1
Campbell McGill was enjoying a delicious pie and a soda. He really shouldn’t be eating food like this, but it was late and he had nothing at home. Sitting in his 1973 Dodge Charger, his pride and joy he was taking great care not to get too many crumbs of pastry on the upholstery or the carpet. The light from a nearby lamppost splashed illumination onto the dark street and his car. He looked briefly at the clock on his dashboard - it read 10:32. It was getting on and he had an early start.
Detective Chief Inspector Campbell McGill was head of Gosney Homicide and at times it proved to be a difficult job. Part administration, part human resource and a part field work, he always had something to do or had someone on his back wanting something from him. High enough up the police ladder to be kind of a big shot, but not high enough up to really make any of the big decisions. He was still just a ground floor Joe. One of the boys. Well, that was how he saw himself anyway.
McGill had been Detective Chief Inspector for about two years after a promotion from Detective Inspector. His boss at the time, Jeremy Burnside, had chosen to become a ‘rent-a-cop’ and had retired from the force. This wasn’t a decision that had upset McGill as Burnside was really no more than a paper-pusher and had no stomach for the hard decisions that had to be made in this profession. But he had maintained a good relationship with the brass upstairs. Campbell and Burnside had spent much of their time together arguing and bickering over cases and the general running of the homicide department. There were two reasons why McGill had survived in that type of environment. One: He was very, very good at his job and Burnside knew it, and two: Campbell had a powerful alley upstairs in the form of the then Assistant Chief Superintendent. John Calvert had known Campbell for most of his life and respected his judgement and his experience. He had backed Campbell’s application for promotion and had even sought to make it happen with mild reluctance from McGill himself. Campbell had a bad first case when a friend of his turned out to be a serial killer and had fled the city. He had to lead the department in a joined operation with the C.B.I. - the Crown Bureau of Investigation - to find this guy. Short story even shorter, they found him and an old relationship with an old partner of his was healed and the brass were satisfied with his efforts.
But that was all history now. History that stays behind that locked door that was his mind. He opened his can of cola. It was a really bad idea to be drinking caffeine at this time of night, but he was a rebel. McGill didn’t think he was going to be getting much sleep in any case. The chief inspector was trying to crack what was proving to be a very difficult and perplexing case. A man with the ability to hit people with lightning was attacking people, killing them in two instances, but most of the time just injuring them. He was a medium build, brown haired man with some kind of cannon attached to his arm, a machine of sorts. Well, that was what the witness reports were saying. It was quite unbelievable in a way. McGill enjoyed the Batman stories, but the idea of a criminal imitating that comic book world was creepy and dangerous in a way that he had never seen before.
Earlier in the day he had joined Detective Inspector, Allen King and Dr. Jerry West in the morgue where Dr. Freemantle took them through the second victim. The burns couldn’t be denied. They were caused by electrical discharge. The death had been ruled homicide by electrocution.
So, they were basically looking for some dude with a cannon for an arm. That shouldn’t be too difficult. I mean, how many guys do you see at night with a cannon for an arm? Campbell sighed. He needed to let this go until morning. He had upped the patrols in the central business district and he was tired, maybe not ready to go to bed, but he was mentally drained. And tomorrow was another day. He would have to go through this all over again in the morning.
‘BING, BING!’
He turned his head to the left. Cellphone on the seat next to him.
‘BING, BING!’
He grabbed it, wondering who it could be. Looking at the screen he grimaced, not surprised. He should have known, should have guessed. He was a cop after all. “Hi.”
“Campbell, where are you?” Amy asked.
“Work.”
“No you’re not. I called. Where are you?”
Campbell sighed. It was impossible to hide anything from Amy Connor. “Yeah, I’m just taking a little time before I head home.”
“Is it that case?”
“I’m not really in the mood for a grilling, Amy.”
“I was worried.” Her voice crisp, sharp, but controlled. There was more she wanted to say. Campbell could tell, but she was holding her tongue. There had been too many arguments as of late. If there was one thing the Chief Inspector had learned about relationships, it was arguments at nearly 11 at night were not a very good idea.
“I’m OK. Just unwinding before I head back,” he said diplomatically, not wanting to start something that he didn’t have the stomach to finish. “I’ll be home soon.”
“Have you had something to eat?”
Campbell looked down to the empty pie wrapper on the passenger seat. “Yeah, I had something on the way out of work.”
“Okay then. “She sighed. “I’ll see you soon.” 'Click'. She hung up without waiting for a reply.
Campbell pressed end on his cell and placed it down on the seat. That situation with Amy was going to come to a head sooner or later and knowing her like he did, then the chances were better that it would be sooner. Campbell didn’t know how to deal with that situation. Women were always a mystery to him and none more than Amy Donahue. They had started out in the force a long time ago, both when they had barely finished high school. Campbell met Amy during Year 12 and had instantly hit it off with her, but as friends - nothing more. They joined the force and had started out as constables. Somehow they had ended up as partners and walked the beat together. After about three years they stumbled upon a big case one night and ended up apprehending one of the most notorious criminals in Gosney crime history. Campbell got promoted to Senior Sergeant and Amy took a position in the C.B.I. Campbell was offered a position as well but turned it down in favour of climbing the police ladder. It was a point of contention between them and neither really spoke to the other for years. Campbell got promoted to Chief Inspector, head of homicide many years later and Amy came on to provide some assistance in Campbell’s first case involving a friend of his that had turned to murder. They got close again and buried that hatchet between them and started a romantic endeavour which had lasted up to now, two and a half years.
Time flies when you’re having fun, it would seem. He looked out the window onto a cold Gosney night. He was parked on Milon Street, across from the X-Shop, a convenience store, the place where he had brought his pie and soda. The street was almost bang on the centre of Gosney, but at this time of night on a Wednesday, it was dead as a dodo. He saw a few people come and go into the store and thought he might go home and face the music as they say, when someone caught his eye.
He was a tall man in a long black coat with the collar turned up, like he was trying to hide his face. The man walked into the convenience store. Campbell wondered for a moment. Something about that man was not right. Something about this guy was making Campbell uneasy, tense, his cop intuition was telling him that this man was not right. But sometimes that can be wrong.
"Don’t doubt your own instincts son. Without them, all your gadgets and tools are worth nothing."
That was something that Deputy Chief Superintendent Calvert had said to McGill on many an occasion. Calvert wasn’t a fan of forensics or other forms of police investigative science. He was a believer in instinct and gut feeling. You could say he was an old-fashioned cop. Campbell knew what he meant by that statement. He needed to trust in his instincts. If he was clocking this guy as wrong, then he needed to act upon that. But Campbell was off duty and really tired. He shook his head. It didn’t matter if he was tired. He was still an officer of the crown and had a duty to perform.
With a blast, the convenience store shook and rumbled in explosion as windows crashed outward. The screams of people in pain could be heard. Fire spewed from the open, broken windows. It was like a bomb went off. Campbell had three guesses who caused this mayhem, but only needed the first to win the grand prize. He picked up his phone and dialled dispatch.
“Dispatch, how may I assist you?”
“This is Officer McGill, badge number 242734. I have an emergency here on Milon Street, an explosion, one suspect still within the blast radius. Send patrol cars to block off the intersections of Tylon Street and Vaughn Street,” Campbell sent down the phone line.
“Yes sir, anything else?”
“Get in contact with homicide and get the officer in charge to wake up Detective Inspector King. I want him down here with a small number of detectives. I don’t know as of yet what I’m dealing with. Will proceed on foot to investigate.”
“Is that wise, sir?”
“Perhaps not, but I’m doing it nonetheless. Please get those patrol cordons set up and get in contact with homicide and quickly!” Campbell hung up the phone and got out of the car.
He upholstered his smith and Wesson ’67 revolver, scanned the area with the guns sight, seeing nothing. There were a few people shocked on the street.
“Go, get out of here!” He yelled, showed his badge. “This is a dangerous scene. Get back!”
The few people ran away into the night. That was probably a bad idea, considering that their version of events might be needed, but he had enough problems on his plate right at the moment.
"Focus on the present, focus on what’s right in front of you…"
Good advice, really. He intended to take it. Right in front of him the man in the black coat kicked the broken glass door of the convenience store open. The most discernable thing about him was a cannon on his left arm. The man was tall, had wiry brown hair, thick set glasses and white pasty skin that gave the look of greasiness.
“Why hello there!” He said with a smile and he shambled, graceless out of the doorway. “You must be the law.”
“Detective Chief Inspector McGill,” he said grimly with the Smith & Wesson pointed firmly at the man.
"It’s him. It’s the lightning man."
Campbell was now wide awake, no hint of the muggy tiredness that had covered his body only minutes ago. Time had changed, opportunity had given him this chance. If he lived through the next ten minutes he might go into work late tomorrow.
“I wasn’t expecting the law quite so early.”
“I was in the area.”
“So it would seem.” He raised his cannon.
“Wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
“You’re not me.” He fired the cannon and electricity laced forth from it. Campbell jumped to his left, avoided the blast. He unloaded another blast of lightning at the D.C.I. Campbell dove backwards, barely missing getting fried.
“You’re a quick wee bugga.” Laughed the man as he aimed for the detective once again. Campbell quick to his feet ran to his left, missing another bolt of lightning and another. He got to a parked car.
“That won’t help you,” the man called out.
“You’re being quite bold,” Campbell replied. “Why the change in tactic?”
“Sorry, I’m not in the mood for talk.” He fired another bolt at the car and it exploded, throwing McGill back and he slammed into the wall of a building. He struggled to retain his consciousness. If he lost consciousness now, then he wouldn’t wake up and that argument with Amy would never happen. That argument with Amy was what he was holding onto.
The man walked around the flaming, destroyed car, smiling. Campbell picked up his gun and squeezed off two rounds, one hitting the back end of the car, the second hitting the man in the thigh. He grunted in pain and fell back behind the car. “Curse you!”
Campbell struggled to his feet, still wheezing and trying to get his breath. He though that he had at least a bruised rib or two and possibly a broken one. Still, he had managed to wound the suspect. But he knew it was going to take a lot more than one shot to the thigh to end this little battle. Whoever the lightning man was, he wasn’t going down without a fight. He smoothed his brown suit and got to his feet, listening for sounds, an indication of what the lightning man was doing, but he could hear nothing, not one sound.
“It would be a little too much to hope that you're dead, I suppose?” Campbell called out.
“You couldn’t be that lucky,” a voice called back. It was a voice that was curious and upbeat. That was disappointing. Campbell had hoped that a bullet in the leg would at least give cause for the lightning man to get a bit pissed off, maybe tilt his focus just slightly. This man seemed to be very good at what he did and had a definite intelligence to him. It occurred to the Chief Inspector that perhaps he was a scientist of some sort and maybe he invented that thing on his arm. This led to another question; why would someone of that kind of education and learning just start attacking people? They had discovered no connection between the victims both the dead and the injured. But they didn’t know if the connection was to this man. If only he could discover his name.
The lightning man came into view briefly and fired his cannon. Campbell dodged to the right and fired off a shot as he was moving. Lightning man went beneath the car again. Checkmate. Neither could gain the upper hand in this situation. Campbell glanced at his watch, 10:54. It had been ten minutes since he had made that call. King must be close. The question was, should he risk getting electrocuted and try and take this guy down? He was injured after all. The Chief Inspector couldn’t just stand here pointing his gun at the destroyed hulk of a car that the lightning man was hiding behind. Lighting hit the street lamp to Campbell’s left, shattering glass. Then the lightning man did the same to the lamp on Campbell’s right. This reduced the visible light in the vicinity to the flames coming from the car. Not good.
“Well now, my good friend,” the lightning man said from the flaming car. “The question is, how good is your eyesight? Because from my guess, you have three bullets in that gun of yours before you are defenseless to my will.”
“I’ve hit you once already.”
He laughed. “True, true, but that was just a flesh wound as they say in the movies.”
“A bullet in the head won’t be such an easy flesh wound to walk off.”
“Yes, that is true, but in this light and from your position, that won’t be an easy task.”
He was right about that. Taking out the street lights was a bold but very clever move. Campbell should’ve moved against the lightning man when the odds weighed more in his favour. It was too late for that now. He would have to play the cards as they now stood. The problem was he didn’t have a lot of chips to throw onto the table. Campbell moved to his left, edging around the car.
“If you think I don’t see what you’re trying to do then you’re a fool.” The lightning man came out of hiding and fired at the detective. Campbell dove forward, close to the car, missing the blast of lightning. He heard foot falls, got to his feet and saw the lightning man running away. He fired off three shots, all missing his target. He was too far away and the light wasn’t good enough. 'Click, click'. He was out of bullets. Damn!
Headlights splashed the detective and a car pulled up on the road just in front of him. A man got out dressed in jeans and a hoodie. It was Detective Inspector Allen King. He smiled and approached Campbell.
“Good evening, sir,” the blonde crew-cut police officer said. “I hear you have an emergency down here at…” He looked at his wristwatch. “11:05 at night.”
“Lightning man struck the shop.” He pointed to the burning convenience store. “We had a shootout over there.” He pointed to the burning car. “Then he ran away down that alleyway, and I’ve injured him.”
“Well, you have been busy tonight,” remarked the Inspector. “How do you wish to handle this? I assume we won’t be waiting for backup?”
“You assume correct.” Campbell walked over to his car and opened the passenger side. In the glove box he pulled three clips for his gun, ejected the empty magazine and slapped a fresh one in his ’67. Then he unlocked the boot. Inside was his Remington 870 deer pump action pump. Basically a military shotgun.
“You really think that’s going to be necessary?”
“He has a cannon for an arm.”
“I don’t believe Prime had this much arsenal when taking on Megatron.”
Campbell ignored him and also grabbed the other weapon in the boot, his Smith & Wesson .952 performance centre target pistol, a semi-automatic door buster. Definitely not police regulation issue.
“Campbell, this is a little extreme.”
“Whatever,” he replied as he tucked the .952 into his waistband. “Let’s take this guy out.”
“You could kill this guy with one round from that shotgun, you know.”
“He’ll know we mean business. You tooled up?”
He upholstered his 2075 rami compact semi-auto and nodded.
“How many rounds?”
“Ten.”
Detective Chief Inspector Campbell McGill was head of Gosney Homicide and at times it proved to be a difficult job. Part administration, part human resource and a part field work, he always had something to do or had someone on his back wanting something from him. High enough up the police ladder to be kind of a big shot, but not high enough up to really make any of the big decisions. He was still just a ground floor Joe. One of the boys. Well, that was how he saw himself anyway.
McGill had been Detective Chief Inspector for about two years after a promotion from Detective Inspector. His boss at the time, Jeremy Burnside, had chosen to become a ‘rent-a-cop’ and had retired from the force. This wasn’t a decision that had upset McGill as Burnside was really no more than a paper-pusher and had no stomach for the hard decisions that had to be made in this profession. But he had maintained a good relationship with the brass upstairs. Campbell and Burnside had spent much of their time together arguing and bickering over cases and the general running of the homicide department. There were two reasons why McGill had survived in that type of environment. One: He was very, very good at his job and Burnside knew it, and two: Campbell had a powerful alley upstairs in the form of the then Assistant Chief Superintendent. John Calvert had known Campbell for most of his life and respected his judgement and his experience. He had backed Campbell’s application for promotion and had even sought to make it happen with mild reluctance from McGill himself. Campbell had a bad first case when a friend of his turned out to be a serial killer and had fled the city. He had to lead the department in a joined operation with the C.B.I. - the Crown Bureau of Investigation - to find this guy. Short story even shorter, they found him and an old relationship with an old partner of his was healed and the brass were satisfied with his efforts.
But that was all history now. History that stays behind that locked door that was his mind. He opened his can of cola. It was a really bad idea to be drinking caffeine at this time of night, but he was a rebel. McGill didn’t think he was going to be getting much sleep in any case. The chief inspector was trying to crack what was proving to be a very difficult and perplexing case. A man with the ability to hit people with lightning was attacking people, killing them in two instances, but most of the time just injuring them. He was a medium build, brown haired man with some kind of cannon attached to his arm, a machine of sorts. Well, that was what the witness reports were saying. It was quite unbelievable in a way. McGill enjoyed the Batman stories, but the idea of a criminal imitating that comic book world was creepy and dangerous in a way that he had never seen before.
Earlier in the day he had joined Detective Inspector, Allen King and Dr. Jerry West in the morgue where Dr. Freemantle took them through the second victim. The burns couldn’t be denied. They were caused by electrical discharge. The death had been ruled homicide by electrocution.
So, they were basically looking for some dude with a cannon for an arm. That shouldn’t be too difficult. I mean, how many guys do you see at night with a cannon for an arm? Campbell sighed. He needed to let this go until morning. He had upped the patrols in the central business district and he was tired, maybe not ready to go to bed, but he was mentally drained. And tomorrow was another day. He would have to go through this all over again in the morning.
‘BING, BING!’
He turned his head to the left. Cellphone on the seat next to him.
‘BING, BING!’
He grabbed it, wondering who it could be. Looking at the screen he grimaced, not surprised. He should have known, should have guessed. He was a cop after all. “Hi.”
“Campbell, where are you?” Amy asked.
“Work.”
“No you’re not. I called. Where are you?”
Campbell sighed. It was impossible to hide anything from Amy Connor. “Yeah, I’m just taking a little time before I head home.”
“Is it that case?”
“I’m not really in the mood for a grilling, Amy.”
“I was worried.” Her voice crisp, sharp, but controlled. There was more she wanted to say. Campbell could tell, but she was holding her tongue. There had been too many arguments as of late. If there was one thing the Chief Inspector had learned about relationships, it was arguments at nearly 11 at night were not a very good idea.
“I’m OK. Just unwinding before I head back,” he said diplomatically, not wanting to start something that he didn’t have the stomach to finish. “I’ll be home soon.”
“Have you had something to eat?”
Campbell looked down to the empty pie wrapper on the passenger seat. “Yeah, I had something on the way out of work.”
“Okay then. “She sighed. “I’ll see you soon.” 'Click'. She hung up without waiting for a reply.
Campbell pressed end on his cell and placed it down on the seat. That situation with Amy was going to come to a head sooner or later and knowing her like he did, then the chances were better that it would be sooner. Campbell didn’t know how to deal with that situation. Women were always a mystery to him and none more than Amy Donahue. They had started out in the force a long time ago, both when they had barely finished high school. Campbell met Amy during Year 12 and had instantly hit it off with her, but as friends - nothing more. They joined the force and had started out as constables. Somehow they had ended up as partners and walked the beat together. After about three years they stumbled upon a big case one night and ended up apprehending one of the most notorious criminals in Gosney crime history. Campbell got promoted to Senior Sergeant and Amy took a position in the C.B.I. Campbell was offered a position as well but turned it down in favour of climbing the police ladder. It was a point of contention between them and neither really spoke to the other for years. Campbell got promoted to Chief Inspector, head of homicide many years later and Amy came on to provide some assistance in Campbell’s first case involving a friend of his that had turned to murder. They got close again and buried that hatchet between them and started a romantic endeavour which had lasted up to now, two and a half years.
Time flies when you’re having fun, it would seem. He looked out the window onto a cold Gosney night. He was parked on Milon Street, across from the X-Shop, a convenience store, the place where he had brought his pie and soda. The street was almost bang on the centre of Gosney, but at this time of night on a Wednesday, it was dead as a dodo. He saw a few people come and go into the store and thought he might go home and face the music as they say, when someone caught his eye.
He was a tall man in a long black coat with the collar turned up, like he was trying to hide his face. The man walked into the convenience store. Campbell wondered for a moment. Something about that man was not right. Something about this guy was making Campbell uneasy, tense, his cop intuition was telling him that this man was not right. But sometimes that can be wrong.
"Don’t doubt your own instincts son. Without them, all your gadgets and tools are worth nothing."
That was something that Deputy Chief Superintendent Calvert had said to McGill on many an occasion. Calvert wasn’t a fan of forensics or other forms of police investigative science. He was a believer in instinct and gut feeling. You could say he was an old-fashioned cop. Campbell knew what he meant by that statement. He needed to trust in his instincts. If he was clocking this guy as wrong, then he needed to act upon that. But Campbell was off duty and really tired. He shook his head. It didn’t matter if he was tired. He was still an officer of the crown and had a duty to perform.
With a blast, the convenience store shook and rumbled in explosion as windows crashed outward. The screams of people in pain could be heard. Fire spewed from the open, broken windows. It was like a bomb went off. Campbell had three guesses who caused this mayhem, but only needed the first to win the grand prize. He picked up his phone and dialled dispatch.
“Dispatch, how may I assist you?”
“This is Officer McGill, badge number 242734. I have an emergency here on Milon Street, an explosion, one suspect still within the blast radius. Send patrol cars to block off the intersections of Tylon Street and Vaughn Street,” Campbell sent down the phone line.
“Yes sir, anything else?”
“Get in contact with homicide and get the officer in charge to wake up Detective Inspector King. I want him down here with a small number of detectives. I don’t know as of yet what I’m dealing with. Will proceed on foot to investigate.”
“Is that wise, sir?”
“Perhaps not, but I’m doing it nonetheless. Please get those patrol cordons set up and get in contact with homicide and quickly!” Campbell hung up the phone and got out of the car.
He upholstered his smith and Wesson ’67 revolver, scanned the area with the guns sight, seeing nothing. There were a few people shocked on the street.
“Go, get out of here!” He yelled, showed his badge. “This is a dangerous scene. Get back!”
The few people ran away into the night. That was probably a bad idea, considering that their version of events might be needed, but he had enough problems on his plate right at the moment.
"Focus on the present, focus on what’s right in front of you…"
Good advice, really. He intended to take it. Right in front of him the man in the black coat kicked the broken glass door of the convenience store open. The most discernable thing about him was a cannon on his left arm. The man was tall, had wiry brown hair, thick set glasses and white pasty skin that gave the look of greasiness.
“Why hello there!” He said with a smile and he shambled, graceless out of the doorway. “You must be the law.”
“Detective Chief Inspector McGill,” he said grimly with the Smith & Wesson pointed firmly at the man.
"It’s him. It’s the lightning man."
Campbell was now wide awake, no hint of the muggy tiredness that had covered his body only minutes ago. Time had changed, opportunity had given him this chance. If he lived through the next ten minutes he might go into work late tomorrow.
“I wasn’t expecting the law quite so early.”
“I was in the area.”
“So it would seem.” He raised his cannon.
“Wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
“You’re not me.” He fired the cannon and electricity laced forth from it. Campbell jumped to his left, avoided the blast. He unloaded another blast of lightning at the D.C.I. Campbell dove backwards, barely missing getting fried.
“You’re a quick wee bugga.” Laughed the man as he aimed for the detective once again. Campbell quick to his feet ran to his left, missing another bolt of lightning and another. He got to a parked car.
“That won’t help you,” the man called out.
“You’re being quite bold,” Campbell replied. “Why the change in tactic?”
“Sorry, I’m not in the mood for talk.” He fired another bolt at the car and it exploded, throwing McGill back and he slammed into the wall of a building. He struggled to retain his consciousness. If he lost consciousness now, then he wouldn’t wake up and that argument with Amy would never happen. That argument with Amy was what he was holding onto.
The man walked around the flaming, destroyed car, smiling. Campbell picked up his gun and squeezed off two rounds, one hitting the back end of the car, the second hitting the man in the thigh. He grunted in pain and fell back behind the car. “Curse you!”
Campbell struggled to his feet, still wheezing and trying to get his breath. He though that he had at least a bruised rib or two and possibly a broken one. Still, he had managed to wound the suspect. But he knew it was going to take a lot more than one shot to the thigh to end this little battle. Whoever the lightning man was, he wasn’t going down without a fight. He smoothed his brown suit and got to his feet, listening for sounds, an indication of what the lightning man was doing, but he could hear nothing, not one sound.
“It would be a little too much to hope that you're dead, I suppose?” Campbell called out.
“You couldn’t be that lucky,” a voice called back. It was a voice that was curious and upbeat. That was disappointing. Campbell had hoped that a bullet in the leg would at least give cause for the lightning man to get a bit pissed off, maybe tilt his focus just slightly. This man seemed to be very good at what he did and had a definite intelligence to him. It occurred to the Chief Inspector that perhaps he was a scientist of some sort and maybe he invented that thing on his arm. This led to another question; why would someone of that kind of education and learning just start attacking people? They had discovered no connection between the victims both the dead and the injured. But they didn’t know if the connection was to this man. If only he could discover his name.
The lightning man came into view briefly and fired his cannon. Campbell dodged to the right and fired off a shot as he was moving. Lightning man went beneath the car again. Checkmate. Neither could gain the upper hand in this situation. Campbell glanced at his watch, 10:54. It had been ten minutes since he had made that call. King must be close. The question was, should he risk getting electrocuted and try and take this guy down? He was injured after all. The Chief Inspector couldn’t just stand here pointing his gun at the destroyed hulk of a car that the lightning man was hiding behind. Lighting hit the street lamp to Campbell’s left, shattering glass. Then the lightning man did the same to the lamp on Campbell’s right. This reduced the visible light in the vicinity to the flames coming from the car. Not good.
“Well now, my good friend,” the lightning man said from the flaming car. “The question is, how good is your eyesight? Because from my guess, you have three bullets in that gun of yours before you are defenseless to my will.”
“I’ve hit you once already.”
He laughed. “True, true, but that was just a flesh wound as they say in the movies.”
“A bullet in the head won’t be such an easy flesh wound to walk off.”
“Yes, that is true, but in this light and from your position, that won’t be an easy task.”
He was right about that. Taking out the street lights was a bold but very clever move. Campbell should’ve moved against the lightning man when the odds weighed more in his favour. It was too late for that now. He would have to play the cards as they now stood. The problem was he didn’t have a lot of chips to throw onto the table. Campbell moved to his left, edging around the car.
“If you think I don’t see what you’re trying to do then you’re a fool.” The lightning man came out of hiding and fired at the detective. Campbell dove forward, close to the car, missing the blast of lightning. He heard foot falls, got to his feet and saw the lightning man running away. He fired off three shots, all missing his target. He was too far away and the light wasn’t good enough. 'Click, click'. He was out of bullets. Damn!
Headlights splashed the detective and a car pulled up on the road just in front of him. A man got out dressed in jeans and a hoodie. It was Detective Inspector Allen King. He smiled and approached Campbell.
“Good evening, sir,” the blonde crew-cut police officer said. “I hear you have an emergency down here at…” He looked at his wristwatch. “11:05 at night.”
“Lightning man struck the shop.” He pointed to the burning convenience store. “We had a shootout over there.” He pointed to the burning car. “Then he ran away down that alleyway, and I’ve injured him.”
“Well, you have been busy tonight,” remarked the Inspector. “How do you wish to handle this? I assume we won’t be waiting for backup?”
“You assume correct.” Campbell walked over to his car and opened the passenger side. In the glove box he pulled three clips for his gun, ejected the empty magazine and slapped a fresh one in his ’67. Then he unlocked the boot. Inside was his Remington 870 deer pump action pump. Basically a military shotgun.
“You really think that’s going to be necessary?”
“He has a cannon for an arm.”
“I don’t believe Prime had this much arsenal when taking on Megatron.”
Campbell ignored him and also grabbed the other weapon in the boot, his Smith & Wesson .952 performance centre target pistol, a semi-automatic door buster. Definitely not police regulation issue.
“Campbell, this is a little extreme.”
“Whatever,” he replied as he tucked the .952 into his waistband. “Let’s take this guy out.”
“You could kill this guy with one round from that shotgun, you know.”
“He’ll know we mean business. You tooled up?”
He upholstered his 2075 rami compact semi-auto and nodded.
“How many rounds?”
“Ten.”
