The Grafters - Heroes and Villains Part 2

The Grafters: Heroes and Villains Part 2

Story by Michael A. Pearce
Heretic and all related characters © General Sci
XenoGirl © TheChitinousTeen AKA JawsFan (Xenomorph © 20th Century Fox)

Code Seven-R.

For Doctor Richard Hayashi, this was a call to rally. It called for a set of actions to take place. The first action of which was to put on some decent clothes. While it was important to at least be presentable for such meetings, the urgency of their call did not usually allow for splendid things like hygiene. Richard Hayashi had to settle for a quick spray of deodorant and hope that was enough to keep any undesirable musk down. The call would then require him to arm his security system and leave his apartment. He would then head down to the subway station and board one of the north bound trains that led out of Manhattan and into the greater New York area. Once he reached his stop, he would proceed on foot to what was otherwise a non-descript office building. What set this building apart was that there was no lobby. There was only a single door with a push handle facing the street. Next to that door was a code-key lock. Hayashi would quickly enter a ten-digit key to unlock the door and enter. From there he proceeded down a hallway that was loaded with doors that would lead off to various unused offices and storage rooms. He would reach the end of the hall where an elevator was waiting. Once he entered the elevator, he would be presented with another code-key locking device. Once he entered the appropriate code, the elevator would move to his appropriate floor.

Hayashi had no idea what floor he was going to, but he knew it wasn’t reaching into the upper levels. The elevator would actually go down. When the doors swung open, he was presented with what could be described as a lobby appropriate for a corporate headquarters. The primary difference, however, was that there was no secretary waiting in this lobby. In fact, there was no one to be seen at all. Hayashi simply knew from memory on where to go. He proceeded through the lobby and into yet one more darkened hallway where he would reach a room labeled ‘B5’.

He finally reached his destination as he entered the room to find at least one dozen other people sitting around a large wooden and rectangular table. Most of these people were wearing casual business attire. There were a few in more formal wear, complete with coats and ties. The one exception in the room was wearing a NYPD patrol uniform, a blond haired woman named Officer Xander.

At the head of the table was a man that was roughly Hayashi’s age. Unlike Hayashi, this man had a full head of hair. His waistline wasn’t ballooning out in an obnoxious way, if at all. While his hair was gray, like Hayashi’s, it was clear that this man appreciated the change in color. He was the first to welcome Hayashi to this strange meeting in the middle of the night, “Ah, Hayashi, I’m glad you could make it.”

“I came as quickly as I could, George,” Hayashi replied kindly as he shook his hand.

Officer Xander simply leaned back into her chair and crossed her arms and legs. It was clear that she didn’t really think much of Hayashi.

Hayashi found himself an empty chair and sat down. He awkwardly noticed it was perfectly across the way from Officer Xander. He met her gaze, eye to eye, and the two of them silently agreed not to make too much trouble this evening.

As Hayashi shifted his weight in his chair, George began to speak, “As I was telling Officer Xander here, we have a new problem with our Divinity Party friends.”

“What would that be, exactly?” Hayashi asked with a professional and dispassionate tone.

“Your former employers seem eager to wipe out the Grafters,” George replied as he opened a manila folder and began handing out printed documents to each of the meeting’s attendees. “They seem rather confident in a project that they’ve been working on for the last six years. The Divine Armor project seems to be meeting all of their specifications as a Human Performance Enhancer.”

“So their HPE’s are done at last?” Hayashi asked as he flipped through the document that was given to him. Across the many pages there were specifications about armor density and weapon compliments. There were also notes on how much strength and speed that these new suits would grant their users.

After reviewing the document, Hayashi grew grim, “These suits are almost as strong as the True Armor.”

“Precisely,” George said as he leaned on the meeting room table and faced Hayashi, “Aside from the fancier tricks, these things are almost as good as the genuine article. That’s assuming if your unwitting pilot has bothered to fully synchronize with her suit.”

“She hasn’t,” Hayashi grimly replied, “Not yet.”

“Oh,” George said as he shifted his weight back onto his feet and looked down on Hayashi. He then lowered his tone to illustrate the urgency of the situation, “Well, if your pilot isn’t up to the task, perhaps you could tell me about the other Grafters you’ve managed to put into that team.”

Hayashi gently tossed the documents concerning the divine armor onto the table and turned his attention to George, “The Grafters are not my team. The Heretic built that team all by herself.”

“So you’re saying you don’t control them,” Officer Xander now interrupted, “You’re not their boss?”

The room fell silent for a short while. There was a building tension that was making it abundantly clear that this group found themselves relying on a team of young women that didn’t even know that they existed. Heck, no one in the room knew the identities of the Grafters. Hayashi knew about Gwen, of course, but he did not know the personal identities of the other four Grafters. Everyone in that room sat about the table growing increasingly impatient with Hayashi’s delayed answer.

“No,” Hayashi finally said, “I’m not their boss. I can be their guide. I can be their mentor, but only if they welcome me to the task. The only one I have any clout with is the Heretic.”

“Yes, the one you have any influence over. You still won’t even tell us her name?” Xander pressed from across the table.

“These people are only children. They have a right to anonymity. They won't be sympathetic to our cause if we try to force it on them,” Hayashi tried to explain.

Julia Xander wasn’t going to have any of it tonight. It turned out her truce in the form of a nod was a lie, “Yeah, they’re children with super powers. Do you know how many ‘children with super powers’ police meet in a day across the nation? Hundreds. Only, the ‘super powers’ are just firearms that they lifted off of their parents or bought from a shady dealer. How do you know that you can trust this ‘team’?”

“What have they done to violate any trust we can give them?” Hayashi shot back at Julia.

“Plenty,” Julia sternly replied, “Just a few weeks ago the team basically blew up a high school while aiding a felon evade arrest. How about the incident just a few weeks earlier before that? There was the event that involved their newest member causing private property damage and kidnapping two other children. Do the Grafters write an ‘after-action review’ to justify their actions? No. We simply have to trust a bunch of hormone-fueled vigilantes that they apparently know what’s best.”

“Well,” Hayashi began to formulate a retort, “Here we are. All of us are members of the Resistance. How would you describe us? A conspiracy of light aimed at our own government? If we’re caught, we’ll simply be domestic terrorists on ISN and Knox News.”

“The difference,” Julia pointedly replied, “Is that we’re adults. We earned our backgrounds and expertise. My ability to be a police officer didn’t grab me off the street against my will. There wasn’t a worm that slithered into your ear and gave you a talent to understand languages. You had to learn it first. For these… girls… It seems to be the exact opposite.”

Hayashi didn’t have anything to say for a time. Julia had a point. Gathered around that table was a collection of highly qualified individuals. Many were researchers and scientists like him. There were a few that were good with accounting. One of those accountants, named Barry, learned how to be a good money launderer. There were still others that put their focus on martial training, like Julia. George, the leader of this branch of the Resistance, was a burned spy. All of them knew how to respect the knowledge and power each of them respectively wielded.

Gwen still enjoyed video games.

Gwen and the other team members were simply girls.

Finally, Hayashi had something to say in defense of Gwen and the other Grafters, “You see, the problem is that we found out what their actions were all about later, didn’t we? That facility that they attacked was an illegal and barbaric anti-gay clinic. The felon that the team helped escape was trying to keep the Psi-Corp from taking over the world. They’ve shown us that we can trust them.”

Julia then flatly replied, “To what extent?”

Julia then took out a thirty round magazine that seemed fit to be loaded into a rifle and set it on the table in front of her. Hayashi looked across the table and had to ask a question, “What do the little black tips mean?”

George had a sinking feeling in his gut as he knew exactly what those little black tips meant. He had to say it aloud for everyone to hear, “Armor Piercing.”

Julia then looked Hayashi straight in the eye and asked, “Which Grafter is the strongest Grafter?”

“Excuse me?”

“Which Grafter is the strongest? I know each of them have their quirky little abilities. All of them are extremely threatening. It’s been observed that even the green one can take a bullet, but which has the strongest armor? Which one can take the most punishment?” Julia continued to press her question.

Hayashi almost answered with Gwen’s actual name, but he caught himself just as he opened his mouth, “The Heretic.”

“Right,” Julia replied, “The Heretic. This means that I have to consider her as the absolute most dangerous among them. So whatever can take the Heretic down, can take the rest down. Please draw your attention to the round I’m taking out of the magazine,” Julia removed one of the .30 black-tipped rounds from her magazine and held it into one of the solitary lights in the darkened meeting room. She then continued, “Most bullets are composed of lead. While lead is highly toxic to us, and the rest of life for that matter, what kills us with a bullet is a whole lot of force packed into such a tiny space. That’s why lead is so valuable as a bullet. It’s rather heavy, which only adds more mass to be punched through fragile human bodies.”

“So,” Hayashi began to compose himself as he saw where this was going, “I take it these armor piercing bullets are different?”

“Correct,” Julia replied, “These bullets are made with hardened steel. While steel is lighter than lead, its hardness is significantly higher. The lighter build also allows for higher muzzle velocity. Your last report mentioned that the Heretic’s armor was like that of one half inch of AR 500 steel. That’s some pretty strong stuff. In fact, I’m pretty sure that not even these bullets could penetrate such a sturdy material. With that said, I’m sure it could do some serious damage to the squishier Grafters.”

“So, it isn’t bad enough that the Divinity Party is soon going to try to kill them? You have to threaten their lives as well?”

“The line between hero and villain is a thin one, Richard,” Julia said as she loaded her round back into the magazine and tucked it out of sight, “There’s a lot of room for error when it comes to these girls. I want to protect them, sure, but I want to be ready to take them out the minute they think they can get away with things like murder.”

“What makes you think any of them would kill anyone?”

Julia remained calm as she continued to explain, “Children kill people all of the time. I’ve seen it myself once or twice over my career. You never forget the innocence in a child’s eyes after they’ve pulled the trigger on some one. Remember the kids that find firearms every day? Some of them might shoot themselves. Others might accidently shoot family members or friends. There are still other children though that start pretending that they are judge, jury, and executioner. These Grafters are constantly patrolling the city looking for crime, looking for trouble. A lot of the criminals that they apprehend would have had a better time stepping into a boxing ring with Chuck Norris. These are children with guns grafted into their hands. We have to at least take precautions.”

Julia then took a breath and thought of her own children, “If Peter or Natasha were to pull the trigger one someone, I don’t know what I’d do with myself.”

“Fine,” Hayashi said as he took the document and stood up from the table, “You make your precautions. I’ll be sure to forward this information off to the team to help prepare them for their enemies. Perhaps I should prepare them for their own allies too.”

***

Xeno-Girl prowled her way across the city’s rooftops to finally arrive at the address provided to her by Doctor Hayashi. What she saw was puzzling. For a school, it was smaller than she had expected. While many school and college campuses were cramped in New York, this one was easily a quarter of the normal size.

Most buildings featured security systems that were sensitive to ground level intrusions. Through her experience as a self-styled crime-fighter, Natasha had come to know that the roof access often had an alarm that wasn’t necessarily linked to the ground level security system. She found that most people had grown to ignore such alarms because of the number of people that sneak onto the roof for a smoke. Unfortunately, most roof access doors were locked from the inside. With the IDEA Charter School, she found that this was no different.

Natasha had found ways around such obstacles as well. Over her time with the xeno-suit, she had learned that injuries cause her to bleed a sort of high-powered acid. By giving herself a small self-inflicted wound across her wrist, she was able to melt the lock to gain access. While melting the lock usually meant that closing the door would not silence the alarm, Natasha had been gaining considerable skill in finding the alarm and disabling it once entering.

Now free to explore the confines of the strange campus, Natasha pressed into the darkness in hopes of finding the office. She figured such a place would be on the first floor of the building. She took the staircase down and observed the strangely sparse class rooms. There were desks and walls decorated with student work, which was normal. What wasn’t normal was the seeming absence of computers or even books in any of the classrooms. Natasha was further shocked to see that there was no library to be found anywhere in the building. One class room was repurposed into a lunch area. At no point did it seem clear that any of the students or staff saw the outside air during the day.

Finally, Natasha found the office and teacher lounge. Behind the welcoming desk was a room that was used as both a cleaning supply storage and security room. With some effort, Natasha maneuvered past the mops and buckets and came to the still active closed circuit feed. While operating such a machine was new to her, she managed to find an interface to enter various time indexes. Natasha first looked for the class room where Mrs. Peres taught. She scrolled the footage to some point in the mid-day and looked for the kind old woman. After skimming through the various monitors and internally remarking how beautiful some of the burkas appeared to be, Natasha found Mr. Peres’ class room.

Natasha reversed the footage to the beginning of the day. It seemed like the teacher entered the class room at 7:43 AM. At 7:55 AM, students began to file into the class room. Natasha then put the play head at sixteen times normal speed. The xeno-suit allowed Natasha to observe minute behaviors at impressive speeds. She had seen Gwen do something similar once or twice with the use of her other skin and Natasha wondered if she could do something similar. What Natasha observed in the security footage was that all of the students, whether in Mrs. Peres’ class or others, were extremely irritable. They hoarded supplies. They also formed tightly-knit friend circles that challenged or abused other friend-circles. Much of it seemed to go beyond what Natasha thought was normal for any other school she had attended or seen. These children were stressed out.

At 9:37 AM, Natasha witnessed a woman enter Mrs. Peres’ classroom. She seemed to be the one in charge, and she immediately pointed at Mrs. Peres and berated her. To Natasha’s surprise, it did not seem that this woman was a Muslim. She wore no burka. She didn’t seem to wear anything to identify her religious preference or perspective. Considering that the school was meant for recent Muslim immigrants, Natasha found it confusing that the school would have a non-Muslim running the campus. The footage didn’t come with any sort of audio. The footage also did not come with the best of clarity, Natasha could only see that this new woman was aggressive and went out of her way to intimidate Mrs. Peres.

Natasha figured that this had to be the principal. She then scanned the footage for any other sightings of this aggressive and mean-spirited person. Natasha’s search unfortunately turned fruitful. The woman was seen again and again entering classrooms and yelling at the staff. One of them sitting at the welcoming desk just earlier that day was brought to tears by this woman. Natasha watched as the security footage showed the principal entering the teacher’s lounge and throwing out the lunches stored in the refrigerator. Natasha watched as the principal finally entered her office. Natasha paused the video feed and then went looking for that office. It was only a brisk stride away. The name plate on the door read ‘Dr. Serine Morrigan’.

The door was locked, and was wired to the school’s security system. While Natasha was proficient at disabling localized alarms like those for roof access, she was less enthusiastic about tackling a system that was in constant communication with a security company.

Natasha wasn’t ready to give up though. She placed her insect-like hands along the wall and attempted to use her senses to probe the structure. She found that there was little stopping her from simply punching out the wall. That’s exactly what Xeno-Girl did.

Natasha let the dust settle a bit before going through Dr. Morrigan’s desk. Just what could she be a doctor of? The various diplomas and certificates along the principal’s wall suggested that she studied psychology. The work space was clean and tidy, at least until Xeno-Girl’s entry had left bits of dry wall across the surface. Natasha figured there was no point in trying to access the computer. Such devices were always password locked and she never found an easy way of cracking a person’s password. Instead, Natasha began going through the drawers. In her search, Xeno-Girl came across a leather-bound pocket planner. Natasha couldn’t help but open it up. The contents within only shocked her.

Dr. Morrigan had left dozens of written notes and observations to herself on various meeting dates and schedules. It was clear that the school was in financial trouble. Apparently a member of the school board had abused funds, and the rest of the board was eager to cover up this person’s callous mistake. Unfortunately, a part of the plan involved forcing the staff to quit their jobs. Serine was actively making herself a pain in an effort to chase away staff members. By forcing the teachers and staff to quit, the school could avoid paying unemployment insurance. The board had asked why she couldn’t just fire various staff members as that would have a similar effect. Serine had suggested that firing so many staff members at once would raise suspicion with the state’s labor board. She was ready to fire people when necessary, however.

Natasha grew increasingly worried. Just how long were these financial problems plague the school because of a money-hungry board member? Natasha found a file cabinet that held various employment and tax records over the course of a five year period. Natasha’s heart sank with each year that she reviewed.

The school only kept half of its staff every year. Dozens of teachers and staff members were quitting in order leave the oppressive work atmosphere. The remaining amounts of teachers were fired under the excuse that they were intolerant of Islam. It only enraged Natasha all the more since half of the teachers fired were Muslims themselves.

Natasha returned to the pocket planner to see if she could glean any more notes. What she found only pushed her rage over the tipping point. Dr. Morrigan had already named the staff that she wanted gone. Mrs. Peres was among them.

Natasha thought of the old woman’s desperate situation. She thought of the dilapidated building that she and her daughter occupied. She thought of the dozens, if not hundreds, of other employees that were facing the same fate. That’s when the daughter’s words, Michelle, rung in her head, “I wish Serine could just die.”

Natasha would grant Michelle’s wish tonight.

***

With the meeting over and everyone heading back to their homes for some much deserved sleep, Dr. Hayashi made his way to the subway. He was still grappling with Julia’s words and wondered if there was a better way to martial the Grafters into a better and more cohesive fighting force. The schematics for the Divine Armors were impressive. It filled Hayashi with a sense of dread that these things would be rolling out in the next month or two.

Hayashi thought he would bring up the project to Gwen later in the morning. There was still time to plan and prepare for the coming battle. It wasn’t like there was too much else going on at the time.

Just before Hayashi began his descent down the stairs to the subway, he remembered Xeno-Girl. She was still out on a case that she wanted help with. Hayashi figured that he should at least get an update before losing his signal in the tubes. Hayashi pulled out his phone and dialed Xeno-Girl’s number. Perhaps everything was resolved and Hayashi could finally get some shut eye.

The phone rang two times and was answered on the third, “Xeno-Girl here.”

Hayashi smiled before asking, “How’s the case?”

To Hayashi’s chagrin, he did not like Xeno-Girl’s tone, “You wouldn’t believe it, Doctor! This school, it’s awful! What they’re doing to these people is insane!”

“Whoa, Zen,” Hayashi replied, “Calm down. What’s going on?”

“They’re abusing these people,” Xeno-Girl exclaimed, “And she’s the one letting it all happen! I found the principal’s address and I’m going to end this once and for all!”

“Wait,” Hayashi tried to get Xeno-Girl to clarify, “What are you intending to do?”

Hayashi had hoped that Xeno-Girl’s reply would involve a cute exposure of evidence to the appropriate authorities. Perhaps Xeno-Girl would answer that she would do a prank or some other shenanigan. At the most, Hayashi was hoping for something simply mean-spirited against this principal. Instead, Xeno-Girl answered with the worst case scenario, “I’m… going… to kill her.”

The blood fell out of Hayashi’s face and cold sweat began to build on his brow.

Hayashi attempted one more time to calm Xeno-Girl down, but she had already made up her mind, “Zen, don’t hang up on me. I said, don’t hang up-!”

The call was ended. Hayashi quickly thought of Gwen and gave her a call. Gwen panicked and alerted the other Grafters, but all of them were tied up with other duties or real-life tasks. Gwen abruptly left her party and was heading back as quickly as possible on foot as the Heretic. She would certainly not arrive in time.

In desperation, and humble defeat, he thought of one more number to call.

Officer Xander was already in her patrol car, heading back to the station. While everyone else at that meeting was heading off to bed, Xander was taking a late night shift for one of her partners. She was steaming after her argument with Hayashi and she was looking to blow off some steam giving tickets to drunk drivers that night.

That’s when her favorite person in the world called. Xander put the phone on speaker and answered, “What is it, Doctor?”

“Remember how you said that you had contingencies in case the Grafters ever broke our trust?”

Julia was able to read Hayashi’s earnest tone. With despair she answered, “Oh, shit.”

Hayashi smacked his lips once and replied, “That’s right, sweet cheeks. That night you were warning me about is happening right now.”

Julia fired up her lights and siren and sped her vehicle into high gear, “Quickly give me the address!”

***

The monster found the old woman’s home.

Serine was asleep in her bed when she was suddenly awoken by the sound of broken glass. She sat up in her queen sized bed. She found herself wishing that her husband was still with her. Her home suddenly looked much larger and darker. It didn’t help that she could hear what seemed like footsteps somewhere in her apartment home.

Serine stepped out of her bed wearing only her night gown. She then reached into her dresser next to the bed and drew out a taser. She flicked it on for a brief moment to test its functionality. She thought that testing the weapon might sooth her nerves. Instead, she found herself only getting more anxious as the footsteps were now coupled with a scraping sound that seemed to be getting closer to her bedroom door.

“Oh God, John,” she gasped to herself, “I might be seeing you soon!”

The thing on the other side of her closed bedroom door only got louder as it approached. It began punching the walls which left cracked indentations along the surface. Bits of drywall and dust fell to the carpeted floor.

Serine began letting out shocked screams with every terrifying thump, “Please, whatever you are! Leave me alone!”

At that moment, the wooden bedroom door was punched in. Pieces of it splintered into the room. A shard of the door imbedded itself into Serine’s face. The pain forced her to drop the taser and coddle her wound. The dark and insect-like figure of her monster entered the room. Serine, even in the darkness of the room, could make out the purple and gold highlights across the carapace of the creature. She also couldn’t help but notice the gleaming and saliva covered teeth giving a smile that only death could bring.

To Serine’s dismay, this was no thoughtless creature. It actually spoke with the voice that she imagined a cobra might have. It angrily hissed at her, “Did you think you could get away with it?”

Officer Xander found herself accelerating toward the home address of Dr. Serine Morrigan. The traffic was still thick this evening, and the night-time drivers were showing little empathy for this police officer’s plight.

Back in Serine’s apartment, Xeno-Girl gripped the old woman and threw her out into the hall. The impact revealed that the old woman was bald and her wig fell like a lumpy dead rat onto the floor. Serine tried to catch her breath, but one of her cracked ribs was brushing up against her lung. If she were to be jostled in the slightest, the rib would risk puncturing her lung.

Xeno-Girl marveled over her ability to make this monster suffer. She then noticed the taser on the floor, “Did you think this was going to save you?”

Xeno-Girl then picked up the taser and held it to her mouth. Her hidden second-jaw then sprang out and shattered the non-lethal weapon. She then swung her elongated head and toothy smile toward Serine, “How would you like me to do that to your skull next? Do you think you’ll hear the sound before you die?”

Julia had to make her vehicle mount the curb. With sirens blazing, she sped around the last turn to get to Serine’s apartment. Natasha heard the sirens from the third floor and could see the red and blue light from a single police cruiser. This only made Xeno-Girl snarl, “Just my luck.”

Julia brought the car to a stop. She then pulled out a sleek black rifle from the trunk of her vehicle. The rifle had tactical rails that allowed for various military-styled attachments. It had a pistol grip along the bottom of the barrel. Along the side, Julia had mounted a tactical light. Along the top she had placed a red dot holographic scope.

Julia pulled back the charging handle and then loaded her special magazine with the black-tipped ammunition. She then released the bolt back into place and flipped her safety over to semi-automatic. She then turned on her tac-light and entered the building in a rapid but controlled fashion.

Xeno-Girl went back to terrorizing Serine who lay helplessly on the floor before her. She threw the pocket planner in Serine’s face, “I know what you are doing to your employees. I know you get a kick out of ruining their lives. Why else would you do it? Why else would you forsake people to go without paychecks while barely hanging on for life in this crazy world?”

Serine didn’t have anything to say, except, “Please… Please, have mercy.”

“Oh, no. Not tonight. Certainly not for you,” Xeno-Girl began to flick her tail about as she lowered her head into striking distance of Serine’s forehead. She slowly let her inner-mouth probe Serine’s desperate and sweaty face. She was sobbing tears while relentlessly begging for her life. Xeno-Girl then reared her head back, as if to bite into the old woman’s skull.

“BACK OFF!”

Xeno-Girl jumped back. She was temporarily blinded by a light that was shined into her domed face. She then mouthed off that it was right to kill the woman on the floor, but she was only yelled at again.

“I SAID BACK OFF!”

Finally, Natasha could see through the glare again. Just before she could make out her form, Natasha finally recognized the voice. She recognized her mother. Natasha felt like she was caught with her hand in the cookie jar. She had to fight her urge to address her as ‘mom’. She then realized that her own mother was aiming a rifle at her head. This filled Natasha with both fear and anxiety. She had weapons fired at her before. She never thought her own mother would be aiming one at her now.

“She’s hurt people,” Xeno-Girl tried to justify her actions through her hissing voice; “She’s ruined hundreds of people’s lives protecting someone else’s greed!”

“That’s not what I see from my perspective,” Officer Xander responded to the faceless vigilante, “I see a monster that has broken into an old woman’s room with the intention of murdering her.”

“It’s all there, in that black book,” Xeno-Girl exclaimed. Surely her mother could see that she was fighting for justice. Natasha had to be in the right. She was only here to defend Mrs. Peres. She was only here to honor Michelle Peres as well, “They’re even trying to rob the state taxpayers with some sort of unemployment scheme!”

Julia, still unknowingly holding an excessively deadly weapon on her own daughter, replied with, “Sure. That’s enough to start an investigation. Heck that might be enough to close the school. It’s enough to throw the deserving in jail.” Julia then paused for a breath, “You didn’t tell me how she murdered anyone else, however. None of the crimes you accuse this woman of warrant anything resembling the death penalty. Let alone the cruel implement of torture before death.”

Natasha was realizing what she had done. She had allowed her feelings to cloud her better and calmer judgment. She still tried to justify something of her actions, “She’s still an accomplice…”

“You don’t know that,” Julia replied, now confident that she was speaking to someone’s misguided teenager, “For all you know, this woman is under just as much threat. She could be coerced or intimidated. You don’t know if she’s a willing accomplice.”

Natasha began to sob inside of her suit. She fell over backwards and gripped the sides of her head. She cried aloud asking what she had done. She cursed herself for letting it get this far. She cursed herself for nearly going over-board on the thief at the bus-stop. She cursed herself in relishing the opportunity of ending an old woman’s life.

She cursed herself for enjoying the violence.

Julia finally lowered her weapon.

Julia then called in the old woman’s injuries over the radio. By the time she looked back to Xeno-Girl, she was gone.

“Thank you,” Serine managed to squeak.

Julia then noticed the little black book next to Serine, “Is it true what she said? Is it true that there is corruption on the board for the school you work at?”

Serine nodded, “It’s all there in that book,” she took a few more shallow breaths before continuing, “I doubt they could do worse to me than what I just suffered. Shut it down. Shut that school down. Those teachers deserve better. Those students deserve better.”

***

Natasha returned to the lair. She retracted the xeno-suit back within herself and put on some clothes. She then simply sat at the center table and cupped her head in her hands. She sat silently for only a few minutes, but seemed like an eternity. She then heard a knock on the metal entrance and the door swung open.

Natasha was expecting someone like Gwen. She was hoping that it was perhaps Regina. She just hoped that it would be someone she could pour her heart out to. She was absolutely terrified to find a bald old man with an expansive waistline waiting at the door.

“Hello, Natasha,” he said, “I’m Doctor Hayashi. It’s nice to meet face to face.”

Hayashi strolled into the main chamber and gave it a quick look-over as if to give it an inspection, “I see that Gwen has taken good care of the place. It was originally built to thwart a presidential assassination over a decade ago. Or at least, that’s the story that I’m told. The Resistance makes a habit of compartmentalizing many of their operations.”

Hayashi took a seat next to Natasha at the round table, “Yeah, I only recently figured out who you are. I used to only know Gwen. But, after tonight’s events, I felt it necessary to learn about Rachel, Regina, Zoe, and yourself.”

“You sent the police to Dr. Morrigan’s house,” Natasha pieced together.

“Yeah,” Hayashi replied, “Yeah, I did. I didn’t know it was your mother at the time. What I did know is that I sent a police officer with a weapon powerful enough to pierce your thick xeno-skin. I had no idea that…” Hayashi stopped as he had to blink back a tear. Natasha, still in a state of shock over the recent events, didn’t even think to give the man comfort.

Hayashi composed himself again, “You might not think so, but I’m a parent. I… was a parent.”

Natasha’s jaw dropped.

“His name was Carl. He went on an expedition somewhere in the Mediterranean Sea. It was a job that he wasn’t enthusiastic about, but I pushed him to go. He loved geology. A storm hit. All hands were lost.”

Hayashi stood up from the table and faced away from Natasha, “I still haven’t forgiven myself. I didn’t directly kill him. But, had I not pushed him to do that job I might still have him today. No parent should ever see the death of his child. Do you know what it would have done to me if your mother had shot you? Do you have any idea what that would have done to your mother?”

Finally, Natasha asked, “Does she know?”

“No,” Hayashi replied, “She doesn’t. But, let’s get a few things straight.” Hayashi sat back down at the table, his eyes were red from his recent cry, “You can’t let yourself get out of control like that again. You’ve taken on a tremendous task, but you have to be aware of all the factors before making brash decisions like that.”

Natasha nodded in agreement, “Okay. I’ll try to.”

“No,” Hayashi was growing insistent now, “You’ll do it.”

Hayashi then stood up from the table and made his way to the chamber entrance. Before he left, he turned to Natasha to say one more thing, “Do you remember what I said over the phone about the name Xeno-Girl? Do you remember how I wasn’t enthusiastic about describing you as a girl? There’s another way of saying girl: Female child. It’s time to grow up. It’s time to become a woman.” As Hayashi closed the door behind him, “Let’s keep in touch, Zen.”

Later that night, Gwen caught up with Natasha and hugged her. Natasha then went home to see her mother. Natasha’s young brother, Peter, was playing in the living room while Julia was filling out paperwork. Natasha then walked up to her mother and only had one thing on her mind.

Julia looked up from her paperwork to see what was up. At that point Natasha did the only thing she could do. In tears, she apologized, “I’m so sorry.”

Julia was truly confused, “For what?”

“Everything,” Natasha replied while still keeping her secret.