Chapter 2 - The Sixth Stop Order
The first thing Commander Elias Grant felt was the electric shock locking itself between his shoulder blades.
His hands were still raised when the taser fired.
He had been standing beside his government vehicle on Route 17 outside Norfolk, fingers spread beneath the white glare of patrol lights, following every instruction Officer Ray Maddox shouted.
The impact drove him to his knees. His pressed uniform trousers tore against the pavement. The left side of his face scraped the shoulder as his body folded forward.
Someone laughed above him.
“You reaching for something, hero?” Maddox asked.
Grant clenched his teeth against the aftershock.
“I complied with every instruction.”
Maddox stepped closer, one boot landing beside Grant’s ribs.
“You moved toward your waistband.”
“I adjusted my jacket. My hands were visible.”
“You don’t get to tell me what I saw.”
Grant turned his head far enough to see Officer Caleb Norris standing near the patrol car. Norris was younger, pale beneath the flashing lights, one hand resting uncertainly near his belt.
His eyes were fixed on the taser wires attached to Grant’s back.
“Ray,” Norris said quietly, “his hands were up.”
Maddox spun toward him.
“Keep your mouth shut.”
That sentence mattered.
So did the open patrol microphone.
So did Norris’s body camera.
So did the highway traffic camera mounted farther back near the intersection.
Maddox believed the roadside belonged to his version of events.
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He had forgotten how many machines were listening.
And he did not know this was the sixth order issued that evening to stop Grant’s vehicle.
