Slowly and methodically she scoured the floor, each new little ziplock bag in her pocket damning him a little more. A faintly luminescent tablet within caught her attention. Holding one between finger and thumb, she peered curiously at the unfamiliar contents. She wondered if this was the early days of a new wave of synthetics flooding the streets from who knows where, then dismissed the thought and pocketed it; the white coats at the lab would be the ones to decide that. The bold NIPS FOR LYFE graffiti on the wall, accompanied by smaller scribbles naming and gloating over the deaths of their presumed rivals, loomed above the little robot as it zig zagged through the alley way, pausing and stooping every so often to collect another one of the bags scattered about. Some ten or so minutes later found Sally at end of the alley with a bulging coat pocket and the final piece of evidence, nestled comfily next to the dented trash can that had heroically sacrificed itself to apprehend the fleeing and distracted drug dealer and send him headfirst into the concrete below in the never ending pursuit of justice.
Mission complete.
She straightened up and turned around, focusing on the cruiser in the distance. Both figures inside were shifting in their seats, Vince obviously doing his best to rouse and interrogate the barely conscious dealer. She began to make her way back. Then came a voice somewhere to her side, twenty yards away.
'Hey, tincan!' it said. The voice wasn’t deep. It was high pitched, the voice of a child. And that child was standing outside the door of the 24/7 JumboMart next to where she had come out. With his legs spread and arms hanging stiffly down by his sides in a pose reminiscent of those cowboys and outlaws with their wooden, clockwork automatron sidekicks who once roamed the savage western states long ago, was a cute black kid; eight, maybe nine years old, with a smooth buzzcut, a grinning Homer Simpson T-shirt a size too big for him, and somebody’s old Converse sneakers and baggy jeans.
On his hip, stuck in those baggy jeans, was a pistol.
It looked like a pistol, anyway. But she couldn’t see clearly. The bright light of the mart contrasted with the pitch black outside made it hard for both her night and normal vision to see exactly what it was. She could see a bulge, but not the object itself.
In one quick motion she swung round to face him, feet planted firmly and right hand darting to her pistol in the holster, where it hovered above the handle warily. 'What are you-'
'Stop right there, tincan.' the kid said smugly, no doubt enjoying his good fortune at finding a target for the little game they now found themselves in. A small black hand began to creep, almost mockingly, down toward the waistband.
She pulled the gun smoothly out of its holster and leveled it at the kid. A moment of silence passed between them as they processed the rapid escalation, then she firmly ordered 'Put your hands above your head. Do it now!'
What was happening? Why was she having to point a loaded firearm at a child? She ran through threat assessment protocols, calculating each possible outcome and their chances. Prospects weren’t great, but not bad either, for the moment.
‘Fuck you, honkybot.’ the kid shot back, his downward creeping hand instead shooting up to make a middle finger in response, the faint smile now a scowl. ‘Get tha fuck outta my neighborhood.’ He paused again, then laughed a cute kid’s laugh of satisfaction, realising that mocking a police officer was far easier and satisfying than he thought it would be. Her intensely glowing blue eyes looked for a hint of playfulness, sympathy, or nervousness behind those dark ones; they found none.
‘Oh shit.’ She thought, she was in a far more serious predicament...right? It was just a kid, a stupid one playing a stupid game, he wouldn’t have an actual gun on him, would he? She could assume it was a game, disengage then turn and walk down the alley back to Vince, but the risk of stray bullets cutting her down in that cold dark passage was too great to dismiss; or she could escalate and see where it went, with all the consequences that could bring.
She made her decision.
‘Hands up. Right now.’
The kid laughed again, akin to a musical tinkling noise as he looked at the small, uncertain robot in the oversized leather jacket. ‘You ain’t gonna shoot me, pigbot. What, you afraid of a kid?’
She deliberated the consequences of ordering him again, instead deciding on persuasion. ‘No, kid, I don’t want to shoot you,’ she cautiously dropped her aim halfway in a calculated gesture of de-escalation. ‘This isn’t a game, somebody could get hurt or worse. Just turn around and go home.’
The kid’s hand dropped to his waistband again. Her processor started buzzing.
‘Get tha’ FUCK outta my neighborhood!’ the kid yelled, all tones of playfulness gone.
She glanced around quickly, taking in the environment around her. The time was 10:14PM. Still nobody on the street, weirdly, totally empty. Humidity was low. The cold wind was proceeding in a southern, formerly easterly, direction in the night air.
She recalled the routine training sessions back at the station, the large black woman with a multicoloured afro standing next to a markerboard (it was no longer allowed to be called a whiteboard) with a long list of barely legible words and phrases, bleating out constant reminders for the tired, jaded officers hunched in their fold out metal chairs and meekly cupping lukewarm paper coffee cups to keep in mind the nasty racial legacy of the department and to be aware of the justified suspicion of the police among Beacon City’s minority communities. While Vince had told her later in the cruiser, after a particularly emotional session in response to the controversial police shooting of Ja’marcus Quavers, that the [REDACTED] had gotten what was coming to him, right now, all she could think about was getting this kid with the empty eyes to back off.
(1/2)