John Ridley: What Fire Cannot Burn

"You know what I said to him when it was over." Ramona talked on like whatever Eddi had to say wasn't worth listening to. "I told him he was a waste. I told him everything he thought he was, was nothing. He wanted to be a freak cop, and all he ended up was a freak not even good enough for going after his own kind. And he told me, you know what he said? He told me I was right. Said that, and just walked out that door. As many times as he hit me, when it came to it, I knew just how to hit him. That's the thing about being so in love with somebody. It gives you the secret knowledge you need to destroy them. You know the queer thing? Whatever you want Marty for, I think he's just trying to prove he's not nothing."

Eddi and Raddatz couldn't argue the point.

"We don't talk much. Every once in a while he sends me a letter, a little note. Tells me how sorry he is about what happened. That's what he calls beating me, abusing me. 'What happened.' I don't write him back. I'm not afraid of Him, you know. I'm not." Ramona let that hang for a moment, then: "I think if I did, I think if I talked to him… love; it's just unkillable."

Eddi rolled the paper around in her fingers. A talisman. Carlin's address.

"How you want to play it?" she asked. "Go after Carlin or take a run at Tynes first?"

"Finish up with Carlin."

"Can we get any kind of backup?"

Raddatz shook his head to the negative. "We get it by telling MTac we know what we know how?"

"Same way DMI always gets backup."

"By presenting a chain of investigation. Look, if we were going after a freak, maybe we could count on the review being lax. But to go after a normal, an ex-cop who's killing freaks, you don't think questions are going to get asked? And that's if we could even put Carlin on this for sure. All we've got now is a guy who's hinky."

"You don't like him for this?"

"I love him for it. But that doesn't prove nothing, and it doesn't get us backup."

"Then some of your superfriends?"

Eddi wasn't ready for Raddatz's lack of engagement with the meta community. "That's

it?"

"They're careful." "They don't trust you."

"They won't let me get into a position where I could be forced to compromise them."

"Like I said: They don't trust you."

Raddatz gave a shrug, let it go. "We'd still have the same problem we've always had: How good would that be for the other side that metanormals are acting as vigilantes?"

"How good is it going to be if we get killed and Carlin gets away?"

"He's human. No matter what he can do, he's a normal. What was wrong with the Age of Heroes: It wasn't that the metanormals were trying to act like gods. It was that we forgot how to stand up for ourselves. This one's ours. We've gotta take the lead."

There was logic there. Logic wasn't what swayed Eddi. What swayed her, when Raddatz added: "What Carlin may have done, the people he might've killed: I've got no problem paying him back for that on my own."

Eddi thought of Soledad. She didn't have a problem handing out payback either.

The capper from Raddatz: "You were going to kill me. I'd at least like to know you don't hate me so much you wouldn't give the same courtesy to somebody else."

She gave a laugh.

"What?" Raddatz asked.

"Me protecting freaks, that's funny as hell."

"Life's queer like that sometimes."

"Yeah." And then Eddi said: "Normal or not, if we're going to do this, there's something I want to have."

She got herself killed. I'm not going to let other cops go down the same way." This was a hard, hard lie from Eddi. Hard to give.

Just as hard for Bo to take. Bo wasn't accepting it. "Soledad didn't get herself killed." His voice was even, nearly quiet. His tone was unmistakable: Shut up. Go away.

Eddi would not. "Her gun didn't work. It failed to fire. She died."

"That happens with sidearms."

"It wasn't supposed to happen with Soledad's. That it happened with an experimental weapon-"

"How many freaks has that thing brought down?"

"That it happened with an experimental weapon suggests the gun shouldn't be standard issue."

Bo, head ticking side to side: "How long have you been with DMI?"

"What does that have to-"

"A couple of weeks? A month? You talk like one of them."

"Wherever I'm assigned, I do my job. I f you have prejudice for one division over another, then that's your issue." She was plain, simple. Direct and unflinching.

Her facade was. Behind that: Real clear to Eddi was her first call. Going after a speed freak, too anxious with her trigger, too anxious about going BAMF. Ending up sailing a couple of slugs into Vin. When her world was falling apart, when she thought on the good end of things she was facing Admin discipline, on the bad end she was looking at discharge from the force, who was there to back her up? Bo. Soledad and Bo. Now Eddi was selling Soledad out and shining Bo on, and as far as Eddi could tell, the deceptions were only starting.

But then…

Someone had killed freaks, had killed some of the best freak-hunting cops on the PD. Had done it with harsh science. Harsh science was needed to fight back. Soledad's gun was needed, and Eddi could not be honest about her reasons.

She'd already bitten a guy's ear to the cartilage and come this close to putting bullets into the back of another guy's head. So a couple of lies, what were a couple of lies even to and about people she really cared for?

Coming forward in his chair, leaning on his desk, locking eyes with Eddi: "Then how about this: How long have you been with DMI that you get to come around giving orders?"

"How long have you been 10-David you can't follow procedure? I'm not giving orders. I'm conducting an investigation."

"On Soledad's piece? That'd be for A Platoon."

"If Soledad's weapon had been issued by the department of the armorer. It wasn't, and it wasn't being tested under the auspices of HIT either. If it's an investigation pertaining to metanormal activity, then it belongs to DMI. The question is, did the freak"-Eddi made sure she threw in the word; she'd noticed she was using «metanormal» a lot. A lot more than most cops. She figured it'd be smart to make sure she talked the talk-"Soledad was surveying have some kind of an effect on her sidearm? The incident happened while she was detached to DMI, so it's a question for DMI to answer." Eddi was coming off like a five-hundred-dollar-an-hour lawyer. So slick she slipped and slid.

Problem was that cops hated lawyers, and Bo was cop to the bone.

"Then let me ask things this way…" That drawl of his made his subtext read: Maybe you think you can shine me, but I don't shine. "How long have you been at DMI you should be handling the situation?"

"I'm going to be fair."

A snide laugh from Bo.

"If the gun works, I want to know. If it doesn't, I want to know that too."

"Soledad always figured you were envious of her."

Beyond her playacting, Eddi bristled. She was hearing that too much; hearing people thought she was in competition with Soledad. Enough that it annoyed her. Enough that it might be true.

"Let's face things. You, well, you idolized her. Wanted to be her."

"If you're trying to make me feel something in particular…»

What Eddi felt: her breast. The sting of her tattoo. As fresh as the day she had it etched on the flesh of her chest.

"If you can't be as good as Soledad, might as well discredit her."

"You're better than that, Bo. I know you are. No reason to attack me. I miss her too."

Bo chewed the air in his mouth, chewed at it…

Bo asked: "Is there something I should know? As in why you're forcing the issue?"

To keep Bo at arm's length. To keep him from getting involved. Eddi was being the way she was because when things went south, and most likely they would, Eddi didn't want Bo heading down with her.