"Call the cops." I instruct before stepping over the unconscious man. I leave everyone to their business and exit the diner. The sun has begun to set, casting a pink and orange glow onto the sky. The powerful roar of my bike settles my nerves a bit and the speed at which I travel down the road helps to ease the tension in my body.

I stroll into work and automatically take the elevator to the laboratory. The mousy lab tech sits hunched over a dark gray table. She has multiple lights fixed on her hands and the pieces of broken glass. Her expression is one of determination and focus. I see that she’s holding part of a tube – about the height of a quarter – with cracks running along its surface and a few pieces missing. It seems solid but she’s holding it so delicately. I’ve been standing here, watching her but she doesn’t seem to be aware of my presence. I don’t want to scare her again for fear that she’d drop the evidence. I clear my throat as quietly as possible. Her eyes meet mine in surprise and her cheeks tint pink in embarrassment.

"I thought you would be done by now."

"S-Sorry, they’re smaller than I thought and I can’t find some of the right pieces. We must have not collected them all. Maybe we could go back to the scene and try looking again even though it would be highly unlikely that we would find anymore, but if you—" I hold up a hand to stop her unnecessary rambling. She clamps her mouth shut and her blush comes back in full effect.

"I shouldn’t have assumed." I reason. "How long do you think it will take?"

"Not too long. Most of the pieces here don’t really fit together but what I have completed so far is where the fingerprint is. However, I don’t know if it will be a full fingerprint or just a partial one." She explains. At this point I’ll take what I can get.

"Good work." I compliment, even though she hasn’t gotten me anything solid yet. I catch her whispered thanks even after I’ve left the room. I reluctantly make my way back up to the main floor. It’s not as busy as before. Some people have begun to pack up, ready to get home to whomever is waiting up for them. I walk up the steps to Sean’s office and see him still studying the evidence, immersing himself in an attempt at putting together all the puzzle pieces. When I enter, his eyes find mine and I don’t miss the flicker of annoyance in them.

"What took you so long?" He sets down the file he was reading through.

"I got held up." I sigh inwardly and take a seat on the couch, which is incredibly comfortable at the moment. Way better than my worn down couch.

"Why was there a report of shots fired at the location you were at?" He continues to push.

"Some guy tried to rob the place." I reply indifferently. That guy clearly was an amateur looking for some quick cash. He would have been lucky to get away with a couple hundred at most.

"And you wanted to play hero?" Sean asks in frustration. "You’re too valuable to be acting reckless. The government invested too much—"

"Spare me the ‘you’re too valuable speech.’" I retort. "Any other law enforcement officer or federal agent would have taken action, too."

"Except they have guns. No matter what you are, you’re not bullet-proof." Sean says irritably.

"Enough." I reply coldly, fed up with his need to question everything I do and his false sense of concern.

A tense silence fills the room. His eyes continue to bore into mine and I don’t bother masking the anger that I feel.

"Go home." He closes his eyes and massages his temples with a deep frown etched on his face. "Go home and stay home."

I clench my jaw at the nerve he has, confining me to my apartment for doing something that he would have done. I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from making the situation worse and leave his office, relieved to get away from him, though his words still ring in my mind. "No matter what you are you’re not bullet-proof." It reminds me that even if my job is to protect people, they will never see me as one of them, as another human being.