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The next part of my flash story series: the <> denotes where I ended for the day. I'm going to take a week off after this

Mishra scanned through the Protectors database trying to find a match for... whatever this weird looking thing was the camera picked up. It looked sort of like a rifle bullet in shape, though the head of the bullet reminded more of the barbs of an arrow one would shoot from a bow. In the middle of the shaft of the bullet was a small sphere with some sort of device inside, presumably the source of the flash that blinded all the cameras.

"I think I've got a match here!" Mishra looked between the freeze frame and whatever she found before nodding and turning her screen toward me. "There's a big technical name for it, but it's commonly referred to as a Power Spike. It's mostly used for temporarily disabling enemy equipment without breaking the entire power grid. They're mostly used in world government level secret ops."

"And... someone just happened to have one of those ready to go at exactly the time you needed it without your knowledge?" Mishra seemed to pick up pretty quickly on the skepticism in my voice. "You can see why I might find that hard to believe."

"And believe me, I get it. I know you may find this hard to believe given our limited interactions so far, but I do TRY to avoid raising the dead on a routine basis. These require a very specialized rifle to even use; we do have some in the armory, but we were there only as backup and neither you...Lyra, sorry, or I are even trained to use those, much less having even bought one with us to the hostage situation."

That's true; when we riding back from the scene I didn't notice anything like the rifle in the picture. Admittedly I was still kind of in shock trying to wrap my head around what was happening, but the only thing even vaguely gun like I saw in the transport were the laser pistols.

We threw out and then threw away a few different ideas; no sign of anything in the equipment recovered from The Corrupted that could've fired it, and the sharpshooters on the scene were providing recon and equipped with Stun Rifles; they couldn't have fired the shot. Besides, while we couldn't tell exactly where the shot had come from, we did have a general idea of the direction based on the way the Spike landed, and anyone who was supposed to be there wouldn't have been in the right position. Honestly, we were lucky the Spike happened to land right in front of the shield's camera or we'd probably still be spinning our wheels.

So, in summary we know how we hadn't been busted yet. We just didn't know who protected us, or where they did it from, or why. We didn't even know how they knew to be there to cover for us in the first place. Despite all we'd figured out, it felt like we knew even LESS than when we started.

<>

We reviewed the video a few more times, but ultimately we figured we had learned as much as we could from it. As much as we didn't want to call attention to ourselves given everything that had happened, we ultimately agreed that we should mention that some outside actor had sabotaged the footage ourselves and get out in front of it. Either Rica or someone higher up the chain of command would eventually review the footage themselves, so it would probably be best to point out the strange stuff we noticed and give anyone else who wanted to look at it less reason to review our own activities that day. Mishra volunteered to type up a report while I figured out what to do about lunch.

"I have to ask," Mishra called out to me as I looked through the contents of the cabinets, "are you involved in law enforcement in your world? You did some pretty decent crime scene work there, too well for someone brand new to the idea."

"Me? I did want to be at one point; I have a degree in public justice and even a minor in forensic science. I loved the idea of helping find the truth, whatever it maybe, and helping make the world a little bit better." I sighed a little as I recalled how quickly that dream got dashed right out of college.

"The economy absolutely sucked at the time, though. I kept trying to break into the field, but absolutely nobody was hiring and I've been stuck at my crappy retail job ever since."

I still liked the idea of it, even if the reality of law enforcement has been... well, not great as of late. I really do like the idea of helping people, though if I was honest I would probably be in it as much for the mystery solving and satisfaction of figuring out a puzzle as much as I would being a service to the community. That part of my interest certainly hadn't faded; I'll happily check out pretty much any TV series, game, book or whatever if there's the promise of a good mystery or series of puzzles to work on throughout.

"Retail, huh?" Mishra shuddered a little as I mentioned that. "I did that for some extra spending credits as a teenager; never again."

...I'm sure it says something that a woman who's been willing to raise the dead and manipulate souls considers working retail a line she won't cross. I'm just not sure what, exactly...

<>

"So, what do you know about Lyra exactly?" I asked Mishra as I put together a BLT in the kitchen. "If I'm going to be living in her body for the foreseeable future, I should probably know as much about her as possible so I don't raise suspicions."

"Lyra?" Mishra paused her report writing to think it over a moment. "Well, she's pretty straightforward and direct in pretty much every sense of those words. She talks pretty plainly to citizens and her fellow officers alike and never let her rank as a Protector go to her head. Hells, she's usually the one reminding others that we're here to protect the people the second they start forgetting that. She gets held up as the example to follow by her superiors, but she's always been humble about it. Even when she aced The Big One, she just said she was doing her job."

"The... Big One?" I paused my tomato cutting when I heard that phrase. "What's that?"

Mishra explained that The Big One was one of the final tests for would be Protector's. They get placed to do a community patrol with a senior officer while also being warned this officer is both a pain in the ass and has enough pull to get them fired if they're not careful. The Protector in training quickly learns said senior officer is sexist, racist, speciesist; basically every negative word you could think of that could end with -ist and pretty much exactly the opposite of what a potential Protector should be.

"Everything about this senior officer should put anybody with him on their guard, so whenever that officer tells a citizen they need to come with them and brings them into a dark alley or whatever place out of sight is convenient and disables both their body cameras, the junior officer should immediately be suspicious. The senior officer starts getting very... personal, let's say, with the citizen, and the feeling is clearly not returned or welcome. If the junior officer tries to intervene, the senior officer tells them in no uncertain terms that they'll ruin the junior officer if they insist on putting a stop to them. And that's The Big One; are they willing to put everything on the line to protect a citizen, even if that means going against one of their fellow officers?"

"Yikes; talk about pressure. Though I'm guessing from the way you're setting this up, it's all just a test?" I asked as I finished constructing my sandwich.

Mishra nodded. "The senior officer's actually the head of the anti-corruption unit, and the, 'victim' is an officer in plainclothes both playing roles. Lyra responded by immediately putting herself between the victim and the officer, saying that it's a Protector's duty to be the shield of the citizens, and she would always be that shield no matter where the threats to them came from. She was a bit more eloquent than that, but basically that's exactly what they wanted to hear and why she gets held up a lot as the ideal example of a Protector."

Oh; great. And now me, a guy who can barely handle customers who are being jerks is in her body and going to have to follow her example of being a moral paragon in addition to being a top Protector in general. I'd like to think if push came to shove I could do something like that, but that's a hell of a lot to spring on someone out of the blue.

I looked down at my sandwich, suddenly not feeling nearly as hungry as I was a moment ago.

<>

"So if someone doesn't directly confront this corrupt officer, or the person playing the role of one, it's an automatic fail?" I asked as I returned to the table with my sandwich.

"Thankfully no; it's only considered a failure if the junior officer lets the harassment of the citizen continue without intervening at all. I guess there's kind of an understanding that its a huge thing for a fresh-faced rookie to directly confront a superior directly, so as long as they aren't so intimidated that they freeze up completely or worse they can still pass." Mishra eyed my sandwich hungrily; I was about to offer to make her one when I remembered this was just a holographic projection.

She gave me some examples of stories she'd heard of how other potential Protectors had handled it. Some pretended to get calls that they needed to respond to, but were usually dismissed since the senior officer didn't hear it on his own communicator. A few of the more tech savvy officers were able to hack the comms system and properly mimic an emergency call or trigger something nearby(a store's theft alarms or a car alarm system) that they would have to investigate and having the civilian escape during the distraction. Those who were better with Arts sometimes made an illusion of a Corrupted coming at them or something nearby suddenly bursting into flames and spreading to force them all to retreat back into the main streets.

"I heard one story of this massive Ursurus( basically a person who was part bear) rookie who said he was totally fine with it but demanded he'd get first crack at the citizen. That got a little scary; even though the other two were both officers just roleplaying, the rookie could be a real problem to stop. He dragged the, 'civilian' off for some privacy away from the senior officer who was on the verge of calling in back up thinking he'd just made a horrible mistake. Luckily for everyone involved the rookie was just roleplaying himself; as soon as he got the civilian out of sight he apologized profusely, and even told her to wound him a bit so he could sell it like she got lucky and escaped. When they returned to treat his wounds he'd turn the officer in to the anti-corruption force for what he did."

"Well, good on him for thinking on his feet at least, but yeah, really glad I didn't have to experience that live..." I started to pick up the sandwich(no point in wasting food) when a though occurred to me. "How'd YOU handle that, Mishra?"

"Me? I... um, well..." I felt fairly certain her face turning red wasn't a malfunction of the hologram. "Well, I did... something..."

Oh, there was no way I was NOT going to hear this...

<>

It took a bit of prodding, but finally I got Mishra to open up about how she'd handled the corrupt officer exercise.

"I tried at first to just pull him away from the woman he was harassing, but he wasn't budging. My heart was starting to pound and my stomach was in knots as I tried to figure out what to do when the sickening feeling in my stomach gave me an idea." The strange look I gave her at that statement prompted her to give some background. "Even when I was a kid I was good at Arts, and even made up a couple of my own. One of the ones I created just made me look really sick, and I got out of school all the time using it. Eventually my parents figured out I was faking, but it was one of my first Arts and I never really forgot it."

The way Mishra figured it, the only thing worse than an officer harassing a citizen was doing it while his rookie lay dying on the ground nearby. No matter how corrupt he maybe, there was almost no way he was going to be able to explain that or so she reasoned at the time. So she quickly cast her Art and clutched at her chest, gasping for breath as she fell to her hands and knees. What Mishra hadn't counted on was that she'd gotten much better at Arts, and given the stress of the situation she put way more power into it than she meant to.

"The officer who was pretending to be a civilian said it looked like I'd aged about 50 years in 5 seconds before I fell to the ground. She went from, 'Uh-oh, I think the rookie's bombing the test' to, 'Uh-oh, I think we gave the rookie a genuine heart attack'. I was too busy throwing myself into my act to realize that they'd broken from the scenario and she was calling for medical services. Meanwhile the senior officer squatted down in front of me to try and figure out what was happening, and put his hand on my shoulder."

Mishra admitted she kind of snapped in that moment. She felt like her future was falling apart in front of her eyes, and now this asshole was touching her?! Her fear quickly turned to anger; she was NOT going to let herself be his next victim. With the love of the Protector she wanted to be, the anger at this officer for betraying the order, and her sorrow at her ruined dreams, she channeled all that into her fist and punched the senior officer.

In the face, I asked? "Lower." The stomach? "...Lower..." In the... oh... oh no, you didn't... "Well, the way he was squatting down it was right there in arms reach..."

Oof; I drew a sharp breath and felt my knees buckle a little at the imagery, and I didn't even have that particular bit of anatomy at the moment. She said it felt like time froze for a moment after she punched him in the tender bits, then the senior officer tipped over. He didn't fall or collapse; he just tipped over frozen in that squatting position, that hand that was on her shoulder still extended even as it grasped at nothing. She couldn't even get his arms around to get the restraints on him, and ended up dragging him about halfway out the alley before the officer playing the harassed civilian snapped out of her shock and quickly explained to her what was happening.

"The medical crew were a bit confused when they arrived and it was the senior officer in need of aid, not the rookie as they had been initially told was in distress. I certainly FELT like I wanted to die, but eventually the senior officer assured me that I had done the right thing, even if he'd personally wished I had done something different at that moment. Exactly how I passed never made it around the rumor mill, which I was very thankful for. I did see an internal memo a couple of weeks later advising male officers considering wearing some form of protection when carrying out that test in the future, though..."