Now, Tre, in low-light mode didn’t see anything obviously amiss. He quickly switched to thermal scanning and saw what he thought was a recognizable heat signature from a recently fired small caliber firearm. The heat that showed up as a small reddish-orange line was moving away and to the right – probably heading toward the emergency exit.
“PosDNW” meaning that Tre was in possession of the body – a body because Jake’s dead – and there were no witnesses.
Bystanders are often confused with witnesses, but they’re not the same. Bystanders happen to be in the area when violent murder happens and can be identified by the confused looks on their stupid faces. Whereas, witnesses are more easily identified by the crying, screaming, pointing and yelling.
Tre continued “GSW – perp fled – Pursue?”
“SITREP” was Andy’s reply.
“Stable”
“PwH” And with that, Tre began to pursue with haste.
Tre calmly and left the way he came in. There’s a maximum discreet speed in which a person can walk without drawing attention to themselves. Tre wasn’t concerned that he might draw attention to himself, he just didn’t want anybody checking on the guy that was no longer moving in seat U8. It was a long shot, but the risk wasn’t worth the reward if he had to “kill a bunch of witnesses.” Killing witnesses was what the insiders called buying them off and monitoring them for the rest of their lives. No actual murder takes place.
He had to walk at a ‘I really have to pee’ pace. When his foot hit the starting block of theater 03 he was off like a shot. Tre bolted in full pursuit towards the southwest exit – guessing at the assassin’s route.
“Hey watch it!” Tre heard the loud admonishment come from the near empty lobby. How could you run into somebody in near empty lobby – not looking where you’re going, that’s how. Tre knew that the killer knew he was being chased. The assailant had expected the this followed – unless the murderer was an amateur.
Not an amateur. That’s for sure. For one, the assailant knew when and where to find the target – Jacob. Fuck! Jacob’s dead – the thought crowding his mind for a blink.
“I have to be right about this” was his next thought as he unholstered his taser.
In yesteryear, tasers were attached to wires and deployed by a propellant. Early models were gunpowder fired and such were classified as firearms by the ATF. In in the 80’s, the inventor of the taser developed a prototype that was delivered by compressed air. These models were used for decades until the taser-bird was born. This is the model that Tre carried.
Sprinting now in the direction of the yell heard a moment ago, he dashed through the lobby and out the door. He spied a glimpse of his prey ducking right towards what used to be a Nordstroms but is now an Amazon shopping center and Whole Foods.
The assailant accessed the door with a key – this allowed Tre critical moments to close the gap. The problem was getting through the door after the bad-guy closed it shut. Tre thought about it on his 4 second run to the door and came up with nothing. Nothing except maybe using the bench to… “Shit!”
Tre noticed there was a window high above the door. He scooted the bench in front of the door and lept up to access the glass. “No time to do this cleanly” he told himself. As Tre broke the glass and slid through the opening – scratching the shit out of his body, he kept his eye open for the killer – shit, it’s an empty hallway. As Tre dropped down cursing and jogging down the hall he carefully peeked through the doorway to see if the killer was in sight. He was. He was walking crisply, but calmly towards household goods. This store it pretty amazing. If you’ve ever wondered what an Amazon themed store looks like, well, it’s exactly the way you think it would look.
Tre, still in pursuit, walked crisplier towards household goods. His plan was to cut him off at the exit onto Avenue of the Stars. Ducking and dodging backward glances from… “WTF.”
“WTF!” he mouthed but screamed loudly in his head. “That’s…”
