by Chewy Walrus and The Eurostar
Chicago:
Dr. Charles Elias Walker sat looking at the battered form of Andy Reynolds lying on a bed in the medical bay.
"Stupid kid," he muttered under his breath, looking to the larger figure standing a few feet away. Turner. "Would you like to try explaining yourself, Turner?" Walker asked, a definite edge to his tone.
Turner shrugged nonchalantly. "Kid pissed me off."
"Listen, Turner, I don't know what the hell you think you're doing coercing the members of my team, but if you think I'm gonna sit back and take it, you've got another thing coming!" Walker yelled, closing in until he was mere centimeters from Turner's face.
Turner smirked and stared right back at Walker, unafraid. "What exactly do you plan to do... Chuck?"
Walker was a bit taken aback. However, not wanting to lose composure, he simply yelled back, "I'll deal with you later! Right now, I have to check on Cicciotto!"
Storming out of the room, Walker brushed past Will Tweed and Vidalia Owens, who were flirtatiously talking over a cup of coffee while walking little Eddie around the compound. He did not even say a word as he walked by.
Walking into the housing area, Walker pressed his thumbprint to the lock beside Cicciotto's door. The hydraulics hissed, and the metal door whisked open to reveal Cicciotto, dressed in his brown EPS issue bodysuit and fitted with his restraining collar, kneeling before a crucifix, deep in prayer.
"Well, well, well..." Walker said, walking in, a smile spreading across his lips. "What have we here? A frightful fit of religious desperation, Cicciotto?"
The former hero looked up, a scornful expression on his face. "Whatever it takes to combat a devil like you."
Walker feigned shock. "Why, Mr. Cicciotto, I believe you've misread me! I am not a devil. You, my friend, and your pathetic little 'Revolution' are not the angels. We are all metahumans. We all deserve death."
"You're no friend of mine!" Cicciotto spat, rising quickly to his feet. "And all metahumans do NOT deserve death! We are people, too!"
"There you go again," Walker said, smiling mischievously. "You, Edulcore Cicciotto, are a hopeless romantic. You romanticize everything. You romanticized your cursed metahuman abilities. You thought you could become a hero. You romanticized your little team. You thought you could revolutionize the world. Let me tell you a little something about the world, Mr. Cicciotto..."
"You cannot tell me anything that I do not already know!" Cicciotto said as Walker crossed in front of him, taking a seat in a plain, hard-backed chair.
"Oh, and there you would be wrong, Mr. Cicciotto," Walker said, picking up a small marble ball from the end table beside him, rolling the trinket around in his hands. "You are quite wrong. The world you live in, Mr. Cicciotto, is a cruel, unchanging, unfeeling thing. It has remained relatively the same for millennia. Oh, certainly, the topography may be different, but essentially it's always been the same thing."
"How can you say that?" Cicciotto said angrily, sliding into an equally hard-set chair. "The world is plenty different! Look at the changes in technology, in medicine, in science! This world is a very different place, always progressing, always bettering itself!"
"No," Walker said calmly, still smiling. "The changes you mentioned are all topographic changes. What you do not seem to realize, Mr. Cicciotto, is that the world is society, and society is governed by the condition of the human heart. And look at the human heart. Ever since the dawn of time, the essential heart of mankind has despised change. Wars over creed, race, religion, and every manner of thing have plagued this planet from the moment the first men evolved from apes all those billions of years ago."
"Evolution," Cicciotto sneered. "You scientists are all alike! You deny the existence of a Creator to make room for your own crazy theories and foolish ideas!"
"'Crazy theories'?" Walker countered, raising an eyebrow. "'Foolish ideas'? Mr. Cicciotto, have you looked in a mirror lately? You are the very proof of these ideas you scorn! You are the missing link! You are the piece of the puzzle that scientists have so long searched for! You yourself disprove the very religion you so adamantly follow!"
"I am NOT a missing link!" the former Eurostar said, rising defiantly. Walker stayed seated and chuckled a bit, making Cicciotto a bit uneasy. After a few moments of silence, the Italian resumed his seat.
"Oh, but you are, Mr. Cicciotto," Walker said, slightly amused by the man's reaction to his words. "Now, not you personally. Let's not get a swelled head about all this. No, you are a metahuman, the next rung on the evolutionary ladder of mankind."
"Then why do you hate us?" the man spoke again, his voice weaker, but his tone more defiant than ever. "Why do you, a scientist and proponent of evolution, hate what one day all men will eventually become?"
"Quite simple," Walker said, his expression unchanged. "The world."
"What?" Cicciotto said, not understanding.
"You know?" Walker baited. "The world? That cold, unchanging, unfeeling thing? That thing that has always hated change?"
Walker pointed his finger at the man before him. With each word his tone got more and more aggressive. "You are the change. You are the abnormal. You are the feared! Do you honestly think that speech you made outside of the Zoo made people like you? Of course not! Don't be so daft! It made you hated, feared, despised!
"Your so-called Revolution is a threat to humanity! You and your kind are the reason that families have put bars on their windows! You are the reason that Congress approved organizations like the MCCA and the TriVex operation! You are the reason that people like me exist!"
By this time, Walker had been standing. Beads of perspiration had begun forming on his beet red forehead. His incensed nostrils flared, and his pulse had quickened. Shaking his head, Walker returned to his chair, never taking his eyes from the shocked face of Educore Cicciotto.
"So, Mr. Cicciotto," he began again, "you call me a devil. If I am, as you say, a devil, then be informed, I am a devil because you made me one. Metahumans, as the next evolutionary phase, need to be studied. That is what I do. That is my job. I am serving in the best interests of humanity. If this is a dog-eat-dog world, then my contribution is giving the Chihuahua an edge over the Great Dane. That is all. It's survival of the fittest out there, Mr. Cicciotto, and I will not let mankind be brushed under the rug."
With that, Walker stood and exited the room, leaving the perplexed Cicciotto alone with his thoughts.
"I am serving in the best interests of humanity," Walker had said. That man is not only a demon, he's utterly mad! thought Cicciotto after the man had left. He talks like the metahumans are not part of humanity! A racist of the worst kind! He never showed the doubt that metahumans are humans, too. He's really like Hitler!
But at least now I know why he hates me so much. The speech. The speech I did at the Zoo! He fears the Revolution! So maybe a revolution has begun! The metahumans are lifting their heads?
How was that girl named? I don't remember, but she seemed to imply that there was an organization taking care of the metas. Oh, if only I could remember her name...