Cat Adams - The Isis Collar

“Now I’m going to go back to the training mode and I’ll start to treat the dummy like a real person. I’ll be talking to it, trying to get the suspect to voluntarily surrender, to allow me to approach. At up to level six, that can work if I’m persuasive enough. But on level eight, the suspect will continue to attack and eventually will show fangs. Then I’m allowed to stake it. Until that happens, it’s going to try to beat the crap out of me and will probably get in a few good shots. Just stay on the couch unless I get knocked unconscious. Then you can yell, ‘Uncle,’ and it’ll stop. If I’m bleeding or you can’t wake me, call an ambulance. But so far I haven’t been knocked out at this level.” She looked over at us. I nodded, and glanced at Dawna. Her eyes were showing too much white and her mouth was open, her jaw slack. I could see the pulse in her neck fluttering frantically and smell her fear.

I patted her hand and she jumped. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. I’d thought the dummy would bother her less than seeing a real person spar with one of us, but maybe this was too much, too soon. “Sweetie, if this is going to freak you out, we don’t have to use this level.”

She turned to me, eyes still wide, then blinked and shook her head. “No. It’s okay. I just wasn’t expecting the voice. Will it keep yelling at you?”

Alex and I shared a look. We both knew that on level eight yelling wasn’t going to be the biggest issue. Swearing, screams of pain, and piteously begging the cop not to kill it were also part of the program. Crap. Dawna just wasn’t ready for that. Heck, the screams and begging had given me nightmares for a month the first time I trained with my friend Bob Johnson … on level six. “Can you mute it?”

Alex gave a small, sympathetic nod. “Sure. No problem. That’s available for use in residential areas where the noise might bother the neighbors.” She stared at the dummy’s main camera again. “Detective Heather Alexander. Change program. Silent mode. Residential area.” A small display in the upper left-hand corner of the screen dutifully appeared. Confirmed for police training. Mute.

Everybody has a weakness due to a particular sense. Some people are visual and can’t stand to see the sight of blood. Some are really bothered by bad smells, to the point of nausea or vomiting. Touch is what gets me. I’m squicked out by things that squirm—maggots and things crawling on me. Apparently, Dawna reacted to sound.

At least, I hoped it was only sound. I planned to watch Dawna closely to see if she was getting traumatized. She didn’t need any more therapy bills. Alex looked at the computer screen. “Resume training mode.”

Fortunately, over the next half hour, I didn’t see the sign of any heightened panic in Dawna. We watched, enthralled, as Alex pushed, kicked, and talked to the dummy. She would give me a good run for my money at hand-to-hand combat and was really good at the talking part. I had a feeling she could normally get the mannequin to surrender even at level six. But not at level eight. “If you don’t surrender quietly, I’ll be forced to draw my weapon. Now, get on the ground! Facedown, hands behind your head, legs spread apart. Do it!”

She was breathing hard and a sheen of sweat made her bangs droop and stick together. I caught a glimpse of the display as they circled around the mat. F*ck you, b*tch. I wondered what that sounded like because I knew the department dummies weren’t programmed to say actual swear words. The dummy moved fast and Alex was put on the defensive again. This time, she missed her mark and wound up spin-kicking through open air. The dummy used that moment to swing backward and catch her supporting leg. She went down with an oof and Dawna and I winced when the dummy came down again and hit her in the stomach with the side of its head, hard enough to force a pained sound from her throat. The dummy’s head always turned at the last second to protect the computer screen. The display now showed fangs and the words: You’re afraid. You’ll taste sweet. Die, human!

Alex had struggled to a half-sitting position by the time the dummy came down again. Ooh, that was going to hurt.

But I was wrong. As the dummy approached, Alex pulled a stake from her sash and used the dummy’s own momentum to drive the sharpened wood into its heart. There was a beep and red fluid spilled over her in a wash that made Dawna gasp. The scent of mint filled the air, which was just as well. The spray of red had made me twitch uncomfortably for an instant, but mint held no appeal to my vampire nose.

Alex said, “Pause. Hold position. Teaching mode.” She and the dummy froze as if they were on a movie screen, locked in a final death battle. Alex moved only her head, turning toward us with her hand still locked on the stake. “Do you see what I’m doing here? The reason you were struggling with the stake was your hand position. See how I’ve got the bottom of the stake against the heel of my palm? If you grip the stake like a golf club, you can’t get enough force behind a strike. You have to use your body weight to push the stake in. Think of it like an extension of your arm. You have more strength when you punch straight forward than when your wrist is bent. Down is always best if you can get on top of the vampire. But when all else fails, sometimes you have to allow the bat to attack toward you. Drop and roll. Make it come to you and then push it in.”

The screen was displaying Ahhhh! [hisses. screams]. But Dawna’s eyes were fixed on Alex. She was using every muscle, every nerve of her being, to take it all in. There was clarity and understanding in her eyes. Whew, this was actually working. I’d just have to figure out some way to get her past the sounds of death. Maybe I needed to talk to her psychologist about that.

“Resume program.” The dummy returned to an upright position and the screen read Congratulations, Heather. You have killed the vampire. Please replace cartridge. We needed to put a new heart package into the center of the ballistic gel.

I rose and helped Alex to her feet. Dawna excused herself to the bathroom, pausing to ask Alex, “Unless you need to clean up before you start again?”

She shook her head, accidentally showering me with tiny droplets of minty red. “Naw. I don’t get that luxury when I’m actually in the field. They seldom come at me in singles, so I need to be able to work when I’m messy.” As Dawna left the room with an odd look on her face, Alex leaned closer to me and whispered, “Will it bother her if I stay bloody? Be honest. How’s she doing?”

I shrugged lightly and kept my voice down. “Fine. As far as I can tell, there are no problems without the sound. Don’t know what to do about that issue, though.”

“We’ll talk later. I have some ideas.” She wiped away the trickles of sweat dripping down toward her eyes and we replaced the heart cartridge just as Dawna came back into the room.

An hour later, we were all sweating. I’d had a turn at level six on civilian mode, which didn’t require me to talk to the dummy or wait to pull out my stake. It was easy. So easy it frightened me a little because I started to get really aggressive. I found out later that as I was fighting, Alex began to raise the levels with voice commands I didn’t even hear. She upped the six to an eight and then to police mode. Then to ten.

I was moving and dodging, kicking and stabbing without even realizing it. When I finally shoved the stake into the gel chest, it went all the way through to stick out the dummy’s back. I heard my own battle scream as I drove in the wood, and it was a freaky sound.