AJM: One Match

Jerrold was old and blind, but he knew the smell of an interrogation room.  More specifically, he was an old, blind Jew, and he could smell the gestapo from a mile away.  They didn’t wear the swastika anymore, or the jackboots, but they were the same shmucks, decade after decade.  New names, new uniforms, same bullshit.  The bright light hanging from the ceiling didn’t bother his eyes, but he could feel beads of moisture swell on his forehead and arms.  They’d already let him sweat in there for a bit, and now there was the nice guy with a glass of water.  Same bullshit.  

“How ‘bout a cigarette instead?”  Jerrold laughed, ignoring the way it opened his split lip.  A breeze blew through the gap where his front tooth had been knocked out, and he resisted the urge to scream.  

“Oh, sure I’ve got a cigarette,” the nice guy said with a smile.  You could hear the smile in his voice, a guy like that.  “I’d just have to run over to the observation room and get them out of my briefcase.  I’d be willing to do that for you…If—“

“Yeah, yeah, save it buddy.  You got me, you took out Art and Maxi.  Just get me a smoke, and I’m an open book, alright?”  He leaned forward on the table, staring the nice guy in the face.  That one always creeped them out.  

The door swished and clicked, and a moment later the agent returned, accompanied by another set of footsteps.

“God damn, I hope that’s the Marlboro man I hear with you,” Jerrold laughed, rapping a knuckle on the desk.

“Yeah that’s me,” another voice responded.  This guy wasn’t a nice guy.  But he tossed a pack on the table, and Jerrold grinned at the sound of cellophane and cardboard sliding across the wood laminate.

“Good man.”  He pulled a cigarette out of the pack, sniffed it like a fine cigar.  “Lovely.  Is a lighter too much to ask?”

“You still haven’t given us anything, have you?”  The Marlboro Man replied.

“Oh you dirty—Okay, what do you want to know?”

“Were you involved in the attacks on the Dar-Tech facility in Los Abismo?”

“Oh, that?  Of course!  Hah!  That’s your question?”

“To what extent?”

“Fully!  Art and Maxi couldn’t do shit without me.  He was all muscle and she was all heart.  I was the key.”  His eyes and tone went distant for a moment, his fingers idly rolling the cigarette back and forth.

“The key?”  

His lips pulled back in a swollen, cracked grin.  “You betcha.  I unlock the potential in people.  That’s my gift.”

“You create the Gifted?”  The Marlboro Man’s composure cracked for just a moment, and Jerrold grinned at the sound.

“If they have the potential, I unlock it.  I don’t make people special, I just let the special out.”

“Or the monsters.”

“Have I earned a light, yet?”  He puffed on the butt , staining the paper red.  “Not a Pyrokinetic.”

“That classification is outdated and inaccurate,” Marlboro replied, accompanied by the soft clatter of a book of matches tumbling across the table.  “The latin doesn’t even work out.”

“Hah,” Jerrold coughed, snatching the little cardboard booklet.  “I’ve unlocked some pyros that would disagree.”  

“So what’s next for the Metahuman Agenda?”

“Couldn’t tell ya.  You bastards took out Art and Maxi, so I’m done.  With the game, with this world.”  He shrugged, ripping a match loose.

“And why come to our doorstep?”

“Well, with hospitality like this, who wouldn’t?”  He waved vaguely at the state of his face.  “These are the jokes, kids.   No, I came to your doorstep to teach you the difference between intelligence and wisdom.”

“Oh?”  Irritation, curiosity, amusement.  Jerrold heard ‘em, hiding behind the wall of authority.

“You guys, you hunted down Art because he tore your agents limb from limb and made a big scene.  Maxi, she always saw a way to keep us one step ahead of you.   Those are smart moves.  Real smart.  An old guy like me, hasn’t made himself well known or highly visible, he walks right up to your door, and you bring him in for interrogation.  Now, a wise man would’ve put me down with a sniper rifle from a mile away, ages ago.”

“And why’s that?”

Jerrold smiled serenely, leaned back in his chair, and spat out the unlit cigarette.  “Because I can unlock the hidden potential, and I quit smoking a decade ago.”

The match struck against his thumb, and the East Coast Headquarters of Dar-Tech Industries was erased from the map in a blaze of white.