Part Nine

"I remember when some important people were wondering if I would ever be able to adult," said Vic, wistfully, as she and Michelle cleaned their dishes after a nice supper in their own dining room, that evening. "These days I sometimes feel like I'm the only adult in the room."

"I know what you mean. People - customers and even people I work with - just seem not only short-tempered these days but... irrational!"

"There's definitely something in the air," said Vic, shaking her head. "Maybe it's the swords. Maybe it's the heat. Maybe it's the fact that the weather keeps threatening to storm, then doesn't. Maybe it's politicians overreacting to people demanding that they do their jobs and do them right, causing a positive feedback loop. It's out there, and unfortunately I'm one of the people dealing with it."

"Well, you just be careful," said Michelle, putting a hand on her wife's arm. "Wear that liner for your armor under your regular clothes when you're not wearing the armor. I know it's hot, but it'll at least give you some protection."

"I'm more worried about you," said Vic, quietly. "You don't have any armor."

"Yes, dear, but I'm not the one fighting crime," said Michelle, with a sweet smile. "Oh, don't look so worried. I am being careful and will continue being careful."

"From what I've heard you say, some of your customers aren't all that stable."

"Oh, they're plenty stable," said Michelle, airily. "They're just stable in a position somewhere in an idealized past which never existed. Which is why they know everything is wrong, these days, including history."

"I just can't get over the feeling that all this stuff is going down due to some sort of outside influence," said Vic, scowling as she dried her hands. "There's an odd sort of... tension in the air which seems to be aggravating things."

"As my granddad used to say," said Michelle, smirking as she finished loading the dishwasher, "blame it on the blue tailed fly."

"Now I want to play that song," said Vic, grinning. "Where's Smokey?"

* * *

"The good news is," said Blue Impact, as Tricorne gathered in the lounge area of their headquarters that same evening, "the police chief of Detroit hasn't pursued his attack on you. The bad new is, he has continued the activities which were already causing trouble there between the police and the citizens. Including all the things you called him on."

"He apparently couldn't hear what I said over the sound of my ovaries," said Energia, sourly. She gave her head a vigorous shake. "I just wish it would go ahead and storm. I can feel it trying, but it just doesn't happen. It's like when you feel a sneeze coming on but don't sneeze."

"Well, something's got to break soon," said Gadgetive, actually looking over at them from where she sat on the edge of the couch, channel surfing. "In Detroit with the political situation and here with the weather. All the social indicators - which the mayor and police chief in Detroit are denying even exist - are that several factors are approaching critical. If they don't get some relief soon in at least one area of concern..."

"Yeah," said Energia, nodding slowly.

* * *

The black SUV finally struck again, and again at night. It pulled up to face an empty storefront downtown - a place closed for renovation - and turned on its over-cab light bar. The beams from this were so bright they quickly started a fire inside. The painters' dropcloths caught almost immediately, and those flames began to spread.

The SUV sped off as fire alarms sounded and sprinklers came on. However, concerned citizens - read: paranoid people certain they were the next target - were already calling 911 even before the SUV stopped. The calls were taken seriously, of course, even though most calls reporting the "super van" turned out to be about unrelated vehicles; all calls to 911 had to be responded to. However, when the fire alarms went off in the attacked business the police dispatcher immediately bumped up the priority assigned to those super SUV reports from that area. Additionally, a call was placed to the local office for the Bureau of Special Resources. This call was automatically forwarded to Vic.

Who was half-expecting the call. Vic had been feeling uneasy all day, thinking that there had to be news soon, of Dare or the black SUV. When the call finally came and turned out to be for the latter, she was actually a bit relieved.

In full armor, held securely in the driver's seat by her harness, with lights and siren going, Vic tore through the late evening city streets in her souped-up Corolla wagon. The police dispatcher knew she was on the way and alerted patrol cars along her path, greatly helping her progress.

A report came over the main police band that officers were in pursuit of the black SUV. Vic modified her course to intercept. Then came the report of a multi-vehicle TA, police cars involved. Vic came on the traffic accident scene while the officers were still staggering out of their patrol cars. They seemed to be having trouble standing and walking, as if the pavement were unusually slick. Vic could see that a large strip seemed to have some sort of oily sheen. Vic parked her Corolla nearby and got out to help the officers. The pavement was, indeed, slick. Fortunately, only police cars were involved in the actual accident, though traffic was stopped on the broad, one-way street. Of the black SUV there was no sign.

"Anybody hurt?" Vic asked, loudly.

The answer was largely negative. She still gave the dazed officers a quick check. What injuries there were, fortunately were limited to bumps, bruises and being severely shaken and maybe a little stirred. Since there were multiple signs that some of the vehicles had spun out - and at least one had made several rotations on its roof - this was understandable. From what she could see of the vehicle damage, the conditions of the officers involved were better than Vic expected. She already knew some of the police officers there, and the others quickly introduced themselves. There were wreckers and ambulances and even a street sweeper on the way, the latter to clean the pavement.

"They oiled us!" said one of the cops. "Just... watch your step."

"Yeah, I saw the oil on the pavement," said Vic, nodding. "Real spy movie stuff."

"Looks like we lost 'em," said Officer Medura, a tall, stacked redhead who seemed to have a bit of a crush on Vic. Fortunately, she knew when to be all business, such as now.

Vic walked back to her wagon, not slipping at all on the oily pavement. She might have been showing off a bit. She was planning to get out her medical kit after checking the police scanner, but before she could get to her car:

"Look!" shouted a bystander, pointing. "There they go!"

There, indeed, was the target vehicle. They weren't in a hurry, either. The big SUV trundled calmly through the next intersection on the cross street. The windows on the right side were down just enough for the front and rear passengers to each stick an arm out and flip off the wrecked police.

"I'm on this!" yelled, Vic, running towards her car.

"Medura! Murphy! Muravachick!" yelled Treals, the senior officer on scene. "Go with her! I'll take care of this mess!"

Vic was actually glad for the company. She waited for the trio to get in; fortunately without any argument over who went where.

"Fasten your seat belts," said Vic, as she shifted into reverse to back clear of the accident scene, deftly maneuvering around the stopped civilian cars. "We're expecting turbulence."

Once in the intersection behind them, she shifted into first and cut hard right. The small wagon lunged ahead, the tires slipping just a bit as the small amount of oil on them quickly wore off.

* * *

"What's the plan?" said Vic, as they took a hard left at an insane speed onto a parallel street to the one where the accident had occurred. This was quickly followed by a hard right, putting them onto the cross street about half a block behind the suspect vehicle. The tires seemed to be oil free, now; there was not the least bit of slip. They could see the truck ahead, still trundling lazily along.

"You pull alongside on their left," said Muravachick. "Medura and I point our guns at the driver and order them to pull over. If they don't, we shoot out their tires!"

"Sounds workable," said Vic, hitting the gas. The wagon's headlights soon gave them a better view of the vehicle ahead than the orange street lights had. "Y'know, now that we're closer, that thing's not actually black. It's Navy."

"Still looks black to me," said Medura.

Unfortunately, while the Corolla's siren was off the flashing, colored lights were still on. Vic actually saw the driver of the SUV do a legitimate triple-take as he looked in his side mirror. He stared for a moment, eyes wide. Then he hit the gas, himself.

"Catch them!" shouted Muravachick.

"This is a rally car, not a muscle car," shouted Vic, as they followed the SUV through a turn at a speed the three police officers obviously thought was suicidal. "That thing must have at least 500 horsepower! We're cutting them off in the turns, but if there's light traffic on a straightaway they can lose us, easy!"

Traffic was light. However, the driver of the SUV kept making turns, even after pulling away while going straight for a bit. He didn't seem to learn from that.

"Can we hope that they're total amateurs at car chases?" said Officer Medura, holding the arm rest with both hands, in spite of the four-point harness.

"Looks more like they learned escape driving watching bad TV shows," said Officer Murphy.

"Whoah!" said Officer Muravachick, alarmed as the SUV heeled well over in a hard turn. "We better figure out a way to stop them before they kill someone."

"Yeah," said Medura. "Especially since they'll probably get out without a scratch while killing an innocent bystander!"

"Shooting out their tires at this speed is too dangerous," said Vic. "I've already backed well off, but they're still running. It's been called in. Should I break off pursuit?"

"Wait until we get confirmation from Air Five that they have it," said Murphy.

The police helicopter crew did, indeed, "have it." Vic slowed and pretended to lose the SUV. The helicopter then followed the vehicle's roundabout course all the way back to a supposedly abandoned house in a mostly empty neighborhood.

"We've got them," said Muravachick, in quiet triumph, as the wagon pulled to a stop a safe distance from where the SUV had gone to ground.

* * *

As police vehicles began arriving at the location Vic became increasingly confused. She expected the operation against the headquarters of the black - well, Navy - SUV to be a multi-agency operation. While there were over fifty law enforcement officers involved by the time they actually started the planning phase, she was the only one there who wasn't with the local police. In fact, Vic had the distinct feeling that she was only allowed to stay there because no-one had thought to tell her to leave. Though at one point she was told to move her car. Vic was directed to park behind a barricade of patrol cars. She, Medura and Murphy then stood beside Monstro, waiting, while Officer Muravachick went to see if they had any orders.

"Good thing it's a quiet night, crime wise," said Medura, in an irritated mutter, when she realized the size of the force gathered in the mostly empty neighborhood. Including two SWAT teams. All hopefully out of sight - and sound - of the supposedly abandoned home where the SUV had finally stopped. Given how overgrown the yards here were, such discretion wasn't difficult. There were even small trees growing wild on what had been lawns.

"They woke people from the city real estate office downtown and made them go in and look up that house," said Muravachick, as he came back from speaking with the person in charge of the operation. "Place is officially bank property and long empty, like most of the houses around here."

Several unmarked cars drove by the home as casually as they could. Which was not very casually, given that there was no other traffic in this area at this late hour. However, the scouts reported no lights on and no sign anyone in the house was actually keeping watch. Several individuals were summoned to hear the report of the reconnoiter mission, one of them Muravachick. Vic and the other two officers who had ridden with her tagged along. No-one objected, or even seemed to notice.

"They probably think they're home and safe," said Lieutenant Carpenter, who was in charge of the operation. "We have every street around them blocked. At my command SWAT will move in."

"That thing has off-road capability," someone pointed out, beating Vic in making that point.

"Doesn't matter. We have them surrounded. We will capture them."

Vic wasn't so sure.