Double trouble: the legend of crime brulee

Chapter 3.1

"Listen to this!" piped Constance, reading out of the Blackwater Bugle as she and Cornelia took lunch in the Division break room. "'Look out Blackwater City! There's a new heroine on the streets, and her name is Blowtorch. In her stunning debut, the fiery femme-fatale stopped a robbery at First National Bank, capturing all four fleeing criminals and looking spectacular doing it in her sleek black catsuit. One might say Blowtorch has blown us all away!'" The article bore a black and white photograph of Connie striking a pose and blowing a kiss, only, a tongue of flame erupted from between her pouting lips.

Cornelia moved her dry salad greens around on her plate. If you didn't look closely, it might look like she was actually eating her cheeseless, croutonless salad. "It doesn't perturb you, even a little, that Agent Daniels has forced you into the field before your lab work has even come back? What if you had been overpowered during that heist?"

"Holy shit!" exclaimed Constance.

"What is it?"

"The craziest thing just happened to me: for a second, it seemed like you gave a shit whether I live or die!"

"You are my sister," Cornelia sighed.

"Some good that's ever done me."

"In all seriousness, though, do you even have a rough estimate of your power index?"

"First of all, it would be nice if someone around here could explain what 'power index' means."

"Your power index," said Agent Daniels, wheeling his way up to their table, "is a measure, out of ten, of your deadly potential in combat. For example, a telepath with a power index of zero has no chance of slaying their enemy using their Deviance alone. An electromancer with an index of ten, on the other hand, will land every strike they place with an aim to kill, all of the time. Cornelia, here, for example, is a solid seven. Strong, but in the eyes of the Division, not fit for battle. Your lab work came back, by the way." He untucked a manila folder from where he'd been keeping it, propped against the back of his seat, and slid it onto the table before Constance.

"Okay…so what's my power index?"

"Eleven."

Cornelia's jaw clenched so tightly, she thought she might pop a vein. "And the Director just decided to let you take her out for a spin before we knew that?"

"As a tactician, Mrs. Hastings, I know that raw power doesn't win fights. Strategy does. Between her quick wits, precise strikes, and the element of surprise, Connie here had that bank heist in the bag. It's only a matter of time before everyone around here sees it my way. Come on, Connie, it's time for practice."

Constance was scared; she had too much pride to admit it, but Cornelia knew if she were actually as confident as she feigned, she would have spent her lunch hour chatting up some pudgy desk jockey–there were certainly enough of those around here–rather than linger in her shadow. But what was either of them to do with Daniels pulling the strings?

As the other two departed together, Cornelia muttered to herself, "Or maybe one of these days the Director will start listening to someone who actually has powers. Powers, and legs."

***

The training exercise had begun with ten Deviants on their feet, divided into teams of five. Now, one team remained standing on the sparring court while their opponents staggered upwards, catching their breath and groaning. On the edge of the combat perimeter, Ned sat watch, not missing the gaze of his new star pupil, Connie Cole, who'd emerged triumphant as the assistant-Captain of the winning team, her doelike brown eyes not quite begging for approval, but rather, searching for it in his. He'd given everybody else orders and notes, but had her go in blind, wanting to see if she could figure out what to do. Just like in her preliminary assessment, she'd stunned, dancing around her opponents but ever-mindful of the positions of her allies. He'd struck gold, alright.

After everyone else had filed out to head for the next item on their agenda, she lingered behind. “How did I do that?” she asked.

Well, well. A powerhouse and a brain.

And a beauty…

“Could you elaborate on what you mean, Ms. Cole?”

“Look, I know my own strengths and weaknesses. I’ve never fought other Deviants before, much less multiple ones at a time, and help or no help, that was suspiciously easy. So what did you do? Was the match rigged?”

“In a manner of speaking,” he admitted. “The enemy team fought beta strategy. It’s the way we’ve been teaching Combat Theory for decades. Your allies fought Gamma Strategy, which is of my design.” It was just a little something he’d whipped up on the shitter, but she didn’t need to know that. “Superpowers are old as dirt. There are a few competing theories as to how a Deviant becomes a Deviant; the prevalent one now says it’s all to do with telometric unraveling due to generational trauma–”

“So me and Nellie are like this because our mom’s first husband threw himself off the–?”

“It doesn’t matter,” he cut her off. “What matters–what shapes history–is how you people get utilized by the people in charge. Why do you think the Union really won the Civil War?”

She scuffed her foot against the ground. “I guess I’m not really someone who looks at the bigger picture.”

"Let me guess: big math-science nerd, never had time for social studies?"

"Never finished eighth grade."

There were spectator benches lining the walls; she took a seat on one. "I was thrown out of the house for my powers. Nellie kept up with me, but only insofar as I could be useful to her. She never supported me, not financially. My eyes and ears around the city…and I got around the city, stealing to survive, running product for the Continis…sometimes doing, you know, stuff for money."

"It sounds like you'd like to knock your sister down a peg within our organization," remarked Ned.

"Why do you think I'm telling you all this? Normally, I never reveal my tragic backstory."

"No?"

"I don't want people to feel sorry for me–or worse, decide my life isn't about me anymore. 'Oh, Connie, the things you've been through! Such potential, squashed on arrival! But at least it's made you kinder! You'll be such a good mother!' Yuck! You, though? I feel like you’d get it."

"You don't think you'd be a good mother?"

"It'll be hard enough having to re-raise myself. Plus, babies are gross." She stood, and stretched, and looked down at him self-consciously. "Sorry. Not showing off or nothing."

"No offense taken. It's nice to talk to someone else who's burnt out on the bitter taste of pity."

"Can I ask a personal question?"

"Permission granted," he said, like this was Space Trek.

"Why did you leave your wife?"

That was the first time he had had it asked that way. "She, uh…she left me. It had nothing to do with the war; we got married after I'd already gotten the, uh…"

"Legs blown off?"

"Yeah…yeah. Anyway, she resented how devotional I had become to this job." She also resented that he slept with a Division employee under his supervision, but did Connie really need to know that?

"Rough. And you never found anybody else?"

"The amount of amputee fetishists out there is exhausting; after a while I got tired of being viewed as an object and gave up."

"Yeah…yeah. Guess there are a bunch of women out there that just want to hump your stump. I'm a fat fetishist, myself, so you don't need to worry about me creeping. On my honor, I shall not creep!"

But what if he wanted her to?

Well…he'd never been afraid to defy convention…

***

When Connie walked in through the back door of Antonio’s for her dinner shift, Frank was trudging toward the office, shuddering and muttering, his shirt soaked through. “You okay, boss?” asked Connie.

“You know, I think if I ever get up the balls to leave the restaurant industry, I’m going to write a musical about working in the restaurant industry. It’ll be called ‘These Punk-Ass Waiters are Driving Me Insane’. I already have an idea for a musical number: ‘Liquid in the Trash Can: Don’t Do It’!”

“Ooh, maybe it can go something like, ‘They don’t pay me enough for the amount of garbage juice I have to deal with’,” she sang. That got a laugh out of him, which brought a smile to her lips. Though painfully aware of his unrequited crush on her, she recognized a dynamic of bouncy mischief between them, combined with a mutual acknowledgement of each other’s hypercompetence at this job. They might have been good together, had she not found his thin frame so unappealing.

“I’m glad you’re here, Connie.” He unbuttoned his drenched shirt, having stashed a replacement in the office, prepared for disaster as always. As he peeled the inoffensive blue linen from his skin, Connie thought to herself, golly, he really was gaunt. She didn’t know whether it would be more humane to offer to buy him dinner, or call him an ambulance. Through his skin, she could count every single one of his ribs, and…

Huh. He was missing two of the bottom ones on his left side. That was weird, she thought to herself, but promptly forgot about it when she clocked in, jumped behind the bar, and discovered the two dirty racks of glassware the morning guy had left her, the empty ice well, and somebody’s leftover fries on a plate in the beer cooler, not even boxed or anything.

“If it rains, it rains,” she muttered to herself, trying hard to internalize it. She didn’t like being a person who stressed herself into an ulcer over stupid work shit; that didn’t make her happy.

But then she felt the CRUNCH beneath her foot as she took a step, and for a fleeting instant, she wanted to, and could have, burned the whole building down.

But at least the broken champagne flute someone hadn’t bothered to sweep up hadn’t ended up in the trash can. “Sunny side, Connie. Sunny side.”

***

“You wanted to see me, Agent D?”

Ned looked up from the pile of paperwork sitting in alphabetized stacks across the surface of his desk. The sight of the plucky pyromancer standing in his open doorway was a breath of fresh air. “Connie! Thank God you’re here to rescue me from my day of dullness! D’you know, this morning, they had me interview some hopeless idiot of a biomanipulator? Get this: The guy can turn himself invisible, but only if he’s wearing a high-vis vest.”

“I guess that isn’t very useful,” agreed Connie. “Poor fellow must have some kind of psychological block going on.”

“Anyway, I wanted to show you this: we just rolled out your poster!” Grunting a bit with effort, he bent down in his seat to retrieve said poster from under his desk and flatten it out over top of all the busy work the Division had given him. Truly, he didn’t relish his bureaucratic role, but at least he got to live vicariously through his heroines, and the awe-inspiring portrait of Blowtorch standing atop the roof of a high-rise overlooking the city brought him a rush of adrenaline that quickened his heartbeat. She stepped forward to examine the poster in closer detail…

“Oh.” Her head cocked to one side, but other than that, her expression remained flat, unchanged.

“You…you don’t like it?”

“It’s just…I’m so airbrushed. I look…impossible. Forget yearbook photos, I look like something out of an Anne’s Indiscretion catalog, or one of those CGIs.”

“Is that a problem?”

“Well, don’t you think putting this sort of stuff out there sets unrealistic body standards for women?”

‘Impossible’ was a fair way to put it: Connie was already quite the stunner, but, guilty as charged, the Division’s photo editing department had enhanced her bust, lengthened her legs, given her abs, lifted her butt, tightened her thighs, and turned her into something more extraordinary than anyone could ever hope to be…but that was kind of the point. “You’re not a role model, Connie. You’re a savior. When you’re a superhero, people aren’t deluded enough to try to emulate you. Rather, you’re elevated to godhood in their eyes. And that’s the way it has to be. If every Tom, Dick, and Susie thought they could throw on a costume, run out the door, and fight crime, there’d be total anarchy.”

“So why did you need me up here, if my opinion on this,” she waved her hand over the poster, “doesn’t really matter?”

“I like your spice, I really do. But there are some things about the world neither you nor I have the power to change. That said, we can make it a little safer.” He whipped a manila folder out of a drawer and passed it to her. “An assignment came for you from upstairs.”

“Designation: Graverobber,” she read from the inside of the file. “The serial killer who rips out people’s bones?”

“Neither the cops, nor the FBI, nor any of our own field operatives have been able to apprehend him. Find him, neutralize him, and there’ll be a million bucks in it for you when you do!”

“I notice you said ‘when’, not ‘if’.”

“Because I believe in you, of course.”

“Maybe this is just me projecting, due to my own baggage or whatever, but sometimes when people say stuff like ‘believe in’, what I really hear is ‘control’.”

“Control implies force, Connie. Here at the Division, we have only rewards in store for you.” Rewards and surprises, and boy, did he have one planned.