restaurant pseudonym. And then there’s the matter of Fox Mulder’s obsession with the paranormal. Danbury isn’t just obsessed with superhumans, but in actuality, he is a superhuman, which makes his insight on the subject all the more spot-on, especially when it comes to finding and sorting out mutants. After you take this into consideration, there really isn’t any comparison.
About Danbury’s super powers. When I said he had a heightened senses, I wasn’t boasting. However, among his NSA cohorts, Danbury’s talents are surprisingly unknown. Strange that an intelligence agency could miss something so blatant, but it wouldn’t be the first time the NSA missed something. When the NSA first tested Danbury, they simply concluded that Danbury had a profound or acute level of sight and hearing, end of story. No further testing. In the meantime, Danbury was sitting there with all those monitoring devises strapped to his chest and arms and the whole time he was monitoring them. He was listening to their hearts beat and blood circulate and predicting to the very day when each of their hearts would give out, like he was Rain Man counting cards in the casino.
So, when Danbury was assigned to this strange new organization, which turned out wasn’t new at all but in fact simply dormant, he stopped at nothing to prosper. Shortly after his arrival, most of his brethren, who considered the organization to be a wash, and the assignment itself an insult, requested reassignments after a year. By default, Danbury, whose enthusiasm about the Organization never wavered, had seniority and eventually assumed the position of head of the Organization. And what once was a sleepy office in the back of some government building soon became a thriving fortress relocated to a remote unknown location. The wind of change came when Danbury turned a lot of higher-ups’ heads at a series of top-secret promotional campaigns consisting of expensive dinners, escorts and a video presentation, starring yours truly. Unbeknownst to me, of all people, the Mindwriter, Danbury had installed cameras in various places throughout that tired old town, namely, the pub, where I did a considerable amount of mindwriting. He also had me in action at various places like the DMV, where I exchanged pink slips with some Good Samaritan, who wanted to trade his shiny new Lexus for my vintage Suburu. There were other superhumans in these films, but I was the prize. The higher-ups nearly creamed their jeans as their heads filled and refilled with all sorts of evil applications for my talent. Danbury told the horde of white-haired men in suits and military garb, with a simple redistribution of funding, he could bring all their dreams to fruition. I’m not sure how I felt about being a bunch of white-haired men’s fantasy. My initial reaction was nausea. Then, I thought to myself, as I was walking along that deserted street, save for me and Danbury, who walked with me stride for stride across the street, why the hell not me?
Then, out of nowhere, a different man, this guy was straight out of a film noir detective movie, bowler hat and all, suddenly appeared in front of me. “Hey, Bub?” he asked, all Bogey-esque.
“What?” I replied. I looked over at Danbury, who was crossing over. I did a quick survey of this film noir fellow’s mind but got nothing. Usually, that meant I was dealing with a profoundly moronic simpleton, who were, for the most part, a lot harder than you would think to manipulate. Then, somehow, there was a block. At the time, I didn’t even think something like that was possible. Nobody blocks the Mindwriter!
In fact, up until this point in my life, I had devoted a large portion of time and energy to the elusive concept known as limitation. I mean, a man with no limitations, which is what I’d been thus far in life, at least as far as mindwriting goes, was sometimes a dizzying realization, to actually approach the idea of being infinitely powerful.
That’s when I noticed a third man, a short, stocky one in a suit, standing behind me with his hand gripping my wrist like a vice. I tried to pull my hand away, and yelled, with all the ferocity of a toy poodle, I’m sure, “What the hell are you doing?”
Then, as soon as I looked back at the film noir fellow, who had removed his suit coat and was rolling up his sleeves, he just clocked me one right across the jaw.
Now, I know I talk a good game, Oprah, but physically, I’m not exactly the most imposing person, as you can probably put together by the toy poodle comment. So, anyway, when I opened my eyes, I was cheek to cheek with the cold cement sidewalk and for all intent and purpose down for the count.
“Kevin Sarcy?” I heard Danbury ask as he stood over me.
I was waiting for the world to stop spinning.
I try not to dwell on things, even while I’m getting my ass handed to me. And this was no exception. However, as I was lying there, my face writhing in pain, I couldn’t help but consider how much bad karma I must have built up. I mean, I must have had bad karma the size of a damn piano dangling over my head, anxious as hell to squash me like a grape, and set the natural balance of things right, for all the things I’d done. But what was I supposed to do? If you were born with the ability to read and write and rewrite people’s minds, what would you do, Oprah? Oh yeah. I forgot. Some people don’t need to mindwrite. They just rewrite minds from their television studios. I can’t blame you for that. Some people are like warm, wet clay, practically begging you to shape and reshape them. If they weren’t, then why would they let me do it in the first place?
Is it my fault, in my life, whenever I was at the pub, and I was strapped for cash, a random stranger would stop whatever they were doing and make a bee line to the nearest ATM and float me a c-note? Or my landlord, who was far too obsessed with old reruns of I Love Lucy, enough that his wife was forcing him to sleep on the couch since he called her Lucy while they were making love, to ever remember to ask me for my rent? And yes, to answer your question, this mindwriting stuff can be pretty damn fun. But when you’re getting your ass handed to you, that’s the time you wish you had the power to mess people up instead of just messing up their minds.
“He’s talking to you, you son of a bitch!” the film noir fellow said, as he was standing with his fists fluttering about like an old-timey boxer, anxious to work me over some more. “Answer him!”
“Shit!” I yelled, looking up at the streetlights and lifeless buildings all around us, as if to ask them for some sort of assistance. I couldn’t very well make these buildings do my bidding. Not like I had done plenty of times with innocent bystanders, when things got a little hot in the pub and I offended some girl, or worse yet, some girl’s boyfriend. Luckily, in such a case, there was always some Good Samaritan willing to drop blood on my behalf.
“Kevin Sarcy?” Danbury repeated.
“Yes,” I said, shielding my face from the film noir fellow, whose mind I still hadn't cracked. “You know I am.”
"If you're trying to read his mind, I'm afraid you're barking up the wrong tree, Mindwriter," Danbury said.
I glanced up at the film noir fellow, who was unrolling his sleeves and donning his jacket.
"That's Stanley Falkirk, the finest agent and pugilist money can buy. Or synthesize."
"Synthesize?"
"Yes, I figured this assignment would be just perfect for him, given you can't very well read or rewrite his mind if he hasn't got one."
“A robot?”
“Precisely.”
I glanced over at the other agent, the one who had latched onto me like a leech, but now stood before me. Again, I couldn't penetrate his mind. "Another robot?"
"Not exactly," Danbury said. "This is Don Clement. Clement is like us. He is a mutant."
"Really?"
"You didn't think you were the only one, did you?"
"I don't know."
I couldn't believe it, Oprah. Up until that moment, that’s exactly what I thought. I didn’t have a clue there were more of us. And until that moment, I had no idea there was a better use for my abilities. Sure, I was gradually upping the ante on the things I was willing to do, which never amounted to a mindwrite here and there for a bit of cash or whatnot. I didn’t have even an inkling of the literally endless applications for my power. Danbury did. And I co
uld see them all in his mind. And I loved every bit of it. Unfortunately for Danbury, as soon as I read his mind, I didn't really have much use for him.
"I've always had a knack for finding things," Danbury said. "Call it a gift or a curse. Well, Clement, here, he was one needle in a haystack. Not because of his diminutive size, which doesn't hurt, but because he wasn't about to let me find him. That's sort of his thing. He doesn't like to let a superhuman be a superhuman. Clement is a serious party-pooper when it comes to super powers. He stops powers dead in their tracks. That's what he does."
I glanced over at Clement, and besides a slight sign of embarrassment, as he listened to Danbury out him, there was very little sign of life in him.
"It doesn't sound like much, but Clement has proved to be a perfect addition to any outing, really." Danbury approached and helped me up. "So what about you, Mindwriter?"
"Why do you keep calling me that?"
"That's what you do, isn't it?"
"Well. Yeah."
"The first thing you need to learn about your super power is to embrace it. It's as much a part of you as your brown eyes or black hair. But even more so. It is you. You are the Mindwriter. The one and only."
I thought about it. I had to admit. The name did fit, almost more so than Kevin Sarcy. I have to hand it to