Project Vigilante

One

I stopped reading further and glanced up to my interrogators.

“I don’t get it,” I asked, “What does any of this have to do with me?”

The atmosphere in the mirror-walled room was tense. The look on each of my interrogators’ faces was bleak, almost theatrically stern. The one looming over from my right wearing a khaki suit seemed especially keen on dampening the mood. I felt like I was thrown in middle school again where the Principal lectured me for breaking the dress code.

On top of everything else, I was angry. I always knew police brutality was an issue, but being dragged from my college campus to the police station and detained against my will for four hours was not what I had in mind for a Sunday afternoon. I realized maybe I should’ve cooperated more, but I guess certain parts of me just didn’t want to. Call me stubborn, but I knew I wasn’t the only one. With more kids my age coming home from Vietnam in body bags than ever – two from my high school graduating class this month alone – everyone was desperate for answers and boiling with rage toward the government.

Everyone, except for these guys, I bitterly thought to myself. Clearly, they seemed pretty fond of the intimidations. 

But that’s exactly what happened. My roommate Bernadette and I were planning on joining the anti-war rally with the Students for a Democratic Society, which was supposed to take place earlier this afternoon, we even made our own banners. Instead we were blocked by armed police force that quickly dispersed the crowd. Jenna made it out on time, I was the few unlucky ones who didn’t and was arrested on the charge of disrupting the peace. So as I waited with five other students outside of the chief of police’s office with my patience wearing thin, the balding man in khaki suit emerged from down the hall, calling me my name. Before I knew it, I was led into a dim-lighted interrogation room – the one I often saw on TV for holding criminals – and watched helplessly as three others joined him.

The man in the Khaki suit introduced himself as Detective TJ Malone, and explained that my arrest had actually nothing to do with the protest.

“I should apologize for the method that we brought you here, Miss Rynn. But the truth of the matter is that we needed to speak with you.”

“About what?”

“Well, I think before we get to that there’s something that you should see.”

That was when he dropped the folder containing the file with the crazy timeline illustrating events that sounded like something out of a James Bond movie. They waited for me to finish reading, but I never did. From what I could tell, the entire thing was a fantastical story written with the imagination of a 12-year-old.

Detective Malone seemed to have sensed that. He grabbed a seat across from me and slightly leaned closer. I could smell a faint scent of tobacco in his breath as he spoke.

“Miss Rynn, does any of this sound familiar to you?”

“You mean the whole thing about villains and superheroes? Yes, they sound like the comic book characters I read when I was little.”

Detective Malone exchanged a solemn look with his colleagues, which caught my annoyance. “Can you just tell me what this is about? Why am I here if I’m not arrested?”

My interrogators turned to me in almost suspicion. I forced myself to match their stares. Even though I didn’t do anything wrong, their unyielding glare was beginning to get under my skin. Detective Malone reached over and pointed at something from the document. I looked down and saw his finger tip rested on the name “Electro Raven”.

“You see this name?” said the detective, his voice suddenly paced up as if he was hurrying to tell all he knew. “Electro Raven was one of the most dangerous government fugitives who was never caught. I take that you’re familiar with the Arlington Massacre of 1946?”

I nodded. Of course I knew about Arlington, it was standard textbook material. Regarded as one of the deadliest and most infamous political attacks in history, the massacre took place during a New Years banquet, when a bombed went off that killed fourteen people, including former US president John C. Arlington. His wife was in a wheelchair for the rest of her life. Arlington became the first president targeted for assassination since Teddy Roosevelt. 

Detective Malone gave me a few seconds to recall the little history knowledge that I retained from high school, and continued. “Electro Raven was the mastermind behind the attack. She was never captured, and went on committing several more crimes before escaping the country in ’47.”

He paused and looked me straight in the eyes.

“She was also your mother.”