Chapter Text
Her coffee was cold, her patience thin, but Caitlyn held her post, eyes sharp and unblinking.
Her assignment tonight was backup for an undercover operation targeting The Hounds, a notorious gang that was always causing trouble in the city districts across the river. They were suspected of running a ruthless drug ring responsible for flooding the city with a powerful new substance known on the streets as Shimmer.
Her team had spent months tracking shipments and tracing leads, and tonight, they were finally zeroing in on a warehouse suspected of housing a major supply stash and serving as a distribution hub.
The warehouse, an old shipping depot with tinted windows and heavy security, sat on the corner of Grant and Mercer—a forgotten area of the city where few businesses dare to operate after dark.
Caitlyn was parked two blocks down from the warehouse on Vine and Carson, a shadowy street corner known for its dim streetlights and narrow alleys. From this position, she had a direct line of sight to the warehouse entrance, watching for any movement or escape attempts once her team made their move.
The plan was for the primary officers to infiltrate the building quietly, capturing anyone inside and securing any drugs on-site. But the Hounds were known for having an extensive network of lookouts and enforcers, so there was a high chance things could go sideways.
As she watched the entrance, Caitlyn’s mind raced, running through scenarios of what could unfold once the operation began. Her orders were simple: provide backup if things went wrong, and make sure no one slipped past.
She sat in the dim light of the squad car, the low hum of the air conditioner and the noise of the radio her only companions. The voice playing on the radio was low and husky, the voice of some woman she vaguely recalled. Must have been popular in the 80s or something. She switched the radio off, preferring the silence, and turned to look out her window.
The only light sources near here were the flickering street light at the end of the block and the neon red-purple of the establishment across the street. She squished and made out the word TATTOO. Their logo was a lewd outline of a woman, her tongue sticking out. Caitlyn frowned and looked away, checking her side and rear view mirrors, ignoring the heat in her cheeks despite the chill of the night air, the gentle blow of the car’s vent system.
She reached into the cup holder nearest to her, pulling out the plastic cup. The name Kaitlyn was stenciled across the side in simple black Sharpie. The barista had been spelling her name wrong for months now, but she didn’t have the heart to tell her. She supposed it was too late by now. She would just make things awkward.
She brought the cup to her lips, brushing the hard black of the lid. She sensed she would need caffeine to make it through the rest of this stakeout. The familiar liquid hit her tongue, and she found it was as cold as ice. She jerked, spitting it back into the cup. She frowned and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. She supposed she couldn’t be surprised. It had been sitting in the car all day after all.
She sat back, straightening her back. She checked her mirrors again, her gaze darting to the warehouse down the street. Still the same old, dusty brick building. There were no lights, loud noises, or obvious signs of distress. If they needed her, they would call for backup. She just had to sit here and wait.
She didn’t know why she felt so unnerved. She had done this a million times. She supposed she should be grateful she was the one sitting in the car, not scouring a creepy old warehouse for signs of drug trafficking, or back at the station pouring over photos and reports of their latest homicide case.
It must have been the dark streets and allies getting to her. On either side of the road, boarded up windows and empty storefronts greeted her like hovering ghosts. Businesses that weren’t bars, shitty restaurants, some sort of piercing shop or tattoo parlors barely made it down here. They were always getting calls from the corner of Grant and Mercer, reporting some robbery or drunken bar brawl.
She wrinkled her nose. The only sounds now were ones from the bar a few blocks down, carried on down by the empty street.
She hated this part of the city. Back when she was a rookie, condemned to long, tedious patrols and traffic enforcement shifts at the ass crack of dawn, she had practically been stationed here. The closer you got to the river, the higher the crime rate was, or so her co-workers always said.
She supposed there was some truth to it.
She rolled down her window, wanting to get some air. There was a light breeze, bringing the sharp, bitter smell of cigarette smoke and ash. She coughed, waving a hand in front of her face. She leaned out the window, longing for the clean air of her parent’s countryside estate. Her arm dangled uselessly at her side, coffee cup still in hand.
The earpiece in her ear, connecting her to dispatch, crackled to life and a familiar voice evaded her eardrums. “Tsk, tsk. You better not be littering, Miss Kiramman. I would have to write you up for that.”
She jumped in her seat, ducking back into her car. She nearly spilled the cold brown liquid on her uniform, cursing under her breath. She let out a low hiss, hearing the laughter on the other side of the line and instantly knew who the culprit was.
She pressed down on the earpiece, talking into the small mic. “How do you even see me?!” She exclaimed, a small part of her actually mortified.
Their advancing technology systems never failed to amaze her. They had got a brand new system last year after the vote was passed, allowing them to raise the taxes.
“Traffic cams,” Jayce replied through the earpiece, and she could picture his smug face in her head.
She shriveled her head around, looking out the windows, locating the security camera quickly— conveniently planted on the corner of the nearest building, the darkened, vacant windows of what had once been a greasy pizza place. There was a tiny red light indicating it was recording, the circular black lens pointed right at her.
Sticking her head back out the window, she promptly flipped off the camera and then got back into the car, rolling up the window.
There was an indignant sigh in her ear. “Caitlyn Kirraman.”
“What?” She huffed.
She heard a chuckle on the other side of the line. “I’ll have to write you up for that too.”
She snorted. “For what? For putting a numbskull in his place?”
“For distracting the tech guy—“
“Communications director,” Caitlyn hissed. “That’s your job. You’re not the tech guy.”
“Same difference.”
“No, it’s not.” She sighed, a hand still pressed to her ear. It almost felt like the old days—when she used to call Jayce when she was up late, studying for whatever test she had for the academy the next day. He had been a family friend for as long as she remembered. He had been the one to talk to her mother to try to convince her to let her try to become a cop, the one to cheer the hardest when she graduated. He worked in communications and technology mostly, and had been making headlines in his improvements to their surveillance and database units.
She looked back over her shoulder, at the steady red glint of the traffic camera. “I didn’t even know you could see those live,” she muttered under her breath, changing the subject.
Jayce still heard her because, of course, he did. “Pretty cool, right? City funding.”
Caitlyn smirked. “I’m pretty sure the Parks and Rec Department is still pissed because your fancy tech grant made the City Council cut their budget.”
“Well, the Parks and Rec Department can eat my shorts. This is so much better than, like, a new bench, or whatever they do.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Hacking into traffic surveillance is better?”
“Yeah, I’d say. Never know when you have to give out a speeding ticket.”
She rolled her eyes. “Shouldn’t you be working on that new drone prototype with Viktor?”
Viktor was Jayce’s partner. They had worked on several projects together, making updates to all the station’s technology systems and resources.
Jayce just sighed heavily on the other side. “Yeah.”
It was followed by a thick silence.
Caitlyn paused, a knowing smile playing on her lips. She was glad Jayce couldn’t see her face. “He kicked you out of the workshop again, didn’t he?”
Viktor and Jayce normally seemed to be close friends, but often butted heads when it came to little things—like the deadline of a project or how to work out a certain kink in a machine.
“Maybe.. Possibly.. Yes.”
Caitlyn held back her laugh. “What’d you do this time?”
“Asked if he wanted to go get something to eat. He said no, and I told him he needs to eat, ‘cause he looks like shit. He’s been held up in the lab all day, working on rebooting the information system. And he gets all mad. He threw a stapler at me. A STAPLER.”
This time, Caitlyn laughed.
“Not funny,” Jayce protested.
“Sorry,” she amended. “Please continue.”
“Anyways, he threw me out, and I ran into Chief on the way out. She told me to help out with dispatch. I wanted to check in on you, see how the new headsets are doing. How are they?”
“Well,” Caitlyn replied. “Nothing is smoking, nothing has exploded yet, and I can hear your annoying voice just fine, so I’d say it’s working.”
“Har har, very funny—”
The rest of his sentence was cut off as the headpiece beeped, drowning out his voice. Caitlyn stiffened, tensing as another voice joined in on their conversation.
“HELLO?”
It was the voice of Officer Hawkins, one of the officers currently in the warehouse. His voice sounded heavy, strained, like he was out of breath.
“Hawkins?” Caitlyn echoed, fingers brushing her holster, ready for trouble. “Everything okay? It’s been a while.”
“Call the bomb squad,” Hawkins hissed.
Caitlyn’s heart dropped to her stomach, to the bottom of the car. Oh my God.
“Stay there,” she said, forcing her voice to stay steady. “Don’t touch anything.”
Jayce’s voice came in, blending with hers. “I’m dispatching emergency services to your location now. Hold tight.”
There was silence for a moment, broken only by Hawkin’s heavy breathing and Jayce’s frantic keyboard typing.
“What happened?” Caitlyn finally asked.
“We did a thorough sweep of the place,” Hawkins replied. “The whole place is empty. It was either never used, or someone tipped them off and they knew we were coming. We were almost done, and then Cortez calls me over. Found a strange stack of crates, left in the middle of the room, and it’s ticking.”
Caitlyn swore. “Fuck.”
“Stay where you are,” Jayce repeated.
There was a crackle on the other side— a sharp inhale, the shuffle of feet. She heard the sound of other voices in the background, the shouts of the other officers.
“Stay calm,” Caitlyn breathed, trying to help.
Another crackle. Caitlyn furrowed her eyebrows. Jayce was still typing away.
She lifted her head when a strange smell entered her nostrils. She widened her eyes in horror when she realized there was a steady tendril of thick smog rising into the night sky, gray against the black, directly above the abandoned warehouse.
Smoke.
“Fire!” She shouted in the earpiece, hearing Jayce curse under his breath. “Call the Fire Department!”
“On it.” He paused, breathing. “Do you see the flames?”
“No. Not yet. Just smoke.”
More typing.
“Jayce,” she hissed. “Hurry.”
“I’m trying!”
She pressed desperately into her earpiece, hoping to hear another voice. “Hawkins? You okay in there?”
She paused. No reply.
She tapped the earpiece again. “Stay there. I’m coming in.”
She heard Jayce take a sharp inhale. “No, you’re not. Stay in the car. Stay clear of the building.”
“They might need help,” Caitlyn protested, the worry settling in her chest. The dread gnawed at the deepest pits of her stomach. They weren’t responding. Something was wrong.
She had a bad feeling about this.
“You’re no good to us if you get blown up. Stay where you are. Meet the firefighters on the side street.”
Caitlyn ignored him and opened the car door.
“Caitlyn.”
She stepped out, slamming the door shut. The pavement was hard against her boots. The air was heavy, smelling of smoke and burnt metal. Her heart raced in her chest, the blood roaring in her ears. Her fingers twitched for her gun holster.
“Caitlyn, get back in the fucking car—”
There was a loud CRASH from down the street, from inside the warehouse. A small flash of light. Caitlyn stumbled, heartbeat in her throat. Her earpiece beeped several times. In an instant, a cacophony of voices blended together like a haunting melody.
“FIRE!”
“There’s— the ticking—”
“Holy shit—”
“Backup! We need backup!”
A pause.
“There’s a BOMB—”
The lines simultaneously all went dead.
Caitlyn’s breath hitched, stinging the back of her throat. Her eyes felt misty, already watering from the smoke. She looked up. The smoke was rising, the orange-red flames beginning to lick at the roof. The building groaned, as if ready to collapse in on itself.
There were still people in there. She had to—
“CAITLYN,” Jayce yelled.
“I’m sorry,” she gasped, then dug the piece out of her ear, letting it fall to the ground as her feet carried her across the street, to the front of the currently burning building.
She paused, holding a hand over her eyes. She was already coughing, lungs filling with smoke, but she pushed on. She stepped onto the curb, shielding her eyes with her arm.
She stepped up onto the curb.
The air went completely silent, charged with static, with electricity.
She stopped.
A loud BOOM.
And then everything went white.