John Ridley - What Fire Cannot Burn

It's a hard little game trying to figure which muties to leave be, keep under active surveillance in hopes they "d lead you to something good-good being a boss mutie- and which muties are too dangerous to let walk around like they were free, white and twenty-one. The wrong pick, bad information getting passed up the line concerning which freaks were at worst a nuisance and which were a clear and present danger… that could be somebody's life.

Not a mistake that happened often.

Most of the men and women in DMI were there because of somebody else's bad Intel or incorrect choice. Being a victim of stupidity makes you want to keep anybody else from suffering through the same.

DMI didn't suffer stupidity. They didn't tolerate slacking. They were arrogant about their work. They were more important-more self-important based on who was doing the talking-than MTacs. All MTacs did was shoot. DMI gave the MTacs an edge when it came time to pull their triggers.

Whatever.

You could go back and forth forever over who's the spearhead of the fight against muties. All I know, I'm not ready to give the fight up.

For a while, at least, I'll be working DMI.

Utilitarian, but as a style choice rather than a necessity of budget. Soledad hit the DMI headquarters in West LA and was, in return, hit with a mix of awe and resentment.

The awe: This is Soledad O'Roark. This is Bullet; the girl with the gun who'd been an operator on an element that'd taken out a telepath. Taken it out, mostly thanks to the gun. Hers. The one she'd made. She'd been BAMF a record number of occasions in a record short span of time. This was one of the best cops ever to wear a shield.

The resentment: "Who's this girl, this shimmer come 'round because her leg's bad- temporarily bad-and who'll go away soon as it's good again? Who's this MTac grant who thinks she's got the smarts, the skills to work DMI?

Some of the resentment wasn't so territorial. Some of it was just garden-variety bigotry. A woman cop? A Mack woman?

The mix of awe and resentment fluctuated from person to person. And while Soledad could do without the awe, she was surprised, from even those who admired her, to a person they all carried some resentment toward her.

"Don't worry about it." Abernathy passed a hand in the air, shooed away Soledad's concerns. Abernathy- his first name, rarely used in-house, was Benjamin- was, or would be for the time being, Soledad's CO. Her lieutenant, her "lieu." He was physically, Soledad thought, an unremarkable man. That wasn't, a slight. There was just nothing about the guy-his size, the cut of his hair, the way his features were arranged on his face; nothing biological or self-generated-that would make you give him, if you passed him on the street, a second thought. Except, except if you heard his voice. His voice was opposite his slight stature. It was deep and rich and booming. The voice of a beefy soul brother, not a negligible white guy. Should be singing some R&B. Should've, at least, been doing voice-overs for movie trailers.

"It's not personal," Abernathy said regarding Soledad and the cold shoulder she'd been getting hit with tag team-style from the minute she set foot in DMIville. Abernathy said: "Can't take it personal. DMI cops, their life is about being suspicious."

Soledad: "Even when there's nothing to be suspicious about?"

A shrug. "You spend your days doing surveillance on the corner pharmacist or a soccer mom who's actually a freak that can take out a city block without producing a sweat, suspicion's a hard habit to shake."

"I can deal with a little negativity. Compared to actually having to be the one to take down that pharmacist or soccer mom, it's nothing." Soledad wasn't so much displaying machismo as she was giving support to the whole of G Platoon.

Abernathy said: "There are bad habits all around. MTacs included. Again, nothing personal."

Cold. Distant. Unable, unwilling to allow people into their lives because their lives were, generally, short-lived. MTacs had bad habits to spare.

"I don't," Soledad said, "take it personally. Mostly." And mostly, Soledad didn't. She didn't take personally the ice, the propriety glances. Except for the cops that hit her with their straight-up old-school bigotry. Soledad personally wanted to kick that bunch in the teeth. Otherwise, long time ago, Soledad'd decided she wasn't in the give-a-fuck business.

Abernathy: "Would you mind?"

Just that said. Soledad knew what Abernathy was talking about. She pulled her O'Dwyer, removed the clip from the back. No need to eject a shell from the chamber. Didn't have a chamber. Handed it butt-first to Abernathy.

He looked the piece over, asked a couple of questions about it, and Soledad went into what'd become a standard speech on her sidearm. How Metalstorm had agreed to let her modify it, how the governor had okayed her field-testing it. Soledad skipped over the history of the field test: the disciplinary action against her and the trumped-up IA investigation that'd preceded it, her almost getting hung out to dry for getting a cop killed-a cop she admired, respected. A cop whose death she had nothing to do with, whose passing had changed her life. Whose tattoo, an exact duplicate of, Soledad wore on her left shoulder. Five simple words: we don't need

another hero.

All of that Soledad gave the go by to. She didn't need to bring it up. Abernathy knew about it. At least knew a version of it. There wasn't a cop on the force who hadn't heard the rumors filtered through the blue wall that's supposed to shield fellow cops from acrimony from the outside. Truth: All it does is make a cell where accused cops can get gang-raped from the inside by intimation and allegation.

So let others speculate and wonder. All that mattered, same as her encounters with a fire freak and a speed freak and any of the other freaks she'd gone against, Soledad'd survived that departmental attempt on her life as well.

Abernathy handed back the gun.

"I don't believe you'll be needing that much here."

"Never know."

Nodding to her assertion: "No, you don't. But the use of deadly force is the last thing events should come to. Here we watch, we wait, we note. We fight with our heads, not our fists. The grunt mentality stays with MTac." Abernathy wasn't accusatory. He was even. And that voice of his, he sounded like he was reading copy for a public service announcement.

"Don't have a grunt mentality," Soledad said. "With MTac or otherwise."

"That business with IA-"

"Was never carried through. An OIS that was investigated as required."

He was probing. Soledad knew Abernathy was testing her same as any lieu would an operator being rotated in who had a… a situation in their package. They'd want to know, not so much the details of the event, but could the cop coming off the situation handle himself? Herself. Or are they burned and bitter, full up with anger they're just waiting to spew at a moment that's inappropriate? Inappropriate, in a cop's world, is a moment that gets someone killed.

"I guess the concern is," Abernathy said, "you have a history of independent action."

"Independent thought and independent action are two different things." Soledad was composed, quite controlled. Soledad said: "I've been point on any number of MTac elements, and on all of them my record speaks for itself. I know how to work as part of a ream. But I also believe in thinking beyond the box. That's got its own rewards, and it's got its own risks. But when it comes down to us versus the muties… yeah, you play things smart, but it's no good for cops to go at things overly cautious. That's just as dangerous as being a hothead."

"If you do say so yourself."