Impact: Regenesis Part 38

Detective Amano began by asking him in English, "Do you want to start by telling us what your ability is?"

Drake shook his head. "I don't have any power, so I can't admit anything."

Detective Obata asked Drake to stop lying. "We're aware of the fact that the sudden appearance of abilities is foreign to everyone, however we here in j.a.pan have already discovered a handful of traits that are found in each and every individual who bears an ability."

"Like what?"

"The first is an ailment of some sort," Amano told him. "It can range from epilepsy or insomnia to cancer or dyslexia, so long as the ailment wasn't self-induced."

"Though that last part is only speculation," Obata told him. "We haven't found anyone who has lung cancer from smoking and has an ability and nothing else wrong with them."

"How many people have you found?"

Amano chose not to answer him. "The second trait is much simpler to identify," he told Drake. "It has to do with your thumbprints."

"They're symmetrical," Obata finished. "When someone gains an ability their left thumbprint becomes a mirror of their right thumbprint."

Drake looked at his own thumbs and realized that they were right. He never noticed it but saw the symmetry. He confessed again that he didn't know what power he could possess. "I honestly didn't know about this until today."

Amano only nodded. He asked Detective Obata to show him the doc.u.ment on the laptop. It was Drake's fingerprints from his sixth grade field trip. Upon inspection of his thumbprints he found them to have been symmetrical since that age.

"Apparently you've had these abilities for quite some time Mister Winchester."

"I didn't know."

"You're still claiming ignorance?" Obata scoffed. The detective closed the doc.u.ment and showed Drake security footage from the night his father was killed.

The security footage showed Drake in his father's office in Seattle at eight in the evening on the fifth of the month. It wasn't really him though, as Drake was on a plane on his way to j.a.pan when the video was recorded. Drake's father walked into the room and stopped when he saw his son in his chair behind his desk.

"Drake?" his father asked. "What are you doing here?"

The imposter shrugged and told Drake's father that he was on the no fly list. "I tried to board, bags, ticket, pa.s.sport and all, and they only told me I couldn't go because I was on the no fly list."

Tony examined the charlatan and shook his head. "You're not my son."

"What are you talking about?"

"Drake would have called me from the airport if he couldn't make the flight."

"My phone died."

"You're lying," Tony told the fake. "Who are you?"

Drake grinned, "Y'know, I never quite understood how you dealt with losing mom and Aunt Annetta on the same day...In fact, how on earth did they both die on the same day?"

Tony only shook his head and muttered, "You wouldn't know because you are not my son."

"I've talked to people about it though."

"Drake might have but you never did."

"You told me they died together in a car accident," Drake spat.

"They did."

"Now you're lying." The poseur tossed a file on the desk between the two of them; Drake couldn't see what the files were from the angle of the tape. The imposter continued, "I read here that mom and Aunt Annetta were a part of some experimental test for a drug called Regenesis." The charlatan looked Drake's father in the eye and asked, "What is Regenesis?"

Drake watched his father s.h.i.+ft his weight and slowly reply, "Regenesis was a project this company worked on for years until the untimely death of my wife and sister. They both had an incurable strain of cancer and had this experimental drug worked they would have been cured."

"Then Regenesis is a cure for cancer," the charlatan surmised.

But Tony only shook his head. "It was a far more powerful remedy than that."

"So it would have cured all cancers?"

Tony only shook his head. "I can't say anymore."

The charlatan only smirked, chuckled, and retrieved a handgun from the back of his jeans and took aim at Tony's chest. He slowly asked the man again, "What is Regenesis?"

It was at that moment that Drake first saw it, but on the fake's left arm was the tattoo of a serpent. Drake recalled Ian telling him of a tattoo he saw on the man who killed Victor. He wasn't sure what the snake Ian saw looked like, but Drake believed it was the same a.s.sa.s.sin.

Tony's breathing slowed down. Drake saw his father try to remain calm while he attempted to dissuade the aggressor from shooting him. "You need to calm down."

"No, you need to tell me what it is."

"It doesn't matter anymore," he told the fake, "The project's been completely sc.r.a.pped and all materials used have been destroyed."

"You're lying."

"I swear," Tony confessed. "After my wife died I never wanted to risk the drug backfiring the way it did before."

"How is that?"

Tony looked at the gunman and only shook his head. "You'd better just finish this now; I'm not going to tell you."

The charlatan twitched. He shot Tony in the left shoulder and slowly walked over to him while he bled on the carpet between his desk and the door. The fake set the gun against Tony's left temple, held him down tightly, and told him, "You will tell me everything there is to know about Regenesis." He then added something in a low voice which the recording failed to properly record.

Drake couldn't see his face very well, but he thought he heard his father weep before he admitted, "It's nothing more than a genocide waiting to happen. Please, please don't hurt my family."

The charlatan smiled and thanked him. "That's what I thought."

All there was afterwards was the final shot from the gunman before the video ended.

Detective Obata closed the laptop and asked for his thoughts. "You were there, you interrogated and killed your own father, and you evidentially have an ability but are unwilling to admit it."

Drake asked if he could point some things out before they continued. "Firstly, my own father said that wasn't me, which you should take into consideration. Second, did you happen to notice the tattoo on his arm? I don't have one and even if I had it removed there would still be a scar from getting it removed so recently."

"And what about the gun?"

"What about it?"

"Is it registered to you?"

"I don't own a firearm."

"But you do know how to get one, don't you?"

Drake rolled his eyes, "Every teenager in the United States knows how to get a gun, we practically sell them on the street corners."

Amano rubbed his eyes and muttered in j.a.panese, ""

"" Drake replied, ""

Amano agreed. He looked at his partner and mentioned, ""

Drake asked them, ""

Amano said they'd found a gun multiple flights below where the crime was committed, but added that there still wasn't any results as to who's fingerprints were on the gun. "Since there wasn't any gunshot residue found on you, that does helps your case, but your ability as well as the revelation as to who held that gun are your only keys to freedom at this point."

"But nothing's guaranteed, is it?"

"Of course not," Obata scoffed.

Drake lowered his eyes and concentrated. He asked whether he'd be imprisoned in j.a.pan or if he'd be extradited back to the United States. The short answer was that he'd be extradited when the time came, but for now he would remain in j.a.pan.

Both of the detectives left shortly thereafter; once they were gone Drake spent his time trying to figure out what sort of ability he could possess. He started by imitating what Ian showed him, moved on to trying to punch a hole in the wall of his room, and even tried to lift his futon up off the floor with his mind. None of it worked though.

10:05 AM.

Both.e.l.l, Was.h.i.+ngton Coop, Wally, and Ian sat in Ian's room in front of his thirty-six inch television, each with a controller in their hands and a portion of their attention on the video game they played. Wally and Ian didn't mind having their character's limbs blown off, but Coop took it to heart that their team didn't fare too well.

"Are you sure you don't want to practice anymore?" Wally asked Ian.

He nodded. "I think I've got the general hang of everything, so there isn't really any sense in mastering it."

"What do you mean?"

"It isn't as if I'll ever need a mastery of them," he mumbled. "I don't have any intention of fighting with any of the others like me."

"But what if they want to fight you?" Coop asked while he never lost focus on the game.

"I'd just flee or try to talk them down."

Coop rolled his eyes and muttered, "You'd chicken out then?"

Ian told him it wasn't like that. "I just don't see any reason for me to help."

Wally paused the game and scowled at Ian. "What the h.e.l.l do you mean by that?"

"I mean I don't think London's heroes will need me."

"You're joking, right?" Coop asked him. "You have seen what those guys look like, right?"

"Yes."

"They look like complete douchbags."

"Yes Coop, we get it," Wally interjected. "Seriously Ian, any guy on the planet would die a thousand times just to land in your position for a moment. You've got the opportunity to help the world in possibly the coolest fas.h.i.+on ever, yet you're hesitant...Why is that?"

Ian let his gaze meet the floor when he admitted his fear in the matter. "What if I fail to save someone?"

Coop only shrugged. "Then some people die and you just be sure to save the next one."

"What he means to say is that it's better for you to lose a few and save a lot than fail to save anyone because you never tried," Wally explained. "No one's going to blame you if you do fail Ian, no one can single handedly save the world. People slip through the net all the time and there isn't any way to stop that."

Ian admitted that Wally had a valid point. "So you both believe I should get a costume, a new name, and save the world?"

Coop didn't wait to answer, "Duh. That's what I've been saying this whole time."

Wally agreed.

Ian nodded and smiled. "So what do you think the super hero persona should be called?"

"Do you have any ideas yet?" Wally asked.

Ian shook his head and said he hadn't given it any thought until then. "Jordan had a few though."

Coop groaned, "Jordan? He's an idiot."

"What were they?"

"One was Zeus," Ian stated, which both of his friends rejected out of hand. He told them the other name was the Blue Streak, but it failed to garner better results than the first.

"How about Captain Thunder?" Coop suggested.

"Or Raging Thunder?" Wally added.

Ian stopped them before he asked, "What do you think about Voltage?"

Coop and Wally grinned. "Now that's something to think about."

8:13 PM.

Truva, Turkey As their holiday drew to a close, Audrey and Jason retreated to a small town outside of Troia called Tevfikiye. They spent their day visiting Troia, or what was left of the great city of Troy. Both Audrey and Jason loved history and Jason adored the Greek tragedies so neither felt they could pa.s.s up the detour. Some of their other expeditions earlier in the week included a visit to the Parthenon and the Temple of Olympian Zeus, as well as a few museums and art galleries around Athens. Jason utilized every opportunity to speak Greek and rattle off random facts and legends he knew about every place and everything they saw throughout their trip. Normally his avid rants wore on her patience, but she found herself relieved. For the first time since his accident she actually saw her husband the way she remembered him. Neither one of them returned to the subject of whether Jason possessed supernatural powers or if there were even such things. Audrey knew it would only provoke another argument and she wanted their vacation to remain peaceful. She saw how relieved he was and didn't want to ruin his happiness. Yet her curiosity remained intact and alive. Jason's survival, recovery, and the unnatural event earlier in the week captivated her. She wanted an answer and a reason to define why he was healed and what caused it. Audrey wanted to know how her husband lived and how he was fully healed too. Jason wasn't sure what it was and even though he wanted to disregard it entirely, Audrey knew he still dwelt on it.