Season 1, Episode 3 - The Ring Dings XIX - "Late Night Bump"

Hanai and Clayton stood next to their jeep, barking orders out left and right.

“Lieutenant Colombo!” Hanai commanded. “Based on our intel, there are significant gaps in the ring around the two stores. Are we sure we have everything covered?”

Colombo looked down at the map laid flat on the jeep’s hood. “The soldiers...we got a little into it,” Colombo admitted. "Several soldiers moved into the alleyways surrounding the store out of position, so about a block away...there are a few spots open...”

Hanai jabbed an open gap on the map. “Colombo, take a few men to scout out the end of the block, around this pizzeria. I’ll take another group and patrol the other open spot. Clayton, remain here and-”

A huge explosion a block away shook the street, sending up a huge orange fireball that engulfed the buildings around it.

Hanai tensed, hearing screams and cries for medics.

“I’ll check it out,” Clayton said, smiling to hide the slight fear. “C’mon, Colombo, let’s go check it out.”

Colombo saluted and the Rddhi user, the lieutenant, and a few soldiers darted away.

Hanai watched them depart and sighed. He removed his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. He found himself thinking of Esther, the quiet genius who caught his eye at the opening ceremony, caught his love during a group project in Calculus II.

There’s so much I want to talk to you about, Hanai thought with a sigh. Fighting Rddhi users, that’s nothing. But to lead men...they can only teach you so much in school about it.

He looked at the stars above him. Am I doing a good job? I know I could’ve done better...but why do we only realize our failures in hindsight?

“Hanai.”

Hanai looked back down and saw Kelb grabbing his shoulder, his smile firm but understanding.

“Captain Kelb.”

“Hayman’s been secured,” Kelb explained. “We have some prisoners...and some dead men.”

Kelb swung his arm and Hanai saw a couple of beaten-down smugglers being marched off, their hands behind their heads. He also saw a couple of body bags being carried off. In contrast to all the other body bags, Hanai saw that one in particular appeared blue.

“The Rddhi user,” Kelb explained. “Defeated in battle, she took her own life.”

“Defeated?” Hanai looked around and saw Isaac and the New Yorker – no, Alfie was his name – sitting in reflection on the sidewalk outside of Hayman Office Supplies.

“They won,” Hanai realized. “That’s good. Any casualties on our side?”

“A few wounded men, but no fatalities.”

Hanai sighed in relief.

“Something odd did happen, though.”

Hanai raised an eyebrow.

Kelb continued. “We sent men to investigate the Bay Mart after we stormed Hayman and found signs of a struggle...a serious struggle.”

“Serious?”

“A Rddhi fight,” Kelb said stoically. “It looked like someone shot up the place, but no bullets or weaponry could be found. And we still don’t understand how a Rddhi fight could’ve happened under our noses like that.”

“Were there any bodies?” Hanai asked.

Kelb pointed a distance away, revealing a set of MPs carrying away another blue body bag. “One dead man. Kid, I should say. No older than a high schooler. Can’t say for sure, but from the impression I get, he wasn’t one of ours.”

Hanai shook his head uneasily. “Once things are squared away, I’ll take a look at him myself. If they’re up to it...if they can stomach seeing a dead body after everything that’s happened, have Isaac and Alfie look at the other body too to make sure. If they’re up for it.”

“Those kids...” Kelb looked over at the two kids...young men, rather. “They’re alright, those two. I’m glad we had ‘em leading the charge.”

“Me too...maybe I shouldn’t have doubted the plan.”

Clayton suddenly appeared next to him, a gust of wind emanating from him as he landed. “Bad news, boss,” Clayton said, rubbing the side of his head. “Got a dead soldier.”

Hanai slowly clenched his fist. “From the explosion?”

Clayton shook his head. “From a gunshot wound. It means...somebody from the store made it out after all.”

Hanai looked up at the night sky.

Esther...I have a dead man on my hands. What would you say to that?

Hanai knew Esther wouldn’t say anything, because she wasn’t there. Only he was. And he had a job too.

“Send out patrols. Have them fan out to cover the surrounding blocks.” Hanai clenched his fist. “Let’s bring this bastard down.”

Reed and Audrey made it to an alleyway a block or two away before their injuries forced them to stop. The pockets of their longcoats were almost overflowing with Rushers. They got quite a good haul from that closet – not only did they find half a hundred Rushers, they also found an extra item each. For Reed, she took a pair of shiny brass knuckles. For Audrey, she took a copy of Die Göttliche Zitrone, a notorious German Neo-Expressionist novel known for its flowery – very, very flowery – description of sex scenes.

The soldiers around Hayman put their entire focus on dealing with the smugglers inside the store, allowing the girls a path to freedom. The only opposition they found was a lone soldier patrolling the avenue in front of a nearby pizzeria, but his back was turned and his attention focused in the other direction, enabling Audrey and Reed to cross the avenue and escape into the darkness.

Arriving at a small park, they took a brief moment to catch their breath, an act made harder when Reed reached into her coat and took a sharp inhale of a Rusher.

“Reed, you goddamn addict,” Audrey huffed out, her hands on her knees.

“I’m no addict, I just want to see if they’re bunk or...not...oh man, I’m high as shit...”

A sudden, singular gunshot brought Reed back down to earth.

Audrey clutched Reed’s arm. “That sounded close!”

Reed narrowed her eyes. It did, in fact, sound way too close for comfort.

Another gunshot caught their breath, but no more came and they let out a sigh of relief.

Reed looked at Audrey with concern.

“How are you holding up-”

Audrey stumbled when the massive boom of an explosion rang out from the battle site, followed by sounds of screams and shattered glass. Reed still stood tall, peering at the flames through the trees around the park.

“How are you holding up?” Reed repeated.

Audrey squeaked out a “I’m fine” but the limp in her walk and the vine bandages wrapped around multiple wounds across her body suggested otherwise.

Reed put the backpack on and then gestured to Audrey. “I’ll carry you back,” she offered.

Reed frowned when Audrey readily accepted the offer; Reed hoped she would be too polite and turn it down. With Audrey in her arms, Reed took two steps before setting her back down, breathing heavily.

“You’re gonna have to walk,” Reed said.

“What? Is it because I’m fat?” Audrey asked.

Reed wanted to say no, it’s because I myself have multiple wounds and only have the strength of a scrawny teenage girl, but, well...

“Yes,” Reed simply answered.

Audrey stuck her tongue out.

The two took a deep, concluding inhale then prepared to head home-

Reed heard the noise of a gun cocking on the wind. Instinctively, she stepped in front of Audrey, shielding her friend’s body with her own.

Ten feet from them, they saw the glint of the streetlight on the barrel of a pistol.

Now, having just been in a life or death struggle less than fifteen minutes ago, a gun might seem trivial. But that was a Rddhi on Rddhi fight, something within their field of strength, their known dimensions. That was expected and that’s what they trained to do.

But a loaded gun was different. A loaded gun could fire far quicker than either of them could activate the Rddhi. Now maybe in different circumstances, with some more training, they could’ve evened that gap, made it a fair fight. But they were two exhausted, weary high schoolers staring down a pistol.

Of course, they weren’t going down without a fight. Reed was already calculating possible attack avenues, methods of assault (not a chance in hell Reed would ever retreat), but the man spoke first.

“I detected two other Rddhi users in the Bay Mart. I take it was you two?”

Reed and Audrey slowly nodded.

The man smiled. He was dressed in a white trenchcoat, a modified military one with gray fur going across behind the neck, a few medals pinned to the chest. His hair was white and neat, his eyes powerful and confident, full of a belief in divine destiny.

“I no longer detect Roman in the Rddhi. I take it you two killed him?”

Another slow pair of nods.

“Good riddance, then. By the end, he was too far gone.”

Reed realized from the man’s poise and authority that this was the man himself: Roman’s Sensei. He wore his smile with ease, as if he was in complete control of the situation. Maybe because he was.

“Why you’d keep him around, then?” Reed found herself questioning.

The man shrugged. “I had a theory. If someone or something dear to you was entering into a state of decay, would you give it the resources and help to heal itself?”

Reed and Audrey slowly nodded.

“But what if the special something squandered all your help and aid? What if it just continued to decay? Would you just sit around and wait? Would you intervene?”

After a moment, the two girls nodded once again.

“And what if that intervention required complete destruction in order to find the joy of rebirth?”

“Uh…are we still talking about the serial killer?” Audrey hesitantly asked.

The man let out a small laugh. “Forgive me, I often find myself talking in metaphors.”

The whole time, his grip on the gun barrel remained strong, never moving even an inch away from its target.

“Roman was a student of mine, and I saw him as clay,” the man admitted. “I wanted to mold something better out of him. But it wasn’t meant to be. His newfound power corrupted him, and the consequence was death. Sometimes, at the end of the day, you just have to replace your clay.”

The man shrugged. “That’s life, I suppose. And by the way, I noticed your movements in the Bay Mart weren’t coordinated with the military attack. I take you two were acting independently?”

Reed and Audrey nodded.

“Have you thought about how the military never noticed something going on in the Bay Mart, considering the lights and noises from inside? How the military never noticed two girls talking about the meaning of Halloween in the middle of an alleyway?”

Reed and Audrey glanced at each other.

“That was me,” the man explained. “I used the Rddhi to suppress all activity from inside the store and from you two on your way inside. To the military, the Bay Mart appeared as a quiet, closed store. And to think they never even sent a scout team to investigate inside, no matter how quiet it may have appeared! This is the state of our military now. Utterly sorrowful.”

“Why’d you conceal our activity?” Reed asked.

The man shrugged. “I wanted to see what would happen. I timed things so Roman would enter the Bay Mart soon after you two. Roman thought he was strong, but his only ‘fights’ - if you could call them that - consisted of poor women from slums. I wanted to give him a healthy dose of reality by having him fight you two. If he won, perhaps he could be brought back down to earth, away from his power trip. But by having died, he demonstrated that he wasn’t worthy for my teachings or for the future New England.”

Reed thought it over. “Uh...okay.”

The man glanced at their coats.

“And I take it those are my Rushers?”

This time, Reed and Audrey’s nods were full of anxiety.

After a moment, the man shrugged and returned his pistol to his side. “Keep them. I personally don’t care for them. They were just means to an end, and there are certainly much better means at my disposal. Take care, you two. I’m sure our paths will cross again.”

With that, the man turned and headed back toward...Reed and Audrey gulped. The entire time, at the edge of the park, a hidden squadron of enforcers stood at the ready with guns drawn, guarding an open sewer hatch.

“You’re not...you’re not gonna kill us?” Audrey called out.

The man paused and turned his head back toward them.

“Everything I do is for the betterment of New England. I won’t kill you because I sincerely hope I have young students like you join me in my endeavor. When the fateful day arrives, I hope you will be on my side. If not, then stay out of my way. Otherwise, I will kill you.”

Just like that, he walked off into the darkness.

Reed and Audrey waited for a anxiety-ridden moment before quickly scurrying away, heading toward home. When they arrived in Curley Park, they took a moment to collect their breath, which now came out in long, uneven exhales.

“He’s a Rddhi user,” Audrey questioned, “So why did he use a gun?”

Reed wiped her face with her hand. "At first, I thought it was just because he didn't want to alert the military to his presence. But if he kept us hidden this whole time...he only used a gun just to fuck with us."

“What does that mean?” Audrey asked fearfully.

Reed gritted her teeth. “Based on what he said...I think he just wanted to see how we reacted. And if he casually just manipulate things like that...stroll around while having users collide with one another...just to see what would happen...in other words, talk about one scary son of a bitch.”