//11-14-2099 - - 07:32//

  Despite all her talk, Bella hadn't taken me to dinner yet. The Hearth was too busy. New residents moving in. Old residents moving out for the winter. I had carried boxes and loaded trucks till my back ached. But the food the new neighbors had shared had been payment enough.

  I replayed the last few days in my mind as the engine purred through my seat, watching the city slide past. I lamented.

  The kid sitting in the passenger seat tapped away on their commlink screen silently, ignorant of my plight. Mrs. Volta had asked me to take her son to school the last few days, while they finished settling in. I couldn't say no, even if I wanted to. The idea that someone might hurt the boy if he walked was painful.

  I'd learned most people left me alone when I wore my paramedic jacket. It made me 'one of the good ones.' "Fucking sickening," I whispered, meeting the glare of a man on the sidewalk flatly through the hovering AR ads that raced along at the speed of the cars alongside them. His wrinkled face vanished into the falling snow as quickly as it had appeared.

  Traffic was grinding along, private school buses warring for space on the streets with what few parents cared to take their own kids to work, and the commuters from the midmorning shift change. The tall tower of the school stood shorter than all the others, the vast parking lot full to bursting.

  I took the wheel, beginning to weave around the autopilot cars around me, carefully squeezing in behind the next bus turning in. I drove slowly over the speed bumps and past the various children walking between the parked cars, barely watching where they were going.

  Finally, a spot near the building opened, and I wheeled my car into it. Another honked loudly as I cut them off, throwing the car into park. "Here we are, kid. Come on."

  The young Saurid looked up with a soft chirp, unbuckling and slipping out of the car. The moment the door opened, I swallowed down the acrid exhaust fumes that filled the air, made all the sharper by the freezing air. I let the door fall shut, jamming my hands into my pockets for whatever warmth it provided, tail lashing as snowflakes struck it.

  The kid bounced up onto the sidewalk leading to the entrance of the school, as I followed in his wake. His friends joined him halfway to the door, and I stopped, watching the small creche of Saurids race each other inside. The doors shut behind them heavily, safe within the tower of the school, at least from anyone worse than a bully.

  With a hissing huff, I lit a cigarette and turned back to the car, letting the burning smoke help warm my core. The door of the car pulled open easily, and I turned to sit down in it, threading my tail in the hole of my seat, ready to shut out the honking horns and shouting children. Then the world bloomed with a dozen black stars as pain shot through my head and legs. Hands grasped the back of my jacket and hauled me from the car. The stars faded to blackening snow, asphalt, and four sets of shoes. One of them flew at my snout. I fought to stand, taking the kick to the collarbone, falling onto my back.

  "Thought just cause you're one of the 'good ones', you can walk around smoking without a care in the world, asshole?" one man demanded from above. The world still reeled, blurry and bright. I thought, numbly watching another kick hammer into my stomach, doubling me over.

  "Answer us, glitch-gecko!" another jeered, stomping on the end of my tail, a throbbing pain shooting up my spine. I snarled, fighting to roll away. I lashed out with my cybernetic arm, wrapping its cold steel grip around one man's ankle. He began screaming as the mechanical hand began to squeeze, tendons and bones popping violently. The achilles snapped like a taut bowstring. My ears rang as a gun went off, dusted asphalt kicking up into the air as a round punched the ground next to my head.

  I rolled away quicker, pushing up and reaching for a pistol of my own. I scrolled the tab at the edge of my vision as the pistol came up. Finally, I reached Officer Halsin's contact info.

  //Sending Geo-location data//

  //...//

  //...//

  //...//

  //Location sent!//

  It became a standoff quickly. Kids shouting, or screaming, as parents or friends chivvied them along. A school resource officer ran up, unsure where to point the rifle in his thick-fingered hands. One man lay screaming about his ankle on the ground.

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  I could see the dent in the frame of my car where my head had been slammed in the door. It all moved at a snail's pace as two of the men who had dragged me from my car held the sights of their guns on me. "Watch your crossfire, morons," I snarled, glancing behind me where children were running away, towards the school.

  "We were just asking this man to put his cigarette out, and the fucking gecko broke his ankle!" one shouted.

  I thought, tail lashing against the snow as the resource officer shouldered his rifle and pointed it at me. His vest had a corporate security logo, A shield rim filled in with hexagons, with a single lone spire emblazoned on it, with 'Spire Society Watch' embroidered under it. Subsidiary of Cascade Spire Gridsecurity.

  "Put the gun down, scaly. Now." He ordered.

  "Bastards pulled me out of my car and started beating my ass. I'll put my gun down when the cops get here." I snarled louder. Sirens rang in the distance. "I don't particularly feel like having a shootout in a fucking school parking lot. But getting damn near executed in one certainly makes me consider it."

  "Put. The. Gun. Down." The man ordered again.

  I growled, looking around. Two more resource officers broke away from the nearby cars. The sirens got louder. Maybe a minute away. I glared at each man around me. Slowly, I let the barrel of the gun fall, keeping it at a high ready. "I just wanted to take a kid to school for his parents. These assholes dragged me out of my car and started beating me. And that one tried to kill me." I tried again, head throbbing lightly.

  One of the resource officers, an orc, lowered his weapon, glancing to the men who had pulled me from the car. The third one, another human, did the same, walking up to me slowly. "Why don't we put the gun away and let the professionals handle it, buddy," he ordered. Unlike the other human SRO, he was in better shape, slowly closing the distance.

  I took a deep breath, moving to put the pistol back in its holster. The world spun as the butt of his rifle cracked against the bony plate that extended from my jaw. Throbbing pain and cold bloomed along my tail and back as I fell into the snow again. "Stay down, and don't move."

  I snarled, staying on the ground. The sound of tires grinding against curbs and whooping sirens didn't stop the man as he drove the butt of his rifle into my snout, an aurora of stars blinding me. "Get away from the Saurid, and drop the rifle. That's Aggravated Assault of a Healthcare provider right there!" Halsin's voice crackled over the loudspeaker.

  "Fucker's a glitch-gecko. Hell do you care about him for?" the man asked smugly, turning around lazily. The orc walked up behind him, breath steaming in the cold, glaring at his compatriot.

  "That's enough, Jeremiah. You're fucked. Don't make it worse," he warned.

  He laughed, turning towards me again. He raised his boot to drive it into my chest. He stopped when a gunshot sounded, his head snapping forward before his body went rigid, shaking violently as arcs of electricity leapt from his skin to the metal plate in his carrier rig.

  Officer Nathan stood behind him, smoke bubbling from his pistol's muzzle. He drove it back into the holster and dove in to handcuff the man, after he fell into a pile of snow with a groan. "This isn't Seattle. You don't get away with hate crimes," he stated, turning on the other men. The orc just let his rifle hang from the sling, thumbs hooked under his carrier rig, nodding. The three men still standing of the four who had pulled me from my car had quickly jammed their pistols back into their places, edging away from the heavyset SRO who had first arrived.

  Halsin ran up, kneeling beside me. "You alright, Vidr?"

  "I... am better off than I should be, I think. Only got hit in the head twice, I think," I sighed, reaching up to feel my snout. "Is it broken?"

  "Just as ugly as ever, don't worry," he chuckled. "What happened?"

  "Just dropping a kid off for the neighbor. Went to sit in my car, and they slammed the door on me and started kicking my ass," I growled, pushing to sit up, despite the gentle throbbing in my collarbone. "Broke one idiot's ankle to get away, and they almost shot me in the back of the head."

  "Okay. You need medical?" he asked, carefully dusting the snow off my shoulders.

  "I... think I'm mostly fine. But a second opinion wouldn't be bad. Don't think I need the hospital. Only one actually rattled me..." I muttered, slowly pushing up to stand. "No concussion."

  "Okay. Dispatch, this is unit 121, requesting EMS for two," he turned to face the others as he spoke into his radio, eyes glittering as he navigated AR. Two more police vehicles arrived. Another cruiser and a heavier van that had a SWAT fireteam pouring out. They grabbed the perpetrators and started securing the scene.

  I collapsed into the driver's seat of my car and sat back. Exhaustion warred with the last drips of adrenaline in my system, dragging my eyes closed like claws. I started when a message alert flashed against the darkness behind my eyelids.

  //You have (1) new message! Reading now!//

  //From: Bellabella | Timestamp: 08:04//

  //Contents: Vidr! I finally have some time tonight. I'll stop by your place, and we can go somewhere for dinner. With how hard we've been working, we deserve a little relaxation, mm? ;D//

  I sighed explosively, sitting up. An ambulance rolled up, the paramedic inside slipping out of the passenger seat before the brake lights came on. He ran up to me and set to work, chattering away. Today was going to be a long day if Bella had her wish.