"Olssen. Olssen!"
Ren opened his eyes to see a figure blotting out the light. The voice beckoned him again and again, shaking him awake. A firm hand was on his shoulder.
"Another late night? Seriously, you need to pay more attention at work or we'll both get kicked out," Ren heard the voice say as he slowly began to comprehend that the scene around him was that of his workplace.
The smiling faces of his co-workers surrounded him, yet the scene he witnessed that night in the apartment complex still haunted him. It kept him from sleeping at night; instead, he was out on the street looking for clues. It was finally at work where he usually crashed and had to get some sleep.
Above him, Ren saw the familiar smiling face of the consul's secretary, his arms clutching a thick set of binders against his chest as he observed Ren's groggy face start to wake up. The secretary, Sebastian, was a third-generation British-American who was known for endlessly hounding the consulate with resumes during his college years.
"Good to see you awake again, Ren. I need you down in the lobby level. The downstairs office is being cleared for the election. I already have some people down there, but I need you to join them. We'll start erecting the voting booths tomorrow, but there's a lot of tables and paperwork to carry around, and you know best where those go," Sebastian said and smiled, heading off again.
Ren cleared his throat and rubbed his still-sleepy face before standing up. He made his way down to the staircase and climbed down two floors into the lobby, walking through a set of double doors made of clear glass into an office with an open floorplan. Tables were set to the sides of the office, with chairs being slowly pushed into stacks. The windows to the side of the office opened onto a quiet street, as the consulate was located some ways away from anything notable.
"Hey, Ren, you got roped into coming down here too? Well, come here and help me move this." The woman hailing Ren was Angie. She was a young college student who'd come in as a volunteer when the consulate was moved to Pacifica and the office needed a lot more hands to file away all the records it had amassed over the years. She'd made a fuss over digitizing the records to make things easier for everyone and had been hired on to oversee that project. Now, due to lack of people to do all the heavy lifting, she was doing much more varied work around the place. Just like everyone else.
"Ren, did you happen to hear about the shootout?" Angie asked as Ren was shifting around some chairs. "Terrible. This situation is getting out of hand. With these weird powered vigilantes popping up like some kind of comic book, this place is becoming a mess."
One of the other office workers sneered in the background, grumbling loudly. "Those freaks need to be taken down a notch. They need to be put on a register or something."
"What, you want these heroes put on registers? I thought you went picketing several times over gun control, and now you want to control a bunch of people who actually do some good around these parts!" another worker pointed out, leading to the beginning of a heated exchange. Angie looked at Ren with a worried expression.
"Anyway, help me move this desk," she said, pointing to one of the office tables.
Ren took up a position on the opposite side of the large wooden tabletop that was attached to tiny metal poles acting as legs. The two of them lifted it and made their way to the side of the office, placing the table on top of another one that was already placed against the wall. As Ren let go, he saw three other people from the office walk in, carrying fold-out booths that would be used during the elections. It would be hectic, with expats walking in over the course of three days, looking at a series of lists of names, and then marking things down on a piece of paper.
Every once in a while, Sebastian would come down to check on the progress, make sure everyone knew where everything was going, then help Ren and the group carry some folders and boxes of papers into a basement storage space. He was frequently called back upstairs to handle things for the consul, but for the most part, he seemed invested in helping Ren clear out the space and make the consulate look respectable for his fellow countrymen.
As Angie was lifting a set of chairs into a pile right next to the window, Ren heard the screeching of tires break the silence looming outside. Everybody rushed to the window out of instinct to see what was happening, and as he did, he saw a stretched black SUV knock down a yield sign and struggle to drive straight down the road. A female figure in an odd costume was hanging off the roof.
The hairs on Ren's neck suddenly stood as his heightened senses warned him of imminent danger. Adrenaline began pumping through him, and time slowed down as he reacted. The muzzle of a pistol was barely visible through the window of the SUV, and it was pointed straight at him.
Ren rushed to cover, grabbing anyone next to him. They resisted as he pulled them down, not realizing what was happening until it was too late. A shower of glass fell over him, and a gunshot rang out. The people above him screamed and dropped to the ground as the car kept careening down the street. As the room fell silent, Ren looked up to see Angie next to him, her clothes becoming saturated with a thick red colour. The bullet had hit her.
People were panicking. Some ran outside, one ran upstairs. Only two people stuck around to look at the gunshot wound with Ren. One of them was shaking uncontrollably, while the other was just mesmerized by the blood.
With quick barked orders, Ren pulled the people remaining out of their shock and guided them into doing something productive. One of them was quickly on the phone, talking with emergency services.
Ren heard wailing sirens in the distance, but was sure those were police and not an ambulance. Something else had to be done. With the help of another person, Ren began treating the gunshot wound. He gingerly lifted Angie just enough to feel if she had an exit wound, only to find none.
As soon as she was back down, the two of them flew into action, ripping off pieces of cloth to soak up blood and then applying pressure to the gunshot wound. With Ren's hands on Angie, blood pouring out from between his fingers, he kept talking to her in as calm a voice as he could.
Fortunately, she kept up with the conversation, and Ren managed to get her to engage with him.
Ren could only hope the ambulance would come quickly.
"You're not doing it right." A serious voice said, Ren looked up to see a man standing in front of him, the man was wearing a white shirt, a stethoscope around his neck.
"Get out of the way... let me check on her." the man says as he pushes Ren out of the way and checks on Angie, the man presses firmly on the wound with a clean cloth. "The bullet is going inside the large intestine, help me lift her to a table, I'm going to perform an operation."
Ren helps the man lift Angie to a nearby table, a small portal, appears on the side of the man, he extends his arms and grabs something inside the small portal.