"It's your own fault. We didn't have orders to shoot you."
"No one told me."
"No one told you to run either." To the point: "You asked for me. Why?"
"I wanted to meet you, meet the person who was able to shoot a hyperkinetic."
"Taking your kind out isn't that big a deal," Soledad fronted. Up until the slug found its way into Herbert she had no idea if it would really function, if the science that worked so well in theory, on paper, could perform in fact. There was no need for Herbert to know that. Let the freak think MTacs could take him and his flying, burning, mind-reading and super-whatever friends out at will.
"Don't bother with the bravado. I'm already impressed. We all are."
"We? Other freaks?"
"That's what I like about you police: unbiased, impartial. But, yes, we are impressed by you. By how you handled Clarence—"
"Who's—"
"He was the pyrokinetic you killed."
"Not before he murdered a real human being."
A wave of pain made a run over Herbert. He was doped up, but the doctors had been stingy with the painkillers. Herbert had asked a cop to tell the docs to give him more. The cop laughed. Herbert closed his eyes, waited for the pain to pass. It dimmed but didn't go away."You were able to stop Clarence, and we were glad for that."
That hit Soledad sideways."How's that work?"
"Clarence was an addict, a psychotic and a killer."
"Same as the rest of you."
"Do you know what we are? We're scared people. We run and hide when someone stares at us thinking they know we're different when maybe all they're looking at is just a stain on a shirt left over from breakfast. It's how we live; that frightened. It's the way you've made us. We, our kind, we used to be heroes—"
"Used to be," Soledad was quick to point out."You're nothing but murderers."
"I know a hundred sixty-eight people in Oklahoma City who would say otherwise."
"And I know six hundred thousand people in San Francisco who'd say something against that. If they could say anything. Except they can't. Except they're dead."
The pain came back for Herbert.
Soledad didn't care. Soledad kept swinging."You… you freaks, you're nothing but a bunch of animals. Like pack dogs; less than human. I'll tell you something, if I had it my way, I'd put down every one of you."
Herbert laughed a little. Laughter did nothing to help the hurt.
"That funny to you?"
"The way you talk: We're animals, less than human. You'd kill us all… That's the kind of crazy hate talk they used to throw at Jews, gays." Herbert's sleepy, sedated eyes went sharp for a second. They looked right at Soledad."And at blacks."
Not even a flinch."Gays, blacks, Jews never took out half a city."
For a second it was quiet enough to hear the drip of the IV.
Soledad said: "These freaks that you know so well, all your little freak friends: Let's talk about them."
A couple of tired swings of Herbert's head signified no."I won't tell you anything about my friends."
"Think before you answer. Things don't look so good for you.
Violating the Executive Order regulating the activities of metanor-mals is a—"
"I'll tell you about Vaughn."
"Who's Vaughn?"
"The one you're after. The telepath."
"You don't want to talk about anyone else, but him you'll flip on?"
"Two reasons. He's a murderer. Think whatever you want of us, but those of us who remain have a strict code: We must never use our gifts to take life."
Now it was Soledad who did the laughing."For a bunch of people who don't like to kill you've got racking up a body count down to a habit."
"When I was a child, when I first realized I was… different… well, I thought of myself as you think of me: I thought I was a freak. I thought there was something wrong with me. I never told people about my abilities. I figured they'd laugh, call me names at best. At worst… I thought they would put me in a lab, cut me open and study me. Then one day Pronto made his first appearance. Do you remember? San Ysidro. You're young, but you must… That crazy with the gun in a fast-food restaurant. He would have killed how many people? Except along comes a man who could run faster than the speed of sound. A man who could snatch bullets out of the air. A man who dedicated himself to fighting injustice and serving mankind. Do you know how that made me feel? Can you imagine the joy in my heart to know that I wasn't some kind of mutation, but that I was given a special gift and with it I could help, I could make a difference?"
Soledad didn't have to imagine the feeling. She knew it. Knew it well. It was the same way she felt first time the Nubian Princess went into action. A crew of five bank robbers armed to the eyebrows with automatic weapons, all brought to their knees by a black woman in tribal wrap and Egyptian gold. Just now, remembering the moment, the feeling came racing back. The feeling of a young black girl living in an all-white neighborhood, going to an all-white school. No matter those white people were usually decent… usually… the girl always felt different. Never felt special in a good sense until the day she saw, on television, on the news, someone who looked like her being extraordinary.
And quick as the feeling came back, Soledad chased it off with a mantra: Freaks kill.
"I had always hoped," Herbert went on,"to use my gift to help people, to follow in Pronto's… pardon me, footsteps." He paused."That was before San Francisco."
Soledad said her mantra aloud: "Freaks kill."
"So do normal humans. But we are different from you, Bullet. The difference comes with the responsibility to use our abilities for positive change, not to do wrong. And those like Clarence and Vaughn who cross the line, they deserve punishment. We would have it no other way. There's an old salvage yard just off Victory Boulevard in North Hollywood. As best we know, that's where you'll find Vaughn. Believe it or not, we really hope you stop him."
"How many of you are there? Do you communicate on a regular—"
Herbert made a big show of being in pain and tired, of being unable to answer any more questions.
Still, Soledad had a last few."You said there were two reasons why you'd tell me where this Vaughn is. What's the other?"
"He wants you to find him. Not just the police, but you, Bullet."
"Stop it."
"That's what we all call you. We call you Bullet."
"If you call me that again, I'll—"
"What? What will you do to me, Bullet?"
Wounded, in a hospital, exposed as a freak and facing a life of sedation in a cell. What else could Soledad do to Herbert Lewis?
Nothing.
So she ignored his taunt."Why me?"
"You killed Michelle."
A blank stare.
"The angel. You killed his wife."
Soledad responded to the statement in no particular manner. She remembered that Lesker, her partner at the time, had called the woman, white skin and gliding through the air on wings, an angel as well. All Soledad saw was a freak. And now she saw a conspiracy of freaks. They communicated with each other, knew one another's whereabouts and actions. They even sat in judgment of each other. Forget MTac, the advances in technology, in strategy and skills. The freak problem was getting worse, not better.
Soledad looked at Herbert Lewis, took a second to study his face. She wanted to be able to gauge, after she asked what she was about to ask, any change in his expression no matter how subtle or how quickly it passed. She wanted to be able to tell if Herbert responded with truth or lie.
She asked: "What's revelation?"
"Revelation?" Herbert asked back, as nonplussed as if Soledad had asked him what's water."A revelation is a disclosure or something disclosed by or as if by divine or preternatural means."