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Kim should call for backup.
He should call for backup because he’s supposed to. Because it’s protocol, because he needs help, because it’s a code 58, 58, officer down. He should call for backup because his partner’s dead, and he himself is injured. A blow to the face, glasses shattered. He should call because there are three dead bodies around him, he’s pretty sure, based on the stillness, and how he can’t hear any breathing but his own, rapid and frantic. He hasn’t gotten up to look at them because he’s kneeling over Dom, hands slick with his still-hot blood.
Kim doesn’t call for backup, because the radio’s all the way in the Kineema, on the other side of this bloodbath, and what’s the point, anyway? All that’s left is him. It would be a waste of RCM resources to call for distress for three dead bodies and a half-blind detective, even one whose hands are full of blood.
Kim doesn’t call for backup, which is why it’s strange that he hears a Coupris 40 pull up - distinctive engine sound, the low muted growl like a kitten in a paper bag that he’s got tuned up on his own Kineema to 11, Dom had helped him with the muffler work - don’t think about that now, don’t think about that now - and he knows it’s a fellow RCM officer, because he can hear the shitty squeaking brakes that seem to be so standard to RCM garages. Someone from the 57th driving by, he thinks, or maybe the neighbors called in the gunshots. Concerned citizen. It’s likely Officer Cotillard, he thinks, or Officer Moreau, please, not Fontaine, he thinks, or I really might kill myself. He is a little hysterical, he thinks, but it’s hard not to be with Dom’s hot slick blood coating his hands, his arms, his knees.
But it is none of these officers. Instead, he hears, impossibly, the clatter of high heels, an unfamiliar voice, cursing. High and rasping, Vespertine accent. He’d be able to pick out that voice anywhere. “Vic, call for help to the 57th,” the unfamiliar voice says. “Code 58, officer down.”
“But this isn’t our turf,” says another voice, low and Suresne.
“Just do it,” the first man says, and he comes over to Kim and kneels right down in the blood and slick, next to Dom’s body. He presses two fingers to Dom’s meaningless pulse point and Kim closes his eyes against the wave of nausea.
“You’re not from the 57th,” Kim says. He keeps his eyes closed. His face hurts.
“No,” the voice agrees. “Just in the area. You guys have great fish and chips.”
Kim hopes by you guys the man means the GRIH, and not men who look like Kim does. At the moment, he doesn’t really care. He lets his head drop down. He’s having trouble breathing.
“Shit, hey, hey,” says the voice. “Hey.” Heavy hands land on his shoulders. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” Kim says, not opening his eyes. Kim’s shaking now, badly, and he thinks the man is rubbing his thumbs over Kim’s shoulders, but he doesn’t know for sure. Shock, Kim thinks distantly. The man says, “What’s your name?”
“Lieutenant Kim Kitsuragi.”
“Okay, okay, Lieutenant Kim Kitsuragi, tell you what we’re gonna do, can you open your eyes for me? Okay? Yeah good, that’s good,” he says, as Kim opens his eyes. The world’s still there. So is Kim. And so is a blob, green and pink and brown and hairy. Startling green eyes, very close to his own. So close they almost capture Kim’s own, so close Kim’s eyes almost don’t slide down to Dom.
“Hey Lieutenant Kim Kitsuragi,” says the man, moving to block his vision, “what happened?”
So Kim tells him. About the bad intel, the ambush, the bullet meant for Kim. He does not mention that if it weren’t for his bad fucking eyesight, maybe he would have seen the man in time. He doesn’t think he has to say anything. And all the while, out of the corner of his eye, he can see a dark figure like a carrion bird lurking around the corpses.
When he’s done, the green man before him says, “Lieutenant, I’m so sorry.” He means it, too, Kim thinks. He can’t handle this. Kim says, “Why are you sorry, Officer? You didn’t do it.”
The green and pink and brown and hairy blob - Officer Du Blob, Kim thinks, and has to swallow down a bubble of hysteria - says, “You have something - here. Hang on.” Kim can make out a gesture that looks like the man pulling his sleeve down over his thumb. He rubs at Kim’s face very carefully with rough fabric. Kim very carefully does not wince. The man smells like sweat and booze. “Blood,” the officer says, matter-of-factly. Kim sways a little.
“What’s your name,” Kim slurs, to distract himself.
Officer Du Blob says, “It’s not important.” When Kim opens his mouth again, he says, “To tell you the truth, I’d be in trouble if my boss knew I was here. I’m supposed to be investigating a murder on la rue de Pourpier.” Kim doesn’t know the street. It must be in another part of the city. The man’s lying, he thinks. Kim finds he doesn’t really care. The wail of sirens, getting closer. The sound of two Coupris 40s pulling up - Moreau’s, with its characteristic whine. The other, Kim thinks, is Officer Whitmoyer. “Here’s your cavalry,” says man before him. “Come on, let’s get you up.” Kim feels hands under his arms, helping him up. “Can you walk?”
“Yes,” Kim says. He can see the blinding haloed haze of lights. Two massive shapes blocking the road. The man, a tall green blob, is moving away rapidly, towards them, and Kim bites down on the urge to call out. No, stop. Wait for me. He bites his tongue, directs his gaze to the ground - the red ground - and takes one step. And another.
Footsteps returning, coming close, then a pair of brown pants. Officer Du Blob. “Why aren’t you - oh. You can’t see, can you?”
Kim’s eyes burn with humiliation. “My glasses,” he says. It sounds like a small child’s whine. He sways a little in place.
The officer says, “Your glasses - hang on, let me check-” his voice disappears, then Kim distinctly hears an “oh, shit.” The man comes back, rapidly. “You don’t have an extra pair on you, do you?”
Kim shakes his head, then feels dizzy. “Desk drawer,” he gets out.
“Okay,” the man says, “Okay, here, uhm - I can guide you over to your precinct, okay? There are a few officers here.”
“I will be fine,” Kim says stiffly - to be lead over like a child - he takes one step, then another, then stumbles over something. The distinct feel of a human body.
The officer catches him before he can hit the ground, hands under his elbows. “Hey,” the officer says, and then his face gets very close again. Boozy breath. Red and pink and brown. Bright green eyes. “Come on, put your hand on my shoulder.”
Kim does, feels the man’s broad, thick shoulder under his hand. Rough fabric of his green jacket. The man starts to walk, and Kim walks behind him. The man says, “I’d hold your hand, but that’d be kinda gay.” A laugh, a little nervous.
Fuck you, thinks Kim viciously, fuck you.
The man’s shoulder stiffens under his hand. “Sorry,” the officer says. “That was, uh. Sorry.” Did Kim speak out loud? He’s not sure. He’s not sure if he cares. They walk, the two of them, for what feels like an eternity, Kim following the broad green back. It’s humiliating. Kim can see the white blur of an RCM halogen patch. His throat hurts so fiercely he thinks he’s going to die from it. The vast blue shapes loom, rear up, consolidate into Coupris 40s. The man’s talking, saying something, Kim realizes he’s saying, “alright, your officers are busy back at the scene, let’s just get you-” Kim’s starting to shake. “Shit, hey, here, you’re going into shock. Is this your Kineema? It’s a beauty, 12-cylinder, yeah? Looks like you made some modifications to the exhaust, I bet that baby purrs-” He goes on and on. Kim’s not listening for once as the man helps him down into the back, and Kim buries his head in his hands.
“I’m going to get someone from your precinct, okay?” A hand on his shoulder, heavy and reassuring. “You’ll be okay, Kim,” the man says.
No, Kim wants to say, don’t, stay here, please - but he can’t speak, can barely breathe, and just like that, the man is gone.
Kim tries to think about that day as little as possible. Dom. The humiliation. The throbbing pain, the long blind drive back where Officer Nowak turns on the radio and Officer Moreau snaps it off. “C’mon, man, Kimball’s back there, have some fucking heart.” Maybe they look at him. Kim doesn’t know. He’s got his eyes closed, head back, trying not to think about anything at all.
Nine months pass, and Kim has mostly stopped thinking about it, even if he cannot control the dreams. He solves another forty or so cases. He earns Yefreitor rank. He gets assigned to Martinaise in a great inter-precinct pissing contest. And then - as soon as Kim hears the detective from the 41st speak - he knows. This is the man who helped me? Kim thinks furiously. The man is drunk, wearing piss-stained pants, missing one shoe, trotting out some bullshit line about having forgotten the world. It’s utterly absurd. Perhaps it’s not the right man after all, Kim thinks. Although the voice - that high strange rasp - is right, the intonation is all wrong.
He’s not completely sure until they’re running around the wastes of Martinaise. He’s following the man who, for being on death’s door, can really run. He calls back over his shoulder as he goes, a dizzying array of facts and questions and statements, things he could only know if he hasn’t truly forgotten everything. Maybe he’s only forgotten Kim, Kim thinks. Not worth his time. The worst day of Kim’s life is not even a blip on his radar. Kim looks at him, the broad back, the large white RCM patches. Kim takes his glasses off. Everything blurs, softens, becomes meaningless. Kim is instantly disconnected from the world. Lost. Set adrift.
It’s the same man. Kim’s certain of it.
He trips then, suddenly, stumbling over something he doesn’t see - a log, a rock, a piece of trash, he doesn’t know. The man turns around suddenly. “Kim! Here, let me-” he fumbles for Kim and knocks the glasses out of his hand. “Ah, shit!” he says, “here, hang on-” Kim sees something green dive for the ground. He comes up, panting, holding something out to Kim triumphantly. “Here.”
“Thank you,” Kim says, and reaches out. The detective puts Kim’s glasses in his hands, very carefully, his fingers brushing Kim’s. Kim can’t feel them through the gloves, not really. He puts the glasses on slowly, bringing the detective into focus. The man is staring down at his hand, palm up. He glances over at Kim’s hand, then back at his own. “You’ll be okay, Kim,” he says down to his own palm, frowning, but he doesn’t look up. It’s like he’s repeating something he’s heard on the radio, something that almost makes sense to him. Something lost in static. The detective clenches his hand into a fist, and turns away, back towards the wasteland, and Kim is left staring at his broad green back, crystal-clear in Kim’s vision.