The room changed. These weren’t Shankari’s hostages. These were his… his… accomplices? And these kids. Barb looked around. They weren’t running out of the room. They were cowering. They were afraid. They were cowering away from her. And towards Shankari. Over Abigail’s shoulder Barb could see one of the kids had his arms wrapped around the red haloed terrorist, even as Shankari had his arms pointed at the sky.

ARMED EXTREMELY DANGEROUS continued to blink over Shankari.

It was surreal.

DEADLY FORCE AUTHORIZED just above the head of the boy who had his arms wrapped around Shankari.

She was here and somewhere else. This was all so far away.

“No. Oh no.”

“Unit 148, please repeat.”

Barb’s mouth hung open. No no no.

“148,” Dispatch’s voice was sharper this time. “What’s your status?”

Barb looked into Abigail’s eyes. The woman pulled her finger away from her lips, and mouthed a single word at her. “Please.”

Barb took a deep breath.

“Status nominal, command. False alarm. Please disregard. 148 out.”

Silence for a moment.

Then a slightly annoyed. “Roger, 148.”

Her thumb found the safety, and somehow it was on. The barrel of the pistol dropped of its own accord, away from Abigail’s chest.

Then her left hand came up, found her tactical glasses. And somehow they were off her face, the earpiece was out of her ears.

It was all someone else doing this. Not her.

Barb stared at Abigail. “The videos?”

Abigail looked her in the eyes. Levi came up, put his arms around his wife.

“I only know about the kids. And him.” She gestured at Shankari. The terrorist. And then she nodded. “Those parts are true.”

Barb swallowed hard. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Oh, Barb,” Abigail said, reaching out to put a hand on her friend’s shoulder. “I’m so sorry. We did our best to tell the whole world.”

Later, in a daze, Barb walked out of the church, her gun in its holster, her patrol glasses dangling from one hand.

She walked around the truck and to her waiting squad car. There, at the rear of the car, she crouched, as if in a dream, and carefully placed her patrol glasses behind the driver’s side tire of the cruiser.

Then she let herself into the driver’s seat, rolled down the window, and backed over the glasses, then forward, then back, until she was sure they were destroyed. Then she got out, and scooped up the pieces, to drop them in a storm drain somewhere with fast running water, to render the data on them, the video and audio that hadn’t been transmitted, beyond retrieval.

Then Barb called back in to dispatch.

“Command, car 148. Resuming patrol sweep for Shankari.”

19
Rude Awakening

Monday 2040.11.05