H.E.R.O. - Horde (28 page)

I pulled a second mindview up and pulled myself into it.  In a moment, I was looking at a nearly identical primary memory chamber as the previous one.  The man looked very similar, his memory chamber door was closed, and it just felt wrong to me.  From the emotion chamber, I felt the waves of anger and hatred.

I quickly repeated the previous scene, slamming the man's image of himself against the wall with my tentacle pack, closing the emotion door, and ripping open the memory door.  His last memory turned out to be nearly identical, right down to drinking and listening to the guitar riff.

I flew back out, repeated that set of actions again, and finally a fourth time to see a different scene.  This last one had the same problem with his emotion chamber and closed memory door, but his last memory was slightly different.

In this case, the man was in a different club, yet the band was the same.  He didn't happen to be drinking at the moment his memory faded, but he'd been drinking beer and shots, and the memory ended with the same guitar riff.

Leaving each mindview had been slightly harder than the one before.  The last one I felt, even though it wasn't close to being as hard on me as usual.

I blinked a few times, surveyed the mindviews and found Captain McCain's again.  I realized I was clenching my fist in anger and took a few deep breaths to try to calm down.

Garrick's communicator went off and Chrome's voice asked, "Is everything okay?  Some of the new red-skinned prisoners are bleeding from the eyes and ears."

He replied, "I think it's Psystar, are they alive?"

"Oh, yeah.  It was just odd."

I said, "Okay, three in a row were nearly identical, this last one's different - take a look."

I pulled it over onto Captain McCain's as well as Rayna's, as with the first one and let them watch and live the memory.  I rubbed the back of my neck.  The high I'd been riding on seemed to be fading.  When we'd sat down in the interrogation room, I'd had dozens of mindviews in range.  Now I had perhaps twenty.

Keeping the mindviews in a sphere farther out than normal was taking effort now as well.

As I looked around the room at Captain McCain, Rayna, Garrick and the brute in the room with us, I realized that Garrick had been staring at me.

He said, "Are you all right?  You're turning red."

"I'm fine!"  I took another deep breath and said, "Sorry.  I'm getting their anger."

He nodded.  "Not a problem."

I smiled at him, "Hey.  Sorry about not showing you the memories as well.  Things of note:  the guys in each club were all drinking, they were watching the same band, and their last memory was of a guitar riff being played by the metal band."

Garrick asked, "Was it the same sequence?"

I thought for a moment, "No, I don't think it was, but I'm not an expert on that type of music.  The captain will have seen both, give him a moment."

We watched the two H.E.R.O. agents as they finished the memory, blinked and looked around.

Captain McCain said, "That's not much to work off of.  Did you learn anything else from them?"

"Whatever did this changed their emotion center.  It seems like the only emotions they are even capable of now are anger, rage and hatred.  Their memories were locked off, much like Spartan and Chrome's were when Arissa took them over, but in this case, there wasn't a new memory chamber created.  That's pretty strange, since without one it doesn't seem like they can remember anything new."

Garrick replied, "That explains why they repeat the same lines over and over."

Rayna said, "Wait - assuming they changed right then and there, did the rest of the crowd react?  I mean, many of those clubs hold two or three hundred people.  If a dozen turn red, bulk out and rush out of the place in a rampage wouldn't a lot of people have noticed that?"

Captain McCain nodded.  "I would say that it makes more sense for the change to occur after they leave the building - but why do the memories end there?"

I said, "What if the rage part is installed at that point, they start changing, but if the change takes time they end up actually changing along the way to the place they hit?"

Rayna nodded, "That makes sense, and while some types of metamorphosis are instant, that's generally with someone who has our powers.  If they are being forced to change then it might take more time."

I said, "Something looked familiar about the guitarist.  I've seen him recently, but I can't place where.  Either that or I didn't get a good look at him, but still remember enough to recall him."

Captain McCain said, "Could you have seen him in someone else's memory?  You get a lot of that, don't you?"

"Yeah, I do.  But I get the feeling I've seen him up close."

"If you remember, give me a call, all right?  I'd like to see the pieces fit together on this."

Rayna nodded, "Me too."

Captain McCain looked at Garrick, "I think we've got what we needed ... wait a second ... Psystar, how did you get the other memories?  I thought you had to be a few feet away?"

"No, I'm amped up from something.  I don't know what caused this, but I have the longest range, and yet best control of my powers I've ever had.  It's fading though.  It started just before I flew into the wall at school.  Since then my pheromones are stronger - you can probably stand by me now, Rayna - and it seems like my flight is faster and easier to use.  Well, it was.  The number of mindviews I'm seeing is decreasing by the minute, so I'm guessing that my range is shrinking again."

"You were seeing these mindviews farther away than normal?"

"A lot farther."

"And the memories that you show me are what you call mindviews?"

"No.  I see TV screens floating in my vision - those are what I call mindviews.  I grab a memory playing on one, drag it over to another and that's how I let you see what someone else is thinking."

"What's your normal range?"

"About fifteen feet for the visuals and other senses.  Double for just hearing thoughts."

"How far out do you think it went?"

"No idea, but at school I had hundreds of mindviews up, and just pushed them all back into a big sphere so I could see past them."

"All right.  Sorry, Garrick - I meant to say that we're done with this gent."

"Got it, I'll bring him back to the cell.  I hope there aren't a lot more of these; our cell space is filling up with so many additions.  Fortunately, they don't attack one another when placed in the same cell."

"Can they go into a normal cell?"

"We tried one; he was able to bend the bars."

"So as strong as a fairly strong mutant, then?"

"My guess is about ten tons lifting capacity.  I'm glad we have Chrome on now.  She volunteered to get this one out of the cell, but she's so much stronger than a normal brick a group of them weren't able to do anything to her apart from tearing off her shirt."

"You should get her one of the super suits."

"It's on order, should be a few days and she'll have it."

"Ah, nicely done."

Garrick unlocked the brute from the chair and dragged him out of the room.  The red brick-like man was intent on fighting Garrick, but the brick was at least four times stronger.

Captain McCain looked back at me.  "Thank you again."

Rayna said, "Should I bother sending a message to all the heroes about scoping out all the metal clubs then?  Or are we just going to pick up the band?"

Captain McCain stroked his chin.  "We do need to move fast on this - people have died each of the last two nights.  Psystar, I believe we'll need your help again once we have the band in custody to find out which of them are doing this to people."

Rayna said, "I can hunt down where the band is playing next.  They'll probably have a website or something."

I said, "They seem to be fairly young, but they had drinks up there, so I'm guess they are all at least twenty one.  It's possible they have daytime jobs or something if they are a newish band."

"Okay, I'll see if I can find out the names of the band members, if so then I can try to find out where they work.  Worst case we pick them up at their next gig."

I nodded.  "All right, I'll bring you home now then - unless you've got something else for us, Captain McCain?"

"No."

Rayna said, "The band is a common factor, but so is drinking.  Let's not throw that one out yet.  If we assume it's one thing, it'll probably bite us in the butt."

Captain McCain nodded and motioned to the door.  I walked out with Rayna.  I glanced around, but again Chrome must have been busy with some inmates.

On the way out of the prison, I noticed that my range was approaching my norm again for my telepathy.  I watched when they appeared as I approached guards and inmates.

Once outside we said good-bye to the captain and I held Rayna tight against me, along with the bump under her shirt.  Gruff had been quiet during the entire time at the Jail.  It was pleasant having just their pair of mindviews in my vision, even if Gruff’s was split into five views and all under Rayna’s shirt.

I flew us to her home on the east side of the city.  My flight didn't feel amped up either.  That was mildly depressing.  Apart from the incident with the wall, I rather liked the idea of faster flight.

While flying I mentioned, "Hey, Silverlash was over last night and saw the bunny you gave me - she mentioned that it would be an awesome charity item for kids and people who are going through really hard times or a lot of pain.  If they are fast enough to make it's worth thinking about."

She replied, "I ... I don't know if I can give them away.  I mean, they are alive - what if someone didn't treat them well?"

"What about putting something in them so you could check on them later?"

"That could become a nightmare.  Imagine having hundreds over time spread out over the city or country and spending the time hunting them down to see how they are being handled."

"What about letting them only make someone feel good if the person is nice?"

"Hmm, not sure how I'd do that.  Even villains feel good sometimes."

"Well, it's an idea.  I can't imagine a child throwing away a stuffed animal that makes them feel good to hold and pet."

"That's probably true."

"Actually, I can't imagine many adults doing that.  The one you gave me kind of makes me want to spend an evening watching TV and petting it."

She grinned at me, "You like it, then?"

"That's an understatement.  Everyone that was over loved the bunny."

"Everyone?  Who all saw it?"

"Silverlash, Diva, Chrome, and Tiriffa."

"And they all liked it?"

"Yeah, if they weren't hero types it probably would have walked off on me - unwillingly."

"Well, I'm not so sure that Tiriffa is a hero type."

"Yeah, you're right - she's a scientist.  But she kind of likes us."

"How can you tell?  Her expressions are a bit off."

"But the emotions that flow through her mindview aren't.  I've been around her enough the last few days to know how she feels about us.  She actually likes the heroes - or as she calls us, 'city defenders' in her mind."

"Oh yeah?  Would be nice if she said more then."

"Most people don't - you have to be a mind reader."

"Ha ha.  Wait, that's an odd group, what were you guys up to?"

"Sitting around, chatting and drinking, just a girls' night.  Well, some were drinking - I'm the youngest and really don't."

"I wish I could go to one of those."

"Sure you can.  I'll call you for the next one."

"Did I say that out loud?"

Gah, damnit.  Wish people wouldn't think of questions but not say them.

I said, "I'm sorry.  Sometimes when up close I hear people think and it sounds like they are speaking out loud."

"Really?"

"Yeah.  It's occasionally a minor problem.  Well, anyway, umm, I
do
think it'd be cool for you to join us."

"Yeah, I'd like that.  I've never done that type of thing before."

"Way cool, I'll make sure you're in then.  Maybe we'll end up with all the heroines in town in our club."

"You've got a club?"

"No, just a hopefully ongoing gathering."

I flew us down to her garage, keeping in mind her desire to prevent people from seeing supers at her house a hundred yards away.

Once I landed I said, "Thanks for coming with Gruff to help."

"I'm glad I could.  If nothing it was interesting - and the meeting with Captain McCain was definitely useful at the Jail.  I'd been about to send out a message to every super in town to scope out every metal band playing tonight.  Now I'm not so sure that's needed."

"Cool.  Good luck on finding where the Raving Lunatics are playing tonight."

"Thanks.  What are you up to?"

"Study group back at the U of M.  I need to quick eat and meet with that group from the hall.  We're all in the same set of classes at this point."

"General courses?"

"No, the Bachelors of Science in Genetics.  It's the precursor to the Masters and Doctorates for Genetics.  I'll talk to you later, good luck on digging into that band."

"Thanks - have fun studying."

"Yay."

I stepped back while pushing off my air step to begin floating into the air.  I waved to her.  She'd just taken Gruff out, even with his big center eye not watching me he waved back.

I grinned and flew upward, thinking about his mindview.  He and the other eye creatures - the B's, as Rayna called them - had a split mindview.  They saw from all five eyes separately.  The eyes apparently didn't need to focus for distance as our eyes did, and were all capable of independently looking around.  I wondered at his ability to not just see through them all at one time, but pick out details and react from that much information – when I had a bunch of mindviews up it tended to overwhelm me, and that was the closest I could approximate to his normal vision.

I sped up and rushed back to school, hoping to catch Jim and Mike in an alcove near the cafeteria.  Sadly, my flight felt back to normal on the return trip to the university.

I landed - this week I hadn't been rushing my landings as much.  People already knew that Psystar attended the university, there wasn't much use hiding it now.  I didn't take my time, however - I wasn't looking to give people time to rush over and chat or ask questions.