Blood Obsidian

Issue 39

A brief sense of respite ... - Part 3

Blood Obsidian should have gone, leaving the aftermath to the professionals, and Caitlyn should have returned, but Chief Watson had waved her down. After everything he had done for her, how nice he'd treated her, she couldn't refuse him. Now, as her eyes continued to flicker toward Rayna, under her mask, she felt a comforting hand on her shoulder. She tore her gaze from Rayna, only catching a few of the Chief's words.

"... the first one. That can't be easy on you." Chief Watson chewed on the gum in his mouth like his life depended on it, tilting his head. "You okay? The vic is fine. A little shook up, but the EMT's have got her. You saved her life."

"The first one?" None of her usual blustering escaped her lips, this time. "First what?"

"First death. The perp was a homeless guy. How he became ... that, we don't know." Concern lined the Chief's face, the hand dropping from her shoulder. "I'm sure you did everything you could. Look, don't dwell on it, okay? In the game you're in, these things happen."

"Yeah. Sure." She could feel Rayna's eyes on her, a silver emergency blanket around her shoulders. Caitlyn couldn't tell the Chief she had let the guy die. "I have to go. Sorry. Thanks. I ..."

She couldn't say anything. A man had died. A man she could have saved, who was no longer a danger to her, or to Rayna, but Caitlyn had let him fall and she couldn't get the vision of his eyes from her mind. A look of shock, of confusion, his lips moving as he fell, hands reaching out, trying to grab something, anything to stop his fall. She had let him die so that she could comfort Rayna.

Without even thinking about it, she leapt high into the air, tumbling backward to land on the NHPD tactical van before launching herself as high as possible, sending out the line from her suit to grapple the nearest building. She was no hero. Heroes didn't let people die. Not ones who could no longer put up a fight, at the very least.

She could imagine Principle, looking down at her as he hovered, saying nothing, but accusing her with those deep, dark eyes. And Trooper Jane, berating her for not controlling herself. Fear glaring at her from beneath his fright mask. And Pho-Boy, Kyle, injured and recovering up on the Bastion satellite. For certain he would have something to say.

When she had started all this, it had come so fast that she hadn't had time to think. One encounter after another, and she had simply come to accept the job. The role of becoming a hero. It never, ever occurred to her that someone could really die because of her. Yes, in the back of her mind, she had railed against being a hero when her actions had injured Rayna, but she had lived. This was different. A man died. The same words, over and over, the same recriminations. She had let a man die.

Swinging above the streets, she tried to find somewhere to change back into her street clothes. Rayna would be wondering where she was.

-+-

Meanwhile, on the Bastion satellite, orbiting Earth ...

Drone's drones had furnished Kyle with a number of computers and screens, all surrounding the bed in the medical bay, making the place look like something from Kennedy Space Centre. He had watched the fight between Caitlyn and the terribly-named 'AlleyGator' using whatever resources he could find and had managed to recreate a pretty decent timeline.

Cameras on ATM's, on cell phones, security systems from inside the building and from other, close, buildings, had given him a good idea of what had happened, but, as he trawled through the ambient data that flowed like millions of streams through the air, he started to see anomalies. Encrypted data from several small, moving, sources.