again?”
“No.”
In the observation room Gingiri said, “I think she wants to be mythic.”
The Carousel: “Why?”
“She wants to resonate.”
“What does that mean?”
“No one ever killed that many people to be forgotten. To find her follow the wetness.”
The Carousel was always impressed by how six twelve year-old girls measured-up to the role of superheroes. They were probably too young to get in their own way. If children actually had superpowers instead of playing superpowers, they’d probably do the best job at it.
24
T he Carousel went over the BPD database. The Man Mafia clones numbered thirteen. Six of them were in law enforcement custody, two on death row. That left five on the loose. He ran a comparison app with the hacking window into the OSD database, extracted 2GB before OSD anti-hackware closed the window. He reviewed: Mafia 4 took over for Mafia 3 in running the Customizers.
Mafia 4’s enforcer was Mafia 9. “The psycho one.” Note made: the Man Mafia clones were varied aspects of the source cloned, Vincent Gama. A psyche with expansive madness.
BPD database: Married with 4 kids, Mafia 4 kept a Mafia-style
gumare
, a kept woman named Tori Lynn Electra. He’d bought her a beach house.
The Carousel determined the target: Mafia 4.
The Carousel turned the carousel, checked the racks.
Blue Boss: dark.
Martian Justice: dark.
Wild
War Action
with WW2 superhero Sgt. Circus.
Amazing
Pirate Action
with 18 th Century pirate superhero Captain Argosy.
Rugged Guy Action
with Avenger Scout.
Hardcore Action
with the superhero team of Pound & Flesh, the bionic ghosts of two murdered homicide cops in futuristic crime-ridden apocalyptic 1980s Los Angeles.
Turning the carousel tweaked fragments of lost pre-2000 memory. The KM brand comic books Milo Spector had collected in his tin milk box as a kid. Peeking at the dashboards of the Space Age autos parked along his walk to the corner drug store. Add a dime for green Martian bubble gum.
He decided to pick the one with the least firepower he might need later.
That determined the tactic: deception.
He pulled
Rugged Guy Action
.
Tori Lynn Electra was face down and moaning louder than the Playboy Channel. Between her spread legs and bouncing peach spike heels, below his hairy paunch, Mafia 4 was pumping his stud muscle into her. Her two white toy dogs were on the bed watching.
Mafia 4 stopped, stared at the intruder in her bedroom.
He said, “There’s an intruder watching.”
“What?” She looked.
The intruder was gone.
Mafia 4 put on a robe, went out to the living room of the large beachfront house, the doggies at his three hundred dollar slippers. Below his white crest of hair was now a pair of Ray-Bans. The Ray-Bans turned to the costumed intruder standing there. It looked like a teenage boy in a Boy Scout uniform. The boy: cap, kerchief, green tights under khaki shorts, brown high topped shoes with motorized roller skate wheels.
The Ray-Bans took in the intruder, the frown behind them wondering the intruder’s role in his world. “You work for me? You delivering something?”
The intruder folded his thin arms, said, “I am Avenger Scout. I’m with Junior AXIS.”
“Huh? What are you, some kind of fucking Boy Scout?”
“I am the last of the Lost Scouts of the lost city of Utopia.”
“No problem,” Mafia 4 replied.
Mafia 4 opened a briefcase, took out a cell phone.
He said, “I’m going to have three guys fuck you then cut off your dick and make you suck it.”
Avenger Scout said, “Watch your language, mister; and focus on the possible.”
“That fucking so? Are you bulletproof?”
“No, but bullets never hit me,” Avenger Scout said. “I came to blow secrets sky-high. I am here about one of your clones. You have been wronged and made a pathetic fool laughed at behind your back. By the pledge of the Lost Scouts I hereby avenge you.”
Mafia 4 looked down at the two doggies seated at his feet staking him out
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