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ninety6tears[See Master Post]
"Will?" Danek lightly called out from where he was stretched on the couch.
"What?"
"Could you summarize the four tenets of Jo'bradi's Justice?" he asked casually. "I'm not sure the T.A. really knew what she was talking about and I know it was of some interest to you when your class was on the subject."
"Your PADD's right here," Toni commented, lifting it up off the coffee table.
"Thank you, but Will has a good memory for the more significant points," he replied, making Toni shake her head as if she wanted to make some remark about laziness.
No one was looking at me so I was free to have a grumbling expression for one second before I said, "The first is equal distribution of power. The second is effective distribution of power. The third is fluidity of the definition of power according to the amount and type of resources; fourth is the same but according to word of the gods. The fourth was eventually modified under Palto's reign."
As I'd been talking I'd seen the flinch in Danek's expression, a mix of irritation and chagrin he didn't let anyone but me see. In another elusive moment I shot him back a look that attempted to say, We don't have to play that game, do we?
He was being a pain in the ass, often and deliberately. He wasn't trying to throw me off my front with the fastballs, of course he didn't want to, but as much as he needed me to keep playing along around all the others I think it was hard for him to passively watch. I kept thinking I noticed him stiffening when I spoke to or especially when I touched any of the others, and he kept demanding my attention as if to momentarily keep me away from them.
This reflex of his was enough to put my anxiety right through the roof without the feeling attached to it that wasn't a sense of something lethal but something risky enough to make my instincts prickle into vigilance. You never know how people will react to intrusions, but it's a rare thing, the type of rage that would make Danek shoot back with such cold and precise intellect as he did, a defensive boldness underneath it that could have burned much hotter if he understood less than he did.
I shouldn't have automatically felt more uneasy about being around the others, but I remembered the story Toni had told me—Something's happened to Will—and I wondered if those chilling instincts of theirs made them feel it in their bones, how hard they'd had to work for where they were. I could only imagine what it would have been like if I'd made a much greater and much more obvious mistake, if four heads at once had turned in my direction with the knowledge that there was a stranger in their fortress.
Overall I think there was a general vibe the others were getting that something was still a bit crooked between me and Danek, but I almost got the impression that the two having fights wasn't as entirely unprecedented as I'd imagined and the other three were only used to not considering it any of their business.
The thing that revved the tension back up was later when, with a sort of inappropriate levity in how he said it, Danek suddenly declared, "Will wants us to go visit the place where he was attacked."
It was like he'd said something blatantly absurd; everyone was taking a break over a batch of pastries Gaila had just made, and the atmosphere was immediately sucked dry into wide, confused eyes.
"He told me he was hesitant to bring it up, but that he'd like to see if he's able to remember anything. And he would like us all to come."
I'd been waiting for something like this, but it would have been nice to have gotten a warning. I was forcing myself not to look nearly as surprised by this as the others were and hopefully was hitting the right note of shyly agreeing.
"Are you sure?" Toni asked me.
I shrugged. "I don't want it to be all depressing, of course." I sheepishly grinned at Gaila's knowing rolling of eyes. "We could get something to eat while we're out there. I really didn't want to go without any of you..."
"Sure." Ken nodded. "Sure. But, this isn't something the cops are kind of pressuring you to do, is it?"
I shook my head earnestly. Something in Danek's expression was more careful than before, and I couldn't help feeling a little favorable towards him when he added, "I'm only assuming you haven't changed your mind."
"No..." I met his eyes steadily, and then nodded at everyone. "We'll go."
I'd never been to Peggy's, but the pie was to die for, apparently literally, since so many people seemed willing to brave the neighborhood despite its reputation. Then again over half of their customers were Orions, who generally had less reason to be nervous around the gang areas.
In keeping with my word to Chris, my phaser was strapped in my holster and I had to keep my jacket on so that no one would notice, and I hoped no one was going to ask me how I wasn't getting hot wearing it. This worry dissolved with the constant tension I saw around the table that took up all the mental space. Danek was playing along with it to an extent, unless it was his own actual emotional state that was making him have a hard time touching his food, which it may well have been.
Gaila was the most fearlessly friendly with the waiter as well as with the occasional loud crowd that passed by the table and greeted us in variably inappropriate ways. It occurred to me we might have been made to feel unwelcome here if it weren't for her, but I didn't want to jump to that assumption.
"I don't feel like I've been in here," I said, shaking my head after Ken asked me about it. "But I don't know why I would have been anywhere else. Dammit, I don't know. It's going to drive me crazy."
I didn't even know whose foot it was that nudged comfortingly against mine. "It's okay, babe," Gaila was saying. "It's not your fault you can't figure it out."
I let out a sigh, setting my fork down and keeping my eyes fixed at nothing in particular, putting up an appearance of distant, private frustration. I eventually said, "I should apologize. None of you want to deal with this, and I brought us all out here..."
"Hey, don't get like that," Ken muttered. "You've got nothing to be sorry for."
I had already observed that this whole thing seemed to be particularly bothering Gaila, but it took me completely by surprise when I looked over at her: At some point she had started crying. She was going about trying to hide it in the way I remember doing when I was a little kid, simply acting like it wasn't happening so that someone might assume she just had something in her eye. She kept dipping her potato wedges and cramming them into her slightly trembling mouth.
I was pretty sure everyone had noticed. Toni opened her mouth to say something, but then didn't when Ken on her left simply reached and took Gaila's hand off the table, squeezing it and setting it on his lap. She seemed to feel better then; I wondered what was wrong with everybody to practically ignore it after that, but maybe I subjectively saw something in it they didn't see. It was a particular frustrated way I'd seen people cry more often in DV than anywhere else, the way somebody cries when they're trying with all their might to not be afraid. I thought of my argument with Chris all over again, and I realized for the first time how completely fucked up I was going to be about it if this op didn't turn up a damn thing. It added a sturdy weight to what I was doing, like I could go without sleeping for the next few days and not even care as long as I found something.
Later that night we went home, and I waited until the lower part of the house was all clear; well after everyone was in bed, I took the car all the way back out to Peggy's.
The alleyway was still lined with tape in only the middle area. I stepped under to pass through, feeling an out-of-place tingle there even though I did have my badge on me. I remembered the place pretty vividly, but it seemed wider than before, more of a place that swallows you into the shadows.
It was still a total mystery what had brought Will out here. It wasn't like a civilian would have to be suicidal to come poking around; people do things that are stupid and reckless all the time, things that they can't really explain when it comes under scrutiny, even when they would normally be more careful. But coming all the way out to the area by himself, actually aiming for it, didn't seem at all like Will. I had no idea what I was really doing, only that I'd felt a restless pull that brought me back here and was now recklessly trying to retrace another man's steps and suss out something, anything.
Someone had to have either pulled or pushed Will out here, and if it wasn't Gaila, that led me back to our initial impression that he might have been meeting somebody here. If only we had any reason to believe the group was in any way desperate for money, but when their funds were pooled, they seemed comfortable to the point of it being suspicious. Danek had all but confirmed that. But while I couldn't think of any reason for it, I felt it was the best explanation; I wanted badly for there to be someone who might just be waiting for Will to show his face around here.
I went under the tape on the other side of the alley and went through to the street opposite from where I'd walked in. It was more crowded than I'd expected from the amount of noise that was around, which made the atmosphere all the more formidable. A woman and a man were just a couple yards away, wearing clothing that gave me the impression they worked at one of the clubs, and they gave me crude cards-down looks as I came by. Just up ahead a couple was passing, clutched together but folded in with what looked like a tense whispered debate. I heard a nasal cackling through the window of an apartment complex.
There was one figure standing at the corner of the block: somebody tall and thin and hunched over, and I couldn't tell if he was looking for something down the street or right at me, but by the time I got up closer it was decidedly the latter. He had a loose jacket on with the hood obscuring his face, and I couldn't even quite tell what color skin he had. I ended up stopping, just looking at him, feeling a few hairs stand up on the back of my neck.
The moment suspended there for a few seconds: then his feet shifted, and he grunted, "D'I know you, man?"
"...No."
Sounding annoyed, he added, "I haven't got anything, if you're looking to buy some kicks."
"Nah, take it easy," I said. "Sorry."
After that I could only shake my head at myself and meander in a defeated mood all the way around the block, eventually putting out my cigarette and heading back to the car.
Danek was feeling as aggressive as I was: Two days later, he pulled me back to the diner yet again.
The excuse was that Will wanted to get a look at the actual crime scene and that this would be much less creepy when there was still daylight left; the real reason of course was that it may have seemed like a good idea to hit an earlier time of day than before.
Before we left, I caught Gaila alone.
"If you aren't okay with this, you can stay home," I muttered softly, holding her back by the shoulder for a second while I got into my jacket.
She checked up the stairway, then looked right at me. What I saw in her eyes wasn't quite readable; I felt like there was something significant in that she had no confusion about what I'd meant. For that second I sensed something I couldn't name; I wanted to grab her, say "No, dammit, are you okay? What's going on?" and dig to the bottom of it, but I knew I couldn't: Will wouldn't. After a second all she did was look down at her feet and brush off the worry. I felt that little wham of surprise at her insecurity, sensing the self-dismissal in whatever she was putting aside.
"It's fine," she finally said. I nodded, and there at the bottom of the stairs, she quickly tipped up and kissed me on the cheek.
Later at the diner, Danek was saying to me, "I thought you hated vinegar." I was forking at my salad and everyone stopped what they were doing to cock an eyebrow in my direction.
"I don't feel either way about the dressing," I said, telling myself not to roll my eyes, shrugging instead. I looked over and Ken was still mildly brooding at my plate. A little more irritably I insisted, "It's the smell I don't like."
Toni dissolved it by chuckling. "It's like Gaila and onion rings. Can't make her mind up about them."
"It's an ongoing scientific evaluation, okay," Gaila said in mock indignation. "I'll start making charts."
Ken grinned around his toothpick, looking somewhere up to the side. I met eyes with him and we shared a subtle private laugh.
When we were done eating I agreed to walk around the block to the other side of the alley after Danek suggested it. There would have been little point to this even if I was really Will, but none of the others felt like challenging it. Gaila turned out to be much less nervous this time around for whatever reason. I was beginning to think I'd imagined that there was something particularly jarring about it for her, that before she must have just been having a jolt of thinking too hard about what happened to Will for the first time in a while.
We wound up close to this worn-down playground that seemed like an artifact of a time when it might have been a decent area for kids to mess around in. Gaila seated herself on a rust-faded elephant-shaped chair that rocked back and forth. "Picture!" she demanded, pulling Toni in next to her. I took it on Will's compact, careful not to let anyone see my firearm as I replaced it in one of my inner pockets.
We were all scuttling through a quieter street back to the parking lot, now in better moods, when a large vehicle went from a slow idle to a stop and a green face with long hair popped out. A deep voice yelled at Gaila, "Got a light, little b'cheni?"
She slowed and gave the driver a subtly admonishing look, but then turned to Toni, who was already tossing her her lighter. Danek said Gaila's name in a cautioning way, but Gaila was already going up to hand it to the guy.
I saw that the car had started moving before I realized he'd grabbed her by the wrist and was pulling her with him. Gaila was thrashing and yelling to try to break away and for the next few seconds the vehicle had speeded up so fast the rest of us were scrambling to go after, me trying to make it up around the back, my hand tucked in to wrap around my gun before I'd even thought about it.
And then after a short moment, the car stomped into a full speed and took off, leaving Gaila tripping to the curb.
I took the moment during everyone's flipping out to mutter our location and the direction the car went in under my breath. Ken picked up something to throw after it, but I grabbed him at the forearm. "Don't, you'll just piss him off." This left him with no outlet but to curse, sharply, before he went up to let Gaila shoot forward into his arms.
Toni was slowing in next to Danek, her face furious. "Did anyone get the number?" Danek was already turning to unzip her shoulder bag and get her PADD out, looking directly at me.
"Nine-'H'-Seven-Four-'D'-Seven. Thornbell model, three or four years old, remember that it's green," I said, not caring if Will didn't know jack about cars and hoping whoever was listening to this would get the message. Danek seemed to have the same idea; I wondered if he'd even copied down the number.
When we turned to where Ken was throwing Gaila half a dozen questions at once, I managed to cut in pretty fast. "Hey," I said, putting my hand lightly on her shoulder. "Could you describe what he looked like if we called the police?"
She looked surprised for half a second, but she gulped down a tremor and stammered, "Um. Yeah. I even noticed a tattoo."
"A tattoo? Where was it?"
"The side of his neck...I could see it pretty clearly, it went down over his collarbone and..."
"What did it look like?"
She blinked, shook her head. "Uh. A baltin, I think it's called. You know, it looks like a jaguar but like with a hare's ears..."
The Saiphon's symbol. I was thinking please, fuck, let there be somebody on the other end of the transmission smart enough to handle this right; I was hoping I'd hear sirens somewhere close by as we started off back to the car with Toni and Danek murmuring an argument over what we should do. Ken had only managed to get Gaila to turn a couple steps though, I realized, because she needed to say something to me.
She muttered stiffly, "I didn't recognize him."
In a faint, startled way, Ken stopped. "...What?"
Gaila was still looking right at me. "I thought it was just some guy."
"Why would you have recognized him?" Ken demanded. When she kept looking like she was waiting for me to understand something, he shook her into looking at him, his voice getting more agitated. "Gaila? Start talking."
Ken was looking at me almost accusingly; I stole a brief glance at Danek over his shoulder and saw his eyes fixed expectantly on Gaila, transfixed and astonished. Gaila spoke to me again.
"We should tell them."
There was a swell of shock as the other three's eyes widened a bit. Danek finally firmly said, "We're going home."
I realized pretty quickly I should have offered to drive. Danek was swerving way too quickly around corners, tossing everyone's hips in the back seat as he dove through any pass he could make. When he cornered up by a bus at a recklessly close turn, I cleared my throat. "Don't you think you should take it easy?"
"Arrest me," he said acidly, turning hand over hand and making my elbow slap into the armrest.
Will's comm buzzed in my pocket and I flipped it open surreptitiously enough that the back seat wouldn't notice, but I felt Danek giving me a side-eye. I was hoping for something more helpful from Chris, but it was a quick general dispatch message: Car found unoccupied @ 13th & Perslippe. Number indicates unauthorized vehicle. Of course.
It was dark once we got to the house. Everyone gravitated to the living room without speaking and sat down around the coffee table, all of us silent and fumbling if not panicking, until Danek spoke.
"I want you to understand that I'm not angry. But the two of you have clearly been keeping something from us."
Gaila had been giving me guilt-ridden looks as if expecting me to be angry, to the point that I felt the need to play it to character and act at least irritated about the whole thing. This hadn't made Ken look very happy with me, but this all ended up working somewhat in my favor, since there was a bit too much pissiness coming my way for people to pry for my side of the story.
"Are you two idiots seriously telling me," Toni asked, "that something like this happened before? Does this have something to do with what happened to Will?"
"How would he know?" Gaila said, "If he can't remember, we had no way of—"
"Please, just," Ken placed his hands out tensely to cut her off. "Explain to us what the hell you're talking about."
She bit her bottom lip, looked over at me. I didn't quite nod, but I tried to give something that looked like encouragement, or permission.
"I'm not sure when it was—two or three days?—before Will was attacked, do you remember when he and I told you we were going to a study group for Civil Wars?" Gaila said this to Danek; there was the tiniest click of almost horrified expectation in his eyes, but he just nodded. "Well, we told you that because he really wanted to go see if he could find that book you wanted at this store they have out there...He'd been trying to talk Toni into going there with him but she doesn't even like to go east of the transport station, and Ken might have gone, but he was busy, so...he convinced me to come."
For a couple seconds everyone was steeped in that pause at the innocent ignorant beginning of stories like this; Danek was the only one who wasn't looking at me at all.
"And we weren't even in an alley or anything when this happened, it was just this street where there weren't too many people, and this guy..." She sniffed in frustration at herself. "This guy, I don't know if he was from some gang but he seemed like it, he must have been waiting for Will to get distracted by something because the second he was looking in some window, he came right at me...He clapped a hand over my mouth and I swore for a second he was going to stuff me into a car, but then, he just tore me around a corner and slammed me hard up against the wall, and he started saying all this stuff I just couldn't understand..."
"Like what?" Danek pressed when she trailed off, his voice sounding forced into steadiness.
"Something like, he couldn't believe I had the nerve to show my face around there, and he basically said he'd kill me if he could get away with it right then, and that he was going to tell...someone, it's not like I remember the name, that he saw me there. No, he said he didn't kill me because..." She shook her head in tight, angry confusion. "Because he didn't want to take away the satisfaction it would give this other guy. He also said a lot of stuff in Orion, but it was Saiphic Orion, so I couldn't understand."
Toni asked, "But why would they have a problem with you? Something to do with you being Orion but not—?"
"You don't get it, I can't really explain, it was like I'd actually done something, like it was personal. He was talking like I was supposed to know who he was talking about and I would swear that he just had me mistaken for someone else, but..." She took in and let out a frantic, frustrated breath. "He called me by my last name. He knew my name."
I was completely befuddled for about one second and then it hit hard, the explanation blindsiding me with a bang:
Witness protection. We'd never found any data on her name being fake because it wasn't. She'd come out of an entirely different pool of confidential info we hadn't even thought to try to look at. Whoever the real Gaila Vro was, she'd needed to slip out of her name like it was a garment caught on fire and was probably tucked safely into an alias and somewhere on the other side of the planet if not relocated all the way to Terra. Whoever brought her up had apparently been unconcerned about dusting off the ID and slapping it onto someone else. They might as well have marched her down the bloodiest part of the city with a fucking "Kick Me" sign on her back. I wanted to punch a hole in the wall.
While I was sitting there working through this, Gaila was going on about how Will came running around the corner just when the guy gave her a final shove to the pavement.
"Why the fuck wouldn't you tell the cops about this?" Toni demanded.
"No, he did," Gaila innocently protested.
"He—?" Danek blinked, but then realized what she meant before any of the others did.
"Will took me home after that—All I wanted was to go home and forget about it, okay, I couldn't stand the idea of talking to the police, so he said I should just tell him everything and he'd go report it like it happened to him and that we shouldn't..." She paused with a little sigh of guilt. "He said we shouldn't tell any of you, because you'd just worry."
Ken made some cutting little curse. Looking straight at me, he asked, "Did you really report it?" Next to him, Toni tensed.
"Of course he did, if he said he did," Gaila said.
"Look, we all know you have issues, with the police," Ken said to me. He was furious.
Toni said, "Ken—"
"Doesn't anybody think that if Will had made a police report about one of us getting threatened that maybe, in the middle of asking us about our friends and Will's friends and Will's classes and Will's sex life and Will's fucking smoking habits, maybe they would have brought that up at some point?"
"Not if they somehow knew that the rest of you wouldn't know anything about it," Gaila weakly offered. "You talk like Will's being a total idiot when we all know the cops in this city don't give a crap about anybody—What about that story about the kid who got pushed down the stairs? We're better off just being careful and fixing things ourselves."
Ken seemed to think about not saying what he was about to say for half a second. "Will's the one who first brought up that story."
Toni seemed the first to get the implication, and her mouth popped slightly open. Ken was still looking straight at me so intently that I couldn't keep my heart from racing a bit. I finally lamely insisted, "Of course I reported it."
I had to say it to keep the wheel turning, but of course I knew it was a lie. I had no clue what Will's plan had been, but obviously he'd felt he had to take the problem into his own hands, clear the air where anyone should have seen it couldn't be cleared without making a hell of a mess.
My mind, in a flash of anger, remembered how all that was found on the body was a pocket knife, for a second completely stunned that Will would be so stupid as to not even grab his old-fashioned straight razor or the taser that Toni neglects to keep in her purse. There had to be something else I hadn't figured out yet; it didn't get driven home for me until that very moment when I realized that Will may have shown up to confront a criminal armed with something weaker than weapons—I didn't know what, but it hadn't been enough. Maybe there was some calculation to it—thinking they'd only be meeting in public, or that he would be perceived as more honest if he didn't have anything—but it was a far cry from what most people would have done.
I had no way of knowing what he'd been thinking. All I knew was that Will had done something that was very gutsy and a hell of a lot more stupid, and that he'd done it to protect something the only people he cared about had trusted him with. And I had to admit to myself that in some hypothetical impossible circumstances, I probably would have done the exact same thing.
"I need to talk to Danek alone," I said.
Ken was at lethally grumpy, bitterly mumbling, "Of course."
"Stop it," Danek suddenly snapped at him. Almost immediately, though, the insistence in him got a bit quieter: "Will did what he felt was best for all of us. We're all very angry that he ended up getting hurt, but we need to calm down."
A nervous guilt overwhelmed the silence for a second, before I remembered to ask, "Gaila, what happened this time? Did he say anything to you?"
"I...don't think so," she stammered, admitting, "I don't know. It all happened so fast, but he definitely didn't say anything before he grabbed me..."
That was when I saw it. My eyes stuttered over Gaila and then down at the table as I went into full-on ready mode, and it was almost impossible for no one else to notice the flinch.
"What?" Gaila asked.
"It's nothing, I..." I said, "I'm getting a migraine."
"Aren't we all," Ken muttered, and he was trying to give me some look of unspoken reconciliation, but I was checking a look at Danek. Even though it made no sense at all, I could have sworn Danek looked like he somehow knew that had been code. His eyes were subtle but intent in my direction, demanding. What is it?
Whatever Toni interpreted between the brief glances, it made her take the initiative to clear us the room. "Look, if he wants a minute with Danek, fine."
She was the first to stand up before the other two followed her into the kitchen. I started rolling the screen remote back and forth between my hands on the carpet, going for anxious and idle. As soon as the others were out of earshot I said, "Gaila's ID card is gone. She always sticks it in her breast pocket when she's wearing that shirt, I saw her do it today. This address isn't connected to your names in any directories, but the cards..."
The change in Danek was almost startling. His breath picked up harshly and he protectively uttered, "The house..."
"Don't look out the windows, don't do anything," I firmly interrupted. "If they're looking in and they see you so much as reach for a comm they might open fire. You can move in front of me if you want."
"Do you think..." Danek was willing himself still, like he wanted to run after the others. "What if they beat us home?"
"With your driving, I doubt it." I looked him over. "Why, what is it?"
He swallowed, finally stammering, "They don't often think to lock the window upstairs."
This was when the lights went out.
Fuck, I was innerly cursing, but I was grabbing at Danek's sleeve before he did anything sudden.
"It's gonna be alright. Listen: I have a flashlight under the desk in my room." I pulled his hand over enough to tap it at the underside of the coffee table. "Go get it, then stay with the others, don't worry about the rest of the house."
After only a second, he nodded and we both got up.
I could have told it to him straight but my job was already hung out to dry, and anyway I knew I could depend on him understanding that I wasn't talking about a flashlight. I realized with regret that I could have traded the guns earlier; the one I had was my stun phaser and the one in the room was kill-only. Due to some protests about the risk of losing our authoritative edge, the law never got passed that we can only have stun guns and we get to opt for one or the other. Like almost every officer I prefer stunning and also like almost every cop, I can't pretend to be above occasionally loving to make murderers afraid of me. I wished I had the other gun right then; I didn't like the idea of putting it in Danek's hand, but it was better than nothing.
Chris had told me at the outset that a tactics team could get to the house in five to seven minutes, which of course was going to feel like forever. If he knew anything about the emergency he'd also be hauling it, but it could take him up to five minutes longer depending on where he was.
The front door was set to auto-lock, but Danek was smart enough to know that when someone wants to kill you, forced entry really means nothing and they will get in whether they can be discrete about it or not. What we had reason to worry about was the potential for a quiet entrance.
As soon as I was at the bottom of the stairs I had my gun propped out and took the steps as fast as I could without making more than the slightest noise. I wasn't strictly trained for how potentially messy this situation could get, and it's not like anyone is ever advised to try clearing a house with no back-up and no light, but there was nothing I could do about that. The air was closing in on me, the dark of the steps feeling formidably alien and yet like a place I'd been in once or twice before, and the thought kicked in like an ache now that my chips were down and there was nothing to stop me from thinking it: I wanted Spock.
I was at the door to the loft room trying to remember about nooks and closets and other potential hiding places, when I heard the slam like somebody being shoved, followed by a short furious shriek. And then nothing.
Even if I would have been tempted to storm back down the steps waving my gun around, the darkness made that idea ludicrous; if I was going to be able to do anything I would have to be stealthy. I also trusted with a firm certainty that no one was going to be letting on that there was anyone else in the house unless I did it myself.
The silence cleared to low, deep murmers as I approached from the bottom of the stairs. I was around the corner peering just into the kitchen threshold, and sure enough there were too many figures around the table. I recognized Danek first out of the dark blotches, and knew that he hadn't even made it my second gun. While I was inching up the stairs they'd all been marched in here to sit around the table, most of them too afraid to make a sound. I didn't think about it that way then, or even of how they'd gotten in: It only seemed like they'd managed to suddenly materialize there in the darkness.
"We've all heard about you, b'cheni," I heard a thin, coarse voice grating out, that Orion word said mockingly at the end. "Marus thought maybe you skipped town after your little love affair with the guards. I said to myself, no way would she be fucking stupid enough to rat out her man and then go skipping around downtown—"
"You've got something wrong." Ken. "She doesn't know any of you assholes."
"If you talk again, you're gone. Now, I don't know the little kathti but, surely we can all see the resemblance—"
"That isn't..." Gaila's voice, trembling but strong. "That isn't me."
"No?" I heard a slight clap and a sharp nasal breathing: a hand clamped over the bottom of her face, forcing back the arch of her neck. "Looks like she doesn't have the tattoo anymore, but ah, that's okay. You're Gaila Vro, there's nobody else you could be, just look..."
There was a sniff of orange light and I realized someone was holding a lighter up to something; I got a quick glance in and realized he was holding up a photo, and the look on Gaila's face in the small flare told me everything. I knew the feeling, even though in her it was much more of a chaotic little tremble in the room. It was the other Gaila, tangible and impossible and tapping into the air with a low buzz of madness.
Predictably, the man set the flame to the photo and then let it crumble up on the table, and I used the second of light to check in for details: Three men, one standing far off in a corner, the one who had held up the photo and was doing all the gun talk with what looked like a cheap pistol, and another—my heart cringed—holding Gaila's hand forcefully down to the table, his other hand wielding the tallest kitchen knife from Danek's shiny new set.
"How about we stop the fucking game, Vro?" a new voice said. "How about every time you refuse to tell me why you shot your mouth on my brother, I take off one of your fingers?"
I could hear somebody's teeth chattering, a low frantic moan from someone else. I made the call, slipped my phaser back into my holster tucked under my jacket, and then I made a noise. A slip like a misplaced lean in the wall, a sound of someone trying not to be heard.
"—You hear that?"
"Hey. Who's fucking around?"
Before somebody had any ideas about shooting in my general direction, I went in playing frantic, hands up and cringing into the outline of the doorway. "Don't shoot," I said raspily. Someone let out a sob.
"Stand over there," the one with the gun demanded, pointing it over at the exact place at the counter where Toni had once sat with Gaila leaning in so she could braid her hair, where the groceries were often set down and then forgotten, where Danek had been the first person I'd wanted to kiss in five months. I went over and stood, dizzily thankful there hadn't been a chair for him to make me take, calculating that I might be able to get clear shots.
At closer range I tried to take better tally of weapons: The guy standing in the corner and the one at the table could have had anything in their jackets, but the one doing most of the talking still looked to be the only one holding anything. They were all male, tall with the exception of the corner guy, but I had to assume they could all be much stronger than me.
Most of my attention was warily placed on the one who had Gaila. Not knowing what else to do, she had her mouth clamped shut even as she was still being assailed for some unnecessary confession. She was cooler in the eyes than most would be, but that hand being clamped down by the wrist was shuddering. There was that small vibration of her shaking against the table that hummed through the air like an oncoming vessel.
And just then, the house lights were kind this time.
The furious and terrified familiar faces pitched into vision, along with six ugly menacing eyes. Unfazed, the knife guy wrenched Gaila's face a little farther towards the remaining inches of photo on the table and I was almost too focused on her to see it: the one in the corner taking a step forward and then snapping back, shocked, wide in the eyes like he couldn't believe what he was seeing. Looking right at me.
The light sometimes made a little fizz sound of energy speeding back up and it was like the entire house was hissing in hatred—I saw the electric line between me and the man and I could swear I sensed Danek and I clenching our fists at the exact same time. Just under my breath I said, with the quiet finality of a sentencing or a command, "You."
The one with the knife, looking over and accusing: "Rigen. Isn't that...?"
The gunman saying, "You little f'shent. You said that you—"
"No, no, there's no way," he spit out, looking at me but it wasn't spoken to anyone in particular. "I did, man, you were dead! I cut your fucking guts out, you were going cold—"
The kitchen table jerked up sharply as I realized, just a half-second away from too late, that I should have been worrying about Danek. He tore up mindlessly across the room and went for Rigen's neck, and the kitchen knife, in so tight a movement it was as if Gaila had been waiting for it to knock and wobble over into her fist, came slamming down onto the hand that had just been holding it. A howl of furious pain, a gun clicked to aim on Danek and then a shout of surprise when the shot hit the third man before anyone could have seen me whipping out my phaser. After I shot the other out of his misery I was running to where Danek and Rigen were kicking and clawing the hell out of each other, spilling into the obscuring living room where the lights were still off. It felt like everyone was too tangled up in the kitchen; it took me too long to get through.
"Danek—" I hollered, "Stop!"
Just past the bottom of the stairs I tripped at a gasping body. My hand was lowering to it when I saw the figure ducking out into the yard, fast.
"No," I growled out.
I was slamming out the back door and through the grass to the area farthest from any glow from the streetlights, where I knew he'd run, seeing fuck-all of him and not even stopping to check if any back-up had arrived before branches were flicking across my skin and I was halted at the first swallow into the trees.
I listened hard, cursing the wind for all the ambient rustling but also knowing without any doubt that he wouldn't run from a good chance to get a jump on me, not from a witness who knew a name, not from someone he thought should have been good as dead already. I walked farther in through the vague path, stepping lightly as if there would be some sink in the ground, some moment where I would know this is where he stepped off to take cover in the thicker expanse. I was about fifty feet in when I chose to make something of a slip of sound off on my left and followed it in, my gun checked forward.
With no even reason for it, there was a breeze that licked at my collar and made me stop, and turn around. I heard the quick cut of movement behind me just in time to know it was too late.
The hit started between my shoulder blades and a solid strong body was blowing me down; the second my arms were spread something sharp crashed down on my hand and it was a few seconds of white-hot scrambling instinct before I realized I'd lost my phaser. I reacted in the same second with an elbowing cut between his ribs to get him wincing out of the way where he might be able to reach for it.
And here was the bruising twist of motion as my head went sharp and dead with adrenaline trying to keep that other body too close to make a dangerous move, trying to get him square in the eye or the neck with my muscles screaming against the stronger grip. He grazed a punch along my gut that had me worked down for a long second and there was the cold switch of a blade meeting the air, Will's death shivering around me in the manic motions of the trees and my identical heart hollering behind my ribs as if it was punching forward for vengeance, and I don't know what that kid must have thought of in his last moments before the crack—that music in Gaila's hair when it catches and bounces off of everything it touches, a final masterpiece of Toni's little puppets singing across the paper sets, some ghostly consolation of Ken's constant fearlessness, all of it moving in a sad little triumph to Danek's fingers on the keys playing a last lullaby. I have a pretty good idea whose voice I would have heard like he was right there with me, the lunatic apparition of my ticket waiting to be punched, but I didn't make it that far. My hand found metal.
My arm split up to slam the handle into an ear, my legs grasping to toss myself around and I wrenched down for the pressure points until I had his arms tied under my grip, and snapped up to point the phaser at the back of his head.
Somewhere in the middle of the struggle there had been sirens from up the street and they were louder and coloring into my coherence, and the mess under my knee was moaning some kind of Orion hail-mary until it turned into "Don't shoot me, please—listen, the police..." I ticked the gun down in a hard tap so he went still.
My breath was heaving in and out of my teeth, my hold shaky but firm as I finally got the air to grunt, "I am the police."
"Will?" Danek lightly called out from where he was stretched on the couch.
"What?"
"Could you summarize the four tenets of Jo'bradi's Justice?" he asked casually. "I'm not sure the T.A. really knew what she was talking about and I know it was of some interest to you when your class was on the subject."
"Your PADD's right here," Toni commented, lifting it up off the coffee table.
"Thank you, but Will has a good memory for the more significant points," he replied, making Toni shake her head as if she wanted to make some remark about laziness.
No one was looking at me so I was free to have a grumbling expression for one second before I said, "The first is equal distribution of power. The second is effective distribution of power. The third is fluidity of the definition of power according to the amount and type of resources; fourth is the same but according to word of the gods. The fourth was eventually modified under Palto's reign."
As I'd been talking I'd seen the flinch in Danek's expression, a mix of irritation and chagrin he didn't let anyone but me see. In another elusive moment I shot him back a look that attempted to say, We don't have to play that game, do we?
He was being a pain in the ass, often and deliberately. He wasn't trying to throw me off my front with the fastballs, of course he didn't want to, but as much as he needed me to keep playing along around all the others I think it was hard for him to passively watch. I kept thinking I noticed him stiffening when I spoke to or especially when I touched any of the others, and he kept demanding my attention as if to momentarily keep me away from them.
This reflex of his was enough to put my anxiety right through the roof without the feeling attached to it that wasn't a sense of something lethal but something risky enough to make my instincts prickle into vigilance. You never know how people will react to intrusions, but it's a rare thing, the type of rage that would make Danek shoot back with such cold and precise intellect as he did, a defensive boldness underneath it that could have burned much hotter if he understood less than he did.
I shouldn't have automatically felt more uneasy about being around the others, but I remembered the story Toni had told me—Something's happened to Will—and I wondered if those chilling instincts of theirs made them feel it in their bones, how hard they'd had to work for where they were. I could only imagine what it would have been like if I'd made a much greater and much more obvious mistake, if four heads at once had turned in my direction with the knowledge that there was a stranger in their fortress.
Overall I think there was a general vibe the others were getting that something was still a bit crooked between me and Danek, but I almost got the impression that the two having fights wasn't as entirely unprecedented as I'd imagined and the other three were only used to not considering it any of their business.
The thing that revved the tension back up was later when, with a sort of inappropriate levity in how he said it, Danek suddenly declared, "Will wants us to go visit the place where he was attacked."
It was like he'd said something blatantly absurd; everyone was taking a break over a batch of pastries Gaila had just made, and the atmosphere was immediately sucked dry into wide, confused eyes.
"He told me he was hesitant to bring it up, but that he'd like to see if he's able to remember anything. And he would like us all to come."
I'd been waiting for something like this, but it would have been nice to have gotten a warning. I was forcing myself not to look nearly as surprised by this as the others were and hopefully was hitting the right note of shyly agreeing.
"Are you sure?" Toni asked me.
I shrugged. "I don't want it to be all depressing, of course." I sheepishly grinned at Gaila's knowing rolling of eyes. "We could get something to eat while we're out there. I really didn't want to go without any of you..."
"Sure." Ken nodded. "Sure. But, this isn't something the cops are kind of pressuring you to do, is it?"
I shook my head earnestly. Something in Danek's expression was more careful than before, and I couldn't help feeling a little favorable towards him when he added, "I'm only assuming you haven't changed your mind."
"No..." I met his eyes steadily, and then nodded at everyone. "We'll go."
I'd never been to Peggy's, but the pie was to die for, apparently literally, since so many people seemed willing to brave the neighborhood despite its reputation. Then again over half of their customers were Orions, who generally had less reason to be nervous around the gang areas.
In keeping with my word to Chris, my phaser was strapped in my holster and I had to keep my jacket on so that no one would notice, and I hoped no one was going to ask me how I wasn't getting hot wearing it. This worry dissolved with the constant tension I saw around the table that took up all the mental space. Danek was playing along with it to an extent, unless it was his own actual emotional state that was making him have a hard time touching his food, which it may well have been.
Gaila was the most fearlessly friendly with the waiter as well as with the occasional loud crowd that passed by the table and greeted us in variably inappropriate ways. It occurred to me we might have been made to feel unwelcome here if it weren't for her, but I didn't want to jump to that assumption.
"I don't feel like I've been in here," I said, shaking my head after Ken asked me about it. "But I don't know why I would have been anywhere else. Dammit, I don't know. It's going to drive me crazy."
I didn't even know whose foot it was that nudged comfortingly against mine. "It's okay, babe," Gaila was saying. "It's not your fault you can't figure it out."
I let out a sigh, setting my fork down and keeping my eyes fixed at nothing in particular, putting up an appearance of distant, private frustration. I eventually said, "I should apologize. None of you want to deal with this, and I brought us all out here..."
"Hey, don't get like that," Ken muttered. "You've got nothing to be sorry for."
I had already observed that this whole thing seemed to be particularly bothering Gaila, but it took me completely by surprise when I looked over at her: At some point she had started crying. She was going about trying to hide it in the way I remember doing when I was a little kid, simply acting like it wasn't happening so that someone might assume she just had something in her eye. She kept dipping her potato wedges and cramming them into her slightly trembling mouth.
I was pretty sure everyone had noticed. Toni opened her mouth to say something, but then didn't when Ken on her left simply reached and took Gaila's hand off the table, squeezing it and setting it on his lap. She seemed to feel better then; I wondered what was wrong with everybody to practically ignore it after that, but maybe I subjectively saw something in it they didn't see. It was a particular frustrated way I'd seen people cry more often in DV than anywhere else, the way somebody cries when they're trying with all their might to not be afraid. I thought of my argument with Chris all over again, and I realized for the first time how completely fucked up I was going to be about it if this op didn't turn up a damn thing. It added a sturdy weight to what I was doing, like I could go without sleeping for the next few days and not even care as long as I found something.
Later that night we went home, and I waited until the lower part of the house was all clear; well after everyone was in bed, I took the car all the way back out to Peggy's.
The alleyway was still lined with tape in only the middle area. I stepped under to pass through, feeling an out-of-place tingle there even though I did have my badge on me. I remembered the place pretty vividly, but it seemed wider than before, more of a place that swallows you into the shadows.
It was still a total mystery what had brought Will out here. It wasn't like a civilian would have to be suicidal to come poking around; people do things that are stupid and reckless all the time, things that they can't really explain when it comes under scrutiny, even when they would normally be more careful. But coming all the way out to the area by himself, actually aiming for it, didn't seem at all like Will. I had no idea what I was really doing, only that I'd felt a restless pull that brought me back here and was now recklessly trying to retrace another man's steps and suss out something, anything.
Someone had to have either pulled or pushed Will out here, and if it wasn't Gaila, that led me back to our initial impression that he might have been meeting somebody here. If only we had any reason to believe the group was in any way desperate for money, but when their funds were pooled, they seemed comfortable to the point of it being suspicious. Danek had all but confirmed that. But while I couldn't think of any reason for it, I felt it was the best explanation; I wanted badly for there to be someone who might just be waiting for Will to show his face around here.
I went under the tape on the other side of the alley and went through to the street opposite from where I'd walked in. It was more crowded than I'd expected from the amount of noise that was around, which made the atmosphere all the more formidable. A woman and a man were just a couple yards away, wearing clothing that gave me the impression they worked at one of the clubs, and they gave me crude cards-down looks as I came by. Just up ahead a couple was passing, clutched together but folded in with what looked like a tense whispered debate. I heard a nasal cackling through the window of an apartment complex.
There was one figure standing at the corner of the block: somebody tall and thin and hunched over, and I couldn't tell if he was looking for something down the street or right at me, but by the time I got up closer it was decidedly the latter. He had a loose jacket on with the hood obscuring his face, and I couldn't even quite tell what color skin he had. I ended up stopping, just looking at him, feeling a few hairs stand up on the back of my neck.
The moment suspended there for a few seconds: then his feet shifted, and he grunted, "D'I know you, man?"
"...No."
Sounding annoyed, he added, "I haven't got anything, if you're looking to buy some kicks."
"Nah, take it easy," I said. "Sorry."
After that I could only shake my head at myself and meander in a defeated mood all the way around the block, eventually putting out my cigarette and heading back to the car.
Danek was feeling as aggressive as I was: Two days later, he pulled me back to the diner yet again.
The excuse was that Will wanted to get a look at the actual crime scene and that this would be much less creepy when there was still daylight left; the real reason of course was that it may have seemed like a good idea to hit an earlier time of day than before.
Before we left, I caught Gaila alone.
"If you aren't okay with this, you can stay home," I muttered softly, holding her back by the shoulder for a second while I got into my jacket.
She checked up the stairway, then looked right at me. What I saw in her eyes wasn't quite readable; I felt like there was something significant in that she had no confusion about what I'd meant. For that second I sensed something I couldn't name; I wanted to grab her, say "No, dammit, are you okay? What's going on?" and dig to the bottom of it, but I knew I couldn't: Will wouldn't. After a second all she did was look down at her feet and brush off the worry. I felt that little wham of surprise at her insecurity, sensing the self-dismissal in whatever she was putting aside.
"It's fine," she finally said. I nodded, and there at the bottom of the stairs, she quickly tipped up and kissed me on the cheek.
Later at the diner, Danek was saying to me, "I thought you hated vinegar." I was forking at my salad and everyone stopped what they were doing to cock an eyebrow in my direction.
"I don't feel either way about the dressing," I said, telling myself not to roll my eyes, shrugging instead. I looked over and Ken was still mildly brooding at my plate. A little more irritably I insisted, "It's the smell I don't like."
Toni dissolved it by chuckling. "It's like Gaila and onion rings. Can't make her mind up about them."
"It's an ongoing scientific evaluation, okay," Gaila said in mock indignation. "I'll start making charts."
Ken grinned around his toothpick, looking somewhere up to the side. I met eyes with him and we shared a subtle private laugh.
When we were done eating I agreed to walk around the block to the other side of the alley after Danek suggested it. There would have been little point to this even if I was really Will, but none of the others felt like challenging it. Gaila turned out to be much less nervous this time around for whatever reason. I was beginning to think I'd imagined that there was something particularly jarring about it for her, that before she must have just been having a jolt of thinking too hard about what happened to Will for the first time in a while.
We wound up close to this worn-down playground that seemed like an artifact of a time when it might have been a decent area for kids to mess around in. Gaila seated herself on a rust-faded elephant-shaped chair that rocked back and forth. "Picture!" she demanded, pulling Toni in next to her. I took it on Will's compact, careful not to let anyone see my firearm as I replaced it in one of my inner pockets.
We were all scuttling through a quieter street back to the parking lot, now in better moods, when a large vehicle went from a slow idle to a stop and a green face with long hair popped out. A deep voice yelled at Gaila, "Got a light, little b'cheni?"
She slowed and gave the driver a subtly admonishing look, but then turned to Toni, who was already tossing her her lighter. Danek said Gaila's name in a cautioning way, but Gaila was already going up to hand it to the guy.
I saw that the car had started moving before I realized he'd grabbed her by the wrist and was pulling her with him. Gaila was thrashing and yelling to try to break away and for the next few seconds the vehicle had speeded up so fast the rest of us were scrambling to go after, me trying to make it up around the back, my hand tucked in to wrap around my gun before I'd even thought about it.
And then after a short moment, the car stomped into a full speed and took off, leaving Gaila tripping to the curb.
I took the moment during everyone's flipping out to mutter our location and the direction the car went in under my breath. Ken picked up something to throw after it, but I grabbed him at the forearm. "Don't, you'll just piss him off." This left him with no outlet but to curse, sharply, before he went up to let Gaila shoot forward into his arms.
Toni was slowing in next to Danek, her face furious. "Did anyone get the number?" Danek was already turning to unzip her shoulder bag and get her PADD out, looking directly at me.
"Nine-'H'-Seven-Four-'D'-Seven. Thornbell model, three or four years old, remember that it's green," I said, not caring if Will didn't know jack about cars and hoping whoever was listening to this would get the message. Danek seemed to have the same idea; I wondered if he'd even copied down the number.
When we turned to where Ken was throwing Gaila half a dozen questions at once, I managed to cut in pretty fast. "Hey," I said, putting my hand lightly on her shoulder. "Could you describe what he looked like if we called the police?"
She looked surprised for half a second, but she gulped down a tremor and stammered, "Um. Yeah. I even noticed a tattoo."
"A tattoo? Where was it?"
"The side of his neck...I could see it pretty clearly, it went down over his collarbone and..."
"What did it look like?"
She blinked, shook her head. "Uh. A baltin, I think it's called. You know, it looks like a jaguar but like with a hare's ears..."
The Saiphon's symbol. I was thinking please, fuck, let there be somebody on the other end of the transmission smart enough to handle this right; I was hoping I'd hear sirens somewhere close by as we started off back to the car with Toni and Danek murmuring an argument over what we should do. Ken had only managed to get Gaila to turn a couple steps though, I realized, because she needed to say something to me.
She muttered stiffly, "I didn't recognize him."
In a faint, startled way, Ken stopped. "...What?"
Gaila was still looking right at me. "I thought it was just some guy."
"Why would you have recognized him?" Ken demanded. When she kept looking like she was waiting for me to understand something, he shook her into looking at him, his voice getting more agitated. "Gaila? Start talking."
Ken was looking at me almost accusingly; I stole a brief glance at Danek over his shoulder and saw his eyes fixed expectantly on Gaila, transfixed and astonished. Gaila spoke to me again.
"We should tell them."
There was a swell of shock as the other three's eyes widened a bit. Danek finally firmly said, "We're going home."
I realized pretty quickly I should have offered to drive. Danek was swerving way too quickly around corners, tossing everyone's hips in the back seat as he dove through any pass he could make. When he cornered up by a bus at a recklessly close turn, I cleared my throat. "Don't you think you should take it easy?"
"Arrest me," he said acidly, turning hand over hand and making my elbow slap into the armrest.
Will's comm buzzed in my pocket and I flipped it open surreptitiously enough that the back seat wouldn't notice, but I felt Danek giving me a side-eye. I was hoping for something more helpful from Chris, but it was a quick general dispatch message: Car found unoccupied @ 13th & Perslippe. Number indicates unauthorized vehicle. Of course.
It was dark once we got to the house. Everyone gravitated to the living room without speaking and sat down around the coffee table, all of us silent and fumbling if not panicking, until Danek spoke.
"I want you to understand that I'm not angry. But the two of you have clearly been keeping something from us."
Gaila had been giving me guilt-ridden looks as if expecting me to be angry, to the point that I felt the need to play it to character and act at least irritated about the whole thing. This hadn't made Ken look very happy with me, but this all ended up working somewhat in my favor, since there was a bit too much pissiness coming my way for people to pry for my side of the story.
"Are you two idiots seriously telling me," Toni asked, "that something like this happened before? Does this have something to do with what happened to Will?"
"How would he know?" Gaila said, "If he can't remember, we had no way of—"
"Please, just," Ken placed his hands out tensely to cut her off. "Explain to us what the hell you're talking about."
She bit her bottom lip, looked over at me. I didn't quite nod, but I tried to give something that looked like encouragement, or permission.
"I'm not sure when it was—two or three days?—before Will was attacked, do you remember when he and I told you we were going to a study group for Civil Wars?" Gaila said this to Danek; there was the tiniest click of almost horrified expectation in his eyes, but he just nodded. "Well, we told you that because he really wanted to go see if he could find that book you wanted at this store they have out there...He'd been trying to talk Toni into going there with him but she doesn't even like to go east of the transport station, and Ken might have gone, but he was busy, so...he convinced me to come."
For a couple seconds everyone was steeped in that pause at the innocent ignorant beginning of stories like this; Danek was the only one who wasn't looking at me at all.
"And we weren't even in an alley or anything when this happened, it was just this street where there weren't too many people, and this guy..." She sniffed in frustration at herself. "This guy, I don't know if he was from some gang but he seemed like it, he must have been waiting for Will to get distracted by something because the second he was looking in some window, he came right at me...He clapped a hand over my mouth and I swore for a second he was going to stuff me into a car, but then, he just tore me around a corner and slammed me hard up against the wall, and he started saying all this stuff I just couldn't understand..."
"Like what?" Danek pressed when she trailed off, his voice sounding forced into steadiness.
"Something like, he couldn't believe I had the nerve to show my face around there, and he basically said he'd kill me if he could get away with it right then, and that he was going to tell...someone, it's not like I remember the name, that he saw me there. No, he said he didn't kill me because..." She shook her head in tight, angry confusion. "Because he didn't want to take away the satisfaction it would give this other guy. He also said a lot of stuff in Orion, but it was Saiphic Orion, so I couldn't understand."
Toni asked, "But why would they have a problem with you? Something to do with you being Orion but not—?"
"You don't get it, I can't really explain, it was like I'd actually done something, like it was personal. He was talking like I was supposed to know who he was talking about and I would swear that he just had me mistaken for someone else, but..." She took in and let out a frantic, frustrated breath. "He called me by my last name. He knew my name."
I was completely befuddled for about one second and then it hit hard, the explanation blindsiding me with a bang:
Witness protection. We'd never found any data on her name being fake because it wasn't. She'd come out of an entirely different pool of confidential info we hadn't even thought to try to look at. Whoever the real Gaila Vro was, she'd needed to slip out of her name like it was a garment caught on fire and was probably tucked safely into an alias and somewhere on the other side of the planet if not relocated all the way to Terra. Whoever brought her up had apparently been unconcerned about dusting off the ID and slapping it onto someone else. They might as well have marched her down the bloodiest part of the city with a fucking "Kick Me" sign on her back. I wanted to punch a hole in the wall.
While I was sitting there working through this, Gaila was going on about how Will came running around the corner just when the guy gave her a final shove to the pavement.
"Why the fuck wouldn't you tell the cops about this?" Toni demanded.
"No, he did," Gaila innocently protested.
"He—?" Danek blinked, but then realized what she meant before any of the others did.
"Will took me home after that—All I wanted was to go home and forget about it, okay, I couldn't stand the idea of talking to the police, so he said I should just tell him everything and he'd go report it like it happened to him and that we shouldn't..." She paused with a little sigh of guilt. "He said we shouldn't tell any of you, because you'd just worry."
Ken made some cutting little curse. Looking straight at me, he asked, "Did you really report it?" Next to him, Toni tensed.
"Of course he did, if he said he did," Gaila said.
"Look, we all know you have issues, with the police," Ken said to me. He was furious.
Toni said, "Ken—"
"Doesn't anybody think that if Will had made a police report about one of us getting threatened that maybe, in the middle of asking us about our friends and Will's friends and Will's classes and Will's sex life and Will's fucking smoking habits, maybe they would have brought that up at some point?"
"Not if they somehow knew that the rest of you wouldn't know anything about it," Gaila weakly offered. "You talk like Will's being a total idiot when we all know the cops in this city don't give a crap about anybody—What about that story about the kid who got pushed down the stairs? We're better off just being careful and fixing things ourselves."
Ken seemed to think about not saying what he was about to say for half a second. "Will's the one who first brought up that story."
Toni seemed the first to get the implication, and her mouth popped slightly open. Ken was still looking straight at me so intently that I couldn't keep my heart from racing a bit. I finally lamely insisted, "Of course I reported it."
I had to say it to keep the wheel turning, but of course I knew it was a lie. I had no clue what Will's plan had been, but obviously he'd felt he had to take the problem into his own hands, clear the air where anyone should have seen it couldn't be cleared without making a hell of a mess.
My mind, in a flash of anger, remembered how all that was found on the body was a pocket knife, for a second completely stunned that Will would be so stupid as to not even grab his old-fashioned straight razor or the taser that Toni neglects to keep in her purse. There had to be something else I hadn't figured out yet; it didn't get driven home for me until that very moment when I realized that Will may have shown up to confront a criminal armed with something weaker than weapons—I didn't know what, but it hadn't been enough. Maybe there was some calculation to it—thinking they'd only be meeting in public, or that he would be perceived as more honest if he didn't have anything—but it was a far cry from what most people would have done.
I had no way of knowing what he'd been thinking. All I knew was that Will had done something that was very gutsy and a hell of a lot more stupid, and that he'd done it to protect something the only people he cared about had trusted him with. And I had to admit to myself that in some hypothetical impossible circumstances, I probably would have done the exact same thing.
"I need to talk to Danek alone," I said.
Ken was at lethally grumpy, bitterly mumbling, "Of course."
"Stop it," Danek suddenly snapped at him. Almost immediately, though, the insistence in him got a bit quieter: "Will did what he felt was best for all of us. We're all very angry that he ended up getting hurt, but we need to calm down."
A nervous guilt overwhelmed the silence for a second, before I remembered to ask, "Gaila, what happened this time? Did he say anything to you?"
"I...don't think so," she stammered, admitting, "I don't know. It all happened so fast, but he definitely didn't say anything before he grabbed me..."
That was when I saw it. My eyes stuttered over Gaila and then down at the table as I went into full-on ready mode, and it was almost impossible for no one else to notice the flinch.
"What?" Gaila asked.
"It's nothing, I..." I said, "I'm getting a migraine."
"Aren't we all," Ken muttered, and he was trying to give me some look of unspoken reconciliation, but I was checking a look at Danek. Even though it made no sense at all, I could have sworn Danek looked like he somehow knew that had been code. His eyes were subtle but intent in my direction, demanding. What is it?
Whatever Toni interpreted between the brief glances, it made her take the initiative to clear us the room. "Look, if he wants a minute with Danek, fine."
She was the first to stand up before the other two followed her into the kitchen. I started rolling the screen remote back and forth between my hands on the carpet, going for anxious and idle. As soon as the others were out of earshot I said, "Gaila's ID card is gone. She always sticks it in her breast pocket when she's wearing that shirt, I saw her do it today. This address isn't connected to your names in any directories, but the cards..."
The change in Danek was almost startling. His breath picked up harshly and he protectively uttered, "The house..."
"Don't look out the windows, don't do anything," I firmly interrupted. "If they're looking in and they see you so much as reach for a comm they might open fire. You can move in front of me if you want."
"Do you think..." Danek was willing himself still, like he wanted to run after the others. "What if they beat us home?"
"With your driving, I doubt it." I looked him over. "Why, what is it?"
He swallowed, finally stammering, "They don't often think to lock the window upstairs."
This was when the lights went out.
Fuck, I was innerly cursing, but I was grabbing at Danek's sleeve before he did anything sudden.
"It's gonna be alright. Listen: I have a flashlight under the desk in my room." I pulled his hand over enough to tap it at the underside of the coffee table. "Go get it, then stay with the others, don't worry about the rest of the house."
After only a second, he nodded and we both got up.
I could have told it to him straight but my job was already hung out to dry, and anyway I knew I could depend on him understanding that I wasn't talking about a flashlight. I realized with regret that I could have traded the guns earlier; the one I had was my stun phaser and the one in the room was kill-only. Due to some protests about the risk of losing our authoritative edge, the law never got passed that we can only have stun guns and we get to opt for one or the other. Like almost every officer I prefer stunning and also like almost every cop, I can't pretend to be above occasionally loving to make murderers afraid of me. I wished I had the other gun right then; I didn't like the idea of putting it in Danek's hand, but it was better than nothing.
Chris had told me at the outset that a tactics team could get to the house in five to seven minutes, which of course was going to feel like forever. If he knew anything about the emergency he'd also be hauling it, but it could take him up to five minutes longer depending on where he was.
The front door was set to auto-lock, but Danek was smart enough to know that when someone wants to kill you, forced entry really means nothing and they will get in whether they can be discrete about it or not. What we had reason to worry about was the potential for a quiet entrance.
As soon as I was at the bottom of the stairs I had my gun propped out and took the steps as fast as I could without making more than the slightest noise. I wasn't strictly trained for how potentially messy this situation could get, and it's not like anyone is ever advised to try clearing a house with no back-up and no light, but there was nothing I could do about that. The air was closing in on me, the dark of the steps feeling formidably alien and yet like a place I'd been in once or twice before, and the thought kicked in like an ache now that my chips were down and there was nothing to stop me from thinking it: I wanted Spock.
I was at the door to the loft room trying to remember about nooks and closets and other potential hiding places, when I heard the slam like somebody being shoved, followed by a short furious shriek. And then nothing.
Even if I would have been tempted to storm back down the steps waving my gun around, the darkness made that idea ludicrous; if I was going to be able to do anything I would have to be stealthy. I also trusted with a firm certainty that no one was going to be letting on that there was anyone else in the house unless I did it myself.
The silence cleared to low, deep murmers as I approached from the bottom of the stairs. I was around the corner peering just into the kitchen threshold, and sure enough there were too many figures around the table. I recognized Danek first out of the dark blotches, and knew that he hadn't even made it my second gun. While I was inching up the stairs they'd all been marched in here to sit around the table, most of them too afraid to make a sound. I didn't think about it that way then, or even of how they'd gotten in: It only seemed like they'd managed to suddenly materialize there in the darkness.
"We've all heard about you, b'cheni," I heard a thin, coarse voice grating out, that Orion word said mockingly at the end. "Marus thought maybe you skipped town after your little love affair with the guards. I said to myself, no way would she be fucking stupid enough to rat out her man and then go skipping around downtown—"
"You've got something wrong." Ken. "She doesn't know any of you assholes."
"If you talk again, you're gone. Now, I don't know the little kathti but, surely we can all see the resemblance—"
"That isn't..." Gaila's voice, trembling but strong. "That isn't me."
"No?" I heard a slight clap and a sharp nasal breathing: a hand clamped over the bottom of her face, forcing back the arch of her neck. "Looks like she doesn't have the tattoo anymore, but ah, that's okay. You're Gaila Vro, there's nobody else you could be, just look..."
There was a sniff of orange light and I realized someone was holding a lighter up to something; I got a quick glance in and realized he was holding up a photo, and the look on Gaila's face in the small flare told me everything. I knew the feeling, even though in her it was much more of a chaotic little tremble in the room. It was the other Gaila, tangible and impossible and tapping into the air with a low buzz of madness.
Predictably, the man set the flame to the photo and then let it crumble up on the table, and I used the second of light to check in for details: Three men, one standing far off in a corner, the one who had held up the photo and was doing all the gun talk with what looked like a cheap pistol, and another—my heart cringed—holding Gaila's hand forcefully down to the table, his other hand wielding the tallest kitchen knife from Danek's shiny new set.
"How about we stop the fucking game, Vro?" a new voice said. "How about every time you refuse to tell me why you shot your mouth on my brother, I take off one of your fingers?"
I could hear somebody's teeth chattering, a low frantic moan from someone else. I made the call, slipped my phaser back into my holster tucked under my jacket, and then I made a noise. A slip like a misplaced lean in the wall, a sound of someone trying not to be heard.
"—You hear that?"
"Hey. Who's fucking around?"
Before somebody had any ideas about shooting in my general direction, I went in playing frantic, hands up and cringing into the outline of the doorway. "Don't shoot," I said raspily. Someone let out a sob.
"Stand over there," the one with the gun demanded, pointing it over at the exact place at the counter where Toni had once sat with Gaila leaning in so she could braid her hair, where the groceries were often set down and then forgotten, where Danek had been the first person I'd wanted to kiss in five months. I went over and stood, dizzily thankful there hadn't been a chair for him to make me take, calculating that I might be able to get clear shots.
At closer range I tried to take better tally of weapons: The guy standing in the corner and the one at the table could have had anything in their jackets, but the one doing most of the talking still looked to be the only one holding anything. They were all male, tall with the exception of the corner guy, but I had to assume they could all be much stronger than me.
Most of my attention was warily placed on the one who had Gaila. Not knowing what else to do, she had her mouth clamped shut even as she was still being assailed for some unnecessary confession. She was cooler in the eyes than most would be, but that hand being clamped down by the wrist was shuddering. There was that small vibration of her shaking against the table that hummed through the air like an oncoming vessel.
And just then, the house lights were kind this time.
The furious and terrified familiar faces pitched into vision, along with six ugly menacing eyes. Unfazed, the knife guy wrenched Gaila's face a little farther towards the remaining inches of photo on the table and I was almost too focused on her to see it: the one in the corner taking a step forward and then snapping back, shocked, wide in the eyes like he couldn't believe what he was seeing. Looking right at me.
The light sometimes made a little fizz sound of energy speeding back up and it was like the entire house was hissing in hatred—I saw the electric line between me and the man and I could swear I sensed Danek and I clenching our fists at the exact same time. Just under my breath I said, with the quiet finality of a sentencing or a command, "You."
The one with the knife, looking over and accusing: "Rigen. Isn't that...?"
The gunman saying, "You little f'shent. You said that you—"
"No, no, there's no way," he spit out, looking at me but it wasn't spoken to anyone in particular. "I did, man, you were dead! I cut your fucking guts out, you were going cold—"
The kitchen table jerked up sharply as I realized, just a half-second away from too late, that I should have been worrying about Danek. He tore up mindlessly across the room and went for Rigen's neck, and the kitchen knife, in so tight a movement it was as if Gaila had been waiting for it to knock and wobble over into her fist, came slamming down onto the hand that had just been holding it. A howl of furious pain, a gun clicked to aim on Danek and then a shout of surprise when the shot hit the third man before anyone could have seen me whipping out my phaser. After I shot the other out of his misery I was running to where Danek and Rigen were kicking and clawing the hell out of each other, spilling into the obscuring living room where the lights were still off. It felt like everyone was too tangled up in the kitchen; it took me too long to get through.
"Danek—" I hollered, "Stop!"
Just past the bottom of the stairs I tripped at a gasping body. My hand was lowering to it when I saw the figure ducking out into the yard, fast.
"No," I growled out.
I was slamming out the back door and through the grass to the area farthest from any glow from the streetlights, where I knew he'd run, seeing fuck-all of him and not even stopping to check if any back-up had arrived before branches were flicking across my skin and I was halted at the first swallow into the trees.
I listened hard, cursing the wind for all the ambient rustling but also knowing without any doubt that he wouldn't run from a good chance to get a jump on me, not from a witness who knew a name, not from someone he thought should have been good as dead already. I walked farther in through the vague path, stepping lightly as if there would be some sink in the ground, some moment where I would know this is where he stepped off to take cover in the thicker expanse. I was about fifty feet in when I chose to make something of a slip of sound off on my left and followed it in, my gun checked forward.
With no even reason for it, there was a breeze that licked at my collar and made me stop, and turn around. I heard the quick cut of movement behind me just in time to know it was too late.
The hit started between my shoulder blades and a solid strong body was blowing me down; the second my arms were spread something sharp crashed down on my hand and it was a few seconds of white-hot scrambling instinct before I realized I'd lost my phaser. I reacted in the same second with an elbowing cut between his ribs to get him wincing out of the way where he might be able to reach for it.
And here was the bruising twist of motion as my head went sharp and dead with adrenaline trying to keep that other body too close to make a dangerous move, trying to get him square in the eye or the neck with my muscles screaming against the stronger grip. He grazed a punch along my gut that had me worked down for a long second and there was the cold switch of a blade meeting the air, Will's death shivering around me in the manic motions of the trees and my identical heart hollering behind my ribs as if it was punching forward for vengeance, and I don't know what that kid must have thought of in his last moments before the crack—that music in Gaila's hair when it catches and bounces off of everything it touches, a final masterpiece of Toni's little puppets singing across the paper sets, some ghostly consolation of Ken's constant fearlessness, all of it moving in a sad little triumph to Danek's fingers on the keys playing a last lullaby. I have a pretty good idea whose voice I would have heard like he was right there with me, the lunatic apparition of my ticket waiting to be punched, but I didn't make it that far. My hand found metal.
My arm split up to slam the handle into an ear, my legs grasping to toss myself around and I wrenched down for the pressure points until I had his arms tied under my grip, and snapped up to point the phaser at the back of his head.
Somewhere in the middle of the struggle there had been sirens from up the street and they were louder and coloring into my coherence, and the mess under my knee was moaning some kind of Orion hail-mary until it turned into "Don't shoot me, please—listen, the police..." I ticked the gun down in a hard tap so he went still.
My breath was heaving in and out of my teeth, my hold shaky but firm as I finally got the air to grunt, "I am the police."
