The War on Wishes
Norfolk, Virginia
Dylan Smack held the capsule with the pale blue light between his thumb and forefinger, and brought it up level with his wide eyes. "Whoa," he whispered. "What is this, homes?" Then remembering that his guys were watching, he became sterner. He shrugged, and said, "XLR8R? Firewater? Frost? Blanks? Evo? Why should I push this instead of Vig?"
The man clad in grey plate armor and dressed in blue leaned forward, his mask only revealing his smile, but they would have known he was smiling from the glee in his voice. "Because this is Wish! You'll be able to charge more for each hit, and your customers will pay it... guaranteed."
Rolling the pill between his fingers, the light flickered inside. Watching it play across the walls of the dark, nearly empty warehouse, Dylan said, "Legit? Just how addictive is it?"
Standing up straight again, the man said, "Oh, it's not ...at all. But I promise you that once your customers get a taste, they won't be able to stay away. They will come back for more. And you won't have to solicit anyone after the first few. When others see what it can do, they'll come to you."
Smack scoffed. "Wack. Who ever heard of a non-addictive drug catching on like that?"
"Maybe you'd like to try it?" asked the masked man with a smirk.
"I'll stick to Vig, man." Dylan flipped the pill back to the man like a coin, and the man caught it in his fist. "You're selling dreams."
Smiling smugly, the man said, "No. I'm selling wishes."
Scoffing again, Dylan said, "You stupid, homes." Snapping a finger at his gang, he said, "Let's go, guys."
"Actual wishes," the man said louder. "In a pill."
Dylan stopped, and turned back slowly.
"How much would you pay for that?" asked the man.
"Bull," challenged the dealer.
"Again- maybe one of you would like to try it," said the man, offering the pill on an outstretched palm.
"Yo, Smack," said one of his boys. "I'll try it. Just if things get stupid, don't let my moms see me until I'm right again."
The two bumped fists, and Dylan said, "A'ight, C-Note."
C-Note strutted back over to the armored man, looked at his inscrutable mask, and swore he saw light dance behind the white eye lenses. Sniffing once, he picked up the pill, looked at it, and said, "How's this work?"
"Just take the pill, and wish for something," the man said, sounding almost threatening.
"Wish for something?" asked C-Note, looking slightly confused. "Wish for what?"
The man pinched his fingertips together next to the pill in C-Note's hand, and flicked them open, pulling his hands outwards in an exploding motion, and whispered, "Anything!" The whisper seemed to echo around the warehouse, making the other gang members look around nervously.
C-Note snorted once. "Anything," he laughed. "A'ight, homes, we'll see." With no ceremony, he popped the pill into his mouth, and swallowed. He felt no different, but he looked at his chest, and watched the blue light shine from inside him, working its way down to his gut. He laughed aloud, and turned towards his homies, all of whom- even Smack- got wide-eyed. "Will you look at this?" declared C-Note. "A'ight! Aight, homes!" he declared, pointing back at the man. "You want a wish?" Turning back to the gang, he nodded, smirked, held his arms wide, and said, "I wish I had twenty million dollars and some bitches to celebrate with!"
His boys started to cheer their approval when a stack of money appeared between them and C-Note, along with ten mutts of varying breeds. The cheering stopped, and the gang jumped backwards before inching forward slightly. "Yo, what the--?" said C-Note. "What's with these fuggin' dogs, dude?"
"You asked for bitches," stated the man. "Bitch: a female dog, wolf, fox, or otter." With a sinister chuckle, he wagged his finger, shrugged, and said, "You could have wound up with wolves, you know." Crossing one arm over his chest, and resting the other elbow on it, he curled a finger against his lip, and said, "The otters might have been cute. Never foxes though. No. Foxes are trouble."
Dylan, having moved no closer to the money and dogs, called out, "Yo. Peeps don't get what they wish for, they gonna start beef."
"Then I suggest you tell them what they should already know: be careful what you wish for," growled the man.
C-Note did a slow walk around the money, and the dogs jumped around him happily.
Dylan looked at the pile of money, and stared at the man for a long minute. Finally, he asked, "How much?"
The man waved his hands, and oil drums of the glowing pills appeared before him. "I'll give you all that you want," he said with a bow.
"Huh," Dylan scoffed. "What's the catch?"
"You have to give away the first hit, and you can't sell anyone more than three," said the man, holding up three fingers for emphasis. "A person only gets three wishes, after all. Remember: you can sell the second and third hits for as much as you like, and they're going to pay."
Dylan narrowed his eyes. "You're pretty sure about this."
"I am."
"Anything else?" Smack asked.
"Just two more things," said the man, holding up a finger. He suddenly disappeared, and reappeared right in front of Dylan, making him flinch. Motioning with his finger for Dylan to lean closer, he leaned to the dealer's ear, and whispered. Then aloud, he said, "And remember: you must tell them this before you sell them the third hit."
Dylan looked shaken, but covered it with a deep breath. "I got one more thing too," he said. "I don't work with no one that I don't know."
"Ah, a wise decision," said the man, sounding pleased. Bowing slightly, he said, "You may call me The Wishing Demon," and a guttural growl seemed to come from the masked man.
Smack hid his fear, but began sweating. "You said you had two more things. What's the other one," he asked, not really wanting to know the answer.
"Oh!" exclaimed the Wishing Demon, suddenly standing bolt upright. He pointed a thumb over his shoulder, and growled, "Make sure you clean up after your bitches before you leave." With that, he disappeared.
The gang looked over towards C-Note and the money, and saw that three of the dogs were peeing on the cash.
"Damn, C-Note! Clean that crap up, and meet us back at the crib!" shouted Dylan.
"Why me?" complained C-Note.
"Because you're the one that wished for dogs, stupid!" Snapping a finger, he ordered, "Everyone else get those barrels on a truck."
"Yo, Smack," called C-Note, petting one of the dogs as it licked his face happily. "What'd he whisper in your ear? What we gotta tell junkies before they buy a third hit?"
Dylan looked at C-Note uncomfortably. Then he told him.
***
Richmond, Virginia- Three Months Later
"What?" Detective Paulette barked angrily.
"Mary, I'm not any happier about it than you are," Captain Swayfer said calmly. "It's a joint investigation now though. Orders from the top."
"Since when does the Secret Service need to get involved in a drug ring?" Mary seethed.
"Since it threatens to destabilize the value of the dollar," came a voice from behind her.
Mary and her partner, Gragg Chaffin, turned to see a tall man in a black suit and tan trench coat, followed closely by a woman in a grey suit. He was bald with a handlebar mustache, and she had short blonde hair.
"Captain," acknowledged the man. "I'm Agent Heironymous with the Secret Service. This is my partner, Agent Crystal Salt."
"This is Detectives Paulette and Chaffin," said the captain. "Now, how is Wish destabilizing the dollar?"
"You get a wish," he said, pointing at Mary. "What do you wish for?"
"For you to get off my case and out of my hair," Mary answered sarcastically.
Heironymous just chuckled. "How about you?" he asked Chaffin.
"Probably to win the lottery," answered Gragg.
Heironymous nodded. "And if that's how buyers state their wish, that's not as much of a problem. Winning the lottery means their answered wish is drawing from real, existing money, and if they don't specify the lotto jackpot, many are finding that they only win a few dollars."
"It's the ones that just wish for a million dollars that are hurting us," continued Agent Salt. "That money's coming out of thin air without the Treasury. Most people can't hold onto that kind of windfall. They spend it, and it's gone."
"Looks like that would ultimately strengthen the economy," said Chaffin.
"It might," acknowledged Heironymous, "but there's that old idea that if you redistributed the world's wealth to everyone equally, after awhile it would wind up back in the hands of those who were rich originally. That's what's happening here, and that money's getting spent on corporate mergers, investments overseas, and such."
"There's also the criminal element, given that this problem is stemming from a drug," said Salt. "Some of that magic money is going into the drug trade, spreading Wish beyond its starting point, not to mention old standbys like cocaine. It's getting to the weapons trade too. It could end up arming terrorists, or even purchasing nuclear materials for countries like Pakistan or North Korea."
"Okay, so you guys are trying to solve a Treasury problem," said Mary. "We're trying to stop bodies from dropping. Wish is killing off nearly everybody who takes it."
"Only after their third hit," said Heironymous. "Dealers have been telling their buyers that when they use the third hit, they lose their souls."
Mary rolled her eyes, and looked to the captain. "Really?"
"You can't really believe that, Agent Heironymous?" asked the captain.
"Do you have another explanation for the dead in this case?" he asked. "The dealers are very careful to give this warning. They seem almost scared not to. Wish is magic in a pill. It's not a hard stretch to imagine it's created by a jinn. Jinns are about enslavement; either the jinn are enslaved to those that make the wishes, or those that make the wishes are enslaved to the jinn. It seems that here, we're dealing with the latter. Instead of souls on a one-by-one basis, the jinn's reach has been multiplied exponentially, taking souls by the hundreds as this drug spreads. It continues to spread, because the word is out that it's non-addictive, and most don't believe that it can actually take their soul."
"We know it started in Norfolk, but like you said, it's spreading," observed Mary. "So where do we start?"
"We start at the beginning," answered Salt. "Norfolk, like you said. We had some info coming in from Death's Head Moth, but he's been silent for about six weeks now."
"Wait a minute," laughed Chaffin. "The super hero guy? That's your informant?"
"He's been the boots on the ground," Crystal answered, "and he has a network that we don't. He was supposed to be bringing in help."
"Help?" repeated Captain Swafer.
"Aw, crap. Really?" complained Paulette. "He's bringing in more of those clowns?"
"Norfolk PD isn't too interested in dealing with the Liberteens," Heironymous said quietly. "We're going to need help."
Chaffin laughed again. "The Liberteens? Really?! We have to deal with the Slang Gang?"
"Who?" Mary asked in a tone that said she really didn't want to know.
"I know them from my days in the Norfolk narcotics unit. The Liberteens operate from an underpass on West Liberty Street. It's part of a parking lot. They have super powers, and they're nicknamed the Slang Gang, because they're all named after a slang term that goes with their powers. Like their leader, Dylan Smack, aka The Pusher. He's telekinetic, aka he can push things with his mind."
Mary groaned.
"Oh, that's just the tip of the iceberg. It gets worse," Chaffin assured her.
"Great," sighed Mary. Then, looking to Heironymous, she said, "The sooner we get to Norfolk, the sooner we get this over with."
"Right," he said. "Captain," he acknowledged as they headed for the door.
"Keep me informed," Swafer called after them.
***
Norfolk, Virginia - Three Days Later - The West Liberty Street Underpass of the Liberteens
Agent Salt and The Crimson Fist stood back-to-back, taking swings at Flipside as he teleported around them. They had landed a few punches, but mostly they were missing.
"This is getting us nowhere!" Crystal shouted in frustration.
"Stay focused," huffed Fist. "We'll get him eventually."
Just then, a wild swing by Salt clipped the teleporter. Flipside fell back into one of his own portals, tumbling out in front of The Crimson Fist, who decked him with another blow.
"Finally," said Fist as he dropped to his knees.
"Amen, brother," sighed Salt as she sank to a sitting position, and leaned against his back. "Where the hell is Death's Head Moth? We haven't seen him yet."
Heironymous was busy with Solid- a hulking juggernaut with a smooth, stone exterior, and super strength. They had been trading blows that were shattering car windows all over the lot, knocking each other on their butts, and destroying cars when they landed on them.
"I can do this all day, grandpa!" taunted Solid.
Heironymous tossed his trench coat aside, and began rolling up a sleeve. "Son, I'm about to show you your limits."
Taking a deep breath, the humanoid dragon let out a stream of fire that caught the rock-bodied teen full in the chest. Solid kept advancing on Heironymous, his torso starting to glow a fiery orange. He slowed some, and as he got within arm's reach, the agent punched him full force in the solar plexus. It sent Solid tumbling, and bits of rock flying off of his body. His body landed hard in the dirt and dug a trench for several yards before he came to a rest, unconscious.
Heironymous picked up his coat and snapped it in the air once to shake off the dirt. Grunting, he said, "Damn. That boy's tough."
Detective Chaffin was mostly getting tagged by the invisible woman they called Fade. Phantom Zero was using all the illusions at his disposal to try to trick her into showing herself.
"Your tricks are useless against me," came a voice that seemed to float on the air.
"Are they?" asked Phantom Zero as he dropped some smoke pellets.
In the smoke, the outline of Fade's body appeared. Gragg smiled as he moved in. "Now we're on an even playing field."
Hot Sistah began glowing red hot, and started to advance on Detective Paulette. "I'm gonna burn you, pig."
Mary gritted her teeth. Realizing that her baton was only going to melt against Hot Sistah's heat, Mary dropped it, pulled her gun, and shot Hot Sistah in the chest four times. She dropped, scorching the grass around her, and immediately started to cool to normal. "I'm getting really sick of this," she said as she holstered her gun, and picked up her baton.
Soundwave gave off a sonic scream; the sound wave crashing into C-Note's slightly more powerful scream. The sound bounced around them, shattering windows out on the street, and causing small cracks in the support columns of the overpass. C-Note suddenly grunted and fell to the ground. Soundwave stopped screaming when she saw Detective Paulette slapping her baton in her open palm.
"Thanks," she said in a small voice.
"You're welcome," Mary said brightly. "Good job."
Jetstorm was chasing Coolbreeze all over the lot, the two speedsters ducking and dodging various projectiles being thrown by the other. Rocks, old window handles, a rear view mirror, broken bottles, and even a car door.
"Even a race car can't beat me!" called Jetstorm. "I'm going to catch you!"
"We'll see about that, brat!" shouted Coolbreeze, just before he was clotheslined by Super Hero.
"Cool your heels, 'Breeze," said Super Hero, a grin spreading across his face. "God, I love this!" he called out, high fiving Jetstorm as he ran by.
Mutinous Angel and Geist were in a full-on hand-to-hand battle with Throwdown and Freestyle. It was like watching a ninja and a Forties pulp hero trade blows with a couple of acrobatic gang bangers. In the end, it was no contest. Throwdown and Freestyle lay defeated. Mutinous Angel pulled out a pair of handcuffs, and Geist produced a long ziptie. Securing their opponents, they shook each other's hand, and dragged the teens over to the pile of Liberteens being made by the group of officers and heroes.
"That wasn't fun at all," Gragg muttered aloud.
"Speak for yourself," said Super Hero, clapping him on the back.
"How did you two get powers?" Heironymous asked Soundwave and Jetstorm.
Soundwave looked at the ground for a second, then looked up and winced. "We're really not supposed to tell," she said.
"Yeah, it's our secret origin!" chimed Jetstorm.
Mary half-grinned, but then groused, "What I want to know is where the heck is Death's Head Moth? We haven't seen him the entire time we've been here!"
"And where's the Pusher?" asked Salt. "He's the only one that seems to be missing."
A voice that seemed to come from everywhere answered, "The answer to both of your questions is above you."
The group looked up, then quickly stepped back from the piled gang as a the body of the Pusher fell from the shadows of the underpass. Attached to a climbing cable, he decelerated safely to just a few inches short of the pile before the cable snapped off his belt and dropped him onto the heap. Then Death's Head Moth appeared from the same shadows, sliding gracefully down the cable, and making the small jump from the top of the pile to the ground.
"I was busy rounding him up," he said to Salt, pointing a thumb over his shoulder at Dylan Smack.
"'Bout time you showed up," Heironymous said gruffly.
"I was complying with a wish," said the black-clad hero. "I was busting a Liberteen drug deal, and that Freestyle kid popped a pill and wished for me to disappear. So I dropped smoke pellets and did just that. I granted his wish, but wasn't able to reveal myself again until one of you knocked him unconscious."
Mary nodded at the hero's explanation. "Great, so we got them all. Now what?"
Heironymous sighed. "Now comes the hard part- rounding up the Wish supply, and taking out the other networks that are springing up. Unfortunately, the Liberteens aren't the only supply of this anymore."
"Not hard at all," came the voice of Death's Head Moth.
The group looked around, and the hero was gone. Looking up, they saw a pale blue light shining in the shadows, barely illuminating the dull metal mask, and almost lighting up the stylized skull and crossbones on his chest. "I wish," he started as they all gasped, "that the pill I just took was the last pill of any supply of the drug called Wish, and that no more could ever be made."
***
Norfolk, Virginia - the Warehouse of the Wishing Demon
There was a bright blue flash as the barrels of Wish that the Wishing Demon had conjured all evaporated into nothing. Stomping his foot, he yelled, "Nooo!" Jumping up-and-down angrily, he shouted, "No! No! No! No! No! No! No!"
He fumed over his loss as he cast his gaze around the empty warehouse. Then he sighed, which turned into a light laugh. "Oh, well," he said with a wave of his hand, "it was good while it lasted. Back to doing it the old fashioned way." With that, he disappeared. And then so did the warehouse, leaving only a windblown lot.
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