The Color of Justice

1

Hue Man stood at the very top of Reagan City's City Hall. He looked out over the city from his perch. Everything looked quiet to him.

He had adopted the city after the death of its last protector. He felt responsible for what happened despite the fact the events had not been his fault.

The man had been fatally wounded and threw himself and his murderer through a window of a skyscraper. They had impacted the street and shattered inside a circle of hot asphalt.

Hue Man had taken the broken watch that had given the hero his powers and sent it to the man's sister. He couldn't repair it, and felt that the family should know the whole story.

He had wondered if that made him more human than he had first thought, or more responsible than some of the people he had met since his creation under Chicago.

Moving south from Chicago had been as simple quitting the job he used to pass as human and flying to Reagan City. He had set up another residence and an identity to blend in with the populace on his downtime.

He couldn't patrol the city all the time. He needed personal time to rest and repair.

He sometimes wondered if he would wear out like a car, or a house. How long did have to live? What would he do if he couldn't operate at peak efficiency? What were his options for retirement?

Reagan City gave him plenty of time to ponder those things. The crime rate was low, and emergencies needing his expertise was rare. Not many villains bothered the midwestern giant.

He accepted the reality, but pondered the odds. It didn't seem likely that Reagan City should be so poor in the crime statistics compared to other cities close to it.

An alarm cut through his thoughts. He concentrated on finding the source of the sound.

He jumped from the rampart as red poured through his artificial skin, forcing the other colors from his back. Wings sprouted to carry toward the source of the ringing. Purple spots searched for anything that could be considered a culprit.

He focused some of his purple eyes on the source of the ringing. Someone had forced their way into a jewelry store. The bars on the door were gone in a circle. So was part of the door. He didn't see any movement on the street.

Where had the culprit gone? He searched for an explanation as he landed in front of the hole in the front of the place. Was the culprit still inside?

He wouldn't know unless he went inside to find out.

He shone light from his yellow area as he went to the hole to inspect it. He noted the crescent shapes around the edges of the hole. They looked like bite marks. He wondered if a human had done the damage he observed.

Was that possible?

Humanity produced examples of things he would never have considered before he started helping the helpless.

The light revealed an almost orderly scene inside the store. He didn't see anything moving. He moved the green up so he could lob shots at anything his light picked up. Did the thief have a chance to steal anything before the alarm alerted everybody?

Police sirens and a light appeared on the street. He could let the police handle this. He paused at that. He wasn't ready to let humans go where he wouldn't.

The policemen stepped out of the car with pistols drawn. They had flashlights in hand, but didn't turn them on.

"Hue Man?" One of the policeman frowned as he came up. "What's going on?"

"I was about to go inside and see if the thief was still here." The rainbow robot was glad they hadn't started shooting at him.

"We'll cover the back." The officer nodded at his partner and they disappeared down the alley on the side of the building.

Hue Man waited for a few seconds before he stepped inside the store. He didn't think the thief was still present. He ran his light over the displays. A couple of them had holes in them. Those had some blank spots where jewelry used to be.

He paused to let his purple eyes to take in the scene again. What was wrong with this picture?

He walked to the back of the store. There was a work area, an office, and a small vault. The vault had a nibble taken out of it, but not much more than that. He went to the back door. It hung open.

His lighted skin revealed that the lock had been bitten through to allow the thief to escape into the alley behind the store.

"Officer Cook?" He called through the hole in the door. He didn't want to deal with the discharge of firearms in his direction.

"No one came out." The officer turned on his own light. He had one of the rear corners. His partner stood at the other.

"He took some jewelry with him." Hue Man let the green mix with the other colors he wasn't using at the moment. "It looks like he chewed through the bars and the door, the display cases, and took a bite out of the vault."

"We'll have to get some of the science boys down here." Cook nodded at his partner to make the call. "Biting through stuff seems familiar to me. I don't remember exactly why."

"It's probably an old villain returning to wreck horrible revenge." Hue Man dimmed his light.

"It always is." Cook went to the door and ran his light over the bite in the metal. "I'll put out an alert. Maybe he's still in the neighborhood."

"I'll see if I can spot him from the air." Hue Man spread his wings again. "He might have just left when I arrived."

"We'll need a witness statement in a few minutes." Cook went inside and cut on the lights. He needed to cut off the alarm somehow. He would have to roust the owner.

Hue Man floated above the neighborhood. Traffic was light and no one looked suspicious. He couldn't grab people at random for questioning.

Where had his thief gone from the time he had opened the back door until the robot and police arrived? It couldn't have been far on foot.

Hue Man returned to the store in defeat. He should be able to track down anyone, but humans could still surprise him. He hated to admit defeat, but he didn't have a clue how the bandit had eluded him.

Cook had his pad out. He and his partner held the front of the store from anyone trying to get in. Another patrol car had rolled to the other side of the building to block the back. They looked like they were waiting on something to happen.

Hue Man decided that they needed to turn everything over to detectives and technicians from the crime lab. Someone had probably called the owner to shut off the bell inside the store. Everything had moved out of his hands as an unofficial vigilante operating in the city to an official police case with a jacket and evidence gathering on the way.

The only thing he could do to help was keep an eye out for more break-ins in the hope he could stop the thief before he escaped. The police had more manpower to look into things resulting from going over the store for evidence.

The chewing of metal could belong to several villains. Most of them should be in jail. The police could check on the ones running loose.

"I didn't see anyone who looked likely as a suspect, Officer Cook." He hated to admit that.

"Give me a statement, and then you will be free to go." Cook held his pen and pad ready.

"I heard the alarm, flew down to look around. I saw the door was opened. I shined a light into the store but didn't see anything moving. Then you arrived. I went inside and looked around. I noted the missing gems and reported to you at the back of the building."

"Did you touch anything?" Cook made his notes in his precise penmanship.

"The door in the back when I stepped outside." Hue Man had only shined his light down on the cases.

"The detectives will probably call if they need to follow up about anything." Cook handed over the pad and pen. "Sign at the bottom."

The robot wrote his name down in block letters at the bottom of the page. He handed the pad back.

"You're free to go." Cook put the pad away. "If you see anything, call in."

"Why did he only take some of the gems?" Hue Man couldn't resist the question.

"Don't know." The policeman shrugged. "Maybe he only needed a certain kind."

The robot turned the speculation over in his mind as he recalled the room. The cases hadn't been next to each other. He had opened them and only taken two things at most from each. Why hadn't he taken the whole lot?

Maybe Cook's guess was right. Maybe he only needed certain types of gems. What did he need them for once he got them?

What required gems as ingredients?

Could other gems be used as a trap to catch the thief? How much did he want them? How many more did he need?

If he didn't, they might have missed their only chance to stop whatever he was planning.

2

Carlos Caltone examined the two stones he had on stands he had built. He thought they were the right shape and size for what he wanted to do. He went to the machinery he had constructed over several years. He tripped the switch.

A beam of light blasted down on the two stones from overhead. Small shards danced around them. He cut the beam to examine his handiwork.

The area around the stones had been pitted and scorched. They looked undamaged to the naked eye.

He raised his goggles and adjusted the heavy gloves on his hands. He carefully picked up the stone on the right. It crumbled away at his touch.

He touched the top of the other one with a fingertip. The stone fell into a jumble of ash as soon as he put any weight on it.

Caltone clenched his heavy jaw.

The tests should have pointed him to a cure for his condition. Instead they were a failure and he was no closer than he was before he pulled the switch.

What was he doing wrong? How could he fix his problem? What was the missing piece of the puzzle?

He sat down in a chair at a drafting board. He looked at the ash on the stands with his face between his gloved hands. He took a deep breath to settle his nerves.

He needed to get more stones if he wanted to continue his experiments. He couldn't bother doing that until he figured out what was wrong with his approach. Destroying diamonds was nothing if it didn't help him with his problem.

He didn't want to spend the rest of his life as a freak.

Caltone turned to the drafting table. He had a volume of notes compiled during his long self-exile. He didn't want any of his colleagues to see him after what had happened.

They had told him the research needed more testing. He should have listened, but hadn't. Now he belonged in a sideshow somewhere.

He put the notes away. He needed to take the time to rethink his experiments before he tried again. He needed a take few hours off.

He had seen some of his friends work themselves to death trying to prove something was right, or wrong. He could take his time and work at his own pace. It wasn't like he couldn't get money any time he wanted.

His condition had one useful side effect. He could chew through anything he could bite. Stone and mortar was no more hindrance to him than ice cream.

The problem was ice cream tasted like stone and mortar.

He decided to take a walk. Maybe outside air would spark some inspiration he could add to his volume. It had happened before.

It was how he had stumbled on the process that had altered his life.

He was walking along the campus, smoking a pipe, thinking about certain theories and equations. He noticed the way the leaves in the trees seemed to match what he was thinking. He grabbed one of the lower branches at the end.

His thoughts exploded with the realization of his discovery. He ran back to his lab and wrote everything down before he forgot it.

It could be the greatest thing ever if the applications worked like he thought they would.

He began putting the equipment together with some help from his colleagues and students. He checked everything as he went. Everything looked on target.

Something happened when he went to test the machinery he had put together.

Caltone checked his notes afterward. He had been off somewhere. He didn't know where, and couldn't find the miscalculation. The university asked him to stay on and work on his device. He declined.

He couldn't face the people who had helped him. He felt guilty that he had tarnished their reputations when he ruined his face. He couldn't look them in the eye anymore.

So he moved west to Reagan City and decided to try and reverse things on his own.

He wanted to look normal again if he could. Anything else from the research would be something to add to the knowledge of the world.

It could at least alleviate hunger in areas of the world hit hard by famine.

The subject would be mutated so he could eat anything. That would allow the people to survive long enough until crops grew. Then they could have their mutation taken away at will when they are able to feed themselves.

There were probably other uses he had not thought of when he had first come up with the process in the first place.

Caltone pulled on his hat and coat. He made sure the collar of his coat concealed his jaw. He didn't want to scare anyone while he was walking.

He smiled briefly. He had the face of a sack of rocks with the sack pulled tight against the contents. He could reverse the process if he worked on it hard enough. He was sure of that.

He just needed a break and some kind of inspiration to steer his research in the proper direction. He smiled again as he walked down the street. He should have thought of the consequences long before he built the first machine.

He concentrated on pushing the recriminations away. They didn't help his thinking process. They clouded his ability to process information in a useful way.

He focused his gaze on the stars above Reagan City. They were faint but there. In a few years, the city lights would drown them out. It was a common occurrence with metropolises around the world.

He stared at the stars. They filled his head as he walked along the sidewalk. He closed his eyes as he thought about their relations. It was almost there.

Then it was gone.

He opened his eyes. He almost had something. He could feel that itch that told him his brain had seen something. He gritted his square teeth as he tried to get that feeling back. It eluded his grasp.

He walked on, still watching the stars. He couldn't quite get the idea back from wherever it had retreated to in the quarters of his brain.

He couldn't push it. It would present itself when it was ready. All he could do was keep walking and watching the stars. Something about them had been a trigger for what he needed for his research.

He put it out of his head. It would come eventually. Until it did, he would enjoy his walk and get some sleep when he returned home to his lab.

He would go over his notes again tomorrow.