Generation M #2

Brief Description:

Detective’s Izzo and Peterson speak with Sally Floyd and her editor, Neil, about the murders of several former mutants. Sally feels guilty, and wonders if they were killed because of her. Detective Izzo assures her that they would have died anyway. Their killer is probably using her to get attention. As part of her Mutant Diaries series, Sally visits Stacy X, a former mutant who now thinks of herself as just a prostitute with a skin condition. She also feels that her time with the X-Men had given her a new lease on life, but she was still just a whore in a different wrapper. Sally returns to The Alternative’s offices and Neil gives her a new assignment. He wants a story on the X-Men and their reaction to the whole M-Day experience. Sally thinks the job sucks, but goes to visit her friend, Jubilation Lee, at the offices of useyourvoice.org. Jubilee isn’t much help as far as the story goes, and Sally later returns home to a lonely apartment and drinks herself asleep. The next morning, after interviewing a former mutant basketball player for the Mutant Diaries, she is informed of the gruesome death of Latoya Jefferson by Detective Izzo. His new theory is that the killer isn’t just a psycho… he’s a mutant!

Full Synopsis:

(New York City, at the local police station)

Sally Floyd’s editor, Neil, shows Detective Patterson a series of photographs featuring more mutants who have been murdered. They include Hubie Edge, Susan Svenson, John Mairs and Tim Hacker. Each has a sign reading ‘Not enough died,’ lying beside their dead body. Patterson says he doesn’t want to question Sally and Neil; he just wants answers. He asks what time she returned from her television appearance. Sally figures it was around eleven. She flusters a little, and Neil places a reassuring hand on her shoulder. Sally now wonders if they died because of her.

Detective Izzo tells her it’s not her fault. This guy was sick in the head before she brought back her Mutant Diaries. He was just looking for a way to get his message across. These psychos want attention, he explains. They want to show that they’re more intelligent than the people trying to catch them. “Why me?” asks Sally. Izzo asks why not her. She has a profile these days and he probably figures she’ll help make him famous. Detective Patterson says that their theory is that the killer is trying to divert attention from everything else that’s happened since M-Day to himself. Sally asks what she’s supposed to do. “Nothing,” replies Izzo.

After the interview, Sally walks through the station, thinking about how this sicko having her address is the second worst thing about this situation. The worst thing is that the detectives are right. She can’t let the psycho see print just yet. She can’t help but think how that makes her a target. She recalls her friend at the Daily Bugle, Christine Ryan. She got targeted by some nut who wanted the world to know that Richard Nixon was an alien. The Bugle wouldn’t print it, and Chrissy found her dog dead in the garbage. She decided that was enough and joined her mom’s catering business.

What if their decision not to print this leads to this fruitcake killing again, just to spite her? What if he’s angry at her, and decides to prove a point. She doesn’t own a dog! As she walks down the steps and out of the building, she has a verbal run in with a dumb Sykes-supporting cop before heading off to carry out an interview.

(flash forward)

A story in Sally’s Mutant Diaries centers on a former mutant prostitute, Stacy X. It informs the readers that unlike many other working girls, it wasn’t her looks that faded - it was her mutant powers.

(present)

Sally interviews Stacy as the young prostitute slouches against a wall in the rain. Stacy has been thinking about returning to Nevada and working at the ranch. They opened up a new one when the old one burnt down. Now her powers are gone, so has her hope. She and her fellow prostitutes look after each other as best they can, she explains, but there are plenty of nasty people out there. A guy took her money the other day. She says the next one who tries it gets a knife in the eye. Sally asks why she came back to New York. Stacy replies that it’s because she knows it, despite it being messed up. She worked there before she went to the x-ranch, and it’s the closest thing she has to a home.

She adds that, when she worked, the question over who had the power, her or her client, was always in her favor. She could twist men around her little finger and empty his wallets in ten seconds flat. When she went to the X-Men she found a new way to use her powers. It was a whole new lease on life. She made men horny for good instead of evil, but… she was still just a whore in a different wrapper.

She tells Sally that a lot of people give ex-mutants a hard time, and make up reasons to hate them because they never understand what they were. The only clients she gets these days are the real pervs with mutant fetishes. She no longer has the pheromones to bring them over the edge. She holds her hands up and looks at them, before adding that the lowest form of life is a hooker that body wants. That’s her in a nutshell. All she has now is a skin condition.

Sally thanks Stacy for speaking with her, and wishes her the best of luck. She also offers her a free copy of the article when it appears. Stacy holds her hand out and asks if she still gets paid. Sally provides her with some money, and Stacy pauses before asking Sally if she wants some company tonight. ‘Like a hole in the head,’ Sally thinks, as she departs. P> The next day, Sally goes to work and gives Neil her article. He’s impressed, and wants another six months’ worth before he’ll allow her success to go to her head. In the meantime, he wants to put her on assignment. Sally isn’t happy about that, but Neil says this is different. He wants her to get something from the X-Mansion for him. He wants a story about what’s going on. No one’s heard anything from there in weeks, and people want to know how they’re dealing with the crisis. What’s the extent of the damage? What’s the plan? He reminds her that someone’s going around killing depowered mutants, and it would put him at ease if he knew whether or not Xavier or his people cared.

Sally tells him this is a crock! She figures Neil only wants her because she’s the only one who can get in. She reminds Neil that these are seriously powerful people they’re talking about. You can’t just walk up to their front door and knock. She adds that, if she didn’t know any better, she’d think he only allowed her to bring back the Mutant Diaries so she could get an exclusive on Xavier’s people. “How very J. Jonah Jameson of you.”

Neil asks her not to be so melodramatic. He wants her because she has talents, even though she’s a head case. He asks her if she went to A.A. Sally replies that she got sidetracked by a homicidal nutcase. Neil reckons he’s just her latest excuse, and tells her to go tonight, and then get him the story on Xavier’s.

(later, at useyourvoice.org)

It’s mid afternoon, and Sally visits the cramped offices of useyouvoice.org to see her friend, Jubilation Lee. She asks about what’s going on at the X-Mansion, and Jubes replies that she thinks they’re climbing out of their minds over there trying to work out what to do. She’d called them, but they had their hands full and Jubilee had told them not to sweat it. Sally would like some help, and asks when she’s ever asked Jubilee for a hand with a story. Every week, she replies, but she doesn’t know if she can help, as she’s not one of them anymore.

She apologizes to Sally for not spending much time with her, but she’s been a little wrapped up. She wishes she could been there after Minnie passed on. She lifts her fingers and tells Sally that she gets it now. Relating Sally’s feeling of loss to her own power loss, she says this is how it feels like to lose something precious. Sally hugs Jubes, but Jubes is fine with it. She has the same purpose as before M-Day, only now she can’t do the pyrotechnics. She’s now a political activist. She spends her days thinking of ways to antagonize Congressman Sykes. It’s like a chess match with their personal freedoms. He takes them away, and useyourvoice.org fights to bring them back.

Unfortunately for Jubilee, no one, apart from people like Sally, is asking him the hard questions like how he can get away with setting illegal and unconstitutional precedents on the floor of the House at 3 a.m. when the rest of America is asleep. Jubilee thinks Sykes is dangerous. He truly believes in his idiotic registration plan. But, it’s a personal crusade with no focus. He’s not as evil as they’d like to think he is. “Yes,” replies Sally, “he’s a jackass.” Jubilee giggles, but adds that he’s a tireless jackass, and someone needs to be watching him at all times before he shocks them and makes Senator. She then asks Sally how she’s coping.

(later)

Sally had told Jubilee that she was fine. Then, she went home and watched old videos of Minnie and got into an argument with a bottle of Jack Daniels about who was consuming whom. She isn’t really fine. She cries and continues to drink her self into a stupor, thinking about her lost daughter. The phone rings, and she leaves the answering machine to pick up the call. It’s Neil, and he asks if Sally went to her A.A. meeting.

(The Bronx, the next day)

Detectives Izzo and Peterson are at a crime scene, and they are met there by Detective Charlotte Jones. She informs them that they have a new homicide victim going by the name of Latonya Jefferson. The FBI had faxed over all the pertinent information on the other killings, but Charlotte figures they’d want to be in from the start. As they reach her apartment, Detective Peterson asks if they moved the body. Detective Izzo asks him to look up. Peterson is horrified. Latonya Jefferson is impaled to the ceiling by a thick piece of wood, with her dripping blood still forming a pool on the wooden floor. A notice on the mirror reads, ‘Not enough died.’

(flash forward)

The Mutant Diaries focus on a basketball player named Dezmond Harris. His mutant powers had allowed him to play the game well, but at five-feet-seven, his lack of power now meant he struggled against the taller players. Dezmond wouldn’t have it any other way.

(present)

After a work out with his friends, Sally approaches Dezmond. He talks about how losing his power was the best day of his life. He was born to be a player; he just wasn’t born the right way. He always wanted to be a Globetrotter, and he used to shoot hoops in his backyard until his hands went numb. He worked out a bunch of tricks and stuff. Sally asks about how losing his power means he’s lost his chance. Dezmond explains that he was banned from entering the pros, received no college draft or scholarship because he was a mutant. The worst part was that he never really measured his game against others before. He didn’t know if he was good or bad. It turns out he’s mediocre, but at least he now gets to play ball the way it was supposed to be played. If he keeps practicing… who knows? At least he’s got his dream back.

(later)

Sally attends a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. She hasn’t bothered filling in her nametag, and seems disinterested in what Bill G. is saying. As soon as he begins speaking, she gets up and heads for the door. She figures she’s kept her part of the agreement. No one said she had to say anything. What was she going to say? She wanted to see her daughter alive again? She thinks that her drinking problem is easy to define. She drinks, gets drunk and there’s no problem. Without Minnie, Jack Daniels and Jim Beam are the only friends she has. As she leaves, a man introduces himself to the group as Tony S.

Sally walks through the rain, and can sense someone watching her. However, she reaches a bar and says hi to Jerry and Doug, who says he liked her article. She enters and sits at the bar with Detective Izzo. She appreciates him keeping her up to date. He admits that technically he’s not supposed to do this, but in reality he feels it’s only fair to help her like she’s helping them. He informs her of another development in the Bronx. A young kid got impaled in her bedroom ceiling. The killer left the same note. That must have taken some effort, replies Sally. P> Izzo says that’s the thing. They found out the killer takes mementos… trophies. He hates mutants but he wants to keep a piece of them, apparently. Sally asks why mutilate the body like that? What’s he trying to say? Detective Izzo suggests that maybe it’s not just a mutilation. Maybe in his rage he did it by accident. He can’t tell her who he is, but he thinks he knows what he is. Presuming this whole thing escalates, and the guy gets a taste for more. Then, they have someone who’s very pissed off at mutants and the more of them he kills, the more they see the anger, until they can’t hide the truth. “What truth?” asks Sally. Izzo replies that he goes from shooting people to impaling them on a ceiling. He can’t control his rage, and it begins to manifest at the crime scenes. “Think about it… our killer is a mutant!”