"What is that?"

Nitro bent down to take a small folded paper from the hand of the man lying on the floor. "It's his list. A list of everyone with a terminal illness in within a 50 mile radius."

"My god," whispered Freebird, AKA Carli Winstorm, "so it's true. His powers..." her voice trailed off as she stared at the dead man on the sidewalk at her feet. His face marred by the impact of falling twenty stories on to the concrete surface. Despite his injuries, Gene Sandkirk was still recognizable. The small, squat man had visited them months ago with an incredible story. Even in the times of super powers, heroes and villains, his tale seemed unbelievable. "Do you think it was him?" asked Carli.

"It has to have been," replied Marco Ramirez, codename Nitro. "How else can we explain it. Those people were doomed, there was no way for any of us to save them. Not even Slingshot could have gotten a million plus people out of the path of that explosion and gotten them to safety across the bay. "

Nitro looked long and hard at the list. The names of random people scrolled past in his mind. He remembered the meeting with Sandkirk. The wild story of curses and sacrifice. He had wanted help. He asked them how to turn that curse into a force for good, but all he could come up with was a list. A list of innocent people with limited time left on the earth. A list of people whose death, while tragic, could serve to save the lives of one, maybe a hundred people who otherwise would perish unnecessarily. But how could he choose? How could he make that choice?

"He couldn't do it." declared Carli. "He knew what was happening. The alarms, the news, it was clear that those people would die and that only his power could save them. But when the time came, he couldn't go through with it. When presented with ending a person's life he decided to end his own instead."

"How do you know?" asked Marco.

"Look at the first name on the list. The address. It's this building." Carli signed and looked up at the 20th floor of the building. "His first 'victim' lived here."