Sunblind Serpent: The Zodiac Without A House

Nobody went after the detainees.

Marek had expected a pursuit. There was none. The first two vehicles stopped around the wrecked convoy. The ambulance came forward to the injured.

The rest of them began doing something slower.

Officers moved through the intersection in pairs. At every corner one stopped. The other showed himself. Only then did they continue. Nobody entered the pharmacy until two people had seen inside it. Nobody answered a shout without first finding the person who had shouted.

It took four times as long as it should have.

Marek understood before anyone explained it. This was the procedure now. It had probably been the procedure for two hours.

The officer went to stand beside one of the backup supervisors.

”You let them go.”

”They were retreating.”

”All of them?”

”Taurus, Libra, Scorpius and Gemini went south. Aries left earlier. The shooter moved down Route Eight.” The officer did not sound defensive. ”I had injured civilians. A shooter in the block. And four Ophiuchus I was told not to provoke.”

The supervisor took his time with the last part.

He counted them. Marek. Henry. Clara. Cooper, sitting against the vehicle with one arm held to his chest.

”You have four.”

”Yes.”

The supervisor became quieter. ”That explains the order to approach slowly.”

”Told by whom?” Marek asked.

”Emergency Command.”

”Who told Emergency Command?”

The man paused. Marek let the pause continue.

”I don’t know.”

”Somebody wrote that instruction before you arrived. Somebody used the word Ophiuchus. Tonight is the first night that word stopped being only astronomy.” Marek brushed dried foam off his cargo pants. ” I’ve heard versions of that instruction from several different sources tonight. Nobody at any level will tell me where it entered.”

”He’ll keep asking,” the officer said.

”I’d noticed.”

”You should also want to know.”

”I do.” The supervisor did not seem to resent it. That was the first encouraging thing in some time. ”We ran into another six escapees south of here.”

”Six. Same facility?”

”Almost certainly.”

”Which Signs?”

The supervisor stared at him. ”I didn’t stop to ask all six.”

Marek was assembling the next question before he noticed. He stopped.

”Wait. Am I your subordinate?”

”No.”

”Then why am I conducting this interview?”

The security officer turned toward the road.

”You have been standing there for four minutes,” Marek said.

”You were asking everything before I could.”

He was trying not to say something else. Marek let him keep it.

The supervisor pointed at the pharmacy. ”Two teams. Nobody follows a voice without visual.”

Several officers moved.

”You have already changed procedure,” Marek said.

”After the first false transmission.”

”How many have there been?”

The supervisor thought about it. He had been counting. He did not look pleased about it. ”Four confirmed. There will be more.”

”How many radios are missing?”

”Two reported.”

Marek considered the empty pharmacy. A woman had laughed in there twenty minutes ago. The laugh had not been hers.

”Detention Control confirmed four Gemini escapees,” the supervisor said. ”We were warned before North Junction. Don’t trust voice-only confirmation. Staff had already identified several of them copying guards inside the building.”

”So you did not believe Route Eight was secure.”

”No.”

”Then why were you late?”

”We stopped.” The supervisor gestured back down the road. ”We received a transmission saying Route Eight was clear. Six minutes later we received another one. It said North Junction was compromised.”

”Different voice?”

”Different voice.”

”Which did you believe?”

”Neither.”

Marek nodded. It was the correct answer. He had not expected to hear it from a uniform tonight.

”We sent two units along the service road. We waited for somebody to physically see something.” The supervisor shrugged. ”One of them found your convoy from the other side.”

”So you were late because nobody could verify who was talking.”

”Yes.”

The officer had gone quiet. His attention had drifted back to the side streets.

Marek could follow most of it.

If backup had believed the first transmission, they would have driven in at speed. The Sagittarius would still have been firing from the pharmacy.

If they had believed the second, they would have stayed away. Cooper would have gone another hour without treatment.

The radio had spent a century reducing uncertainty. One Gemini had turned it into the opposite. It had taken her less than a night.

Marek watched the officers crossing the intersection. Each one waited to be seen before he moved.

Four Geminis were somewhere in this city. They had two working radios and everyone’s voice.

Nobody standing in this road could prove who they were.

”There is something else,” Marek said.

”Go on.”

”You have four Geminis confirmed. Two radios missing. We met one Gemini on Route Eight.” He waited. ”You are assuming the false transmission came from her.”

The supervisor’s expression changed slightly. ”It probably did.”

”Probably is not knowing. That distinction has been expensive tonight.”

Nobody spoke.

”Write it down,” the supervisor said to the officer. Then, to Marek: ”Anything else?”

”Yes. Has anyone reached the eastern residential district?”

”Report,” the supervisor said to the officer.

The officer started talking. The question went under.

Marek let it. It was the third time tonight. Something had arrived on top of it all three times.

He was beginning to suspect the timing was not accidental.

The report took two minutes. The barrier. The collision. The detainees. The rear doors. The shooter at the pharmacy. The child in the lead vehicle.

Marek had been present for all of it. It was strange to hear it compressed into incident vocabulary. In that version nobody was frightened. Nothing took any time.

Then, the officer reached the Libra detainee. The instructions about Ophiuchus that had circulated inside a detention facility before anyone outside it knew the word.

Then the part about Marek.

”Transfer,” the supervisor said.

”Attempt.”

”My officer said transfer.”

”Nothing transferred.”

”His Mark reacted when the Taurus detainee had hold of him,” the officer said.

The supervisor’s attention went to Marek’s right shoulder. The collar covered everything except the top edge of the dark red scale.

”What happened?”

”My Mark tried to accept something.”

”What?”

”I don’t know.”

The supervisor waited. Marek did not fill the silence. There was nothing to fill it with.

”That’s all?”

”No. I stopped it.”

”How?”

”I refused.”

”With what?”

”My Mark.”

”How?”

”I don’t know yet.”

The security officer put a hand over his eyes.

”You knew I was going to say that,” Marek said.

”Yes.”

The supervisor turned to the other three. ”Did it happen to any of you?”

”Not that I noticed,” Henry said.

Clara shook her head.

Cooper raised his good hand. ”I was busy getting hit.”

A medic arrived. ”I need him.”

”Apparently, I’m popular.”

”You need imaging.”

”I know.”

The medic got him upright. Clara went with them for several steps. Then, she stopped.

”Stay,” Marek said.

”Why?”

”I need to ask you something.”

”Now?”

He considered it properly. That surprised him.

The backup was here. The shooter had gone. The injured were being moved. Nobody in this intersection was trying to kill anyone.

For the first time since the barrier came across the road, several minutes would probably cost nobody anything.

”Yes,” he said. ”After Cooper.”

Henry’s head came up.

”What?”

”Nothing,” Henry said. He did not explain it.

”Let them check him first,” Clara said.

Marek nodded.

The next several minutes were quieter than anything since Route Eight. Medical personnel moved the injured woman onto a stretcher. Her son walked beside it. He had two fingers hooked into the blanket.

The unconscious driver came out of the lead vehicle in stages. Four people held him.

A medic went to the security officer. The officer tried to refuse. The medic ignored him.

Marek watched that.

The man had spent the whole encounter deciding how hard to touch things. He had pulled people clear without breaking them. He had held a weapon he was afraid of crushing. He had done all of it correctly. All night. In a body that had stopped telling him how much force he was using.

There was nothing left to hold back now.

It was becoming visible what that had cost him.