The Hound of Justice

by Claire O'Dell

  Dear Janet,

  Been a while since I wrote. Things are going about what you might expect, what with Donnovan promising peace and the GOP telling us we have to give in order to get. Which is, we ain’t gonna get a peace that leaves us alive, unless we fight for our rights. I said that much in my latest, but a couple donors to the news squirt didn’t like that, so I might need to dial back the honesty or find another job. I’ll let you know. Leastways the college side of things is doing okay. Tell Sara I love her.

  Dear Jacob, I thought. I love Sara too. Sara had done her best to help Jacob find a job to pay his bills while he studied for a degree in therapy, but not all loose ends stayed tied up neatly.

  I started to type a reply, but I got no further than Hey, hello. I couldn’t fake cheerful right now. Maybe tomorrow.

  Next up were two spam messages, asking if I was interested in DIY shed projects. Um, no. Delete, delete. Onward through the junk my filters had not sorted out. I was zipping through the messages on autopilot when I had to backtrack with a curse. From address: Grace King. My sister.

  Janet,

  Aunt Jemele wrote to me last week. Gramma has taken a turn for the worse. Jemele says her mind wanders. It might be Alzheimer’s, or something more profound, if anything could be more profound than that. We need to talk, you and me, about what we can do for her. I know you aren’t much for family, but this is Gramma, after all. Jemele’s getting older. Most of our cousins have left the farm. Call me when you can.

  Love, Grace

  I closed my eyes, more distressed than I had thought possible. Alzheimer’s. Dear God in heaven. I had always thought of my grandmother as invincible. Strong. Stubborn. Smart.

  Braid two stitches. That’s right, girl. That’s my Janet.

  Oh, Gramma. How can I make this right?

  Next week, I would call my sister and we could arrange proper care for our grandmother. At least my new job was good for that.

  A job that required nothing more of me today. Our weekly staff meeting had been canceled, courtesy of the inauguration. One-on-ones with my two interns had been postponed until tomorrow as well. The blinking digits on the screen showed three P.M. Five o’clock rounds had not been canceled of course. And Dr. Hillaire had that surgery scheduled for four P.M. She had an older model of my AIM 4675. I could observe her techniques . . .

  Abruptly I shut down my workstation and stared at the blank silver frame, which seemed so much like a portal into nothing.

  Right. I know where that kind of thinking gets me. Nowhere good.

  Well I was of no use here today. I wasn’t even required to go to rounds. I collected my coat from behind the door, slung my bag over one shoulder, and headed out.

  ***

  Cabs and buses were out of the question today, what with all the tourists, and the Metro wasn’t much better. I set off on foot along Reservoir Road toward Wisconsin, then turned down a side street to avoid the crowds near the parade route. Even so, I came across more than one group of angry protesters. Most of them young white men with red baseball caps that had become—to me—a symbol of the old bad days when the U.S. slipped over the edge into fascism. Lots more were waving Donnovan/Webber signs, and one young woman had shinnied up a telephone phone and was fiddling with an electronic ad board. The board went dark a moment, then the lights flickered back on, spelling out VICTORY in the Democratic Progressives’ party colors.

  As I approached Volta Park, the crowds grew bigger and noisier. Uglier. A mob of red caps had started a fight with a group of young black men. Police were already moving in, Tasers in hand. One of the young black men crumpled to his knees. He threw his hands up in surrender, but not before a cop struck him again.

  Dammit.

  I started to run toward the man. Before I’d taken a few steps, one of the red caps staggered free of the brawl. He stared around wildly, his lips curled back in a snarl and a gun in one hand. That stopped me. Guns were illegal as hell, but I wasn’t about to debate the Second Amendment with him.

  I ducked into the nearest alley and crouched behind a dumpster, my pulse skipping. A gunshot rang out. Immediately after, a cop shouted orders through a bullhorn for everyone to stand down. The noise from the brawl had turned into a roar. This was going nowhere good, fast. I slid my cell from my pocket and tapped the contact number for Georgetown’s emergency room.

  A woman answered right away. “Georgetown Emergency.”

  “Dr. Janet Watson,” I said. “There’s a fight going on. Near Volta Park. You might want to get ready for incoming casualties.”

  The barest pause. “What kind of casualties? Did you call the police?”

  I gulped down a laugh. “The police are already there. That’s part of the problem.” I wanted to say more, about the red cap with the gun, the police with their Tasers, when I heard the crackle of an automatic weapon. “Listen,” I said. “I can’t talk. It’s going to blow up fast.”

  I shoved the cell into my pocket and raced down the alley to Thirty-Fourth Street. Some of the commotion had spilled over here, too. Mostly shouting, but it wouldn’t be long until shouting turned to shoving. Then to something worse. Maybe I should call the ER again, give them an update.

  Just then another gang of red caps came into view.

  Right. Not out here.

  Grocery stores and other small shops lined the block. With a glance over my shoulder, I ducked into the nearest one. The door swung shut, leaving me in a sea of quiet. I peeked through the tinted glass of the door. The gang had already passed by, and I released the breath I’d been holding.

  “Welcome to Rainbow Books,” said a voice.

  I spun around, startled.

  My refuge was a tiny bookstore, barely wide enough for two rows of shelves and the narrow aisle in between. What little I could see of the walls looked old-fashioned—the plaster painted cream above and rich indigo below, with a chair rail in between. The bookshelves were packed tight with paperbacks, sorted neatly by category. The air smelled deliciously of paper and ink, and a faint cinnamon scent that seemed to beckon me deeper inside.

  Books. What a lovely surprise.

  The woman at the checkout register smiled at me. “Looking for anything special?”

  Her name was Adanna Jones, according to the nameplate next to the register. She was a black woman in her late forties, dark like me, with faint lines beside her eyes and her mouth. Her glasses were round, with dark red rims. Her hair was tinted a dark gold, and it puffed out like a cloud of sunrise behind a patterned head wrap.

  “I don’t know yet,” I said. “To be honest, I came inside to get away from the crowds.”

  “As good a reason as any,” she said, clearly amused. “But now that you’re here, take a look around. We have new books, used books, poetry, novels . . .”

  I was afraid she would try to hover over me, but Jones merely gestured toward the shelves and went back to tapping at the register’s keyboard, leaving me to explore.

  The latest bestsellers occupied a display at the front of the store. Farther on, the shelves alternated by category. Literary. Romance. Travel guides. Dictionaries. I came across a used books section stocked with early de Bodard and Kuang, even earlier Jemisin, but I already had copies of those. I drifted back to the newer SF section. The latest literary-SF crossover novel, from a brilliant new writer. An anthology of translations from Japanese authors. I picked out a book at random and frowned at the cover. Two men, both in drab overcoats, with a city skyline in the background. It looked . . . generic.

  Maybe I should call the ER again.

  “Having trouble finding the right book?”

  I jerked away from the voice with a cry, and my arm swung up to ward off the attack. The owner of the bookstore stood a few feet away, her eyes wide and wary.

  “Sorry,” I muttered. “You startled me.”

  “I see that,” she said. “I’m sorry. Would you rather I left you to browse? Or would you like any help? I have a new shipment of books.”


  She was being kind, deliberately so. I wanted to growl, but I felt too raw with my own self-pity. If only I’d been brave enough to confront those police, to tend to the wounded. Except I knew what happened to black women who argued with the authorities, even in these enlightened days.

  Besides, it wasn’t her fault.

  I managed a rueful smile. “You don’t need to apologize. I—”

  A dull boom rattled the building. I dropped to the ground without thinking. It was Alton, Illinois. It was the enemy overrunning our medical unit. Throwing grenades. Launching rockets at the radio tower. For a moment my vision went dark and I couldn’t breathe.

  (The radio towers squeal. Warning, warning, warning. This is not a drill.)

  Dimly, I was aware of Adanna Jones scrabbling toward the wall. The next moment, I had snapped out of my flashback and was running out the door. This wasn’t Alton, but there were people who needed me.

  Outside, hundreds of people streamed past. A whistle shrilled overhead. I dropped to the pavement and rolled close to the building. A heartbeat later, the explosion came—loud—as though God had clapped her hands together and deafened us all.

  My ears echoed from the explosion. My heart was beating far too hard, far too fast. My right hand was scraped raw by the pavement. My left arm, my shiny new left arm, had taken a few scratches, but I was alive.

  Breathlessly, I waited for a third explosion.

  None came.

  All around me, others had fallen or dropped to the ground. A kid was sobbing. From farther away came a steady wail, punctuated by screams and curses. I staggered to my feet. Broken glass littered the sidewalk. At the next intersection, the traffic light had fallen into the street, and the corner building had taken damage. That way then.

  I pushed my way through the panicked crowds. “Let me through. I’m a doctor.”

  The magic words. I would have laughed if I hadn’t been so frightened.

  One of the bombs had exploded on P Street, just two blocks away. I made my way through the tangle of metal and blood and lacerated bodies. Smoke from the explosion drifted through the street, and I nearly choked from the scent of burning flesh.

  (Memories of Alton flood my brain. One, two dozen patients from the medical unit sprawl over the ground, left in a bloody mess from the confederates’ bombs.)

  I swallowed back my memories and pressed on. The first casualty I came across was dead. Bled out. His skin almost gray, except where his throat gaped from a wound. Two, three, a dozen more dead were tumbled about. Most of them adults, but more than a few children. I was sweating and swearing as I checked each one for a pulse.

  At last I came to a woman, alive. She was panting hard, the way wounded soldiers did when the pain had gone from terrible to impossible. I checked her over as swiftly and gently as I could. There was nothing obviously wrong. Just a few scrapes and bruises . . .

  “Can you wiggle your toes?” I said.

  She stared at me, uncomprehending. Then her mouth twitched open. She gasped for air, and the light faded from her eyes. Dead? But how?

  I rocked back on my heels and stared at the body. Only then did I see the blood pooled underneath her.

  Goddammit.

  She’d died before I had a chance to save her.

  I swallowed my grief, which did no one any good, and went on to the next.

  Three more adults, all beyond help. Another one twitched in the last throes. There wasn’t much I could do without a medical kit. I stopped the bleeding with tourniquets. I helped dig out those buried under rubble. By the time the first ambulance arrived, my throat was raw from the smoke, but I could give my credentials to the EMTs and deliver a summary of the victims’ injuries.

  Jennie was an EMT I’d met back when I was a resident. “You coming along?” she asked.

  “Damn straight I am.”

  These were my patients, after all.

  But as I jogged after my patients into the ER, one of the senior attending surgeons stepped into my path. Dr. Allison Carter. Tall and lanky, pale blond hair with a hint of silver, and more than the usual arrogance, if that were possible. Rumors said she might be our next chief medical officer.

  “Where are you going?” she demanded.

  “To change into scrubs. You’ll want as many surgeons as you can get. It was a bloody mess out there—”

  “You can’t. You aren’t cleared.”

  “What?” I lurched to a halt, confused. “What are you talking about? I’m a surgeon, the last time I checked.”

  “Not here.” Her voice was cool, almost indifferent. “Hernandez wants you properly trained with that device before she lets you inside a surgical theater.”

  “But I could—”

  “No. No, you can’t. Look, Watson. I don’t give a flying fuck if you were the biggest goddamned hero at Alton, Illinois. Here, you’re just an equal-opportunity gimp, with one hand and a bad attitude. If you really want to be useful, go help the ER with triage. I have work to do.”

  ***

  Midnight. Eight hours later.

  Surgeons and nurses of the night shift had joined with day shift to deal with the influx of patients. I’d done my own part to help triage the wounded.

  Even if I was an equal-opportunity gimp with an attitude.

  Did that still rankle? Yeah, damn straight it did.

  I paid off the cab driver and stared up at 2809 Q. All the windows were dark at this hour. A lamp outside illuminated the front door and cast a circle of light over the two sets of steps winding through the narrow front lawn. Come spring, ivy would cover the lawn, and wildflowers would grow from planters under all the windows, but right now, the ground was bare, and the air carried the raw wet scent of winter. A few snowflakes drifted down from the skies.

  I climbed the steps wearily and pressed my right thumb to the biometric lock. The door clicked open, complaining softly on its hinges, as if it too had had a long and exhausting day. Outside our apartment, I paused. Light leaked around the edges of the door, and I heard several voices. Men’s voices. Sara Holmes was awake then. And she had visitors.

  I braced myself to face strangers and opened the door.

  All the lights in our apartment were turned up high. The sweet stale odor of clove cigarettes filled the air, which was hazy from the smoke. Holmes herself was sprawled on the couch in our living room, her feet propped on the table and a bottle of whiskey in her lap. A small hand-built radio sputtered and squawked in one corner—one of the underground stations that broadcast over the dark net. A small video box rested between her feet. She was alone.

  I plopped myself into one of the chairs. The ashtray overflowed with ashes. One lit cigarette was propped against the edge. On the vid-box, a square pale face shouted incoherently. A chyron streamed past, labeling the man as Richard Speiker, a leader of the Brotherhood of Redemption.

  Sara tilted the bottle and took a swallow. “You idiot.”

  Her voice came out as a growl.

  Ah, that would be directed to me.

  I cleared my throat. “I’m sorry. I should have called.”

  “Goddamned right you should have called.” Her speech didn’t slur, but I noted that the bottle was half-empty.

  “I’m sorry. I thought you would—”

  I thought you would know already.

  A thought better left unsaid.

  When I first met Sara Holmes, she was a freelance operative for one of the government’s alphabet agencies. FBI. CIA. That kind of spy. She had special implants that connected her to the great ocean of data courtesy of the web and other, less public sources. With those implants, Sara would have heard every detail, official and not so official, about today’s events.

  But the agency had disabled Sara’s implants—just one consequence of our unauthorized investigation into Adler Industries and the shame of Alton, Illinois. That we’d succeeded in our investigation, and that it had proved useful to the government, meant we’d avoided prison. It had even led to my job at Georgetown Uni
versity Hospital. However, as Sara put it, her chief could not overlook Sara’s sins, so Sara had been put on an extended leave of absence.

  Sara clicked off the radio and vid-box. Silence dropped over the apartment.

  “You frightened me,” she said softly.

  That got my attention. Nothing frightened Sara.

  “I took a cab home,” I said. “I’ve learned that much.”

  She laughed, a strange wheezing laugh. “I thought you had blundered into the wrong place at the wrong time. And—” Here she gestured at the silvery discs behind her ears. “These are no longer quite so informative as I would like.”

  Did I happen to mention that Sara was not taking this enforced leave very well? Right. A bit redundant, that piece of information.

  “The only place I blundered was into a bookstore,” I said. “Two streets away, and safe enough. I’ve been at the hospital since then. Doing triage.”

  “Good for you. Want a drink?” She lifted the bottle.

  I shook my head. “I have an early start tomorrow. My session with Faith.”

  “Ah. Her.”

  Sara’s tone was impossible to read, but I was used to that.

  “What did you hear about the bombing?” I asked.

  “Terrorists. Obviously. A fringe group from across the border called the Brotherhood of Redemption, according to my sources. You saw their leader there.” She indicated the radio and video box. “Though why they are considered fringe is an interesting question. Very incompetent terrorists. That much is obvious.”

  A swift and vivid memory of the blood, the tangle of bodies, the cries of the wounded, the silence of the dead overwhelmed me, and I needed a moment to recover. “They did a pretty good job, from what I saw.”

  She made a dismissive gesture. “They were amateurs. Otherwise we’d have a different president by now.”

  Oh, dear god. Those explosions over by Thirty-Fourth Street could have taken out Donnovan, his VP, and any number of others in the line of succession.

  “I suppose we should be grateful,” I muttered.

  “Never regret the enemy’s stupidity,” Sara replied. “What puzzles me is why the New Confederacy would wish to assassinate the man who offered them peace, even at the price of compromise.”