Bystander - Broken and Entered - pg 23-32

Summer, 2029

The young Officer Park was cycling through the lists of downloaded shows and articles on his blackberry, downloaded automatically by a pre-programmed call out.  It gave him something to do during the ten to fifteen minute breaks he had on patrol.  He was quickly back to attention, however, and snapping up the radio as the call went out alerting all local units to an attempted break-in at the Centennial Seal Bank.

"This is unit 39," Park said vigorously.  "I'm responding to the call."

As soon as the radio handset was back in its cradle, he let the sirens and lights flare before turning his cruiser into a tight u-turn heading for the bank.  It was easy to navigate the streets at this time of night, when most people were home in their beds and only a few nocturnal people were about.  It was only a brief minute or two before he was screeching to a stop among three other cruisers.  Grabbing the shotgun, he ran to catch up with the other police officers that he could see charging for the devastation that had been the front doors of the bank.

He passed the doors first, tossed back into the courtyard like so much trash, their bullet-proof glass had taken a severe beating, small sections had been blown through completely, but clearly not enough for the taste of the bandits.  Somehow, when merely bashing through didn't work, they merely ripped the doors off their hinges and tossed them to the side.

The security bars that sat behind the doors proved as easily malleable to whomever had made this attack, bent aside at odd angles as if someone had just pushed tree branches out of their way.  Beyond that was the security fencing, reinforced versions of the drop cages that small businesses used to close their doors securely every night.  The fencing had held fine, but they had been pulled down viciously out of the ceiling and allowed to fall on the ground, useless.

Like the rest of his fellow police officers, Joseph wondered just what sort of tool or weapon had been used to break through the security measures so easily.  He didn't know what to make of it.  On the one hand, someone had to have some contacts to get weapons like this, but the entire feel wasn't any different than a reckless kid bashing the door on a convenience store.  Looking around, he even saw a discarded bottle of vodka and the entire scene stank of alcohol.

Four police officers had come with the other three cruisers, making their numbers at five.  Quietly they secured the lobby of the bank and began to probe deeper, looking for the intruder.  Joseph went over the teller's counter, immediately pointing his shotgun down in case any criminal was hiding there.  To his left, two officers began the work of clearing the offices, while to his right, the other two began to check side rooms off the main lobby, like restrooms and private discussion areas.

The loud sound of something metallic snapping suddenly drew all their attentions to the vault.  Moving quickly, they came to the door listening inside to a heavily slurred voice muttering bitterly in what sounded sometimes like French and other times like Japanese.  It was a female voice certainly, but that was about all he could tell for certain.

With a short glance, Joseph looked around the corner and saw, to his surprise, only one small figure inside hammering brutally at the vault with her bare hands, each impact creating a small ripple in the metal and the air around it.  Looking back to the others, he raised a hand to tell the others the count and then they all moved.

"Police," Joseph snapped along with several others.  "Sta…"

The small figure reacted almost immediately, whipping about and throwing something that looked like a piece of the vault handle in their direction.  The small piece of steel flew with amazing force, but little accuracy, piercing into the wall and holding there.  At almost the same instant, the five police officers pulled their triggers and the figure within winced several times, smacking back into the dented vault door.

In the light of the gunfire, Joseph caught a glimpse of his suspect and gasped as he noted the youth of the silver-haired girl inside.

"Stop firing!" he shouted.  "She's just a kid."

The police paused at the revelation, guilt starting to gnaw at their guts as they looked to the small body leaning against the wall.

Leaning, but not falling.

The girl's ragged breathing could be heard by all five of the cops as easily as if it were the only thing left in the world.  In the darkness that held over them all, they couldn't see the blood they assumed was flowing freely from whatever wounds they had just inflicted on the girl.

"Gep duh fuck ob," a slurred, feral voice finally hissed over the weary breathing.  "God hep me.  Show you…"

"She's a fucking peak," one of the cops beside Joseph whispered in a quiver of fear.  "Bulletproof, superstrong."

"Just sit down, kid," Joseph said, setting his gun down as he edged forward to try to calm her down, holding his hands out.

"Gep duh fuck ob," she repeated, straightening her back away from the wall, but continuing to hang her shoulders like some sort of puppet at the end of unused strings.

"We can't let you go," Joseph said firmly.  "We have to hold you."

"Get.  The.  Fuck.  Off!" she snarled viciously, some posture returning.

"This isn't working!' one of the other officers said.  He rushed in, snapping up Joseph's shotgun and swinging it hard at the silver-haired girl.

"Wait!" Joseph snapped, too late to do anything.

The shotgun slammed into the girl's head, sending her flying to the side until she smacked into the wall even as the shotgun shattered in the police officer's head.  Ungracefully but effectively, the drunken girl twisted back and caught the impact into the wall with her legs and instantly ricocheted forward with a cry that was more beast than human.

The girl slammed into the police officer still looking at the destroyed shotgun in his hand and this time he went flying to the side, landing in an pile that groaned miserably as the chaos started to worsen.

Using the new opening in the police officers' group, the girl stumbled and staggered through their line out into the lobby.  One of the police officers dodged aside from the girl with the inhuman powers, uncertain how to proceed against her.  The remaining three conscious police officers turned after the girl and the battle moved to the lobby.

The girl tried to jump over a wall partition and her feet clipped the top both breaking the partition and sending her sprawling into the ground.  Two of the police officers jumped on the chance to try and wrestle the girl to the ground, convincing themselves that everything they had seen  so far was exaggerated by their emotions and shock at the age and nature of their suspect.

The two officers easily got the cuffs placed on the disoriented girl, but it was only an instant after that that she burst the chain on the cuffs and launched herself straight upward, slamming one of the police officers into the ceiling before grabbing hold of him as he dropped, unconscious to the ground.  Before the girl and her cargo could come to a stop, she tossed the cop in her hand at the other officer that had just tried to hold her down.

The only conscious police officer left, Joseph moved in reluctantly and nervously.  Looking about frantically, the girl caught sight of his approach and charged forward with a near mindless snarl.  He easily sidestepped the attack and gripped hold of the girl's hand, using it to redirect her into the floor, hoping to push her down and end the battle quickly.

Unbelievingly, as soon as the girl slammed into the floor, she jerked at his grip on her, ripping painful out of the hold and stumbling forward into a tall pillar, cracking it with her body as she shook her head clear.  Seeing Joseph moving in again, she reached down for the carpet and ripped a huge section up from its attachment to the ground, sending Joseph rolling sideways.

He was still between her and the exit and the wobbly, uneven nature of her motions were slowly fading.  Confusion seemed to be setting in and desperation.  The implications were shocking, if she was sobering up, how would she fight with a clear head.

As the girl took a horribly ugly swing at him, he didn't worry so much.  She was fast and strong, but she couldn't fight worth anything.  Given enough time, he would be able to maneuver her into a pin or wear her down without seriously hurting her.  In the wake of her uncoordinated attack, he snapped a knee up into her stomach, sending a shudder through the girl's body, but she still slipped out of his reach.

The cop rubbed at his knee as he brought it down again.  The girl's skin had been solid, like hitting bricks.  When he'd grabbed her earlier, he could have sworn that she had incredibly soft skin.  He could figure it out later, right now he had to stop her.

Panic and disorientation now crossed over her face, and with desperation she'd be getting dangerous.  He couldn't let her out on the streets or they'd likely never find her until she committed some other crime.

"Stop fighting," he shouted insistently.  "I have to take you in!"

She paused beside a desk at his command, but didn't hesitate long.  Reaching over to the desk, she hefted it and hurled it away from her, shouting "This isn't how you play!"

Joseph threw himself to his back, letting the desk fly easily past him colliding with the pillar the girl had earlier hit.  Getting to his feet almost instantly, he moved to cut her off from the door again.  She looked up briefly and then leaned in with another punch, somewhat on target this time.

Joseph shifted around the punch with barely a motion and smashed his hand up into her throat as lightly as he dared.  Taking advantage of the girl's now stunned state, he swept her legs out from under her and brought her to the ground, amazed at how light and easy to move she was.

He refused to make the same mistake as the other cops had earlier, wrapping her up in a way to prevent her from getting in leverage to leap upward again.  He almost had her cradled like a babe in a car seat when she recovered from the throat jab.  Somehow, she got a hand or foot loose, though he wasn't sure from where, and in moments he was being carried along for a ride to the ceiling.

Joseph didn't finish the ride with her, releasing the girl and grabbing on to a piece of molding to slow his fall and give him a chance to flip into a controlled fall.  By the time he was on the ground, the girl was making for the door again, gliding across the ground with remarkable speed.  Joseph could already see that she was going to make it free and clear.  He leaned forward to give chase.  He was overbalanced and he knew it, but now that the girl had a clear lane to run, he didn't expect for her to be making any attacks.

Something made her stop cold, and the police officer couldn't tell what until she dodged aside and a twirling tear gas canister streaked straight for him.  He tried to move to dodge, but as overbalanced as he was, he couldn't make it.  The canister was going to hit him, and it would do massive damage when it did.

The impact came much earlier than he expected, and tossed him in completely the wrong direction.  Surprisingly he didn't feel the sudden shattering of bones that should have come from the impact.  As he hit the floor and rolled to his feet, he came up in time to see the girl he'd been fighting turn to face the tear gas canister and try to catch it, but the clumsy attempt failed completely and it struck her full in the face with a spray of blood that momentarily erased her features.

For a sickening moment, the girl hung in mid-air and then she tumbled to the ground like a collection of loose sticks.  Joseph saw her head twisted at a nearly impossible angle and then it was swallowed up by the clouds of gas that erupted from the canister.  

Before she vanished like some ghostly thing, Joseph covered his face and rushed forward to her body and found that she was still breathing despite the terrible chill that seemed to fill her flesh.  A wet pool spread out from her, but the ragged breathing continued.

The girl's skull wasn't crushed in like he expected, but the skin was covered in thin, sharp cracks like a scratched mirror.  Every moment that passed, however, the cracks softened, oozing blood that strangely vanished as the skin bruised up with incredible rapidity.

Reaching over to the canister, he grabbed it and rushed to the nearest office and tossed it inside, shutting the door and hopefully sealing the gas inside.

Several of the other cops were slowly coming to now.  As they came to, he ran outside calling out for an ambulance and looking for just who had launched the tear gas canister.

****

The bruising around the girl's face had almost completely healed by the time Joseph saw her again.  Like most juveniles, she was smirking and uncaring of the seriousness of the situation.  She looked like she had stepped out of Saturday-morning cartoon, weighted down and bound by as many heavy manacles and chains as they had been able to get a hold of.

Considering what he had seen in the bank, Joseph wasn't certain that she couldn't just break those chains whenever she wanted.

He didn't expect her to be smiling much longer.  

Peaks had been around for at least ten years, and though the world hadn't become the comic-book everybody had originally feared, crimes by people with greater than normal abilities had happened in the past.  Most police stations had at least one cell that was heavily reinforced and more secure to deal with the possibility of a peak, even if it was for something only as temporary as a drunk tank.

This girl was unique in one regard, however.

She was the first underaged peak arrested in the ten years following the admission of the existence of such people.  And the first taken without the help of another peak.

Out of curiosity, Joseph watched as they processed her and the problems that followed from that.

"Name?" the sergeant asked her simply.

"Lucretia," she returned with a shrug, or at least as much of one as she could manage in her restraints.

"Full name," the sergeant clarified irritably.

"I already told you," Lucretia said.

"Listen, girl," the sergeant continued.  "Let's just get this over with, just tell me your last name and that's it."

"I don't have a last name," the silver-haired girl insisted.

"You're really going to insist on not telling us," the sergeant said impatiently.  "I could call your parents."

Lucretia remained silent at that.

"Or is it guardians?" the man asked again.  "Do you come from a science lab somewhere?"

"I had parents," Lucretia said, shrugging.

"And what are their names?" the sergeant asked, calming down now that he was getting a little more cooperation.

"Fuck if I know," Lucretia snapped.

The sergeant gripped the bridge of his nose in exasperation, sighing.  He looked up again, staring at the recalcitrant girl in front of him and shook his head.

"Listen, kid…" the sergeant started to say, but whatever he was going to finish with was interrupted.

"They're dead, long time ago," Lucretia said irritably.  "Can we get on with this?"

"Fine," the sergeant said.  "Social Security Number?"

"Don't have one," Lucretia said.

"Are you saying you're not from this country?" was the response question.

"Either here or Canada," she muttered, shrugging again.

"Birthdate?"  

The sergeant was more than a little frustrated by the near complete lack of information by now.  Joseph was certain in watching the other officer that he was thinking that the grimy, alcohol stinking little girl in front of them all was deliberately making things difficult.

"I don't know," Lucretia said, shrugging again.  "I don't know my age.  I don't know where I was born.  I don't know who my parents were.  Got it?"

"Right," the sergeant said, grumbling and rolling his eyes.  "Let's get on with this."

Fingerprinting came next.  She didn't resist or struggle at all, but she didn't really need to.  Almost as soon as her fingers left the paper, the ink would start to smear and run, leaving the paper damaged and the fingerprint useless.  The silver-haired girl snickered as three cards were discarded, one after another.

"Use the copier," Joseph suggested.  "Or a scanner."

"It might work," somebody responded as he looked around for a computer or copy machine.

"So the fuck what?" the girl demanded snidely.  "This means I don't leave fingerprints, do I?"

They ignored her comment as they escorted the carefree and disrespectful girl to the computer scanner to make use of Joseph's suggestion.

Swabbing her mouth for DNA came next, and it seemed to be a relatively trouble-free process.  It wasn't until they were finishing up with taking her picture that someone came to take another swab because the first had somehow been corrupted that Joseph began to suspect that there was something not quite ordinary there also.  When they returned again, this time to pull some hairs for the DNA tags, just what the problem was became apparent.

Lucretia winced a little as the small handful of hairs were pulled from her head, but went immediately back to shrugging off the treatment, holding herself a little apart from everybody.

The lab technician took the gathered hairs and started to place them in a bag, but found the process more difficult than he thought it would be.  The hairs in his hand drooped and bent under their own weight, finally falling apart and dripping downward into the bag as a clear, transparent liquid.  Everyone paused and looked to the girl who stood there with an expression that was obviously a crafted innocence.

"Just bring her to the cell," the sergeant finally said, all patience lost.

"Officer Park," a voice behind the police man called out, taking his attention away from where Lucretia was now being escorted away.

Behind him was the station captain, standing tall and grim as usual.  It was easily apparent that he did not much care for the situation.  The iron-haired man watched the snide teenager being carried back toward the cells and then looked back toward Joseph.

"You have a report to fill out," he said.

Joseph turned back to look at Lucretia and caught one more glance of her face, still
beaming with teenaged arrogance, before it vanished.