Unforeseen Dives – 6 – Bits

<< 5 – Worries

Dressed up, I walked in the room. The psycho’s ward “one-size fits all” tunic and pants wobbled in the most unflattering manner. I felt humiliated.
Agent Grey gave me a smug smile. I couldn’t grace him with the defeated look he expected. I flashed my “sunshiny vacations” smile and nodded to him as I would a long-lost friend. His face changed. He thought I was a crazy. I blamed it on the outfit. Every thing was fine. I clenched my teeth and braced myself for the evening.
In the middle of the room, Rebecca worked a little roughly on my chair. She didn’t even acknowledge my presence. The stiffness of her movement screamed “barely controlled anger: do not mess with me or I’ll turn you into a punching bag”. What had they done now?
As if called for, Aaron walked up to me, leaving a glowering Daniel behind. I read in the liaison’s resolve he had explanations for me. I wouldn’t like it. Nothing here was standard procedure.
“How is the woman who will save the day?” Way to help with the pressure, Aaron. I kept myself from interrupting his blabber about tonight’s procedure. A doctor plugged me in to track my vital signs and pull me out if I got too stressed.
Rebecca was right to be pissed: that was her job. They couldn’t do it right even if they tried and they wouldn’t try. Even I thought I was expendable if it meant saving hundreds of innocent people.
They stuck a catheter in my arm to feed and hydrate me. Apparently, it was also prep work for tranquilizers.
“Only if it becomes necessary, of course.” Aaron concluded. So that’s why Daniel was pissed. They disrespected two of his agents and the office backing them. They saw me as a time bomb as dangerous as the one I was helping them find and treated my partner like a dimwit who would allow me to explode. Sweet.
I knew it was the first major crime we’d had a chance to stop in three years of operation. I understood they didn’t want to mess it up. I didn’t want that either! Nevertheless, this was not a decent way to treat the ones who found the threat in the first place.
I sighed and forced my frustrated muscles to unwind. I had volunteered to continue the investigation and I wasn’t turning back now. No one else could do it.
“You’ve got to admire their trust,” Rebecca growled as she caught my hand. I smiled to her and closed my eyes. The nourishing solution would help me through the night. I was thankful for it. They wanted to waste money? Not my problem. No matter the sickening circus, I could do my job and no one would scare me into thinking otherwise. Their doubts actually helped me quash mine. 

I sifted through the facts, digging in the criminal’s mind. I came up with the color of her apartment’s walls, the floor she lived on and a bunch of other details. The bits and pieces weren’t nearly enough. She carefully avoided mirrors except for a few meaningless slips. No family, work or friends which made it impossible to get a clear picture of her face through someone else’s mind.
She had applied for a job in one of the offices around Times Square. She failed to nail it because of her cheap clothes. It drove her mad. She saw herself as an underdog: talented and brilliant but without the appeal of the tailor-made suit.
She didn’t have the money. She never had it. Her brother died in prison and she had worked her ass off to stay out of that kind of life. Despite years of hard work, none of the upper class employers would give her a chance because she didn’t look the part – which she couldn’t look unless she got a job. Worst, they insulted her. One of them offered to hire her in exchange for sexual favours. It sent her over the edge.
I had the whole psychological profile but no face. We didn’t need to figure out her next move; we needed to find her. 

Rebecca’s anger messed up with my radars. I applied the brakes on my dive. What the hell was going on out there?
“They’re grilling me. As if I’d pull an address out of my ass. Daniel’s blowing fuses. I’m polluting your work space. It’s wrong. If I didn’t hold your hand, I’d strangle a few of them. Hell, I might try it anyway. This isn’t how I work.”
Letting it all out calmed her a bit. She reigned in the rest of her broadcast to clear my path. There was only one of those left.
The criminal doesn’t blow up. She washes herself after the blast. She takes off a shirt sprinkled with debris to step in the shower.
I sorted through the victims’ brainwaves, searching for the survivors. Each and every one of them burnt their suffering on my soul. Breathing became a chore as my chest slowly crushed under the pain.
She stands close to them tomorrow. If only she acts weird enough for one of them to fear her. Just one. Just enough to leave an imprint of her face for me to find. My heart deflated, flattened, rolled over and broiled to a crisp. Rebecca coped with me, but she couldn’t help it all.
The criminal was somewhere in there. She had to be. I needed a clue. I wasn’t scarring myself for nothing. I fed on her anger, on her coldness, to shield myself and dived further in the death wave. And then I found him.
His name is Ron. He knows what he is looking at. The red numbers counting down tell him there’s not enough time to escape. He calls 911 on his security guard’s cell phone. The operator asks him to stay on the line until the bomb squad arrives. There’s not enough time. He reaches for his personal cell phone to speed dial his wife. The machine picks up. The bomb explodes.
I thought I had shielded myself. I had lied. I shattered again. Where Becky had been to keep me whole the last time, I met void.
I knew I was expendable.

7 – Investigations >>