Red Pipes Chapter 1: Snapshot

Snapshot adjusted his collar in the rear-view mirror. He was a detective; a stickler for details. He couldn't go to the scene of a crime looking as if he couldn't even see that his collar was uneven. It didn't matter that he hated dressing like this; appearances were very important. No costumes, no casual clothes. Snapshot's unit, the Meta Human Investigation Team, or MHIT, were not the caped crusaders of old. Their job was to stop supernatural crime where they could, investigate crimes in which the perpetrator was believed to be a meta human, and protect the weak. Still, he wished he actually had powers.
"You're not fighting the bad guys, Snapshot. You're a detective, and the best we got. It doesn't matter if you can shoot fireballs, your memory is what we need," Sargent Hard Ball had said.
Snapshot supposed it did make him feel a little better. But not by much. Working with MHIT with no powers, just a memory barely bordering on the meta human, was a little strange; and fairly disheartening. His father, Darkfire, was well known for his crime-fighting abilities and his ability to manipulate fire. Darkfire was known to drive men mad with the things he could force them to see in the flames. Or he could make them so lost they found themselves in the middle of a group of police, ready to be arrested.
But Snapshot didn't inherit his father's abilities; at least, not all of them. He had a wonderful mind and an eidetic memory. But he had no ability to control fire; his inability nearly costing his hands . So, even though he couldn't physically go after the meta human bad guys, when he graduated from the Police Academy he found himself in special training for MHIT. His knowledge and friendship with Capes, those who worked for the army as meta humans; Masks, vigilantes who never kept the law from stopping them from doing good; and MHIT higher ups assured him that he would have a place on that team.
As Snapshot got out of the car he looked at the scene. The body was down by the river, washed up during the storm. The rain was falling in sheets, keeping away the press and onlookers. There was too little light for a crime scene; normally floodlights allowed them to study the scene of the crime even at night, ensuring that the trail would not go cold for a want of light. Everyone's face was eerily pale, like the cold sapped the color from everyone's skin.
"Glad you could make it, Snapshot," the District Attorney, Cold Case, said.
"Thanks, Cold Case. Another girl got washed up?" Snapshot said, immediately regretting his words. If the DA was here, it must be huge.
Cold Case rolled his eyes.
"Come on, Snapshot, now is not the time for jokes."
"Shouldn't we wait for the CSI guys to finish up?"
This whole thing felt weird to him. His shivering was not from the cold.
"Normally, yes. But there's a few things I want you to see. Now."
They walked under the caution tape and towards the water. One of the crime-scene photographers was knee-deep in the water, the flash lighting up the shore.
         "Hey, wait," Snapshot said, "Where's all the lights? Why are we all walking around with flashlights? Where's the floodlights?"
"After I show you the body and get it into a body bag we'll light up the area.  What I'm about to show you stays only in the force, got it? The force, and Angel."
"Why would we--" he stopped talking as Cold Case's flashlight fell across her left shoulder blade. Even with the low light he could see the bright-red tattoo of a mouse playing pan pipes.
"The Pied Piper Cult," he whispered, "It can't be."
"It is," Cold Case said. "At least, we think so. She was likely one of the members. All the victims had black pipes, and all of the members had red."
Cold Case motioned for the body bag, then turned around.
"But that was decades ago!" Snapshot said. "And we haven't found any victims or cult members in years! Why now? Maybe she was a member, but got murdered for something else?"
"Possibly. But perhaps we should investigate before ruling out that angle," a female voice said from behind Snapshot. He turned around to see a twenty-something female Latino with long, black hair wearing a grey coat standing next to a thirty-something, short, African-American woman with glasses. He recognized the Latino as Angel, lawyer and meta human advocate. She was also a shapeshifter; not really a woman, or a human for that matter. But she presented herself as one, and that was enough for him. The other woman, who seemed to be in a losing battle with the rain, her hair, and a plastic rain-hat, was a mystery.
"Angel! Glad you could come! So, you're thinking what I'm thinking?" Cold Case said.
"Yes, this tattoo is likely due to her being connected to the Pied Piper Kidnappings."
"How the hell did you already know?" Snapshot asked.
"I called it in," Angel said. "I saw it while flying home."
"How did you... oh right, shapeshifter, nevermind."
"Now that we've established our guesses about what's going on, perhaps you can explain who that woman next to you is," Cold Case said. "I thought I told you to come alone!"
"My friend," she said, pointing to her African-American friend, "is Dr. Caitlyn Thorne, neurologist and Telepath. I know it's a long shot, but I want to see if Dr. Thorne, can cull up any old memories from our friend."
"That sounds dubious, Angel," Cold Case said.
"Let me explain," Dr. Thorne said with a slight British accent. Perhaps he was wrong about the 'American' part. "All of the victims we've managed to rescue or find have all had certain things in common. They have all had black pipes tattooed onto their left shoulder blade. Whether we find them in the garbage, red light districts, or embalmed in a lab they've had that tattoo. Second, all of the victims were between the ages of infancy and fifteen when they were taken; this woman is far too old to have been a victim herself. And, finally, the live victims have all had signs of their brains being messed with. You all know this, but what you may not know, Snapshot, is that I studied some of the brains of the victims we found, and I found a strange pattern. It's hard to explain, but alive or dead there's a certain... signature. Seeing as she's recently dead, I may be able to pick it up."
"You think she was a victim, doctor?" Cold Case asked.
"No," Dr. Thorne said. "At least, not in the way you're thinking."
Dr. Thorne kneeled next to the corpse, looking it over. Her eyes glazed over, then she started to touch the corpse's head.
"Stop!" Snapshot said, but Cold Case grabbed his shoulder.
"Let her. She needs to do this, and it would help much more than putting her in an MRI or autopsying her brain. She can guide us later to find what she finds. This will help you get started. Besides, seeing her work is quite amazing."
Dr. Thorne closed her eyes and kept her hands on the corpse's head, one hand on each side. All the lights dimmed and the air hummed as she read the corpse's mind. Once done she opened her eyes and the lights went back to normal. They were still glazed over as she spoke.
"There's damage to her brain in areas that would have caused her to become abnormally submissive and complacent. This appears to have been done intentionally, and in a matter like we've seen with the other Pied Piper victims. I was not able to recover any memories, but the damage happened about fifteen to twenty years ago, fitting into the pattern we've seen so far."
"Can you tell what caused the damage?" Angel asked.
         "Judging from the placement of the injuries, it was done on purpose. Due to a lack of external scars or other injuries I would say it was caused by a telekinetic empath, likely a neurologist or psychiatrist."
"What would have allowed this sort of thing?"
Dr. Thorne squinted her eyes tightly.
"When I first looked into this, I thought that someone very powerful was doing this. Or that they used LSD to 'soften' them, like it was theorized. I'll need an MRI before I can confirm my new theory,"
         Dr. Thorne moved her hands onto the corpse's neck, then to the its chest. She squeezed her eyes tighter, then relaxed.
         "There's extensive nerve damage to her lungs and heart, likely an attack by a telekinetic. It could also be time, but it's doubtful. Other nerves seem to be intact."
         Dr. Thorne opened her eyes and looked at the DA.
         "Strike that from the record, please. That sort of damage might have come about from being drowned."
         "Noted," he said.
         Snapshot stared at the scene. He knew it was up to him to make a joke, lighten the scene, but it seemed wrong. And no matter how great his mind was, he doubted he would have picked that up. Sometimes he wondered what he was doing here. Now was one of those "sometimes."
         "You done, Kitty?" Angel asked.
         Dr. Thorne rolled her eyes.
"Even my husband calls me Dr. Thorne when I'm working."
"Sorry, I keep forgetting you're British," Angel said.
         "Well, Dr. Thorne, are you finished? I want to go to bed at some point tonight," Cold Case said.
         "Yes," she said, getting up. "Nothing else I can do. We'll need the pathologist to find anything more."
         "Wait, you can figure out all that and not the cause of death? Or her last memory? Or who killed her?" Snapshot asked.
         "Neurologist," Dr. Thorne reminded him. "Not pathologist. Also, she's dead. I don't have the means to find her memories anymore."
         "Ah." Snapshot said nothing else. Despite having grown up among meta humans mind-reading was something he was not familiar with. And it was difficult for him to know what they were actually capable of; Capes, Masks, and MHITs were apt to boasts and tall tales. It was difficult even for him to separate what was true, especially with this mysterious power.
         "No nickname for you, Dr. Thorne?" Cold Case said.
         "Ugh. You American Paranormals and your nicknames. Seriously, DA Petrolio, why must you go around as Cold Case. Hell, even Angel does it and she's a damn lawyer!"
         "Traditions don't die easily, Dr. Thorne," Cold Case said.  "Before we had badges we had costumes, capes, and disguises. Nicknames give us a sense of identity that names like 'John' or 'Jane' just can't live up to. It tells others our powers, our roles, and how we have decided to fit into the community at large. It's why even those with 'normal' jobs like Angel and I have different names than what we are born with."
         "You all sound like a gang to me," Dr. Thorne said.
         "Now you're being mean, Kitty."
         "Perhaps you just need a better nickname," Snapshot suggested. "Like 'Mind Sweeper' or 'British Invasion.'"
         "Kitty is short for Caitlin. No other nickname is needed. Especially not for anything official."
         "Perhaps 'The Royal Guard' would suit you better," Snapshot blurted. "You're certainly stuck up enough for one."
         "Well, unlike you blokes, I was raised in a cultured environment in which even the strangest paranormals were expected to act like adults, and not silly children playing superhero."
         "I thought you moved away from England because you found it too restricting," Angel said.
         "Nonsense," Dr. Thorne said. "It was because I..." she paused, then glared at Angel. "I guess in some respects you're right."
         "Oh yeah, superpowers are banned from being used in medicine and law enforcement over there, aren't they?"
         "It's true," Dr. Thorne said. "Most meta human culture is ignored or downplayed. The again," she paused and looked at the corpse with the strange tattoo, "perhaps it is for the best. We Britons have never had a tragedy so bad as the Pied Piper Kidnappings."
They all paused, looking at the bagged corpse and the riverfront. There was no denying that the first clue in over a decade was a dead end. Who were the Pipers? Why did they kidnap children. No one had a clue. And Snapshot was not eager to reopen the case.
"Snapshot, is it?" Dr. Thorne asked, breaking the silence.  "How do you fit into MHIT? Do you flash a bulb until they give up? Does your memory cause them to freeze in place like a photograph?"
"He's an investigator. There's no need for powers. But he usually puns up a storm," Cold Case said. "Snapshot, what is eating you today?"
"Normally I would have said something along the lines of 'looks like the Piper got played' or 'she's washed up.' But considering we're dealing with the Piper, I guess I'm a bit spooked. Seeing that, it's like seeing a ghost. I have goosebumps on my goosebumps... well, more like fear-goosebumps on my cold-goosebumps but you get the picture."
"But that's when we need to laugh the most," Angel said. "It reminds us of what's good in the world."
"That may be true, but laughing at this seemed insensitive. The Pied Pipers kidnapped so many children and drove the meta human community apart. And then it just stopped. The Pied Piper is practically our bogeyman now, and then something like this happens and wait, no, it actually happened."
"You were pretty young, weren't you?" Angel asked.
"Yeah. Just a kid. My best friend got taken, then the next week we went to Grandma's, got a house in Westchester, and we never went back to the city. Any city."
"Sorry to hear that," Angel said.
"It was a long time ago," Snapshot said. "Getting upset over my friend dying now is pointless. I barely remember him."
"But you are upset," Dr. Thorne said.
"Spooked," Snapshot said, burying his face into his coat. "Not upset. I just want to know who killed her so that we can be certain that this has nothing to do with the Pipers. And I know it's only a slim chance that this killing is unrelated, but I can hope."
Angel nodded.
"Understandable. Cold Case, unless if there is another way you need us to assist, I think we should be heading home."
"Yeah, my daughter doesn't like it when I'm not home," Dr. Thorne said. "She has nightmares, poor girl."
         "Thanks for your help," Cold Case said. "Snapshot, you go home too. We have a busy day ahead of us."