Is There a Doctor in the House? (cont'd. 3)
By Alex, Harris, Kit, Shaine, and Shatterclaw. Individual rating: R.

-7-

The city lights glowed white against the black curtain of night. A heavy rain had left the deserted streets of Chinatown slick. The front of the Little Dove restaurant was still lit, and a large (probably armed) man crossed in front of it about every five seconds.

Harris descended to street level and headed for the back door. There was only one guard by it; he walked up to the man, still cloaked, and snapped his neck. As he stepped over the body, a small Asian man walked out from the kitchen and turned pale at the sight of the dead guard. Harris quickly and efficiently broke his neck as well, then tossed the bodies into the dumpster outside.

Going back inside, he saw a typical restaurant's kitchen. A pair of men were cleaning up and yammering at each other in some Asian language, not even noticing that they'd lost their two friends. Harris continued on through a set of double doors after grabbing them by the hair and slamming their heads together. The decor inside was cheap, but with delusions of great taste: fake Ming vases, dragon statues...the obligatory Buddha statue... He kicked one vase, sending cheap china flying across the floor. "Cheap."

Laughter came from the room at the far end of the hall. A tall, thin man with the look of a pinched nerve on his face walked out holding an Uzi. Harris pulled the weapon out of his hands, then smashed his head in with it. There was just enough time for an expression of shock to register on the man's face before he fell. Harris crushed the Uzi and tossed it aside before going on.

The laughter had stopped. Two men stepped out of the room at the end of the hall, one holding a sawed-off shotgun. The pair of them together looked like they weighed a ton.

Not here...damn. He slid past the walking man-mountains and tried another hallway. At the end of that one was a sign that read 'Office' and from behind the door came a series of low moans. Opening the office door, Harris saw a man in his late thirties with his silk shirt hanging open, three women with painted white faces fondling him. The man's neck was arched back, making it hard to see his face, but he seemed to match the profile the Ravens had on him.

Harris sighed. "You fucking pervert..."

Hou Chian's head snapped forward and the women looked around. "Who's there? Wong? Rodent?" He reached for an open desk drawer. Harris shook his head and fired a rail at Chian's head. It landed between his eyes, which rolled back into his head.

"Yet another issue solved," he muttered, turning back toward the hallway. The women tried to run out of the room but ran into his hardsuit. And sure enough, two sumo-sized men came out of the room at the far corner of the hall to see what was going on. Harris smirked as he ignited his laser sword, rushing toward them and slashing at their necks. It went through the first sumo as if his neck had been made of butter; the second one pulled back in shock and lost only part of his arm. The first of the reinforcements behind them ran into the falling body and was pinned underneath, and the last guard in the stampede turned and ran. Harris fired another rail at his back and then finished decapitating the second sumo. Finally he ran his laser sword through the chest of the man pinned to the ground by the first sumo. Blood fountained up, pouring out onto the carpet. Harris heard two of the women whimpering and crying in shock; the third was simply standing there in shock.

Returning to the office, he went through the desk drawers. A stack of hypercards, a map of the city, two tickets to a Bulls game, a bottle of brandy. "Damnit, isn't there anything worthwhile in here?" Along with seven guns and sixteen knives he found a ledger and about twenty pounds of crack cocaine. Picking up the ledger, he found that it contained only his records for the restaurant. He was making somewhere in the low $14,000's. Harris sighed again.

"This is a waste of time..." He severed Chian's head from the neck and took hold of it by the hair. A little under half an hour later he was at Julian Luna's house. The lights were on...seemed he was back from his Italian "vacation" a bit early. After peering through the windows and seeing no sign of the mob boss, Harris flew up to the roof and spotted him in the spa behind the house.

Luna was relaxing with a bottle of wine and had only one bodyguard by him, maybe five feet away. Harris walked up behind the guard and decapitated him, then decloaked next to Luna.

Luna regained his composure a bit when he saw the hardsuit appear. "And who are you?"

Harris tossed Chian's severed head into the churning water. "One of several fans of yours."

"Really. Then I must thank you for this gift." He took the head in one hand, stamping out his cigar on the forehead.

"The best way to thank me is to do one simple thing." Harris lifted his arm, aiming his railgun at Luna's chest. "Die."

He fired, and blood poured into the water. Cloaking again, Harris beheaded Luna.

These little trophies of his would make a nice present for the ADP...

///

Detective Jacob - the human one - yawned as he opened the front door of the Chicago ADP totem pole. Ought to call Dad tonig-- His thoughts were interrupted by the sight of two bloody, severed heads lying on the front steps of the building.

There was a note next to them: "Two problems solved...thank me later."

-Epilogue-

The light hurt Alex's eyes. "Ngh..."

"You're in a hospital. There was an accident." The man had a plain, unrecognizable voice, and stood so that the open window was behind him. Alex could just barely make out an ADP insignia on his shirt.

"What happened?"

"You had saved a girl from a car wreck - correction, a kidnapping - and somehow the car flipped over in the chase. You took a nasty spill...been in a coma for two days now, it's been touch and go."

"I saved someone? What the hell am I?"

"You're a paramedic, and a hero."

"I don't remember any of it. Sorry."

"Your short-term memory was lost. In time it may come back, or you could try to speed up the recovery process with a Boomer implant."

"Boomer?"

"I'm sorry...cop slang. They would take out the damaged brain tissue and replace it with a cyborg part. The damaged connections might or might not be recovered, but either way you wouldn't suffer any of the aftereffects you'd have without the implant."

"And if I don't do that?"

"They're not entirely sure."

"Do you know me? Would I let them do that to me?"

"I'm sorry, no. I took the case because of what you did. It was the bravest damned thing I've ever seen."

Alex thought about it for a while. "I think..."

"No, don't tell me. I'm just here to check on you. You ought to be telling your family and doctors."

He went silent again. "You said I was a hero," he finally continued, "Did the girl get hurt?"

"No, she's fine. Just a few cuts and scratches."

"I don't remember."

"Yeah. It's a shame."

"Would you let them do it?"

The uniformed man seemed taken aback. "Do what?"

"Let them put that thing in your head?"

"It's not up to me, Alex. I can't say..."

"I saved her life. I guess that's worth something more than memories. Do you think it's worth it?"

"Yes, I do...but then that's why you're the hero. Take it easy, Alex."

Saki was waiting for Crimson when he stepped out of the room. "Does he..." Crim shook his head. "What did you tell him, then?"

"I told him that he was a hero."

"But that's not true!"

"It will be. They never found that missing girl, or figured out what flipped her car."

"Alex wasn't assigned to that case. He wasn't even on duty then."

"No. But the girl never saw her hero, or the wings and talons that pulled her free. All she knows is that someone said an off-duty medic was there to get her out. We traded two deaths for two lives; does it matter that nobody will ever think to ask who did what?"

"And the media?"

"They'll see a goodwill story that'll boost ratings and they'll see dollar signs written all over it. Chian's dead; we don't have to worry about Alex getting the attention."

"So he will be a hero."

"Yes."

"He'll be the hero that none of the other Ravens can ever be. Why?"

"Because no matter what we can't afford to be that open, that pure...we have to remain out of sight." Crimson started walking down the hall toward the elevator.

"They say the angels hide from the view of men."