Iced

Ice stepped out of the greystone office and into the bright sunlight.  He pulled off his sunglasses and tucked them into the left breast pocket of his navy Armani suit.  He turned his face to the sun, and closed his eyes.

"You!"

His head snapped toward the sound.  An elderly man, about 70ish, with white hair and wide, frightened eyes, stood pointing a shaky bony finger at him.

"It's you.  I know it's you."

Ice locked his gaze onto the old man's eyes and let his mouth go slack.  His feelers moved through the skin, past the cranium, and searched through the gray matter to find a weakness.  There.  Right there.  He focused intensely for a second or two.  That's all it took.  The man crumpled to the floor, his fall finally breaking eye contact.

Ice rushed to the man's side, pushing through the surprised bystanders that moved in to help.  He pulled off his jacket, dropping it to the ground as he knelt down.  He turned to a young woman with a cell phone.

"Call 911," he said. 

He placed two fingers on the side of the man's neck.  A faint pulse still fluttered beneath his fingertips.  He tilted the man's head back and checked for breathing.  Barely a wisp.  He clasped his hands together, positioned them under the man's breast bone where the ribs of each side came together.  He began CPR, pushing against the man's chest, knowing he was sending more blood to the damaged brain, building more pressure.  He paused to give mouth to mouth resuscitation, listened again to the slowing breath, returned to massaging the man's chest.  He continued as a crowd grew around them, until he was certain the blood vessels in the old man's brains were exploding under the onslaught, until no breath and no heart beat could be detected.

He heard the sirens.  An ambulance pulled up next to them.  The paramedics pulled him back, took over the CPR where he had left off.  The senior paramedic pronounced the old man dead at the scene.  He patted Ice on the shoulder.

"You did all that you could."

Later that afternoon, back in the dark of the greystone office, the captain paced angrily.

"What the hell did you do that for?" he said through clenched teeth.

"I had to," Ice said.  "He almost blew my cover."

*****

Today's prompt included one of my favorite writing exercises, eavesdropping.  I'm afraid I didn't follow directions very well; I only used one line of dialogue.  It's just that it was such a good line of dialogue, I couldn't pass it up.

Step 1. Go to a busy locale—a cafe or coffee shop would be easiest. Sit down with a notebook, and make sure you look busy, so people don’t know you’re listening. Now write down random sound bites of  conversations.Try to get at least 10 lines or snippets.
Step 2. Now use all ten in a cohesive scene of dialogue or as dialogue in a story
Step 3.  Leave a list of the lines plucked from real life at the end of the story for people to see.

The line I took was "He almost blew my cover."

The rest of the conversation revolved around new NFL rules, how bad the Rams are this year, and golf.

Anyway, to play along, visit Write Anything's [Fiction] Friday here.