“Okay. Thanks for the tip.” I stood up and brushed off my pants. “Safe trip, I better not see you again.”
“You won’t. Never again.” He scrambled to his feet and ran in the direction we’d come from. He was headed toward City Core—where the train station was—maybe he wasn’t lying.
I turned to find Avalanche studying me. “You think I just got scammed, don’t you?”
He shook his head. “No. I don’t.”
“You know something?”
Another shake of his head. “Only rumours. It’s probably nothing. Come on. Let’s get you home.”
7
THE VILLAIN
After dropping Violet off,I went right back out in search of the crackhead. He’d looked genuinely terrified at the prospect of going back to the police. I’d heard whispers of something going on—an experiment full of people who wouldn’t be missed—but who was involved? A branch of the police or the whole force? Only one way to find out.
Lucky for him, he had gone right for the train station, because if I’d found him anywhere else I would have killed him for swindling my girl.
Not your girl, a girl you barely know.
Semantics.
The guy was sitting in the far corner of one of the 24/7 fast-food places. He looked worse than he seemed on the street. His cheeks were hollow, with absolutely no colour in his face. His hair was reddish, thin, mostly falling out. Teeth either crooked or missing.
“Missed the last train?”
He jumped, spilling part of his drink over the table. His eyes darted around me, looking for escape. “I— What?—”
“Take it easy,” I said as I slid into the chair across from him. “I’m not here to hurt you. I just want to ask you some questions. What’s your name?”
“Arthur.”
“What happened while you were in police custody, Arthur?”
“I…” His eyes were darting around the restaurant. “The girl… Are you with her? Not right now, in general.”
“Does it matter?”
“How do I know you won’t kill me if I give you all the answers you want?”
I sighed. “I’ll be honest, buddy, I thought about it. I really did. You pulled a knife on my girl, and I really hate to let that slide, but I have questions and you have the answers. It wouldn’t be right to kill a source. I have a code.”
“So you are with her?”
“Sure, now I’ve answered your question. Will you answer mine?”
It was so much worsethan I thought. I’d been working through a list of people responsible forthe incidentfor five years, two months, and one week. I’d gotten through 325 people. Only fifteen names were left.
Except I just learned there was a whole new experiment going on. Hundreds of people were being stolen from the “justice” system every month to be used as guinea pigs in an attempt to recreate the superpower results ofthe incident.
I had five associates I was working with. Eva and four others. Three I’d met—I knew them, they had faces. One was entirely hidden from me. They were only known as The Benefactor—the one who made the list and wanted everyone involved dead.
At first I didn’t give a shit. There was a chemical spill in the river, and anyone who came into contact with the water either died or got superpowers. It was a freak accident and I was lucky. Sure, it sucked that over 85,000 people died, but that wasn’t my problem.
Then I found out it was a test. Some kind of population control run by a secret organization that called themselves The Culling. The hope was to wipe out the weak, leaving only the strong. Something went wrong and it ended up killing way more people than they’d projected. And it gave just over fourteen thousand people superpowers. That wasn’t planned. Something got screwed up and the people in charge were scrambling to figure out what.
I knew that they were trying to isolate whatever killed everybody so they could find out if their plan had worked—everyone who died was the weakest of our population—or failed—it went after everyone.
