Phoenix, Arizona

February 1982

Tyrin:

In darkness and pouring rain, I walked down the street. The rain rang in my ears through the hood I wore over my head and face. A large raincoat was hardly the most creative disguise- crude yet effective.

I sighed as I reminisced. Times long ago I walked down the street in any given city in my suit and bowler hat with a cane with the head of a crow proudly displayed. Not many knew my name, but my figure screamed success. I didn't care who noticed me. Those who knew me showed respect along with those who didn't.

No more. Bowler hats were out of style and the suit could only come out when I was inside, after all, I couldn't let people see my figure without the coat- I had to hide my rather distinct silhouette. That cane, I kept her, a symbol of that bygone era of my life, but I could never carry her.

Years ago, when I confronted the goddess who ruined my life I had told her the cane was for show... I looked at my hand in the rain. It was for show, but a different kind of show. It wasn't to make me look crippled. It was to show I was here, that I was unafraid, that I wanted to be seen, that I wanted to be known. I was the only man with that cane.

I sighed, pushing open the door to a large office building, coming in out of the rain.

"Hey Clide," said a man as he walked by, saying my cover name.

"Hey," I said. I walked through an office area, men and women walking past me. I walked past one desk after another, each full of papers and every other one having one of those new computers.

The computers were a far cry from anything that existed on my homeworld of Triad, but I invested in them. I knew what was coming from them, it would just take time.

I continued to reminisce. The Tracers. Sixteen years ago I had met them. It was a chance encounter, they had found a child I had taken and sold to a man in Britain. They stole the child back and returned him home. The group had a clever member that had contacted the police just as I was about to confront them. I allowed them to have their victory- it wasn't worth exposing myself to the human police after all... was it?

Six years later some of my associates picked up a young blonde girl, her likeness a special request from a customer. While taking her they were confronted by two other children, a boy, and a girl, one with a knife.

One of the fools killed the boy with the knife and they grabbed the girl to keep her from identifying them to the police.

I kept walking through the offices, going down several stairs, continuing to go over in my mind how my world had changed.

There are secrets in this world. Among them are underground societies of mutants. I was among them, a powerful one of them in fact, but that does not mean I ever wanted to challenge those who order the underground. The ones who run the underground are the werewolves. They keep the secrets, they keep the peace. They don't care what you do to normal humans, as long as you stay hidden, but they do not allow you to cause trouble in their world.

The boy with the knife was a pup. A werewolf cub was killed by my associates. Jacobson had the blood of a werewolf on its hands. All hadn't been lost though- or so I had thought. The men who killed that child had also stolen the witnesses.

I had tracked them down, killed those fools- even as they didn't know about the underground societies, why kill a child? We sold children- why destroy a potential product? The men tried to flee from me, but I tracked them down and executed them.

The two girls ran from me. Someone interfered for a time, two gargoyles- a less popular underground race. They took the girls and I had to track them- it was such a bother, but I couldn't let witnesses to my organization's blunder survive. I tracked the girls to a construction site. I was moments from finishing them off. Just a few gunshots or strikes with my sword and it would all be over.

However there they were again. The Tracers. The three pharaoh children confronted me. They barely survived fighting me, but survive they did. They escaped me that day.

One of the girls was a banshee, another mutant race. She testified to what happened. Jacobson had killed a wolf and kidnapped a banshee and I personally had hunted the girl down. The destruction of Jacobson was now a priority of the entire mutant underground world.

I had safe houses and money moving sites all over the world- had. My employees knew nothing of the underground world- they didn't even know there was an underground besides that of the world of crime they worked in. Some were killed, others were left for the police. Some of the children I had already sold were found and returned to their original homes- lost investments- my customers were seeing that my products came with no guarantee.

Jacobson, the company I had built over hundreds of years, had been dealt a death blow by a group of children. I had tried to take my vengeance on those brats more than once since, each time some luck saving their pathetic lives.

I continued down the stairs as I remembered- finally I reached the base floor. Here was my office. A time had been when I had offices all over the world. Offices that doubled as lavish suites. Now, this office was a computer in a dark room three stories underground. Jacobson was the premier human trafficking ring. We provided a product that many feared to offer, as the price to secure it was always high- but as such, the price of a person, especially from a rich nation, and then a child, is very high. It was, fiscally, a very rewarding business to be in.

A time was, perhaps, I had once felt guilty about the children I was exploiting. I think the last time I felt guilty about it was some time back in 1920. The last time a tear from a six-year-old meant anything to me was that boy, little Bobby. Not that it mattered, he died somewhere out there in the hands of a high-paying woman who wanted him to replace a departed child of hers. She was never a good woman, but her money was good and I had made good on my end of the bargain. She was Bobby's problem from that point.

I moved to my desk sorting through the papers on it. I sighed, sitting in a worn wooden chair. Why was I even still doing this? I could leave Jacobson and let it all collapse. What difference would it make? I knew I was seen by the rest of the world as evil. If there was a hell, I was going there. So why not just steal a transport ship from another pharaoh- or maybe just share a ride and go back to the homeworld?

Hundreds of years ago I had come to this planet. I had come with the military of Triad on a holy crusade. An alien race had violated the ancient homeworld of the people of Triad, earth. They had created a race of mutants, the gargoyles, by playing with the DNA of humans. They wanted to conquer our mother world. We descended on planet earth to wipe out this atrocity, while another fleet was deployed to the alien world to destroy one of their moons- leaving an impression of our dissatisfaction with their behavior.

We had come to save humanity. However, when I looked around me, I saw as we easily blasted through the alien creations, the gargoyles only having access to the nigh stone-age technology of the humans at the time. Humans needed salvation from these insects?

Any race that needed salvation from something so insignificant... it dawned on me. With pharaoh intellect and technology, I could live on this world, do whatever I wanted, and live like a king for the rest of my life.

It was my dream to live and do whatever I wanted. To indulge myself, to deny myself nothing.

Using the technology of Triad, I personally could face down any man on this planet and using my intelligence I was able to build a massive underground organization.

I smiled to myself. These days people made comic books about people like me- well, people like me were the villains of course. People like me would always be painted as trying to rule the entire criminal underworld- really? Once you get money in a business like this, what would be the point in trying to control so much? I just carved my place in the underground. I lived however I wanted and just ran my little part of things.

Human police were bought off, killed from time to time, and sometimes offered jobs. Back then the wolves didn't care what I did.

Now my dream was gone, so why keep fighting for it? I could no longer live as I once had. I was a rat hiding in a hole. Why keep doing this?

I sat back. Perhaps because after over two hundred years of doing something, you're no longer just doing a job. Perhaps it's no longer something you even can leave. If I left Jacobson if I left what I built, what would I even do? I knew there were, in fact, literally, other things I could be doing, but none of them had any appeal.

Besides, this was what I was good at. I provided a service. Men and women around the world wanted children, and many of them could not obtain them legally. I knew how to run this right, how to make this work. No one did it better, even with the wolves breathing down my neck, even as most of the people working for me didn't know what was happening to us or who was fighting us- we were still here. Jacobson was still a trafficking ring like no other. We traded hundreds of children a year from and to all over the world. Even still- down from ten or twenty a month in our best years.

I dug through the papers of requests. What would my men in the field be looking for today? A smile was returning to my face.

My smile faded seeing three of the papers mixed into my requests- three of them weren't requests. They were complaints. The Tracers had found three of my customers and taken back the products I had sold them. They had paid me good money and now they were outraged that they had nothing to show for it.

Each of them reported a group of children and a troop of black women had come to their homes, ransacked them, and taken the children back. I knew the women were banshees and the children...

I threw the three papers off my desk. Why did they keep coming up? In recent years they were singling me out.

A while back I thought I had found a weakness with the Tracers. The Tracers were actually a search and rescue group it turned out. Thus I targeted the people they were trying to save. I meant it as an offer, they could back out, leave me be, never challenge me again.

They didn't understand perhaps? Maybe they had wanted a fight regardless? They didn't take the offer either way. Instead, now they were coming after me with a vengeance. Now they seemed to be only looking to find and steal my merchandise.

I slammed my fist on the table. Why wouldn't they just die or move on?

I squeezed my eyes shut... a smile crept back onto my face.

Among the Tracers was a girl with incredible power. I had seen it with my own eyes. She commanded electricity over massive areas and she could move at brilliant speeds. At times, she could even fly. There could be no doubt. She was a goddess. I was such a monster, a goddess had descended from on high, taken the form of a child, and devoted herself to destroying me. What an honor.

The day I saw what that girl was capable of, I realized, in my days of building Jacobson, I had ascended, no longer a man, no longer a mutant, I was a demon. My name would be remembered.

Now I was remembering why I was still doing this. For sure, if there was a hell, when I died, I would burn forever. But my evil was so great, the gods were coming to pull me to that hell themselves. I was fighting a god.

I wasn't going to back down. I had tried to make her back off, but no, I would not give up myself. I, Tyrin, was going to win this fight. My name would be remembered. My destiny was hell, but before I went I would defeat heaven itself.

Suddenly I was glad she hadn't backed off.

I walked around the table and picked up those papers gingerly, starting to speak to them like children. "There there, don't worry, I won't simply forget you. I will study these complaints, I will send agents to investigate. Your complaints will be heard, trust me." The grin on my face grew. "Goddess, I will track you down. I will find the perfect battlefield for us, and I will have you all to myself. You will scream as I strike you down. And then I will laugh as the light fades from your eyes, knowing I will then destroy those you love."

I sat back down at the desk. I sighed as a practical concern came to mind. "Still, there is the problem of the fact that you tend to roam with an illusionist these days- and from what I've seen, a good one at that. If I fight you when she is around I'll be defeated for sure... but don't worry goddess, I will find a way. We shall meet, we shall have our battle and it will be one for the ages." I kicked my legs onto the desk. "Who knows, maybe after I destroy you and your allies- maybe I will retire. Maybe that will be my legacy after I win. I defeated heaven, and for a time, lived happily after."

I looked at the stack of requests and sat forward again. Best to get to work now.