Predator: Night Watch
Author's Notes:
I started this fic a long time ago, after I saw and loved Predator 2. Back then the only way I could see it was on a Region 1 DVD, and to play it on my PC without rendering all my Region 2 DVDs unplayable after 5 region changes, I had to hack both Windows 2000 (which in itself dates me, doesn't it?) via DVD Genie, and the player's firmware! Now, thankfully, there's Leawo, which merrily ignores all that region nonsense without any need for firmware wizardry.
Gene Roddenberry should really be credited with the idea of the Unit; he did propose such an entity as the basis of a TV pilot, but it was never produced, so I took the concept, mixed in a bit of Judge Dredd here an' there to bring it up to date and ran with it. I did a fair bit of research on New York; any reader who lives there knows the Lobster Place and Sword Class NYC are real. Place names, too, are accurate - for example, Van Cortlandt Park at 242nd St., Columbus Circle and the street corner where Johnny Mullins fell afoul of Sergeant Candy White and her tiny panties. :)
It's not made clear in the fic and Candy, being a lady after all, would never deign to flash them or be so salacious as to tell anyone what colour they were, but I would envisage them as being lacy, pretty and definitely pink. ; Candy is of course an homage to RoboCop's Anne Lewis, as is her Beretta (I loved the modified version used in the RoboCop movies - that looked like one serious piece of hardware!).
I honestly don't know where Jocelyn Barton popped up (escaped?) from. Characters like her often crop up in my fics. I've no idea why.
All praise to Brie Larson, a terrific actress, and that amazing ass! I've just read there's to be a Captain Marvel sequel, yay!
I should apologise for the Terror Twins, especially Susie. Sadly, such sadistic perverts do exist. I wish they didn't.
Every time I edit this, Marie's caption for Julie gets longer. I really should leave it alone.
Some things, such as why the Predator takes the trophies he does, are what I've deduced from the movies, though I had no idea about what the first Predator did to Billy until I got the Special Edition. Gruesome but compelling viewing. Yes, Billy Davies is a tribute to him.
My guess as to how the stealth tech works is just that: a guess. I haven't the faintest idea how it could be done, though.
I've borrowed a lot from the Aliens Vs. Predator novels, a brilliant if obvious concept if ever there was one, sparked off of course by that tantalising glimpse of an Alien's skull on the trophy wall in Predator 2. AvP was a nice try, but I really think they should've just stuck with the original story. Ming-Na Wen, late of ER and Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D., could've played Machiko Noguchi.
Will I write a sequel? Hmm. I didn't deliberately leave the story open for one; that's just the way it turned out. I'll think about it.
Okay, here we go. I hope you like it.
From the Journal of Kelly McAllister, Commander of the New York Tactical Operations Unit
Start Date of Events: Wednesday 7th July, 2027
To this day, no-one knows where they come from. I wish to hell we did, so we'd know at least one place to avoid if we ever make it to the stars.
No-one has any idea what world spawned them, though we reckon it must have been unremittingly hostile, a vibrant ecosystem doubtless crammed with vicious things that killed to live, and lived to kill, and that's why they are so deadly: because they needed to be just to survive, at least until they developed technology. Then again, if they aren't the apex predators on their world, I never, ever want to meet whatever is.
No way in hell would their homeworld ever be considered a tourist attraction, that's for damn sure!
It's probably a world with higher gravity than Earth, a lot warmer, with less oxygen in an atmosphere which is probably denser than ours and is opaque to EM emissions in our visual range - either heavily forested, mountainous or both; the ease with which they climb, leap and generally move, suggesting they're perfectly at home with heights, supports the latter theory.
Theory, though, is all we have.
That, and our fervent hope that they'll never, ever come back.
Back in 2027, though, I didn't know anything about the yautja, as it's believed they call themselves. A few, a very few, people did: the remnants of a spec-ops team who tried and failed to capture one in L.A. in 1997; the CO of a rescue team who barely survived his encounter ten years before that in Central America (though rumour had it he'd died of radiation poisoning, picked up God knows how or where); bystanders in L.A. who caught no more than a glimpse and were sternly warned never to speak of even the little they knew.
But me, I didn't know shit.
Anyway. Who the hell am I, you ask? Kelly McAllister, Commander of the first incarnation of the New York Tactical Operations Unit, usually unflatteringly known as the NYTOL on the street and in official circles. Where the hell people got the L from I don't know, but...ah, what can you do?
It all began when it occurred to NY's Police Commissioner one day that the modern cop on the beat was little better-equipped than a 1920s police officer, while the criminals had moved with the times. Cops needed better armament, more sophisticated methods of communication, and greater powers of law and authority on the street - without going the Judge Dredd route, of course. They needed ways of taking down criminals that were a) more effective, b) less lethal and c) less likely to endanger bystanders - in this day and age, collateral damage was simply unacceptable.
They also needed better protection. There were far too many grieving spouses and orphaned kids in the police community. That had to stop.
The Commissioner met in secret with the Mayor, the DA, the Chief Judge and New York's Senator, plus a tech genius and a retired spec-ops soldier, and together they came up with a plan. They would create a special police unit, trained to the max, technically savvy and streetwise to boot. These officers would be a mixture of older, seasoned hands and young, fresh talent, a balance of attitudes and experience. They would utilise a combination of state-of-the-art tech and old-fashioned police work to accomplish their goal.
In the event of injury (and that issue, too, was dealt with comprehensively), every officer received extensive EMT training, even to the extent of being qualified to perform emergency surgery in the field. Too many cops in the past had died when they could have been saved, if only medical help could've arrived in time. No more. From now on, if an officer died in the field it would be because it was unavoidable and/or instant. Every Unit vehicle carried a full suite of emergency medical gear.
One Judge Dredd-type concept we did adopt: officers' weapons were DNA-keyed to Unit officers only, so a Unit officer's weapon could never be used against him/her. But no, we didn't equip them to explode like a Lawgiver; instead the gun would simply refuse to fire, delivering a fifty-kilovolt electric shock instead. Plus an online charge sheet, matched to the DNA and to facial recognition of the perp via the officer's helmet camera, would automatically be generated for:
Theft of police property, to wit: the firearm;
Attempted illegal use of a firearm;
Attempted assault on a police officer, plus a charge of attempted murder if the weapon was lethal. Essentially the perp would convict himself.
After a few dramatic on-street demos and well-publicised trials, the perps soon got the idea.
Officers would be given greater powers of law on the street, serving justice rather than the letter of the law: if a petty crook committed a petty offence, why not just fine him on the spot rather than waste time and money with arrest, arraignment, trial etc.? If a more serious offence was committed, such as criminal assault or murder, and there was immediate proof, why not just shoot the bastard?
Rape? Take a DNA swab from the victim ASAP at the scene and match it to the criminal database, then track the perp using the trace. Scan crime scenes and reproduce them in perfect fidelity using the latest holographic equipment, shades of Star Trek. Equip officers with HD cameras to record evidence and every detail of pursuit and capture, and make such footage legally admissible in court. Train deep-cover officers with protected identities to infiltrate criminal organisations and blow them apart from the inside.
Above all, use the latest IT to cut paperwork to the absolute minimum, dammit!
It took time to overcome political opposition and at first there was a major question of funding...until an unidentified benefactor stepped in to offer several million dollars to create a start-up squad. I commanded that squad.
We were an immediate hit. We operated for a trial and training period of six months...and in that time we took down more drug dealers, rapists, murderers and fraudsters than the entire NYPD. I'm proud of what we achieved.
Look, it wasn't my fault that things went so thoroughly to pieces once the Unit was officially launched! How the fuck was I supposed to know we weren't dealing with human beings?!
Okay, I'm getting ahead of myself; I tend to do that whenever I tell the tale. Can't help it.
Once we were official, we started really making a name for ourselves on the street. Dealers started to realise the Big Apple was no longer a good place for them to be. Automatic weapons, too, began appearing much less frequently when we went up against criminals...because they soon learned such weapons were useless against us.
This was because every officer in the Unit was issued with bulletproof uniforms made of a new lightweight material, a weave of synthetic spider silk and carbon fibre nanotubes. ArmorLite™ laughed at small-arms fire, AK-47s, M-16s, any 9mm round and any calibre less than .50, and it was resistant even to heavier rounds, .30-06 Accelerators or armour-piercing - and it could be made proof even against those, at the cost of reduced flexibility and increased weight.
Oh, we loved those uniforms - very comfortable, nicely warm in winter yet wonderfully cool in summer, breathing like Egyptian cotton yet more protective than Kevlar!
Knives? Forget it - no human being could exert enough strength to stab or cut through ArmorLite™, and the fabric also absorbed kinetic energy so the officer would sustain no more than a bruise. Well, you might, possibly, force the point of the blade through, but it'd only be a pinprick and not a full, lethal puncture wound; interatomic friction would stop the blade from penetrating further, plus the uniforms were in two tightly-woven layers - and the weave direction of each was at right angles to the other for added protection.
Suppose the crooks got clever - and ruthless, not to mention irresponsible - and tried to use disabling or lethal gases, chemicals or bioweapons? Equip officers with protective sealable helmets and train them in methods of chem/biohazard containment. ArmorLite™ was waterproof, fireproof, acid-resistant and was proof against all but the most lethal pathogens. If necessary, rapid-setting sealant could be applied to neck, wrists and ankles to convert the uniform into a Haz-Mat suit.
Reflecting the fact that this is the Atomic Age, the uniforms are, to some extent, radiation-resistant. We have a special issue suit with an embedded layer of metal weave which is resistant to all but the hardest gamma radiation, in case we're ever faced with a nuclear threat. A few of our officers, including myself, are trained and qualified to disarm a nuclear device. Our medical bay is fully stocked with anti-rads.
All of our vehicles are totally bulletproof, including tyres. Communications are encrypted to military standards, and every officer has a communication unit implanted, powered by the body's bioelectricity and hardened against EMP. The Unit's creators had anticipated the crooks might take a leaf out of our book and use modern tech against us, so every officer was extensively trained in IT as well; many were coding experts, and all were well-versed in the use of antiviral and firewall software. We even recruited a couple of crackers on the set-a-thief principle.
The FBI and NSA weren't too happy about our choices, but our view was that these kids were of more use in the field helping us take down crooks than languishing in jail helping no-one, and it wasn't as if we didn't keep an eye on them. They behaved...mostly. More than once they saved our lives; at one point a group of Russian crackers, experts all, decided to try their luck in the decadent West, set up shop in New York, recognised the Unit as their biggest threat - and tried to take us out.
They failed. Hoo boy, did they fail. They were no match for our IT defence team. They never even came close to cracking our security. On the contrary, our boys cracked them. Cracked them? More like blew them apart!
It's not often the police are credited with saving the life of a perp, but one time we did. Sherman, set the Way-Back Machine, for Day 9 of Unit operations...
New York City, corner of West 4th St. and Bank St.
Day 9
Mmm, she looks good. Cute li'l thing. I like blondes...long as the carpet matches the curtains, fuckin' hate fakers.
What was it that dyke bitch told me once? The fuck was her name...oh, yeah, Tammy. Fine bitch, yeah, what a fuckin' waste of a tasty piece of ass...what'd she tell me - check the eyebrows? Yeah, that was it...yep, her eyebrows are blonde, so she's real alright...first bitch I ever screwed was blonde, loved it when she screamed an' bled from her cunt, musta been a virgin, couldn't have been more than 17...ah, fuck it, who cared how young the bitch was? Girl's got a cunt, she'll want a cock to go up it, and damn, bitch, I got a real fine cock just waitin' for you...
Better grab her piece 'fore I grab her ass, though, she's a cop, after all...
It could be said that Sergeant Candy White had been a little careless in allowing a perp, one Johnny Mullins, to grab her gun. But then again one had to give him credit for choosing his moment perfectly: she had her hands full, a hot dog in one and a Coke in the other. The moment she turned away from the stall he rushed in and grabbed it, brandishing it and snarling, "You're mine, cop!"
Her reaction wasn't quite what he expected. She just sighed and took a bite of the hot dog. "Mmm, I love HP Sauce, I'm so glad we started importing it." Then she seemed to take notice of the situation. "Oh, you've got my gun. Johnny, I really would put that down if I were you."
"What -?"
"Don't you keep up with the news? Johnny, I'm not a Blue, not NYPD. I'm a sergeant in the New York Tactical Operations Unit. That's a whole different ball game."
"A cop's a cop," he spat.
She startled him by smiling gently. "Johnny, right now the HD camera in my helmet is recording everything you say and do. You've already been ID'd by the facial recognition software, as if I hadn't already recognised you, and automatically charged with theft and illegal possession of a police officer's firearm, and all the evidence we need is right here," she tapped the helmet. "In fact, you're under arrest on those charges. So if you'll just -"
"Bitch, I'm holdin' a gun on you! What part of that don't you get?!"
Candy sighed again. "The part where you think I'm in any danger from you. I guarantee you I'm not."
He laughed, but nervously. He was starting to think there was something seriously wrong here. "What, it's not loaded or somethin'?"
Now she laughed. "Who's stupid enough to carry an unloaded gun? Oh, no, it's fully loaded, Johnny - Beretta M9A3 semi in 9mm Parabellum, choice of single shot or 3-shot bursts, 17 rounds in the clip, one in the chamber. It's a perfectly good gun, very reliable and pretty accurate."
(Standard Unit policy was and is for serving officers to carry non-lethal firearms, so an ordinary member of the public might wonder why Sergeant White was carrying a Beretta M9A3, a lethal firearm if ever there was one. The reason was quite simple: to give a few perps the 'opportunity' in the early days of Unit operations to grab a Unit officer's gun and thus demonstrate in graphic fashion exactly what would happen if they tried to fire. It wasn't long before a perp did just that, and Johnny Mullins was the third of only five perps to do so.)
"No, the gun itself is fine, it's just that you can't fire it," she finished.
"The fuck use is a gun you can't fire?!" he protested.
She rolled her eyes. He still didn't get it. Clearly he hadn't kept up with the news, else he'd know about the two perps before him who'd made the same mistake. "I mean, you can't fire it, Johnny. The sensor in the grip has already sampled your DNA and recognised that you're not me. The safety interlock won't let it fire unless I'm holding it."
"Aw, come on! You're bluffin'! That's like somethin' outa - outa Judge Dredd or somethin'!"
"That is where we got the idea," she admitted, "but science fact has caught up with science fiction in the world of law enforcement, Johnny. At this point, Unit regulations require me to warn you: if you attempt to fire that weapon, not only will it not fire, it'll deliver a fifty-kilovolt electric shock and drop you where you stand." She was no longer joking around.
His laugh was now hysterical. "Now you are bluffin'! So here's what we're gonna do: first, I shoot you in the leg," he aimed, "an' drag you into that alley over there, then I get that fancy uniform an' those tiny panties offa you an' I get me a piece o' fine cop ass!" he grinned lasciviously. "See if you can live up to that porn star name o' yours!"
"That just adds threatening behaviour, intent to wound, intent to kidnap, intent to assault and intent to rape to the charge sheet, Johnny," she told him quietly, calmly (whilst ruefully wishing her Dad had watched more porn in his youth; he was genuinely shocked when a friend told him about the porn actress he'd inadvertently named his baby girl after, but he couldn't change it because his wife liked it!). "You're in enough trouble as it is. Please stop this while you still can. Put it down."
"Fuck you, bitch cunt!" he screamed.
Candy just smiled again, but dangerously now. "You. Wish." She shrugged. "Meh. You're right: fuck this. Go ahead. Go ahead and try to shoot me. Having given you fair warning, creep, I now owe you nothing!" She was angry now. "Do it, if you've got the balls! Do it!"
He pulled the trigger, fury suffusing his features, anger overriding his judgement that there was definitely somethin' off here.
Candy was as surprised as he was by what happened next: the weapon emitted two short bleeps and a longer one in a lower tone, blip-blip-beeeep, and a click signified the engagement of the safety. "Hmm. That's odd," she frowned. "Oh, well. I'll have it checked when I get back. Now -"
He did drop the gun, but whipped out a jackknife instead.
"Oh, come on!" she moaned, really exasperated now. "Possession of a bladed weapon in public with a blade longer than the permitted length of 10cm. You're just rackin' 'em up today, aren't you? Johnny, please, you can't hurt me with that! My uniform is -"
Johnny closed in and thrust into her belly, intending in his fury to just gut this mouthy stuck-up cop bitch, never mind raping her, but to his shock the blade simply stopped dead. The point, though lovingly kept needle-sharp, didn't even penetrate.
("By this point I'd really had enough," Candy later confessed, "though I realise and accept that I did overreact, sir. I apologise. It won't happen again."
The Commander merely shrugged. "Early days, Candy. We need to get used to the new ways as much as the perps do. Internal Affairs aren't even writing it up; they've dismissed it as self-defence. After all, he did try to kill you.")
"- proof against bladed weapons and small-arms fire," she continued as he gaped like a gaffed fish, then snarled, "Is it my turn now?" She gave him a karate strike that knocked him off his feet. Before he could recover (as much from the shock that this tiny li'l cutie had knocked him off his feet as from the actual blow), she flipped him onto his front, grabbed his left wrist, wrenched his arm to bring his wrists together, and sprayed them with a rapid-setting adhesive, which formed a flexible restraint that was much kinder to the skin than a zip tie but equally beyond human strength to break.
"You, asshole, are under arrest! What part of that don't you get?!"
A bystander had decided to be helpful and offer to hand Candy her gun, but before the man could pick it up she called, "Sir, please don't touch it - only Unit officers are authorised to handle our weapons, especially lethal ones; you don't want even a minor fine, I'm sure. Thanks very much for your kind offer, but I can manage. He's not going anywhere...well, he is, but only to Base with me and a courtroom soon after," she added, smiling.
"Oh, sorry, officer," the man flustered, hurriedly backing away from the gun.
Candy smiled warmly at him. "That's quite all right, sir, no harm done. No offence meant, none taken. I've got it," she finished, holstering it.
She proceeded to read Johnny his rights under the Revised Miranda Act of 2027, as ratified by the Laws of the City and the State of New York:
"You have the right to remain silent. If you give up that right, anything you say can and will be recorded by the HD camera in my helmet and added to the evidence already obtained by like means, and can and will be used as evidence against you in a court of law.
"For the record, and by the Regulations of the New York Tactical Operations Unit in which I serve, I hereby identify myself as Sergeant Candy White, officer number NYTOU-Zero-One-Dash-Six, making arrest on John Mullins, known colloquially as 'Johnny'.
"You have the right to an attorney, and the right to have your attorney present during questioning. If you do not have an attorney or cannot afford one, an attorney will be provided free of charge by the State of New York, before questioning if you so request. You are entitled to one phone call or contact via electronic media, but I am required to advise you that electronic communications are not privileged - that is, a police officer will be present to monitor them. Do you understand these rights as I have read them to you?"
A pained snarl was his only answer.
Candy sighed. "C'mon, Johnny, work with me here. I repeat for the record as required by the Revised Miranda Act of 2027, by the Laws of the State of New York and by the Regulations of the New York Tactical Operations Unit in which I serve: do you understand these rights as I have read them to you? The State recognises that not every individual possesses the same powers of comprehension, and thus I will fully explain, without prejudice and without patronising you, anything you do not understand."
He finally surrendered. "Yeah, I get it."
"Do you have anything to say at this time? If you decide to answer questions now without an attorney present, you have the right to stop answering at any time. Please remember you are being recorded in real-time HD vision and audio."
Johnny chuckled wryly. "I got a lot I'd like to say, but I got a feeling it'd just make things worse."
She chuckled too, picturing it. "You're probably right. Best to retain your right to remain silent, huh? Okay," she helped him up, "this way. Base, this is Officer 01-6 reporting in. I have a suspected felon in custody: Johnny Mullins. En route, ETA ten-minus."
"Base copies, Candy; come on in."
He frowned as she briskly bundled him into her car. "'Suspected'?"
Candy chuckled again. "Ever hear of 'innocent until proven guilty', Johnny? Even with the HD A/V evidence which, technically, does prove your guilt as it was recorded in real time, with time stamps and everything, legally speaking you are still only a suspect until your case has been heard and you're tried and convicted before a court of your peers. That's the law." She started the car, and they were on their way.
He shrugged. "Fair enough." Then he tried, as so many perps had before him, to play a sympathy angle. "Look, lady, I've had a real bad time lately -"
But, as cops everywhere have heard it all before, she stopped him with a look and said only, "Tell it to the judge, Johnny. I'm just the cop bringing you in. Speaking of...Base, 01-6 here. Um, something odd happened during the arrest: the perp tried to shoot me with my gun, but it didn't shock him, just engaged the safety. Could you pull up its diagnostics for me, find out what's wrong?"
"Sure," Operator Tina McIntyre answered brightly. "Let's see...firearm issued to 01-6 at start of officer's duty shift...okay...anomalous DNA trace, weapon no longer in officer's possession - oh. Oh, so that's it. No, the gun checks out perfectly, it's the perp who's got the problem. Candy, you might just have saved the guy's life."
Cop and perp were united in their "Huh?!"
New York Tactical Operations Unit Base, Manhattan
Interrogation 1, half an hour later
"A what?" Johnny wondered.
"Heart murmur," Senior Sergeant Duane Holmes told him. "It's an irregularity in your heartbeat. It makes you extremely vulnerable to tasers - if the gun had shocked you, it probably would've killed you. The problem was identified years ago, and the last thing cops want is to have a perp die on us just 'cause he's got a dodgy ticker." He looked wry. "Hey, look at it from our point of view: you wouldn't believe the amount of paperwork involved when a perp dies in police custody, plus we can't try a dead suspect, can we?"
Johnny had to laugh at that.
"So our lab boys got smart: they built sensors into our guns which check the perp's vital signs to see whether he actually can stand a taser shock. If they pick up a medical condition like the one you've got, the gun doesn't do the taser thing, it just locks up."
"So," Johnny quavered, "so I'm...sick? There's somethin' wrong?"
"Yeah," Duane confirmed, "but the good news is, it's treatable." He passed Johnny's phone to him (all relevant evidence having been obtained from it already) and showed him an online text file. "That site contains all the details, and our resident M.D. has drawn up a prescription and healthy life plan for you. Follow it, take the pills, and you should live a reasonably long healthy life." He looked stern. "Provided you go straight and don't make a habit of tryin' to rape and kill cops, that is...especially Unit cops," he growled. "Our CO takes a very dim view of that sorta thing."
In the end he received only a hefty fine and a short jail sentence - because Candy, ever warm-hearted even towards perps, decided to drop the charge of attempted rape. "Well, Your Honour, it's not as if he actually tried to rape me. He could've been just saying that, to try to intimidate me. So there's no real proof that he ever actually intended to commit such an act, is there?
"And it's not, it can't be, illegal to just think about raping a woman, because this isn't a police state, not 1984. Okay, it's weird and freaky for anyone to think that, it's obviously morally wrong to think that, but it mustn't be made illegal to think it. That's way too dangerous, Your Honour. We are police officers, not thought police. The day we become that is the day I hand in my badge, I swear to God."
Homer Surillo, Chief Judge of the City of New York, smiled gently at this forthright, earnest and above all dedicated officer of the Law, impressed by her sense of justice and moved by her compassion. The combination made her the ideal cop, and she was far from unique in the Unit.
We were so right to create the Unit, he thought delightedly, not for the first time or the last. Best Goddamn thing I ever did. Apart from marrying Samantha, that is...
"You're absolutely right, Sergeant, and wise beyond your years. It would indeed set a dangerous precedent. No, I believe you're erring on the side of justice here, rather than blindly following the letter of the law. Meting out justice, not punishment per se, is the sacred purpose of our judicial system, and so long as we have decent, dedicated officers such as your good self upholding our laws," she blushed and smiled at the warm praise, "then justice will be well served indeed. Innocent and guilty alike will get what they deserve - no more, no less."
Candy grinned. "Works for me, Your Honour!"
One of our more famous successes in the field, one we liked to talk about at parties, involved a rookie dealing with a couple of would-be rapists threatening to kill the woman they'd abducted if he came any closer. So he didn't. What he did do seemed almost insulting: he apparently fired into the air way over their heads, yawned - and, in apparent indifference, turned away, to tend to an injured civilian who'd tried to help the woman. They had time only for a brief WTF moment before they discovered what he'd really done.
The rookie had launched a drone into the air which scanned the perps and the victim, differentiated between them via pheromone sensors - and then fired two taser darts, disabling them with no effect whatsoever on the woman. As they collapsed, the drone followed up by launching Stickies, capsules of highly adhesive goop which enveloped the perps to completely immobilise them, trussing them up like chickens à la Spider-Man. A Sticky hardened rapidly on contact with air, dissolving in atmospheric moisture after a couple of hours...by which time, of course, they were safely in custody and, just to be green, the goop could be recycled into carbon-friendly animal feed.
It was the rookie's casual throwaway attitude which sold the story, though; he simply trusted the tech to do its job, which of course it did. The Unit's mantra was, in fact, Trust The Tech. Not that this meant we relied exclusively on it to do our jobs for us; we weren't that stupid. Even the best tech, which ours surely was, can fail, and occasionally it did. Very occasionally.
But that never stopped us.
Which brings me to the night it all went to shit.
I can only speculate how it started. Our contact in U.S. Space Command (yes, we had one, though strictly speaking we weren't supposed to, but one of our operators had a Friend With Benefits serving at Vandenberg AFB) told us that all they and NORAD detected at the time was an apparent meteor that brushed Earth's atmosphere before flitting off on its merry way to who knows where. It read as non-metallic and quite small, just a random piece of space débris. Of course we know now that it was none of those things.
It wasn't a meteor.
It wasn't small, or non-metallic.
It wasn't débris of any kind.
And it sure as hell wasn't random.
Aboard the yos'fel-esh, the landing pod, descending in HALO mode
The Hunter braced himself for impact. He had proven himself last season against the kainde amedha, the Hard Meat, killing two and taking no more than minor wounds; his thwei flowed only briefly and he didn't let it or the brief pain stop him. He had been Blooded by his mentor, Swift Kill, the fastest warrior the yautja had ever known; Hard Meat fell like rain before his flashing blade and he seldom used a burner. He was a figure of awe among the yautja; Young Blood was honoured to be his student.
Now, he had been granted the honour of hunting the pyode amedha, the ultimate Soft Meat (or so it was said). Ooman was the yautja word for them, close to their own name for themselves.
He was warned by Swift Kill: Do not underestimate them. Yes, they are small and weak in body compared to us. Yes, their endurance is inferior, as are their weapons. But a Hunter who is certain of his victory is a dead Hunter. The pyode amedha are cunning, crafty and have a true fighting spirit, which makes up for their deficiencies in other areas. That is why their trophies are so prized, because often they are hard-earned, young one. Swift Kill then adopted a sombre air, surprising his student, and told him quietly, Not all Hunters have returned from the Blue World. Most, but not all.
Remember that, novice.
Young Blood swore he would.
Enough reminiscence, he decided firmly. Impact in ssken yveks, shvo, tsih -
The pod hit. The impact was hard, but he endured easily, taking pleasure in the knowledge. Perhaps the Hunt would be equally easy.
Or perhaps not, he chided himself, recalling his mentor's wise words. It begins.
He engaged the rhh-kosh, the shiftsuit. A Hunter who allowed his prey to see him coming was a fool...most likely a dead one.
He would not be so foolish.
The dwellings of the pyode amedha rose up before him as he left the pod before it silently self-destructed, leaving no identifiable traces. He leapt, his claws easily securing purchase on the rough artificial stone the oomans were known to use in construction. He would climb, establish a base of operations...and then the Hunt would truly begin.
Not that we knew any of that at the time, of course. We were engaged in the endgame of a three-month sting operation that would, if we could pull it off, eliminate at least a quarter of organised crime in New York - and secure us virtually unlimited State funding for the foreseeable future. The Commissioner, Ed Callaghan, made it very clear how much was riding on this op...as if we didn't already know.
Sergeant Candy White had already made an enormous personal sacrifice in the process of setting up the sting: she'd volunteered to assume the role of a high-class prostitute to infiltrate the Cartel, as they called themselves. Except she wasn't just playing a role; she actually was a prostitute (though she received inoculation against every known STI and a contraceptive implant), turning tricks with the best - or worst - of them. She'd even been arrested - twice, which merely added to the artistic perfection of her cover - and treated just like any other prostitute. Mind you, she was arrested not by Unit officers but by the regular NYPD Blues, who had absolutely no idea she was a sting agent of ours.
And we weren't so stupid or careless as to tell them, of course!
Her performance would later be presented for study at the Police Academy as an example to other would-be infiltrators, showing just what could be achieved with sufficient drive, determination and dedication to duty. Candy herself was decorated and later promoted in recognition of the tremendous personal risk she'd taken. More than once she fell afoul of abusive clients, one of whom actually tried to kill her for his own sadistic and sexual pleasure; he turned out to be a deranged misogynist who wanted to gut a woman and watch her die slowly and in agony. But he made two mistakes which proved to be his undoing. First, he actually told her what he planned to do, hoping to evoke fear and thus increase his own kick.
Though she admitted in her post-op briefing that he had scared her, and she'd deliberately let her fear show so as to deceive and distract him, she certainly didn't succumb to panic as a less well-trained officer - or an untrained civilian - might have. "Well," she protested indignantly, "facing someone who's just told you he wants to kill you is scary!"
Second, far more crucially, he badly underestimated her. That was understandable, as she was petite and slightly built, looking as if she would blow away on a stiff breeze. She had, however, counted upon this error, and she certainly didn't look as if she held a Black Belt, Fifth Dan, in judo.
But she does. I've seen her in the dojo tossing hulking bruisers twice her weight or more through the air as if they were featherweights, and she has a way of planting herself like the sturdiest oak tree - when she does that, those same hulks find her utterly immovable. I don't know how she does it. She trains most of our rookies in hand-to-hand, and she trains them hard. The only opponent of hers I've ever seen leaving the dojo without at least bruises is her sensei, and she can even give him a hard time.
As for our would-be murderer, Candy gave him the worst good night of his life. She let him get close enough to stab her...except she was suddenly no longer there, because she'd leapt up into the air, somersaulted over his head, landed behind him - and delivered a nerve punch that harmed him not in the slightest but instantly paralysed him, shades of Serenity's Operative. She whipped off his jacket and bound him with it, then called the police. As the Blues were hauling him off, she whispered menacingly in his ear:
"You wanted to kill me? Enjoy my pain, my death? You. Wish. I could've killed you. For what you tried to do to me, believe me...I wanted to. I know ten different ways with nothing but my hands. Just remember that, pervert. I could have killed you."
Okay. Hands up anyone who can blame her for her anger.
What?! Get outa here!
Anyway, back to the op. Some $50million worth of drugs and the same amount in diamonds - all genuine and all genuinely stolen by our deep-cover officers, to add verisimilitude to the sting (to be returned later) - were about to change hands. Of course, the moment they did the perps would unknowingly prove their guilt, as Candy would be there - with a microminiature HD camera in her eye recording every detail and transmitting in real time to our boys and girls. Yes, she volunteered for that, too; such equipment is not standard Unit issue. We'd rather not violate privacy laws if we can help it.
(With the exception of Jocelyn Barton, who gets a kick out of covertly filming couples having sex - including herself - but she's got a whole sheaf of issues, believe me; she's regularly seen naked in the co-ed changing rooms, utterly unashamed and unembarrassed. There's been many a male rookie who didn't know where to look, poor lads. Hell, she once changed her tampon right in front of a lad who, that very day, had just graduated from the Academy and, I'm pretty sure, had never even seen a naked woman before - and he was so young and naïve he surely had no idea what she was doing or why there was blood everywhere!
To be honest, if it weren't for her exceptional skills in forensics IA would've insisted upon her removal (if not criminal charges) long since. She's a kinky bitch on her own time and occasionally on Unit time as well, but on duty she's a damn good officer, utterly professional while being a fast and accurate worker who submits concise yet highly detailed reports. What can you do?)
We'd cased the entire building well in advance, disguised as an OSHA team performing a routine check to verify the structure was up to code. To add verisimilitude to our cover we even issued a minor citation to the building's owner, on account of the ventilation system's filters being not quite up to standard, but the structure itself passed (and it really did; we have OSHA training, too - comes in handy as cover for ops like this one).
What we really did, of course, was:
Check and verify all entrances and exits, concealed or not;
Determine any structural weak points in case we were forced to use artillery at any point;
Establish and map any and all possible lines of fire (theirs or ours);
Map the electrical and communications infrastructure so we could subvert it at need.
We were ready fully two days before the Cartel bosses were due to meet with their Russian counterparts to seal the deal. One complication was that we'd found out the Russians were planning to bring some...entertainment...with them to celebrate the closing of the deal: six whores, two of whom were believed to be underage. Thus Candy's primary mission, once we moved in to make arrests, was to make sure those girls, who were technically innocent bystanders, got out safely if everything fell apart.
Even if she had to risk her own life to do it.
But she didn't even blink when I told her. She told me soberly, "Sir, my younger sister - she's three years younger than me - was forced into prostitution for a short while by a perv teacher when she was twelve. I swore I'd die before I'd let that happen to any other girl; I couldn't do much about it then, but I sure as hell can now. I'm in, sir, I'll get it done."
She's a real trooper, so brave. We're all proud of her.
So. We had one team overlooking the roof from an adjacent building, another on the floor below the meeting room (inserted over 24 hours previously), a third covering all ground floor exits. All were non-lethally armed, all had motion trackers - and all had field medkits, just in case. But we didn't expect to need them. Morale was high; we were sure this was in the bag. The perps didn't suspect a damn thing. We had total visual surveillance in place, complete coverage. What could go wrong?
Yeah, right.
The Hunter noticed something interesting happening at the tall building. Oomans, carrying armament and other equipment, were gathering in tight teams around, on and in it. He took a moment to admire the discipline and precision of their deployment; Swift Kill was right, he saw - the oomans understood warfare full well. It seemed a battle of some sort was imminent. He briefly debated which side to attack.
But no, the choice was obvious: the ones inside would be the greater challenge. He'd heard close-quarters combat was something oomans excelled at.
So did the yautja.
His choice made, he leapt onto the roof, landed gracefully in this lighter gravity - and froze.
The mask sensors had detected a scan of some sort. He held his position, utterly motionless, confident in the capabilities of the rhh-kosh.
And, of course, in his own skill and Swift Kill's training.
The next move is theirs, he decided. I shall wait.
From my vantage point one building over, I began polling the teams. "Team One, report," I requested softly.
"In position," Duane Holmes answered from inside, "all clear, Commander."
"Two?" That was the exit cover team.
"Clear, sir," Jerry Hamilton reported.
I allowed myself a grin. This was going like clockwork. "Base, you getting Candy's feed?"
"That's a big ten-six, sir," Operator Frankie Sandford replied impishly. She was barely 20, way too young to remember the days of trucker slang, which explained her mistake.
"That's ten-four, you doofus," I chuckled.
"Whatevs," she sighed.
"Three?" The rooftop team.
Team Three Leader Denny Murphy started to say "Clear," but he only got as far as "Cl -" before a soft beep from the Siemens Mk. 5 Motion Tracker attracted his attention. He scrutinised the screen, but could see nothing...except for a weird shimmer of some sort. He wiped sweat from his brow - damn, it's hot tonight - and squinted, but it didn't make the whatever-it-was any clearer. "Sir, I've got...somethin'...can't make it out. But I read in Cop Tech that Siemens MT scanners sometimes go skiddy in hot air and, Christ, it's hot tonight," he finished with feeling.
I wasn't in any mood to take chances - either with my teams' lives or the success of the op. You'll note the order of priorities there. "All teams hold," I ordered. "Team Three, report!"
He remained motionless. The oomans were still scanning, though not for him, he was sure. They had no idea yet he was here (though that would soon change, he mused with relish); the yos'fel-esh was too small, too swift and of the wrong materials to have been detected by the scanners known to be used by their military in protecting their world...they hoped. Well, possibly they might have gotten a momentary scan, no more, but it would've appeared to be a meteorite to any ooman who might have seen it, and they were surely accustomed to seeing those.
A Hunter's greatest weapon is patience, Swift Kill told him once when he was but a stripling, at the beginning of his took him a long time to understand, but in the end he did. A patient Hunter was a successful Hunter.
There was no rush. He would wait.
Denny adjusted the tracker and ran a quick and dirty diagnostic, finally resorting to the tried-and-trusted method of whacking it.
The shimmer vanished.
(Only because Young Blood had noted the brief cessation of the scan whilst the diagnostic was running - a software flaw, rare for Siemens, and another reason why the Mk. 5 was denigrated in the Cop Tech article - instantly seized his opportunity and swung himself over the lip of the roof, though we only figured this out some time later.)
He breathed a sigh of relief and answered, "Clear, sir. I think it was a glitch."
I made my decision. "Team One: GO!"
He saw one armed ooman apparently standing guard. That one would be first. He primed the okh-ist, the burner. The targeting beams focused, and the mask confirmed: target acquired.
He fired.
The tightly contained plasma bolt ripped straight through Dmitri Gusev, instantly ending his life, and hit a gas pipe. There was a tremendous explosion.
I started in shock. What the fuck -?! "Team One!"
"That wasn't us, sir!" Holmes yelled. "Somethin's goin' down inside!"
Inside...? Oh, God, Candy...! "Base, pull Candy out! NOW! Team One: HOLD! Do NOT enter!"
"Copy that, sir, holding position! Christ, what's goin' on in there?!"
Even over Holmes' transceiver we could hear screams.
That was unplanned, the Hunter cursed, but then he realised the opportunity for confusion it offered. With a Hunter's instinct, he knew the time to strike was NOW!
None of the men and women inside were remotely prepared for the invisible nightmare which burst into the room. Abruptly there seemed to be blood and falling, mutilated bodies everywhere. Automatic weapons were roaring, spent shell casings falling like rain.
More literal rain was falling, too, but it wasn't just water.
Candy White was no stranger to blood and guts, and she'd killed in the line of duty - and had suffered injuries - more than once. But being showered with a woman's blood and brain matter as the top of Ivana Tereshkova's skull split open was more than even she could take. Horrified, she screamed in bone-deep revulsion and terror and utterly abandoned her mission, her fight-or-flight survival reflex taking total control. But as she tried to flee, she ran headlong into -
- nothing.
But there was something there. Something blurry, something moving.
Something killing.
Instinct kicked in again, and she lashed out.
He barely registered the blow as he ran an ooman through; it shrieked and died, eviscerated. This ooman was tiny even by their stunted standards, surely no warrior at all. Yet it was brave, to strike out unarmed at yautja. By rights he should have killed it for its temerity. But the Code was clear. So he defended himself honourably: a gentle backhand would suffice.
Of course, "gentle" by yautja standards was more like "piledriver" by human measures. The blow lifted Candy off her feet and she flew, instantly unconscious, to crash to a halt under a table. No-one took any notice. They were too busy: either engaged in fleeing, as the whores were doing, trying futilely to defend themselves - or, in Young Blood's case, having the time of his life. Kill after kill he claimed, impaling here, decapitating there. The oomans were putting up a valiant defence like the cornered animals they were - but they were no match for him!
This is LIFE! he roared in his mind, exultant in the glory of the honourable kill.
Soon all the armed oomans were dead. He rapidly and efficiently took his trophies. One ooman, he was pleased to note, had drawn a bladed weapon and had wielded it with skill. He'd seen such a blade before, a weapon trophy from the Blue World taken some ten hands of seasons ago. That long, slim blade with the long two-handed grip was known to be wielded only by the very best ooman warriors; the ooman name for it was almost yautja in its sound: k't'nhah, or something like that.
Thus, as was the yautja custom, he paid particular tribute to that one by ripping out its spinal column and skull in one piece.
The manner of the female's death gave him brief pause for thought. Certainly she was a magnificent specimen, taller than some of the males who were not short. But she had tried to fully deflect his decapitating strike with her weapon, failed, and the partly-deflected blow had resulted in the ruination of her skull. Yet tribute and respect had to be paid; she'd used the weapon as a club and not a firearm - an act of instinct, bravery or both.
She was strong; had the weapon been a little tougher or heavier her tactic might have worked. A good try, he decided, and so he took the permitted alternative trophy when dealing with female oomans: her kh'hli, the bone cradle of her legs and birthing sac.
Then his keen hearing picked up more oomans approaching and the mask scan confirmed it. They would be forewarned, he knew, and thus the odds were now against him (he wasn't to know, of course, that these oomans carried only non-lethal weapons...a concept almost beyond the comprehension of the yautja, a contradiction in terms to their way of thinking). A Hunter dying gloriously was still a Hunter dead...and the Hunt was nowhere near completed.
There would be another time.
He leapt for the hole he'd made in the ceiling and made good his escape. No ooman saw him. That was as it should be.
"In position outside," Holmes whispered tensely. "Can't hear movement. Nothing registering on tracker."
"On my command, Team One," I ordered quietly. "Teams Two and Three, hold your positions. MedEvac en route, ETA three minutes minus. Base, how's Candy?"
Back at Base, Frankie queried the monitor system frantically, fearing the worst because Candy hadn't reported in once whatever had happened had kicked in. But to her relief Candy's life signs were coming through, relayed via the implanted eye camera. "She's okay, sir. I think she's unconscious, diagnostics report possible concussion, but she's alive, thank God."
At that we all breathed a sigh of relief. Candy was no kid, but somehow everyone in the Unit saw her as its baby, or its mascot. "Team One, IR readings?"
I could practically hear Holmes' puzzled frown. "We read nine, sir...one normal temp, eight coolin' off." Corpses, we knew. The warm body was, thankfully, Candy.
Wait...including Candy, we'd clocked sixteen going in. The six whores had managed to escape, Team Two efficiently pulling them in and securing them. That left ten including Candy. So who and where was the other one? More to the point, what happened to the others?
Who blew our meticulously crafted op into orbit?!
"Get in there!"
They did.
It took us all a long, long time to forget the first image we received from Holmes' helmet cam. I've seen slaughterhouses with less blood.
There was a man who'd been sliced in two at waist level. A statuesque woman I recognised (from what was left of her face) as Ivana Tereshkova, a Vladivostok assassin and bodyguard for hire, was missing part of the top half of her skull...we later identified the brain matter poor Candy was coated with as belonging to Tereshkova. One, still holding his katana, was lacking his skull and spinal column. Jesus. He looked like Hirata Tomosawa, a Japanese gun for hire.
The only bodies present were those of the perps, so whoever hit them had gotten clean away.
There had to be more than a thousand shell cases strewn about the floor, and every wall had multiple bullet holes. Curtains were ablaze from the explosion, which had apparently come from a gas pipe, but Team One efficiently extinguished the fire. And under a table, off to one side -
"Candy!" several team members cried simultaneously. Holmes raced to her, skidding to a halt on his knees, but as per standard practice, drilled relentlessly into each and every Unit member, he did not try to move her. Gladys McCann, the forty-year veteran EMT who'd trained the Unit, had always emphasised that:
"Do NOT, EVER, move an injured person until qualified medical help arrives," she'd sternly warned us. "There are many medical problems which can be exacerbated by incorrect movement. I once saw someone with what should've been a minor, treatable neck injury...but some idiot moved him just the wrong way, his neck broke, and he is now, needlessly, DEAD. There are ways in which it should be done and other ways it should not. Sometimes, yes, you've got to move someone to remove them from greater danger, but even then there's a right way and a wrong way to do it."
So Holmes, entirely correctly, examined her by touch alone - that, plus the latest doohickey from Siemens Electronics, our preferred supplier: the Life Readings Scanner, our 21st Century answer to Star Trek's tricorder. "No injuries other than facial bruising and mild concussion, Commander; we can move her."
"Okay, standard drill - seal the building, get Forensics in there, get those girls back to Base." I let out a breath I hadn't realised I was holding. "Especially Candy."
New York Tactical Operations Unit Base, Manhattan
Two hours later
I called each Team Leader and a shaken but recovering Candy to my office for debriefing - before the Commissioner could get at them. Communications were locked down to Unit standards...that is to say, no-one outside of the NSA would hear one single word, and even they would have trouble. I sighed. "Okay. This op somehow turned into a grade-A clusterfuck, and we all need to know how. Any minute now I'll have the Commissioner breathing down my neck, so before that..." I sighed again, "Duane, I'll start with you."
Holmes shook his head. "No-one came past us, sir. We were clear," he insisted. "In fact I'm not even sure how they got out."
Jerry reported, "The only people we saw were those girls, sir; we grabbed them as soon as they ran out. God, they were terrified, sir - and they were all blood-spattered." He too shook his head. "Our intel was only partly right, Commander; all those whores were underage - not a one was older than sixteen."
"Child Services?"
He nodded. "On it, sir."
So now we'd come to a more crucial witness, namely Denny. If, as it appeared, he'd missed something, he would surely catch hell from Ed, and I didn't want to see that happen. So I gave the kid a moment before asking, "Denny?"
I've seldom seen someone look so tortured. He was clearly thinking the same thing. But he met my gaze and said quietly, "Commander, I'm honestly not sure what I saw. I thought it was just a heat shimmer at first; when we got back I looked up the Mk. 5 MT in Cop Tech, and I was right - they're not 100% in hot air. It was the Feb '27 issue," he added, trying not to sound as if he was covering for himself.
But I recalled reading the same article (Ten MT Scanners Compared - Which Does Your Department Use?), and he was right; the Siemens Mk. 5 was rated only third best out of the ten, and given that we'd had a prediction for a hot summer I had in fact requested the later model, the Mk. 6. We hadn't received them yet. "So what was wrong with it?"
"Well, that's just it, sir: nothing. As soon as we got back to Base I ran a full diagnostic, but it checked out. Then I uploaded its imagery and ran it through correction software...but it still showed that shimmer. So whatever it was, that was that the camera actually saw." He started to warm to his theme, as these tech-savvy kids tend to do. "I analysed the shimmer using 3-D real-time ray-tracing, and it showed that what we're seeing -"
He showed us the original and corrected image side by side in his tablet screen. As far as I could see, they were identical.
"- is what was behind whatever - or whoever - that was; in other words, we saw what we would have seen if there were nothing there at all!" He brought up a third image with the shimmer removed; it was almost the same as the first two.
"You mean it bent light around it?" I inquired incredulously.
"In real time?!" Jerry gasped. "No way possible!"
"Possible," Denny disagreed, "but it'd take so much CPU power and ultra-fast SSD RAM there's no way you'd fit it into anything portable. And I don't have the first clue as to how you'd project it onto such a complex irregular body as a person, or how to project it so you get the same effect regardless of viewing angle."
Candy spoke for the first time. "That's serious tech, sir, way above street or even gang level."
"Yeah, more like military," Holmes agreed pensively. "It's a stealth screen."
I could see where he was going with that, namely suggesting it as a get-out clause, but I liked it. "And not something we could realistically have counted on," I finished the thought. "Seems we've got a new player in town - and he's a major-league pro." I turned now to our most crucial witness. "Candy, are you okay for this?"
She nodded like the trooper she was. "Yes, sir."
"Okay, tell us what you saw, Sergeant."
Candy frowned. "I'm not sure. All I could see was that shimmer in the air - and...and those people, coming...apart...!" She shuddered with the horrible memory, but forced herself to go on. "But then Tereshkova bought it, and - oh, God, it was horrible...her forehead just burst apart and I got spattered..." She sighed. "I regret to inform you, sir, that at that point I'm afraid I totally lost it. All I could think about was getting out alive.
"But I ran into - something. I couldn't see anything, but I lashed out, I think instinctively. Then something hit me, and that's all I can remember until I woke up at Base, sir." She sighed. "I'm sorry, Commander, but that's really all I've got."
"That's okay," I told her gently, "you went through a hell of a lot for this op, and not just tonight. Go home and get some rest, you've earned it. That's an order," I added sternly to forestall the inevitable protest, stemming from her sense of duty, that she was fine and she could manage. "Stop off at Denny's lab and upload your eye camera footage. We'll arrange to remove the implant in a day or two."
"Yes, sir," she surrendered good-naturedly. She rose, as did Denny, and they left the office.
There was silence. Finally Holmes broke it. "So what do we tell Ed?"
"We don't tell him shit," I sighed, "I'll tell him...something. When I figure it out. First, though, I'll see what Jocelyn has. You guys submit your reports, then get outa here. You've done all you can for now."
They complied, but halfway through the doorway Jerry hesitated as I'd half expected him to. "Sir...did we fuck up tonight?"
I debated dismissing his concern, but my own self-honesty wouldn't let me. "I don't know, Jerry," I admitted, "I really don't know."
Next stop: Forensics Lab, and our resident perv. I grimaced at the thought. I'd never liked Jocelyn even before her kinky tendencies came to light, and Candy for one actually despised her. What she thought of us, neither of us had ever dared ask. However, if there were to be any answers to be had re our mysterious assailant, the data would show up in the bodies and/or samples, and Jocelyn would do her usual impeccable job of processing them to generate information.
Didn't make her any easier to work with, though.
Forensics Lab
Arms bloody to the elbows as she worked on Tomosawa's corpse, Jocelyn acknowledged my arrival with a typical offhand comment: "Hmm. Wondered when you'd get here."
"Stow it, bitch, I am not in the mood," I growled irritably. "The entire future of the Unit - starting with the question of whether it even has a future now - may depend on what you've got."
"Yeah, I heard it didn't go well," she murmured, gazing intently at a tiny piece of spinal tissue.
That did it. I really had had enough of her 'tude! "If by 'it didn't go well' you mean 'some tech ninja vigilante prick utterly fucked up a three-month sting op and cost us about two million, plus we'll never get to try the perps 'cause they're all fucking DEAD', then NO, it DIDN'T go well!" I roared.
Her reaction to this was entirely unexpected. She looked up, actually managed to look contrite and quietly said, "I'm sorry, sir. I had no idea things were that bad."
That gave me pause for thought. It wasn't like her to display such a correct attitude so readily. That meant she'd found something out of the ordinary...not that anything was 'ordinary' about this case any more. I really did need something concrete, and there was no point in antagonising her. So I also apologised and asked her what she'd come up with.
Jocelyn sighed. "Well, to be honest I'm not doing any better than anyone else, it seems. We have eight stiffs where we should have nine, for a start; the amount of blood at the scene was approximately 112.5% of what you'd expect from seven adult males and one adult female who have been virtually exsanguinated, i.e. nine-eighths as much. I have nine, not eight, distinct DNA traces from the bodies." Now she grinned in the way I more expected. "One guy had traces from two other guys on his dick, so he was - unsafely - fucking Mr. Missing and Tomosawa here," she gestured towards the cadaver on the table.
"COD?" I inquired.
She sighed again. "This is the part you are not gonna believe. The perps we have? All dead from blade wounds, inflicted with a combination of precision I'd expect from a surgeon and sheer force I'd expect from a butcher. Except Dmitri Gusev," she added, glancing at one cadaver set apart from the others, "who was presented with a serious breathing problem when he got a hole blown through his chest I could put my head through if I were so inclined to be weird.
"I have no idea how it was done; it looks as if he took an artillery shell, but the wound's fused, cauterised; no powder burns, no shrapnel. I've never seen or even heard of anything remotely like it. From the entry and exit angle, I'm pretty sure whatever did it also set off the gas explosion."
If this came from anyone but Jocelyn Barton I wouldn't have believed it. But still...
"Blade wounds?!" I gasped. "The perps had automatic weapons and were firing at close range...and you're telling me our ninja took them out with a blade?!"
"Not only that, but...they entirely missed him," she went on. "I'm discounting the possibility that the ninth blood trace belongs to the attacker for the simple reason that the amount corresponds roughly to an adult's total blood volume. So if he was hit and he bled out that much, he would now be dead, and therefore here. Since he is not, I conclude that they all, somehow...missed him completely."
I forced myself to look at Tomosawa. He'd been sliced down either side of his spine, the cuts starting (so Jocelyn said) from his scalp, slicing deep into his neck and body. "How many cuts?"
"Three," she answered, to my further shock. "One, the killing blow, cleaved his heart in two. The killer then made just two continuous cuts, then ripped out his spinal column and skull - in one go, as far as I can tell. Incredible." She shook her head. "It seems impossible that such accurate killing cuts could be inflicted with such force, or conversely that such forceful cuts could be made so precisely. Yet all the evidence points to just one conclusion:
"Every one of the blade victims died from one, and only one, wound, inflicted with a combination of incredible precision and lethal force."
"But the one precludes the other," I objected.
"True normally, but somehow this guy can pull it off."
"How much force?" I wondered.
Her reply startled me all over again. "Enough to kill just from blunt force trauma, actually. The actual cuts were little more than the coup de grâce."
I couldn't help my shocked gape at her.
"Plus certain bodies aren't complete. One's missing his head, sliced off precisely between the third and fourth vertebrae; Tomosawa, well, you can see for yourself; and Tereshkova is missing her entire pelvis - removed with, again, incredible precision and a minimum of cutting. The one exception to the precision of death cuts was Tereshkova, but that's only because she managed to partly parry the cut with her AK-47...'partly' being the operative word. But all she succeeded in doing was to turn a clean decapitation into an upward diagonal cut through her forehead, which," she added with gallows humour, "is how Candy ended up wearing most of her brain.
"The AK-47 was practically cut in two. Her entrails and genitalia were found discarded below the killer's point of entry and egress: a hole in the ceiling. No DNA traces recovered from the hole except hers. No DNA at all in that room except from our eight guests here, the missing corpse, Candy and the six child whores.
"Every round discharged was fired by the perps. Ballistics match perfectly with the weapons we found. No weapons unaccounted for." Jocelyn sighed a third time. "But now it gets worse, if you can imagine such a thing. I can't ID the blade's alloy; there are no metallic traces in the wounds - none whatsoever, not even where the killer sliced through bone."
"That's impossible," I immediately returned, "any blade, however sharp, always leaves traces owing to interatomic friction and van der Waals forces. They can be detected by SEM-WDS, and I'm sure I read in some issue of Cop Tech that the technique's been refined lately."
"Hmm, you certainly paid attention on the Physics course," Jocelyn noted approvingly. "And you're right; it was the -"
"- May '26 issue," we said together, as I remembered the Terror Twins - and how we'd finally nailed those evil bitches.
While I was still a detective in the NYPD, the year before Ed came up with the idea of the Unit, a pair of identical twins took it into their heads to start killing people for fun - and when I say 'identical' I am being absolutely literal. The embryo from which they grew must've split so early that it divided exactly down the middle; each was the functional clone of the other, their DNA identical virtually to the last gene. Normally there would be hundreds of differences, but not in this case.
Which made it impossible to pin DNA evidence on either one of them, because one twin would commit the crime whilst the other, posing as her, made sure she could be seen in public - witnesses, plus CCTV. It was impossible to definitively state that Susie Kingston knifed Manisha Choudhury to death near Van Cortlandt Park when dozens of people saw her dancing half-naked on a table in Chico's Bar on 79th St. at the exact same time. Of course, the NYPD knew that it was Suzie Kingston in Chico's, but we couldn't prove it!
We couldn't positively ID the murder weapon either, because the twins possessed two knives (wiped down with perfectly legal household cleaning products which just happened to destroy all DNA and tissue traces such as, say, the victim's blood) which were as identical as the twins were!
Twins' fingerprints and footprints are usually very similar but still different, but these two were the children of a mother who was slightly disturbed; she wanted them to be identical in every way - and she was rich to boot. She had a Chinese doctor, as unscrupulous as he was skilled, operate on them in utero to alter and match their fingerprints and footprints. The surgery didn't show because foeti possess scaffold proteins which enable them to heal without scarring.
As their mother and the doctor knew.
Result: twins with identical fingerprints and footprints, and no physical traces of the operations whatsoever. It's uncertain how even their mother could tell them apart, yet somehow she always knew, addressing each twin by the correct name (she would emphasise the 'z' in Suzie's name, drawing it out slightly, and soften the second 's' in Susie's, in order to distinguish them), and thus the twins avoided growing up with identity problems. They, at least, knew which was which.
Facial recognition software failed to distinguish them. They'd taken singing lessons to learn how to modulate their voices...so voice print ID failed as well. They were the exact same height and weight, and their vital statistics were identical. Even their EEG readings, a desperate last resort on our part to find something to tell the bitches apart, so closely matched that a medical expert could not state beyond reasonable doubt that this set was Susie's and this was Suzie's.
Never had that phrase, 'beyond reasonable doubt', so utterly pissed us off as it did in this case. But as the twins knew full well, if we charged one with a crime committed by the other, that was by definition a miscarriage of justice. No judge would take that chance. But then the technique of Scanning Electron Microscopy with Wavelength Dispersive Spectroscopy came to the rescue, with a refinement reported in Cop Tech May '26: a new Silicon Drift Detector chip had been developed which greatly improved the scanning resolution.
The NYPD immediately applied for and got a new SEM-WDS scanner, and Forensics analysed the twins' victims' wounds again.
And at last, after months of frustration and eight slaughtered innocents, we got them.
When Manisha was stabbed, in such a way that she took several minutes to die whilst Susie gloated over her suffering and recorded it in HD (sent via encrypted Wi-Fi to a server in the Ukraine, far beyond the NYPD's jurisdiction, to be downloaded later for their mutual enjoyment), the blade nicked one of the poor girl's ribs. The new SEM-WDS scanner detected the tiny metal trace in the bone, where earlier models couldn't - and matched it precisely to Susie's knife.
We did something similar with Suzie's last victim, Jason Roberts. In his case he sustained defensive wounds to his hands, and metallic traces embedded in the intermediate phalange of his left forefinger matched to Suzie's knife. We also used the scanner to analyse hair samples from the twins, and we were finally able to prove that each was where she claimed the other was at the time of each murder. Your hair carries a detailed record of, among other things, where you've been over the last few months.
We proved Susie was not in Chico's as she claimed the night Manisha was slaughtered, and that Suzie was. We proved in similar fashion that Susie, not Suzie, was in the 53rd St. Library as Jason was being stabbed and emasculated (the latter being the COD) near the Chelsea Piers Fitness gym. Once we could charge them, we could and did obtain a warrant to seize the HD recordings and crack the encryption. The recordings make harrowing viewing for any decent human being.
In one respect, and only one, the Terror Twins were not identical:
Susie was worse than Suzie - far more cruel, inflicting wounds that killed much more slowly but certainly, and confessing to intense sexual excitement on watching her victims' death throes. In fact the recording shows her climaxing, her copious sex juices actually trickling down one bare leg, as Manisha gurgled her last, blood spilling from her mouth as she drowned in it. Oh, Suzie enjoyed what she did, to be sure, but not in a sexual sense; her kick, primarily, was the victims' fear more than their pain. But for Susie it was all about the blood, the suffering - and the death.
She further increased Manisha's torment, and hence her own cruel pleasure, by idly wondering if Parvati, Manisha's own twin, "can feel your pain right now? Did she feel my knife slowly sliding into your body and piercing your lower lung? Did she feel that delicious little twist as I pulled it out, to make the most of the serrated edge? Does she know what's been done to you, that you're slowly...ohh, so slowly...drowning in your own blood?
"Surely you've heard the stories about psychic links between twins? Don't you know that's why I chose you for killing? Actually, no, to be more accurate a nickel made the choice - if it'd come up tails, Parvati would be slowly dying instead of you. Should I make sure," she twisted the knife further, "to let her know that, by text from your phone...once you've, ooh, died in agony? I might just tell the bitch it could've been her, ooh...
"I wonder...will she even feel your death, when it happens? Mmm, I do hope so," she gloated, licking her lips and shuddering in a sexual paroxysm, touching her own rock-hard nipples. "Ohh, I am so wet right now without even touching my clit, my tiny panties are soaked; I'm flowing, dripping, look." She giggled, an evil sound, as Manisha choked anew, her eyes pleading for mercy whilst knowing too well there was none to be had from this evil creature. "Maybe she'll die, too, huh? You never know..."
Sexual arousal is a surprisingly common reaction to one's first encounter with violent death. In itself this is just a reflex, and nothing to be ashamed of...as long as you don't get hooked on it. It's believed the twins did just that when they were twelve and witnessed a woman being hit by a car. The drunk driver spun off the road and crashed, killed instantly; the woman he'd hit lived for about six minutes as her intestines slowly slid out of her ripped belly and her lungs filled with blood, doubtless pleading for the twins to fetch help.
They did...after she'd died screaming. The officer attending stated in his report that there was something about those two that made him 'uneasy'. It might've been that they seemed more excited than horrified. The girls claimed they'd arrived at the scene too late to help, but, he said, "Somehow...I don't believe that. God help me, they're just kids, but I don't believe them." But of course no-one could prove anything one way or the other, and so no-one pursued it further. Had they received proper counselling, rather than just being sent by their Jesuit parents to the local priest who spent an hour talking about God's will, things might've been different once they grew up.
Yeah, yeah, coulda woulda shoulda, and all that.
It's no excuse for what they did, and still less for what they were planning to do. Expert witnesses proved neither twin was insane or mentally disturbed (unlike their mother, whose aberration worsened through their childhood, turning into insanity when they were fourteen; they were taken into care after she killed her husband in a fit of rage and was committed) and therefore not responsible for their actions. Oh, no. They knew exactly what they were doing and that it was wrong...they just didn't care. They were unhinged, amoral, caring only for their own pleasure and enjoying the suffering of their victims.
No-one could account for how they got that way, given that they apparently had not inherited their mother's aberration; enjoying horror movies was one thing, but making your own, for real, was quite another.
To our horror, Susie had described in gloating detail to Manisha exactly how she would die, how long it would take...and how much it would hurt. Worse, she took further pleasure in telling the dying girl (she was just 18, for God's sake) that in order to increase the thrill for them, they intended to start killing schoolchildren in similar sadistic fashion, knifing lungs, perforating intestines, slitting throats...perhaps they might even, she suggested with an evil smile, force their parents to watch before murdering them in the same way.
This pushed Judge Surillo past his limits of tolerance and had the entire court screaming in outrage. A rookie cop lost it, drew his gun and pleaded with the Judge to let him shoot them there and then, saying he would gladly accept due punishment so long as they 'died as they deserved'.
"I'm sorry, son," the Judge said gently, "but that's my call to make, not yours, and the State of New York does not support capital punishment; in fact it ceased to do so before you were born. Please holster your weapon; I won't have vigilante justice in my courtroom - or anywhere in this State. I understand why, I truly do, but this is why we have courts. Bailiff?" He was gently disarmed and led out.
He was forgiven this understandable excess, receiving only a reprimand, because he was just 18 and his girlfriend of the same age had recently borne an unplanned daughter by him (unexpected interaction between medication and the Pill), and they were both very happy about it despite it being unexpected. A young father like him, decent and gentle, could easily be affected negatively by the prospect of someone being so evil as to want to hurt children for their own sadistic pleasure.
Captain Trent Parks, the CO of his precinct, also had kids, and could see where the rookie was coming from. "I totally get it, son. Hell, at your age - and yeah, I was a father at your age, too - I'd have likely done the same. I can't totally let it go, but you don't deserve more than a minor reprimand for doing nothing more than showing you're a decent compassionate human being, dammit. It's not as though you actually fired, is it? Nah. Six-month minor reprimand, firearms safety refresher course - IA insisted on that, gotta cross all the t's and so on - and a little counselling. Okay, son?"
Harvey Williams readily agreed. He kept his nose clean, the reprimand was duly wiped from his record after six months - and he now serves in my Unit as our Quartermaster for equipment and weapons. He's doing a terrific job - and now has two kids, with a third (another girl; his second is a boy) on the way. He's a good cop, and happy with his life - he deserves it.
The Twins both went down for life meaning life...in separate prisons. The ACLU kvetched that separating identical twins was cruel and unusual punishment (which is, quite rightly, forbidden by the Eighth Amendment), but Judge Surillo said coldly, "Tell that to Manisha's twin sister Parvati. How cruel, pray tell, is her punishment, to know she will never see her sister again because she was foully murdered for no other reason than pure sadistic pleasure? Does Parvati deserve it? Did Manisha? I think not!
"Let them rot, separately, in jail; let them never see each other again. Let us therefore mete out poetic justice at least. These are clearly evil, warped individuals who by their own recorded testimony present a clear and present danger to the public...particularly children. All possibility of parole or release for either is hereby denied. They should die in prison. Take them away."
Cop Tech is a bloody useful publication, lemme tell ya.
I wish we could call it a victory. But there was a tragic, brutal sequel: during the trial, Counsel for the Prosecution made the terrible mistake at one point of allowing Susie to speak for just that little bit too long...her Constitutional rights notwithstanding. She was given the opportunity to tell the Court - and therefore Parvati - that she'd made the choice as to which twin to slaughter in her diabolical 'experiment' by a simple coin toss. In other words, she screamed, gloating as she did, "it could've been you with my knife in your lung, bitch! It's too late to shut me up!" she cried with glee as the Judge, incandescent with rage, ordered her immediate removal from the Court. "Now she has to live with that!"
She was still laughing - and, the crying bailiff later reported, climaxing, he was sure he could smell her arousal - as he dragged her away.
But worse was to come a month after the trial was concluded. Parvati found her loss too profound to deal with despite the best efforts of counsellors; the note found later made it clear Susie's last sadistic act had contributed directly to her despair...exactly as the worst Terror Twin had intended. Susie had practically predicted Parvati's reaction.
She went to a gun store and bought a perfectly legal pump-action 12-gauge shotgun. She walked to the door, illegally loaded a single shell and, to the storekeeper's shock, cocked the gun. Her last words, before the horrified man could reach and stop her - he realised too late that her intent was suicide and not robbery, and thus he was a crucial two seconds too slow to react - were "Forgive me, Manisha. I am weak and cannot live without you."
The 12-gauge round did its job, and Parvati's tragic young life ended in an explosion of blood, brain and bone. It was no comfort to the NYPD that the coroner's verdict was 'instant painless death'.
Parvati was dead. We'd failed her. That, to us, was the bottom line.
But back to our current case...
"Normally you'd be quite right, but not in this case. SEM-WDS found nothing metallic in any of the wounds, certainly none of the metals typically used in making blades. Not so much as a single bloody atom. It seems impossible, I know, and I did thoroughly check the scanner, but there's no mistake."
"A non-metallic blade, then," I ventured, "maybe one of those fractal porcelain blades the Russians are allegedly experimenting with."
"There's nothing 'alleged' about them," she dissented, "Interpol recovered one last year from a Russian Mafia hit; I've seen analyses. But you'd never get results like this; applying as much force as was used here would shatter the edge of a blade like that, and I would've found fragments. Such blades are fragile and hence can only be used to make subtle cuts - they were originally designed for surgery, but they're often used in assassinations." She shook her head. "No, Commander, that's not the way of it.
"The only possible answer I can suggest is a monomolecular edge...but I can't imagine how you could apply such force more than once, maybe twice, before ruining the edge - especially when you're cutting through human bone. A ruined edge would definitely leave a few traces, even from a monomolecular blade. But there aren't any."
I looked thoughtful. "Couldn't be TiCrIr, could it?" I asked, referring to a remarkable and very, very tough alloy R & D had recently developed.
Jocelyn shook her head. "Even that would leave traces for precisely the reasons you so astutely named, and anyway our R & D boys are the only people in the world who can even make the damn stuff." She looked despondent. "For the first time in my twelve years as a forensic expert I am totally baffled, Commander. Nothing about this case makes any sense whatsoever."
I had to agree.
Then something else occurred to me:
Other than backhanding her, the killer hadn't touched Candy. Or the six girls. That made even less sense; why leave witnesses?
Okay, none of the witnesses had actually seen all that much, not even Candy, but still...
Look, I'm not one to blow my own trumpet. But one reason I was given command of the Unit is that every now and again I get a...feeling. Call it instinct or intuition, call it just whatever makes a good cop, call it psychic powers even - whatever you like. Whatever it is, it's helped me crack case after case, even a couple which seemed unsolvable. I've learned never to ignore it. This time it was telling me, in no uncertain terms:
WE ARE MISSING SOMETHING.
Commissioner's office
An hour later
Ed Callaghan was scrolling through the PDF reports on his tablet as I entered. He didn't look happy, and I knew why.
I sat, and waited for the sort of tirade I was used to from commissioners whenever an op went wrong. But he surprised me by simply asking calmly, "Okay, did anyone slip up?"
"Not as far as I can see," I answered. "I reconstructed the scene from helmet cams and the coverage looks solid. We had the entire building covered, every way in or out, above and below."
"And yet someone, somehow, got past them," Ed observed, but not in an accusatory tone. He seemed remarkably willing to believe this wasn't our fault...but I didn't dare take that for granted until I knew we were in the clear.
"There was no way we could've anticipated anyone's use of stealth tech," I pointed out, "especially not at that level of sophistication. As far as I'm aware, whatever this guy has it's beyond state-of-the-art."
"And you're sure there was only one?"
He still isn't accusing us, I thought curiously. I thought we'd have had the DA or even IA up our asses by now. Unless...is there something else going on here...?
But I was sure, at least, of my answer to that question. "More than one, we'd have definitely picked them up," I stated definitively, "even with that tech. Team Three picked up just one movement source. Siemens MT scanners, we've discovered via...um, research...are known to act up a bit in hot weather -"
Ed actually grinned. "February issue of Cop Tech? Yes, I read it, too. I've passed your request for the newer model upstairs, and you should get it by Thursday."
"Thanks. - but they aren't so bad they can't pick up multiple signals," I went on. "No, there was definitely just one kook."
Ed looked up from the tablet. "And from what Jocelyn reported," he noted soberly, "one was more than enough." He shook his head. "From anyone else I would've dismissed that forensics report as contradictory and utterly impossible, but from Jocelyn Barton? Not so easy to discount. Her graduation thesis on differentiation between different blade wound types is still required reading at the Academy. It was a brilliant piece of work."
I nodded. "I know." And she was only 21 when she wrote it.
Ed frowned. "So who exactly are we dealing with here? Some tech ninja with a vendetta? Or some bored rich kid trying to be Judge Dredd or an anti-Batman?"
"I'm not sure," I admitted. "But to be honest, the biggest mystery here is Candy." At his raised eyebrow I elaborated, "Why isn't she dead? The most he did was backhand her, that's what the bruise pattern on her mouth suggests. But he didn't kill her, and he didn't even touch the six girls. Why not?!"
"Well, we know he didn't hesitate to murder Tereshkova," Ed noted, "so it's got nothing to do with the usual cultural inhibition against striking women. Unless he just thought they weren't worth killing because they were no real threat to him," he suggested.
It was at that moment I had a...feeling. Somehow I knew Ed had part of the answer there, but only part. "Surely, though, he wouldn't want to leave witnesses?"
"You wouldn't have thought so, no," Ed conceded pensively. "We don't have any similar cases on file at the moment, do we?"
"No, thankfully, and neither do the Blues," I confirmed.
"Serial killer?" Ed ventured. "Like the Terror Twins?"
I found a grin somewhere. "Now we're reaching, aren't we?"
He chuckled briefly. Now, I knew, we were getting down to it.
Ed straightened up in his chair, and I inquired quietly, "Okay, just how much trouble are we in?"
He sighed. "Not trouble as such, but we are going to come under enormous pressure and scrutiny. The Unit is a tremendous gamble, as we both know; nothing like it has ever been created before. Of course the powers that be do understand there are bound to be teething troubles, a learning curve, and so they are prepared to cut us some slack, Kelly...but I don't know how much, or for how long. I'm meeting with the DA and Blake Conover -" the IA rep, "- in the morning to discuss our next move."
"Our 'next move'," I protested, "has to be finding and nailing this maniac! Ideally before he does anything like this again! In fact," a thought occurred to me, "isn't Luigi Bernalli's birthday coming up? What do you want to bet he'll show up there?"
Luigi Bernalli was a major pain in our asses. On the one hand he was a Mob boss, running all the usual Mob shenanigans. On the other, he paid (some) taxes, contributed to a children's shelter - he'd even sourced close to half a million surgical masks at the height of that Covid-19 crap, and the fatality figures in New York could've been a lot higher without his aid. Plus he was less disposed towards violence and murder than most Mafioso - hardly clean, but he was far from being the worst.
What can you do?
His birthday parties tended to be a cover (we were pretty sure but hadn't yet been able to prove) for brokering illicit deals, as well as being lavish shindigs often attended by perfectly legit movers and shakers.
And their kids. There were always lots of kids at Luigi's birthday parties. Cynics maintained this was just for them to serve as cover, but I didn't agree - he seemed to genuinely like kids and had four of his own. The thought of armed police trying to make arrests in such an environment was enough to give any self-respecting cop nightmares. All it would take, especially in these days of Facebook, Twitter and the like, would be just one kid getting hurt by a stray shot...brr.
Then again, the Unit specialised in non-lethalweaponry - last time Luigi threw a party the Unit didn't exist even as a concept, but now...hmm.
"So what do you intend to do - warn him?" Ed jokingly suggested.
I was about to deliver an angry retort - but then the thought occurred: Well, why not? If this creep's taking it upon himself to fight organised crime and he's prepared to kill, maybe Luigi and I can declare a case of mutual self-interest and help each other out...
So I replied: "Yeah. That's exactly what I'm gonna do!"
I did say earlier that I had a feeling we were missing something, didn't I?
Well, I was right - but in the wrong way. It was more a question of one of our basic assumptions being wildly off the mark. I had thought the initial hit implied that this was about organised crime.
I couldn't have been more wrong if I'd tried.
Though admittedly no-one could possibly have predicted how far out in left field this case was going to go, into weird and scary territory no simple cop on the beat could possibly have envisaged, I doubt I'll ever forgive myself for the worst mistake I ever made.
The Bernalli Penthouse, Manhattan
Next morning
Bernalli was just finishing a good breakfast with his wife and daughter when Tony Cristo, his bodyguard, came up to him and said, "Hey, Boss, we got a cop downstairs, says he needs to talk to you." Cristo frowned. "That's how he said it, Boss: needs to talk to you."
Finishing his glass of freshly squeezed orange juice (he wasn't no health freak, but his wife insisted he eat and drink sensibly - plus he happened to like orange juice), Bernalli inquired offhandedly, "He got a warrant?"
"No, Boss, but here's where it gets weird: we checked him out, and he's got nothin' - no locator, not even a phone. Hell, he ain't even packin'."
It was Bernalli's turn to frown. No cop was that stupid. Unless somethin' was goin' down and the cops were tryin' to get an angle. They'd been tryin' to pin stuff on him for years. This wasn't the cops' usual style.
Unless, it suddenly occurred to him, this wasn't the usual kind of cop...
The Unit?
If they were takin' an interest in him, that was a whole different ball o' wax. But who would have the balls to come alone, and unarmed, even if he was a Unit cop?
But one would, he knew. McAllister. Gotta be.
"Send him up," he decided.
Cristo's look of surprise lasted only a moment. You didn't argue with the Boss. "You got it, Boss."
When Cristo (prime suspect in multiple crimes including murder, but he was almost as slippery as his boss when it came to proving anything) showed me in, I took a moment to admire the penthouse's décor. Lavish without being showy, tasteful artworks and a statue or two - one of his grandfather, I think. You'd expect a Mafia boss to have the money for such, but unusually Bernalli wasn't flaunting his wealth. "Mr. Bernalli," I greeted him as I sat.
"Mmm. McAllister, isn't it? Commander?" he graciously corrected, smiling.
I relaxed. As I'd hoped, Bernalli had correctly interpreted my deliberately calculated bravado of entering his presence unarmed and with neither locator beacon nor covert surveillance equipment (Candy and Ed had both tried futilely to talk me out of it, but it was vital that I build up a level of trust right from the start in dealing with this man). He'd realised a cop would never take such a risk without a damn good reason, so now he was intrigued. The groundwork was laid.
"That's right," I confirmed, "New York Tactical Operations Unit."
"Yeah, the latest attempt by the forces of law and order to make things difficult for me and mine," Bernalli grinned.
"Well, that's the general idea," I grinned back, taking another calculated risk by cracking a joke.
He took it in good spirits as I'd hoped, laughing. He wasn't to know I was utilising Unit-devised psychological analysis techniques to feel him out more thoroughly than he or any other crook, however high-class, could suspect. Oh, sure, he knew I was taking his measure, as of course he was doing with me, but he had no idea just how deeply I was going...and there was no way in hell he was getting anything significant from me.
"So," Bernalli sobered, "cards on the table. You're not here to try to arrest me. You're too smart for that 'this is my city, scumbag' macho crap. You're a busy man and, hey, so am I. So what's this about, huh?"
"You're smart, too," I observed matter-of-factly, with no intention of flattering him, "what do you think it is?"
"I think...you're cuttin' some kinda deal with me," he ventured, "mutual back-scratching. I lay off on certain, shall we say, activities, an' you and your boys cut me a little slack here an' there." He shrugged. "I can live with that. Wouldn't be the first time I've made deals with the cops."
"Though you are not, of course, confessing to any such thing," I observed dryly, "since that in itself would be a felony - albeit one I couldn't prove, as this conversation isn't being recorded."
He glanced at Cristo and chuckled. "Tony, I like this guy."
"Laugh a minute, Boss," the hood dutifully agreed.
Now to go for it. "Shrewd guess, but completely wide of the mark. Actually I'm here to warn you."
Bernalli sobered abruptly. But again he was shrewd; he correctly guessed I didn't mean I was warning him specifically about some impending operation against him. "About what?"
"I don't believe for a moment you haven't heard about what went down last night," I answered quietly, "but I doubt you know any significant details. We don't have much on the attacker, but he seems to have a serious grudge against organised crime. You are - allegedly -" I tactfully added, "a Mafioso, so I wouldn't be surprised if he came after you next."
"I had nothing to do with any deals which might have been going down," he automatically denied.
But I shook my head. "I already know that - otherwise, believe me, I would have come with a warrant. And a strike team. But you're not even a suspect." I couldn't help the snort of bitterness. "All our suspects for that deal are in the morgue, dammit. No, what I mean is: your birthday's two days away, isn't it?"
Bernalli grinned again. "Yeah, the big five-oh, can you believe it?"
"Well, I'll admit you don't look it," I wryly conceded. Then I faced him and assumed a deadly serious mien. It was vital he took me seriously. "Your parties are always well-attended, often by civilians." I paused. "And children." Now he was getting it; the look in his eyes was turning to worry, which was exactly what I needed. "Ask yourself if you want kids to look like this..."
I reached into my inside pocket; Cristo reacted exactly as I'd anticipated, assuming with the typical Mafia mindset I was going for a weapon...forgetting he'd already scanned me at the door. Bernalli tutted and chided, "Tony, Tony, chill already. He ain't packin', you scanned him yourself. Give New York's finest, and newest, more credit for sense, huh?" He smiled. "This man is not so stupid as to pull a gun with a bodyguard watchin' his every move."
Cristo hurriedly halted the movement of his hand towards the .38 snubnose I knew was his weapon of choice in the shoulder holster. Not that it would've been any use against my ArmorLite™ uniform, of course, but it was vital that this go just so, and Cristo's attack of sense was a relief. "Sorry, Boss, force of habit. No offence," he added, to me.
"None taken," I returned evenly. He was just doing his job, so I wasn't going to hold that against him. "I have some crime scene holographs here...uh, I'm not sure your wife and daughter should look," I added tactfully. "To say they're graphic is putting it mildly."
Bernalli didn't hesitate. "Sweetheart," he addressed Francesca, his wife, "didn't you say you had shopping to do?"
"Si, mi amore," she agreed in Italian. "I thought I'd take Maria to the new mall, pick out her outfit for the party."
"Suona bene," he nodded, "but not so many frills this time, huh? Last birthday she looked like she'd stepped off a Gone With The Wind movie set."
"Oh, idiota," Francesca laughed, swatting him, and Maria giggled, "that was the idea! Mama always said you didn't have the first clue about women!"
"You see what I put up with, Commander?" Bernalli sighed resignedly. "No respect from my own wife. Go, woman, go, before I forget how much I love you."
"Bel salvataggio, tesoro," she answered warmly, kissing him. He chuckled and kissed his daughter's cheek, hugging her, and the two left, accompanied by a female bodyguard at a discreet distance.
Once the doors closed, I took out the holographs of Tereshkova, Tomosawa - and Mr. Missing, who'd been found two floors up in an unoccupied apartment early that morning by a now-traumatised cleaner. The fact that Piotr Vaslovik was missing practically all his blood, most of his soft organs and a large portion of his muscle tissue, suggesting he'd been partly eaten, hadn't exactly helped her state of mind. "Ask yourself if you want to see your wife like these...or your daughter," I emphasised.
Few things are more important to a Mafioso than his family. I could immediately see that Bernalli was indeed picturing it...and didn't like the idea at all. Cristo crossed himself, uttering a Hail Mary under his breath.
"And you are suggesting," Bernalli said quietly, "that this man would do such a thing to my family? Why? There were kids there, weren't there, and he never touched them!"
"We can't take that as any guarantee of his future behaviour," I pointed out as quietly, "because as yet we haven't a clue who he is. I'm assuming the worst and I strongly advise you to do the same. For their sake if not your own."
Bernalli took only a moment to weigh his options. No-one could accuse him of being indecisive. "Okay, how do you want to work it?"
"I insert my people, in civvies, into the party - if anyone asks, they're friends of yours from out of town. Most of your people wouldn't recognise most of mine anyway; we deliberately keep low profiles."
"Smart," he approved.
"They'll be issued with non-lethal weapons, and I can supply same to your people. My most experienced and coolest heads will be packing, just in case; for you, I guess that means Tony here. You and your family will be shadowed by my very best officers, as unobtrusively as we can manage. We'll maintain constant surveillance around the entire building - if anything larger than a rat moves, we'll know." I paused. "There is one thing I have to insist on: if anything does start, I am in command. That part is not negotiable."
He regarded me silently for a moment, but I could not give ground on that point. Bernalli and his men were essentially civilians, untrained for this, whereas we were trained and experienced police officers. If this killer showed up it could make all the difference.
"One question, police officer: why do you care about my family? They are nothing to you."
I took no offence at that, because I knew he only meant that I didn't know them personally and owed them nothing. Fair enough. But the answer I gave him was the same answer any cop would give. "Mr. Bernalli, whatever you and yours are alleged to have done, you are citizens of New York -"
"Born and bred," he proudly remarked.
"- and as such, you are subject to the laws of this city and of this state. However, since a suspect is innocent until proven guilty, this means you also come under the protection of the law - and I, as a police officer, am obliged to provide that protection. As for your family, they are by definition innocent - and like RoboCop, we are charged with: serving the public trust; protecting the innocent; upholding the law. In doing this for you I am abiding by all three principles of law enforcement." I held his gaze. "It is that simple."
He nodded slowly. "A cop through and through," he noted softly - and, I knew, with respect. "New tech, but old school."
"The methods and tech have changed," I agreed, "but the basic principles have not, and will not. Not on my watch." I stood. "My liaison officer, Roger Johnson, will be in touch within the hour to start making arrangements."
Bernalli frowned. "Does he have my number?"
I grinned, knowing the Unit's skills in such matters - all done legally, too. "Not yet."
In a remarkably short time the whole thing was set up. Full marks to Bernalli's people - say what you like about the (alleged, alleged, I know!) Mafia, but they know how to get things done. The performance of my people, of course, goes without saying.
The guest list gave me pause for thought because one or two people I'd expected to be there weren't coming, namely a lawyer we'd been keeping an eye on and the local construction union head. It could only be because we would be there; any shady deals weren't happening at this party.
Hell with it, I decided pragmatically; we could deal with them another time. Covering the party was far more important.
The only doubter was Ed; as we were finalising details, he asked, "Are you sure about this?"
"No," I admitted, "but it seems reasonable, doesn't it?"
"Mmm," he conceded, and left me to it.
The Bernalli Penthouse
Two nights later
It started quietly, as I'd expected it to. After going over the sting footage again and again, we'd reached the conclusion that the killer had waited until the last possible moment to strike. It seemed as if he'd deliberately tried to make things difficult for himself. So I was expecting the hit to come sometime after 11.
The buffet was terrific (yes, we did indulge in the odd nibble, and Bernalli didn't say a word - besides, his wife invited us and it would've been rude to refuse a lady's invitation, wouldn't it?), and there were lots of party games for the kids, all of whom were having a wonderful time. Candy, who liked kids, even joined in to cement her cover, and I swear she was enjoying herself as much as they were.
But make no mistake, she was keeping a keen eye on things. She's a consummate professional.
At 10:30 I quietly polled my people. None of them reported anything out of the ordinary. About the only event of note was catching a junior Mafioso, Bernalli's youngest nephew, getting it on in a back room with a secretary. And who should catch 'em at it but Jocelyn of all people?
She didn't try to stop them. She just grinned and motioned them to continue; the girl grinned in return and finished stripping, clearly excited by the idea of being caught at it. Tino sighed and surrendered to the inevitable.
Jocelyn wouldn't tell us whether or not she joined in. I suspect she did. I know her.
But as for our tech ninja, vigilante or whatever the hell he was, there was no sign. I drifted over to the bar, where Bernalli was talking to a group of relatives; he glanced my way and asked, "What's shakin', pal?"
"Nothing so far," I admitted, "I'm starting to get worried. What am I missing?"
"Well, most of the kids will be goin' to bed in about an hour," he noted, "and their parents, too. Fewer targets."
That was true, but I still wasn't reassured. It's a measure of my nervousness and uncertainty that the wild idea crossed my mind that the SOB might already be inside, but after a moment I dismissed the idea as nonsense. We'd been watching the entire building for over a day, and no-one had gone in or out who wasn't supposed to or who was unexpected.
Certainly no-one packing plasma artillery (Jocelyn's best guess as to how Gusev got toasted, though such ordnance surely wasn't available outside the military) or a stealth shield.
But if he isn't here, I wondered worriedly, then where the fuck is he?
Less than twelve minutes later I found out.
Broadway Tunnel, between Columbus Circle and 72nd St.
10:33 p.m.
Young Blood had detected the ooman transportation system - primitive but, he had to admit, efficient and effective. Gaining access and hiding in a tunnel, clinging to its roof, was not difficult.
It was vulnerable to attacks from above. The boxy contrivance he detected approaching at speed was fashioned of some thin metal alloy of the element hui'ths, known to be common on many worlds including this one; it would afford little protection from him. It contained many oomans - and all but a few registered on the mask scan as ssk'dei. Therefore they were legitimate targets by the rules of the Hunt.
And in such tight quarters, with the shiftsuit to aid him, they would be forced to fight or die.
They would still die, of course. But their deaths would provide honourable trophies.
As the metal box flashed under him, he judged the precise moment - and leapt.
What happened next we pieced together from the eyewitness accounts of the three survivors in the two carriages that were attacked.
Three. Out of thirty.
Marie Simpson - a name Streetcat never used any more, and, hell, why should she use the name of an abusive father who, drunk, tried to rape her on the day she first got her period just 'cause she "smelled real good", or the first name her whore of a "mother" gave her? - was just hangin' with her fellow gang members, the Bloods. Just for once, they weren't lookin' for trouble; the Metro was a quick way to get to Van Cortlandt Park on 242nd St. where they could meet up with Jerry the Fixer for a little score. Maybe she could get laid, if Bobby was there. He was cute and he'd had her real good last time.
She could feel herself gettin' wet already.
But they never made it, because Young Blood had other ideas.
There was a terrific crash and a screech of metal being rent apart by some incredible force. Everyone looked around, startled; it sounded as if the train had, impossibly, hit something. But as Streetcat glanced out of the window she saw they were still movin', they'd just passed the Columbus Circle stop.
Then the lights went out. A middle-aged passenger decided to be prudent and reach for the emergency alarm, as was only sensible...
Young Blood's mandibles clacked in annoyance as he saw this and realised what would happen. He didn't want the box to stop!
If matters are not as you wish them to be, Swift Kill once chided his student, do not waste time complaining! Instead, change them until they are to your liking!
So he did.
...but before he could pull it, something metallic spun through the air and his head leapt from his shoulders, the severed neck spraying blood everywhere. His corpse collapsed, to shocked screams from the horrified witnesses. But Charlie Adams was only the first of the Columbus Twenty-Seven, as they later came to be known. A nondescript man next to him pulled a .38 in a panic and started shooting randomly - and died abruptly as the tips of two serrated knives or swords exploded out of his chest.
Out of thin air, as far as anyone could see.
Streetcat was still working her way up in the Bloods, which was why she still wasn't allowed to carry yet, but although no-one knew it including herself, she had a natural talent for leadership. She now proved this by instantly and correctly evaluating the situation, realising a crowded train carriage where everyone was tooled-up (if they had any sense at all) was no place for a fight, and screaming to the Bloods, "GET OUT! GET THE FUCK OUT! MOVE UP THE TRAIN!"
"'Cat, what the fuck is it -?" No Change (so-called because he had a phobia of coins and never, never carried loose change) attempted, fumbling for his 9mm Browning.
"Who the fuck CARES?!" she cried, pushing Bloods ahead of her. Evacuating the carriage was of course the correct and wise thing to do.
Except that they were unknowingly heading towards Young Blood, which suited him just fine. No Change was next to die, choking on his own blood as something sliced through his neck, showering Streetcat with it. She shrieked and instinctively reversed direction, again proving her wisdom as a leader. They almost made it through the screaming crowd before Billy the Knife bought it.
He was only nine, but with street smarts belying his years. He instinctively knew the Bloods would never make it out alive unless their retreat was covered. So he drew the 10-inch butcher knife for which he was named, turned and slashed wildly behind them.
Young Blood was impressed. He knew from the ooman's diminutive stature that it was a youngling, but clearly it had been well schooled in combat by its sire, and it was bravely covering its tribe's sensible retreat - and with only a blade. That was rare courage and selflessness indeed. Any yautja would have done the same for his mate, and younglings too if they were not of age. To honour this, he delivered the killing blow in such a way that the small ooman warrior would die instantly and without pain.
He did.
Streetcat saw it, saw Billy go down in a fresh explosion of blood and gore, and sobbed as she very rarely had since leaving her so-called home. "Bloods, get OUT!" she begged, pushing harder. Finally they were able to push through the door into the next carriage; one of its occupants had belatedly realised something was terribly wrong and had pulled the emergency alarm. As the screech of the brakes drowned out every other sound, Streetcat dared to look back.
Every sound except two, that is:
The wet, meaty sound of Billy's spinal column and skull being ripped out;
Young Blood's literally unearthly scream of triumph.
As she looked Billy's blood-covered skull right in its now-empty eyes, the most horrifying thing she'd ever seen, she reached the utter limit of what she could take and fainted dead away.
This was a mercy, for she was spared the horror of the rest of Young Blood's exultant killing spree and taking of trophies. None of the other Bloods survived, nor did all but two of the commuters in the next carriage. The others were indeed heeled, showing sense in Streetcat's reckoning, and fired wildly, blindly, with no idea of what they were shooting at - and of course it did them no good whatsoever.
When he'd finished taking trophies, Young Blood thoughtfully regarded the young - female, he saw - ooman, clearly the leader of her tribe, who'd done her best to herd them to safety. He knew she was female from her scent, the obvious milk glands and the quality of her leadership, plus the bone cradle which held her legs was definitely that of the child-bearing ooman gender, too wide for a male. Having taken one the other night, he knew full well how they were shaped.
Strangely, she was not ssk'dei as her fellows were. Perhaps, though, he speculated, that was a sign of her tribal status; she was so highly ranked she didn't need a weapon, commanding instead through sheer force of will. Most female yautja had a similar skill; he was pleased to find a mark of commonality between their peoples. He would report this to Swift Kill and thus further increase his status by demonstrating he'd learned something new of oomans. Swift Kill would be proud; a Hunter who learned from each Hunt was worthy of respect.
She further earned Young Blood's respect when he realised she was already regaining consciousness. He decided on the spur of the moment to briefly disable the shiftsuit and let her see him, Unmasked, as a mark of that respect.
A Hunter who respected the prey was a worthy Hunter. For Swift Kill, Young Blood would be no less.
Streetcat moaned as she fought for and regained consciousness.
And immediately wished she hadn't. She was instantly paralysed, as much by shock and astonishment as by bone-deep terror. She hadn't come so close to wetting herself since she was a very little girl.
Facing her, crouched down only inches away, was...what the fuck was it? It was huge, bigger than Joey DiMaggio who worked for Bernalli as a bouncer over at Chico's Bar on Main St. It had her by the neck; she was utterly helpless in its grip, yet it wasn't tryin' to strangle her, she suddenly understood. No...it was lookin' her over. Its face (?) was - weird. More than anything else it looked like her own pussy, after she'd shaved it bare once at Bobby's saucy request. Who or what the fuck has a pussy for a face, she couldn't help but wonder.
And...why hasn't it killed me, too? Please, God, don't let it kill me, I want to live...please...
Had he been able to speak the ooman tongue, as a few Wise Elders could, he would have told her it was solely because she carried no weapon - and even though she deserved an honourable death at his hands to commemorate her bravery and leadership, and her kh'hli would look splendid on his trophy wall, it was against the Code. Unarmed pyode amedha were never, never killed by Hunters. It was wrong, unworthy, cowardly to do so. The very few Hunters who had behaved so disgracefully, long ago, had had their gonads severed at the very least, to stop the spread of their unworthy seed.
More usually they'd been killed outright, or dropped naked into a nest of kainde amedha as an object - if terminal - lesson.
But it was odd; supposedly the oomans had "evolved" past the custom of forming tribes, yet this one and her fellows all bore the same pattern of decoration on their pallid skin and the same cloth was bound about their heads. What were those if not tribal markings?
Then he mentally shrugged, completely unaware of his cultural misunderstanding. Let the Wise Elders study ooman ways. He was here to Hunt, not to study!
With gladness in his heart he released the ooman, re-engaged the shiftsuit, gathered his trophies and departed unseen.
She was left in the middle of bloodsoaked mutilated corpses, sobbing, unable to understand.
And that's how my horrified team and I found her, clutching what was left of Billy the Knife, after I'd received the frantic call from Frankie, who was alerted by a passenger who'd had the presence of mind to dial not 911 but 999, the Unit's special number (unlike its UK counterpart that number puts the caller directly through to the Unit), and realised the terrible mistake I'd made.
At the party I was just about to call the rounds again when my implanted transceiver squealed 'max alert' from Base. "McAllister. Go."
"Commander, there's something major happened in the subway, just past Columbus Circle! Shots fired, multiple casualties - it sounds like our boy, sir!"
"WHAT?!" I yelled, to the shock of the guests and my team. "Wait one - Luigi, any of your people on the subway right now?"
Bernalli frowned. "Not that I know of."
So Bernalli's people aren't the target..."Base, who's been hit?!"
"Just civilian commuters, sir, plus a number of the Bloods - I'm getting info and holos from first responders now...oh my God! Oh, God, sir, this is - it's horrible!" Frankie burst into tears, clearly too overcome to continue.
For a moment I was paralysed. Then training kicked in. Obviously we - I - had gotten this creep totally wrong. All we could do now was pick up the pieces. "All officers abort! This op is a bust! Pull out and report to the subway, now! Get location info from first responders! Let's go!"
But before I could exit, Bernalli caught my arm with what to this day I am certain was genuine concern on his face. "What's happened?"
"I was wrong," I told him tersely. "He's hit the subway, there are casualties. That's all I know right now."
"Sorry, Commander - an' good luck catchin' this guy."
"I'm sorry to have troubled you," I returned in the same spirit. "My apologies to Francesca. It was a nice party."
Broadway Tunnel, 79th St.
Ten minutes later
"Christ," Duane cursed as we made our way onto the platform, "looks like a war zone!"
I didn't argue. He was right. The first responders had done their usual impeccable job; the corpses were covered by sterile sheets without moving them, so we could uncover them once all civilians had been escorted out, to spare them the trauma, and then record the crime scene. Denny was already accessing the CCTV footage via Wi-Fi, both from the platform and the train itself; as Unit police officers we were legally authorised to do so at crime scenes.
Or slaughterhouses, in this case.
McCann was there, but didn't indulge in the hearty greeting she normally would have as an old friend of the Unit; she made her way over to me and bleakly reported, "Commander, I have never seen anything remotely like this in all my career, not even in the bloodiest of gang or hood warfare, and I served in '97 in L.A. during the heatwave, at that.
"No-one's injured - anyone who didn't make it out of those two carriages is dead." Her professional façade cracked then; tears sparkled in her blue eyes. "We count twenty-seven fatalities, assuming this maniac hasn't taken and eaten anyone - oh, we heard about that, word gets around. Holy Mother of God," she whispered brokenly, "what is this guy's deal?!"
I had no answer for her, shaking my head in baffled horror, numb with the realisation of how badly I'd screwed up. Twenty-seven dead, just like that...
Amelia Young, an EMT with five years' service, was having trouble with a Blood - I recognised her as Streetcat. She was clutching - oh, dear God, that was Billy the Knife. He'd been split open just like Tomosawa, I saw, still holding his blade even in death. They were both covered in blood.
The EMT, touched by the young girl's fierce devotion to her dead friend and sharing her sorrow at seeing a little boy in such a dreadful state, was near tears, pleading, "Honey, he - he's gone, there's nothing anyone can do for him now. Please, you have to let him go, let us and the police do their job."
"Police," Streetcat spat in a voice far too old and bitter for the kid she really was, "where the fuck were they when the Bloods needed 'em, huh?" She saw me and instantly recognised me from my time in the NYPD. "Where the fuck was your fancy Unit, cop?! Protectin' some fuckin' hood -"
(Now how the hell did she know about that? I couldn't help but wonder with admiration, even in the face of this horror.)
"- while my peeps were bein' cut to pieces! Do you SEE this?" She furiously gestured towards Billy's pathetic remains, angry tears in her eyes which she refused to shed in front of adults. "Do you see what that FUCKER did to Billy? He was just tryin' to...he...oh, God..."
I knew Marie Simpson's case too well. It was one of those things that shouldn't happen in this day and age, but does nonetheless. She'd fallen through the cracks in Child Services (overworked, understaffed and unappreciated as always) when she was just short of thirteen, an age when her biggest worry should've been whether her boobs were going to grow or whether some boy liked her as much as she liked him. Fate had dealt her a busted flush...she'd run away from a useless mother and a would-be rapist of a father.
The courts had removed Marie from their custody once her case was brought to their attention by a brave teacher, correctly judging them to be totally unfit parents, but before she could be put up for adoption she'd run away - streetwise even then - and was taken in by the Bloods. A social worker did find her, but she scornfully refused all entreaties to return to the system, saying, "The Bloods are a way better deal, buddy, so take a hike while you still can!"
They just had her running errands at first, passing messages and acting as a courier, letting her gradually work her way up in what passed for a hierarchy in a street gang. Strictly speaking, they should have been called the 'New Bloods' or something like that, as they had little or nothing to do with the 'true' Bloods, i.e. the United Blood Nation - these kids stayed well away from drug dealing...thankfully. Their membership was more diverse; they didn't discriminate. They mostly kept themselves to themselves, holding loose territories.
As gangs went, they were nearly respectable, and mostly law-abiding. The Bloods were an anomaly among such gangs, possessing rigid codes of fairly decent behaviour and a degree of hard sense when it came to being tooled-up. They understood that a weapon could be both protective and risky, and that fooling around with one was a great way to attract police attention - or to get dead. They even knew to check the chamber of a semi-automatic to ensure there wasn't a round in it.
(You'd be amazed by just how many kids all over the world are killed by that same simple, stupid mistake every year. Mind you, it happens to adults as well. There's more to being an adult than just reaching the age of majority or drinking, though too many faux adults don't realise that. It's partly because of such idiots that the police are needed.)
So their policy was never to allow a Blood to carry one until they were sure it would be handled properly, i.e. no using streetlights as target practice, for example, or taking random potshots at passing cars. Weapons were for fighting, for defence of self or your peeps, not jerkin' around. They even had an initiation of sorts in which an up-and-coming Blood was given a weapon and then placed in a situation which could be resolved without one, if proper restraint was shown. If the Blood pulled it off without incident, they got to keep the weapon or pick their own.
If not...well, it was Darwin in action, New York street style.
But she was still only fourteen years old. No fourteen-year-old girl should have to deal with something like this, shouldn't have to live with a gang instead of a loving family...shouldn't have to cradle the body of a slaughtered friend as if she couldn't bear to let him go. But that, sadly, was the reality of life on the streets of New York in 2027. Things are better now - thanks in part to the Unit, I'm proud to say - but back then I took Streetcat's scathing criticism very much to heart.
Because she was right. We'd failed them.
No. I had. Gang or no, the Bloods were as much New York citizens, born and bred, as Bernalli, and just as entitled to the protection of the law - maybe more, as even the oldest of them, Jerry the Fixer, was still only sixteen.
And Billy was the youngest at nine. What the hell was going on in the world when a nine-year-old boy habitually carried a 10-inch butcher knife because he honestly felt he needed to - and, worse, when he was right, to some extent?
It's a hell of a note when a kid can criticise an adult - a cop, even - and be justified in doing so, isn't it?
We had to put it right. Somehow.
I knelt down next to her, gently easing a now-crying Amelia aside, very deliberately not trying to avoid kneeling in the blood. I said quietly, "You know the drill, Blood. Let's talk at the station." I gently stroked a stray lock of Billy's blond - now blood-red - hair back into place, as if it mattered now. I tried not to retch at the thought that his face looked like a deflated balloon. "We'll take care of him, I promise."
"He tried to save us," she intoned dully. She was about to collapse into hysterics and/or despair, and I wanted her at Base before that happened so our counsellors could help her. "He was tryin' to cover our backs."
"Brave lad," I told her, knowing she needed to hear the validation from an adult. "A true Blood to the end."
That last, 'To The End', was a shameless psychological trick I'm not going to apologise for; I knew it was the Bloods' mantra (not that these poorly-educated kids would be likely to know that word), and I could only hope she would respond in kind to this reminder of the Bloods' principles.
Thankfully, she did. "To The End," she whispered, looking at me with something like respect.
"Wanna help us catch the bastard who did this?" I briskly offered. She nodded after only a moment. I couldn't help but admire this little girl's strength, a consummate survivor if ever there was one. She hadn't forgiven me yet for my fuck-up, but I believed it would come. "Then come down, tell us everything you know."
Streetcat hugged Billy one last time, kissed his cheek - ignoring the blood - and swore, "We'll get him, Billy. Blood for Blood, he'll pay." She stood and, pretending nonchalance - because as we both knew the alternative was screaming hysteria - she shrugged and said offhandedly, "Always wanted to see your Base."
"You will," I promised.
New York Tactical Operations Unit Base, Manhattan
Later that night
When we got back, Base was more silent than it had ever been. No-one spoke as we tiredly trudged in. No-one even tried to break the mood. Frankie was still crying, but no-one was gonna pull her up on it because, dammit, we all felt the same way. Never before had we been so overwhelmed by such a crushing sense of utter failure. Not since 9/11 had any of us felt anything like it. I saw the first plane hit, I helped pull those pitifully few survivors out, and I swear to God it didn't feel anywhere near as bad as this did.
This guy clearly had no moral sense whatsoever. Even hardened mercenaries usually hesitate at the prospect of killing kids, even when they're armed. This bastard had done just that with what as far as I could see was relish, if not joy.
Ed came out of his office and gathered me in by eye. I nodded almost by reflex and directed a subtle hand signal to my dispirited team: Go home. Let me deal with him. They didn't even try to argue; Candy, warm-hearted as always, hugged each team member as they left, slightly exceeded her authority by telling Frankie to do the same, and then gently took charge of Streetcat, asking her if she'd like a shower, a meal and a bed for the night. To her relief, the girl wasn't too proud to agree.
Then again, what else was she going to do? Where could she go? Most of the Bloods were dead.
Commissioner's office
"Drink that and forget the damn regs for once," Ed instructed me, handing me a glass of something smooth and probably deadly from his private reserve. I had no idea what it was and less interest, but damn, it was good, sliding down my throat like warm honey. He joined me, sipping.
We both put off speaking for as long as we could bear, but finally Ed sighed, "We got him totally wrong, didn't we?"
"I got him wrong," I demurred bitterly.
Look, I wasn't succumbing to any martyr complex; intellectually I knew no-one could've seen this coming. Based on the available facts our logic had been impeccable and we weren't to blame. But cops don't think that way. We take every needless, accidental or premeditated death in our city personally. We wouldn't be cops if we didn't. Wearing the Badge was and is an honour and a privilege, but as we'd always known, by God it came with a price...which the Unit was now paying.
Ed brooded over his glass for a moment, then looked me hard in the eye. The sheer rage I saw there mirrored my own. "Kelly, I no longer care what the DA, Conover or even Senator Brooks have to say about the Unit or its future. We...are going...to end this, I don't care how. Kids, for God's sake! Find him. Take him down. Do whatever it takes, Commander - I am hereby giving you total discretion in this matter, on my own authority, and the DA and the Mayor can go fuck themselves!
"Personnel, tech, money - you are to consider yourself to have a free hand." His voice rose, which normally it never did - but this case was anything but normal. "Get this maniac off our streets, Commander! That is a DIRECT ORDER!"
This was, I knew, effectively a declaration of war - against both the killer and the bureaucracy. But it was an order I was only too willing to obey, and I knew the rest of the Unit would feel exactly the same. I stood, tossed back the rest of my glass in salute and snarled, "You got it, Chief. HE'S GOIN' DOWN!"
New York Tactical Operations Unit Base, Front Desk
Next morning
Hardly anyone had gotten much sleep, of course. Cops generally don't; worries about whether you've missed this or that piece of 'vital' paperwork (metaphorically, that last, since we do not in fact use paper in the Unit - all documents are electronic in form), wondering what lead to follow up next, concerned about colleagues still on shift...
Oh, you get the picture.
But as soon as everyone had reported in, bright and early as I'd fully expected knowing my team as I did, I took an almost savage pleasure in passing on Ed's order. I received exactly the response I wanted, an impassioned 'Hell, YEAH!' from each and every one of them. We got to work immediately.
We were interrupted by a young and very pretty woman approaching the front desk, manned by a recovered (and needlessly apologetic) Frankie. "Excuse me..." she ventured in a Colorado accent.
From across the room I glanced at her - then something made me look again. Damned if she didn't look familiar somehow...
"Yes, ma'am?" Frankie smiled at her. "Welcome to the New York Tactical Operations Unit. I'm Operator Frankie Sandford, can I help you?"
"Well, I hope so," the woman replied, her voice starting to break. "My name's Violet Davies. I'm looking for my son -"
I'd started to lose interest, but her next words made me stare at her:
"- his name's Billy. He's nine years old."
She was visibly startled to realise the entire room had gone quiet. She wasn't to know why, of course.
Frankie broke the uncomfortable silence by uneasily saying, "Um, forgive me, but you seem a little young to -"
"I was raped when I was twelve," she answered in a tired tone that said she'd explained this far too often before, "but I couldn't bear the thought of abortion...not once my mom told me what that really meant. I'd always thought it meant they just took the baby away, but once she explained...I couldn't. I just couldn't. I wanted to keep him, he was so beautiful, but everyone said I was too young, I was just a kid myself, he'd be better off adopted - you know," she sighed in a world-weary manner.
She took an old-style (i.e. physical) photo from her purse and held it up. "I got this from the people who were supposed to be taking care of him when I 'couldn't'. He was six at the time."
Several cops looked.
Without a doubt, it was Billy the Knife.
I knew I had to intervene. I crossed to her. "Ms. Davies, my name is Kelly McAllister; I'm the Commander of this Unit. If we're talking about the same person - and with all due respect that's still an 'if' - the person in question is...involved...in a case we're working on and so I cannot just accept your unsupported word that you are his mother. A photo isn't proof."
She didn't take offence; she nodded. "I went to the NYPD first once I found out he was in New York, and they told me you'd ask for a DNA sample to prove it. That's fine." A tear trickled down her pale cheek. "Please, I just want to find my little boy. He ran away, he's been missing for nearly two years...I don't even know how he got here..."
"Come with me to Forensics," I offered, "we can do the test there."
Forensics Lab
The result was no surprise. There really was a strong resemblance; the blond hair, the line of the jaw, the eyes - even the quirk at the left side of the mouth. Jocelyn looked up from the DNA analyser and nodded. "99.7% positive, Commander, all 13 alleles match. She's his mom, all right." There was no way Violet could have interpreted the look on Jocelyn's face as she said it; like me, she'd been desperately hoping for a negative result.
Now, of course, we'd have to tell her the horrible truth.
"So do you know where he is?" she asked.
We both hesitated just that little bit too long.
"What - what's wrong? You -" Then she understood. "You don't want to tell me...oh, God, he's dead, isn't he? No...oh, no..." She broke down.
I've always said Jocelyn Barton is full of surprises, but today she totally proved it. She showed a degree of tact and sympathy I honestly would never have expected from her by taking the young woman in her arms. Her glare at me dared me to say anything disparaging, but I was genuinely touched by this rare gesture from her. "Come over here, honey," she gently coaxed, "and sit down."
Violet complied, still sobbing, and Jocelyn did an amazing job of soothing her. She finally gathered her resolve, thanked Jocelyn, looked at me and asked, "What happened to him?"
Dear God, if ever there was a question I didn't want to answer...
But I had to. It was my duty. So I told her everything we knew about Billy's death...except, at first, the mutilation. I prayed fervently she wouldn't ask to see his body (knowing even as I did that that was a futile hope - he was her son, for Chrissake); I even debated lying through my teeth in the name of compassion and telling her he'd been cremated because of a possible biohazard, but no true cop would ever be so cowardly. I couldn't bring myself to do it.
We protect and we serve. Sometimes that means telling people uncomfortable or even awful truths in the name of justice, even things they don't want to or shouldn't hear. Billy deserved the truth, and so did his mother. So when she brokenly asked to see him, I didn't hesitate. But Jocelyn did. "Um, Commander, I'm not sure it's -"
"PLEASE!" Violet cried. "Please, I - I have to see him! I have to know! I came here hoping to regain custody because his adoptive parents had let him run away, so my lawyer was going to argue they were unfit, but now...now I know he's...oh, please let me see him..."
Still Jocelyn hesitated. For a moment I thought I was actually going to have to give her an order, but she sighed and capitulated, crossing reluctantly to the freezers. "He's in here."
One very useful innovation developed by our techs is our SubVoc™ equipment in our collars; it picks up on the slightest throat movements, translates them into speech, interprets said speech via AI and transmits the words to the intended recipient. It's proven terrific in the field for Unit officers in hostile situations to covertly summon aid whilst giving nothing away.
I subvocalised: Trauma Counsellor to Forensics, now. Urgent.
On my way, sir, was the reply from Karen Miller, transmitted directly to my eardrum because she'd received my call in the same manner and thus she knew subvocalisation was required.
Jocelyn unlocked Freezer 9, but before opening it she told Violet, "Ma'am, you need to prepare yourself. What you're about to see is - well, even hardened officers would find it difficult to -"
"Show me," Violet insisted with a newfound resolve. Jocelyn sighed. Her expression said it all: I tried. Don't blame me.
The drawer slid out. Immediately Violet let out a horrified shriek, to our utter lack of surprise - not because this confirmed the truth that he was dead, awful in itself, but more because of the terrible state his assailant had left him in. Her tears started again as she whispered with incredulous horror, "What...what happened? Why is his face all...?"
I steeled myself, then started to tell her the final, terrible truth. "As far as we can determine, he died instantly and without pain -"
"He did," Jocelyn confirmed, "I would swear to that in court. He never felt a thing, Violet."
"How...how can you know that...?"
"Twelve years of forensics field experience," Jocelyn answered confidently. "We can tell a great deal about the effects of a wound by the way it's inflicted. Any pathologist examining the fatal wound would tell you the same: death was instantaneous. He never even felt it," she insisted. "He was dead before he hit the floor."
"Oh."
"- but afterward, the killer...tore out his spinal column and his skull," I finished. "I'm afraid we don't know why. A hoodlum was killed and mutilated in exactly the same way a few nights ago...and we have just as much idea as to why: none. I'm truly sorry, Violet." The door opened and Karen came in; her brief nod to me told me Frankie had briefed her.
That's teamwork. It's why the Unit is unbeatable.
Karen took charge of the sobbing woman, leading her gently away from the sad remains of her son and the death of all her hopes. Jocelyn sighed, sniffing. She seemed near tears herself, another surprise. "God, I hate telling parents their kids are dead."
I said nothing. There was nothing to say.
The sound of the freezer closing sounded very final.
New York Tactical Operations Unit Base, Trauma Counsellor's office
Three hours later
Once again we were engrossed in data processing, and finding it hard going - the facts seemed to keep contradicting each other. I'd never known or even heard of a case like it. Meanwhile, Violet Davies was beginning the long process of accepting her son's death, beginning with her request to take him home to Denver for burial. Now I had to be the one to hesitate, but again Jocelyn surprised me.
"Sir, I'm afraid there's very little more I can learn from Billy's body; if the Commissioner clears it I'll release him to her," she told me.
Violet hesitantly said, "Commander, if it'll help you with the case, help you catch this monster, I'm willing to wait...there's no rush, is there?" she added bleakly, and our hearts broke all over again. We could see where Billy had gotten his bravery from.
But Jocelyn was right; we'd gotten all we could from the poor lad. "Hell, I'll clear it," I decided. "It'll just take an hour or so."
She looked surprised. "So soon?"
I barely smiled. "We've moved on a long way from what you might've seen on CSI or NCIS," I readily informed her, "transitioning to electronic documentation has helped the Unit streamline a lot of routine procedure, and processing e-docs is intrinsically faster anyway. This is basically just exchange of e-mails, evidence documentation and chain-of-custody forms between the Unit and the District Coroner. The part that takes the most time, to be honest, is typing this stuff up."
"Oh," she said, clearly impressed. "Why don't all police departments do their stuff like that?"
"This is a new, essentially experimental police unit," I explained, "a prototype, if you will. Once we've fully proved the concept -"
"And God only knows how long that's going to take," Jocelyn interrupted with tired cynicism.
"- it will be implemented all over the U.S. - and eventually, we hope, all over the world."
"Wow," she breathed. "Good luck." Then she looked hesitant. "Commander, there's one more thing. I know this is a lot to ask, but...I gather there was a survivor from this...gang...Billy was involved in. May I talk to her?"
That caught me on the hop. For some reason I hadn't expected it. "Um, might I ask why? The girl's a vital material witness and that might prejudice the case -"
"She knew him," Violet pleaded, "better than I ever had a chance to. She's my last link to my little boy. Please," she begged.
When you're a cop you have to learn to balance proper legal procedure against human needs and compassion. Sometimes the legal thing isn't the right thing. Procedure demanded I deny the request.
But cops are, first and foremost, human beings.
No-one human could have naysaid such a heartfelt plea. I certainly couldn't. If I had to I would face down the Chief, the DA, the Senator - hell, I'd face down the Goddamn President, if it came to that. On the other hand my point about Streetcat's testimony was still valid. So I agreed, but added, "I have to be present to ensure our case isn't -"
"No, I understand," she nodded, "I just..." She paused, and looked so lost, haunted...alone. "I want to...get to know my son. Even just a little. That's not too much to ask, is it...?"
"No, it's not," I told her firmly. "Just give me a moment first to talk to her, explain things." And to help her prepare for this, I added silently. I had absolutely no idea how she was going to react; one of the many things the Bloods had had in common with each other was that they were united in their disdain (at the very least) for their birth families. Streetcat in particular had good reason to actually hate them - her father, at least. Yet I couldn't deny Violet's plea.
What can you do?
Witness Accommodation Room 1
"His mom?!" Streetcat gasped. "The fuck's she doin' here?!"
I always make a real effort to understand where people like Streetcat are coming from, but this time the contempt I heard in her tone angered me. "She came looking for her son, when the people who adopted him lost track of him!" I snapped. "I know you have no reason to believe this, but some folks really do care about their kids! Dammit, 'Cat, when she fell pregnant with him she was younger than you! He was a fucking rape baby!"
Yeah, I know, I really shouldn't have told her that. It just came out before I could stop it. I was angry with her, dammit.
But it made a difference. There was something I'd forgotten until that moment: another female Blood, with the incongruous street name of Juicy Julie, was raped a year ago at the age of 15, and she too fell pregnant. Local social workers were in a way pleased to hear it because they hoped she would choose to have the child and just possibly might decide to leave gang life behind for the baby's sake. They were prepared to offer her pretty much anything she needed or asked for.
Sadly it didn't work out that way. Julie did indeed decide to accept their offer, but before the paperwork could be completed and she could make the wisest choice of her life, she suffered a miscarriage and lost the boy she was carrying. She was in Jersey Shore University Medical Centre for some six hours of torment, screaming all the while for the frantic doctors to save the baby even if it meant her own life. They failed, and barely managed even to save her.
The NYPD still don't know where the Bloods got the unlicensed Smith & Wesson .357 she used to very thoroughly blow her own head off two nights later in a fit of post-traumatic depression, and they weren't telling, closing ranks even more tightly than usual.
Nor do they know how the Bloods determined who the rapist was, since he raped her from behind, she never even saw his face - and the NYPD were unable to secure any DNA evidence because Julie refused to cooperate, so they couldn't even tell her who he was. But they (or someone) must've done just that, because he later turned up dead in the middle of their turf.
The very first thing a rape victim wants to do, if the rapist lets her live, is to try to wash herself clean inside and out; it's almost instinctive, a need to rid herself of the raw sensation of filth, both physically and symbolically, from the violation she's suffered.
It's also the very worst thing she can do, of course. What she should do is to go immediately to the nearest police station and submit herself for medical examination, to obtain sperm samples and document bruises and other physical trauma.
Yes, I know that's easy for me to say because I'm a man, and all that. I know it isn't that easy - especially the internal exam; most women hate even regular gynaecological exams when it's essential for their health, and I don't blame them. Even when the victim is a female cop and knows the proper procedure inside out, sometimes the police still don't get any admissible evidence because the poor woman quite understandably forgets all that in her trauma and succumbs to that same instinct.
In any other situation you'd expect the victim to report the rape to the police and allow a medical exam, but the Bloods possessed the typical maddening gang reticence when it came to dealing with cops and Julie was no exception. She told them she'd been raped, told them when and where, but that was as far as she was willing to go. To his credit, the captain tried to play it smart by sending only young, female officers into Blood territory to try to reason/plead with her, but she and the Bloods just weren't having it - and after a day or so it was too late anyway.
But when one Ron Mallory, a suspect in a different rape case, turned up dead on the Bloods' turf, subsequent DNA analysis of his corpse turned out to be a match for Julie's dead baby, which proved they'd got the right man (if indeed they were responsible). NYPD Ballistics proved he died by the same weapon...but whoever killed him - and dammit, we don't know it was the Bloods! - showed no mercy to him whatsoever...not that he deserved it. No, they blew his balls off - one at a time - and let him bleed to death.
The gun was never found. I doubt it ever will be. It's never been used in any subsequent crime, at least not in New York.
Was it justice? Again, there's a legal, procedural answer - of course not, there's no place for vigilante 'justice' in modern society - and a human answer: weeeeelll...
"Just like Julie?" she asked in a small voice I'd never heard from her, and it was only then that I remembered the rest.
Streetcat was the only member of the Bloods the hospital security staff would allow entry, and then only because they knew she wasn't armed. I heard she'd held Julie's hand throughout her ordeal, crying, alternating between begging the doctors to help her and threatening them if they didn't. Had Julie not pleaded with them to let Streetcat stay she would've been thrown out.
I don't know if there's any truth to the stories that Streetcat and Julie were lovers and there's no way in hell I'm ever going to ask her, but they were certainly closer than sisters and, frankly, I could well believe it. From their past experiences neither had any reason to trust men, so why not? You take love wherever you can find it, I always say.
(As a cop, I suppose it's true that Julie and Streetcat had no business having sex as they were both under 17, and New York doesn't have a 'Romeo & Juliet' close-in-age exemption. As a reasonable human being I had no intention whatsoever of bringing that up. We should have that exemption; other states do. Frankly we have better things to do than bust two people for doing nothing more than taking love where they could find it; there's no evidence it does the kids any harm if they're close in age.
I doubt there's a cop anywhere in New York who'd arrest two teenage girls just for making love, especially if they were in a relationship. The main objective of the age-of-consent law is to protect girls from unwanted pregnancy and abuse - in a lesbian relationship neither one can get pregnant, of course, and I'd hardly define making love as 'abuse'. Which girl's being abused? How?)
I could also well believe Streetcat murdered Julie's rapist - there was means in the form of the .357 (wherever it went), there was definitely motive, and no shortage of opportunity since the late unlamented Mallory also lived on the streets - but of course belief isn't proof. And again, I'm never going to ask.
Even though, by rights, I should.
"Yes," I answered, calmer now, "like Julie."
She sighed. "Well, that's different," she conceded, but frowned. "But what the fuck's she want with me?"
"She never got a chance to know Billy," I answered softly. "You did. She wants, needs, to know what he was like as a person. Was he bright, smart, funny, curious? These are all things his mother never had a chance to learn, but you and the Bloods did." I sighed. "Please, 'Cat, help her out. She's come a long way hoping to regain custody of her son, only to find he's been butchered without anyone even knowing why. She needs this. Help her. Be kind."
That was reaching, I knew; Streetcat and the Bloods knew very little of kindness. Not much of that on the streets. But again I'd underestimated her; she only briefly looked unsure, but sighed again. "You so owe me for all this shit."
"I've got people looking into it," I assured her. "We'll need everything you can tell us, when you're ready, and we'll pay you back in full."
No fourteen-year-old girl should ever bear such a vengeful glare on her face as Streetcat's did then.
"Only payment I want," she stated in a grim, low tone, "is to see that fucker lyin' dead in your morgue."
"We'll do our best," I swore. "The Commissioner gave me a free hand. He ordered me to get that maniac off the streets and he doesn't give a fuck any more about how we do it." I growled. "Neither do I. His lying dead in the morgue totally works for me." I exhaled. "Thanks for this, 'Cat. I mean it."
She nodded. "Okay."
Her face jumped in surprise when Violet hesitantly entered. Despite what I'd told her, she still wasn't prepared to be faced with a woman of only 21 who looked as if she should be out clubbing, the streaks of tears on her cheeks notwithstanding. She turned to me, confused. "She's Billy's mom?"
I nodded. Violet introduced herself and politely asked, "What's your name?" As Streetcat started to reply, Violet shook her head and insisted, "Not your street name - your real name. Please."
That, I knew, was taking a risk; the girl might well clam up, because her real name was a reminder of the past she wanted to forget. But somehow Violet hit just the right note; for the first time since I'd met her, she very quietly allowed "Marie," to pass her lips.
"Thank you, Marie," Violet nodded.
"Seems they got old-style manners in Denver," Streetcat - Marie - observed in a non-committal mien.
Violet actually smiled. It was a pretty smile. "I'd like to think so. Should we sit?"
Abruptly I realised what Violet was doing. She'd immediately recognised that Marie quite understandably wasn't accustomed to politeness and courtesy, and so the girl was off-balance - and Violet was taking advantage of that. But it seemed to be working, so I decided to stay out of it, at least unless and until they crossed into traumatic territory. Yes, Violet was in pain...but dammit, so was Marie. She'd suffered enough.
They both had.
Once sat, Marie just stared at Violet for a while. Showing perspicacity unusual in someone of her age, Violet didn't rush her, knowing it would be a mistake, letting the girl set her own pace. Finally she hesitantly reached out and touched Violet's smooth cheek. "Damn, you're so young...never imagined Billy's mom would be so young."
Violet smiled sadly and gently took Marie's hand. "Well, I never expected to be playing with a real baby instead of a doll at age twelve, but it wasn't really up to me." She sighed. "An older boy took something I wasn't willing to give him, because I didn't really understand what it was he wanted."
"What they all want," Marie opined bitterly.
But Violet shook her head. "Not all men are like that, sweetheart. Most are decent enough if you give them a chance." She realised Marie was about to object to this on the grounds of her harsh street experiences, and allowed, "Maybe it's different on the street, I honestly wouldn't know and it's not for me to judge. But there truly are men in this world who are kind and thoughtful and would never dream of mistreating a woman like that." She smiled again. "Like Kelly here."
To my mild surprise, Marie smiled back. "Yeah, he's okay." She sobered. "He never gave the Bloods a hard time, even when he was still in the Blues. The NYPD," she expanded, guessing Violet wouldn't know the nickname.
Violet saw her opportunity now that Marie had raised the subject of the Bloods herself. "Marie, how did Billy come to join your gang? How did he even get to New York?"
"Railroad, he told us," she answered simply. "No Change had a thing for trains, so one night we were just hangin' by Penn watchin' 'em go by. Night watchman saw us, saw we weren't doin' nothin', so he let us stay. Then this cargo train was passin' an' we saw a kid jump out. Guess he thought he'd gone far enough. So we called him over an' he came." She shook her head. "God, he was filthy, so first thing we did was take him to the Y for a shower an' a change of clothes, then we went to Tino's for pizza."
"How'd you pay for it?" Violet asked curiously.
"Didn't," Marie shrugged, then looked defensive. "Hey! Didn't steal nothin', the Bloods were better'n that! No, we had a thing goin' with Tino: sometimes we helped him out with deliveries or movin' stuff, an' he paid us back with pizza, maybe a Coors or two. Every new Blood, though, got his first pizza for free. See, Tino used to be in a gang, long time ago. He met a girl with money, she liked him, talked him into leavin', but he ain't never forgot where he came from, you know? He's solid."
"Street lingo," I put in, "means he's reliable, trustworthy."
Violet was fascinated, and amazed her little boy had had the fortitude to travel over seventeen hundred miles (she'd Googled it out of sheer curiosity) by railroad.
"One thing I don't get," Marie puzzled, "if you gave a fuck about Billy - an' it's a pretty good bet you did - why'd you give him up?"
Violet looked bitter at that. "If you only knew just how often I've asked myself that same question...! I was twelve years old," she sobbed anew. "I did want to try, truly I did, but there was so much pressure...you can't imagine. You aren't allowed many choices at age twelve, Marie, even in a loving family like mine. Dad was all for it, actually, but Mom didn't really believe I could cope, what with school and everything, and a baby is a full-time job, believe me.
"Mom convinced me it was for the best, and I honestly believe to this day that she believed that. If I couldn't take care of him, he should go to another family who could. It was the hardest thing I've ever done, and it hurt even more than his birth did, but in the end I agreed. I met them, the Johnsons; they lived on a farm, a beautiful piece of land."
"Ain't never seen a farm," Marie, a lifelong city girl, murmured wistfully, but then she, frankly, astonished me by adding, "but the Big Apple's beautiful, too, in its way, 'specially at night. You should see it from the top o' the Empire State."
Well, dip me in chocolate and throw me to the lesbians, I marvelled, never knew 'Cat was a closet aesthete. What else don't I know about her?
"Well, maybe you could give me a tour before I go home," Violet suggested brightly, "Denver's the only big city I've ever seen. But I'd love to see Central Park, I've heard it's lovely."
She would've been a good mother, I mused bitterly, if the way she's connecting with Marie is any indication. Her mother was wrong. I bet Violet would've coped, even at twelve. Her parents could've helped out.
Then again, I wasn't there, I mentally sighed, so who am I to judge?
"Yeah, sounds cool," Marie nodded, but then she sobered. "Gotta wait 'til the Unit takes that motherfucker down first."
Now, I knew, we were getting down to it. Violet knew it too. She very quietly asked, "Please tell me what happened, Marie. Why did this man kill a little boy like Billy -?"
"Wasn't no man!" she spat, startling us both.
I began, "Wait, you're surely not saying a woman -"
"Fuck, man, I don't know what the fuck it was!" she almost screamed. "All I know is IT WASN'T NO FUCKIN' MAN!"
It was at this point, I later noted in my journal (which I'd programmed with an encrypted security lock which could only be opened in the event of my death), that things went not only further out in left field than they already were but entirely out of the ball park, if not actually over the state line.
I was about to sternly order her to get a grip, but Violet caught my eye and, demonstrating the kind of insight only a mother could possess, she silently pleaded: Let me handle this, Kelly, please. She's terrified and desperate to hide it.
Violet gently cupped Marie's face in both her small hands and, so softly we could barely hear her, murmured, "Sweetheart, what exactly do you mean by that?"
Marie's eyes were filled with tears, touched as she was by the gentle maternal sympathy Violet was projecting. "I...I don't know, I really don't. But it wasn't a man. I swear to God it wasn't." She hesitated, then bravely went on: "On Billy's life."
"What did you see, Marie? Can you tell us?" Violet softly requested. "Take your time, sweetheart."
"My...my Mom used to call me that," Marie revealed in a very small voice, "back when she was...more of a Mom, you know?"
Before she started to OD on antidepressants, I realised. This was a stroke of luck, Violet using just the right term of endearment to reach Marie, to remind her of happier times and God knows there had to be a few, surely.
"Is it okay for me to call you that?" Violet tactfully asked, maintaining the politeness that clearly touched Marie, a.k.a. Streetcat, more than she wanted to admit. Marie nodded, and Violet smiled and gently kissed the girl's cheek. "But not too often, huh? You have a lovely name and it's only polite for us to use it." The girl smiled and nodded again.
Judging this to be the right time to interject, I asked curiously, "Marie, why do you say 'it'?" At just the right moment a detail from Marie's case file popped up before my mind's eye: she was noted to be talented with sketching software on tablets. When she was ten she won a school prize for it - now that, surely, was a reminder of a happier time, and that would help her morale. So I suggested, "Hey, could you sketch it on a tablet for us?"
For a moment, to my carefully concealed delight, the happy little girl she once was and, dammit, still should be, showed through; she smiled broadly and nodded almost eagerly. "You got FreeSketch 4?"
"No idea," I admitted, pleased at the prospect of making at least some headway on this case, "but I'll find out." I opened the door and leaned out. "Hey, Frankie, have we got FreeSketch 4 or similar on a tablet?"
"Version 5 on this one," she nodded, holding it up. "They didn't change much, just fixed a couple of bugs and added holo and 3D printing support. Heads up!" she called and skimmed it over to me; I caught it, thanking her.
Marie took less than a minute to re-familiarise herself with the software, satisfying herself that there'd been minimal changes made since she last used it, then got straight to work. It was actually a pleasure to watch; she really was very good. A detailed image rapidly took shape on the tablet's 30cm screen; clearly this girl had a keen, almost photographic, eye for detail.
But the image itself...that was surely the stuff of nightmares. Yet it never occurred to me to question it, because it was clear she was giving this her very best effort; her expression was one of fixed concentration. Marie was putting too much into this for it to be any kind of prank.
FreeSketch was a brilliant piece of shareware to which many people had paid contributions. You could draw multiple views in 2D and combine them into a 3D image, and Marie was doing just that. She'd fixed the height of the overall image at 20cm and set the scale at, oddly, 1:12.5 - which meant the real thing was 2.5 metres in height. That was huge, bigger than Joey DiMaggio who worked part-time for Bernalli, moonlighting (if that was the right word) from his regular job as Chico's bouncer at the Main St. bar.
I simply could not believe what was taking shape on that screen. But one thing was certain: Marie was right. This...thing...was definitely not a man. Which of course begged the question:
WHAT THE FUCK WAS IT?!
Simulation Room
Two hours later
Finally the image was complete, and Denny uploaded it to our server in the Simulation Room, inevitably nicknamed 'the Holodeck', to render it in full 3D, full size.
It made for awesome if not terrifying viewing.
There seemed to be plates of armour on shoulders, elbows and knees, plus down the spine and both sides of the massive torso. The body was covered with a mesh of some sort. The long, muscled fingers ended in curved claws, similar on the toes. There wasn't a single place on the thing's body that didn't bear obvious heavy muscle. Though it was humanoid, the proportions were all wrong. The forearms were clad in metal, but not armour; the right bore what appeared to be a weapon of some sort, maybe a missile launcher, and the left had controls and touch-screen panels.
Plus there was a pair of long, viciously serrated blades projecting from sheaths on the right forearm. I immediately recognised these from Jocelyn's image interpolation scan from the fatal wounds; the wound patterns showed the blades did more damage on exit than on entry, suggesting serrated blades, so there was at least some correlation with the evidence we had - because there was no way Marie could know that.
A belt bore a loincloth plus what appeared to be small items of equipment, though no-one could suggest what they might be. Nail clippers, for all we knew.
Its left shoulder bore what Duane, my tac expert, was certain was a weapon on a swivel mount, equipped with a triple-beam sighting laser. If that was the plasma caster Jocelyn had suggested did for Gusev, it was impossibly small.
Its skin (hide?) was vaguely reptilian, overall a pasty white with a hint of green and dark brown spots in a pattern that rather reminded me of Deep Space 9's Dax character, though this thing was clearly not a Trill. It had long, thick dreadlocks, too.
You'll note I haven't gotten to its head or face yet. I'm working up to it. I have to. Even now, it's still hard to believe.
The head was huge, broad, with an inhumanly long jawline. The eyes were deeply sunken into the head, well-protected by bone. There were four - well, my best guess would be mandibles, like a crab's, spaced evenly around the mouth, each with a small tusk or large fang curving inward. The forehead (?) had brownish patterns and the thing's brow or equivalent, bearing brown stripes, stretched all the way around the skull.
But the creature's mouth was by far the most bizarre feature. There was nothing remotely resembling a nose. There seemed to be an outer jaw bearing two rows of sharp angular teeth and an inner mouth which...well, not to sound vulgar, but it reminded us vividly of a woman's external genitalia, i.e. her pussy. It was pink and wet-looking.
"What is it?" a horrified Candy whispered.
Denny, a keen fan of the original Hitch-Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy radio series (definitely not the movie, a brave but ultimately misguided and inadequate attempt to recapture the charm and idiosyncratic humour of Douglas Adams' masterpiece; with all due respect to the adopted country I've grown to love, Americans just don't get British humour. Red Dwarf, The Office, Hitch-Hiker's Guide - the moment you Americanise them they just don't work), quipped, à la Arthur Dent, "Let me guess. Horrible. Am I warm?"
I was the only one to get the joke, the only Unit member old enough to hear the series the first time it was broadcast (have I mentioned that before now, that I am in fact the oldest member of the Unit? Well, I am - I'm a young 62, but the only way you'll get me to retire is in a fucking box, dammit!), and murmured, à la Ford Prefect, "Not now, Arthur..."
"Trillian, sir," he impishly corrected me. Oh. Well, even dedicated fans don't always get everything right...
"That," Jocelyn declared definitively, "is not human. Not even remotely."
Grasping at straws, trying not to reach the inevitable conclusion we all knew we were going to reach, Jerry feebly ventured, "That could be some sort of weird mask..."
But Marie shook her head. "No. It took a mask off, to show me that."
"Why, though?" Candy wondered. "To show off? To scare her? Surely it knew she was already scared, and there's no shame in that, Streetcat," she added, so as not to bruise the girl's pride.
Jocelyn sighed in exasperation. "Oh, for God's sake, you're all trying to ascribe human motivations to a creature which quite clearly is anything but human! We can't even guess at the motivations of an alien being!"
Frankie asked nervously, "Um, are we taking that as read, that we've got an alien creature on our hands?"
I knew what she was implying, and so did Streetcat. A fourteen-year-old (former) gang member wasn't exactly a credible witness by most people's standards, and unfortunately Marie knew that as well as anyone. Plus her story was so outré it bordered on the fantastical.
She very slowly crossed the room, her head down as if in shame, and lifted it only as she drew level with me. She met my eyes and said in a perfectly reasonable voice, sounding much older than her tender years, "Commander McAllister, I would swear to this in court: that is what I saw. I can't explain it. I don't know if anyone can. But on Billy's and Julie's lives, I swear I'm telling you the truth."
'Credible' be damned. I was using every scrap of my Unit-trained psycho-analytical skill and forty years of experience as a cop to assess her, putting aside all personal feelings as I knew was utterly necessary, and I was absolutely convinced of her sincerity. But as Carl Sagan said, extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. So I gently told her, "I believe you. But you know we have to check."
She only nodded.
There followed a number of tests on her, some with surprising results. For a start we proved she did indeed have a camera eye for detail, and nearly as good a memory for words and sounds. Her IQ was the biggest shock: 164, higher than some Unit members (higher than mine, I have to admit!) and firmly in the 'exceptionally gifted' range on the M.U. Gross Scale. How the hell had her teachers missed that? No wonder she never fit in at school and was always the class clown: she was bored, because the lessons weren't challenging enough for her!
The psych tests showed she had a strong talent for leadership and keen analytical skills. Dammit, this girl did not belong on the streets! She should be in an elite academy somewhere, being pushed to her limits and helped to realise her full potential, not wasting her life!
A wild thought occurred: the Unit Academy? No, she was too young.
But her credibility as a witness had now vastly improved. I was almost ready to go to the Commissioner to tell him the game had changed. Almost. But we still needed independent verification, somehow.
Out of nowhere it hit me: Frankie's FWB in Vandenberg. If any space vehicle or whatever had passed near or landed on Earth, surely U.S. Space Command would know about it. When I asked her, she gulped and managed, "Well, now I come to think of it, he did mention something passing by recently, in, um...pillow talk." I couldn't quite believe her blush. "He knows I like to hear about them; I'm an amateur astronomer," she confided.
"Do you think he'd be willing to talk to me about it?"
Frankie gaped at me. "Sir, you don't seriously think they saw -"
"They might not have known what they saw," I pointed out, "because we're apparently dealing with stealth tech that's beyond state-of-the-art - ours, anyway. So the ship or whatever could've been disguised." A thought, an angle of approach, occurred to me. "We may actually be doing him a favour. If these beings do have such tech, the military needs to know about it to maintain national - or even global - security."
"That's a very good point, sir," she slowly admitted. "I'll give him a call."
The Lobster Place, New York City
Next evening
Quite understandably, an off-duty Lieutenant Colonel Scott Parker, U.S. Space Command, wasn't too happy at first about Frankie's deception. Only her plea that this was desperately important to her job "and might just involve national security, too!" halfway convinced him to listen.
The other half was facilitated by my offer of a meal in one of NYC's best shellfish restaurants on the Unit's tab; she'd mentioned he was fond of lobster. He sighed. "Frankie, you so owe me a major Bravo Juliett for this caper."
She giggled. "Okay."
I have to ask. "Bravo Juliett?"
"Yeah. BJ, you know?"
Then I got it. Yeah, I had to ask.
"What's on your mind, Commander?"
"Whatever passed by Earth a few nights ago," I answered, clearly surprising him.
He looked at Frankie and sighed. "Frankie, does the phrase 'national security' ring any bells?"
"If a passing meteor was a matter of national security," she returned impishly, "surely you shouldn't have mentioned it at all, especially not to a loose-lipped FWB!"
Scott laughed, conceding defeat. For all her youth Frankie's very hard to argue with. Better men than either of us have tried.
"So what was it?" I asked.
"Well, as far as we could tell via radar and a visual satellite scan, just a random meteor. We tracked it in case of any possible collision, but the trajectory clearly showed it wasn't going to hit. It was a grazer, that's all." He paused. "But just as it brushed the atmosphere, something seemed to break off it and fall towards Earth. Way too small to be any serious danger to anyone, and we scanned the Internet to check if any amateur astronomers - like Frankie here -" he grinned, "had picked up a meteorite, and sure enough a few of them did."
Hmm. "Is there any way you could backtrack its trajectory, work out where it hit?"
Scott shrugged. "We know where it hit. Just off the shore of Liberty Island. Maybe a few fish bought it, but we could tell immediately it wasn't gonna hit Lady Liberty, which naturally would be most people's major concern - especially in New York City - so we didn't even bother reporting it."
Just outside New York City, I realised. "Scott, could it have been something...other than a meteorite?"
He must've caught something in my voice. "What do you mean? What's this about?"
It was time to show my hand.
On a hunch, at almost two in the morning (a time a friend in Britain used to call Oh-My-God-O'Clock or There's-No-Such-Bloody-Time-O'Clock - always a card, that guy, and unlike me he was anything but a night owl) after Marie had finished her work, it'd occurred to me to check police archives to see if any cases like this had ever cropped up before, the primary search criterion being the mysterious mutilations. I got one hit:
L.A. in '97, during a major street war between the Jamaican voodoo drug gangs and the Scorpios, their Colombian rivals, both of whom were vying for control of the entire West Coast and choosing the City of Angels as their preferred battleground.
During a heatwave like the one we were currently sweltering through.
I remembered Gladys mentioning her service in L.A. back then, talked to her and discovered there had been a hit on the Metro by some unknown assailant, connected with neither side as far as anyone knew, taking out street gang members and ordinary commuters alike in apparently senseless killings. She'd been one of the EMTs first on the scene.
Just like Billy and the others. There were too many parallels for this to be a coincidence. Victims skinned, butchered, decapitations, and a detective who'd had his spinal column and skull ripped out. He still had a machete in his hand, DNA trace confirming it had formerly belonged to a dead gang member on the train.
Again, like Billy.
"I'm sorry I didn't mention it at Columbus, Commander, but it was such a long time ago, I'd forgotten the details..."
"That's okay," I assured her, "maybe this guy's a copycat. Thanks, Gladys." I hung up and continued searching.
Then an oddity: parts of the record had been redacted, other parts erased, especially forensic reports. Certain software reconstruction tools invented by and unique to the Unit recovered fragments, and an AI analysis program suggested high-profile Fed involvement, possibly military intelligence. But I recovered enough to dig out the name of the most prominent officer in the case: Michael R. Harrigan, a lieutenant at the time and now Captain of Metro Command - which after the pacification campaign of '23 was now a hell of a lot quieter than it'd been back in '97.
I decided to pay him a visit via the newest Super-Sonic Transport, the Aerion AS3 - it was slightly faster than Concorde. If anyone would know what we were dealing with and could give me sufficient verification to approach Ed, surely he would. Sure, I could use Zoom, but I felt an old hand such as Harrigan would appreciate the personal touch more.
As it turned out, he did.
Los Angeles Police Department, Metro Command
Ten hours ago
"Look, kid," I tiredly addressed the rookie manning the front desk of Metro Command, "don't give me that jurisdiction crap! It doesn't matter where he comes from, a cop's a cop! Just tell Captain Harrigan that Commander McAllister of the NY Tactical Operations Unit needs to see him! As to why, son, that's way above your pay grade!"
I hate stations where they put rookies on the front desk. That position should be occupied only by experienced officers, because they have to deal with all sorts: irate civilians demanding to know why more isn't being done to track down their lost dog, down-on-their-luck reporters desperate for a story, cops struggling with recalcitrant perps, ACLU creeps whining about suspects' rights...and, occasionally, people like me.
"Cap'n Harrigan's a very busy man -"
I groaned. "Oh, tell me about it!"
"- and he's got better things to do than talk to out-of-state cops who don't even have an appointment," the kid finished, infuriating me further.
I'd had enough. I was just about to reach across the desk and grab the brat by his lapels when I saw a sudden look of surprise in his eyes. Playing a hunch, I turned around and held out a hand to "Captain Harrigan, I presume."
He was still tall, though a little shrunken with age; still powerfully built, but...you know. His careworn face was deeply lined, hair sparse and white now, but he was still recognisable as Mike Harrigan, a cop with one of the top three felony arrest records in the history of the LAPD and multiple commendations for valour.
Plus a certain notoriety re the totalling of several squad cars and assorted other vehicles...
He barely chuckled. "I'd heard they were all sharp in the NYTOL."
"I wish people wouldn't call it that," I groused. Now he laughed, a husky laugh I liked straight away, and shook hands, and Christ, he had a firm grip.
"C'mon in. Hey, kid, this fellow officer's come a long way to see me. He's right: a cop's a cop. It's called professional courtesy." He grinned. "'sides, you never know when it might be you. I don't wanna be disturbed, got it?"
"Got it, Chief," he replied respectfully.
"Sorry 'bout that," Harrigan began as we sat, "normally I'd have a sergeant or higher on the desk, but we're a little short-handed today. Had a minor flare-up of that damn Covid-19 thing again, got three guys self-isolating. Ain't that fucker ever gonna quit?"
I shrugged. It wasn't important. "I can appreciate how busy you are, so I'll get right down to it. You remember a case back in '97, during the drug wars? During the heatwave?" I added significantly.
He chuckled. "These days I can barely remember last week, which is why I'm finally retirin' next month. First Captain of Metro Command to even make it to retirement," he added.
I braced myself. "I think you'll remember this case. People being decapitated and mutilated? An apparently invisible assailant who could take out hoods armed with automatic weapons using nothing but a blade? A blade, moreover, which left no metallic traces in the wounds?"
Harrigan stared at me. I knew I'd got him. He remembered, all right.
"Yeah," he said very quietly, "I remember. I tried to forget, for a long time. But that would've meant forgettin' two damn good cops, and they deserved better."
"Detectives Danny Archuleta and Jerry Lambert," I recalled from my research, in a respectful, equally quiet tone. "One with fifteen years' street service, the other up-and-coming but reputedly good."
"Danny Boy," he whispered, "and the Lone Ranger."
"I need to know what happened, Mike," I requested, "because I'm sure the same thing's happening all over again in my city. I want to stop it. I believe you can tell me how."
"Sounds like you know most of it," he noted, non-committal.
But I shook my head. "We have a fantastic unlikely theory, and our most credible witness is a fourteen-year-old former gang member, so before I put what we've got before the Commissioner, I need independent verification - or else I, and my entire Unit, are toast. You're my best bet. Time served and then some, decades of experience on the street and under fire. That's something he can't dismiss lightly, if at all." I played my last card. "Even when I start talking about homicidal aliens on some sort of murder spree."
He seemed to sort of relax then. "Yeah...sure sounds like you got the same problem I had. Ain't the same kook, though, an' I know that for a fact because," his voice rose, impassioned, "I KILLED that motherfucker!"
There was a pause. I knew he needed it. Then I asked again, "Tell me."
He did:
How he and his team ran a group of Scorpios into their hideout, only to discover them slaughtered. How a drug lord was ritually murdered voodoo style as a message to the Colombians, only for his murderers to be murdered themselves, skinned and hung out to dry.
How he and Archuleta had decided to bypass Keyes, the faux DEA agent allegedly trying to stop the Jamaican lord King Willie from taking over the West Coast, and how his partner had made the mistake of returning to a crime scene alone, paying for the error with his life when the perp returned to the scene of the crime (if he ever left, given how good these damn things are at hiding) as they often do.
The Metro hit, losing Jerry, pursuing his killer by road only to be rammed by Agent Keyes' operatives, finding out the truth and watching their (futile) attempt to capture the creature.
Battling the thing, partly crippling it, finally meeting it one-on-one on its own turf, and besting it.
"Not that I came out of it unscathed," he wryly added, showing me the incredible scar across his belly. "He thought I was done, came close to finish me off - and I shoved that discus or whatever the fuck it was right into whatever he had for guts. Killed him. Pushed it right into his spine, I think.
"Then the others appeared."
"There were others?" I gasped. Oh, Christ, that's all we need!
"But I think they were just watchin', maybe judgin' or supervisin', I dunno. They didn't touch me - just picked him up an' carried him off. The biggest one, looked the oldest, too, he tossed me somethin' and said, 'Take it'."
"They speak our language?" I inquired, fascinated.
Harrigan chuckled. "Fucked if I know how, with a mouth an' teeth like that!"
I returned the chuckle, recalling Marie's depiction. "What did they give you?"
"This," he answered, taking a DNA-coded lock-box out of a locked drawer, opening it and showing me. Inside was an antique flintlock in beautiful condition.
I whistled appreciatively. "I bet that's worth a pretty penny."
"Works, too," he grinned. "Shoulda seen the looks on those kids' faces when I came down to the range one day an' fired that!"
I couldn't help but laugh, picturing it. He was looking at me in an expectant way, I noticed. Somehow I knew he wanted me to pick it up. "Could I...?" I indicated, and he nodded. I carefully draped a sterile tissue over it first to avoid smudging the finish with fingerprints and drew it out of the box, admiring it. "How old is it?"
"There's a nameplate," he told me quietly. Something in his voice gave me pause. Then I looked.
Raphael Aidolimi
1715
The implication was obvious. These beings had been coming to Earth for at least 312 years and probably longer; perhaps they started coming once we developed firearms...and now, at last, I understood why.
Why those people had been mutilated the way they had.
Why Candy, the whores, Marie and the two other Metro survivors hadn't.
This was the final piece of the puzzle, the something I knew we were missing. Now, finally, I could put it all together.
"Trophies," I whispered, sickened. It was the only explanation which made sense. "He's after trophies. He only attacks people who are armed, because they can shoot back. He lives for the challenge...the hunt. That's all that matters to him. How you fight back determines either how he kills you, or what he does after he kills you:
"Automatic weapons, like AK-47s, AR-15s and so on - he just guts you. They're too easy, powerful weapons.
"Small-arms fire, .38s, .45s, 9mm, he beheads you, takes your skull. Those require more skill, so he treats you differently.
"But take him on with nothing but a knife or a sword...he takes your skull and spinal column. To pay respect," I understood, "to honour an especially courageous opponent."
"An' if you ain't armed," Harrigan agreed, "he won't touch you. He can't. It don't matter whether you're young, old, male, female, he don't give a fuck. All he cares about is if you're armed or not."
"If you're worthy prey or not," I nodded. "There's no way a human could take him on in hand-to-hand, and he knows that, so we're allowed weapons to even things up a little." I snorted. "'Little' being the operative word. It's hardly a fair fight even then."
"The fuck do these things know about a fair fight?" Harrigan spat.
I sighed. Well, I'd gotten my verification, and we and Marie were right after all. Just to be certain I showed Harrigan the image Denny had rendered from Marie's sketches, and he nodded. "Yep, that's our ugly motherfucker. Looks a little different, but then again the others looked different from each other an' from him."
"Just like us," I supposed, "individual variations." Okay, then. All that remained now was a final word with Frankie's FWB, and I could present our findings to Ed.
Except Harrigan wasn't finished. "Two more things I gotta tell you. First, I had another partner, Leona Cantrell. She went lookin' for Jerry at the Metro hit...but our boy found her first. But here's the odd thing: when the EMTs pulled her out, she was in deep shock...but alive."
I frowned. "But that doesn't make sense. She was armed, surely." Harrigan nodded. "So she was fair game. So why didn't he kill her?"
"My best guess? She didn't know it at the time...but she was pregnant. That's the only reason I've ever been able to come up with. Every year, on that day, she goes to her local church even though she ain't a believer, an' she gives thanks for bein' spared. Leona figures someone was watchin' over her that day, and fuck knows we needed it back then."
"But if even she didn't know she was pregnant, how the hell did he?!"
"Damned if I know," he admitted, "but accordin' to Keyes, an' I think he was right, these things only see in infrared, so maybe that's how. Or he heard the baby's heartbeat, or picked up on her scent..." He shrugged. "Who knows? But she had a beautiful little girl, who ain't so little now," he chuckled, "an' she's followin' in her mom's footsteps, studyin' at the Police Academy."
"Well, thanks, Mike," I returned the gun to its box and stood. "I think we've got enough to -"
"There's still the second thing," he interrupted, "an' that is: there ain't no we. It's just you from now on."
I froze. I didn't like the sound of that. "What do you mean?"
"I think he picked up on the leader of any group tryin' to fight him. He saved that one for last. The Scorpio leader from his first hit. The big man in the voodoo posse in the penthouse. Jerry, at the Metro. Keyes." He paused. "Me."
That made more sense than I wanted to admit. The leader of a group would, in these beings' eyes, be superior, the biggest challenge...and therefore the most honourable kill, the most worthy trophy. That led me to an uneasy conclusion. It had to mean...oh, fuck. Fuck a duck.
"You mean...I'm his priority target now?"
"Yeah."
I sighed. "Make my day, why don't you."
"Just tellin' it the way it is. Been doin' that all my life, ain't gonna stop now."
"Forewarned is forearmed," I conceded. "I just hope that's enough." We shook hands again.
"Hey, lemme know how it works out," Harrigan requested.
"I will," I promised, then reconsidered...as I might very well not live to do that. "If I, uh, fail," i.e. die, "what happens then?"
"Not sure," he admitted, "but I think he'll leave."
"So either way," I understood, "it ends with me. I can live with that." A gallows smile. "I hope."
His last words before I left the office were, "Good luck, Kelly...'cause you're sure as shit gonna need it."
The Lobster Place, New York City
So much I told Scott. When I'd finished, he said only, "Dear God, you're serious, aren't you?"
I nodded. "Harrigan seemed very sure of his facts. It all fits."
"So you think this 'meteorite' was -"
"- some sort of HALO pod, yeah," I nodded.
"HALO?" Frankie asked.
"High Altitude, Low Opening," Scott expanded. "It's a good way for paratroopers to avoid ground fire on their way down - descend as rapidly as possible, then open your chute at the last possible moment. Rough as hell," he winced, remembering one or two HALO drops in his career, "but doable. Except in this case he'd have been coming down at nearly escape velocity, over ten klicks per second, then firing retrorockets near the ground. Come to think of it, amateur reports did say it flared up before it hit," he recalled.
"They're tougher than us, so they could probably better withstand a HALO drop from orbit," I opined. Something occurred to me: the Blues had reported a missing person in the area around the time our shenanigans started. We hadn't previously connected Morrie Peters with our case, but now...
He was an amateur astronomer; the head of his local astronomy group had reported him missing. Had he gone to look for meteorite fragments, and instead found something even more out-of-this-world? Was he the hunter's first victim?
Scott was silent for a time. Then he began quietly, "Look, I have no verification of this. But my Dad used to work in the DoD and told me once about some weird op a friend of his, Matt Garber, was involved in." That was a name Harrigan had mentioned, I recalled. "It was a highly classified op in L.A. of all places - yeah, in '97. There was another op like it in Cambodia in '07 - but by all accounts that was an even bigger failure, no survivors."
"I bet I know why," I nodded, "they knew and were ready for it."
Scott nodded. "A third op in Zaire in '17, a third clusterfuck. After that the military quit trying. Official policy now - if 'official' is even the right word, as this is all black-ops territory - is to leave them be. It's less wasteful in men and materiel."
"Tell that to little Billy," Frankie murmured.
"So you're saying we won't have the Feds dropping in?" I inquired. He nodded. "Well, good...I suppose. This is our problem, we'll handle it. Now, at the risk of asking you to reveal classified military intelligence to civilians, does any branch of the U.S. Armed Forces possess weapons which can do this?" I showed him a holo of Gusev.
"Jesus," he breathed.
"Our forensic expert's best guess is a plasma caster of some kind, tightly contained; the wound was fused and cauterised. The weapon was wielded as antipersonnel; we think he used it for shock and awe."
Scott shook his head. "I didn't tell you this."
"Tell who what?" I asked innocently. "I am not here." That was in fact true as far as the restaurant's CCTV was concerned; taking a leaf out of Kadmin's book in the Netflix series Altered Carbon, Denny had written software which selectively hacked into and edited the footage in real time, effectively erasing its user from the images (and perhaps slightly misusing Unit CCTV access privileges). He's clever, that lad. When I explained this, Scott just grinned.
"The military does have one or two prototype plasma weapons, but they certainly aren't portable by any stretch of the imagination - the smallest is a two-man cannon. It's more of a field piece than an antipersonnel weapon, definitely not suitable for the kind of close-quarters work you're talking about. Best guess for earliest deployment in the field would be, oh, 2030 at least."
I thought so. "Thanks, Scott." I shook his hand and stood. Frankie made as if to stand as well, but I motioned her to stay put. "I'm giving you the night off, Frankie. Enjoy the meal, both of you...and the afters," I grinned, with a man-to-man wink at Scott.
I headed back to Base in a sombre mood. It'd been years since I'd engaged in a serious throwdown with anyone, let alone an alien thing taller than Darth Vader and with a worse attitude than a pissed-off puma. But I knew there was no other choice. He wouldn't accept anyone lesser (in his eyes) and I was through asking my team to take risks I wouldn't.
Whether I wanted it or not, this was now my fight.
New York Tactical Operations Unit Base, Commissioner's office
Two hours later
As I'd expected, the team was in uproar at the notion. Of course they were. They'd every right to be.
"Sir, there's no way we can allow -" "You can't, sir -" "Commander, no human being could possibly be a match for -"
"Enough," I quietly ordered.
They fell silent like the well-trained officers they were, and I was proud of them all over again.
"Your objections are valid on the face of it, but this is a situation none of us were ever trained for. All the usual rules and logic simply do not apply."
"Commander," Jocelyn addressed me quietly, "may I raise a few points of pure logic and practicality?" I nodded. "Thank you, sir. My study of the image tells me certain things. To begin with, there is the sheer size of the thing. That alone is a considerable advantage, and we already know just how fast it is despite being that size.
"From that fact, I deduce that it is likely this being comes from a world with higher gravity than Earth's. So it will be much, much stronger physically than any human being even at the peak of physical fitness - and with the greatest of respect, sir," she added with utmost sincerity, "you are not. In great shape for your age, yes, but you aren't 30 any more."
Don't I know it, I mused ruefully.
"If our theory about the hunt being a manhood ritual of some sort is correct, as seems likely, then it is by definition young, and will therefore possess all the resilience, vigour and energy of youth - all of which, again, you lack, further increasing your disadvantage.
"Its muscle and bone mass will be of greater density, rendering it tougher, harder to kill. It is entirely possible small-arms fire and/or low-calibre rounds won't even penetrate to any significant depth. Plus it is effectively invisible and possesses highly advanced, lethal weaponry. All of this, sir, adds up to one inescapable conclusion:
"You are not and cannot be any match for this creature. No human being possibly could."
"It'll KILL you, sir!" Candy sobbed. "You can't take it on, not alone! You mustn't!" She turned to Ed. "Commissioner, please!"
But I'd known Ed for 24 years and I knew what he'd say. "I gave the Commander a free hand in getting a maniac off our streets, Candy. I have not rescinded that order, and I will not. The fact that the maniac in question is from another planet and is not, technically, a maniac is irrelevant. He is killing our citizens, and that must stop. It's up to Kelly how he achieves it."
"Commander, there's no question of heroism or showboating here," Duane, a veteran Marine, rumbled. "No-one expects that of you, sir. I'm your highest-rated combat officer. I stand the best chance."
"Except you're not the leader," I pointed out neutrally, "and he knows it. Besides, there are two factors none of you seem to be taking into account:
"First, he is not invulnerable. Harrigan killed one of his kind on his own turf.
"Second...if he kills me and takes his trophy, he gets what he wants and therefore he has no further reason to stay. He'll leave. Whether I kill him or he kills me, the result is the same: this ends. That's what we want. So either way, we win."
"You don't," Marie said quietly.
I smiled gently at her and stroked her cheek, intercepting a tear trickling down it. I was absurdly touched that this waif was weeping over me of all people. "You can die and still win, Marie. There are things worth dying for. Billy understood that." I paused. "So did Julie."
Abruptly Streetcat remembered.
"Please save my baby!" Julie had screamed, her beautiful face creased with agony and terror. God, there was so much blood everywhere. Her hand was crushing Streetcat's, but she would not let go. Her love needed her, now more than ever. "Let me die if you have to, but SAVE HIM! Don't let him die! For the love of God, please, please save him!" She'd shrieked then as a doctor made a cut, no time for anaesthesia, but she took it. "Save him, let me die, SAVE HIM!"
But they didn't, they couldn't...
A dark alleyway, a sad place for anyone to die, but it was where she'd chosen. It was where that pig Mallory (she'd lied when she told the Blues she didn't know who it was, she was just desperate to get a shower and wash him from her) had put that little boy into her, so it was fitting. Julie sat on the ground and levelled the .357; its muzzle looked huge.
"Please don't do this," Streetcat tried one last time. "I love you. I need you."
"I can't live with it, sweetheart," Julie answered in the tone of one who has accepted imminent death. "Remember me. Remember him. I wanted to call him Tom, after my Grandad."
"Tom," Streetcat nodded, "I'll remember. I'll always remember you."
They kissed one last time, Julie's lips tasting of cherry as always.
Then the shot, and her love fell back and never moved again. At a distance the other Bloods, standing vigil, watched silently.
They swore revenge. He'd gone to ground, but they'd find him. He'd pay...
For the first time since Julie's suicide, Marie understood why her love was willing to die for her baby. And now she understood why Billy was willing to die for the Bloods.
Why Kelly was willing to die for his city, its people.
It wasn't the dying that mattered. It was the why. There were things more important than your own life.
She realised in that moment she'd have changed places with Julie or Billy if she could, died in their place. It was what you did for people you...loved. She didn't love Kelly, but she knew she didn't want him to die.
He was a cop who really cared. Fuck knew there were too few of them in the Big Apple.
The hug was spontaneous, I knew, but I accepted it. I'd read Marie's thoughts from her face; I was abruptly sure she was present when Julie died by her own hand. But she'd tell me in her own time one day, maybe. I hugged her back, stroking her beautiful black hair. Amazing how she could live on the streets and still have hair in such beautiful condition.
"Please don't do it," she whispered, tears falling now. "New York needs you."
"That's exactly why I have to," I gently told her, and her sob told me she understood. Fourteen or not, she was no child any more.
Fuck the regs. I'd find a way to get her signed up to the Unit Academy. Maybe we could lie about her age. Perhaps we could "discover" one or two "clerical errors" in Marie's records, and "correct" them, so it would transpire that come the next cadet intake, her 16th birthday would fall on that date and thus she would, just barely, be old enough to be recruited (it's a three-year course, there's a lot to learn), so that would account for her looking too young. I would of course inform the Commandant - in the strictest confidence - of her true age and the reasons for the deception.
Denny was good at that sort of thing, I reflected.
Again, there's the legal thing, and then there's the right thing.
New York Tactical Operations Unit Base, Squad Room
Half an hour later
I found out later that Candy tried to foment a mutiny of sorts: she tried to persuade the others to tool up from the armoury, eschewing the standard non-lethal ordnance, and follow me to wherever this epic interstellar smackdown was going to happen, so as to provide backup and/or intervention.
Now don't get me wrong, I entirely understand where she was coming from on this...which is why I forgave her for this little faux pas. In a true team the strongest characteristics are loyalty to one's teammates, and concern for them when things go pear-shaped. I'm very proud to say that the Unit excelled in these areas. We were colleagues and friends and brothers/sisters in arms, all at once. Candy possesses a high degree of empathy, and intense personal loyalty to me, and so she was worried for me. Any team member was expected to be willing to die for another if need be; that's what teamwork is all about.
But this was different. Trying to tackle this hunter, this Predator, as a team would most likely achieve nothing but their slaughter, one at a time, and only then would he turn his attention to me - which came to the same result as my plan in the end. The only difference was that my plan would result in only one death: mine...or, hopefully, his.
Or both.
But even that would be a win.
In fact Duane torpedoed the entire mutiny anyway by refusing to go along with it - and since he was the only Unit member apart from Ed and myself who had access, if he vetoed it then it wasn't going to happen.
"But -" she protested.
Duane shook his head, sighing, as he realised he was going to have to explain the Commander's logic. "Look, Candy, why do you think this bastard hasn't hit us yet?" She looked shocked; the thought clearly hadn't occurred to her. "He's expecting us to come gunning for him, with Kelly in the lead, because we're the best at what we do - but going up against the best is what he lives for! This fucker wants us to go after him, dammit!
"If we play his game he'll kill us all, Kelly last. This way, Kelly's putting him off-guard by doing something unexpected. Plus he's keeping us out of the firing line, as well as minimising any possible civilian casualties. And I think he's right about what this creep will do if he wins: he's gained his trophy, honour's satisfied, he's a man or whatever. He leaves."
"So we just let him go? Without answering for anything he's done?!" Candy cried in distress. "How is that justice?"
"How can our justice apply to him, Candy? He's a fuckin' alien!"
She sighed as she saw his point. You couldn't ascribe human morality to something that wasn't human. But she persisted, "Duane, we can't let this happen. Look, what if - what if we went all-out to find him, comb the city, maybe even ask the Blues for some extra manpower, then just, I don't know, hit his lair or whatever with a few heatseekers? Shoot at anything that moves or tries to escape?"
Duane shook his head. "I guarantee you Kelly will already have thought of that. For a start, what if he sees us coming?"
"We'll use IR baffle suits to mask our heat signatures," Candy tried, "so he -"
"It's been tried," Duane told her, "that op in '97, remember. Didn't work then, why should it now?"
"We have to do something, anything!" she sobbed, and Duane sighed again and just took her in his arms. She was a good kid, but didn't really get combat. Kelly was no soldier and never had been, but he understood tactics well enough. They simply could not employ any standard tactic against this thing; its sheer strength, its likely invulnerability to most weapons fire, and maybe most of all that damn stealth screen negated most of their standard options.
Kelly knew that. He wasn't playing Rambo here, wasn't showboating, wasn't trying to go out in a blaze of glory.
No. He was doing the only thing that would work.
Besides, he might win. Stranger things had happened...
Sword Class NYC, 1944 Madison Ave., New York
Midnight
"May I ask why you're here, Commander?" Tristan Zukowski, Head Instructor, asked curiously. It was a rare police officer indeed who came to sword class, and for such a high-ranking officer to do so...
"For pretty much the same reason anyone comes here," I answered blandly, "to learn how to use a katana. I understand it's very different from most swords, what with the two-handed grip, and even the Unit Academy hardly teaches more than fencing. I need more than that."
That last was a calculated slip. "'Need'?" he wondered.
"Another, bigger problem is that I need to learn as much as possible in the next 24 hours at most. What's worse, I need to learn at the level required not just for practice, sport or a hobby, but for real, to-the-death combat. I realise that may be entirely beyond your purview," I conceded.
"It might not even be possible, Commander," he warned, frowning. "And surely it's against police regulations to engage in lethal combat."
"Under normal circumstances it certainly is," I agreed, "but my circumstances are as far from normal as you can get without going into orbit."
Zukowski's frown deepened. "Actually we do have a visiting guest instructor from Japan, Hirohito Yoshimoto; he's a direct descendant of a Samurai warrior."
Which I already knew, of course. That was why I'd chosen Sword Class NYC. I asked to see him.
He greeted me with tea and a merry smile, neither of which lasted long when I told him what I needed. "To teach the ancient art of the Samurai is not an easy thing, nor is learning it. What you ask is a monumental task, Kelly-San."
"Of this I am well aware, Hirohito-San," I returned his formality as a gesture of respect, "but my need is equally monumental, I assure you. I must ask you to treat what I am about to tell you as absolutely confidential," now I smiled wryly, "not that many people would believe it anyway."
I told him everything I knew about the creature, including its apparent penchant for honourable combat and its habit of taking trophies. He was silent for a while; I assumed he was absorbing what he'd heard, and doubtless he was. But then he surprised me by sighing, "Shimabara."
"I'm sorry?"
Hirohito looked solemn. "There is a Samurai legend of an epic battle at Shimabara, many centuries ago. The legend is seldom spoken of, even among we Samurai descendants. It tells of a great and terrible demon who came and demanded to face the greatest Samurai, and the master of the village, as it was then, accepted his challenge. They fought for many hours, but the demon was victorious and counted coup on his defeated opponent - his death alone was not enough to appease the demon.
"The warrior's friends were enraged by this lack of respect, as they saw it, and demanded challenge in turn. But the demon denied them, saying he had defeated the most worthy prey and that was enough. There came a whirlwind which bore the demon into the sky, from which he never returned."
"What did the demon take from him?" I asked softly, knowing the answer.
"His entire skull and spine...as you are well aware," Hirohito replied quietly. "So...the demon has returned, then? And is not, truly, a demon?"
"Well, I would debate that last point," I said wryly, "and I doubt it's the same one, but...yes, New York has one now. It falls to me, as the leader of my team, to challenge him. But he needs the challenge to be honourable, to maximise the value of the trophy and so complete the hunt. We're pretty sure he'll leave then. He most respects anyone willing to take him on with just a blade, and he meets them in kind. Hence my interest in the katana."
He looked carefully at me. "You understand the risk? The enormity of the challenge?"
"Only too well, I promise you," I answered feelingly.
"And still, knowing this, you intend to meet him blade to blade?"
"I must. It is the only way, Hirohito-San, I swear to you on the Badge. Any alternative is unacceptable to me. It's this, or he goes on killing our citizens - and he may well strike at my team, too. This I cannot permit. I am sworn to stop him. I must, whatever the personal cost. He must be stopped...even if I have to die to do it."
He stood and gave me a deep, deep bow. "Yours is the true spirit of the Samurai, Kelly-San." Then the solemnity slipped as he chuckled. "Either that, or you're out of your mind."
"Both, probably," I admitted, grinning.
"So be it." He opened the office door. "Tristan, my honoured guest and I will be training in the small dojo. We must not be disturbed for any reason whatsoever for the next twenty-four hours." Naturally Tristan looked startled at this, but bowed and nodded.
"Let us begin, then," Hirohito led the way. I bowed, student to master, and followed him. I was sure the next 24 hours - all the time I believed and feared I could spare before our resident alien killing machine went on the prowl again - would be the most intense of my life.
I was right, too. Dear God, was I right...
"I assume you have a blade of your own?" he inquired as we entered the dojo and he closed and locked the door.
"Oh, yeah," I answered with relish, and took it out of the long case I was carrying. "Our boys and girls in R & D fabricated this for me in their forge. It's a very modern blade, a bit longer and heavier than the usual, with a longer edge and a shallower curve...and it isn't steel, there isn't a milligram of iron or carbon in it. TiCrIr, we call it, after its component elements: titanium, chromium and iridium. It's the toughest alloy in the world." I snorted. "Against this bastard, it'll need to be!"
He took it respectfully to inspect it, fascinated, and well he might be. Everyone who's seen it or worked with it agrees: somehow, TiCrIr even looks interesting. There's just something about that smooth chrome sheen with just a hint of blue. Anything made of it looks the business and no mistake. It was developed by our in-house R & D team originally with armour plating in mind - they wanted an alloy with the optimum mix to maximise tensile, compression and impact strength while keeping it relatively light.
One problem is it's bloody expensive because iridium is very rare and the alloy's very hard to make (ridiculously high melting point, for a start: 2,446°C just to melt the iridium, by which time the other two metals are already molten, then a further heating to 3,278°C is required to prepare the alloy for crystallisation). A bigger problem is that you can only work it effectively whilst it's molten - because once the alloy cools and the three metals cohere into their beautiful, elegant crystalline structure, that's the way they stay.
It's just a shade softer than diamond (9.97 on the Mohs Scale of 10) and can't be worked except with nanotech, and the nanites need diamond in their manipulators at that. You can't physically saw it, cut it, drill it - tools go to pieces on it, even if they're made of it; the induced stress and torque are just too much. Laser or plasma torches, or high-temp Thermite in a pinch, will cut it, but it's still a hell of a job. It's the real-world equivalent of Adamantium which, as X-Men Origins: Wolverine showed, can't cut itself.
Last I heard, the military were very interested in buying the patent. We're thinking about it.
But R & D discovered by accident that with some very clever manipulation of lasers and extremely strong complex magnetic fields, it's possible to create a true monomolecular edge. Doesn't last long (though they're working on it), but while it lasts it can cut through anything. Even semi-blunted, relatively speaking, it's what a scalpel wants to be when it grows up. I suspected the Predator's blades were fashioned of an improved version of the alloy, to create a non-wearing edge. R & D were certain such an edge was theoretically possible; they almost had it now.
He wouldn't be expecting that. Nor would he be expecting me to be skilled with a katana, a blade with which I was sure his people were familiar, if my interpretation of that Samurai legend was correct.
Providing, of course, I mused wryly, I can acquire those skills quickly enough!
In fact Hirohito was an amazing instructor, and I turned out to have a surprising degree of natural skill with a two-handed sword - 'surprising' because I've never been more than a mediocre fencer. Maybe, I speculated, fencing wasn't intense enough to suit me.
Katana training definitely was.
Hirohito wasn't kidding; I was halfway convinced he actually was trying to kill me. When I mentioned this, joking, he replied solemnly, "But that is precisely what you asked for: training at the level of true combat. For me to perform at a lesser level would be to defeat the stated object."
I gaped. "You mean you are trying to kill me?"
He nodded. "Just as your opponent will attempt to do. Just as you must respond in kind, Kelly-San."
Oh, now he tells me.
I returned to the combat with fresh resolve.
We didn't take a break for nearly two hours - Hirohito because he didn't need it, superbly toned and conditioned as he was, and me because I was too stubborn to quit and didn't dare spare the time. But in the end the flesh proved weaker than the spirit, and we had to rest...briefly.
I had to admit, "Hell fire, I haven't been this beat since the last NYPD Charity Athletics. How'm I doing?"
I said it lightly, but Hirohito knew full well the question was serious. "An excellent beginning," he nodded. "Your style of defence is now quite adequate. Now we shall work on attack. I must advise you, Kelly-San: you must not hold back. Your strikes must be as lethal as they are swift. Do not concern yourself with my safety." A gallows smile. "Should you kill me, however inadvertently, that would conclusively prove both your prowess and my incompetence...however, I have not lost even a combat-level bout in thirty-two years."
The question had to be asked and I did so, quietly: "I need to forget that this is just training, don't I?"
He nodded solemnly. "Your combat against this demon will be for real. You must therefore regard this combat as equally real. That is the only way you will survive against it."
I also nodded - and attacked.
This time we went three hours without a break. I honestly don't know where I found the stamina.
No, that's not true; I do know.
It came purely from fear for my team and, moreover, my citizens. I absolutely had to give the Predator the best fight I could, for as long as I could manage, else he wouldn't be satisfied - and the thought of Duane's skull and/or spinal column decorating his trophy wall (of which Mike had given me a chilling description) was more than I could bear.
Or Jerry's.
Or, God help her, Candy's.
And we couldn't be sure he wouldn't go after Marie at some point, even if she wasn't armed. We had no proof that unarmed = safe from him. Anecdotal and existential evidence, yes, but not proof. She was one of the bravest kids I've ever known, but bravery didn't mean squat when it came to this creature. The thought of that little girl's pelvis on that wall...
No, I swore silently, furiously. NOT ON MY WATCH!
And so it went on for several hours. We both sustained minor injuries, mine slightly worse, and I was proud of the fact that I'd been able to get through Hirohito's guard even to that small extent. He was impressed, and said so. "The fastest student I have ever trained," he bowed, "quick of mind and body, a swift learner...and perhaps most importantly, the most highly-motivated. I am confident you will at the very least be able to hold your own against the demon. His victory is now no longer assured."
I accepted the praise with a deep bow of gratitude and respect to my most worthy teacher, and took it at face value...while knowing full well the odds were still stacked against me. But at least I could give him a run for his money - maybe take advantage of his surprise.
If it was possible to surprise him.
I'd have to see.
New York Tactical Operations Unit Base, Squad Room
Three hours later
"He's been spotted, so to speak," Frankie reported when I checked in with the team after a very refreshing sleep induced via micro-currents applied directly to the sleep centre of the brain (science fact catching up with fiction again), "Drone 5 picked up air disturbance on top of the Sears building in Brooklyn. IR scan reported anomalous readings. Gotta be him. We lost contact with 2; last we saw was a blue-white flash, so it was probably shot down." She looked sheepish. "I think I went too low with it, sir; sorry."
It was as I'd feared. "He's on the move. Looking for new targets." I exhaled and drew the katana from its case. "Time to give him one he can't resist."
Looking even younger than Marie with tears streaming down her face, Candy sobbed, "Is there no way we can talk you out of this? I mean, you could be wrong. He might not be interested in you at all - but if you walk around flaunting that thing, he will be!"
I debated whether to tell them, but only briefly. They deserved to know, and my keeping this quiet until now was a mistake I now recognised. "Guys, there's something I didn't tell you, and I realise now I should have. For the last couple of nights I have been certain I was being followed home, but I couldn't see anyone, or anything. But I remembered my Unit training - let's hear it, people..." I entreated pointedly.
Sure enough, they replied in unison, just as it had been drilled into them (and me) at the Academy: "If your instincts tell you you're being followed, especially at night, then you probably are. Assume you are and act accordingly. Better to be wrong and look stupid and paranoid, than to be right, do nothing and end up dead."
"Correct," I approved. "The night before I went to Hirohito, I popped in an IR scan contact lens on the off chance, but even then I couldn't see anything. What do you want to bet that Harrigan was right and that the Predator was and is stalking me?"
"What if he knows what you've been up to, sir?" Jerry worried.
That was a legitimate concern, I conceded, but I didn't think it was all that likely. He wouldn't be interested in human social mores, and the concept of weapons training purely for recreation would be, quite literally, alien to him. Weapons were for hunting, not for fun. So it was unlikely he understood the purpose of Sword Class NYC.
"So how're you gonna do it, Commander?" Duane asked. "Go up onto the rooftops? I'd advise against it; up there all the advantages are his."
"I agree," I nodded, "and it isn't necessary anyway. All I have to do, basically, is -" I shrugged, "- call him out. He'll come. He can't not." I exhaled again. "Central Park," I decided. "I want all civilians evacuated within a two-block radius. Remember, our purpose here is to minimise civilian casualties, ideally bring the number down to zero. Meeting him in an open space means a minimum of property damage if he decides to cheat and use that plasma caster or whatever the hell it is."
"Cover story?" Jerry asked.
"Gas leak? Bomb threat?" I shrugged again. "Just get them clear, people, you know the drill."
They did. It was accomplished amazingly quickly even by Unit standards.
The activity did not escape Young Blood's notice. He was briefly puzzled as to why so many oomans were leaving their dwellings - until he looked towards the central space from which they were radiating outwards, scanned...and detected the Prime - the Final - Prey. Better, it was standing alone. It knew, it had to know, he was stalking it, Young Blood noted with pleasure - because this meant the leader of the oomans hunting him was clever and would thus be a worthy opponent.
Now, what weapons was it carrying?
He was fascinated and overjoyed to detect only a bladed weapon like the k't'nhah he'd seen displayed by a Leader. It knows my purpose! Young Blood marvelled. It knows what I seek! A prey which knows its Hunter!
This will truly be a worthy and honourable kill!
New York City, Central Park
Five minutes after completion of evacuation
"Okay, people," I addressed the Unit quietly, "I can practically feel him. He's close. Now here are your orders. Very simple:
"Stay out of this. No matter what happens, no matter what you see, do not attempt to intervene in any way whatsoever. This is and must remain between him and me. Duane, I'm appointing you as my deputy in this matter - if any Unit officer disobeys my orders, you will order their immediate dismissal from the Unit. Is that understood?"
"Under protest, sir, but...Roger Wilco," he reluctantly acknowledged.
I caught sight of a bush in the distance moving as if blown by the wind...except there wasn't any. I knew only too well what that meant. "Here he comes. Radio silence from this point on."
"Good luck, Commander," every member of the Unit - and Ed, monitoring from his office - called. Candy wasn't the only one in tears.
One exception was Marie, or rather, in this context, Streetcat; she snarled, "For Billy! GET THE FUCKER! GUT HIM!"
I'll do my best, I silently replied, touched by the unity of my well-wishers.
Then I focused on what was to come.
This was the first time any of us had really seen the thing clearly; through that amazing stealth screen it looked vaguely man-shaped. Denny was right; as it moved you saw not through it, but behind it. The Predator wasn't truly invisible, it just bent ambient light around it.
When it had closed to about three metres, it stopped - and effectively vanished. The shimmer, which closely resembled heat distortion in the air - intentional, I was sure, and damn, it was especially hot tonight! - was only visible whenever the creature was in motion. Denny's theory was that even enormous computing power had to give way to physics; light was faster than computation, especially over such short distance, and so the projector couldn't 100% keep up, though the screen was still extremely effective tactically.
But once still, it was completely invisible.
That was how the '97 Predator had evaded the police at the penthouse, I understood: it had never left, simply lurking in the rafters, utterly motionless and thus utterly invisible until it grabbed and slaughtered Danny Archuleta. It was why Dmitri Gusev hadn't seen it despite his keen-eyed watchful attention as the Russians' guard man.
It was why No Change and the other Bloods had mistakenly headed towards the creature instead of away from it on the train, as the recovered and cleaned-up CCTV footage (there'd been a lot of interference) showed.
I now understood, too, why it had shown itself to Marie - a huge and uncharacteristic tactical error on the face of it, for I was entirely willing to bet these things had known war at some point in their history and so they would know the finer points of strategy and tactics. A basic war maxim is Know Thine Enemy, something they surely knew as well as we did. An enemy who showed his opponent something about himself for no tactical gain, especially something that opponent might actually be able to use against him, was, on the face of it, a fool.
It was purely a gesture of respect for her courage and leadership, especially when she wasn't armed. These creatures were all about the respect and the honour of it, I had to admit, and I honestly couldn't help but admire them for that.
Not that that would stop me from boning this motherfucker like a Goddamn fish if I could!
For a moment the rage took hold of me as I remembered what it had done to those innocent kids, to Billy. I remembered Violet's tears of despair and loss. This thing, this monster, had brutally slain New York citizens - people my Unit and I were sworn to protect! It had butchered and mutilated CHILDREN!
That was ultimately all the Bloods really were: they were kids playing on the streets, not a true gang! They'd hardly ever broken the law - hell, they even did honest work now and again for Tino Martinez at his pizza place on 79th St.! That whole business with Julie and that scumbag Mallory was very much an exception, not the norm! They just wanted to live their own lives in their own way, and by the laws of the Constitution of the United States, one of the greatest documents ever written (and I'm saying that as an ex-Brit, if you hadn't already guessed), by God they had every right to do that!
So where did this alien bastard get off deciding it was okay to butcher and defile the people of my city?! WHERE?!
For a moment I came incredibly close to committing the worst - and last - mistake of my entire life by simply rushing the thing, sword raised to strike, screaming some incoherent war cry. For a moment, I wanted to.
But only for a moment.
Unit training, deeply ingrained, kicked in and saved my life. We were in fact trained to allow such moments to occur; the idea was to give the rage an outlet instead of bottling it up and letting it use you at just the wrong time. A combatant blinded by rage would very shortly be a dead combatant. Better to let the anger rise, let it peak, then channel it so you could use it instead. As I did just that, a fiery cold calm settled over me.
I was ready. Ready to die if need be, I had accepted that distinct possibility with equanimity now, but I would of course give this fight everything I had. I could still win. If nothing else, I now knew I had nothing to lose and therefore I had nothing to fear.
There was still a chance. True, it was still David against Goliath, but hey, he won, didn't he?
Young Blood was fascinated. He had fully expected the prey to attack; he had seen the rush of heat to its extremities which spoke of its battle rage, a rage the yautja understood so well. The combat would have been over in a moment, but still most honourable.
But it did not attack. Instead it calmed itself and held its position. Young Blood admired it anew. This was a seasoned warrior, he knew, one who well understood the danger of unfettered rage in battle. Young Blood had seen other yautja make that mistake against the kainde amedha and pay for it with their unworthy lives, their thwei spilling bright green on the ground. This one knew better.
He would show himself - and he would do so Unmasked. This ooman deserved no less.
I'd half expected what came next, but it was still unsettling. The stealth screen vanished, and I had cause once again to admire Marie's camera eye and artistic skills, because she'd captured the thing perfectly. She would, I was sure, make one hell of a Unit officer, maybe even Commander one day. That was a worthy legacy, I decided, my equanimity increasing at the thought.
The creature began the ritual removal of its mask. That, I admit, I was less sanguine about.
Through the HD camera Jocelyn had implanted in Kelly's eye with amazing speed and deftness, the Unit watched anxiously from their vantage point on the edge of the park. A large number of SWAT troops lent by the NYPD in a rare moment of generosity, just for once overlooking the interdepartmental rivalry between the Blues and the Unit, waited behind them, armed as if for war on Duane's advice. "God, it's huge," Candy whispered in awe and terror. "It's a wonder it didn't break my neck when it hit me."
Jocelyn, still somehow maintaining her objectivity, clinically observed, "I imagine it controlled the blow, judging the precise degree of force required to incapacitate you and no more than that. Its physical discipline must be exquisite, on the close order of a Zen sensei. Probably they train for years before they ever even come to Earth."
Candy turned to her, incensed. "How can you be so calm about this, Jocelyn? For God's sake, that thing is going to -"
It was at this point, Candy later admitted ashamedly, that she realised she'd gotten the older woman all wrong from day one. Jocelyn showed she was human after all by bursting into tears.
"Candy, don't you think I know that?! Don't you think I admire that man as deeply as the rest of you? D - don't you think I know he's going to die, he doesn't really stand one single chance against that thing no matter what he's learned from Yoshimoto, and it isn't fair that he should face it alone? Do you think I want to conduct an autopsy on our Commander, our friend, after he's had his spinal column and skull ripped out bodily?! Especially after we've watched it happen?! After we've just stood by and done nothing?!
"Oh, I feel the same way, Candy, I'd take his place if I could - just as you would, or Duane, or - or any of us, because we're decent human beings who feel grief and sympathy as any decent human being should! But we can't. God help us, help him, we can't," she despaired. "This is the way it has to be...but knowing that does not make it one b - bit easier to accept." She hid her face in her hands. "Oh, God...why him? He doesn't deserve to die, why is this happening...? It isn't fair..."
For several seconds Candy just stared at the sobbing woman as if she'd never seen her before. That was the most anyone had ever heard out of Jocelyn Barton outside of a forensic or clinical context. In a much softer tone now, she answered, abashed, "No...no, it isn't. I'm sorry, Jocelyn. I'm sorry. I...I didn't know."
Jocelyn looked up then with a watery smile. "Hold on...you didn't think I was confessing to being in love with him, did you?" She managed a chuckle. "God, no. I admire and respect him and I hope to grow up to be like him, but love? Nah. He's not my type."
Candy too managed a chuckle, realising they had at last found common ground. Maybe the kinky bitch wasn't so bad after all.
She was entirely unaware of this at the time, since of course no-one could foresee the future, but they would later become the firmest of friends and even, briefly, lovers, and Jocelyn would be the midwife and godmother of the twins Candy would later bear by way of Jerry (who loved her but hadn't the faintest idea yet of how to tell her).
As for the Commander...
...I was watching with equal parts revulsion and fascination as the Predator slowly removed its mask and showed me its true face. I had no idea of their aesthetic standards, of course, but by human measures, Christ it was an ugly son of a bitch. Its mandibles flared out as it roared what I was certain was a challenge, spreading its huge hands. But I wasn't so stupid as to just go charging in there; I raised the katana in a challenge of my own and answered, "Come and get me, motherfucker!"
It raised its left arm - and something launched from it. I had less than a second to react, but I deflected the whatever-it-was with my blade. A two-pronged spear tip or a dart, it blurred to one side and buried itself deeply in a tree trunk. Next came a steel (or whatever) net; Harrigan had described something similar, designed to tighten around the prey, the strands cutting into the victim. But a single slash of my katana put paid to that.
Then three red dots appeared on my chest. Each looked for all the world like the beam from a sniper's targeting laser - which of course they were. The stubby device on its left shoulder whirred and pointed towards me. If that was the plasma caster we'd postulated, I was toast.
But it didn't fire. It wasn't hard to guess why.
The Predator had sent me a message: I could kill you so easily. A single shot and you are dead. But I will not. I did not expect to kill you with my other weapons, either; those too were just to demonstrate where you stand.
But now...now you will DIE!
As I'd fully expected, the twin blades, viciously serrated just as Marie had depicted and as Jocelyn had extrapolated, extended from their sheaths.
Now we were getting down to it.
Young Blood was disturbed for the first time. The ooman's blade should not have withstood the arr-thk, the spear dart, or the dr'she, the killing mesh, so well; either should have severely damaged it, yet it was intact as far as he could tell. They had not metal so durable.
Or did they?
He remembered Swift Kill's warning about underestimating them. The yautja had developed the three-metal alloy some time ago, proof even against the acid thwei of the kainde amedha, and those metals were known to occur on the Blue World - though one, the densest of the three, was uncommon - but could oomans have learned the trick of combining them into a crystalline structure almost impossible to break, as his people had?
If so...the ooman would be even more of a challenge. It might even...win.
He snarled at even the possibility. No! It mattered not! Greater odds meant greater glory! The ooman must die, he decided in fury, NOW!
It covered the distance between us with incredible speed. Amazing that something so fucking huge could move so fast. It closed in and slashed viciously; the katana met the blades. Sparks flew. My arms were jarred almost out of their sockets by the impact. Jocelyn was right, it's strong! God, if it gets a hand on me I'm done!
I pivoted on one heel and delivered a backhand slash, twisting the blade as I did. A physiotherapist once told me I had unusual flexibility in my wrists, and I took full advantage of that fact. To my surprise, I actually inflicted a minor wound; the blood or equivalent was a thick sludge, bright, luminous green, more like cyalume than anything else. First blood, I briefly exulted, then had to duck and roll as it roared in fury and slashed at head height. That would've taken my head clean off, I noted, right between third and fourth vertebrae.
It was going for a quick kill. Fine, I thought, I'll do the same.
Swift Kill's warning now carried even greater weight, Young Blood marvelled, as the ooman had, incredibly, drawn first thwei. A minor wound only, to be sure, but that was far from being the point. Still, it should not have been able to...wait. The ooman's breathing carried the sound of age. This, then, was not a young adult, not old either - else it could never have fought so well! - but surely on the older side by their reckoning. Therefore it was more experienced, more cunning.
And, therefore, more worthy!
He'd been wonderfully correct; this one was a master warrior, perhaps the greatest this world had to offer. He would take his trophy with the utmost care and respect as the ooman deserved. He knew they did not truly understand the way of the yautja and felt it was "wrong" for them to hunt and kill pyode amedha; he wished he could explain.
Perhaps Swift Kill could. He would ask.
For that was something the oomans did not know and could not expect:
Young Blood was not alone.
Hidden even more thoroughly by a newer, more sophisticated version of the rhh-kosh, others watched.
Enough defence, I decided, time to go on the attack!
It was a hell of a risk, but it had to be done sooner or later. So I closed in, centred myself and brought the katana from knee to head height (mine, that is) diagonally, a classic Samurai stroke. But the Predator blocked it easily and swung in with a punch from its left fist. Even as it hit and slammed me off my feet, I cursed myself for not seeing it coming.
Problem was, I couldn't see much of anything now; my vision was blurred. Concussion, I wondered blearily, or were my retinas detached? I'd read somewhere that that could happen with severe blows to the head...oh, not again, I groused, I'd needed laser surgery to fix the problem - then I ended up with cataracts as a side-effect and had to have follow-up surgery for those, too. Still, it did mean I could happily ditch the specs for the first time in forty-odd years, I'd been wearing 'em since I was 9...
Focus, dammit, Master Sergeant Lance Aldrin, my Academy combat instructor, yelled in my mind. That's your problem, McAllister, it's always a problem with smart guys: got so much goin' on in their heads, they can't FOCUS! If I EVER manage to teach you ANYTHING, you smart, DUMB son of a bitch, it'll be this: in hand-to-hand combat, think about ONE! THING! AT! A! TIME! FOCUS ON THAT ONE THING AND DEAL WITH IT!
It was a harsh lesson - well, several, to be honest - but well-learned in the end. I graduated Aldrin's course with much more than a merely passing grade. I learned to focus. It was time to do just that.
Right. First problem: can't see straight. Is there anything I can do about that right now?
No.
Okay. Next: the big bad-ass motherfucker is going to bone me like a fish any second. Can I do anything about that?
Yes. Raise sword. I did.
Deflect blow. Did that.
Evade next strike. Yep, no prob, roll to one side.
Are we doing any better on the vision front? Hmm, yeah, things seem to be clearing. Not concussion, no retinal detachment, just stunned.
He wouldn't deliver a killing punch. That would be too easy, I realised as my cogitation returned to normal levels. They've been butchering us for centuries, they have to know our anatomy in exquisite detail by now. They know exactly what we can and can't take. That's how he was able to knock Candy out without killing her, because she was unarmed and hence out of bounds by his code.
Not that that doesn't mean he can't or won't knock me senseless.
So stay out of reach, you prat. That's why you went for a longer blade, trading balance and stability for reach and weight.
I stood. None too steadily, it's true, but I refused to die except on my feet. I raised the katana to eye level and prepared to strike.
Then something odd caught my eye; I could've sworn there was the briefest flicker. As if...
I almost dismissed it as battle fatigue.
Almost. But I knew my peripheral vision was excellent. Plus there was a measure in Unit psycho-analytical testing we called the RAQ, the Reality Appreciation Quotient. It was a qualitative measure of how closely one's perceptions matched, or RAQued (racked - see the pun?), up to objective reality, and mine was very high - which meant I wasn't the sort to imagine things. Therefore I did see something.
So I feinted towards the Predator -
- then whirled around and rushed forward. My worst fears were realised:
I stopped dead. Against nothing.
Nothing visible, anyway...
Swift Kill was astounded and impressed. It was not known that oomans had such sharp yh'shi, the vision of the side. He was discovered. There was only one honourable thing to do.
He revealed himself.
The other Watchers did likewise.
"Oh, no!" Candy cried in despair. The Predator wasn't alone! If Kelly had had any chance before, he surely didn't now!
Young Blood, too, was startled. It was not for a lowly one like him to question the ways of a Leader, of course, but for Swift Kill to reveal himself while not Hunting was unprecedented. But then, so was the ooman's discovery of him, so the one balanced the other, Young Blood supposed. He was uncertain of how to proceed, so he made the appropriate gesture of appeasement to his mentor and clacked a request: May I proceed?
Swift Kill nodded. His student had comported himself magnificently throughout his Hunt, behaving honourably at all times. He was a credit to his mentor and the Final Prey he had selected was worthy indeed. Songs would be sung about this. The tales of Young Blood's prowess on the Blue World would surely attract a number of eligible females. The youngster would father many strong suckers.
But Candy had had all she could take. She abandoned her position and raced towards them, skidding to a halt before the biggest Predator whom she deduced in a desperate flash of insight was the leader, before a startled Duane could stop her. Ignoring his yells to come back, what the fuck did she think she was doing, she fell to her knees and pleaded, "No! Stop this! Please!"
Swift Kill had never been so astonished. The female ooman was unarmed and hence powerless, yet if he understood her language properly, she was begging him to intervene, to stop the Hunt. It was unheard of - and impossible. "I cannot," he answered in his own tongue. To her, it would sound like "Kh'ki-clack".
She did not, could not understand him. Yet, he saw with surprise, she did.
In a second flash of desperate insight Candy realised the alien had refused her plea. "Please, you're their leader, he'll do what you tell him! Please, Kelly's a good man, he doesn't deserve to die! If...if there has to be a kill...then kill me, instead. Take my life for his. Please, I'm begging you." She hung her head before the alien, offering her vulnerable neck, utterly defenceless and uncaring for it.
It was a gesture Swift Kill understood. But the reason for it...that was beyond him. Was she the Final Prey's mate? Was their bond so strong she would give her life for his, as he was certain was her intent? Not all races were alike; only a fool would think so. Swift Kill had not survived over a hundred Hunts, many against oomans, some even against queens of the kainde amedha, by being any kind of fool. Yautja would not behave in this manner, to be sure - but oomans, of course, were not yautja. Their ways were different, he knew full well. Not better or worse - just different.
This was not a question which could be decided by supposition, he knew, but to honour her courage - one quality respected by both races - it had to be decided. But thanks to the Wise Elders with whom he had been privileged to speak before he and the others present set off to accompany Young Blood on this Hunt, perhaps there was a way. No-one was sure if it would work, so this would be a good field test. He engaged the newest device of yautja science: the tre'ss-ka, the translator.
"You are...his mate?" Swift Kill asked. Well, it sounded like ooman speech; apparently it was working. Hopefully it would work as well in the other direction. When the ooman replied, it became clear that it was so, as he understood her speech perfectly. The Wise Elders were indeed wise.
Candy looked up, astonished. The voice sounded electronic, harsh - a translator, she comprehended, shades of Star Trek. "No," she answered, "his...well, mainly he's my friend. I don't know how much that means to you, but on our world it means everything. I am offering my life for his. I know it's against your code of honour to kill unarmed prey, so please give me a weapon and I will gladly die fighting."
"Candy, NO!" I screamed. "Get the fuck away from here!"
"I'm sorry, Commander," she quietly but firmly responded, "but I cannot in good conscience obey that order." She stood and bravely faced the Predator. "Do your people have personal names? Mine is Candy. What's yours?"
It - no, he, she decided fairly - answered with a short string of sibilants which the translator rendered as "Swift Kill". Short and to the point, she reflected. "And...his, please?" she asked, indicating Kelly's opponent.
"That one is Young Blood," was the reply. Swift Kill considered something curious: her name sounded almost yautja - Kh'ndi. He marvelled yet again at how different and yet how similar their two peoples truly were.
"Thank you. Now...why? Why do you do this? Why do you come to our world and murder our people? What's the point?" she cried.
"We...are this way. We know no other. We can live no other. The Hunt is All."
"The Hunt is All," the others - including Young Blood - echoed. It was clearly a cultural thing.
Realising this, Candy tried desperately, "But can't you change? We believe life is all about change. Life is change. Anything which can't change can't improve. You're more advanced than we are, surely you know that better than we do! Surely you can find a better way, one that isn't so wasteful!"
Swift Kill did not respond immediately. What the ooman was saying touched upon an aspect of yautja culture that had long been forgotten except by a very, very few. Finally he rumbled, "There was a time...once, long, long ago, we did try. We tried to change. But in the end we found we could not. The drives, the instinct, they are too strong, evolved over untold millennia. There was war, between those who tried and those who did not. The struggle was brief...its end inevitable. We returned to the old ways. The alternative was death. We are what we are."
His mandibles rattled in what for his people was a sigh of regret. "I am sorry. We cannot grant your plea. The Hunt goes on."
You'll forgive me if I don't act surprised, I barely had time to think as Young Blood attacked.
Or rather, started to. He was interrupted by the bravest, most reckless act I have ever seen or even heard of:
Candy, still unarmed, threw herself between us and screamed, "NO!"
She should have died. Against any human opponent she surely would have; no human could have reacted quickly enough to halt in mid-strike.
But Young Blood was far from human. The blades halted just as they touched her forehead, the thin cuts they inflicted mute testimony to the keenness of their edges. A fraction of a second later and she would now be dead. She'd counted on his inhumanly swift reactions and what appeared to be a bone-deep taboo against killing unarmed prey, even accidentally. He hissed in frustration and fury. "Move aside!" he demanded.
"No," she refused. "Commander, stay right behind me! As long as I'm between you and him, he can't touch you - and you can't kill me, CAN YOU?!" she actually taunted him.
Young Blood attempted to move around her, but she moved with him. "You must move aside!" he commanded. "This is...it is not honourable!"
"I DON'T CARE!" she screamed. "I WON'T LET YOU!"
Driven by his cultural imperatives, he sheathed the blades so as not to cause inadvertent injury, for even that was forbidden, and gripped the ooman by her upper limbs to force her out of the way. But she folded her arms in that peculiar way they had, set her feet shoulder-width apart...and, somehow, something changed within her. She...settled.
To his utter astonishment, he discovered he could not move her. It was like trying to move a tree. He exerted what should have been sufficient strength to snap an ooman in two. It had no effect.
He brought all his strength to bear.
She remained in place.
"It's a talent some of us have," she explained brightly. "It takes a long time to learn, but...well. I can do this all day. Can you?"
Young Blood was totally baffled. How was this possible, that an ooman, a female yet, could do something a yautja could not? Confused, desperate, he backhanded her as he had once before, measuring the blow as he had before to cause unconsciousness without major injury. But this time, somehow, it had no effect.
She smiled serenely. "I wasn't ready then. I wasn't prepared. But I am now."
This was intolerable! The Hunt must be completed! There was only one honourable alternative!
I'd already worked it out. Young Blood would not, could not quit. I suspected his own people would put him to death if he did. He...didn't deserve that. What they did wasn't wrong by their lights. But if he couldn't finish the hunt...
I had to be sure. "Swift Kill!" I called. "What happens if Young Blood can't kill me?"
He gave the answer I'd expected and dreaded. "He must select another. That one must be equally worthy."
"I can't allow that," I told him quietly. "That was the reason I challenged him, so he wouldn't kill anyone else. Candy, you know that. I am ordering you one final time: step aside."
"You know I can't, sir," she demurred.
I sighed. She was leaving me no choice. I could only hope she wouldn't hate me. "Duane...Directive Four. That's an order."
"Sir..." he protested, but acquiesced as I knew he would. "Under protest again, Commander..."
Candy looked at me, puzzled - then unbelieving as she felt a brief, painless tingle in her head...and began losing consciousness. "No...!" she pleaded as she understood, but collapsed anyway. I caught her one-handed as she fell.
Look, Directive Four was not my idea. But the DA had insisted. Suppose, she suggested, a Unit member somehow went off the rails? Trusted as they were, such a one could pose a tremendous risk to civilians. A way was needed to circumvent that possibility whilst posing minimal risk to the member in question. Thus Directive Four, which caused the implanted transceiver to send a harmless pulse of electric current, just a few microvolts, directly to the sleep centre of the brain. Only the DA, Ed, Duane and myself possessed the relevant codes for each of our subordinates.
Only Ed and I could knock Duane out...and only Ed could do it to me.
The only reason I agreed to it at all was because I'd never expected to have to use it. Then again, who could've seen this coming?
I'm sorry, Candy. Thank you for trying, you crazy loveable brave little insubordinate idiot. I hope you'll forgive me one day.
"She isn't dead," I told the Predators, "only asleep. We don't kill our own."
"Nor do we," Swift Kill replied. "Remove her. She and the one who removes her will not be harmed."
Duane was already approaching, but he had very sensibly divested himself of all weaponry. He picked her up in a fireman's carry and retreated in good order.
Young Blood didn't stand on ceremony. He simply attacked instantly the moment the two were clear.
Of course I was expecting it. What, you think I'm stupid or something?!
He meant business now, as if he hadn't before. His strikes were rapid, precise and forceful, as Jocelyn had again deduced. His discipline was incredible. I was able to make a shrewd guess as to the relationship between him and Swift Kill: there was a mark on each Predator's forehead, a scar, in a ritualised S-shape. I believe it was their equivalent of a huntsman in the UK being blooded the first time he took part in a successful fox hunt (though that was now illegal, and rightly so in my opinion. Oscar Wilde was quite right).
It was clear which one showed deference to the other. So Swift Kill was, I concluded, Young Blood's instructor or mentor. I bet he was proud of his young charge. By their lights, he admittedly had reason to be. Christ this fucker was fast! He was slashing now high, now low, too fast for me to pick up on any pattern.
The first time he got through my guard and slashed my torso, I didn't even feel it at first; it's true, I know now, that you don't feel the keenest blade...and his were the sharpest blades on this entire planet. ArmorLite™ was impervious to stabbing or slashing moves attempted by any human, but of course...well.
But then I did feel it and, oh, God, it hurt!
He roared in triumph as he saw he'd scored. It was more by pure instinct than anything else that I did exactly the right thing: I realised he would move in to capitalise on this weakness of mine, crouched a little - and stuck the katana straight out in front of me. He misjudged my stance, came in hard - and screamed in agony as the TiCrIr blade plunged into and through his right arm. Desperate to avoid the possibility of his jerking backwards and depriving me of my only weapon, I quickly twisted it and pulled with everything I had.
There's one advantage a non-serrated blade has over a serrated one: it comes out as easily as it goes in even if it hits bone, which I'm pretty sure mine did. The katana slid smoothly out of his arm, trailing more of that green glowing slime he used for blood.
Now he had an injury more severe (I fervently hoped) than mine, and in his blade arm at that. My odds were looking better. Still bad, but better.
I'd expected him to rage at me, spit or whatever their equivalent was, but he didn't. Surprisingly he didn't seem angry at all.
If I wasn't already committed to the mindset of having nothing to lose and thus nothing to fear, this observation would've scared the shit out of me. It meant his control was even better than I'd feared. Swift Kill must be one hell of a mentor. I bet I'd have lasted two minutes against him, if that.
Young Blood did exactly what I'd hoped he wouldn't: he slowed the pace of his attack, his strikes much more measured. It was all too clear that if he had underestimated me at any point, he definitely wasn't doing that now. He was falling back on his basic training precisely as he should, substituting skill and finesse for speed and brute force, and he certainly was skilled. It made him ten times more dangerous.
As if he wasn't lethal enough already.
I reassessed my odds. Nope, Jocelyn was right.
I was so screwed.
But, I also knew, this would fulfil the requirements of the Hunt: the honourable kill of a most worthy prey. It meant he would leave.
No more New York citizens butchered on my watch.
No more Billys.
Marie would be safe. My team would be safe.
It was enough, I decided. No, I wasn't going to just quit, let him kill me, though I was so tired and I hurt so much it was honestly tempting, but...no. He would know and that would cheapen his trophy - undoing everything I'd worked to achieve.
Then again...
I didn't want to die.
Dammit, I didn't want to die!
Dylan Thomas was right, dammit all! Rage, rage against the dying of the light!
A strategy, a desperate last hope, occurred to me, based on something Mike had said. It was by far the biggest risk I'd ever taken or even contemplated, but it could work. I struck out with new hope. He parried, returned my strike, went low - and caught me straight across the belly.
Dear God, I had never, never known such pain. My scream of agony was all too genuine. So was my folding up, cradling the wound.
I had one chance. Just one. The timing had to be perfect or I would be dead.
Oh, God, that hurts so bad...
Young Blood sensed victory was close as the ooman howled and its thwei flowed freely. It buckled in clear agony. He knew its end was near. But by the Code, simply allowing it to die was dishonourable. It had earned a merciful death, more than earned it. Everything he had ever heard about oomans being the ultimate pyode amedha was true, and more. He flexed his injured arm to prepare to deliver the honourable death blow that would cleave the creature's thwei-pumping organ in two and thus kill it instantly.
He raised his arm. One strike, and -
NOW!
With the very last of my strength (if that's the right word) I thrust upwards. My strike was perfect; the blade slid into Young Blood's body and penetrated his spine as I'd intended. I twisted it, nearly breaking both wrists with the effort, and the tactic had exactly the effect I'd hoped for. There was a wet sound of cartilage (?) snapping - and Young Blood's back broke. His scream was choked by the green slime which spewed from his mouth.
He'd made exactly the same mistake as Mike's nemesis had: he'd assumed I was done, dying.
And I'd deceived him, just as Mike had. Slashed through his spine as Mike had.
"SHIT HAPPENS, MOTHERFUCKER!" I screamed in triumph as I whipped out the blade. "THAT'S FOR BILLY DAVIES!"
Young Blood collapsed. I am utterly certain he was dead before he hit the ground.
I almost collapsed myself, but somehow I stayed mostly upright, one knee on the ground. I knew Swift Kill and the others would respect me more if I didn't fall.
I didn't.
There was absolute silence. Then the Unit broke it with heartfelt cheers. The SWATs fired shots into the air. Marie flipped the Predators off.
And Swift Kill regarded me thoughtfully. At least I think it was thoughtfully. Hell, he was a fucking alien, how'm I supposed to know?! I'm a New York cop, not a Starfleet officer!
I was still in agony, but I somehow managed to stand. Duane took the risk of calling for a medkit and running to me with it, but Swift Kill didn't try to stop him. He was still unarmed, after all. "Hold still, sir, I gotta disinfect -"
"There's something else first," I rasped. I staggered to where Swift Kill stood and straightened up, the closest anyone outside of Joey DiMaggio could come to eyeballing a Predator. I'm only 5'10". I did my best. Always do. "I won. Yes?"
"You deceived him," Swift Kill observed, neutrally as far as I could tell.
"He underestimated me. How is that my fault?"
"It is not," Swift Kill admitted. "His was the fault for not remembering: your kind are truly crafty, clever. He briefly forgot that." A sound almost like a sigh, his mandibles clacking. "An able student, but his memory was never the best." He nodded. "You are the victor. Your victory is honourable. By the Code of the Hunt, I so declare." Then he seemed...well, I don't know how I know this, given a face not even remotely human in its configuration or physiognomy, but I am certain to this day that he looked...solemn. "There is a thing which must be done. The ancient ones of your kind did this also, to mark a true Hunter."
I understood. He wanted to mark me in some way, as tribal hunters marked themselves with the blood of their kills, to demonstrate proper respect for my victory - perhaps even with his mark. I nodded.
Swift Kill produced a stylus (well, it looked like one, and form follows function as always). He pressed it once, and a tiny drop of something greenish was exuded, falling to the sidewalk.
Where it etched a small hole. In concrete.
Corrosive, obviously, to form a permanent mark. Hell, this is gonna hurt. Then again, how can I hurt any more than I already do? Eat your heart out, Nietzsche, maybe you did know what you were talkin' about.
It wasn't too bad, considering (trans.: Owww, fuuuuuuck!). Swift Kill drew his mark with utmost care and precision on my forehead, giving me something that I knew would later prove very hard to explain to the powers that be (though it did somewhat improve my luck with the ladies...). Fuck 'em, I decided in a rebellion against authority à la Streetcat, I've earned this. It's not every cop who takes down a Predator with just a sword, especially when he's been practically gutted!
The others howled in approval; Duane got it from context and tossed me a Marine salute. Swift Kill hissed in approval of my stoic acceptance of the, frankly, agonising pain, and rumbled, "It is done. You are Blooded. Choose your trophy."
I was about to vociferously refuse on the grounds that it wasn't our custom, but then again they might not even comprehend such a refusal. I'd won in fair combat, I'd been properly marked by their (doubtless very ancient) custom, and so a trophy was mine by right. I wondered briefly if they'd allow me to reclaim Billy's skull and spinal column, for Violet's sake - but then I had an idea. "There is something I want."
"Name it."
"I want...I want you to leave this world and never, EVER return!" I yelled. "That is my trophy! By your own rules, you must grant this!"
I think they looked shocked. I'm fairly sure of it. Every targeting beam of every plasma caster abruptly focused onto my body. Clearly they were incensed as well. But Swift Kill roared furiously, his mandibles flaring, "No! It is FORBIDDEN to kill a victor! You ALL know this! Fire, any ONE of you, and I will KILL YOU ALL! THIS, TOO, YOU KNOW!"
It was clear that they did. Every beam winked out. They obviously took his threat - or rather, it seemed to me, his statement of the way things would be if they didn't comply - very seriously. For all I knew, maybe he could pull it off.
Satisfied they wouldn't violate their own customs, he turned to me. "I...do not understand."
I was honestly touched by the genuine puzzlement and confusion I heard in his synthesised voice. "My people know about yours. We've known for forty of our - do you know how long the time measurement we call a year is? It's the time it takes our world to orbit its sun once. - for forty, that's this many -" I held up both splayed hands four times, and he nodded in understanding, "- years. The rulers of our world, what we call the government, want to capture one of you, and your technology."
"We know this." A dry laugh. "They will not succeed."
"They might, one day," I warned him quietly. "Our technology is constantly advancing. Imagine our warriors...with your weapons. Your alloys. Your stealth tech. Just imagine what the Hunt would be like then. And what happens when we go to the stars, as I believe we will one day? Maybe then, we will hunt you! How would you like THAT?!" I demanded.
Somehow I could tell he was reconsidering his position...and quite naturally he didn't like that idea one little bit. "It is...possible. But it would be wrong. You are too young and simple to use our science properly."
I didn't take offence for the simple reason that he was right. The thought of that stealth tech ending up even in legitimate hands, let alone those of some nutter and/or terrorist, was a chilling one. To an assassin it would be manna from heaven, washed down with ambrosia. The CIA...dear God, they'd love it. "True. Which is why I don't want you to take the risk." I sagged wearily, my strength draining away. "Just...go. Please, just go. Close Earth as a hunting ground. There have to be others you can hunt out there." Selfish though that is...
"There are," he readily admitted, "but we have found none who are so...worthy."
It was weirdly flattering to be considered worthy prey for butchery and mutilation. But it had to end. "Nevertheless, that is the trophy I demand. You know you cannot deny me."
"I cannot," he conceded, "but such a decision is not truly mine to make. I am a Leader, but I am not Leader in the sense you mean." Oh, fuck a duck, I hadn't thought of that. "I must consult the Wise Elders. Only they can decide such a thing."
The context was obvious: Predators too old even by their standards to hunt, advising the youngsters, providing a semblance of government. But what would they decide, and how long would it take? What would happen in the meantime?
I asked, and was told it would take as long as it took - but there would be no Hunts in the interim. Certainly they would never return to New York. "Each Hunting ground is normally used only once. It is the Way."
On hearing that, I could at last relax in the knowledge that my city was safe from these creatures now. In fact..."Okay, Dr. Holmes," I quipped, "don't suppose you could spare the time to stop me bleeding out...?"
Duane's and Swift Kill's booming laughter was the last thing I heard before passing out.
Yeah. You try fighting an alien creature twice your weight, from a higher-gravity world, getting slashed nearly to the bone - twice - and staying conscious. I'm so sure. I'd bloody well earned a spell of unconsciousness. So I took one.
Well, okay, I just passed out. As Frankie might say: whatevs.
New York Tactical Operations Unit, Medical Bay
Two days (!) later
Apart from working on recovery, with the latest medical tech to help, the first thing I did was to deal with Candy. She looked very small as she sat next to the bed, her hands resting in her lap, maintaining proper posture as her mother had taught her. But the first thing that happened was that I apologised to her for using Directive Four.
"I'd forgotten about that," she sheepishly admitted. "But there's really nothing to forgive, sir. You were entirely within your rights as the Commander to use the Directive. You were just keeping me, keeping all of us, safe."
I shook my head. "Some things shouldn't be done. I should never have agreed to that thing in the first place, and as soon as I can I'm going to do away with it. I have faith in my people to keep their heads without needing such draconian measures to keep them in line. Next time I'll just knock you out." I grinned. "That, or spank you."
She giggled. "Ooh, you wish!" Saucily she stood, turned around and wiggled what I had to admit was a very pretty, perky, neat derrière. Very firm-looking and eminently spankable. No wonder Johnny Mullins had lusted after her; that was indeed one fine piece of ass. Those skin-tight stretch jeans really suited her...and, I couldn't help but notice before she resumed her seat, Johnny was right about her 'tiny panties', too.
Hmm. Jeans. Not uniform trousers. She was out of uniform because "I don't deserve to wear it, sir. I disobeyed a direct order."
Bless her, she meant it; she wasn't eschewing the uniform purely for show or for the look of the thing. I sighed. "How many more times do I have to explain? This is not a military setup. We are not at war. Ultimately a cop is a civilian, not a soldier, which is why we rarely carry lethal weaponry. We really should discard the terminology of 'orders'. Look, Candy, what you did was a lot of things:
"Reckless - I don't ever want to see you taking that kind of crazy risk ever again. A tenth of a second either way and you'd be dead now.
"Selfless, done for me, for the Unit, for the people of New York. Maybe I was wrong even to give the order, I don't know.
"Far and away the bravest thing I've seen since those guys went up the stairs. You knew what might happen.
"Plus it was actually useful and helpful - it distracted Young Blood, gave me a chance to catch my breath which, believe me, I badly needed," I ruefully admitted. Then I smiled gently. "I've never seen a greater gesture of personal loyalty and nobility in my entire life, sweetheart, and I don't believe Swift Kill had, either. It made a difference in dealing with him, I'm sure. I don't think I've ever been more proud of you. Thank you, Candy." Now I grinned. "So go sort yourself out before I charge you with being Out Of Uniform on Unit time!"
She laughed in amusement and heartfelt relief, and hugged me. "You're the best, sir!"
"Yeah, yeah, don't get all mushy on me," I mock-growled in my best (awful, I know!) Bronx accent. "G'wan, git outa here already."
Damned if the cute little thing didn't actually kiss me before she left (with another saucy wiggle as a parting shot)!
I was still enjoying the taste (cherry chapstick - the same preference as Julie, if I recalled rightly) when Ed came in. "Don't get up or salute," he quipped.
I snorted. "Wasn't gonna do either one." We laughed as the old friends and colleagues we were, coming up together in the NYPD before Ed showed superior talent - and interest - in admin rather than fieldwork.
After a while, Ed sighed. "This was a rough one, wasn't it? Remember you promised to bury me? That's the closest you've ever come to breaking that. Old cops -"
"Speak for yourself," I couldn't resist.
"- should fade away and die, not just die. God, Kelly, when the Unit brought you in...you looked like hell."
"Felt like it," I readily admitted. "I honestly wish I could have let Duane tackle him. Would've been more of an even match."
Ed shook his head. "Against that thing, I'd have given long odds on Joey DiMaggio, to be honest, even with a flamethrower. I really wish we could use the HD recording as Unit Academy training material."
I frowned. "What do you mean? That's exactly what I intend to do with it. That recording is ideal for the purpose, because it shows so many aspects of Unit work: combat, teamwork, intelligent use of tech, plus the higher things: courage, loyalty, nobility, even recognition of grey areas. The kind of things you just can't get from a bare description of the facts."
"All of which I pointed out," Ed sighed, "but she wouldn't budge."
"Who wouldn't?"
The door opened. "I wouldn't, Commander," a rich, melodious voice answered me. "Thank you, Commissioner, I'll take it from here." An incredibly attractive woman I would immediately describe - without any intention of flattering her - as being frankly impressive slinked, perhaps even sashayed, into the room. She was definitely the tallest woman I'd ever seen, had to be 6'6" at least (in flat heels, too). She had amazingly blonde, beautiful hair that reached down to her knees, and damn if that wasn't a long way to go on her. Hell, her hair was taller than Candy!
She was of a trim build, not an Amazon per se, but the way she moved told of considerable well-toned muscle and intense combat discipline. I was sure she could break Duane in two without raising a sweat. Aware of the keen scrutiny, she smiled, entirely unoffended. It was a charming smile. "You like?"
"Very much," I smiled back, taking a chance. Her laugh was genuine, musical.
She was happily married, I knew, one kid at most - hip movements, before you ask. Mothers don't walk in the same way as non-mothers; to a Unit officer trained in observation - as of course we all are - the difference, caused by the permanent widening of the pelvis brought on by childbirth, is unmistakable. Story of my life, I groused.
I'd seldom seen a covert operations director who was so easy on the eyes. Ah-ah, don't ask how I knew that; certain aspects of Command Training in the Unit are classified. Suffice to say I knew what she was...if not who.
"Not what you expected, am I?" she observed merrily.
"I doubt you're what anyone expects," I opined frankly. "But then...no-one expects the Spanish Inquisition!"
She laughed again. "Same principle; it's quite an edge in my line of work. Plus it's terrific to meet a fellow Python fan. And a fellow ex-Brit, I might add."
I'd already gotten that from her trace of accent - Hereford, I guessed. So she was what a girlfriend of mine, a little hefty and proud of it, had called a Hereford Heifer (she was, too). I'm a Lanky lad from Bolton myself, born and bred. When I first came to New York I spent nearly two years just getting over the culture shock. As for the weather - Christ, I'd thought Bolton was cold in winter, but Kirsty McColl had it right:"...but the wind goes right through you, it's no place for the old..."Ooh, truer words...
But now to business, I knew. "I did expect a visit at some point from the Federal government -"
She shook her head. "Higher than that. Exactly how high is...well, let's just say it goes above and beyond the States. While it's true these beings are not a threat to our species per se, for the very simple reason that they're clearly not bent on invasion, conquest, stripping our planet of her resources or any of the reasons for threat so beloved by classic and modern SF alike, they do present...issues...that need to be addressed, which is why I'm here."
"The UN doesn't do covert operations," I denied, "that's contrary to the intentions of its founders."
"Who were brave, noble and wise statesmen who meant well but had no real idea of what we as a species face in terms of existential threats," she sighed. "If people know about covert ops, that entirely defeats the object of the 'covert' concept, doesn't it? To be frank, we regard the CIA and the NSA as little more than an incredibly expensive and dangerous joke. The FBI isn't much better. Actually, it might surprise you to hear that your Unit is closer to what we want and need."
"We're just cops," I managed, startled.
The woman regarded me closely. "Of course you are. 'Just cops'. Who took on an incredibly dangerous alien creature whose kind have been coming here for, we believe, at least nine thousand fucking years, and beat it at its own game. And who gave the others sufficient pause for thought, we hope, that they may very well never come here again. I do not for one instant believe any arm of the Federal government, covert or not, could have accomplished that. Goddammit, if it were up to me, you and everyone in your Unit would receive a Medal of Valour.
"That little boy who was slaughtered? Him, too. I have a son three years younger who is the apple of my eye, and I pray to God he grows up as brave and noble as Billy Davies did. We're doing what we can for Violet.
"Civilian casualties? Twenty-seven, and," she gave me a gentle sympathetic smile, "there truly was no way you could have seen that attack coming, none at all...but in fact we got off lightly there." I couldn't stop the puzzled frown. "I doubt you know this, but it could've been the centre of New York. These things carry something like a tactical nuke they can prime and arm with a few taps of a claw; it would destroy about three hundred blocks' worth of city. They only use it, we think, in a no-win scenario." She grimaced. "Like Kirk, they don't like to lose."
Nine thousand years?!
The centre of New York?! Three hundred blocks?!
Fuck, I didn't know when I was well off!
"Had the Feds been handling this - as they wanted to from the moment Team Three filed their report and it was illegally grabbed - New York would now be missing most of Manhattan. I'm sentimental about Central Park," she confessed with a wry smile, "because my son was conceived there. Luckily the only New Yorker who saw my husband and I doing the deed at two in the morning, totally naked and blind drunk, was a cute little street cat, and I doubt she told anyone."
That got a snort of laughter from me, though I wasn't happy at all about learning the Feds had been hacking us. I had to wonder about the timing, though; why were they hacking us at that particular moment in time? Then I saw it: they must've hacked Space Command as well, knowing the Predators were about due for a visit/safari, guessed what the 'meteorite' was, and deduced where and when the Predator would make its appearance from the fact that at the time the Big Apple was sweltering in 110° or more even at night.
She nodded gravely. "Oh, yeah, heads are definitely gonna roll at Langley, I promise you. Not for hacking the Unit, though that was bad enough, but for hacking Space Command. POTUS is not happy. We shut 'em down before they ever even set off for New York, though. I had a feeling you guys could handle it." A merry smile this time. "I was right."
"I have to ask, if only for the look of the thing," I entreated her, "exactly who the fuck are you, and who or what do you work for that you can tell the FBI and the CIA what to do?"
"I would've been astonished if you hadn't asked," she nodded solemnly, "and I am truly sorry that I am not permitted under any circumstances to tell you, even off the record, a) because I honestly believe you deserve to know after all you've been through, b) because I am certain I can trust you, and c) because I would absolutely love to bring several, maybe all, of your officers into our organisation because you guys truly are a class act. You'd still be doing your duty as New York's finest, but working for - or rather with - us, as well." She sighed sadly. "I wish."
Call me hopelessly optimistic and naïve if you want - or dare - but I swear on the Badge she was sincere.
"In fact," she went on slowly, "purely as a gesture of professional and, I assure you, genuine respect, I will at least give you my real first name: Carol."
"Not Carol Danvers, perchance?" I couldn't resist.
Carol actually giggled. "Ooh, don't I wish! She's totally cool!" She grinned. "Plus Brie Larson has just the most amazing ass!"
I wasn't sure if she was utilising Unit-style psychological manipulation techniques - or better, if that were possible - on me, but I definitely liked her.
Couldn't help but agree about Ms. Larson, either...
After a while we both sobered. It was all too clear to me that none of this was going to go public, not that I wanted it to. The SWAT troops knew all about operational secrecy (most of them were Army or Marine veterans) and had been sworn to secrecy re the Predators. There had been no civilian spectators at the final battle because of course we'd evacuated them (except Marie, but I'm not sure she counts in that context). Carol asked me, "What chance do you think there is of them coming back?"
"In the next ten years, or at all?"
"At all. Do you think the possibility of our acquiring one or more pieces of their tech will be enough to put them off?" She shook her head. "I know it seems as if they come every ten years, but we have reason to believe that's a coincidence. They appear to know Earth's weather better than we do; they come when there's a heatwave and an armed conflict somewhere. The locals in Guatemala expect them in the hottest years; seems they've been there often enough to become a local legend or myth. 'El diabloquehacetrofeos de los hombres', they say."
The Demon who makes trophies of Man, I readily translated. I recalled Mike mentioning Keyes telling him about that spec-ops team in '87 inserted into Guatemala, and their capture of a local woman who'd told them about these 'demons'.
"It's just pure chance that the last five incursions have occurred at ten-year intervals. We have reason to believe that they had some sort of facility in Antarctica of all places, and that they were there in 1904 and again in 2004. 4, not 7. They got that flintlock in 1715, two years out of step with the apparent pattern. Beautiful, isn't it?"
"You talked to Mike Harrigan," I readily surmised.
"Posing as someone from IA, several years ago," she nodded, "he never knew and never will. He's earned his retirement." She paused, then added tactfully: "So have you."
"Fuck that," was my almost by-reflex retort. "In a box or not at all. I can still show these young whippersnappers a thing or two."
Carol nodded respectfully. "No surprise there." She smiled and added sincerely, "I'm sure you can."
"So, what chance? I honestly don't know. I don't think Swift Kill or any of the Predators he Leads will come back, their own code of honour won't allow it. By their rules - the only rules which matter to them - I won my trophy fair and square, and that's the trophy I chose. But other Predators, from other groups? Who knows? And who knows what these 'Wise Elders' will decide? We can't know."
"We'll just have to keep our eyes open, then," she nodded. "I talked to your cute operator's FWB, and he's agreed to perform regular monthly sweeps, watching for any more...'meteors'. We and Space Command know what to look for now.
"Turned out that 'meteor' looped around the Moon and made re-entry through a small hole in our coverage over the Sahara Desert, while we weren't looking. Once they were in atmosphere they flew sub-orbital and landed in Central Park completely unseen." She looked grim. "If I weren't concerned about provoking retaliation of some sort, I'd be inclined to order Space Command to shoot down any of those HALO pods before they ever even re-enter, if we can only target them quickly enough with satellite-mounted lasers."
"Assuming they're even vulnerable to lasers," I had to point out.
Carol nodded. "Assuming that, of course. We could try, but we don't know anywhere near enough about their psychology to predict their response." She grinned. "Unless we just assume the worst and send our greatest warrior, proven in battle against them, once we know where they've landed."
I couldn't help laughing, as I knew she meant me. "Proven against one of them, and not the most experienced at that! I mean, how long would I have lasted against Swift Kill? One minute? Two?"
"Oh, two at least," she teased, chuckling.
"So what happens now?" I asked. "No, I can guess. A news conference, denying these crazy rumours about killer aliens dropping from the sky, slaughtering and eating people. There was a deal being struck between the Cartel and the Russian Mafia, but a mad tech genius, with a grudge against organised crime, intervened. He turned out to have a distinct anthropophagus tendency, which is why people were slaughtered as opposed to just being murdered. Our sting operative survived by sheer luck; she was knocked out cold and fortunately he missed her.
"Over the next few nights he went so far 'round the bend he was meeting himself coming back, and he saw all organised groups as a threat to him - street gangs, for example; hence his slaughter of the Bloods. He regarded the other commuters purely as targets of opportunity. Fancied himself as a high-tech hunter or something, made a ritual of killing.
"But before he could start on the Unit or the Blues as he intended, the Unit tracked him down with its unique mix of modern tech and old-style police work, isolated him in Central Park, and the brave Commander McAllister took him down in an epic one-on-one battle. Upon being defeated, he committed suicide by home-made Thermite, tried to take the officer with him and thankfully failed. His remains were so badly scorched by Thermite he could no longer be identified. At present, unfortunately, we have no leads as to his identity, and it no longer really matters since he's dead.
"There are no other suspects; all parties involved in the deal are in the Unit morgue, where they will remain until the District Coroner decides upon their final disposition. The drugs and diamonds serving as the sting bait were recovered and returned to their owners. Case closed. How's that?"
She actually applauded. "Beautiful. It's almost true, even. What about the Unit sting, though?"
"Oh," I shrugged, "I did mention he was a tech genius, didn't I? He detected our people via," an ironic grin, "the very same Siemens Mk. 5 MT scanner we were using, deduced logically who we were from the superb deployment pattern and ruined our op purely for the hell of it." A sigh. "We coulda pulled it off, Charley. We coulda had class. We coulda been somebody. We coulda been a contenda."
"Possibly the worst Brando impression I've ever heard, and a thoroughly mangled quote," she laughed, "but as a cover story it totally works."
It did.
Oh, there were the usual sceptics, of course, cries of government conspiracy, 'Aliens Are Among Us' and other such utter cobblers, but it all died down as these things do. A memorial to the Columbus Twenty-Seven was erected at Columbus Circle. Marie contributed tablet-drawn sketches of the dead, and she captured the Bloods - especially poor Billy - in heartbreaking detail and accuracy.
She also drew a breathtaking life portrait of Julie, converted it to a holo and somehow got it engraved into a large window overlooking the alley where Julie had been raped and killed herself. Gerhard Richter saw a photo on Facebook, paid a visit, admired it for fully three hours, and declared it and the caption together to be one of the most beautiful and tragic works of art he had ever seen. He suggested that it be coated in diamond to forever preserve it, as soon as it became technologically possible.
Luigi Bernalli declared it to be a city treasure and made it very clear in a rare NBC interview that anyone even thinking about vandalising it would be in...trouble. He did not specify what sort or how deep.
He didn't need to.
The building's owner didn't know whether to be reassured or worried that a Mafioso (alleged) was watching over her building, but oddly her insurance premiums were now lower...
"The most remarkable thing," Richter noted in an interview in Vogue, "is that the image, somehow, is nothing without the caption...and vice versa. Each is utterly essential to the composition. Each transforms the other from street art and graffiti into true art, which achieves the purpose of art: to move the viewer, even to tears. This masterpiece did. I would be honoured to meet the artist. She - and I somehow feel certain it is a woman - has created true beauty out of true tragedy, for I feel in my heart that the story told there is as true as it is tragic. Only a true artist could accomplish that."
He'd be astonished, I thought ruefully, if he knew who she was...
The long, heartbreakingly sad (and artistically necessary, though with all due respect to Marie she surely intended it to be just a tribute to Julie, not a work of art - though Richter was right, it really was) caption read:
In the alley below,
Julie Lockwood, 15, was brutally raped
by Ron Mallory,
a vile, depraved monster.
No-one has yet made the words
to truly describe him
in this tongue, or any other.
I doubt anyone can.
Perhaps no-one should.
Lovecraft (and Metallica) said it best:
The Thing That Should Not Be.
True, he had no tentacles
and did not eat human flesh
(at least so far as I know,
though in truth even that
would not surprise me),
but that was the THING
which called itself 'Ron Mallory'.
(Not 'a beast', nor 'an animal',
as others might say,
for this would be unjust -
such creatures do NOT
commit such depraved acts.
They are nobler than we.)
She was virgin when he took her.
He knew this full well
and enjoyed the knowledge.
He savoured her pain and fear.
She bled, as he violated her, and cried.
This, too, gave him pleasure
for he was a foul pervert.
He was a filthy coward
who used her from behind,
so she could not fight him,
though she would have,
and she did not plead,
for she was proud.
Once he was spent,
his slime spattered inside her,
he committed a further act
of vile depravity:
HE LICKED HER BLOOD
from her intimate, violated area,
unspeakable PERVERT that he was,
solely to degrade her anew
and to desecrate her body -
as if he had not already!
He was long gone,
his depraved lust assuaged,
her virgin blood on his lips,
when we found her.
She was bruised, violated, bleeding.
She sobbed, she said nothing,
but when I saw her,
and I saw the blood,
I simply knew
as one woman to another
whence it came - and why.
I wept with her. All the Bloods wept.
Even the boys, for they knew,
as too many 'men' do not,
that it is not weak to cry;
it takes true strength.
The Bloods were truly strong.
For their strength and support,
which Julie needed then
as never before,
I honored each Blood
with a hug and a kiss,
as they had honored her
with their tears.
When finally she spoke his name,
to me and only to me,
I vowed he would pay.
This I swore to her
on my own blood.
Later...he did.
Julie was not the first victim
of his depraved thirstings,
nor, sadly, was she the last;
but take heart, Reader,
for there will be
NO MORE.
I made sure of this.
I did what was necessary
and what I thought was right.
I showed him no mercy.
His suffering was great,
but so was Julie's,
and thus it was just.
But I took no pleasure in it,
for that would have made me
worse than him.
You may make of this
what you will.
You cannot judge me,
the 'Law' be damned,
for where was the Law
WHEN JULIE NEEDED IT?
WHERE?!
You have NO right to judge,
for you were not there.
I was.
You did not cry with her,
mourning her lost purity.
I did.
You did not try your best,
offering what comfort you could,
whilst knowing it did not help
and could never be enough.
I did.
You could not see
the agony, the horror,
the shame,
in her china-blue eyes.
I could. I did.
(But you are very fortunate
to be spared that,
else your dreams
would now be nightmares,
just as Julie's became,
just as mine still are
and perhaps always will be.
You can no more know my pain
than you can Julie's.
Be grateful for that.)
She was so very beautiful,
as you see,
and I have tried my best
to show Julie as she was.
A long time ago,
McLean said it first:
'This world was never meant
for one as beautiful
as you'.
He sang of Vincent, 'tis true,
but he might equally well
have been singing
of Julie Lockwood.
No blooming flower
or vivid sunset
could ever be so lovely
as Julie was when
she smiled or laughed,
which was often, once,
before HIM,
before HE defiled her.
But you do not, cannot, see
her true beauty,
the beauty within.
That beauty I cannot capture
in artistic media.
But then, no-one ever could.
(Not even Gerhard Richter,
but he would do his best;
no-one would come closer.)
I saw it. I truly wish you could.
She fell pregnant.
She chose to have the baby,
despite everything,
since he was not to blame
for how he came to be.
His progenitor was vile
but her son would be good.
Julie knew this in her heart,
where many women would not.
I loved her for that, and more.
She was brave.
Braver than I would have been
had it been me.
She loved her baby,
and was eager to meet him,
but she lost him before he was born.
I held her hand as she suffered.
Six hours of utter TORTURE.
I felt her pain
as if it were my own.
I wanted it to be,
so she would be spared it.
I would have suffered it
in her place,
if only I could have.
But all I could do
was be there for her.
She begged them to save him
whatever the cost.
She was willing to die
if it meant he would live.
So brave. So very brave.
I do not believe,
I have no faith
in gods who do not help
when souls like Julie and her child
need them most,
yet still I prayed for them.
But I was right.
The gods, if they exist, did not help.
If they do exist, I CURSE THEM.
She screamed. We cried.
He died before he could live.
He could never know her love.
They tried their best. I know it.
They worked desperately,
trying everything they knew.
They did not stop,
and they did not quit,
until they knew it was hopeless.
I do not hate them
for their failure.
I cannot. It would be wrong.
For they cried, too,
when they knew he was gone.
We all cried together.
No-one could have saved him.
Her will to live died with him.
Here in this alley
on that last dark night,
as we wept together,
she told me his name, Tom,
honoring her grandfather,
whom she loved with all her heart,
for he was wise, and kind to her.
I kissed her goodbye,
then Julie ended her own life.
It was instant, for
her shot was true.
She died without pain,
and for that I am glad.
I hope she is at peace.
I know I am not,
though I am trying,
because Julie would want that.
She would want me to live.
She would want me to love,
not to live my life alone.
No-one should be alone.
For her and for myself,
I swear I WILL live,
and I WILL love.
Julie taught me to love,
where I knew nothing of it,
by loving me,
with all her huge heart.
I will not waste that gift.
I swear this on my own blood,
just as I swore vengeance,
and to this oath, too,
I will be true.
I will try my utmost
not to let her down
and be the best I can be
in the life to come.
This, too, I swear.
One thing only I ask of you
as you read these words
and, I hope, understand
at least a little of what we suffered:
Remember Julie Lockwood.
Remember her always.
She was a Blood.
To The End.
The owner of the homeless shelter, Pernilla Grant, had discovered the portrait and called the NYPD, though she was unsure as to how it should be reported: wilful damage, defacement of private property, vandalism, graffiti - she couldn't decide. "But to be honest," she admitted to the attending officer, "I wasn't sure it even should be reported, because...well, it's so beautiful. What a lovely girl she was, and she must've had such a talented friend, to create that portrait. And the caption...so lovely, and so sad, all at once..."
Sergeant Maggie Kay smiled sadly. "I was on duty the night Julie reported the rape. We tried so hard to persuade her to submit to a medical exam to obtain evidence, but all she wanted was to wash herself clean. I mean, I understand, any woman would, but..." She sighed. "Some nights being a cop really sucks."
Pernilla shook her head. "What a waste of a young life. Such a shame no-one could help her."
Maggie fought back tears as she remembered. "We all tried. Social Services did their best, they really did, but after she lost the baby...she just wanted to end it. She did, right here. .357 Magnum, unlicensed. The pathologist confirmed her death was instant. The caption's accurate, Ms. Grant." She paused. "So...do you want us to pursue this? Off the record, I have a pretty good idea of who drew it, but she was Julie's best friend, maybe even her lover, no-one knows for sure about that."
The older woman hesitated, looked again at the portrait and decided, "No...no, if that's true, then all she wanted was to pay tribute to her friend, and I'm not so heartless as to deny her that. And what harm does it do, really, to have a thing of beauty overlooking the alley? And it is truly beautiful, isn't it? No, let's leave it be," she finished. "I'm sorry to have troubled you, officer."
"No trouble at all, ma'am," Maggie assured her with a smile, touched. "Have a nice night."
The next night, Maggie and Pernilla were each puzzled - and greatly touched - by a note found in their mailbox. It was in the same elegant cursive penmanship as the portrait's caption, and read:
Thank you for not destroying my love's tribute.
Thank you for your kindness.
Thank you for appreciating her beauty
and for mourning the tragedy
of their too-short lives,
as I mourn them now.
I am forever grateful to you.
Only beautiful souls, like yours,
would recognise beauty
and understand pain,
which is why you chose
to do the right thing,
as I know you always will.
One day, I swear,
I will find a way,
just and fitting,
to reward your kindness.
When you receive it,
you might never know,
you might never understand,
whence it came,
or from whom,
or even why,
but it will not matter,
for I will know.
That, for me,
will be sufficient:
the simple knowledge
that that which was freely given
has been returned as freely
and as gladly,
as is only right and just.
I have seen friends die.
I was splashed with their blood.
Julie was only one of them.
The world is not a safe place.
I know this too well.
It should be.
There are those who try
to make it so.
The task is too great,
and they are too few,
but they try their best.
They do what they can.
They know they must.
They cannot stand by
and do nothing to help,
for they are kind souls.
You are among them,
and this is to your credit.
For your selfless service,
may you live as long as you wish
and love as long as you live.
You truly deserve it.
But the world is not safe.
Julie knew this.
You know this.
Please, please take care.
This world must not lose you.
It needs you too badly.
We all do.
Signed:
The Last of the Bloods
Remember her.
Remember us.
Neither note bore any DNA whatsoever...but strangely, each smelled of cherry chapstick.
Once I was discharged (to merry cheers from my team, plus kisses from Frankie, Candy and one or two others, even a young gay lad - hey, this is 2027, not 1927, you gotta move with the times!), I received a text message from, of all people, Luigi Bernalli. It said:
I'd like to talk to you about a few things, say around 2pm. I like lobster. :)
I knew where he meant, of course. Only the finest for alleged Mafioso.
The Lobster Place, New York City
2 pm
He was already there when I arrived, and smiled. "Glad you could make it. How's things?"
I smiled back, a little ruefully, as I carefully sat. I got my belly sliced, y'know. "Could be worse. I'm healing. Currently on light duties, though no-one's too sure of what that means in the Unit."
"Yeah, you should take it easy," he nodded, "New York needs you."
"I have to admit, Luigi, I don't know what to make of you," I admitted candidly. "You're unusually well-disposed towards cops, for a start. Definitely not your typical...you know."
He sighed. "Times are changing, my friend. The difference between me and, ah, others is that I know this and I know I must change with them. I came to know it a little over eight years ago." He paused. "On the 1st June, 2019."
I instantly recognised the significance of the date: Maria's birthday. He knew I knew.
He looked sombre. "Before her, my beloved wife gave me three fine strong sons, of whom I am proud. They work hard, in business or in school, to honour our family name. But then she came to me with the news that her fourth would be a girl. I laughed in delight and said that would make a nice change." We chuckled together, man-to-man. "She swatted me in that way she does, you have seen it." I grinned and nodded. "She told me that I was an idiota and that this would change everything for me; I nodded in all the right places and kissed her, thinking nothing more of it.
"But I did not know, did not truly understand, that she was utterly right.
"Not until my little girl opened her eyes and I saw the beauty of her," he murmured. "Francesca was right. In that moment my whole world changed. I changed. In that moment, I saw the old ways were crumbling. She was born in a time of instability, family feuds, business competition - not all of it fair - but I saw that there was a way out. I saw how businesses were changing, how there was much more transparency now." He barely smiled. "It's much harder to make a dishonest living now, and this will get worse as you and yours make progress. In a way, I saw the Unit coming...
"...so I made it happen."
"Do what?!" I couldn't help blurting.
He took a folder out of a briefcase and handed it to me. "These documents detail exactly where the start-up money for the Unit - all of it legitimate! - came from. There is a flash drive holding them in electronic form, too."
I hadn't been so stunned in decades. A Mafia boss had paid for a police unit?! But as I numbly scanned the documents, they all seemed genuine. Bernalli did have legitimate business interests, and the money trail was quite clear. "I...I see. But...why?" I had to ask.
"Because I saw that the Unit, or something like it, was inevitable," he answered. "In business a man learns to go with the flow or he is swept away. Organised crime is not what it was. But I knew I had to secure my daughter's future. I had to make this city safe for her. Bodyguards and guns are no longer enough. Changing the system was the only true answer. So I began moving funds, slowly, quietly, so my partners would not see until I was ready to tell them. That moment arrived last year.
"I was not so foolish or arrogant as to approach the Commissioner or the Senator directly, of course, for they would never have believed it and," he laughed, "who could have blamed them? An agent who told them his client preferred anonymity was all I needed."
"But...weren't you acting against your own interests?" I was baffled...because I could tell he wasn't lying.
"Not if those interests were changing, no," he shook his head. "I had noticed even before Maria's birth that my illegitimate interests were slowly losing ground compared to my legitimate ones. This is because the legitimate ones are more modern, more in keeping with our changing society. You have twelve years on me, surely you too have seen the way things are going." I nodded, still shellshocked. "A good businessman follows the market.
"But a better one anticipates. This is what I am doing."
The conclusion was obvious, if startling. "You're...going legit?"
"For Maria," he nodded. "If I do this, my only threats are of a business nature from competitors and for that I am well prepared. These threats will never place my little girl at risk. I swore to her as she suckled at Francesca's beautiful breast that I would change for her. I would change the way things were for her." He chuckled again. "Francesca swatted me anew and said, 'I told you so, idiota', and I accepted it because now I knew she was right.
"Even the Mafia have long recognised the necessity of a police force to keep law and order. A lawful, ordered society is a safer one, yes? So it must be for my little girl. Times are changing in your line of work also, as you know even better than I. For you, too, the old ways are no longer good enough." He shrugged. "Change is the way of life, and a man who does not see this is a fool. I am no-one's fool, my friend."
I couldn't help but chuckle at the best news I'd had since I was appointed Commander. Of course this did not mean Bernalli was going to hand over details of his illicit business concerns - I realised his people were probably hard at work sanitising them even as we tucked into a delicious lobster dish with a superb Chardonnay. I doubted we'd ever prove anything...and I was no longer sure it mattered all that much. If he went legit he was by definition no longer a police problem.
Naturally we would check all this, but I already knew what we'd find.
"My partners naturally protested at first, but it wasn't hard to prove to them that their profits would actually increase. Since that was their main concern, they dropped all objections and agreed. They, too, are not fools."
"And all because of one little girl," I marvelled. My voice softened. "She is beautiful, Luigi."
"I see so much of her mother in her," he said fondly, "but something in her eyes reminds me of me, and I am glad to see it. Already she has shown at school she is very bright. I intend to encourage her as a father should." He grinned. "Perhaps she will attend the Unit Academy one day!"
"Stranger things have happened," I grinned, and thought of Marie. Somehow he picked up on my thought.
"And our fiery little Streetcat, what is to become of her?" he wondered.
"She will be attending the Academy," I nodded.
"I would've thought she was too young, but...ah, I suppose you too are changing the world, eh?" he smiled knowingly.
"Luigi, I confess I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about," I replied glibly. "Her records say she'll turn 16 on the very day the Academy accepts its next new intake. She'll be old enough. Just barely, but old enough."
"Mmm, what is that phrase the English are fond of...'that's my story and I'm sticking to it', yes?"
"Something like that," I nodded, and offered a toast. "To the Unit."
"May it ever Protect And Serve," he returned solemnly, and we clinked glasses (finest Gurasu crystal, I noticed).
Then Luigi looked even more serious. "There is one more thing I must ask, though I accept you may not be able to answer me. What of...them?"
I exhaled. It wasn't exactly a surprise that he would ask, or that he'd know; most likely at least one SWAT might've told him. "Well, that depends on the context:
"Is that bastard dead? Yes. I killed him myself.
"Are the others gone? Again, yes. They actually allowed Space Command to track them leaving, I reckon that was Swift Kill's idea.
"But...will they ever be back? Here or anywhere else on Earth?" I sighed deeply. "That I can't tell you, but only because I don't know. I tried to convince them that the danger of one of them being captured would increase as our technology gets better and we learn more about them, but..." I sighed again. "Dammit, Luigi, the powers that be - and I don't know who they are - reckon they've been coming for over 9,000 years, so what are the chances they'll stop now? I don't know. I just don't know. But one thing I do know:
"If they ever dare show their ugly faces in my city again, we will be ready for them. That's a promise."
I meant it. Luigi nodded slowly as he saw this. "I will accept that as a cast-iron guarantee, my friend. If they return, you will make them wish they had not."
"Damn straight," I growled.
New York City, Julie Lockwood Memorial Alley (newly renamed by the Mayor at the request of the Unit Commander)
Two nights later
"It's truly beautiful, Marie," I told her softly. Occasionally the Blues and the Unit forgot they were rivals and got together in bars and clubs. On one such occasion Maggie showed me the note she'd received, and said she was going to have it framed, as well as scanned and stored digitally; though I allowed not the slightest flicker of recognition to show on my face, I knew exactly who'd written it, of course. Marie's cursive penmanship was very distinctive, as she was left-handed.
And I totally agreed with the caption's sentiment, while being baffled as to how the hell she knew who Gerhard Richter was - or H.P. Lovecraft, for that matter. As for Don McLean and his beautiful 1971 musical tribute to Van Gogh, when had she ever heard that?
In a tricky operation, requiring exquisitely precise guidance software courtesy of Denny, we'd managed to manoeuvre a drone to take the tiniest possible sample from the letters in red on the caption, because I had a hunch that the red was not ink or paint, but blood, glazed to preserve it so the colour wouldn't fade or turn to brown as it dried.
I was right. It was Marie's. She had, quite literally, sworn on her own blood. I was glad of it; she'd decided not to succumb to grief and despair, but to live instead.
For Julie.
Her shrug was deceptively casual, but I knew better. "It was all I could do. Her folks buried them together, but they didn't know the baby's name." And after Julie's single, abortive attempt to introduce Streetcat to them, she was too proud to tell them, I knew.
"The system utterly failed them, Marie," I noted sadly. "I'm so sorry we couldn't help her, couldn't persuade her to let us help her."
"I know," she murmured. "Wasn't your fault. That bastard Mallory, he was the one to blame."
That statement changed my mind about something. If she was ever going to tell me, now was the time. "Who killed him, Marie?"
She made as if to speak, and stopped.
"Marie, part of the first stage of Unit training is to help our cadets put aside the past, so they can start with a clean slate and a minimum of baggage. Whatever you tell me, I will treat it as privileged information. That means I can never -"
"- use it in court or take action on it, I know," she surprised me. I hadn't thought she knew the terminology.
"So who did it?"
The answer didn't exactly surprise me. "I did." She looked defiant. "He deserved it, woulda got the same in jail!"
"That wasn't your call to make, Marie," I told her gently, though I knew she was right; at 15 Julie was legally a kid. Inmates hate child rapists.
Then again, so do cops.
"We have laws, courts, to make sure the right people receive the proper punishment. He was innocent until proven guilty..." Then a thought occurred to me. "Wait...oh, Marie, Julie lied to the Blues, didn't she? She did know who did it."
"Yeah, from his stink!" she spat. "Oh, yeah, she knew!"
"And that," I had to point out, "is exactly why she should have told them - because they would've pulled him in for questioning, taken a DNA sample, and he wouldn't have been free then to rape another woman two months later! Every rape victim owes it to his next victim to do her best to stop him! That's why we cops push so hard to obtain evidence, because it's not just about her!"
"We...we didn't think of that," Marie admitted in a very small voice.
I sighed. "I know. You were just kids. It's an adult's job to think things through like that, because we can, based on our experience."
"She was a virgin," Marie whispered, "at least with...with men...before he...and he hurt her...she was bleeding, between her legs, when we found her...I had to make him pay..." Dear God, what a way for a teenage girl to pop her cherry, I thought sadly.
Again, I changed my mind about asking her something. I had a sudden, very strong impression that she wanted me to ask. "You and Julie were lovers, weren't you?" Her tiny nod came as no surprise. "I'm sorry."
Marie accepted a comforting hug as I'd hoped she would. And at long last, after much, much too long, she let it all out, sobbing, grieving for her friend and her love.
We stood there, under Julie's beautiful portrait, right on the spot where she died, for nearly an hour. Finally Marie cried herself out, raised her head and, to my complete surprise, kissed me briefly. "Thanks, Kelly. I...I needed that," she admitted.
"We all do sometimes," I nodded, "and you're very welcome. All part of the job," I added with a mischievously official air, and she surprised me again by giggling. It was lovely to hear.
She'd be okay now, I knew. She could now accept Julie's death and move on as she should, get on with her life and make something of herself.
Denny had done us proud with his artful data manipulation; Marie Julie Simpson (her new middle name was Violet's idea) was now officially an orphan and ward of the state, officially just short of 16, and I was certain she'd pass the admission exam to the Unit Academy. She'd accepted the idea with great enthusiasm and was looking forward to it; Candy had offered her a spare room and the run of her apartment while she was in training. She'd happily agreed to pay nominal rent by working part-time for Tino, who was helping out by paying her nearly full-time rates. He's a good guy - solid, as they say on the street.
"Where did the gun go?" I asked for the sake of closure, both hers and mine.
She shrugged. "We sneaked into Kohler on West 22nd, threw it into a steel bath."
Very smart of them. The powder, wooden grip and any plastic would burn away; the gun itself would melt into the rest of the alloy, impossible to separate or retrieve; and any DNA would of course be vaporised by the heat. There would be a tiny amount of lead contamination from the bullets, but probably too low a level to be detected.
Marie added, "I don't know where No Change got it, and we could only afford three bullets. But three were enough. One for...for Julie, two for Mallory."
In other words, not even lead contamination because the gun was unloaded. The .357 had vanished as thoroughly as anything ever could, and without the murder weapon it'd be virtually impossible to make charges stick even if I had any intention of bringing them...which I didn't. What did it matter now? What would it achieve, sending such a talented girl to jail, wasting all that potential? Where was the justice in that? No.
"Okay," I told her, "no more questions about that. It's past. I want you looking to the future from now on, and I shall expect to see only your best effort, you got that?"
She looked askance at me, and suddenly the old Streetcat was briefly back, maybe she'd never left. "What are you, my dad?"
I laughed, and she grinned. But something in her eyes said: Damn, I wish you were...
I wished I could've been, too.
But if I couldn't be her dad, I could be her friend. And her mentor.
Now I was looking forward to her recruitment. I had a feeling we were both in for a hell of a lot of hard work...
...and a hell of a lot of fun, too.
CODA
The yautja vessel Hard Meat's Bane
Just passing Barnard's Star for astral fix, 6 light-years from Earth
Soon they would enter th'oka-tre, Starsleep, as the process of suspended animation between stars had come to be known. But before then, Swift Kill knew, there was a matter to discuss.
He could count upon Gk'redan, Hard Head, to be unreasonable. That was a given, as sure as sunrise on a living world. Br'ukel, One Blade (so-called because he eschewed the standard two-blade wrist gauntlet) would listen with wisdom and patience. Like Swift Kill, he was nearing Elder status, if not yet Wise Elder. The others would likely be evenly divided in their opinions.
The one Hunter aboard ship whose actions he could not predict - and, being no fool, would never presume to try - was Da'dkui-di, her name being the feminine form of 'large knife' - for she was that rare thing amongst yautja: a female who craved not suckers but the Hunt. Not for her the staying at home rearing young. She was huge even for a female, and strong. His rod rose involuntarily at the thought of her size and strength. Any male so foolish as to approach her with mating in mind would be well advised to do so equipped with a burner if he had not already earned her favours.
Taking a male's gonads was the least she was known to do in her fury on being approached uninvited. There were tales of one who had been found ripped bodily apart - and without any weapon.
Swift Kill believed it.
He had seen her tear into kainde amedha as if they were less than nothing. She scorned the pyode amedha, "too small and soft," she scowled. But as was the way with females, she was too smart not to know her own limits; when a male in sincere admiration had once declared she could surely battle a kainde amedha queen alone, such was her might, she laughed, effortlessly kicked him so hard he flew across the room and answered, "Fool! Not even I am so formidable! Close, though, I grant you!"
All, including the fool (with what breath he could spare!), laughed heartily at her jest, knowing from that last that she genuinely appreciated the sentiment and had taken no true offence. Da'dkui-di was what she was and could be no other. Would be no other.
It was hard to imagine who or what would best her in combat. He could only dream of what she would be like as a mate. No yautja even knew if she had ever mated. None dared ask. Not even Swift Kill.
"I call for discussion," he rumbled at last. The others turned to him in respectful attention, including Da'dkui-di.
"That, for you, is rare," she observed mildly - or as mildly as she was capable of. "You are one for direct action as a rule."
"True. It is the Way."
"It is the Way," all affirmed.
"But even for us, times can change and we must change with them."
"That is wisdom," Br'ukel nodded, clacking his mandibles in respect as he said it. Others nodded and clacked also.
Da'dkui-di frowned. "But...on the strength of the speech of but one? Pyode amedha, at that?"
For once, Swift Kill noted, she did not speak of oomans in a disparaging tone; her question was one of genuine curiosity. She wished to know his thinking in this matter.
He fully intended to enlighten them all. For he knew, as many of them did not, of the oomans' attempts to do what Young Blood's Final Prey had said others of his kind were attempting: to capture a yautja and thus steal the Hunters' knowledge. No other Soft Meat race had ever dared try it. The thought of capture, incarceration, was worse than death. Any yautja faced with such a prospect would activate the tch'da-rek, the Black Warrior's Door, the self-destruct, before he would allow that to happen.
The Wise Elders had studied the records of the previous attempts and had concluded the danger was minimal, insignificant. But somehow Swift Kill could not bring himself to believe that. With every encounter, every Hunt, the oomans learned more. Already they had a version of the new alloy, and would surely improve it given time. He remembered his own warning to Young Blood about underestimating them; was it possible the Wise Elders were doing so?
He hoped he was not being too arrogant in believing that it was.
"Come, Sa'shak-ssa," Da'dkui-di urged softly, "share your thought. What is the Path here?"
Sa'shak-ssa, 'Swift Kill' in the ooman tongue, sighed. "I...I believe the Wise Elders are mistaken. I believe what the Final Prey said, that there is a danger. I do not say we should heed all his words; Blooded warriors go to the Blue World, that is the Way. But...perhaps...the Way might change...if there were no other choice." He shook his head. "One thing even a newborn would understand: the oomans must not acquire our weapons.
"They would become a danger to us and to themselves, for they still know war. We progressed beyond war long ago, turning instead to the Hunt, and wise indeed our ancestors were to do this, for it saved us from self-destruction; but they are younger and so have not, not yet.
"But they never will, if they succeed in these attempts. One cannot succeed if one does not try, that is wisdom even a newborn should know. But if one tries and fails in his task, what should one do?"
"Try again," Da'dkui-di answered, "and again, and again, if the task is worth the effort, until one either succeeds or dies. That, too, is wisdom all should know. It is not unreasonable, I suppose, to suggest oomans know this also," she graciously allowed. "It took them not long to learn the ways of building from us in the Cold Land on the Blue World, and they were even younger then." She brooded. "You may be right."
It was rare for Da'dkui-di to agree with a male on anything, and so the others listened keenly, even Gk'redan. "But," he pointed out, "it is still the Wise Elders who must decide on this matter."
"At last, the Hard Head has had a little sense knocked into it!" Da'dkui-di chuckled, but for once her intent was not mockery. "No, Brothers of the Hunt, I do not mock, for Gk'redan speaks truly. But it is our words which will inform them, and so our words must be true, that the Wise Elders can thus speak the True Path." A human might have said 'garbage in, garbage out'.
"Sa'shak-ssa says there is a danger. I agree." She growled knowingly, "If you find yourself agreeing with me merely because I am Da'dkui-di, I advise you to stay silent. Agree with me only if that is what you truly feel in your heart," she warned them. "Lie in this and I shall send you to the Black Warrior myself!" This was no idle threat and all knew it. Several warriors agreed with her nonetheless, and she seemed convinced of their sincerity.
Others did not, while showing the proper respect that was her due - not as a female, not even as Da'dkui-di, but as the warrior she was.
The final count was in Swift Kill's favour: the majority were agreed, there was a danger. The Wise Elders must be made to see.
"And I believe there can be only one Path here," he finished, "and that is:
"On the next Hunt, a Wise Elder must journey with them!"
The shipwide howl of approval might almost have been heard on Earth.
The End (?)