Bloodstains by Moonlight

by T. Mike McCurley

Many years ago I swore I'd never kill a man. I was wrong. The proof of my failure to uphold that oath lay sprawled at my feet, head split like a shattered egg.

Never mind the fact that I had been duped into believing this poor bastard was another genebooster. Never mind the fact that he was carrying enough dope to poison a hundred kids. Never mind the fact that he was dumb enough to dress in a flashy outfit, like most of the boosters do.

None of that mattered. The final and most important fact was that he was dead. Dead by my hands, and nobody, norm or booster, was going to bring him back to life. I felt like puking as I looked down on him there on the pavement, leaking his brains across my gleaming boot. I had to swallow twice to keep down the cheeseburger I had eaten at eleven.

They tell you to do "right," uphold the law, and protect the innocent. They say if you do all this then you will be a hero.

Nobody tells you what to do when you're a killer.

The note had been a simple one, assembled from the ubiquitous newspaper clippings and glued to a single sheet of copier paper. There were no obvious identifying marks to tell its origin, and the envelope was a cheap one, not even the secure variety with the little patterns inside to keep out prying eyes. I hadn't even given it a moment's thought when I tore it open and slipped out the folded paper inside. It was the same anonymous source who had fed me information like this for over a year. Why would I bother checking into it further?

"Midnight meeting between Doctor Viral and the MeltaMan," read the note. "Fifth and Irvine in the vacant lot."

I licked my lips at the thought. Doctor Viral, the pharmaceutical genius suspected of supplying half the West Side with designer drugs and infecting fully a quarter of the police force with a tailored virus that left them weak as kittens for over a week. With the Blue Crew out of the picture, it was up to local geneboosters to keep the crime rate down. We were all sick of it. Hellfire had thrown up his hands in frustration after the second day and simply left. No one knew where he went.

Well, if I could get hold of Doctor Viral tonight, at least that would make a difference. Besides, I'd be back to fighting boosters, and that's what I do best. When you can crush bricks to powder with your bare hands, taking on a purse-snatcher is kind of risky.

The MeltaMan would be a challenge, with his fire bolts and flight capability. But immunity to disease is just a happy side-effect of life as a booster, so Doctor Viral would be no big deal. I mean, hell, if I can punch through a tank, a couple of love taps should put him down.

So I dragged a set of sweats on over my suit and went out on the town, determined to do something right. Stopped off at the local Burger Heaven for a quick bite and headed for Fifth and Irvine. The vacant lot mentioned in the note was a sickly thing, composed mostly of a cracked asphalt space. Weeds had grown through the cracks and given the entire thing a greenish hue; an effect multiplied by the blue-white glare of a streetlight that illuminated the area from a nearby corner. I found a good spot up on top of the library where I could wait and watch, stripped off the sweats, and went to work on the rest of my fries. I wasn't there long where the MeltaMan made his entry.

He flew in, as usual, with little regard for anyone who might be watching. Flames shooting out behind him for a dozen feet, tracing orange lines in the sky to track his progress. I saw him when he was almost a mile away. I was still working on my soda when he touched down. I set the cup to the side and squatted in place, watching for another minute as I readied myself.

Without a word, I pushed off with my feet in a prodigious leap, launching myself into the night sky above him as he paced back and forth, puffing on a cigarette. The pressure from the jump held me for a moment until I reached the perigee of the leap, then the half-sickening feeling of freefall took over. I felt the air rush past my face as I fell from some hundred feet in the air.

A fraction more than two seconds later, I slammed into his shoulders with my feet, driving him to the cracked pavement below me. Before he could even acknowledge I was there, I had opened up on him. Fists surrounded by glowing swirls of energy, I hammered his back and head for all I was worth. I knew I had to put him out of the fight before he could recover from the initial impact. The pavement shattered and groaned beneath the furious onslaught.

A moment later and he was out. I stopped swinging and fought to control my breathing and heart rate. Unconscious he might be, but at some point he would awaken. It would be best to have completed the hunt for Doctor Viral by then. I could turn them both over to the authorities for secure transport to Base Alpha. I was pleased with how well the fight with the MeltaMan had gone, and with how quickly he had succumbed to my attack. If he went that easily, surely Doctor Viral could pose no greater threat.

I dragged the MeltaMan into an alley between two battered brownstones, binding his feet and hands together. Any attempt to use his flame powers would prove a difficult task, as the bindings directed his palms at the soles of his feet and vice versa. I used pieces of a wrought-iron fence for the bindings. Past experience had shown the MeltaMan to be a bit limited in the strength category, and I hoped that the fence would be tough enough to hold up against him.

It was a full eight minutes later when the car pulled up and He stepped out, dressed in his trademark white lab coat and surgical scrubs; hospital-green mask concealing most of his face. A briefcase filled one hand and his black bag filled the other. Doctor Viral had been known to carry biological toxins of all kinds in that bag, and I was not about to let him have the chance to unleash them on the locals as we battled. It was far easier to take the war to him.

Once more I powered myself into the air in a leap, arrowing my figure toward him from above. Over the years since my change, I've noticed this tactic works extremely well. Nobody ever bothers to look above them. I take advantage of that fact and my fights are notorious for their short lives. This one would be no different, I thought as the air whistled past my ears.

But it was.

Many years ago, I swore I would never kill a man. That was before Doctor Viral saw fit to put a local teen dealer in his costume and send him out to handle a meet with the MeltaMan. Before I failed to identify my target. Before I drove my powered fist through a kid's head. Before I realized who had authored my information for the past year.

That was before I knew what despair was.

The End