by John Ridley
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 har
d 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.
"Whyareyoudoin
gthistome?"
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?"