Soledad, to her element: "I'm giving the Civil."
Soledad yelled into the bank: "This is the police. You are in violation of an Executive Order from the president of the United States. You are ordered to surrender yourself immediately or face potentially lethal force!" The Civil-short for "Civil Rights"-was the freak version of getting Mirandized; a little speech mandated by the Supreme Court after a constitutional challenge of police powers by the ACLU for a metanormal rights group. "Freak fuckers" to the majority of Americans. The 5–4 decision required cops to recite the Civil when executing a warrant on anyone with "unique, metanormal and/or supernormal abilities not found among the common populace of the human race." The freak fuckers had complained that the cops weren't giving freaks a fair shot at surrendering. They'd complained that the cops with their guns that fired nothing more than bullets weren't giving freaks-flamethrowing, self-electrifying, supersizing freaks-an opportunity to give themselves up. So now Soledad had to scream the incredibly, legalistically stupid phrase "or face potentially lethal force" at the top of her lungs, doing the double duty of both embarrassing herself and warning the freaks: "Here we come!"
From outside the bank, from across the street, Soledad could hear the group of freak fuckers chanting for freak rights.
In the bank nothing. Relative quiet. Just the breathing of the cops in each other's earpiece.
Most times, with ornery freaks and muties, the lead officer delivering the Civil didn't get past "This is the po-" before fire or frozen air or animated metal came rushing for them, rushing to kill them.
Fine with most MTacs. They didn't care about freaks' so-called rights. They only wanted something to shoot at.
Alcala, checking the space: "Oughta just blow all this joint up."
No one responded to the statement.
"Oughta just-"
Soledad: "Heard you."
"Blow it up. Freak's in here, freak's dead."
"Good plan," Eddi miked back. "Every time somebody reports a freak, call in an air strike. Nuke the block."
"Just saying-"
"Not getting jitters, are you?"
She wasn't looking, but Soledad would take the bet Eddi was wearing that grin of hers. "Aoki, Alcala, shut up."
Whitaker kept out of things, kept quiet. Kept his eyes on the space all around. Not scared. Not even anxious, having settled in his head that today, probably, was the day he was going to die. If not this call, then the next. Or the next. Sooner or later he was going down. Wasn't fatalism. It was, to Whitaker, being realistic. In anticipation of the moment itself, the prayer repeated in his head: Jesus, all I want before I go, let me chalk one more stinking freak.
Soledad's voice in all their earpieces: "Moving forward."
She crab-walked for the center of the space. Out into the open. Trying to use cover was without point. Cover could be the freak. Get too close to the kiosk, it could reach out and choke you. The garbage can could jump up and real quick beat you to death.
Whitaker kept near to Soledad. Aoki, Alcala covered. All of them, guns reedy, fingers brushing triggers. The four black eyes of their weapons sweeping the space, looking without compassion. Looking for something to kill.
The. doors of the bank were closed. If the AC was on, Soledad couldn't feel it. The air was full with the stink of the dead Sweaty Guys already going stale. To wrap things quickly would be a pleasure to the senses.
Soledad: "Rising up."
The element held their ground, did a slow sweep with their weapons. Black eyes searching.
Soledad stood from her crouch, had a look around. Nothing.
Not nothing. Too many things. Too many ordinary-seeming accessories of life that could be a homicidal, blood-crazy shape-shifter.
To her element: "C'mon up."
Aoki, Alcala and Whitaker stood.
Fingers brushing triggers, black eyes searching…
Soledad, inching forward, inching…
Something wasn't right. Something had to not be right. That something would be the freak: A section of wall misaligned. A chair where one shouldn't be.
Something had to not be…
Inching forward, inching…
Black eyes…
Sweat on her forehead, dripping across her brow. Why the hell would somebody shut down the AC?
The floor got tacky. Sweaty Guy blood under foot.
Something had to…
"Eddi…»
"Yeah, Soledad?"
'Tell me what you know about shape-shifters." Soledad didn't need a primer on transmogrifying freaks. What she needed: a voice in her head to help her focus, to walk her through facts, hip her to what she wasn't seeing.
"They have an evolved genetic ability to dissimulate. Every aspect of them malleable. They're able to alter shape, size…»
The carpet? The mutual fund display? Something…
"Not mass. Mass has to be maintained."
The loan area behind Eddi. The desks? The chairs?
"Altering mass would require a discharge of energy. Basically, the thing would explode." The desk? The chairs? Four desks. Three chairs. There were three loan officers. It wasn't right.
"Eddi." "Yeah?"
"Move!"
She did. With speed, Eddi dropped low, twisted clear from Soledad's line of fire.
Soledad gave one tug to her O'Dwyer's trigger. Four slugs. All dead on target. All ripping, shrieking for the desk without a chair.
The desk moved. Its middle section dropped, torqued, pulled itself from the bullets' path.
And the party got started.
Alcala went to work with the Benelli, a hell's roar ahead of each one-ounce slug auto fired. Devastating most times. This time… The freak sucked itself in, stretched itself out. Took the form of something like a serpent. The slugs missed their intended target. One hit another desk, turned it into a vapor of wood chips, pulped paper. Another punched a fist-sized defect into a wall.
The freak, still shape of a serpent, sprouted tendrils. Lashed one for Soledad. She took it square to the face. Felt, tasted blood in her mouth from teeth driven through the flesh of her cheek.
Soledad went backward, went down, kept up the grip on her gun.
I'm not dying today.
Springing up, looking, assessing…
The situation: The freak had another tendril noosed around Alcala's neck, had his feet off the ground. His face already going from red to blue.
Eddi's HK went hot, but she maintained control. Fired in bursts. Regulated her ammo. In a gunfight with a freak what you did not want, you did not want to have to take a time-out to reload. Staying alive was hard enough. Running out of bullets? That kind of miscalculation got you killed.
The freak snapped its tendril, the one gripping Alcala. Alcala took air. Sailed for Eddi. Eddi had enough quick to her to hold her fire, keep from putting slugs in Alcala. Not enough quick to keep from taking Alcala full to her chest. One hundred ninety-six pounds of man. Fifteen miles an hour. Felt like catching a Hyundai.
Eddi's chestplate kept her ribs from busting. Eddi's chestplate shattered Alcala's wrist on impact. Both their weapons were lost as their bodies played a limp game of twister across the floor.
Soledad up, moving. Moving for the action. Two jerks on her trigger. Eight of her special slugs added to Whitaker's rhythmic bursts. A spray of blood signaled a hit on the freak. Whitaker's rounds, not Soledad's. Soledad's, and the thing would be down.
The thing.
The thing contracted, expanded. Went from looking like, from being a serpent, to… Scales into fur. Tendrils into claws.
Serpent into tiger.
A white tiger.
Soledad, to herself: Jesus H. Christ. It's a goddamn freak show.
And the tiger leaped, leaped for Whitaker. Whitaker fired, nicked the freak as it reached the apex of its arc.