Debts To Be Settled

24

Walter Crondale has a radio show every night, no matter the weather, status of the island, or any holidays. He has never gotten sick, only a mild cough that he assured everyone wasn't liable to spread through the radio waves. Although his show intermittently plays classic rock or jazz songs per Walter's fancy, the real hook of the show is his brutal honesty. Unlike other radio stations, Walter is unafraid to speak out against the government and villain organizations alike. He condemns those who do wrong, and he is particularly brutal against the weak or cowardly, especially when those people present themselves as strong or brave. Walter's own insistence on blatantly saying such words without a voice filter or hiding his true identity proves his own dauntless nature. This compliment becomes a lot more real when everyone remembers the man who hosted the show before Walter, the man who was shot by Phantasm live on the air. Walter paid the appropriate amount of respect to his predecessor, but he did not spare a single drop more for someone who died so foolishly, in Walter's humble opinion. Men made of gasoline should not play with fire, Walter declared when a guest asked him why he thought his predecessor had been murdered.

On top of everything else, Walter is also Tommy's favorite radio host. His show is the one Tommy consistently listens to every night, barring the nights when supervillains are there. Walter and Tommy are both brutally honest people, after all, and Tommy admires someone who can be so fearless about it. If it weren't for Tommy's powers, he might have left the tailor's shop for the radio station to petition for a job. He would have been willing to do anything to learn from Walter's objective views of the world and his analytical look at the world.

Alas, Tommy is sitting at his work station while Walter brings up the recent surge in attacks from the Binary Killer. Although Walter has never been favorable towards villains, he feels particularly vindictive about the Binary Killer. Walter notes that hybrids have enough to deal with. The Binary Killer's actions along with the media's glorification of such a criminal is increasing the prejudice on the island. More and more people are becoming violent against their inhuman peers. The real heart of the entire problem, however, is the heroes. Although they have a few hybrids in their ranking, they are doing next to nothing about the Binary Killer. They can't manage to get the Syndicate. They can't find a way to shut down Las Nevadas. They can't capture even the unaffiliated villains like Wayfinder or Graviton. If they can't do these things for the island, they should start focusing their resources on the Binary Killer. At the very least, the hybrid heroes should start working for the people who share a species name with them.

Walter's boiling comments come to a faltering stop. He sighs heavily through the airspace, and Tommy can hear paper shuffling around. Tommy lifts his head up from the cape he was stitching together for Ravager's outfit. Walter's voice comes back on the air, softer and subdued, and he begins listing names. After each name, he will say an age and the name of an animal or monster. It takes Tommy a couple of names to realize he's talking about the victims. The ages range from toddlers to the elderly. The assortment of hybrids is twice as varied as the ages. The one thing that is constant is that these people are dead, they were hybrids, and they were killed by the Binary Killer.

Tommy sets the cape down his lap. He frowns, closing his eyes. His heart lurches for the victims, and his powers buzz underneath the surface, unaware that they cannot heal the dead. Tommy's thoughts go from sympathy to remembrance. Not only is Wilbur a hybrid, but he's already been attacked by the Binary Killer. The villain might come back to hunt Wilbur for good. Tommy doesn't know how to fight the Binary Killer. He knows the training Techno has been putting him through won't stop someone who's able to kill hybrids, who undoubtedly have Origin powers. Speaking of Techno, Tommy suspects he's a hybrid, too. Tommy isn't going to ask the insensitive question, but he really needs to know if he's got to start looking for his friends. Er- his friend and his friend's brother.