“Colin, stop, please!”

Dragon’s words didn’t matter.  He was going to die anyways.  He’d known the moment he recognized Mannequin.

No faith in the reinforcements, huh? Sounds familiar.

He’d go down fighting, hurt this motherfucker the only ways he could.

But yeah, if he thinks he’s gonna die anyway, this behavior makes much more sense beyond just pure wrath and recklessness.

“You want to compare us, freak?  Maybe we both had bad days.  Days where nothing went right, days where we were too slow, too stupid, too weak, unprepared or tired.  Days we’ll look back on for the rest of our fucking miserable lives, wondering what we would have done different, what we could have done better, how things could have played out.  The difference between us is that I actually did something with my life, and I’m still trying to do more while I serve my sentence!”  He stopped and took a breath.

Oh jeez. Mannequin better hope whatever he made his casing out of is fire resistant, because Colin is really turning up the heat.

“You started your big projects, got every fucking person in the world to get their hopes up, and then you failed to finish anything because you couldn’t hack it when your fucking family got killed!  You insult their fucking memories every motherfucking second you exist like this!”

I’ll give him that last one. It’s not exactly a good way of honoring their memories.

“Colin!”  Dragon pleaded.  Her voice was louder.

Really can’t blame ‘er.

The villain didn’t move.

“Fucking answer me!  Spell the fucking words with keys if you have to!”  He roared the words at the mad tinker.

Colin is an embodiment of pride, but he’s definitely got a touch of wrath in there too. He’s got quite the temper, especially when his pride is attacked.

Mannequin swayed slightly, then righted himself with a sudden, jerky motion, as if he’d collapse into a heap if he wasn’t careful.

That might just be the case.

He used his hand to shift his back into place with an audible click.

Colin went on, “I was out there every day, helping.  I took steps to fight evil and take down criminals every day, small steps, baby steps.”

But was that your goal?

Or was it the thanks you’d get for it?

“No,” Colin muttered.

“Quiet!”  Dragon’s voice whispered from the nearby speaker, “They’re in the building, they’ll be there to help you in two minutes, maybe less!  I can see them on the security cameras!”

I feel like the response time has been relatively slow, but I don’t think I actually know where Colin’s labpartment cell is relative to any other PRT buildings. At least I don’t remember.

Besides, my perception of time is fucky enough without the added restrictions of the textual medium.

“I’m nothing like you!”  Colin screamed at the villain.

Mannequin stared at him with the shallow, empty eye sockets.

“Aren’t you?”

Maybe he’ll spell out the “lost everything” thing.

“I didn’t date, I didn’t have kids, because I wanted to be out there, helping!  I knew that any attachments could be used against me, so I went without!  I was fucking smart enough to do that!”

Oof.

Oh, Colin…

If there’s something that’s gonna provoke him, it’s probably this.

Six inches away, Mannequin put down an M, sideways.  He corrected it so it was upright.  Directly beside it, the villain put down an E.

U ME

SITNG [ins] A 3

KYZ[end]

He stepped away from the desk and faced Colin once more.

“You… me?”  Colin asked.

Yeah, probably.

Mannequin cocked his head.

“Is this a riddle?”

I guess he might be saying “you’re like me”? But maybe he has more to write.

Mannequin swiveled his upper body to face the other direction and reached for the shattered monitor.  He picked out a piece of glass and a piece of glossy black plastic.  Pressing them together, he raised it to the right side of his face, looking down at Colin.

Hm… I guess that would act as a mirror. Half his face being covered by a mirror should drive the point home. He sees himself in Colin.

…I suppose the way Colin “lost everything” appeals to him.

Slowly, Mannequin changed the angle of the shard of glass with the black backing.

It took two long seconds before the villain’s intent became clear.  Colin tensed, and Mannequin froze, fixing the angle of the shard.

Oh yeah, I suppose it’d only work as intended at certain angles.

With the black backing, the glass reflected an image.  With the angle Mannequin had carefully found, the image reflected was half of Colin’s own face, overlapping with Mannequin’s head.

A powerful image. Mannequin knows his symbolism.

I guess it comes with not talking.

The featureless white head swiveled one way, then the other.

I wonder if this implies he actually does see through his head, or if it’s just a habit from when he did.

After a long moment, one arm dropped to the floor, the chain going slack.  The hand crawled over to pick up another key, then the arm reeled in.

Useful ability, that. Might even say it’s handy.

Colin tensed as Mannequin approached, backing up as far as he was able  The window was just behind him now, and he could almost imagine the crackling of the rainwater vaporizing against the forcefield.

That actually seems like it’d be a cool sound.

The villain turned and placed the keys down on the edge of Colin’s desk.  The first key was the letter U.

Here we go. Time to learn spelling with Professor Mannequin. 🙂

Uncaring or oblivious to the outburst, Mannequin turned and examined the ruined computer.  He picked up a key that had been thrown off the ruined keyboard and turned it over in his fingers.

Uh, sure, go do that, I guess.

I suppose he could use the keyboard keys to spell out things, if he wanted.

“Listen to me, you psychopath!”

“Colin!”  Dragon’s voice hissed from the speaker, not as quiet as it had been.  “Don’t provoke him!  Help is nearly there!”

Dragon has a point.

Colin had to stop to control his breathing, and he bit his tongue to keep from saying anything further.  His enemy had to have heard her, but didn’t seem to care.

Yeah, he doesn’t seem concerned about reinforcements at all.

Or about anything, really.

Mannequin fished through the broken keys from the keyboard, found another, and folded one finger back to pin it against the back of his hand.  He ejected a blade from his wrist and used it to scrape the letters that were still intact off the board.

Oh hey, looks like he is planning on using the keyboard keys to communicate.

They clattered to the desktop, and a few fell to the floor.

The obvious drawback here is that he’ll only have one of each letter, so he’ll need to word things carefully, use creative spellings, leave blank spaces or move letters around while Colin is reading.

“So I gathered.”

“They ran it by some of the experts.  Colin, the consensus they came to was that Slaughterhouse Nine are in Brockton Bay to replace their ninth member.”

Oh, okay, she didn’t figure that out on the spot, but she seems to have figured out more specifically that it’s why Mannequin sought out Colin.

He stared at Mannequin, and the realization made his blood run cold.

“Me!?” he shouted.

You!! 😀

The faceless man cocked his head to one side.

Colin roared, “I’m a fucking soldier!  I made a call that could have saved millions of lives!  Billions!  You’re ten times as fucked up as I thought you were if you think I belong in your group!”

Army does have a point. If he had succeeded at what he was trying to do, it would have been a great boon to the world. It’s just a shame that it didn’t seem to be his primary motivation, and that he decided it was a-okay to sacrifice a couple villain lives for a plan that was never actually going to work.

The Icarus is strong in Colin’s story, right down to the element associated with his demise, or what would be his demise if not for Taylor.