By the laws of cinema, a static scene should have started right about now.
The kind where guns are aimed at each other, but no one has fired the first shot yet.
Then, depending on the director’s talent, either a tense dialogue in the style of Tarantino or a shootout with bullets flying everywhere except at the main characters.
Unfortunately, our director wasn’t the most talented.
There was a brief pause before the shooting started, but the tense dialogue consisted of shouting like “you drop it, you bastard!”, “I’ll blow your fucking head off!”, and “he broke my nose, I swear!”
The last one obviously came from the unlucky one who’d gotten too close to the sheriff.
He’d also managed to drop his gun and was now trying to stop the bleeding with his bandana while frantically reaching for his fallen weapon.
I used the hesitation to make the boys hit the floor and tip our table on its side.
The guy sitting across from me, with his back to the fight, I had to grab and pull over to my side.
The table wasn’t much cover, but it might stop a ricochet.
They weren’t shooting Kalashnikovs.
More importantly, from this position, I’d be much better positioned to act than if we’d stayed where we were.
I really hoped I was already fast enough to move faster than the human eye could see.
Remember that time I accidentally caught my parents in the living room?
Nolan managed to dress himself, dress Mom, and hide the evidence of their mess in a fraction of a second.
I didn’t even notice anything.
Only the unnatural gust of wind and Mom’s backwards t-shirt hinted at their sudden bout of sexual mischief.
But I’m not my father.
The sheriff decided to shoot first.
He figured that with one of the robbers temporarily disarmed, his chances were best.
At the same moment the cop’s bullet headed for the leader’s forearm, the third criminal’s nerves also gave out.
Or maybe he was just cynical enough to calculate that, standing almost behind the cop aiming at his partner, he was practically risk-free and could shoot first.
Time to move.
I started moving the same moment the cowboy opened fire on the guy with the gold chain.
It was like that scene from superhero movies with mutant speedsters that fans love so much, only from first-person perspective, which made it even cooler.
At least for me.
Yes, it’s really damn cool to move through a frozen world and watch a bullet fly toward its target in slow motion.
My training had finally paid off.
I felt fast enough to outrun a bullet.
A pistol bullet, at least.
Not that I needed to.
I just kicked the shooting bandit’s gun from below, so his shots went into the ceiling.
I gave the scene a quick once-over.
No civilians seemed to be in immediate danger.
The leader was wounded.
The third criminal hadn’t picked up his weapon yet.
Then I returned before the second hand on the wall clock finished the tick it had started at the same time as me.
That sheriff looked pretty confident.
I decided to give him a chance.
He had a gun too.
If I just made sure his opponents couldn’t aim straight, he should handle the rest.
Another agonizing scream filled the diner as the leader took a bullet from the sheriff.
“What the…” the second shooter simultaneously stared in shock at his own hand, which had rebelled against his desire to shoot the cop.
That drew the cowboy’s attention.
Spinning toward the sound, he quickly caught his would-be killer in his sights and fired without hesitation.
This time, in the chest, near the left lung, dangerously close to the heart.
That wound could even be fatal.
Whether the guy ended up a convict or a corpse depended on his luck and how fast this ended, so the medics could get to him.
Someone in the crowd screamed in terror at the sight of the body they thought was already dead.
The boys seemed frozen, their eyes locked on the masked face now writhing in pain, gasping for air through the blood-soaked fabric stuck to his lips.
That guy was good.
For a human, anyway.
In about two seconds, the man made two quick but precise shots.
Then he hit the guy with the broken nose again.
He’d just managed to reach his pistol when the sheriff’s boot connected with his face.
And no one had noticed my absence.
“Look out!” William suddenly yelled right in my ear.
I turned.
Son of a bitch.
The wounded leader had switched his gun to his good hand and was aiming at the sheriff.
Behind him, the manager of Burger Mart was winding up with the cash register.
That surprised me.
I didn’t expect he had that kind of courage in him.
Unfortunately, the manager wouldn’t be able to save the cop.
The bullet was already heading straight for his head.
Confident in my speed now, I got up again and calmly caught the bullet right in front of the cowboy’s face.
He was just starting to turn the right way.
Then I went back.
A gunshot rang out, followed by the sound of a cash register hitting a criminal’s head.
I’d caught the bullet faster than the sound wave from the shot reached us.
Then the last robber fell, sprinkled with loose change from the broken register.
Right behind him, the manager collapsed, shocked into unconsciousness by his own sudden courage.
Well, that was it.
“Ha?” someone breathed into my ear.
I turned and met William’s shocked gaze.
“You?
Was that…” I had to cover his mouth with my hand before he attracted everyone’s attention.
“Quiet!” I hissed, looking around to see if anyone had noticed.
No.
The boys were still staring wide-eyed at the dying man.
The other patrons were too far away to hear us.
Making a scary face, I put a finger to my lips, demanding silence.
For good measure, I added a whisper: “Not now!”
William’s eyes were wide as saucers.
Shock slowly turned to realization.
He blinked a few times, coming to his senses, until finally he nodded to show he understood.
How could I screw up that badly?
Of all people, William!
No, better him than some random stranger I didn’t know.
But William was a good guy, if a bit of a blabbermouth.
Last time, I got lucky that the person he told was Eve, who already knew my secret, not some random person.
And back then he was an adult.
Now he was fourteen.
At that age, reason is just starting to tentatively sprout in a child’s brain.
How many fourteen-year-old boys do you know who can keep such an important secret?
In real life, not in children’s and teen books and movies.
Right, there aren’t any.
And I needed to make sure William would be exactly that person.
Human lives depended on it, hell, maybe the fate of the whole Earth.
What didn’t help my calm was that we hadn’t been able to talk privately after the incident.
Right after the shooting, chaos erupted.
The sheriff called the police and an ambulance.
He subdued the two relatively healthy thugs and started giving first aid to the one who’d shot him in the back.
At the same time, he tried to calm the frightened patrons and convince them to stay put.
He wasn’t very good at it, not at saving the black guy, nor at calming the hysterics.
“Quiet!” I finally yelled at the sobbing cow of a woman, about a meter and a half around, who was trying to flee the scene and shrieking louder than anyone.
“Look, even the kids are calmer and smarter than you.
Have at least a shred of pride and courage!”
I pointed at my friends and, of course, myself.
Ah, how nice it is when you’re still a kid yourself and can say what you think without fear of being called an abuser, a racist, or a sexist.
While the cow blinked and tried to come up with an answer, a strategy that would let her regain her lost dignity, I stood up and walked over to the sheriff.
“Kid, what are you…”
“I’ve taken first aid courses.” Yeah, during my army service and later while training for the space program.
“You could use an extra pair of hands.”
The man frowned at first, thinking of sending me away.
But then his patient started coughing up blood and blowing bloody bubbles from his nose.
“Then find a first aid kit.
Even a dump like this should have one.”
“Of course.” And I even knew where it was.
I’d worked here in my past life.
***
With our combined efforts, we managed to keep the thug from dying before the ambulance arrived.
It came quickly, living up to its name, as did the police cars.
The sheriff’s colleagues quickly packed up the beaten gangstas and took them away to get treatment and prepare for prison life.
The patrons, the restaurant staff, and Lucas, the sheriff, were taken to the station to give statements.
Our little gang went along too, waiting for our worried parents, who’d been called and told their children were caught in the middle of an armed robbery and shootout.
The arrival of the mothers was loud.
The kids themselves, feeling the pity and attention directed at them, couldn’t hold back and started crying, releasing their emotional tension.
Only William and I didn’t cry, which raised some suspicions among the adults.
Had the children suffered psychological trauma?
But William was so busy admiring how cool the hero was, he was actually talking about the sheriff, but no, no, he kept glancing at me with a knowing look, the little conspiracy bastard, that the adults were convinced the kid just didn’t grasp the seriousness of the situation or the danger to his life.
With my parents’ permission, I gave my statement as a witness and recounted my version of events.
How I heroically tipped over our table and herded all my friends under it to minimize risks.
How I helped stabilize the wounded.
And most importantly, that the wounded man had fired first at the sheriff.
The young, attractive deputy assigned to me, who unfortunately saw me only as an unusually mature and brave boy, nodded with a smile and wrote down everything I said.
Not only me, but my parents too, our whole family really, represented an island of calm in the mad kingdom of crying children and parents terrified for their offspring.
And it seemed to me that something like pride flickered in Nolan’s gaze directed at me.
Apparently, my behavior in the emergency hadn’t disgraced the standards of his homeland.
At least he didn’t suspect that I hadn’t just been sitting under a table during the robbery and that I’d been preparing to kick his ass for three months now.
He didn’t suspect, did he?
After giving our statements, my parents left their contact information with the police, and we were released.
The hero of the day was that sheriff passing through.
He really wasn’t from our town at all, but from Pennsylvania.
He was the center of attention.
Not all positive, either.
He’d broken some rules with his actions.
One of the bandits was near death.
It wasn’t clear who’d fired first.
Witness statements were confused.
There were no cameras in the restaurant.
The fact that the sheriff was white and the robbers were black didn’t help.
I could already imagine how the press would spin it.
Another case of police racism, no doubt.
And his last bullet was never found, though a check of the leader’s gun confirmed a shot had been fired.
With my intervention, I might have created a couple of extra problems for Lucas.
But that was still better than finding that bullet in his brain, right?
I didn’t get a chance to talk to William that day.
Mom decided to shower me with attention and compensate for the stress with her care.
She made almost a festive dinner, then suggested we play a board game as a family, something we hadn’t done in years.
Finally, she let me stay up late watching cable with Dad.
Overall, she took what happened pretty calmly.
Experience with being married to a hero who risks his life every day, I guess.
I remember in my past world, when I got my powers, Mom didn’t object too much when I started getting into trouble.
She just demanded I follow orders and certain rules at home.
Of course, the situation is different now.
I’m younger and haven’t confirmed I have powers yet.
But I’m still Omni-Man’s son, the guy who can take a nuclear blast to the head.
Subconsciously, she understands that little things like that can’t be a real threat to me.
I wonder what would have happened if I’d been hit by a stray bullet, say, six months ago, when my powers were still dormant.
I’m more inclined to believe it would have triggered an even earlier awakening of my Viltrumite heritage than actually hurt me.
Note: All police officers in the Sheriff’s Office are called deputies.
It could be as few as a couple of people in a provincial town or several thousand cops in a large county like L.A.