Issue 1
Xander and the New Case
HEA Officer Xander Hastings was sent flying through the air. He crashed completely through a brick wall and into an alley. Fortunately, said brick wall was old and crumbling so he didn’t get splattered on it. Unfortunately, however, the other brick wall he ended up smacking into was nice and sturdy. His back hit it first, followed by his head. The force of the collision was enough to knock the breath out him and on top of that, his head burst into pain.
“Ouch,” he mumbled.
He looked at the hole in the wall he just went through. A huge shadow of a man was there, silhouetted against the lights coming from inside the building.
Ira Kelly. Local muscle and, as of that morning, bank robber.
“You haven’t got the stones to bring me in, Hastings,” Ira declared.
Xander laughed.
“You think that’s funny.” The big man was furious. “You’re nothing but a wimpy ass human. A weak Pure. I’m gonna crush your skull with my bare hand.”
Ira walked through the hole and into the alley. Xander got a good look at him. Ira was huge, and most of the right side of his body was a mass of mechanical parts. According to his file, he’d merged with industrial machinery during the event. This gave him a nearly indestructible and scarily huge right arm. In addition to that, Ira enjoyed higher than normal levels of strength.
Thankfully, Xander thought to himself, his IQ didn’t get a major boost during the Merge.
“I might be a weak ass Pure, but you’re forgetting something Ira,” Xander told him.
He got up from the ground. His head was spinning but he ignored it.
“What’s that?” Ira asked.
“That’s never stopped me before,” Xander yelled as he suddenly darted forward.
Ira blinked in confusion for a second and then anger contorted his face. He tried to punch Xander with his massive mech-arm, but Xander dodged the attack with ease. He got in close and punched Ira squarely in the face, breaking his nose. He followed it up with another punch and then kicked Ira straight in the nuts. Ira yelled in pain but Xander didn’t let up. He grabbed onto Ira’s ears and yanked the big man’s head down. He brought his knee racing up at the same time and smashed it into the Hybrid’s already broken nose. Xander backed away, his body tensed up and poised. His muscles sang with adrenaline.
“Link,” Xander said to his HEA, standard issue Orb. “Incapacitate.”
The Orb orbiting around his head like a tiny, mechanical planet let out an affirmative chirp. Then there was an arc of sizzling blue electricity that hit Ira in the chest. The Hybrid screamed out in pain as his body locked up. Then he dropped like a rock to the ground.
Xander bent over with his hands resting on his knees. He breathed heavily for a second and took a minute to recover from the fight. Then he went over to Ira. He nudged the hulking man’s body with his foot but Ira didn’t wake up.
Thankfully, Link’s taser attack did the job. The Hybrid was out cold.
“Put me through to the main office,” Xander said a second later, still breathing a little heavily.
Link let out several beeps and then connected to the main office.
“Dispatch,” a voice answered.
“This is Officer Hastings,” Xander said. “I need a containment crew sent to my location. Authorization 61729-Romeo. Class 3 Hybrid. Send the cage.”
He ended the call and then sat down to wait, his head thumping painfully.
Fifteen agonizingly slow minutes went by and Xander was getting impatient. He was about to call the main office again but then he finally saw flashing blue and red lights. They got closer and closer, eventually pulling up to the mouth of the alley where Ira was still knocked out. There were two patrol cars and a truck. The truck had a massive, box-like structure on the back of it with thick, metal walls and a portable dampening field attached to the top that knocked out a Hybrid’s powers.
Link suddenly started ringing.
[Incoming call. Capt. Arnold Luxton,] a monotoned, computer voice said.
“Put him through, if you must,” Xander replied.
Link beeped and projected a holo-screen in front of Xander. The screen showed the wrinkled but distinguished face of his captain, Arnold Luxton.
“God damnit, Hastings!” Arnold screamed. “I told you to stay away from the bank heist case. I put Grady on that.”
“And where is Grady now?” Xander asked. “That’s right. I think I left him back at the office still trying to chase down leads. Was he a: twiddling his thumbs like a moron or b: asking stupid questions that lead him absolutely nowhere? And where am I now? That’s right. I apprehended Ira Kelly. Lead suspect in the recent spree of heists hitting New Genesis banks all over the city. Put him in a room with me and I’ll get the rest of his crew. You can even time me if you want.”
“You’re off this case,” Luxton said. “That’s final. I’ve got a different one for you. Something the higher ups want you on. In fact, it’s the reason why you weren’t put on the bank heist case. So, how about you quit being a smartass and follow orders!”
That intrigued Xander. The bosses of his boss wanted him on something else?
Curious.
“What’s the case?” Xander asked.
“There’s been a string of Hybrid disappearances over the last month. So far, over a dozen in total. All Class 3 or above. You can understand their sense of urgency.”
“Any leads so far?” Xander asked.
“Nothing concrete. They want you to go to your informant, Com. They think he might be able to find something for you to dig into.”
“What’s Com got to do with his?” Xander asked.
“It’s your job to find out,” Luxton replied. “Your orders are to locate the informant named Com ASAP and get some answers. Luxton out.”
The screen blinked out of existence and Xander got to his feet.
“Luxton out?” he muttered. “What a tool. Come on Link. Let’s go. We got more work to do.”
He walked out of the alley, weaving his way through the containment crew that showed up. They were all dressed in red suits with sleek gas masks on their faces. They carried packs on their backs that had glowing lights and blinking buttons.
He walked down the road and headed toward Pharma City, a less-than-reputable district in New Genesis that housed everything from prostitution houses to shady, dank clubs.
“Let’s find our buddy Com,” Xander said to Link.
***
“How are things in Heaven?” Xander delivered the pass phrase he’d been given in a thick monotone, his voice gruff. Link floated in a lazy orbit around his head.
The thick, heavy metal door in front of him opened on its own, rumbling and screeching on rusty hinges. On the other side was a huge bouncer, his left arm nothing but a mass of wires and cables that vaguely resembled a human arm and hand. Inside was a confusing swirl of lights and loud music. From what he could see, the place was barely more than a collection of tables on top of a dirty, cement floor. The place was a sad joke and he wasn’t sure he wanted to see what the bathrooms were like. It smelled terrible too, like old sweat, oil, metal, and a sickening mix of cologne and perfume. He grimaced as he looked around the meager room, barely managing to keep himself from putting his hands to his ears. The wall of noise coming from the night club’s sound system was oppressive to say the least.
He walked through the crowd with a purposeful stride. His dark eyes locked onto the figure of a man sitting in a booth. A crowd of beautiful women were clustered around him. All of them were Hybrids and most of them were merged with different types of cell phones. One of them, however, had a hair dryer sunk into the top of her wrist. The thing’s electrical cord slithered beneath her skin and reached all the way up to the base of her skull.
The man they were clustered around like braindead groupies went by the alias, Com.
Com wasn’t, by anyone’s standards, an attractive person. He had a narrow face with a balding pate surrounded on the sides by greasy black hair. His eyes were huge, taking up most of his face and bugged out of his sockets. He was dressed in clothes too big for him and they gave his rail thin form an emaciated look. Poking out of his thin chest was a satellite dish that melded seamlessly with his skin. He was probably the least intimidating person, physically, that Xander had ever come across. Just looking at him, you’d never think he was…powerful. Power, however, didn’t belong solely to the beautiful and privileged. Especially in this new world everyone suddenly found themselves in.
Com was connected to a lot of people. Literally.
“Com,” Xander said. He took immense satisfaction in the sudden fear that caused the little man to visibly jump in his seat. The girls all turned and faced Xander at precisely the same instant, the movements of each one jerky. The overall effect was extremely unnerving.
“I didn’t do nothing, Officer Hastings,” Com cried quickly, pushing the girls away from him as if they all suddenly caught a disease he wanted no part of. “I swear.”
“Turn off the mind mojo, Com, or I’ll do it for you,” Xander told him, his voice harsh and ringing with authority. He gave a very pointed look to Link, who still circled his head, and then reached over to his hip where his pistol was holstered. He began to methodically pull it free, making sure Com could see the piece with no trouble. He nodded his head toward the women.
“All right, all right. J-just keep the gun put up,” he replied in a high, squeaky voice filled with terror.
Xander watched Com shift a bit uneasily in his seat before glancing at the women around him with a forlorn sense of loss. Then the blue to his eyes drained away, leaving nothing but a milky white color in their place. Almost immediately, the women around the table all began shaking their heads in unison as if each one suddenly woke up from a dream. When they found themselves sitting at a table with the very repulsive Com, they disappeared so fast it was like watching a magic show.
Now you see them, now you don’t.
“Whaddaya want?” Com asked, depressed.
“I’ve told you time and time again, Com,” Xander said. “I don’t want you putting the subliminal mind-lock on people to get them to do what you want. I told you if I caught you doing it again, I was going to take you back to the Null.”
Com gulped nervously. The Null was a prison designed for Hybrids. It was built with an electromagnetic dampening field that effectively neutralized any Hybrid’s powers.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Com pleaded, crying. “I don’t want to go to the Null. I hate it there.”
Com shook his head back and forth emphatically. He reminded Xander of a toddler promising he would be good.
“Hybrids like you are more trouble than you’re worth.”
“I ain’t no trouble, I swear it. What you saw was harmless. They’ll be all right,” he replied frantically. He talked so fast it was hard to understand him.
Xander sat down, scooting closer to the man despite wanting nothing more than to keep his distance. Com was starting to smell…pungent.
“Listen up,” Xander started, “something’s going on and I want to know what it is. Hybrids are disappearing all over the city. Tell me what you know, and I’ll overlook the subliminal messages you were broadcasting to the girls.”
“But I don’t know nothing about missing Hybrids,” Com replied. He gave Xander a confused look. He really had no idea where this conversation was heading. “Honestly, I don’t.”
“Work your magic, Com, and give me a lead.”
He peered back at Xander for a moment and then seemed to deflate.
“What am I looking for?” he asked, defeated.
“I want to know any information you can get on the Hybrid kidnappings that have been going on. I’ve been ordered to investigate and you’re going to help. Give me something that will point me in the right direction and you’ve got your get out of jail free card.”
Com was silent for a second, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. Fear was etched sharply onto his face, but he nodded, and his eyes faded to white again. He stayed that way for a long time. It wasn’t pretty or easy to watch. Com’s eyeballs jerked and rolled grossly in their sockets before they snapped back to center. A line of foamy drool started to spill over the corner of his mouth. He didn’t even try to wipe it away.
After a minute or two of more nothing, Link suddenly chirped and beeped. Then he started circling Xander’s head in a tighter orbit, going faster and faster with every second. Then Link started to bob up and down emphatically. There was a sense of urgency to the Orb.
“Stop it,” Xander said as he waved an impatient hand at the machine.
Link didn’t quit, though. Instead, he got louder and more insistent.
Com was starting to stir and when his eyes regained their color, it wasn’t with their usual bright blue. Instead they were a glowing, neon green. The skinny man’s arm suddenly flashed out and went for the gun still in the holster on Xander’s hip.
With effortless speed, Com grabbed it.
Instead of trying to fight for the gun, Xander did the smart thing and slid to the floor. Then he rolled away just as bullets began ripping into the cement floor of the club, right where he’d been only a few moments before. Panicked screams filled the air when the shots rang out and all the club goers rushed for the exit. Xander watched the stampede for the door and wondered how many people were going to get seriously injured.
Turns out, he didn’t end up having to worry about that. Ironically, thanks to Com.
A look over the edge of the bar showed the man holding the gun down at his side with his right hand stretched out straight in front of him. There was a faint shimmering in the air, like waves of heat in the summer, and then the noise and rush of the stampede abruptly stopped.
Com’s eyes were pulsating now.
“Shit,” Xander said. “Shit, shit, shit.”
He looked up at Link.
“Link,” he whispered. “Send an alert for backup. Now.”
A little light on his Orb suddenly came on and started blinking bright blue.
“Good.” Xander looked over the bar again. “Now I just need to not die long enough for backup to get here. Piece of cake.”
Everyone in the club suddenly turned as one. They faced Xander and Link. Behind them, faintly visible in the background, was Com. The pulsating green light emanating from his eyes was getting faster and Xander faintly saw blood coming out of them, as if he were pushing his powers way past their limits.
Com pushed his hand forward a little and all the Hybrids under his control marched toward Xander. As soon as they reached the bar, they completely ripped through it to get at him. He tried to get away but there were too many. Hands and Hybrid…parts…grabbed him. He felt himself being lifted into the air before he was thrown into a waiting pile of bodies. Savage kicks and punches rained down. He did his best to protect his face and body but there was only so much that could do.
“Link!” Xander shouted through the brutal beating and press of bodies. “Incapacitate Com, now!”
The Orb chirped and then zoomed off. From his position, Xander couldn’t see a thing. He could hear though. He heard bullets ricocheting off Link’s armored hide. Then there was a sizzling crackle of electricity and the sound of something heavy collapsing onto a table.
The people around him suddenly backed away, each one shaking their head. He saw a lot of confusion and fear on those faces. It was clear that not one of them remembered beating the holy ever-loving shit out of him not two seconds before. A couple people even looked down, saw him lying beaten on the floor, and asked if he was okay. He shot those people some very dark looks but otherwise nodded his head. One of the guys put a hand out to help him up. He took the hand, groaning from the pain, and walked stiffly over to where Link still hovered in the air.
Underneath the Orb, Com was stretched full-length across the table. Link went back to orbiting around Xander’s head, ready to pump Com with another shot of electricity if he so much as twitched. As he got closer to Com, he noticed the neon green tint to his eyes was gone. They were their usual shade of blue again.
“Link?” Xander called. “Did you get a video documenting the weird glow to Com’s eyes?”
Link chirped affirmatively.
Xander went in closer to Com. The little man wasn’t breathing. He was about to try CPR but before he could, more weird shit happened. A mass of bright green…things flew out of the body. They flew out of his eyes, nose, and even his mouth. He stared in confusion at the horde of flying things but before he could even think to catch one, they were gone. They flew out of the club through the AC vents.
He took a step closer to get a better look at Com and found streams of dark red blood flowing from different parts of his face. Runnels of it ran down the length of the table and dripped onto the floor. It looked like the…things had bored holes straight through his skull to free themselves.
There was, however, no question about Com’s fate.
He was dead.
And he still had no leads.
***
“Great job,” a voice said behind him sometime later.
Xander’s head was killing him, thanks to the beating he’d taken. The voice he heard made his headache thump even harder.
Finn Grady.
God, he hated that guy.
“You’re a little late to the party, as usual,” Xander responded, turning around.
About five HEA officers were coming into the club, their guns drawn and their Orbs humming with barely restrained power. Finn was one of them. He was putting his gun back in its holster when he realized there was no danger.
Finn glanced at Com.
“That’s the second informant you managed to get killed in the last three weeks. Luxton’s gonna love this,” Finn told him.
“Go fuck yourself, Grady.” Xander got up and shoulder checked the dick roughly to get past him. “After you get done, you can let Luxton take a crack at you. I’m sure he’d love that as much as you would.”
“Keep it up,” Grady yelled back, furious. “We’ll see who has the last laugh.”
Getting a rise out of Grady made him feel a whole lot better. It was ridiculously easy to do but it was one of his favorite past times. Finn Grady was an ass kissing, brown nosing, prick that was loathed by nearly everyone he came across. It wasn’t just Xander that hated him.
“Last laugh? Who even says that anymore?” Xander laughed. “What are you? 85?”
Grady looked like he wanted to retort but didn’t have a good comeback.
Xander left him there and walked outside the club. The cold night air felt good on his face. He took a deep breath, shook a cigarette out of his pack, and lit it. He took a lot longer to light it than he normally would. The reason for this being a simple one. The cigarette was an excuse to inconspicuously scan the crowd that gathered outside the club. There were a lot of them. All of them were passively watching the proceedings behind the police tape the other HEA officers put up.
Someone had picked a very convenient time to pull the plug on Com. That fact wasn’t lost on him. That meant whoever managed to kill Com might still be hanging around either admiring their handiwork or trying to see if the cops would find anything linking them to the deed.
Any takers? he asked himself.
He eyed a Hybrid in a green jacket. The man looked on with open curiosity on his face.
Not you, Xander said.
There were a few others he checked out, but nobody really shouted out at him. Everyone had gawking, open-eyed looks of curiosity on their faces like Green Jacket Guy.
Then he locked on to a particular someone that felt…different. There wasn’t any one thing he could readily define but he knew something was off about her. It was a woman, he saw. She wore a red hoodie that cast her face in dark shadows. He couldn’t see much of it but was that…
A tinge of green light coming from the eyes? he thought to himself. Like Com?
Red Hoodie Woman turned her head toward him.
He quickly dropped his eyes and finished lighting his cigarette. He took a deep drag off it, still watching her out of his peripheral vision. He saw her turn around and quietly walk off.
And where are you off to?
Xander followed after the woman. She went down an alley across the street from the club. He went in after her, even though it was dark and he was exposed. Link was with him, so he considered that enough back up. The woman burst out of the other end of the alley and ran into a rundown pawn shop. It looked like she kicked the door in.
Xander got there a second later and stood in the doorway. He saw Red Hoodie Woman just standing there, watching him.
“I’m HEA Officer Xander Hastings,” Xander yelled. “I’d like to ask you a few questions.”
Red Hoodie Woman quietly raised her hands. He could see what looked like fans of some kind embedded in the palms.
“Ma’am, I am going to need you to lower your arms,” he stated, very clearly.
Red Hoodie Woman ignored his command.
Link buzzed excitedly.
“If you do not comply, I will be forced to put you down. Neither of us want that.” He drew his gun.
The fans on her hands suddenly sprang to life. In just a few seconds, he could feel the wind she was generating. He put his free hand up to his face.
“Link!” Xander shouted, but his voice was suddenly drowned out by the woman’s.
“Stop your investigation or you will die!” Her voice was loud, but it sounded weird. It sounded like there was more than one voice talking at the same time, saying the same words.
“You need to shut this down, now!” he tried to say.
The woman, of course, didn’t listen. Instead, the whirring sound of rushing wind got more intense as her hoodie was shredded by a third, even bigger fan embedded in her chest. Xander had to put his other hand up to his face now, his gun reholstered, but it did little good to protect him. He tried to call out to Link again but it was too late. He felt his feet being picked up off the ground. The next thing he knew, he was flying through the air.
…. Again.
