by P. S. Power
“You think? Maybe that happened when the police kept getting away with doing highly illegal things to him and you didn’t even try to take action to correct the situation? Not even covertly. I get that the press on this would be bad, and yes, in this situation I’m going to overrule the death warrant, using executive privilege, but this is your fault sir, for not doing something about those previous situations. I think we need to take down Shaw and his cronies. It should have been done immediately, but we were so afraid of what the press would do to us that we stopped Lancaster from acting on the spot. Now we have this mess on our hands.” It was her fault too, for not pressing things with the higher ups, but she’d actually voted for executing the cops that originally tried to kill Brian. That was legitimate and would have short circuited a lot of the stuff going on with Brian now.
After a while there came a sigh from the phone. It didn’t sound happy, but the man on the other end didn’t curse at her either, which she’d half expected.
“I know. It’s… The whole thing is unmanageable. If we kill any of them for wronging an Infected person, the backlash… But I get that we must take the lesser of evils in this case. It isn’t even evil, just justice. Fine. I’ll sign off on Officer Shaw and those that aided him, but you have to save the ones there. They need a training course, not death. We are, however, going to have to have a long talk about Proxy when you return to the base. This situation is getting too far out of control.” He sounded pissed still, but resigned.
Marcia wanted to shrug but didn’t bother. He was right on that score, this really was out of bounds. They couldn’t lock up Brian though, possibly in a literal sense. He’d gotten too good at escaping. If they tried to kill him, well, that would be enough to collapse the IPB immediately. Too many powerful operatives would fight to the death to stop that. Her included. If he just vanished the same thing would probably happen. At least if anyone suspected anything.
Maybe they could give him a stern talking too about procedure? It normally didn’t come up in his day to day life, but maybe it was time? Give him a verbal spanking and black mark on his record? It wasn’t much, but what could they do to the man? He really didn’t think he was going to live through the next day. It took most of the power anyone had over him away.
She hung up the phone and then turned to Chief Lincoln.
“Fine Chief, we just need to check you and your men out to make certain they didn’t have terroristic intent. If they did, we have orders to execute them on the spot. The DoJ isn’t putting up with that kind of thing anymore, not even from the police. If they’re cleared, then they’ll be free to go. If you ordered them to do it, just tell us now and I’ll get you a cushy ten by ten cell somewhere for the rest of your life, instead of instant death… Chris, if you’d take care of that for us?” It wasn’t the kind of thing Poures liked to do, reading the minds of already emotionally jazzed up people that were injured, but she went to work, starting on the Chief first.
She didn’t find anything.
“Some bigotry and fear, but nothing planned or worse than would be prudent given the line of work. He does try to not let it influence his orders, which is more than most officials at his level. I’ll need to check the ones at the hospital, which will take some focus, but these men seem to be in the clear. In pain though, so perhaps a trip to the hospital would be in order for them as well? Along with some powerful pain medications.” She was rubbing her head by the time she was finished scanning them all.
Marcia looked around and noticed that everyone had gone still, except Brian who had a nine millimeter in his hand. He twitched his shoulder in a funny way as Penny shouted at him. From the movement he was probably shaking her off so he could act.
“No! They’re innocent Brian, Christian cleared them; they were just doing their jobs…” It was the wrong thing for her to have said. Even Marcia knew that. It was true, but that argument had been used too many times to explain why it was alright for the cops to shoot innocent people that just happened to be Infected. To Brian it just meant that no one else would protect the innocent people of the world from the monsters in front of him. That was the real problem here. He didn’t see law officers; he saw pure evil that had to be stopped to protect the innocent.
Not all of the Infected were innocent, in fact most really weren’t by the time the authorities got to a scene, so that was used to justify a lot of wrong doing. Shooting people not posing a threat for instance. Like what nearly happened to them earlier.
Brian growled.
“Not. Good. Enough.” He approached the Chief and put the weapon toward his head, ready to shoot the man.
“I have a warrant, signed and on record, for the execution of all parties involved in this from the Miami police department. It’s in breach of law for anyone to try and stop me. I’m serving that warrant now.” He pulled the trigger and a sharp report spread across the whole room.
The Chief ducked away and made a small sound that would best be described as a yelp, falling to the ground scrambling to climb back to his feet. The bullet hung for a second in the air, but that didn’t stop Proxy from re-aiming pretty close to instantly, tracking with the moving form, moving himself at the same time.
Kerry had caught the bullet in mid air, stopping it from killing the man, but the situation had shifted into something too complex for her to do it again, there were too many points of movement for a human mind to track normally. Not reliably. She could yell though.
“Brian, Proxy, no! This is wrong. You’re very angry, but he didn’t hurt you. His men messed up, but they didn’t mean too. We don’t kill people just for having a job we don’t like. That’s not our way! Stop!” She managed to nudge the weapon up, but that just got Brian to drop and roll, firing as he did, making it too hard for the telekinetic to track his motion.
Instead of hitting the man though, something odd happened. Brian suddenly flopped a bit, becoming extremely uncoordinated. Denis was staring at him, using the full force of his power, if the gasping coming from that direction was any indication. It didn’t stop Proxy, but it slowed him down a little bit.
“Back… off.” Brian growled the words, but was staring at an empty space to his right.
Christian called out loudly.
“Listen to her Brian! Becky knows more about this than we do, she’s inside your head. She has access to parts of you that you don’t most of the time.”
Brian threw his gun at Denis and ran at him full speed as the curly haired man dropped his focus, trying to get out of the way of the projectile. At the end of the movement Proxy threw a punch that moved nearly as fast as a normal man could make happen. It was a good move, but Denis actually managed to block the first one. He missed the next two which hit him first in the stomach, then in the right kidney with a hammer fist blow as he doubled over and the other man flowed around him easily, diving into a roll which ended with the weapon in his right hand again, aiming at the Chief.
She rolled her eyes.
“Annnd done.” She clapped loudly and smiled. It was just to hide her panic and frustration, but she didn’t want any more of her people getting hurt. That meant grabbing this situation as quickly as possible. Somehow.
“Good job. Now, Brian, put that away. We have real work to do. The Director has a real warrant to be served. An old friend of yours? Shaw? Do you remember him? Beat you without cause, kidnapped you from your home and tried to kill you several times? The paperwork finally came through; the last signature is being put on it now. I’m not letting you kill these men though, warrant or not. If you keep trying I’m going to have to kick your ass and then you won’t be able to go after Shaw nearly as well.” It wouldn’t stop him, of course. She didn’t know if she could stop him like she said even.
Half the moves he’d used shouldn’t have worked. Oh, the physics were right, perfect in fact, but he was physically a normal man and yet without using any visible powers he’d just defeated a class six projective empath and gotten around a class four telek
inetic without any trouble at all. She couldn’t have done that. Either of them would have probably taken her out without a lot of trouble. At least out of play. Kerry could levitate her after all, if she couldn’t touch the floor it was hard to move. Of course she could do that to Brian too…
“Kerry, pick up Brian please. Don’t let him touch anything.” She said it calmly, and the girl acted quickly, but Brian jumped as he felt himself lighten, hit the ceiling faster than the girl could correct, which was twenty feet up and spun in the air before she could understand what he was doing, then, while spinning like a top and flipping in the air, he fired at the Chief again. Hitting him twice in the chest.
Marcia wanted to shake her head. No one could make that shot once, much less twice.
The man went down hard, but there was no blood, thanks to his vest. Kerry dropped Proxy, who landed in a perfect roll and came up firing again. This time Prime stepped in the way, smiling a bit as he did, holding his large golden hands out in supplication.
“Why don’t we stop now? Like Marcia suggested? I know that you’re very angry and upset and you have every right to be, but I also have to agree that these men didn’t do anything to deserve death today. We shouldn’t judge them based on what they might have done. That’s the kind of thinking you hate.” He sounded… really reasonable. Then there was a camera on him, which always got Scott to bring his “A” game.
Denis was back on his feet.
“Fuck Yi… I agree with Scott. I mean I don’t love the cops, but seriously man, this is messed up and out of character for you. Or, well, not really, but hurting people that don’t need it is. You aren’t an unreasonable person. You didn’t let them kill me for instance and I did a hell of a lot more to you than these guys did. I actually tried to kill you and you gave me a second chance. Then a third one. Shouldn’t you do the same for these guys?”
The breaths coming from Brian were steady, but deep. It was a frightening thing, since it signaled a person getting ready to fight, not someone starting to be reasonable. No one spoke for a long time, but no one got shot at either. Marcia worked her way toward Brian, hoping he could calm down. He had the legal right to serve the warrant and they’d all been breaking the law trying to stop him, but that didn’t make it moral. They had to keep things like that in mind, didn’t they?
After a time, which seemed like forever, but was probably closer to a couple of minutes, he holstered the weapon.
“I can’t count on you people for backup ever, can I?” He sounded sad, so much so it hurt to hear.
She didn’t argue the point though. Most of the time, when he’d needed them in a situation like this it had really ended up that way. What could she say? If it happened again, they’d fight against him. That wasn’t what anyone wanted, but there were larger issues involved. He knew that, on some level. He was smart. More so than he ever let on, according to the IPB testing. Off the charts brilliant in fact. His anger at the police bordered on the pathological though and as the psych people had pointed out, more than once, he couldn’t honestly be expected to help it. The guy just didn’t have time to learn to cope with his feelings on the matter and probably wouldn’t before he died. The best they could do was try to manage him.
Bridget shook her head, crossed her arms and moved in front of him, forcing him to look down a good bit to make eye contact.
“Bull pucky. We are backing you up. It’s just that this time you need us to keep you from making a mistake and you can’t see it yet. Like when dad lost it and you had to drug him to protect people. You weren’t trying to hurt him, and what he was doing made perfect sense to him at the time, you just made sure he didn’t do anything he’d regret later. This is just like that… only I don’t have any drugs ready. Your first mode is getting out of control and that means you’re willing to do anything to stop what you see as a threat to regular people, even if it kills you. Only this time the threat to others probably isn’t real. Chris said so, and she wouldn’t lie about things like that. She’s a snitch and a pain in the ass, but not a liar. Ask anyone.” Then, without warning, she gave him a hug.
“So, really, we are backing you up. We all are. Even the Chief here. Notice how he didn’t try to come in guns blazing or accuse you of being the one in the wrong? These men are scared and need you to protect them Brian. This time from yourself. Think about that for a while. You have to protect them. It’s your job. They aren’t wrong this time, it just seems like it.” She didn’t let him go, holding him around the middle.
Finally he patted her back.
“Sorry. I guess you’re right. I don’t see it still, but if everyone else is saying I’m wrong, I’ll have to try and take it on faith.” He looked at Chief Lincoln, who was still groaning a little, holding his chest.
“Sorry I shot you, even though it was completely legal at the time. Warrant for it and all, so you’re OK with that right? It’s just procedure. That makes it OK in your book… right?” He held up his right hand and took a deep shuddering breath.
“Argh. Sorry, I mean. Scratch that last bit. I’m not trying to be an asshole. I’m not a cop after all.” He winced. “Damn.”
The man on the ground chuckled weakly.
“I’ll take it in the spirit meant. Um, ow though. Good to know the vests really work. So, what do we do now?” The words were simple, slightly breathless and the movements slow, but no one seemed to know the answer.
Except Conroy. He’d stood back for the whole thing, behind the camera crew at a good remove, but he strode forward easily enough now.
“Get your men and leave. I’d suggest calling first, if anything else comes up for the week. Um… Agent Lancaster here would be a good person for that. Just to keep this from happening again. Let’s get the cuffs off of these men and send them on their way now.” He wasn’t ordering it, not precisely, but no one argued with him and it got done pretty quickly, Reyes moving without even checking with Marcia first. It was old habit after all. Not the best thing in a case like this, but at least Mike was getting the right thing done and she didn’t want to let anything else start again by trying to stop him.
She tried to keep breathing while they slowly ushered the men to their cars and watched them drive away. The amazing part of it all was that no one had taken it upon themselves to try and set up an armed perimeter. If they had she didn’t doubt that all the cops would have been dead already. So someone had gotten clever fast. Possibly the Chief himself. The man seemed to have his act together pretty well so far. If he sucked up being shot twice and didn’t whine about it she’d be floored, but the man was impressive for a normal. Maybe even someone capable of being one of their agents, if he ever wanted to change jobs. He’d seen what was needed and gotten his men out alive in a situation that probably shouldn’t have ended that way, by being smart and in control.
Conroy waited for everything to calm down, and then he pulled Marcia aside, his hand on her left arm, guiding her away from the rest of the group urgently.
“So, what’s the situation? Did I miss anything? Any news about the men or their families?”
“Ah…” There was, of course. “Harpo and Morris are dead. They tried to kill a CIA agent that I was having Cellophane guard. She took them out before they could hurt the man. A fellow that goes by the name Wilson. I don’t know if you’ve met.” She filled him in on what bits and pieces she knew, summarizing quickly, but leaving in everything.
If there was one person on the planet she knew she could count on, it was Mike Conroy.
“So, that’s it. We’re reporting it all to the secret service and trying to find out what we can, but our only lead to this was Morris and he’s not available for questioning now. Unless we can grab someone else involved… I’ve got nothing. We also need to make sure everyone knows we aren’t involved in whatever happens, just in case it all goes sideways on us. Things around here seem to like doing that.” Marcia was about to look around for Brian and the others, but found them standing right behind her listening. N
ot everyone, but most of them.
Brian seemed to have calmed down a lot at least, which might have meant that Bridget had called it right. Screwed up first mode crap. It happened to all of them sometimes, no matter what they did to prevent it. Sooner or later everyone got triggered and with most people that could end badly. She’d done it a few times herself, going from being suspicious of others into full paranoia. Georgia from Team one had done it just the month before for instance. Since her first mode worked so well with her power, and both involved sex, she’d ended up screwing half of Team two in their TV room and a good chunk of Team one before Brian had stopped her. He was the only one that was able to walk through her ability and act in a way that didn’t involve sex.
It wasn’t that any of them meant to do bad things, like basically rape a bunch of people using psychic abilities, but it could happen. This was just Brian’s turn, it seemed. He seemed to be making himself recover though.
“Really? Wait… Um…” He pulled a cell phone, which wasn’t his, Marcia knew, and dialed a number from memory. That worried her for a minute, because she didn’t know what he was doing, but after a bit he spoke a long numerical code and then waited.
Then he repeated the whole story again, the thing about Marcia’s old crew and the threat to President Lawrence that the CIA told them about.
“It’s all unofficial and could be a set up, but the feeling here is that someone wants to kill you and then blame the IPB. We don’t really have proof and this could all just be hot air, but taking some extra precautions couldn’t hurt. Do you want us to send in some agents and operatives for it? The secret service is good, but they don’t have super powers. Well… most of them don’t.” He waited, looking at everyone in turn, scanning the crowd that was watching them.
