Felicio

Collateral Damage

Felicio

Things were getting worse. I'd barely been able to stop for breath over the past few days. My leads towards Kaos hadn't gotten me anywhere substantial. The dealers on the streets weren't talking. Seemed as though they were more afraid of their supplier than they were of me. I kept getting these headaches as well, these visions of Emma, like she was trying to tell me something. I didn't know what. I didn't want to think of her. Needed to push her away. Out of my mind. I couldn't let her interfere with my thoughts, but it was like she was trying to ram her way in. Would I ever be free of this guilty? Maybe if I found out the mystery behind who killed her, but I wasn't any closer to that than I was when I started this investigation.

I stood atop a building, much like the one where she died, although I wasn't going to go back there if I could help it. Too many bad memories. I looked at the swirling city around me, a cesspool of madness and despair. Too many people went about their lives not caring about what happened around them. People had stopped talking about Emma. Enough time had passed that they had moved on with their lives. Maybe that was the way things had to be in order for them to keep their sanity, but it seemed wrong. People like Emma shouldn't be forgotten. What would happen the next time something like that happened? Would people eventually grow apathetic?

Steam rose out of chimneys, drifting into the air in a fine mist. The night sky glittered with stars, and a silver moon hung in the sky, full and pale. The city was alive with the thrum of activity. Cars streaked down the streets. Electric lights hummed. I could feel it all. It was as though I was connected to every person in the city. I felt their glory, and their shame. I was supposed to be the symbol of hope in this place, the person who was going to light the way forward for them all. I was supposed to be their hero. Instead, I was hunted down and mistrusted. I had to stick to the rooftops. If I walked among them I would only cause fear. I wondered what they saw when they looked at me. I wondered what they would think if they ever saw me without my mask. That would never happen. I couldn't afford that type of vulnerability. I also couldn't afford to wait much longer. The more time that passed, the more difficult it would be to find out the truth behind Emma's death.

I couldn't fail her.

I prowled the streets for the rest of the evening, smelling the fear and lust on everyone around me. I heard their cackled laughter, their slurred words as they dulled their brain with liquor. In a way I was envious of them. They allowed themselves to wallow in ignorance, but it meant that they didn't have to face the truth of the world. They could be happy. I faced it in all its ugliness and had to try and fight the darkness all by myself. I wasn't sure if it was a fight I could win, but I was going to give it everything I had.

In the distance, the Shaw building loomed up like a shadow. Terrible and frightening, even I was afraid. I was still waiting for Stephanie to get back to me with news. I needed to find some way in there myself, but I didn't know how. Something told me the answers were inside that building.

I heard someone mention Kaos. I leaped down. They scattered. There were about six of them. The girls screamed. The guys held up their hands, some of them running away. Only one remained, the one I'd heard mention the drug.

“What do you know?” I growled. The kid looked scared. He was around my age. His hands trembled and his face went white.

“I...I don't know anything!”

“Where did you get this?”

“A friend...he just said that he wanted to give me a few samples for me to try. I didn't think I was doing anything wrong. I didn't want to hurt anyone. We just wanted to get our kicks.”

“I lunged towards him, only to scare him. He cowered. I ripped the drugs away from him and walked away from the building. The pills were so little, yet they were spreading through the city like wildfire. These stimulants were everywhere now, and nobody knew where they came from. I scattered them into the gutter, and then ascended a nearby stairwell to get to the top of the building again. Before I did so, I noticed copies of the paper in the window, with my interview on the front page. I wondered if it had done any good, but I thought I needed to pay a visit to Ariel anyway. Maybe she had turned something up.

I noticed that Ariel had a tendency to work late, so I made my way to her office. I waited until the security guard's attention was distracted, and then slipped in, blending in with the shadows. I ran up the stairs and found a single light on, in Ariel's office. I opened the door. She didn't seem surprised to see me.

“People are usually more shocked,” I said.

Ariel merely shrugged. “Not much surprises me in this business anymore,” she replied. “I don't suppose you're here to give me another interview?”

“Not this time.”

“Pity, that last one went over really well. I think you did a good job of showing your human side. People might start seeing you a little differently after that.”

“I don't care how people see me.”

“Everyone cares about how people see them. The world is based on appearances. But anyway, what are you here for?”

“Do you have anything on Kaos?”

“Not yet. I've been checking around, but nobody is talking. Usually when something like this happens there's a trail. Even my sources in the police say they're baffled.”

“You have sources everywhere, don't you?”

“It's the job of a good reporter to have eyes everywhere.”

I still didn't know if I could trust her. I wanted to, but life had taught me to be careful. “I need something Ariel. I need to feel like I'm making a difference,” I said, letting my frustrations out. Ariel c****d an eyebrow.

“From what I can see you make plenty of difference.”

“Not to the people that really matter. Why is it so easy for everyone to move on? A girl died, and barely anyone cares.”

“Because people like a story, they like it wrapped up in a neat little bow. As far as they're concerned Emma was just a troubled kid who took her own life. It's tragic yes, but to them there isn't anything else to it. Frankly I'm started to wonder that myself. Nobody has been able to turn up any evidence to the contrary. I'm wondering why you believe so strongly that there is more to it?”

“I can't explain it myself. There's just...this feeling I have. You didn't look into her eyes Ariel. If you were there you would have seen the pain, the heartbreak. I don't think she wanted to take her own life. I think she felt she had to, and that's what I have to find out.”

Ariel leaned back and tapped her pen against her hand. “You're not always going to be able to get to the bottom of these mysteries. Sometimes you're just going to have to let go. I'm sure Alan Lang would be able to tell you that.”

“We're not exactly on speaking terms.”

Ariel pursed her lips. “Why does she mean so much to you? I don't mean to be callous, but she's not the only person who has killed herself. Aren't you afraid that you're wasting all this time focusing on her when there are other people that need help? I guess I don't see why this girl warrants so much attention.”

“We need to treat everyone as special, as though they matter, because that's the kind of world we should live in.”

“That sounds like an empty platitude. What's the real reason?” I hated the way Ariel could see through my bullshit. I should have known better than to try and outwit a reporter. I was good at a lot of things, but I was still a kid, and sometimes adults had the advantage over me. Especially people like Ariel. I had to be careful with what I said around her, but I had been holding so many feelings inside me for so long it felt like they were ready to burst out. I needed to tell someone.

“If it were me then I'd want someone to be doing the same thing,” I said in a soft voice. “Before all this happened, before I got these powers I was...different. I didn't know my place in the world. I didn't think I had a place in the world. I was ready to take my own life, but then I became Felicio and I knew I had a purpose. I keep thinking though, what if I had? I'd want someone to understand why. Emma deserves the same. Everyone does.”

Ariel looked at me. It was probably a strange thing for her to hear, a superhero admitting he was weak enough to want to kill himself. I thought back to that moment, that trip to the museum where I had been wandering around the Egyptian exhibit and been lost in a trance. Something in that place had imbued me with these powers, and everything changed. Before that I was convinced that my days in this world were coming to an end. Only Steph and my parents cared for me, but I knew I would ultimately prove to be a burden on them. They deserved better. I was going through the motions in those last days. Walking around that museum reminded me how small and insignificant I was to the world, but then I got these powers. I could do so much. I could save people, but what use was that when I couldn't even help a girl like Emma? I had to prove to myself that I was worthy of living, that I was a force for good, that the world was a better place with me in it.

“I'd appreciate it if you didn't print any of this,” I said.

“Of course not,” Ariel said. I tried to avoid looking at her because I hated what I saw in her eyes. Pity. “I hope you find some closure on this.”

“Me too. I guess if you don't have anything else for me I should head out and try to get a lead from somewhere.”

“Actually, there is something else,” she said. She smelled anxious, and she wrung her hands together. I got the impression she didn't want to tell me this, but she felt she had no choice. “You know how I said I had spies everywhere? I have one in the Shaw corporation, and I haven't heard from her. She's just a kid. I know it's a lot to ask, but could you look into it for me? She's not answering my calls. Her name is Gina Thatcher.”

“You sent a kid into the Shaw corporation?!” I thundered.

“It was my only way in, my only way to find out what's going on in there,” she yelled back, nerves frayed. She smelled guilty. I guess she regretted it. Maybe I was feeling guilty too because my thoughts immediately turned to Steph. “I'm on it,” I said, my heart thundering because I hadn't heard from Steph for a few days either. I had been so wrapped up in trying to get leads on Kaos that I'd neglected her, and now I feared for her life.

I ran across the city, sprinting as quickly as I could towards Steph's house. If anything had happened to her...I thought when I became Felicio I wouldn't have been a burden to her any longer, but I was wrong. I reached her house and shimmied up the drain pipe, looking into her bedroom. It was empty, and the bed looked as though it hadn't been slept in for days. Scowling, I was about to enter when I heard sobbing. Steph's mother came into the room and sat on her bed. Something was wrong.