The Zone by RW Krpoun

didn’t waste any time watching them. Despite alleged riots severe enough to abandon control of most of the city I saw few signs of looting and no fires, no overturned vehicles, not much of anything in fact. Probably the problems were elsewhere, but I hadn’t seen much signs of fire. The big riots in LA had burned a lot of buildings, and the infamous battle for Seattle saw intense looting and vandalism. Something wasn’t right.
    The raised roadway loomed ahead, and I could see a couple vehicles alongside the guardrail. Wrecks? Breakdowns? It wasn’t clear. The street passed under, and access ramps swept up on both sides. I eyed the roadway and thought about the radio advising to get above ground level. My intruder couldn’t figure out where the water and the noise came from-he never looked up. High ground was always better in military terms, but the access way would channel me, only two ways to go, limited maneuver options. On the other hand, I no longer had the option of running. Back in the day I could have free-roped down the side in a jiff, but those days had passed.
    I headed for the south ramp, but a noise caught my attention; following it, I found a young man sitting in the shade behind a silver relay box on a three foot concrete pedestal. He was sitting with his legs stretched out, head hanging down, dressed in filthy tee shirt and jeans. He had a banger’s crop-cut and Latino gang ink showing, but his skin was an ashy hue; it was hard to believe you could be alive with skin that color. He was wheezing like he had asthma, and the image of the kid I had seen at the dumpster Thursday came to mind. This guy was sicker, much sicker-I was surprised he was still breathing.
    “You okay, buddy?” Old habits.
    By rights he should have jumped or started or something at the unexpected sound of my voice, but he didn’t, he just dragged in another breath. Then he looked over at me with an unblinking stare from eyes that looked filmed over, maybe cataracts or something. He had sores on his face and neck, lesions like you see on extremities when circulation is very poor.
    Then he got up. It wasn’t how anyone would normally get up, he sort of rolled onto his side and then jackknifed up onto his feet in a single motion that was clumsy and smooth at the same time; I could hear his joints pop as he did it. A guy that sick shouldn’t be able to do that; hell, nobody ought to want to do that. It was like watching someone try a move they saw a gymnast make and come close while hurting themselves in the process.
    The M-4 was up and the selector was on ‘fire’ by reflex; he wasn’t particularly big and he was unarmed, but there was a menace about him, the sort of single-minded aggression you see in really well-trained guard dogs, what you get when a professional trains a calm dog like a German Shepherd: a simple wil lingness to obey an ingrained directive. In the back of mind I realized I was seeing one of the rioters.
    “Hand up. Manos …” He moved. He wasn’t fast, but he was focused, and there was no hesitation.
    I didn’t hesitate, either-I had too many years of living with violence to misinterpret what he was going to do. He wasn’t emotional at all, but I had absolutely no doubt about his intent. He was without a doubt the most dispassionate person who had ever tried to hurt me.
    The first round hit the base of his sternum and the second, the muzzle rising, hit midway up and slightly to my left, his right. Boat-tailed hollow points, they should have filled his vascular cavity with bone splinters and the hydrostatic effect ought to have thrown him into cardiac arrest. Instead he staggered back, caught his balance, and bored back in. At five feet I hardly needed the holo sight; the two went in closer together, drilling the center sternum; if I didn’t get the heart I was definitely close enough to hit major blood vessels.
    He was slower recovering from the knock-back, and there was definitely a wobble to his knees,