Emergence (2 page)

In his absence, Lars’ arch-nemesis Magnetar wreaked unchecked havoc upon the Anchor City. He uprooted bridges and held the commuter trains hostage until the Red Wraith showed himself. When that failed, he peeled the roof off the local TCA branch and jeered the fallen heroes. Mere recruits in training, nothing more.

Lars watched it all play out on the news from his home. This was the miracle he had waited for. He cackled with glee, waiting for the sniper to seal his own fate. He fantasized about the moment that Magnetar swatted a bullet aside, rooted out the sniper, and skewered him on his own smoking rifle.

“Mister Machowicz, you testified earlier that the criminal known as Magnetar was shot, yet the self-proclaimed ‘Master of Magnetism’ was infamous for deflecting bullets, even stopping them in mid-air. How, then, could my client have killed him with a single bullet?”

Lars had screamed that same question at his television and then curled up on the floor in tears. He didn’t mourn his old foe, but his death had been surprising on many levels. He shook off the memory and gave his full attention to the witness.

The tall ballistics expert leaned back and rubbed his bald head. “The only videos we have of Magnetar were from police encounters. They always announced themselves, never shot first, and used small caliber weapons. The sniper, on the other hand, did not announce himself. He did shoot first. He used a Barrett M82A1 .50 caliber rifle, which is bigger than you are.”

The defense attorney flailed her hands as she spoke. “So you believe Magnetar heard the rifle and chose not to block a single bullet?”

Mr. Machowicz stifled a quick laugh. “He never heard the shot. It came from over a mile away at three times the speed of sound, Ms. Ryu. And that single round was one of these.” He held up a round of ammunition that was nearly half a foot long. The gleaming rocket didn’t need a rifle to be intimidating. “A Raufoss MK 211. A combination armor-piercing, explosive, and incendiary round designed to take out armored vehicles.” Machowicz leaned forward and arched an eyebrow. “Even if Magnetar somehow sensed it instinctively, with his ‘magnetic field’ or whatever, it was too late. Deflection is still impact; impact detonated the high explosive payload and projected a cone of incendiary fuel at five-thousand degrees Fahrenheit. The guy was Rice Krispies.”

Poor bastard
, Lars thought. He remembered the looping news reel of Magnetar gloating one moment and plummeting like a shooting star the next. He looked at Hathcock, expecting a cruel or gloating smile, but the old man merely nodded with dry, academic satisfaction.

Mr. Machowicz cleared his throat and sat straighter. “Finally, a tungsten carbide penetrator was launched from the round at 4,000 feet per second. As tungsten carbide is a non-ferrous metal blend, it was immune to magnetic fields. Any or all of these effects would have been lethal.”

Ms. Ryu stooped to read a question scrawled onto a legal pad by her wet-behind-the ears assistant. She stood and faced the jury. “How could my client possibly get military-grade ammunition, which you state is designed for destroying armored vehicles?”

He shrugged. “You can get it online, Ms. Ryu.”

A burly sheriff led the next witness to the stand, a sullen-looking girl with choppy black hair and drooping shoulders. Her hands were bound in cuffs and her delicate neck was encircled with a thick shock collar. She looked familiar, but Lars couldn’t place her. Her orange prison jumpsuit made it hard to remember what her original costume might have been.

The prosecutor jumped into his examination as soon as she hit the chair.

“Will you please state your name?”

“Crystal Waters.”

Someone in the jury chuckled softly. Her frown deepened.

“Before your present incarceration, you worked for Steven Ashler, the criminal who called himself Ocular, is that correct?”

“Yeah. Like an accomplice I guess, yeah.”

“And what was your alias?”

“You can call me Neptuna.”

The photographers quickly raised their cameras. She allowed herself a smile.

“You were with Ocular on May 27th of last year?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you remember Mister Ashler’s last words?”

“Sure, I mean…how could I forget? We were pulling a job uptown. Captain Mercury had found us, he was beating the crap out of Inferno. Steven and I were about to jet when he noticed something. He was always getting distracted because he could see for miles, right? So anyway, he tugged my arm and said, ‘Hey ‘Tuna, see that flash? There's an old fart on the Holtz Tower with a gun!’”

Her face fell. “Yeah, those were his last words.”

Lars clenched his jaw. Even in his spectral state he could feel his heart racing again. Each murder was carved into his senses and preserved like scar tissue. The angry wet slap. The crimson spray. The roar of thunder that rolled across the skin. Then came the portraits in scarlet, those final glimpses of his friends as their faces were warped into monsoons of ruptured tissue.

“Thank you, Ms. Waters. That will be all.” The sheriff escorted Neptuna away. Her dark eyes lingered on Hathcock. Lars toyed with the idea of snapping her shock collar to see what she would do to the old man. The thought was obliterated by a delicious thrill of anticipation. Vengeance belonged to The Red Wraith alone.

Alec Glabrous plucked a phrase out of the air and held it between his hands to focus the jury’s attention. “Holtz Tower.”

He peered at the jurors. “One of several high-rise office buildings in the downtown area, all managed by Madison Properties.” He pointed dramatically at the defendant. “All supervised by Facilities Manager Timothy Hathcock.”

He called the detective in charge of the sniper investigation to the stand. Detective Khan’s black suit and tie were as somber as his clean-shaven face. Lars glared at the monolithic figure with contempt.

Khan was the poster boy for the metro police. Civilians and chimerics had unleashed a blistering storm of outrage and criticism against the department. The frothing media poured gasoline onto the firestorm of hysteria. The DCD swamped the investigation in red tape. The crimes themselves had been unpredictable and unstoppable. In the end, Detective Khan accomplished what Lars could not.

The prosecutor pounded the facts home like coffin nails. “Since March 8th, twenty-three chimerics have been murdered, all of them killed by a high-powered rifle, correct?”

Detective Khan leaned forward into the microphone. “That is correct.”

“When did the police realize there was a sniper at work?”

“The first regular human fatality was the caped vigilante Desmodus. It was easily identifiable as the work of a high-powered rifle. We went back and searched former murder scenes, namely those of Arrow, The Cocoonist, and Human Tornado, for more evidence. We recovered .50 caliber slugs or shrapnel at each location.”

“And how did your department close in on the sniper?”

“Ballistics data indicated that the shots were fired from distances of one half-mile to one mile away, from the upper floors or roofs of tall buildings. These findings were consistent with a military scout/sniper team using a .50 caliber rifle. We compiled a list of all city residents from foreign and domestic police or military units with sniper training.”

Lars paced the audience and fumed. The polished detective made it sound as easy as filling out a crossword puzzle. He wasn’t a chimeric. He had not been splashed with his friend’s blood. He did not have to live with the feel of crosshairs on the back of his neck.

The prosecutor pointed at the old man. “And was Timothy Hathcock on your list of suspects?”

“Yes, sir. Timothy Hathcock is a sniper.”

“Objection!” Ms. Ryu glared at the prosecutor. “My client’s service was over forty years ago. That does not mean he is currently a sniper.”

The judge leaned in with interest. “Sustained.”

The prosecutor smoothed his suit jacket. “Tell us about Timothy Hathcock’s military record.”

Detective Khan recited from memory. “Mister Hathcock enlisted in the U.S. Marines at age 18. He attended the 1st Marine Division Scout/Sniper School at Camp Pendleton and graduated with top marks before shipping out to Vietnam.”

Lars loomed behind the old man. This trial was taking too long. The court was supposed to condemn Hathcock, not list his life history and achievements.

“How many confirmed kills did Mister Hathcock have?”

Ms. Ryu sputtered. “Objection! I don’t see how this is relevant!”

“Your Honor, I am establishing character and Modus Operandi. If Mister Hathcock was a conscientious objector or a lousy shot it would certainly have bearing on the case.”

“Overruled.” The judge regarded Mr. Hathcock with morbid curiosity.

Alec Glabrous turned and gave Ms. Ryu a wink. She clenched her fists at her side but kept her face neutral. The prosecutor gave Detective Khan the nod.

“Sergeant Hathcock had 92 confirmed kills.”

A gasp went through the crowd. Hathcock awkwardly folded his handcuffed arms across his chest. Lars gaped at the old man.
He’d killed a hundred and fifteen people?

The prosecutor smiled. “And isn’t it common knowledge that military snipers have far more unconfirmed kills than confirmed kills? How high do you think Hathcock’s body count really is?”

“Objection! Conjecture!” Ms. Ryu shouted.

“Sustained,” the judge said with a hint of disappointment.

“In addition to his 92 confirmed kills, what else did Sgt. Hathcock achieve during his time in the military?”

“He pioneered the use of the Browning .50 caliber heavy machine gun as a sniper weapon.”

The crowd murmured and the jurors nodded. Ryu became a tornado of activity, scribbling notes on yellow pads and hissing to her assistant, who was juggling folders and spilling documents. Hathcock sat still as a statue.

The prosecutor continued. “Tell us about the day you apprehended Timothy Hathcock.”

“We got an alert on the Shot Spotter, the microphone network that detects gun shots. We responded to the roof of the Markway Plaza building. There we found Mister Hathcock with a .50 caliber sniper rifle.”

A chorus of creaks and shuffles spread through the courtroom as murmuring people shifted in their seats.

Alex Glabrous sauntered to the jury box and spoke softly. “There you have it, ladies and gentlemen. Timothy Hathcock, expert sniper with 92 confirmed kills, found by police at the scene of the crime with a smoking gun. We have not touched upon Mister Hathcock’s motive for committing these atrocities. He has chosen not to take the stand in his own defense, so we have only a final piece of evidence to present.”

Mr. Glabrous held up a photo of a silver-haired woman. “Mary Anne Hathcock, devoted wife and doting mother, tragically killed last year by the chimeric Magnetar, leaving behind a grieving husband and son.”

Lars shook his head. Magnetar had caused all this? How strange that his old nemesis had signed his own death warrant and found a replacement in the same stroke.

“Revenge is the oldest motive in the world. I sympathize with Mister Hathcock, as everyone here surely does. What I can’t understand is why he kept reloading that rifle. I can’t understand why there were twenty-two more victims. Those were not crimes of passion. Those were methodically-planned and executed murders. He was hunting people. This was revenge on a Biblical scale, by a man who perched on the highest tower, looking down on us and deciding who lives and who dies.”

Hathcock stood up, and the entire courtroom jumped. The bailiff lurched forward, almost dropping his weapon in alarm.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” the old man said, freezing the prosecutor with an icy stare.

Ms. Ryu and her assistant tried to guide him back into his chair, but he shook them off. “Your Honor,” Hathcock said to the judge, “I’d like to set the record straight.”

Ms. Ryu whispered urgently in Hathcock’s ear. He shook his head no.

“Very well,” said the judge, then told the bailiff to escort Mr. Hathcock to the witness stand. Everyone in the courtroom sat still, afraid the old tiger might still pounce. The marine sat straight as he was sworn in.

Lars floated to the front row. This was the closest either of them had ever been to the other. How many times had Hathcock watched him through the scope of a rifle? Did the old man know that now he was the one being watched by an invisible enemy?

Ms. Ryu spoke slowly for the first time that day. “Mister Hathcock, you had a correction for the record?”

Hathcock glared at Alec Glabrous. “Yes. Magnetar killed my wife, but he wasn’t alone. He was in that bank fighting The Red Wraith. Magnetar threw a vault door at the so-called ‘hero’ and he turned intangible. That’s what killed my Mary Anne. That’s why I still hold the Wraith responsible for her death.”

Lars remembered it had been an epic brawl. He can’t say he remembered the old woman, though.

Ms. Ryu seized on his words. “The prosecution alleged that your motive was revenge, yet you haven’t been accused of killing The Red Wraith, have you?”

“No. But I certainly tried.”

Lars nodded with grim satisfaction. Hathcock had revealed his murderous face to the public at last.

The photographers jostled for position. Ms. Ryu begged for a recess. Alec Glabrous shed his smooth exterior and went after her like an unleashed pit bull. Hathcock sat patiently at attention and waited while the legal system twisted and thrashed around him. When order was eventually restored, the judge informed Hathcock of his options.

The old marine nodded. “I’ll change my plea, but not until everyone hears me out. Anchor City used to be one of the safest in the country, until the first muscle head put on a mask and declared himself a superhero. That opened the floodgates. Overnight the criminally insane started flocking here to compete for the limelight. The level of crime went through the roof.”

Lars watched the jury nod and nearly screamed. Hathcock had all of his facts wrong. Had they forgotten his confession? Did they agree with this mass murderer?

“None of these ‘heroes’ prevented crime,” the old marine went on, “they just fought it. They disrupted society, marginalized the forces of law and order, and used that chaos to justify their presence. It was a quagmire. The police couldn’t arrest my wife’s murderers. The legal system couldn’t give me justice. My son and I suffered just like you. We were all left powerless, forced to cower in awe and fear. That’s why we…why
I
… chose to engage the enemy.”