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Sixteen

Rox’s phone rang. It was dark, was all she could tell for sure, too late for civilized people to be calling. Which either meant someone uncivilized was calling, or something was very wrong. “Rox?” the voice on the phone was quieter, tinnier, younger.

“Linc?” she asked, looking at the ID.

“Just borrowing his signal, from whoever’s carrying his phone around,” the voice on the other end said. But he wasn’t speaking; it was a synthetic voice, robotic. “This is Mahmoud.”

“Bull. You died.”

“No,” the voice said, taking on a little of Mahmoud’s timbre as he remembered how to manipulate electronic signals to recreate a human voice. “That’s what they told you, so you wouldn’t look for me. It’s okay. It wouldn’t have been safe for you to. I wouldn’t want you to come, not even now.”

“Tough shit,” she said; “we don’t leave anyone behind.”

“You left me, and Mira, if I recall correctly.”

“That’s not fair. You split off, closed any avenues of pursuit. Mira… she made a choice to go with you. We thought… we hoped you’d meet us later. Christ. I still feel like I’m talking to a ghost.”

“You are. It’s okay. I’m gone. Just a ghost in the machine, now. I didn’t call to blame you. Don’t look for me. Just know that I don’t regret it. You got away. I got you away. Everything after was worth that. I’m so happy to hear your voice, to know you’re safe, to know it worked. Tell the others ‘bye.’” The line disconnected.

“Talking to yourself, boss?” Ben asked, rolling over, then falling off the couch. “Oh, right, we were trying to watch all the Star Wars back to back. Anybody make it?”

“My phone woke me up, so you’re asking the wrong person,” Rox said.

“I was going to,” Rui said, stirring from behind the couch, “but then Rise of Skywalker came on and I took a protest nap. Having that movie as the capper… it’s like eating your brussel sprouts, your broccoli, your liver and onions, your Salisbury steak and finding out your dessert is pickled garlic.”

“What’s wrong with Salisbury steak?” Ben mumbled, half asleep.

“It’s not steak, for one, it’s barely food, for two.”

“It’s breaded armpits, right? Seasoned with farts?” Sonya asked, yawning.

“Great,” Rox said, rolling her eyes, “the entire peanut gallery’s waking up.”    

“Human armpits?” Rui asked.

“Is there any other kind?” Anita asked. “Animals arms don’t fall to their sides, hence, no pit.”

“What about monkeys and gorillas?” Ben asked.

“They hunch forward, so no pit.”

“I’m not sure I’m on board the declaration that it’s the crease of the arm that makes it a pit,” Cristobal said.

“My kingdom for a half-bright minion,” Rox muttered.

“Uh-oh, she’s calling us minions again,” Ben said.

“So either we’re in trouble,” Anita said, “or she’s hankering for a Despicable Me marathon again.”

“It means shut up for like thirty seconds. I just got a call.”

“Did it come from inside the house?” Ben asked.

“The next call will come from inside your colon if you do not shut up.”

“I’m pretty sure my colon would survive; your phone, not so much.”

“It was Mahmoud.”

“Ahmadinejad?” Rui asked. “What’s that old so and so been up to?”

“Mohammad.”

“So, and at the risk of this sounding less serious than it is, exactly how many calls from dead people can she get before we start to worry?” Anita asked.

Rox handed her phone over to Rui. “I think we need to reexamine who we think of as dead,” Rox said.

He touched the screen, and saw the call ID. “Linc did just call her.”

“I thought she said it was Mahmoud,” Cris groaned, before falling back into a recliner. “This dream makes no sense.”

“This isn’t a dream,” Rox said. “And if I’m right, we might just have a chance to save both of them.” 

Well, fudge. I started this not expecting I’d get to the 1/4 of a novel point while protests were still ongoing, an embarrassing failure of imagination, for a writer. Regular readers will notice I’ve struggled the last four years to finish even a first draft of anything; irregular readers will, too, provided they’ve maintained object permanence, and if not, hello for the first time you remember!

I’m going to try and keep going. I’ll admit, the steam went out of the balloon a bit after I got through the dramatic part of the protest. But fuck Yoda, try I will, to keep going. First up is the mirrored side of these first fourteen chapters, what Rox and her outlaws are up to while the rest of the gang protest. After that, we’ll roll into an assassination plot, probably going back to the usual back and forth. Not sure where this goes, honestly, but with luck I’ll ride the train all the way through to the end.

Without luck, I will be hit by a hearse dragging behind it a trailer full of open ladders and extra fragile mirrors, driven by a black cat; fingers crossed, everybody.

Fifteen

Mahmoud got drunk, once, when his ability first started to manifest. He thought he was insane. He could hear the toaster complaining about the brand of bagels they bought, knew the television wasn’t happy with the extension cord it was plugged into. His dad drank, to take the edge off, to take all the crap he dealt with in his day to day and cram it down deep enough he could still be a dad, still provide emotionally for his family. Mahmoud needed that, if only for an afternoon, one single, solitary afternoon where it didn’t feel like his brain was melting, when he didn’t have to be terrorized about the day when his family found out and had him committed. He puked his guts out, so comically his dad laughed at him rather than punish him further. But that afternoon, for the first time in a long time, he couldn’t hear the machines, couldn’t feel their… not exactly thoughts, but noise. Buzzing.

Being in Guantanimo was a lot like that. For one, they had him buried deep, in the ground, with thick concrete walls. This entire wing of the prison had been redesigned with technopaths like him in mind, because if they could get so much as a radio signal, they could communicate with the outside world, and tell them what, exactly, had been done to them. In Mahmoud’s case, an American minor was spirited away without any notification for his family; they believed he died during an attack on an NSA base compiling information on other Breed like him. His friends, too, believed he was gone. Otherwise, he liked to tell himself, at least when the drugs were starting to wear thin and he could think straight, they’d have come for him. It was a white lie he told himself, one that in his worse moments he struggled to believe. He’d known them only a few weeks, and yes, they broke into a government facility together, but they left him behind, to die. Okay, so, more he locked them out and himself in, and told them to go… but sometimes the worst voice in your head is your own.

The other way that Guantanimo was like being a drunk was the cocktail they kept in his IV, a steady drip of meds designed to keep him from thinking straight, so if say a plane flew too close, or a boat with a radio sailed nearby, he couldn’t hijack it. The drugs made his body feel like sludge, which at least made it harder to tell when he went to the bathroom. He didn’t have enough muscle control to hold anything in, so his body just periodically dropped his waste, but the drugs made it harder to know when it ran down his leg. It was a small mercy, the only kind that he got in this place.

Back before they started drugging him, he was on a hunger strike. Periodically, they’d force-feed him, hold him down and sedate him, then keep holding while they shoved a tube down his throat. It was the worst thing that had ever been done to him, and yet, it was better than surrender, better than letting win. Sometime after the drugs they installed a feeding tube in his side. Sure, it was another violation, but it felt gentler, somehow, maybe because it didn’t come with regular intervals of being brutalized by the guards; in fact, they’d beaten him less, since it was installed, because of the paperwork involved if it got infected.

His old life- really, his only life, because existing in this cell sure as hell didn’t qualify- felt like a dream, It was so distant. He remembered the warmth of the sun on his face, the smile of his friends, the tingle of new electronics he was hearing for the first time. Only the last one wasn’t a memory, and it wasn’t new.

He remembered a debate among technopaths at the school, one where they realized midway through that the debate was down to the fact that technopaths pick up on different things, but no two electronics are alike. Small, subtle differences in the soldering, imperfections in the molding and various other tiny introductions of chaos into production meant each was unique. Sure, if you got two from the same production line, on the same day, produced within minutes they might be close, in the same way siblings often bear a strong resemblance to one another. But he recognized this cell phone, even if he remembered hearing electronic chatter that it’s owner was dead.

That didn’t matter. A signal meant he could call out, meant he could tell his friends he was alive, meant… he could say goodbye. It was suicide, breaking into a U.S. base on Cuban soil. He couldn’t ask them to, couldn’t even tell them enough that they could attempt it. So far as they knew, he’d been dead this whole time. He was a ghost already. No point in making his friends ghosts, too. But it was nice, the thought that he could at least tell them what they meant, could hear them, one last time, before finally letting go.

Fourteen

“It feels weird, getting Starbucks in Seattle,” Mikaela said, sitting in the corner booth opposite Mira. “Like we’re visiting mocha Mecca.”

“You’re awfully nonchalant about meeting a suspected terrorist in public,” Mira said quietly, “though everyone going around in masks is quite a boon to anonymity.”

“Oh, I’m very chalant, I’m just good at hiding it. And you’re a friend, questionable shit you’ve done to the side of it, and I guess I’m still hoping I can talk you back from the edge.”

“Why do I get the sense there’s an ‘and’ in there?” Mira asked, bemused.

Mikaela sighed, weighing her response with care. “I love our freinds, I love that they were there to support Breed lives and black lives in tandem. But, there are just things they can’t get. And I don’t even think it’s a complex my dad gave me, but at least once a day, I fixate on a black person murdered by police, or at least their indifference. Breonna Taylor, an EMT shot eight times while she slept in her bed. David McAtee, who fed police for free at his stand, but was still gunned down for being black and in the wrong place at the wrong time. God, I need to stop listing or we’ll be here literally all night, just from the names off the top of my head. But that’s why I was so glad you texted. Our friends are great, loving, caring people. But there are things, about the intersection of being what we all share and being black, that they just can’t understand, and that I can’t explain without becoming an angry black stereotype.”

“I am angry, though,” Mira said, her voice trembling. “And we have every right to be angry. We should not have to watch our brothers and sisters die like this. The only rational, human response is anger. But then again, my anger’s made me a terrorist.”

 “You’re not wrong. We do have a right to be angry. And maybe that’s just another way kyriarchy has kept us down, by making our righteous anger unacceptable. And I don’t think you’re a terrorist.”

“The U.S. government disagrees,” Mira said with a laugh. “Especially that orange prick in the White House. Which is kind of why I’m here.”

“Ooh, nice segue.”

“I took my minor in English Lit seriously,” Mira said, punctuating it with another laugh. “This feels nice, you know, normal, just having some coffee with a friend, no life or death consequences. So I feel awful I’m going to be the one to ruin it, but I really don’t know what to do. I know Drump didn’t kill Greg Lloyd, but he’s spent four years making the people who did or could feel safe, feel supported. Given aid and comfort to our enemies, called them very fine people. I’m angry, blindly angry, but even I was shocked when I heard the plan. Raif is going to try and kill him, and I don’t want to stop him. But I recognize, through my anger, that maybe I should. Maybe we should be stopped. And for a lot of reasons, some you’ve mentioned tonight, I wanted you to be the one to make that call. It’s not fair, maybe, to do that to you, but I trust you- even if that means trusting you to make sure I fail, if that’s what you think should happen.”

“God damn; you do not play around.”

“Yeah, for you, you have to get rid of a burner cell phone. Inconvenient, to be sure. But I go through a whole routine every time we meet like this, have to buy new clothes, steal a car, get new IDs, new phones. I don’t make contact for a simple chat.”

“Do you want to know what I decide?”

“Probably best I don’t. If you do decide to stop us, it won’t work if I’m working to neutralize you.”

“This is weird. You know this is weird, right? It’s like you’re working with me against you.”

“That’s kind of exactly how it is. And maybe I’m just worn out and tired, burnt out, looking for a way out.”

“The tell would be that you said ‘out’ like three times in that sentence; I took my mathematics minor seriously.”

“But I trust you to do the right thing, even if I’m not sure I know what that is anymore.” She slid out of the booth, scooping up her coffee on the way. “I hope I see you. Honestly. But I understand if this is a bridge too far for you.”

“Take care, Mira,” Mikaela replied. She waited as many alligators as she could count, though she kept losing track, before excitedly dialing her other burner. “Rox,” Mikaela said, “we have a serious fucking problem.”

Thirteen

Mayumi watched cautiously as the police turned to leave. She’d been in enough skirmishes to know that when it looked like you’d won, when it felt like your opponent was giving you what you wanted, was when they were at their most dangerous; it was the instant when they were most likely to spin on their heels and put a knife in your guts. Even as they started to get in their cars to drive away, she felt an eerie sense of unease. “I hope it’s okay that I came,” a man said from behind her, making her start. “Oh. Sorry, shouldn’t have snuck up on you like that.” She recognized him even as she turned to see the man who’d shot her barely twenty-four hours earlier.   

“Officer Johnson.”

“Rob, if you’re comfortable with it,” he said, his eyes down, unable to meet her gaze. They flicked up, and then he smiled. “You didn’t expect me to come tonight.”

“Probably not ever,” she said, her voice warming. “You hope, when you make that kind of invitation, but you stop expecting things.”

“I get that. I’m not- this isn’t an excuse. But pulling that trigger- I’d never even pulled my service weapon before. My first reaction was to puff out my chest, double down on the othering rhetoric and make you an enemy worth being shot; inventing an elaborate lie about how you were Antifa, and how they were somehow terrorists, and you were going to do worse than I ever could, and… it scared me. You weren’t threatening me. You were barely even challenging my authority. I was out of line- no, I was so far over it I couldn’t even tell you how far back the line even was anymore.”

“You’re starting to sound less and less like a cop.”

“I’m not, anymore. I quit.”

“What?”

“Technically, I guess I transferred, out of the police, and into the civilian side of government. I told them I didn’t honestly care where, or doing what. But I had to have a talk with the brass. Half were, rightly so, pissed about the shooting. The other half seemed upset I showed remorse over it. But by the end of talking to them, I think they were all just glad to be rid of me; they agreed to expedite my transfer.”

“That’s… congratulations, I guess.”

“It’s an odd circumstance,” he admitted. “I guess I just got tired of having that damage in my life, what it was doing, to me, and my family. What it was turning me into. And I will never be able to say either of these things enough, but I’m so, so sorry… and thank you. You gave me my second chance.”

“Everything okay?” Demi asked. Mayumi turned to see that Demi had brought their entire carpool with her. “We were watching, but we were getting antsy just watching him.”

“That’s… fair,” he said. “Christ, I’ve profiled people for so much less.”

“That’s unnerving,” Mikaela said.

“That’s how they get you; it all seems reasonable, in the moment. People who fit a certain profile commit terrorism, people who fit a different profile commit most violent crimes. It taints the way you think, the way you process, until you’re not just being more vigilant, but you’re looking for ways to fit facts into a narrative, even where it really doesn’t apply. I’m not defending profiling,” he put up his hands, “but it starts small, and so, so reasonable, and eventually you’re bending over backwards to find a reason to use excessive force on a protestor for making you feel less than. That’s why I’m on this side of the line- because it’s the right place to be.”

“Ahem,” Keane said, “hope I’m not interrupting.”

“It can keep,” Mayumi said.

“She’ll take some convincing, but I think the Mayor recognizes the right side of history; it’s just a matter of helping her build a bridge to it from where she feels trapped right now.”

Twelve

As the clouds parted and the lights came back on, there was suspense. It was possible the cops would be so threatened by the display they’d feel they had to respond with force- even in the face of their own certain extinction. But as the streetlights flickered back to life, they started kneeling.

Keane rolled over the temporary barricade the police had constructed, and walked slowly but purposefully towards the steps to Seattle’s police headquarters. There he was met by Mayor Raykin. She was shaking. “That was something,” she stuttered.

“That was Tuesday. These students came here with peace in their hearts; they aren’t here for conquest. What’s more, their asks are reasonable, even fair. But if you’re asking me if they’re inclined to come back again, six months from now, still full of youthful optimism and the milk of human kindness, the next time one of your officers murders someone? I wouldn’t wager lives on the question.”

“Nor would I,” she agreed. “In fact, I find myself suspiciously open to you, which begs the question: are you controlling my mind?”

“I don’t do that.”

“Can’t?”

“Don’t. Myself, and those behind me, we are capable of doing wonderful, extraordinary things. But just because you can, that doesn’t mean you should. We did not come here to meet violence with violence. We came because we will not be intimidated by violence. And perhaps, to remind you, and these officers, that while we may walk softly, there is no stick larger than the one wielded by the people. This is not a war you can win. Not through fear, or through violence. But it is a war you can stop. We want an end to bloodshed, not more carnage.”

The mayor swallowed, and grabbed a megaphone from a nearby officer. She keyed it and spoke. “Men and women of the Seattle Police Department, on your feet.” She closed her eyes, steeling herself. “Go home. You’re relieved of duty for the evening. You’re no longer needed here.”

A roar erupted from the protestors as the police started to file away, one by one.

Eleven

Tucker knew his plan was insane. Even with the Dean’s help, even with all of the telepaths working in tandem, it was still a ludicrous endeavor, uniting the consciousness of the entire protest. But even that was a cake-walk, compared to ensuring each person maintained their discreet identity, and could communicate one to one with everyone else. They were at the same time of one mind, and thousands.

And so long as he didn’t focus on any one person, Tucker could feel all of them at once. He could feel Mikaela’s love of her father, and his outpouring affection for her, a bright light even in a sea of roiling emotions, even as dozens of her duplicates filled out the ranks of the crowd. He could feel Mayumi and Demi’s increasing warmth, and the glow of Iago and Drake so high in the sky there were hidden by the clouds.

On the front flanks were those with the most bombastic abilities, especially the kinetics: hydro, pyro, electromagnetic. Demi was there, with Mayumi, feeding off one another’s energy while trying desperately not to set off the fireworks too soon.  

Not a hundred feet in front of them was the police line, which was also Tucker’s to monitor. If the cops panicked and started shooting, all bets were off. The electromagnetikinetics had never tried to deflect let alone stop bullets, so the telepaths had to be their early warning system. They had to push it as far as they could, but without igniting the police powder keg.

“Everybody ready?” Tucker asked, his voice trembling even in his own head.

He was barely prepared for the answer that came, forceful, defiant, joyful, liberating: “Yes.”

An instant later they vocalized, nearly ten thousand voices strong, “Our lives matter.” The words were punctuated by rolling thunder as the clouds overhead turned from gray to black, and all but blotted out the sky. An instant later, and a hundred lightning strikes at once pounded the protestors, caught harmlessly by the electrokinetics. The pyrokinetics stole heat from the lightning to singe the very air, building a dozen dragons each the size of a city bus that did battle in the sky for a moment before forming lines for one final charge, all discharging in a fireball that filled the air between the city blocks, stopping just shy of igniting the skyscrapers to either side, but remaining in midair, crackling menacingly. Finally, the clouds opened, dousing the fireball. The deluge continued, ending in a ceiling of water stories tall ten feet over the police line, and building until it was nearly as big as the skyscraper at their backs.

Suddenly the air heated, hot enough the moisture began to evaporate, only for it to coalesce in the shape of a spire at the corner of the block.

“Boys, the finale’s all yours,” Tucker said.  

“If this doesn’t work, don’t let anyone make any jokes about how I died on Iago’s giant ice dick,” Drake said.

“No promises.” The spire began to tip, racing towards the gathered police line. At that height and speed, Tucker couldn’t see him, but knew Drake was riding it down towards street level. When it was a dozen feet from impact, the spire disappeared. Thunder rolled again, and the lights in the city went out, only for lights on the buildings surrounding the protestors to flicker back on, the rooms’s lights spelling out, “Our lives matter.”

Ten

“Thanks for calling me,” Irene said.

“We called like all but literally everyone,” Mikaela said.

“Yeah, well, everyone doesn’t always include me.”

“Other than literally,” Iago said, and Drake elbowed him. “Ow. I mean, we’re happy to have you.” He elbowed Drake back. “And that was for you. Because you don’t need a big, beefy man to look out for you patriarchally.”

“Quick,” Mikaela said, “nobody point the irony in that one out to him.”

“Damnit,” he said.

“It was a nice thought,” Irene said, “if confused and convoluted.”

“Though speaking of everyone,” Demi said, looking at a bus pulling up. Keane, their dean, was the first one out.

“We chartered a few buses. It’s not the entirety of the student body- I insisted anyone with conditions that might be exacerbated by viral exposure continue quarantine- but anyone who hadn’t gone home to shelter is here. What do we need?”

“Mostly bodies,” Mikaela said. “Last night, they thought they could intimidate us into silence. So tonight, we have to show them that we aren’t going away, that this problem isn’t getting swept back under the rug this time. They have to deal with us, and contend with the issues animating us.”

“I admire your restraint… but I’m not sure it gets the job done. This is about more than solidarity- every other city in the country has that down. But we represent the greatest congregation of Breed in the world. We need to draw this line unmistakably, and I may have an idea as to how.” Mikaela barely heard the last few words, because she was focusing through the crowd to a man exiting out an aging Taurus.

“Dad?” she asked. “I, I need a moment, okay?”

“By all means,” Tucker said. “We’ll hold down the fort. And probably have to expand the fort to fit all these new settlers.”

Mikaela made excellent time through the crowd, and didn’t question it until she was nearly halfway to her father. In subtle ways, the crowd was parting for her, or otherwise moving out of her way, like someone was coordinating them around her. Mikaela spun on her heels, and Tucker shrugged playfully.

“I’m not late, am I?” her father asked, jamming his car keys into a pocket.

“Dad. I wasn’t sure you’d come.”

“You texted. Of course, I came.”

“I didn’t mean-”

“You did. And it’s okay. I might not always have; but I would have at least called, tried to talk you out of it. But… you’re not going to be talked out of this.”

“No, dad.”

“I… I like what you’ve done with your hair.”

“Really?” she touched her textured hair self-consciously. Cutting her chemically-straightened locks was still recent enough she didn’t expect the feel. “I thought you’d hate it.”

He smiled. “I might have… but I saw your post about it. I know what went into that decision, what it means to you, and that it wasn’t made lightly. I meant it. I like it like this. You’re more… you; that makes you more beautiful.” He let out a ragged sigh. “I never wanted to deny you that. I thought I could keep you safe from a world that hurt me too often, takes too often. I… I never realized I was binding you with my hopes, that my expectations were another invisible chain. I hope it’s okay, that I’ve been reading your posts.”

“I posted publicly because I needed it said, even if I didn’t think you’d ever read it.” She sniffed. “It’s a little scary; I told myself you wouldn’t, which I think let me be more open, and more vulnerable. But you’re here. And I know you’ve been protecting me my whole life. And I made it to now, healthy and mostly happy, in part because of that. I know you did the best you could, and it’s natural to have some regrets; I wish I’d been more open with you earlier. But this?” she spun, gesturing to the crowd gathering around them, and the police line coalescing opposite the protestors. “None of this is your fault.”

“A little is,” he said with a shrug. “Every day, we get a little more complicit as we go. I wanted to protect you from all of this, from the world, and I was stubborn and naïve enough to think I was pulling it off. But I’ve been reading your other posts, too, the last few days, and you’re right. We don’t need to be protected. We need a better world. We deserve one. And it’s up to us to make it. So of course I came. Maybe if I’d come sooner, I could have actually protected you.” “Dad, this struggle is the work of generations, and possibly might never be done. So don’t worry about how long it took you to get to the right place, just be in that right place, with me.” She took his hand and squeezed. “Just, stay behind me. Because I have the sneaking suspicion things could get pretty crazy before the night is up.”

Nine

Drake looked defeated as he trotted back to his friends. “They’re still ‘processing’ us,” he said, adding finger quotes.

“It’s an intentional disruption,” Mikaela said. “They keep us here, overnight, nowhere to sleep, no food, barely any water- the whole point is to make it as close to impossible for us to show at the next protest.”

“Sounds about right,” the sergeant who arrested them the previous day said, stepping up behind Drake.

“Have you been here all night?” Demi asked.

“Hah. No. I worked my shift, went home, had a beer, and a shower and slept in my own bed, then had a hearty breakfast, a sensible lunch. It’s just my shift all over again now. Now, seeing as it’s now three, I’ve been instructed to inform you you’re free to go, without charges. But, if you’re picked up again, we will charge you with felony rioting- and I mean if we pick you up anywhere in Seattle, even if you’re miles away from the riot.”

“I think you mean protest,” Mikaela said.

“Tomato, toe-mah-to. As a good-will gesture, we’ve waived the tickets on your vehicle, to better streamline you getting out of town. I know you’re all college students- you belong in school. But if you insist on staying out here, in the real world, there will be real-world consequences for your actions. I sincerely hope I never see you again. I believe all of your personal items are in this bucket, here.” She sat down a white plastic bucket, turned and walked away.

“So what are we going to do?” Drake asked.

“I could eat a whole cow’s worth of cheeseburgers,” Iago said. “Just use the condiments to stick buns on the sides of it and unhinge my jaw…”

“My mouth is watering at that description, even through smelling the cow,” Demi said, “how messed up is that?”

“The smart play might be for us to go back to Bellingham,” Mikaela said. “But fuck that.”

“Butt-fuck that?” Drake asked.

“I don’t have time to play with you, now. I’m not leaving. I’m not getting intimidated. And I’m not leaving other people to fight my fucking battles for me.”

“Yeah. Butt-fuck that,” Demi said, nodding emphatically.

“Let’s make some calls.”

“While walking to the nearest eatery.”

“Fine. Yes. We’ll get something to eat, and enough caffeine to mess up Iago’s cowburger.”

“Wow,” Iago said, splaying his fingers by his head to show that his mind was blown. “Cowburger. Why don’t we call them that, instead of hamburger?”

“Big Pork,” Tucker said over-seriously. “Even when you’re not eating pig, they want you thinking about it.”

“I’m going to eat so much goddamned bacon it’ll be disgusting,” Demi said.    

Eight

“Operation Brown Thunder?” Iago asked.

“I really wish you’d stop calling it that,” Tucker said. “And it’s still a fallback position.”

“Then it’s good we haven’t needed it, right?” Drake asked.

 “Good in the moment.”

“What’s bad in the longer term?”

“The bad is I’ve caught enough background thought off these cops to know that what the FBI’s said holds true, even in the relative liberal bastion of Seattle- human/white supremacists have infiltrated the police. It’s not every one, but it’s some of them, and what’s worse is they’re evangelizing, working on their colleagues to make them more bigoted and violent.”

“Collective mind-wipe?” Demi asked sardonically.

“A mind isn’t a hard drive, I can’t just format them.”

“And even if we did, it’d be pretty clearly a Breed attack on police.”

“Counter-attack,” Drake said solemnly. “You can’t exactly claim they didn’t fire the first shot. Maybe it’s time we fight back with equal ferocity.”

“You,” the voice came from ten-feet away, but it felt like it was shouted from beside them, and echoed in the parking structure. They turned as a group, to see one of the officers pointing with two fingers into their group. At first none of them recognized him, or knew who he was pointing at. No one except Mayumi, who knew him even through the eye he shot out. Despite her years in the field, despite her training, she shivered involuntarily.

“Don’t,” Demi said, as she started towards him.

“I’ll be okay,” Mayumi said, straightening her spine. Her hands were still zip-tied behind her, and he used that to hold her arms at the elbow and lead her towards a squad car- no- not just a car, but the one she was put in after being shot. There was still a splotch of her blood on the trunk where her head was slammed down, blood still flowing from her eye socket, so they could check her ties. He opened the rear door. “Get in.”

“Where are we going?” she asked.

Anger flashed in his eyes, but he forced it down. “Just in. Sergeant said we should have a chat.” When she was clear of the door, he shut it, then got into the front seat on the passenger side. “She said I should start with an apology. And that just saying that wouldn’t count. I shouldn’t have shot you. And I’m sorry for that.”

There was a tremor in his voice. “You feeling okay?” she asked.

“I’ve had the worst day,” he said, then chuckled. “But look who I’m talking to.”

“I think we’re both lucky, all told, about today. You made a mistake, but because I am who I am, and because I put myself in your path, the damage wasn’t permanent. So while it’s maybe not the best day I’ve ever had, I feel like I got a chance to help where I was needed.”

“You’re being a lot more… reasonable than I expected. Or than I think I’d be in your seat.”

“I don’t have any animus towards you. I know I look young, but I served in the Japan Self-Defense Forces. I know what it’s like to be asked to do too much with too little, and have to bear the human consequences of that short-coming. And it feels personal. It feels like you failed. But the truth is, you haven’t. You did the best you could with what you had, with limited and inadequate training, the wrong equipment and otherwise.”

“I shot you in the face with a rubber bullet.” His statement was full of anger, shame and self-pity; there was a menace in it, too, though she couldn’t place whether or not it was pointed at her or himself.

“And if it were just you, then maybe you’d have a point. But it’s not. Pick up a paper, and it’s happening across the country, in cities large and small. This isn’t a question of bad apples at this point- it’s systemic. We asked too much, as a society, used our police as a catch-all for a whole host of societal problems with often contradictory solutions. The police are a sack of hammers, so of course every problem looks like a nail, but the cops aren’t the ones who took on all of these not-nailing responsibilities. We need to pull back on what we’re asking, for you and for the rest of us.”

“And if the violence doesn’t abate?” he asked with a heavy sigh.

“Then we do what we have to, to stop it. If that’s a complete dissolution and rebuild, if that’s shrinking the police until they’re just a tactical response unit, so-be-it. You’re a person of color. How do you feel about the prospect of one of your kids ending up on the wrong side of a police baton? Or a rubber bullet. This I not a cops vs. society thing. This is your society, too. I want a more just world for you and your family, too.”

“Okay, now I feel really badly I shot you,” he said, with a laugh tainted by a sniffle.

“You should,” she said, and let the answer linger in the silent car for a moment.

“I feel like I can’t breathe,” he said.

“You should feel bad, but you shouldn’t internalize that guilt and let it make you worse at what you do. You should remember it, learn from today. We aren’t enemies. We’re neighbors. And we just want our neighbors safe, in or out of uniform.”

He got out of the car, walked around to her door, then opened it. He helped her out by the elbow, far more gently then when he put her in. She felt a pinch behind her, only to realize he’d cut away her ties. “I have a daughter. She’s mouthy, even at eight. I can’t sleep, sometimes, worrying about her getting mouthy with another officer.” He looked down at his badge, still covered with black electrical tape, and peeled it off, then removed a similar piece of tape on his name tag, revealing the name “R. Johnson.”

“Next time,” Mayumi said, “leave the uniform at home and march on our side of the line.”

He smiled wistfully, and Mayumi started back towards her friends, still circled, and trying not to look like they’d been staring at her the entire time.

“So Operation Ice Dick-Slap a Cruiser is off?” Drake asked mockingly.

“For now,” Iago said.

“There were many and varied- and varying in quality- rescue plans in the offing,” Demi said to Mayumi, before hugging her. “Which is to say we were worried about you.”

“That’s sweet,” she said. “But I could handle myself.”

“We saw,” Mikaela said. “He looked nearly… human getting out of that car.”

“I had to soft-pedal it for him. Cops often don’t seem to grasp that there’s an implied threat to having a conversation with someone while they’re armed and you’re cuffed in the back of their car.”

“Or maybe they’ve spent so much time throwing their weight around that they just assume it’s normal,” Mikaela said. “Maybe they act like violent counter-protestors to peaceful demonstrations against their own excesses because force is the only language they speak anymore, at least collectively.”

“I think he heard me,” Mayumi said. “And that’s too high a bar, to think we can sit down every cop- or even every problem cop- with someone they tried to kill. But it’s a start.”

“Operation Brown Thunder?” Iago asked.

“I really wish you’d stop calling it that,” Tucker said. “And it’s still a fallback position.”

“Then it’s good we haven’t needed it, right?” Drake asked.

 “Good in the moment.”

“What’s bad in the longer term?”

“The bad is I’ve caught enough background thought off these cops to know that what the FBI’s said holds true, even in the relative liberal bastion of Seattle- human/white supremacists have infiltrated the police. It’s not every one, but it’s some of them, and what’s worse is they’re evangelizing, working on their colleagues to make them more bigoted and violent.”

“Collective mind-wipe?” Demi asked sardonically.

“A mind isn’t a hard drive, I can’t just format them.”

“And even if we did, it’d be pretty clearly a Breed attack on police.”

“Counter-attack,” Drake said solemnly. “You can’t exactly claim they didn’t fire the first shot. Maybe it’s time we fight back with equal ferocity.”

“You,” the voice came from ten-feet away, but it felt like it was shouted from beside them, and echoed in the parking structure. They turned as a group, to see one of the officers pointing with two fingers into their group. At first none of them recognized him, or knew who he was pointing at. No one except Mayumi, who knew him even through the eye he shot out. Despite her years in the field, despite her training, she shivered involuntarily.

“Don’t,” Demi said, as she started towards him.

“I’ll be okay,” Mayumi said, straightening her spine. Her hands were still zip-tied behind her, and he used that to hold her arms at the elbow and lead her towards a squad car- no- not just a car, but the one she was put in after being shot. There was still a splotch of her blood on the trunk where her head was slammed down, blood still flowing from her eye socket, so they could tie her. He opened the rear door. “Get in.”

“Where are we going?” she asked.

Anger flashed in his eyes, but he forced it down. “Just in. Sergeant said we should have a chat.” When she was clear of the door, he shut it, then got into the front seat on the passenger side. “She said I should start with an apology. And that just saying that wouldn’t count. I shouldn’t have shot you. And I’m sorry for that.”

“You feeling okay?”

“I’ve had the worst day,” he said, then chuckled. “But look who I’m talking to.”

“I think we’re both lucky, all told, about today. You made a mistake, but because I am who I am, and because I put myself in your path, the damage wasn’t permanent. So while it’s maybe not the best day I’ve ever had, I feel like I got a chance to help where I was needed.”

“You’re being a lot more… reasonable than I expected. Or than I think I’d be in your seat.”

“I don’t have any animus towards you. I know I look young, but I served in the Japan Self-Defense Forces. I know what it’s like to be asked to do too much with too little, and have to bear the human consequences of that short-coming. And it feels personal. It feels like you failed. But the truth is, you haven’t. You did the best you could with what you had, with limited and inadequate training, the wrong equipment and otherwise.”

“I shot you in the face with a rubber bullet.” His statement was full of anger, shame and self-pity; there was a menace in it, too, though she couldn’t place whether or not it was pointed at her.

“And if it were just you, then maybe you’d have a point. But it’s not. Pick up a paper, and it’s happening across the country, in cities large and small. This isn’t a question of bad apples at this point- it’s systemic. We asked too much, as a society, used our police as a catch-all for a whole host of societal problems with often contradictory solutions. The police are a sack of hammers, so of course every problem looks like a nail, but the cops aren’t the ones who took on all of these not-nailing responsibilities. We need to pull back on what we’re asking, for you and for the rest of us.”

“And if the violence doesn’t abate?” he asked with a heavy sigh.

“Then we do what we have to, to stop it. If that’s a complete dissolution and rebuild, if that’s shrinking the police until they’re just a tactical response unit, so-be-it. You’re a person of color. How do you feel about the prospect of one of your kids ending up on the wrong side of a police button? Or a rubber bullet. This I not a cops vs. society thing. This is your society, too. I want a more just world for you and your family, too.”

“Okay, now I feel really badly I shot you,” he said, with a laugh tainted by a sniffle.

“You should,” she said, and let the answer linger in the silent car for a moment.

“I feel like I can’t breathe,” he said.

“You should feel bad, but you shouldn’t internalize that guilt and let it make you worse at what you do. You should remember it, learn from today. We aren’t enemies. We’re neighbors. And we just want our neighbors safe, in or out of uniform.”

He got out of the car, walked around to her door, then opened it. He helped her out by the elbow, far more gently then when he put her in. “I have a daughter. She’s mouthy, even at eight. I can’t sleep, sometimes, worrying about her getting mouthy with another officer.” He looked down at his badge, still covered with black electrical tape, and peeled it off, then removed a similar piece of tape on his name tag, revealing the name “R. Johnson.”

“Next time,” Mayumi said, “leave the uniform at home and march on our side of the line.”

He smiled wistfully, and Mayumi started back towards her friends, still circled, and trying not to look like they’d been staring at her the entire time.

“So Operation Ice Dick-Slap a Cruiser is off?” Drake asked mockingly.

“For now,” Iago said.

“There were many and varied- and varying in quality- rescue plans in the offing,” Demi said to Mayumi, before hugging her. “Which is to say we were worried about you.”

“That’s sweet,” she said. “But I could handle myself.”

“We saw,” Mikaela said. “He looked nearly… human getting out of that car.”

“I had to soft-pedal it for him. Cops often don’t seem to grasp that there’s an implied threat to having a conversation with someone while they’re armed and you’re cuffed in the back of their car.”

“Or maybe they’ve spent so much time throwing their weight around that they just assume it’s normal,” Mikaela said. “Maybe they act like violent counter-protestors to peaceful demonstrations against their own excesses because force is the only language they speak anymore, at least collectively.”

“I think he heard me,” Mayumi said. “And that’s too high a bar, to think we can sit down every cop- or even every problem cop- with someone they tried to kill. But it’s a start.”

Seven

“That was intense,” Iago said, as Tucker, the last of their group, arrived.

“Anybody seen,” Demi stopped, then pointed at Mayumi, sitting in the open back seat of a squad car. “There she is.” Demi quickly led their way through a growing crowd of protestors, milling about in small groups, all looking shell-shocked.

“It’s good to see you,” Mayumi said.

“And now in stereo?” Iago said.

“You’re kind of wishing they’d shot out your eardrums, aren’t you?” Tucker asked.

“Just a little,” she smiled, but moving her face seemed to aggravate her wounds, so she followed it with a grimace. “Do we have a plan?”

“Well,” Iago said, feigning concentration, “the plan was to get arrested and find you. So mission accomplished.”

“Was there anything else after that part?”

“Improvise and try to survive?” Mikaela said.

“That’s probably the important bit, I guess. They take everybody else’s phones?”

“Yeah,” Tucker said, still distracted.

“We figured we’d wait to think through an escape plan- if necessary- until we could talk to you,” Mikaela said.

“I’m going to put a pin in ice dick,” Mayumi said.

“I think they call that a Prince Albert,” Demi said.

“Drake, how many people can you teleport at a time?” Mayumi asked, ignoring her. “Max, life or death.”

“Usually one, maybe two,” Drake replied.

“Doesn’t help us in an emergency, then.”

“So unless we get advance warning, and can sneak people out the back in small groups…” Mikaela trailed off.

“And even then, they’ve got our details,” Tucker said. “We bust out of custody and we might as well run off and join Rox’s runaways.”

“I could probably pull enough duplicates out of reflective surfaces to run interference.”

“Much as I like the idea of them coming face to face with a literal army of black women, that’s going to read as an escalation. “

“I assume we want a nonviolent solution, so I’m out,” Mayumi said.

“If we were outside, and it were raining, maybe I could have made electricity arc between them like a hellish damn lightning strike…” Demi said.

“So Iago, can you knock the ceiling down with a giant ice dick- or anything hot or cold related?”

“Same basic problem with plausible deniability,” he replied.

“So, Tucker, what have you got?”

“Telepathy works a lot like the rules of Inception meets hypnosis. I can convince them to do something they wouldn’t do, but I can’t make them believe it was something they would do. Over time, you can manipulate someone into becoming what you want, it’s just slow, subtle work. I brute-force these cops minds and it will leave the equivalent of a broken window; mind-control isn’t the obvious explanation, but they’ll probably blame it on Breed and react with more violence. But there might be a more, well, not elegant, solution, exactly, but subtler. If it’s looking like the cops are taking a turn for the violent, I could take over their autonomic nervous system, and make them shit themselves.”

“Violently?” Iago asked.

“Depending on what they’ve got in proximity to their colon. On that note, I’ll start priming the pump; unless they’re ready to use the bathroom, I can’t just make them, spontaneously. What I can do is start their bowels moving overtime. Shouldn’t take too long, and they’ll have some uncomfortable cramping in the interim, too.”

“If we have to get out of here through force, it was always going to be messy; I prefer this kind of mess to violence,” Mikaela said. 

“You just say that because you aren’t the one who’s going to have to launder their drawers,” Iago said.