A Bad Day...by kenshiro
The dull hum of the engine began to lull him asleep as he sat in the wide
padded seat. A thin layer of fog was beginning to form on the window, making
it subtly more difficult to watch the vacant apartment building. He caught
himself nodding, rubbed his eyes, arched his back to stretch out, and
grabbed a handful of sunflower seeds from a bag on the seat. "My god is this
boring," he said aloud to no one.
He hit the wipers, which cleared the condensation from the window but left
streaks of their own behind, producing even more glare from the streetlights
than before. He grunted, resigned, and began nibbling the seeds, splitting
the thin shells between his teeth. He glanced down at the suspect
information on his patrol car's terminal and made sure for the two hundredth
time he'd got their faces down. A half -second told him he had. Now he just
had to wait for them to come out of the building, and make the arrest.
What seemed to be an eternity passed.
The radio hissed to life, the volume up purposely in case he'd nodded off.
He had the sinking feeling that he wasn't sure if he had or not. The radio
snapped him back to alertness.
"241 Adam, dispatch, 241 Adam."
He clicked the talk switch into the on position. "Dispatch, 241 Adam. Go
ahead." He hoped the grogginess wasn't too obvious in his voice.
"241 Adam, dispatch. 215 Adam requests relay she is 10-1 on foot and in
pursuit of suspects, and wishes you to confirm visual contact."
Shit, he'd nodded off. The translation: Your partner couldn't get you on the
radio and wants you to look out the window, jackass. He blinked twice to
clear his eyes. Sure enough, there was his partner, running down the
adjacent street about 250 yards away after two suspects, and by the looks of
it shouting frantically into the portable extender in her hand. The
apartment door was wide open, light spilling out of it. They had already
rounded the corner and were heading away from him.
A thought hit him. They suspects were big. Why hadn't he expected that from
the data in the file?
Another thought came. Why hadn't his partner contacted him before pursuing
the suspects? Maybe she had, he realized.
The suspects then his partner disappeared around the corner.
Yet another thought. Why the hell am I sitting here thinking about this?
"10-4, dispatch. I have visual, in pursuit."
Adrenaline began to pump through his veins, blurring dispatch's standardized
response as his instincts began to awaken. He hit the overhead strobes and
the siren, drawing a shrill ringing and oscillating yelp from the
loudspeakers. He put the hovercar into drive as blue flashes began
reflecting from the nearby buildings.
A momentary bump set off creaks from his chair and the dash-mounted
equipment as the car's engine built up the force to lift from the ground,
then transitioned smoothly into forward motion as he got ground clearance.
The force of acceleration pushed him back into the plush seat as the engine
began to race, the dashboard responding with climbing green bars in each of
the instruments. He put both hands on the control yoke, and started a
bootleg turn around the corner.
The suspects were indeed huge. Their file said they were ragers, of course
they were huge. His muscular partner was a rager, too, but she was even
small by comparison. No, these guys were big. He instinctively radioed for
some backup as the group got brighter and brighter in his headlights. His
heart was thumping now. Why didn't she make sure she she'd gotten through to
him before chasing after these guys? That was just bad tactics.
So was falling asleep, he realized.
Suddenly he noticed a glimpse of fire in his rearview. It was his partner's
patrol vehicle, burning like a bonfire. Holy shit. His mind began searching
for the sequence of events that could connect that picture with the one in
front of his car. His partner began yelling something and waving her arms at
him, slowing slightly behind the suspects, who were moving damn quick. The
message wasn't clear - did she want him to pick her up? He was planning to
cut them off with the hovercar and take them down at gunpoint. It seemed
urgent.
The context became clear as one of the suspects turned a shoulder, and he
registered the rocket launcher there. His partner was waving him off. The
suspect had been reloading.
Fuck.
A small flash, nothing like the movies. He swerved.
The next two seconds made little sense in his mind. There was a thump under
the back of his car, which occurred to him as maybe running over a dog, but
that didn't quite fit. He saw a blur in the headlights, caught buildings at
odd angles. His arms flew up. Why couldn't he control them? The car shook
with turbulence, odd. A wall appeared, much too bright for his position, he
thought. There was a massive and sickening crunch. Something hit his face
and sides that felt like a weak slap. The engine stopped.
Seconds passed. Silvery fabric was draped across his lap. He reached for the
control yoke, and found he couldn't see out the window. That was strange.
The terminal was out. He fumbled with the wire, smacked the top of it.
Nothing happened. He looked on the seat for the pad he used for his log
notes. Have to write that down. Not there. The pad was on the floor. The
floor was covered with glass bits. He looked up again, and noticed the rear
view mirror was missing. The mount was still there, but no mirror.
The whole compartment was wrong. The angles were wrong. Why can't I see out
the window?, he thought. Strange, the glass was spidered. A concrete pole
stuck through it. There was a street light in the back seat connected to the
pole. The passenger side was too short. The ceiling was caved in there.
Fuck, I crashed a patrol vehicle, he thought. He checked himself for pain.
No pain. Good. Radio dispatch.
He fumbled for the radio, reaching habitually for where it normally was. His
hand bumped against the pole. He looked into the back seat. The vehicle was
on fire.
He grabbed for the door handle, only to find a piece of silvery fabric
draped across it as well. A pungent smell that reminded him of gunpowder,
but not quite, drifted through the air. Airbags. He ripped the fabric with
surprising ease. The door opened with a hideous metal screech. He was almost
sure he'd not opened it yet.
He unsnapped the restraint belt. He felt himself pulled sideways by gravity,
and he reached for the side of the seat to steady himself. He looked out the
door. He saw feet there, and pavement. A small amount of vertigo made his
stomach unsettle. He went to step out of the car, and nearly fell forward
head first, saved by a quick grab to the control yoke.
The door creaked and screeched again, and opened wider. Sunflower seeds
spilled to the ground. They fell at least five feet. That wasn't right. Was
it? He looked at the passenger window. Through a hole in the broken glass,
he saw the top of a building. The car was listed sideways more than
forty-five degrees. Shock stirred in his chest.
The face of his partner appeared, looking up at him. She was crouching down,
but not far. "Dave!," she shouted urgently. She looked concerned, almost
frightened. He'd never seen that look before. Oh yeah, he was in a car
crash. Made sense.
"Dave!" she repeated, "Are you alright?"
He considered it. Seemed so. Something trickled down his arm, tickling the
hairs on his skin. Water? No, too dark. Hrm. Blood.
"I think so," he said. He didn't hurt. He looked at the slow trickle on his
arm. "My arm's bleeding."
"Let's get you out of there," she said. "Your car is on fire!"
He suddenly felt heat on the back of his neck. It began growing very hot. He
nodded.
She reached up and grabbed his shoulder and his knees, the grip
uncomfortably tight. He felt the fabric of his uniform stretch and pull
painfully against his skin. She pulled him out of the car like a doll,
sliding him across the fabric of the seat and into the chill night air. She
threw him over her shoulders and ran across the street, the air cooling more
and more the further they got from the car. He felt the movement of air
across his cheeks intensely, heard her panting under the strain, was
conscious of the brightness of the street lights against the orange-black
sky, of the sounds of traffic and the noise of the city. She laid him down
on the pavement. It was warm, and the solidness of it calmed him. He could
see his breath in the air.
"Did you get them?" he asked, the impression of the pursuit re-entering his
mind as his partner knelt beside him.
"No," she said. "But there's more units coming. Just sit still. Don't worry
about the chase. You've been in a crash."
He nodded. They shot his patrol car. He wanted to get them. But he realized
his body had begun to ache, and stayed still.
He rolled his head to the side, the pavement warm against his cheek. He saw
the fire he'd just been pulled from, the crushed metal of the vehicle
resting at a crazy angle atop a metal cargo container on a loading dock
there, a street light pole stuck into it like a lollipop. It didn't even
look like a patrol car, except for the section near the driver's door.
Pieces of it were all over the street.
He felt a tugging at his stomach, heard the sound of tearing fabric, and
turned to see his partner putting a strip of his uniform top around his arm.
He looked up at her.
"I guess we'll get 'em next time," he said.
"Just be glad there might be a next time," his partner said. "Just take it
easy."
He nodded. "I'm getting too old for this shit."
She grinned. "Maybe. But I know for a fact we can chalk this one up as a
bad day."
