Forty
“The trench coat was a stupid idea,” Mayumi said.
“It matches my fedora,” Demi said, dipping it at the shorter woman.
“Also stupid.”
“It also does this,” Demi spun in a circle, trailing the coat in her wake.
“Wow,” Mayumi said. “Now I’m sold.”
“Really?”
“No. Now I’m beginning to think you’re stupid.”
Without warning, rain began to pound down on them from the perpetually dark sky.
“Not so stupid now,” she said, flipping up her collar to help direct the rain from the brim of her hat down the outside of the coat.
Mayumi removed a small umbrella from a belt loop, extended it then held it over her head; it handily caught the rain and directed it away from her. “Plus,” she said, taking a breath, “mine cost a lot less, is far less conspicuous, and won’t make it all but impossible to defend myself if we get attacked.”
Demi scowled. “You used to be fun.”
“That is a filthy assault on my character and I will not have it. I bite my thumb at you.”
“Okay, that’s a pretty fun response. I can’t stay mad at you.”
“Especially not when we have an emergency to respond to,” Mayumi said.
“How-” Demi stopped, as her phone started to buzz, “did you do that?”
“I grew a new organ that’s sensitive to EMF changes.”
“You did that while I was picking out a trench coat, didn’t you?”
“Most of it. Some of it bled over into us eating hot dogs.”
“Maybe I am wasting my life.”
“The message?”
“Right. It’s a map. And I’m just now realizing I don’t know Seattle. At all.”
“Here,” Mayumi said, taking her phone. “I… may have run an op or two out of Seattle.”
“I hate how much more effortlessly cooler than me you are,” Demi said.
“Now you see why I don’t need a trench coat. Come on. It’s moving. We need to run.”
Mayumi started sprinting. Demi was struggling, trying to keep hold of both her coat and her hat, then flung both to the wind and chased after her. “Not a word,” Demi said, as she matched Mayumi’s speed. “Though I bet that looked cool.”
“There,” Mayumi said, hydroplaning to a stop.
“Wait,” Demi said, trying to come to a rest beside her, skidding over a curb and landing in a large puddle at the edge of a street. “You know, even though I was already soaked, that still sucked.”
“That black car,” Mayumi said.
“The one that looks worryingly like an undercover police car?”
“It’s a Crown Victoria, yeah,” Mayumi said. “Regular plate, though; not that long ago Washington got wise to the fact that having a plate that didn’t need tags gave the game away. But they’re accelerating. Can you stop them?”
“This is a shit-load of water and a not completely empty street between us and them.”
“It’s a yes or no question,” Mayumi said.
“I like to think of it as pass/fail.” Demi clawed at the air, and electricity leaped from a powerline above the car through its engine block.
“Holy shit,” Mayumi said.
“I guess, to answer your question as asked, no, I couldn’t hit it from here. But I didn’t have to.”
“Wasn’t what I was holy shitting,” Mayumi said, showing her the map. “Their cell disrupter is down. And we’ve got wifi. Here.” Mayumi tossed her back their phone. “I’m going to try and keep them from getting away.”
“But didn’t I-” the car squealed loudly from a block away, but the engine restarted. “Shit.”
“Call the cops,” Mayumi called, barely audible over the torrent of rain.
“Yeah, yeah,” Demi said, slowing down enough to dial the phone.
“911,” the dispatcher began, “what’s the nature of your emergency?”
“I just saw a black Crown Vic that I think was part of the shootings in and around Capitol Hill the past few days.”
“What makes you think they were part of the shootings in Capitol Hill?” the dispatcher asked.
“They had a gun?”
“Are you asking me?”
“Pretty sure it was a gun. Pointed it out a window at pedestrians.”
“But didn’t fire?”
“Is that what the Seattle police do? Wait for gunfire before responding?”
The dispatcher sighed. “Please stay on the line until officers arrive on the scene.”
Mayumi put her hand through the front passenger window. An instant later, a hand clad all in black, including gloves, pushed through the hole holding a boxy, blued semi-automatic. The gunman tried to push the weapon into her, but she pulled the arm down, smashing it into jagged daggers of glass. She pushed the arm until it hyperextended at the elbow and went limp, dropping the gun in the street as she and the car continued.
The driver peeled right, clipping her with the side of the car and scraping her along a pole as they passed. “You okay?” Demi asked, standing over her.
“Don’t let them get away,” Mayumi gasped, struggling to her feet. “I’ll survive.”
Demi didn’t hear it, and was already running. The car leapt the curb, trying to take a hard right, losing traction in the rain. It was enough of a slowdown for Demi to smack into the side of the car, her momentum knocking it onto two wheels before it slapped loudly back down on four.
She grabbed the door by the frame just beneath the window and torqued, hoping to pull the car off its path. Instead the door tore clean off its hinge, leading her to stagger backwards as the car sped away. “Well, crap,” she muttered. Then she had an idea, and started to spin again, released the door in an arc. It had been years since she threw discus, but it flew true, crashing through the rear window of the car and rocking the car as it turned down another side street.
“Hell of a throw,” Mayumi said breathlessly.
“You sound awful,” Demi said.
“Still forcing my ribs back out through my lungs. Which hurts more than I remembered.”
“We didn’t catch them,” Demi said.
“No. But I don’t think they’re coming back.”
“Not without a tank, at least.”
“Do the Seattle police have a tank?” Mayumi asked.
“That question’s going to keep me up at night for a whole host of reasons.”