Superfreaks/ACRA: Superfreaks Season 3 #2

[Martin Phipps]

Michael King, Lana Lewis and Frank Lopez: crime scene 
investigators.  John Phelps, Mark Johnston and Tom 
Jackson: police officers.  Jack Greenspan and Edward 
Bailey: medical examiners.  Alan Russell and Cliff
Murdock: lawyers.  These men and women are truly our 
last line of defense.  But what about the capes whose
cases they have to investigate?  Should they be
considered a help or a hindrance? 

                 SUPERFREAKS SEASON 3 #2 

                     "FIRST CONTACT" 

                         PART I 

9:02 am

  "Excuse me, are you Ken Riley?"
  "Yeah.  Who are you?"
  FBI Special Agent Oscar Unger flashed his badge. 
"We need to talk."
  "What about?"
  "You've been working for Goodhead Corporation for
ten years now.  Correct?"
  "Yeah."
  "And before that?"
  Ken didn't answer.
  "That's what I thought.  Please step into the car. 
I don't want to discuss this out in the open."
  "Alright."
  Ken Riley got into the car first.  There was another
agent sitting on the back seat so Ken ended up sitting
between them.
  "This is Special Agent Felix Madison."
  "Hi," Felix said.
  "Hi."
  "Ken, does the name Kenneth Kendal mean anything to
you?"
  Ken swallowed hard.  "Kenneth Kendal.  No.  Not at
all."
  Oscar sighed.  "Ken, we're FBI agents.  We're
trained to know when somebody is lying.  Before ten
years ago, Ken Riley didn't exist.  No Social
Security.  No Driver's Liscence.  Not even any
university records and yet you are employed at
Goodhead Corporation as a chemist."
  "So?  They can hire whoever they want to hire!"
  "The point is that you didn't even exist until ten
years ago... not as Ken Riley anyway."
  "What do you mean?"
  "Ten years ago an 'accident' at Goodhead Corporation
caused Kenneth Kendal to become the Human Spider... or
so he believed.  The truth was that the Human Spider
wasn't Kenneth Kendal at all -you were- and he was
your clone."
  "That's ridiculous!"
  "Is it?" Oscar asked.  "You just give us a DNA
sample and we can find out if you're the real Kenneth
Kendal or not."
  "Now, wait!  I don't have to give you anything!"
  "It's true," Oscar admitted, "you don't but it would
be better for you if you co-operated."
  "Okay, wait," Ken said, "this is ridiculous!  It's
not illegal to clone a person."
  "It is if they didn't legally get your permission
first," Felix pointed out.
  "And what if they did?" Ken asked.
  "Well, we figure they probably did get your
permission as all they had to do was probably offer
you a nice bonus in exchange for your DNA and you
disappearing to another state and another life," Oscar
said, "but then there's the little matter of your
clone then taking your place, living out your life and
having everybody think he was you."
  "So?  Is there anything illegal about that?" Ken
asked.
  "Actually, yeah," Oscar said.  "For most of the past
ten years, this Kenneth Kendal aka the Human Spider
has been employed by the federal government as a
member of the Extreme Force Six."
  "Now the Extreme Force Seven," Felix pointed out,
"with _two_ Human Spiders.  They cloned you twice
apparently."
  "Anyway," Oscar continued, "it turns out the man we
thought was Kenneth Kendal was in fact his clone."
  "So?"
  "So that's fraud.  Now, we're not charging Kenneth
himself with fraud as he genuinely thought he was the
real Kenneth Kendal, but there are apparently plenty
of people at Goodhead Corporation -including you- who
knew that he wasn't the real Kenneth Kendal."
  "It's only fraud if you have something to gain
financially," Ken pointed out.
  "Not necessarily," Oscar said.  "We could secure an
indictment based solely on the fact that there was
deception involved and then an investigation would
follow to determine how exactly Goodhead Corporation
did, in fact, profit from all of this."
  "Look," Ken said.  "It's my understanding that the
Extreme Force Six is a superteam, right?"
  "Yeah.  So?"
  "So what's it to them if one of there members is a
clone?  Don't they also have a member who is an alien?
 And their leader is an Atlantean, isn't he?  Does he
even have American citizenship?  And Amazing Woman's
from Haven Island, right?  So she's a foreigner too."
  "That's not the issue," Oscar said.
  "I think it is!  It seems to me that all that's
important to you is whether or not your heroes have
the powers they need to take down the bad guys.  Who
cares if one of them is a clone?"
  Oscar sighed.  "If we manage to get an indictment
against Goodhead Corporation then you could be
supeonaed to testify and perhaps even be charged as a
co-conspirator."
  Ken laughed.  "Yeah, well, good luck with that.  I'm
out of here."
  Oscar got up out of the car and left the door open
behind him.  "You're free to go.  For now."

9:55 am

  "He doesn't love me anymore!" Mrs. Rowlings said. 
"He only loves my clone!"
  "Don't be ridiculous!" Mr. Rowlings said.  "we got
the clone because you were so busy that I hardly ever
got to see you!  We agreed that it was the best
solution for the both of us!"
  "Well now I've changed my mind!"
  "Apparently!"
  Doctor Samuel Leonard watched as the couple in front
of him bickered.  Ever since Dr. Phil had become a
household name, people have been going more and more
to psychiatrists for marital advice.  But this couple
was getting on his nerves.
  "I'll come home and you'll be doing it with the
clone and you don't have time for me!"
  "You _never_ had any time for _me_!  That's why we
got the clone in the first place!"
  "You don't love me anymore!  You only love the
clone!"
  "Dammit!  The clone _is_ you!"
  "No she isn't!  She's your submissive little love
slave!"
  "So were you for the first week we were married! 
Then I was lucky if I got anything at all on the
weekends!"
  "It's either me or the clone!"
  "Fine!  You're hardly ever home so it's not like I'd
be losing anything if you left now!"
  "I want a divorce!  Keep the damn clone!"
  "Fine!"
  Samuel nodded.  "Alright then.  If that's your
decision."
  "What?" Mrs. Rowlings asked.  "We came here because
we wanted you to help us save our marriage!"
  Samuel sighed.  "And it doesn't look as though your
marriage is worth saving any longer, not if you both
want a divorce.  It seems to me that it's time you
consult a lawyer instead of a doctor!"
  "He's right," Mr. Rowlings said.
  "But I want you back!" Mrs. Rowlings said.
  "You said you wanted a divorce!"
  "I gave you a choice between me and the clone!"
  "I'm not going to give up the clone!"
  "Fine!"
  "Fine!"
  "See what I mean?" Doctor Leonard asked.  "This
marriage will only work if you both of you want it to
work and right now both of you apparently just want it
to end."  He sighed.  "Tell you what: give it a week. 
If you decide in a weeks time that you want to give
this marriage another go then come back and talk with
me.  Otherwise, never mind.  Go talk to a lawyer
instead."
  Mrs. Rwolings nodded.  "Alright."
  "Thanks you, doctor," Mr. Rowlings said.
  The two of them got up to leave.  Samuel Leonard led
them out.  There was another couple waiting for their
ten o'clock appointment.
  "Scott.  Jean.  Come in."
  Scott Grey and his wife, Jean, walked into Doctor
Leonard's office and sat down in front of his desk.
  "So what's the problem?" Doctor Leonard asked as he
sat down behind his desk.
  "My husband gave our baby away!" Jean complained.
  "It wasn't like that!" Scott said.  "Nathan was
dying!  It was the only way to save him."
  Samuel looked confused.  "Perhaps you should start
from the beginning."
  "Our son was sick," Jean told him.
  "It was Rasputin Syndrome," Scott said.  "It's a
disease that only affects mutants.  Nathan had only
weeks to live."
  "You don't know that!"
  "That's what Doctor Javier said!"
  "He could have been wrong!"
  "Please continue!" Samuel begged.
  Scott nodded.  "It turned out that Doctor Javier's
nurse, Michelle Green, she was from the future."
  "So she claimed!"
  "She was the only one who could save Nathan!"
  "Perhaps she was the one who infected Nathan in the
first place!"
  "She said that Nathan would be back as soon as he
was better!"
  "Come on, Scott!  If she is a time travellor then
why do we have to wait at all?  Why couldn't she just
have come back to the point in time when she took him
in the first place?"
  "Because that's not how it happened in her history! 
You forget that everything that happens to us has
already happened to her!"
  "So if Nathan had already gotten better in her
history then why did she have to go back at all?"
  "Because her going back in time was already part of
her history!"
  "Okay," Doctor Leonard said.  "I'm confused.  And
I've got a Ph.D.  Could we focus here on your feelings
and not on the metaphysical aspects of time travel? 
Please?"
  "I need my son," Jean said, "and I don't understand
why I'm not allowed to see him."
  "It's not that you're not allowed to see him," Scott
said.  "It's that he's in another time."
  "Assuming that even makes sense," Jean said,
"there's another problem."  She sighed.  "I've been
getting more and more irritable lately.  And someimes
I feel like I will just explode."
  "We all get like that sometimes," Samuel said.
  "No," Jean said.  "I mean literally explode.  And
take the whole city out with me."

10:31 am

  Both Human Spiders went to see Water Lord in his
office.
  "We figured it out!" they both said.
  "Figured what out?" Water Lord asked.
  "We figured out which one of us was the original,"
Human Spider A said.
  "As I understand it neither of you are."
  "which one is the original Human Spider, member of
the Extreme Force Six," Human Spider B said.
  "Okay.  Which one?"
  Human Spider A raised his hand.  "That would be me."
  "Which means...?"
  Human Spider B nodded.  "I'm the clone."
  "You're BOTH clones."
  "Fine," Human Spider B said.  "I'm the _second_
clone."
  "So how did you figure it out?"
  "I remembered having eggs for breakfast in my
appartment," Human Spider A said.
  "And I distinctly remembered having cereal," Human
Spider B said.
  "But when we finally got home there was a frying pan
in the sink," Human Spider A said.
  "Which means that my memories were all fake," Human
Spider B said sadly.
  "Congratulations," Water Lord said coldly.  "So what
are you going to do now?"
  "Well," Human Spider A said, "I guess that means the
apartment is all mine and my job here is all mine."
  "Yeah," Human Spider B said sadly.
  "But perhaps you wouldn't mind having _two_ Human
Spiders on the team."
  Water Lord nodded.  "Sure.  But I need to be sure
where your loyalties lie.  And I mean both of your
loyalties."
  "Huh?"
  "You two were both created by Goodhead Corporation. 
We still don't know why they did it.  Perhaps each of
you has some hidden programming that Goodhead
Corporation will use against us.  How do we know for
sure that isn't the case?"
  Neither Human Spider knew how to answer that
question.

12:23 pm

  After a lengthy session with Doctor Leonard and a
quick lunch afterwards, Scott and Jean had returned
home.
  "Now that we're home," Scott said, "you should take
the sedatives Doctor Leonard prescribed."
  "I'm not taking any sedatives," Jean told him.
  "Jean, if you really think you could explode and
take the whole city with you then I suggest you take a
pill and calm down."
  Jean sighed.  "Taking a pill isn't going to bring
Nathan back."
  "Just wait.  He'll be back in a couple of months."
  "How can you be so sure?  You handed our baby to a
stranger, Scott!"
  "Jean.  Please.  Just calm down!"
  "STOP TELLING ME TO CALM DOWN!" Jean screamed. 
Scott was thrown back against the wall by what
appeared to be telekinesis.
  "Wow," Scott said.  "That's a new ability."
  "The more pissed off I get the stronger I get!" Jean
warned.  "So stop pissing me off!"
  "Jean!  Please!"
  "GIVE ME BACK MY SON!"
  "I can't."
  Jean moved in to hit her husband and Scott
instinctively used his powers over time to slow her
down.  But he couldn't make her stop.
  "Use... your... powers... against... me... will...
you?"  She continued to walk forward, looking and
sounding like a zombie as she did.
  Scott used the opportunity to get out of the house. 
He pulled out his cell phone and dialed one of the
numbers he had stored in the phone.
  >>Hello?<<
  "Hello, Water Lord?  It's Scott.  Please send help! 
It's Jean!  She's gone nuts and I think she wants to
kill me!"

                        PART II

  Scott was amazed to see his wife flying!  She had
never been able to do that before!  Even with his
powers slowing her down and him running at top speed,
it looked like she was going to catch up with him.
  Then Extreme arrived, flying into the scene at high
speed so as to arrive between the two of them.
  "Get out of my way!" Jean demanded.
  "Calm down!" Extreme demanded in return.
  "Don't tell me to calm down!" Jean said and then
struck Extreme across the face.
  "Ow!" Extreme said.  "That hurt!"
  "Good!" Jean said.
  "But how?" Extreme asked.
  "The madder I get the stronger I get!" Jean said. 
"And right now I am seriously pissed off!"
  The next words that Extreme said he probably should
not have said.  "That time of the month, is it?"

  What followed was an epic battle with Jean and
Extreme hitting each other, throwing each other into
buildings and exchanging high energy blasts, with
Extreme's coming in the form of heat rays from his
eyes.  In the meantime, the rest of the Extreme Force
Seven arrived at the scene but, as none of them could
fly, all they could do was look on in horror.

  "Extreme!" Water Lord finally shouted.  "For
Neptune's sake stop this!"
  "I'm trying to stop this!" Extreme shouted back,
having heard Water Lord's order using his super
hearing.
  "No!" Water Lord said.  "Just stop fighting her! 
Give her a chance to calm down."
  Extreme considered the property damage that the two
of them were causing.  It was a wonder nobody had been
killed!
  "Alright," he said calmly.
  Jean was now so angry that she was glowing white
hot.
  "This doesn't look good," Extreme said.  He flew up
away from the city.
  "Come back here!" Jean said and she followed him up
higher and higher.
  "This should be high enough," Extreme said.
  "High enough for what?" Jean asked.
  "Look," Extreme said, "I just want you to calm down,
okay?"
  "STOP TELLING ME TO CALM DOWN!"
  Jean exploded.  Literally.

  Down on the streets of Pepperton, a young man in his
thirties gasped at the sight of the fire ball high up
in the sky.
  "Nothing could have survived that!" he said.
  His girlfriend sighed and rolled her eyes.  "You're
so full of shit, Jef!  Come on, we're late for lunch.

  Jean's battered body laid in Extreme's arms as he
brought her back to the ground.  He was crying.
  "Is she--?" Scott asked.
  "Dead?" Extreme said.  "No, she's fine.  She just
passed out."
  "But then why are you crying?"
  "She heated the air to over a hundred degrees!"
Extreme explained.  "Believe me when that gets in your
eyes it really stings!"
  "Okay."
  Jean then woke up.
  "Where am I?  What happened?" she asked.
  "You don't remember?" Extreme asked.
  "I remember arguing with Scott."
  "What about?"
  "Scott gave our baby to another woman, a woman from
the future."
  "So that's why she wigged out!" Mr. G said.  "Geez,
man, what were you thinking!"
  Everybody looked at Scott.  "It was the only way to
save him!  Come on, guys!  It's the truth!"
  Water Lord nodded.  "Alright.  I think we'll just
consider this a domestic dispute then and leave the
two of your to work this out amongst yourselves."
  "Good," Weapon Alpha said.  "I'm going home."
  "I don't think we can do that just yet," Human
Spider A said as he pointed up at the sky.  "Look!"
  They all looked up to see spaceships filling the
sky.
  "Holy @#$%!" Mr. G said.  "It's a mother@#$%ing
invasion!"

                       PART III

  One of the spaceships landed in Pepperton Central
Square.  The police cordoned off the area to keep the
public away and the army remained on standby: it was
reasoned that if they meant mankind any harm they
would have attacked while they still had the element
of surprise.
  After a short while, a man in flowing white robes
emerged from the spaceship.  He was tall with black
hair and pointed ears.  He raised his hand in
greating.
  "We are from the planet Dullkin," he said.  "We come
in peace.  Our sensors detected an enormous mutant
energy signature, signalling mankind's evolutionary
advance to the point where individuals can possess
great power.  It was decided that the time was right
to initiate first contact.  Please escort me to your
local government representative."
  The Dullkins knew that Earth had not advanced to the
point of having a world government so they sent ships
all around the planet to greet government leaders
individually, not realizing how it would look to the
people of Earth to see thousands of space ships
suddenly appear in the sky.  The Dullkins, you see,
had evolved past the need for emotional responses and
had a hard time understanding human emotions.

  "The Dullkins, huh?" city mayor Jason Teller said to
the alien in a closed door session.  "That's funny."
  "Funny?"
  "Yes.  It's funny.  It's like you are our boring
relatives.  Ha ha ha."
  "I don't understand."
  Jason decided to get serious.  "Okay.  Fine.  So why
are you here?"
  "We Dullkins have contacted many different races on
many different planets.  We propose an Association of
Planets, a kind of intersteller government."
  "Uh huh," Jason said.  "I'm sorry but that's not
going to fly."
  "Fly?"
  "People here on Earth are naturally suspicious and
don't trust anyone coming here and telling them how to
organize themselves."
  "I see."
  "If you want to have us join your association of
planets then you have to make it look like it's our
idea."
  "How do you suggest we do that?"
  Jason nodded.  "We tell people that you Dullkins are
at war with another race and you need our help to
mediate."
  "But that doesn't make any sense!" the Dullkin
ambassador said.  "We Dullkins operate on pure logic! 
Why would we be involved in a conflict with another
race?"
  "It's the sort of thing that people want to hear,"
Jason explained.  "People will agree to this
Association of Planets thing if it is because you need
our help and not because you think you are helping
us."
  "That doesn't make sense."
  "That's the way it is," Jason said.
  "Why the deception?" the Dullkin Ambassador asked. 
"Isn't it always better to tell the truth."
  Jason shook his head.  "Not here.  Here people lie
all the time!"
  "All the time?"
  "Well, okay," Jason said, "not ALL the time.  I'm
not lying to you right now, for example."
  The Dullkin Ambassador was confused.  "But if you
are sometimes lying and sometimes telling the truth,
how can you tell the difference?  How can a human
being ever be trusted."
  Jason smiled.  "Congratulations!" he said,
sincerely.  "You've only been here an hour and already
you understand what it means to be human!"

  All over the world, people reacted to the news that
mankind was not alone in the universe.

  "I think this is good news!" Mary Bailey said to her
husband, Edward.  "Mankind will come together as one
now that we know that there is life on other planets!"
  Edward smiled.  "Yeah.  Little Jason is going to
grow up into a world where aliens walk amongst us and
we are not afraid."

  "I wonder if they are going to provide us with any
of their advanced technology," Detective Michael King
said to Detective John Phelps, "or if they will decide
that we are still to primitive a species to be given
technology which we could somehow weaponize and use to
kill ourselves."
  John just nodded thoughtfully.

  "I saw one of the Dullkin women on TV," Officer Tom
Jackson said to his partner.
  "Yeah?"
  "She was hot!" he said.  "Too bad they don't have
any emotions."
  "Perhaps that's the one thing they do have emotions
about," Mark suggested.  "I mean, where do the little
Dullkins come from?"
  Tom's eyes widenned.  "Hey yeah!  That's right!"
  
  "People are afraid," Pepperton City District
Attorney Alan Russell said, "but the Dullkins have
more to fear from us than we have from them."
  "How do you figure that?" Assistant DA Cliff Murdock
asked him.
  "The Dullkins lack emotion but we have emotion in
abundance.  The Dullkins will never understand why
humans would ever fear them.  So they would never
expect it if a fringe group of humans were to unite
against them."

  Some people, on the other hand, had more pressing
concerns.

  "Hello?" Goodhead Corporation Mitchell Spitzer said
when he answered his cell phone.
  >>Hi.  It's me.<<
  "I told you never to call this number."
  >>It's important.<<
  "It better be."
  >>Word at the precinct is that the FBI has already
found and contacted Ken Riley.  They know that he used
to be Kenneth Kendal and that the clones were made
from him.<<
  "I see.  Thank you."
  >>No problem.<<
  Mitchell hung up and addressed the people around
him.  He was apparently in the middle of a board
meeting.
  "I've just been informed that the FBI has found and
contacted Ken Riley aka Kenneth Kendal."
  "We should stop what we are doing!" a random board
member suggested.  "There's too much heat!"
  "On the contrary!" Mitchell said with a smile.  "Now
is the perfect time to begin Phase II!"

              TO BE CONTINUED! (Probably)

Martin


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