Chapter Nine

Ronnie took several pots of dirty water from the river, and poured it into the black machine. It smelled like nickel as it turned the septic water into steam; and then the steam went through a cooling process that turned it back into water. Once the water formed, it flowed through several rocks inside of the machine that added back essential minerals to the water the body needed. It purified, revitalized, and added a pleasant taste to the water that the residents of the shanty town enjoyed. Once the machine finished with the water, Ronnie took a teabag, and made some plain, green tasteless tea. He wrapped himself in a filthy, green blanket, and tried to eradicate the thoughts of the sinister Mister Leener out of his mind, but couldn't do it. The events played repeatedly like a montage of movie clips. It was a horrible night, a tawdry night, the kind of night that he didn't enjoy because Mister Leener wanted more than idle conversation. He had taken some powerful sleeping pills before the nastiness began in the old man's bedroom, and slid into a deep, dreamy sleep as Mister Leener did his seedy business. But when he awoke the next morning, his body hurt from the brutality of the illicit sexual flogging that Mister Leener gave him. With each visit to the old man's flat, his behavior grew increasingly violent, and it worried Ronnie. It made him feel as if he might have to resort to his knife, or even worse—the gun.

Vivian walked into the room, and sat down beside Ronnie. She washed her hands with the cleansed water, some soap, and a semi-dirty towel. She took out a toothbrush, and brushed her cricket teeth in a ritualistic pattern. He knew that she had performed fellatio because she did the same act every Monday with the same guy, Mister Garrett. The washing of her hands and the teeth brushing and the lamenting of her dire circumstances were repeated ritually every Monday. She grabbed a small cup of water in order to rinse the bitter toothpaste out of her mouth, and Ronnie remained piercingly silent the entire time. He drank a bit of his hot tea, and watched Vivian as she forcefully brushed her teeth.

"I hate this life, Ronnie," she lamented for a moment. Her black hair hung in her face with constant annoyance, and she conveniently pushed it to one side. It didn't matter how many times she tried to rest her hair over her ears, it fell back in front of her face, and she'd show signs of frustration. She held her toothbrush with her right fist, and looked over at Ronnie for a second. Toothpaste and blood dripped from the toothbrush, but she didn't know that was abnormal. "Did you hear me?"

He stopped sipping on his tea for an instant, and gave her a blank stare. "I don't like it either, but what are we to do?"

"Run..."

"Run? Where?" He asked with a throaty voice. He lowered his tone for a moment, and said, "This hovel is all we got, Viv."

"I want to be a kid," she said with tears rolling down her face. "Isn't there a place where there's no pain?" She paused for a second, and watched her brother as he relieved himself in the corner of the room. He had just crawled out of his sleeping bag, and relieved himself in the far corner of the room. "Isn't there a place where we can live like human beings instead of a pack of animals?" She asked. Her voice filled with sadness, and she turned to Ronnie. "I guess it's too much to ask, huh?"

"We're the trash of society," he said. He placed his hand on her right shoulder, and then she hugged him. "If I had a magical chariot, I'd take you out of this madness. I would. But like you said the other night, 'Money over comfort.'"

Meanwhile, Jessica walked the damaged hallways of her school wearing some black pants and a white t-shirt with an elephant on the front of it that she found in the loss-and-found container. She slid one of the ceiling tiles to one side in the girl's bathroom, and placed her bloody clothes in it. She knew it wasn't easy to hide the blood from that monster, but the guy had to be somebody important. Everywhere the monster stepped, he tore holes in the floor, and some of the walls collapsed. The students struggled to free themselves from the debris, and Jessica helped by guiding as many students outside as possible. She felt uncomfortable wearing a shirt that somebody might recognized as theirs, but she had to do something. Principal Casey had a look of shock on her round, dark skinned face, as she took pictures of the damage with her cell phone's camera. She was a short lady, but had a strong, country accent that sounded incongruously out-of-place for Gotham. She wore a black, up to date business dress with her name tag on the right side of her chest. The school's security camera didn't work, and it would be almost impossible to ascertain who or what did the damage to the hallway until the police examined Mister Garret's body. A look of confusion embraced everybody's face, as they tried to understand the amount of damage to the school.

"Did you see anything, Jessica?" Principal Casey asked with a serious snarl on her face.

"No, ma'am. I took a quick potty break," she said, "Then I felt the building shake."

"It was either an earthquake or a meta-human," the principal said with a whisper.

By the time the police and fire department arrived on the scene, Jessica had gingerly slid out the back of the school undetected by anybody. She grabbed her bloody clothes out of the ceiling of the bathroom before she left, and stuffed them into a brown paper sack. She lived approximately five miles from the school, and didn't mind the walk home. The blood on her clothes that she stuffed in the sack from the genetically altered dude had dried, and she needed to burn them before somebody detected it. Her only solution for her dress was to burn it on the grill. It had to be done in order to cover up the man's blood, and ensure that she didn't bring unwanted attention to her life. Even though she didn't mean to kill the guy, he was dead nonetheless. And in a world that considered all meta-humans a threat, she didn't want anybody knowing about her extraordinary powers.

Mister Garrett probably was a man of some importance, but she didn't know. He carried himself like a gangster, a man that had to collect on all owed debts, and now she owed a debt to justice. He wanted to make Jessica pay for destroying his car—even when he knew the reason. What kind of man chose material items over human life? And at the same time, he molested that little girl in his car, and she knew there were others. She didn't have proof of what he did, but she knew. She knew.

But at the same time, she wanted to know more about her powers, because her father's writing didn't mention anything about the wings. She thought whatever cause activated the mutation process in her body changed her DNA on some level; and for a second, the thought of her turning into an insect crossed her mind. She didn't think she had the ability to become a full fledged bug, but she had to learn more about her strengths and weaknesses to ensure she remained proactive about her newly discovered abilities. She checked her back several times, but the wings had disappeared. She thought they retracted back into her back, but she wasn't sure. In all honesty, she didn't know how she activated the wings in the first place. It might have been the fact that the monster scared her so badly that her wings sprouted in response to that fear.

By the time she made it home, she heard a litany of police cars, choppers, and trucks dispatched to the school. The entire side of her town lit up with red and blue lights racing to the school, and she wondered if somebody saw what had happened to Mister Garrett. She realized immediately that the authorities discovered the body. Unfortunately, after she killed the man, he transformed back into his normal, skinny self except void of his organs.

The death of Mister Garrett spread through the pervasive, underground community like an out-of-control rumor, and it reverberated throughout the multiple sewers too. The majority of women had taken to the streets to make some quick cash, and several of the kids remained inside the commodious room. Vivian sat next to her tattered tent and Ronnie laid his head on a soft pillow next to her. One of the women about two tents over had a small television that she listened to daily. She was an older woman, a woman nearly seventy-years-old who made her money through the manufacturing of meth. The newsman chimed in on her television program, and said, "James Garrett, the Gotham Insurance Commissioner, was found dead at Douglass High School today. The police found nude pictures of several young girls on his cellphone. At this time, we do not know if the pictures have anything to do with his murder. The police said that they will do an intensive investigation to find the identities of the girls on his cellphone."

Ronnie immediately set up, and looked over at Vivian. She had a look of fear on her face that Ronnie recognized immediately. She placed her right hand on Ronnie's left knee, and asked, "What does that mean?"

Without thinking, Ronnie placed his left hand on the back of her neck, and gave her as much comfort as he could. "Did he take pictures of you?" He asked with a soft voice. He didn't raise his voice because he didn't want to scare her, but the whole issue worried him.

She placed her right hand over her chest, and said, "All the time." She had a look of shame on her face because she knew everybody would think she had something to do with his murder. She had a hard time grasping his death because she had seen him earlier in the day. In fact, she had performed a sexual act on him earlier in the morning, and she did the same act on him at least once a week. He had more than a few pictures of her on his cellphone. He loved taking pictures in some of the most inane poses imaginable. He even had a picture of her posing completely nude in front of a statue of the Mother Mary. She placed her right hand over her mouth, and said, "I'm in trouble."

Ronnie gave a lot of thought to what she said about being in trouble, and he couldn't deny the truth in her statement. Mister Garrett's cellphone had the ability to unearth the entire community. The police knew about the elitist of the community using the shanty towns for illicit purposes, but now evidence of a high ranking city official taking lurid photos of under aged girls existed. Somebody would recognize Vivian's photo, and point the cops to the sewers, and every child would be questioned about their involvement in the sex trade. Businessmen, judges, lawyers, cops, and tons of people of influence were regular customers of the children of the sewers, and Vivian's sexually explicit, under aged photos could expose them all.

"We have to run," Ronnie said with a soft whisper. He placed the back of his right hand on Vivian's soft, round face. "I'm scared to live in this world without you, Viv."

She smiled sheepishly. "And I without you, Ronnie."

He raced over to his momma's tent, and grabbed the pistol. It felt heavier than he remembered, but he needed it for protection. Checking to see if the gun had a full load of ammunition, he looked over at Vivian as she continued to bite her nails. He stuffed the pistol into his baggy pants for safe keeping. The last thing he wanted to do was to kill somebody, but he saw two other boys from the shanty town meet a bitter demise over the death of a customer. He stopped for a second, and he remembered that he kept a stash of money in a small hole located down the hallway. He ran down the corridor where the remnants of the pod existed, grabbed the money and his journal out of a little hole that he stored things for safe keeping. He had saved over a thousand dollars, and he felt that was more than enough money to make it to Metro City.

Buddy stormed into the room with a baseball bat, and walked over to his sister. "Did you hear?" He asked.

"About Mister Garrett?" She asked. "Yeah."

Ronnie walked over to them, and Buddy paced the floor nervously. He looked over at Ronnie, and said, "We gotta get her somewhere safe."

"Metro City is pretty safe," Ronnie said, "I'll take her there."

"Do you think they'll kill me?" Vivian asked.

Buddy gave her a blank stare, and then hugged his sister. "Go with Ronnie."