Shrike (Book 2): Rampant (30 page)

I'm brought back to reality Monday morning when my alarm goes off and I'm reminded that I run an accounting department. The days have stretched out, with the winter darkness taking over everything. I wonder how Ross is doing. 

Going into work today is surreal business. I manage to make it through my Monday meetings without too much trouble, but the fact that I'm talking bottom lines and profit margins while everything else seems to be balanced on a razor's edge. I have my Shrike outfit in my briefcase, smushed into the section where a laptop is supposed to go. 

I don't know how I make it through the day. 

I go to the hospital as soon as I'm finished with work, hoping Dr Jensen will allow me to at least look at Taog. When I'm turned away with barely so much as a nod, I go to the hospital gift shop and buy a cheap notebook and a pen with Winnie-the-Pooh on it.

Dear Taog,

I wish I could see you. It feels abominable to sit here, less than a hundred yards away from you, but not be able to see you and tell you these things face to face. It makes me wish I'd tried sooner, when we had that chance.

They tell me you're stable, but all stable means to me is a place to put horses, and as you're no place to put a horse, I haven't the faintest idea what they mean. Stable. Not moving. You see, Taog, to me you are someone who is always in motion. Even when you're physically still, your mind moves through problems. You seek out answers and try to help people. I know you always try to help me.

I wish I could offer you some sort of news. Work is still much the same as it ever was, and Magda says I eat too much pizza. Macy's still a hopeless romantic, and the birdbath in the garden still attracts new visitors.

I saw an old friend last night. Her shoulder's still giving her trouble, but I think she's got a bigger pain in her arse.

Magda, Macy, and I have been working on that same old puzzle, but no matter how many pieces we put around the border, we can't seem to find the ones that go in the middle. I wish someone still had the box, so we could get a glimpse at the big picture.

I don't know what else to say except I miss you. I miss having you near me. I miss the way your warmth touches mine and seeing you first thing in the morning. If they don't let me in to see you soon, I might just break down the door.

Love,

Gwen

It's not my best effort, but I'm no Andrew Granger, and I hope Taog can figure out at least some of what I put in there. I don't want to mention Gina's name, and I know he'll know who I mean when I say Macy. I don't know what I'm really trying to say to Taog except that I'm still trying, still making my best effort to put a boot in Britannia's arse.

I give it to a nurse, who assures me that it'll be delivered. 

And then I go home, because there's nothing else for me to do.

twenty-nine

I'm making my way through the city centre when I hear the unmistakeable sound of gunshots.

They have to be coming from a few streets away, and I take off at a run fast enough to startle onlookers. As it's already dusk, I dart into a close and change into my Shrike costume quickly enough that I'm surprised not to see smoke rising from my flurried movements. I stash the briefcase behind a skip and run full speed toward the direction where I heard the pops.

I take a running leap at a lamp post, revelling in then now-familiar tug inside of me. I land with both feet on the crossbar and hear gasps from below me. I ignore them, jumping to a grate on a window and scaling the remainder of the wall to reach the roof.

The scene that spreads out on the next street makes my heart give a squeeze.

I count three bodies on the ground in the first five seconds. 

I hadn't realised there was supposed to be a protest today, but there are marchers with big signs in support of Scotland's Socialist Party. A scream reaches my ears as a man kneels next to one of the bodies, and police in riot gear have closed off the street.

"You shot her!" The man shrieks at the police, and the light from the street lamps illuminates the spittle that flies from his mouth.

The police seem to be the ones in true confusion. I can only hear fragments of their conversation over the din on the street, and when I try to focus, I hear three different bobbies say something similar:
They were supposed to be rubber bullets
.

Rubber bullets. To stun, not to kill.

I look below me at the spreading blood pool beneath the woman. The man next to her is kneeling in it, the blood soaking through his trousers. He sobs, and the light above him glints off a ring on his hand. He pulls her into his lap, and I have to make myself look away.

Rubber bullets didn't do that.

How in God's name did this happen?

I leap down from the roof, not sure what I can even do. Another scream rises up behind me, this time a woman's voice. The protestors are mostly huddling in small groups, facing off with the riot police who have formed a line against them. The police have their weapons shouldered, and even I can sense their uncertainty. Two of them are examining their weapons, and I hear one of them say that his has rubber bullets. His neighbour shakes out the ammunition in his own gun, and I hear the distinct clink of metal as the bullets fall to the pavement.

I dial Trevor. He answers on the second ring. "I don't reckon this is your jurisdiction, but I'm downtown on Prince's Street, and some riot police just shot and killed three socialists on the street. It looks like some of their ammo got switched out from rubber bullets to live rounds."

Trevor swears. "I'll ring my supervisor. How are you there?"

"I was on my way home and heard shots. No one here seems to know what to do." The flash of blue and white lights and the squeal of a siren cuts through the chaos. "Ambulances are here now. Do you want me to do anything?"

"I don't know if you can do anything."

Story of my life, lately.

I've no idea what to do, and I can't just leave, so I try to help a woman who seems to have twisted her knee fleeing the gunshots.

"Are you all right?" I ask her.

Tears stain her face, but she doesn't treat me like the question's a daft one. "You're Shrike," she says, and when I nod, she blinks at me. "I just need to sit down."

I help her to the edge of the pavement, where she sits, stretching her leg out in front of her. It's a terrible place to sit, because she's directly facing a dead man on the street, and I see her jaw quiver.

"What happened here?" I try to distract her from what's in front of her.

"We were just marching. I guess they thought that some right wing group was going to show up to do a counter protest, so they sent out the riot police to protect us." She snorts a near-hysterical laugh. "I didn't see what sparked it, but there was some commotion and a wee bit of yelling, and then I thought I heard someone yell
fire
, and then the gunshots started."

I make sure she's settled and signal a medic that she needs help. It seems three people were killed immediately, and two more shot. There are a couple other injuries like this woman's, sprains or scrapes from trying to run in a crowd, but it seems like it's over.

What I really want to know is how it happened.

I approach the bobby I saw dumping his ammo on the ground. His facial expressions alternate between forced stoicism and horror, and I wonder if he was one of the cops who discharged his weapon at the civilians.

He jumps when he sees me, and his eyes dart around at his coworkers, who are all milling about with an embarrassing lack of direction. Not for the first time, I wonder who's in charge. I see some more constables in normal police attire have arrived on the scene, and they're questioning everyone, which means they're all going to be here a while.

"I shouldn't talk to you," he says to me when I approach.

"I'll find out somehow. Might as well be from you. How the hell did this happen? Don't you all check your weapons to make sure you've got the right rounds before opening fire on civilians?"

"They were checked. I don't know how this happened."

"You're not helpful. Three people died because someone wasn't paying attention."

He reaches in his pocket and pulls out one of the bullets, handing it to me. "These aren't standard issue," he says. "Is that more helpful?"

I take a look at the bullet, but it means nothing to me. "That is more helpful." In the sense that it says the live rounds probably didn't come from St Leonard's. 

"Oi, you." A constable strides up to us and shoos the other bobby away. "Don't talk to her," he says.

I palm the bullet and turn to face the new arrival. "I was in the neighbourhood and heard shots."

"Aye, well, we're investigating." The man's pale skin looks sickly yellow in the street light, but alternately seems to absorb the flashing white and blue as if he sucks up any colour nearby. "I know you've a pet sergeant down the station, but you don't get to just come round asking questions whenever strikes your fancy. This is a police matter, and we'll handle it."

"Tell that to the man whose wife died today."

For a moment his face cracks and I see the uncertainty and worry, but there's nothing else for me to say. 

Again there's blood on the ground reflecting back the light of ambulances, and again I can do nothing to change it. 

 I come in through my window, and my room feels empty without Taog here. I'm tempted to pop next door just to peer in his window, but I know it will only make me feel worse. Magda and Gina are at the kitchen table when I tromp down the stairs, both of them eating pizza straight from the box again. It even appears to be new pizza and not simply what was left over last night.

Gina has her laptop out and seems oblivious to the fact that the grease from her fingers is getting all over her keys. When she sees me, she barely acknowledges that I've turned up as my alter ego. "Did you hear about the shooting on Prince's Street?" she asks by way of greeting.

"I was just there."

She does look up now, and Magda stops mid-bite. 

"You were there?" Magda asks. 

"How did you know about it?" I look at Gina, who wipes her hand on her leg.

"I get news alerts to my mobile," she says.

"You were there?" Magda repeats herself. 

I nod. "I stopped by the hospital to see if they'd let me visit Taog, and when I was on my way home I heard gunshots. Apparently somehow the riot control agents got their bullets mixed up."

"That's what the news is saying. Calling it gross incompetence, which is one way of describing an error that killed people for marching for their beliefs." Gina licks her lips and scowls. 

"Three people died there, but a fourth is in critical care at Sick Kids. They had to take him there because it was closer," Magda tells me, and we exchange a glance. We're both familiar with Sick Kids, as it's where we spent a lot of time in the weeks leading up to the referendum. "Shannon rang me and told me to tell you she's keeping an eye on him. She thought it might be the kind of thing you'd want to know."

I feel a warm glow at Shannon's thoughtfulness. Good nurse, and a good woman.

I'll need to get her a cake or a fruit basket when all this is over, which is a shite way to repay someone for the kind of help she's given me, but I could buy her a solid gold stethoscope and it would still fall short.

"What are you doing now?" I ask Gina.

"Hacking," she says.

"You can do that?" I don't know much about hacking anything, but what I understand is that it's a pretty broad term. "Hacking what?"

"Tasha taught me over the last year or so. And I'm hacking into the St Leonard's personnel files because I want to see if there any familiar names that could explain those bullets."

I look over at Magda, and she shrugs. "I would help, but I do not think anyone needs a new outfit."

I hear the bitterness in her voice and understand it all too well. I've got the brute strength and speed to be able to leap objects with single bounds and run circles round out of the way pubs, but this is exactly the kind of thing that makes me feel helpless. Gathering information.

It's unlikely that what happened today is unconnected with Britannia. But then, to me this week everything is connected with Britannia. I think of John Abbey and how much I'd like to see an entire squadron of riot police shoot at him with rubber bullets all at once. I don't think they'd be non-lethal then, and I would get a certain amount of satisfaction watching him get pummelled like a chunk of steak under a tenderiser. 

I sit down at the table next to them and content myself by eating as much pizza as I can. Which is a lot of pizza. I finish off the one they've opened as well as the untouched large pizza underneath it, which is covered in twice the amount of ham and pineapple any decent person ought to want. That ends up being the perfect amount for me.