Chapter 15: Bad Rep

We all waited for back up to arrive; Lamar regained his wits before they did, and tried to convince the officer that he was completely innocent, and that he hadn’t done any of the things we were accusing him of. Of course, this was before anyone else had said a word, damning his credibility since he was protesting without anyone having said anything against him within his ability to comprehend. Once he’d just about told on himself, Shayna proceeded to call him a liar, and then tell the officer her side of the story. She was finishing up— including a lot more detail than what she’d give me— when the first of the other law enforcement officers arrived.

I could tell that the situation was not going to have a good ending, first when the first LEO waited for another five of their ‘brethren’ to arrive, and while the campus police officer and a female metropolitan police officer wandered towards Shayna to speak with her, the others approached in our direction, mine and Powerline’s, and then when they all spread out as they approached, stopping at the eight meter mark. That told me that they were expecting a reaction— a negative reaction— and were prepared to meet that reaction with force, lethal force.

On the one hand, I could kinda understand their reaction— they had no idea of who was who, who was a possible ‘bad guy’ and who wasn’t. On the other hand, they could have simply taken the word of a fellow officer— even if he was a campus police officer— and run with that.

Then again, maybe they did, and that was why they seemed almost like they were ready to shoot first, and ask questions later.

“We’re gonna need to see your faces and some ID,” the apparent spokesperson of the five remaining officers said to me; he was of an average but slightly firm frame, clean-shaven with pale skin and a bald head. As if Powerline and I didn’t know who he was talking to, he gestured towards the both of us in turn. I could see Powerline in my peripheral vision, and she looked like she wasn’t sure about what to do at three in the morning.

“Um, officer?” I began, “we wear our gear for a reason; we’re trying to do the right thing, but we’re not going to end up with our identities plastered about for folks to either badger us, or target us—”

“That may be,” the officer interrupted me, “but we’ll still need to see your ID, and your faces.”

“Okay, let me say this,” I returned, “Powerline has a few good reasons why they should not show their face—”

“I’m not gonna tell you again; if you don’t show us your IDs and your faces, we’re gonna put you in handcuffs and place you under arrest for disobeying an officer,” the LEO spoke; his tone was light but firm.

“I’m going to have to disappoint you, officer,” I said. “I don’t have any ID with me, and I’m am not going to show my face; and neither is Powerline,” I added, including the young becoming-a-hero, who snapped her head to look in my direction. “C’mon, big guy,” I said to her, making sure to put in the minds of everyone there that Powerline was male, rather than her given gender, “I think we need to leave.”

“Don’t you move,” the officer began, and a couple of his brethren took a step or two in our direction; one even brought his hand up to the butt of a weapon— taser or pistol, I wasn’t sure, but I wasn’t about to find out.

“And now we are leaving,” I said, and stepped in front of Powerine, grabbing her lightly by the shoulders and turning her around; she looked up at me with a hard, questioning look, but in that moment seemed compliant with what I was basically ‘making’ her do.

I’d taken only about three steps when I heard the sudden jingling of various metallics, and made the assumption that at least one of the officers was running after us, and maybe even about to tackle me, which would have had me falling on top of Powerline. While I still hadn’t found anything yet that could hurt me, if I fell, and fell on top of Powerline, I was pretty sure that that wouldn’t be fun, and with the combined weight of two fully grown men, and gravity, it might actually hurt.

I took a springing hop, covering about ten meters distance, somewhat spinning in the air as I did so to look back behind me, and spotted one of the other officers, another male, just in mid-air, where he would have, just as I’d thought, tackled me if I had still been there. One of the other officers, a female, spotted me leaping away from her co-worker, and reached for her taser, the bright yellow making it easily identifiable, as she then started running towards us.

“Taser, taser, taser!!” She called out, as she got to where she felt she was close enough to stop, take a quick stance, and pull the trigger. I heard the muffled ‘pop!’ of the device deploying, and caught the glint of the metal prods of the taser from the corner of my eye before they bounced off of me.

A third of the remaining officers, seeing that the taser hadn’t done a thing, then reached for his service weapon. I was even more sure that that wasn’t going to hurt me, but at that moment, in trying to guide and protect Powerline, she was placed almost in front of me, and if I didn’t move, she would get hit by gunfire, and I didn’t know if she was bulletproof like I seemed to be. So again, as my feet touched back down on the ground, I spun around and turned my back to the officers, keeping Powerline in front of me.

I heard the weapon discharge four, five, six times— but felt no hits— before it was once again silent, at least for a few seconds. Once I figured out that I wasn’t being shot at any further, I released Powerline. “Get gone, kid,” I whispered harshly to her, “things are getting ugly, and unless you’re bulletproof, you might get hurt.” I peeled away from her, and spun around— keeping her at my back, though— just in time to see three of the officers, one of them the female who had tried to tase me— approaching.

“Anybody touches me, they will get hurt,” I offered them a warning, a warning I was certain that they weren’t going to heed.

The female officer was the first one to reach out and touch me, just a step ahead of her brethren, and she opened her mouth to speak, only getting so far as, “I’m placin-” before I grabbed the arm she was grabbing me with, and bodily tossed her into the next closest officer, swinging her into him as though she weighed just a couple of kilos. They both went down hard, in a brief tangle of arms and legs and with the air knocked out of them. The third officer halted just outside of arms reach, and began to backpedal.

“I keep my word, officers,” I said to them, loudly enough for them to hear me, “You wanna talk, I’ll talk. I’m not going—”

At that, they— at least, the ones still upright and able to speak, began to make threats and drew their weapons, but with their brethren right near me, they weren’t likely going to fire at them.

I looked to the two on the ground, who were struggling to get air back into their lungs, trying to get up, and looking at me with a burning desire to see me at their mercy, I was sure.