Goon Squad 2014 Summer Special

by Jonathan L. Howard

lift down. In New York, he would have considered a more dramatic departure across the surrounding buildings, but Beetham Tower stood over a hundred metres taller than anything else nearby, so the lift it was.

  Now here he was overlooking Piccadilly Gardens in the early hours of a Saturday morning, a mere five storeys up. The buildings were low, but he could jump between the closer ones and use a grapnel line to get him across the streets.

  In reality, he rarely needed to do even that. Years ago, many buildings were connected by cables placed specifically to aid the more athletic members of a previous generation of Squad members in rooftop travel, and these were still in place. Only Red Wolf used them in the current Squad, but that was fine. Running across a cable several storeys up, even if it was icy and in a high wind, was a trivial feat for him. Gilbert would have fallen off at the first step, but he wasn't Gilbert at the moment. For four glorious hours in every twenty four, he was Red Wolf, and his only regret was that it couldn't be longer.

  Four hours was barely enough time for a patrol, though, especially as there was a safety limit built into his schedule. A patrol could only be planned to last three hours, just in case something came up at the end of it, or he was needed again during the subsequent twenty one hours. Thus, he was required to keep an hour in reserve whenever possible.

  He checked his watch. Nestled within the fur of his wrist, the watch showed the time around its edge, and a timer counting down in large, easy-to-read numerals in the centre. These told him how long he had left as Red Wolf, glowing a soft green usually, amber when he was down to an hour, and red in the last fifteen minutes. It was a useful gadget, and like his wrist-mounted grapnels, a gift from Talos. The watch strap detected when he grew larger as Red Wolf and started the timer, keeping tabs of how much metamorphosis he had left in any twenty four hour period. A very useful gadget indeed. He had thanked Talos sincerely for it and the grapnels, and would have loved to reciprocate somehow, but what do you buy a war robot? A new coat of paint? More weapons?

  The watch showed his patrol was nearly over. Soon he would be able to make his way via convenient cables and rooftops via Aytoun and Chorlton Streets to the top end of Whitworth, and thus an easy rooftop run, cable over Sackville Street, run, jump over Samuel Ogden Street, run, cable over Princess Street, and then home clear to the corner with Oxford Street, where awaited a cup of cocoa and a warm bed in the Goonbase.

  Then his ears twitched, and – something about which he had never become blasé and enjoyed to this day – swivelled to find the source of a new sound. A woman, groaning unhappily. He knew she was going to vomit some seconds before she did, and so did not hurry to make his way from the front to the rear of the building and its view of the insalubrious alley named Back Piccadilly.

  A woman in her late teens or early twenties was just finishing bringing up an evening's worth of cheap drinks. She leaned heavily against the wall, spitting the debris from her mouth, and swearing under her breath. She fumbled in her bag for her 'phone and, upon discovering it, promptly dropped it to the pavement, where its back sprang off, and the battery fell out. She swore some more, picked up the pieces, and tried to reassemble it by squeezing them together as if they were three pieces of Plasticine. This didn't work, much to her consternation; she was, after all, more than drunk enough to believe in magical realism.

  Red Wolf sighed heavily through his nostrils, sending plumes of vapour into the city air. Normally he would not get involved directly, but just keep an eye on her until she was somewhere safe. Given the time left on the clock, however, he couldn't do that. He remembered the words of one of his instructors at the SpecT course at Hendon Police College; "Policing is rarely a glamorous job for most coppers. Just because you're Talents doesn't mean you won't have to wade through your fair share of shit, real and figurative."

  Red Wolf decided not to jump down for fear of scaring the woman. Instead he fed off enough grapnel line to latch the head to the roof's cornice, and then descended slowly, spooling more line out as he went.

  "Ma'am," he said when he was halfway down, "don't be alarmed."

  She looked around, baffled by the voice, then happened to look up. She froze, staring at him, mouth open, eyes wide, as if modelling for an artist's expression reference book under the heading, "Astounded."

  As he reached ground level, and toggled the grapnel's tines shut so that it disengaged, the woman was getting over her initial shock. "Oh, my God!" she said. Then she said it several times more.

  Red Wolf looked at her sideways as he finished spooling the line and rearming the grapnel launcher. "Ma'am, are you all right? Do you have any friends nearby?"

  "They all pissed off," she said. "I'm by meself." A look of comical misery appeared momentarily on her face. "I broke me 'phone. It's all in bits." She showed him the pieces in her cupped palms as if he might doubt her word. The misery passed in a moment, and she dropped them into her bag as she added with the guileless curiosity of a child, "You're that wolf fella, aren't you?"

  Ian would have had so many options for sarcasm at this point, but Red Wolf was not the Revenant, so he said, "Yes, Ma'am. Red Wolf. I'm a police officer."

  "Yeah?" She smirked and looked at his trunks. "Where's y'helmet?"

  He was at a loss. Usually when he appeared, the objects of his attention screamed in terror, dropped the proceeds of their crimes, and ran for it. Nobody flirts with a monster. Not usually.

  "With respect, ma'am, you've been drinking. We should get you home."

  "Oh, 'ey?" she asked. "You trying to get off with me?"

  She was grinning now, and under the fur, Red Wolf was pretty sure he was blushing.

  "Ma'am, it's late, and you've had a lot to drink. It's not safe."

  "I'm safe with you, aren't I?" And then she came alongside him and hugged him around the waist. "Ooh, muscles." She looked up at him, still with that smile. "And all that hair. I like 'em hairy."

  "Ma'am, perhaps you missed the bit where I mentioned I was a police officer."

  "Stop calling me ma'am," she said, with a light rebuking slap to his chest. The slap turned into an exploration of his chest hair. "Me name's Sandra."

  "Well, you see, Sandra, I'm spoken for in any case, so let's just..."

  "I'm not askin' for a relationship," she said, slurring badly, "I just fancy a bit of..." and she lowered her hand to reach between his legs.

  Suddenly she was wearing the pantomime "Astounded" face again. She stepped away from him, staring fixedly at his trunks. "Jeeeee-zus!" was her comment.

  Red Wolf wore the trunks for a variety of reasons, but the foremost was by far to avoid outraging public decency. What he referred to in his private moments as his "wolf junk" was pretty much guaranteed to stop traffic and terrify the horses, before causing any stallions present inadequacy issues. It certainly seemed to have sobered Sandra up pretty quickly.

  He gently took her elbow, and steered the dumbstruck woman towards Piccadilly Gardens.

  "Let's find you a taxi, shall we?" he said.

  Changes

  Talos descended from on high to find the Goonbase ready room deserted but for Ian Mears reading the newspaper. As the lift shaft doors slid open, he looked up and nodded. "'Ow do?" Then, apparently not actually that interested in how Talos was doing, he returned his attention to the paper.

  "Where are Nadiya and Gilbert?" asked Talos.

  "Patrolling," said Ian. "I'm holding the fort."

  After the briefest of pauses, Talos said, "They are currently progressing along Palatine Road in a southerly direction."

  Ian looked at it. "If you knew where they were, why did... Oh. You just checked the Goonmobile's GPS, didn't you? Fair enough."

  He started to read again, but thought better of it. "I don't know how they call this the 'Evening News' when it turns up in the morning." He closed the paper and looked at the masthead. "I know hard copy's dying on its arse and they want to get into the morning commuter market and all that, but even so. I r
emember when this was a broadsheet. It used to have cartoons in, too. 'Ramsbottom' were one. 'Fudge and Speck.' Nowt like that now."

  He threw the paper to one side. Talos regarded him silently for a long moment, and said nothing. Ian sighed.

  "Everything keeps changing."

  Talos regarded him silently for some moments. Then it said, "Except you."

  Ian looked up. "What's that supposed to mean? Course I change. Everybody does."

  "Everybody living changes."

  Ian crossed his arms and glared up from his chair at the massive machine. "What? You're saying I'm exactly the same now as when I crawled out of me grave? You're saying this is it for me?"

  "How does it feel to you, Ian? You are the longest serving member of the Goon Squad, ever since 1991. Do you feel you have changed at all in that time?"

  Ian grimaced. He went to the window and looked out onto Oxford Street below, at the Cornerhouse arts cinema across the way. "I remember when that were a porn cinema," he said absently.

  "Ian..."

  "I keep thinking I'm going to wake up, all right?" Ian snapped. "I keep thinking none of this is real and eventually I'll wake up and... I'll be able to get on with my life, all right?" He grew silent, embarrassed by his outburst.

  "I did not mean to upset you," said Talos presently.

  "I'm past being upset, mate. Don't fret about it. You can't upset me." Despite which, he seemed deeply upset,