570. Chapter 570

After Kill Switch

Episode 7.08

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: if I did own Castle, I wouldn't have Esposito ordering double jalapenos. Rating: K Time: See above.

Normally, policewoman Kate Beckett would have been driven to the 12th Precinct by her fiancé, Richard Castle, a Great War flyer who now wrote fiction for pulp magazines. However, today his brand new 1923 Pierce Arrow was in the shop. Accordingly, they had decided to take the subway to the precinct.

As the subway car started, Kate fell against Rick's manly chest. She blushed prettily and moved back.

"Don't feel you have to move away, gorgeous." Rick whispered in her ear. "I like it." She blushed a deeper shade of pink and then a deeper shade still when he added, "And I know you like it too."

"I hardly look gorgeous in this serge policewoman's uniform." She whispered back. Although one of New York's first policewomen, Kate was determined to become a detective like her fictional alter ego, Nikki Heat, the main character in Rick's newly published book.

Suddenly the train lurched to a stop. A man at the far end of their car had pulled the emergency cord. "What happened?' She asked.

The man stared at her. "I am seizing this train in the name of the workers of the world. Arise, ye prisoners of capitalism, you have nothing to lose but your chains." The man then began singing an off key rendition of The Red Flag:

"The people's flag is the deepest red,"

"It shrouded oft our martyred dead,

"Sir." Kate said, moving towards the man, "I'm very much afraid that you cannot seize this train. It's against the law."

"The subway now belongs to the people." The man opened his jacket. "And I have a bomb to keep the people's enemies at bay."

He showed Kate a large glass bottle. "Is that nitroglycerin?"

The man nodded. "One move from anyone and I'll blow up the train and everyone in it to Kingdom Come, although religion is the opiate of the masses."

"No! I'll blow up the train! Long live the propaganda of the deed. Long live Bakunin! Long live anarchy! I have a bomb as well and I am seizing this train in the name of the people!" Screamed a man from the other end of the car. He also displayed a flask of nitroglycerin.

"No you won't, anarchist scum. I'm seizing the train in the name of the Worker's International! So there. Now go get your own train."

The anarchist made a rude gesture with his finger. "I've been planning this for months. I will not go find another train. You should leave with your stupid ideas of the dictatorship of the proletariat. I am an anarchist. There should be no dictators of any sort, no governments. And I defy you to take the train away from me."

"Stupid ideas?" Cried the communist. "You think a bunch of voluntary associations with no government at all will ever overthrow the blood sucking capitalists? You're an idiot!" He also made a rude gesture.

"Idiot am I?" Screamed the anarchist. "Show of hands here. Who wants to be ruled by some dictator of the so called proletariat? He's just a dictator. We don't need no stinkin' dictators!"

One or two people shyly raised their hands and then put them down.

"See!" Cried the communist. "No one wants anarchy! You want a socialist state with the ownership of the means of production by the workers. Show of hands. Come on!" He gestured with his hands, raising them up.

Again. Only one or two people raised their hands and quickly put them down.

"I think that the people here want to just go about their business without being bothered by you two!" Kate said.

"What! An oppressor of the masses telling the people what they want? Go back to grinding the faces of the poor, you Cossack!"

"I am not an oppressor! I am a woman! And I'm trying to show all of my sisters that they can rise to any position in society they want if they are willing to work for it. Oh, yes, you revolutionaries are all about free love and freeing women from the so-called tyranny of the institution of marriage, but all you want is free sex and then go and leave the woman."

"You tell that loud mouthed anarchist!" Yelled the communist.

"I was talking about both of you!" Yelled Kate. She looked around the car. "Now how many of you just want to go about your lawful occasions today and not worry about anarchism, or communism or any other ideology?"

Kate smiled as almost everyone raised their hands. "You, sir, in the middle of the car, you don't agree?" Kate asked. "You want to stay here and listen to these two?"

The man opened his coat to show several sticks of dynamite and a box of matches. "No, I'm taking over this train in the name of an Irish Republic, covering all of Ireland! Up the Republic! Up the Rebels!" He yelled and then began singing in a pleasing tenor.

"Let Erin remember the days of old."

"Ere her faithless sons betrayed her….

"Stop!" Screamed the communist! "I will not have my train hijacked by some right deviationist, and nationalist petty bourgeois running dog!"

"Your train!" Screamed the anarchist! "I will not have this train taken over by some nationalist scum or some would be dictator! Go back to Russia!"

"I'm not from Russia! I'm from New Jersey!" Cried the communist.

"From New Jersey?" Rick asked. "I can see why you're revolting."

The communist felt he had been insulted, but wasn't sure how.

The Irishman stood up. "Tell the Sassenach loving city of New York to send one million dollars to the Irish Republican Army, or I'll blow the train up and everyone in it."

"You'll do no such thing, Michael O'Donohue!" Said a stout lady with a distinct Irish brogue.

"Ma! I'm busy here. Just let me finish!"

The woman marched over to her son and pinched his ear. "Ye'll be coming wi' me. Whit will the neighbors think? Me own son tryin' to blow up a train. Tisn't even English!"

And so the young Irish patriot was dragged away by his mother.

This left two revolutionaries staring at each other at opposite ends of the cars.

"Red swine!"

"Anarchist scum!"

The eyes of the two men narrowed, then they threw their flasks of nitroglycerin at each other, each determined that if he couldn't liberate the train, the other wouldn't.

But Kate, with a grace and athleticism born from countless hours of playing catch with her father intercepted both flasks in midair and saved the day. The would-be train hijackers were quickly overpowered by the passengers and the train continued on its way.

Later Kate sat in Sergeant Montgomery's office explaining what she had done.

"She's being entirely too modest, Sergeant." Rick said. "If it weren't for Kate, the whole car would have been blown up and we'd all be dead. She's a hero."

Montgomery nodded. "Officer Beckett, I've sent a recommendation to the Chief of Police that you be promoted to detective. I know there's a lot of resistance among the brass down town, just as there was in promoting me. But, one day I'm sure you'll be New York's first female detective."

"I think it would be more appropriate to call her New York's first lady detective. "Rick said.

That night Kate snuggled next to Rick in the bedroom of his brownstone, overlooking Central Park. "You know, today made me think. I thought about something that I hadn't thought about since the war. Life is unpredictable. I could have lost you today."

"We could have lost each other." Kate corrected.

"I think we should get married as soon as possible. What do you say?"

"Yes."