Freedom blinked. He opened his mouth to respond, then shut it again. After another few moments he spat the words out. “And you never noticed this how, sir?”
“We never noticed,” said Stealth, “because he would grow new ones.”
The huge captain dwelled on her words for a moment. “Before the fall,” he said, “there was a hero with healing powers. The one named Regenerator.”
“Also sometimes called the Immortal,” said Stealth. “His real name is Joshua Garcetti.”
“He was attacked and bitten in a field hospital, wasn’t he?” Freedom glanced at St. George. “I thought he died near the end.”
“Not exactly,” muttered Danielle.
“Josh survived the bite,” said St. George, “but it canceled out his powers. He was just a normal guy with a messed-up hand where the infection had gotten trapped.”
Freedom recalled the prisoner’s withered hand. “So he was in the Cellar? Why?”
St. George drummed his knuckles on the table. Danielle shifted in her chair. Even Barry squirmed a bit. Stealth stared at the huge captain.
“What did he do?” asked Freedom.
“You have to understand,” said St. George, “Josh had gone insane. Seriously, honestly insane. He managed to hide it from us for a year while we were establishing the Mount. None of us knew.”
“Knew what, sir?”
“Sixteen months ago,” said Stealth, “we discovered Regenerator’s affliction was an elaborate somatoform disorder, one where his abilities allowed his guilt to physically manifest as an injury.”
“Guilt?”
Danielle reached up to wrap her hand over her mouth. She turned to study one of Stealth’s video screens.
St. George looked at Stealth. “What you are about to hear, Captain,” she said, “is known only by the four of us and now yourself. It does not leave this room under any circumstances. Ever.”
They told him everything.
St. George had seen Captain Freedom mad before. Back at Krypton, when the officer had been brainwashed into thinking Stealth had killed his commander, he’d been furious. The icy calm that settled over the giant officer now, though, was even more disturbing.
“He did all of this,” Freedom said. “Your partner is the source of the ex-virus.”
“He is not our partner,” said Stealth.
“I never even met the guy until we set up the Mount,” said Danielle.
“This man is responsible for everything,” hissed the captain. “For the deaths of millions of people.”
“Billions,” said Stealth. “By the last known population numbers and projected estimates, five-point-four-two billion people died in 2009 as a direct result of the ex-virus.”
“My men died!” shouted Freedom. “That man caused the death of dozens of soldiers under my command. You knew this and you said nothing to me about it.”
“Lots of people died, Captain,” said St. George. A cloud of smoke rolled from his mouth as he said it. “Everybody here lost friends and family and loved ones. You think we haven’t all thought about going down there and chopping him up until he stops healing?”
“And why hasn’t anyone?”
“Because we’re the good guys,” St. George told him. “We remind everyone that sometimes you’ve got to do the right thing even when the wrong thing would be a lot easier and make you a lot happier. We’re the ones setting an example so all of this doesn’t turn into a Road Warrior movie. That’s our duty. And yours.”
It was enough. The huge officer calmed himself.
“He was being punished,” said the hero. “We told everyone he went insane and killed himself. He was always so depressed about his wife, no one questioned it. He’d spent the last year and a half in a twelve-foot-square cell. He hadn’t seen daylight that whole time. I was the only person he ever got to talk to. We even stopped feeding him once we realized he doesn’t need to eat. Once there’s some real stability here, we were going to turn him over to the people for a trial.”
“As someone who understands morale issues,” said Stealth, “I am certain you also understand the need to keep all these facts secret until then.”
Freedom’s jaw shifted. “Unfortunately, ma’am, I do.”
“As such,” she said, “our primary concern is not justice but containment. Which means recapturing him must be our highest priority.”
“Problem,” said Danielle. She tapped a finger on the map. “We can’t go after him without crossing Max’s magic symbols.”
“If they are real,” Stealth said.
“That thing outside looked pretty real,” said Barry. “With all the teeth and the fire and the twisting body parts. It was like a John Carpenter movie come to life.”
“It exists,” said Stealth, “but that does not mean it is a demon. Or that it is being held back by magical symbols.” She gestured at the maps. “The exes will follow Regenerator as long as he remains within their range of sight or hearing. If St. George or Zzzap reaches sufficient altitude, they may be able to see a pattern of movement, much like a tide or current. This will give us a general sense of his current location.”
“I’ve got a question for the floor,” said Barry. “Is this really a bad thing?”
Stealth turned to him. “I beg your pardon?”
“Okay, so Josh got out. And he got out of the Mount. Out of our whole complex of New Los Angeles or whatever we’re going to call it.” He shrugged in his wheelchair. “So now it’s him alone against Cairax McBitey and, what, five million exes here in Los Angeles. Six hundred million or something in North America. Not to sound harsh but … well, it sounds like the problem’s dealt with.”
“Or is it?” Danielle pulled her arms tight. “Can they actually kill him?”
“Forgive me for saying so,” said Freedom, “but from what you’ve told me, can anything kill him?”
There was a quiet pause.
“To the best of my knowledge,” said Stealth, “he has never been decapitated.”
“Oh, come on,” said St. George. “Are we going to hunt him down and chop his head off?”
She bowed her
