Roberto da Costa sits in a police station, cuffed to a chair near a detective's desk. He's been brought in...for suspicion regarding the apparent murder of Cecilia Reyes.

Roberto almost feels bad that she's dead... But then, she did keep him and four other fellow mutants captive in an Essex facility for what felt like years. Plus, she duped them all into thinking they were there for medical attention. Plus, Mr. Sinister would've experimented on them all, and turned normal humans into chimeras with their powers if Dr. Reyes had kept a steadier foot on the accelerator. If she COULD'VE kept a steadier foot on the accelerator, that is...

Even so, Roberto's rather sad she's gone. She bore the likeness of some São Paulo actress named Alice Braga...

Roberto's tempted to use his mutant power to melt the cuffs, and make a slippery escape... Alas, he's lucky that Coldworld tolerates mutants at all...

His hair itches. With his free hand, he scratches his head. It just won't stop itching...

At last, Det. Haller comes out from the back, and unlocks the cuffs. "Sorry for the trouble, Sr. da Costa," she says. "It turns out some new evidence has ruled the so-called murder of Ms. Reyes as self-manslaughter. Not sure how that happened. The coroner's report says she was a mutant."

Without saying a word, Roberto only smiles, and turns to leave...

"Sr. da Costa?"

Roberto freezes...expecting the worst.

"PLEASE get a haircut. As much as I tend to be into guys with long shaggy hair, that look does NOT look good on you."

Roberto sighs, and leaves. He should be more relieved that they're not holding him because he's a mutant. Alas, like a lot of men, he just HATES getting a haircut...

Ray Stevens, he's going to hate this...


This is a suburb...in Lazio. Here, the little boxes are just as they are elsewhere: they're all made out of ticky-tacky, and they all look JUST THE SAME.

Roberto thinks he knows of a barber who lives here. She runs a small operation. With luck, he can get a haircut here in complete privacy. He just hopes he doesn't accidentally discover that this barber is a pot dealer as well as a barber.

His electric car's running low on fuel. So, he parks it on the side of the road. He gets out, and climbs atop it. Sprawling out across its top, he uses his mutant power to control a big ray of sunlight.

Down from the heavens, it comes...and spotlights his car, as if it were the Chosen One...or the Anointed One, or however that goes. With this power, it doesn't take long for his solar charger to collect the power the car needs. When the chime rings, Roberto gets down from the car, calls off the ray of sun, gets back in, and finishes the drive to the barber's.

In front of her lawn, the barber's got a sign staked. It says, THIS HOME IS PROTECTED BY DEADPOOL. It's complete with both a picture of Deadpool's red-and-black mask, and a pair of hands flipping a pair of birds.

Roberto gets suspicious, when Ms. Carlysle says she wants to cut his hair in the cellar. Nonetheless, he complies. She's not a scary woman. As a matter of fact, she's very petite and lovely. Roberto can't stop staring at her ass.

Alas, she wears her hair in a pixie cut. And she looks like she should be meaner than she is...and not to mention a lot less sexually available. Roberto's not sure if he can control himself around her. With luck, she'll forgive him if he can't.

He sits in the chair. With her sweet feminine hands, she drags the apron over him, and fastens it. It's just the right size for his neck.

Now that all is ready, she uses her mutant power to shapeshift into Fantomex, a mutant cyborg. She turns Fantomex's prosthetics into barber tools, irrigates Roberto's hair, and starts cutting it, black lock by black lock.

As she cuts his hair, they talk. It turns out to be a good thing that Roberto lets HER do most of the talking...as much as Roberto finds it hard to believe that she talks a lot in general.

She talks about men with egos...in a negative light. She might not be a Christian...but regardless, pride is a sin in her personal Bible. Men have absolutely NO right to claim superiority over women and children. For one thing, all the women and children in the world have the collective power to beat one man in an epic mutiny. But of course, Ms. Carlysle also understands that such a mutiny can never happen...rationally.

OTOH, a lot of realists once thought that mutants couldn't exist rationally. Look where THAT'S led...

This is where her monologue takes its darker turn. It turns out she hates solar energy mutants. In her mind, they're some of the most egotistical mutants in existence. They claim the crowns of kings among their fellow mutants, and yet they can't even make a hospitable gesture towards human women and human children when they have to. She's also pretty sure that if the Black Catholic Church were ruled by a solar-using mutant (i.e. it's the Black Catholic Church because religion is illegal on Coldworld), the world would be in MUCH more danger than it is. She's pretty sure that such a Pope would never create a sunspot of darkness, if it meant giving his subjects twenty-four hours worth of well-deserved rest...for any occasion...Sabbath-related or not.

If Roberto wasn't nervous before...he is now. This is NOT how he wanted this haircut to go...

She has to take a break at some point...and she does. She shapeshifts back into Ms. Carlysle, and asks Roberto what he does for a living.

Regardless of what Ms. Carlysle says, Roberto's got nothing to take shame in. He's just a simple little mutant. He controls his little solar energy, and helps his little homefolk.

Alas, he can't hope to tell Ms. Carlysle the truth. With her powers, she could shapeshift into Gentle, enlarge herself to super-size, and squash him like a bug under Gentle's foot...along with a lot of "little boxes" in this suburb. Roberto isn't sure if she'd risk the exposure...especially not since she just made a very passionate monologue outlawing a man's ego... Nonetheless, as much as Roberto loves gambling, he won't take this one. So, he improvises an answer to her question.

"I'm a landscaper," he says. "I mow lawns. I cut the grass until its too short to stick out like a sore green thumb. And then I collect the clippings for composting. I leave them in the bin for way too long, until they become all spotty and rotten. They make me want to vomit when I open the compost bin after that long, but then, what do you expect?"