Ian laughed again and Soledad laughed too. Weakly and mostly to keep from crying. She lifted a hand to rub a tear from where it was starting to run down her face. When she lowered her hand, it came to rest close to Ian's, touching it just barely.
Ian didn't try to move his hand, to hold Soledad's. He just let it lie there next to hers. Touching it just barely.
"So what'd you do?" Soledad asked."How'd you get over it; your friends dying?"
"I didn't in a way. In a way I didn't want to. Someone's dead you don't just forget about them like they never existed.
"I had this one friend… Did I tell you about the time… She loved Mexican food, and it was about two in the morn— No. Of course I didn't tell you. Anyway, when she died… she had this cut of 'Tiny Dancer. ' Elton John, you know?"
Soledad shrugged."Peter Frampton's about as far as I ever went in that direction, but I know the song."
"Yeah, so, she had a single. A forty-five, not a CD, and it had this little scratch at the intro over the piano part. But it made the record sound like no other version of the song. Sometimes, when we were both feeling mellow, we'd smoke a little, she'd play the single and we would sit and talk and…"
"Did you love her?" Soledad asked.
"Of course I did."
"I don't mean 'fellow human being' loved her. Did you love her?"
Ian said nothing. Same as if the question had never been asked, he went on with: "After she died her family let me have the single. Every once in a while I put it on, I hear that little scratch that's not on any other copy of 'Tiny Dancer, ' and I remember. And long as you remember, as long as every now and then you keep someone alive in your heart and in your mind…"
Ian didn't finish the thought. Didn't need to. And for the next seventy-six minutes, except to ask Soledad if she wanted anything to drink yet, to which she replied,"No," Ian said nothing else.
I'll try to explain this best I can, as simply as I can. A wood door, a steel slab, a windowpane: They're all solid objects. They seem solid. But they're really just molecules held together by cohesion. That's like a… think of it like an energy glue. The glue is stronger with steel than, you know, water, but between the molecules is space. Reality is, nothing's really solid. So if you could manipulate your own molecular cohesion, alter the space between your molecules, you could lower your density."
"You could make yourself intangible."
Whitaker nodded. Vin was getting it.
Maybe Whitaker had a way of coming off as Mr. Eager to Please, but by nature he was a guy who knew there was a way to handle every situation. For some MTacs, for most, handling a situation meant figuring which was the biggest, baddest gun to tote after a mutie. For MTacs like Whitaker, knowing your muties was the first order of business.
Whitaker tried to bring Vin around to that way of thinking.
Bo just read the sports section. He'd already learned plenty about freaks, firsthand, from ten-plus years of going against them. From seeing too many good cops like Reese get put down.
Vin asked: "You ever seen one, an intangible?"
"No. Saw some video of cops chasing one in Tampa. Chasing. The thing was walking away from the cops. Nothing they could do to stop it."
"Jesus, Bo. You hear this."
"Yeah. A guy can change his density. You want to explain something, explain why the Dodgers can't take a three-game home stand."
"Know what's scary about intangibles?" Whitaker went on."I've heard, and I don't think anybody's sure, but there's evidence they can manipulate the density of other things same as they can their own."
Vin wasn't sure what Whitaker was getting at.
Whitaker: "Okay, well, to me that counts as a secondary ability."
"Freaks don't have secondary abilities."
"What about that freak Soledad put down? It could do whatever it did with that sinkhole and fly."
"Yeah, but we don't… nobody knows what happened with the sinkhole. Not for sure." Vin, trying to be optimistic about a negative matter."So maybe all it could do was fly."
"If that thing could do what it did and fly," Whitaker went on, objective with the facts,"if intangibles can extend their abilities, could be we're starting to look at the next step in the next wave of freaks."
"Fuuhhhhk."
"Yes. Fuck. Muties that can fly and breathe fire, or triple their size and shoot electricity."
Vin, again: "Fuck."
"If that's what's waiting for us, we're going to look back on these days as the good old days."
Bo acted like he was still just reading the sports section. Really he was hearing every word Whitaker was saying.
Yarborough walked into the ready room.
"Hey, Yar."
"What's goin' on, boys?"
"Whitaker's telling ghost stories."
"I'm just talking about the freak population, telling it like it is."
"Here's how it is: I see a freak…" With his hand and fingers Yarborough made a gun, pulled the trigger."There's your freak population."
Bo took himself from the sports long enough to wonder to Yar: "That a new jacket? It's nice."
"Yeah? Like it?"
"What'd I say? Said it's nice. What is that? It looks like—"
"It's Pleather."
"What?"
"It's a Pleather coat."
Vin was the first to start laughing, but Whitaker, I-want-to-get-along-with-everybody Whitaker, laughed loudest.
"Every time," Yar said with a front of mock indignance, but harboring a little of the real thing,"I buy something you all've gotta make fun of it."
"Well, now, that's because every time you buy something you buy something like, Pleather. What is that, plastic leather?"
"Quality material's what it is."
"Sure." Vin, getting into things."Comes from some of the finest Pleather on the planet. Remind me, Pleather: flora or fauna?"
Yar made a show of carefully taking off his jacket as he swapped his civvies for Nomex."Twice as durable as leather, half the price."
"Half the cost and twice the laughs."
"Yeah, man. Sorry, but Pleather sounds like something that went out of style about the same time as KG and the Sunshine Band." Whitaker had some humor to him when he felt like using it.
"What you all thinks not hardly my concern. Chicks dig Pleather."
Another round of laughing started up.
Vin: "Yar, you don't seem to be aware of the fact that chicks don't dig being called chicks, so how are you going to tell us they dig Pleather?"
"Hey, as a cop who's remained notoriously single through three divisions, I don't think you should be schooling me on what chicks dig."
"Being the married one," Bo weighing in,"I gotta go with Vin on this. Traditional ladies don't really shine to being lumped in with barnyard animals. Cute and yellow and fluffy as they might be."
"That's what I'm saying; I'm not really trying to attract a traditional girl. I like 'em, what's the word? Atypical."
Vin, smiling but shaking his head: "I can't wait to meet the girl who turns you out. Man, she is going to drag your ass by your heart."
The girl.
It was really hard for Yar to say if she had been the one or not. She was pretty, plenty pretty, and that was—right, wrong, chauvinistic or not—Yar's first consideration. She was tough too. Not just take-a-punch tough, but take-what-life-gives-you-and-deal-with-it tough. Good with a gun, and that, well, c'mon, that makes any woman sexy. And sometimes Yar would catch her smiling. Smiling for no reason when she thought no one was looking. She was cute when she smiled. It planed her edge. And sometimes she would wink at Yar. Not flirting. Joking. Like: Hey, I'm thinking something, and wouldn't you like to know what I'm thinking? And maybe she was just a woman, and nothing more or less special than that, not nearly all that Yar recalled. But she was also dead, and that made Yar think of Reese and think, maybe, one time, instead of just staring at her smile he should've asked her out for a drink or to a movie. Or short of that, just told her, Reese, you're all right and I'm glad you've got my back. And Yar missed her. Whether he would have ever dated her or not, if it ever would've worked out or not, he missed Reese; missed what she was about, felt guilt for never having taken the thirty seconds out of a day to get to know her a little better. And he wanted to tell Bo and Whitaker and Vin that he missed Reese and that he hurt from missing her and wished he could go back and tell her he loved her, or at least liked her a whole lot. She shouldn't've died wondering if she was loved, or at least well liked.
None of them should.
He wanted to share all that with the guys…
Yarborough wanted to…
But the laughing… they'd just laugh if he said all that.
Wouldn't they?
So Yarborough said, instead, giving the people the Yar they thought they knew so well: "God ain't invented the girl that can own me. When He does, I guess I'll just cross her bridge when I get to it."
Bo was going to make a crack, keep ragging on Yar 'cause Yar was good to rag on and could take a well-thrown joke. Before he got a chance Tac-1 crackled with a call out from Command to Fifth and Flower. A patrol reporting a metanormal.
The radio hadn't even gone quiet and all four MTacs, weapons in hand, were moving from the ready room for the APC.
When D Platoon, LAPD's SWAT unit, rolled on a call, they hit the scene in modified GMC Suburbans. Doesn't sound real menacing, traveling same as your average soccer mom. But you see a couple of the vehicles—armor-plated, dark black or deep blue—you see guys sporting MP5s or CAR-15s piling out of them, that'll get your menace up. Unless you're a metanormal. You're a metanormal, maybe all you'll do is use your telekinetic abilities to send the Suburban flipping into the side of a building from a block away.
It happened.
So MTacs don't show up in modified Suburbans. MTacs roll in carbon-fiber APCs rated to withstand temperatures of up to l, 200°F and pressure up to 3, 000 psi. And since its exterior isn't metal, a metal morpher can't put a hand to it and simply make the vehicle collapse, killing all the cops inside.
That happened too.
So, most times, the carbon-fiber APC was enough to get the MTacs to the call in one piece. After that, they were on their own.
Bo led Yarborough, Vin and Whitaker from the APC to a squad blocking off the intersection on Flower. Down the block was another squad doing the same. To the officer in charge, Bo gave his standard greeting.
"Whatcha got?"
"Guy flagged a patrol down. Says he saw a shape-changing freak."
Bo looked up the street. Low-rise brick buildings. A couple of parked cars. A motorcycle. Garbage cans. Pay phone.
Bo asked: "He thinks he saw a shape-shifter, or he saw one?"
"We hit the scene, there were three or four guys, baseball bats, beating the shit out of the thing. One second it's a bear, then it's a… like a lion. Thought it was gonna turn into an elephant or something, trample the hell out of those guys."
"They can change shape not mass." Halfway up the block an alley."It'll maintain its relative size. How big was the guy?"
"Caucasian male about six-one, maybe two hundred pounds. It was for a second. Then it was a lion again."
Six-one. Two hundred pounds. That left a lot of possibilities.
Yar, Vin and Whitaker were already fanning the intersection, weapons ready, looking up the block for likely targets: something that should be still but was moving slightly. Something that should be inanimate but was bleeding from taking hits from a Louisville Slugger-armed Neighborhood Watch.
Bo to the sergeant: "Your guys chased it up the street?"
"Yeah. The other squad cut it off. It headed down the alley, but it dead-ends. They kinda looked for it."
"Kinda?"
Direct but not trying to be harsh: "Their job's to lock the scene down and put in the call. You got the call. You take out the freak."
The freak.
It probably wasn't, couldn't be, one of the cars. Could easily be a garbage can, the pay phone stand. But maybe it'd blended with the stoop of one of the buildings. Maybe that bit of wrought iron was really just a mutie in disguise.
Or maybe it was none of that. Maybe it'd managed to slip past the uniforms.
Or maybe that newspaper vending machine was going to do everything it could to end an MTac's life.
"Mike check. One."
"Two."
"Three.""Four."
Gripping his. 45, Bo took point, started down the block. Yar, Vin and Whitaker followed.
Yarborough yelled: "Bo!"
Bo whipped around. Bo saw a section of brick wall of the alley moving toward him. He had a split second to do something.
The split second passed.
Bo did nothing.
The wall was nearly on top of him. The wall was about to come crashing down on him. The wall was going to kill Bo.
And then the wall was raked with a steady stream of automatic gunfire spat hot and loud from a pair of HKs. The wall jerked back, twisted in response to the hits. Couple of its bricks went flying as the slugs tore divots from it.
The gunfire stopped.
The wall seemed to steady itself as if its masonry and mortar were marshaling; readying up for a surge forward.
Whitaker's Benelli took care of that.
The shell of the shotgun ripped away a huge chunk of the wall. The wall staggered, collapsed—not collapsed, more like slumped— down to the ground.
Yarborough, Vin and Whitaker eased for it, weapons ready to do some more graffiti work if necessary.
The wall didn't move. But it changed. It contorted and contracted. The bricks turned from red to the pinkish tone of flesh. The wall took on the shape of a human. Naked, bullet-riddled, absent some body parts where bricks had been blown off in its previous form.
The four MTacs watched the transformation without expression. Just another changeling. Just another freak. Now it was just another dead one.
Yarborough looked down at the all-but-smoking carcass."Got you, mutie." To the others: "Shape-shifter. Hate 'em the most. Sneaky bastards." To Bo: "What's the matter, Bo? Didn't read 'em?"
"Must've missed it."
"Got your back, man. Tough mo-fo, huh? You even hit him, Vin?"
"Blow me. Shoulda thrown your Pleather jacket at it. That would've scared it off."
"Hell, bet if we had a piece like Bullet's we coulda put it down in one shot."
Whitaker nudged the shape-shifter with the muzzle of his Benelli. The shape-shifter responded by flopping a bit, then lying still some more.
Vin said: "Heard around she doesn't like to be called Bullet."
"Yeah, well, you don't tell her I said it, she don't gotta find out."
"What's she like?" Vin wanted to know."I can't get two words out of her."
"You ladies want to form a stitch 'n' bitch," Bo cut in,"do it on your own time. As long as you're on the city's clock, how about you sweep the rest of the alley; make sure there aren't any more muties hiding out while I get a wagon out here for the meat?"
Yarborough and Vin" yes sir"-ed that, started down the alley. Whitaker nudged the shape-shifter one more time. One more time the shape-shifter flopped, then lay still. Maybe they were superhuman when they were alive, maybe there wasn't anything they couldn't do. Dead they were just as dead as anybody. Whitaker tagged along behind Yarborough and Vin.
Bo stayed back with the body, looked down at it, then looked at his left hand. He curled it into a fist, held it that way for a second, a second more. Uncurled it. He did the same again.
No difference. The action had no effect.
Bo couldn't stop his hand from shaking.
Not that she knew what to expect other than what you see in movies and on TV shows, but the morgue at Cedars-Sinai was different than Soledad figured it'd be. It was cold, yeah. Had to be cold to keep the dead from rotting. And it was empty of smell except that it smelled well scrubbed. It smelled clean. What it didn't smell like was death, however death was supposed to smell. Rancid. Stale. Soledad was pretty sure death didn't smell like Pine-Sol.
Mostly the morgue was a whole lot louder than she figured it would be. Should be. There was, even at the late hour, nothing but people—living people—in the morgue. MEs and cops examining bodies, giving them a close and careful once-over, pushing paper; turning lives into forms to be filed away. Grieving family members come to ID loved ones, gather loved ones. And regularly, very regularly, new bodies making their way down from above. The dead didn't stop coming. Morning. Noon. Night. Los Angeles kept on manufacturing fresh corpses.
Bodies in, bodies out.
It took a bit for Soledad to flag down an assistant assistant ME. Upstairs, somewhere else in the hospital he would have been an orderly. Down there, where the people weren't so particular, he had a title and owned just enough self-importance to ignore everyone around him. It was basically Soledad's flashed badge that got his attention.
"What yah need, sistah?" He was a black guy, young, with long dreads—well kept, not the raggedy-ass kind a lot of Rastahs sported—with more than a little accent from somewhere in the Caribbean.
"I'm looking for someone."
"Name?"
"Bannon, Reese."
The AAME repeated the name a couple of times to quick-fix it in his memory. He looked over some papers, then flicked a finger for Soledad to follow him.
A back room. Tables. Lots of tables. Stainless steel. A whole bunch of no-longer-living people all congregated, all draped in sheets.
Bodies in, bodies out.
The AAME went down a row checking toe tags…
Soledad shook her head. They really used toe tags.
He flipped one over, read it. Flipped another over, read it. Flipped another… He stopped at the table.
Looking to Soledad: "Ready?" He was already pulling back the sheet to reveal the body. Asking was just a formality.
Reese.
One time a guy called death the Big Sleep. It sounded good, clever, and it stuck. Reese didn't look like she was sleeping. She didn't look like she was sleeping or moving to a higher plane or in a better place. She looked dead, and she looked like getting that way hadn't come easy. Muscles atrophied. Pale and gaunt from months of coma, of being fed by tubes and kept breathing by machines. A chest wound that had been worked on every way doctors knew how but in the end would slow-kill her. Reese looked like life had been back-alley-beat from her. And Soledad figured that would've been about the only way Reese would go: not gentle into the night, but only after a long, nasty, bitter, violent fight. But not so much of one that Death wouldn't chalk the victory in the end. Nobody, not even BAMF Reese, was that good a warrior.
"Look aht daht shit, huh." The assistant assistant ME ticked his head at the stitched and stapled defect where Reese's sternum used to be."An' she duhn't die right away? She a tough sometin', huh?"
He said what he said oblivious to Soledad, to her feelings. He said it with no respect for Reese. Forty-plus-hour weeks in a morgue had long since desensitized him to the dead. They weren't people anymore, weren't even bodies. Just inventory to be sorted and stored and just-in-time-delivered to a destination six feet due south.
Bodies in, bodies out.
Meat in, meat out.
A row across and a couple of tables up, three people, a family, stood near the badly charred and mangled remains of someone. They cried profusely. Some other assistant assistant ME kept saying to them over and over: "I need you to identify the body. Please, could you just identify the body? Is this, or is this not…"
From her little backpack purse Soledad slipped a Kodak Fun Saver camera.
Yeah. Right.
She circled around to Reese's right shoulder and lined up a shot.
"Dhis for ahn invesTIgation?" the dreadlocked assistant assistant asked.
Soledad snapped a picture, then snapped a couple more to be safe.
"If daht's not for ahn invesTIgation, yah have tah ask de family fhurst. I can't jhust let yoou be comin' in here takin' pictures of de bodies."
Sure, now he cared.
Soledad tucked the camera back where it had come from and started from the room, let the dead get back to their business.
"Hey," the assistant yelled after her."I'm goin' tah have tah report dhis, sistah. I duhn't wanna have tah geet yah in trahuble."
"Take a number," Soledad said."Get in line."
I know you believe what you're telling me. But what I'm starting to think… look, you can't blame me if this—all of this—is starting to sound a little fantastic."
Soledad flashed anger. Gayle, the lawyer who'd come around uninvited, talked Soledad into letting her work her case, was calling Soledad a liar?
Verbalizing her anger: "You're saying I'm making things up?"
"No, I'm not."
"You said it was a fantasy."
"I said it was fantastic."
"Same thing." Big gesticulation. Dismissive."How's that not the same thing?"
A guy at the next table with good hair and bright but vacant eyes stared at the arguing women.
Gayle caught his look, said: "We want an audience we'll sell tickets. Turn your head, drink your mochaccino."
The guy did as told, was good about taking direction. Probably he was some variation of actor or unemployed actor or wannabe actor come to LA to give a go at being a superstar. The town was sick with them. The cafe—Kings Road, on Kings Road in West Hollywood—was full of them. Soledad didn't care for their kind, didn't like being around them, but Kings Road cafe was walking distance from her apartment, and Gayle had complained enough about meeting in the fumy Beverly Connection Soledad figured she'd make an offer of meeting in the coffeehouse. Now, thinking she'd been called a liar, on top of the fact Gayle was half an hour late for their meeting, Soledad was sorry she'd made the gesture.
Gayle calmed things down, stepped Soledad through the situation."You told me that two years ago you submitted a proposal on your gun to the PD."
"Yes."
"Well, there are no records of it. None that I can find."
No hesitation, strong in her conviction: "That's impossible."
"So it's okay for you to say it's impossible, but if I say it's fantastic…"
"You need to check with A Platoon and the Department of the Armorer."
"I did. No record anything was ever received. You send your work blind?"
"No. Well, not… I'd talked about it with the Sergeant. He told me I should submit my work to the Lieutenant."
"And you did that?"
"Yeah, I did."
"Did you get a receipt?"
"A receipt? I wasn't buying groceries."
"So that's a no."
"If I had something like that, I'd give it to you."
"So you sent your work to the lieutenant, then what?"
"After I didn't hear anything for about…" Soledad gave careful thought, confirmed the time line with herself."It was almost four months. I sent a follow-up letter. Three more months I sent a letter to the sergeant of MTac Operations, told him about what I was working on, that I'd already sent proposals to the Department of the Armorer. Sent another letter two months after that."
Gayle took a drink of her tea. Black and strong."What about the lieutenant of MTac?"
"Rysher?" A shake of Soledad's head."Figured it be better to start lower, have somebody rabbi me up the chain. When I made MTac, I sent the lieutenant commander a query, asked if my submissions had anything to do with my selection. That was just a backward way of trying to get someone to go back, look at my work."
"So, at least, what, five times you made some kind of communication regarding your work."
"At least that. Yeah. I did everything I could to get people on board with what I was doing."
"Not that I can prove."
Shrugging all that off: "So there's no paper; so what?"
"The so-what is: If there's paper, you're a conscientious cop who at least tried hard as she could to get people to listen to her. If there's no paper, no proof you tried, then you're a liar who doesn't give a damn what other people think and just does whatever the hell she pleases." Hand up, cutting Soledad off before she could even get going: "I'm not saying you are, so let's not even start that again. But you're saying there are these documents out there, and I'm telling you if they exist, I can't find them."
"How is that possible?"
"It's possible if somebody makes it possible."
Soledad's head ticked; the idea she was about to speak, her mind couldn't quite grasp."Somebody got rid of the documents?"
"Somebody's lying. If it's not you…"
"That doesn't… Why would anybody…"
"Here's something else: Cop's involved in a shooting, let's say he puts a bullet in the back of some unarmed innocent. Every time, the same thing: The department does everything it can to make it look like the cop's in the right; the guy who got shot wouldn't follow police instructions, made a sudden move, looked like he was holding a gun. They back the cop's play best they know how; keep everyone from looking bad, keep the department from getting buried under lawsuits. What they don't do is put a spotlight on the fact the cop screwed up.
"You take out a metanormal, even I admit he was a bad one. The department ought to be hanging medals all over you; show the world what a great job MTacs do. But they're acting like you going in with your piece is the next worst thing to Mai Lai."
Soledad, trying to logic things out: "What I did… I look back,
I see how I was wrong. The department has to try and protect itself."
"Man, you're a good soldier; throwing yourself on their grenade for them. Who's the department protecting itself from? And from what? The voting majority that's got no problem with metanormals getting shot in the street? Amnesty International filing some useless lawsuit? Would anybody even have any idea what happened in that warehouse if the department hadn't started an investigation? And if the charges that you're facing are so god-awful, you're a vigilante who used an unapproved weapon, why does IA need to investigate you at all? Why not just go with things as they stand?"
Gayle was talking… what she was talking were lies and deceit and conspiracy, and Soledad didn't know what to make of any of it. She didn't know what to do other than to say: "We should… we should go to Rysher."
"That's no good."
"He's my lieutenant. If something's going on, he can help."
Between her palms Gayle rolled her tea mug, the liquid so black it kicked back a fluid reflection of herself, of herself saying: "He's got no desire to help. Soledad, where do you think this IA investigation came from?"
She didn't know. But what Soledad couldn't believe…"The lou… No. Since I've hit MTac, he's been there for me."
No response from Gayle.
The lack of engagement pushed Soledad's conviction."He has my back. He's treated me solid from day one. Told me he'd do what he could to help clean all this up. Why would he build something against me?"
"You really are the good soldier. All the questions I ask, as far as I can follow things, it started with him. More than that, I think he might be poisoning the well against you."
Lies and deceit and conspiracy Gayle was talking.
The actor guy got up to leave. He was replaced by another just like him only Asian.
"Why are they doing this to me?"
Gayle shook her head.
Soledad asked, desperate: "What do we do?"
"If all you had to face down was the law… the law I know, I know how to work the law. What's going on now… I don't know what's going on now. I don't know how to fight it, don't know if I can. So what we do now… what do you want to do?"
Without thought, what Soledad should do was obvious."I should quit things. That would be the smart play. It's what they want. Just take whatever out they give me, walk away."
Gayle said nothing to that.
Soledad: "I won't. I won't do it."
"No matter how bad it gets?"
Letting her head swing free, Soledad looked around the cafe. Didn't look at anything in particular. It was motion for motion's sake. It was being wound so tight some kind of release, no matter how slight, was needed."The good thing, bad thing about being a cop: the blue wall. The idea that we all stick together. Protects you from a lot of crap, you know? A lot of crap out there. But it keeps things in too. Things bounce off the blues. You get the echo of all the quiet voices."
"And the voices say?"
"They say: Look at her. She wouldn't be here if she wasn't a woman. Wouldn't be here if she wasn't a black woman. She got handed the job. She's no good. Why do we have to make exceptions for the black woman? Course 'woman, ' 'black': They've got other ways of saying that. You hear them so often you get good at reading lips at a distance. You can read eyes too. A cool stare, a cold look. And you can read between the lines: You're a good girl, Soledad. A credit to your race, Soledad. Backhanded compliments. A slapping back of the hand. All they're saying: You're okay, Soledad, but too bad you're not one of the boys."
A little laugh from Gayle.
From Soledad: "That funny to you?"
"You first met me, didn't we have a conversation about me being too good-looking to be a decent lawyer?"
"You don't trade on your sex?"
"Trade on it? No. Flaunt it? Yeah, I do. But I'm not about to hide the fact I have the capacity to look good when sixty-eight percent of the rest of America has the capacity to eat drive-thru fast food until they blow up like stuffed pigs. And if somebody figures my good looks equal stupid… well, my rearview mirror is littered with the wreckage of people who've made that mistake." Gayle took a breath, leaned back in her chair, gave Soledad a moment to see the error of her misjudgment."You know, I'm starting to get you. Maybe you're not always right, you've always got to prove other people wrong."
"I'm not getting run into the ground, have people think I got what I deserve for being nothing but a poster child for affirmative action."
"Isn't that the mistake you made with your gun? No one responded to you, they ignored you, so first time out you've gotta prove your thing works because Soledad O'Roark is never mistaken. Yes or no?"
Soledad said nothing.
"You're going to prove yourself into a grave."
"You came to me. You don't like what I am, you don't like what you're staring down…"
"I'm asking this: Who are you trying to prove things to? To yourself? Then good; stand. Fight. Go down swinging so you'll know you're the fighter you believe you are. But if you're trying to prove things to some old boys—no matter how things come out, they're going to think of you the same as they think of you now—then you're killing yourself for the wrong reason."
Soledad didn't answer. She was getting tired. She was burning out.
"I'm not quitting things." Gayle, lightening the mood, trying to: "You don't get rid of me that easy. I don't know what's going on, but whatever it is, it's dirty. Okay. If that's how things are going to go, I can get dirty too. I can—"
"You can what?"
"If I have to, trust me, I can hit these fuckers coming out of the sun."
Northridge.
The man walked into the Devonshire police station. The interior of the building, the building looking to have been built in the sixties, was in a slow state of decay. Paneling was cracked and fraying. Tiles were missing from the floor. Tiles were missing from the ceiling. The furniture, what little there was, was hand-me-downs from LA Unified. Plastic and dirty and dated when it was factory new.
It was late and fairly quiet at the station. The desk sergeant was talking to a Hispanic guy with a bad, bleeding bash on his forehead. The Hispanic guy seemed only to be able to speak Spanish, and the desk sergeant communicated in a busted language that sounded as if it had been patched together after several years of trying to get information from people who knew Spanish and nothing but Spanish.
"Porfavor llene las formas," the sergeant said. Tried to say.
The man, the man who'd just entered the station, sat in one of the dirty plastic chairs and waited for the desk sergeant to finish his business. The man dabbed his upper lip with a handkerchief and had himself a look around. Not much to look at. A few plaques from the Rotary Club, Kiwanis Club, the Chamber of Commerce thanking the police for this or that. A few softball trophies. Old. The man didn't figure police officers much got together for things like soft-ball anymore. Some public service posters reminding people to be safe, telling kids to stay off drugs and stay in school. Considering the state of the world, the posters didn't seem to be doing much good. Maybe if they were hung somewhere besides inside a police station…
"Sehor, llene las formas."
The Hispanic guy was sent over to a chair to sit and fill out some forms.
The man stood, dabbed at his upper lip again, went to the desk sergeant.
"Can I help you?" the desk sergeant asked. Didn't sound like he meant it.
"Yes. Yes, I think… I hope you can."
Just a little, but the desk sergeant looked relieved. Relieved that the man spoke English. It wasn't that the desk sergeant had anything against Hispanics. He wasn't like that. For LAPD the sergeant was nearly forward thinking. It was just nice, on occasion, to be able to talk to someone in his native tongue.
The man said: "I'd like to make a report."
"What kind?" The sergeant opened a drawer filled with papers, poised a hand to take out the appropriate form for the information he was about to receive.
"Well, I'm not exactly sure. I've never made a report like this before. I've never made any kind of report, for that matter. And what I saw, maybe it's nothing. Maybe it's nothing. But, well, it was odd. I… I think it was odd."
"Why don't you just tell me what happened. You tell me what happened, and we'll figure out what kind of report to make."
"That seems like the way to do it. Well, I was over in… I guess I should tell you my name is Theodore. Theodore Kopeikin. I guess you'll need to know that at some point, so I might as well tell you now."
"All right, Mr. Kopeikin—"
" 'Ted' is fine. I know my name is kind of a mouthful. Thought you might need my whole name, but Ted is what everyone calls me."
"Ted, then." The desk sergeant's hand was still poised to grab up a form."Tell me what happened."
"First thing I should say is I work in real estate. Now, I'm not some kind of big tycoon, I'll tell you that right off and have no problem doing so. Just being honest. You should know I'm honest. You're going to… I'm going to want you to know I'm an honest man. But I do work in real estate."
The relief that had come to the desk sergeant when he first talked with Mr. Kopeikin was fading. Maybe they both spoke the same language, but he seemed to be getting less from Mr. Kopeikin than he did from the Hispanic guy.
"Does this have anything to do with what you're reporting?"
"Yes. In a way, yes. I was looking at some property in Northridge. You see, I deal in low-value property. We like to call it undervalued, it sounds better, but it is low-value property. Land near freeways, near dumps, condemned and tenement housing. I'm only telling you that because I'm not selling to you. Believe me, if I was selling, undervalued property; that's what I'd be—"
"If you could just get to what it is you're—"
"I only want you to know I'm an honest man. Taxpayer. I'm sure you get a lot of crackpots off the street, and when you hear what I saw, I don't want you to think—"
"You're an honest man. Yes, sir." Below the desk, above the drawer, the sergeant's hand balled into a fist."If you could just go on."
"Well, as I was saying, I was looking at some property here in Northridge. Apartments where the management has had some troubles, gone out of business. Abandoned, I guess you'd say they were. Now, while these buildings are sitting vacant it's not unusual for squatters to move in."
"Squatters. You want to report squatters." The sergeant was already looking for his trespassing forms.
"No. Not exactly." Mr. Kopeikin found a clean spot on his handkerchief and blew his nose."I'm out looking at some property, as I said, some condemned property, when I see this man up on the eighth floor of the building. He's out on the fire escape laying out some clothes to dry. I think that's what he was doing. Anyway, he was out on the fire escape doing something, and it gave way. The fire escape gave way. As I said, these properties are old, abandoned. He shouldn't have been there in the first place."
"And the man?"
"Well, he fell. Fell straight down to the ground. Straight down and headfirst."
"So you want to report an accident." The desk sergeant started reaching for a new form.
"No. No, I… well, here's why I'm so… The man fell, and I thought that's it. He's dead. Eight floors straight down, on his head; he's dead. But he hit the ground, he lay there for just a moment then… then he got up."
The desk sergeant suddenly got unbored with the story."You said he…?"
"Hit the ground, lay there for a moment and got up. Got up like all he'd done was nicked his toe on a rock. He looked around for a bit, in a strange manner, as if he were afraid someone might have seen what had just happened. After that, well, after that he went back into the building."
The desk sergeant got himself up from where he sat and he was quick about it."I want you to stay right here," he said to Mr. Kopeikin, and said it in a way that would make it stick."Stay here, and I'll be right back."
Mr. Kopeikin started to say" Okay," but the sergeant was already gone.
Wasn't even a minute and the sergeant returned. With him was another cop who had even more stripes on his uniform.
The desk sergeant introduced him."This is Captain Lanning. I want you," the sergeant directed,"to tell him what you told me."
"Well, I work in real estate—"
"The man you saw; just tell him about that."
"I appraise low-value property. Now, normally we call them underval—"
"He saw some guy fall from a eighth-story window." The desk sergeant did the storytelling for Mr. Kopeikin.
"Fire escape," Mr. Kopeikin corrected.
"Fell on his head, right?"
"Yes. And it was onto concrete. I don't think I—"
"The guy fell, and got up like nothing happened."
"An invulnerable?" Lanning asked.
"I couldn't… well, I couldn't say," Mr. Kopeikin said."When I saw it happen, I thought: That's one of those superpeople. Has to be. I couldn't be sure. Never seen one before. Not in real life. But a man takes that kind of fall…"
Captain Lanning looked square in Mr. Kopeikin's eyes and was very serious about things."Mr. Kopeikin, in all likelihood you did see a metanormal human. It's very important we make a record of everything you witnessed, do you understand?"
"I think I—"
"Everything. Even the slightest detail could be important to us later."
"All right. I'll… I'll certainly try."
"I want you to wait here with Sergeant Harris. I'm going to get someone from DMI—"
"Those are the special policemen, yes?" Things were happening fast now, too fast for Mr. Kopeikin.
"Division of Metanormal Investigations. They handle situations like this," Lanning explained."And if they determine we are dealing with a metanormal, they'll issue a warrant and send an MTac element after it. I'm going to bring someone from DMI out here, and then you're going to tell him everything you saw."
"Yes. Yes, of course."
"Sergeant?"
The desk sergeant, Harris, practically snapped to."Yes, sir?"
"Make sure Mr. Kopeikin is comfortable."
"Yes, sir."
Fast, Captain Lanning disappeared back into the station.
Harris gave Mr. Kopeikin his full attention."There anything you need? Something to drink, if there's someone you need to call…?"
"Actually" — Mr. Kopeikin went back to work on his upper lip—"if maybe you could find a tissue for me. For some reason, this never happens to me, just never, but I seem to have the worst nosebleed."
MTac funerals are the best. Not as good as they used to be, not like the first few in the years just after San Francisco, but they're still better than what most cops get sent away with. They were the best for two reasons. One was because a whole lot of show went into the services, kind of like Viking funerals. At least like the Viking funeral I saw in that one movie. The other reason they're so good is 'cause they've had a lot of practice burying MTac cops. A lot of practice.
When the first bunch of MTacs started getting killed, their funerals rated live TV coverage. Networks, CNN. Precoverage on the morning shows and afterthoughts on Nightline. All the airtime they wanted to spend on ceremonies as long as it didn't cut into prime time. Except when the Baltimore Eight got buried. But when the president makes a eulogy, you carry it, you carry it live and you carry it live even if it bumps the sitcoms.
That's part of the reason the funerals aren't as good anymore. Beautiful as they are, there were so many of them so often they got mundane. How many times can you watch cops in full dress salute flag-draped coffins? How often can you look at young widows and widowers hug busted-up families? How much speechifying can you stand from the brass and politicians about" the greatest service you can give" and" not dying in vain"?
So no more live coverage and not as many politicians giving speeches. Unless it was an election year. Election years they fought like white trash at a Wal-Mart sale about who was going to say what over which body.
Except in California. Harry was at every funeral. Harry spoke at every funeral. He didn't give a speech, he spoke. He was one of the few politicos who could talk about pain and loss and the need to be strong and mean every word he was saying. Sometimes he would cry, but most times he wouldn't. But everyone who listened cried. Everyone who listened felt like they shared his pain. We didn't, because no one had lost more than him. And if he could survive and carry on, couldn't we?
And Harry never said any more than he had to, and he never said anything about anything that had to do with politics. From him there were only comforting words, there was an expression of understanding and there was a vow to protect the normals from the metanormals.
Harry made you proud to be MTac. Harry made you glad to know that when your time came, there would be someone like him to say a few words overyou.
Sometimes LA was a beautiful city. The beautiful days mostly followed the bad ones. Hard rain and strong wind carried away the smog, left clear skies behind. The hidden was revealed. Behind downtown were mountains. Under the clouds of car exhaust the Valley was a decent stretch of land. At night, glowing electric below the Santa Monica mountains, it was downright good-looking. On those days, the beautiful days, you could almost understand why people wanted to live in the place.
But it just figured LA would decide to be beautiful on the day Reese got buried. Wasn't right. Should've been raining. Los Angeles should've been crying for her.
The black cars, the limos that carried the family, the brass and suits were all pulling away. The other cops had scattered, gone home clutching their own family members while reassuring them— not real convincingly but giving it a shot anyway—that what happened with Officer Bannon wouldn't happen to them.
The reporters, the few local media that still bothered showing up for" these things," were gone. Harry Norquist had stayed, lingered, not rushing off like the other bureaucrats. Tried to comfort the family. But he'd gone now too. There was, after all, still a state to be governed. All that was left at Veterans Cemetery were the rolling greens, the rows of headstones and the dead.
Among them walked Soledad with Bo, Yarborough and" those two," which is what Soledad called Vin and Whitaker.
Looking up at the sky, the blue sky, Soledad said: "Ought to be raining. It's the kind of day people get married, not buried. It's not right. It ought to be—"
"She had more family than I figured." Bo stumbled into Soledad's thought. Half because he wasn't listening, half because he wanted to at least steer the conversation toward something positive."Think that's good she had so much family come out and see her off."
"Just that much more family she's left behind." Soledad brought back the dark clouds.
Whitaker: "They should be proud of her. Reese was good cop."
Soledad was downright nasty with the" who asked you" look she flashed. Whitaker took it, shut up, looked away.
"I'll tell you this, though." Yarborough talking now."She hung in there, huh? Never did anything the easy way right up to the last. That's how I want to go."
"That's how you want it? On your back, in a coma?" Vin didn't care for that idea. Cared for it zero."No thanks. When it comes for me, I hope it comes quick."
"Sure. Live like a bitch" — Soledad shared her ace boon nasty look with Vin and was glad to do it—"die like a bitch."
Vin didn't look away like Whitaker had. Vin gave Soledad nothing but smile.
Yarborough modified himself: "All I'm saying is she didn't go down easy. You gotta respect that. She was a fighter. A fighter. I don't want to go down without putting up a fight."
Soledad, looking at the blue sky again: "It's too nice a day. Should be raining."
"Well, now, it's not like freaks give you a choice on how you want to go down," Bo pointed out.
Vin asked: "You ever get a choice? There isn't much in this life that won't kill you. Read the other day about a guy trying to shake a soda loose from a machine. Fell over and crushed him. Died for a Coke. Now, how messed up is that?"
"A woman one time," Yarborough said, recalling a story,"got drunk and passed out in her Jacuzzi. Boiled to death. Like human soup or something."
"Honest?" Bo asked.
"For real," Yarborough answered.
Whitaker didn't say anything. Whitaker could do without any more looks from Soledad.
Soledad: "I heard about a guy who was out fishing, he yawned, a fish jumped out of the water, down his throat and he choked to death."
Everyone waited for the punch line.
Soledad confirmed her story."It's the truth. I mean, I read it… Heard it."
Bo wasn't buying."Sounds like one of those urban legends."
"How's it gonna be an urban legend?" Yarborough wanted to know."How's somebody going to go fishing in the city?"
"In New York, in the lake in Central Park you can—"
Whitaker got himself another look from Soledad. Whitaker shut up again.
Yarborough laughed."Yawned and choked on a fish. That is truly messed up."
The other four laughed too.
"I mean, seriously, you are some kind of loser. That's like having a fatal accident shuffling cards."
More laughs, a little stronger.
"Hell, if I knew there was a fish out there with my name on it, I'd pay a freak to burn a hole in my chest."
The laughing stopped: Just that fast and just that casual Yarborough had said too much. The five cops had to spend about a minute standing around in his embarrassment.
Yarborough didn't know what to say. He had meant nothing by his remark. No disrespect to the still-cooling Reese, as disrespectful as it had come off. But to speak on it further, to try and apologize, would only serve to prolong the discomfort.
Bo gave them direction: "How 'bout we take a moment, say a prayer?"
Five white-gloved hands reached head-high and removed uniform caps. Five heads bowed in quiet tribute.
Four police officers, in their thoughts, best they could, strung together bits of eloquence in asking God to give Reese comfort and love in her passing.
Soledad prayed a little different. She prayed a little more simply. God, she requested, give me one more chance to kill every freak that wanders into my crosshairs.
A respectful amount of time later Bo lifted his head, his cap went back on.
He said: "All right. We all got things to do other than stand around, so how about we get back to them?" The subtext of the statement being: Life goes on, people. Reese is dead. I miss her. You miss her. But it's time to go back to doing work.
It was a little cold, Bo's hidden meaning. A little harsh. But it was honest. Reese was gone, respects had been paid and all the standing around, all the crying in the world wasn't going to bring her back. She wasn't the first MTac to go down. Wouldn't be the last.
Soledad did a quick scan of the other cops. She wondered which of them would be next. No doubt they were thinking the same thing.
Good-byes got swapped. Bo, Yarborough, Whitaker: they drifted off for their cars. Before Soledad knew it, could do much about it, it was just her and Vin.
Vin looked at Soledad. Held his look.
"You want something?"
Vin shrugged."You okay?"
Soledad took a casual, spiteful glance around the cemetery."Yeah. Great. You know a better place to spend your days?"
She started to walk.
Vin paced her."You hungry?"
"No."
"Want something to drink?"
"Kind of early for that."
"Doesn't have to be liquor. Just something in a couple of glasses we can sit and talk over."
Soledad stopped walking. She got with a look of hot disbelief."You trying to pick me up?"
Vin said nothing to that.
"You trying to pick me up at a funeral?"
"I'm trying to talk to you."
"Sure, and maybe I'll be so overcome with grief you can talk your way into my pants. There, there, Soledad. It's all right, Soledad. Have you seen my bedroom, Soledad?"
Vin stood looking bored and unaffected by Soledad's little run.
He asked: "You done? Are you done cracking wise so maybe we can converse like two people?"
Except that she didn't walk away, Soledad was nonresponsive.
"All I'm saying is," Vin said, explaining himself,"I want to talk to you. I want to get to know you. I want—"
"You want a date."
Vin stuttered, hesitated, tried to think his way around coming out and saying it, but yeah: "I want a date."
"Sorry. I got a man."
That was a surprise, not so much for Vin as it was for Soledad. She was attracted to… okay, she liked Ian. He passed for a friend. But in Soledad's world that didn't take much.
They'd gotten around to having sex.
But so do drunk salesmen and lonely housewives who meet at the bar/lounge in the airport Ramada.
And being honest, Soledad would say the sex, though good, was perfunctory. Spectacular only in that Ian wasn't revulsed by, nor did he ask about, Soledad's scars. So she hadn't hardly considered, had never said Ian was her man, and the moment she'd said as much she wondered if she meant it or if she was just using the concept as defense against Vin.
Vin took the information quite passively."A man?" he repeated."When I asked around, people seemed to figure you for being unattached."
"Asked around…" Soledad, now, did the repeating. She would have expected herself to be annoyed or pissed at the idea someone was" asking around" about her, digging into her private life. But she found herself to be unexpectedly intrigued by the concept of a guy inquiring after her."Who'd you ask?"
A shrug."People."
Soledad worked hard as she could to sound casual, but came off as nothing but curious."… What did they say?"
"They said be sure not to call you Bullet to your face."
Soledad's teeth did some grinding.
Vin did a little smiling."Lot of talk about what's going on with you and IA. That's just talk, so I didn't bother with it. Most said you were a loner, even as cops go. Keep to yourself, don't converse much. So with all that, I didn't figure you were seeing anyone."
"You figured wrong."
"Well, good luck with it." A pause."Long as it lasts."
From the end of a little jaw-dropping scoff: "That supposed to mean something?"
"It means people like us—"
"Like us?"
"Cops. We don't do well in relationships, especially with civilians."
"Maybe not people like you."
Vin shook his head to indicate Soledad's wrongness."People like us. C'mon, Soledad. See the things we do, live the way we do, then think we might not be living at all tomorrow. We don't hardly get attached to people. You know that goes double for MTacs. Hard to make commitments when you got to go out and bust guys who can throw buses at you. Look at Reese. You'd been on her element how long? How much did you know about her, her family? Nothing. And she was one of us. With civvies the level of noncommunication just gets multiplied. We need to be alone with our demons."
Soledad started to say something.
Vin cut her off with: "Okay. You're the only cop who doesn't have demons. I'm just talking about the rest of us crazies who feel the need to try and arrest gods for a living."
Vin took a beat.
Then: "You're not the only loner in the department. You've just got it worse than most."
"Yeah, well, maybe." Soledad talked fast like what Vin was saying didn't deserve much consideration."But me and my guy—"
"He got a name?"
"Yeah, he does. And me and my guy get along good."
Vin smiled at the lie."Sure. How well did he take you being MTac? I'm sure he was real happy to find out there's a thirty-seventy chance his girl's going to make it home at night."
Soledad didn't say anything, and what she didn't say spoke volumes for Vin.
"You didn't tell him? Did you even tell him you were a cop?"
Soledad looked off somewhere.
Vin got with a laugh."Oh, that's good. Good luck with this one."
"You know, if you're trying to win me over, your rap is way off."
"Wasn't trying to win you over. When I do try," typically cop cocky,"believe me, you're not so icy I couldn't crack you."
"Then do it."
"… What…?"
"You're such a hotshot, you've got thirty seconds: crack my ice or leave me the fuck alone."
Not cocky, flustered."Well, I didn't mean I was going to—"
"You want me to count your time down for you?"
Vin took a second, took a couple.
Soledad smiled, was sorry she'd only given Vin thirty seconds. She liked watching him twist.
Vin said: "Most beautiful thing I think I've ever seen was the most destructive thing: Mt. Kilauea erupting in Hawaii. You see it at night, you see the red and orange glow of it, you see the warm light of the lava flowing from it, and it looks magnificent. It looks like a… like a living paint running over a canvas. But at the same time it's like a slow-moving death that's just creeping to kill whatever it can find. To burn and burn until it's the only thing left. Nothing can stop it, nothing can stand in its way. That's what's frightening: It's not just a destructive force, it's a destructive force you can't do anything about. But then you think, well, this is nature or God or whatever doing its thing, and that's the point: We can't stop it. We're not supposed to stop it. It's building life from a fire from the heart of the earth. It's like it's all there just to show us how insignificant we are. So don't judge it, don't try to fight it. Just stand back and watch the beauty of it."
And for a moment after Vin stopped talking Soledad was quiet.
When she finally said something, it was just: "See you later."
She started away.
Vin called to her."You don't like me much."
Turning back to him just some: "Don't flatter yourself. I don't like you at all."
"Because I'm replacing Reese?"
Soledad did the laughing now."Told you before, you're not replacing her. Dead, and you're still not half the BAMF she was."
Vin nodded to that, not really agreeing, but not trying to make an argument of things."Never meant to replace her. This is where I got put. Just filling a slot. Could've been any cop who got the call."
"It wasn't any cop. It was you. You got the slot, and you get everything that comes with it. Everything."
"And you know something," his smile creeping back,"I'll take it. See ya, Bullet."
Fiero, Martin, Jenkinson, Adetuyi. Valley MTac. The four men, body armor worn in various degrees of regulation, eased up the stairway to the eighth floor, top floor, of an apartment complex in Northridge. Empty. Musty. Abandoned. Abandoned except for a potentially very deadly metanormal who'd managed to remain hidden from floors one through seven.
Stairwell door. Eighth floor. Fiero was SLO, had point. He peeked his head through the doorway. His eyes swept the space.
From behind, Adetuyi: "What do we got?"
"We got nothing." Fiero pulled back into the stairwell."Nothing I can see. Can't see much. Windows boarded up, walls torn out. Lot of boxes. Must've used the floor for storage."
Fiero's parents were from Mexico. Good Catholics. He was first-gen American. When Fiero told his madre and padre he wanted to be a cop, his mom cried with joy, pride. Their son toting a gun and badge, upholding the law, made them feel more American than the whiter-than-whites who looked down their noses at the Fieros for being in" their" country in the first place. When Fiero went to the academy, his parents saw him off. Graduation day they showed up four hours early, his two sisters in tow, to get front-row seats. The first bust Fiero made—snagged a hophead snatching purses at the end of a dull steak knife in Studio City—got written up, barely, in the Times Valley edition police reports. Fiero wasn't even mentioned by name. His mom cut the article out and built a scrapbook around it.
Then Fiero told his parents he wanted to be MTac. His dad, who used to be a street fighter back in Mexico just to earn enough pesos to keep his family fed, cried like a little girl. His mom? She put together a small shrine and kept it ready for the day she would light a candle to her dead son.
"Hate this shit," Martin said."Hate serving warrants."
"Should've thought of that," Jenkinson,"before you went MTac."
"Don't like hunting for them, that's what I'm saying. You're on a call, one of them is in the middle of Ventura tossing cars around, okay. You know what you're up against. But this… Hate this shit."
Fiero: "We know what we're up against. The witness IDed it as an invulnerable."
"An invulnerable and what else?" Martin asked."Could be a nest of 'em for all we know."
"Muties don't usually travel in packs. Too easy to get made." Fiero spoke straight from the handbook."Swept seven floors, and no evidence of a cluster."
"No evidence of anything," Jenkinson said."So let's just do this floor and go home."
Martin, again: "Really hate this shit."
Even bulked down with gear, the four cops managed to mist their way onto the top floor low and quiet. Fanning out, they avoided the shafts of light that cut through the window boards, used the crates and boxes for cover.
In position, they all looked and scanned and listened for the sight or sound that'd say to them" freak."
Nothing.
In their earpieces they heard Fiero."Clear?"
Down the line:
"Clear."
"Clear."
"Clear. Waste of time," Jenkinson added.
Fiero came back with: "Tell me about it after we finish the floor. Move out. Keep it low, keep it slow."
They did that. Silent as shadows, the four cops came up from cover, weapons at the ready, and fanned the floor.
Fiero picked up chatter from Adetuyi."You hear about that chick on Central? Bullet?"
"Heard she's facing discipline."
"Yeah. Heard that. And I heard the brass is trying to keep quiet she took out a pyro with a homebrew piece."
"Wouldn't trust it," Martin piped in."Pull the trigger, that shit's liable to blow up in your face."
"She's BAMF two times," Adetuyi said, pushing past a box, his HK ready to do some spraying."She's got to be doing something right."
"Hell, I pull some crap like that, make my own gun, they'd've canned my ass by now. Know a guy on the job in Admin, says the only reason she's still around, the department's got a quota to—"
Jenkinson: "Fiero."
"Got something?"
"Just thinking. If it is an invulnerable, our pieces aren't going to do us much good. Close quarters like this we might just end up plugging each other much as anything else."
"And you want to go at this thing hands empty?"
"Stun guns, man. It's the only thing that's gonna drop an invulnerable anyway."
"Regs say—"
"Screw the regs," Adetuyi cut in."The guys who wrote the book are kicking it back in their little offices. All I'm trying to do is make it another day in one piece. I'm with Jenkinson. Let's pull the SGs."
Fiero thought. Fiero asked: "Martin, you with it?"
"Whatever. Let's just get the show on the road."
"All right. Stand down on your pieces," Fiero ordered."SGs."
Adetuyi and Martin shouldered their HKs. Jenkinson slipped his Benelli into a back saddle. Fiero holstered his. 45. All four drew their stun guns, triggered them and got 850, 000 kV of high-amperage spark in response. Just enough to short out the CNS of the most ornery of otherwise indestructible metanormals.
Seven floors done, two-thirds of one to go. And somewhere in that two-thirds was a hiding freak. Now the sweating started. Four cops snaking around boxes, crates. Looking, inching, looking again. A sound track of heavy, nervous breathing coming through their earpieces.
Inching, looking, snaking, eyeing… eyeing. Sweating hands gripping their weapons.
Fiero: "Anything?"
"Nothing."
"Got nothing."
"Nothing."
"The freak," Fiero said,"must've known he got spotted. Hit the road."
Martin: "Must've packed good. Nothing to show anybody was ever hiding out here."
Jenkinson stood."Waste of time."
"Go to all this effort, at least ought to bag a couple pushers for the trouble," Martin said as he came from cover.
The two remaining MTacs stood as well.
Fiero ordered: "Keep your eyes open on the way down. Let's keep it sharp till we get out of here."
As the four cops started for the door Adetuyi felt something warm and wet streak from his nose. He reached to touch his upper lip, feel the dampness. Instead he took his HK down off his shoulder.
Fiero spotted him."Ad, shoulder up. We'll go down with the SGs."
Adetuyi worked the rifle's slide.
"Adetuyi, you hear me? Shoulder your weapon."
The only response Fiero got was the muzzle of the HK swung in his direction.
"Shit!"
The word was lost under the rat-a-tat-tat of automatic fire and the bullets that hot-swarmed around Fiero as he threw himself for cover.
Martin and Jenkinson stood unbelieving as they watched a fellow cop try best he could to splatter another. They stood that way until
Adetuyi jabbed his HK in their direction. At that moment they became converted true believers. They did their believing as they did some moving. Mimicking Fiero, the pair rolled and tumbled, scrambled behind crates. Bullets chewed up the space where they'd been.
Fiero tried to scream at Adetuyi through his throat mike."Ad… Ad, whataya doing?"
All he got for an answer was more bullets coming his way.
Martin perched himself up a bit."Got to take him out."
Fiero: "Hold your fire."
"I got an angle." A confetti of crate chips rained on him.
"Hold your fire!"
Adetuyi's clip clicked empty. Bullets stopped coming. Shells quit plinking on the wood floor. Quiet. Quiet except for the scream that came pouring out of Adetuyi's mouth. A scream followed by some frantic babble.
"I–I can't… I can't control myself. Fiero! Fiero! I can't—"
"Ad, take it easy."
"Don't shoot me! Don't shoot! I can't control myself."
Jenkinson went ballistic with confusion."What's happening?"
Adetuyi's hands opened. The spent HK dropped and clank-clanked on the floor. Against itself Adetuyi's body turned. No fighting it. No way to fight it. Something else was in possession of him. His eyes spied what his body was turning toward: one of the boarded windows. A voice inside him, his own but not his own, told him what to do next. What he whispered to himself scared him deep.
"No!" His right foot took a step. He begged: "Fiero…!" Fear spilled from him. Panic raced his heart.
"Adetuyi!"
"I can't…" Two steps. Three. Moving quicker."Help me!"
Jenkinson: "What is going on!"
Adetuyi too far away to be stopped. Moving at a dead run. Mov-ing for the window like it was a long-lost lover. And just the same he opened his arms to it.
"Jesus Christ, help me! Hel—"
He leapt for the window. He crashed through the rotted wood that separated inside from out. Adetuyi embraced the open, empty air. He tumbled and spiraled. Flew downward. At the end of his plunge he crashed onto and into and through the roof of an Olds-mobile parked on the street below. The alarm played his taps.
Fiero stood, edged for the window. Martin and Jenkinson trailed, tried to make sense of the senseless.
Jenkinson offered up his own analysis of the situation: "He went crazy! You see that? He… he went out of his mind, and—"
Fiero: "No…"
"Goddamn out of his mind."
"It's a telepath."
"Oh, shit…" Martin swung his HK around looking for something, someone, who could just as easy be a quarter mile away as standing right next to him.
"Move!" Fiero got to giving orders."Move! Let's get out of here!"
Martin was staring at Jenkinson. He said: "Your nose is bleeding." Anxiety in his every word.
Jenkinson dabbed at his nose. It was bleeding."Must've smashed it when I took cover."
Martin figured things different."The telepath, he's puppeting you."
"No, I… I jammed my nose, like I said."
Martin brought his HK around quick, leveled it at Jenkinson."Put your weapon down."
"Martin!" Fiero stepped in.
"It's just a nosebleed."
Martin wouldn't convince."Put your weapon down now!"
Instead of putting it down, Jenkinson brought it up. Squared it at Martin."You're the one getting puppeted."
"Goddamn it, put it down, Jenkinson!"
Fiero saw things spinning out of control fast."Stand down, both of you!" Smoothly he traded his SG for his Colt.
Confusion. Words came like barks from a gang of stray dogs.
"Lose the weapon!"
"I'm warning you!"
"Listen to me!"
A finger twitched on a trigger.
"You're not taking us out!"
"LISTEN TO ME!"
"YOU'RE NOT—"
"PUT IT DOWN OR I SWEAR I'LL—"
"LISTEN!"
Chaos, paranoia, they mixed at high speed. Twin bangs: the crack of auto fire, the boom of a shotgun. Jenkinson and Martin swapped wounds. Jenkinson took it in the chest, Martin one to the face. Their bodies, instantly empty of life, dropped to the ground like they were in a race to see which would get there first.
Tie.
After that it was quiet in the apartment building. Outside, the car alarm kept ringing. Fiero was by himself. But not alone.
He gave a nervous clutch to his. 45, backed for the door with a game plan playing in a closed loop in his mind: Get out, get away. Get out, get away.
Fiero was cop enough to feel wrong about leaving Martin and Jenkinson even if they were dead. But he was father enough to his children to logic out there was no fighting a telepath. All trying would do was get him dead along with the rest of the element. All trying to go against a telepath got you for your trouble was a bullet to the head courtesy of yourself. So sorry, boys, no hanging around. Be back for your bodies later. Right now? Get out, get away. Get out, get away.
Get on the floor.
Fiero did that, just like he was told to make himself do. He got on the floor; got down on it just as far as physics would let him. He pressed down against the warping wood as he was overcome with an uncontrollable desire to grovel, to truckle, to supplicate himself. He was a worm. He suddenly and instinctively knew he was a worm, and wanted more than anything to crawl wormlike over the floor. So he did. Not against his will. Didn't have any will to struggle with. It'd been replaced by something else that was completely new to his psyche and just as much a part of it.
I'm a worm. I am a worm.
Uniform soaking with perspiration, Fiero slithered and inched and crept until he came to a boot in his path. He looked up. He was allowed to look up. Above Fiero was Vaughn.
Vaughn stared at Fiero; at what he'd reduced Fiero to. He dug what he saw. Even at that it gave him little pleasure. He turned his head and his attention over to the bodies of Martin and Jenk-inson.
He said: "Know what's funny? I wasn't controlling either of them. That's real funny to me." Vaughn didn't laugh."The other one… that's how Michelle died; fell from the sky."
Fiero was treated to a private showing, courtesy of images extracted from Aubrey's head and planted in his, of Michelle tumbling to her death. Experience so real, when Michelle hit the ground, Fiero hit the ground. What she felt—the impact of a body dropped two hundred feet onto pavement—he felt.
"Ahhhhhhhh!"
"That hurt? 'Cause honest, man, it's only gonna get worse."
Sweat ran from Fiero. Tears poured from his eyes."Puh… please… m-my wife… I–I have—"
Fiero's need to be wormish got jacked up. He tried hard as he could to screw himself further into the floor.
"Please, Jesus, don't…"
No sympathy came from Vaughn."I'm gonna give you something to remember, 'kay? Then you're gonna repeat it word for word."
"Ye… ye…"
"Understand that?"
To Fiero's thinking compliance equated a stay of execution. He couldn't comply enough."I'll repeat it. I'll repeat everything you say. I promise. I promise I will. I won't forget what you tell me."
"No," Vaughn said."I'm not gonna tell you anything. What I've got to say, I'm just gonna put it in your mind."
Valley Bureau was going crazy with itself. Cops worked phones, manned radios. Cops—plainclothed, uniformed and Tac—were running all over with no place to go. A bunch of blue gerbils going round and round on a wheel. The trickle of information that made its way back from the outside was like a slow leak of gas onto a flame.
First report: shots fired at an abandoned apartment complex.
A squad was rolled. The call came back: officer down. Down and in and through the roof of a car. Later, much later, the body fused with the vehicle would be determined to be MTac officer Rob Ade-tuyi.
Quick duty check. MTac serving a warrant at that twenty. SWAT rolled as backup. They fanned the building. The call from SWAT: two more bodies. Two more MTac making for three total. The fourth, Fiero, was unaccounted for.
Question: How did the others get killed?
Obvious: It was a freak.
Yeah, but what kind of freak? Where was it? Where was Fiero?
The information kept on trickling in. The panic kept on brewing. Valley Bureau tried to keep a lid on it. They did a bad job. People talked. Word spread. Reporters got wind. Channel 9 was first on the scene. Thirteen was next. The rest of the numbers started swarming en masse.
All of a sudden Deputy Chief Metcalf had one job: keep things calm, don't let the public know there's a killer mutie on the loose. Not yet.
Questions got shot at him. Denials got made: Yes, some officers were incapacitated, but at this time we don't know the extent of their… For the moment we have no way to determine if it was a metanormal they made contact with or… We have every available MTac element in the LAPD ready to respond if this is indeed a homicidal metanormal we're dealing with, but let me stress again that for the moment, at this time, to our best estimation…
Denials were a hard sell when every other blue in the joint was like a headless chicken with their delirium. Stonewalling wasn't easy when you had three cops on a slab and one missing.
The alternative? Tell the truth.
Sure. Tell the public there was more than probably an angry freak loose in LA. What did that get you? Six years ago all over again. Three days of eight million people panicked out of their minds while a changeling ran wild killing free as it pleased. Three days of chaos before it got put down. Three days Metcalf didn't want to live through one more time. So for now…
Deny, stonewall. Lie for the public good.
So ENG cameras purred, flashes popped, radios squawked, cell phones chirped. Cops darted and dashed and ran making double time but getting closer to absolutely nothing.
Into all this zombied Fiero. He'd made the five-and-three-quarter-mile walk back from the call to Valley Bureau just like he was told to do. No one saw him along the way, or people saw him but paid him no mind because even though he was being looked for, no one would've figured a missing MTac cop—the one remaining of four—to be strolling through the Valley. And apparently no one figured on Fiero all of a sudden just showing up at Valley Bureau, because the craziness that was going on there didn't slow down a lick for him. All around, the cameras kept purring, the flashbulbs kept popping. The radios and cell phones kept on doing their thing.
Fiero, softly: "… Listen to me…"
Questions shouted. Answers evaded. Orders given.
"Listen…"
Shouts. Purrs. Denials. Flashes.
"LISTEN TO ME!"
Everybody stopped. Everybody turned. They all looked and listened; listened because they were too stunned by the sight of the sweat-drenched, terror-filled cop with the blood flooding from his nostrils to make a sound.
"The… the rev…" Fiero fought. Hard as he could he fought. He didn't want to say what was planted inside his mind. Wasn't because of the message itself. That he didn't give a damn about. But he knew what was waiting for him once the message was delivered. He knew what happened to messengers."The reve…"
Metcalf said, started to say: "Fiero… Adam, what happ—"
"Don't let me say it!" Tears and sweat and blood all mixed together dripped from beneath Fiero's chin.
"Don't let you say what? What happened?"
"Jesus Christ! Don't let me…" No more fighting. There was no fighting to be done."The revelation is coming. The truth will set them free. But… but not us. Not… this is what's waiting for us."
Arm up, gun in hand. Gun into mouth. Fiero jerked the trigger. A. 45 slug lodged in the ceiling. It carried most of the top of Fiero's head up there with it.
The camera guy from Channel 9 got a real nice shot of the whole thing.
Rumors.
Rumors were flying. Rumors were chased by speculation and hearsay. Everybody, every cop at Parker Center had a version of what went down in the Valley. Orders from up high were: Stick with the official story. Stay away from rumor and speculation. Nobody say nothing.
Orders got ignored.
Blues talked: Didjya hear there was a badass freak in the Valley? Didjya know Valley MTac got wiped out? Again. Did they tell you one of the cops popped himself? Sounds like a telepath.
Parker Center was like a brass beehive. This deputy chief was calling, that lieutenant commander wanted info. Every MTac cop wanted to know what was truth and what was the company line.
Soledad wanted to know what was going on. Desperately wanted to know. Back on a desk, away from MTac, information flew past her, around her. It avoided her. Frustrating. The almost but not quite knowing of things was very frustrating.
No good asking Yarborough. Yarborough didn't know much. All he cared about was: If a telepath was out there, when would he get a crack at it?
Bo knew things. Bo followed orders. Bo didn't talk.
Vin knew things. Vin could answer some questions. No way was Soledad going to Vin for a favor. Better to be in the dark. Better to wonder about the situation. Better to…
Then again…
Maybe going to Vin wouldn't be so awful. So she'd owe him one in his mind. Was that so bad for a scrap of info?
Soledad looked up. Every cop in the joint looked up, saw Deputy Chief of OVB Metcalf, saw Special Assistant Deputy Chief Tannehill, saw Bo, saw all of them striding toward Lieutenant Rysher's office. A plan of action was about to get strategized on. And every cop would've given anything to have been in Rysher's office with them. None more so than the MTacs. None more so than Soledad.
Bo, as he passed, gave Soledad a look. The look was quick. The look was just long enough to say: Sorry, kid. Know you want in on this, but not much I can do.
Bo said that with his look, then disappeared into Rysher's office along with Metcalf and Tannehill.
Soledad watched them go in, watched the door get closed. For a good while she stared at the door, hypothesized about who was saying what to who about whatever really happened in the Valley, what should be the first consideration and what would be the next step.
All the staring in the world gave Soledad no clairvoyance.
She went back to moving a pen over paper. It made for a crappy distraction. Going through the motions of work did nothing to take her mind off what kinds of plans were being cooked up to deal with the—
The door opened. Bo half popped himself out.
"Soledad." He ticked his head back toward Rysher's office.
Soledad sat a moment, then fumbled Jerry Lewis-style for the office, her heart pounding, her mind working on fantasies of getting the call to duty: They needed her, they needed her piece, there's no way they can stop the freak without…
Inside the office. Tomb quiet. Soledad got no notice from Metcalf or Tannehill. Bo said to Rysher: "O'Roark?"
Rysher hesitated a little, said: "Yeah, she's fine for this. Get a pen and paper, take notes."
Soledad's heart slowed, practically quit beating. Fantasies, that's all they were.
And the way Rysher'd said Soledad was fine for" this," told her to get a pen and paper. Those weren't just assessment and direction. To Soledad's ears they were comments of condescension.
The poisoned well? Lies and deceit and conspiracy?
But she wanted in. Deal with the lies later.
From Rysher's desk Soledad took a pen and paper, took a seat.
A secretary with a gun. Except she didn't have a gun anymore.
Tannehill: "Let's get to it. David?"
Metcalf said: "Media's playing ball, for now at least."
"Playing ball or swallowing bullshit?"
"Mostly swallowing. They're going with the story. Murder-suicide."
"Now, hold on." Bo interrupting."You gonna put out Fiero killed those other three and himself? He's good cop."
"This isn't about him," Rysher cautioned.
"Hell, I know what it's about. But the man's got family. You're gonna leave him painted like a nut job killer for them?"
"Sooner or later," Tannehill said,"the truth will come out. We'll put it out. He'll be vindicated."
"Sooner or later?"
"If it keeps the people from panicking, consider Fiero doing his job even in death. I promise you, when this is done, he'll be fully, completely cleared. His family will receive benefits over and above what they're due. But we've got to keep the peace. Any way we can, we've got to."
Silence was acceptance. But Bo, even under the circumstances, didn't like a dead cop being mud-dragged.
Tannehill asked Rysher: "What's the status of the MTacs?"
"Valley is up to full strength. We've transferred over one operator from Harbor, Pacific and West LA, and one TOL. Now, that's going to shake things up at all the divisions, but it's better than having one green team. Especially if this freak is hiding out in the Valley."
"Do we know it's still in the Valley?" Tannehill asked.
"No," Metcalf answered.
"Do we even know what we're up against?"
"We're pretty sure it's a telepath."
Pretty sure didn't sit too well with Tannehill."Jesus, David. What have you got your DMI doing?"
Metcalf flinched away, then said: "All we've got is just this much to go on: We had a civilian come in off the street. He claimed he'd seen an invulnerable and gave us the location. Turns out he was being puppeted. We know that now."
"And you didn't bother to consider that before you sent four cops to kill themselves?"
The finger-pointing was starting. The brass, Soledad thought, had a hard-on for pointing fingers as long as the fingers got pointed away from themselves.
Lies and deceit and conspiracy.
Bo—good cop, team cop—stepped in, came to Metcalf's defense."Well, now, there wasn't much precedent for this. In all my years I never heard of a freak baiting MTacs; setting them up for the slaughter."
Tannehill had a question."Why lure them out at all? If it was a telepath, it could've walked in and had the whole division putting bullets into each other."
An unsettling thought.
Rysher offered: "The stinking coward's too scared to face down more than a couple of cops."
"Telepath can jump from mind to mind so fast, it could take out an entire station before they knew what hit them." Bo laid out the facts as he saw them."Could be it was just targeting MTacs. Maybe it didn't want anyone else to get hurt."
"Since when," Rysher scoffed,"do muties care about who gets killed?"
Not since San Francisco, Soledad thought as she wrote.
"Gets worse," Metcalf said.
Rysher: "You mean the message?"
Soledad stopped writing. In the rumors she'd caught she hadn't heard about any—
"Message?" Tannehill asked.
"Before Fiero," Metcalf started,"shot himself he said—he was made to say by the telepath—'The revolution is coming. The truth will set them free. '"
"Revelation."
Everyone looked to Soledad.
She said again: "Revelation, not revolution."
Tannehill: "How do you know?"
"I know because it's the same thing a freak said to me."
Bo, for Tannehill's benefit: "On her first call Officer O'Roark came in close contact with a metanormal."
"How close?" Tannehill wanted to know.
Soledad hitched down her collar, let Tannehill get a good look at her neck scars.
She said: "When a pyro's got you by the throat trying to burn the life out of you, you remember what it tells you. What it told me is the revelation is coming."
"What," asked Rysher,"is a revelation?"
"A revelation is a disclosure or something disclosed by or as if by divine or preternatural means." Soledad, snide, looking to Rysher: "It's when you find out the truth about things."
That was lost on Rysher."I know what a revelation is. What does it mean? In this context, what does it mean?"
No one had an answer.
Metcalf did his best guessing."A code word of some kind. Has to be."
Tannehill: "For?"
Bo: "Must have some kind of significance. The telepath wanted Fiero to tell us."
"Does it matter? For Christ's sake, we got freaks passing around coded messages—"
"But if it was some kind of a code, I don't think they woul—"
"O'Roark, just take notes," Rysher directed.
Metcalf weighed in anxious."Whatever the meaning, coded information is being exchanged among these things, and far as I care that amounts to subversive activity. We need to gear up."
Tannehill: "Let's think about this."
"We need to gear up now!"
Bo pressed a palm to his forehead, slid it up and over his hair, slicking it back with his own sweat, his hand trembling through the move.
"Is that what you want, David? Every paper, every TV station screaming about a terror network of freaks?"
"That's what it is: freaks teaming up with each other."
"We'd have panic in the streets."
Metcalf ignored that, sputtered on: "We… we need to mobilize the military."
"The law doesn't allow the military to—"
"The law?" Metcalf cut Bo off."They changed the laws after May Day, they can change them now. Let's have a talk with the White House, tell them what the hell's going on out here and see what happens. What you don't do is let words on paper keep us from doing the job."
Rysher didn't agree."A president hasn't put federal troops on the streets since when? Since the fifties? Since Little Rock? No sitting politician is going to fess up to a freak crisis. This is our problem. It's ours to solve."
"And ours to take credit for when it gets solved?" Tannehill asked/said very pointedly.
Soledad noticed, on the wall, the picture of her and Rysher. Gone.
"… I'm not even thinking about that. My primary concern, as always—"
Tannehill waved off the rhetoric."My primary concern is what if we can't solve the problem? Telepaths have a way of putting together a body count."
"We can handle it."
Again, all eyes to Soledad.
"We know the territory, we know what we're up against. There's no group better trained for this." The words stomped out of her mouth full of confidence."Whatever the muties throw at us, MTac can handle." Soledad said what she said with pride and presumption. She said what she said without regard to the fact that whatever MTac did next it would be without her services.
Tannehill did some considering. A lot in a very little amount of time."All right. For now we keep it local. Bring in this freak and do it fast. MTac or the army; I don't care who gets to wear the medals, I just want these monsters off my streets."
Tannehill stood. He walked out of the office. He patted Soledad on the shoulder as he passed.
Little gesture as it was, it made Soledad feel good. Feel proud. It made her feel like not quite the whole world was against her.
The feeling went away when Rysher said: "Go type all that up, O'Roark."
Julie was always the most nervous just when she was closing up her bodega. She knew, from three previous incidents, when she was closing up was most likely when someone—an addict or a banger or just somebody who'd gotten hold of twenty dollars' worth of gun—was liable to push their way into the store swinging their piece, demanding some of what little she'd been able to earn over the day. They wouldn't have to demand hard. She'd hand it to them. They could have it. It was just money. More than just money, really. It was food on the table, medicine, it was the difference between paying the electric bill and sitting nights in the dark. But even at that it was still, really, end of day, just money. So they could have it. Jorge wasn't so easy. He hadn't risked his life, the life of his family, to cross the border, take whatever crappy, demeaning work he could scrape up standing on street corners soaking in all the sneers and looks and pejoratives that got thrown his way daily, saved his pay and bought a bodega where he'd still be earning just enough to barely, barely get by only to pass it off to whatever punk wanted to get his by shoving a gun in someone's face. So when guys with guns came around, Jorge didn't give up the dough. Jorge got shot. Got shot four times one night. Lived. Lived, but didn't learn. Guys with guns came around again, and again Jorge didn't give up the green. He got shot. Once. In the head. He died. For all his bravery Julie was now alone with the store, with their son and daughter and with all kinds of bills for all kinds of things. She did not remember Jorge fondly. When she thought of him, which was every night when she closed up shop fearful of the guys with guns, she cursed his name.
Vaughn sensed all that sitting in his loft six or seven hundred feet away. The city was at ease, Aubrey was sleeping—a sleep Vaughn had put him in. The night was still. It was effortless for Vaughn to read Julie's story, her emotions. He could even see the night she watched Jorge take a fatal bullet through his occipital lobe. That clear it remained to her, and was to him.
He said, in his mind: It's pointless. It really is pointless.
Quiet.
I know you're here. Quit hiding.
Across the loft the shadows seemed to part, a curtain opening to reveal a man and a woman; a black guy. An older guy. Late forties, and, like Vaughn, very lean. Lean, and at the same time imposing. The woman—young, twenties—looked angry. Her fisted hands looked like they were always curled tight.
The black guy started to say: "Vaughn—"
I'd tell you it's good to see you again. But it's not good, and you never much come around anyway. I know it's slumming for you.
"You're the one who chose to live like you do."
You mean live like I am, instead of pretending to be something I'm not: one of them; normal.
Never mind the rising tones, Aubrey stayed asleep.
The girl stayed quiet, the fingers of her fists twisting on each other.
"What you are, what you've become, is a murderer. And all you're going to do is get people, more people, killed. Us and them alike."
I can hear you fine. No need to talk. Or what's the deal? Gotten so used to faking like you're normal you don't remember how to—
The black guy, ignoring Vaughn, using his voice: "And what you've let happen to Michelle—"
"Don't you tell me about my wife!" The base emotion of rage made Vaughn scream.
Aubrey rolled over.
The girl's hands made anxious twitches.
The black guy: "We're sorry for her misfortune."
Mis— My wife getting shot; bleeding out in the street? That the misfortune you're talking about?
"Believe it or not, Vaughn, we are sorry. All of us. But hurting them'll only hurt us."
We're not being hurt, we're getting killed! They're trying to exterminate us, then use the law so they can fake like it's okay. Call themselves normals, and they call us freaks and muties. We're the superior ones. The minute they turned on us we should have wiped them out! Killed every one of them!
And for a moment the black guy said nothing. Vaughn could sense what he was feeling. What the black guy was feeling was pity.
"I know this is hard for you."
You know?
"Do you think you're the only one to lose somebody? Do you think you have a claim on pain? You don't, Vaughn. You do not. So, yes, I know this is difficult. I know you have anger. But what you're saying now… now you're just talking insane."
The girl cracked her knuckles. They crackled back with a bluish energy.
Anger, fear, straight defiance. Vaughn showed none of that. From Vaughn the black guy could sense nothing.
You can't stop me. I was aware of you long before you got here.
"The only thing you're aware of is what I want you to be."
A hand slammed into the back of Vaughn's neck, slammed hard, slammed him senseless for a sec. The hand took Vaughn's neck tight, the hand on an arm that stretched allll the way across the loft and into the darkness. Fingers bit into Vaughn's throat, cut off his air. Thought, difficult in coming, was starting to disappear. The metanormal in the dark contracted his limb, dragged Vaughn for him, reeled him, reeled him in.
Vaughn fought, jerked, swatted at the arm. Useless. Always physically weak, lack of O2 was stealing the little strength he owned, was passing him out.
The black guy, the girl: they moved toward Vaughn, the girl's hand alive with the blue energy. And she was, since first showing herself, displaying expression. A nasty look that said all this ends here, ends now.
Vaughn:… Aubrey…
Vaughn's mind, becoming as weak as his body, was barely able to touch Aubrey's.
The black guy: "Didn't have to be like this."
Vaughn's heels kicking against the floor, trying to bite it, trying to get hold, just leaving skid marks for all the effort.
… Aubrey…
"We'll fight, but not your way. Revelation is coming…"
The edge of Vaughn's vision went soft. Blackness closed in. At the center of it, a hand that burned blue.
"The truth will set us—"
"Aubrey!"
Aubrey's eyes came open, were vacant. His mind was Vaughn's. Vaughn reached out Aubrey's hand. Vaughn touched Aubrey's hand to a play thing, to metal. At the moment of contact the metal expanded, shot forward: a slicing blade that cut clean the metanor-mal's extended arm.
From him, in the dark, a sick, sick wail. The hand kept squeezing at Vaughn's neck—spasms before it fell to the ground, thudded on the floor.
Vaughn changed focus, reached into the angry girl's mind. Her anger: her mother killed by cops before her eyes.
And she still picked protecting normals over joining Vaughn? Vaughn turned the girl's hand, touched it to the black guy.
A vicious pop of electricity, the stink of burnt flesh. The black guy got launched across the loft, bounced and slid over the floor.
Aubrey awake, babbling something.
Vaughn ignored him. The angry girl had his attention. He said to her, using his voice, digging the sound of his voice: "All that energy just raging inside you. Pumping in you, pumping in you. Your energy's like your anger, isn't it?"
Her irises, on their own, the only part of her free to do as they pleased, dilated with fear.
"It's gotta be so hard to keep it all in you. Sometimes you must feel like you're losing control. Sometimes you just gotta feel you're gonna…"
Vaughn didn't finish the thought. Not out loud. But he shoved it into the girl's mind.
Small lines, fissures, raced up and down along her flesh, bulged as she was rent from the inside. Energy seeping from her, then pouring from her, then…
A howl.
A flash. Blue.
And then she was gone. Totally. As if she never existed.
And Vaughn looked to the black guy.
Aubrey, babbling: No, Vaughn. Please, Vaughn. Don't, Vaughn.
A thought put him back to sleep.
Vaughn, to the black guy, in his mind: You wanna hide, you wanna be the bitch, that's on you. But they don't murder my wife and walk from it. They get what they give. All that, and worse. And hey: I'm not the one who's insane. You are.
The black guy screamed, grabbed at his head. His eyes rolled back into their sockets where he saw himself grabbing at his head, eyes rolled back in their sockets, screaming, looking at himself, grabbing his head, eyes rolled in their sockets, screaming as he looked at himself with his eyes rolled back…
He'd be looking at that for the rest of forever.
Night was Bo's favorite part of the day, the part he looked forward to. It was his part. Most of the day, the regular clock-punching hours, belonged to MTac. They were hours and hours of endless sitting-around-doing-nothing boredom. Occasionally they were broken up with moments of pure terror. But mostly there was boredom. So an MTac cop had time, lots of it, to think. What owned his thoughts: the next call, which would be completely different than the last call. He always had to think about the next call because for an MTac the next one could real easily be his final one. No two metanormals were alike. Even M-norms with similar fetishes could use them in different ways. Thinking, planning, considering: That's how an MTac spent his downtime.
Beyond that?
For Bo, beyond that was his family. A wife, two kids. That's what dominated his evenings. His children, ten and thirteen, were past the constant-attention phase of growing up. His wife had her late-in-life career as a law clerk to fill her time. Still, there wasn't an evening Bo didn't make his presence felt among them.
It was a lack of presence that had almost wrecked things for him previously. It was a lack of presence that almost sent Kathy, his wife, skipping off with Oliver and Benny in tow.
Not that Bo wasn't physically around. He was. He was there. He'd never been into hanging out at a bar swilling beers and swapping cop talk with the boys. Every evening, soon as he was off duty, home's where Bo was.
Physically.
But his head was still on the job. His head was still thinking on freaks and how to hunt freaks better and how to hunt freaks without getting himself, his element, killed. And while his head was on that, his kids grew up around their dad but without their dad. His wife dissipated in a homebound, unfulfilled life spent watching her husband wrestle nightly, alone, pondering the incredible, the unbelievable and the deadly. Daily they became less of a family. Blissfully self-absorbed, Bo saw none of the decay. Typical MTac. There was a cushion that came with keeping people at a comfortable distance. The philosophy: Our lives have only slightly intersected, so if anything ever happens to me, and something probably will… well, you don't know me, you can't miss me. He'd seen the same philosophy applied by other cops. He'd seen a lot of it applied by young Soledad. It was the way they lived, and they took the way they lived for granted.
It was Kathy in the doorway, bags packed, kids already in the car, that slapped Bo awake to the reality of things.
He woke up fast.
From then on Bo made it a point to be a part, an active part, of Kathy's and the kids' lives. And he shared his life with them. Most of it. He still didn't talk much about being an MTac, and when he did, he edited out things like a telekinetic crushing a couple of cops under a semitrailer, or an intangible reaching into a cop's chest and squeezing his heart till it burst. Other than stuff like that, Bo shared his life. And when Kathy went back to school, then started working, that helped out a lot. When she had other things to do and to worry about, it pulled some of the pressure off Bo. At the end of the day Bo and Kathy were one of the few MTac couples to make something out of their marriage.
And Kathy was among a select group of MTac wives not to be a widow.
So those hours after work belonged to her. To the family.
That only left the night for Bo; his time.
Not even.
With chores, with errands, with all the things that living takes from your life, his time, really, was those very few moments in bed, before sleep came, in the still and the quiet and the dark. His time was those few moments free of family and work and responsibility.
Bo was no different from any guy who had obligations pulling him every single way. Most men live for their freedom, to be able to do as they please, be it running wild in the streets or dumping dirty clothes in the middle of the floor. Whether they ever really had that kind of freedom or not, it's a fond notion. And when the reality or illusion of it's been hacked and hacked and hacked away by every other commitment, a man's kingdom is reduced to a few blessed moments between waking and sleep, when he can think about the should've-beens and what-ifs, sort out the what-have-becomes and the what-will-bes.
Then he sleeps, wakes, starts the cycle of obligation all over again, each day living just a bit more for the night. For what's left of the freedom he probably never even had in the first place.
And even that, the night, Bo didn't own anymore. It belonged to a cop named Fiero. A cop who got dead tangling with a telepath. A couple of times Bo had watched the confiscated news tape of Fiero walking into Valley Bureau, regurgitating the little speech he'd been force-fed, then sticking his gun in his mouth and sending a slug through the top of his head. What Bo had seen was unshakable. It was waiting for him when he closed his eyes at night. He couldn't figure why it got to him so bad. Getting killed was something that sometimes happened to cops. With MTacs it was staying healthy that was unusual. Bo had managed to stay healthy and active and alive longer than any other MTac on the LAPD. The department's very own iron man. Bo was a natural, and it wasn't just glad-handing to say so. When it came to going after muties, when things got hectic, Bo had the ability to move with thought but without thinking. Pure instinct. It'd been that way for him for nearly a decade.
Things changed.
He'd felt them changing for a while. He was sure things had changed in that alley when he turned and saw the shape-shifter, chameleoned into the form of a wall, moving toward him, and too late raised his weapon. He would've been killed if it hadn't been for the sharp eyes and quick triggers of the rest of his element.
That was one of those stories that got edited for his family.
At first Bo chalked the incident to losing a step with age. Who doesn't? Maybe he was a hair slower than his best days, but that's all he was: just a hair slower. He had a lot more good years before he had to sweat over being too old for the job. But truth: It was more than age that had planed his edge. The tremor in his hand was an indicator, but it took what happened with Fiero to convince him of facts.
Bo had crossed paths with Fiero more than a few times and found him as solid an MTac as there's likely to be. Three times BAMF in two years. In the history of the department only Soledad was on track to bust that record. But as good as Fiero was, he was no good against a telepath, against a freak that could crawl into your mind and make it its own. And once Fiero was being puppeted, he was nothing but a sweaty, frightened creature marking time until it put itself down. When Bo saw that, when he felt the torque in his gut as Fiero's husk sank from the picture frame and thudded on the floor, he knew it wasn't age that was slowing him down. He'd lost a step to fear. A small step. A minuscule delay that comes when, before the body moves, the mind asks: Am I going to make it? Am I going to see my wife and kids again? And it was just when the mind's asking questions, during that nanosecond's worth of inaction, that a cop, especially an MTac cop, got himself, got a member of his element, killed.
Bad enough he should die, Bo thought. Worse he should have to live through another loss like Reese. But hadn't he said that before? How many other cops had he outlived?
Couldn't remember.
He closed his eyes.
Fiero, gun in mouth, was waiting for him.
Something had to give.
He looked to Kathy asleep beside him.
Something had to change. Bo knew what. A decision got made.
He closed his eyes again.
Nothing but dark.
For the first time in a long time the night belonged to Bo.
Soledad got the call while she was out running. She ran with her cell phone. Habit. A habit she'd formed when she first landed MTac. An emergency call could come anytime, anywhere. Even when not on shift, an MTac was never fully off duty. Soledad hadn't been on the platoon long enough for her forced habit to have been of any use. Ironic now: Because of the habit, she was able to take a call about her future with the PD. It was Gayle calling.
Gayle said: "It's going to happen Thursday. You and I are supposed to go in and sit down with your lieutenant."
Asking, but afraid to know: "What's going to happen?"
"I'm not sure. But I don't think… I have to be honest, it's not going to be good."
"Is it like you said? Is there something going on? Something else?"
"There's nothing I can find, nothing I can prove. Just what I believe."
At Crescent Heights and Beverly, Soledad sat at a bus stop bench. A young girl, young woman really, who'd moved out from New York and didn't have a driver's license sat there, and a homeless guy sat there as well.
Soledad: "So… what are they going to do? What's… Am I looking at suspension? Am I looking at—"
"Honest to God, I don't know."
And Soledad sat.
"Soledad…"
"I'm here."
"I haven't given up, Soledad. Don't you, okay? I'm coming in there to kick ass. You know I will."
"… Yeah…" Gayle's tough talk didn't much take.
"Okay, so don't give up. All right?"
"You're doing this for you. But this is my… it's all I've got."
"And I'm still going to kick ass. Okay?"
"Okay."
"Okay. Just hang in there. Thursday. Okay?"
"Yeah."
Gayle hung up.
Soledad hung up.
An RTD bus pulled up at the stop. The young woman from New York got on.
The homeless guy and Soledad stayed where they were.
It was getting to the point when Ian and Soledad had sex, it was like they were having sex with each other and not just lying in bed masturbating with a stranger. It was getting to the point they were as concerned with the other's gratification as their own. Queer as it was for a measuring stick, it was getting to the point Ian and Soledad were starting to get intimate with each other.
Starting to.
But they were still in a place where, when they were done getting hot and sweaty, that's all they were: hot, sweaty among tossed sheets and with messed-up hair. Intimate, yeah, but they were intimate strangers. Strangers who shared sex. Strangers who shared empty talk.
Usually that was the way of things.
She figured it would've been Ian first, but Soledad was tired of empty talk.
Soledad asked: "Your friends who died, is that why you don't get close to people; because you're afraid of losing someone else?"
"I guess." Ian's answer was that simple.
They lay in bed some.
Soledad, asking again: "Are you curious why I don't let myself get close to people?"
"I suppose."
"Then why don't you ask me?"
"Because we don't talk about that; about personal things. We don't talk, so I don't ask."
"Then what are we doing? Besides screwing, what are we—"
"You're the one who wanted it this way."
Sweat evaporated from their bodies. Cooled them. They grew postsex tired. Soledad grew more relaxed. It freed her to say things she felt.
She said: "I did. But I don't want this anymore. I want… I need—"
"Need?"
"I feel like I'm going crazy inside myself." Soledad clutched at her own chest."I feel like I'm rolling around a padded cell in here. I'm facing some hard issues, and I need to talk to somebody."
"Need or want? Do you want to talk to me, or do you just need to yap to the first person who'll listen?"
She had to think about that. She had to be sure."Want. I want to talk to you."
"Okay."
She said nothing.
A little laugh, laughing at herself: "I can't. I've been keeping things in for so long…"
"Just say what you want to say."
"I like you, Ian. More than just being around you and having sex with you. I like you, and I'm afraid if I tell you… I'm afraid…"
Under the covers Ian's hand found its way over to Soledad's, gripped it tight.
Soledad's mouth opened and closed. A couple of times."I've been having trouble at work. Trouble's the nice way of saying it. It's been going on for a while, since just before I met you." A breath, deep."I'm a cop… you know what MTac is…"
Ian's grip went slack.
Soledad nearly bust with regret."Fuck. I shouldn't have told you."
"Jesus…"
"I knew—"
"Jesus Christ… Why didn't you… You waited this long to—"
"We never talked before."
"You didn't talk! A thousand times you could've told me, and you didn't!"
Soledad rolled away, turned to her side."Vin was right."
"Who the hell—"
"Another cop. He says cops and civvies never mix, can't be in relationships; you'd always be afraid I'm gonna get killed."
"That's not it."
"Then what is? Because I've been hit on by enough guys, seen how they react when I tell them what I do to know that's usually how things are. That, or maybe you're soft for freaks. Some people are like that. Or maybe you really are just afraid of a girl with a gun. Which is it, Ian? I mean, just so I know."
"What's it matter?" Ian stared at the ceiling. Stared past it."What's it matter?"
In her hands the bed linens got gripped and twisted."I told you I need someone to talk to. I want to talk with you, Ian. And I…"
"You and me should've started off differently. I'm not blaming you, but as it is one of us should've ended things before they got so far. It was stupid to think we could make a relationship out of—"
"I love you."
That brought on a lot of stunned silence. Ian was stunned to hear it. Soledad was stunned to have heard herself say it.
"I do. I love you, and… that you've put up with me this long, I don't just want us to be two people who sometimes talk and sometimes have sex. I want us to be two people who… who've got each other."
"… Christ…"
"I want to be with you. Ian, do you want to be with me?"
Did he want to be with her?
Did he?
Did he want…
Yes or no?
In or out?
No choice, really. Really, no other decision."Yeah, Soledad. I want to be with you."
And then Soledad let herself go. More than just talk, she communicated. She told Ian in massive detail about her childhood and her upbringing. Mostly that was just self-preparation for everything else she had to say. She explained what had happened—for her personally—on May Day; the guilt she carried and how it informed every decision she made every day following. She went on about the gun she'd put together, the trouble she faced, and when she got to that, she cried from exhaustion. She'd held so much in, so long, the rush of release made her weak. The fighting made her weak, battles on so many fronts—hot wars and cold wars and wars of subterfuge—that the competing desires of fighting back to win or sitting down to quit made her just want to lie down and die. Soledad truly wanted things to be over, one way or the other, no longer caring which, that badly. A sense of duty and obligation had degraded into helplessness, self-doubt and a death wish.
Ian pulled Soledad close. They wrapped themselves in each other, they held each other. Almost a warm moment. Would've been except for the trepidation of their new relationship that held them as well.
There was a reason, Soledad found out, why executions—in civilized nations that put people to death—were held top of the morning instead of end of the day. You're going to die, you're going to die. No sense sitting around hoping the day's going to get better when clearly it's not. Soledad came to the realization on the Thursday she and Gayle were to have their sit-down with Rysher. She had to put in a full day, worked a full shift, prior to the meeting. It felt like she had to do chores, clean the rifle or knit the noose, before her own termination. The end was coming. It was going to be a bad end.
Maybe.
Or maybe her pessimism was being fueled by Gayle's paranoia: conspiracy talk and secret plans against her. She had used a gun she wasn't supposed to. Didn't the brass have to at least make a show of putting IA on the case? Hadn't Rysher backed her all the way to MTac? Hadn't he stuck his neck out for her plenty? And the looks she was getting—she thought she was getting—from the other cops: guy bullshit, or uniforms jealous they'd never make MTac? And didn't…
Did it…
Did it matter? It was over. Today, one way or the other, it was going to be over.
Soledad checked the time. Gayle was typically late, and Soledad cursed at her. Gayle wanted to be late most times, fine. That was her style, okay. But when it counted, when it mattered? Soledad thought about heading on to Rysher's office. But she didn't want to sit alone, wait alone and unrepresented. Still it was better than letting Rysher wait, letting any compassion he had sour to resentment.
And then she knew.
The confusion she had, the anxiety, the twist Soledad had in her gut told her she didn't want things to be over. Over to the negative. More than anything she wanted to walk out of Rysher's office an MTac again. Crazy as the life was, she'd wanted it. She'd earned it. She'd leave it, when the time came, on her own terms. Not, God willing, stretched out by a freak and not pushed out by politics.
And then Gayle was there. Only six minutes late. Felt like so much more. She apologized to Soledad without breaking stride for Rysher's office.
All day, and Soledad hadn't hardly gotten herself ready for what was coming. She asked Gayle if everything was going to be okay, but Gayle was already making her way into Rysher's office and either didn't hear or just didn't want to answer the question in front of the lieutenant.
Rysher was without expression.
Tashjian was in the office. The guy nearly blended with the paneling.
Some perfunctory pleasantries were passed back and forth. Gayle and Soledad sat. Rysher sat behind his desk. Tashjian stood a little to the side, a little behind Rysher. It was like he was working backup.
There was a pregnant pause.
Gayle said: "It's always hard to know where to begin in delicate matters like this. So let me make the first gesture. I was thinking," smiling to Rysher,"you could just apologize to my client, give her her position back. That's all we're asking for." To Soledad: "That's all you wanted, right?"
Rysher's expression frosted over into a cool stare."Miss Senna, it's not your place to ask for anything."
"I'm being nice up front, and believe me, that's not easy. So let's close things out while I'm still in a mood to be civil."
"You're not helping the situation by being snide, Miss Senna."
"I don't need help, and you calling me Miss is just pissing me off."
Tashjian smirked, appreciative.
Soledad's head dropped.
Things were going south, were headed that way fast.
"I think, for your own sake, you might consider some other representation." Rysher was talking to Soledad, concern loaded in his voice."The fact is the situation… I'm sorry, but it's going to be very serious. If your counsel doesn't take it seriously… well, for your own good I'm telling you to make considerations."
From Gayle that got a laugh."Now you care about her well-being?"
"I care about the well-being of every officer in my command. I especially care when their lives are put in danger by cops who don't seem to give a damn about how things work."
"And, gee, you'd be meaning who?"
Rysher, talking past Gayle, talking right to Soledad: "Is this who you wish to have representing you?"
Gayle: "Representing her for what?"
"O'Roark, is this the counsel—"
"Hey, Rysher!" Gayle's voice cracked like a whip."Do not ignore me. I'm not one of your cops. I'm one of the taxpayers. You make your living off my dollars. You work for me, not the other way around. I asked you a question."
Rysher said nothing. The fingers of his right hand drew up some. Going on, talking as if he hadn't been interrupted: "Where we go from here depends on you, O'Roark." Softening: "Soledad…"
First time she'd heard him use the name in… how long had it been? The way he used it was tender. Tender like the fake soft touch of an abuser compared to his punch. It came to Soledad that Gayle had been very correct concerning things about Rysher.
"If you're willing to cooperate, if you're willing to accept your responsibility in the death of Officer Bannon—"
She was up, moving toward Rysher's desk. Gayle's hand grabbing her arm, pulling Soledad back, sitting her back down. Her voice, though, her voice kept hard-charging at Rysher."… Such bullshit! No! No fucking way are you going to—" The death of Reese? They were going to put Reese's death on her? Everything else, every other possible eventuality for the conclusion of things Soledad had prepared herself for, was ready to take. A reprimand, getting kicked off MTac, out of the LAPD: Any or all of that would've been fine. Not wanted, but handleable. But what she could not take, what she would not allow, was for them to blame her for what happened to Reese."She saved my life. I would never…" To Gayle, frantic: "Tell them it's bullshit!"
Still tugging at her arm: "Soledad…"
"I had nothing to do with her dying!"
Rysher, all full of lament: "Soledad, I… I did not want this."
Soledad to Gayle: "Do something!"
"If you would consider stepping aside quietly. I could still… we could still work something out. Otherwise…" Rysher extended a hand toward Tashjian.
Tashjian put in Rysher's hand documents collected in a file. He took out a stick of Big Red, popped it in his mouth.
Tears in her eyes, now Soledad was grabbing at Gayle's arm: "Do something!"
If Gayle did anything more than remain where she sat, you couldn't tell by looking at her.
With all the mournfulness he could pull together Rysher said: "Upon completion of an exhaustive investigation conducted by Internal Affairs Division, it has been concluded that you were grossly negligent in the execution of your duties. Based on these findings, I regret I have no choice but to turn the matter over to the District Attorney's Office with the recommendation—"
And Gayle said: "How many contracts does the city have with gun manufacturers?"
Rysher stopped talking but didn't respond to Gayle.
Gayle said again: "How many contracts to purchase weapons does the city have with gun manufacturers?"
"What difference does it—"
"Heckler and Koch, Benelli, Smith and Wesson, Colt, Remington, Robar… And that's just the hardware MTac uses. All very specialized weapons. Expensive weapons."
Turning toward Soledad, Rysher shut out Gayle."Soledad, I will personally contact a PPL lawyer if you need—"
Again, Gayle: "They are very expensive and very specialized weapons, right?"
Same as flesh-eating bacteria, Rysher couldn't ignore Gayle."You want MTacs to make calls with their empty hands?"
"Now, how are you going to kill innocent metanormals without guns?" Gayle quipped.
Rysher started to say something.
Gayle cut him off with: "Sometimes I let my politics get the best of me. But fact is, the city spends hundreds of thousands of dollars purchasing weapons each year, every year. Over seven hundred thousand. And that's just in Los Angeles. Add up all the contracts from every PD in America, its tens of millions of dollars."
"It's a fact, yes." So what? was Rysher's subtext.
Soledad, missing it too, prayed Gayle had a" what." She looked to Tashjian. He chewed his gum. The finger of his right hand swept back and forth, slowly, across his left palm. He was bored.
"The point," Gayle talking,"is these manufacturers are probably real thankful for their big green PD contracts. The point is these manufacturers know how to show their gratitude to the guys who keep their coffers filled. I'm not saying they're kicking back money. I'd never say that about people who make things to kill other people with. And most everybody's too wise to payola anyway. But maybe when, say, a guy who was really helpful to one of those com-panies retires from a PD, he could pretty easily have himself a very nice consulting job waiting for him to help pad out his pension."
Rysher had nothing to say.
Gayle kept on."Only, one day, you, the department, start getting submissions from one of your own about a garage-built modification of a specialty market weapon designed for killing metanormals. And on paper the thing looks like it could actually work. Problem is, you start using that gun, HK, S&W, Benelli and the rest, they lose their contracts, lose all that money. And I'm guessing these companies aren't going to want the guys who've lost money for them around as consultants. But having a gun look good on paper is nothing. Papers have a way of getting lost. Or tossed in a shredder in the middle of the night. And nobody has to hear about the gun. Except the person who modified the gun—I like to call her Soledad—ends up on MTac. Then she actually has the balls to ignore regulations and use her piece. And that's what screwed things up, isn't it?"
Rysher had nothing to say.
Tashjian had quit drawing lines on his hand, was listening intently. He wasn't bored anymore.
Literally Soledad was gripping the edge of her seat.
"You really going to make me step this all out?" Gayle said to Rysher.
Rysher picked up a pen off his desk, kind of played with it some. He replaced it. That's all he did.
Turning to Soledad, Gayle leaned in toward her, lowered her voice, reducing Rysher and Tashjian to a supreme state of nonrele-vance. Every bit of her body language said: Never mind the boys. It's just you and me, babe."Do you know what this is about, this little witch-hunt? It's not about using a gun that wasn't approved. It's about using a gun they didn't approve years ago."
Soledad's look was: I don't follow.
Gayle smiled an" of course you don't" smile."First day on the job, what do you do? You murder a metanormal."
"I didn't murder that thing. I enacted an Executive—"
Gayle waved her off."Semantics. You took him out, a particularly nasty piece of business this metanormal you enacted an Executive Order on. Your weapon, the bullets: They work. How many cops' lives do you think would have been saved if they'd" — head ticked toward Rysher—"started using your gun when they first got your specs? But they didn't. They had the facts, they had your work and they ignored them because they didn't want to queer their money deal. They took thirty pieces of silver over people's lives. So after you take out the metanormal, some ass-covering's got to be done. They've got to make it seem like a big thing that you broke regulations. Start an IA investigation, start digging around in your background. Start planting speculation about whether or not a black woman can handle the job. Maybe you're not just a bad cop. You're incompetent. Maybe you're a crazy bitch too, with all kinds of psy-chodrama."
Everybody looked over to Tashjian. Tashjian'd made a sound like a laugh.
Again, Gayle to Soledad: "Smoke and mirrors; they make enough noise about you being useless, nobody asks about your gun. Except you're not useless. You're not a hysterical little girl. Out on your own, on the street, regulation side arm, you put down another metanormal. All of a sudden you're just about a hero. All of a sudden if somebody doesn't do something, people are going to be throwing you parades, and you and your gun're going to be front and center again. So what does somebody do?" Talking to Soledad, looking at Rysher, Gayle gave it to him with both barrels: "He tries to pin a cop's death on you, the lousy little weasel."
"Who do you think you are, coming into my office—mine—and accusing me—"
"Did I use your name? I don't think I used your name. Somebody open a window. It's getting guilty in here."
Muscles so tight Rysher could barely move his jaw."That you would even believe you could question my integrity. I have spent more years in this department, protecting citizens, fighting those freaks than you have ever—"
"Freaks? That what you call them?"
"That's what they are."
"Really? And are black criminals niggers? Hispanics spies? You know, even in trying times, political correctness has its place."
"I've got a name for you. It rhymes with cunt."
Gayle's smile in reply said his slap had no sting."You sit there pretending to be a man of law and order, but your stripes don't hardly fit. This really how you want to do things? You want me to start making the rounds to the media?"
"And, and do what? Talk about your, uh… it's nothing, but, uh…"
"You're stammering."
"It's speculation."
"Journalistic careers are made on speculation. All those twenty-four-hour cable news channels? They got a lot of time to fill, and they know how to speculate the hell out of something. I know the LA Times'll eat this up. I'm betting they can speculate you from behind that chair right onto the street."
With all the admiration Tashjian owned: "You have to like this one. You really have to like her."
"Thank you," Gayle said to Tashjian. To Rysher: "At any rate, this is your last chance."
"My last…!"
Soledad thought if he could, if he could get away with it, there was a very real possibility Rysher'd yank out the service piece he hadn't drawn in some eight years and open a hole through the center of Gayle's head.
Rysher's counter was simple."What kind of speculation are you going to get out of the fact O'Roark" — back to O'Roark—"was carrying an unauthorized piece?"
"Actually she was field-testing a new side arm under the auspices of the Governor's Office and the state police." Gayle took docu-ments from her bag. She held them for a second, for one dramatic beat like she was holding a loaded gun. She tossed the documents onto Rysher's desk. The slap of the paper to wood catching everyone like a thunderclap.
And for a long moment, even in the smallish office, the noise seemed to echo off.
Gayle noted, she noted with the glee of someone who enjoyed handing another person a fatal beating: "Yeah, that governor. Our governor. All approved. Retroactively, but, you know…"
On the top document: the official seal of the state of California. It was unmissable. It was also, very much, undeniable.
"Thi—this is a municipal matter." Rysher, not even looking at what lay before him. Afraid to look at it, same as a guy facing a firing squad would rather take a blindfold than see what's coming."It's outside the governor's purview. It's not his concern."
"The governor's purview is the state of California. His concern, for the minute, is that no more citizens get killed."
"And you don't think that's my concern? We've just lost four men."
"He lost a wife, two sons and six hundred thousand people. You want to give him a call and talk about loss?"
No, Rysher didn't. No right-minded person wanted to compare losses with Harry Norquist.
Flipping a hand toward Rysher's phone, Gayle asked: "You want to give him a call and tell him why you're going against his orders?"
Rysher went back to handing out some quiet contempt.
"I've got a direct dial. Let's make the call." Gayle was eager with her gloating."Let's do it. I promise you, all the favors I had to pull, the mountain I had to climb: He did not like having to get into this. I promise you more, he will not like having to explain things to you."
And Rysher looked at what lay on his desk. He didn't pick it up, didn't read it. Didn't need to. From where it was, a few ex officio-sounding phrases jumped out at him, told Rysher plainly how things were. He was against a wall, hard and cold. He knew it. It was obvious all around. Still, Rysher kept looking for a way out.
Soledad, real carefully, tried to give him one."I don't care about anything else. I'm willing to put aside what got us where we are. What I care about…" Mindful of Gayle, mindful people beyond Parker Center didn't know the full truth of things: "This is about what's going on out there right now; what we're all about to face down. I'm willing to let everything else go if it means no more good cops get killed. If I don't have to sit on the sidelines while—"
"I'm not letting officers under my command run around with that," his contempt no longer quiet,"contraption!"
"You let them run around long enough without it and all your cops got was dead." Before Rysher could cut her off, Gayle kept on with: "Just Soledad; that's all the governor's stipulating. A field test goes on, she keeps the piece, she's back on MTac." Gayle brought it all home with: "You act right, you can still get out of this with your pension."
A threat heaped on the bargains and deals didn't matter. Rysher wouldn't convince."And you can just get out. I don't care if you do have the governor in your pocket. G Platoon is still mine to run. These are still my cops. I have a right to impla—"
Rysher noticed, just then got around to noticing, that at some point during the squabble Tashjian had moved away from him. He'd moved to the other side of the room. The side with Gayle and Soledad and, in absentia but very much present, Governor Harry Norquist.
It was done. Rysher'd lost without even being aware of the moment the loss had occurred."The only… It was never about…" Right there's where he let it go.
Gayle made a broad show of checking her watch."Well, I've got a Pilates class to make." She smoothly raised up, held out a hand to Tashjian."Very nice meeting you."
Tashjian took her hand."You've got a way with things, Ms. Senna."
"Gayle. Call me Gayle. Or just call me."
She was not flirting with… Was she flirting with Tashjian?
Soledad, off a shake of her head: "Jesus Fuc… Christ." Then she gave a little smile.
Sitting, fuming, Rysher watched the exchange, watched how easily Gayle flowed among people. Rysher knew then, from first off, if he'd ever had a chance it wasn't one in a thousand.
"Good luck to you, Soledad." And Gayle left the office.
Soledad darted after Gayle, calling her lawyer's name.
Gayle stopped, turned.
"I just wanted to thank you for everything. I don't know if you want to… Why don't we go out and have ourselves a—"
Gayle smiled."Don't thank me."
"I mean it. I could have taken a lot, but them saying I had anything to do with what happened to Reese…"
Still smiling."And I mean it too. Don't thank me. What I did, I did for my reasons; I did it because it serves me. I meant it when I told you that. But the next time you and I meet up we're not going to be sitting beside each other, and what I just did in there is nothing compared to what I'm going to throw at you and every other cop who lifted a finger against innocent people. Same as I did to your lieutenant, I promise I'll do to you."
Gayle walked on. Talking while she moved, tossing back over her shoulder: "My office'll be in touch about your bill."
You could say, and it would be the truth, that the governor of the state of California saved my life. Being a cop, an MTac, is all there is for me. I know in a way that sounds pathetic. I don't care. I'm wired the way I'm wired, my job is my life, that's the way it is. And, yeah, I have Ian now. Sort of. But neither of us knows for certain what we're really about. So if I didn't have my job, if I couldn't fight for the things I believe in…
But that's what Harry Norquist was about: saving lives. He was flying back to San Francisco when Bludlust took the city hostage. Most people didn't even pay any mind to what was going on. Bludlust? Oh, Pharos will handle him. Nubian Princess'll take care of things. Scalawag will save the day.
Harry Norquist wasn't depending on anyone else. Harry Norquist hopped the first plane from that Mayors' Conference in Washington to get back to San Francisco, to do… something. Like there was something he could do Pharos couldn't. Probably not. Definitely not. But unlike the rest of us, Harry Norquist wasn't satisfied sitting on his ass.
He never made it back to San Francisco.
Lucky him. If he had, he probably would've been among the 623, 316 who were killed when Bludlust's whatever went off.
Unlucky him. Among those 600, 000-plus were one woman and two children who were Norquist's family.
Guilt. Guilt like nobody ever knew. That's what Governor, then-Mayor, Norquist felt. He felt guilty because he wasn't there when his city needed him most. He felt guilty because early on, when Nightshift first appeared, Norquist made him welcome; deputized him, gave him special judicial powers, called him in on all the tough cases. Norquist thought he was doing some good for the city. He thought he was giving aid to a new breed of
crime fighter and peacekeeper. All he was doing was making the rest of us lazy and putting power in the hands of a bunch of freaks. Easy to second-guess him now, but none of us saw things any differently. Back then that was the dawn of the age of the supermen, and we all waded in their glow.
Not anymore.
And Harry Norquist was the first to take the blame, the first to condemn them and the first to pledge to stamp the freaks out. He got swept into Sacramento on a vow to make California a metanormal-free zone. And as always, as goes California, so goes the country.
Events dominoed: The EO, the MTacs were formed, the freaks went underground or to Europe.
You know, I really hate those Europeans.
So now I get to go back on the force. So now I get to hunt freaks, maybe get killed, so that the rest of the normals, the rest of humanity, has a shot at staying alive.
Wouldn't have it any other way.
The governor of the state of California saved my life.
There're a lot of tattoo parlors on Sunset Boulevard. East of La Cienega're all the ones for the rock 'n' rollers and night crawlers who got body art as a form of self-expression: rage against culture. Even though body art had become pop culture. West of La Cienega were parlors for all the Hollywood industry glamourbots who got themselves tattooed because Maxim or Vanity Fair or Details magazine told them they should either get a tattoo or start taking yoga.
Soledad went for an east-of-La-Cienega parlor. The guy at the counter was thin, white. A walking billboard for his business. His head was shaved. He looked like he might've been front man for the White Aryan Resistance, except that his voice and manner seemed like they'd just come off a limited engagement on Broadway.
"Helloooo," he said to Soledad.
Soledad was to the point."I want a tattoo."
"And you've got the skin for it, honey. That's what I call canvas."
The gay skinhead started to reach out for Soledad's arm.
Her look told him to do otherwise.
Soledad took out a couple of photos. Showed them to the guy. Asked: "Can you do this?"
Screwing up his lips: "Uhhh. You want to talk about bad skin? Sweetie, you need to get your friend to Malibu."
In the background was the buzz, hum-hum of tattooing equipment and the low moans of someone getting etched.
"The tattoo: Can you do it?"
The man flipped his hands in the air as if all Soledad was asking him to do was breathe or blink."I'm sure."
"I want it to look just like this one."
"I should color it in a little bit. And how about…" He looked behind himself to the wall. Art samples hung there."How about twenty-three? A nice skull. That'd look killer."
"I want what's in the picture."
"Every letter should be a different color, like a rainbow thing."
"I want—"
"A rainbow, or bloodred. But I don't know if bloodred is going to read so well on you."
"Hey!"
The man shut up, quit trying to sell. The man listened.
"What'd I say?"
"You said you want a tattoo like the one in the picture."
"What do I want?"
"… A tattoo like the one in—"
"What are you going to give me?"
"I, uh… I'll go get the ink ready."
Over the years the bald-headed gay guy had etched somewhere near twelve hundred tattoos. He'd done so many that for him the job had gone from making individual pieces of art to doing punch mold assembly line work: want something that'll show your fierce inner strength as well as your passion for nonconformity? Sure. Number thirty-eight in blue. Stick out your arm and let's go.
The bald-headed gay guy wasn't like that with Soledad. Everything about her said, quiet but very firm: Get it right.
Yes.
Using the photo as blueprint, working intently, Baldy copied in exacting detail the tattoo of the person with the ashen skin. Not much tattooing to be done. Just some letters. But the bald-headed gay guy took his time in re-creating them. The bald-headed gay guy got it right.
He wiped away the last of the blood from Soledad's shoulder. He said: "I'm done."
Soledad checked the tattoo in a mirror, checked it against the tattoo in the photo. Reese's tattoo.
It was the same. A bunch of letters. Five words.
Tough words. BAMF words. For Soledad they were a way of life and a memorial to a fallen comrade. For every freak left in America they were a warning.
The words, the tattoo: we don't need another hero.
Soledad welcomed herself back to MTac.
Yarborough couldn't believe what he was hearing.
Yar said: I don't believe this."
Bo smiled at that. Yarborough's disbelief was amusing to him. Things in general were more lighthearted for Bo. Life was good. Bo said again for Yarborough, for Soledad and Vin, who were also sitting with him in the ready room—Whitaker, upon Soledad's return, had been transferred to Valley MTac, the new Valley MTac—"I'm leaving G Platoon. I'm leaving active duty, at least."
Yarborough still wouldn't convince."This is… You're quitting?"
"I'm not quitting. I'm just not going on the street anymore. Taking a promotion, getting a desk."
Vin asked: "What brought this on?"
"The years brought it on. I can't keep doing this."
"Hunting freaks?" Soledad wanted to know.
"Beating the odds. I've been lucky a long time—"
"You've been good," Yar added in.
Bo gave a modest shrug."Maybe I've been a little of both. Maybe. I used to be. But I've lost it. Simple as that. I've lost it and…" Bo hesitated, started again."I shouldn't say this, I know you don't want to hear it, but I'm scared."
Yarborough laughed a little: the idea of Bo being afraid of anything. But then he saw Bo wasn't making fun. He was serious. He was scared.
Bo: "Better off to leave upright than stretched out. And I'm sure as heck better off moving on before I get one of you killed."
Vin asked: "And there's no talking you out of it?"
"You could, but I'd still end up dead. Only difference is it's Kathy who'd do the killing."
Bo laughed, and they all knew it was okay to laugh with him, so they did.
"Never seen her so happy," Bo went on."Not since we had our second. Not since before I went MTac. Good time to step aside anyway. Soledad's back. She can more than take up the slack."
Soledad tried to stay stern-faced, serious and professional, but Bo's vote of confidence put a little light in her.
"It's time for the new. It's over for me." A pause."And I'm glad for it."
There was a moment where everyone worked at accepting the facts.
Vin asked: "Now what?"
Bo answered: "Now we reorganize a little." Turning to Yarbor-ough."I've talked to Rysher. I've given you the recommend for SLO. It's yours if you want it."
SLO. Did he want it? Paperwork. That was a consideration. Lead officers had to do all the write-ups and reports from each call. They had to track bulletins from every other MTac both in and out of state. And if a call went bad, if people got killed, the blame got tossed squarely on the SLO's shoulders. Fingers very clearly got pointed their way. Yar knew, and would admit, he wasn't the highest-velocity bullet in the clip. The paperwork, the responsibility: Yar could go the rest of his life happy without being touching distance to any of that. But…
Having the chance to be the first guy through the door when it came time to drop a mutie…? And didn't chicks dig top cops? Sure they did.
"Yeah," Yar said."I want SLO."
And that was that.
Soledad and Vin gave Yarborough some goodwill and backslaps. Bo was proud father in his look. Yar was swimming with smiles.
And then all the good-naturedness went away. Everybody went quiet. The guard was changing. Change is scary.
Yar asked: "What about the fourth slot?"
"TOL. Out of the academy."
Soledad didn't like what she was hearing."Out of the academy?"
Bo said: "You were academy once."
"And I spent time in SPU before I went MTac."
"We're shorthanded. We just lost four cops." Sheepishly, almost like a guy sneaking off a sinking ship: "Five counting me. Most of the blues, even SWAT, have no desire to step up to MTac, especially knowing there's a telepath out there. We got to take 'em like they come. Her marks are high." Sly smile from Bo."Higher than yours."
Soledad handed the smile right back. Hers said: Don't think so.
"Guess I ought to get things started." Bo got up, headed for the door.
Yarborough was moving right with him."Bo…"
He turned.
"I'm sorry you're leaving the element. I've got nothing but respect for you. Nothing but. It's… it's an honor you should let me take your slot."
Bo got a laugh out of that."An honor? You have a good sleep last night?"
"Last night…?"
"Let me tell you how your nights're going to be from here on. Every one of them's going to be spent sweating over the day: Did you make the right choice? Could you have done something different? If you had another chance, would things turn out some other way? Would one of your operators still be alive instead of a body on a slab? Bodies will end up on slabs, Yar. And all the should'ves and could'ves in the world doesn't change the hurt you'll feel. Know that. Believe that. Ask yourself if you can make up a duty roster knowing writing a name is no different than pointing at a man and saying: You get to come home in a bag today. And even when you think you don't care anymore, when you think you could send your mother on a call and still whistle Dixie, along comes the night. In the night you're alone. You remember names, you see faces. You care. If you're only one-quarter part human being, you care, and the distress and regret and pain is a big white light that won't let you have one moment's rest. So tell me, how'd you sleep last night, Yar?"
"Okay."
"Sorry it wasn't better."
"Anything else?"
"Yeah," Bo said."Congrats."
Aubrey was scared. The quiet made him scared. Quiet was hard to come by in the city. Normally. But where he and Vaughn were now, out of downtown, hidden away, there was a good amount of quiet to be had. Enough, at least, to give Aubrey scares.
Really it was the sometimes sounds, standing out in the silence, that ate away at him. Every rustle was police people closing in. Every creak of wood was an MTac cop taking aim with his gun.
Vaughn needed the quiet to let his mind seep around where he and Aubrey hid. He really needed it now that police people and the others were looking for them. But why, Aubrey thought, did it have to be so quiet? And was hiding alone together better than being in the middle of downtown, getting lost in and around all the people of the city?
Only, Aubrey knew the crowds and chatter wouldn't change anything. He'd be scared all the noise'd just make it hard to hear the police people coming. Under the sounds of the city they could kill Aubrey without him knowing they'd done the job. The thought of sudden, silent death made Aubrey all the more scared.
Aubrey knew. No matter what, he was scared.
But why should he be? Over there was Vaughn. Sitting. Thinking. Vaughn wasn't scared. Vaughn'd know if the police people were coming. He'd known the others were coming. He'd known, and when they showed up, Vaughn… Vaughn killed… Wrapping his arms around himself: "Unnnnnn. Vaughn…?"
Yeah?
Vaughn's voice in Aubrey's head. Aubrey didn't like it when Vaughn made words go in his head.
"We're in trouble, huh?"
No trouble.
"'Cause, 'cause, what you did to the others, and the police people… we're in trouble, huh? The rest are gonna be mad. They're gonna be mad 'cause of what you did. They… they're gonna think you made things worse, Vaughn. And, and they're gonna—"
They're not gonna do shit but keep on hiding. They're scared of the cops, and they're sure as hell scared of me.
Aubrey stared at Vaughn. Vaughn just sat listening for thoughts sailing on the otherwise empty air. He didn't look at Aubrey, didn't acknowledge him.
Vaughn's nonreaction, his counterpoint calm, jacked up Aubrey's fear."They won't help us. They won't help us if the police come."
When. When they come.
"Unnnnnnn…"
And they're gonna come for us.
"Stop putting words in my head! Vaughn…" Aubrey went to him, gripped his arm tight and hard."Let's, let's go! Let's go now! We could go… we could go to that other city!"
Europe's not a city.
"We could go there!"
Vaughn looked at Aubrey. Aubrey was crying. The last time Aubrey cried Vaughn took him in his arms, held him, comforted him. That little bit of nothing had used up all the compassion Vaughn had. He couldn't find any to hold and comfort again.
Instead: "You can go if you want."
Vaughn said that knowing what Aubrey's answer would be. No mind reading required.
"I… can't."
Aubrey wouldn't leave no matter the fact staying was a good bet to get killed. Vaughn had murdered police. Police don't take to their own getting slaughtered. They would come and come and keep coming until they could notch up a couple more freaks on their guns. And Vaughn had murdered metanormals. Regardless of what he'd told Aubrey, God knows what they would do.
But even if he fully understood the risks, Aubrey wouldn't take off on his own. He'd mumble something about staying out of loyalty. The truth: Aubrey was too frightened to be on his own. Frightened of the unknown, of having to make decisions for himself. If he could make decisions for himself. Frightened of dying in an alley alone. At least he'd been there for Michelle. At a distance. Hidden in a crowd when she…
Aubrey would stay. Loyalty was a cover. Fear held him in place. By offering to let Aubrey go, Vaughn had offered him nothing except to keep sitting where he was and wait for bullets to come their way.
Aubrey said: "I'm gonna stay, Vaughn."
Good. Then you can help me. Want to help me, Aubrey?
"Bad… bad things are gonna happen if we hurt more people."
Listening, listening for thoughts.
Aubrey said: "Michelle, Michelle wouldn'ta hurt no one back."
That's… what is that? Ironic?
A bitter lightness to Vaughn's thought.
"… Wha…?"
Ironic. The one of us who would've forgiven them is the one they killed.
Eddi Aoki said she was confident. She said it without saying a word. She said it in the way she sat, self-sure. Straight up, shoulders back, chin high. But not too high. There was plenty of confidence in the way she locked eyes with whomever she was speaking with. And questions always got answered with a" sir" or" ma'am" attached. It was a little bit of modesty. Just a little. It said: A good cop respects her superiors. A respectful cop gets the promotion.
Eddi Aoki was real confident of getting promoted to MTac. That she told to Yarborough, Soledad and Vin—in actual words, not just body language—as they interviewed her.
"And why is that?" Yar asked."Why you think you're ready for MTac?"
Eddi's answer was simple: "Because I'm the best."
When it came to officers being transferred among elements, the other cops had no say. They took what they got; whoever was available. But a new officer who was Top of List of available MTac candidates always had to go through an interview with the other members of the element they were going to be slotted into. No way MTacs were going after a superpowered whatever with a cop who didn't fit in, a cop nobody trusted their backs to.
"Please don't take that wrong," Eddi said, modifying herself and adding just a touch of humility to her hubris."I don't mean that offhandedly; I just feel as though I'm better than other candidates. My scores are outstanding both in text work and field tests."
"There's a difference," Soledad dismissed,"between being able to wing a few targets on a range and keeping your head when there's a flying freak swooping for you."
Yar had nothing to add at the moment. Technically, as SLO, it was his interview to lead. Technically. But two things: Conducting an interview was like doing verbal paperwork. Paperwork of any kind held zero interest for him. Thing two: Eddi was seriously cute. Her marks were good, that Yar knew. She'd been rabbied with strong recommends. She was good cop. Beyond that, Yarborough cared more about what was in front of him than what was in Eddi's jacket. He took another bite of the apple he was working on. He let Sole-dad do the talking.
Eddi rejoined Soledad with: "And there's a difference between target practice and actually having to exchange fire with an armed perp. You train as best you can, then one day it's time to take what you know to the streets. Whether patrolman or MTac, it's the same with any police officer."
Soledad noticed that Eddi always said" policeman" or" officer." Never" cop." Always respectful. Annoyingly respectful.
"No, ma'am," Eddi went on,"I've never actually engaged a metanormal. If I had, I wouldn't be going through this interview. However, I feel I'm more than ready for my first call."
One word got written on the paper Soledad was using to take notes: cocky.
Vin wanted to know: "Where you from originally?"
"Philadelphia, sir."
"How many MTacs in Philly?"
"One platoon, three elements, sir. Good ones."
"If they're so good," Soledad asked,"how come you didn't stay in Philly?"
"One platoon and not a lot of metanormals, ma'am. It's hard to get a slot." Eddi paused, smiled, took in all her inquisitors. Like she was hanging medals on their collective chests: "Besides, there are no MTacs as good as the LAPD's."
Vin returned the smile.
Yarborough ate at more of his apple. For the fourth or fifth time he gave Eddi the once-over.
Soledad started to ask: "How long have you be—"
Eddi cut her off with: "That's not unusual, is it, ma'am?"
"What's not unu—"
"To relocate for the opportunity to be on the LAPD's MTac."
"Did I say it wa—"
"You're from Milwaukee, aren't you, ma'am?"
"Stop calling me ma'am!"
"Should I call you Bullet?"
Soledad snapped the pencil she was holding.
Yarborough about choked on his apple.
Vin grinned harder. Fun was coming.
Soledad constructed an expression out of contempt and anger."No, you can't call me—"
"This may be inappropriate. I don't want you to think I'm trying to sway you…"
"Oh, we don't." Vin, grin big as ever.
Eddi went on."I'm very much an admirer of yours, Bullet."
Soledad's face looked freshly smacked. Her hands looked like they wanted to throw a smack back.
"Of course, I'm not the only one. You got to be the talk of the academy. A lot of time got spent trying to better your marks, Bull—"
As she said whenever she wanted the world to quit spinning: "Hey!"
Eddi stopped talking, listened.
"Officer O'Roark. You call me Officer O'Roark."
"Yes… Officer…"
Casually Yarborough asked: "You single, Aoki?"
"Yes, sir. There, uh, isn't a lot of time for outside socializing when you're in the academy. I imagine there'll be less when I make MTac."
When. When I make MTac. More of Eddi's confidence.
Soledad drove a fist through it."If you make MTac."
Vin nodded at Eddi's belt."That a knife?"
"Yes, sir." Eddi withdrew it, saying as she did: "It's a Hibben Bowie," giving it to Vin handle-first. Big. The blade was polished until it kicked light. It kicked it hard."Never know when a little extra stopping power might come in handy."
Soledad: "Not exactly reg."
"Can't always go by the regs," Eddi said back.
Vin returned the knife."Nice."
"My daddy always said all a man needs is a good watch and a sharp knife."
Daddy. Soledad picked up on that right off. It was the first time Eddi sounded like a kid and not a suck-up. It was the first chink in her armor. Like a street fighter, Soledad went for the opening.
Soledad, snide: "Daddy?"
"Yes. My daddy."
"And did Daddy give you the knife?"
"It's his."
"Daddy back home in Philly?"
"No. My daddy was in San Francisco when Bludlust turned it into ash. I carry this," her hand on the hilt,"because one day I'm going to take Daddy's knife, slam it into some freak's chest and twist it until I carve its fucking heart out."
The quiet that followed was filled by Soledad's self-conscious discomfort.
Finally Vin helped everyone out of the wreck."Thank you, Officer Aoki. We appreciate your time."
That said, Aoki stood, thanked Vin and Yarborough and even managed a pleasant good-bye to Soledad and left the ready room.
Once the door had closed, Yar: "Well, ask me she's got what it takes. Wants to jam Daddy's knife into a freak's chest? She's on her way to BAMF." Yarborough tossed out what was left of his apple."Easy on the eyes too. No, sir, she don't hurt a bit. Maybe I should make sure she gets out okay."
"Yar…"
Without slowing down on his way out: "She's got my vote."
Vin to Soledad: "So where do you fall?"
"She's no good for MTac. Maybe one day, but—"
Vin's laughter cut Soledad off."You interest me to no end," he said."What's under there?"
"My clothes?"
"Your skin. You had it in for the girl the second she sat down. You swing at her trying to draw blood, and the second you did you guilted off."
"I'm doing her a favor. Let her get a little dirt under her nails."
"Listen to the old man talking."
"Screw off. The girl is cocky, hardheaded, she thinks she's God's gift in blue."
"Okay."
"Okay what?"
"Okay, I get it. I get your problem. She reminds you of you, and that's what you've got against her. She reminds you of the mistakes you made, of what could've happened and how bad things could've been."
"Should I be taking notes?"
"Things worked out with your gun, but real easy they could've worked out another way. You were lucky."
"Luck doesn't keep you alive where muties are concerned."
Vin got with a smirk."You are like her."
Soledad ducked the jab, came back with: "Tell me, Vin: What is it you don't like about me? You really take me blowing you off that bad?"
"Who said I don't like you? You and me going back and forth like we do, that's what the movies call attraction."
Soledad stalled. Wit, she wasn't ready for.
Vin picked up the slack: "Aoki's cocky, yeah, but her marks are solid. Sooner or later the girl's going to make MTac, and when she does, she's going to get herself killed and maybe take a few people with her. Instead of waiting for that to happen, we put her on our element."
"To what? To give the freaks a fighting chance?"
"To teach her. To help keep her humble without dulling her edge. Most important: to keep her alive."
"Fine. You want her, vote her on."
"It's unanimous, or it's not at all. Especially in this case. You learned a lot in a little time, and Aoki's going to have to do the same. She could be a hell of a freak hunter. One day. But she's not going to get there without you."
Soledad read between the lines of Vin's" without you" capper. He was feeding her ego. The unspoken challenge: You think you're something, then show the girl how it's done.
Only, Soledad was too sharp to fall for psychology. She had too many other things to think about, worry about, besides some hotshot, high-on-herself little girl.
Little girl.
Soledad felt at her throat and the scars that were given to her, months ago, and would be with her forever. She'd come into things thinking she was special. Only thing special: She had been more lucky than good. She was alive and still an MTac only by the grace of God and the sacrifice of others. Truth: At the end of the day she owed it to Bo, she owed it to Reese to do the same for the next hotshot who came along as they'd done for her.
A pause for thought, to be sure of things.
To Vin: "Okay. We put her on the element."
A strategy's what they needed. Usually, for MTacs, their strategy was built on a simple frame: Some freak somewhere would raise up its head, MTac would go pound it down.
This time was different. This time a little thought was required. Thought. Refinement. That's what Rysher, Bo—Sergeant of MTac Operations Bo—Yarborough, SLOs from the four other MTac units, some officers, including Soledad, were trying to hash out in the Em Ops of Parker Center.
Em Ops—Emergency Operations—was the crisis command of the PD: dedicated voice and data lines, feed from surveillance cameras around the city, maps, blueprints, schematics computer indexed and ready to be displayed on the high-res monitors in the room. When there were riots or earthquakes, when the city was going crazy with itself, Em Ops was where cops went to deal with the situation. At the minute it's where the cops went to figure what to do about a telepath who'd started offing their own. Ostrander was going to lead the figuring.
Ostrander was from DMI. He was a suit, like Tashjian; an investigator. Unlike Tashjian, Ostrander investigated freaks not cops. And where Tashjian was merely creepy, Ostrander was downright Gestapo-like. Maybe he was a jackbooted thug at heart, or maybe it was just his look that made him seem that way.
It was a frightening look.
Actually he had a good look to him. Just about handsome. A dark-hair, blue-eye combination set around angular features. Sinatra in his early days. Really, quite handsome.
The left side of his face was.
The right side was the fright. The right side featured three long scars that ran from Ostrander's hairline—what was left of his hairline—crossed where an eye once was, now replaced by a white orb that spun free as it pleased in its socket, over his mouth, and ended along his Adam's apple.
The scars were bad, both the scars from the maiming and the scars from the reconstructive surgery that preserved what was left of his eye and lips and throat.
Maybe Ostrander had just gotten himself messed up in a car wreck or something.
Maybe.
But around MTac, scars meant muties. And when the person with the scars was alive to display them, it usually meant the freak had ended up with the bad end of the deal.
Soledad fingered her throat. It was becoming her absentminded habit.
Ostrander stood, moved with a shuffle to the middle of the Em Ops.
He said: "His name is Herbert Lewis."
Everybody in the room looked at a surveillance photo on a monitor at center wall. The guy in the photo: middle-aged, white, trim. Very trim. Other than that, he was just a guy. He could've been the neighborhood pharmacist. Could've been the coach of the Pop Warner team. He was so normal-looking he could've been just about anything.
"What Mr. Lewis is," Ostrander explained to the group,"is a freak. He is in possession of hyperkinetic abilities. In other words, my dears, he is a speed freak able to move with a swiftness several dozen times that of a normal human. Under surveillance, he has shown bursts of speed clocked at more than three hundred ten miles an hour. Calculated time of zero to sixty for Mr. Lewis is about two-point-some seconds. He is fast."
DMI made a practice of letting some freaks go unhunted but carefully watched. Freaks they considered to be a less-than-extreme threat; troublesome but not particularly dangerous. Not dangerous like a firestarter, a mass enlarger. A telepath.
Ostrander: "We believe he is a messenger. His abilities, his speed allows him to avoid police surveillance as he travels among other metanormals. So he thinks. If we are fortunate, he has, at some point, had contact with the telepath. If not, it is more than likely he knows of a metanormal who has. Of course, we have to apprehend him before we can determine what kind of information there is to be extracted."
Soledad noticed that Ostrander was real dry, real clinical. Detached from the words he spoke. She made a bet with herself there was nothing he'd rather do than get a freak alone in his basement and get to dissecting.
Fine with her. Not much Soledad would rather do than bring one in for surgery.
One of the other MTac SOLs said: "Nothing easy about serving a warrant on a speed freak."
"No," Ostrander agreed."And the least desirable thing would be a protracted manhunt. For our activities to be made known would allow the telepath to either escape capture or become aware of our plans and therefore alter his. This speed freak, if you will pardon the turn of phrase, must be apprehended quickly."
Ostrander took a limping step back, gave up the floor to Bo.
Bo, jerking a thumb at the photo on the monitor: "It has a dog that it walks twice a day in Griffith Park. Oh-six-thirty, and again at about sixteen. Routine. It doesn't particularly vary. In the morning's when we go. Fewer people in the park. Here's how we work it: After the freak goes into the park we have uniforms move in. Set up a perimeter here" — he pointed at a map of the park—"here and here."
Somebody, one of the officers: "This thing sees blue, it's going to take off running, and that's the end of that."
"Hyperkinetic freaks can only maintain their activity for short bursts. The calories required make prolonged high-speed movement prohibitive." Soledad spat out information, appreciative of Bo's planning, like a professor of freakology giving a dissertation.
Bo said: "Once we move in, it'll see the cops, start running and run into more cops. So it'll go another direction. More cops. Cops everywhere it looks. We pinball it around, wear it down until it's got little or no speed left. Then we bring in the MTacs to close things out. The uniforms are like a bullfighter's cape, softening the beast up. The MTacs are the sword that's going to put it out of its misery."
"We would prefer it alive," Ostrander reminded."Alive enough to answer questions."
"That's the objective. But not to the exclusion of our people's safety."
"How many elements?" Rysher asked.
"Four. One for each side of the box. One element from each unit. That way, if things go south, we're not going to lose a whole unit."
No matter Bo was talking about contingencies for people getting killed, real quick Yar volunteered Central to be one of the elements going in.
Bo said, plainly, showing no favoritism to his old element, he'd draw up a unified duty roster later.
"Yes, sir. Just want to remind you Officer O'Roark is continuing her field test of the O'Dwyer, and she has ordnance that could be very useful in bringing in this particular kind of freak." Yar stretched to sound objective about offering up Soledad and her piece. Reality: no way he wanted to miss out on this hunt.
Rysher: "We'll take that into consideration." He was fronting like he still had authority over Soledad's weapon. A signed piece of paper from the governor said otherwise.
"Any other questions?" Bo said to the group."Comments?"
None. The plan was simple but solid. As long as… As long as the speed freak was as harmless as DMI thought it was. As long as it was just the speed freak they encountered and not some other freaks, a telepath in particular. As long as something unexpected, no matter how prepared for, didn't happen that cost some people their lives. As long as…
"Then it looks like we've got ourselves a job. We'll work up a perimeter, a grid, and have the elements ready to converge at… oh-five. Let's all go home and kiss our wives."
Soledad was on her way from the room when she heard:
"Soledad."
She turned.
Rysher. Back to using her first name."Soledad," he went on,"I am going to take your piece into consideration putting together the duty roster. I think it… I know you can do good work. I know you can, and I'm glad to have you back."
And he smiled to her. Rysher looked right at Soledad and smiled same as if he were grinning to his best friend. Never mind the investigation, the subtle swipes, the bitter conclusion… it was like the past hadn't happened. Or at the very least, it paled in comparison to Rysher's need to glom, to leech himself to whatever could carry him to the next plateau of his career.
Soledad wondered if he'd gotten around to replacing the photo of him and her in his office.
"I don't need your happiness," she said."I'm working toward some of my own."
She left things there. Anything more would have drifted toward violence.
Ten of seven.
The morning was getting warm. The APC was getting hot. Yarbor-ough and his element—Soledad and Vin and the probee, Eddi— ignored it and sat and waited for a freak named Herbert Lewis to get flushed out into the open same as an animal from the brush.
Yarborough had put Eddi on an HK. Her marks were high with that weapon. Her shots were accurate. Her groupings tight, which is a mean feat when your gun is spitting out five rounds a second.
Soledad was curious how Eddi would handle her first call. Unlike Soledad on hers, Eddi, cocky as always, was going into the op low on body armor. No helmet. No Nomex on her upper body. She had on a chestplate, but only because Yar ordered her to wear it. Beyond that, it was hard for Yar to enforce regs he didn't follow himself.
Soledad remembered her first call, the others in the APC making fun of her for being buttoned up tight. Now she, like most MTacs, responded to a call with no helmet, little body armor and Nomex. Soledad looked like she was on her way to a water gun fight, not out for a morning of freak hunting. If nothing else during her time on MTac, she'd learned if a freak wants you dead, all the gear in the world doesn't go far toward stopping it.
"Command to Central." Bo came in over the radio.
Yarborough back: "Central. Go ahead."
"We picked up the target. It's heading into the park."
"Read that, Command." To his element: "It's on its way." Yar shook his head."Just a guy heading into the park, walking his dog… and it's a freak. You'd never even know it."
Soledad checked her piece, checked the clip, the blue-marked one. Something special for speed freaks.
"It's like there's more of them all the time. You ever wonder where they come from?" Yarborough questioned out loud.
"Genetic mutation at the recombinant level," Soledad said. She holstered her piece, looked up, saw everyone was looking at her, waiting for her to go on."You're MTacs, and none of you ever studied metanormal physiology?"
Yarborough started: "We got that pamphlet in the academy… Look, I know you put a bullet in them, they go down. Most times."
Beyond that no one had anything to say.
Soledad said to the others, but said at Eddi: "And here I was thinking you knew everything."
Eddi smiled.
Soledad smiled.
A couple of cats hissing at each other.
Soledad: "There are people walking around out there with latent metanormal genes; the one that gives a person special powers. Maybe one person in ten million has it but can't use their abilities. Then over time—ten years, a hundred years—just on the odds, two people with latent genes meet, screw, have a kid. Now you've got one person with an active M-gene. Eventually, a hundred years later, on odds again, a descendant of the kid meets someone else with an active gene. They have a kid, and every generation the pool gets larger—more of these things, more active genes—until pretty soon there's a freak on every corner."
Yarborough summed up: "So it's like freaks keep having freaks, keep passing on the gene."
"They got a name for it, Yar," Vin said."Assortative mating."
"I know what… that is. Don't go thinking I'm stupid."
"I don't think you're stupid," Eddi said to Yarborough.
Eddi got a smile for that and, unlike the one she'd gotten from Soledad, this one was nothing but nice.
Over the radio, Bo: "Central, we're rolling in the blues."
"Copy."
The blues in, Soledad thought. The freak would see them, then… It was just a matter of time now.
"So what about," Yarborough asked further,"like witches and vampires, werewolves and stuff like that? Where do they get their powers?"
"Those would be paranormal-based abilities derived from magic or the supernatural, not metanormal or genetic."
"Wait a second." Eddi wasn't believing what she was hearing."You telling me there really are werewolves and vampires?"
"No." Soledad laughed at the girl's naivete."That stuff is just in storybooks and make-believe. But freaks that can fly, muties that can pass through solid objects and shoot heat beams from their eyes… that's as real as it gets."
One of the blues came across the radio: "We see it. We're moving in now."
Vin said: "You ever think that if it's evolution, if freaks are the next step up, that… maybe they're not freaks, you know? Maybe they're just… different than us."
Soledad's eyes went to Vin and harsh words went with them: "You going soft on freaks?"
Over the radio: "Close… close… We've got conta— Shit, man, you see that? You see it go? Heading west."
"I'm considering the reality of things. Nature. I'm thinking about Kilauea."
Different voice, another blue: "We've got him. He's… he's gone, he's gone! Southeast now. Jesus, I've never seen anything like it."
A shake of Soledad's head. Blues. When it came to dealing with freaks, they were strictly rank.
Answering Vin: "Little as thirty, forty thousand years ago there was another hominid species coexisting with us Homo sapiens. The Neanderthals. Nothing but Homo sapiens now. No more Neanderthals. Why? We evolved, they didn't, we pushed them out."
"That's debatable: that they were overrun by the early moderns."
Yar felt like he was watching a wrestling match between PBS and the History Channel, and here he was with no way to switch to Fox.
Soledad: "Well, I'm with the 'out of Africa' theory. And one thing's for sure, however it happened: Neanderthals aren't around to give their side of the story. They're dead, they're gone, they're extinct and I'm not looking for some of the same. So if it comes down to us or the freaks for who gets to inherit the earth, I vote for us."
More radio chatter: "Got it coming across… Forget it, it's gone."
"I think… picked it up, north grid heading… Damn it!""Think it's slowing down. Not much, but…""We see it. Slower, but goddamn, it can still haul ass…""Command to all elements. Get ready to move out.""I'm with Soledad. I'm not trying to end up part of a history exhibit." Yar hefted his HK."Let's go do something about the competition."
Griffith Park had been cleared out by the uniformed LAPD cops. Amazing how quiet a big-city park can be top of the morning once gutted. Amazing the park could be gutted at all. Only things there were four MTac elements and a slowing but still very fast-moving freak named Herbert Lewis.
Central MTac, making up one square of a collapsing box, moved through the bushes and foliage like they were trying to flush Charlie from the rice paddies.
On Soledad's left hip hung a Colt. 45. Part of the compromise. She had to wear a reg piece. But on her left hip where she couldn't get to it and couldn't much use it, the gun was vestigial. Technically, as SLO, Yar should've had the Colt anyway. Yar preferred the rapid fire of an HK. He bent the rules, let Soledad have the Colt. Who was carrying what were just details to Yar. They had guns; what they needed was a mutie to stick in their crosshairs.
In all their earpieces, a frantic" Valley to elements. Officer down. We've got wounded!"
"Say again!"
"We have an officer down! The freak shot—"
"This is Harbor. We got it! It's—it's gone, heading south!"
Yar: "Is it armed? Valley, is the freak armed?"
"Negative. Shot my man with his own weapon, but he didn't take it."
"Pacific to Central. It's bouncing your way, Yar."
Into his throat mike: "Tighten up, Central. It's coming."
Soledad took up a two-handed grip on her O'Dwyer, set it to single fire. The other MTacs did likewise with their weapons. They waited…
Waited…
There it was. Not there one second, the next it was standing before them looking rabbit scared.
Yar shouted at it: "You are in vio—"
"Nopleasedontshoot!" Gone. That fast. There and gone.
Yarborough, again into his throat mike: "This is Central; we had it. It bounced off." To the element: "Central, let's go. Close it up!"
Flanking him, Vin and Soledad moved into view. From across the way came Eddi. Yarborough signaled them to hold steady. They formed a wide semicircle.
"Harbor to Central. Coming back your way."
"Copy," Yarborough said."Get frosty. Fire on my command only."
Slides got worked, rounds chambered. Safeties unlatched. An audible confirmation from Soledad's piece: single fire. The element tensed. The element got itself ready.
Yar: "Hold steady."
Vin pressed the butt of the Benelli squarely into his shoulder.
"Hold…"
Eddi's finger brushed the trigger of her HK.
It, the freak, was there. Quick as it had disappeared, it was there again.
"Whyareyoudoingthistome?"
Eddi: "I got it!"
Yar: "No!"
Eddi tapped back the trigger of her HK twice, squeezed out two rounds. In less than the nanosecond it took the thought to travel from her brain to her hand, in less than the millisecond it took the bullets to travel the muzzle of the rifle, Herbert Lewis was gone again. In his place was empty air… and Vin, who now stood directly in Eddi's line of fire.
The two slugs zoomed for him, hit him square in the chest, hit him hard and at full velocity, undiminished by the short distance traveled. They also hit him in the body armor he'd, in hindsight, made the good choice to wear. The double impact picked Vin up, kicked him back like a discarded rag doll, slammed him against the ground as rough as gravity would allow.
Yarborough: "Vin!"
Eddi: "Shit!"
Soledad: "You stupid little…"
Vin's back arched, violent. Eyes bugged and teared, his body spasmed, fought to get control of his breathing, fought to suck in oxygen that'd been punched from him.
In an instant Soledad was next to him, kneeling, lips pressed to Vin's and forcing air into his lungs."Calm down!" she coached."Calm down and breathe!"
"I'm sorry," Eddi cried."He… he was there, I had the shot—"
"Shut up!" Again, Soledad's mouth to Vin's. Again: "Come on and breathe!"
More spasms. Vin's body went tense like steel. Muscles flexed so tight his joints popped. Shook. Shook hard… shook…
And then his nervous system kicked back in. His involuntary muscles went back on-line. Vin sucked a breath deep and loud. It sounded like a vortex collapsing. Let it out, sucked again. Each breath after, by degrees, got a little more regular, a little more normal.
"Gonna make it, chief?" Yarborough asked.
Vin clutched his chest by way of his thoroughly used body armor. When he could, he said: "Juh—Jesus, Soledad. Finally get you to put yuh… your lips to mine, I can't even enjoy it."
"Asshole," as she got herself up. Still, Soledad had to admit to herself: a guy who could take a couple of slugs to the chest and crack wise about it? Impressive.
"Soledad, can you drop this thing?"
"Orders were to take him alive," Soledad reminded Yar.
"Orders were to try. That was before he started getting cops shot up. Now we'll take him any way he comes."
Okay.
Soledad said: "Get down."
Eddi and Yarborough didn't move.
Soledad said again, respectful to Yar but stressing: "Get down."
Eddi, Yarborough, they crouched near where Vin lay.
Alone, in the clear, it'd be just her and the freak. Soledad was good with that. If anything, she eased up some. The ease that came with the feeling of control. Her right hand down at her side gripping her weapon, she came off like a gunfighter waiting for the last toll of the noon bell.
She waited…
She waited…
Just the trees, the openness of the park. A morning breeze.
A breath held, released.
A little radio chatter. Background cop Muzak.
Her hand opened a little, closed again around the gun.
"Pleasedontshootmeldidntmeantohurtanyone."
The freak.
Soledad swung up her arm.
Soledad fired.
The bullet from her gun streaked forward but struck nothing. The freak was gone again.
The freak reappeared directly behind Soledad.
"Whyareyoutryingtokillme?"
Soledad looked behind her, saw the freak."Oh, shiiii…" By the time she'd realized she had less than a second to do something, Soledad was already moving, springing backward, going parallel to the ground as the bullet she'd fired off whipped around, homed in and sped for its target: the freak who was right in back of her. She felt the chop of the air as the slug cut across her, over her, past her, and slammed into a guy named Herbert Lewis.
Herbert Lewis hit the ground about a half second after Soledad.
Different than Soledad, he'd be staying down some.
Freaks.
They're faster than us, stronger than us… That's just for starters. Throw in some of them can fly. Throw in some of them can expand to six, seven times their regular size. Throw in that some of them could be sitting on top of a nuke when it went off and it wouldn't hardly muss their hair… That's what we're up against.
So if we can't outrun them, if we can't outfight them, and since we sure as hell can't outfly them, we have to outthink them. We have to be smarter than them. We've got to outscience them. And since that's all we've got, that's what we use.
That's how it is with my O'Dwyer. When you get down to it, there's nothing fancy in the basic technology. Just in the way it's applied.
The bullet I used on the speed freak: BLAM technology. Barrel-launched adaptive munitions. Each bullet has a nose on a ball joint that's swiveled by small piezoceramic rods. Changing the angle of the nose, even slightly, at supersonic speed creates massive amounts of lift. Steer the nose toward the target, the bullet follows. Thing is, for the bullet to work, the target has to be" painted." The bullet has to know what it's supposed to hit. Not hard. Lots of ways to paint a target. Laser. Radar. Flir. Sonar. I used a variation of sonar. Firing the slug activated an IMP which is set to scan for Meta emissions, then it locks on the highest-resonating reading. Since speed freaks' molecular structures are always in a state of hyperkinetic motion… BLAM. Target lock and the bullet flies to wherever the freak is. The real magic is a small—I'm talking microchip small—sensor behind a quartz window that catches the signal and controls the piezoceramic rods that direct the bullet. Couldn't do that with a conventional slug, one from a weapon that uses a hammer to fire the bullet. But that's the beauty of an
electronic gun. Sure, eventually the slug itself'II run out of sufficient kinetic energy, and a moving speed freak could probably outmaneuver the bullet. None of it's a hundred percent solution. It's a start. It's science. Science and good thinking. For every freak, there's a way to stop it. The fliers, the expanders, the terraformers. Even the intangibles and the telepaths. I'll figure out something for them.
One day I will.
Same as in myths and stories they found wooden stakes for vampires and fire for the Frankenstein monster, I'll figure out something for every kind of freak there is.
Only, I won't use silly, make-believe mumbo jumbo; garlic and wolfsbane. I'll use real science and real good thinking.
Technology is my silver bullet.
The last of her gear packed away, clothes changed, Soledad's head was full with thoughts of nothing else except how good it would be to get home, take a bath. Maybe give Ian a call. Definitely give Ian a call. She thought of Yar. She thought of Yar having to write up the op, make copies, distribute them, file them… How long does it take to even get down on paper craziness like going after speed freaks? Long enough to keep you from getting straight home, taking a bath and calling the one you love.
… Love…
She felt bad, for Yar: having graduated from hunting freaks to hunting freaks and pushing paper. Not much she could do about it other than remind herself if she ever had the chance to move up, don't.
Closing her locker, Soledad started from the ready room. A few rows over, sitting on a bench, helmet in hand and head down, was Eddi. She looked up. She saw Soledad giving her a stare and gave one right back.
The two women went a while not talking, staring.
Finally Eddi broke up the nonconversation with: "I'm sorry."
"Sorry's what you say when you spill a glass of water reaching for the salt, not after you put bullets into a guy's chest."
"Then I don't know what to say."
"Who asked you to say anything?"
Eddi put down her helmet and stood. She gave off a heat that held none of the nervous" I screwed up" little girlishness she'd owned a minute prior.
Soledad's fingers made a fist thinking on their own they might be called to do work.
Eddi: "You hate me. You have since first we met."
"Hate's a strong word. How about: I don't like you as much as I can."
"Why?"
"You're an arrogant little bitch."
"So are you."
"You think you're a badass. You think you can take down every single freak there is by your own self, no help from anyone."
"Just like you. I could've been same as you only better." Eddi gave a delicious simper."And that's what's got the bug crawling in you. You want to be freak hunter number one. You can't stand to see anybody take your place."
Soledad, laughing, laughing spiteful: "You want to be the biggest, nastiest MTac on the block, go ahead. Take out every freak in the state. See if I care. There're plenty of 'em to go around. I don't hate you because you think," hitting the word for all it was worth,"you're better than me. I… you want to call it hate? All right. I hate you because you want to be me." That wasn't said angry. That was said hurt.
Eddi's face twisted, her expression jumped, confused, as she tried to wrap her head around what Soledad'd said and the emotion she put with it.
"You strut in here knowing all about me, where I came from, how I did in the academy. You come around wanting to be a BAMF like you think I was on my first call. Only, you know what I was that night? A screwup. I broke rules, and that almost cost me my job. I got careless, and that almost cost me my life. Look at it." Soledad craned her neck, let Eddi get a clean look at her throat."Look at it!"
Eddi did. Eddi gave the scar tissue a long stare.
"That's my good-luck charm. You get touching-close to a freak that's trying to kill you and you don't die, that's as lucky as it gets. I
used to hide it. Used to be ashamed of it. Just showed how stupid I was. Not anymore." As if to prove the fact, Soledad ran a hand gently across her burns."I fucked up, I lived to tell and I sure as hell'll never fuck up again. Not same as before. I learned my lesson.
"And you want to be me? I don't need that; I don't need any hero worship. I had heroes. My heroes wiped out half of San Francisco."
Quite suddenly Eddi was hit with some wisdom."… And that's why, isn't it?"
"Why…"
"You don't want to be called Bullet. You don't want a nickname." Eddi nodded at Soledad's tattoo, finally digging its full meaning."They had nicknames, and you don't want to be anything like them."
Soledad went quiet. Truth. She couldn't do anything but say yes to it, then: "I'm going to talk to Yar."
"Ma'am?"
"Nobody died. The cop who's made a mistake is two times as sharp as the one who hasn't. That I know for fact. So I'm going to talk to Yar about keeping you on the element. Hell, he would've anyway, but he should know I… Vin too; we've got confidence in you." Before Eddi could give a thank-you: "You and me are even on screwups at one. It doesn't go beyond that."
"Yes, ma'am." Eddi almost smiled.
Soledad did. She went for the door, stopped. Turned back."It's not my business, but do you have a man or anything like that?"
"No, ma'—"
"Soledad."
"No, I don't."
"If you're at all inclined, you should think about giving Yar-borough a chance. He's a do-right guy. He'll treat you good. And what they don't teach you in the academy: In this life you need somebody."
Soledad left, hurried to get home to Ian.
Wow. I can't believe you did that."
"She's… uhhhhh… she's good cop. If I'm honest with myself, I've got to admit at least she's got the bones to be good. Doesn't heeel… Right there."
Soledad was stretched out on the floor. Ian was straddling her, rubbing her back. Soledad liked—loved—getting her back rubbed. Deep tissue. She loved it so much it seemed to Ian that he was just about always giving her a massage. Hard as he rubbed, she could always take it a little harder. Made his fingers hurt like hell. Stiff, tight, cramped for a long while after. There was a day the week before, he couldn't do any drafting. He couldn't keep up the pace. Not doing Soledad's back three or five times a week and still have working digits. Ian had a feeling no matter what else they worked in their dysfunctional relationship, Soledad and her needy back were always going to be a problem.
Soledad: "Doesn't help us any to lose her without giving her a fair shot."
"No, I get that. That's not the part I'm wowing. That you'd put your neck out for somebody; that's not very…"
"Not very what?"
"It's not very Soledad."
"Hell of a way to put it."
"Just trying to emphasize your uniqueness."
"Yeah. Good luck making that into a compli—ahhh. That's good."
Ian was getting to know Soledad's back real well. He knew what kind of pressure she liked, where she liked it most. Where she needed it even if she didn't care for the hurt that came with loosening overtight muscles. Ian was earning himself a long-standing gig.
Not all bad, he thought. Not all.
"It's not that big a deal. A little lower."
"I think it's a huge deal. You told me you didn't even want the girl on your team."
"Element."
"Then in the span of a couple of days, you go from hating her to—"
"Little lower."
"Fine. Cool. We'll avoid the conversation. But I appreciate you're, I don't know… whatever. Growing as a person."
Soledad rolled onto her back, faced Ian. She said: "Okay. Now work this side."
Soledad!"
Soledad turned and saw Yarborough rushing the hall toward her. She stopped, let him catch up.
"I gotta ask you something."
"Make it quick. I have to get to the hospital."
"What's the matter?"
"Nothing with me. I'm supposed to go see the speed freak."
"What about?"
Soledad made a look that said she didn't know."DMI told me to go down, I'm going down." Soledad paused, waited for Yarborough to do his asking.
He didn't ask anything.
"Well?" Soledad prompted.
"Uh…"
"What?"
"It's about Aoki."
"Told you: Me and Vin, we've both got confidence in her. I think she can still work out to be—"
"You think maybe she'd go out with me?"
An empty look."What?"
"You think she'd go out with me?"
"For crying… Yar, bad enough I've got to go deal with some freak, and you—"
"Just want your opinion."
"How about this: How about you ask her out, then we'll all know." Just then remembering Yar was now SLO: "Sir."
"I can't do that."
"You can't ask a girl out?"
"Not her."
"Not her? What, is she magic?" SLO or not, Soledad was going to laugh. She was going to but realized: "You afraid of her?"
Yarborough's feet scuffed at the floor.
"I don't believe this. You hunt muties for a living, but you're afraid of some girl?"
Afraid, yeah, but mostly, thinking of Reese, Yar was afraid of not taking a chance.
But to Soledad: "She's not some girl. You see how hot she is."
"I guess."
"You can't tell me she's not hot."
Soledad flipped her wrist, read her watch both to check the time and to let Yarborough know that she really didn't have any to waste."Yar, I'm a woman. What do I know from a good-looking woman?"
"You know a hot chick when you see one. Come on, you see a hot chick and you know it. You don't think any of those supermodels are hot?"
"I'll tell you right now I don't much care for anything that's got 'super' attached to it. Why don't you get Vin to ask—"
"Oh, Christ, I can't ask Vin."
"Can't ask Vin, can't ask Eddi, but me you can ask?"
"Vin told me I was gonna meet a chick like Eddi, a chick that's got my number."
"Here's some, uh, advice, sir: When you do talk to her, you might not want to call her a chick."
"For real? I thought Vin and them were just ribbing me. Chicks don't like that?"
"It varies. Most of the good ones don't care. But why take the chance out of the gate?"
"Soledad, the thing about Eddi, she's hot, yeah, but she's not just hot. She's, she's a lot of things, and I like her. It's… everything is different when you like somebody."
Soledad and Ian; she knew the truth about being fond of someone.
Yar was preaching to the converted. She didn't have the heart to tell him different as things were when you liked someone, they really got messed up when you loved them. Yarborough was already looking more distressed than Soledad could remember seeing him. She believed, right then, if he had a choice between going head-to-head with an invulnerable or having to ask Eddi out, Yar'd be rushing toward the nonkillable freak.
She said to him: "Look, if you're going to move on Eddi, now's the time to do it. I was talking to her the other day and I told her she needed to get with someone; have a guy in her life."
"She hasn't got a man?"
"Nope. And she sort of hinted around she thought you were hot too." A lie, but a righteous one.
"She said that?"
"Not in so many words, but women have a way of talking, you know?"
"… I guess."
"Well, I'm telling you: We do. And she… she said in her woman way that she thought you were hot."
"Wow."
"Yeah. Wow. So why don't you go ask her out?"
Yarborough did more floor scuffing."She say how hot she thought I was?"
"Yar, I gotta go."
Two days after Herbert Lewis had gotten out of surgery he'd recovered enough that he could carry on a coherent conversation. Or finally cared to. A DMI officer, one of a rotating team of three who'd been planted just outside his hospital room, came in tape recorder rolling, ready to collect intel. The only thing Herbert Lewis had to say: "I want to see Bullet."
The DMI officer got his meaning exactly.
Word got sent to Central. Forty-two minutes later Soledad trekked up the hospital corridor. The mediciny smells, the sights of rehabbing bodies: Right away she thought of her own most recent stay in a hospital. Two-plus weeks for burns and a popped knee. She thought of Reese's final stay in a hospital. Months and months of wasting away.