Incident at Stop 23

I was on my way to another interview with someone who might have had recent contact with the elusive Dr. Leslie Warden. This slogging was starting to wear on me, but I’d been warned that this was mostly what the job was about.

The streetcar was getting close to my stop. I got up and walked to the centre doors. We started to glide into the stop and I stepped down onto the pneumatic stair so I’d get off quick once we pulled in. It looked like I was the only one getting off here. Didn’t look like many were going to get on either even though there was another car coming up behind us. 

I was rudely awakened from my hamster-wheel thoughts by a loud, watery bang and the floor lurching forward. I stumbled backward, but grabbed a pole and didn’t fall. Passengers screamed. Water streamed over the back windows from other streetcar’s front water bumpers.

The doors sprung open and all the lights came on as our car’s emergency systems kicked in.

The driver swiveled around and yelled, “Is anyone hurt?” He got out of his seat and started to carefully walk down the aisle, inspecting as he went.

I had a death grip on the pole and stared out the back window in disbelief. How did that idiot ever pass his driver’s test? It didn’t take long to find out, he probably wasn’t wearing that goalie mask. 

The front door of the guilty car had sprung open and a man wearing a hooded jacket and a goalie mask jumped out, followed by a second man in a similar get-up. 

“Driver, close the door after me, and everyone get down on the floor,” I yelled as I ran outside.

I pulled my out my gun and lead with it.

The first goalie was running towards me waving his own gun, but the stars were aligned for me for once, and he slipped on the water slicked cobblestones, fell backwards and hit his head hard on the ground. The gun bounced from his hand. I ran up and kicked it away. 

The second goalie had run to the back of our car and was frantically pulling on the power pole release cable. Apparently our car wasn’t well maintained and it wouldn’t let go.

“Stop,” I commanded using my best “I’m-the-man-obey-me” voice.

I carefully started to approach him with my gun stiff armed in front of me. 

He stopped alright, and started to reach into his jacket.

I didn’t wait to see if it was a water pistol. I fired.

Lucky for both of us I’m still a terrible shot. I hit an arm. I had aimed for his heart.

He fell to the cobbles. He howled and sobbed and cursed and cradled his shattered elbow. Before he could regain his composure I used my handcuffs to shackle his ankle to our car’s rear bumper. 

The other goalie hadn’t stirred since hitting the ground. That wasn’t good.

Our driver couldn’t help himself, left our car, and ran back towards me to see what was going on. 

“Call the police and ambulance,” I commanded again.

The shot goalie had passed out.

I reached down and pulled off his mask. It was McFarland, the constable who had helped arrest Little Miss Ray-Gun at the coffee shop. What the hell was going on here?

I swung around to pull the mask off the other one, but there was a pool of blood forming behind his head. I let him be.

The driver was frozen in his tracks, staring at what was soon to be a corpse if he didn’t make the call.

“Get. The. Police.”

“I’ve switched on the emergency transponder,” was his flat reply.

I stood up to survey the scene. Passengers were peaking out the windows. Several would-be passengers at the stop were cautiously walking this way to see what the commotion was about. One of them seemed to have a bad sense of direction and started to run away. 

That was interesting. 

I decided to run after him. 

The next instalment can be found here.