Jasmine dropped to her knees and grabbed for the kid’s arm, a young small boy of about thirteen years old, grabbing at the syringe in hopes of removing it before the plunger hit the end of the tube. She was too late and he lay back with only the whites of his eyes evident as the drug raced through his body. His mind became numb. He never felt his heart stop. His last breath smelled of illegal distilled alcohol.
Realizing it was too late; Jasmine wiped the tears from her eyes and gently laid his arm across his chest. He was the fourth this week. Children either too young to remember what it was like to feel the sun on their face, or those who were born in the underground and never experienced the beauty of a fresh spring day. Kids bored, frustrated, with the life of a mole and left to their own bad habits and vices. They were the ones who lay victim to a drug that law enforcement failed to stop.
The best medical and scientific minds could not artificially provide the heath care that the sun gave the body, and the lack of that ‘taken for granted’ beam brought on depression, cancer, the increased susceptibility to heart attack, diabetes and other disorders. It was also, at least partly, to blame for the sky-high rates of multiple sclerosis that occurred in most cities. It wasn’t the total lack of sun causing the epidemic but the mere fact that living underground for too long drove the most rational person close to insanity, which gave the Last Pharmacist the advantage.
Jasmine looked up at her partner with pain in her eyes as if the young boy was family, and although she had never met him she still felt the family’s pain when they heard the news that the police were too late to save him. It was like that. One, sometimes two, out of five would lay in their own puke, if they lived that long, before authorities could get through the door.
“He changed the 911 code in his key pad,” Officer Long said as he stepped around the body. “I don’t understand how he was able to do it without setting off the alarm.” The doors in the underground cities were built strong enough to stop all imaginable impacts, and without a key card and code, it was virtually impossible to penetrate.
“It was on the net,” Jasmine offered in a tone just above a whisper. “The scanner found it last week but no one knows how long it was posted.”
Gendarmerie Police Officer Jim Long reached down and helped Jasmine to her feet.
“Oh, God,” Jasmine murmured. “I thought for sure we’d make it…”
“Jaz,” Officer Long whispered, “Most don’t survive. I don’t know where you get your information or how you know, but very few of these kids survive. Hell, Jasmine, most are found after someone reports them missing but yet you know before anything happens or before they’re reported and you save nine out of ten…”
She pulled a handkerchief from her sling bag and wiped her eyes, and then wiped it across her forehead as if wiping away the anxiety that came with these types of scenarios.
“Officers Long and Cooper to base,” Long said into a microphone pinned to his left shoulder. “We need EMT assistance at 9700 Kansas City Corridor, Sector Forty-nine, Sub-terrain Ninety-two. We have a SCH Heroin overdose.”
As usual, there would not be a reply but Officer Long heard the base call out to the EMT team. It took an ETA of thirty minutes in that sector, which would be ample time for the team to complete their report on their datapad. A medical examiner would then take the data and complete the entry with the results of their autopsy. That information would then be stored and opened for anyone to see. In the underground, there were very few secret documents. There was not enough disk space or room to store any flash drives of frivolous documents. There also wasn’t enough security to make one feel safe about storing a document they wanted kept from prying eyes.
Jasmine put the handkerchief back into her sling bag, and pulled out the datapad and handed it to Officer Long. Jasmine did most entries. He only did DOA. It was an agreement they made when they became partners. She didn’t do DOAs very well. In fact, it would be a sleepless night as it was and even worse had she typed the specifics in.
They stepped out into the corridor and watched as Officers Guy and Sanford rode toward them on newer, updated Electro Glides that were based on the old Segway technology and design but used less battery.
Looking at Jasmine, Sanford knew there was a body in the room; he didn’t have to hear the request. “It’s not your fault, Cooper, you can’t save them all,” Sanford said sympathetically when they stopped in front of Jasmine.
“You save more than you lose, Cooper,” Guy continued. “A hell of a lot more than the rest of us.”
Jasmine didn’t respond. She brushed away new tears from her eyes, but the officers knew they were tears for the kid; Jasmine was one of the most deadly officers they’d ever met and nothing frightened her.
Nothing.
Chapter 2
Jasmine stepped onto her Electro Glide transport, mumbling, cursing the traffic that streamed past the door. Although the corridors were the width of an eight-lane highway it seemed as if everyone who lived there were rushing about, and not one person or transport slowed down or pulled over to let the emergency personnel on to the emergency lane. It was worse than when her parents were stuck in rush hour traffic on Interstate 635. She hated the underground, the people, the traffic, the stupid transport, but more importantly, she hated the Last Pharmacist.
They looked over to Jasmine. She was stoic, silent, as if controlling her emotions from some sort of Zen training. Authorities were forbidden to express any type of emotion, especially anger, in public, even when in pursuit or confrontation. She looked at the door with an expression that sent a shiver down Officer Long’s spine. He pitied the man who was behind all this
“I’ll meet you at the center,” Jasmine said in a near whisper, and then whipped across the corridor into the traffic flow.
“She’s going for him, isn’t she,” Officer Guy asked. “She’s going to find that guy and break him into little bitty pieces.”
Officer Long didn’t reply. He knew Jasmine would be going after the pharmacist, and even though he’d tried to talk her out it, nothing was going to stop her. “She lost her father to a junkie,” Long said, after coughing away the same emotion Jasmine had while bending over the boy. Although she was well-trained, held the best close rate, held the highest rating as a marksman, held a third degree black belt, and had broken every record ever set on the force, he was still afraid for her. Even though the most lethal person he had ever met, she had the softest heart of anyone he knew.
Coming down the corridor in a slow but steady pace, the EMT cart approached 9700 in a cold yet professional manner.
Citizens stopped and stared, all knowing very well what lay in the small apartment.
More available than water, the Heroin rushed through the underground highways looking for a new host as if the drug itself was a virus.
Chapter 3
Jasmine sat and watched as Commander Baul Herne dug through a box that looked as if it had been one of the original artifacts confiscated before the meteor hit. It wasn’t unusual to see someone clinging to the past but the commander’s action actually entertained her. As he dug deeper, his profanity became worse and she didn’t have a clue what he was looking for.