Mutant Related Crimes

He was in the clank! The slammer! Behind bars! It was quite traumatizing, especially because he was thrown in with the thief that he was originally trying to stop from doing something bad. Kai glared daggers at him whenever possible, but said nothing. He was taking his Miranda rights seriously. All the same, he had done nothing wrong and hoped that he would quickly be proven innocent. At least he was doing better than his fellow heroes- one was unconscious and Sebastian was covered in his own blood.

A woman officer came to the cell and looked them over, selecting Kai as the first person to interrogate. He followed, trying his hardest not to be nervous.

The door slammed ominously behind him and Kai took the seat across the table from the officer. He’d seen enough movies to know his role here. At least there was no bare light bulb hanging above them or slow drip of water from the ceiling. This really wasn’t as intimidating and creepy as most interrogation scenes concocted by Hollywood.

>>“First, what is your name?” Detective Banks began.

Kai took a big breath and exhaled, “Kai Johnson. Don’t I get a lawyer here?”

Oh. So maybe he wasn’t under arrest, after all, he was just a witness. That sounded a lot better. He slid into this new role with ease and confidence since he had the truth on his side.

“I was exploring the mansion grounds, considering moving in, ya know. Then I heard this crash like something breaking. It sounded like glass and like it was across the street, so I went to investigate and I saw the house with the window broken in the front. Sebastian was walking by- the pale dude, and he went around back to head off the robber. Then I went in to try to scare him so that we could capture him or something, but he got around me and then you guys showed up.” He spoke in a giant rush, not even bothering to breathe in again until he was finished.

“So… that’s what happened,” he finished, lamely.

He hoped that he had remembered everything right. He chose specifically to edit Andrea out of his story, even if they weren’t in real trouble, it seemed like a bad idea to rat out a new friend and have the police hunt her down. Maybe they already had enough witnesses with him and the other two guys. Kai slouched a little in his chair, exhausted by the mental and physical activities of the day.

Oops. Maybe he shouldn’t have said that he entered the house. But then how would he have explained the lamp? Or the fact that he’d climbed out of the window right as they got there? Stick with the truth, man, the truth will set you free. Hopefully literally.

“Ah, I climbed in through the broken window, over the bleeding hearts. They were looking a little trampled and there was a lamp hanging out of the window. As I got there, the shade fell off and landed on them, squishing some of the little blossoms. I went around them so as not to squish them further, because they weren’t planted flush against the building. Then I climbed through the window, using my arms, ‘cause with the plant there, there wasn’t a lot of great footing.

“When I got inside it was dark but I could hear noises. I grabbed the fallen lamp, mostly to keep it from falling onto the bleeding hearts. The towards the back of the house I saw a shadowy figure. Um, I think that was in the kitchen.”

Kai squeezed his eyes shut, trying to remember all the details. He hoped that he was being specific enough.

“The guy- he was a guy, well, I mean you picked him up at the scene, so you should know…” but that wasn’t what she wanted, so he continued, “He’s a little taller than me. Seventeen or eighteen or so. Dark hair, kinda messy like he hadn’t showered in a while. Or that weird thing some guys do to try to look cool. Where they pretend that they don’t care how their hair falls. I think he had dark colored eyes, but I didn’t really get a good look at him that close.”

He considered for a moment, trying to find his place in the story. “So I met him in the kitchen, and… uh… He had a bat. Then things got all funny, like he was making things happen and I got distracted and he got by me. I thought I’d set a trap for him out the window, but apparently it got Sebastian. Anyway, I followed him and I saw him start punching people. The other guy from the mansion who crossed the street with us……” Did he ever say his name? Hmm, I can’t recall.

“I don’t think we were really formally introduced, but he had some bug spray or something, so I think he worked at the mansion. Then the cops- I mean, all you police officers came- Wait a minute, how’d you hear about the robbery anyway? We completely spaced calling the cops!” Which, looking back, would have been a good idea. Oh well, nothing ventured nothing gained.

He stared at the bars of the cell he was in. Again a cell. He could remember the first time like it had been yesterday (Though he was fairly sure it wasn't) that he had found himself in one of these. That time he had been alone and collared. He had met a young woman, who helped him, talked with him, met with him, and then started becoming squeamish because he had opted for the quite sensible notion of getting away. Sensible back then. He was fairly sure though that the officer he had met afterwards had buried any evidence of his misdoings deeply. He had seen to that. With a carrot and a stick. A big stick and a small carrot. He also was glad that they had not put him in a cell together with the young boy, who quite obviously was one of those people that made his head explode. Or only feel like it. A thing he could very well live without, thank you.

Exploding heads. And people who made them explode.

And now he was in a box again. A box with metal bars (but thankfully without collar) and waiting to be interrogated. Maybe they would have fun interrogating him, if they waited for say a day or two. Then they would have had to deal with the fact that he simply couldn't tell them the fact whether the crime had happened last week or last year. He was not very reliable in these regards. He was also not very forthcoming about his weaknesses. Or his strengths for that matter. This time the policemen had been duly informed not to touch his skin (not ever touch his skin) and left with that tidbit and their own fears. Surely not the most effective way of handling this, but it ensured that he was handled if not more respectfully, then at least with greater care then the other prisoners.

Oh wonderful prison. Had I mentioned I have been here before? Yes? Oh well....

A guard came, ripping Martin from his jumbled thought and to escort him to interrogation. Interrogation should be fun, shouldn't it? With a timemancer, who could, with the right incentive, tell the interrogator how often he had bitten his lower lip during the course of the last talk. But maybe not what he himself had had for breakfast (He naturally did not record what he ate. This was just as unimportant as if the weather was good!). Very good witness indeed. But the sir on the other side of the table wouldn't know that.

Sighing he got up from the hard cell floor he had rested on and followed the officer (who had not been polite, yet amiably kept his distance) to the room where he was to be questioned. How boring, wasn't it? His blue eyes were veiled to the end of telling that story. Inside he was close to panicking. Just a little.

= If anything needs changing, please tell me!=
Ah. The humans had learned something it seemed. Gloves on them. And even respectful treatment (aside from the looks maybe, but Martin did not care about those. He was, after all, a quite dangerous individual to be around.) He was lead through the usual gray corridors, though, maybe in an effort to make them more appealing, had not only put up some of the usual crime fighting notices as spots of color on the wall, but also set a lone shrub into a corner, where, by lack of sunliught, its leaves were slowly wilting away into the brown nothingness of organic death.

And then he entered the interrogation room. The Sir behind the table was actually a she. Something maybe in another effort to be colorful. And polite she was, too. The veiled blue eyes, having lost so much of their sparkle, their often unusual attentiveness, their strange dangerous glean of the grown ups, was now nearly nothing more then the eyes of a barely voteable person in a national election. He noted of course her effort at hospitality, which was, in his eyes, strangely misplaced, even ridiculed by the surroundings. But he managed, in his slightly accented English, to convey a message of his own. “Thank you, but I would rather stand.” It was an effort to make the ridiculous proceeding go down a little more sweetly for him. They were not talking eye-to-eye yet was his interpretation, taking away some of her control. Her superiority. Subtle defiance. One also might just have called it the action of a scared late teenager.
And with these words, quite normally, usually, even normatively assumed a pose that he maybe should not have shown. He planted his hands between his back and placed the feet at shoulders distance. Strangely similar, though still somewhat unfamiliar it would look for those who had ever served in an armed force. A lapse in control as he realized only after the fact. Memories of the old times had surfaced. Of his younger times. The long-gone years of service. Sometimes they were just closer then the others. He was not thinking straight, he deduced, only after he had assumed his posture, which was, of course, a bad thing, seeing that he could not change it again without drawing to much attention to it. Maybe the marks in his face would serve as a distraction... they were a strange thing anyhow.

And then of course... the events. The interrogation as one could call it. Tell me and let me prick apart. A dangerous game if played with skilled opponents. And he was quite sure that his opposite was such a person. One did not let a fragile woman into a room such as this if she were not a wolf in (rather pretty) sheep's clothing. He would have to take his time. To think through what he had to say. Luckily... he had all the time of the world at his disposal. He pierced the veil of time again. With his mind, his eyes. Take what you need. As his body became a stone statue, he himself went back to the place, where his still-fresh memories were being slowly tarnished by others, overlapping. But as of now he still was lucky enough to know most of it. And tell, if she so wanted. “My name is Martin Stein.” Again that accent coming from somewhere European. “I was working, when I heard the sound of breaking glass. I naturally did not know what had transpired, so I went to see whether anyone was in need of assistance.” So far the first bit. “The houses window had been broken. A TV too. It lay somewhat off the TV stand, closer to the window then it could have traveled alone.” Uneccesary details were always useful. They might distract from what was really important. “Before you ask: I did not see the intruder at this point, but I heard something in the house. There were others there, who chased after him. I realized that he would come back out front to where the street was. And then... I blacked out.” Why he did not really know. Maybe one of the young fellows was one of those people that made his head explode when he got too close.

After all: He had met one like them before. “Next thing I knew you were there and the small one accused us of being the perpetrators of the crime. Is this a sufficient recount of the events?” He still stood. Looking. Slightly sad.