Those Who Walk in Darkness so-1

by John Ridley

  Thing is, clear as all that is, obvious as it is, you get the liberals and the heart bleeders going on about what's right; about people's rights.

  As if freaks are people to begin with.

  Declaration of Independence says people are created equal. Freaks are as unequal as it gets. So, no, they don't get treated the same as we do. And while the contingent that's soft on freaks always want to talk rights,

  somebody else's got to go out and protect theirs. They've got a right not to get run over by a drunk driver. They've got a right not to get dragged into an alley and raped three times, and a right to fly to Grandma's without the nut of the week jacking their plane. They've got a right not to get killed 'cause one freak that claims it's trying to protect us from another freak knocks over the building they work in. End of the day, only right that matters is the right to life. Sometimes, here in the real world, to keep that right, somebody's got to give up some of theirs. And if you think otherwise… you've never stared down a superhuman who could end your life easy as drawing a short breath. Once you have, right becomes very simple to you. Gray separates into black and white.

  Quiet.

  Mostly.

  Other than the sound of metal scraping metal, like steel leaves rustling—generated by chains that hung from the rafters—the loft, the building, deserted, was quiet. The metal was for Aubrey. Toys. Things to play with. The solitude was for Vaughn. Being isolated let Vaughn think. Freely think. Vaughn picked up thoughts from people without even concentrating. In a crowd, the thoughts of others were always with him—a radio, volume turned low, that could never be shut off. It was constant. Constant. Constant. Enough to drive a guy…

  A lesser guy…

  And that was the thing. For Vaughn, for the ones like him: They couldn't turn the volume off, but they could turn it up. Standing as much as a mile away from someone, to Vaughn their thoughts became pictures. A book of faded photographs for him to leaf through. Less distance than that, the faded pictures became crystal-clear images. Sense memories, complete with taste and touch and smell.

  And Vaughn could touch back. At little more than half a mile from someone he could make subtle suggestions, the mind he touched feeling nothing more than a whim—Gee, I think I'll buy a lotto ticket today. Say, why don't I call my old college roommate? Hell yeah, I'm not going to work; the beach is where I ought to be— to be used or discarded as the person Vaughn coaxed saw fit.

  But closer, a quarter mile, less than that… At that distance? At that distance Vaughn could make another mind his own. At that distance suggestions became orders, hints were commands: strong, forceful. Undeniable. At that distance, for Vaughn's kind, there was nothing they couldn't do to someone.

  More than that.

  Nothing they couldn't force someone to do to himself.

  Aubrey was coming.

  A minute and a half later Aubrey came through the door. Haltingly. Tentative. Overly quiet. Something was wrong. Aubrey had done something wrong. Vaughn sensed it. Heightened perception wasn't hardly needed. Aubrey carried himself like a kid who'd messed up. Literally like a kid.

  Vaughn, to himself: Jesus.

  Aubrey was slow. For Vaughn, to put it that way, was being kind. Honest? Aubrey was just about retarded. Always he had to be watched over, minded. Especially in public. Aubrey couldn't help himself from touching, playing with metal. He couldn't help himself from doing things with metal. Things that could get him noticed and things that could get him killed. But Aubrey did, despite, maybe even because of his slowness and his need for attention, make a good companion for Michelle. There was no limit to her patience and affection, and Aubrey could use all he could get. And through Michelle, because of Michelle, because of what Michelle could bring out in him, Vaughn had come to tolerate Aubrey. To feel the need to share the responsibility of taking care of him.

  Most times he felt the need.

  But at times like this when Aubrey was distraught and troubled, but silent as a child with a bad secret, Vaughn was taxed to his relatively low limit. And at times like this Vaughn thought of Michelle and forced himself, as Aubrey came through the door, to be gentle as he could.

  "Hey, Aubrey. What's up?"

  "… Noth… I…"

  "C'mon, man. Something's up."

  Aubrey didn't say anything.

  "Something's the matter. You know I know, so just tell me."

  Aubrey kept up his quiet.

  Less than a minute. Already Vaughn's patience was worn beyond thin. It'd be so much easier to slip into Aubrey's mind—Aubrey's mind would be nothing but easy to slip into—and extract whatever he cared to know, affect Aubrey and make him happy or sleepy or anything else that'd give Vaughn another couple hours of peace and God-loving quiet.

  Except Vaughn didn't do that; didn't coax. Not with his own kind. A rule. One those who're gifted adopted a long time ago. One Vaughn, even now, stuck to. Vaughn just sucked a deep breath and tried again.

  "Aubrey… Aubrey, you do something wrong? That what happened?"

  "… Yes."

  Yes. A word. It was a start.

  "Tell me 'bout it."

  "Can't."

  Look at him, Vaughn thought. Scared. Squirming where he stood like if he didn't pee, his bladder was going to bust. That wasn't how adults behaved. This was a waste of time. So much easier to just…"Course you can. You can tell me anyth—"

  "You'll get mad."

  "I won't."

  "You'll get mad and hurt people."

  "Damn, man. I'm not gonna hurt you."

  Aubrey made a noise: "Unnnnnnnn."

  "Aubrey!"

  "I'm sorry, Vaughn." All of a sudden Aubrey's eyes got wet. All of a sudden tears spilled out and ran over his cheeks, ran streaks through the dirt that pancaked his face. Aubrey's face and skin,

  Vaughn's too, were perpetually dirty. Hard to keep clean when you live like a pack rat. Except Michelle. Michelle seemed always clean. Michelle seemed—

  A long pause full of fear, then: "… Michelle…"

  Years of living with his abilities. Vaughn, attuned to the subtle, was nearly blind to the obvious. Michelle never went anywhere without Aubrey. The opposite was also true. But here was Aubrey. Alone.

  "Where's Michelle? What happened to Michelle?"

  A daze settled over Aubrey."My fault. Shoulda been me," he chanted."Shoulda been."

  Vaughn's mind went sharp as a switchblade, tore into Aubrey, dissected and cut and ripped away images: Olive Street. A sinkhole. Lives saved by Michelle's gift of grace.

  Vaughn hacked deeper into Aubrey's memory. A cop and a gun and a shot fired. Michelle hit. Michelle hurt. Michelle tumbling through the air. Falling like a rock. Falling…

  Michelle…

  Minds locked, Vaughn/Aubrey screamed.

  Vaughn pulled himself out of Aubrey's head.

  Aubrey sank to the floor. Blood leaked freely from his nose, covered his jaw.

  Vaughn swayed, buckled. He'd absorbed more than just recollections. He got everything Aubrey had seen and heard. Hours after the fact, and he'd been where Aubrey'd been: Hidden in a crowd on a hot street in the center of LA, he'd stood and watched Michelle, watched his wife get killed.

  No.

  Murdered.

  Feeble in voice as he was in body: "Tell me."

  "It's my fault," Aubrey sobbed through the hands that clutched at his nose."It's—"

  "Goddamn it, tell me, or I'll go back inside."

  "No, Vaughn." Aubrey wrapped his arms around his head as if that'd protect him; as if that'd keep Vaughn from shredding his mind again."I'll tell you! I'll tell! She… she wanted to go out. You were gone, and, and she wanted to go out."

  "I told you never to—"

  "I know. I know, but I couldn't help it. She wanted to, and, and I couldn't help it."

  Vaughn knew he couldn't have refused Michelle either, sirenlike as she was angelic. Vaughn'd never been able to act contrary to Michelle's graces, so what willpower could a mess like Aubrey hav
e in reserve against her?

  "Michelle, Michelle didn't like being all inside all the time. She didn't like it. Michelle liked to be outside. She liked, you know, she liked people."

  Past tense. It made Vaughn's stomach retch, his head swim.

  "We went walking. We went walking 'cause… 'cause Michelle liked to, liked to, uh, liked to go out and be good to people." Aubrey sputtered on the blood that ran down into his mouth. He wiped it from his upper lip. It was freshly replaced."She got this, like, drug woman to not, not to be on drugs anymore. And, and there was this guy who was in a, uh, gang who just about got shot but didn't. And then… and then…"

  An image from Aubrey's mind."The sinkhole," Vaughn said.

  "We were on… on this one street…"

  "Olive Street…"

  "And she got that look, you know? That look of… pre…"

  Precognition. Vaughn knew the look. One split second of anxiety in anticipation of death, disaster. One moment of radiant glow as she… what did she do? What other way was there to say it? Michelle made miracles happen.

  "And then there was this police lady there. And, and she sees Michelle, and she… I don't know, but she knows something's not… she knows something's bad. And the police lady started chasing Michelle. But Michelle, she didn't care. She wasn't worried."

  Why should she be? No one could hurt Michelle. No one would ever—

  "And the police lady's chasing Michelle and she's chasing her and… and Michelle tried to fly away. Right in the middle of the street she tried to fly away… and then… and then…" Aubrey lost it, broke out in heaves and tears.

  Didn't matter. Vaughn didn't need the story finished. He'd seen it. Michelle, mortally wounded, left to bleed like a rabid dog put down in the middle of the street. He knew people'd gathered and gawked and stared and pointed and taken pictures and said: "They did it, they got another freak." That's what waited for the ones who were careless or reckless. Or worse, it's what waited for those who couldn't just stand idle when people needed help; went into action putting out a fire with a single huffed breath or yanking a child from the path of a runaway truck at hyperspeed, doing so, revealing themselves for what they really were. Vaughn thought for certain it's what one day—too thoughtless, too distracted around metal— would happen to Aubrey. It's what he never thought, could let himself think, would happen to Michelle.

  A wave of despair spilling over him; Aubrey could feel, vividly, the hole in Vaughn's soul. An empty pit into which he slid.

  "Vaughn, please… don't… They'll… the rest of them'll get mad!"

  "Fuck them! They want us to hide, they want us to wait. Then they let… they let Michelle…"

  "… Vaughn…"

  "They killed my wife."

  A block away, a homeless man cried uncontrollably.

  "Vaughn, don't do nothing. Please don't."

  Clumsily Vaughn took Aubrey in his arms and held him. Vaughn was no good at expressing himself with touch. Tender, firm, harsh: shades that were beyond him. Michelle understood that about Vaughn. Michelle forgave him that: his aversion to physical contact. It was poor tribute to her that Vaughn even bothered trying with

  Aubrey. But he did, he tried, and what Vaughn couldn't do with his hands he did with his mind. He calmed and reassured and then, with a gentle thought, he made Aubrey weary and sent him into what amounted to a restless, agitated sleep.

  Vaughn stayed awake. He had so much to consider now that he had nothing left to live for.

  Whump whump, thwap, thump-thwap.

  Wasn't much going on.

  There wasn't much going on in Soledad's life since her last OIS, since she'd gotten herself stuck back on a desk doing paperwork, back to being a secretary with a gun. And the gun might only be temporary.

  Thwap, thwap thwap! Whump! Whump!

  There wasn't much going on in the gym at Parker Center. No other cops around and Soledad was just fine with that. No noise, no chatter.

  No… looks. Seemed like she'd been getting more and more… looks.

  No sounds except her hands and feet doing work on a heavy bag.

  Whump! Whump! Thwap whump!

  Maybe there was something else she could do, she thought. Some other way to earn her keep. It was—felt like it was—coming to that. Obviously the cop thing was going nowhere. Maybe if she got out of all this halfway clean, if IA didn't bury her too deep, let her quit instead of getting discharged, she could… she could what? Work security at Century City Mall? Join Edison or ADT, drive around Beverly Hills scaring away the blacks and Mexicans every time Mr. and Mrs. Stuffy McNervouspants put in a call they'd seen one of those people in the neighborhood.

  Yeah. Like she could keep sane living that way.

  But what do you do when you've spent most of your life gearing up to take on ultra-empowered, supernormal genetic mutants and in the first six months it doesn't work out and doesn't work out as much as something can?

  Thump, thump thwap. Whap!

  Soledad liked the feel of fist and foot against the leather of a bag. Beyond that, she wasn't much of a fighter, having previously been in only one brawl in her entire life. Sixth grade. Maggie Pearson had stolen Soledad's Miami Vice poster from her locker. Nobody touched Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas and got away with it. Nobody.

  Years later Soledad had studied—had taken—some kung fu classes, or classes the guy who taught them called kung fu because kung fu sounded cooler than self-defense, which is what he was really peddling. During one of the classes some guy, another student who thought he was the next Jet Li, connected a foot to Soledad's head. Soledad connected a fist to the center of his face. Okay, so maybe twice in her life she'd been in a fight. Sort of twice. One punch and the guy went down like a two-dollar whore.

  Whump, whump whump! Thwap…

  Soledad wound up for a spin kick. Anger, rage, frustration; she was going to let it all out. She was going to let somebody have it even if it was just a dumb punching bag that was good for nothing but being strung up and getting the stuffing knocked out of it.

  She related.

  Halfway into the spin, a voice: "Knee in."

  The voice, unexpected, threw Soledad. Her foot struck late, missed the bag. Momentum kept carrying her around, would've taken her to the floor if she hadn't somehow steadied herself. The speed with which she recovered her balance was a bit surprising. Pleasantly.

  Soledad looked to the voice.

  The voice had come from Detective Tashjian, Internal Affairs Division.

  Tashjian said again: "Knee in. You have to keep your knee in, thrust out, strike at the last second. You can't telegraph your blows."

  He was giving tips? Tashjian, looking like a" before" shot from a Gainers Fuel ad?" And you're the fight authority."

  Tashjian threw a couple of tight punches in the air and wasn't at all clumsy about it. He threw them like maybe he wasn't just a bland-as-bland-gets geek. He threw them like maybe at some point in the past pugilism was Tashjian's stock-in-trade. Probably. That was Tashjian: a guy who looks like nothing, but who's nothing but trouble.

  "You have to hide your blows," Tashjian directed."Hide them, deliver them fast and plentiful at the last possible second so your opponent doesn't know which way to turn. All they can do… well, all they can do is be beaten. Take the beating that's coming to them."

  "That your creepy metaphor for the day?"

  "I'm talking about the martial arts. What are you talking about, O'Roark?"

  At the moment Soledad wasn't talking about anything. She was pulling off her gloves, unwrapping her wrists.

  "Keep trying to tell you I'm not a bad sort, O'Roark. Not like you think I am." Tashjian crossed to the heavy bag, tapped it with a finger as if to check its constitution, then pocketed his hands."Only doing my job."

  "So am I. Difference is I get strung up for it."

  "There are just questions that need to be asked. You can understand that, can't you? Most cops go their entire careers without drawing the
ir side arms, without being in an officer-involved shooting. Now in the past few months you've been involved in two."

  "I was on MTac. We're supposed to shoot freaks."

  "A probee, by herself, with some kind of homegrown weapon takes out a pyrokinetic."

  "He was about to—"

  "An officer, by herself," Tashjian continued, uncaring for anything Soledad had to say,"shoots a… well, whatever it was."

  "This last shooting was righteous. You know that. For crying out loud, I used a service revolver. The department wouldn't even let me carry a nine."

  "Question is: Should you have taken the shot at all? Procedure would have been for a uniformed officer to make the call to MTac."

  "It was flying away. Flying! By the time I'd put in a call, by the time MTac responded, the thing would've been setting up shop in Idaho. Lucky I got one shot off."

  "You made it count."

  "And good for it. The thing just opened up a hole in the middle of Olive."

  Rocking on his heels: "Not so sure about that. Times says—"

  "Christ. The Times."

  "You're telling me."

  "Then why you always talking about the Times?"

  "Usually one laying around Starbucks. For free, what does it hurt to hear what the liberals are saying? They're saying the freak might've saved people from being trapped in the hole."

  "And Fox News says the gov ought to federalize the MTacs."

  "Handing MTac to the bureaucrats." From Tashjian, a shake of the head."God help us all if they do."

  "In the meantime I do my job; I see a freak, I stop a freak."

  "There are any number of reasons for pulling a trigger. Stop a crime, commit a crime. Grab a few headlines."

  "I'm trying to make a name for myself, that what you're saying?"

  Tashjian's head dipped slightly, signifying agreement.

  "That's a guy thing: buying fame with a gun," Soledad said."It doesn't come from women."

  "What about Solanas?"

  "Who?"

  "Valerie Solanas."

  Soledad blank-faced him.

  "The woman who shot Andy Warhol."