(aka Bike) Part 1007 by Angharad Copyright © 2010 Angharad
All Rights Reserved. |
I suppose I had five or ten minutes to work on the girl before reinforcements arrived to see what happened. I managed to stop the bleeding and one of the bullets had worked its way to the surface and I was able to remove it.
I was so engaged in what I was doing, I didn’t realise that I was being observed. Pushing the energy into the woman and talking to her I was completely absorbed in my task. Another bullet rose to the surface and I removed it, I reckoned there was a third and it felt to be deep inside her close to her heart, having penetrated a lung on its way. I drove the energy deep into her body, and felt myself forming like a sling of it to draw the bullet out.
My sling was very fragile and her organs felt stuck together with glue. Sweat was rolling down my back as I pulled and pulled on the bullet and simultaneously plugged the hole with light to heal it. I had to work fast, the girl’s heart had stopped and she wasn’t breathing.
Finally the last bullet came to the surface and I laid her flat and began CPR, breathing the light into her lungs and pushing it into her heart as I practiced my ministrations. She coughed and gurgled and began breathing for herself, and I turned her on her side, so she could cough up whatever muck was in her throat.
I had just done this when there was a cough behind me, and I spun round to see two swat officers standing watching me.
“Did you just do what we think we saw you do?” asked the taller of the two.
“That depends upon what you think you saw me do.”
“You pulled the bullets out of her and started her heart again, somehow stopping the bleeding at the same time.”
“Yeah, there was this blue light all around you,” said the second.
“What if I denied what you assert you saw?”
“How did ya do it?”
“Who said I did it?”
“There are three damaged slugs there, they’ve obviously hit something.”
“Maybe they hit the wall.”
“C’mon, lady, they didn’t I saw them come out of her body–I’m pretty sure I put at least one of them there.”
“You realise if you say what you saw, then you’ll destroy my life and that of my children?”
“Why?”
“Because I’ll be pursued by the press and followed by loads of people who think I can help them. I can’t help them all–I don’t have the time or the power, plus I’d like some time to myself and my family.”
“So why did you waste your power on scum like her?”
“I have problems with people dying for nothing,” I opined firmly.
“Yeah, but why don’t you save your energy for the good guys?”
“I’ve used it once for your inspector.”
“Yeah, but he’s still down, I saw the paramedic with him.”
“I think that might be because he’s trying to find the wound, which should have healed by now.”
The woman stirred and two guns were cocked and pointed at her. She sat up and stared at me then at the two police holding guns aimed at her. “Why you save, Anna?”
I shrugged my shoulders, “Perhaps I think enough bloodshed has occurred.”
She gave me a look which suggested she didn’t understand.
“I want the killing to stop.”
She nodded.
“Where is my husband, Simon Cameron?”
“I don’t know.”
“I don’t believe you.” I didn’t, I was convinced that she knew. Every sinew in my body was telling me that she knew.
“Is truth, I don’t know.”
“Do you know who I mean?”
“Sure, man we take from car.”
“Yes that one. Is he still alive?”
She shrugged and said, “I don’t know, mebbe he is, mebbe not, Anna not know.”
“One of your group told me he was being held here, would he lie?”
“Depends how you ask him.”
“I threatened to kill him.”
“And he talked–typical man.”
I picked up the machine pistol and fired it about a foot from her. She didn’t bat an eyelid–one tough cookie. I fired again and a splinter of wood hit her wrist, which caused her squeak and rub the injured arm.
“What’s going on up there?” called a disembodied voice on the radio.
“It’s okay, sir, gun malfunction.”
“See it doesn’t happen again, people could get killed by stray rounds.”
“Very good, sir, we will.” The young copper fibbed to avoid embarrassing me.
“I’d tell her if I were you, Anna, she might not miss next time and she might not revive you next time.”
“I can’t, the energy only works once.”
“So if I was to shoot her now–she’d stay dead?” asked the taller copper.
“I’m afraid so.”
“Good thing too, bloody terrorists.”
“Anna not terrorist, Anna fighting to overthrow capitalist system before it destroy my country.”
“So why don’t you work in your own country and leave us alone?”The tall policeman voiced a not unreasonable question, which might have been rhetorical.
“Simon Cameron, he big investor in corrupt business and government.”
“So why not expose him–show the world what he’s doing and set him free for the legal system to charge him as appropriate.”
“He own legal system, buy best lawyers and judges–forgone conclusion–Anna say, kill him.”
“This woman has just saved your life you ungrateful bitch.”
“I not ask to be saved.”
“Just as well then, innit?”
“I don’t care–you kill me, see if I care.”
“I just took three bullets out of you–you might not care, but I bloody well do. I’m not saving you so you can end your stupid life because you pissed off some copper with a hair trigger.”
“Anna not ask you help.”
“You want me to put the bullets back into you?”
“You do with Anna as you want, I never talk.”
“I admire your stubbornness, but unfortunately, I need to find my husband and that means I don’t play by the rules anymore than I have to. I put the life back into you, I can draw it out just as easily.” It wasn’t true, but she didn’t know that.
I stepped towards her and she rose and struggled to avoid me, falling backwards in the process, nearly down through the hole in the floor. Then she thought about diving from the hole in the rotten flooring, I saw it in her eyes a second before she went, and I grabbed her while she struggled to get through the hole.
The two coppers came and pulled her back, then as they were walking away, one fell through the rotten floor and shot the other one as his gun went off. She saw her chance and pushed me over hitting the wounded copper as she went. He was bleeding quite badly and I had to make a choice–try and save him or apprehend the Russian woman and try and find where Simon was.
It wasn’t a choice, it was a dilemma.