Jimmy reached out and covered the olive-skinned officer’s hand with his own, preventing him from drawing his gun. With his other hand, he grabbed a corner of the man’s vest and pushed him back against the wall.
The force of the action knocked Crazy Beard back, who fell against the other cop. The both of them collapsed backward into the corner.
The elevator was tight, and there was no room to move. Jimmy had the advantage of surprise and was strong, but he hadn’t been trained to fight. He was acting completely on instinct.
Out of the corner of his eye, Jimmy saw the officer’s fist approaching and braced himself. A blow glanced off the side of his face. Then another.
Jimmy tucked his head down and away and pushed the man against the wall as hard has he could. He heard a grunt. The cop released his grip on his weapon and tried to reach up, but Jimmy held his wrist and pinned it against the wall.
Like two bears locked in an embrace, the two men struggled against each other. Jimmy was stronger but lost his footing as he tripped over someone’s leg on the floor. He recovered in time to absorb another glancing blow off the top of the head.
The elevator came to a stop, and a chime played. The doors opened.
With all his strength, Jimmy grabbed the officer and threw him toward the side wall, where he fell over the tangled pile of the other two occupants. The man stumbled and went down across them, falling at an awkward angle. Jimmy saw him reach for his weapon.
Run!
The elevator had reached the ground floor. The entryway to the building could be seen just across a narrow strip of thin red carpeting. Sunlight spilled though the two glass doors that led to the street, illuminating swirling specks of dust in the air.
Jimmy sprinted on his toes, his legs pumping like pistons against the ground. He skidded to a stop, using his hands to brace against the door to scrub his speed. The door buckled slightly against his weight. He took hold of one of the curved handles, yanking the door open. A whiff of air hit him in the face. Fifty thousand volts of electricity hit him in the back.
Every muscle in Jimmy’s body contracted at maximum force. Jimmy had played professional football. Pain is something that he was used to dealing with. But he had never felt pain like this. It was an extreme, cutting pain that flowed through him.
His body toppled to the ground, and he was unable to do anything to stop it. The only thing he could do was convulse, flopping on the red carpeting like a fish that had just been pulled out of the water. The electricity flowed through him for five seconds, but it felt longer, much longer.
A heavy knee landed on his back. His arms were roughly placed behind him, and he felt metal bite into his wrists.
“Not so tough anymore, are you?” a voice said, inches from his ear.
Strong hands hauled him up, and he was shoved through the doors and toward a police cruiser that was parked in front of the building. The back door opened by itself and a hand was placed on the top of his head as he was deposited in the back. The door slammed closed behind him.
Jimmy’s hands were still cuffed behind him, so he had to sit at an angle to give his hands room. There were no handles inside the door, and a wire mesh was fixed between him and the front row. The entire car smelled of chemical disinfectant.
The other passenger door opened, and Crazy Beard was put into the backseat next to him. The old man raised a hand and waved at Jimmy, smiling his toothy smile from the depths of his unruly beard.
“They took your cuffs off?” Jimmy said.
Crazy Beard looked from one of his wrists to the other, then back at Jimmy. “It is the law of Impermanence. What is here one moment is gone the next. For this reason, it is a mistake to focus on the fleeting pleasures of a transitory world.”
Jimmy’s door opened, and the olive-skinned officer tossed Jimmy’s baseball cap in at him. It hit him in the chest and fell on the floor. Crazy Beard picked it up and put it on the seat between them with a pat.
The two front doors opened and the police officers got in. The one that Jimmy had wrestled with sat in the driver’s seat.
“Scumbags have got the jump on me before, but in twenty years I’ve never had a perp magically appear out of the air like a fucking leprechaun and attack me. That was some next-level shit that happened back there,” Officer Parker said. He turned back and looked at Jimmy, studying him.
“No shit,” his partner said. “He’s as strong as an ox too. Why do we have to be the ones to get the leprechauns that work out?”
Parker laughed. “Did you get a look at the weird chip in his head?”
“I was too busy trying to keep him off my gun.”
The olive-skinned officer turned around and looked Jimmy in the eye. “I’m Officer MacGuire, and this is Officer Parker. Are you going to tell us who you are and how you did that?”
Jimmy looked away.
“That’s what I thought,” MacGuire said, turning back around. “Doesn’t matter. Let’s get an ID on this guy.”
There was a brief silence as the two went online. It only took a minute.
“I’ll be damned. James Mahoney. Used to play for the 49ers.” MacGuire slapped his thigh.
“No way! Jimmy Baloney himself?”
The two officers laughed.
Jimmy bit his lip and looked at his feet. That’s what the press started calling him after his injury. The number one draft pick for the 49ers, the darling of the offseason, with a professional career that lasted exactly one play. He had gone from James Mahoney to Jimmy Baloney overnight. He hated that nickname.
The two went quiet for a moment as they received more information. Then they both looked back at him. They were no longer laughing. The anger burned like coals in their eyes.
“So now you’re a terrorist?” MacGuire said.
“Fucking asshole. I knew the officers you killed yesterday. They had families.”
“I didn’t kill anyone.” Jimmy leaned back against his bound arms, trying to put some space between himself and the malice that was directed at him from the front seats.
“Tell it to the judge,” MacGuire spat. He turned and looked out the front window. “They’re going to fast track your trial, Mahoney. Put you right at the top of the list.”
“We should put a bullet in his head right here. It would save everyone a lot of wasted time.” Parker had turned to face the front as well. His voice cracked with barely restrained emotion.
“He’ll get his, Rudy. The Universal Crime Prevention Act was passed for scum like this. They’ll put him down like a dog.”
Parker looked back at Jimmy. His two lips disagreed as to whether they should form a smile or a snarl and compromised by parting into a strange grimace that somehow captured the worst features of both. “Blowing up innocent people makes you a terrorist, Mahoney. That’s a capital offense under the Crime Prevention Act. You knew that right?”
Jimmy swallowed.
“He’ll be dead within a week,” MacGuire said.
“That’s a week longer than he lasted playing football.”
MacGuire laughed. “What a piece of shit.”