The New Heroes: The Offer

DOCTOR PLATT GREETED the grey-haired uniformed man at the prison hospital's entrance. "General Piers? Doctor Carter Platt."
The general nodded, and shook Platt's hand. "Your report said that you've got him sedated?" His voice was gruff, his manner brisk.
"That's right."
"No, it's wrong."
Platt took a step back, frowning. "What?"
"Just take me to him," General Piers said. "Now."
As they walked through the prison's damp stone corridors, Platt said, "Apex dropped him here this morning. And I mean that literally - Apex had him caught in some sort of titanium netting. He was lowering him down into the compound when the netting dissolved. The prisoner fell about five metres onto solid concrete."
"How did you get him inside?"
"Obviously we couldn't get close to him, so we had to use the Anacondas."
"Anacondas?"
"That's what the inmates call them. High-pressure water hoses. We use them for riot control and for cleaning out the cells. Took some time, but we were able to force him into a cell. Then we shot him with a tranquilliser. General, we're not new to this game! We have dealt with superhuman criminals before!"
"Not like him, you haven't. There's not a cell built that can hold him."
Platt snorted. "We had Brawn in custody for eight months!"
"You mean, only eight months. He got out."
"He had help."
"He still got out. And where is he now?" Before the doctor could answer, General Piers continued. "He's in Spain. We got a report this morning of him tearing up a highway. He disappeared into the mountains."
They rounded a corner. At the end of a long corridor a single cell was illuminated. A figure sat on the ground, staring out at them through the thick metal bars.
The man was completely hairless, and naked. His rough, puckered, red and yellow skin was covered in open sores that dripped with a thick, clear slime.
When they were five metres from the bars, Doctor Platt reached out and grabbed hold of the General's arm. "Don't get any closer! He can pool the venom in his hands, throw it at you! I've already got one guard in the infirmary!"
General Piers stopped walking. To the man in the cell, he said, "You conscious, Dioxin?"
The man didn't react.
"Like I said, he's sedated."
"Don't be too sure, Platt." Louder, he said, "Dioxin! You hear me, boy?"
Slowly, the scarred man turned his head towards the general. "I hear... you." He grinned. "What... do you want?"
"I've come to make you an offer."
"An offer." Dioxin nodded weakly. "Who are you, old man?"
"General Scott Piers, United States Air Force. I've just been appointed as the government's official liaison with The High Command and the other superheroes."
"So what... is your offer... General?"
The general rubbed his hand over his chin, then his neck. Despite the cold of the prison, he was sweating. "You give me information, and I'll give you something you've always wanted."
After a long pause, Dioxin began to nod. "I'm... listening." Then he suddenly grinned, and broke into a cold laugh. "Thought I could keep the doped-up act going a bit longer than that!" He jumped to his feet, and walked over to the bars. "What do you want to know?"
"I want to know who Ragnarök is. His real name."
"What, you think that he's like one of your dumb superheroes? You think that he has a secret identity?" Dioxin laughed again. "Yeah, that's how it works. He's in the middle of a scheme to take over the world and suddenly he thinks, 'I'd better get back to the office before they all realise that Arthur's been gone for too long!'"
"Arthur? That's his first name?"
Dioxin shrugged. "I doubt it. I just picked it out of the air. Look, General, Ragnarök doesn't have a real name. Or if he does, he doesn't use it any more. But that's not what you want, is it? You really want to know how to find him. So why don't you just ask me that?"
"How do I find him?"
"You don't. Ragnarök is smarter than you are."
"What can you tell us?"
"Depends on what you're offering."
"Like I said, it's something you've always wanted."
"I don't believe for one second that you'd keep to your side of the bargain, but go ahead anyway. Amuse me."
"We can cure you."
A long silence stretched out. Doctor Platt looked from one to the other.
"You can cure me." Dioxin held his hand in front of him, palm up, then clenched it into a fist. Thick drops of venom were squeezed from the sores on his palm, ran down to his elbow, then dripped onto the floor where they joined the small pool that was growing at his feet, slowly smouldering through the concrete. "I'm not an idiot, Piers. I can't be cured."
"From what we've learned of your condition, no, you can't be cured in any conventional sense. But... We have something that's just as good. Better, in fact."
"And what would that be?"
The general turned to Doctor Platt. "Your security clearance is Epsilon-Four, right?"
"That's right."
"As of now, your clearance is Gamma-Nineteen. I'll file the paperwork when I get back to base."
"Gamma? I didn't even know there was a Gamma."
"Not many people do. Gamma security clearance is connected with superhuman activities." He turned back to Dioxin. "We're going to build you a new body - one that isn't infected with... with whatever it is that you have. We have cloning technology that's decades ahead of what most people believe. We just take a DNA sample and grow a brand new you. Our artificial wombs can accelerate growth: from a single cell to an adult in only four months. We can record your brain patterns and place them in the new body."
Doctor Platt said, "That's impossible!"
The general turned to him. "Doctor, it's not only possible, it's actually been done. Many times."
"I'm with the doc on this one," Dioxin said. "Wouldn't it have been easier to just offer me money, instead of making up a story that I'd have to be a moron to believe?"
"It's not just a story... Dioxin, I promise you this: you tell us how to find Ragnarök, and your days as a freak will soon be over."
"You know, I almost wish I could help you," Dioxin said. "But I can't." He smiled again. "Cloning! That's a good one! I guess that might be just about possible, but recording someone's brain patterns and transferring them to another body? Give me a break!"
The general sighed. "Then tell me this... When did you first discover that you were different?"
"When I was thirteen, I had a crush on the girl next door. Sweet, huh? But she wasn't interested in me. Wouldn't even acknowledge me on the street, even though we'd lived beside each other all our lives. One day I'm walking along and there she is, so just for the hell of it I run up to her and kiss her. Right on the mouth, tongues and everything, like I'd seen in the movies. She screamed. Well, that was no surprise. Who wouldn't scream if some weird little kid came out of nowhere and kissed them? But she kept on screaming. Couple of days later she was dead. That was how I found out I was poison. Over the following months, my skin started to erupt in what I thought was acne, only instead of pus the sores started leaking acid. Within a year my whole body was like that."

"That's right. You were thirteen. Do you remember what happened to you when you were nine?"
Dioxin frowned. "Lots of things..."
"You were in hospital for five weeks. Do you remember why?"
"Not really."
"You had a congenital heart defect, Dioxin. You died."
"What?"
"Forty-four years ago your father was in the US Marines, right?"
"Yeah. So?"
"Along with hundreds of other Marines, he volunteered for an experimental drug trial. What no one knew at the time was that the drugs had an unpredictable side-effect. They altered the DNA of almost every volunteer. Your father, Titan's father... Even Edwin Dalton, the father of the members of the High Command. You're all connected, Dioxin. Every superhuman being on the planet was created through that experiment. So we know that Ragnarök's father must have been one of them. But it took years for the effects to show up, not until the eldest of the volunteers' children reached puberty."
Dioxin glared at him. "You... You made us!"
"Yes. And like I said, when you were nine years old, you died. The doctors knew that you were dying. They recorded your brain patterns before you died, and cloned you a new body. Naturally, you don't remember anything after the recording. You just woke up one morning, and you were well enough to go home. You remember that, don't you?"
"Yeah, but..."
"So you see, we can clone you. And this time, when we do, we'll fix the errors in your DNA. We'll make you an ordinary human." General Piers smiled. "Hell, we can even make you taller, stronger, better-looking, whatever you want. And the best part is that since you'll be a different person, legally the courts can't prosecute you for any past crimes."
Dioxin said nothing.
"So are you in?"
"And all I have to do is tell you where to find Ragnarök?"
"That's it. You give us the information and within a year you'll be a free man, and completely cured."
"I don't know where he is."
"Give us anything. Anything at all."
"You probably know more about him than I do! You know his father was one of the soldiers who was involved in the drug trial!"
"There were over seven hundred volunteers, Dioxin. We don't know where to find most of them. It was almost twenty years before someone spotted that all the superhumans had something in common. You sure you can't think of anything?"
"No, but... Look, how long is this offer good for?"
"Until I turn around and walk away."
"His mother! Ragnarök's mother is still alive! He made a joke once about what she'd think if she saw him on the news!"
"And what's her name?"
"I... I don't know."
"Where does she live?"
"Somewhere on the east coast, I think. Maine, maybe, or Connecticut!"
"That's not enough. Where did he go to school? How old is he? Does he speak with a regional accent?"
"He's about my age. No specific accent I could detect. He never mentioned anything about school!"
"Does he have any brothers or sisters?"
"He never said. Look, I only met him a couple of times!"
The General frowned at that. "So you don't know him well at all?"
"No, not really."
"Then I'm wasting my time here. Doc?" General Piers turned and began to walk away down the corridor. The doctor hurried along after him.
"Wait!" Dioxin roared. "Just give me more time! I'll think of something!"
Without turning back, the General shouted, "You had your chance, Dioxin!"
"Nooo! You'll pay for this, Piers! I swear to God, I'll make you pay!"
Dioxin's roars and screams still echoed through the building as the general and the doctor reached the entrance.
"I have to know," Doctor Platt said. "What you said in there... About the drug trial?"
"What about it?"
"It's true? That's where all the superhumans came from?"
"I must be a better actor than I thought," General Piers said. "No, it's not even remotely true. And there's no such thing as Gamma-level clearance."
"So you put him through all that just to try to get information out of him?"
Piers smiled, and patted the doctor on the shoulder. "No. I put him through all that because legally I'm not allowed to physically torture a prisoner, so I thought I'd torture him mentally instead."
"You want me to check back with him every couple of hours, just in case he remembers something that'll help you to pinpoint Ragnarök's identity?"
The general walked towards his car. "No need, Doc. We've known who Ragnarök is for years. We've always known. We just can't find him." He looked back. "Dioxin doesn't know anything useful. At least, not right now. But when he escapes - and he will escape, if we don't decide to shoot him first - there's a chance Ragnarök will try to recruit him again. And if that happens. Dioxin might just be inclined to turn that madman over to us, in the hope that we'll be able to cure him."
"But there is no cure, is there?"
"No." General Piers climbed into his car, and drove away.
The doctor walked once more to the entrance to the prison, where he could still hear Dioxin screaming.