Those Who Walk in Darkness so-1

by John Ridley

  Aubrey sat next to her, not eating, just rubbing a spoon with his thumb. Habit.

  At a table nearby was a family. A little girl, maybe about six, held a balloon by its string. Her brother, just a little older, found a safety pin on the ground.

  Michelle wiped chili from where her lips joined her cheek.

  Chili? Slop. She ought to be eating roast duck, Vaughn thought. Grilled turbot. Mahimahi flown in from the Hawaiian Islands. Fresh.

  Maybe that was exaggeration.

  Michelle deserved all that, yeah, but at the very least they should be at El Coyote, Barney's Beanery… They should be seated at a table, waited on in public like any other group of nice, normal—

  Vaughn kicked out a little laugh.

  Where they should be is at home, in the dark, in the quiet, listening and fearful of every sound, every shadow.

  The little boy opened the pin, snuck up on his sister to pop her balloon; give her a good scare and make her cry. It was little-boy fun.

  Michelle had begged, as she did every couple of weeks, for Vaughn to take her out somewhere. Anywhere. Anyplace there were people and relatively fresh LA air. Anyplace she could see bright eyes and hear laughter, and if she could eat food that wasn't out of a can, that'd be good too.

  Michelle was not to be refused. Vaughn could deny her nothing, couldn't/wouldn't even try to coax her from her desires. He seriously doubted if coaxing, as he called it, would have any effect on Michelle in the first place.

  So there Vaughn was behind Pink's—as unassuming a public place he could think to be—with Michelle and Aubrey, who stayed with them because Aubrey thought there was safety in numbers. That wasn't particularly true. But Aubrey was fairly helpless alone, and Michelle wouldn't send him off on his own into an environment where day and night he would be potential victim to habits; a kid who couldn't remember that sucking his thumb was punishable by death. And that's how Vaughn looked at it, the obligation he felt: an adult taking care of a child. Someone who knew better taking care of someone who knew nothing at all.

  Vaughn, when he was honest with himself, dug the feeling. He couldn't say why, for sure, but being a protector? He dug that.

  The table behind them: the little boy jabbed his sister's balloon with the pin. It didn't pop. He jabbed it again, then one more time. Nothing. Then he got yelled at by his mother for picking up a dirty pin off the ground and for trying to make his sister cry. And it was the boy who did the crying.

  The little girl looked to Michelle.

  Michelle smiled.

  With a napkin Vaughn dabbed at the sweat beading Michelle's forehead. It was the overcoat she wore, she had to wear, never mind the heat.

  "We oughta go," Vaughn said.

  Michelle looked sad.

  Vaughn didn't press the issue.

  Michelle got her smile back, went back to the incredibly joyful act of devouring her food in the open air.

  A table over and down one: a couple of older women. One of them—one of the breed, their own business too boring, who have to get nosy with other people's—gave a long look with passive intensity at Aubrey, Michelle and Vaughn. A" what's wrong with this picture" gaze at the pudgy, balding man with plenty of forehead whose hands, like a child's, couldn't keep from touching metal spoons. At the beautiful young woman, pale skin in a too-heavy overcoat, and the young gaunt man—one step removed from emaciation—who sat nearly still but who seemed to be everywhere at once.

  Vaughn glanced at the older woman.

  Real quick she looked away, and with the same quickness thought of ponies. Green meadows—it was clovers that gave the landscape its green. This she knew from the vividness of the image—filled with young horses playing, and neighing, and biting, and fornicating pressed all other thoughts from her mind.

  Liquid warmth above her lip. The woman noticed her nose bled slightly.

  Vaughn, again: "We need to go."

  Michelle displayed faux-pouty, truly sexy disappointment.

  They wouldn't be going anywhere until she was ready.

  So Vaughn sat, watched Michelle eat and one more time took the spoon from Aubrey's nervous hand.

  On the street, from Melrose, rubber screamed against asphalt. A pair of horns blared at each other, blending into the noise of metal twisting with metal in violent copulation.

  Michelle, Vaughn, Aubrey: none of them raised their heads to look to the sound. None reacted particularly this way or that to the crash, to the people who chased the noise to the street and the few wild screams that followed. The only thing that occurred among

  Michelle and Vaughn and Aubrey was for Vaughn to say, to mean without wavering: " 'Kay, that's it. We gotta go."

  Michelle responded with another bite of her burger.

  Out on the street people gawked and commented at the accident. Detached. A crowd watching a television program, not a vicious collision of vehicles. The event was happening but not happening, because it was happening to someone else. It was terrible, yeah, but not as terrible as it would have been if it had happened to them. It was a tragedy, but not so much of a tragedy they didn't press closer for a better view.

  From the gawkers came updates of the program in progress: A Gelsons delivery truck and a compact Nissan had disagreed at the intersection of Melrose and La Brea, with the truck, literally, coming out on top as trucks do when they get it on with little Japanese cars. Three people… four the update went. Four people were in the Nissan when it was crushed under the big rig. A couple and their two small children. The truck had rolled completely over the car, compressed it to near flatness under fifteen of its eighteen wheels. The Nissan left barely recognizable as much more than twisted, lacerated metal. And yet, and here was the big news flash, no one in the car—not the couple, not their two kids, none of them—was injured. They were without so much as a bruise, scrape or scratch.

  Vaughn: "Michelle…"

  Michelle nodded. She knew. A few fries, a few sips more of her cream soda. She stood. All three of them did—Vaughn taking the curled spoon from Aubrey, tossing it in the garbage for no one to see—then walked north on La Brea away from the accident.

  At the accident, at the reality/virtual reality event, someone exclaimed during the closing minutes of the show as the family was pulled dazed but unharmed from the wreckage: "It's a miracle!"

  G Platoon, MTac's official designation in the Los Angeles Police Department, was split into five units: Central, West LA, Valley, Pacific and Harbor. Each unit was made up of two elements. Each element was made up of three officers and a senior lead officer.

  Rysher had been with the LAPD MTac since its inception, its inception being the people of America saying to their president: do something.

  The Posse Comitatus Act said the military couldn't do anything. And from the get-go, right after May Day, Europe—the oh so self-righteous international community—was butting its nose in, giving America crap about the laws Congress was writing up concerning metanormals.

  So America had to look like it was obeying its own Constitution.

  So the president signed an EO that basically said to local law enforcement agencies: do something.

  So the LAPD, every PD, did something. They went after all metanormals who refused to leave the country. Whether they fancied themselves as superheroes or villains, even if they were just regular Joes who never put on spandex, but could levitate a car with a shallow thought, they were now criminals. And every freak they went after, every warrant they served, the cops learned from trial and error. Error equaling death. The first thing they learned was that regular cops and metanormals don't mix, regular cops getting sent back from a tangle with a metanormal in body bags. If there were any bodies left to bag. What they learned next was that SWAT cops didn't do much better than regular cops. After that the LAPD, every PD, began forming Metanormal Tactical Units. MTacs. That's when they started learning things that were useful.

  They learned an MTac element should only be four operators. A regular SWAT squad
would go in with two five-operator elements. Ten strong just to take down bank robbers, bangers or disgruntled ex-employees with AK-47s. With MTac there were only the four. Fewer funerals that way

  They learned that you don't send cops wearing metal after a metal morpher. A belt buckle, a shoe clasp, anything metallic on your body could be turned into crawling shrapnel, a slithering razor, a weapon against you. This piece of knowledge came at the expense of the original Harbor MTac. After that synthetic gear was standard issue.

  They learned invulnerables and impenetrables usually didn't have enhanced strength.

  God overgives with one hand.

  They couldn't be shot, but they could be stopped. A well-juiced stun gun did the job good.

  Pyrokinetics, the firestarters, had to have a visual before they could induce combustion.

  And cops learned, most importantly, if you went up against a telepath, you were as good as dead, most times from a self-inflicted gunshot. That was their signature kill. The ultimate fuck-you.

  It was all in the training manual you got with a" Welcome to MTac" your first day of basic.

  Rysher had written the manual. Parts of it. The manual itself put together piecemeal, most of it a puree of standard police procedure with theories added and subtracted based on whether cops going at superhumans lived or got killed. As more cops survived encounters—by training or skill or luck—as the elements were filled with more BAMFs, Rysher got credit. Rysher and others who'd sewn together the manual. And Rysher and the others got plaques and awards, and Rysher got an office and a wall to hang them on.

  An office with a door that Bo knocked on and waited, respectfully, outside of before being invited in.

  Once in, standing before Rysher, he asked: "What's going on with Officer O'Roark?"

  "At the moment, nothing."

  "IA coming around asking questions isn't nothing, sir."

  Rysher's hands flipped over, popped open, signaling powerless-ness in the situation."You know as much as I do."

  "You don't know who started the investigation, why?"

  "You know why."

  "Hell yes, I know. I was there. I was one of the cops who got his hind end pulled out of the fire. Literally."

  "With a nonreg weapon."

  "She did it on my element. You don't hear me complaining."

  "It's not what she did, Bo. You know that. You know it isn't."

  "Yes, sir."

  "It's how. She knew the regs and went the other way. There are any number of people upstairs who'd like to make sure the LAPD doesn't come off like a pack of vigilantes. All that does is give Amnesty International and their bunch ammunition. I'm guessing IA finds something it doesn't like about O'Roark, they're going to come after her hard as they can."

  "Oh, hell, Freddy…"

  Rysher looked up. He could do without the familiarity.

  Bo: "What is going on? Look, you made the girl sit out. She gets it. Beyond that, it's us operators who've got freaks coming at us one every other month. I don't know an MTac who'd care Soledad used a little independent thought. So why the hell should anybody else?"

  "It's our job to care. It's my job to keep a thumb on five units, forty cops, and make sure they're alive enough to go home to their families every night. And when something goes south, I'm the one who takes the punches like a mud wall trying to hold back a tidal wave."

  "Why would you be taking punches?" Bo, a cop, always a cop, picked up words and puzzled them together."She did this on her own."

  Rysher looked down to the papers he'd been reading through before Bo'd come in. He looked, but he didn't read them. He said, to Bo, but still looking at the papers: "This is my fault."

  Bo didn't get that. Before he could say anything, Rysher went on with:

  "Maybe I moved her up too quickly, instead of when she was ready."

  "She did good work everywhere she landed straight out of the academy," Bo, defending Soledad in her absence."I don't know too many cops more ready for their first call."

  "Maybe. I just… when I look back on things, I wonder if I pushed her because… because I thought it would be good for us to have someone like her around."

  "Someone like…"

  Rysher's head shook, slowly, full of self-lament.

  Someone like… And for the very first time Bo considered, just for a second, but he considered it just the same: Was Soledad good cop, or was someone like her just good to have around?

  Pushing aside the thought, Bo said: "Put her back in uniform."

  "No."

  "I'm just saying at least let her wear blues and a badge."

  "Bo, I can't."

  "Why not?"

  "Officer O'Roark is under revi—"

  "And it's guys like me out there watching bullets bounce off of freaks or dodging them while they turn into panthers and try to rip our heads off. I don't care what anybody else upstairs thinks. They're upstairs, not out on the streets. And if they've got a doubt, at least put her back in uniform and let her prove them otherwise."

  With the back of his thumb Rysher rubbed at his lip, the action disconnected from anything in particular."I'll see what I can do. But what I can do might not be much of anything."

  "I appreciate the trying."

  "What's to appreciate? I put her back out, she screws up so much as once, there's nothing any of us can do for her. Not a thing."

  Even so, Bo thanked Rysher again, then left his office. Left, not really feeling better about Soledad's situation. Feeling, although he'd tried to do something, he'd accomplished nothing. Or at best, nothing good.

  Patrol?" Soledad spat out the word like she was allergic to it. She'd spat it three or four times now."Patrol?" Five.

  Bo said: "How many times you gonna say that?"

  "What else am I supposed to… Patrol?"

  "Want to be back on a desk?"

  "All of LAPD, every other slot I've been in, and they're putting me on—"

  "Patrol. Yeah."

  "You ever ridden a beat?" Soledad paced the steps outside Parker Center. She walked them down, then back up to Bo like she was working out. Working things out, working out frustration, was what she was doing."A full shift of just riding around, riding around, getting the finger from passing cars, breaking up drunks fighting in alleys. Quicksand's a better way to go."

  "A thank-you'd be nice."

  "Who they've got me partnered with?"

  "Dang it, Soledad."

  "Thank you, Bo."

  Bo gave up a smile. Unintentionally Soledad could be funny. In the time he'd known her, it was the only way Bo knew Soledad to be funny.

  "I don't just mean for getting me off a desk. For watching out for me." She wasn't trying to be funny at all. She was working at being sincere."I didn't turn out to be much of a probee. I appreciate you not giving up on—"

  "Hell, Soledad. First I can't get a kind word out of you, then you want to sing hymns. One or the other, but either way, do us both a favor and let's avoid a moment."

  Soledad matched smiles with Bo, asked again: "Who've they got me partnered with?"

  "Willie Lesker."

  "Don't know him. He good cop?"

  Bo took a second to color his phrasing."He's… old school."

  "How old school?"

  "Old old school."

  "You know what? I think I want to take my thank-you back."

  "Oh, hell no. I'm keeping it. Can't wait to tell everybody else on the job I got a kind word out of Soledad O'Roark."

  "Everybody? My rep go that far?" Bo was kidding around and Soledad kidded with him, but mostly she kidded because she wanted to keep the conversation going. She wanted to know Bo's opinion: "Nobody thinks I've ever got anything good to say?"

  "You're a tough one."

  "And all these years I was thinking that was a good thing for a cop to be."

  "Far as I care there's no—"

  Bo's cell rang, he answered it. His wife. He held up a finger to Soledad, mouthed" Give me a sec," then moved a
couple of steps away. Not that she was trying to, but Soledad caught Bo's half of the conversation. One of his kids had gotten into some kind of trouble at school. The wife was upset. Bo didn't seem to be. Calm, Bo talked his wife through the situation. One of the few pluses of being an MTac: makes the rest of life comparatively easy to deal with.

  Bo talked, and Soledad stared out at the traffic beyond Parker Center, watched it crawl along the 10. End of day. Most of LA done with work. Traffic'd be crawling along the 405 too. And the 101, the 134, the 170. There was no good way home, no quick way. Even so, people tried to force traffic. Soledad could hear car horns screaming at each other. Couldn't hear, but was sure inside their GM and Ford and DaimlerChrysler cocoons drivers were screaming at each other too, flipping each other off. When summer finally hit, when it got to be a few more degrees warmer, one of them—at least one— might pull a gun and really show people what road rage was all about just 'cause they were in a rush to get the hell home and catch a rerun of Friends.

  And Soledad had to laugh. Soledad didn't have to worry about rushing from one spot to another. The thing about not having a life: You were never in a hurry to get back to it.

  At the bottom of the steps: a couple of cops. Uniformed. They looked up at Bo and Soledad. Stared at Soledad. One of them said something.

  Soledad's eyes tightened. Looked like, she wasn't sure, but it looked like he'd just mumbled at her: "Lucky fucking bit—"

  "Sorry about that." Bo crossing back over.

  "… That's okay…" Soledad looked after the uniformed cops as they headed into Parker Center.

  "So you just get back out on the street, keep your head down… all this'll go away. Sometimes… that's just it; sometimes it takes time."

  After that, for a second, Bo and Soledad didn't say anything.

  And then Soledad, one more time, for the record: "Patrol."

  Hello?"

  "Uh…" the voice on the other end of the phone mumbled, and mumbled—if there were degrees of mumbling—weakly.

  "Hello?" Soledad asked again.

  "This is…" More mumbling.

  "What?"

  "Is this Soledad?"