by I'm Not Mister Mxypltk
Mick's room:
Lance Lorenzo and Mick Harrison, two brave young men chosen by destiny to be gifted with special abilities beyond those of average men, sat in a couch in front of a TV watching cartoons.
"Oooooh!" Mick yelled as the Road Runner dodged a cannon bullet. "That was close!"
The room was messier that usual. Several empty fish stick packages were scattered all over the couch.
"He's fucking stupid," Lance said with an annoyed look on his face.
"Who?" Mick asked. "Oooooh! Even closer, man!"
"The coyote. I mean... I mean..." Lance said, altering his position in the couch to face Mick. "If he's so damn hungry, why doesn't he just use that money he spends on Acme products for, I don't know, food?"
The bullet in the cartoon bounced in several places and finally reached the coyote, causing Mick to laugh so hard he fell off the couch to the floor, where he continued to laugh.
"That just gets me so damn angry," Lance continued, still with an annoyed look, as if not noticing his buddy was on the floor.
Mick suddenly stopped laughing. He looked at Lance. "You know what, man?" Mick said, completely serious.
"What?" Lance replied quietly, noticing Mick's tone.
"I think he's gonna get him this time," Mick said. "I think the coyote's gonna get the Road Runner, and he's gonna eat him, and the show's gonna be over forever, man..."
"Shhhyeah, right," Lance said dismissively.
"I'm serious, man... I mean--"
Suddenly, the door opened, and Kit Piper walked in. "Meeting, guys!" Kit said before noticing the strong smell in the room. "Whoa, what's that smell?"
"Ooooh, that's the voodoo roots we got from the voodoo dudes," Lance answered.
"Yeah," Mick added, getting back on the couch, "they smelled tasty, so we looked 'em up on the net, and it turns out they can be eaten with no side effects."
"Yeah, except... What was it, honey? Something about the head?"
"Something about causing mental something... or something... Hey, dude... you called me honey, man."
"No, I didn't."
"Yeah, you called me honey, man... That's fucked up, man."
"No, I didn't."
"Oh, my God!" Kit said. "You couple of... Those are not voodoo roots! Those are -- how can I put this? That's what the natives use for their rites! Those are hallucinogens!" Kit started gathering the roots in a trash can, trying not to smell them to avoid ending up like the two young men.
"You know what? For some reason, I kinda wish I had my Pink Floyd CDs here," Mick said.
"Pink Floyd? You gotta listen to 'N Sync, man. That's the shit... HEY!"
"Hey what? Hey dude? Hey Jude? Answer me, man!" Mick said, and then he looked at the TV and realized the reason of Lance's protest. "HEY! Where did my cartoons go?"
The Road Runner and the Coyote had been replaced by the image of reporter in the middle of what seemed to be a war zone. The letters on the bottom of the screen said Buzz Martin, reporting from Chicago.
"I TOLD YOU THE SHOW WOULD END FOREVER!" Mick yelled.
"Shut up, guys!" Kit said. "It's about Chicago!"
"How are things over there, Buzz?"
"Chicago? Hey, I used to live in Chicago!" Mick said.
"Well, as you can see, not too good, Mike."
"You did?" Lance asked, completely amazed by Mick's revelation.
"The metahumans are still revolting, and..."
"Yeah! I think..." Mick said.
"Oh, my God, Buzz! How have you managed to survive there?"
"Shut up! I wanna listen!" Kit said, turning up the volume.
"You wouldn't believe me if I told you, Linda."
"The audience wants to know, Buzz!"
"Well, Mike, the fact is that the survivors are being helped by a metahuman!"
"A metahuman?"
"Yes, Mike, Linda... a metahuman! There are rumors about metahumans turning against their own kind in other parts of the city, but we are only certain about this one because we have seen him in action!"
"Y-you did? Did you, uh, happen to get any shots of this mysterious metahuman, Buzz?"
"As a matter of fact, we have, Mike! We are arranging the equipment to send you the images as soon as we can, but you have to be patient. We ARE in the middle of a war zone, you know."
"Ha ha. Funny as always, Buzz!"
"Well, as our brave correspondant sets the images, we can only speculate about this mysterious metahuman or metahumans."
"A metahuman helping normal humans? That's something you have to see to believe, Mike!"
"And soon we will see it, Linda!"
As they noticed that the images were taking longer to arrive than expected, the reporters started improvising.
"You know what could be related to this, Mike? Do you remember some months ago, when a metahuman in Thunder City talked to the press after the city was saved from a mysterious plague? Maybe this is the same metahuman! After all, how often do you see a metahuman actually doing something good for humanity?"
"You may be right about that, Linda. Do we have images of that, to remind our viewers of that event? Ah, yes we do."
Until that moment, Mick had been lying in the floor playing a Pink Floyd CD in his head. When images of Eurostar from months ago appeared in the screen, Mick sat up and pointed at the TV.
"Euro! Euro!" Mick yelled.
"Europe?" Kit asked.
"Nooooo... Euro!"
"What...? Is that guy someone you know?" Kit asked.
"Yeah! Eurooooo!"
"Who is--? You know what? I'll just tape this and ask you again when your head is clear, Mick," Kit said, pressing the record button on the VCR under the TV.
"Well, our viewers will be able to compare this mysterious masked metahuman with the one seen saving people in Chicago, Mike, because the images Buzz captured just arrived!"
"Well, what are we waiting for, then?"
The screen now showed a three-second clip of a metahuman saving a bus full of nuns from another metahuman. The first metahuman was blurry, and only the red of his suit was clear. The viewers and the reporters didn't know it, but that metahuman was Turner, a member of the EPS.
"Well, looks like your friend Europe won't show up anymore," Kit said, as he pressed the stop button on the VCR. "Anyway, I came here to tell you we have a meeting soon, but obviously you're in no condition to attend, or are you?"
"La la la la la... Action brings good fortune... Sunseeet... Sunriiise..." Mick sang. "Sunriiiiise..."
Kit looked at Lance, who was staring at an empty fish stick package. "Would you be my girlfriend? I like you, right..." Lance sang.
"A simple no would'a been enough," Kit said, exiting the room.
In the hall, he bumped into Sam Dawson and Danny Hearn.
"Hey, have you seen Lance? He stole all the fish sticks. Is he in Mick's room?" Sam asked.
"Look, you leave the two of them alone for a couple of hours," Kit said. "Besides, we have a meeting right now to talk about a new case we just took."
"Oh, okay," Sam said.
The three men started walking down the stairs, when Kit remembered what he saw on TV. "Oh, I was just watching some more on the Chicago thing," Kit said. "They showed images of someone Mick recognized."
"Really?" Sam asked. "Who?"
"Europe, or something like that. They showed images of him from months ago."
"Images of Eurostar? Oh, that's right, after the Thunder City thing," Danny said.
"Yeah, apparently your pal has been seen in Chicago helping people," Kit said, and then noticed Danny had a weird look on his face. "What? What is it?"
"Kit... Eurostar died weeks ago," Danny said.
"Really?! Hooooolllly... No wonder Mick was so upset!"
"Wait," Sam said, "you said that apparently he had been seen in Chicago. Maybe it wasn't him, just some other meta."
"Well, I taped what the TV showed!" Kit said. "It was blurry, but we can send it to the Doc. Maybe he can get a clearer picture of the guy and tell us if it's him!"
"Your machines can do that?" Danny asked. "I'm amazed."
"Yeah, they can get a picture a thousand times clearer with some computer programs," Sam said.
"I meant taping from the TV," Danny said. "First those fish sticks and now this. You never cease to amaze me."