Millennium Man #8:
"... And Justice For All"
(A Nation Of Immigrants Act II)
by Jacob Milnestein

"...in house i am a moslem,
in heart i am an american artist,
and i have no guilt."
- Patti Smith,
'Babelogue'
 

He turned the key in the door, ignoring the stains and dust that had formed on the old wooden surface and forced it open.

The familiar musty smell of damp uncurled in the air about him and although he couldn't see it, he could sense the building rotting around him.

Particles of dust danced gaily in the exposed light that filtered through the curtains as wordlessly he dropped his keys on his old faded armchair and headed for his answer phone.

He'd stayed away from the old downtown apartment for the past few weeks, staying over at Regina's and enjoying the shorter bus journey to work. It was a bad excuse when they didn't actually need excuses yet somehow Michael Manly felt compelled to keep making sure that he wasn't compromising himself...just in case.

He flicked the switch on the phone and sank onto the sofa, trying to ignore the stench, and the light that glimmered off the keys on the opposite armchair.

At least things couldn't get any worse.

'Hi, Michael, this is Deborah, you remember me - of course you do, we had dinner together in February.'

"Oh, Jesus." Manly murmured, placing a hand to his forehead.

'...and you still haven't called me.' The voice continued slightly frostily.

"Oh, Christ."

He was wrong things could get a lot worse.

'Anyway, your obvious lack of manners isn't why I'm calling. Believe it or not I actually want to help you, Michael, especially now you're all washed up. As I may have mentioned over dinner - which I paid for, incidentally - I work for a small, aspiring company named Idyld Films.'

She had mentioned it of course; in fact she hadn't really spoke of anything else - aside from herself.

'...Now I've persuaded my employers that perhaps you might be the face we're looking for to present a new series of independent documentaries.'

His heart suddenly skipped a beat.

For the first time since he'd been fired from KGPC, he was actually being offered proper work!

'...entitled 'When Good Superheroes Go Bad'.'

Manly slumped visibly in his chair.

'...now if you don't want to take me up on the offer, its no skin off my nose, just remember that I put a lot of work into making sure you get this opportunity to lift yourself up from the gutter. I know you've been working in McDonald's of all places and, as I am a genuinely charitable human being I thought it was about time someone at least played the part of the Good Samaritan for you.'

"The thing with Samaritans," Manly murmured quietly to himself. "Is that the story only takes on any meaning if you subscribe to the belief that the other ninety-nine percent of them were absolute jerks."

'...and that's why I went to the effort of tracking down your phone number. So, if you are interested then phone me back as soon as possible. Oh, and it'll be airing on PCN so you might even get a chance to snuggle up to that Regina Darling woman you've been seen in the papers with.' The voice paused as Deborah Giles uttered a very audible tutting noise. 'Anyway, call me back, Michael...unless you have some aversion to phoning back your dates after they pay for your meals! My number is 55-.'

His attention drifted as the voice of Deborah Giles recited her phone number and bid him farewell, his mind focused on the sudden prospect of working once more, even if it was a dire project like When Good Superheroes Go Bad.

And, after Finnegan's death, it went without saying that Millennium Man would probably be their prime example.

He sighed.

Well, no one hated Millennium Man more than he did.

The answer phone clicked, beeped and then rolled onto the next message.

'Mike,' A hushed and dry sounding voice whispered, the sound of echoing traffic in the distance. 'Its Charlie here, listen mate, I'm in a bit of bother right now and I really think things are going to get a bit out of hand soon.'

Manly sat upright on the worn sofa, turning to look at the answer phone with rapt attention.

'I know you've been having a hard time of it lately which is why me and the missus tried not to get you involved but its kind out of got bigger than we thought it would.' The voice paused, the telltale flick of a lighter and a sharp inhale of breath. 'Its Victoria.' Charlie continued sounding more and more drained with every word he spoke. 'She's out for blood and I really think she's going to kill us in order to get. Listen, I can't talk for long as me money's running out but we're heading back to Pacific City tonight so I'll fill you in then.' The recording beeped three times before Winters continued in a rushed
voice: 'I'll see you tonight, mate, you take care of yourself until then.'

The phone clicked once leaving Manly alone and in stunned silence.

Victoria Burke had finally found out.

His expression of fear and surprise hardened as he suddenly became aware of what he had to do.

The vision of that hideous costume crossed his mind and he shuddered visibly.

"No," He whispered, silently tightening his fists. "No Millennium Man, not this time."

With determination he lifted the phone and dialled Regina's number.

Denise Delgado offered him a deathly scowl before returning her attention to the very expensive and very tasteless plate of pasta before her.

Trevor Mason cringed, awaiting the inevitable explosion of anger and condemnation from the woman sitting opposite him.
Moments passed and his heart began to slow once more.

Delgado's fork dropped to the side of the plate with a loud clatter and she looked up, her face a portrait of utter fury.

"It was never supposed to be serious was it?" Trevor said, feeling an awkward sense of deja vu. "Besides its not as if you were the only person I slept with of the past few months. Like we said at the beginning, its not as if we were getting married or anything." He cringed, instantly realising his mistake. For the second time in so many months he had said the wrong thing.

"What did you just say, Trevor Mason?" Denise sounded out the words very slowly and deliberately.

Trevor shrugged desperately.

"It wasn't serious!" He proclaimed with indignation, as if he couldn't quite understand what had got her so worked up.

"And when exactly were you planning on filling me in on this hereto unexplored region of your frankly disgusting private life?"

She snapped.

"It wasn't supposed to be serious." He protested weakly.

"Stop avoiding the question." She snarled; her voice filled with anger and determination. "Who have you been sleeping with, Trevor and when were you planning on telling me?"

He sighed, already resigned to how this particular situation was going to conclude.

"Regina Darling." He murmured.

Denise pushed her chair back, abruptly tossing her napkin onto the table, an intense look of disgust upon her face.

"Oh, that's great. Regina Darling. Thanks a lot, Trevor. Just make my life a living hell why don't you? And who else was there? Victoria Burke herself? No don't tell me I don't want to know."

"But it wasn't supposed to be serious!" He protested.

She fixed him with another of her deathly scowls and made an incredibly impolite finger gesture at him.

"Tell someone who cares, Trevor. From now on you and me are finished." She declared and with a swish of her chair, her nose still pointing high in the air, Denise Delgado turned and walked out on him.

Trevor sighed and picked up his glass of wine, conscious of all the faces that were watching him and very conscious of the fact that he would never be able to eat in Reste's Restaurant again.

It didn't matter; after all he had always preferred Angelino's.

He smirked and drank deeply, ignoring the headwaiter as he marched determinedly towards him.

Jeremy idly watched the hands of the clock moving slowly past the broad, grinning caricature of Ronald McDonald.

He shuddered, trying not to look the illustrated clown in the eyes and suddenly feeling incredibly ill at ease.

"Curious, isn't it?" A voice whispered in his ear.

Jeremy cried out in shock, whirling round to face the source of the voice and almost falling over as he did.

Standing on the other side of the counter was a tall, bedraggled man dressed in a creased and stained suit and trenchcoat and large, wide brimmed hat. However it was only when Jeremy tried to focus on the stranger's face and found himself confronted by the pale and empty expression of a terrifying masque that the fear truly set in.

"C-Can I help you, sir?" He whispered, his voice suddenly dry and his legs trembling.

"Yes." The stranger murmured in a far away voice. "Perhaps you can." He looked up, eyes moving behind the dark slits in the masque as he scrutinised the large menu above the counter. "Do you not find it odd that a restaurant founded on the shores of a nation which currently claims itself unable to abide terrorism in any shape or form should still donate a quarter of its proceeds to the Irish revolutionary faction the IRA, who are, by default a terrorist cell?"

Jeremy looked at him, his expression frozen in fear and wonder.

"I-I can't answer that, sir, I'm just an area manager." Jeremy stammered nervously.

"Its an interesting parallel though, isn't it? The idea that such a prolific global enterprise can hand out free hamburgers to the survivors of one atrocity and, at the same time, hand out guns to another set of people in order to commit further atrocities of a similar magnitude." The eyes behind the masque narrowed slightly as the tall man waited for Jeremy's response.

The 16-year-old area manager floundered desperately, searching for something to say that might possibly make sense and turning up nothing.

The tall man, apparently tired of waiting, sighed and shook his head.

"I suppose you could almost be forgiven for thinking that America itself was actually founded upon terrorism, after all the War of Independence was literally an act of aggression and rebellion against the British colonial authorities of the time and we fought it tooth and nail and by any means necessary. Perhaps that's why we have such an empathy with the IRA...or perhaps it's just that there are exceedingly large amount of people in New York who can trace their heritage back to Irish immigrants.

"Whichever way you cut it, you can't argue that the recent 'war on terrorism' declared by our president is little more than farce, a vague attempt at returning us to our '80s superpower status. In our history we have played both oppressed and oppressor, using terrorism as freely as any other tool at our disposal.

"In Vietnam we played the role of the colonials, bringing our will to bear on a foreign nation and, finding the landscape unfamiliar, resorting to the methods of terrorism that had previously won us our War of Independence.

"In Japan we inflicted our own culture and society upon a race of people that had dared strike out at us. We forced their emperor to renounce his divinity and took away their faith but on the plus side we did at least give them baseball. Now they make better cars than us.

"In Israel we created our own little political abomination by forcing back the territories of established Arab nations and dumping a load of disenfranchised Jews into the middle of it, my father was one of them.

"So America's at war with terrorism but only if the nation is weaker than us and we're assured a chance of winning. We don't like the idea of fighting against an enemy that might actually win and that's why we always make sure to dish out the official apologies whenever we get on China's bad side. Anyone else however, well they're game for whatever our new moral agenda of the time dictates. From Cuba to Afghanistan, its open season on globalisation." He reached out and patted Jeremy lightly
on the shoulder. "And that's part of what your generation are going to have to decide, my boy. Where do you draw the line between freedom fighter and terrorist? How do you make that distinction and do the ends ever truly justify the means?" He paused and waited once more for the young boy to say something.

Jeremy stammered and stuttered before finally blurting out:

"Sir, I honestly don't know anything about that, I just work here."

The tall man remained silent for a moment as if he was turning the young area manager's response over in his mind before finally shrugging and glancing back up at the menu.

"In which case I'll have two Big Mac meals with Cokes." He announced, his voice monotone and thoroughly emotionless.

Jeremy nodded once more and began to tap the till register with shaking hands.

Silently he adjusted his baseball cap and bomber jacket, catching a quick glance of himself in the dust covered full-length mirror of the hallway.

It was nothing like his discarded Millennium Man costume and that, in itself was appealing. The idea of garbing himself once more in that stained and desecrated uniform filled him with a very palatable dread that he could not quite understand aside from the vague fear and disgust that accompanied the recollection of Finnegan's death.

A sudden rattling at the window caused him to turn abruptly, those old fears already filling his mind as he tried desperately to recall the Tai Chi katas that Jian had taught him.

The waxen features of Victoria Burke, the upper half of her face shrouded by the cowl of her cloak, wavered slowly into light beyond the window, her lips tight and unsmiling and her head high.

He tried to quieten his fears despite the instant dislike that welled up within him at the sudden way in which she had surprised him.

Her expression remained unchanging as he stood solemnly on the thin air outside his window.

"Open the window, Michael." She mouthed, her lips moving slowly so as to give him ample opportunity to register the meaning of her words.

He nodded hesitantly and with trepidation stepped across the room and unlocked the window, pulling it up and greeting the cold wind beyond.

Stepping backwards, he watched as she glided blissfully inside, the heels of her boots remaining just above the floor.

A sudden chill ran down his spine and that ominous dread returned to him once more.

Without drawing the hood back she turned and looked down at him.

"Where are they?" She demanded, voice firm and austere.

The dread rose in volumes within him.

"Where are who?" He asked, a slight frown forming beneath the brim of his baseball cap.

"Don't play coy with me, Manly." She snarled viciously. "Where are the bastards that murdered my father?"

Adrenaline began to rush through his body as his heart started beating faster.

He tried to focus on the positive, despite the nagging voice at the back of his mind which shared more than a few similarities to that of his new Tai Chi teacher. She still hadn't found them yet, that was a good thing, if he could perhaps stall her or reach them with enough time to learn what had really happened.

"Listen, Victoria." He said soothingly, reaching out to touch her arm.

She recoiled violently, the lower half of her face contorting with rage.

"Don't call me that!" She screamed. "My name is Mysteria! Are you so retarded that you don't understand the concept of concealing identities? Are you that much of an idiot, Michael?"

He stopped, suddenly wordless in the face of this unprovoked barrage of insults.

"You've been harbouring those murdering bastards here in my city since the Imperial Magistrate turned tail and ran away and you still have the audacity to talk with me as if you're my friend?" Her voice trembled with hatred. "You're filth, Manly. A disgrace to everything my father stood for, you're not even fit to lick the dirt off his shoes."

Manly tensed, his own frustrations surfacing.

"Well, its just as well I'm not your father then isn't it?" He snapped in return. "Or is that perhaps what you want, Victoria? Do you need someone to hold your hand now that Daddy's not around? Well let me tell you this: I never, ever asked to be Millennium Man, nor did I want to be. The more and more I hear about your father, the more and more uncomfortable I feel about being his successor because the way I've heard it told your precious Daddy wasn't half the man Charlie Winters is."

A sudden blow connected with the side of his mouth and he felt himself impact against something hard and felt it shatter beneath his weight. It took a full ten seconds for him to register he was falling and a further two seconds to quell the sudden fear and remind himself he could fly.

Stopping himself in mid-flight he looked and saw Victoria Burke framed in the gaping hole where the window frame had been.

It was only when he registered that she had knocked him through the window that his back began to ache and he became aware of the tiny shards of glass that were embedded in his clothes and had scratched his face.

With distaste he spat out a mouthful of copper tasting blood and watched momentarily as a detached tooth spiralled down towards the city below.

Victoria flew down to face him and he was able to catch a glimpse of his apartment behind the missing window and his baseball cap laying abandoned and upturned within.

"Don't you ever talk about my father like that again." She hissed. "Now tell me where the Winters are."

He looked at her, gazing down at her tightened fists and white knuckles.

Sadly he shook his head.

"I'm sorry, Victoria, but even if I knew where they were I wouldn't tell you."

A second blow caught him under the chin and he was forced to do a backwards somersault in order to prevent himself from falling further downwards.

His jaw ached terribly as he looked up at Victoria Burke, her cloak billowing in the wind and her right leg still outstretched in the kick that had caught him under the jaw.

"Tell me or I'll kill you as well." She announced, her voice still trembling.

Quickly he tried to calculate the swiftest way to put her out of action and knew that there wasn't the faintest chance in Hell of him being able to achieve it. Despite having made progress, his fighting technique was still incredibly rudimentary and, as if that didn't make things difficult enough, he had been witness to the full magnitude of Victoria Burke's powers once before.

He frowned once more as his eyes focused on a wisp of brown hair that danced beneath the hood of her cloak.

She still hadn't ascended to her most powerful form and if she wasn't using the power the scarab gave her then perhaps there was still a chance.

All further thought was cut short as she suddenly dived forwards and Manly found himself awkwardly defending against a barrage of kicks and punches.

Together they moved at a rate so fast that soon neither was able to ascertain how high up or low down the brutal movements of their dance was forcing them. Each moment was punctuated with a kick or punch and with every failed block Manly's head became more and more fuzzy.

Suddenly he felt rough fingers seize the short length of blonde hair he had allowed to grow since his operation and snap his head back.

He looked up, eyes boggling, just in time to see Victoria's fist connect with his face. His vision reeled and he felt a second blow and then a third as slow the rhythm of her punches increased. Sickness and nausea filled him as the bile and blood began to clog his nose and throat and he felt his body going limp until finally the falling sensation returned.

He teetered on the edge of unconsciousness, vaguely aware of the wind rushing in his ears and that when he eventually hit the concrete then gravity and physics probably wouldn't really care where he had an arsenal of solar based superpowers his spine would still shatter and he would paralysed for the rest of his life.

His stomach lurched and a new and incredibly painful sensation brought him back from the edge as he felt hands seize hold of him and slam him against the side of a building.

The shrouded features of Victoria Burke swam hazily back into view once more.

"I'm going to find them, Michael," She whispered. "And there's nothing you can do about it."

Leaving him standing awkwardly on nothing, she turned and faded into the air around, resuming her search for her father's murderers.

Slowly Manly allowed himself to drift to the pavement below before falling unconscious in the gutter and allowing the pain to fall silent for a brief moment.

Prentice pushed her grubby hands close against the window and peered inside, her eyes widening with wonder and her mouth, still smudged by tomato ketchup, curling in a broad smile.

Demerite smiled softly beneath his masque as he watched the childlike glee with which she examined the content of the shop then, stepping backwards and scooping up a stray rock from the street, lunged forwards and shattered the double-glazed glass with the force of her throw.

Alarms screeched into life, their howls echoing through the crippled city and filling the ears of all that walked its streets.

Squealing happily Prentice lunged amongst the ruins, daintily side-stepping the talons of broken glass that still hung in the window frame like the shattered teeth.

Demerite smirked and watched her go, lifting his masque up over his head and rolling up the material beneath to reveal a chin and mouth covered in aged wounds and the mottled purple of scar tissue. The corners of his scarred mouth turned up at the edges as he lit a cigarette.

In the distance the wail of police sirens grew closer, engine rattle and murmurs of voice.

His blistered smile grew slightly as he turned his attention to the serpentine road and the reflection of blue light flickering in shop window fronts.

The stench of burning rubber contaminated the air and, as he turned, he wrinkled his nose as if faintly offended by such an off-smelling odour.

"Raise your hands slowly in the air and make no sudden movements...please, sir!" The voice wavered.

He inhaled and viewed his new-found companion with interest.

Waving his gun unsteadily stood a young boy, not long past 20. His blonde hair was neatly cropped and his face still bore the suggestion of acne. The uniform in which he had been dressed was a well-known one, one instantly recognisable despite the variations that occurred with each country.

"Good evening, officer, how may I be of assistance?" Demerite purred, slowly raising his hands up above his head.

"J-Just stay where you are!" The boy called back, nervously groping for his in-car radio as he tried to keep the suspected perpetrator in view.

Demerite took a step forwards.

"Oh, there's no need to call your friends just yet. Why don't we talk for a little while first?" He suggested in what he was sure was a reassuring manner. "Get to know one another."

The boy flinched; sweat running down his temples as he clutched the gun even tighter.

"Step back and keep your hands in the air, please, sir!" He shouted voice cracking with pressure.

Demerite shrugged slowly.

"But if I'm over here and you're over there, how are we ever going to converse probably?" He asked, his mutilated lips turning up in a pout.

"Sir, I don't wish to talk with you. You are under arrest for suspected criminal damage, anything you say."

Demerite waved his hand dismissively and the boy nearly pulled the trigger.

"Surely you must want to talk about something? How about philosophy? Whom do you prefer, Plato or Aristotle? My father insisted I study philosophy when I was at university; he was a literary tyrant of sorts. He'd had a few poems published in the small press during the 50s and because of this thought he, above all else, was more qualified to comment on what art is." He took a step forwards. "Personally I believe art is where you find it. Its in the design of a finely polished and well kept handgun, its in the beauty of a sunset over the Golden Gate bridge, its in the look on your father's face as you level your shotgun and blow half his head across the living room during Gilligan's Island reruns, its in the Stars in the Stars and Stripes.

"So you see, art is beauty, my friend and you can find beauty anywhere if you look hard enough."

The young police offer stammered uselessly, aghast at his culprit's speech.

Demerite took a step forwards, confident in having captivated his audience.

"But we all need father figures in the end, kid. I mean, look at me, two years after I helped my biological father shuffle off of his mortal coil and I'd already signed up for Dale Steffens' own personal war on crime - though I guess you don't know who Steffens actually is. The point I'm trying to make, son, is that we all need fathers." He reached out, his fingers stretching for the gun in the young man's hand. "So why don't you let me be your father?"

Fingers brushed metal and something snapped in the young police officer's mind. Yanking the gun upwards and away he pulled the trigger, letting out an almighty roar as he collapsed back against the side of his cruiser.

The bullet hit Demerite in the head and he grunted, falling uselessly backwards and onto the pavement.

The boy stood there panting for a moment, his hands trembling as he tried to re-holster his gun. A mumble of voices murmured on his radio as the truth slowly sunk in.

He had killed a man...it had been in self-defence, sure, but he had killed a man.

He stepped forwards, curious to see the prone body of the man he had murdered, all the while knowing that he should radio the details in as soon as possible but none the less desiring one last look at the man he himself had sent to the grave.

It all felt so unreal, so unemotional.

The bravado with which the television shows portrayed such events was strangely absent, replaced instead by a cold emptiness and a longing for someone to explain the situation to him.

He had killed a man...only it wasn't as real as it was on TV.

He looked down, nudging the lifeless figure with the tip of his boot.

The dead man made no counter movement.

Slowly he moved forwards, looking down at the rolled up material that covered the face, fingers itching with curiosity as he reached out, ready to part the veil and be granted his first glimpse of the man that he had killed.

As he moved closer his eyes flickered up and he noticed the fracture lines across the ebony masque that rested atop the dead man's head. Too late he realised the bullet had not connected with the man's head at all.

He opened his mouth but was too late.

From nowhere firm hands had suddenly took hold of him and the world had rotated a full circle.

Chuckling slightly Demerite rose from where he had lain, discarding the body of the police officer with his back-to-front head and stepped forwards to examine the police cruiser, the keys still in the ignition.

"Prentice," He called out over his shoulder. "Time to go. We've got a lift."

Prentice emerged with a skip and a hop from the shattered mouth of the storefront, a wide plastered grin across her face.

Gone were the filthy rags she had once worn replaced by an elegant and elaborate wedding dress, the veil fluttering in the slight wind as she ran forwards, dragging the train through broken glass.

Demerite caught her in his arms and she giggled like a schoolgirl.

"You quite content, beloved?" He whispered, kissing her neck with his blistering lips.

She squirmed a little and nodded enthusiastically.

"That's good." He whispered. "But before we start planning ahead we better deal with this Millennium Man character."

She nodded sadly and they disengaged.

Gently he helped her into the passenger seat and strapped her in.

They had spent too much time in Pacific City and it was starting to lose its appeal. Together they had done everything they could to attract Millennium Man's attention, even destroying one of the two principle buildings upon which he was frequently seen watching over his city.

It was clear now that they were going to have to be more imaginative in their efforts, it was clear now that they were going to have to declare war.

Demerite smiled quietly to himself and, with a screech of tires, the stolen police car tore off into the night leaving behind the corpse of the young police officer it had once belonged to, his eyes fixed blankly on the night sky above him.

The stars winked silently back at him and the young man continued to do nothing.

His eyes flickered and, somewhere in the sudden return of that dull light, he became aware of the throbbing pain that filled his head.

He moaned and struggled to sit up, only to find firm hands and a soothing voice push him back down again.

"Regina?" He mouthed her name, as vision finally swam into view.

She smiled weakly back at him.

"Jesus Christ, Michael, what happened to you?" She asked, her voice calming and yet underlined by no small amount of fear.

He groaned and pulled himself slowly up from the sofa. This time she did not try to prevent him.

"I, ah, had a little disagreement with someone."

"It looks like it as well!" She scowled. "Who did this to you, Mike? I mean what kind of a person could have done this to you? Was it a supervillain? Are you in danger?"

Manly shook his head sadly.

"No. It wasn't a supervillain." He sighed. "It was Mysteria."

Regina looked up, wordless with surprise as slowly he stood up and turned to face the ruined window that he had been thrown through a handful of hours previously.

"Mysteria?" Regina gasped. "Why would she attack you? Isn't she supposed to be one of the good guys?"

He looked stoically out across the Pacific City horizon.

"She's gone mad." He whispered unevenly. "She's going to kill Charlie and Shirley Winters."

"But why?" Regina asked, her eyes widening with surprise.

Manly shook his head slowly and instantly regretted it as the pain in his head increased.

"I can't tell you, Regina." He murmured. "But I've got to stop her...if I don't then Charlie and Shirley are as good as dead."

Regina reached out and placed an arm on his shoulder.

"Michael, you can't go out like this, for God's sake look at yourself."

"I...have...to..." Manly whispered through gritted teeth.

She sighed and turned away.

"Fine. If that's how it's going to be but if you're insisting on going out and playing Cowboys and Indians then please wear your Millennium Man costume."

A final blow shattered Finnegan's face.

"No!" Manly shouted, the pain in his head increasing.

Regina Darling scowled angrily at him.

"Its for your own good, Michael." She warned. "If you wander out there dressed as you are and start throwing minivans at Mysteria then after a while people are going to put one and one together and realise who you are. That's why you have the costume, Michael, remember that whole secret identity thing?"

"I can't wear it again." He muttered darkly.

"Don't be so stupid." She snapped. "Of course you can wear it, you just don't want to."

"I'm not Millennium Man, not anymore." He protested, wishing that he could end the conversation and be away.

"Rubbish. As long as you have those powers then you're still Millennium Man - as long as you're running around fighting off supervillains - or heroes for that matter - then you are still most definitely Millennium Man. So don't give me all that about not wearing your costume because you need to wear it, for your own safety at the very least."

He shook his head slowly.

"I'm not wearing it, Regina." He whispered. "Not now, not ever."

Slowly he bent down and picked up the baseball cap, bringing the peak down low so as to hide the bruises that had begun to form on his face.

"Fine." Regina snapped, folding her arms. "Then I'll make you a new one."

He turned and scowled darkly at her.

"Regina, just let it be, please."

"No, Michael, I won't let it be. Now you may be fine with a horde of journalists and supervillains banging down your door night and day but I don't want to have to deal with that - and believe me, Michael, I will have to deal with it because as long as we're going out then anyone who knows you're Millennium Man is also going to know about me and if they know about me then they are going to use me to get to you so you can either prevent them from finding out your identity or we can just break up
right here and now."

"Don't force me to choose, Regina."

"You're not choosing, in fact you don't really have any choice no matter what happens. So whether we break up is really irrelevant in the long run because as long as you have your powers you're going to hurt somebody by not hiding your identity whether it be your brother, your parents, me or whoever. And trust me, Michael Manly, if you walk out on me now I will be the first journalist that comes knocking on your door to ask for an exclusive interview about being Millennium Man. You have my word on that."

Silence drifted between them as remained with her arms crossed, holding his gaze with that stern look of impatience he her wear at work.

"I can't promise anything, Regina." He whispered sadly.

Regina nodded slowly.

"Fine." She snapped and headed for the door. "Guess I'll be seeing you around then, Michael."

"Regina!" He called out after her and was answered by the sound of his apartment door slamming shut.

He sighed, too tired to feel anything but defeated.

Looking out through the shattered remnants of his window he watched her appear in the streets below and hail a taxi.

By tomorrow she might have calmed down, he reflected, maybe then he could make it up to her but for now he had other matters to attend to.

Taking a deep breath he leapt from the broken window and headed out into the night sky after Mysteria.

Jeremy glanced uncomfortably up at the clock on the wall.

Ronald McDonald beamed back at him and he shivered, turning away quickly.

"Come on, Michael," He murmured. "Don't make me fire you."

He glanced up at the front door and sighed as he realised it wasn't Manly. Putting on his best false smile he nodded politely at the customers and watched Jodie as she attended to their order.

He'd been working shifts (mostly the later shifts) with Jodie, Neil, Joe, Jake and Michael since the former KGPC presenter's application had been accepted and he liked to think they functioned pretty well together especially during the chaos that followed the Tower's collapse and the loss of a new trainee that had been assigned to their shift - a wound which was still raw with all of them, Manly especially - but unfortunately it wasn't him that made the rules, it was the higher management and
exceptions could not be made.

Even if you were Millennium Man.

He sighed and began to fill out a stage one warning form, alternating his glance between paper, clock and door.

Angrily he tapped his pen against the counter.

"Come on, Michael, please don't be much later." He muttered to himself.

The doors remained resolutely shut.

The firm soles of his trainers pounded against the pavement, late shoppers and disenfranchised teenagers falling quickly from his path with only the smallest of complaints and coarse language.

Upon his bruised and beaten face was a look of determination that identified him as someone who would not take kindly to have the rules of sidewalk etiquette pointed out to him and as such those he shared the pavement with were more than content to let him have his own way.

The idea of Charlie and Shirley Winters' deaths burnt into his mind, an image he found he could shrug off and push to the back of his mind.

A final blow shattered Winters' face.

Throughout everything that had happened to him recently the Winters were the only two people who had stood by him and, despite what Jian might have thought, he couldn't allow them to be killed because Victoria Burke no longer understood the concept of being 'one of the good guys'.

His face set in determination; Michael Manly leapt over a barrier and sprinted out into the road, running diagonally up from downtown Pacific City and towards Bretonside and the city central.

Without warning the sudden roar of an engine boar down on him, he turned slightly enough to see two brilliant headlights blindingly close.

The car hit him and the world flipped upside down with a sickening lurch and the foul odour of burning rubber. A taste not unlike copper filled his mouth and his back screamed in agony as he rolled over the car's bonnet and slammed hard against the pavement.

The world flickered and desperately Manly tried to retain consciousness.

Voices around him called out and cars in the street ground to a halt.

With a feeling of detached sorrow he registered that in the impact his favourite baseball cap had been knocked into the gutter.

A heavy pair of boots came into vision before him.

"Get up." A cold voice commanded.

The nausea passed as an icy cold fear set root in the pit of his stomach, releasing enough adrenaline to keep his solar enhanced metabolism from closing down and sending him into unconsciousness.

With a grunt Michael Manly rose to his feet, a scowl drawn across his bruised face.

A thin, filthy looking man, slightly shorter than him and wearing a stained trenchcoat and ivory masque looked up at him.

"And you would be Millennium Man, I take it?" The cruel voice hissed from behind the masque. "I was wondering how long it would take to get your attention."

Manly scowled, uncertain of what to say.

The other chuckled quietly to himself.

"Oh, don't worry. I've no interest in whatever tawdry and vacant social life you keep or what name your parents gave you at birth, in fact, I can promise you my dear Mister Man that I have never seen you before in my life.

"All I know is that no normal person gets up after being knocked down by a speeding police cruiser."

"Who are you?" Manly asked, quietly bringing the katas he had been taught back to the forefront of his mind.

The filthy little man shrugged and Manly glanced behind him, noticing the police car and it's flashing lights, doors wide open.

Sitting within the passenger seat was a veiled individual that he couldn't quite make out.

"I must admit I'm slightly hurt by how unfocused you are, Mister Man." The other began. "My associate and I have been trying to get hold of you for a considerable amount of time. We even blew up the Pacific City Tower based on reports that you were often spotted there late at night - perhaps we were two enthusiastic in our opening efforts, perhaps we should have started smaller, like killing old ladies or robbing banks." He leant closer, that ghastly masque pushing close to Manly's bruised face.
"Tell me, Mister Man, where did we go wrong."

Manly pushed him away, a look of disgust in his eyes.

"If that's a joke its in bad taste." He warned.

He could almost sense the spreading smile beneath the pale white masque.

"Oh, but its not, Mister Man. You should be flattered - we went out of our way to kill over a thousand people just to get your attention."

Manly stepped back as the full weight of the other's words hit him.

"You're American, aren't you?" He finally asked.

"Indeed I am, sir." The other said with a voice full of pride. "And damn proud of it for within our quaint little global society it is only someone such as myself, and you'll forgive me if I sound arrogant, that can bring the message I bring to you now. Only someone born and raised within the cradle of the world's most powerful nation could bring you this message of the future."

Manly shook his head.

"You're crazy." He denounced the other.

The man in the ivory death masque smiled quietly to himself.

"No, not crazy, Mister Man, simply a prophet. Have you ever read Kahlil Gibran? Highly recommended, highly recommended." He waved his arms in a wild gesture and Manly ducked, falling back into a fighting stance. "I am a courier of globalisation, a messenger from the first world! I have read your New Testament, I have read your Koran and I have read your Torah and they are beautiful in hindsight! Long live the hypocritical ideals of the monotheistic God!

"Each prophet is also an artist, Mister Man and my art is the most beautiful of all. If I may be so bold I would like to compare myself to Jacob, a man who wrestled the divine messengers of his own patriarchal belief system in order to get closer to the beauty of that ancient and forbidden secret - let that be a lesson to all of us, that it is not only the daemons of some vague and unspecified Catholic pit that we must wrestle but also the angels of our understanding too." He stepped closer again. "And you,
Mister Man, are most definitely an angel, a renaissance beauty in your proud ignorance. This is why I have come here and this is why I must kill you."

Manly watched the approaching shape of his opponent.

"I'm afraid that death is not a part of my agenda today." He scowled.

The other lunged forwards; swinging his right fist towards Manly's bruised and battered face.

Without thinking, Manly raised his arm, blocking the punch with his forearm and instinctively stepping forwards, wrapping his foot around his attacker's leg and then delivering a blow of his own that impacted with the man's solar plexus.

The other fell backwards, dropping to a stagger before hitting the bonnet of the stolen police car.

Manly allowed a definite smirk to cross his face.

His attacker rose from where he had fallen.

"I wouldn't be so confident, my solar powered friend. Just because you know a little kung fu doesn't make you any different from any of the other numerous punks I've put down."

Manly said nothing, instead paying attention to what Jian had taught him. His blow to the other's solar plexus had not been a random strike but rather the first move in a delicate symphony of arrangements and movements. The solar plexus had been chosen early on as the focal point of the attack due to the shrouded nature of the other's face and.

His masked attacker stepped closer once more and Manly sunk with ease into his adopted fighting stance.

This time the other tried ducking beneath Manly's defences and throwing an uppercut towards the soft exposed tissue beneath his chin.

With expert timing, Manly struck at the attacker's forearm, forcing the blow away and off target and then threw his left forwards, putting all his motion behind the open palm of his left hand as it struck the man once more in the solar plexus.

Given the added weight of his superpowers, the blow sent the other flying backwards once more, knocking him firmly against the ground.

Manly remained in the position he had been when the blow struck for a moment or two and then finally relaxed, standing upright once more.

His attacker lay sprawled upon the ground, his chest rattling as he struggled desperately to draw breath. With a great effort he rolled onto his side, spitting blood and bile out into the blackness of the woollen balaclava that covered his disfigured face beneath the death masque.

Manly took a step forwards.

"You ready to give up yet? Because if so I've got a few questions I wouldn't mind asking you...if you've got the time that is." He smirked, his voice full of confidence once more.

He hadn't felt like this since before ShadowWraith. It was like the first time he had become Millennium Man again, when everything had been pure and they'd been no Magistrate or brain damage to dirty that overwhelming adrenaline he got from defeating villains.

His felled attacker laughed softly to himself.

"Got something to say?" Manly taunted. "Perhaps you'd care to share it with me?"

The laughter continued as the death masque turned and faced him.

"Oh, I'll share it with you alright, Mister Man." The villain whispered.

Something cold twisted within Manly's stomach and he realised he'd made an awful mistake.

In slow motion, the folds of the other's coat flew open as he brought two sideways facing handguns up towards the proud superhero. Each time the trigger clicked his arms spasmed with recoil, his laughter crazed and wild above the echoing sound of the chambers emptying themselves.

Manly tried to move but found himself rooted to the spot in shock. He tried to reach out and stop the bullets, just as he had with Jim Finnegan, but there were too many of them.

The first bullet punctured his right shoulder, exploding out of his back and spraying splinters of bone and dark blood out onto the road. He staggered, taking his eyes off the other as he looked down at the wound in his shoulder.

Slowly he reached up to touch the wound and the second bullet connected.

His right hand exploded before him, eyes widening as his body jerked like a puppet on a string.

The third bullet tore deep into stomach and he doubled over, spitting blood out across the pavement as he swayed from right to left.

A fourth bullet hit his left leg and splintered his shin, causing him to lurch violently towards the ground as bullet number five blasted a hole through his chest.

He pitched forwards, unaware of bullets six and seven as they slammed into his back, causing his entire body to jump slightly before hitting the ground in an ever spreading puddle of blood.

His right foot twitched and then he could feel it no more as bullet number eight tore it from the ankle, making way for bullet nine as it hit in the back of his knee and blew the leg clean off.

Bullet ten twisted its way into the soft flesh of his torso and fracturing the bone beneath whilst the eleventh bullet hammered its way home and destroyed what little remained of the hip bone in his right side.

The other rose, laughing quietly to himself as he threw away the handgun in his left hand.

"Beloved," He called out. "Bring me my scalpels, Daddy's got some operating to do."

Manly's eyes flickered and somewhere in the distance he was aware of voices.

The veiled woman placed a sports bag down before him, skipping away with trepidation as if some vile creature with innumerable teeth lurked within.

The other smiled behind his masque and tore open the bag revealing the polished metal of a large mini-gun.

With a sigh he looked at the handgun and, upon registered that one bullet still remained, placed it to the back of Manly's exposed head.

"In a recent poll over ninety percent of American citizens said they believed Osama Bin Laden to be more evil than Adolf Hitler, conclusive proof, if any was needed, that terrorism does indeed still work. It's just a matter of geography now. If you were born in Afghanistan then you're a terrorist but if you were born in Ireland then you're a freedom fighter. It just goes to show that it's not what you know but who you know after all. At least that's what the modern state of Israel was founded on." His finger tightened around the trigger. "Goodbye, Mister Man, it's been a singularly disappointing experience."

A sudden impact against the back of his head caused him to stagger forwards, the gun falling from his hand.

He turned, his head aching and a dull rage firing in the pit of his stomach.

Just ahead, standing in the middle of the road were a group of teenage kids, each dressed in a uniform that marked them out as employee's of McDonald's and each one armed with large stones or baseball bats.

He squinted behind the masque and recognised the foremost child from earlier.

"Hey!" The 16-year-old boy shouted out, brandishing his baseball bat. "Get away from him, you freak!"

He smiled darkly and glanced fleetingly at the sports bag and then towards the veiled woman.

There was a moment of silence before finally he turned and, seizing the bag by its handles, threw it once more into the backseat of the police cruiser.

The veiled woman silently took her place once more in the passenger seat.

With a last look of scorn at the McDonald's employees, he turned and kicked the dying Millennium Man in the side and allowed that familiar dark smile to return to the scorched and wounded flesh beneath the masque.

"Next time, wear your costume." He snarled. "Killing superheroes is that much more fun when they at least make an effort."

Without another word he disappeared into the driver's seat and the car screeched over, siren wailing, into the darkness of the night beyond.

Manly's eyes flickered once more and rolled back in his skull.

The last sound he heard was the soft footfalls of bare feet upon cracked pavement...