by Jaspre Bark
He saw nothing of his new owner's remote Wiltshire estate as he was driven through it in the back of a black, windowless van. He was taken from the vehicle and thrown in a pen with other mutant children like himself, all with animal characteristics. The pen's fences were electrified, they were fed from a trough, and they had to go to the toilet in the same straw they slept in.
Five days after he arrived, Moosehead was taken from the pen with four others. The keepers told them that they should feel honoured. The prince had important guests that day. They were set free in an open green and given a twenty minute start before the prince and his cronies let the dogs loose and rode after them.
That was when Moosehead's ability first kicked in properly. Faced with the prospect of death, all the body's natural senses sharpen as it looks for any means of escape. Moosehead had never felt his sense of smell open up quite so incredibly before. He caught every scent that hung on the breeze within a kilometre of him. There was so much scent information that it almost overloaded his brain's ability to process it.
The other children just screamed and ran, crying for their mothers. Moosehead, however, stood stock still and sniffed out the best route to take in order to avoid capture.
He found a row of dead rabbits hanging from a barbed wire fence, and used their carcasses to mask his scent and put the pack off his trail. By nightfall they still hadn't caught him. From the scent of freshly spilled blood that he caught on the downwind, he knew their other quarry had not been so lucky.
He was hungry, weak, and shaking with fatigue as he smelled the beaters closing in on him with the dogs. He was by the perimeter fence and he could smell the fierce heat of the static coming off the voltage that ran through it. Moosehead had concentrated hard on that smell and discovered a gap in the electrical field about two hundred metres away, where part of the fence was down.
Somehow, he found the strength to keep running.
"This is all a little difficult to take in," Johnny said. "You look like Kit and you sound just like him, too. I can tell you're not lying to me, but you have to help me understand how this happened."
"I'm not sure I understand it myself," Moosehead admitted. "I was one of the best manhunters that ever worked for the S/D Agency. That doesn't mean I didn't get tired of the work, though. Happens to us all, I know, but I wanted out of the life. All I needed was one big score: a bounty that could set me up with real prospects for the future. When they put Identi Kit's capture out to tender I knew it was my big chance. A lot of agents wouldn't touch the job; said it was impossible to catch a mutant who could change his shape and assume anyone's identity. Not me, though. I had a nose for these things. Took me a year and a half of chasing mock leads to find him, and another six months to bring him in."
"Aye, we know aw this, and ye're burning yon tree rats," said Middenface, who seemed to be recovering from the poison.
Moosehead turned the skewered tree skeeters over and continued his story.
Kit was knee-deep in some major-league corporate fraud when Moosehead caught up with him. His victims were mostly Miltonian mine owners who were looking to invest their substantial wealth offworld. Their business was necessarily covert since few norms would deal with them at all, but there were always those for whom greed was stronger than prejudice. The many layers of secrecy that surrounded these mutant businessmen were perfect for Kit's purposes.
Posing as various mutant millionaires, he'd been able to embezzle trillions of credits. He had become overconfident, though, and Moosehead had been able to quite literally sniff out the paper trail he had left.
He cornered Kit in the executive washroom of Microhard's central HQ. The identity thief was standing over an unconscious mutant executive who had been able to hide his nature until now. Kit was halfway through the transformation from one form to another when Moosehead zapped him with a paralysis ray.
Moosehead was all set to retire after that. He'd heard about the opportunities opening up on Miltonia and planned to use his half-a-million credit bounty to buy shares in a new mining development. He was just about to book his passage to the remote planet when the Intergalactic Bureau of Investigation got in touch with him.
Kit had offered to turn world's evidence and rat out his accomplices. He was offering up big-time gang bosses and senior figures from the sphere of high finance. He had one condition, though. He wouldn't talk to anyone but Moosehead.
Moosehead smelled a rat from the beginning. It was nothing he could put his finger on, just an uneasy feeling in the pit of his gut. But he was intrigued. A hunter can build up a great deal of respect for his quarry, especially one as clever and as formidable an opponent as Kit. In his vanity, Moosehead assumed that the respect was mutual. After tracking Kit for two years, he knew him intimately but had never had a face-to-face conversation with him. It was almost for this opportunity alone that he agreed to a meeting. That, and the credits, of course.
The IBI was offering exclusive rewards for the capture of any major criminal named by Kit. With so much money on the table, Moosehead chose to ignore his instincts. It was a big mistake.
The Shawshank Penal Colony was far worse than he could have imagined.
Moosehead had sent more than a few inmates to the colony himself, and that responsibility weighed heavily on him as he walked through its gates. The authorities demanded that he leave all weapons at reception. It was the colony's regulation that all visitors should also don the drab prison uniform before they were allowed into the main compound.
Moosehead did not like the way the stiff fabric of the uniform felt against his skin as the prison guards escorted him to a secure room in the visitors' wing. Kit was brought into the room in special shackles; his hands and feet encased in large metal spheres from which heavy chains hung, and his head was entirely covered by a helmet that obstructed his view. Kit could only change shape and steal someone's identity if he could lay his hands on them. The prison authorities were obviously taking no chances of that happening.
The guards bolted Kit's shackles to the floor. Moosehead told them to remove the helmet and leave them alone, but the guards were dubious. He showed them his IBI clearance credentials and they reluctantly did as they were told.
"Are you sure you're safe in here alone with me?" said Kit with a sneer. Moosehead could smell his adrenaline levels rising and, beneath the stench of the stale sweat that clung to his prison uniform, he could pick up the salty tang of fresh perspiration. Kit was gearing himself up for something.
"I don't think I have too much to fear," said Moosehead.
"Don't let these shackles fool you," said Kit. "You don't have any toilet stalls to hide behind here."
Moosehead felt his gorge rise. Kit was goading him and, despite his better judgement, it was working. He took a deep breath and got down to business. "You have something you want to tell me, I understand."
Kit laughed a short, derisory laugh and leaned forward. Moosehead could smell the bland prison food on his breath and the caustic prison soap on his skin. "I have lots of things to tell you. Let's start with a few home truths, shall we?"
"I'd prefer names and dates."
"You'd prefer me to give it to you all on a plate. You haven't got the wit or the balls to find out for yourself. But you know what your real problem is?"
"Tell me," said Moosehead.
"Your total lack of vision or imagination. You caught only the faintest glimpse of my entire operation and you didn't have the sense to see what it might have meant for you. I could have made proper use of your meagre talents. I could certainly have made you twenty times richer than you are now."
"I don't want any of your blood money," said Moosehead.
"No," Kit countered. "You prefer the blood money of the stinking norms who spit on you and wipe their backsides on every note they hand you. The money you make isn't cleaner than mine, it's just paltry in comparison. You're too stupid and cowardly to make it any other way than to prey on your own kind."
"I wa
s clever enough to catch you."
"But not brave enough to take me face to face. You had to shoot me in the back, skulking in a toilet cubicle like some filthy microbe clinging to the seat."
Kit was pushing all the right buttons. Moosehead had expected him to be impressed by his ingenuity, not mocking and superior. Kit's words ate Moosehead up inside, and without thinking, he lunged for Kit's throat.
That was probably the biggest mistake of his whole life.
The moment he put his hands about Kit's throat, he knew something was up. He could smell the blood moving faster in Kit's veins as his heart beat more quickly, signifying a burst of hope. As his thumbs closed on Kit's windpipe, a jolt of energy surged though him. He was gripped by a sudden paralysis. He felt his muscles begin to writhe and distort beneath his skin. His bones felt as though they were being ground to powder, and he passed out with the unbearable pain.
He awoke to the sound of the security alarm.
A squad of guards burst into the room, armed with batons and electric prods. "He broke free," he heard a voice say. He recognised the words as his own, but he didn't sound like himself. "I don't know how he did it," his voice continued. "He overcame me and locked me in these shackles."
Moosehead got unsteadily to his feet. Something was very wrong. His prison uniform suddenly felt too big and hung loosely off him. Worse still, he could hardly smell his surroundings, and his mirror image was sitting in shackles at the very spot where Kit had been.
Two guards approached him, wielding their prods. "Wait," said Moosehead. "Something's not right. I..." He stopped short as he realised that Kit's thin, reedy voice was coming out of his own mouth. Then the guards hit him. Bright lights flashed behind his eyes as his whole body convulsed from the shock. He fell to the floor, foaming at the mouth.
"Thanks for acting so quickly," he heard the other Moosehead say as the two guards pounded him with their boots. "I'm sorry I didn't listen to you before. I didn't realise he was going to pull anything like this."
"He's a wily customer, make no mistake," said a guard. "Did you get any information out of him?"
"No, it was just an elaborate escape ploy," said Moosehead's lookalike. "He might have gotten away with it, too, if you hadn't have acted so swiftly."
"He'll pay for this, you can be sure of that," said another guard as he joined the two who were already beating on the real Moosehead.
Moosehead's double left the room and more guards came in. He curled into a ball to protect himself as their fists, boots and batons rained down on him. The guards didn't stop until they were physically exhausted. Moosehead was already unconscious by then.
He came to in a cell that was too small to stand up or lie down in. Every part of his body was bruised or bleeding.
After what seemed like days, a small grille opened up in one of the walls, and someone pushed a stale chunk of bread and a bowl of water through it. In the dim light of the cell, Moosehead stared into the bowl and caught sight of his reflection. Tears spilled from his eyes and his whole body shook with rage and hatred as he saw Kit's bruised and battered face staring back at him.
He knew now what had happened to him, although it still took him some time to accept the truth. Kit's powers had obviously developed to a degree that no one could have foreseen. Along with the ability to change his own shape, he could now also alter the DNA of other mutants. He had not only taken Moosehead's likeness, he had also changed Moosehead into a perfect replica of himself. He had effectively swapped bodies with him.
Kit had walked out of the prison a free man, leaving the S/D agent who had put him there to serve his sentence for him. It was the perfect revenge.
Not that any of the prison guards would believe that.
After an eternity of discomfort and near starvation, Moosehead was taken out of his cell and marched to the showers where five other prisoners were waiting. The guards had passed the word about how he had been cooperating with the authorities, grassing up his friends and allies. The inmates didn't take too kindly to this. Moosehead made the best attempt he could to defend himself, but he was weakened from starvation and his previous beating, and his new body just wasn't as strong as his old one.
The weeks dragged into months and Moosehead spent every day cursing himself for having fallen for Kit's stunt like a total sap. He also spent the time planning his escape. He might have lost his sense of smell, but he still had years of valuable experience and training. He didn't intend to stay locked up forever. He had a score to settle.
After four years, he eventually landed a job in the refuse section of the penal colony. It was the filthiest and most lowly form of employment the prison had to offer: packing loads of decayed garbage into a trash compactor and then loading it into containers to be shipped out of the prison.
After many months of carefully studying the schedules of the vehicles and ships that transported the trash out of the colony, then cross-referencing this information with the watch rotas of the guards, Moosehead took an opportunity to only partially fill a container, and then climbed in with the compacted trash. His bold but desperate gambit was timed to perfection and he made it out of the prison undetected.
Moosehead had always had a near-photographic memory. In the long months and years he had spent staring at the dull grey walls of his isolation cell, he'd gone over every single detail of the paper trail he had followed to Kit. This included hundreds of bank accounts set up with false or stolen details that were used to hide and launder money. Once he was out of prison, Moosehead checked out these accounts and found that a few of them were still active and contained funds. With this pilfered capital, he set about trying to find his adversary again, and picked up his trail with surprising ease.
Kit was on Miltonia.
"Okay," said Johnny. "I'm willing to buy your story so far. What I don't understand is why you killed Kit when you got here. He was the only person who could either prove who you were or turn you back to your old self."
"I didn't kill him," said Moosehead. "I hacked into his schedule to find out when he would be alone in his office, when his aides and secretaries would be away from their desks. I made myself an appointment and I walked into the presidential palace to confront him. I was pretty surprised that no one tried to stop me, actually."
"So were we when we found oot," said Middenface with a slight groan as he shifted his weight on the pile of furs.
"I walked into the office and the first thing I saw was my old body lying dead on the ground. I can't tell you how that felt. It seemed like everything was over. Then an alarm went off and steel shutters came down over the door. Before I even had time to panic, a side door opened and some guy ushered me through it. He told me the guards were coming and it was my only way out. He said they wouldn't believe my story and, after five years in prison."
"Who was the guy?" asked Johnny.
"He called himself Nose Job."
"Aye, we've met that scunner," said Middenface.
"He told me he was working for the president at an above top secret level, rooting out corruption in the cabinet. He said they'd been onto Kit for a while. According to Nose Job, Kit had been doing some arms deal with a bunch of terrorists called the Salvationists. He'd been in a secret meeting with the terrorist's leader just before I walked in. Seems the leader, a mutant by the name of the Consoler, had found out Nose Job was onto Kit and told him so. Nose Job claimed that the Consoler thought he had been set up and that Kit had lured him into a trap. Nose Job told me that they argued, Kit swapped bodies with him and then killed him, seconds before I arrived.
"Nose job explained to me that Kit thought this would give him the perfect alibi. No one would prosecute a dead man, after all. Then he headed out to the Salvationists' secret base in the guise of the Consoler. What Kit hadn't counted on, though, was that Nose Job knew all about his abilities. He even guessed my real identity. He said he'd square things for me with the authorities, but it would be easier if I was out of the way. He smuggled me o
ut of the palace and even gave me an airlift into the mountains. I scoped out the Salvationist camp and infiltrated it. I was there about two days before they rumbled me. It was long enough to work out that I'd been lied to. So I left there pretty quick and holed up here to figure things out."
"Come to any conclusions?" asked Johnny.
"As a matter of fact, I have. I've had a lot of time to think things through since I got here. Haven't done much else."
"'Cept fer layin' traps and poisonin' arrows," muttered Middenface.
"Anyway," said Moosehead, "I soon realised the truth was staring me in the face. Kit didn't swap places with the Consoler and kill him. He swapped places with Nose Job and killed him. Then he sent me out here to get this Consoler chap for him."
"Hang aboot," said Middenface. "Ye mean ye're tellin' me that the body we saw on yon slab was Nose Job?"
"The real Nose Job Johnson. And the guy you spoke to who called himself Nose Job was the same guy we're both after: Kit Jones. Only thing I can't work out is why he didn't just bump me off or hand me over to the guards."
"I think I know," said Johnny. "Nose Job isn't a military intelligence officer, he's the president's mouthpiece and right-hand man. Kit was probably looking for the perfect moment to swap bodies with him. Posing as Nose Job, he could run the whole government, and in his current condition, President Ooze couldn't have done anything to stop him."
Moosehead nodded thoughtfully. "Kit must have known I'd escaped and was waiting for me. When he saw me coming on the security cameras, he finally had his opportunity to get rid of Nose Job and take his place, pinning the blame on me and charging me with my own murder. That's why he had to get me out of the palace so quickly without anyone seeing me."
"Och, he's a wily snecker and no mistake," said Middenface.
