Superego

by Frank J. Fleming

  She paused and put her finger to her ear. “I have a call coming in; I need to take it.” She was quiet for a moment, and then her face went white. Then she got up and started running down the path toward the park’s exit. “Hana!”

  I followed, but I didn’t like where this was going. We caught up with Hana, who had paused to smell some flowers, and Diane gently took her by the hand. “You need to come with me.”

  “What is it?” Hana’s stupid smile was finally gone.

  “No one is hurt, but something is happening at Lincoln Elementary right now.”

  “What’s happening? Are Justin and Tammy okay?” Hana suddenly looked terrified.

  “I’m sure they are, but why don’t we head over there right now.”

  I walked up next to Diane. “So what’s going on?” I had already guessed, though.

  Diane whispered to me, “We believe something is going to go down at the elementary school where Hana’s kids are. It’s right next to the park. Maybe we should go see if we can help.”

  Damn my luck. “Let’s go.” I’m a hero; that’s what heroes say in times of trouble.

  “Is it a terrorist attack?” Hana asked meekly.

  “It’s going to be all right,” I said firmly. The best way to un-panic people is to act like you’re in control—even if the situation could not logically be in your control. “If anyone tries anything, it won’t end well for them.” I let a bit of my real personality seep in; threatening was good here. And I was going to kill everyone in a very bad way if I could, because I was sick of dealing with this crap.

  One awesome thing, though: They were threatening children. By my understanding of social norms, that meant that I could do pretty much anything to the terrorists, and it wouldn’t seem too extreme.

  CHAPTER 19

  Chaos. Children ran out of the building, screaming and crying. It was irritating, to say the least. There were only two police vehicles there, with two officers standing outside one of them with their guns drawn. Diane quickly lost control of Hana as she rushed to try to find her children among those outside. It had been stupid to bring her; she was just another distraction to worry about. On the bright side, maybe a terrorist would shoot her.

  “What’s going on?” Diane demanded of the officers.

  “Terrorists are in there! I don’t know how many!” Human officer. Quite panicked and probably best suited to standing uselessly outside. “I think we might have officers down inside…and I think they have a bomb. We’re waiting for SWAT.”

  A fiery shot ripped out of the side of the building. “No time!” Diane said and headed for the school.

  Since I didn’t care about screaming children, there seemed to be plenty of time. Personally, I didn’t want to get blown up, but if I stood outside while the detective stupidly marched inside, I wouldn’t look like much to her anymore. If that mattered.

  And at the time it seemed like it mattered.

  I caught up with Diane. “You have a plan?”

  “Don’t know enough to have a plan. So what are the chances you already have a gun?”

  I drew one. “I don’t know how you people expect me to kill terrorists for you when you keep disarming me. Anyway, I have a plan: It’s called ‘shoot bad people.’”

  “Just watch out for children.”

  There was the rub. In most societies, there’s nothing worse than killing a child—even though they’re not productive members of society and are easily replaceable. If I accidentally shot one, I couldn’t just shrug and say, “Oops!”—it would be a big deal. So I thought I would just concentrate on killing only tall people—unless there turned out to be a short alien terrorist. I figured looking for a gun and shooting whoever was holding one would be a good way to handle this—unless the person was Diane (whom I had almost shot twice in the terrorists’ shop) or another cop.

  This is why I don’t like being a hero; it complicates things to the point of ruining the simple pleasure of gunning people down in a shootout.

  When we entered, the main hallway was nearly empty. People came running toward us—children—and I did not shoot them and instead firmly directed them outside. Perhaps too firmly; I really dislike children. A little further in, we saw gunshots ripping through the wall. They weren’t aimed at us, though; there seemed to be a gunfight up ahead. I rushed forward, too deep in my fight mode to bother checking whether Diane was keeping up. I saw someone with a gun—a Corridian woman—officer—not someone I was supposed to shoot—pinned behind a column while two others fired on her. I walked forward and shot the two terrorists in the face before they even noticed me. They really did suck. It would take quite a spectacular miracle from their god to be even a marginal threat to someone like me.

  When I got to her, the officer was sobbing and gripping her gun pretty uselessly. I recognized her as Meela from the police station. “Randall is dead…they—”

  “The bomb?” No time for politeness.

  “A group of them are holding a classroom of children hostage back there…” She pointed down the hallway. “…and they say they have a bomb.”

  Diane caught up with me, and I said, “Help her,” even though Meela didn’t really need help. I just felt things would go quicker without any “allies” in my way. So I continued on, leaving Meela and Diane behind. It would be pretty asinine to die in an explosion here, but there was no use worrying about that now. My choice was made, and my path was clear.

  One man popped up his head and lost said head. He seemed pretty terroristy, but I realized afterward I should have probably taken another moment to confirm who he was. Oh well. I walked past a police officer—Randall, whom I had met earlier and didn’t really care for one way or the other—lying dead on the ground. I could hear children crying in a nearby classroom. Finally children’s crying was useful for something. I came to the classroom door and glanced inside, then pulled my head back as some shots flew past me.

  There were three of them, each kneeling behind a child, with other children seated in the back of the room. I could easily have jumped in there and killed the three if I didn’t care about the children. And, well, I didn’t care about the children. But I was committed to pretending I did.

  “If you take another step toward us, we’ll kill them all!” one of the terrorists yelled. Pretty boilerplate threat for this sort of situation; not very impressive.

  “If you had a bomb, you would have set if off by now.” I drew my second gun.

  “There is a bomb in the building! And we’ll shoot the children!”

  “That’s what you came here to do, isn’t it?” They were already scared, but not scared enough. With the situation as it was, I didn’t know how I could shoot the terrorists without a good chance of hitting a child or of taking so long in aiming my shots that I might get shot myself. I’d have to provoke them to make the situation more to my liking. “And why are you assuming I care about the children? In fact, I’m hoping you kill them; it will give me an excuse for what I’m planning next. I’m a killer, you see; I like it when people die. That’s no challenge, though. What I’m wondering is how many times I can shoot you and not kill you. That would be interesting.”

  “We will start shooting!”

  “I really hope the not-killing-you thing works out, because that makes the next part so much more fun. You see, I’m going to find where you worshipped and then find your families. Then I’m going to kill them—but I’ll take my time doing it. I’m a real artist in that regard. Then I’m going to visit you in the hospital and show you all the nice pictures I took.”

  One of them started to shout something but was cut off. I didn’t know why, but it seemed like an opportunity. I jumped into the classroom and saw Diane behind the terrorists, one now clearly dead. Best I could assess from the scene was that she had gotten behind one of them without being noticed—obviously using me as a diversion—pulled his head back, then fired through the back of his head. The other two were surprised enough to let go of the children in f
ront of them as they turned to shoot at Diane, leaving me enough room to work with. I fired both guns simultaneously, and the school was now free from terror.

  Yay, me. Again.

  I didn’t know how much of my speech she’d heard, but that was a question for later. “I think that’s that,” I said.

  She glanced at me, her face that cold mask again. It quickly crumbled as she saw the crying children. “It’s okay, you’re all safe now,” she told them very calmly and with a pleasant smile. “Let’s get out of the building now. Single file.”

  Some of the kids seemed a little too shocked to move. I yelled at them, “Get out of the building! All of you! Come on!” I motioned toward the door, and all the children were now moving, taking cautious looks at the corpses.

  As Diane walked by me, she took one last look at the terrorist she had killed, her expression once again unreadable. She looked at me and seemed to snap out of a trance, giving me a smile that was a little less fake than the one she’d given the kids. “Thanks again. Glad you’re here, Rico.”

  I touched her on the shoulder. “It’s where I need to be.” What a cheesy thing to say. Wasn’t sure why I said it. Then she smiled more fully. That was why.

  As we exited the building, the SWAT team and bomb squad had just arrived and were swarming the place. One of the SWAT guys immediately ran up to us and asked, “The terrorists?”

  “I think they’re all dead.” I killed any I saw, at least.

  “Did you see the bomb?”

  “I think they were bluffing about that.”

  He did not look reassured. “Some radiological elements were detected at one of their hideouts. We think they have a dirty bomb.”

  “Oh.” That’s all I thought to say. I really didn’t want to get blown up by a bomb, especially some crude one made by the Calabrai. I thought I deserved better, though I had always imagined that my death would one day be pretty stupid.

  “One’s alive!” one of the paramedics yelled as they brought out one of the terrorists on a stretcher. It was hard to believe I’d shot one and left him alive, but the whole make-sure-you-don’t-shoot-children thing had confused me and probably messed with my technique.

  “Can we question him?” SWAT asked.

  I looked at the terrorist. He was a human whom I had shot through the chest back in the classroom. It didn’t seem likely he would last much longer.

  “He’s failing fast,” the paramedic said. “We need to give him Fazium, which means we have to induce a coma first.”

  I grabbed the paramedic by the arm. “No, you don’t. Fazium works just fine without the body being in a coma.”

  He looked shocked. “But the pain….”

  “There may be a bomb about to go off here and kill everyone. Let’s worry about that.” I put on my very serious face. “Give him the Fazium.”

  Perhaps my face was too serious, as the paramedic froze. I grabbed the drug from him. The SWAT officer looked like he was about to do something, but I just gave him a glance, and he backed off. I walked over to the terrorist and stood over him. “I don’t know what you know about Fazium, but it’s going to save your life while making you wish we’d killed you. Want to tell us about the bomb?”

  He was fading out of consciousness and didn’t seem to hear me.

  I injected the Fazium. It’s a substance that is basically programmed with how a human is put together (the same version of the drug won’t work on any other species) and bonds with the patient’s DNA to get the specific sequences and structures. It then crudely hacks the body back into working order by replicating cells and forcing things back together as quickly as possible. And it does all this with no regard for the body’s nerve cells, which it tends to light up throughout the entire body as it does its work. Supposedly, it feels like the body is being ripped apart from the inside with shards of glass passing through your every vein. At least that’s how it was described by one person who wasn’t properly sedated beforehand, though it was hard to get anything coherent out of that man for the rest of his life.

  I guess some people can’t take a little pain.

  After the Fazium was administered, the man just lay there silently for a couple moments.

  Then he twitched a little. And then he started flailing like mad while screaming his lungs out.

  I was quickly on top of him, holding him down by his shoulders. “Where’s the bomb?!” I shouted at him, raising my voice so it could be heard over his screaming—but it was a losing battle. His screams just kept getting louder, and I could barely hold him down. His strength was inhuman, and I could tell he was about to push me off. “Tell me about the bomb!” I yelled again, but I couldn’t hear myself over his shrieking. “This will stop when you tell us about the bomb!”

  My arm was yanked away, and I was now facing Diane, who screamed at me, “He can’t even hear you!”

  There was now a crowd around me—including some children—looking on in horror. “Yeah, I guess not.”

  The man had flopped out of his stretcher and was now flailing around on the ground, screaming so hard you’d think his lungs would burst. A couple of paramedics jumped on him and injected him with something, and he went silent.

  Diane was still holding my arm tightly, though she didn’t look mad anymore, just exasperated. A number of the people gathered around looked at me like I was some sort of monster. Was I supposed to feel bad about this? It was possible that a bomb—one intended for children, mind you—was about to explode and kill us all. Someone had to take action. This is why I’m much more comfortable in situations where I don’t have to care what other people think. Sometimes I wonder if I’m the only person in the universe who takes things seriously.

  CHAPTER 20

  “Hana’s son and daughter are fine. She’s with them now.”

  It was as if Diane read my mind and picked the absolute opposite of anything I cared about to tell me. “Good,” I replied. I forced a little smile.

  “She wanted me to pass on her thanks.”

  “Just doing what had to be done.” Because apparently everyone else is too incompetent. “Any word on the bomb?”

  “Nothing solid yet, but they’re pretty sure there isn’t one in the school.” Diane was driving us back to the police station (my favorite place). When I had the opportunity, I was going to berate Dip for not having been able to give me a warning about where one of the attacks would occur so I could steer clear of it. That was a very pointless risk of my life. Still, it looked like this terrorism problem was finally over. I hoped I’d soon find out why I was really on this planet.

  Diane’s face was very intense. Something was weighing on her—maybe that she’d had to kill again. It seemed burdensome to have to care about such things. At least she was able to make sure those emotions only came out after and not during a shooting. “I never did ask you how you snuck into the classroom to surprise them like that.”

  “I’ve been there before to talk to Hana’s son’s class about being a police officer. Justin had shown me how the closets at the back of the classrooms are shared between two rooms. Makes a convenient little secret passageway.”

  “So you just jumped right in there?”

  “I thought they had a bomb. Seemed like the only option. You kind of got ahead of me, so I wasn’t able to give you a heads-up.” She gave an askew smile. “But thanks for the distraction there.”

  The thought that Diane had heard what I’d said to the terrorists gave me this weird, warm feeling in my face; I wasn’t sure what that was. “Oh, you heard all that. I was just trying to goad them into a mistake.”

  She chuckled. “Good to know you can pretend to be a psychopath when needed. So do you work with a partner on Rikar?”

  “Not often…We’re spread thin, so I’m pretty used to going it alone.”

  “I’ve been called a loner, too. Does make it simpler when things get chaotic, but I’ve started to learn the value of having someone to watch your back.”

  No. Having
to look out for the survival of someone else offers far too many complications. It was pretty hard for me to see that as a good tradeoff. “Sorry I charged in again without you.”

  “Wasn’t looking for an apology. What are you now? Three times a hero?” She smiled at me.

  It was true. I was pretty awesome. No hero just admits that, though. I tried to think of something else to say that would be relevant to the situation and remembered the stupid dead cop. “Sorry about Officer Randall. He seemed like a good man.”

  Her smile faded, and she was silent for a moment. “He was an ass. Probably should never have been on the police force.” She smiled slightly again. “But he died trying to save the lives of children. Not much more you can ask from anyone.”

  I nodded. I still couldn’t sympathize with people’s fascination with children (though I logically understood it as an evolutionary directive). I was just happy I’d barely traumatized any children today—and I really hate them for some reason. I’m guessing it’s their stupidity and the disproportionately sized heads, which I just find creepy. I glanced at her and softened my expression more. “You doing okay?” I was getting good at this; I almost convinced myself I cared.

  She looked down. She softened her voice. “Thinking I might quit. Seriously this time.”

  Strange idea. She was the only one on her police force who seemed to know what she was doing. “Why?” I asked.

  “I just want to make sure I don’t have to kill anymore. I don’t like…what it makes me.”

  “What do you mean?” I’ve seen beings get emotional about killing; she seemed to take it really well, actually.

  “It’s…complicated.” She flashed me a nervous smile. “I should tell you, I have a lot of baggage.”

  “Oh, well, that’s too bad. I’m basically exactly what you see.” I chuckled a little but realized she wouldn’t exactly get the full context of that sarcasm.

  “I know there’s something more to you, but I’ll leave that as your business. Again, I’m just glad you’re here right now.” She drove her vehicle into the police station parking lot. “Well, not right here. I have a feeling this is going to be crappy.”