Chapter 4 (Rewrite): The Diamond District
It took nearly three-quarters of an hour for Tiffany to peel off her cocktail dress, climb back into her Titania gear back on, and pull her too-long auburn hair back into something she could legitimately wear as an investigative professional at a crime-scene. Showing up in her old gear would be bad enough, she knew, but if she did it with her hair done up from the baby shower, she’d never hear the end of it from Casey fucking Walcott.
By the time she got to the Diamond Exchange, the hour had grown truly late. She looked down at the clock on her dashboard. Two-fifteen a.m. Unfortunately, the Diamond Exchange still hopped with activity.
So much for my day off, she thought wryly.
Manhattan’s Diamond Exchange wasn’t just a single building, it was a tiny neighborhood located on Midtown’s east side. Also called the “Diamond District”, it had once served as the nation’s primary import/export jewelry exchange and wholesalers’ market. Some of that still occurred, but nowadays the District survived more on its reputation than on its real-world relevance to the precious stones trade. In some ways, though, that made the place an even flashier target, especially in an era of Internet sales and just-in-time delivery. High end tourists came here to experience buying truly outrageous jewelry first-hand.
As Tiffany drove up, she could see that the Siberian Tiger and Gun Girl Gracie had made a mess of the entire area, hitting a half-dozen glass-windowed storefronts on both sides of the street up and down that one block. They’d torn through protective metal grating like so much gossamer and then leveled whatever security had tried to intervene. The resultant mess looked as though a series of grenades had gone off in rapid succession, throwing glass, blood, and even some people out onto the sidewalks. In response, the City’s police department, the FBI, and the New York National Guard’s new Enhanced Forces Division had all converged, turning this two-block stretch into a constellation of flashing lights and crime scene tape. Seeing this made Tiffany feel like some amateur astronomer spotting an unwelcome star cluster in a sky she’d hoped would stay clear and dark.
The Enhanced Forces Division hadn’t been called the “EFD” back when Tiffany had been part of that life. Back then, they’d just been the Diogenes Society, and they’d have all laughed at the idea of Federal oversight. But that had been a very different time. They’d had Oberon, for one thing, and Oberon hadn’t liked taking orders. More to the point, no one could make Oberon do anything he didn’t want to do.
Tiffany sighed but pushed those thoughts away. Thinking about it would only make her sad, and no force on Earth could put things back the way they’d once been.
From where she parked, she could see at least a dozen cop cars clustered in and around the District, completely blocking traffic across Fifth Avenue. The area looked like some kind of midnight street circus laid out exclusively for law enforcement professionals. A massive olive drab command tent dominated the scene, becoming the circus' big top while smaller canopies offered lesser attractions around the edges. The big top would hold the command center while the outer tents might house forensics, ballistics, site photography, crowd control, and a host of other services. Seemingly every agency under the Federal umbrella had found an excuse to shoehorn its way onto this particular scene.
Though the investigation would unleash holy Hell on early-morning commuters, for now, Tiffany didn’t see as many onlookers as she saw NYPD beat cops standing around drinking coffee and soaking up as much easy overtime as their departments would allow. But while most of the uniformed officers loitered aimlessly outside the barricade, ostensibly doing crowd control, inside Tiffany noted a completely different vibe. Whole masses of techs scurried everywhere, busily analyzing, taking pictures, taking notes, and documenting the scene down to the minutest detail. These all wore the Bureau’s trademark blue windbreakers with “FBI” stenciled onto their backs in big yellow letters. They came and went like ants circling the command center’s central hive. Tiffany knew all too well that she’d find Casey Walcott inside that central tent.
She felt a low, unformed dread just thinking about it. She remembered Walcott’s face and the feel of his hands on her skin. His gravelly voice and the way he always needed to take control.
She shook her head. God. What is wrong with me tonight?
Thankfully, a pair of young men diverted her attention before she had time to fully consider the coming confrontation. They stood outside the command tent, wearing standard Army Combat Uniforms and clearly waiting for something. The first stood at least six-foot-three and looked like he could’ve played linebacker in the National Football League. He had fair skin, a strong, lantern-shaped jaw, and a light blonde crew cut alongside surprisingly soft, azure blue eyes. The nametape across his chest read “Winters”, and he wore a single black bar stenciled onto a green band that looped through the central buttonhole at his mid-chest. This marked him as a first lieutenant in a leadership role.
Lieutenant Winters, then. She’d spoken to him on the telephone.
Winters’s partner was black, not quite as tall, and more athletic than muscle-bound. Tiffany guessed that he could have run ten miles without undue strain. It looked like he’d shaved his head, too, though that was hard to tell beneath his uniform cap. The black man wore a gold second lieutenant’s bar, his eyes looked older than Winters’, and his expression was both sterner and far more impassive.
Both men were so young that they made Tiffany feel positively ancient. She would have guessed that neither Winters nor his partner had yet passed twenty-five. That made her at least ten years their senior.
A lot had happened in those ten years.
Tiffany suddenly felt self-conscious. Lacking the patience to put on a full-on pants-suit back at her apartment, she’d instead thrown her old Diogenes Society gear back on because she’d still had it out after the raid. But this put her into kevlar-lined black leather matched with the titanium bracers that ran all the way up her forearms. She’d always liked the look because of the way it complimented her golden‑brown skin and dark brown eyes, but in this case, it also made her stand out. Everyone she could see wore some kind of simple, government-issue uniform. By contrast, Tiffany felt like a relic from a bygone age.
There was nothing for it, she knew. She climbed slowly out of her car, hung her badge around her neck, and headed inevitably towards the crime scene. A couple of beat cops stared, but she ignored them and instead went straight for Winters and his partner. They at least might see her as something other than a freak circus attraction. When she got to the crime tape barricade, she even made a point of using her powers to glide over the barricade rather than just ducking underneath.
Winters noticed her immediately, and she felt a moment’s satisfaction watching his mouth drop open in surprise. But then Tiffany’s own mouth nearly dropped open as well. She recognized him, too, and not just because she’d spoken to him on the phone.
Of course you do, Tiff. He’s Blaine Winters. He gave you his name when he called. You’ve seen his picture in the papers a hundred times. The scion of royalty. He’s the son of Scott Winters, the Centurion, and Emma Jean Winters, the Ice Queen. Dude’s the uncrowned prince of the entire ultrahuman community.
The government had gotten a real coup when Winters had voluntarily joined the EFD after college ROTC instead of going the celebrity route. His cooperation had proven that the government wasn’t just trying to control ultrahumans, that Uncle Sam was also willing to sponsor their efforts if those same folks were willing to work within the Federal system. After the heavy-handed way the government had forced the Diogenes Society’s nationalization -- what with Oberon leaving, the Owl going to prison, and a whole lot more hard feelings besides -- Winters’ voluntary recruitment, and the tacit familial approval it implied, had done a lot to keep the peace. Other ultrahumans had fallen in line, making the EFD’s ROTC detachment an actual pipeline for this new national force.
And now here he was. Like Tiffany, he’d become just another attraction at some midnight crime scene circus.
“Titania?” Winters asked. “What in the world are you doing here? I thought you’d retired.”
“You called me at home,” Tiffany replied. “Don’t you remember? I’m Special Agent Tiffany Trujillo, here because you seem to think I’m some expert on Dr. Necropolis.”
“But--”
“I’m assigned to the New Haven field office. But I figured that if we’re here talking about Dr. Necropolis, I might as well wear the old uniform. I take it that your friend here is the new Kid Zulu?”
“It’s just ‘Zulu’ now,” Winter’s partner replied. He had a formal African accent, the kind a person got from learning English in a one-time Colonial school run by British expats. “I have never understood why Dr. Mbeke allowed people to refer to him as ‘Kid’. In any event, I myself am Lieutenant Jacob Aboyie from the South African Army, here on permanent loan to the United States as part of the Enhanced Forces initiative. But you, of course, may call me Zulu. Everyone else does.”
“But...” Blaine said, “I don’t understand. How come you’re not a part of the EFD?”
“Just lucky, I guess,” Tiffany replied. “Oberon always… objected… to the idea of us joining the Army. Didn’t want to do anything with the government at all, really. And it’s not like they could force him. He used to wear those crazy Hawaiian shirts just to make the point that he wasn’t gonna be who or what you expected, and there was nobody on Earth who could make him do anything different.” Tiffany shrugged. “When he left, though, my protection more-or-less went with him.
“But people knew, right? I mean, Oberon and Titania. People knew we’d been a thing. So the Feds came up with this as a compromise. I’m not the only one. Leapfrog and Butterfly are both down in the DC office.”
Zulu’s face remained stony, but Winters looked decidedly confused. Tiffany wondered if she hadn’t just overwhelmed the kid with all that ancient history.
In a way, Winters reminded her a lot of Oberon. He was a big guy and both rich enough and powerful enough to be whoever the hell he wanted. No one could tell him what to do. But Winters apparently wanted to be a soldier. He could dress exactly the way he wished, and yet he chose to wear the uniform.
Tiffany didn’t know what to make of that.
“What’s your story, Zulu?” Tiffany asked. “How does a kid from South Africa wind up in the EFD?”
“We are not so different, I suspect,” he said, voice cool. “My government is… less comfortable with ultrahumans than they could be. Easier to send me here and to perhaps garner some good will with the Americans than to let me run loose at home, potentially stirring up trouble.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Tiffany said.
“It’s okay,” Zulu replied. “Truthfully, I’d rather be where I’m wanted and where there are others of my own kind.”
“Yeah,” Tiffany agreed. “I get that.” She looked over at Winters. “Alright kid, you got me here. Are we doing this or what?”
Winters looked suddenly abashed, and Tiffany wondered if she’d somehow hurt his feelings. He said, “Sorry about that, Titania. It’s just that SAC Walcott--”
Tiffany cut him off. “Please, Winters, call me Tiffany. The old days are gone. We’re all just people now.”
“Yeah, sorry, ma’am. It’s just--”
“It’s fine,” Tiffany said. The kid looked like a hurt puppy. “I know it wasn’t your fault.”
Winters shook it off and visibly forced himself to stand a little straighter. Tiffany didn’t think it was anything she’d said. Rather, he seemed to come to some kind of decision within himself. He stuck his hand out to her.
“Please, call me Blaine.”
They shook. “Tiffany,” she said in return.
Blaine followed her into the command center tent, leaving Zulu standing outside like some kind of ultrahuman security guard. Tiffany didn’t know what to make of that, either, but she had a sneaking suspicion that Zulu had gotten the better of the exchange.
From the outside, the command tent looked like a big top circus tent. Inside, though, it felt stuffy and crowded. Bare electric light bulbs hung low from plastic ceiling rafters that arched up beneath the tent’s central dome. Beneath its apex, clusters of FBI techs sat hunkered over computer screens, all wearing either those same trademark blue FBI windbreakers or once‑sterile blue Tyvek coveralls and booties. Between the computers’ waste heat and all the FBI bodies mashed into such a tight space, the tent’s atmosphere felt oppressively close and hot. The air stank of perspiration and nerves. The buzz of a dozen tensely held conversations overlapped, becoming a roar in Tiffany’s ears.
“I can’t believe you called me out here for this, Blaine,” Tiffany said over her shoulder.
To his credit, the kid didn’t reply.
Special Agent in Charge Casey Walcott stood on the tent’s far side, perhaps fifty feet away, hovering over a tech reviewing surveillance footage. Just seeing him dropped a pit into Tiffany’s stomach. Walcott had gotten noticeably older since she’d last seen him, and he’d let himself get a little paunchy, too. However, his slicked back black hair remained unmistakable, though it now grayed at the temples, as did the cut of his thousand dollar gray suit and his steel-rimmed aviator’s glasses. The set of his mouth turned down, giving him a hard, serious expression that Tiffany had once found intriguing. Now, though, she could see the temper lines that his professional veneer kept hidden. Unbidden, she again remembered the feel of his hands in her hair, his body pressing against hers…
She fought down a shudder. It had been years since she’d seen him, but those old memories still lingered somehow.
Unfortunately, she couldn’t go home until she’d at least talked to the guy.
She turned back to Blaine. “You know what?” she said. “I think you’d probably better wait outside. SAC Walcott and I have some history, and I don’t think you want to get involved with that if you can avoid it.”
“Yes ma’am, er, Tiffany,” he stammered. “I’ll go wait with Zulu.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll come find you afterwards. This is all just some bullshit power play. You’re not gonna miss anything. ”
“If you say so,” he said. He suddenly looked eager to escape.
Great Tiff. Either you just scared that kid, or he thinks you’re a lunatic. Either way, mission accomplished. Now go see The Man and take what’s coming.
Her stomach dropped again at the thought of it, but she forced herself to turn and walk steadily in Casey’s direction. He was so engrossed in whatever he was watching that he didn’t see her coming. That was something, at least.
“Okay, Casey, you got me down here,” she called out as she approached. “What was so insanely urgent that you called me out at two in the fucking morning?”
Casey started and then whipped around, looking first shocked then angry that someone had interrupted him. He mastered it quickly, however, and then looked more appraisingly, taking in the way Tiffany had dressed. His eyebrows rose in brief disapproval, and then his scowl returned in full force.
“Did the circus come to town, Agent Trujillo?” he asked, voice cold.
“Come on, sir. It’s late. I went on a raid today, as you must surely already know.”
“And you couldn’t change clothes afterwards?”
“Gimme a break,” Tiffany snapped. “You’re the one who pitched a big top tent and called out the clown cars. The way you called me down here, I figured you maybe had a hostage situation or some shit, so I came prepared.”
Casey looked at his watch. “Well, it certainly took you long enough. But don’t worry about it. You’re back on the clock now.
“And since you asked, no, I didn’t call you down here just because you used to like to play dress up. I called you because we need some actual information. That’s in short supply just now.”
“And this couldn’t have waited another six hours?”
“Do you think an ultrahuman murder spree is some kind of game, Agent Trujillo?”
“Come on, Casey. I’m not the one who’s playing games.”
Casey looked around and realized that the techs were all staring at them. “Okay, Tiff. You win. Let’s take this outside.”
Tiffany followed Casey outside reluctantly, but she was surprised when they got more than a few yards away from the command tent and he kept on walking. “Where the hell are you going?” she asked.
“What is your problem?” he said, turning to face her. He looked genuinely surprised and more than a little pissed off. “I’m taking you to the crime scene, Tiffany. It’s why I called you. Now are you coming, or would you rather question every goddamned move I make for the rest of the night?”
Tiffany hurried to catch up, boots clacking loudly on the ground.
“Goddamnit, those things are ridiculous,” Casey snapped.
She shrugged. “Dramatic effect. They were the Owl’s idea.”
“Christ, Tiff, grow up. You’re an FBI agent, not some fucking has-been superhero.”
You used to like fucking a superhero, Tiffany thought savagely. It was your wife who had all the objections.
It was no use thinking like that, though. He was what the FBI wanted. He’d gotten promoted because he looked the way they wanted him to look, and he thought the way they wanted him to think. Meanwhile, she still languished in the New Haven Field Office because no one knew quite what to make of her -- or of who she’d once been. It didn’t help that she’d fucked her former partner a few times, breaking up the poor guy’s marriage.
Anger flared just thinking about it, but she’d been so young and so, so alone after Oberon left. She couldn’t feel bad about it, even after all this time. He’d been the senior officer, and he’d let it happen. He’d been there every bit as much as she had been.
But no one saw it that way, then or now.
Still, at least Tiffany no longer felt nervous. She forced herself to take a breath to get her emotions back under control. “Alright Casey. What do you want to show me?”
He lifted the line of crime scene tape and stepped underneath. Tiffany followed reluctantly and again when he opened the door to one of the Diamond District’s shops. On the floor inside, she saw several chalked outlines where bodies had fallen. She saw just three here, but she knew there were more elsewhere. The bodies themselves had been removed, but even in the dark, Tiffany could see where blood had spilled from the victims’ throats or heads. From there, it spread widely, staining the shop’s tightly-knit white carpeting and leaving behind a sickly, coppery scent she knew far too well.
“What happened?” she asked quietly.
“The Siberian Tiger somehow weaponized a Neural Disruptor,” Casey replied. “At least, that’s what we think happened.” He pointed to the chalked outlines. “He ripped these three open with his claws, but we found ten more bodies scattered around the rest of the district. Not a scratch on the lot of ‘em, but they’re all neurologically unresponsive, and they were all bleeding from the ears when they fell. We’re not sure if they’re braindead, or if their condition might still be reversible somehow. The doctors say that they’ve never seen anything like it.”
“But--”
“That’s why I called you. Because not only is the Siberian Tiger back, he’s also kitted up with some of your buddy Frank McGuinness’s old tech.”
“But Frank would never do something like this,” Tiffany said.
Walcott stared at her like she’d grown a second head. “Are we forgetting about the Federal Reserve Bank? I seem to remember him dropping quite a few bodies back there.”
“Sure, but that wasn’t--”
“Damn it, Tiff. Obviously McGuinness wasn’t here,” Casey said. “We know he’s still in prison. We checked.” But then he reached inside his coat and drew forth a handful of color photographs. “Here, have a look at these.”
Surveillance cameras had caught the Tiger and Gun Girl Gracie multiple times. The Neural Disruptor sat conspicuously above the Tiger’s eyes, a thin gray headband with a large disk at its front. Behind him, Gracie, now either blond or wearing a blond wig, looked older, harder, and somehow harder-used than Tiffany remembered her. Tiffany could see it in the set of the woman’s face even though she’d worn sunglasses to hide her eyes. Still, she remained unmistakable in that outfit. She also carried the same silver-plated pistols she’d used back in the old days.
Tiffany couldn’t help wondering what Frank would make of all of this.
“What do you know about the Neural Disruptor?” Casey asked quietly.
“Not as much as you’re hoping,” Tiffany replied. “Frank McGuinness is, like, a fully functional mad scientist. You do know that, right?”
“But you knew him? You worked his case?”
Tiffany shook her head and looked away. She did not want to get into this with Casey Wolcott.
“Tiff?” Casey pressed.
She sighed and hugged her arms close to her chest. But he would never just let it go; she knew that. “Yeah. I knew him,” she said at last. “But I didn’t work his case. Not the way you’re thinking. This was back in the old days, Casey. The Diogenes Society, we didn’t work cases like that. He and Oberon and I… it was complicated.”
“Because you knew him from before?”
Tiffany turned away, feeling as sad as she’d felt in a good long time. She stared out the shop’s front window, saw the many floodlights standing on tripods all across the street and all the techs working furiously to collect evidence beneath them. Somewhere in her memory, an oft-forgotten teenage girl stirred and then shuddered, as if holding her knees to her chest.
“I… had a medical condition,” Tiffany said softly.
She’d been terrified. She’d had a disease that no one understood. Then she’d walked into a white-tiled clinic at Yale University’s New Haven hospital. Dr. Frank McGuinness had run that clinic. He’d just become the youngest department head on the hospital’s staff. He’d started doing some new kind of gene therapy work that very few people understood.
He’d been her only hope.
“And…?” Casey pressed.
* * *
“You’re pregnant,” Frank said. He smiled gently. Tiffany didn’t see any judgment in it. “I take it that you’re the girl we saw on TV a few weeks back? The one this ‘Oberon’ character saved from that burning building?”
Tiffany nodded. “How could you possibly--?”
“I’d thought as much. Thought that Oberon might be an alien, I mean.” Frank cleared his throat. “I, uh… Look, why don’t you sit down.”
Tiffany sat, and Frank pulled his chair up next to hers.
“I’m sorry to have to be the one to tell you this, but… you and Oberon, you can’t be together. He seems like a nice enough boy, but the fact is, his baby is killing you.” Frank put a hand on Tiffany’s shoulder to cushion the blow. “I don’t know that I’d even call it a baby. Not really. It’s behaving more like an alien infestation. Your genotypes aren’t remotely compatible, and the embryonic growth that your mating has produced has, well… It’s rewriting your DNA at a fundamental level. It’s created a fascinating RNA transcriptase mechanism that… But I, uh, I can see that you don’t really care. That’s okay.”
“What does this mean?” Tiffany asked. She felt herself go numb, unable to face it.
“Well, we’ll have to terminate the pregnancy, of course. It was never viable regardless. And… I don’t know that you’ll be able to have children, you know, afterwards. We can run some tests. I don’t want to rule anything out prematurely, but…” He trailed off and shrugged.
“Will I die?” Tiffany asked. Her hands trembled.
“Not if we move quickly. But you’re lucky that you came to see me. We’re in uncharted territory here.”
* * *
Tiffany looked back at Casey and then slowly forced her mind back to the present. “And Dr. McGuinness helped me control it,” she said.
“He gave you your powers, didn’t he?”
“He helped me survive them,” Tiffany admitted. “The powers, I did that to myself.”
Casey looked dubious. “But I thought--”
“How is any of this relevant? It’s ancient history.”
“We need someone to go talk to him,” Casey replied. “I’m sending you.”
“That won’t work.”
“Why not? You have a history with the man. Use it. Get him to open up.”
“Frank McGuinness is not gonna ‘open up’, Casey. Not to me, not to anyone. He’s been inside for ten years and hasn’t said shit. Whatever you’re thinking, it’s not gonna work.”
“Please, Tiff. We need something here. If you have to play on the man’s emotions, then do it. That’s the job.”
But that’s not what’s gonna happen, Tiffany thought. I’m not gonna play on his emotions. He’s gonna play on mine. That’s why he’s Dr. Necropolis, and I’m still just Special Agent Tiffany Trujillo, ex-ultrahuman superhero now stuck in the lowly New Haven Field Office.
Tiffany knew that Casey wouldn’t see it that way, though. She could argue with him all night, but he’d already made his decision.
“Fine,” she said at last. “I’ll do whatever I can. Just don’t expect too much.”
“Just do your best,” Casey replied. “That’s all I’m asking.”
And then, at last, Tiffany was free to go home.
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