Blanks

The muzzle flashed, and there was a hard, high-pitched ‘crack’ accompanied by a thrumming buzz from the oddly-shaped handgun. Many in the crowd screamed, and they pressed back and away from the lieutenant.

The shot took Kailey in the shoulder, hitting with a hissing, fizzing shower of blue-white sparks, and spinning the girl halfway around.

She let the man go as she staggered a half-step back. Murmurs ran through the crowd, along with several disbelieving gasps.

“Well, that didn’t exactly go as planned,” the man with the gun said, almost to himself. Then he glanced at the cowering security man on the floor. “Now that I’ve got her attention, that’s your cue to get out of the way.”

Kailey’s red eyes stayed fixed on the gunman as she grabbed her left arm with her right hand, and gave a sharp tug, pulling her shoulder back into place.

The lieutenant took a step to the side, keeping the girl’s attention focused on him as the security man scrambled towards his compatriots at the edge of the crowd. The lieutenant’s eyes flicked once to the side, making sure the other man was clear.

Kailey took that opening, spinning, the bag dropping from her shoulder. She swung it hard, bringing it up and around, into the lieutenant’s arms.

His sidearm skittered away across the floor, as he staggered sideways, off balance from the blow.

Kailey let the bag go, turning again, her arms up, using the power of the spin to bring one elbow and then a stiff-fingered chop down on the man’s arms and shoulder.

He staggered again, but turned the hits aside, rolling with them, and brought his fist up, hard, slamming it into the girl’s stomach.

It was like hitting a brick wall.

It wasn’t like the girl’s abs were rock hard — although they were lean and solid and muscled from her years as a dancer and the subsequent years’ conditioning.

The gel-suit reacted to the impact as it had for the bullet, microbeads of glass aligning themselves as impulses from the embedded nanos reacted to the strike, momentarily turning the supple skin of the gel-suit into armor stronger than kevlar, then radiating the force of the blow away like ripples in a pond, carrying most of the energy away across the entire surface of the suit.

The girl gasped. An impact was still and impact, and the suit was somewhat less effective against blunt hits than pinpoint impacts from bullets or shrapnel.

It still hurt like hell.

The fraction of a second as she reeled from the hit was enough to let him move closer, inside her guard, wrapping his arms around her upper and lower back.

Then he pressed his lips to hers.

Her whole body jerked, the tension running out of her muscles, her arms dropping from where they’d been poised to strike, as though the puppet’s strings had been cut.

Her body gave another shudder, and her feet planted themselves again. With a twist and heave, she somehow managed to send the lieutenant sprawling across the floor, while she wiped at her mouth with the back of her sleeve, spitting.

The optic screens had gone clear, and Kailey regarded the man with a mix of disgust and gratitude.

Danz already had his cellphone to his ear.

“Yeah, it worked,” he said, and snapped the phone shut, looking up at the panting girl. “Well, aren’t you going to help me up?”

“You shot me,” she gasped.

“Well, I had to get your attention somehow, figured that would be the best way.”

“And… ugh, worse than that, you kissed me!” She spat again.

“And that stopped you colder than the bullet did. What does that say about me?” he said with a grin.

“That you’re a pig! Ugh!”

She turned on her heel to stalk away, but two men in police blues were cutting through the crowd, hands on the butts of their pistols.

“What’s going on here?” the older looking of the two asked.

“That girl attacked me!” the security man spat, from where he was sitting against one of the makeup counters.

“Oh, Christ,” the officer said. “You again?” Then he looked over at Kailey. “Miss, is this true?”

“Well, he grabbed me first and—”

Danz made to make a ‘shushing’ motion, but the security man beat him to it.

“She attacked me, threw me on the ground, eyes as red as blood!”

The officer stooped, glancing at Kailey’s eyes.

“They look brown to me,” he said, giving the man a sidelong glance. “Miss, I have to ask. Are you currently using drugs?”

“You don’t have enough pages in that little notebook to list all the drugs I’ve got prescriptions for,” Kailey said, holding her arm, and trying to make the move look casual.

“I mean … recreational use,” the officer said, clearing his throat.

Kailey’s eyes widened. “Why, no officer. Those kinds of drugs are bad. They could impair your judgement. Or perception. Make you do or say or see strange things.”

“Like… little girls with glowing red eyes,” Danz said, looking over his shoulder from where he was talking things over with the other officer.

The older officer narrowed his eyes. “What do you weigh? 105? 110?”

Kailey shifted her feet. Guenevere, deduct metallic enhancements from current body mass. Recalculate.

** 50.80235 kg **

She leaned forward and whispered her weight into the cop’s ear.

He glanced over at the security man, who leaned exaggeratedly on his ‘good’ arm.

“You let a girl half your weight put you on the ground?”

“She used some jujitsu crap!”

“Aikido,” Kailey said, then snapped her mouth shut.

The officer made a few more notes in his little notebook.

“And she didn’t even flinch when that guy shot her. Point blank, right in the arm!”

“Blank is right,” the lieutenant said. “Do you see any blood? Casings? Large, gaping exit wounds from the girl’s back? It was loaded with blanks, you nimrod,” he said, glaring at the security man.

“Miss, are you going to press charges against this gentleman?”

Kailey blinked.

“Um, charges? Me? I thought he—”

“If he grabbed you first — which I’m sure the store’s video surveillance will show — then you were merely defending yourself. Would you like to press charges?”

Kailey shook her head. “No, I don’t want any trouble. I was just trying to find the juniors section and he—”

The officer nodded. “And would you like to press charges against this gentleman?” He pointed his pen at the lieutenant.

Kailey bit back a snicker. “No, I uh… work… with that gentleman. No charges for him. Today.”

He snapped the notebook closed. “I think we’re through here,” he said, motioning his partner.

“Hey, what about me?” the security man yelled, rising to his feet, pushing himself up with his ‘bad’ arm.

“You want me to write a report that a teenage girl, weighing half what you weigh, mopped the floor with you—”

“Don’t forget the glowing red eyes!” the partner supplied. “And bullets not even phasing her!”

“But that’s—” the man began, then stopped.

“I get one more complaint about you ‘apprehending’ a ‘suspect,’ and I’ll be dragging you in. Do you understand me?”

The security man paled, fists shaking.

“And you, miss?” he said, turning to Kailey. He lowered his voice. “If he ever does that to you again, when you take him down, give him a kick for me.”

Kailey picked up the duffel bag. “No, I don’t think I’ll be shopping here. Ever.”