So many super heroes seem to be rich. What about the poor ones?
Detective Grakowski entered the precinct with a dirty filthy man in handcuffs. The man was found standing over five dead bodies in an alley behind a bar. A witness called 911 and said he beat the men to death. When the first uniformed officer arrived at the scene, this grungy man put his hands above his heads and dropped to his knees. “I did it!” He called out, “I killed them, but they were evil.” The rookie uniformed officer read him his rights, cuffed and placed him in the back of his patrol car. He then called the precinct and got in touch with Detective Grakowski, a homicide veteran.
The man, who turned out to be homeless, wore clothes encrusted with what appeared to be decades worth of dirt and grime. His shoes were tearing and his soles had holes in them. Blood coated his hands and was sprayed all over his dirty clothes.
Waving his rights to a lawyer, the homeless man willingly handed over his clothes to a forensic specialist. Another investigator took pictures of the man's half-naked body to document any scars or unique tattoos. Tattoos were not present but scars riddled the landscape of his body.
"Detective, you need to see this," the photographer called.
The investigator pointed out what seemed to be hundreds of stab wounds and gun shot wounds all over his body.
"How do you explain this?" Grakowski inquired.
"I have had many encounters with many evil people over the years. Sometimes they try to do me harm."
"How many times have you been shot?"
"196 times. I was stabbed 212 times, slashed about three hundred times."
"Were you a soldier?"
"No, but I have been at war with the evil in this world for thousands of years.”
"And these men? Apparently, they worked together at a software company. No criminal records, not even a parking ticket."
"Evil masks itself well. Look deeper. There is a lot of evil things that happen on those computers."
The detective began walking out of the room and called out to some unseen uniformed officer, "Give him an orange jumper and put him in interrogation room 4. Run his prints and put his face through facial rec. I want to know who this guy is by the end of my shift, got it?"
"Yes, sir."
The detective went to speak to the crime scene investigator assigned to the case, “Do me a favor, look into the victims' backgrounds. This guy alluded to the fact that they were up to something on computers.”
"We'll send a team to their homes and see what we can find. I over heard the guy say something about fighting evil for thousands of years, do you think he’s crazy?”
"Yeah, I think he is, but there's no transport available to the county mental hospital and I have nothing else to do so I figure I'll just keep grilling him."
After an hour or so, Grakowski headed back to interrogation room 4 with the ME's preliminary report. The man, now stripped of his decrepit and disgusting clothes sat at a steel table with his hands cuffed. The cuffs were locked into a chain that was connected to a steel loop embe dded in the concrete floor. Unlike the movies, the room was not a dark room with a single dangling light shining brightly in the suspect's face; rather, it was a brightly lit room with a large two way mirror.
"Okay, you admitted to killing five men so what's your name?"
"My given name is Alakramshi-Skirthropoto-Fashtapandra."
"What?"
"Most people call me Al."
"Huh," the detective chuckled a bit. What kind of name is that?
"Al is short for Alfred I believe."
"No, the long one."
"That is an ancient name given to me many generations ago."
"Generations ago? So, you are really old?
"Yes, I am part of an ancient race whose sole purpose is to find and fight evil."
"And that's how you got the scars?"
"Yes."
"I have a copy of the ME report here. It says that the men you killed had their skulls crushed with a heavy blunt object. Multiple bone breaks on each person, internal injuries, unusual skin tears..."
"My fists," Al interrupted.
"What?"
"My fists were the heavy blunt object."
"According to the ME there is no way a normal person could have done this much damage."
"I am not a normal person. I have an extraordinary amount of power. It was bestowed upon me and my people by a power far greater than us."
"So God made you a superhero?"
"Superhero is a bit of a stretch, but I do have powers and abilities that far exceed that of humans. As far as God is concerned, the "Gods" you worship are mere artificial creations. These Gods are something your cultures devised to calm and control the masses. The ancient One who gave this power to my people is far older and pre-dates even the planet itself."
"You keep saying powers, like what?"
"I am far stronger than any other human."
"Those cuffs seem to do a good job at holding you."
"I'm not ready to leave. If I was, these cuffs wouldn't hold me."
"What about the scars? If you have all these powers, why the scars and why are you so poor and homeless?"
"When the One first gave us these powers, it was decreed that as long as we lived a life of poverty the powers would remain with us."
"So is every homeless person a superhero?"
"No. I am not crazy."
"So, how many of there are you?"
"Not many now. Most of the others gave up on living a life of poverty. The more things they acquired, the more their powers weakened. Eventually, they became mortals and died."
"Are you the last one?"
"I don't know. When the powers were bestowed upon us we were told to spread out and we did. Every once in a while our paths would cross. We would exchange stories about our conquests over evil and the downfall of some of our comrades. We have no other way of communicating with each other."
KNOCK
Detective Grakowski left the interrogation room to answer the knock on the door. Standing outside was a member of the forensics team, "I looked over the photos of his wounds."
"Yes."
"Well, some of these wounds do not look like they came from modern bullets."
"What do you mean?"
"Look, I studied the forensics of wound patterns. Some of these wounds were created by guns that are at least two hundred years old. He has the same wound patterns that were found on Civil War soldiers."
"Could he have been shot by an antique gun to mimic the wound pattern?"
"Yeah. But it's still pretty odd? I mean his wounds are like a timeline. Some are pre 1900’s, some are indicative of of guns made int the forties and he also has wound patterns that match modern bullets.”
"You don't think this guy is over two hundred years old, do you?"
"No, but what has he told you about himself?"
"That he is not human. That he is some kind of superhero and that he has lived for generations."
"Well, these wounds certainly make it appear as though he is far older than he is."
Grakoowski reentered the interrogation room.
"Alright, How did you do it?"
"What?"
“The gun wounds. How did you fake them?
"I didn't. I was shot."
"I just had a forensic analyst tell me that some of those wounds came from guns that are over two-hundred years old."
"I told you that I have been living for thousands of years, fighting evil."
"I don't believe you."
There was a silence as Grakowski decided how to continue, "Okay, why the wounds? If you are so strong and an immortal, why the wounds?"
"I still feel pain. I still get injured. The One did not want us to be immune to human suffering. The extreme heat and cold out there,” he pointed out the barred window of the interrogation room, “I feel it, that is real and I am not immune to it. The stomach pangs I feel when I am hungry are real. The only difference between you and me is that these pains will never lead to my death. These pains can be eternal.”
"Okay, you said the blunt object you used on those men was your own hands, not possible."
"It has to be. We are never allowed to use weapons."
"Another rule?"
"Yes."
"So, let me get this straight, you cannot accrue wealth or have possessions, you still feel pain but you get to live forever in this state of pain and poverty while fighting evil."
"Yes."
"Why do you do it?”
“Why do you? Do you get to accrue wealth? Do you get to live forever?”
“No.”
“Then you do it for the same reason I do: It’s an evil world and someone has to stop these people."
Not to be derailed by the man’s observation, Grakowski continued his questioning, ”That brings me back to the men you killed. Like I said earlier, they are law abiding citizens."
"Give it ten minutes."
"Ten minutes?”
“In ten minutes you will get a call about your honest citizens.”
“What call? How do you know I will get a call?”
“Your people will finally come to realize what I already know about those ‘honest’ citizens. Those men were perverts. Deviants that preyed upon children. Creating lewd pictures and videos and profiting by selling them and trading on them on the Dark Net.”
“For someone that’s thousands of years old, you sure know your technology.”
“The call should be coming soon.”
“If you are really homeless…”
“You doubt that I am. Look at me?”
“IF you are really homeless, then how do you know about the Internet and the Dark Net.”
“When you have hunted evil for as long as I have you learned to look for it all of its forms and in all of its environments. Did you know that getting an e-mail address is free and that most libraries allow people to use computers for free.”
“You have an e-mail address? Isn’t that a possession?”
“It’s a virtual box for communication.”
“What about Facebook, Twitter?”
With a stark and grim look on his face Al stared Grakowski in the eyes, “Don’t mock me. I do what I need to do to find evil. By the way the call should be coming in right about, now.”
A few seconds later a knock on the door interrupted Grakowski, he was told a phone call came in.
"Grakowski," an investigator stated, "We found some pretty disturbing stuff on the one victim's computers. It was…
Grakowski interrupted, “Let me guess, Kiddie porn.”
“Yeah, that’s right. It also appears as though he and the other victims were all sharing and selling pictures and videos. One of them was actually producing stuff. Your killer wiped some real scum bags off the face of the Earth. Give him a medal.”
"Grakowski moved back into interrogation room four. The homeless man was still sitting at the table, cuffed.
"Not ready to leave yet?"
"Starting to think I'm not so crazy."
"You're not a superhero."
"I never used that term. That was your term. I just said that I fight evil. Hear anything about your law-abiding citizens?"
"Yeah, how did you know? Did you overhear them? Did you see them doing something? Did you hack their computers? How did you know?"
"I look at people."
"What?"
"I look at people. Then I can tell if they are good or evil."
"Yeah, but everyone does bad things. No one is pure.”
“True. But there's a difference between someone who does something bad and a person that is evil. Those men were evil. You, you've just done bad things," Grakowski's curiosity was piqued by this comment but he refused to pursue a line of questioning here. It felt as though this man was just trying to get in his head.
"So, what about you? Do you do bad things?"
"I kill people. Many would say that is bad."
"But you don't think you do bad things, do you?"
"No. I fight evil. Nothing is more noble."
"You didn't just fight evil, you killed five men in cold blood. You could have just stopped them or told the police. You have no right to play judge, jury and executioner!"
"The One I answer to wants me to eradicate evil in all of its forms, and I have the ability to see the truth long before your system will even find men like them. I proved that here. You thought they were, how did you say it? Law-abiding citizens?”
"You don't get to make those decisions though. That's why we have laws."
"Ask me the question you want to ask me. I see it behind your eyes. Even though you do not believe me you still want to know..."
"How many people have you killed?"
"Close to three million!"
"Now, I know you're crazy."
"I told you, I have lived for thousands of years! Fighting evil keeps me busy."
Al seemed to be getting agitated. Grakowski left the room to try and give him a minute to cool down.
"Detective," called an investigator, "I ran his prints and his picture through facial rec. This guy is wanted for a lot of murders all over the country."
"Good, then we got him."
"Umm, there's something you need to see first."
The investigator cleared off a nearby table and put three different photos down on the desk, all mugshots of the homeless man. One from Philadelphia, One from L.A. and one from Boston.
"Okay, what am I looking at? His mugshots?"
The investigators pointed to the one from Philly, "This was taken in 1952. The photo from L.A. 1927 and the one from Boston, 1985." The investigator reached into his folder and pulled out a photo he printed off the Internet, "This was a wanted poster from 1887. It’s him, in all of these of photos. And these are only the ones that I printed out. There are hundreds of photos of this guy.”
“How come no one ever noticed before?”
“One, the prints don’t match, but if you take a close look at them, you could see over the years how he used burns and scarification to try and mask his prints. Even now, we couldn’t get a match that could stand up in court.”
“Two, facial recognition is a fairly new technology. When I ran him through the standard databases, I couldn’t get a match. It was only when I did a broader Internet search that I began to get some hits. A lot of the cases he is wanted for went cold and no one pursued it. Who would look for a guy that killed someone in 1887 in a 2015 database?”
"You've got to be kidding me. I need to get to the bottom of this."
Grakowski stormed off and charged into interrogation room 4. When he entered he saw the broken cuffs on the floor. No Al. Then he felt himself get grabbed from behind. A strong hand planted over his mouth another arm pulled tightly around his waist.
“I stayed here long enough for you to understand that I am not crazy. I know you found my old photos. Now you have no choice but to believe me. I saw you for who you truly are. You are a good man. So I will tell you one more part of my story. Primarily, I am tasked with fighting the evil of human kind, but there are other evil ones. Just like the One tasked me to live in poverty and fight evil, another One tasked others of my race to amass a great deal of wealth and perpetuate evil. Now, don't get me wrong, not all of the wealthy are evil, believe me, I have checked. The ones that are though are immortal, like me, as long as they continue to do evil. However, they never feel pain. They can use weapons and they are the source of some of humanity's greatest suffering. Be on the look out. And remember, if you don't catch them and stop them first, I will kill them. I am going to leave now and you are going to be a good man and let me. You will tell everyone, I was gone when you got back.”
Al walked slowly toward the barred windows and with his bare hands, bent them apart in the middle, giving him just enough room to break the glass window and crawl out. The two story drop must have hurt, but Grakowski knew it wouldn’t kill him.
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