All Quiet In The "Big City"

By Randall M! Gee.

Yesterday was a quiet day in the Secret War on the San Francisco front. Lawrence Yi, Hard-Boiled San Francisco Maverick Cop, would disagree, though. If this were his story, it would go something like this:

"As I picked myself off the street, I realized I needed a new car -- and fast. I like fast cars, but that wasn't the cause of my urgency. A few minutes ago, I tracked Joey 'The Bishop' Regetti to the fourth floor of an office building on Sutter Street. He was disguised as a copy machine repairman, but a real repairman doesn't carry enough C4 to take out an entire floor. I stopped him from arming the big bomb, of course, but not before the Bishop managed to put a couple holes in some good office furniture, and set a couple things on fire -- including my best jacket.

"I had him cornered, too, but he was desperate. He tried to smash me with a copy machine -- or so I thought. I dodged it, but he just pushed the machine through the window and followed it onto the street! I didn't think he had it in him. He landed on his fake copy machine repair van -- must've been padded or something. He got in, and took off.

"I had to follow him, of course. I had to know who his boss was, and I had the sneaking suspicion that if I couldn't find out in time, the Golden Gate Bridge was going to be the next target. And that'd really make my commute unbearable. But there was no way that little van would get away from my RX-7.

"Unfortunately for me, the photocopier landed on my car. Even worse, Bishop managed to plant a small explosive in the copier before I got there. My RX-7 was toast. Of all the months to forget to pay my car insurance.

"So that's why I needed a car fast. Luckily, there was one around. It wasn't exactly a Masserati, though. Actually, a Honda del Sol, but its top was down, its keys were in the car, and beggars can't be choosers. I took off after the Bishop. SFPD would reimburse the owner for the car -- they'd grumble at me, but they'd do it. But I'd have to eat the loss of my RX-7, especially since I was supposed to be off-duty. This wasn't turning out to be a good day."

But this isn't Yi's story. Yi led a pretty exciting life so far, but he still didn't know squat about the Secret War. Now, Katrina Lupus, Triumvirate Dealmaker, knew about the Secret War. Then again, it was her job. She supplied items -- guns, drugs, information -- to interested parties in exchange for certain favors. She would never carry anything illegal herself, of course, but she always knew how you could get it safely. Yesterday, she was on a tight schedule. She'd just told Tony Lo the name of a certain rival of his who was undercutting his business in London in exchange for the passwords to the Heathrow airport security systems, and was heading to Ricky Lin to let him know just how he could get his brother away from MI-5, when she noticed her Honda del Sol was missing.

That was a setback. She could get another car, no problem, but she needed to get across town, because Ricky didn't like to be kept waiting. Lupus wasn't afraid of Ricky, but she really needed to know who was responsible for the strange weapons turning up around the Bay Area. If Ricky got petulant, that meant delays, and delays can be fatal.

But minor setbacks can be dealt with. Lupus would handle this in her own way -- she'd go to the police. Not just any police, of course. She'd go to one of her Pledged cops. She found one three blocks away. His name was Steven Sullivan. She'd work with him before. She had him give her a ride to Ricky. It'd be a bit unusual arriving at the meeting place in a cop car, but Ricky never had anything to fear from cops, and he'd worked with Sullivan before. The siren would help get through cross-town traffic, and afterwards, she'd have Sullivan track down the car thief and take care of him. It wouldn't do to have the Grand Theft Auto division handle this case, after all. In a day or two, no outsider would suspect that anything unusual had happened.

That is, no outsider except maybe Sammy Chen, Sullivan's partner and Kung Fu Cop. Sammy was new to the police force, and this was his first time out on the beat. He learned martial arts first from his father, and then, when his father disappeared suddenly, from his uncle. His father had also taught him to help those who could not help themselves. He would have been proud to see him in uniform. It's a hard job, but Sammy was having a blast. The only thing was that, for some reason, Sammy just felt uncomfortable around his partner Sullivan. Sullivan seemed like an affable enough fellow, and Sammy liked to give people the benefit of the doubt, but Sullivan always seemed to be watching Sammy a little too closely, his questions were always a little too pointed. Sammy wondered if Sullivan had some sort of grudge against him that he didn't know about. (In a sense, he did. Sammy didn't know that the Lodge took a special interest in his career. His father was an active participant in the Secret War before his disappearance, and they wanted to know if Sammy had a Dragon within him.)

As Lupus approached Sullivan about her stolen car, Sammy was in the lobby of the Genutech building, taking care of a couple of young hoods. One of the hoods had a silver canister that he'd just taken from some middle-aged guy coming out of the building. He was swinging it like a club, hoping to bash in Sammy's brains. The other hood was getting back up on his feet, after Sammy had taken out his legs, and looking for something big to throw at Sammy. He decided on a chair. Sammy dodged a few swings of the canister, punched the hood in the face causing him to drop the canister, jumped over an oncoming chair onto a desk, and kicked a potted plant thrown at him by the second hood into the face of the first hood. The first hood was out of the fight. The second hood tried to dive for a gun that Sammy kicked out of his hands about 30 seconds ago, but Sammy intercepted him, leaping off the desk and smashing him with a piledriver, before he could grab it. Sammy got up, pocketed the gun ("Evidence," he thought), and handcuffed the two hoods. Piece of cake.

Sammy opened the lobby door. "Hey Sullivan! I bagged both of them, and never drew my gun. You owe me a doughnut." Sammy thought it was important to not draw his gun when dealing with young punks, unless he had to. It was to show the kids that guns didn't make them important. Lately, there was a lot more gang activity, and really powerful guns had started to appear in the hands of a lot of young kids. There were rumors of almost magical weapons, that really powerful guys could get. Sammy didn't want kids hooked into gangs by promises of that kind of power.

"Great kid!" replied Sullivan. "Now, could you process them on your own too? I'm going to take care of a stolen car."

"Are you serious?" asked Sammy. But Sullivan had already started to drive off in the police cruiser. "Hey, wait! How am I supposed to get them to the station? Take them on the BART train?" Sullivan wasn't in hearing range by the time Sammy finished. "Sheesh, what'd I ever do to deserve that?" This was definitely weird behavior. Maybe there's more to this, Sammy thought. He definitely saw a woman in a black, well-cut business suit in the passenger seat of the car. She was a real looker, too. Maybe....

Sammy decided not to think about that just then. He needed to call for some back-up. There was a phone in the lobby. As he connected to the station, he wondered what to say. He had a feeling, though, that even if he reported his partner's strange behavior to his gruff old lieutenant, nothing would come of it.

"This is officer 98318; I'm going to need some bAAA!!!" The phone started hissing and getting hot, and Sammy threw it just before it exploded. (It'd never done that before.) The two hoods had gotten out of the handcuffs -- melted them actually -- and one of them was holding some sort of device that looked like a really big cigarette lighter. Sammy drew his gun, but the hood pointed the lighter at Sammy, and Sammy saw blue sparks fly around the lighter. Sammy's gun misfired, which was weird because Sammy hadn't pulled the trigger. (Sammy would not realize until later that the gunpowder in all of the bullets in his gun had simultaneously gone off. At the moment, all Sammy really knew was that his hand was burned badly.) The hood with the lighter pointed again, blue sparks appeared again, but this time, the lighter exploded. The hood was thrown against the rear wall, minus his right hand, where he lay unconscious. The other hood grabbed the silver canister Sammy had left lying on the ground and took off.

Sammy quickly checked the first hood, but it didn't take long to figure out he was dead. (He wouldn't notice until later the strange stigmata that mysteriously appeared on the right side of the hood's body.) So he took off after the first hood.

Sammy got out in time to see the hood run into a bike messenger and knock him off his bike. The silver canister tumbled to the ground and rolled around a few feet before he jumped into a motorcycle of his own and ride off. Sammy caught up to him just as he rode away. Sammy thought about jumping onto the other hood's cycle, but for some reason, the keys weren't left in the motorcycle. (As Sammy would later learn, the bike keys were embedded an inch deep in the dead hood's body.)

The bike messenger decided to complain to Sammy. "Hey, that jerk knocked me off my bike!" Sammy didn't have time to deal with him, though.

"Sorry about that, sir. I'll need to confiscate that bike as evidence," said Sammy, as he hopped onto the 18-speed touring bike.

"Hey!" yelled bike messenger, as the Sammy pedaled away. "What do you think you're doing!" Sammy had been exercising a lot, but he still couldn't catch up to motorcycle on his own. But, he pedaled up to a passing car, and grabbed its rearview mirror.

"I'm a cop!" yelled Sammy. "Follow that motorcycle!"

Bill Hemley, bike messenger, watched as a cop on his bike hitched a ride on a BMW 911. This wasn't turning out to be his day. He looked down at the package he was supposed to deliver -- a long silver canister. "Man, I'm gonna lose my job again." he thought. Bill Hemley was not a good bike messenger. He couldn't think of anything else to do, so he decided to visit his girlfriend, who was an intern at an local television station, which happened to be located down the street. Maybe she could think of something -- she was pretty smart.

Bill strolled in to the station. "Hi Sarah," he said.

Sarah stared at him. "Bill, I'm working now," she said.

"So am I. But I lost my bike, and I gotta get this package to Anderson & Brady Architects."

"You lost your bike again?"

"It's not my fault this time. I was --"

"I don't want to hear this." Sarah Allen looked at Bill and wondered once again why she hung around with this loser. She wanted to be a muckraking gonzo journalist, while Bill Hemley apparently aspired to be a bum. "How did you get in here? There's a lot of sensitive electronic equipment. Visitors aren't supposed to come here."

"I just crawled through the window." Sarah buried her head in her hands. "I thought maybe I could borrow the News Van again and --"

"No, you can't. It's out collecting news right now. Without me, I might add. If you hadn't borrowed it to deliver a cake to a bachelor party I might have been able to ride along, but no.... Besides, how important can your package be, anyway?"

"Well, it's a blueprint or something. Maybe it's for the new baseball park in China Basin. Here, I'll show you." And Bill then made the biggest mistake of his life -- he opened the canister. The foul demonic sputum contained inside blew out, covering his face and body. (About this time, Sammy Chen would be wondering why hoods were stealing proposed blueprints to Fun-Fun Mountain Amusement Park.) Bill screamed, stepped backwards, and tripped other a tangle of power cords. The rank fluid ate its way through the rubber insulation, diverting most of the station's power through poor Bill before tripping the circuit breakers. The room plunged into darkness. But before the power failed, Allen saw that Bill was no longer himself.

His skin and hair and the sputum had melted together to form a motley purple covering over most of is body, except in some small patches where the skin had melted off completely and exposed charred muscle beneath. His limbs elongated -- his bones had been softened, and then a crystline structure grew over them -- and his three remaining fingers on each hand grew claws. His lower jaw hung open uselessly, exposing a straggling row of fangs.

Bill Hemley, bike messenger, became Bill Hemley, Test Subject.

The former Bill Hemley screamed out its rage and pain. It staggered forwards, almost drunkenly, trying to feel its way out of the building in the dark. It found the door, fumbled for the doorknob, but realized it no longer had the co-ordination to work it. So it tore it down and ran out through the hallway.

Sarah Allen looked on in horror and fascination. A more cautious woman might have wondered "How do I get out of here?" A more caring woman might have asked herself "Is Bill OK?" But Allen just thought "What a story! How am I going to follow this thing?"

And then she thought of the traffic helicopter....

This was going to be her day in the spotlight.

* * *

Today, Daryl Wong is having a bad day. He remembers how it all began. Yesterday, he looked out of his office window. He had a great view from the 40th floor of the TransAmerica Pyramid, and he was having a slow day, so why not watch the city go by? There seemed to be a lot of commotion on the street though. He could see a few police cars, a couple of sports cars, a motorcycle or two go by.... Was that a bicycle? And some sort of glowing thing, that looked almost human. (It was a clear day, so he could see all this even from the 40th floor.) But what really caught his eye was the sudden appearance of a helicopter just outside his window. One of the blades shattered his window, spraying glass all over his office, which was just cleaned the day before. The next thing he saw was a woman with a video camera jumping from the helicopter through the window into his office.

"Excuse me," said Sarah Allen, as the helicopter fell 40 stories onto the street below. "Can I use your phone?"

Daryl Wong is an insurance claims processor. He is completely unhurt by yesterday's events, but his office was trashed. He's now working out of a temporary cubicle, processing thirteen separate claims for damages. He'll be there for weeks.

* * *

Today, "Fast Eddie" Tran runs a large car dealership, which just happens to be located on a minor feng shui site. Thirteen people are going to come in today looking for vehicles to replace ones that wore out. This is Fast Eddie's lucky day....

But for everyone else, it's just another day in the Secret War in the "Big City." With a little less traffic.

Last modified: September 16, 1996;