John Ridley: What Fire Cannot Burn

"I don't have the background for it."

"You got all her work as a starting point. You could do it in conjunction with A Platoon or HIT. And I can't believe you couldn't finish something Soledad started."

Bo tossed that line like bait. Not to antagonize. To encourage. Albeit encourage with a taunt. Bo believed the department-normals, period-needed cops like Eddi. The Eddi he thought he knew. And if he had to play her ego to keep her around, keep her in the fight, he was ready to play.

And there was one other conversation to be

had.

Eddi took another sip of her Pom. A merchandised version of pomegranate juice. It was supposed to be good for her, but she wasn't sure how. The nutritional benefits were vaguely stated on the bottle. But Eddi was working on eating more healthfully as her physical activity was going to be greatly curtailed for the near future. Her ankle and wrist were quite jacked, and in her physical therapy she was still working on mobility. That is, a so-called therapist who was little more than the devil in disguise traveling among the unsuspecting under the obsequious name of Bonnie would spend about twenty minutes heating Eddi's mangled joints while talking Eddi through the slight increase in degree she was going to manipulate Eddi's injuries over the previous day. And then Bonnie would do the manipulating.

Eddi would do some screaming.

She'd taken a lot of hurt as an MTac, and more than she'd expected in her short time at DMI. She could remember grunting and groaning at various times. Couldn't recall any out-and-out screaming. Not that she was a tough guy. She chalked up lack of shrieks to adrenaline, focus- getting hurt but not letting the hurt take her off her game. Or maybe she'd screamed like a girl time and time again, but had excised the memory to make herself feel tough.

She'd remember, always, tribulations under the touch of Bonnie.

Then came Tashjian. Walking up the street for his house, not breaking stride as he saw Eddi parked on the steps of his porch. No matter what'd happened last time she greeted him, what she'd done to him, no matter his ear was a fright-looked like the pull toy of a junkyard dog-he did not visibly react to Eddi's presence other than to say, regarding her drink: "Is that stuff any good? I see it all the time, but I can never quite get myself to try it."

"You're a cool customer, know that?"

"How exactly should I react, Officer Aoki? Are you going to maul my other ear? Out in public, top of the evening, are you going to pistol-whip me again, threaten my life? It's not that I wouldn't put it beyond you. Killing me. But I think you'd pick a better opportunity than here and now."

Eddi quietly conceded Tashjian was right.

He took up a spot next to her.

Eddi asked: "Were you trying to give Soledad payback for squirreling away from you before? You put her in a situation with bad intel hoping she'd get killed. I mean this was… this just worked out perfect for you."

"I did not want Officer O'Roark dead."

"'Whatever you really knew about what was happening at DMI you held it back from Soledad. Held it back from me."

"That's assuming you regard Tucker Raddatz with complete trust."

No doubt from Eddi. "I do. No matter how he was going about the job, right or wrong, I know for a fact his version of things is the true version."

"He led a cadre inside the Los Angeles Police Department, that was friendly to metanormals."

"You've always known. I don't, have to tell you. All I'm trying to figure: Did you want Soledad dead. Raddatz dead, or best of both worlds, they cancel each other out?"

"There is one other possibility."

A little laugh. Eddi settled back as much as the concrete would allow. This, Tashjian's reality, she wanted to hear.

"There is the possibility I knew that Raddatz was, is, sympathetic to metanormals. There is the possibility I knew that whatever Raddatz and his cadre were proceeding against was… well, it was beyond them. Did I know, did I suspect the perp was a self-enhanced normal human? Absolutely not. Regardless, that Raddatz was working above his station was obvious. But how to help Raddatz without exposing the fact that he was aiding those, he was supposed to be enforcing the law against? Send in another player. Perhaps the most formidable one in the Los Angeles Police Department. Give her enough information to make the situation seem plausible and hope against hope that once inside, if not converted by Raddatz, she would be in position to aid him. What I could not count on, but I guess I should have realized: There was something even superior to Soledad O'Roark. What I also could not count on, but I guess I should have hoped; There was someone superior to both. I did not plan on you, Officer Aoki. But I do thank God for you."

Eddi heard that last part but didn't take it in any particular way. Really, before Tashjian was halfway through with his spin Eddi already knew what she was going to come back at him with.

"The problem with that," she said like she was stating the obvious (to her she was), "is that you'd have to be soft for metanormals."

"Didn't you used to refer to them as freaks?"

"I think if it was to your advantage, you'd have sympathy for them. You've sold your soul so many times the devil wouldn't want it. But there's no advantage to backing them. There's nothing for you to gain, no reason for you to be on their side. So I think you're full of shit."

"Eddi…»

His being familiar with her sounded very weird to Eddi's sensibilities.

Tashjian said: "There's so much to be gained, and there is so very much to be lost. Revelation is coming… " He turned his head slightly, peeled back the bandage that covered his ear. The ear Eddi had mangled with her dentition. Gave Eddi a real good look. Tashjian put forth the slightest amount of effort-a kid making faces on the school yard-and the torn, misshapen lobe filled itself out, formed new cartilage and flesh and blossomed fresh. It held an intact shape for a moment-for just a moment-then reverted to looking as Eddi had re-created it.

"The truth," Tashjian said, "will set us free."

Tashjian took Eddi's Pom bottle, took a. drink of the stuff. The twist of his lips said he didn't particularly care for It.

Eddi kept up a stare at his ear.

To Eddi: "I will see you later. Officer Aoki."

Tashjian got up from the steps, got himself inside his house.

I'm not going to say.. I'm not going to say I'm stunned, I quit being stunned years ago. I quit having my sense blocked from me that day about three months after San Francisco when the government announced that they were going to stop trying to do any DNA testing to identify remains because there basically were no remains to get tested in the devastated part of the city. I'd lost my father, but I'd never really have any.… closure is a word I've come to hate. The psychologists always sling that around as if at some point you can shut the book on tragedy, on loss. Do this and you can break with your hurt. Do that and you can move on from the past. Anyone who talks about closure is either some unfeeling bastard or someone who s never once in their life truly suffered loss. My intimate relationship with the incredible will forevermore be unaltering.

So something getting the best of Soledad, Raddatz working with the metanormals, a human making himself over into a metanormal, Tashjian being a metanormal. Me using metanormal over the F-word…

None of that is incredible to me.

It's only daunting.

Like Raddatz'd said: Power always is. And information is power. And I had a lot more, a shitload more info than most people walking around.

What to do with it? That's the question.