Fiero, Martin, Jenkinson, Adetuyi. Valley MTac. The four men, body armor worn in various degrees of regulation, eased up the stairway to the eighth floor, top floor, of an apartment complex in Northridge. Empty. Musty. Abandoned. Abandoned except for a potentially very deadly metanormal who'd managed to remain hidden from floors one through seven.
Stairwell door. Eighth floor. Fiero was SLO, had point. He peeked his head through the doorway. His eyes swept the space.
From behind, Adetuyi: "What do we got?"
"We got nothing." Fiero pulled back into the stairwell."Nothing I can see. Can't see much. Windows boarded up, walls torn out. Lot of boxes. Must've used the floor for storage."
Fiero's parents were from Mexico. Good Catholics. He was first-gen American. When Fiero told his madre and padre he wanted to be a cop, his mom cried with joy, pride. Their son toting a gun and badge, upholding the law, made them feel more American than the whiter-than-whites who looked down their noses at the Fieros for being in" their" country in the first place. When Fiero went to the academy, his parents saw him off. Graduation day they showed up four hours early, his two sisters in tow, to get front-row seats. The first bust Fiero made—snagged a hophead snatching purses at the end of a dull steak knife in Studio City—got written up, barely, in the Times Valley edition police reports. Fiero wasn't even mentioned by name. His mom cut the article out and built a scrapbook around it.
Then Fiero told his parents he wanted to be MTac. His dad, who used to be a street fighter back in Mexico just to earn enough pesos to keep his family fed, cried like a little girl. His mom? She put together a small shrine and kept it ready for the day she would light a candle to her dead son.
"Hate this shit," Martin said."Hate serving warrants."
"Should've thought of that," Jenkinson,"before you went MTac."
"Don't like hunting for them, that's what I'm saying. You're on a call, one of them is in the middle of Ventura tossing cars around, okay. You know what you're up against. But this… Hate this shit."
Fiero: "We know what we're up against. The witness IDed it as an invulnerable."
"An invulnerable and what else?" Martin asked."Could be a nest of 'em for all we know."
"Muties don't usually travel in packs. Too easy to get made." Fiero spoke straight from the handbook."Swept seven floors, and no evidence of a cluster."
"No evidence of anything," Jenkinson said."So let's just do this floor and go home."
Martin, again: "Really hate this shit."
Even bulked down with gear, the four cops managed to mist their way onto the top floor low and quiet. Fanning out, they avoided the shafts of light that cut through the window boards, used the crates and boxes for cover.
In position, they all looked and scanned and listened for the sight or sound that'd say to them" freak."
Nothing.
In their earpieces they heard Fiero."Clear?"
Down the line:
"Clear."
"Clear."
"Clear. Waste of time," Jenkinson added.
Fiero came back with: "Tell me about it after we finish the floor. Move out. Keep it low, keep it slow."
They did that. Silent as shadows, the four cops came up from cover, weapons at the ready, and fanned the floor.
Fiero picked up chatter from Adetuyi."You hear about that chick on Central? Bullet?"
"Heard she's facing discipline."
"Yeah. Heard that. And I heard the brass is trying to keep quiet she took out a pyro with a homebrew piece."
"Wouldn't trust it," Martin piped in."Pull the trigger, that shit's liable to blow up in your face."
"She's BAMF two times," Adetuyi said, pushing past a box, his HK ready to do some spraying."She's got to be doing something right."
"Hell, I pull some crap like that, make my own gun, they'd've canned my ass by now. Know a guy on the job in Admin, says the only reason she's still around, the department's got a quota to—"
Jenkinson: "Fiero."
"Got something?"
"Just thinking. If it is an invulnerable, our pieces aren't going to do us much good. Close quarters like this we might just end up plugging each other much as anything else."
"And you want to go at this thing hands empty?"
"Stun guns, man. It's the only thing that's gonna drop an invulnerable anyway."
"Regs say—"
"Screw the regs," Adetuyi cut in."The guys who wrote the book are kicking it back in their little offices. All I'm trying to do is make it another day in one piece. I'm with Jenkinson. Let's pull the SGs."
Fiero thought. Fiero asked: "Martin, you with it?"
"Whatever. Let's just get the show on the road."
"All right. Stand down on your pieces," Fiero ordered."SGs."
Adetuyi and Martin shouldered their HKs. Jenkinson slipped his Benelli into a back saddle. Fiero holstered his. 45. All four drew their stun guns, triggered them and got 850, 000 kV of high-amperage spark in response. Just enough to short out the CNS of the most ornery of otherwise indestructible metanormals.
Seven floors done, two-thirds of one to go. And somewhere in that two-thirds was a hiding freak. Now the sweating started. Four cops snaking around boxes, crates. Looking, inching, looking again. A sound track of heavy, nervous breathing coming through their earpieces.
Inching, looking, snaking, eyeing… eyeing. Sweating hands gripping their weapons.
Fiero: "Anything?"
"Nothing."
"Got nothing."
"Nothing."
"The freak," Fiero said,"must've known he got spotted. Hit the road."
Martin: "Must've packed good. Nothing to show anybody was ever hiding out here."
Jenkinson stood."Waste of time."
"Go to all this effort, at least ought to bag a couple pushers for the trouble," Martin said as he came from cover.
The two remaining MTacs stood as well.
Fiero ordered: "Keep your eyes open on the way down. Let's keep it sharp till we get out of here."
As the four cops started for the door Adetuyi felt something warm and wet streak from his nose. He reached to touch his upper lip, feel the dampness. Instead he took his HK down off his shoulder.
Fiero spotted him."Ad, shoulder up. We'll go down with the SGs."
Adetuyi worked the rifle's slide.
"Adetuyi, you hear me? Shoulder your weapon."
The only response Fiero got was the muzzle of the HK swung in his direction.
"Shit!"
The word was lost under the rat-a-tat-tat of automatic fire and the bullets that hot-swarmed around Fiero as he threw himself for cover.
Martin and Jenkinson stood unbelieving as they watched a fellow cop try best he could to splatter another. They stood that way until
Adetuyi jabbed his HK in their direction. At that moment they became converted true believers. They did their believing as they did some moving. Mimicking Fiero, the pair rolled and tumbled, scrambled behind crates. Bullets chewed up the space where they'd been.
Fiero tried to scream at Adetuyi through his throat mike."Ad… Ad, whataya doing?"
All he got for an answer was more bullets coming his way.
Martin perched himself up a bit."Got to take him out."
Fiero: "Hold your fire."
"I got an angle." A confetti of crate chips rained on him.
"Hold your fire!"
Adetuyi's clip clicked empty. Bullets stopped coming. Shells quit plinking on the wood floor. Quiet. Quiet except for the scream that came pouring out of Adetuyi's mouth. A scream followed by some frantic babble.
"I–I can't… I can't control myself. Fiero! Fiero! I can't—"
"Ad, take it easy."
"Don't shoot me! Don't shoot! I can't control myself."
Jenkinson went ballistic with confusion."What's happening?"
Adetuyi's hands opened. The spent HK dropped and clank-clanked on the floor. Against itself Adetuyi's body turned. No fighting it. No way to fight it. Something else was in possession of him. His eyes spied what his body was turning toward: one of the boarded windows. A voice inside him, his own but not his own, told him what to do next. What he whispered to himself scared him deep.