‘Do you know what I have learnt in the past 48 hours, Mr Spenk?’
‘No, Mr Brent, I wouldn’t dare to hazard a guess as to what you may have worked out in that pre-eminently fucked up skull of yours.’
‘I have decided that God has a wicked sense of humour and is obviously intent upon arse-raping me at every opportunity. I think it may have something to do with the casual blasphemy to which I have been prone since I learnt to speak. Still, what can you expect when you are taught to speak by an alcholic ex-priest?’
‘Again, Mr Brent, I will reiterate my somewhat Swiss-like position of neutrality in matters such as this – there are just certain things that it pays not to imagine – anything concerning yourself outside of our business relationship is pretty much covered by that rule.’
‘You are without doubt, Spenk, the biggest pain in the arse that it has ever been my misfortune to know, but I thank whatever God truly is up there that you are also unfailingly honest and perhaps somewhat wise. I live in a soap opera most of the time.’
‘That you do – that you do. Speaking of God’s sense of humour, and the reason for this rant, do the lab boys have any idea what exactly it was that linked this unfortunate group besides a shopping list of problems that marked them out as good candidates for being touched with some kind of supernatural power?’
‘I was rather hoping that you might be able to fill me in on that one, Spenk. Didn’t you read the briefing that the head scientist prepared for us?
‘Some of it; but most of it was about what these chaps can do rather than about why they can do it. I rather thought that might have been left out on purpose, and that it might have something to do with my security clearance.’
‘Well, if that’s the case, Spenk, they left me out of the loop as well, so that wouldn’t make much sense, would it? Leads me to believe that they don’t have the faintest idea what it is that they are dealing with.’
‘Wonderful, so we could be baby-sitting the human equivalent of h-bombs and we won’t know what triggers them until we do it?’
‘That’s about it, Spenk – that’s about it.’
‘Well, it’s what we’re paid for so no sense in grumbling, eh?’
‘I suppose not … yes, I suppose you are quite right in that regard. Might you be able to fetch me a coffee, Spenk? I would be most grateful.’
‘Of course. What time are they supposed to arrive?’
‘Any moment now I believe. Ah, yes, if I am not mistaken that was the sound of tires crunching on gravel; meaning of course that they are here now.’
‘Still want that coffee?’
‘Yes, and maybe add in something a little stronger, eh?’
‘Might have one myself.’
‘You do that, Spenk – you do that.’
Spenk went into the kitchen just as they heard the front door open and a group of people engaged in some form of heated debate entered the building.
Skinny was the first one in the room, and looking at him one might wonder exactly how it was that this person managed to convince everyone, including himself, that he was indeed alive. He was an anorexic of ten years standing, addicted to various dietary supplements including an inordinate amount of emetics, and had suffered severe heart trouble up to and including the event that changed him – a simultaneous heart attack and attainment of the ability to look into the future. Thin as a rake, shaved head, black clothes that looked too baggy, sallow skin that seemed to hang on his very visible skeleton – he did not speak of anything approaching comfort in the way he comported himself.
Junkyard on the other hand had the braggard swagger of an ex-addict, the sleeves on his hoodie top rolled up to reveal track-mark free arms, and a stupid grin on his face that Brent suspected he may have first become acquainted with whilst high, so maniacal looking was it. He looked sickeningly healthy and stood next to Skinny it seemed painfully amplified. Was it intentional that he looked like a younger version of Morrisey? Brent thought that considering how deliberate everything else seemed about him that this was likely. Junkyard was an empath whose now seemingly total love for anyone and anything had rendered him incapable of becoming high via artificial means.
Hopalong was not nice to look at – the things which he had done to himself to compensate for what he perceived to be an overabundance of symmetry in his body made the nerves jangle slightly. One leg down, three fingers, an eye. Anything that he could do without he seemed willing to get rid of, even now – he, unlike some of the others, had not had some kind of born again experience that had fixed him. All of Hopalong’s clothing was intentionally loose to disguise the much maligned vessel that he used to get around in this world of piss and shit. It was surely not without some irony that he had been gifted with the power of telekinesis – someone with a daily lessening of presence in effect who could shift unlimited amounts of mass with a single thought.
Brent looked at Abacus and noticed that his wide-staring eyes were darting furiously around the room and that his chewed fingers were moving rapidly against his palms; god knows what kind of computations he was running through his brain. The number of things he could process through his mind at one time made the best supercomputers they had look like amoebae. The hair on his head was patchy where he kept pulling it out, but apart from that he was very neatly turned out – which was kind of what you expected from an obsessive compulsive.
Perforate stared right through him; her glassy eyes were simultaneously shark-like and had something of the bunny in the headlights about them. She wore clothes that fit her like a sack might fit a clothes hanger; all black from head to toe. Perforate looked like your proto-typical emo slash goth chick. Brent decided they would have to keep an eye on her. They said that her talent was to be able to suck your negative emotions out of you, amplify them and push them back at you like a hurricane swirl of feelings. That could be a problem given how delicate all the rest of these broken flowers were or had been in the not too distant past.
Re-run thought his ability meant he had gone to hell because every time he tried to self-harm he would heal up within a matter of seconds. He emitted a field of energy that also repaired anyone close to him were they to become injured – so the self-loathing misanthrope couldn’t harm himself or anyone else. He was sharply dressed in a very nice suit that made him stand out; something Brent was sure made him simultaneously very happy and very uneasy. One of the first things that actually struck you about him was the shock of red hair that stood up like a flame on his head and the intense brooding gaze of those emerald green eyes.
Knuckledust looked like Robert Mapplethorpe might if he had taken copious amounts of steroids and had been working out in the gym every hour that god sent. To say that the man was overcompensating for something would have been to do a disservice to the level of obsession with which he trained himself. He was a killing machine with a brain – the brain got him to the right place at the right time in the right way and then the gift he had been given unchained his amazing strength and set him loose like an angry bull elephant that had been stung by a wasp in its ballsack. Brent wished that he would wear more clothes and that the clothes he wore were somewhat less tight fitting.
Snake looked like she would have serious trouble if there were any magnets in the room – just how much metal could someone seriously attach to themselves before it weighed them down? Another one of them who he might have to have a word with about trying to wear some more clothes – if they were going to be operating in a public arena – and they were – then he might have to think about introducing some kind of dress code as an exercise in damage control. Snake had what they were calling Logos Key – the ability to tap into some root command centre in the brain and tell people what to do. They had a blanket of subsonics in the room at all times to dampen down her abilities.
And last but not least there was the tall thin twist of wire of a man called Shift Control, who worked time and space like they were a keyboard – it was kind of disturbing to watch because he did the whole typing motion while he was working his magic. To describe him was not easy because a lot of the time he did not appear to be solid – he described himself as being slightly out of phase with this frequency of reality.
‘So,’ said Junkyard ‘Here we all are then. This is cosy, isn’t it? So, Brent, what do you want with us bunch of fuck-ups? What can we do you for? Need someone rooting out? Need someone’s head kicked in? You name it we’ll do it.’
‘Oh, I know you will Mr Junkyard – don’t have much choice really, do you? My understanding is that all of you are only tolerated as long as you are under my command – any deviation and you will be exterminated with extreme prejudice.’
‘Now, that’s not very nice, Mr Brent. Are you thinking to push my buttons or something? That might not be wise, and think about this – who is really tolerating who? We could pretty much strip your mind down and leave you a gibbering vegetable. Control here could bounce us all around in time and drop us out the other end fifty years past our sell by date – so curb the poison in your tone and we’ll get along just fine.’
‘Spenk, did he just threaten me?’
‘I believe that he merely retaliated – you were the one who started this pointless pissing contest.’
‘See, Brent, your friend here knows the score – might be best if you let him edit you before you let out those nasty little thoughts you seem prone to; might save on a lot of hassle in the future.’
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