Survivor Reborn (Kieran Grey Psionic Hunter) Read online

  “Your glasses. They work like a cell phone. Someone’s calling you,” Tanaka explained as he started to make his way back to the door through the mountains and valleys of trash and discarded trinkets.

  I took my glasses out of my pocket. As soon as I had them on the little window with Julie in it appeared. She looked exactly like she did the day before.

  It makes sense that a computer program wouldn’t change clothes, but she still looks so lifelike I keep forgetting she’s not real.

  “Miss Grey, Dr. Grey is calling you. Would you like to talk to her, or should I take a message for you?” she asked, smiling as always.

  “I’ll talk to her, thanks.”

  Julie faded out, Emmy faded in. The switch was so sudden that for a second both faces were one.

  “How’s it going?” Emmy asked.

  “Lunch was great, and we’re just finishing up at the apartment. What’s up?”

  “There was another rape victim found earlier today. Her attack is similar to those Jacob is wanted for. It’s possible that this was his work. Ren is on her way to St. Carver Regional Hospital now. She wants you to meet her there. Tanaka can drop you off.”

  “Why just drop me off?” I wondered out loud.

  “Ren does not like Tanaka. She”–Emmy stopped and looked off to her left as if she was trying to think of how to word what she was thinking–“thinks he’s always flirting with her. Besides, this is your investigation not his.”

  I decided not to press the issue.

  “Okay, I’ll have him drop me off.”

  “Remember to wear your badge. Otherwise the local cops won’t let you pass.”

  Great, time to really go to work now.

  Chapter 10

  Tanaka dropped me off at the hospital. I placed my wallet over the front pocket of my jacket as Tanaka had suggested, badge pointed out. It snapped in place like it had hidden magnets which would hold it there forever. Walking through the hospital I received a number of stares.

  Mostly because of the badge, I guess. Of course it could be my ample new good looks. I am a hottie after all.

  The woman at the information desk was helpful. In fact she was too helpful. Once she saw the badge, she practically crawled over the desk to give me anything I needed. She even personally walked me to the elevators. Service with a smile, for me anyway. I remembered a time–like last week–when I would’ve had to crash my car through the emergency room doors to even get noticed, much less waited on by the hospital staff.

  This is a definite improvement.

  I stepped out of the elevator on the third floor, turning to the right just like the overzealous information lady had told me to. Standing in the middle of the hall was a bored looking uniformed police officer. I couldn’t tell his age, but he was young. Like just out of the academy young, if the lack of service ribbons under his badge was any indication. He leered at me from a distance. That look made me uncomfortable. So uncomfortable that I wanted to slap it off his face.

  I walked towards him down the hall. Something in the back of my mind was screaming at me that this cop was going to be trouble. Problem was, I had to pass him to get to Detective Michaels and the victim. I was almost past when he abruptly stepped in front of me, stopping me just inches from his face. He looked me up and down several times like I was for sale. That look left me torn between blushing and having my skin crawl.

  “Well, hello chickie. What’s a sexy little thing like you doing here?” he asked while hitching up his gunbelt as if to make himself seem more important.

  WHAT?!?! He can’t be serious! Is he really that dumb to say something like that to a woman?! And in public?! Much less while he’s in uniform?! I can sue him, and the city as well for that statement, the way modern sexual harassment laws are. Not to mention the fact that I’m now an officer that could simply arrest his ass for keeping me from my job.

  I felt like calling the cops. Problem was, he was one, and I didn’t think that arresting a local cop on my second day of work would be a good boost for my new career. I tried the diplomatic approach.

  “I’m looking for Detective Michaels. We have an appointment.”

  He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “She’s down the hall there.” Then he went on his tiptoes trying to get a better view down my blouse.

  I shouldn’t have left so many buttons open. I felt attractive, and even a little sexy earlier dressed like this. Now . . . I feel dirty. Is this what it’s like for all women? Was I ever that bad when I was a guy? I hope I never acted like this.

  “Thank you,” I said stepping around him. He grabbed my shoulders, roughly spinning me back around to face him.

  “Just a minute sweet-cakes. Only authorized police officers are allowed in this hall.” He left his hand on my shoulder kneading it. The touch made my stomach flip. Instantly I felt like I needed a boiling hot shower.

  “I am an officer for the Global Centurion Protectorate, and you are sexually harassing me. Get your hand off me and step out of my way.” I started to push past him. He jerked me back in front of him.

  “Right, and I’m the King of England. Look, take your cereal box badge and go play cop somewhere else . . . or we could just go find a room an’ you can frisk me.”

  Ugh! No wonder women think all men are pigs!

  This guy was making me sick in more ways than one. “I don’t have time for this.” I lifted my left arm to push his hand away. The move opened my jacket. The shoulder holster was now in plain view along with the gun.

  “Get your hands up now!” he screamed in my face. “Put your goddamn hands up and get on the ground now!”

  I just looked at him.

  Then he did the stupidest thing in the world.

  He pulled his gun on me.

  * * *

  Even though I stood there with my badge plainly displayed on my jacket, and had identified myself as a GCP Officer, he still pulled his gun on me.

  Shouldn’t he have asked for more ID first or something? Or is he just that stupid?

  The Beretta cleared his holster to be pointed in my face. He pulled the hammer back as if to scare me into submitting.

  That did it, not scare me, but pissed me off.

  My body reacted without thinking about it, pulling the Walther from my back. We stood there in the hall, each pointing a gun at the others head with less than a foot between the barrels.

  “GUN!!!” I heard yelled from down the hall.

  Three other uniforms filled the hall, guns drawn, pointing at me. I reacted again to the new threat, and pulled the other Walther. Then turned slightly, one gun still in the face of the officer closest to me, the other pointing down the hall at the others. I had no intention of shooting anyone, especially any cops. Besides, one shot from those guns, and I was pretty sure they would be dead long before hitting the ground. The guns were a deterrent, a show. At least that was the plan.

  “DROP YOUR GUNS!!!” we all took turns yelling at each other.

  A small man in a brown suit entered the hall. He drew a gun and joined the small group of officers down the hall from me. It was a standoff. One that I was more likely to walk away from than anyone. My shields would protect me, I knew they would.

  I hope.

  “I am a GCP Officer! I am here on official business! Lower your weapons or I will be forced to act!” I yelled at no one in particular.

  The brown suit lifted an eyebrow. He began to slink his way closer to me. I shifted my gun from pointing blankly down the hall to directly at the approaching man. He didn’t stop, he just inched his way closer. I turned my body to face him better, never fully taking my eyes off the rookie pointing his gun straight into my face. Brown Suit’s eyes went wide. He must’ve seen the badge, and knew what it meant. He put his gun on the floor then stood with both hands out from his body. He didn’t surrender, but he voluntarily disarmed himself without me asking again.

  “Guns on the floor and back down the hall!” he hollered over his shoulder. No one moved. “NOW
!!!” That one word held a world of power in it.

  The three uniforms slowly placed their guns on the ground then backed away, each with their arms spread wide, keeping their hands away from their bodies and in plain sight. One problem solved. I put the gun in my right hand up, then turned to fully face the idiot that started this all. The gun in my left hand was still in his face. That was when I realized how ambidextrous I was now in the new body. In my old life my left hand was no better than a useless stump.

  “Rookie put the gun down! You are threatening a GCP officer, she can kill you for that! PUT. THE. GUN. DOWN. Do you hear me! PUT-THE-GOD-DAMN-GUN-DOWN!!!” The brown suit came closer. Hands still away from his body. He was trying to project that he was not a threat to me. It worked.

  “This fucking bitch won’t follow orders! Put the fucking gun down or I will shoot you! I will fill you so full of goddamn holes you’ll be transparent!” The rookie was shaking. Sweat poured down his face.

  The brown suit was close enough to touch the other man, but he kept his hands to himself.

  “Rickie,” his voice had gone soft. “Rickie, put the gun down. She is a Global Centurion, that means she is higher up than even the Feds. By law she can kill you just for pulling your gun on her. Don’t make things any worse. Let’s talk this through.”

  The tension was thick. My arm was getting tired of holding the gun up. I’d heard that no matter how light the gun was, you still got tired after holding it up that long. They were right. Then the funny thought hit me.

  This kid is Rickie, Rickie the rookie.

  Suddenly the kid was no longer a threat of any kind to me. I kept from laughing, barely.

  I let my gun arm drop.

  The movement was too sudden for the jittery rookie.

  He fired.

  Chapter 11

  The gunshot echoed unusually loud in the enclosed hallways, as the bullet slammed into my shields at eye level. When I didn’t fall the rookie aimed his gun again at my head.

  Anger welled up inside me, turning quickly into a blind rage. I raised my right hand up, shields flowing out from it to knock away the gun being pointed at me again.

  I used my shields and grabbed the rookie by the neck with my shield-hand. Lifting him up, I threw him into the wall.

  The wall caved in around the rookie’s body.

  I picked him up again, holding him in the air with my shields. His hands scratched at his throat trying to pry the invisible fingers away.

  The brown suit actually dropped to his knees, bowing his head to me as he begged for the other’s life. “Please! He’s only been on the force for a week! He’s only nineteen! Please forgive him! Please don’t kill him! Take me instead if you must!”

  I’d heard stories about people that feared psionics like demons, or gods. We could do things that normal humans didn’t understand. It was basic human nature to fear the unknown.

  I looked at the rookie in front of me, suspended three feet in the air by my shields. The horror on his face spoke that he knew he was going to die. Urine dropped to the floor as he pissed his pants in utter terror.

  “Hunter Class Officer Kieran Grey! I think you made your point,” a woman called out as she was walking towards us. She seemed so familiar.

  She wore a black turtleneck with brown jeans over her boots. Jet black hair fell down straight, just over her shoulders. Hanging from her neck was a detective’s badge decorated with the colored service ribbons of someone who had been on the force for years, and had seen their fair share of action. A brown leather shoulder holster held a gun vertically under each arm. Her arms were out from her sides with her black gloved hands open. She walked slowly and purposely towards me. She wouldn’t cower at my feet as if I were a god, but she would beg for the life of the officer in my grasp.

  “Kieran. Please. Let him go.” Her voice had gone soft. I looked into her hazel eyes, they were pleading with me.

  I dropped the shields.

  The rookie crashed to the floor, landing in the puddle of his own urine. The brown suit looked up at me then scrambled on all fours to tend the other officer.

  I nodded at woman with the gloved hands, “Detective Michaels?”

  “Please Kieran, call me Ren. Care to tell me what happened?”

  A nurse came out from hiding behind a cart of lunch trays a few feet away. “It wasn’t her fault,” the nurse said with her eyes impossibly wide. “She was sexually harassed by the officer, he wouldn’t let her pass. Then he, he shot her, he, HE SHOT HER!!!” The nurse was showing signs of shock. Another nurse came and took her away.

  “Well, that’s one way to make an entrance, I suppose.” Ren tried to make it a joke. The humor was just lost at that moment.

  What a way to start a new job.

  * * *

  Emmy had filled Ren in on most of my situation.

  Apparently Ren had been friends with the old Kieran. A small, but very important piece of information no one had bothered to mention to me earlier.

  Ren and I had moved to the lounge, but no one was bothering us. For some strange reason my little display in the hall earlier had spooked most of the cops and hospital staff. No one wanted to be close to me. Honestly, I didn’t really mind the solitude at that moment. Ren was on her cell phone with the police chief. She was having a hard time explaining what all had happened to him.

  A nurse came in handing me a mug of tea. She had offered the tea when I turned down the coffee she’d been in with a few minutes earlier. This little gray haired lady was the only one around that didn’t treat me like a monster or a god.

  “Thank you. Not just for the tea, but for being kind enough to offer.” I really felt like thanking her since everyone else treated me so differently. It was something I needed to do.

  “My job is to make everyone’s stay at the hospital as pleasant as possible, regardless of what anyone may think of them. Besides, you’re a sweet girl. You were just put in a bad situation.” She smiled and left us.

  Ren finished her call. She took a sip of her coffee then collapsed onto the nearby couch. Hiding her face in her hands. “The Chief is afraid that you’re going to hold the department responsible for what happened. He’s terrified about what you could do. You know, it’s within your rights to take it out on him if you want? You could even execute both the Rookie and the Chief for this mess if you wanted to. It’s within your power as a Hunter Class GCP Officer.”

  “I don’t want anything. But, that kid needs some lessons on how to deal with people before he’s let out in public again. I can’t believe he harassed me like that, while on duty even! And for god’s sake, have someone train him on when to use his gun and when not to. I’d already identified myself, and my badge is clearly visible. He was way out of line.”

  “You don’t want to kill him, fine, but do you want him fired?” she asked, sitting up to look at me.

  “No, not really. But I don’t want him around me again if it can be avoided. At least not until he learns how to behave.”

  She looked at me with her head tilted to the side, pulling her hair behind her ear for the fifteenth time since I’d first saw her, trying in vain to keep it out of her face. “No need to worry about that. He fired his weapon while on duty. That gets him an automatic administrative suspension for at least three days. Maybe more. It depends on what the shooting team comes up with during their investigation. The city could fire him, or he could even face charges from the city depending on what the team finds. They come out each time an officer fires their weapon, and they may want to ask you a few questions later. But honestly, I think they’ll try to bury the issue as long as you don’t press any charges. Sign of the times.” She let her gaze bore into me several seconds. “You really are a different person in there now, aren’t you?”

  I kept to the amnesia cover story. “Yea, I don’t remember anything before yesterday really. Is that a bad thing?”

  Ren reached in her pocket pulling out the little plastic evidence bag that held the flattene
d bullet the officer had shot at me. She held it up to the light inspecting it from all angles. “Well you were sort of my friend before. It’s sad that you don’t remember that. But at least your powers still work. Emmy told me you were different, but she never said whether or not you had your shields. For a second there, I thought he’d killed you.” She put the bullet down on the table. “It’s good to see you again though, one way or another.”

  “Ren, I’d like to be your friend. I don’t have many anymore. But, we can worry about that later. Shall we get down to business? I’ve got a feeling we should get to work now and socialize later. We’ve already had enough delays today.”

  She stood up stretching as she nodded. “Right. Follow me.”

  When I stepped into the hallway I saw the wall of officers spying on us. They were too far away to have heard us, but they were all watching me like I was about to kill them all, or sprout a few extra appendages along with a spare head or two. I felt like yelling BOO, just to see how many of them would jump, but I was nice and just followed Ren down the hall away from them.

  We entered an intensive care room. I was never comfortable in hospitals. That room reminded me why. There was a girl lying motionless on the bed. Bandages covered almost all of her body. Tubes were coming and going all around the room. The sheet pulled across her body laid oddly. It took me a moment to realize that her left leg was missing from underneath the sheet.

  I felt sick.

  “Every one of the girls have been raped multiple times by different people. They all have a number of bites from vampires and werewolves. Each time they are found there is a message nearby the body. The message with her was, ‘She tasted sweeter than the others’. Each time the message is signed by Jacob. He wants us to know he did this. Here look at this.”

  Ren pulled back a bandage on the girls neck behind her left ear. There was a burn scar. She’d been branded. The letter “J” in some old style calligraphy. The sight of her being branded entered my mind. My stomach threatened to empty on the floor. Ren noticed.