Vermilion Widow, Issue #002

Issue #002 – – – – – controlled by Bill Treadwell – – – – – Credits 18

Back at HQ Cassandra was being given the full debrief.  It wasn’t too hostile, primarily because they simply didn’t have the first clue that she had basically stood there and watched her colleagues get killed.  They didn’t even seem to think such a thing was possible.

“So the Gangers had an Abnormal with them?” Sully, a grey-haired man with yellow teeth and a crooked nose asked her.
“Yes.  The black guy you picked up.  I shot him.”
“Damn, girl, you got lucky,” Sally Parsons told her, giving her a friendly pat on the shoulder.  “If he’d had some kinda immunity, or tough skin, or shit like that you’d have been the next crushed skull.  Am I right?”
“I suppose,” Cassandra said, dully.  She still felt so strange.  It was as if there were a script in her head telling her how she should feel; angry, scared, outraged, and a reality in her head that felt none of those things.  She felt sad that people had died, sure.  But she just couldn’t find sympathy for these cops with whom she had, apparently, worked for years.

“Did any of the gangers survive?”  Cassandra asked.
“The big dude is critical, but you didn’t kill him.  They’ve got him in high-security.  Docs don’t think he’ll make it though.”
“The others?”
“Other than the ones you said got away, they’re all dead.”
“Good,” Cassandra nodded, though more for appearances than with any conviction.  She knew she was supposed to hate those thugs, but what actually had they done?  Sat around a fire in an alleyway?  This was reason to attack them?  Sure, they’d responded with lethal force once her team had come at them, but she knew full well the Bullies had no intention of going in light themselves.  This was self-defence, to her mind.

“So what went down?  How’d it get so messy?  Did Thomson call it wrong?” Sully asked.  Cassandra remembered that sully was a District Sergeant, one of her direct superiors.  She’d dated him once, a few years ago, briefly.  But why?  He didn’t appeal to her at all.  She couldn’t imagine why she would have done that.
“Just didn’t expect such an effective Abnormal in a group of deadbeats like that,” she answered.
“Maybe a trap, then?” Sully asked.  “These terrorists luring cops in for the kill?  More of that?”
“Dunno,” Cassandra said, honestly.  “Maybe.”
“You survived though?” Sully said, his smile dropping and his eyes intent.  “How’s that?”  Suddenly, he looked predatory.  Dangerous.
“Got lucky in the shadows,” Cassandra told him.  “Came at them less obviously than the others.”
“You go, girl!” Sally Parsons cheered, handing her a steaming mug of java.
“The shadows?”  Sully looked doubtful.  “You ain’t no Ninja, Cass.  Surely they’d have been watching the shadows?”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” Cassandra replied, meeting his gaze directly.  “The best shadows to strike from are the ones nobody actually sees.”

After the debrief Cassandra made her way to the locker room to get changed and cleaned up.  She remained confused, her mind split between warring versions of what was, and what should be.  She wished she’d been able to question the gangers.  If only one had survived.  Of course, there was the big black guy.  She’d seen him fight. He was tough.  She didn’t share the doctors certainty that his injury would kill him.  Maybe there’d be an opportunity there?

Cassandra thought back to the immediate aftermath of the battle.  She’d snapped out of her daze long enough to do the important things.  She’d secured the crime scene.  She’d taken to the roofs to call in backup and check the area.  She’d kept her eyes peeled for fleeing gang members, but they had vanished like ghosts in the night.  Then, before backup had arrived with sirens blaring and lights flashing she’d taken some time to check the pockets of the fallen gangers.  There’d been little of interest but she had found a matchbook that rang a bell in her hazy memory.  “Viktors,” it said.

A bar of some kind. Located in The Port.

It sounded … familiar.