Somewhere along the way darkness got a bad rap, got itself associated with fear and malevolence. Bad things only happen in the dark.
Perception, not truth.
The dark was safe and warm. People calmed and closed their eyes and slept in the dark. The dark was as solacing as a womb. It was coming out of darkness into the light of the day when you could see just how fucked-up the world was.
The APC doors opened. Harsh white sunlight hacked its way into the vehicle’s bay.
Soledad held up a hand against it, against the light. But there was little blocking of the sun to be done.
Every time.
Every time she spilled out of an APC on a call Soledad felt like she was dropping out of a Huey into a hot LZ deep in Charlie territory or exiting a Bradley for some foot patrol in Fallujah, dodging random IEDs.
It was an assumptive feeling. She’d never done either of those: urban pacification or hit an LZ. Hadn’t even been in the military.
But Soledad was pretty sure the feeling of dread, of imminent unavoidable death that came with taking either of those locales was the same as rolling out of her APC. The same, ’cept for the fact that across the street, in Soledad’s war zone, was a Quiznos where she’d once had an exceptionally adequate lunch. On the far corner was a computer store where she’d had her PowerBook worked on three times because the first two times the twenty-something the joint passed off as a tech expert had not one idea in hell what he was doing. In Soledad’s war the battleground was here. Not a desert city, not a rice paddy halfway around the world. Here; her city. And the enemy didn’t wear a uniform or in any particular way identify itself as a combatant or insurgent. The enemy looked like Soledad, or the kid working at the copy shop, or the mother of two out running with her jogging stroller.
The enemy looked normal.
The enemy, however normal-looking, was anything but.
LAPD squads surrounded the bank at Main and Rose. Uniformed cops used the squads for cover. A growing crowd across the street from the police action stood out in the open. Overhead news birds from Channels 4, 7 and 9. Circling low. Making communications difficult. Ensuring the viewing public would get “live team coverage” if anybody got killed.
The shit was, most definitely, about to get rolling.
The uniformed Officer in Charge waved Soledad over. Her element was right on her heels. Her element, Pacific MTac, she’d inherited in a command shuffle when its most recent sergeant was KIAed. It’d only been his third call on point. Third time’s the charm.
Pacific MTac: Eddi Aoki and Jim Whitaker on HKs. Jesus Alcala, a probee, working a Benelli. Alcala was a baby MTac, but he’d proven himself on four previous calls. Without fear, with smarts and deadly aim on the Benelli. All that and the fact Manhattan Beach had one less freak walking around courtesy of a one-ounce slug was proof enough of Alcala’s skills.
Eddi was a known quantity. Her, Soledad; they’d survived going head-to-head—no pun—with a telepath. Eddi’d come back from a nearly shattered knee to get a slot on an element. She was a cop Soledad had no problem giving her back to.
Whitaker.
Whitaker had been transferred off Central MTac just prior to Central MTac being shredded by that telepath. Previously a little mousy, a little nervous, in the eight months since his almost near-death experience, Whitaker had gone at the job with a vengeance and without hesitation. BAMF twice in that amount of time. Knowing that you dodged a bullet by avoiding a telepath is a life-changing experience. Especially when it’s just luck that kept you from standing in the spot where others died.
Soledad landed at the OIC, squatted, asked:
“What’s the deal?”
“Two-eleven in progress. Turns out one of the civvies in the bank is a freak. Tore the shit out of the perps.”
“Got an ID on the freak?”
“Won’t do you much good. It’s a shape-shifter.”
Eddi, a noise of disgust, then: “Fucking shape-shifters.”
Alcala: “One freak better than another?”
“Some are worse than the rest.”
“Mouths shut, ears open.” Soledad was all business. The business at hand: getting intel, staying alive. To the OIC: “What do you know?”
“The guy’s name was Sidney Roth. Ran him with DMV. Age listed was sixty-eight, widower. No priors. Was a quiet guy.”
“The bad ones usually are. It’s inside?”
The OIC gave Soledad a nod to the affirmative. “The civvies are accounted for. Perps are dead. Black-and-whites responding to the silent alarm had the perimeter locked down before anyone got out.”
“Description of the freak.”
“Told you, it’s a—”
“Just give me height and weight.”
“Five-eleven, around one-seventy. That’s from the civilians.” The OIC’s meaning: Civvies don’t generally make for great witnesses. “So it could go a little either way.”
Across the street: Commotion. Loud voices.
Uniformed cops, on edge, overanxious, turned, took aim with their sidearms. Would’ve sent bullets into the lookie-lous if they’d had just a touch more jitter to them.
The lookie-lous: Their ranks had swelled by a handful of protesters. Voices raised, placards waving. Homemade signs. The sum total of their message: Fuck the Police. Let Freaks Be.
Alcala, re: the protesters: “You believe that shit? We’re manning the line, and they’re acting like we’re the damn problem?”
“Forget ’em.” Soledad was plain with her order.
Whitaker was snide with his suggestion: “How about we take a couple of them along, see if they’re still freak lovers when some mutie’s trying to rip their—”
“How about we concentrate on the job?” Soledad didn’t have the time, didn’t have the patience for her element venting. “It’s the Westside. What do you expect but the liberals are going to turn out? Lucky Susan Sarandon’s not here.”
“I like Susan Sarandon.”
Soledad looked to Eddi.
Eddi’s smirk: Yeah. Really.
Still, Soledad was pretty sure Eddi was just messing with her. Much as Soledad respected the girl, there was no getting on with Eddi.
To the OIC: “Got a floor plan?”
“Bank manager drew one up.” Flipping open his duty log, showing a poor sketch to Soledad: “Not much to it. About twenty-five hundred square feet total. Desk, chairs on the north side just past the door. Tellers’ windows, manager’s office back here . . .”
“Vault open?”
“Vault was open.”
Soledad, facetious with herself: That’d be fun. Trying to corner a freak that could shift its shape just about any way it pleased within the restricted confines of the vault. It’d be like taking a swan dive into a steel coffin. She hoped, Soledad hoped it wouldn’t come to that. She hoped they could nail the thing in the relative open. About all she didn’t hope for was that the freak was already gone.
Other cops, the uniformed cops who’d be staying on the outside hidden behind their cruisers, guns pointed at the bank; probably they were hoping the thing had split. Hoping that they could make it through the day without having to deal with a mutie. But that’s why they were, would never be anything but beat cops. Uniforms. Good men all. But when it came time to really step up they’d rather step behind their cars. By the time Soledad, her element . . . by the time any cop goes MTac they’d long since given up wishful notions of avoidance and turned their fancy to the hope that one day freaks would be relegated to a portion of a museum right next to T. rex and they as MTacs would get the chance to play a significant part in the extinction event.
From her belt Soledad slipped a yellow-marked bullet clip. Slid it into the back of her modified O’Dwyer. Her gun. The gun. The OIC watched her actions with the same mythic reverence for Prometheus grabbing fire.
Soledad to her element: “Listen up!” Her voice punched straight from the gut. The tone: This is it. The meaning: Pay attention and live. May
be. “The space is tight. Be aware, and don’t get yourself between the target and a gun. We go two-by. I’ll give the Civil, but this one’s already got a body count. You got the shot, take the shot.”
No inducement for questions. Far as Soledad cared, at this stage of things there had better not be any.
One thing more: “The safe word is ‘cardigan.’ Got it? Cardigan.”
The safe word was the first word that popped into Soledad’s head. The randomness didn’t diminish its importance. Not when the freak you were going after could real easy mimic, among other things, an MTac; reshape itself as the cop who was supposed to have your back. It was good to have a way, a word, to separate the real from the imposter.
This call: cardigan.
Soledad called for a mike check, heard her element count off in her earpiece.
Then they were moving, moving for the bank. As always, this situation, this call, different than the last call. Different freak with different abilities. And even freaks with similar abilities came wrapped in different psyches. Like snowflakes, no two alike. Like real deadly snowflakes. But every call, in some ways, was the same. MTacs vs. some kind of thing. The MTacs with their guns, the thing with heat vision. The MTacs with one-ounce slugs, the thing bulletproof. Four MTacs, the thing stronger than a hundred men.
The MTacs. A thing that could, with as little as a thought, steal their lives.
And for any MTac, no matter how many calls they’d been on, how many freaks they’d previously chalked . . . no matter how many times they’re BAMF. Every now and again a little self-prepping is required.
Soledad, to herself, but loud in her head: I’m not dying today.
The sound track, the sound that came with action for the MTacs creeping into the bank, was the sound of each other’s breath—short, sharp—coming through their earpieces.
The sight: Chairs overturned. Deposit slips spilled on the cream tile floor along with phones, brochures to inform customers in four-color gloss about direct deposit and certificates of deposit and free checking that actually hit you harder with jacked-up service fees.
Some cash.
Some cash just lying among bloody, shredded bodies. Body parts. What was left of the two sweaty guys.
The place was empty of people.
Probably, it still held a freak.
So now it was about looking. Looking for movement where there shouldn’t be any. A sign of life where there should only be inanimation. The freak could’ve melded with the wall. Easy. Obvious. How about that shitty hotel-quality painting hung on one side of the space? Could a shape-shifter duplicate something that bad?
The spray of deposit slips on the floor?
Clever.
One of the dead sweaty guys: Was that really a freak in hiding?
Very clever.
A kiosk? A chair? The ashtray stand . . . ?
This; this is why, like Eddi’d said, shape-shifters were worse than other freaks. They’re tricky. They play dirty.
Yeah but so could Soledad.
Soledad, to her element: “I’m giving the Civil.”
Soledad yelled into the bank: “This is the police. You are in violation of an Executive Order from the president of the United States. You are ordered to surrender yourself immediately or face potentially lethal force!” The Civil—short for “Civil Rights”—was the freak version of getting Mirandized; a little speech mandated by the Supreme Court after a constitutional challenge of police powers by the ACLU for a metanormal rights group. “Freak fuckers” to the majority of Americans. The 5-4 decision required cops to recite the Civil when executing a warrant on anyone with “unique, metanormal and/or supernormal abilities not found among the common populace of the human race.” The freak fuckers had complained that the cops weren’t giving freaks a fair shot at surrendering. They’d complained that the cops with their guns that fired nothing more than bullets weren’t giving freaks—flamethrowing, self-electrifying, supersizing freaks—an opportunity to give themselves up. So now Soledad had to scream the incredibly, legalistically stupid phrase “or face potentially lethal force” at the top of her lungs, doing the double duty of both embarrassing herself and warning the freaks: “Here we come!”
From outside the bank, from across the street, Soledad could hear the group of freak fuckers chanting for freak rights.
In the bank nothing. Relative quiet. Just the breathing of the cops in each other’s earpiece.
Most times, with ornery freaks and muties, the lead officer delivering the Civil didn’t get past “This is the po—” before fire or frozen air or animated metal came rushing for them, rushing to kill them.
Fine with most MTacs. They didn’t care about freaks’ so-called rights. They only wanted something to shoot at.
Alcala, checking the space: “Oughta just blow all this joint up.”
No one responded to the statement.
“Oughta just—”
Soledad: “Heard you.”
“Blow it up. Freak’s in here, freak’s dead.”
“Good plan,” Eddi miked back. “Every time somebody reports a freak, call in an air strike. Nuke the block.”
“Just saying—”
“Not getting jitters, are you?”
She wasn’t looking, but Soledad would take the bet Eddi was wearing that grin of hers. “Aoki, Alcala, shut up.”
Whitaker kept out of things, kept quiet. Kept his eyes on the space all around. Not scared. Not even anxious, having settled in his head that today, probably, was the day he was going to die. If not this call, then the next. Or the next. Sooner or later he was going down. Wasn’t fatalism. It was, to Whitaker, being realistic. In anticipation of the moment itself, the prayer repeated in his head: Jesus, all I want before I go, let me chalk one more stinking freak.
Soledad’s voice in all their earpieces: “Moving forward.”
She crab-walked for the center of the space. Out into the open. Trying to use cover was without point. Cover could be the freak. Get too close to the kiosk, it could reach out and choke you. The garbage can could jump up and real quick beat you to death.
Whitaker kept near to Soledad. Aoki, Alcala covered. All of them, guns ready, fingers brushing triggers. The four black eyes of their weapons sweeping the space, looking without compassion. Looking for something to kill.
The doors of the bank were closed. If the AC was on, Soledad couldn’t feel it. The air was full with the stink of the dead Sweaty Guys already going stale. To wrap things quickly would be a pleasure to the senses.
Soledad: “Rising up.”
The element held their ground, did a slow sweep with their weapons. Black eyes searching . . .
Soledad stood from her crouch, had a look around.
Nothing.
Not nothing. Too many things. Too many ordinary-seeming accessories of life that could be a homicidal, blood-crazy shape-shifter.
To her element: “C’mon up.”
Aoki, Alcala and Whitaker stood.
Fingers brushing triggers, black eyes searching . . .
Soledad, inching forward, inching . . .
Something wasn’t right. Something had to not be right. That something would be the freak: A section of wall misaligned. A chair where one shouldn’t be.
Something had to not be . . .
Inching forward, inching . . .
Black eyes . . .
Sweat on her forehead, dripping across her brow. Why the hell would somebody shut down the AC?
The floor got tacky. Sweaty Guy blood under foot.
Something had to . . .
“Eddi . . .”
“Yeah, Soledad?”
“Tell me what you know about shape-shifters.” Soledad didn’t need a primer on transmogrifying freaks. What she needed: a voice in her head to help her focus, to walk her through facts, hip her to what she wasn’t seeing.
“They have an evolved genetic ability to dissimulate. Every aspect of them malleable. They’re able to alter shape, size . . .”
>
The carpet? The mutual fund display? Something . . .
“Not mass. Mass has to be maintained.”
The loan area behind Eddi. The desks? The chairs?
“Altering mass would require a discharge of energy. Basically, the thing would explode.”
The desk? The chairs?
Four desks. Three chairs.
There were three loan officers.
It wasn’t right.
“Eddi.”
“Yeah?”
“Move!”
She did. With speed, Eddi dropped low, twisted clear from Soledad’s line of fire.
Soledad gave one tug to her O’Dwyer’s trigger. Four slugs. All dead on target. All ripping, shrieking for the desk without a chair.
The desk moved. Its middle section dropped, torqued, pulled itself from the bullets’ path.
And the party got started.
Alcala went to work with the Benelli, a hell’s roar ahead of each one-ounce slug auto fired. Devastating most times. This time . . . The freak sucked itself in, stretched itself out. Took the form of something like a serpent. The slugs missed their intended target. One hit another desk, turned it into a vapor of wood chips, pulped paper. Another punched a fist-sized defect into a wall.
The freak, still shape of a serpent, sprouted tendrils. Lashed one for Soledad. She took it square to the face. Felt, tasted blood in her mouth from teeth driven through the flesh of her cheek.
Soledad went backward, went down, kept up the grip on her gun.
I’m not dying today.
Springing up, looking, assessing . . .
The situation: The freak had another tendril noosed around Alcala’s neck, had his feet off the ground. His face already going from red to blue.
Eddi’s HK went hot, but she maintained control. Fired in bursts. Regulated her ammo. In a gunfight with a freak what you did not want, you did not want to have to take a time-out to reload. Staying alive was hard enough. Running out of bullets? That kind of miscalculation got you killed.
The freak snapped its tendril, the one gripping Alcala. Alcala took air. Sailed for Eddi. Eddi had enough quick to her to hold her fire, keep from putting slugs in Alcala. Not enough quick to keep from taking Alcala full to her chest. One hundred ninety-six pounds of man. Fifteen miles an hour. Felt like catching a Hyundai.
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