by The Eurostar
Edulcore Cicciotto:
It hurts. It hurts everywhere. Skull, ribs, legs, back. The pain is especially hard on the arms. That damn bastard Walker. What he has done to me?
How much time has passed? I was tied to a laboratory table. And he was babbling things... about metas and humans. And I was... crying? Yeah, I was crying. I remember the pain... I remember how I was feeling.
Guilty. Responsible for the holocaust. Of metas and norms. I remember it all.
I remember the syringe. I remember how I was hoping it would be poison. To end my miserable life.
Now not. I was so confused, Walker making me feeling guilty for what Rothman did. Walker making me think he was the hero and me the criminal.
He, who goes around to enslave metas, chaining them with explosive collars, and keeping a one-year-old baby from the only legitimate... relative he has.
The bastard! What has he done to me? I must find out.
I run toward the closed door. And CRASH over it!
Acute pain. What happened? Why could I not cross it, just like every other time, in ghost form?
I touch the wall. Solid, massive. Only, I shouldn't feel it this way. It should be tender as butter for me.
I punch the wall. Damn, that hurts. I can't become superdense. Walker has done it! He has cancelled my powers! The bastard! The devil. That piece of rotten shit, may he be damned for eternity.
I look at my bare hands, at the flesh, at the muscle and bones that I imagine inside. I am a normal man? A norm, like my friends used to call the people from the surface. That's madness. I can't be a norm. I don't want to be a norm. Not until I manage to free Eddie.
"Hey, man! Still in love with Green Thumb Barbie?" an unexpected voice comes from behind me, from the inner part of my cell.
I turn. Raven hair, a big gun in one hand, a bizarre backpack in the other, blue eyes, but almond shaped like an oriental. I saw her before, but where?
What did she just say? Ah, she was referring to Vidalia.
Vidalia. That whore. Vidalia. Vidalia. Vidalia. It seems impossible, but the woman I loved most has died yesterday. And today, whatever I felt for her is gone like the wind, like it never was. Lies. This place is full of lies. This place is a lie. So it was really her power that kept me chained. Well, at least it was fun. The sex, I mean.
"Well?" says the woman, raising an eyebrow.
"No, I am past that," I whisper.
"Okay, take this. It works for two people. Just take Eddie and get away!" she exclaims, handing me the backpack. I notice for the first time that she wears a similar one.
"How it works?"
"Just put it on. It will connect to your mind." And saying that, she disappears.
"Who are you?" I shout, and when she is barely visible, I hear a name: Nadia.
Okay, let's put this on. I want to leave this cell. The backpack looks like the one Crasher was wearing when she came here. I guess they work for the same organization.
A zap, and I am in the corridor outside the door of my cell. Good, it works. Another man could be impressed, but it is not really different than phasing through the walls.
Now I have to find Eddie. The playpen. I zap there.
Eddie is walking on his hands and knees across the room. There are no guards.
"Still messing things up, Cicciotto? Raise your hands and freeze," says a voice behind me.
Fuck. This time I am dead. Really dead.
Then, another voice. "Don't you dare touch my buddy Cicciotto." At the door appears Turner, a sarcastic smile on his lips, his fedora shadowing his eyes.
I can't believe it. He really has come.