“I say, that was a very productive session.” I stared outside the car window as we whipped past the derelict structures of the failed McHunters development project claimed by the tide of greenery. My arm, still throbbing from our strenuous throwing practice, dangled over the windowsill. I opened my hand, feeling the much cooler breeze in this abandoned part of the city.
February wasn’t exactly hot in California compared to its blazing summers, but temperatures were higher in this southern part of the state. La Esperanza was especially hot. The urban sprawl worked in tandem with pollution to trap the heat in the center of the city. This area was very refreshing, in contrast.
“You have a knack for throwing,” Myra replied.
“A talent I discovered only recently.”
Compared to my fighting prowess which seemed to inherently manifest only when I was in my Blanchette body, my aim was pretty good as just my cute and pretty Erind self. Back when I threw a huge globe at my snake mutant buddy to get its attention, I was able to hit it from a fair distance even without transforming. While not as fun as fighting as Blanchette, I did enjoy using my superstrength to throw and destroy things. Just a hint of exhilaration.
I glanced at Myra. She was driving a bit too fast. The car bounced as we flew over the rough unmaintained road.
I fought back the needling urge to grin, remembering that I was able to force her to demonstrate the stuff she was teaching me using her spikes. I insisted she had plenty of experience throwing spikes and had better aim with them, so it might help me better understand her lessons. She was hesitant but eventually did it after a bit of pushing. The look on her face as she used her power was priceless. She was anticipating me to lash out or make a snide remark that she hit me with a spike before.
And I really was about to cause more drama but decided it was better to hold back.
Because of that, she’d be emotionally indebted to me that I just focused on the lesson and didn’t bring up our…spiky…past. My instinct told me she’d feel that way, even if unconsciously. Weird. I don’t know how that works out. But I gave up trying to understand normal people a long time ago; it was enough that I knew based on observation and experience how they thought, not why.
“We’re going to Johann now, right?” I asked. We neared the edge of the McHunters project, the almost-completed buildings presently used by the homeless of the city as their abode coming up on the horizon.
“Yes,” answered Myra. “He hasn’t texted or called again, and I’m worried by the silence. The news…can you check it now?”
“Hang on.” Although Myra’s phone had a better signal than mine, both of us had trouble connecting online for news while inside our ‘practice building’, or whatever we should call that place. We did see that a group of protesters was going to the police station where Johann worked and an even bigger group headed to the hospital, but we weren’t able to get any more updates afterward. “Internet…internet…there!” I gasped for dramatic effect, and then whispered, “Myra, it looks bad—”
“What is it?”
“The protesters are attacking the police station,” I exclaimed. “Is the headline…I’m trying to load the video, it’s slow and choppy. It looks like the police have formed a sort of barricade using their patrols cars in front of the precinct. Tons of smoke—”
“Probably tear gas to drive off those crazy guys.”
“—from burning cars.”
“Damn it!”
“There is tear gas too, you’re right. I think those are the smoking canisters on the ground. But there are also burning cars. And is that the donut shop across the precinct? It’s also in flames. The surrounding buildings as well.”
Myra cursed and hit the wheel with her palm. “What else is happening?”
“There's a few people lying on the streets, not sure if they’re dead or what. Hard to tell. The cameraman is hiding behind a huge police truck, the one that shoots out water.”
“Water cannon, yeah, yeah. Sounds like things are looking really bad out there, dammit. Show me the video.”
“Here,” I said, raising my phone, “you should keep your eyes on the—”
“Shit!” Myra jerked the wheel to the right to avoid an old man with a cart who suddenly crossed the road. She pounded on the horn, yelling at the poor guy, “Watch where you’re going!”
“That probably applies more to us.”
“Give me a break,” she snapped with almost a snarl. “I didn’t hit him, did I?” She exhaled and then spoke with a more even voice. “We need to get to Johann as fast as possible. Can you call him, please? Use my phone.”
I raised a brow as I did as she instructed. Why was she so riled up? Yeah, Johann seemed to be in a bad spot. But the police should be able to hold back random people who didn’t have anything better to do with their lives. “He’s not answer—no, it’s not connecting. There’s something wrong with his signal, ours is fine.”
“What the hell? That doesn’t sound right.” There was a hint of uncharacteristic distress in Myra’s voice. Perhaps this was the same situation with Deen being overprotective of me because she assumed I was still a normal human. Johann was a genuine normal human—as far as I knew anyway.
Using the map feature of the Snippet app, we connected ours and Johann’s last online location, the police station, and, with its smart mode, picked the fastest path that avoided the heavy traffic. That meant narrow side roads. Myra barreled into them without hesitation. She knocked down several trashcans, almost ran over a cat, and nearly got stuck in a dead-end that wasn’t updated on the maps. I was surprised we didn’t hit any people.
She was tight-lipped the entire time. Stress oozed out of her body, making the air heavy like it was a tangible thing. She kept on clasping and unclasping the steering wheel to stop herself from deforming it with her super-strength. Her expression was frozen. Nothing fazed her. There was no reaction when her car’s right-side mirror slammed against a lamp post.
“We’re getting close,” I said. We squeezed out of an impossibly small alley and skidded into Palmer Street.
“You got that right,” she mumbled as we blew past a smoldering cop car in front of a store selling churros.
“People ahead! Find somewhere to park—”
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“What? Why?”
“What do you mean ‘why’? Are you going to ram them?”
“Ah, er…of course, not.” The car climbed the curb and hit a mailbox, toppling it over. “Good enough. Okay, here’s the plan. I’m going to wear a mask, go through these violent wackos, enter the police station—”
“How? Like you’re just going to just walk in the front? They’ll shoot you.”
“—find Johann,” she continued, ignoring my argument, “get him out—”
“The same way you came in? I don’t think that’s possible.” It felt really weird to be the voice of reason in this situation. But I kind of didn’t want Johann to just die. He was very useful to me, and one of the only two people who knew about my secret identity. “It’ll be like you’re kidnapping him. How will he explain that late—?”
“You’re asking too many questions!” She threw up her hands. “Hell, you’re right. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to get him out through the main entrance. And it’s not the best idea to enter that way either, with the police fighting the rioters…give me a couple of seconds to think.” She checked the map of the area on her phone. “Revised plan. I need you to drive this car—you know how to drive?”
“I know how, but I haven’t driven recently.” I was going to add ‘not for like the past year’, but I did drive Rob’s getaway vehicle after I escaped the tunnels connected to the Eve underground arena. “You want me to drive your car and then pick you up like a getaway ride or something?”
“I’ll try to go in and out the back of the station, that’s the street here,” she spoke pointing on the map. “I want you to meet me there.” She nodded and muttered to herself, “Yeah, that’s a good idea.” Then she looked up to me and explained, “I’ll waste a lot of time if we go the long way to avoid this horde of dingbats to get to the street behind the station. So, you drive, I get Johann. We’ll meet at this spot, then escape. You’re up for that?”
“I am. Anyway, we’re going to get only Johann? We’re not going to help the…um. Ramello is also inside. And many other people will die if these riots continue.”
“Stop the riot? How the hell are we going to do that? That’s the job of the police.”
“Er…right.” That should be enough to look like a good person.
Myra reached over my side and opened the glove compartment. Inside were a bunch of dark balaclava masks, the ones usually worn by the group during missions. She picked one and wore it. “Really good point that they’ll shoot me, by the way. I taught you that lesson, and now I’m not listening to myself.” Dozens of vines sprouted out of her face, weaving into a full-face helmet with the mask beneath. Her arms and hands were covered as well, and her shirt stretched as a thin layer of armor formed beneath it to protect her body.
“Should we call the others?” I asked, ever the cautious and timid one. “This is getting danger—”
“No time. I don’t even know where they—” Her phone rang. “Talk about timing. It's Reo,” she said. “Did he see what's happening on the news?” She answered the call. “Reo! You’re on speaker. Erind is with me. We are near Johann’s precinct. We need help—”
“We also need help!” Myra and I winced at Reo’s agitated screaming. Someone was talking to him on the other side. It was probably Everett. They were also plenty of background noise, which sounded awfully like the noise surrounding us. “We’re at the fucking hospital, we’re doing some—Eh, what did you say about Johann?”
She quickly explained our situation. “How about on your end? The hell are you guys up to?”
“Me and my man, Everett here, we were scouting good locations for the terrorist bomb plan, and things suddenly went fucking insane here.” He narrated that the massive group of protesters going to the EFU Medical Center launched an all-out assault at the National Guard barricades. “There’s shooting everywhere! Can you hear it? We had a hard time finding a place to hide. Many people are dead. Something bad is going to happen if these insane fuckers get to the patients experimented on by the 2Ms, I can feel it in my guts.”
“Have you told Dario about it?”
“He’s not answering his phone. He’s supposed to cook up a bomb for our plan, he could be doing something delicate. You need to come here. The 2Ms are going to do something for sure to save their experiment subjects!”
“We’ll get Johann and go to you, guys. Although I have no clue in hell what we’re going to do there.”
“Just get here asap!”
After the call beeped end, Myra deeply exhaled, making a snorting sound inside her helmet. She gripped her phone tightly. “Fuck, so many things fucking happening. Okay, I wasted enough time. I’m going now. Erind, there’s probably something blocking the signal inside the police station, so I’m not sure if we can contact each other later if something goes wrong inside. Whatever may happen, we just improvise, okay? I already showed you where we’ll meet, and I’ll do my best to get there with Johann.” She jumped out of the car. “Go, go!”
I scooted to the driver’s seat and made a whack U-turn, hitting the mailbox again, and went off to a side street to avoid the protesters. I passed by scenes of looting, quickly driving away to avoid the attention of the rioters.
As I went around a couple of blocks, I expected the waves of people to thin out. They didn’t. Fucking pricks threw bottles and bricks at me. One hit the windshield, causing a radiating crack that looked like a sun at the upper right corner of the glass. I was tempted to stop the car and go out to beat their shits up their asses, but I just shrugged it off. Not my car, not my problem.
And I didn’t want to start another massacre. My quota should be once a week, I thought sarcastically. Be thankful, you fucks.
I couldn’t get close to the designated rendezvous point. Wow, look at me, military-Erind reporting for duty. Not only were the roads clogged with people, but there was also a huge bus blocking the way.
“What is this? Why are there so many people here too?” Then I realized that we made a mistake.
A couple of months ago, there were riots in Atlanta over an Adumbrae scare during a Christmas event—which turned out to be fake. A police station was burned to the ground if I recalled correctly. There were no casualties. Compared to this situation, Myra and I never stopped to wonder why the police didn’t just evacuate their precinct.
They couldn’t.
They were surrounded.
It wasn’t just the group in front of the police station that was going to attack the place. Buses and vans brought in more people, encircling the whole block where the precinct was located, slowly closing in, tightening the noose. These guys were really serious about killing Ramello and the SVS inside.
“Something else is going on here,” I said, drumming my fingers on the wheel while I observed the mob running to the police station. They parted to give way to another van that rolled up to the bus in the middle of the road. It unloaded another dozen people or so. They all wore yellow shirts with fists symbols printed on them. Everything was too organized. It almost like a fake riot.
The attack on this precinct. The attack on EFU Medical Center.
What else?
The arrest of the mayor. The weird stuff going on at the hospital. Even the axe boy. The warehouse compound connected to the 2Ms. Whatever shit the SVS was doing there. There were too many pieces to the puzzle, and I was certain that I wasn’t aware of even more pieces. The question was…did I want to solve this?
I kind of didn’t.
I was just hoping there’d be nice pastries at the event Deen went to, and that she’d bring me some.
Okay, okay, thinking seriously here. At the least, I should be interested in three people inside that precinct. Ramello, for selflessly putting his life on the line trying to save me from Rofirio, although his actions were pretty useless. Myra and Johann for being valuable assets in surviving as an Adumbrae. I especially didn’t want those two to die here.
Myra could probably get Johann out of there. I should be the one to get Ramello then.
“Gather ‘round here!” a voice blared. The PCM members scattered up and down the street flocked in the direction of the voice. On top of the van beside the bus stood a woman with a megaphone. Someone with a high rank in the PCM no doubt. “We are going to attack the police station from this side. Do not fear for your lives. The Mother Core is with us! We will cleanse the Adumbrae infesting our city! That means everyone inside that accursed building. Onward, Protectors of the City! Do your duty.”
“A fucking megaphone again.” I rolled my eyes. I opened the glove compartment box and took out a spare balaclava mask. Fine, I’ll see what I can do here.