Timothy Arkett, aka “Bloodhound”, 3/16/09 11:25 AM

You gotta’ be fuckin’ kiddin’ me.

I take another cursory glance at the address written down on the slip of paper in my hand. Yup, this is the place. How much of a cliche can this be? A muttie,..er I mean, an “evolved” (dammit I work for an ultra secret government organization that fuckin’ kidnaps people and we’re still worried about bein’ PC), works at a comic book store. What kind of loser is this? Ha, he must be thinkin’ this is his living dream. Bet he already has some kind of stupid superhero name or maybe even a costume; this will be fun. Well let’s get this chicken shit job done.

I slick back my black hair, straighten my black shirt, and stick my hands back into my long black over coat and slouch across the parking lot. I take a brief glance around me at the Java Jett shop and the little preppy tiny boppers and their dim witted jock golden boys and snort to myself. Ah if they only knew, a gruesome scene of them lost in my own personal pocket world floats in front of my vision for a moment. There that makes me feel better, for a moment at least,…I hate my life.

I approach the front of the comic store, glossy slick posters of comic characters are plastered to the front windows. Iron man and Wolverine, some I don’t know, block my line of sight into the store’s interior. A blue and red neon open sign glows and hums, flickering into life at my left. Good they just opened. I brace myself for the stink ahead and open the door and slink inside.

I hate places like this. Line after line and row after row of comics and kiddy card games and little plastic figures fill every nook and corner of the place, like some kids closet exploded and everything was swept into the corners along the walls, dust everywhere. Man this guy must be a slob. Then the smell hits me, not what I expected.

The file that I was given by Abe read that my target: one Johnny Wagner, was a confirmed k-tech, or telekinetic, and possibly a brain talker, or telepath. We first received information from police reports after the Ike hurricane in ’08, after some kind of incident in the Huntsville high school gym left several injured with the target at the center of the commotion. After that Abe had Beckie run a background check through the police files and Henry got the kids medical records. Whoa boy, let me tell you, this one is one fucked up kid, a walkin’ pharmacy, like eatin’ skittles. All kinds of therapy and pill popin’, he makes my problems look slight. Good I'm glad he’s probably a psycho case. After that Abe made some contacts with some people he knows at one of the kids listed hospitals and retrieved a blood sample, and that’s all we need after that. Bam! Confirmed! Beckie is a genius, a crazy, psychotic, anger issues, fine ass, smoking hot (literally) genius. All that was left after that was to track him down and tag and bag, that’s my job, well the finding is. I don’t tag and bag shit, to messy, that’s for Pebbles to do.

Popcorn, that’s all that fills my nose, is popcorn with lots of butter and salt, strong smell. Well looks like this Johnny might be interesting after all. I take a few more sniffs and meander around for awhile. I can see the target behind the counter pluggin’ in his laptop and mumbling some song to himself from his ipod in his ear. I shrug my way past a row of book shelves and comic racks and look around. I can see a back entrance behind the counter, no sign of any cameras, no attic door visible, just a bunch of junk
“Hey man, what’s up, can I help you with something?’” the target finally takes notice of me. I just shrug and grimace at him, the smell is everywhere, god I hate popcorn. I snatch the nearest comic from a rack, The Dark Knight: Batman, the comic in my hand reads. What a joke, I could so take this guy, and make a half ass attempt to read it, and stroll over to the wall by the bathroom door, too bad I cant smell that, it might at least lessen his smell. He just shrugs and goes back to his laptop.

Several minutes pass. Some other kid enters and pokes around, a nobody, not of interest to me. The target tries one more time to talk to me, asks if I need a tissue, ..what, ..why? I don’t have a fuckin’ cold, asshole. I just shake my head and duck back behind the comic. Wagner ignores me after that, completely engrossed in whatever is on his laptop, probably some kind of freaky porn, most brain mutties cases are like that. I occasionally steal a glance up at him and duck behind the comic in my hands when he feels me lookin at him. Hmm, I wonder if he can hear my thoughts,…..hope so,.. you dick. He looks up from his laptop and glances to the window where a small patch of the glass is not covered by poster and nods at something, and then the door chime rings as someone else enters. Holy shit, that’s new, what is that smell? I take a few more sniffs of this new comer, some goofy, apparently happy go lucky Mexican. Max is his name, must remember that. I haven’t smelled anything like him before. It’s earthy, and has a sorta’ musty smell like wet dog, or old moldy jeans, and something I can’t place, it drives me nuts. I hate dogs. I take another sniff.