Waking up in a holding cell is one of my least favorite experiences. Especially when surrounded by troublesome people with grubby fingernails and aloof tough-guy or gal demeanors who look at you like a sack of toothpicks if you aren’t built as a beefcake. It is especially unpleasant because they often smell and have poor general hygiene. In my experience, every time that I have wound up in a cell, I have consistently thought that every criminal in there shouldn’t be admitted until they had cleaned their bodies, and their filthy mouths, with soap.
Alas, simple prop stations, designed for simple typical wrong-doers, are not funded enough to consider bulk supplies of hygiene products for mostly temporary grunts like beaten-up drunks, hit-and-runners, and misunderstood reporters with blood on their hands.
When Tobias woke up in the cell of the East End Police Station, he felt enormously out of place. He was a temporary misunderstood bomb threatener amongst the company of an ear-picking gang member, a chanting spastic, a moaning businessman without any trousers, and a very smug teenager with red eyes and spiky white hair.
Tobias rolled his shoulders and felt his ribs over his shirt. The hoodie was gone, but thankfully, so was the hospital gown, and he was left with his awful Team Defiance merchandise. Tight and itchy bandages wrapped around him beneath the fabric. The silicon mask smelled like smoke and sweat, heavy and uncomfortable, one cheek warped and thin. The cell reeked of alcohol and tobacco. All the scents mingled into one malodourous draft that influenced his breathing to be sparing.
“What are chances of you winding up here?” the teenager purred, leaning towards him.
Tobias frowned and looked over. He narrowed his eyes at the girl’s red irises and flicked his gaze up and down her spindly frame. A plain black t-shirt, black, ripped skinny jeans, bulky black boots, and fingerless gloves in the very same angsty shade. “Excuse me?”
“I said, what are the chances?”
Tobias shook his head and looked away. He clenched his gloved fist, feeling a sharp shock of pain through his arm from the raw burns on his palm. His head cleared a little, and he did it again, harder. They would collect him soon, he thought. It was difficult to see through the morning grog.
“I don’t belong here,” moaned the pants-less man.
The leather-clad gang member grunted and flicked a gob of earwax to the floor, and the chanting woman raised her voice and stroked the prison bars. The teenager blew a bubble of gum and popped it obnoxiously, watching Tobias with her smug, smug smirk.
Tobias looked around the bench for his crutch. It wound up among the photographs in the Higher Defense Headquarters records room, dented, blackened, and blown into two pieces. Tobias would never see it again. What he found instead was a sleek prosthetic, donated by an anonymous pair of parents and a very much alive little girl. He stared at it, lifting his jeans’ leg to marvel at the smooth new titanium. It was simple, like the end of a crutch—almost closer to a peg leg, if it weren’t for the joint at the ankle.
Engraved into the slim steel shaft were the words THANK YOU. Tobias pulled off an attached tag and squinted at it through his dry contact lenses. They hurt, they blurred, and he was sure that they would soon fall out.
“For saving our little girl,” the teenager read over his shoulder. “Well, ain’t that adorable, huh? We’ve got a hero in our midst.”
Tobias closed the note in his palm and glared at the girl. “Mind your own business, thank you.”
The teenager sat back against the wall and shrugged apathetically. Tobias swallowed, expression slack. He clenched his fist again and stood resolutely. The prosthetic frightened him, for he could not feel the floor, and he stumbled a step. The rubber-capped foot caught him, sending a jolt up his knee at the landing of it, and he stepped more confidently towards the cell’s door. He kept a hand on the wall to make sure he wouldn't fall on the new apparatus, then wrapped his fingers around the bars and peered around the outside. There was a hallway to the left, lined with doors, a desk in front where a prop sat, and the exit into daylight to the right.
Tobias cleared his throat, and the prop looked up.
“Officer,” he said respectfully. He bowed his head. “I was told there would be a representative from Higher Defense to see me.”
The prop waved a hand. “Go and sit down. They’ll get you when they want you. And ain’t you lucky? You’ll get to meet your idol, too.”
Tobias frowned. “My idol, sir?”
“Mr. Might is on his way. You think I can get an autograph?"
“Mr. Might.” Tobias stared down at his t-shirt. The corners of his lips twitched. He laughed breathily and slipped his fingers into his hair, shaking his head in disbelief. His temples throbbed. “My idol.”
He began to pace. And, oh, did it feel good to pace, even if the new leg didn’t feel anything like a leg. He paced and paced, back and forth, wall to wall, maintaining a clear limp. The others sharing his cell complained, the prop complained, but Tobias kept on pacing, narrowed eyes downcast. He stopped for a moment to rub his wrist.
“My watch?” he asked. “Officer, where is my watch?”
The prop glared at him. “You probably lost it in the bomb blast. Now, sit down, would you?”
Tobias pursed his lips and pushed up his glasses. Except, the glasses weren’t there, and his finger simply slid up the bridge of his silicon nose. He grimaced and started to pace again until the bell at the door of the station tinkled.
He gripped the bars and stared out.
The woman wore a pantsuit and carried a briefcase, with a professional but fashionable hairstyle that probably cost hundreds and was reminiscent of the 50’s. She held up a badge, strung on a lanyard around her neck, for the prop at the reception desk to see.
He pointed to Tobias and Tobias took a step back, swallowing. Sweat beaded on his forehead, hot and sticky under the silicon face. The prop rose with a ring of keys to unlock the cell, followed by the woman. Tobias rubbed his contact lenses into a clearer position and squinted at her badge. She was a lawyer from Higher Defense Headquarters, and he vaguely remembered seeing her before. Every hero had a lawyer, but they were the shiftiest people in the entire business. Even shiftier than red-handed reporters, the lawyers slunk from typical to typical covering up messes that superheroes caused and never accounted for. Reporters simply told what they saw or were paid to see.
Somehow, at this lawyer, Tobias’s false face broke into a wide and stupid grin. Even as the prop fixed his wrists in handcuffs and escorted him down the hallway of doors, Tobias could not contain his delight. There was a reason his memory of this woman was so vague, and it was for the same reason that she was so important, and for the same reason that she smelled of a mixture of pleasant herbs.
The prop seated him at a table and bound his handcuffs to a bar in the middle of it, then left after a few words to the woman. She folded into the seat across from Tobias and opened her briefcase, paying his grin no heed.
Tobias looked over all that he could see above the table in fascination. How had he never seen her this close before?
“You’re his lover!” He wanted to blurt in triumph. “You’re the tea-giver! You are the one!”
He bit his lip and clenched his raw fist. They would be alone for a while and blurting things out would only cause him trouble.
“Sir, we understand you already explained your situation to the police,” she said, once satisfied with the organization of her briefcase.
“Yes. I saw the bomb on the television and realized it was coming in this direction,” Tobias answered, nodding. It was perfectly reasonable, he thought. No powers necessary. “They didn’t believe me.”
“No, they wouldn’t.” She folded her hands. “We are grateful that the people of East Benediction are still with us, and we at Headquarters do understand your situation.”
“You do?” Tobias’s brows furrowed and he clasped his hands. The two stuffed fingers of his glove stuck out uncooperatively. “But?”
She smiled and pulled a manila folder out of her case. “But, this accident could cause a lot of fear in the populace if the wrong facts, your facts, were to get out. Mr. Might is a highly regarded hero. If people were to think he endangered them, it would cause chaos. You must understand that we deeply regret the incident as it happened, but a public apology and confession would disrupt the balance of Benediction.”
“The balance,” Tobias repeated blandly. He stared down at the papers before him, mind blank.
“Mr. Might is human too, sir.” The lawyer touched his glove. “He lost a team member.”
Tobias flinched and pulled away. He held his hands as far from her as they could get on their chain.
She straightened and gestured to the papers. “This is a confidentiality agreement. You cannot say that Mr. Might was involved with the bomb. You cannot say that you were involved in the square. You cannot say anything that suggests that the event occurred at all, unless prompted and scripted. For your secrecy and for your service, if you sign this agreement, we offer you fifty thousand dollars.” She lifted an envelope from the case. “As a cheque.”
Tobias shook his head in astonishment. He dragged his hand down his face and rubbed his throat. He had never experienced the way Headquarters dealt with accidents. They always seemed to disappear and he regretted, now, never asking why or how. “What… What are you going to do? Pay off every citizen in the area to pretend that… that it never happened? Rebuild the entire square? Snap your fingers and make it all go away? Benjamin Jones turned a bomb away from Headquarters and towards civilians. The entire nation saw the bomb turned around on the television.”
She smiled again and pulled out a tablet, swiping a stylus over the screen. “The entire nation knows that Neville’s bomb landed in the ocean.”
The tablet screen flashed in his face, blue light blanching his cheeks. The moisture absconded from his mouth, which opened and closed wordlessly. Footage depicted Neville’s nuke plunging into the sea with a grand show of spray and a sky-high rocket of water, following Mr. Might’s landing in Vine Voodoo’s net.
Tobias gaped and pulled back, rigid against his chair. “Th-that—that—that’s doctored!” he stammered. His heart raced. “That’s doctored!”
She rolled a pen over the table. “The nuke that fell in East Benediction was created by a copycat villain in the area. Whether that copycat villain is you, the easiest person to blame, or someone else, comes down to whether or not you sign here.”
“B-Blackmail?” Tobias blubbered. “That’s what you do at Headquarters? We—You are supposed to be the good guys. That’s what Benediction counts on.”
“We are the good guys,” the lawyer responded, taking the tablet back. “Mr. Might himself insisted on coming to see you, to acknowledge and reward your incredible civic duty. But we need you to sign. Mr. McGuire, isn’t it? Think of how many lives Mr. Might has saved. Please, read the agreement.”
Tobias took the paper, noticing the trembling of his hands. He smoothed it out on the table and took a deep breath, clasping his hands together to reduce their obvious movement. He rubbed his eyes, readjusting the contact lenses, and read.
After a few sentences, he looked up. “This is wrong. Does Headquarters treat typicals like this whenever there is an accident? Is this how superheroes are never caught causing trouble until they’ve turned pom?”
“You say that as if you are not typical.”
“No, I am,” Tobias muttered quickly. He grimaced and returned to reading but choked. He read aloud, “‘The event that occurred on Wednesday the sixteenth was the result of a copycat attack. The villain in question was a powerless Neville copycat who timed his nuke to be released at a moment that would cause the most civil unrest. I overheard him speaking about his plans to destroy the square and acted by instinct to prevent his actions from killing hundreds.’” He shook his head. “So, we absolve Mr. Might of all responsibility? An innocent somewhere gets penalized, and I get paid to tell a lie.”
The woman pursed her lips, then smiled once more her infuriating lawyer smile. The on-top-of-the-world, knowing, smug smile lorded over Tobias like a billboard with flashing white lights stating I OWN YOU.
His jaw clenched and he picked up the pen.
“If I sign, my identity will be kept a secret, and I will be released immediately?”
“Of course.”
“If I don’t?”
“The mask comes off, and the blame for the incident falls to you—the real you.”
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