Superfreaks/ACRA: Superfreaks Season 2 #17

[Martin Phipps]

Jacob Bailey, Monica King, Terry Lopez and
ST.AN.L.E.E, crime scene investigators.  Kathryn
Phelps and Richard Russell, medical examiners. 
Christopher Murdock and Melvin Roeper, lawyers.  These
men and women (and one android) are truly the last
line of defense for the people of Pepperton City in
the year 2048.

Michael King, Mary Bailey and Lana Lewis: crime scene
investigators.  John Phelps, Mark Johnston and Tom
Jackson: police officers.  Jack Greenspan and Edward
Bailey: medical examiners.  Alan Russell and Roger
Roeper: lawyers.  These men and women are truly the
last line of defense for the people of Pepperton City
in the year 2008.

But what about the capes whose cases they have to
investigate?  Should they be considered a help or a
hindrance? 

               SUPERFREAKS SEASON 2 #17

                  SUPERFREAKS FOREVER

                        PART I

  "I'm not the man you are looking for," Detective
Jacob Bailey insisted.
  "Are you or are you not Jacob Bailey?" alternative
universe Pepperton City Detective Jeff Kogutt asked.
  "Yes, that's my name..."
  "Well then..."
  "But I'm still not the man you are looking for!  I'm
a Jacob Bailey from another reality.  The Jacob Bailey
you are looking for escaped through that portal to my
world."
  "Oh come on!"
  "It's true!" this world's Franlkin Reed said as he
coughed up blood.
  "Hey, take it easy!" Detective Todd Kolodziej told
him.
  "He's telling the truth!  You must let him go back
to his home world and find the man who shot me!"
  Jeff frowned.  "He's delerious, right?"
  "I'm telling you that's not the man who shot me!"
  Jeff sighed.  "It doesn't matter.  Bailey is wanted
for a dozen other murders."
  "But that wasn't me!" Jacob insisted.
  "He could be telling the truth," Todd suggested.
  Jeff sighed.  "Commissioner Barnes will have our
hides!"
  "Not if I come back with the real killer!" Jacob
said.
  "Please!" Franklin said.  "This is all my fault."
  "Damn!" Todd swore.  "Where's that ambulance?"
  Jeff nodded.  "Alright.  I'll tell Commissioner
Barnes that you escaped through the portal."
  "Thanks!"  Jacob activated the portal and jumped
through to the other side.

  Monica King was waiting on the other side.
  "Jacob?" she said.  "Is it really you?"
  "Yeah," he said.  "Where's my double?  Where'd he
go?"
  "He escaped into the past, to the year 2008."
Franklin Reed hung his head in shame.  "This is all my
fault."

9:12 am (the next day)

  "We appreciate you coming," Monica said.
  The Pepperton Protector nodded.  "I'm always happy
to assist local law enforcement," he said.
  "We understand you have the ability to travel back
in time," Jacob said.
  The Pepperton Protector nodded.  "Yes but I am
limited to travelling back in time to periods more
than thirty years into the past."
  "Why?" Monica asked.
  The Pepperton Protector shrugged his shoulders.  "I
suppose to avoid the obvious causality violation of me
meeting myself as an adult."
  "But wouldn't it be even more of a causality
violation for you to travel farther back in time?"
ST.AN.L.E.E. asked.  "Even your slightest action could
cause ripples that would affect the future."
  "Presumably any actions that he will take place in
the past have already happened," Terry Lopez said. 
"If you were them and you were being assisted by a
hero who came back in time from the future, would you
write an official report mentioning it?"
  "The kid's got a point," Jacob said.  "Anyway, it
doesn't matter: I made a promise that my evil twin
will be sent back home and, dammit, I want him brought
back, causality be damned!"  He handed the Pepperton
Protector a picture of himself.  "I want you to find
him."
  "It shouldn't be a problem," the Pepperton Protector
said as he took the picture, folded it and put it in
one of the pockets on his costume.  "I'll have no
trouble going back to 2008."
  "You might need this," Franklin Reed said as he
handed the Pepperton Protector what looked like a
cellular phone.
  "What's this?"
  "It's relayed through the portal back in my lab.  It
will allow these detectives to contact you, if
necessary, and you them."
  "Cool," he said.  "Alright then, I'm ready."
  "Just like that?" Jacob asked.  "You don't need some
sort of power boost or something?"
  The Pepperton Protector laughed.  "Nope.  It's all
me."  The Pepperton Protector closed his eyes,
concentrated... and disappeared.

  When the Pepperton Protector opened his eyes again
he was still in Pepperton Police Precinct One except
it was now 2008.  He walked up to the reception desk.
  "Hello?" receptionist Naomi Chen asked.  "Can I help
you?"
  "I need to speak to your detectives," he said.
  "Which one?"
  "As many as you can round up."

                       PART II

9:31 am

  "Where's Mary Bailey?" the Pepperton Protector
asked.
  "She's four months pregnant," Detective Michael King
told him.  "She'll be taking a year off to have her
baby."
  "This concerns her."
  "How?" Detective Lana Lewis asked.
  "The man I'm looking for is her son all grown up and
having come back from the future," he said.  "Well,
actually, not exactly: he's actually from an
alternative future where people are like us but not
exactly like us, a reality that shows us what might
have been but not how it really is."
  "You're kidding right?" Detective John Phelps said.
  "John," Michael said, "please."
  "No, wait, let's get this straight: he's not only
claiming that he's from the future but that he's after
Mary's son except that he's not really Mary's son
because he's from some alternative future and not the
real one.  Am I following you so far?"
  "That's exactly right.  And he's wanted for over a
dozen murders in that dimension."
  "That's the biggest pile of B.S. I've heard so far."
 John scoffed.  "And aren't you wanted for murder
yourself?  You killed Jake Lang!"
  The Pepperton Protector nodded.  "That was a long
time ago for me, before I achieved my official status
as the city's protector in my time.  I've matured a
lot since then."
  "Seems to me that we have no reason to trust you."
  The Pepperton Protector nodded.  "I should have
known you wouldn't believe me."  He took out his
phone, flipped it open and dialed.
  >>Hello?<<
  "They don't believe me."
  >>Is my mom there?<<
  "Which one is your mom?"
  >>Detective Lana Lewis.<<
  "Yes, she'd here."
  >>Give her the phone.<<
  "Ms. Lewis?"
  "Yes."
  "She wants to speak to you."
  "To me?"
  "Yes."  He handed her the phone.
  "Hello?"
  >>Mom?  It's your daughter.<<
  "My daughter?"
  >>That's right.  You haven't had me yet and the fact
that I haven't yet disappeared into nothingness
probably means you still will.<<
  "My God."
  >>I just want you to believe me when I tell you that
this is real and that you have to help him find this
Jacob Bailey.  The real Jacob Bailey, your best
friend's son, promised to bring him back.  Okay?<<
  "Okay."  She handed the Pepperton Protector back his
phone.  "He's telling the truth."
  "How can you be sure?" John asked.
  "I just am."
  Michael sighed.  "It doesn't matter.  The United
States has signed no extradition treaty with your
future, let alone this alternative future."
  "It's also true that Jacob Bailey hasn't been born
yet in this time.  Correct?"
  "True."
  "So this Jacob Bailey is an illegal immigrant."
  John smiled.  "Hell, for that matter we can charge
him with impersonating an unborn child!"
  "Okay," Michael said, "you've made your point."  He
thought for a moment.  "In your time period would you
qualify as an INS agent?"
  "In my time I am authorized to work with all
branches of the U.S. government."
  "Fine," Michael said.  "Then that's what we will put
in the report: Jacob Bailey is an illegal immigrant
wanted by the INS.  We won't mention anything about
the Pepperton Protector, time travel or alternative
realities.  Fair enough."
  "Fine by me," John said.
  The Pepperton Protector took out the picture that
the real Jacob Bailey had handed him earlier (or,
rather, forty years later).  "This is his picture.  I
would appreciate it if you told all your officers to
look for him."  He handed it to Detective Phelps.
  "Fair enough," John said.  "I'll let everybody
know."

10:54 am

  "Stop right there!" Officer Mark Johnston said.
  "What?"
  "Are you Jacob Bailey?" Officer Tom Jackson said.
  "Who wants to know?"
  "You're under arrest," Mark said.
  "For what charge?"
  "Do you have citizenship papers?" Tom asked.  "A
passport?"
  "No," the evil Jacob Bailey said.  "Who carries that
stuff?"
  Just then, the Pepperton Protector flew down.  "I'll
take it from here, boys," he said.  He pulled out his
phone, flipped it open and dialed.  "I've got him," he
said.
  >>Bring him to the lab.  Franklin Reed will let us
in.<<
  "Right."  He closed the phone and put it away.
  "You!" the evil Jacob Bailey said.
  "Ah so you recognize me?" the Pepperton Protector
said.
  "Yeah," he said with a smirk, "in my world you are
Pepperton's most notorious villain, the Prince of
Pepperton!"
  "I see.  Well, in my world I am the city's
protector.  And I'm here to bring you back."  He
grabbed the evil Jacob Bailey and the two of them
returned to his time.

                       PART III

  "I apologize for doubting you," Detective Jeff
Kogutt said as he saw two Jacob Bailey's walking
through the portal, one of them with handcuffs behind
his back.
  "How do we know this one is ours?" Detective Todd
Kolodziej asked.
  Jeff sighed.  "I wish you hadn't brought that up,"
he said.
  "I'm not the one you want!" the evil Jacob Bailey
claimed.  "He's the one you want!"
  "Nice try," Jacob said with a smile.
  "Maybe we should uncuff him and let them fight until
we don't know which is which and then ask them
questions that only the real Jacob Bailey would know,"
Jeff suggested.
  "Good idea," Todd said, "except the real Jacob
Bailey would lie and say he was the other one."
  "Hey!" Jacob said.  "From my point of view I _am_
the real Jacob Bailey."
  "Quite right," Todd said.  He smiled.  "I think
we'll just take our chances and assume that this one
here is the one we want."
  "@#$%^&* @$$%^&*!"
  Jacob smiled.  "See, now, I would never talk like
that."

2:13 pm

  Back home at Precinct One, Monica King was
questioning Alan Hanks.
  "Why did you do it?" Monica asked.
  "Do what?"
  "Kill Marvin Petrie and Robert Smith."
  "Who says I killed anybody?"
  "We recovered the ray gun you used to kill Robert
Smith and it has your fingerprints on it.  We also
found five more of the atomic bombs that you stole
from the lab where you worked, bombs that were just
like the ones used to kill Marvin Petrie."
  "What?" Alan asked.  "You searched my apartment?"
  "We had a warrant.  Your landlord let us in."
  "Oh.  Okay."
  "So why did you do it?"
  Alan sighed.  "They were manufacturing death."
  "They were scientists."
  Alan scoffed.  "It was people like them who killed
my father."
  "Your father was a scientist.  You are a scientist. 
In fact you were a scientist working at the same lab,
working on both projects."
  "I was there to sabotage the projects.  I didn't
want what happened to my father to happen to anybody
else."
  Monica sighed.  "Your father was involved in a
project to turn ordinary people into supersoldiers
using alien DNA.  His test subject was a madman who
tried to kill the Extreme Force Six."
  "Was that his fault?"
  Monica cringed.  "You're under arrest for the
murders of Marvin Petrie and Robert Smith.  You have
the right to remain silent."
  "Look!  Maybe I wanted to make up for what my father
did!"
  "I said you have the right to shut up!  Should you
give up this right anything you have to say can and
-dammit- will be held against you.  Get it?  You have
the right to an attorney.  If you cannot afford an
attorney an attorney will be appointed for you.  Do
you understand these rights?"
  "Yes," Alan Hanks said meekly.
  "Good," she said.  "Officers, take him away."
  Officers David Johnston and Martin Jackson took him
to his cell to await trial.

Forty years earlier...

  "Edward?"
  "Yeah?"
  "I was thinking about what name to give the baby?"
  "Okay."
  "If it's a girl?  Janice."
  "And if it's a boy?"
  "I was thinking maybe Jacob."

                         THE END

Martin


       
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