fiction stories. When Gail Crenshaw died at the the Coliseum, she left her granddaughter, Kelly Page-Crenshaw, with a lot of money, a majority share of the company’s stock, and one hell of a PR problem. How the heck do you explain to the world that the Chairman and CEO of your corporation is a supervillain? Donating some of their better-tested tech to the cops was a smart move on her part.

  Dawson and Sandoval entered the cell, Sandoval taking the chair across the table from Simpson, and Dawson taking a seat on the prisoner’s side. Dawson placed a plastic water bottle on the table and passed it to the kid. Simpson must have been pretty thirsty, because he twisted the cap off and downed it in one pull.

  Dawson led off the interrogation. “So, here’s the deal, kid. We’ve got you on grand theft, commercial burglary, vandalism plus a handful of other charges and special circumstances that the DA is gonna use as seasoning to pad your sentence. You’re looking at one year for the stuff you stole, up to three more for breaking into the place, and another for the damage you caused. With whatever else the DA tacks on, maybe you’re looking at six or seven years.”

  “Seven years,” Sandoval added. “That’s a long time for someone your age. What’s that thing they say about doing time at Lompoc, Dawson?”

  “Every year feels like two,” the elder cop replied sadly. “Do you know why, Brett?” He waited until the kid shook his head before continuing. “It’s because they can’t let you out of your cell. How can they? It’s not like they have nullifier fields to cover that sort of area.”

  “Oh, you still get your one hour of exercise,” Sandoval chimed in. “They have a portable treadmill that they wheel into your cell.”

  “You eat your meals in your cell. You can read. If you need medical attention, the doctor comes to your cell. Once a week, they take the prisoners, one at a time, down the hall to the shower. But mostly, you just sit in this orange light, stare at four orange walls, and wait for that one hour each day when you can walk on that treadmill.” Dawson leaned forward and placed a fatherly hand on the kid’s shoulder. “Brett, all Lompoc does is turn supervillains into hamsters.”

  The kid broke. He started shaking and collapsed on the table with his face buried in his arms. I didn’t think he’d thought through just how much trouble he was in. Now he knew. Prison’s bad. It’s really bad if you’re a supervillain.

  While Simpson sobbed, Sandoval took several photos from a folder and placed them on the table. Dawson gave the kid a minute before speaking again.

  “I want you to take a look at something.” Simpson’s head came up slowly, and he blinked away tears as his eyes adjusted and focused on the photos. “This is Karl Jorgensen. What’s left of him, anyway. He was fifteen. He died last week. Up until then, he was a speedster. Just like you.”

  Here’s a fun fact I learned some time ago: The cops can lie during an interrogation. Seriously.

  Dawson pointed at one of the photos. “You see this mark here? We found this between his shoulder blades. Someone got ahold of him, strapped him to a chair; you can see the marks on his wrists, here. Then they did something to him. Something that took away his powers. It killed him.”

  Simpson stared wide-eyed at the photos, and Dawson let it sink in for a bit. “Brett, we’re in a position to help each other here. The people who did this are going to do it again, and I have to stop them. If you help me do that, the DA will have a much bigger fish to fry. Your case gets kicked down to a junior assistant, and when we explain how helpful you were, that’ll make a big difference when it comes to how all this plays out. This is your chance, Brett. Tell me how you got your powers.”

  “They didn’t say they were killing people,” Simpson said in confusion. “They’re supposed to be volunteers. People who wanted to get rid of their powers.”

  “Who’s ‘they’?”

  “The people who sold it to me. They call it Force. Like in Star Wars, you know? It’s like, a brand name or something. The guy I dealt with went by Sledge. Big guy, bl-, I mean, African-American. I didn’t get any names from the rest of ‘em.”

  “OK, how’d you meet this Sledge guy?”

  “I was at a club up on Melrose. Some guy was talking about some kinda new drug. Said it gave you powers, you know? I’ve heard rumors about it, so I thought maybe it was legit. I gave him my number. The next day, another guy calls me. Says he can hook me up with super speed if I can come up with the money. A hundred grand, and it’s gotta be cash. That wasn’t a problem, my parents are loaded, so I told him I was down. He gave me an address and I got the money from the safe. I figured, with the powers, I could make the money back and put it back before anyone knew. Then I could just, you know, make money the easy way. I’d be golden.”

  “So what happened then?”

  “I went to the address. It was a motel in Ontario by the airport. Sledge took the money and let me in. He had a couple of guys, they looked like medical types, with him in the room. They told me to take off my shirt and sit in this chair with straps. They explained what was gonna happen. Basically, they had this thing, looked kinda like a gun, but more like the kind they use to squirt injections into people. You know the ones that don’t have needles?”

  “A jet injector?” Sandoval asked.

  “If that’s what they call ‘em. I don’t know. You see ‘em in army movies.”

  “Go on. What happened next?”

  “They showed me this little jar full of grey liquid. Said it was the Force. They told me they had to inject this stuff into my spine so it could get to my stem cells or s
omething. Said it hurts like hell, so they’d need to strap me to the chair until it passed. Otherwise, there’s no telling what could happen. Said it was for my protection as much as theirs. So I did like they told me. They strapped my arms and legs to the chair and put a gag in my mouth. Then they shot the stuff into my back. At first it hurt, but not that bad, not like they had me believing. I didn’t feel any different. I started to think they were ripping me off, but then everything looked kinda orange. Then it hit me. It was like my spine was made outta fire or something, and I started screaming and trying to get away, but I was strapped down. I guess I blacked out after that, ‘cause the next thing I knew, one of the tech guys was shining a light in my eyes. They unstrapped me and told me to take it easy for a couple of hours. After that, I should be able to try out the powers. They packed everything up and left after that. So, I just chilled out on the bed, watching TV for a while. Then everything started getting slow. Like they were playing the show in slow motion, you know?”

  The cops let him go on for quite a while, but I tuned it out. Speedster stories are usually the same. The world feels like it’s in slow motion, and then there’s a bunch of anecdotes about crashing into things because you start moving too fast and don’t know how to compensate for your momentum. You set your clothes on fire with air friction. Then, you discover how rapidly the resulting burns heal. Stuff like that. If you’ve heard it once, you’ve pretty much heard it all. Instead, I focused on trying to piece together how this whole Force thing worked. How the hell stem cells factored into this, I couldn’t say, but I had to admit I didn’t know much about them. I suspected I’d be having another chat with Dr. Austin soon.

  I was reading an article, basically a primer, about stem cells on my phone when Dawson and Sandoval entered the observation booth. Sandoval went to the panel and busied himself with checking the recording of the interview. Dawson waved at me to follow him, and we went to his office.