Chapter 56: Addiction of Justice

The city had been experiencing a lull of events over the past weeks, and though it disarmed many, Mark remained vigilant to the possibility of a coming threat.

He primarily resumed his role as a police officer, dealing primarily with minor crimes and de-escalating major ones alongside Vida.

But in-between his work, he was seeking clues to connect the events of the past to now.

Guided by two thoughts: "Why didn't 'Dregs' mobilize in this city again until now?"

And: "Is there reasoning behind the locations they pick?"

At first he started browsing into the history of the museum that burned down. City files, old ownership documents, all available to be browsed thanks in part to the boons of his profession.

…But at first, nothing he looked at suggested anything suspicious about the museum.

He racked his brain for days trying to think about an angle he wasn't tackling. It was a one-man deduction, and he could only do it in the privacy of his home or when alone in his office.

"Think, Mark, think…There HAS to be something…"

Reviewing the facts of the case so far, what stuck out in his head the most was that the crate was stored in the backroom.

But why then? Workers were bound to roam the area and discover it.

"It's almost like…they were certain they weren't going to get caught." As he slowly came to that revelation he pulled out his phone and looked up news articles surrounding the museum fire.

"And if I'm right…" His eyes widened with intimidation as he saw there were tons of articles written about the event.

It felt like a lot just for one burned down museum…

"I haven't even heard of some of these news sites." Which, granted, he wasn't a news enthusiast. He tended to prefer experiencing stuff with his own eyes. But it was noteworthy to him nonetheless.

He opened them one at a time and scrolled them slowly. Perhaps this was all in his head, but it felt like the truth was purposefully being obscured by some unknown force.

It was late into the night, so his eyes threatened to close from lack of sleep, but a quick drink of water followed by a light splash to the face kept him going.

Eventually, he stopped upon a familiar name, "Z-Zinai…?"

Just the thought of seeing that bastard's name tied to a place of learning and wonder for children made his heart clutch with the cold, but he pulled back up and carefully read the article over.

"The damage to the museum has caused Zinai Obereon, of overseas fame, to rescind his deal to take ownership of the museum and repurpose it into a place held in celebration of Japanese culture."

"...Z-Zinai was planning to take ownership of the museum?" Mark only felt surprised for a moment, for he remembered how an important benefactor was meant to show up at the museum the day his wife died.

A cold sweat trickled down the side of his face and with a tight gulp his thumbs pressed against his phone harder.

"...Focus." He took a deep breath and looked at the article a second time, but found nothing else of note.

"...S.A.N.C.T.U.M.'s master said that 'Dregs' didn't receive any money from Zinai…Guess that doesn't discourage him from using his money if it just so happens to help their interests out."

"But…then…" Mark turned his phone off and spun once in his chair.

Pretending for a moment that he could see the world like Julius or S.A.N.C.T.U.M.'s master could, he considered trying to tie this line of thinking to his earlier questions.

"The museum under Zinai's ownership…would let 'Dregs' operate without worry."

"...The warehouse where we first encountered the Ghost…"

"The cargo platform was owned by…"

"..." His eyes widened with a perception that could see far beyond the narrow path he once walked.

He quickly pulled his phone back up and decided to look up information regarding the warehouses they had dealt with so far.

And there was no burying the lead on this one. Cause who would be crazy enough to pursue this line of thinking?

"...Apparently, me." He considered with a twinge of worry, but held onto his virtues in pursuit of the truth.

What he found out was this: "The warehouses were decommissioned and abandoned just a little under a year ago…?"

And from there, his logic flowed naturally from one point to the next.

"...After the incident five years ago, 'Dregs' probably didn't want to risk getting public attention again."

"So they've been waiting for a place to be abandoned that would be easy to monitor day in and day out, and wouldn't risk being trespassed upon."

"The cargo platform…was chosen in response to the Ghost's death. To take down S.A.N.C.T.U.M., they needed the next person they sent after him to be able to fight at their full power without getting caught."

"And when you put the facts together in that way, that means they must have moved the supply crate…to another abandoned location."

"That shouldn't be too hard to figure out…" But then he snapped out of his thinking mode for a moment and scanned his surroundings.

He was in his office…but he wasn't safe.

"Right…there's…someone in here who is working for Dregs. Maybe multiple people…"

He tucked his phone away into his pocket, secured his coat, and then took one quick look at his locket before heading for the door.

"I'll take a cruise around the city, see if I can find any other abandoned places on my own."

But right as he opened the door the way was blocked by Vida, wearing a pertinent scowl of disappointment while holding up a vanilla folder.

"V-Vida…" Mark backed up into his office as Vida held the folder up in front of his face and shook his head.

"What's the big deal, amigo? …Can I even call you that anymore?" His pain was quiet, gripping on the edge of wanting to yell at him.

"Now we're pulling out city records to solve crimes?" Vida waved the file at his friend while shutting the door behind him and locking it up tight.

The two stood across one another with their sides facing the door, and Vida slapped the file down on the desk before gesturing his hands out in a desperate plea, "It feels like I can't even reach you anymore, man! After all these years, when I thought of you as my hermano…"

Mark pointed to the file and held his ground, "I get…this looks crazy. But I swear, on my badge, on my LIFE…"

Vida slammed his hand down on top of the file, "That this leads to 'Dregs'?!"

Mark gripped his fists and silently nodded.

Vida bit his lower lip and looked at the ground, then threw the file to the ground in one swiping gesture, "Dregs this, Dregs that…! There IS no Dregs, Mark! You just keep making stuff up one thing after the other because you refuse to confront the fact that your wife…She's GONE man!"

He pointed his hands inward at himself and leaned forward with a slow walk, "And I've been patient. Supportive. Thought you'd get better with time."

"Yet you've put my patience through the WRINGER, and I've had to stand by and swallow it but I can't take it anymore!"

Vida swung his finger at the ground and stopped within punching distance of Mark.

Mark braced himself and looked his friend in the eyes. Never before seen levels of tiredness, frustration, and sorrow coming to life within them.

And Mark didn't abandon his guilt to a cold, unfeeling cage. He swallowed hard, and felt his voice cracking with every word he spoke, "Y-You think…I don't appreciate your patience? Or your sympathy?"

"Damn it Vida, you're my hermano too! Hell, you might as well be Violet's dad after how much I've messed up lately…" Mark tucked his hands into his pockets and faced the window.

"But I…I'm not doing this for myself!" He said with haste, and a strength of sincerity many would not be brave enough to use.

He struck his hand out towards the view outside, "Think of the people out there who are just living their lives in peace! Think about everyone who hasn't been given a chance to KNOW peace!"

"I'm fighting for them! For YOU! Not ME!" All Mark could hope for was that his honesty rang true.

But instead, he watched as his friend shook his head slowly, shame peering out of his teary eyes.

"Maybe at some point that's what all this meant to you…" He whispered, "But somewhere along the way, someone got a hold of you and turned your grief into an obsession."

"..." Mark looked at him and shook his head, "No…they gave me hope."

"...This is not hope, Mark." Vida murmured.

"Vida, I…I really don't know why you're so hellbent on obstructing me from getting the answers I need to move on, but I'm not going to let you stop me."

Vida squeezed his fists and put on a subdued, fierce and bitter tone of voice, "You…mean more to me than anyone else in the world, Mark. Do not make me cuff you and parade you out of this office like you're some damn criminal!"

"..." Mark knew at that moment he would be unable to make his friend see eye-to-eye with him, but he was incapable of hating him for it.

He closed his eyes, put his hands in his coat, and carried himself forward with the strength of his resolve to the door.

Vida did not make a move. He stood there, holding grief and a hint of resentment in his posture, fists tightly clenched at his sides and his head leaning back towards the ceiling.

Mark unlocked the door, and was just under the frame when…

"...I never told you about my family, did I, amigo?"

"...No?" Mark stopped and turned around.

Vida faced him and gestured at the door. Mark decided to shut it again but stood with his back leaning against it.

"I was born a pureblood Latino in the central part of Mexico. A rarity in this day and age."

"Had two older brothers, a younger sister, and an uncle on my mother's side who worked in a restaurant seven days a week to help support our home."

"Mi madre, ooooh…" Vida smiled and inhaled through his nose with a steady lean back, "Every morning, she'd make the finest empanadas you've ever had."

"Perfectly grilled meat, seasoned with five spices, and topped off with a sunnyside up egg. 'A smile for every morning', she used to say."

"Mi padre, he was a well-respected member of our small community. Knew how to prepare the liveliest siestas, and was always the man to call when you needed something repaired."

"I looked up to him. Wanted to be him."

"...But he was always so busy, I learned most of the ways of the world from my second oldest brother."

"He was a second baseman on the local baseball team. Didn't make any big strides. Hell, most people said his future prospects lied in being a local repairman, or a washed up mariachi band member."

"Did he care? No. He did what he liked, and tried not to make problems for anyone in the process."

"I learned how to make it through scorching summers because of him. I survived plenty of roughhousing thugs at school because of him."

"My world was so small, amigo. But I was happy. It was my place to call…home."

His tone began to take a melancholic turn, "But no matter how small you make your world, there is always a demonio looking to make it bigger."

"And he came…carrying with him the scent of lead, blood…and money."

"You know how the old tales go. There was a massive immigration effort to the North, to the 'Land of the Brave and the Free'." He said with a scoff.

"When they pushed through, the Land of Freedom bled into our country in retaliation. Smugglers. Drug lords. Arms dealers…Name a type of criminal, you would find a cartel of them occupying some square acre of land in the country."

"And eventually…one such group set up shop outside town."

"Oh, yeah, they appeared 'friendly'. They offered us 'protection' in exchange for a cut of our land and profits."

"We were just humble folk, not built for fighting. We just had to take it on the knee and try to live life like normal."

"It was in my adolescent years that I started to notice a shift in attitude among my peers. Increased bouts of antisocial behavior, gaps in people's memories, an overall lazy air to our once thriving populace."

"Mi madre tried to coddle me from the changes. She fought so, so hard…" Vida paused and wiped his eyes, "Just to smile."

"But then I watched her lash out at her husband, mi padre. I saw my hermanita, poor, poor little Florita, get beaten across the face by my Uncle's leather strap."

"And even my brother, my inspiration, my faint light in this growing darkness…started to fade."

"He could barely recognize my face. He twitched like a beast with rabies. I cried out, tirelessly, JUST to get him to say my name."

"But I was too late to save…anyone."

Vida paused, and caught his breath. His chest was pounding, and Mark could see a cold rage barely held back in his friend's eyes that was haunting…

Vida glanced out of the corner of his eyes and muttered, "Did I…ever tell you what TYPE of criminals they were?"

"A drug cartel." He said with damning, but quiet hate that could scour Hell's surface many times over.

"They came carrying a new, insidious type of drug, laced with lead."

"It was put into our water supplies, and because we were so used to unfiltered water nobody caught onto the difference."

"And over time, the lead would poison the minds of everyone who drank it, making them dumber, more feral."

"It was a repeat of the incidents you'd hear about happening in the early centuries."

"And you might be thinking 'Not everyone drinks water', and that's the most sinister part of this drug. It's a two-pronged assault."

"The lead properties in the drug were only at their strongest in the water. But taking the drug by itself makes a person thirsty."

"Those bastards preyed upon our town by selling the drugs as muscle relaxants. And once enough people got addicted to them they drank the lead poisoned water and began an inescapable, self-destructive cycle."

Vida then had a dry laugh, bordering on unhinged, "And the only reason I survived is cause of my age, and my love of milk."

"Yep…survived just to watch mi familia lose everything that made them whole. The whole town killed each other. The only festival on display…was a parade of blood and corpses across the streets."

"And those bastards…" Vida forced a smile and coughed up a laugh, "Didn't even have the guts to stick around and watch their masterpiece unfold!"

"Mi madre was the last to die to her wounds…she crawled along the ground on one arm after me in our home."

"I thought I was dead. I wish I had."

"In her final moments…she regained one last bit of her sanity, and drew a smile across my face with her bloodied finger."

"...I don't remember much of what happened after that. But when I came to, I was all alone. Vida Escarra…meaning 'left handed hope'"

He looked to the ground and his laughter was painful to hear, "What a joke…Hope to who, exactly?"

"Turns out…I just hadn't found out yet."

"Over the course of the next five years, I survived. With vengeance, with patience…With determination."

"Until eventually I found the cartel making rounds in another small town close to the border of the 'Land of the Free'."

"And I KNEW it was them. I could never forget that grizzled face, smirking with a wad of pesos in his hand."

"...I'll spare you the gruesome details, amigo. Needless to say, there was nothing to recover from the scene when I was through."

"Except…for one phone. With one message."

"The cartel didn't commit mass murder on their own. They gleefully took the money from the pockets of a filthy rich politician in America."

"That same politician had produced the drug in secret, and was using Mexico as a testing ground to make sure it worked."

"I don't know if their plan was to deepen their pockets with more blood money or commit ethnic cleansing to all minorities. I didn't CARE. My family DIED because there was someone too powerful to touch, sitting happily atop a place I could never hope to reach, no doubt passing the days by like GENOCIDE was as easy as playing a round of GOLF!"

Mark felt sick to his stomach. Even knowing there was scum like that in higher power…what had happened there was beyond the pale.

It was the devil's work…a devil in human flesh.

"..." Vida closed his eyes and laid his hands at his sides, "After that day I swore an oath to never let people undeserving of their power toy with people's lives like they are their playthings."

"I became a cop because it lets me deal with the criminals who are out in the open, while also positioning me right under the noses of the people in power who truly deserve the guillotine."

"...But then I met you," Vida rose with a bitter smile, "You, your wife, Anthony, Violet…After so many years of vengeance and justice, I…I had finally found mi familia again."

Vida then stepped forward and hugged Mark tightly, letting his tears roll down his cheeks, "D-D-Don't make me feel what it's like to lose it again…"

Mark hugged him back, trembling with some of his rage at the cruelty of the world.

"...I'm sorry I've put you through this, Vida. But…no matter what…" Mark gently pushed him away and looked him in the eyes, "I'm still me."

He then patted him on the shoulder, "...That politician that ruined your life. They're still out the-"

Vida shook his head, "He's not."

Mark shivered, "H-Huh…?"

Vida nodded, "I made sure of that."

Mark slowly backed away, but then nodded back, "...Then you understand. I think…I have just as much right to look into the face of whoever took my wife from me, and decide what I'm going to do afterwards."

"...Even after all that." Vida said in a soft, somber tone.

Mark turned and put his hand on the knob, "If you truly believe that stopping me is the right move to make, Vida, then you won't let me get out this door."

He paused for a moment, then opened the door, and cautiously made his way out.

Vida remained behind, tightening his fists until his bones made a loud, painful crack…

Mark got into his car and drove onto the wet streets, but upon hitting the first red light he slowed down and punched the top of his wheel.

"...There's still some really sick people out there." And it made him feel like the crime he was chasing was far less important.

"...Maybe my priorities are skewed, but I have to do something still."

He resolved himself yet again and made his way around the city, briefly parking to check locations on his phone and find out if they were abandoned or not.

But it should've been clear from the outset that after so many setbacks, Dregs wasn't going to pick a location around the streets.

Then he thought back for a moment to his first meeting with Julius.

"The tunnels…" The instinct came to him lightning fast, and he drove to somewhere easily parked at, before taking caution venturing into the old train tunnels.

He navigated via the dim, discarded lanterns and stuck to the sides.

There were a few rats scampering around, but they took the trash and ignored him.

He wandered quite a ways down but didn't find anything that stood out as off.

"Not like there'd be a secret underground facility…I hope."

He wound up breaking off the tracks and heading towards the entrance of an old parking lot connected to a station.

But the moment he tried creaking the door open he saw a figure moving and jumped back behind cover.

He then reached for his firearm and took another peek.

It was a person armed in Dregs' distinct military gear, lugging around a large crate full of ammo.

Mark remained proud of his find for only a moment, before cautiously slipping through the door and sliding behind a pillar.

The door slowly shut and made a noise, but the soldier did not react.

"..." Mark acted on his suspicions and checked the soldier from around cover.

The lighting was dim but he could tell that their skin was a little…grayish in tint. And their eyes seemed catatonic despite being open.

"What the hell?"

The soldier was not alone. There were many of them. All carrying that ghastly skin complexion and moving like autonomous machines.

But he confirmed the most important detail…That supply crate for Dregs' big plan was in the back, nestled at the front of the ammo crate heap.

"...Now what?" He whispered upon retreating behind the pillar, feeling a cold sweat down his face.

His bravery and smarts got him this far, but he's hosed if he ran into another superpowered foe…Maybe these soldiers were too much to ask of him even.

As he considered attacking, the ceiling behind him gave in and a hefty figure came crashing down , spreading a plume of rocky dust.

Mark poked his head out with a hint of fear in his eyes…which wasn't unwarranted.

For his sudden guest was none other than S.A.N.C.T.U.M, already armed with both swords and a somewhat sleeker body.

Mark grit his teeth and muttered, "...Something is about to go down."

And knew then and there, that it was foolish to avoid his intertwining fate with this machine and his master…

Next Time: My Enemy, Me