The SUV stopped in front of Knight. He walked over to it through the ankle-deep snow in the road.
The cop rolled down the window and yelled out, “Hey, what’re you doing out here?”
Knight pointed to his grav-bike, already covered in snow. “My bike shit the bed.”
The cop leaned out of the window to look beyond Knight. He looked in his 40’s, just a little older than that. He had brown hair, was clean-shaven, and wore a thick blue down jacket. He wore gloves that were too fancy for a cop, tooled thin brown and black leather, driving gloves instead of thick snow gloves.
The cop nodded to the side of him. “Get in, I’ll call a tow.”
Knight looked at the car. “I’ll wait out here.”
The cop narrowed his eyes for a moment. Knight realized he gave the wrong answer. “You’ll freeze, mister.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“What’s your name?”
“Knight.”
“Your whole name.”
“That is.”
The cop rolled up his window and got out of the SUV. Knight stepped aside for him. “Where you headed?”
“South.”
He held out his fancy gloved hand. “Lemme see your ID” Knight sighed and tucked his hand in his back pocket, pulling out his wallet. He fished out his ID and handed it to him.
Without another word, he went to the car and ducked inside. Knight shoved his hands in his pockets and watched the cop. As far as he knew, he didn’t have any record. He was a registered hero, after all.
The cop got out of the car after a few minutes. “So, you’re a cape.”
“Yeah,” Knight said, wondering if that was good or bad.
“I called for the tow, but he’s not coming out in this weather.” He motioned to the car. “Come back with me to the station?”
“But my bike.”
“Nobody’s coming out in this weather. Nobody will take it.”
Knight sighed again. “Can I have my ID back?”
The cop looked at the license in his hand, then handed it over. Knight looked across the way, as the snow was starting to cover it and pile high. “A’right,” he said finally, and went to the passenger side of the SUV.
The cop got in, and Knight sat down. The inside was impeccable, almost new. He felt bad making it dirty and wet. The cop drove away, while Knight kept the pile of snow that was his grav-bike in view, until the blizzard obscured his vision. He turned and faced front.
“What’re you heading south for?” asked the cop.
“No fuckin’ snow.”
The cop only nodded, concentrating on driving. Knight listened to the hiss of the dispatch radio; there was nothing going on. Everyone who was smart was probably staying in with a blizzard like this.
The SUV broke out of the tree-lined road into a small town. There were no plows on the road that he could see. The police SUV plowed through the snow like nothing.
He pulled into the parking lot of a small building, a police station and courthouse combined. Three floors, the stone building had a red ceramic tile roof and a parking lot for maybe ten cars. He pulled into a special spot with a sign “Sheriff” after the handicapped space.
“You the sheriff?”
“Yep,” he said, and got out of the car. Knight got out as well. The snow was coming down thick and fast now. He probably would have turned into a snowman if he stayed out on that road.
He followed the cop into the building. A woman sat at a desk, an old fashioned switchboard on the wall on the side of her, but a telephone and a microphone in front of her. “Hey, Barry,” she said.
(I have a couple of ideas where this story is going, and both of them are pretty dark.)
