“So you’re Matt?” The grizzled middle-aged detective looked like a caricature of himself, his nicotine-stained face practically melting off its squarish cage as he eyed this… ’thing’ up and down in front of him, lifting his tan fedora enough to take in the absurd detail of the boy’s red-frosted tips. “Then I guess I don’t need to tell you why you’re in here today, do I?”
“Uh, I’m a Matt,” the 17 year old punk scoffed in return, examining the french-tipped black nails peeking over his fingerless leather gloves. “Probably not the one you’re after, actually. So, yeah, I’m clueless, actually. Nice place though. Dig the vending machine. All Crystal Pepsi. That’s--that’s a choice, man.” He shot the Detective a pair of salutary finger guns. The proverbial bullets bounced right off the man’s ratty brown trench coat, as the Detective’s leathery frown only sank closer towards his stubbled chin. Tough crowd.
“Smartass,” Detective Lashbrook mumbled under his breath, leaning over the desk. “Last name, kid? What is it? The sooner you cooperate here, the sooner you can go home and listen to your Marilyn Manson, okay?” Even in patronizing falsettos, his voice was like gravel in a garbage compactor, not unlike the blackened teeth encrusting his growing scowl.
“Don’t have one,” Matt shrugged, leaning back and placing black high heels on the desk in response, crossing them and placing his hands behind his head. “I’m a One Star, and a Common at that. Don’t guess they thought it was worth giving me one. I like to think I’m the cool Matt, but I guess we all do. That’s kind of our thing. Like how yours is spitting on me when you talk. Not that I’m hating, I know some people are into that kinda--”
“Can it. Where do you live, Matt? Where are you from?”
“A fifty cent machine like the others, I guess. Or, well, what used to be. Probably a hundred dollar machine, now.” If someone here had known him well enough, they would have noticed the cloud of existential dread that briefly floated darkly past his red-sclera black-pupil eyes. Then again, they also would have known that he was a “gacha character,” and wouldn’t be asking such stupid questions. Hey, it was alright. He liked being asked stupid questions. It made him feel smart. “Not sure which one, probably the one by Food Lion. I do know whoever got me out of it must have been fuckin’ pissed, though.”
The Detective wanted to just slap this little punk rocker wannabe right across his pretty little made-up face, but he was admittedly curious just how far the kid would take his ridiculous story. The thought of watching all that black and white paint melt off with nervous sweat as the heat became unbearable was just too enticing. Causing fear so deep he could see it through these ridiculous crimson contacts--the very thought sent chills through Lashbrook’s spine. He loved justice more than anything, and he could see a hot, steaming plate of it being cooked up on the little wooden desk in front of him. “Oh, so you rolled out of one of those capsule machines, huh? With the toys in the little plastic… things?”
“I mean, I don’t know where else I would’ve come from,” Matt chuckled, absently fumbling with an arcade token that seemed to appear from nothing. “I think if you read my backstory, it says I worked at a Blockbuster in the big city, or… something. But I’ve only been alive for, like, two days, dude. I have some memories from before that but it’s all bullshit. I popped out in an alley, so I guess someone wasn’t happy with their pull and just threw me aside.” He was much better at hiding his sadness than the Detective was at hiding his disbelief--the fact he was nearing tears was evident only to himself. “Kids can be horrible like that, man. They get two Matts and they don’t even bother keeping the third, just pump in another 400 quarters and cross their fingers for a Nyancy, or an Armatank, or even a Linguine Arf. Anything but another fuckin’ Matt. But, well… there I was.”
“Uh-huh, I see, that makes sense,” the Detective replied, stifling the rising laugh like a fart in an elevator. “And how did you fit inside this capsule toy, Matthew? How did you get out?”
“Some kid was already bleeding and touched the top, I guess. Probably by accident--can’t imagine anyone would read the label and open a Matt on purpose, let alone prick their finger for one.” Matt knew very well what had happened, but it wasn’t worth putting Kev at risk. He’d go to prison before he let the kid get wrapped up in this.
“Uh huh, and then it reacts with the blood, there’s a puff of smoke, and you pop out like a Fairy Godmother, right!?”
“Yeah, actually. I didn’t think you knew about gacha stuff, dude! I--”
“What the hell is a gacha!?” the Detective finally snapped, slamming a boxy fist into the desk. Matt swung his boots off reflexively. Just in time, too, as the aging wooden relic collapsed with the impact.
“I’ll have to brief you on it in a minute, Detective, since you’ve been under a rock all week,” a third, more suave voice called out.
“I go to Florida for one week and the whole damn town goes to hell,” Lashbrook grumbled. He and Matt spun round to see the pleasant, hunky form of Chief Omni strut through the door. His uniform barely contained him, above or below. Take that as you will.
“Yeah, yeah. We’ll catch you up on it, Lash.” If Lashbrook was a stereotypical detective, John Omni was the epitome of the superhero archetype, the mold from which children’s policeman action figures are cast. His deep voice, glistening smile, muscles bulging at the fabric of his well-tailored uniform like so many balloons trying to escape their cage at K-Mart--he was so perfect, it seemed impossible. Matt eyed him with a mix of awe and lust. Lashbrook glared through him like a cat having a battered mouse cruelly snatched from its jaw. “Matt,” the Adonis continued, “you’re free to go. I would like to apologize on behalf of my entire department for this injustice.”
“Now, you wait just one goddamn minute, John,” Lashbrook screeched with the verbal equivalent of an aneurysm, “you can’t just let him saunter out of here like that, after he just up and murders some defenseless old--”
“Tsk, tsk,” Omni playfully chided, wagging his finger. “It wasn’t Matt. Well, not—quite? We caught the real perp, red-handed--even brought him in for you to interrogate. Not like you need to do much--he still had the purse, and her blood on his hands, when we caught him. That, and one of our men watched the whole thing from start to finish.”
“Well, why the hell didn’t they shoot him, then?” Lashbrook screamed, veins bulging. “They just stood by and watched?”
“Not quite,” John replied, looking slightly concerned--the Omni equivalent of a full on panic. “Uh… come on in, Matt.”
The Chief gestured, and in sauntered Matt. Matt looked just like Matt from head to toe--same Matt boots, same Matt bell-bottoms with chains, same Matt leather jacket over fishnets, and same Matt face. The only difference at all from Matt: Matt had several bullets lodged in the front of his skull point blank in the center. Lashbrook stood and walked over to take a closer look, his anger fading into frightened bafflement.
“Matt,” Omni boomed to the first Matt, kindly but authoritative, “You may leave.” This Matt nodded in the affirmative and strolled out. He locked eyes with the other Matt as he exited and glared. Not with fear, but with disgust--like meeting a sibling on their release from prison, if the thing they’d been imprisoned for had been graphically dismembering an elderly woman to take her purse. Was it worth the five bucks? He seemed to demand of his doppelganger. The lazy eyes and sardonic grin the second Matt flashed in return seemed to say... it totally fuckin was dude LOL.
The Detective raised a shaky hand to the spot where the bullets were lodged. They were slightly flattened like they’d collided with something impenetrable: but this wasn’t a brick wall, it was merely a boy! His fingers traced a path across the warm skin of his forehead, slowly edging up to the spot. He could feel the boy’s pulse and warmth--he wasn’t some military android. He was flesh and blood. Lashbrook heard his own pulse rock through his whole body like ever quickening gunshots as he struggled to process it all. As his fingertips brushed against the warped metal, the bullets popped off of Matt’s forehead like a suction cup on a shower wall, bouncing and then rolling harmlessly across the floor. The sound was metallic. Those were real bullets, alright.
For an instant after, the skin seemed to hold an impression; but as Lashbrook leaned in closer the skin returned to its original form. It was like watching a couch return to its original shape after getting up to go to the bathroom, but it was bullets, not butt cheeks, and skin instead of foam. Lashbrook incredulously pressed his finger to the spot. The skull beneath was undented. Once the bullets had been removed--nay, had been casually peeled off--there was no trace they’d ever been fired at close range into the boy’s skull to begin with.
Lashbrook’s blood went cold. He tried to breathe, but it felt like a cobra was wrapped around his throat, closing off almost all of the air from each frantic gasp. He felt sick. Nothing about this was right. Nothing about this was explainable. This wasn’t how things worked--this was blatantly, angeringly, terrifyingly impossible. Nausea swirled in his bowels, vision blurring in his eyes.
“Y-you’ve got to be joking, O-Omni,” he barely managed to whimper, his voice deteriorating from gravel to sand. “Y-you found these twins, and you put these props on their head, and you--”
In response, the Chief drew his own revolver and fired a full clip into the boy’s forehead. As the smoke cleared, it was clear that only one bullet had even stayed in place: the others had bounced immediately to the scarred hardwood below. Second Matt brushed the last casing from his face with the concern and annoyance of a cow swatting at a fly with its tail. There was no indentation, no blood. Only a very bored looking second Matt.
“You can try to keep me here,” Matt yawned, “but it’d be easier to just let me off with a warning, yeah? My kid’s gonna be real fucking annoyed if I’m late to the mall.”
“He has a son?” Lashbrook whispered, somehow even more incredulous towards this fact than the revelations preceding.
“Nah, fool,” Matt scoffed, rolling his eyes. “I’m not about that child support life. I’m talking about my Master.”
“You’re… owned?”
Matt shrugged. “Sounds so demeaning when you put it that way. It’s not the worst gig. She’s 12, kind of a demon child, I relate. We listen to the same music and such. Not to say I wouldn’t tear her limb from limb for the hell of it if she ever took that fuckin’ Glove off, though.” A sick smile crept up his face. Lashbrook gulped.
“And w-w-we’re s-supposed to just, l-let you walk out of here, and-and-and not even be concerned you’re going to… I don’t know, kill this kid like you did the old woman!?” Lashbrook stammered.
“I mean, yeah,” he replied, scratching an itch under his fishnets. “Who do you think told me to off the grandma? Fashion ain’t cheap.”
Lashbrook did something he’d never done before in his entire career. He rose, silently, from his seat, pale as a sheet, and he walked out of the interrogation room, out of this hallway, and out of the front door. He didn’t tell anyone where he was going, didn’t say he was going home because he was sick or anything of the sort. He just wandered, mindlessly, unable to process what was happening and the weight of it all, coming up with static when he tried. He wandered all the way to Captain Jack’s, like a ghost returning to its place of death, to get their strongest mixed drink, as he always did after a rough shift: usually seven hours or so later.
He froze at the door when he saw it. Three Matts inside with fake IDs. A fourth walked around from behind a pool table. In the corner, by the old Dig Dug arcade cabinet, was a dog with a ravioli mustache and opposable thumbs in a chef’s hat, chatting away with what he could only describe as a dragon made out of breakfast foods.
He should have stayed in Florida.