|
There was no new case that Reyes knew about, but it was Lau’s
call—or, in this case, Lau’s call that Hafidha’s instincts were correct. The team assembled
in the briefing room, one by one. When Daphne came in, most of the others were already
there: Reyes at the whiteboard end of the table, with the view of the door; Lau next to
him with a surprisingly skinny collection of case documents for them; Hafidha already set
up with her laptop. Brady was hard on Daphne’s heels; and, as she glanced at him, she could
see that he knew no more than she did. Falkner had already called to say she was stuck in traffic.
Chaz came in, bearing two boxes of mixed doughnuts. To her surprise, Daphne managed to
snag a cruller before they vanished.
“So what have we got?” Brady asked.
“This is down to Hafidha,” said Reyes, as Todd came in.
“It’s that school shooting,” Lau said.
“The one in Massachusetts?” Daphne asked. It had been all over the news. “There didn’t
seem to be anything odd about it.”
“With that sort of trauma, I can see trouble turning up in the future,” said Todd,
thoughtfully. “But I don’t see the connection now.”
“‘School shooter’,” Brady pointed out. “They used a gun. What’s it
got to do with us? Why was it flagged?”
“Who brought it to our attention?,” Daphne asked. “The local office?”
“No,” Reyes repeated, patiently. “This is down to Hafidha.”
|
She had been reasonably popular at her old school; but it made no difference when her
parents decided to move. She arrived in the middle of the school year. Friends had already
bonded and cliques were tight: she was new and outside the pack; and they decided to make
her a target. She never understood why. Lunch in the cafeteria was miserable; but at least
there were teachers on patrol. Going to the girls’ room was intermittently and unpredictably
humiliating. Her father dropped her off just before the bell rang on his way to work in
the morning; but she ran the gauntlet of the school yard each afternoon before she could
escape and walk home. There was no point in telling a teacher: what could they do that
wouldn’t make things worse?
Her appetite disappeared and her marks dropped. Her parents’ anxious questions were simply
yet another torment.
One day, she swallowed the entire contents of a bottle of aspirin and her mother’s sleeping
pills. That, of course, turned out to be the day her father came home from work early. So she
woke in the hospital with a sore throat and the bitter knowledge that she faced yet more
questions, this time from the doctors as well as her parents. To make matters worse, none
of it would get her off school.
Oddly enough, though, she found when she went back that it was somewhat easier. When Hannah
and her gang cornered her in the bathroom, and—as always—she wished so desperately that she
wasn’t there, for some reason they decided to leave her alone. Of course, she wasn’t prepared
for history class; but the teacher picked on someone else whose hand was down. And that day,
for once, she walked out of school unmolested, and got home without tears.
After a few weeks, she began to relax. Her appetite returned, in spades; and her marks went
up. Her parents were pleased. To her great relief, trouble avoided her for the rest of the year.
It never occurred to her to ask why.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Hafidha had been watching the news on television when the colours alerted her: this story
is different; this story is significant. She checked on line, and went in early. In her
sanctum she tracked down all she could find. It wasn’t much. The police were still trying
to identify the mystery woman, trying to figure out how she had got into the school, trying
to fathom motive.
There was a pattern here that was all too familiar to those in the Anomalous Crimes Task
Force. The only thing that was strange was the fact that, try as she might, she could find
no previous reports leading up to it all. They seemed, for once, to have come in at the
beginning. Which was nice.
|
Her freshman year at college, she walked home from the library late one night, with her
pack full of books because she had a paper due. Her mind was anywhere but on her route. When
three young men in hoodies and jeans stepped in her path, for a moment she did not even
guess that she was being mugged. It was only when the lead one flicked his knife in her
face that she grasped the situation. Only then was she scared.
She fished in her pocket for her wallet—hoping that was all they wanted, knowing from
their leers that she’d be lucky if it were.
And then their eyes lost their focus, and they looked past her shoulder as if she weren’t
even there. She froze. She wondered. And then, very quietly, she slipped her hand out of
her pocket and took a step, and then a step. And then she ran.
When she got back to the dorm, she locked herself in her room and curled on her bed until
the shivering had stopped. All night she curled awake on the bed, trying to answer the
questions she had never thought to ask before. For sure, the home boys would never just
let her go, she knew that. They’d certainly never let her wallet go! It was as though,
suddenly, she’d turned invisible to them.
It was … as though she had suddenly turned invisible. But that was, of course, impossible.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Clearly, not all of them needed to take the plane north. Reyes wanted to go; and Daphne
suspected that his true motive was the hope that the gamma could be taken alive and sent to Idlewood.
They were met on landing by a puzzled agent from the Field Office, who could not understand
the Unit’s interest in the case and could not be told. They did, however, learn that the
mystery woman’s name was now known to be Alison Bradley.
“We need everything you can find on her,” Reyes told the agent; but the truly significant
information probably was not in an FBI file. Chaz went on line, searching “Alison Bradley”. It
was a common enough name. They needed to know the weakness that had allowed the Anomaly to gain a foothold.
And what, of course, was her manifestation. She might be as easy to take down as it seemed; but
no gamma was harmless, and no gamma was helpless.
|
That summer she returned home, to her old friends and her parents, and a summer job. Hardly
believing it could be true, she tested her strange new power. At first, it only worked when
she was scared, or worried, or bored; but, as she tried, she found her focus.
In the bathroom at the restaurant, she was tempted suddenly to return to the table invisibly
in order to hear what her friends said about her in her absence. She flushed, and washed her
hands. There are things you don’t do, not with decent parents who raised you right; so the
impulse passed. She’d forgotten it by the time she joined the others for dessert. She had two
fudge sundaes, yet she never put on a pound: her friends were flat out jealous.
In the dime store, she was tempted suddenly to pocket a lipstick: after all, no one would
see her, if she chose: she could walk out past security and never stop at the cash
register. Then, she was shocked at herself just for having the thought, and left the store
quickly lest it return.
She returned to college in the fall; she graduated; she got a job. Her little talent was
only a trick, after all: it had its uses; it had its temptations—but that’s human nature.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
“There’s an Alison Bradley living at the same address who attempted suicide seven years
ago,” Chaz reported. “She was a teenager at the time.”
“Severe mental stress, that fits,” said Brady. “What brought it on?”
Medical records required more finesse, and a call to Hafidha. Back in Washington, DC, she
hacked the hospital data system and coaxed her way easily through its protective net; but
all computer skills were blocked by the impenetrable firewall of adolescent silence. Alison
had taken the mandatory counselling; but she had given little up.
|
When the recession came, she was laid off. Last hired, first fired; and all that. After a
couple of months, she gave up her apartment and returned to stay with her parents while
she looked for work. She attended interviews assiduously, but no offers came; to pass the
time, she helped her mother in the house and took long walks around the neighbourhood. The
route varied, but she often passed the school; and, in the car park, once, she saw her old
history teacher—quite recognizable still, even after this time, though rather grey.
There was a boy she noticed, a rather small and badly dressed boy, who slipped out of the
gate with a furtive rush and a backward glance. The next day she walked past, she saw him
again. They walked the same way; and, half a block away, he took out a Kleenex, wiped his
eyes, and blew his nose. She followed him without his noticing: the tears had welled up
again before he reached the crosswalk, and there were bruises on his arm.
The next day, she walked freely into the yard as the bell rang; and no one challenged her
right to go in, for no one saw her. The leader of the gang who bullied the boy found himself
mysteriously kicked in the seat of his pants. He looked around fiercely as he picked himself
up; but no one admitted to doing or seeing anything. His victim had bolted, anyway, by then.
She felt a deep thrill when the bully went down. It warmed her all the way to her latest
job interview. Not that she got the job.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Daphne went with Lau to interview the parents. They were shocked and useless, more worried
by the fact their daughter was in the hospital than by the appearance of two FBI agents on
their doorstep. It was clear that, to them, Alison could only have been caught up peripherally
in their investigation; at most, she might have evidence to give them. The thought that she
might truly be a suspect had never occurred to them. Too much had been withheld; and what
they’d heard, they’d disbelieved. The thought that Alison might be a gamma had not, naturally
enough, crossed their minds.
“No,” said Mrs. Bradley wonderingly, when Daphne asked, “she hasn’t been acting oddly
lately. Why would she?”
Why, indeed.
“I did wonder whether she might be a bit depressed,” Mr. Bradley added. “She’s been trying to
find a job, you know; but I think she’s almost given up.”
|
She’d never read comics, and superhero movies weren’t her thing; so she had never heard
the phrase, “with great powers come great responsibilities”; but, if she had, she would
have agreed. There were more important things in this world than landing a third-rate job. So,
without telling either of her parents, she simply stopped going to the job centre and spent
her time instead on patrol. (Well, she didn’t call it “on patrol”, but any
comics’ fan would have. Or a cop.)
She haunted the shopping centre looking for shoplifters, and trolled the park hunting
perverts. She knew there was no point in trying to catch them: she could hardly turn them
over to the police. How could she give evidence in court? Who would believe her? She had no
intention of demonstrating her abilities in front of others.
Instead, she strove for ingenuity. Stolen goods lifted themselves back out of pockets onto
shelves. (A store clerk caught sight of them in mid-air once; but couldn’t believe her
eyes.) Concealing bushes swished suddenly aside. (She tripped a man once, just before he
stepped out and opened his coat.) Perhaps the crime rate in the neighbourhood went down: she
liked to think so.
Each crime she foiled brought that same deep thrill. It was never greater, though, then
when the store detective handcuffed a shoplifter after three necklaces, a scarf, and a pair
of shoes spilled mysteriously out of her coat onto the sidewalk right outside the store that
she had robbed. That time was best.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
“I’ve checked her back to birth,” Chaz grumbled, “and found nothing. Apart from the suicide
attempt, which could well be the crack, her life is quite remarkably … ordinary. A nice girl
from a decent family.”
“They can’t all be psycho freaks,” said Daphne. “I mean, not all psycho freaks are
gammas. So why should all gammas be psycho freaks?”
“Dafs….”
“You think she’s another beta?” asked Brady. “I’d hardly think so after what she did.”
“No, I just mean…,” Daphne hesitated, trying to put what she was trying to say into clearer
words, “if it’s like an addiction, you don’t mainline first time. Not unless you’re already
psychotic. Look at Susannah Greenwood: she seems almost normal, except when she isn’t.”
“If she’s like Susannah, then there’s hope for her,” said Reyes. “If we can get her back to
Idlewood safely.”
“Safely for whom?” Brady asked.
Daphne grinned. Safely for themselves, as far as she was concerned. And Brady, too, she was sure.
|
She heard the sirens and checked the local news on her phone. She was not the only person
rushing to the school. When she arrived, there were parents already there behind the police
line; the school was in lockdown; ambulances were on their way; a SWAT team was headed over
to take out the shooter.
She had no trouble entering the school.
Classroom doors were locked: she didn’t even bother to try them. The shooter could not
be in there, so there was no point. There were bodies, scattered limp along the hall. She
followed the trail.
In the gymnasium in the basement, two classes of boys in their T-shirts and shorts had
been trying the hoops. Now they bunched in the middle of the room with their teacher, kept
from the door by a skinny kid with a gun.
She did not know guns. But it was a big gun.
She stood unseen in the doorway, knowing the SWAT team would kill him, if they could get
line of sight on him—knowing too, that the room had no windows and the door was in view. In
a moment, she thought, he could kill any number of boys in the room; and then they’d kill
him. That would bring none of them back, though the police might be pleased. They’d’ve got
their man, after all—even if he were just a kid.
Could she stop him herself?
What could she do? If she could club him down … but he’d see it coming, even though he
couldn’t see her. If she knew judo, or karate, or one of those other martial arts … but she didn’t.
When heavy footsteps clattered down the hall, the kid tightened his finger on the trigger
to make his final stand. She had no choice.
She made a sudden, invisible run, tackled him low, and—as he struggled in a panic with
no one—wrenched at the gun in his panicked hands. He felt it slide, and tightened his
finger on the trigger.
As the bullets tore her body, she felt a thrill of fury.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
“So, who’s going to the hospital?” Brady asked.
“Lau and Worth,” said Reyes, after a moment’s thought. “The parents have met them. It
might make a difference. Though,” he hesitated, “I might be the best one to explain … to
them, and to the doctors.”
Alison Bradley lay in intensive care, handcuffed to the bed. Whatever she had done,
to the doctors she was a patient, unconscious, and listed as critical. The medical
staff explained all this carefully. Reyes nodded: from his perspective, this was all to the good.
He wondered, though. If she had, indeed, been affected by the Anomaly as a teen,
then what, after all this time had made her suddenly snap? Listening to the report
of the police officers who had been at the scene, he thought he knew. When she was
shot, when she suddenly lost her control and appeared in front of the crowd,
then—did she grab the gun with her full strength and spray the room with bullets
to eliminate witnesses? He knew that was what Brady and Worth thought; and, from
the perspective of the gamma, it made sense.
He, on the other hand, suspected something more perverse. Could it have been
the Anomaly itself? If it believed there was no more she could give it, perhaps
it was simply using her up.
Either way, she was one more gamma who no longer flew under the radar.
|
|
NOTES
This story was written as a treat for minnaleigh in
Yuletide 2011, and
originally posted to the
Yuletide collection on 25 December 2011.
Minnaleigh's request was for a story about Daphne Worth and Hafidha Gates,
with the comment that an ensemble piece would be fine. However, “Under the Radar”
was actually inspired by her Yuletide letter, in which she said:
“What I love about Shadow Unit is the world they've created and the question of
where the line is drawn between monster and hero. I love that the characters are impacted
by their experiences and that there are no easy answers.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
