Evolution

As I walked around the bus I noticed a few other odd things, too. Like multiple skid marks a hundred yards away. Fresh, rich black skid marks, single track, like made by other motorcycles. I moved our patrol car over to preserve the marks, and took out my MagLite and went to mark the point of impact on the street.

When flesh – and even synthetic fiber clothing – impacts metal at high speed, it heats up. Rapidly, of course, and these materials get hot enough to fuse to metal surfaces, and looking at the 'imploded' metal on the side of the bus with my light I could make out the tell-tale residue of a very high speed impact. Flesh, lots of it, and bits of the rider's fabric one-piece riding suit were fused to the bus's inwardly bent, fluted aluminum cladding.

Shining my light deeper into the impact cavity I could see that the rider's body had been bisected by the bus's heavier metal floor beams – yet even so the outermost beams had been severely deformed during the impact – with the remains of the rider's torso and head up above in the passenger cabin, and his lower extremities embedded in the bus's mechanical workings under the floor.

Several lines of inquiry were obvious now. Speed at impact could be derived from straight forward 'conservation of linear momentum' calculations, and possibly front fork and floor beam deformation calculations. But what about those other skid marks? Were they made by companions, and if so, why had they split? More likely they were made by pursuers, and the deceased rider had been so preoccupied by this pursuit he failed to see the collision developing.

And those inoperative red lights? What role had they played? And what about the potholes? Did they affect the rider's control at a critical point in the chain of events leading up to the impact?

Within a half hour we had several units on the scene preserving evidence, and a heavy duty wrecker arrived. After we marked all the positions and skid marks with pink spray paint, I had the wrecker lift the left side of the bus, and after the beast was jacked and blocked I made my way under and to examine the rider's lower extremities.

The smell was intense under there, too. Feces, yes, but that other smell? Heroin, heated during impact? Hashish? I couldn't tell, but it was strong. I hadn't found anything in the rider's jacket, not even a wallet or any other useful ID, so I'd pinned all those hopes on finding this stuff in this guy's pants. But no, it was a one piece suit and there were no pockets down here.

I called out: "Goodman? Get some scissors or a sharp knife, would you? I need to look inside these clothes."

Moments later she was kneeling beside me, handing me a scalpel one of the paramedics had given her.

"Take the light, would you?" I said, pointing at the rider's bum. "Shine it right there, just above his..."

"Yeah man, he had a good looking ass too. Nice and tight..."

"Amy?"

"Sir?"

"Shut the fuck up."

"Yessir."

I cut along the seams, wanting to preserve as much of the suit as possible, and pulled the fabric down and away from the intact flesh here. Liquid feces dropped to the pavement, and dangling from the rider's rectum was a balloon.

"What the fuck?" Goodman said.

"Heroin. Probably several more tied off up his chute. CID here yet?"

"With the head, in the ME's wagon. They're having a nice chat with him."

I ignored that one. "Get someone over here with a camera and evidence bags, and make sure they get a weight on the torso before they move it off the gurney."

"Yessir."

"Oh, we'll need another gurney for this, too," I added, pointing at all the remains fused under the bus.

"Who gets to remove all that goo?" she asked, wide-eyed.

"You do, rookie."

"How did I know you were going to say that?"

"Gloves, forceps and saline, Amy. If you're nice, I'll even show you the easy way."

She nodded her head and turned to leave. "Thanks, I think," she muttered as she walked away.

+++++

We finished at the scene a quarter past noon. Four hours 'plus' OT so far, and next we had to go to the ME's for the autopsy, then, because it was a fatality, we had to go back to the station after that and finish the report. Finish, as in no loose ends, because our findings would make their way to the six o'clock news. CID would wrap up the whole affair in a few days with what would turn out as a homicide investigation.

We watched as the ME found two 9mm slugs in the rider's shoulder, and one in his left kidney, and that, as they say, was that. The rider was the owner of the motorcycle, so a check of the call log earlier that morning revealed a noise complaint in the alley behind his apartment. A check with potential witnesses got us a hit. An argument about drugs, a brief fight then the chase was on. Two witnesses identified the other gang members, they knew them by name, so bingo: warrants, arrests and who knew what the end result would be. Lawyers in loose Gucci loafers would present these misbegotten fates to a wildly uninterested jury. Maybe.

All I knew, with all the certainty my calculations could provide, was that the rider (one 'Riki' Chu, a mule for one of our local Chinese gangs) slammed into the side of that bus doing at least 119 miles per hour, and frankly I didn't care about all the rest. Shit like this happens several times a month on my shift, so really, who gives a damn? In the end, the only thing I recalled about the whole thing was Amy Goodman's final observation after we left Chu's autopsy. He had been laid out under the lights in all his various pieces and parts, and the ME had said he looked like a typical 'road pizza' – what we call a body that's been run down the road like a piece of cheese down a grater.

"You know," she said after I'd buckled into the passenger seat of our patrol car, "what say we go get a pepperoni pizza."

I looked at her long and hard then, looked at her eyes, at the smile she was doing her best to hide. Despite everything, I knew I was falling in love with her. I knew this was true because I knew I'd finally met someone as warped and twisted as that burnt out soul I saw every morning in the mirror when I shaved.

+++++

So Friday night came 'round; her first night at the Fairmont, if you recall. The Tonga Room, that ode to all things 1940: wisps of Tyrone Power lighting Norma Shearer's cigarette, Bogart and Bacall in a dark corner whispering sweet nothings over cool Zombies...it all happened at the Tonga back in the day, and still does, as a matter of fact. Back in the '30s MGM was charged with turning a small deck-side swimming pool into a Polynesian bar for a movie they were shooting – and they did. And the bar is still there, the restaurant too, and the mood hasn't changed all that much over the last 80 years. Music is now, as it was then, performed either poolside or from a platform floating in the pool. Some of the best jazz in the City is found here, and while the booze is pricey it's hard to beat the vibe. You can feel some pretty spirited ghosts lingering in the shadows, waiting for one more chance to dance the light fantastic before the lights go out – one more time.

Anyway, I'd hoped to show up early but got there as the lights were going down and saw a guy on the piano tickling the ivories, warming up with some Bill Evans –On Green Dolphin Streetwill do it every time – then the lights shone down on drums and an upright bass. People stopped drinking and watched, interested, as the music cooled, then, as Amy stepped into the light.

She was dressed, well, like Veronica Lake might have. Her hair was all Veronica Lake too. That is to say she was pure platinum, and the light played in sequined intensity all over her, blinding me to this new reality, hiding everything in sight within her shimmering radiance...everything, that is, except her face. Her hair and makeup were perfect, her beauty simply staggering; she'd taken my breath away before she ever parted her lips to start that first set.

Dindi.That two minute symphony from Sinatra and Jobim's first album. She drew her phrasing like a knife drawn slowly from a worn leather scabbard. Smooth, pure precision, her voice so sweet I could feel my pulse hammering in my forehead. This girl had been, I stammered inwardly, sitting next to me the past five nights while I took her on a guided tour of the city's sewers. What the hell was wrong with this picture? She belonged on the silver screen up there with Bogie and Grant, and sure as hell not in a reeking old Ford – riding around with a bunch of burnt-out old cops.

She moved toI Concentrate On You,and the tempo she set hit set off just the right mood once again. Her gown was, I now saw, split up the front and for the first time I saw her legs unencumbered by polyester trousers, and once again I felt my pulse hammering – as I took a long pull from my own Zombie. To say this girl was a 12.5 on the '10-scale' was a crazily bemused understatement; to say I felt like a thirteen year old boy stealing his first ever covert glances at a 'girlie' magazine was, again, another bemused understatement. As I sat drinking all this in – the music, the eyes, those goddamn legs – I found myself growing absolutely confused.

How had she ever decided on a career in law enforcement, and what fucking fool had let that thought form in her head? These questions – and more – kept forming in my mind, and at a dizzying pace. It may have escaped you, but I'm a cop; no, make that a Cop, with a capital C. I'm suspicious by nature, I observe, I take notes, and when things don't add up I start digging. I construct a working hypothesis and start researching. I'm tenacious, annoyingly so, too, and I have that on very good authority, as well. Something my wife said once...

Anyway...

She wrapped up her set with Sinatra'sOne Note Sambaand the room erupted. Men and women were on their feet, the applause thunderously deafening. As she came down she began to notice the reaction and took a bow before stepping out of the light and down onto the main floor. All eyes on her, she walked to the bar – and right up to – me.

...and as I stood she draped her gloved arms over my shoulders and looked me in the eye before she leaned in close and kissed me...hard...on the lips.

And I don't know where I went that moment. Still somewhere under the south side of the sky, I guess, but I was floating. She felt all cool and fine in my arms, with just the thinnest line of perspiration along her hairline, her eyes crystal clear and blazing with an unexpected, feral intensity.

"That was magic, Amy," I managed to say...though just. "Pure magic."

"What? That little ole kiss?"

"That too."

She leaned back and looked me in the eye. "Think I could talk you into taking me back to your place right now?"

I held out my hand and she took it, and we walked out together side by side. Lot's of envious glances burned into my back, too.

When we slipped into the back of the taxi she turned and looked at me once again. "Ooh," she sighed, "I like the way that felt."

"Oh?"

"Your hand in mine. I could get used to that," she said as she looked me in the eye.

"Could you?"

She leaned into me once again, and her mouth was exquisite.

So was, as it turned out, the rest of her.

+++++

And two days later we were on patrol again, and all was most definitely NOT as it had been.

It had started in briefing, when she could not, or would not, take her eyes off mine. Everyone did their best to ignore it, but she was smitten and had no intention whatsoever of concealing it.

No big deal, right?

Wrong.

The shift sergeant gave me the evil eye, meaning: back off –or else.Guys I'd worked with for years shook their heads, rolled their eyes, turned their face away without so much as a word.

Swell.

And a homeless man had been killed during a confrontation with a patrol unit earlier that evening, and now, tempers were flaring. Demonstrators had formed and tear gas canisters fired; a few store fronts were alight and more than a few patrol cars overturned and torched. In a new twist, dozens of ATMs had been hit; stolen cars were being driven into curbside cash machines and literally crushed open. Money was blown out into the streets and hundreds of people gathered to rake up the loot before responding units could secure the scene, and the latest had happened just fifteen minutes ago. The mood out there on the streets was volatile, the evening shift sergeant told us before we stood and left for our cars.

I could smell smoke in the air when I tossed her the keys as we walked through the parking lot – and my toss was ill-timed and arced well over and behind her – yet she caught them and unlocked the doors before she went about prepping the car for our shift...when the call came out:

"Need a unit to clear for a 3A in-progress."

"2141, show us in service."

"2141, 3A at the liquor store, 1590 Pacific, security guard down, hostages taken. 2110 advises respond Code 2/TAC alpha."

"2141, Code 2, TAC alpha."

"Code 2 at 00-05 hours."

"Know the best way there?" I asked her as she turned onto Van Ness.

"Van Ness to Broadway."

"Okay, hit it." She flipped on the lights but kept the siren off, per the watch commander's orders; we had three more units following while SWAT was called out, so our job would be to secure the area and try to keep the situation contained until the black suits arrived.

She took a corner a little too fast and I saw her looking at me out of the corner of her eye.

"I love you," she said, and suddenly we looked at one another.

"We can't do this to each other," I think I managed to say. "Not now."

"I know."

I think I flinched inside. The easy way those words came to me cut me to the bone, and it felt like the past two days had been a mirage, a shimmering fiction lost in the heat of the moment, but then it hit me once again. This had all happened before...

"I want to spend the rest of my life with you," I said, not knowing where those words came from.

"I know. I do too." She seemed confused as the thought hit her.

"Do me a favor, and try not to get killed tonight, okay?"

She smiled as she turned onto Pacific, and I remember her smile as the windshield erupted in a hail of spraying glass fragments. Heavy automatic weapons fire...cut through...the windshield...as I ducked downward, pulling Amy down under me...

She kept her foot on the brake and somehow slammed the transmission into park, causing the Ford's wheels to lock up and the vehicle to drift wide as it skidded to a stop. My side of the car ended up flush against a parked car, leaving her side the only way in – or out – and more bullets were slamming into the car.

"We're going to get get chewed up in here," I heard her say while I got the radio's mic in hand and put out a "Signal 33, shots fired!" on our primary. Sirens lit off all over the city at that point, and she looked at my side of the car's door, then at me.

You've been hit," she said. "Right shoulder, blood's oozing, not pulsing."

"No shit? I can't feel anything..."

More glass shattered overhead and I felt her stuffing something onto my shoulder, then she had the radio in hand and put out an "-41! Officer down, heavy automatic weapons fire this location..."

"You ready to get the fuck out of Dodge?" she asked, then in one fluid motion she kicked out her door and grabbed me by the collar, pulled me head-first out of the Ford. She took me in her arms, carrying me like a baby and I felt rounds slamming into her back, into her vest, and I cradled my hand protectively behind her head just as a round hit home.

I screamed, I know I did, because I felt her head recoil under the impact of...but she kept running until we were around the corner and safe. I remember hearing a helicopter overhead, paramedics running an IV into my left arm, and Amy standing over me, protecting me, not a scratch on her...then my world grew very silent – and bright – before I heard an inrushing roar and a liquidly soft warmth that was oh-so-dark and comfortable.

+++++

A bone fragment nicked my right brachial artery, just enough to cause a bad bleed, and being close to USF had saved my life – or so I was told. Well, no, that's not quite right, is it? Amy Goodman saved my life that night, in every way possible, yet so many questions remained of that encounter.

Like how the hell did she kick a car door off it's hinges? How did eight rounds from an AKS slam into her vest – and not take her down? The round that shattered my left hand, cradling her head? Not a scratch on her. What could hurt her? Kryptonite?

When I came out of wherever it was they fixed me and was wheeled into what looked like an ICU, she was there waiting for me, and I remember her looking down at me. Those perfect blue-green eyes of hers, pools of empathy and compassion, all knowing and all seeing. The gentle curve of her lips, the love in her eyes – and on her tongue – waiting.

"You're going to be fine," she said, her eyes bold and clear. "Even your hand, too."

"What's wrong with my hand?" I said as I held up the stump and looked it over. My thumb and index finger were gone, replaced by a huge wad of gauze and surgical tape, and I nodded my head, suitably impressed. "Well, shit," I think I managed to say, "ain't that a kick in the pants?"

A lab-coated surgeon of some sort came into the room, flipping through a chart, making little clucking noises as he looked at the numbers that told him all he needed to know about me, then he came to my bedside and unwrapped the bandages on my left hand and held it up for me to see.

Black sutures held the remains of my hand together, and the flesh was splotchy and blackish-blue in places. He turned 'it' in the light, making sure I could see every bit of the remains, then he took fresh dressings and rewrapped it.

"So," he began, "what are we going to do about this mess?"

I looked at the name embroidered on his white coat: 'Ben Prentice, MD, PhD' in nice bold lettering, and under that, 'BioMechanical Engineering, SUMC.'

Amy was looking at me just then, and I remembered her saying "Even your hand..." just a moment before; I looked at her again, then at this Prentice fellow. "What are my options?"

"Let this heal, take early retirement..."

"Or?"

"Let me...fix it."

"Fix it?"

"Replace a few key components, make a few modifications to your original equipment."

"Beg your pardon?"

"I'll replace this mess with a newer, bio-mechanical unit. Computer controlled, linked to your – brain."

"Okay, Bones. I assume you'll do this back on the Enterprise?"

Prentice laughed. "Not quite. We'll do it back at our lab."

"Your lab? Ah, so your real name is Frankenstein? Viktor, is it?"

The man smiled again, and it struck me that his was a familiar smile, too. "Not quite. We're working on other projects, so this would be kind of an experiment. Our hope is your hand will be completely restored. I mean completely, as in one hundred percent. Looks, function...everything. You in?"

Amy was looking down at me, nodding her head, smiling gently as she encouraged me to make the leap.

"You can be back on the street within six weeks," Prentice said, "but you need to let us know now so I can amend the surgical reports one way or the other. If you stay as is, the department will begin processing your retirement later today. You'll be released from hospital on full medical retirement, if that's what you want. Or you can go back to work. Your new hand will be as good as – if not better – than the original. In every way, I might add."

"How do you know? How can you be so confident?"

"Because our results let me be that confident."

"I'm sorry, but...will this – replacement – look like something out of The Terminator?"