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Mutant Man by Benjamin Hampton


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I'm blindly by the light in the hall, and I squint and turn away.
"Jesus," says Jimmy, and I guess this means that I'm in worse shape then I thought. Soon I turn, the light still extremely bright, and I look at my stereotypical white lab coat and see that it is stained red by my own blood. I think I might throw up.
Jimmy looks at me and then steps forward and kneels in front of me, surveying my wounds first and then the handcuffs at my wrist. "Do you have a key?" he asks me.
If I had the key would I be sitting here bleeding to death? replies my automatic sarcasm, but my mouth says: "No."
Now Jimmy looks more nervous than he did before, and a frown appears on his face. "Well then..." he mutters before taking out his (supposedly) police only Glock in a flash and fires it at the chain of the cuffs. It's blasted away, and I can feel the muscles in my lower right arm easing up. Before I can react anymore my very blood arm is set free, and I thank him and stand, feeling sorer than I ever had in my life. "C'mon Mr. Burke. We need to get you to the ER pronto."
"Can't," I respond quickly, and even I can't believe what I'm hearing. "We gotta get this guy."
"But you need—"
"Do you realize what the implications are if this man gets free and goes to the media? We're all going to federal prison if he does; every last one of us. Even you," I say, "and you look like you should be on the high school basketball team," I turn back to Jimmy. "We need to find him and kill him. He's beyond our control now."
A wave of realization goes across Jimmy's face as he discovers what I have. "But if he broke out with the Controllers on, how can we have a prayer of stopping him when he is loose?"
"He only used a gun on me, and he let me live," I say. "I think he's afraid of the... abilities he has, and even more so I think he's afraid of himself."
"Either way, how can we find him? He set fire to all of the security cameras."
"I didn't know he had that kind of stamina... especially after using enough energy to break out of the Controllers."
"He's like a King Kong that's been unleashed."
"Even King Kong got shot down," says the guy who I don't recognize, and as Jimmy and I both turn to him he writhes up and tries to hide behind his own shadow.
"He's right," I say. "We can definitely stop him."
But I'm trying to convince myself, and both of them see that.
"Mr. Burke," says Jimmy. "You got an hour, and then I'm going to have to force you to go to the ER."
"Alright."
Of course we don't find him, and we never will. I go to my sleeping quarters that night, knowing that it will probably be my last as a free man, if I can call this place free. I'll never be released; what we did to that man was so volatile and inhumane there is no way anyone could forgive us, especially not a jury.
I take out my Glock, put it up to my head, and pull the trigger.
You win mutant man.



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