Myra circled the punching bag, weaving around imaginary jabs. She jabbed right back, then started throwing hooks, coming all the way from the soles of her feet. She punched and punched and punched, fighting the various pains in her body and taking it all out on that stupid bag. It hurt more as she went on, making her more angry, which in turn made her hit the bag harder. And so it hurt more.

She kept at it, angry with seemingly everything in the world, including herself.

Again. Pure chance had landed the Green Bomber in her lap again, and he’d slipped away.

She switched to haymakers, punishing herself and the bag in equal measure for everything that was wrong, had been wrong, and would be wrong in the future. She didn’t immediately notice that Chief Matew had entered this part of the basement.

“Has he confessed to anything yet?” he asked, indicating the bag.

She paused for a moment to wipe the sweat from her forehead, leaving a big, glistening smear on her left-hand glove.

“Give me a bit longer. I think I’m breaking him.”

She continued punching.

“I am glad you’re well enough to be doing this, but the doctor did advise you to go easy on-”

“Doctors can stitch my cuts and then keep quiet,” she said, voice choked with the effort of her blows.

It turned out that getting pelted with debris and thrown to a ground strewn with broken bricks left one rather battered, even if nothing broke.

“I take it all that hurts,” he commented.

The sounds of impact and the clinking of the bag’s chain echoed off the bare brick walls for a few otherwise silent moments.

“Yes, Sir,” she said, taking a momentary break to circle the bag some more. “And it will continue hurting as I go out there, so I’d better get used to it.”

It sounded downright heroic to her ears, despite the edge of frustration. And was even partially true. But damn if she wasn’t also just desperate for an escape from her thoughts.

“Did you want to discuss something specific, Sir?” she asked, then threw a combination that hurt her a lot more than it did the bag.

“Your partner is back,” he replied. “He should... ah, you’re here.”

Brown walked in to join the chief outside of the circle she was prowling around her foe.

“They’ve mostly cleared that wall away,” he told her.

“And no body?”

“Nobody’s found no body.”

“Hah.”

Myra went truly vicious against the bag, launching into a barrage she was only able to maintain for a few seconds. Then she finally stepped back and lowered her gloved fists.

“That’s twice now,” she said once her breath recovered a bit. “Twice he’s been in my sights, and I couldn’t shoot because of that journalist.”

“I don’t think we can fault the man for defending himself,” the chief said.

“Logically, no,” Myra said. “Emotionally... maybe a little.”

She threw some light jabs after the worst of the agonising burn faded away.

“Have any other witnesses come forward?”

“So far, no,” the chief told her. “Some of the tram passengers have been spoken to, and none of them noticed a man matching the Bomber’s description. He might have hit the train as it passed. Or perhaps he was riding up on the roof.”

“Perhaps,” Myra hissed as she continued her slow assault. “What about those gangsters?”

“The leader himself is the only one that’s been identified,” Brown said. “If anyone actually finds him we can book him for making threats while armed, and public disturbance.”

“Which won’t put him away long enough to make any real difference on the streets,” Myra said bitterly.

“I’ve read your report,” the chief said. “Twice.”

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Myra glanced at them and finally noticed that he had it in his hand.

“It’s certainly... interesting,” he added.

“I didn’t add or subtract anything,” she said. “No math of any kind.”

“I wasn’t suggesting it,” he replied.

“It does seem weird, though,” Brown said, borrowing the folder from their boss. “I don’t really get that part about the rod.”

“As our dear journalist described it, it doesn’t have a muzzle, or any visible mechanism,” Myra stressed. “It’s simply a smooth, black stick. The blasts just emerge from it somehow, preceded for an instant by a green glow. Not an arsenal of small bombs... not a strange gun...”

She upped the power of her punches again for a couple of seconds.

“Just a damn stick.”

“A real-life magic wand,” Brown said, and Myra sensed he would have done so in a sing-song voice if he was ever that expressive at all. She turned on him with a quick jerk, but held back some sort of retort. He knew perfectly well that she was just repeating the journalist’s words.

“Well, I think we can write that option off,” Chief Matew said evenly. “Wasn’t it pretty dark there, in their impromptu fighting pit?”

“It was,” Myra admitted. “Just a few little fires.”

“I will admit I’m not terribly fond of that man,” Matew commented. “I feel his columns are more about stirring up tensions than being of any actual help.”

“Mm,” Myra said neutrally. She didn’t feel like getting into a discussion about the press and their relationship with authority. “Still nothing on what he’s actually using, for those blasts? Anything from the chemists?”

“Nothing so far,” the chief told her. “No residue, and no one has managed to recreate the exact effect.

“Terrific,” Myra said, although she realised that she was just descending into whining at this point.

She finally backed away from the bag. The burn did seem to have cleared her thoughts up a bit, and was at that peak where her cuts and bruises didn’t really register. She took advantage of the clarity it offered and went over things.

“We do have a little bit more to go on,” she said in a deliberately even tone. “We know he isn’t using bombs. It’s that stick of his. Somehow. If we can catch him without it, or disarm him, then no more green blasts. We know that sadly he isn’t bleeding out in a basement somewhere, and that he’s apparently wearing some kind of armoured chest piece. Which probably explains the former. And if our journalist friend is to be believed, then he fights with a certain amount of skill.”

Brown shrugged.

“Prize fighters... war veterans... men with a general history of violence... we can keep it behind the ear while looking for him.”

“Yes,” Myra said absent-mindedly, her eyes unfocused. In a city going through various shortages there was a sad abundance of people calling about neighbours or acquaintances they found suspicious. There simply wasn’t enough manpower on hand to investigate all of the reports properly. But keeping an eye out for those factors Brown brought up might help.

She kept her sigh quiet and subtle. Lots of things could help. Any little thing might prove to be the end of a long thread leading to this crazy bastard’s hiding spot. And yet they were having to pick and choose threads basically at random, leaving who-knew-what unexplored.

Not for the first, second, or third time Myra wished that the lunatic had some kind of pattern.

“But what is he wearing?” she mused out loud, still unfocused. “Where does a gibbering madman get armour that can stop modern day bullets?”

“Perhaps it does no such thing,” Chief Matew said. “And it is only luck that has saved him from fatal injuries so far.”

Myra nodded slowly, although she didn’t really know if she actually agreed.

“It wasn’t luck that let him fly between those two rooftops, after the loft,” she continued on, even as she didn’t quite understand what kind of connection she was trying to draw.

“I’ve said it before,” Brown told her. “I think you might be exaggerating the distance to yourself.”

She felt a flash of irritation but smothered it to the best of her ability. She tried to picture the two rooftops and the street between them in her mind, but a police inspector was quick to learn just how unreliable memory was. All she was crystal-clear about was her own reaction at the time. A time when her blood had been buzzing from danger and excitement.

Oh, damn it.

“Or maybe I’m wrong,” Brown said. “Maybe he wears springs on his shoes.”

“Shut up, you,” she replied, mildly annoyed and mildly amused in equal measure.

“We could ask around in hardware stores.”

She took the gloves off and turned to the chief.

“A quick wash... real quick... then I’m back to work.”

She tied them together by the laces, and thought she managed to mask the stab of pain the motions caused around her left shoulder blade.

“Good,” Matew said. “Didn’t I say you are a fighter?”

“You did say that, Sir.”

“I think there’s validity to your little map idea,” Matew said to both of them. “And you have fresh details to keep in mind about the city’s number one enemy. I leave it to the two of you to choose a thread to follow. And I promise I will put more officers on the case when I can spare them at all.”

A man appeared out of the gloom between the bag corner and the stairs. It was one of the uniformed officers, his dark blue shirt tied around his waist and the cap presumably resting in a locker. She couldn’t recall his name, but shied away from beating herself up over it. Why did they all look so much alike, broad-shouldered, rough-faced street warriors that they were?

“Are you done with the bag?” he asked and pointed at it.

“I am,” she said, and tossed him the gloves. He caught them and looked at the bag like it had insulted his mother.

“Good,” he said. “There was another blowout in Fields. People getting angry, making us angry, so they got more angry over us being angry... I’ve got some frustrations to work out.”

“See, this is why I need you to remove this collective thorn from the city’s sole,” Chief Matew said to her. “And now I’ll leave you to it.”

He walked briskly away as the uniform started putting on the gloves with an air of eagerness. Myra turned to Brown and they strolled off together.

“So, do you want to continue with the map?” he asked.