As I reached the rooftop, I could hear my boss over my headset. "Just put the gun down and we'll work this out." he spoke. Typical. The typical negotiation. It wasn't going well. As I ran to my place on the rooftop to set up, I thought about today. We, the SRU or the Strategic Response Unit, had been dispatched to a domestic beating going horribly wrong. We had chased the abusive husband with his poor wife across town. We had chased them into a plaza in-between a few buildings. I had to set up, or else my team could be in danger. I made it to the corner of the building and set up my sniper. I put down the legs and put up the scope. As I leaned in, a memory flashed by my eyes. The first day on the job for me. I could see the first case all in one second. The job was that a little girl had been kidnapped by a crazed mother. The mother had claimed that the father was abusing her and the child, but after talking with the father, there was no evidence anywhere that he had. It was all in that woman's mind. After we finally cornered her, she held a knife to herself and the girl. "Put it down and it will all be okay." I had promised her. The mother did not listen and screamed at me that I was working with her "horrible" husband. She continued to rant until she finally broke and decided to end it by running at me. I can still hear the sound of my gun going off as I raised it to protect myself by instinct. I had felt horrible. My boss and teammates had to gradually work that out of me and keep telling me that if I hadn't defended myself, she would have killed me. I thought about that as I leaned in my scope and aimed. I could see the man waving his gun around and his forearm around his wife's neck, who was crying. "I have the solution." I spoke. Another memory flashed by my eyes. I was just a teen when I had been held in a hostage situation. My mother and I had been sitting in a cafe, just sitting quietly. I had been nursing a cup of tea for a while when a man came running in. I remember the look on his face. It was angry, desperate, and I remember the fear. He looked at me and yanked me out of my chair. I heard a scream, but was it mine? I couldn't remember. I felt the gun to the side of my head. The door burst in as the SRU team at that point of my life, came in. I saw their guns go up as they ushered the people out. My mother. Her screams to save me were deafening. I should have felt fear. I didn't, but why didn't I? I kept calm as the SRU back then negotiated with the man. The boss of that team; I could always hear his voice over any one's, even my mother's. "Put the girl down. You have already shot a cop, you don't want to shoot that girl." he had said to the man holding me. The man had escaped from a beat cop's hold and had taken his gun. He had shot the cop in cold blood as the SRU arrived. He had ran into the cafe for a hostage, which was me. I looked to one of SRU members and winked. All at once, I had elbowed the man, sending him back and grabbed the gun out of his hand. I pushed him in the chest with my foot, sending him to the ground. I backed away, the gun in my hands. He had gotten up. I saw the anger. That's when I heard the shot. I was unsure where it had come from until I saw the smoking end of the gun I was holding. He was on the ground, dying. The boss came and grabbed the gun and pulled me into a hug as the realization that I had shot a man came flooding over me. My mother and father tried to soothe me, but only the boss of that team could calm me down. That was the moment I decided I wanted to work for the SRU. The man holding his wife had only gotten worse. He kept claiming that his wife had cheated on him and this was only the price of cheating on him. As I watched, I recognized the muscles in the man's body as a "Shooter" position. A third memory came to me in that moment. It was a bomb threat case. My team had been dispatched to it. I remember thinking, 'Why? Why would someone even think about blowing people up?'. We had caught the bomber in the act of putting down his bomb. It was an odd day, as I thought about it. The bomber was only a teen, someone who wanted revenge on the college for dismissing his case of the rape of his sister that same year by her boyfriend. He only wanted to protect her. That's when he had told us about another bomb in the college. My team took off to get it disabled, while I was left to watch him to keep him from activating the bomb. "Why didn't you come to the police? We would have handled it." I had said.
"No one believes me and my sister is too scared to come forward about it. To make people listen to me, I have to do this." he had replied.?"You have our attention, you don't need to do this anymore." that had began my telling of him that it would be alright if he just stopped. I was able to get him away from the bomb and in handcuffs. I watched as they put him in the car and I thought, 'God, people really need to listen more.' I watched the man waving the gun. I could hear his words. "She cheated on me with that pig of her boss." he snarled at my team.
"No! No! I didn't do that!" the wife sobbed.
"Yeah? Then explain to me how you are pregnant when I can't give you children!" the husband screamed back at her. I heard my teammate gasp at that.
"Sir, even if she's not carrying your child, you can still be a father, isn't that what you wanted?" my boss asked him. The story was that the wife had been with, not her boss, but her husband's brother.
"No! She's going to pay for that!" the man screamed back. His arm went up and it's like the world went into slow motion. I aimed and heard the command. "Scorpio." I pulled the trigger.