At the end of forty-five minutes I-love-yous were passed around. Soledad hung up. She thought about what she'd have to do at work the following day, and how she would fill her week, the seven days, until she made the phone call home again.
It's a miracle," the reporter was saying on the television in the background on one of the morning breakfast news/weather/yak/ helpful-hint shows.
Soledad was more interested in how come she didn't get more raisins in her Raisin Nut Bran—might as well call it Not Raisin Nut Bran—but caught enough of the dry details broadcast at her to be able to piece the story together: a gas explosion at an apartment complex in Studio City. The whole thing blown up and burned down. Plenty of footage—the smoldering shell of the building, the gawking onlookers—to go with the description. But, and here's the miracle part, no casualties. No injuries even. A thoroughly decimated structure, and everyone got out alive and unharmed.
"It's a miracle," the reporter again reminded the audience.
How about that? A little good news.
That story got followed up by what went down in Indianapolis. The Indy MTac—what passed for MTac in Indianapolis—had served an EO on a metanormal.
Euphemism.
They'd killed a mutie. Not much of a mutie. It had geomagnetic abilities; could move earth and rock, do low-grade terraforming. None of that was much good against the Indianapolis MTac's bullets, and the Indianapolis MTac was all giddy 'cause in the years since the EO'd been enacted they'd finally had a shot at a freak and came out victorious.
A geomagnetic. BFD.
Soledad wondered, she wondered how they would've rated against a real freak; a pyrokinetic? Would they have survived their encounter like she had? What about a shape-shifter or metal morpher?
A telepath?
She knew how they, how any MTac, would do against that.
Hand to her neck.
She thought: She should go see Reese. View her. That was the only way to describe sitting with the comatose. Soledad hadn't done that in a while, hadn't been able to stomach it. Yeah, she should do that; visit Reese. Maybe tomorrow. No, tomorrow or the next day she really needed to spend her free time getting the front bumper of her car fixed where it hung limp from her accident. Thursday was physical therapy with her leg. And she wanted to see a doc about her throat. Was there any kind of surgery, anything to be done about the scars? But soon, real soon she was going to go and view Reese.
Raisins gone and bran soggy, she tossed out the remains of her breakfast.
Middle of the hallway. Soledad stopped, her head sprang up. The words of the cop who'd passed her just then seeping in.
"What'd you say?" she snapped at his back.
The cop turned, his face puzzled in expression."I said, 'Hey. '"
"What did you call me?"
"… I… What did I—"
"Call me. What did you—"
"Bullet. I said, 'Hey, Bullet. '"
"Bullet?"
"Cops, they've been talking about you; about what you did to that mutie. About all those bullets you got. Cops were talking, and they started calling you—"
"That's not my name."
"It's just a nick—"
"Bullet is not my name." Reacting like she was allergic to the whole concept."Soledad."
"I know. I know that. It's just a—"
"Soledad, or O'Roark, or if you're desperate for something, Officer O'Roark's—"
"Look," the cop cut her off, tired of just standing there taking what Soledad was handing out,"it was meant as a compliment. Learn to take it."
The cop turned. The cop walked away.
Soledad gave thought to yelling after the cop, telling him two or three or ten places he could put his compliment. There was no point in sharing any of them. She kept on for her desk, for the full shift of the insipidness that waited for her.
Up the hallway: Bo and Yarborough. Yar's left wrist was in a splint, a sprain mending, acquired when the element responded to a call on an invulnerable. The invulnerable got away, and Yar got a sprain that was probably not a sprain, but a break. But if his wrist was busted, regs were, Yar would have to take a seat until it was healed. So, probably, it was a break he called a sprain.
The green clip. The slugs with the contact poison. If they could've used that, Yar's wrist wouldn't've been broken or sprained or whatever, Soledad thought. The invulnerable'd be dead.
No freaks today. No calls. No warrants to serve. Like most days, for most of the MTac elements, there'd be some training, maybe some refresher course of some kind, a lot of waiting for DMI, the Division of Metanormal Investigations, to hand them a warrant, or for someone in the city—someone who walked around like they were normal—to reveal themselves for the freak they really were. Estimates, estimates by DMI, the guys and girls who kept quiet surveillance of suspected freaks, figured there were about forty or fifty creeping around LA alone. Most had fled during the thirty days the prez had given them to get the F out of the country. Most went to Europe, where they still wore their costumes, did their superhero shtick: avert a natural disaster, bag a terrorist. But the heroes weren't the only ones forced out of the country. The bad guys, the superperps, had gotten the F out too. And they kept doing their thing, trying to perpetrate evil at the highest level. And way too regularly a couple of superheroes and supervillains would mix it up in Berlin or Madrid or Prague, take out a few buildings, get a few dozen people killed, and it was real obvious our government had made the right decision: freaks stay, freaks get dealt with by any means necessary. So MTacs all over the city, in cities all over America, trained and stayed in practice, but mostly waited for a mutie somewhere to raise its head for just a split second so they could go and take it off.
Bo waved Soledad over. Two other guys talking with him and Yarborough.
"Jim Whitaker," Bo started the introductions,"and Vin Cana-velli."
Whitaker had been transferred from Pacific MTac, and Vin was reactivated from Central MTac, having just recently been clean-billed from injuries he'd collected going after a thing that could generate and discharge electricity. Soledad had met Whitaker once before. Decent guy. Good cop. Except that he was eager to please. Always seemed to be working hard to be everybody's friend. Made him come off a little jittery, a little jumpy, like a dog that couldn't wait to do tricks for its master. Standing still, Whitaker always looked like he was doing a salsa. To Soledad's thinking anyway. Red hair, pinkish skin, he was the kind of guy who should've had a nickname like Rusty. Vin was new to her. Dark in complexion and smooth in feature, he looked like maybe he had originally come to LA to get into the business of show, but by some twist of circumstances had ended up in MTac.
"Good to meet you, Soledad." Vin was following up an enthusiastic hello from Whitaker."Heard you did a hell of a job on that fire freak."
Soledad nodded her head some. Kind of said something, snide, about getting put on a desk for her efforts.
Vin, picking up on that: "Can't imagine Whitaker and me replacing you and Reese for long."
"I can't imagine you replacing us at all."
Vin took a verbal step back."Don't take that wrong. I didn't mean anything."
"You don't mean anything, why are you saying anything?"
"Just making conversation."
"Well, you're doing a shitty job of it."
"I think you and me are starting off wrong. Want to try this again?"
"Why bother? You're just around temporary, right?"
Amused, not fazed, Vin smiled."Sure. Just keeping it warm for you."
Ever the appeaser, Whitaker started in with: "Hey, after shift, we all oughta head up to Los Feliz and grab—"
"See you, Bo, Yar." Soledad meant to get the last word in.