“Officer Scott, Officer Blumenthal, do you copy? I repeat, do you copy?”
Lemar felt a stab of worry for the two officers as the police radio crackled with dead air. Scott and Blumenthal had been the first ones to provide the suspect’s description, their voices tense but steady. Then, nothing. No updates. No chatter. Just gunshots, and then dead air.
“Shit,” Brown muttered, gripping the steering wheel as he weaved through the dimly lit streets. The rain had stopped an hour ago, but the city still glistened, the reflections of streetlights shimmering in puddles like fractured mirrors.
“They just vanished,” Lemar said, checking the dashboard clock. “They called it in, and then—”
“—And then nothing,” Brown finished. His tone was clipped, forced calm, but Lemar could hear the unease beneath it. “Not even a ‘shots fired.’”
Another voice came over the radio, this time edged with concern.
“Dispatch to Unit 17, do we have eyes on Scott and Blumenthal? Anyone got a location on them?”
“Negative, dispatch,” Lemar responded, reaching for the radio. “We’re a minute out from their last known. No response from them.”
“Copy that. Proceed with caution.”
The usual chatter did nothing to settle the twisting unease in his gut.
Brown exhaled through his nose, drumming his fingers against the wheel. “World’s going to shit,” he muttered.
Lemar almost laughed at the understatement.
Because something had happened earlier.
Something big.
It wasn’t just the missing officers. It wasn’t just the suspect, supposedly some gang shooter gone off the rails. It was the way the world had shifted.
A few minutes ago, as they sat in the squad car, something impossible had appeared in front of Lemar’s eyes.
A floating box of light.
It had hovered there for just a few seconds—long enough for him to read it.
Welcome, Earth.
You have been successfully inducted into the Infinite Nexus.
Then, it was gone.
Lemar had blinked, shaken his head, trying to brush it off as exhaustion or a trick of the light. But then Brown had cursed and swerved the car, gripping the wheel like he had just seen a ghost.
“Tell me you saw that,” Brown had said.
“I saw it.”
And they weren’t alone. Dispatch had gone nuts with calls. Reports of strange lights, people screaming in the streets, sudden blackouts across multiple blocks, and—most concerningly—random bursts of what could only be described as phenomena.
A man in Pill Hill had supposedly floated ten feet in the air before crashing through a shop window. A woman downtown was reported summoning fire from her bare hands.
And yet, here they were. Still doing the job. Still chasing down an armed suspect like the world hadn’t just shattered at the seams.
Because what the hell else were they supposed to do?
“Coming up on their last known,” Brown announced, slowing the car.
Up ahead, at the mouth of an alleyway, a police cruiser sat at an odd angle against a corner of two buildings. Its driver’s side door was wide open, and its emergency lights flashed in silent warning.
“Shit!” Brown shouted, stopping the car.
Lemar saw it a second later.
Scott. Blumenthal. Lying in the middle of the road along half a dozen other bodies lit up by the car’s headlights.
But if the pair were dead on the road, then why was the car all the way there? Lemar narrowed his eyes, squinting through the darkness. The distant red-and-blue glow of the emergency lights cast shifting shadows across the scene, making it hard to see. He scanned past the wreckage, past the bodies—
Then he saw him.
The suspect.
A tall, dark silhouette standing just beyond the bodies, facing them.
The man barely seemed human in the flickering light. His long coat billowed slightly in the night breeze, and his stance was unnaturally still, too controlled. His hands hung at his sides, but something in his posture made the hairs on the back of Lemar’s neck stand up. He wasn’t fleeing. He wasn’t panicked. He was just waiting.
Lemar’s gut twisted. What the hell is wrong with this guy?
He grabbed the radio with steady but urgent hands.
“Dispatch, this is Unit 17. We have officers down. Repeat, officers down. Multiple casualties. Suspect is still on scene.”
A brief burst of static, then:
“Copy, Unit 17. Confirm status of officers Scott and Blumenthal?”
Lemar gritted his teeth, forcing himself to look.
Scott wasn’t moving. Neither was Blumenthal. Both had growing pools of blood around their heads.
He forced himself to exhale. “Unresponsive. No movement.”
“Copy that. Hold position. Backup is inbound.”
The radio chatter shifted—suddenly, multiple voices jumped in at once.
“Unit 5 en route.”
“Unit 22 responding.”
“We’re four minutes out.”
Lemar barely heard them. His pulse was thudding in his ears as he locked eyes on the suspect.
The man had turned his head slightly. He was looking right at them now.
Then he raised his guns.
Lemar immediately ducked, lowering himself as far as he could as the rounds hit the shatter-proof, mildly bulletproof windshield, and then penetrated.
Brown opened the car door and used it as cover as he aimed his weapon and—
Was immediately shot in the head.
“Oh god!” Lemar groaned, “Oh dear god!” His hand darted for the radio. He brought the microphone to his mouth before saying, “Officer down! Officer down! Brown is hit! Shots fired—suspect is armed and engaging!”
The radio crackled with immediate responses—frantic voices overlapping.
“Copy, Unit 17! Hold your position!”
“Backup is inbound—ETA three minutes!”
“Stay low! Keep cover!”
Lemar barely registered the words. His breath came in short, panicked gasps as he pressed himself lower into the seat. His hands trembled on the radio mic, his mind refusing to process the brutal, instant way Brown had been taken out.
Blood had splattered across the dashboard, warm and wet. His partner's body slumped sideways against the open door, gun still clutched in lifeless fingers.
Outside, the suspect was moving. Calmly. Methodically. Towards him! Lemar scrambled to unholster his gun and hold it protectively to his chest, more like a warding talisman than like a weapon.
It took a moment for his training to kick in, and with it, a fatalistic notion that if he was going to die, then he wouldn’t do so cowering in his seat.
He—
Heard a loud noise, and then saw… a swingset in front of him. The swings he loved to swing on as a kid. He’d spend hours on it, playing by himself, away from all the neighborhood kids that wanted to do things he wasn’t comfortable with.
Walk a path he couldn’t walk.
He sat down on the swing—it barely fit him, now—and idly kicked his feet.
In keeping his distance, he had managed to do something that no other child in his neighborhood had managed.
Escape.
Make his momma proud. He cracked a grin at that. Yeah, she… she always did like going on and on about him to anyone that would listen.
Someone came to sit on the swing next to him. A tall guy, with a head of cornrows and dark black skin—a shade or two darker than Lemar’s own—that glistened in the sun. His features looked as though they were etched in marble—prominent cheekbones, a powerful nose, full lips, a goatee, and a glass-cutting jaw accentuating it all. Just by taking one look at him, it was obvious he had won the genetic lottery.
“Penny for your thoughts?” the man asked, words coated in a deep, authoritative bass.
Lemar looked at him, and though he didn’t want to come to that conclusion, he wasn’t able to help his line of thought.
This man…
Lemar knew that it was this man that had killed him.
All in all, he looked… younger than Lemar had expected. Way younger. Perhaps in his mid twenties.
Too young for all this shit.
Then again, what age was ever appropriate to be a murderer?
“Why?” was all that Lemar could ask. Why did things have to be this way?
“Were you going to arrest me?” the man asked.
Lemar frowned sharply. “You killed two cops—three. You killed my partner!” Lemar debated on standing up, but… what would that achieve. What would any amount of resistance at this juncture achieve? Instead, he looked away from the killer and kicked himself up and down on the swing.
“They were going to arrest me,” the man said. “Which would have been within their rights, considering the shootout that had happened just prior. But I don’t have to explain myself to anyone. Neither do I have to let myself get arrested. You see—laws don’t apply to me.”
Lemar stopped himself by digging his heels down on the sand and swung his head towards his killer. “Wha—yes they fuckin’ do!”
He gave a small, indulgent grin. “No, my friend. They don’t. You see—it’s your belief that laws apply to me. But… for them to actually do that, I must believe it, too. And in my case, that belief is predicated on whether or not you pose a credible threat to me. Which I don’t believe any of you do. Not anymore.”
Lemar didn’t understand that at all, “So—what are you saying? That you’re innocent?”
He shrugged, “Guilty or innocent, those are judgments made by an institution I no longer consider myself a part of. Those concepts are irrelevant to me. But—if you have to know, the first shootout was between myself and a bunch of gangsters. Self-defense, according to law. The first cops on the scene, Blumenthal and Scott, pointed their guns at me. Then I killed them. Self-defense, according to the law, but then again, the police have qualified immunity, so they get to trump my own right to self-defense. That, to me, is unacceptable. I do not consider their lives, or the sanctity of the law, to be above my own right to exist. And I will enforce that belief with violence.”
His matter-of-fact tone, his eloquence, his… entire attitude, made it so difficult for Lemar to remember that this was the man that had killed him.
“If you were innocent—“ Lemar began, but the man interrupted him.
“Then, the police would have wasted my first twenty-four hours post-integration,” the man said, “which, if you weren’t paying attention, are meant to be the most fruitful. Three times the rate of growth is what the system promised. And I’d be damned if I let y’all fuck that up for me,” he shrugged. “Not like I could have explained that to y’all anyway. Just how the cookie crumbles, man.”
Lemar didn’t understand his words. Was he going through some sort of psychotic break? No—he was talking about the madness that happened. The… weirdness.
Did he have foreknowledge of it all? Had he just, all along, waited for the right moment to jump out and start killing people for… for what, because the floating text told him to?
Lemar shook his head, getting rid of those thoughts in the process. He refused to delve into this madman’s head. Instead, he considered his surroundings. “What… what is this place?”
The man looked around, “It’s funny, actually—everywhere you aren’t looking, the world is just pure white. It’s like things only begin to render into reality when you pay attention to it. As for what this place is, it’s a halfway-point between life and death. My role in all of this is to make things easier on you, if you can believe it or not.”
Lemar snorted in disbelief, “You? Motherfucker, you fuckin’ killed me!”
“What is this place anyway? Your childhood playground? Why is this place so special to you?”
Lemar frowned harshly, but… what was the point in getting angry with the guy? He clearly didn’t give a damn. “Yeah,” Lemar shrugged, “And the place is special cuz—here’s where I did my best thinkin’, ya feel me? I stayed pondering in these swings for hours a day. Thinking about life—where it would take me. Which way I would walk.”
“And in the end, you chose cop,” the man nodded. There wasn’t a hint of judgment in his tone, despite what Lemar had expected. “Fine choice. Better to be an executor than a dependent if you ask me.”
“Executor?”
“Yeah, of state-sanctioned violence,” he said.
“It wasn’t like that,” Lemar frowned, “I did it to be different from these streets. Opposite.”
The guy chuckled, “Didn’t wanna be a robber so you became a cop—that’s actually quite funny. You serve, too?”
Lemar frowned and nodded, “Did two tours in Iraq—worst fucking months of my entire goddamn life, but it turned me into the man I am today. Couldn’t buss tables or ring out items after seein’ all that shit, so… I joined the force. They were happy to have me.”
“I was in Mali, myself,” the man said, “Among other places, but that’s where I did my most meaningful work.” The guy looked up at the crossbar of the swingset and grinned, “These swings are blessed, my brother. They gave you spine.”
Lemar clenched his jaws. He wanted to summon up more indignation that this man was intruding on such a precious place of his. This was his special place.
But he couldn’t resist the swell of pride upon hearing those words, either. “Spine, huh?”
“Damn right. Anyone that doesn’t let someone else do the fighting for ‘em has spine, and my respect,” the man said. “You wanna live in Earth’s greatest empire, call yourself a proud American, you better be ready to shed blood for the privilege. No one else gets to claim that pride in my book.”
This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
The man was right.
So right.
He’d some shit, but then again, which one of his brothers and sisters in arms hadn’t? He’d fought. That meant, he had earned his keep a hundredfold. But… “You make it sound a little too… grandiose, in my book. It’s not like this country’s perfect.”
He chuckled, “I never said it was, brother. ‘Greatest empire’ ain’t a personal opinion—it’s a fact. And you can only be proud of it if you know how the sausage is made—how much blood it takes to keep this baby up and running at all times.”
Lemar shrugged. “Not like any of that shit matters anymore. I’m dead, ain’t I?”
“That, you are,” the man nodded. “You can take your time, you know—do all the thinking you still wanna do before moving on. But once you’re ready,” he pointed his finger to the right of Lemar, towards the fence of the playground where an object of pure darkness just hung in the air, quiet as anything else. It was big enough to cloak an entire person. “That’s your ticket to the next step.”
Lemar felt his stomach drop. What—what could possibly await someone like him?
“It’s not hell,” the man said.
Lemar looked at him in shock, “How—how do you know that?”
“Hell’s not real. And I know that for a fact. Well, at least not in the way that most people expect. My personal theory is that hell or torment after death is a state of being borne from carrying on too much resentment when you make the jump. But maybe I’m biased in thinking that, since my whole role in this is to take on that resentment of yours. Let you move on unburdened.”
Lemar snorted.
Not like this day could get any weirder. Though—despite himself—he didn’t feel much resentment in either case, he looked at the man and shrugged. “So how do I give you my resentment. Do I like—” he brought his hands together in a claw like fashion, keeping them distant by a few inches, and started shaking his hands as though to gather some unseen inner energy before blasting it out at the guy. “Haaaaaaw!”
Oh god, that was corny.
“Yeah, that worked,” the guy nodded. “And—thank you. You taught me something new.”
Lemar furrowed his eyebrows. “What—energy blasting?” He wouldn’t question it—in fact, a part of him was grateful to be checking out this early. Meant he wouldn’t have to deal with any more weirdness.
“No, just that—every single one of these gigs of mine deserve my fullest effort,” he explained. “Can’t just herd you into the black hole right off the bat. That ain’t fair to you, and the resentment’s annoying to deal with when it gets so high. I’m really not the sociable type, so having to get to know new people every time I end them is kind of mentally exhausting, but… rewarding.” He stared emptily into the air and grinned. “Very rewarding. Thank you, Lemar.”
Lemar blinked. “How did you know my name?”
“It’s new,” the man said, “That and the playground. Wonder what else I’ll unlock at higher levels,” he muttered to himself. “I’m getting sidetracked. Sorry. Alright, I’ll wander off and leave you alone to keep thinking if you wanna.”
Lemar shook his head. No. He felt strangely calm as he considered his situation, and realized—the less time he spent agonizing about this life, especially here of all places, the better. He didn’t want to think about the children he was leaving behind, or his beautiful wife. Or his mother, his sisters. Cousins, nephews.
Any further consideration would only lengthen the agony.
He couldn’t waste any time. He got up from the swings and walked unerringly towards the darkness.
Right when he was a foot away, and about to step through, he stopped. Then turned around towards the man, now sitting under the swings for some reason. The man pushed the swing away to get up. “Yeah?”
“What’s your name?”
“Charon Freeman.”
“See you on the other side, Charon.”
He nodded. “Never said heaven was real, either, but—why not. See you on the other side, Lemar.”
Lemar breathed in, exhaled, turned around and walked into the dark.
000
I had made three fun discoveries since the last round of the local constable had come out to play.
Discovery numero uno: Blum and Scotty’s cop cruiser had an aux cord.
“What are the rules for breakfast today? What are the words I’m forbidden to say?”
Discovery number two: the car’s speaker could in fact penetrate through the din of gunfire from the AR-15 I was using.
“I need to let my hair down and grow up like a real-ass bitch, a real-ass bitch, bitch.”
Discovery number three: the kick of the AR-15 couldn’t touch my precision anymore, even a little.
I sent a tightly-grouped trio of bullets through the nearest cop-car, hitting the driver. I readjusted the aim to the passenger side and moved on. The windows gave me the kill-confirms and I moved on to the second car behind that one.
Once the two cars began to swerve uncontrollably, hitting the nearby buildings and Lemar’s cop car, they managed to inadvertently create a barricade for the dozen other cars following them.
“I’ve been beat up my whole life! I’ve been shot down, kicked down twice. Ain’t no stopping me tonight! I’mma get all the things I like!”
From the jump, my stats had just looked like meaningless numbers to me. The bulk of them were attained from the ‘titles’ I had managed to achieve, and I hadn’t put much stock in their effectiveness.
But clearly, that ‘30% added efficiency’ was pulling its weight and then some. This reaping was almost trivial in its simplicity—though I was wary not to fall into the trap of thinking that way. That way only lay death.
I kept shooting, taking cover behind my cop car, adding to the mess of dead cars on the road stopping the others from getting closer.
When the first officer had decided to leave their car to fire at me, I had already taken out a solid ten cars, two officers apiece.
I took cover, reloaded, and peeked over the car’s hood to continue raining my fire. Three bullets. One dead. Four bullets, another dead. Three, one more.
The last guy, I managed to finish off by hitting his head with a single round. From a solid one-hundred and fifty feet away at that. Solid.
Maybe I shouldn’t focus on Endurance so much, anyway? Clearly, getting hit wasn’t that great a danger. My accuracy and precision was great enough that I could reliably take out anyone before I managed to enter their effective range.
Skill gained due to repeated practice!
[Firearms Proficiency] Skill Gained!
I frowned in thought at the message. Guns weren’t a system-approved method of killing. Why make me better at it when it was clearly trying to discourage me from relying on it?
Hmmm. What did the system say wasn’t an approved method?
Using projectiles that didn’t rely on the user’s strength or power. With ‘power’, I assumed the system meant the attribute Power, which if I recalled correctly, was supposed to be ‘energy’. But the magical sort. Like chi or some sort of reiki bullshit.
Not bullshit, though. The world had gone mad—best not question things too deeply. Got in the way of adaptation.
I’d figure this Power mumbo jumbo out in time, and also take this skill, too. Perhaps it would confer additional bonuses beyond just what the attributes already provided?
When I lifted the gun up and scoped out the streets over the sight of the rifle, I felt like I was holding it… slightly differently. Perhaps better.
I was applying pressure to the right places, at least. My body made contact with the rifle better, in different ways. Subtle ways. Not enough to make a difference—not nearly enough for that, really.
It needed levels. Thankfully, I was right where I needed to be in order to get some practicing in.
I put the rifle down on the hood of Blumenthal’s cop car and went inside to use the radio, pausing the song I had playing on the sound system. The instant cut-off from Brockhampton was a slight relief to my ears—they were fun, but I did need the break. I ignored the chatter of the radio and brought the microphone to my mouth before getting started.
“Yo—I’m the gunman. I killed Blumenthal, Scott, Brown, Lemar, Graham, Wilkinson, Carr—the list goes on, but they are sixteen, and yup, all dead. Anyway, I just wanted to give you guys a fair warning during this here halftime. You get one chance to change your ways—turn the bus around and keep trucking on. Work around me if you catch my drift. But! If you guys keep showin’ up, then I’mma keep showin’ out.”
The radio crackled with static before the voice on the other end responded—frantic, furious.
“You sick son of a bitch—”
I cut them off. “Ah-ah. Let me finish.”
I dragged the microphone out of the car and leaned casually against the backseat door, tapping the side of the radio like I was settling into a nice little chat. The smell of nitrocellulose and burnt rubber filled the air, mixing with the coppery scent of blood. The flashing red and blue lights of wrecked cop cars turned the night into a mess of shadows and neon.
I wondered what those terrorized people inside the buildings must be thinking. They must be praying for the deaths to end.
They should be trying to do something about it, but then again, people rarely did anything about what they feared the most. It was one of humanity’s greatest failings, but then again, what could you do?
"You see, I’m not unreasonable. I understand duty, orders, the chain of command. You’re all out there thinking you’re doing the right thing—rolling out in force, trying to take me down, all noble-like.” I let out a slow breath. “But we both know this ain’t the old world anymore, don’t we?”
Silence on the other end. Good. That meant they were listening.
“This ain’t about right and wrong. It’s about adapting. You can either accept that the rules changed—just like I did—or you can keep running face-first into my bullets until you don’t have any more bodies left to throw at me.”
I gave it a second to sink in. Let the weight of reality press down on whoever was listening.
“I get it. This is your job, your duty, your ‘sworn oath’ or whatever bullshit they spoon-fed you at the academy. But lemme ask you this—who exactly are you serving right now? ‘Cause from where I’m standing, it looks a hell of a lot like you’re just lining up to die for free.
“Now, personally? I’d rather not waste my ammo. But don’t get it twisted—I will. I could always just replenish from y’all if I start running low. Point is, you keep sending cops my way, I’ll keep putting ‘em in the dirt. Simple as that.”
I glanced at my rifle, resting on the hood of the car. The system messages had already confirmed what I knew deep down—I was getting better at this. The killing. The efficiency.
I smiled. Not because it was funny. Just because it was.
And that, to me, was just so gratifying.
I wasn’t taking pleasure in their pain or their fear or whatever respect and wariness these acts might afford me, no.
That was never my style.
This wasn’t about renown. This wasn’t about power.
This was about death.
Death, death, and more death.
How much death I could surround myself with. How much death I could create in this world. How many endings to such beautiful stories I could bring forth. Each life was like a book ended, a story concluded.
And god if I didn’t love a good conclusion.
“Look. I know change is scary. The whole world went belly-up, even if it doesn’t look that way right now, and you lot are still trying to play by the old rules, like that’ll keep you safe. But let’s be real—your badges? Your training? That shit don’t mean anything anymore. The only law that matters now is numbers, and trust me, mine are just higher than yours.”
Another beat of silence. Then, faintly, someone on the other end muttered something, voice trembling.
“Jesus Christ…”
I snorted. “Go ahead and bring him out—he can get it too. Or alternatively, you can just turn around, go home, and hug your families. Because if I see another set of flashing lights heading my way? This shit’s gonna start looking like a Call of Duty server.
"So," I continued, "last time I’m offering this. You turn that convoy around. You take a nice, deep breath. And you ask yourselves—is this really worth it?”
I let the question hang, fingers idly drumming against the radio mic.
“Because I promise you—next time, I’m not stopping to make a call. Not until you’re all fucking dead.”
I released the mic.
The radio stayed silent.
For a long, long moment.
Then, “How many of you are there?”
There was no easy way to answer that question without inviting a greater response. Say I was only one, and they’d come down on me like the fist of god—or die trying.
Say I was a part of many, and they might invite the National Guard or something.
Either way, things were bound to get hectic. I activated the microphone one last time, “Send a SWAT team—or two. I need more ammo from y’all.”
I turned Boogie back on again and started bobbing my head.
As much as I wanted to party like there wasn’t another fucking dawn to ever worry about, I simply had to remind myself that this was an active combat zone. This was a battlefield. I had to be ready.
But hell if the temptation to let loose and dance on top of the cop car wasn’t just overpowering me right now.
“Best boyband since One Direction, makin’ niggas itch like a skin infection,” I muttered while summoning the screen.
Name: Charon Freeman
Level: 1
Class: N/A
Titles:
- Natural-Born Killer – You were the first major organism in a newly inducted planet to kill another major organism.
"In the silence of a newborn world, you wrote the first chapter in blood. Before law, before mercy, there was only instinct—and you proved yours was sharper than any other."
Reward: +3 Strength, +30% Strength, 10% efficiency in Strength - Cain – You were the first person in a newly inducted planet to kill another person of the same species.
"You have etched your name in the oldest story, the first betrayal, the original sin of your kind. To be human is to kill—yet you were the first to embrace it."
Reward: All attributes gain 10% additional efficiency - The First Reaper – You have killed another creature within one second of planetary integration
"Before the world had time to breathe, you had already taken a life. Swifter than thought, faster than fate—your hands moved before the universe could even record your existence."
Reward: +3 Dexterity, +30% Dexterity, +10% additional efficiency in Dexterity, all attributes gain 20% additional efficiency
Attributes:
- Strength: 23 (18 + 30%) [40% efficiency]
- Dexterity: 24 (19 + 30%) [40% efficiency]
- Endurance: 18 [30% efficiency]
- Mind: 14 [30% efficiency]
- Power: 10 [30% efficiency]
- Temperance: 11 [30% efficiency]
Free Attribute Points: 1
Skills:
- [Ferryman – Level 6] – Ferry the souls of the deceased towards the next step, processing their resentment to make this journey simpler. For each successful soul ferried, a variable number of attribute points may be earned
- [Firearms Proficiency – Level 1] Your proficiency with weapons that rely on the delivery of high-velocity projectiles propelled through explosive force.
Level six. Neat. I wondered what more I’d get by leveling the ability up further.
Anyway. My new Free Attribute Point.
I sent that bitch into Endurance with swiftness. Needed more bulletproofability for sure. Or I’d be the one needing an undertaker, and not these guys.
And despite my fascination with death, I wasn’t ready to die quite yet. That was natural, of course. No one ever was, and I wasn’t an exception. Death would come for me one day, and I would never be ready for it. It was a shame, but the immutable truth of the human condition.
Pain was obligatory.
“WHO GOT ME RILED UP! WHO THE LAME-ASS BITCH WANNA TALK BOUT US! OOOOOH!” The speakers blared.
“Come get it for me,” I muttered as I read through the screen once more, and beheld one unexpected change.
Temperance. Eleven.
Fuck yes.
Not sure what that meant for me, but clearly there seemed to be some kind of synergy between Ferryman—I finally managed to learn how to acknowledge it without activating it—and Temperance. Perhaps the skill trained the attribute as though it was a muscle? Why else would it increase?
Or, was I somehow stealing the Temperance from the people I ferried? Come to think of it, that might make more sense.
Thoughts for later. Right now, I had a job to do.
[Ferryman]—
I appeared in a vast, white canvas of reality—only a portion of it rendered in the scene of a beautiful beach with crashing blue waves on the shore.
And a hapless police officer staring at the horizon, coming to terms with the inevitability of endings.
000
Commissioner Bradford had spent three decades watching Oakland burn in cycles. Some years, it was slow—embers of crime kept to alleyways and backrooms, the city’s veins still flowing despite the rot. Other years, like now, it all erupted at once.
He stood at the center of the Operations Room, jaw clenched as new reports flooded in. Officers shuffled past, voices thick with stress, screens displaying maps of the city covered in red incident markers.
The grizzled police veteran gritted his teeth as he stared at the crime map projected across the operations table. The bright clusters of red markers—officer down reports—were spreading like an infection along 73rd Avenue, near where Officers Blumenthal and Scott had first gone silent. Every attempt to reestablish contact ended the same way: more lost units, more silence, more blood on his hands.
"We got a ghost out there," Lieutenant Harris muttered beside him. "Whoever this bastard is, he's moving fast and he's precise. Like he's got training."
Bradford barely suppressed a snarl. They didn't have a name, just a vague description: tall, black male, cornrows, possibly wearing a ballistic vest, and carrying an automatic weapon. A phantom in the streets, stacking bodies. They'd sent patrol units. Gone. Then more of them. Gone.
Then he hit the radios and taunted the OPD. That challenge couldn’t go unanswered.
Now Bradford had to decide whether to dump more manpower into a goddamn kill zone or divert resources elsewhere.
Because monsters were appearing—others besides this frighteningly efficient gunman.
Not just in East Oakland, where the first reports had come in, but all over the goddamn city. Things that shouldn't exist—creatures out of nightmares—had started crawling out of the dark in the wake of those strange, floating text boxes people were screaming about on social media. Dispatch was overloaded. Emergency calls poured in, each one worse than the last.
A gas station in Fruitvale—wrecked, its employees missing, security cameras catching only glimpses of something moving too fast to identify. A neighborhood near the port—residents barricading themselves inside as something large and chitinous stalked the streets. And now, the Ritz Plaza.
The fundraiser.
They could push everything into low-income districts, hit the problem hard and fast, or divert resources toward downtown, where a well-funded fundraiser about “ending violence in our communities” was underway at the Ritz Plaza. The types of people there—tech investors, politicians, liberal donors—would scream the loudest if the monsters came knocking.
Bradford knew how the game worked. Leave the flats to fend for themselves, and the news cycle would frame it as the city abandoning its most vulnerable. But let the Ritz fall, and every powerful voice in the state would demand his head on a plate by morning.
So be it.
He exhaled sharply, then spoke.
"Get five SWAT teams together. Seventy men all in all. I want them rolling into 73rd now. Whoever this shooter is, he's not invincible. I want his ass neutralized. Then we move them to the Ritz."
Lieutenant Harris hesitated. "Sir, but what if something happens to the Ritz while—?”
"Just get it done!" Bradford snapped. Then, softer, "We can't just leave our people out there. Not without a fight. That man… he shed our blood—he needs to go first, before anything else."
Lieutenant Harris nodded, “Yes, sir!”