An Imago of Rust and Crimson
Chapter 6.06
The three-eyed man swallowed. He understood the situation. "Something's come up," he said, voice taut. "I'll be in contact." He ended the call, and slowly raised his hands.
"Take off the headset," I said, clearly enunciating each word. The barrel of my pistol bounced against his skull. He was shaking, breaths coming quickly. So was I. "Then keep your hands on your head! Don't even think of going for your stupid badge or anything else you can use! Don't use any of your powers! Or I'll shoot you! In the head!"
I was bluffing.
I thought I was bluffing.
I knew I could change my own mind so I wasn't bluffing.
He slid off the headset, obeying my commands. It dropped to the floor with a clatter. "If you kill me, we'll hunt you down. If you even fire that gun, there'll be ten men in here in a flash," he said.
I wasn't so sure about that. After all, I'd taken down a lot of his grey men. But I wasn't going to say that, in case he panicked. Better he thought that there were reinforcements. It'd get him playing for time. "This isn't my body," I said. "It won't hurt me." I really hoped that bit was true. "But this will hurt you. I don't want to have to kill you, but I can. So talk."
He was silent for too long. The extractor fan overhead buzzed like a swarm of flies. The orange light from the patterns on the walls cast strange shadows on his face. My stomach flipped. Then; "Fine. We can talk."
"Good," I said. "No one needs to get hurt. But I will shoot you if you imprint me with any more of your words. So. Stand up. Turn around. Keep your hands on your head." I exhaled, tasting rot, an Idea squirming on the tip of my tongue. I was ready to make him. "And don't make any sudden movements."
The man turned, inhaling sharply when he saw that I looked like a grey woman. "So you're a body snatcher on top of everything else you can do. You really drew a wonderful hand, didn't you? Where did you find all those methodologies?" he said, not even hiding the bitterness. He rose slowly. I'd really had messed him up when I'd let Phobia off her leash. He was pale and clammy, and had dried blood around his nostrils. "Do you know what you've done to your host? That poor woman."
"Your grey men aren't real people." The guilt trip was insultingly obvious, and it wasn't going to work. "They're no different from dogs."
"Grey… yes, I suppose they are quite bland." He licked his bloodless lips nervously, working his shoulders. "So that's how you see them, hmm?"
I didn't say anything.
"They're not dogs. They're human."
"There's no one home. Inside their heads. They're flesh golems powered by the word on their forehead. What are they?" I kept the gun pointed at his face, aware that my hands were trembling.
He paused, clearly considering what to say. "You can see the word? Well. Hmm." He paused for a moment, clearly weighing up his options. "They're genejacks. Just… genejacks."
The extractor fan whirred. Monitoring equipment bleeped. I could hear the tinny sound of distant voices through the headset of the grey man I'd put to sleep. I'd seen genejacks, with Sam. Genejacks were… they couldn't talk! But even as my mind came up with objections, I remembered the genejack I'd see down in the submall and I remembered how it'd been as grey as the muffin it'd made me. The grey man had more life than it – but not much more.
"No. Genejacks can't pretend to be people. They're too dumb."
He coughed. "Why would I lie?" Up this close, I could see that the whites of his eyes were bloodshot. "You're the one with the gun to my head. They're genejacks. You're right; there's no sense of self-awareness in them - but they don't need it. A computer doesn't need to think about what it does. Even if it's made of meat."
"You stamped your words on their foreheads," I said slowly. I could taste blood. "You made them more than just… just the ones you see in shops."
"Not me. I can't do that. But yes, by my understanding, they're… enhanced over the commercial models."
"They're still… just things pretending to be people," I said. He was so… blatant about these things now I'd cut through a lot of his bullshit.
"The standard models don't need imagination or inventiveness or any of those things. All they need to do is obey orders and pass themselves off as stiff-necked feds, and they do that. They're meat robots."
"Not so clever, are you?" I said. "Looks like you outwitted yourself by using something so stupid. I couldn't do that to—" I bit back what I was saying, but it was already too late. Damn it. I shouldn't gloat.
"That is one downside to them," he admitted. The fact he hadn't reacted to my slip didn't mean a thing. "They're vulnerable to bodyjumpers and other mind controllers. Like that Regent boy in one of the local gangs, mmm. Have you met him?"
"Why would you use something like that?" I demanded. "Make yourself… slave meat robots?"
"Because every genejack killed in the line of duty means one good man or woman won't be leaving a grieving family behind. It's the right thing to do."
I chuckled. I didn't mean to. It just escaped. But he sounded sincere and I knew he was lying to my face and I was super nervous. "Try again." He didn't say anything, so I continued. "People like you don't leave their top secret operation vulnerable because it's the 'right' thing to do. They're there for a reason. Is it because they'll kill people without asking questions? Or just that they can die and you won't get people poking around asking questions?"
His eyes flicked to the gun, then back to mine. "That's a fringe benefit," he said. "No, that's not the main reason. The main reason is that they're not people. They're not human, and they're not parahuman or metahuman."
"What's a metahuman?" I demanded. I hadn't heard that word before. He was silent for longer than I'd like. "Tell me!"
"It's the specific sub-class of parahuman that we are," he said. He leaned in. "Haven't you noticed? You must have seen. We don't have an archetype. The thing other parahumans have that we lack."
"We're the ones who don't glow. Not on our own. You can get the glow from 'tech." I wasn't going to tell him that-
"And from parahumans. We saw what you did to Ryo Matsuda."
Oh. "He tried to kill me," I pointed out.
"Of course. Whatever you say. You're the one with the gun pointed at my head." I narrowed my eyes at him – was he mocking me? – and he cleared his throat hurriedly. "Regular parahumans have their archetype. We don't. It died. Or didn't associate properly in the first place. Or, well, there are several ways that we can come about. What happened to you?"
Wait, what? I narrowed my eyes, but as far as I could tell he was telling the truth. That didn't mean a thing. "I ask the questions here," I said, gesturing at him to continue.
"Because we don't have an archetype that's attuned to a single methodology, we're more flexible – but weaker. And we have to feed off other parahumans to fuel our powers. I'm sure you've found out what happens if you don't."
"It hurts," I said, mind whirring. Me, Kirsty, the three-eyed man and the bird lady; we weren't the same. That was obvious. I wasn't sure whether to believe his explanation, though – not least because I'd been trying to talk about something else before he distracted me. "Okay. I get it. You still didn't tell me why you use genejacks when they can be controlled so easily. Is it because you can control them?" I added, cynically.
"No. Though that makes them more vulnerable to certain empowered individuals, it makes them immune to another kind of threat."
That was the final piece of the puzzle. "S-I-X. Or Six, whatever those words mean. The things I've seen scrawled on the walls down at the docks and… the docks. Is that the… the 'Slaughterhouse' thing you wanted to know about earlier?"
"Well, please could you stop pointing that gun in my face?" Something in his jacket began to ring. "Then we can talk. Can I answer that?"
I could put the gun down. But all things considered, I wasn't going to. I still didn't trust him. Believe him, yes. Want to take the gun away from his face, no. He'd tried to get my real name out of me. "No. You wrote your words on me before," I grated out. "I'm not going to let you do it again."
The cell continued to ring. "If I don't answer, I'll have missed a check-in," he says. "They'll bring down the hammer. It's in your interest to let me answer. You want information on the Slaughterhouse? I'll ask my superiors to approve it."
My stomach churned. Which was the greater risk? "I don't think so," I said. "Give me the phone. I'll talk to them myself."
He wasn't sure if this was a good idea – but I had the gun pointed at him. And I just bet he was hoping I'd be distracted. "I'm just going to reach into my pocket and pass you the phone," he said cautiously.
"Do it."
His cell was an ultrasleek smartphone, all black lines and a hint of chrome. It looked like it was breaking the speed limit just sitting there in his hand. I took it in my left hand, keeping my gun trained in the three-eyed man. There wasn't a caller ID on the screen.
"Press the green button on the screen to answer."
"Keep your hands on your head. Don't move!" I tapped it, backing away from him so he couldn't rush me.
"What's going on, Butcher?" Male. Sounded distinguished, probably in his forties or fifties. Talked like a government man with an accent that could have come from anywhere but no doubt was manufactured in an expensive school and then refined in an expensive college. It was the sort of voice people like Sam had and that people like me didn't.
"This is Panopticon," I said, propping the phone between my shoulder and my ear and keeping the gun trained on the three-eyed man. I swallowed, and thought of what they said in the movies. "I have your man here. And I have a gun."
He didn't answer for at least ten seconds. The response, when it came, was ice cold. "I don't know who you are and what you're playing at," the man said, "but you are making a mistake. We will track you down."
"I don't think so," I said. "I got into your hidden truck and me and your three-eyed man are having a talk." Shit, when people went quiet like that in the movies, they did things like cover the speaker and order a trace. And if the bird lady was anywhere nearby, she'd managed to track me down in the cinema.
Just to be sure, I licked my lips and exhaled Needle Hag. Her twisted angelic form loomed over my shoulder and her many arms got to work with her wire and chains and sewing needles, stitching the place together. Agent Butcher man twitched at that, third eye wide as he stared around.
"What is that?" he whispered. "You have multiple aides?"
I ignored him, because the man on the phone was speaking. "This isn't the first time you've interfered with a government operation, Panopticon." I suspected there was someone beside him, getting him up to speed. "We don't tolerate this kind of thing. You don't know what you're meddling in."
Time for a gamble. This was someone the three-eyed man answered to. "Oh, come on," I said. "We're all metahuman here. I know much more than you think."
The pause was telling. "So. Who do you work for, Panopticon? Outside influences?"
"Who am I talking to?" I asked. "I want a name."
"Of course not. Absolutely out of the question."
"I can't just call you 'the man on the phone'."
I heard a terse chuckle; obviously false. "Mister Black." It wasn't just 'Mr'; it was the full on, two syllable version.
He hadn't paused. That was an agreed codename, clearly. "Well, then, Mister Black," I elongated the title, just like he had, "I'm not a spy. I'm just a…" I couldn't help but grin, "I'm just a helpful citizen."
"Hrrmph. Put the call on loud speakers. I want to talk to Butcher. Make sure he's alive."
If I did that, I could put the phone down. "Fine," I said, scanning for the button. Crap, this wasn't easy when the Other Place was warping everything. I made a guess, and it was the right one. "He wants you to check in," I said, putting the phone down on the nearest surface.
"Butcher?" said the voice from the phone, slightly tinny from distance. "Are you there?"
"Yes, sir."
"What happened?"
"I don't know. She got in here – I think by body-riding one of our genejacks. She's possessing a unit right now." He paused, licking his lips. I could see the sweat beading down his brow, gleaming orange. "She's asking questions about the Slaughterhouse."
"Is she?"
"I am," I said. "I found your people carting out bodies down at the docks a while back."
"She calls it 'SIX'."
I heard someone else's voice over the line, though it was too distant for me to pick out. They sounded female. Was it the bird lady? "So you're that one?" the man on the phone said. "We suspected you were linked to the Panopticon hoax. With nine elements. Butcher, can you see her markers?"
"They're obscured by her host, but I can pick them out."
"Any sign of influence?"
"Her words aren't warped by the nines. I can't say for certain, but…"
Her words? Was that the three-eyed man's Other Place; a place of language and descriptions? "I have no idea what your SIX thing is, Mister Black. But you are going to tell me," I said. My patience was growing thin. "I'm the one with the gun here."
"And a number of powerful methodologies," the man on the phone said. He sucked in breath between his teeth. "Don't harm my man, and I'll tell you something. We can see the value of someone like you knowing what you're dealing with. So you're properly afraid and maybe can avoid doing stupid things like taking any more government agents hostage."
"Just tell me," I said. I didn't like his quip, but I wasn't going to let it show.
"On one condition." He paused. "This is classified, and a question of national security. Keep this to yourself – and your superiors. It's not for public release. It would be dangerous if it got out. I'm willing to take the risk because you're dangerous enough as it is and if the Slaughterhouse infected you, we'd have a catastrophe. Of course this won't be everything. If you were willing to come in to talk with us…"
"I just want to know about SIX. I don't trust you people. Your man tried to get my name." I glared at the three-eyed man, jabbing my pistol at him so he didn't think I was distracted. "He better not make that mistake again," I growled.
The three-eyed man coughed. "I tried to enact compliance on her," he said. His forehead gleamed in the orange light from the walls. "She broke out and… didn't take it well. She has a potent phobic aide."
"I see." Mister Black cleared his throat. "SIX. That's… I suppose that's a name for the phenomenon. You might not like my answers, because there's only so much I can tell you - but I am going to tell you something, because you need to know enough to avoid the danger."
"So?" My eyes were open for any of his tricks.
"I don't think you understand. I can't tell you much, because the knowledge itself is dangerous. Did you think elation came with no risks? Do you think I'm deceiving you when I say that symbols are key to human cognition?"
"You're prevaricating," I said. My arms were aching from holding the gun up. "You use your meat-robot genejacks for a reason. Why?"
"Put it together." Mister Black's tone was clipped. "The genejacks don't think. As you say, they're meat robots. There's no sense of self in their brain, so they can't understand it. The Slaughterhouse attacks through understanding. Those who understand it invite it in."
"That's why you use them?" The bottom fell out of my stomach as he explained.
"Yes. Learn too much about the phenomenon, and it changes you. Some fall into a coma or start suffering, oh, anxiety, panic attacks and mood swings to name but a few. They're the lucky ones, because if you can isolate them from the contaminating influences they can recover. The unlucky ones develop powers – or if they're already parahuman, go mad. And then they start killing people. It leaves enough of their personality intact that they self-justify why they do it. But that's just a shell."
"Down in the Docks." My voice was a croak. And I'd been sticking my nose into that? I believed him, because it made an awful kind of sense. "I saw the body bags. H-how many..."
"Mmm. Let me see." He cleared his throat. I felt like a stupid child being scolded by a teacher. "Butcher?"
"Those were mostly our troopers. Or their expendables. It'd been one of their labs where they were making 'tech chemical enhancements."
"Ah yes, so I remember. That was it, Miss Panopticon," his voice crackled from the phone.
That packet I'd found down there, that had glowed like a thousand green fireflies. The one labelled 'Killfast'. I'd just dumped it down in my base and forgotten about it. Who knew what that would do? And Kirsty. Oh God, Kirsty. Her… her mother must have been infected. In a previous outbreak.
"The thing you call SIX has been travelling around the country for a long time. Over a decade," he said, as if he was reading my thoughts. "It's an idea that draws… attention. The infected move as a group, usually travelling undercover from town to town. They lay low. Then for some reason they decide to make an example of a place. We don't know if they're going to go active here in Brockton Bay - and they've been moving around Maine so they might be in their latent phase at the moment - but as long as they're around, no one is safe."
"Believe me, he's telling the truth," the three-eyed man said. I hadn't been paying attention to him and refocused. I had to stop him getting me when I was distracted.
"And that is why you are going to avoid everything related to the phenomenon in future. You will not investigate it, you will not follow our teams, and you will not try to track down where it came from."
I squared up my jaw and tried to keep my voice level. "Are you threatening me?" Despite everything, my voice cracked. My arms were aching from the weight of the gun.
"Yes," he snapped, for once breaking the calm. The sleek phone smouldered from his anger. "Yes I am! We know you can ignore walls! We know you can make people ignore you! You can walk out of your body, control minds, and possess our genejacks! Do you think we're prepared to permit you to get infected?"
"N-no."
He drew a deep breath, and his voice was suddenly as calm as it had been before. Had the rage been faked, or could he bind his own anger? "Make no mistake, Panopticon. I will have a kill order placed on your head if I think you're at risk of being infected. The full weight of the US government will descend on you, Miss Panopticon. You will find that no matter how many tricks you've picked up or who your real sponsors are, you can't escape us."
Ah. Yes. That was a pretty reasonable point of view, all things considered. "Okay. So let's say I believe you," I said slowly. "What then?"
"You'll let my man go," Mister Black said. "We are not willing to tolerate the interference of outside influences, Miss Panopticon. This is our country. This is our territory."
I was really growing to hate that diminutive. Every supercilious adult who didn't listen to a thing you said was wrapped up in that one hissed word. "And I have no idea what 'outside influences' you're talking about, Mister Black."
"Don't you? Don't play me for a fool."
"I don't need to," I said through clenched teeth. "You're making a good enough job of it on your own. I don't know what you're talking about. And if I asked you who you people were, you'd say the government again. Right? Because you're not. Not with your genejacks and your 'we can't tell anyone the truth' and that kind of bullshit." I laughed despite myself. "I've made my own secret government branch. It's not too hard. And your pet three-eyed man," I nodded at him, "he's a Master. All he needs is his badge and people accept him. For all I know, it's just you, him, your bird lady and your genejacks."
"Believe what you will," Mister Black said. "You'll pay the consequences if you underestimate us. We are the government. We're the people who keep you safe in the shadowy parts of the world. It's because of people like me that America has fared better than the rest of the world since the Endbringers awoke. This country needs us, because we protect the idea of America, not the shadow of America that others take as the real thing. We will lead America to its true potential, the shining city upon the hill."
He sounded like a supervillain. "But you're not the government," I snapped back. "That's the President and Congress and…"
"How much power do you really think the president has?" he asked. He sounded like he was talking through a smile, but there wasn't any real humour in his voice. "He's just an ordinary man. A fat, venal man who's good at making speeches and has the right friends. Do you think Congress can make the right decisions?" He hummed, a short melody, waiting for me to answer. I didn't say anything. "It's a rotten structure filled with demagogues who play off the stupid, and rich men in safe seats who're after continuity above all else. People like us, we understand the importance of vision."
He was talking about the Other Place. He was trying to get me to slip up. I didn't answer.
"I've seen the reports on you, Miss Panopticon," he said more softly. "You don't like the Patriots. You're after them. How did they hurt you?"
"They didn't," I said. "I just believe in doing the right thing."
I heard him clap mockingly. "And for that I applaud you. Are you an idealist? Yes, I think you are, Miss Panopticon. A vigilante idealist who likes to pretend she's part of a secret conspiracy so people will listen to her."
"This is the part where you try to get me to join you," I said, cutting to the chase.
"You are enthusiastic."
More like capable of basic pattern recognition, I didn't say out loud. "I'm not joining some secret conspiracy!"
"Haven't you already been pretending to be one?" God, why did he think that was a gotcha? "And we're not a conspiracy. We are the United States government. We're the part of the government which keeps things working while the fat old men and the rabble rousers play their games of political spectacle. We're the part of the government with vision and an idea that things can be better. And you can be a part of something greater, if you want."
"If I wanted to protect people, I'd join the PPD, not you!"
"Yet you haven't. You want to observe without being seen. You want to be able to watch everyone without any of them knowing if you're looking. Patterns are the key to human cognition and the names we choose for ourselves say a lot about who we really are. Panopticon."
"Sir?" The three-eyed man spoke for the first time in a while. He was still staring at Needle Hag. "This is… this is very interesting, but she's still pointing a gun at me. Can you please not provoke her?"
"Mmmh. I suppose so. Miss Panopticon, I'd like you to stay and talk, but from the sounds of it you're not going to agree."
"Yes. I'll be leaving." An idea struck me. "And I'll be keeping this phone. Just in case I ever need to contact you."
"Oh, feel free. You're impressed by it? It's standard issue. We equip – and pay – our people very well."
"Goodbye, Black," I said.
"Be seeing y—" I ended the call and shifted my attention back to the three-eyed man.
"He didn't seem to care much that I was pointing a gun at you," I said. I couldn't help but sound a bit bitter about that.
He didn't say anything back, but just glared at me sullenly.
"Well. Hag," I said, eyes flicking to the looming angel-thing. "Strip it of chains, then take it away."
The hag reached out, sharp hands caressing the cell, then vanished away to my base. It was the safest place to keep it. I didn't get reception down there, so it wouldn't be able to get a signal out, and I could deal with it at my leisure.
"So what are you going to do?" he asked, closing his two lower eyes. His third eye remained open and focussed on me. He stared at my gun, and smiled. "Shoot me while I'm here, hands on my head, completely at your mercy?"
I swallowed, hard. "I didn't come here to kill anyone. I didn't even know you and your… your genejacks would be here. This wasn't planned."
"You have a talent for improvisation. Please put the pistol down."
"No." I ground my teeth.
"If you want to go, feel free. I won't follow you," the three-eyed man said, somehow reading my mind without doing anything with his powers that I could see. "I'm still recovering from what you did to me, Panopticon. But," and his brow furrowed. "Don't ignore Mister Black. If we see you around an area where there's any signs of your 'SIX', we'll first warn you to leave the area. There will be no second warning."
I understood.
And in one movement he lunged in, going for my gun. I squeaked and reflexively squeezed the trigger, but nothing happened. It wouldn't even depress. He slammed my hand into the wall until I let go of the gun and I staggered backwards, sucking in a breath. The vile taste of an angel was on the tip of my tongue...
"You've never fired a gun before," he said, ejecting the magazine and working the slide to clear the chamber.
"But…" My nerves were on fire and the heart of my stolen body was beating like a drum.
"The safety was on. And even before I saw that, your posture was awful. There was a good chance you'd have hit yourself in the face with the recoil."
Oh. Apparently there were horrors that equalled anything the Other Place could dish out, and one of them was realising you'd been threatening someone with a gun that wouldn't fire even if you pulled the trigger. Imagine if he'd noticed that at the start. My face was probably tomato red, judging from how hot it felt.
"You should probably leave." And then he smiled. "Unless you want to stay and talk more about the possibility of joining us. I'd like you on the right side, but I'd settle for you keeping your nose clean."
"You're not going to try to capture me?"
"You got out of the police station, past my containment field. I couldn't hold you on my own. If you want to leave, you'll leave." Was that a trace of bitterness I smelled there?
I didn't care, I decided. Not with the caustic shame of how I'd completely botched threatening him still coursing through my veins. Sinking down into the cold depths of the Other Place, I let Watcher Doll fill my mind. Then I pulled my hands out of my grey man host and grabbed the chain connected to my abdomen.
In a rush I came apart, and opened my eyes in the slightly greasy warmth of the diner. The yellow lighting was bright compared to the screens and strange orange glow in the truck. And I then immediately started cursing below my breath, because all four of my limbs had the mother of all pins-and-needles. Maybe I could leave an angel behind next time to move my arms and legs to keep the circulation going. Or find a bed to lie down in before I left my body behind.
But that wasn't quite the end of things. Even before I had feeling back in my fingers, I was fumbling in my pocket for my mirrorshades. Stiffly, I laid them on the table in front of me and breathed the Other Place over the cracked surface of the glass. The reflection warped and showed me somewhere else.
I'd thought of Watcher Doll, but I hadn't exhaled it. That meant I'd left it behind. It was still in the grey woman's skull, looking through her eyes.
The three-eyed man, swaying slightly, mopped his brow on his sleeve. He then picked up the headset I'd made him drop at the start, connecting it back up.
"It's Butcher. Put me through to… yes, sir. Yes. She's gone. No, I'm not hurt. She hadn't even taken the safety off. I wish I'd noticed that earlier, but… no, no.
Why did he have to tell Mister Black that? The blush spread to my actual body.
"I think we might have been overestimating her. I'd say she's poorly trained. She certainly doesn't know how to use a gun." He paused. "No, that's the thing. Her cluster is very diverse, but I think she's young. She… mmm, I think she's early twenties at most. She talks like a young person. Definitely local. And her technical vocabulary is non-standard. I'm fairly sure she's self-taught.
He was silent for a while. "Yes, I agree. Her markers were… strange. I could only read one methodology off her, but I think the genejack was shielding her. She's got far too many protocols to just have the one. I'll be interested to see what your acquisitor picks up. I can confirm it attached."
What were they talking about? I frowned, looking away from the mirrored surface, inspecting my free hand. Had the three-eyed man or Mister Black tagged me with something and I'd missed it? I'd had Needle Hag shield me, but had he managed something right at the start?
I couldn't see anything, but – I clenched my jaw and sank deeper into the Other Place, feeling the bone-deep ache and my teeth twinge.
In the funhouse world of the deep Other Place, there was something hair-thin and red attached to my left ear. It ran off into the far distance. My left ear had been what I'd been listening to the phone with, I realised. That bastard! He had got me, even before I'd put up Needle Hag, sending it down the phone line – and it had attached to my Other Place form so I'd carried it back to my body.
I nearly cut it there and then, but I had a better idea. There were packs of sweetener sitting on the diner table, next to the wooden coffee stirrers. Taking one of the stirrers, I breathed a tarry lump of Other Place onto the end, then scraped it off my ear and wiped it on one of the packets of sweetener. It stuck. It looked like a little lapel pin, shaped like the American flag – even if the reds were the colour of dried blood and the blues were midnight ink. Except even as I watched, it sprouted little insectoid legs. It squirmed and tried to free itself, but the ooze had it trapped.
Got you, I thought viciously.
Moving as best I could when I was feeling so stiff, I hobbled over to one of the cops sat at the diner counter, and dropped the sweetener packet in her pocket. My final gift was an Idea that she'd forgotten something back at the station and needed to go check.
If they went looking for their little lapel-bug, they'd think I'd gone back to the station. I waited long enough for the cop to head out, then left by the back door. I was feeling better – good enough to make a walk for it, at least – and I wanted to get out of here.
The wail of police sirens hit me as I left. The air was chill outside. I had a lot to think about.
