Hello, everyone! This is for the most part going to be a neat little side project I'll work on when I have writer's block on Masks Of Steel (such as right now, lol). It takes place in the same universe, about 80 years later on the continent-nation of Nyter in an 80s-inspired cassetepunk era. (less advanced cyberpunk, for the uninitiated)
Without further ado, here is the first short story of this new project, and I hope you enjoy!
As before © "Masks Of Steel" (2023), "8 Gauge, 000 Dragonshot" (2024) the "Bestia Sapiens" universe, all of its characters, locations, events, etc, are owned by the author Mikhail J Clive. Any attempt to copy or utilize the story, characters, locations, lore, etc, in such a way as to generate monetary profit, republication or claims of ownership by a third party will be met with legal action.
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The stench hit him before anything else. He thought he’d braced himself for it, but he hadn’t. It was a mixture of cheap, almost-rubbing alcohol tier booze, unwashed bodies, smoke from tobacco and other less savory substances and piss. He’d tried bracing for a dive bar when he should have braced for a crackhouse. Thankfully, he’d been in enough of the latter lately for it to not greatly bother him. And from the way things were looking, that would not change anytime soon…
The big tiger looked around the dank bar. Rough faces with fur removed for tattoos and pierced snouts looked back at him, then focused back on whatever it was they were doing. He stifled a sigh of relief. It seemed that his attempt to not look like a cop by donning the worst sports jacket and jeans he could find fallen in the back of his wardrobe as well as old tennis shoes he wished to donate to a homeless shelter had paid off.
He didn’t look like a cop.
Though he wondered if the four cans of beer head start he’d gotten back at his apartment helped more. That, or the impotent anger he’d been feeling since he heard the commissioner say with the sheepish smile of an HR lady “Sorry, Officer Jehud, but we currently feel you’d still best serve in the Beehive Grove METF team.”
It was amazing how much one bad event and a paltry amount of alcohol could change one’s appearance. He’d looked in his rear view mirror before exiting his car and his jade green eyes were glazed over and distant. He was reminded of family members whom he broke bad news to countless times as a law enforcer. Surprisingly, most didn’t break down. At least, not right away. They just stared off into nothingness, their eyes expressing not anger, grief or disbelief, but simply… a loss of hope. That scant hope they still held onto that their loved one didn’t answer their phone for days or didn’t even answer a direct house call was down to them being distracted by work or on a days-long bender completely eviscerated.
Had he lost hope too? His once promising career set to forever stagnate for one bad decision. Not bad enough to fire him outright, but enough to send him to forever rot in a team sent only to raid crack houses and petty criminals in a neighborhood that despised them. And if he got blindsided by some little punk with a stolen Glock… well, worse things could happen.
He pushed through the smoky haze, the sounds of glasses clinking, people chatting, laughing or whistling at the many amateur strippers exposing themselves on creaky tables and punk metal played through aged speakers forming a violent cacophony that only a busy dive bar could create. Some found solace in its chaos, and for once, Hymer Jehud could sympathize with those people. At least the music was good, even if it was currently some underground singer screaming about shooting cops and snorting Twinkle.
The bar was about half empty, with a little over a dozen patrons, most of them sitting at tables. They were all canines of some persuasion, but no dogs, and they were all wearing leather jackets with a scorpion with a wolf’s head and a drug needle in place of a stinger sewn on the back. The Twinkling Skorpions (with a ‘k’, naturally). One of the many drug gangs this city had. As they were the kind to get high off their own product more than sell it, they weren’t particularly big fish, but they had a bite. And he’d put more than a few of their number away, both as a patrolman and a ‘special operative’.
He decided to steer clear away from them and went for the bar. A few mammals were sitting down. Rough looking sort, but they didn’t seem to be affiliated with the gang. One of them wore a plain grey pullover with the hood over their head. They were tall and lean, a little over seven feet, and the curves of the body were undoubtedly feminine, despite their attempts to hide it with the baggy clothing. A tiger’s tail dangled behind them. He thought he recognized it…
Figuring he had nothing to lose, he went over to sit down next to them. He felt rather than saw the stranger glancing at him. “Don’t make eye contact just yet, let them talk first, if they talk at all.”
The bartender, an obese boar with a heavily scarred face and the tattoo of a butcher’s knife slitting his throat, busy polishing a glass with a dirty rag, grunted at him in place of “what can I getcha?”.
“Whiskey, double.” Hymer said simply. He figured this shithole had a fairly limited booze selection, but there wasn’t a bar in Nyter that didn’t have whiskey. The bartender quit polishing, tossing the dirty rag into the sink and poured a measure of the brown liquid into the chipped, dirty glass. Hymer picked it up, looking through the murky glass at the liquid, watching as the faint sunrays coming through the grimy windows reflected through it. He briefly wondered at the wisdom of drinking this stuff. The bottle wasn’t labeled and the glass was far from clean. What the Gehl. He had little to lose anyway. If he got sick, at least he’d get a few days off to stay at home and play video games.
Breathing in, he knocked back the glass in a single gulp. His eyes bulged as his throat suddenly felt like it got cut open. He didn’t drink hard stuff that much, and when he did, he usually went for the Luminka drink of his home country, a silky textured strong plum brandy. This was like a fistful of razorwire coated in napalm.
He struggled not to cough or gasp, self-aware about making a fool of himself, but judging by the bartender’s grin on his boulder-like face, it was too late.
“Not like that,” The woman next to him said in a familiar voice. “Swirl it around your mouth a little and press your tongue against the top of your mouth, then swallow slowly. You’re missing all the flavors.” As he turned towards her, he could have cried out. A golden tigress with pale gold fur and brown-orange stripes was looking back at him. Her purple eyes, lean face and sharp chin would have made her quite attractive were it not for the near-constant scowl and cold stare on her face.
Detective Louise Clawson mostly kept to herself. Not that anyone seemed to wish to interact with her save for the strictest of work etiquette. The few times he’d been obliged to interact with her, she mostly spoke to him in monosyllables and seemed to be eager to be rid of him. If he was honest, the feeling was mutual.
No one in the precinct seemed to know exactly why she was an unspoken black sheep. He’d heard whispers that she was dirty, took protection money from various gangs, had killed multiple suspects on the spot but was able to get away on technicalities, or even some more outrageous voices saying she was a mob plant. Most of those seemed like tall tales to Hymer, but in his experience, even the wildest conspiracy theories had some nugget of truth. So, he did like everyone, kept away from her, limiting his interactions to ‘good mornings’ and kicking down doors when she pointed at them.
Now however… he was a black sheep himself. And here they were, both happening to sit down at neighboring stools in the same shitty dive bar in a city with hundreds of them. What were the odds?
“Hey, Louise.” He said flatly. “real charmer you are.”
“Hey yourself, Officer Jehud.” She said, lighting a cigarette with the heavily dented zippo before her. She stretched out the pack to him, but he held out a palm in a ‘stop’ motion. She shrugged and began smoking.
Wordlessly, the beefy bartender returned and refilled both their glasses.
“They keeping you in that shit neighborhood?” She asked as she took a drag. He frowned and gazed at her.
“How did you know?” He hadn’t seen her in two months, ever since he’d been transferred. She gave a small, cocky smile. The first one he’d ever seen from her.
“Well, back when we were in the same department, you were the doorkicker extraordinare. Well on your way to leading your own to leading your own team. Then, suddenly, you disappeared. Everyone stopped talking about you. It’s like you never existed.”
‘Well, there’s a fucking surprise.’ He didn’t say.
“And a couple weeks back, one of my informers told me of how his underboss got arrested by some crazy brick shithouse of a tiger who blew his enforcer in half with an 8 gauge, then beat the living shit out of him, tanking an entire mag of nine-mil to the body armor before kicking his ass.” Another cocky grin, this one showing fangs. He cursed quietly.
“This told me three things,” She continued. “One, my old friend was in the neighborhood. Two, you’re pissed off. As reckless as you are, you’re not brutal, unlike most METF jarheads. And three… you don’t really care anymore. You’re too smart to let yourself get shot. You wanted to beat that lowlife senseless. And people who are on the straight and narrow don’t suddenly go to dive bars unless a single crushing event occurs after a string of bad luck. For you… guessing you got transferred to this armpit of the city after you fucked up somehow, you’re trying to prove yourself to get back on top, but it’s not working.” She concluded, blowing bluish smoke above her which curled lazily in the dusty air.
She picked up her shot glass.
“So… here’s to being on the MKPD’s shitlist.” He looked at the glass suspiciously. Here he was, in a bar full of lowlives who’d gladly see him killed, making casual conversation with someone all but confirmed to be a dirty cop.
He should get up and go back home. Get a good, long workout in, start reading up the Rules Of Egagement for the fourth time to make sure he follows everything to the letter, then wake up early to get a head start on the reports he had to turn in.
‘Fuck it’. The glasses clinked.
“To… that.” He mumbled, knocking the glass back. He swirled it around his mouth. He pressed his tongue to the roof of his mouth.
‘Well, I’ll be damned.’ He thought. It actually wasn’t that bad now.
Louise tapped on the bar thrice and nodded to the boar. He collected the glasses and replaced them with two kegs of beer and poured peanuts into a large bowl. Hymer distantly noted they were well past their sell-by.
As the tigress picked up a few of the stale snacks, he noted the bracelet on her right wrist. He’d always seen she wore a bracelet, but never close enough to see any details. It was made of cheap black string with several blue plastic buttons of stars, police badges and a single bright pink heart on the largest bead. It was evidently “police-y” in nature, but it looked like a child’s Arts&Crafts projects he’d get a C+ for. As far as the rumor mill went, Louise was childless, a bachelorette, with no relatives, living alone in an old villa she’d inherited from her rich family. Why would she wear something like this?
He averted his eyes before she could notice. She remained silent. Now it seemed it was his turn to talk.
“I screwed up majorly,” He began, chewing a few of the old peanuts himself. He almost spat them out. She looked at him intently, those big purple eyes staring right through him. “Two months ago… we were called to a gas station robbery. Bunch of teens looking for Twinkle money. Normally too small time for us, but they took the staff hostage and threatened to kill them, so Patrol called in METF support. Most of them surrendered as soon as they saw the body armor and assault rifles, but there was this one buffalo kid who pulled a knife on us. There were two of us on him and there was no way he could have taken a step without getting cut down, but I saw in his eyes… you couldn’t even see his color from how much they shimmered. Or… Twinkled, rather. He was high out of his mind.” He paused to take a long gulp of the beer. Huh, the beer actually wasn’t that bad.
He slammed the keg back on the table, taking his time.
“Serrano, the operator with me, told me to just shoot him. He was within ten feet, he had a deadly weapon, and he was obviously under the influence and therefore less likely to listen to verbal commands. But… in those eyes, beyond the drug’s effects or the anger and fear… I saw sorrow. He knew he was about to die. He knew that his short life, for better or for worse, was over. And I guess either out of youthful impetuousness or narcotic haze, he saw going out in a hail of glory better than prison. And… I tried talking him down. He seemed to listen and even teared up. I reached out for him, but…”
Hymer laid his forearm on the bar. A long and ugly fairly recent scar ran across the muscular limb.
“He slashed at me then jumped on Serrano. Stabbed him in the shoulder. Then tried stabbing him in the neck, but Serrano caught his wrist. But he was losing. Serrano’s a jaguar, fairly big guy, but the buffalo kid was bigger, and Twinkle is known for enhancing strength and stamina momentarily. I ran over to them and knocked him out with the butt of my gun. Took a good few swings. Broke the damn folding stock on my shotgun. Serrano was pissed. ‘That fucking twinklehead already almost killed us both and you still took him with kid gloves!?’ he said right before punching me. I didn’t dodge. I fully deserved it.”
He emptied the rest of his beer in one swig.
“After that, Serrano filed a complaint against me. There was an official hearing and I narrowly avoided losing my badge, since I ‘did my best to preserve life’. But they sent me to Beehive Grove. The worst of the worst. Tried recently to apply for a transfer back to a proper tactical team, and it went well. But at the last moment…. Fuckin’ Serrano heard of it and told the panel the story once again.” His fist clenched, momentarily imagining he was squeezing it around the jaguar’s throat. He tried his utmost not to hate him. He’d have probably done the same in his place if he’d almost died from a teammate’s stupidity.
He looked away from her, his eyes stinging and his vision blurry. And here he was thinking he’d saved crying like a kit for late sleepless nights. He expected her to laugh at his cowardice and stupidity, to scold him for almost getting a fellow officer killed or scoot a few seats away. What he hadn’t expected was for her to place a paw on his meaty shoulder.
“You did the right thing, Officer.” She said. He turned to her, confused. “Last I checked, they say METF is a life-saving, not life-taking organization. I had yet to meet one who actually believed that. Until now.”
“I almost got Serrano killed!”
“But you didn’t, did you? You got slashed with a knife and wrestled a buffalo for the bastard and he still threw you under the bus. You didn’t take the easy way out and pulled the trigger, even if you knew you’d have gotten away with it. We get away with a lot of shit…” She spat the last sentence, drowning it with beer.
“Do you actually regret not shooting that kid?” She asked, her expression seeming concerned for the answer she may receive.
“No.”
“Well, there you go. Kid will spend some time in juvie… maybe the lawyer will get him a reduced sentence and community service, keep him out of the real bad places where he’ll do nothing but join a proper gang… or not. But you gave him a second chance.
You were in a life or death situation, and you chose life. We’re police officers. We’re supposed to be better than the average person in a crisis, not worse. And it speaks volumes that you got punished for doing the right thing…”
Hymer was quiet as he let her words sink in. For the first time since the incident, he saw it in a different light. He had made sure that it had ended with no loss of life. He wondered briefly what had happened to that kid. He didn’t even remember his name. What was it… Caleb? Calvin?
“Calian.” He remembered.
“Hm?”
“Calian Branham… that was the kid’s name. The… one who stabbed me.” He absentmindedly rubbed the scar, still deep and red. “I wonder what happened to him… was kinda too caught up in my own self-pity to care. I wonder if they tried him yet… prosecution will doubtlessly want to pin attempted murder a police officer on him. If that happens, he’ll likely be tried as an adult. I hope they can plead it down to assault and drug charges…”
“Well, I’ll see if I can turn anything up. I know a few decent lawyers who take up cases like this pro-bono. Maybe you’ll end up saving the kid in more ways than one.”
He looked at her in confusion.
“I’m having a hard time believing you know anyone.” Her scathing look told him he’d said something he ought not to have. Damn, the alcohol was getting to him. Maybe he should ask for a coffee.
“People tend to be more than watercooler gossip, Officer Jehud.” She said icily. He looked away in shame, hoping his cheeks flushing would be put down to the drink. He’d never bothered trying to find out more about her, only assumed that there was a reason why everyone kept a cold distance. He knew nothing of her.
“I’m sorry.” He said sincerely.
“No harm done.” She shrugged and drained the rest of her beer.
“So…” he began. “What now?”
She fished out another cigarette and took her time lighting and taking a single drag before answering.
“This isn’t the end, Hym.” She spoke. He frowned. No one had called him that before. “The department may be full of assholes, like the kind who got you in Beehive Grove, but there’s also plenty of good people. And who knows? Maybe one of them will notice you and give you what you’re worth. I mean, look at me. I may be treated like a leper, but I ended up leading a squad in Intelligence Gathering. I have my own team, we value each other, and that’s all I need.”
Intelligence Gathering, or just ‘Intel’ was a small, but highly efficient subdivision of the Mamalokat Police. As their name implied, they were essentially a police spy network tasked with gathering as much information about large criminal organizations and internal issues as possible. This also meant they sometimes got warrants to survey fellow officers and worked in close conjunction with Internal Affairs, which made them quite unpopular with most cops. However, few would have denied the vital work they did which helped all departments. METF in particular were one of the few officers consistently warm to Intelligence, as they never failed to gather information about criminal compound, including blueprints, number of contacts, possible traps, weapons and defenses.
“Well… thanks for the vote of confidence.” He mumbled, but the beginnings of a smile were beginning to show. Seeing this, she pressed on.
“It’ll happen eventually. I’ve seen you in action. You’re a great shot, a team player and you have a talent for thinking on your feet and adapting to unforeseen situations. And one Gehl of a brawler. All that makes a great cop and a better operative. Someone will pull some strings for you sooner or later. Trust me.” Her smirk made it seem as if she knew for a fact that would happen and was quite smug about it. It was like she was telling a Flat Horti Conspiracist that the Horti was indeed, round.
He was about to ask her more, when the sound of rasping chairs and footsteps made him pause. He turned around and he was met with a wall of leather jackets, patches and shaved fur to leave room for tattoos.
The Twinkling Skorpions had gotten up and surrounded him, ten of them, leaving most of the tables empty. A few were brandishing switchblades, chains or even pool cues liberated from the racks on the wall near the pool tables. Hymer noticed that while they made sure that he couldn’t leave without going through them, they’d left a gap for Louise. The table stripper, a curvy she-wolf, upon seeing the men were no longer interested in her, collected the money from the table and her discarded clothing, and left in a huff.
The leader of the group, a dire wolf with his fur removed in several places to reveal tattoos of questionable quality displaying firearms, knives, motorcycles and other such paraphernalia, approached him, a sneer on his nose-ringed muzzle. He was a full head shorter than Hymer, but was equally packed with muscle.
“Well, boys, I gots me an early fuckin’ birthday gift!” He cackled with a throat ruined by tobacco and various stronger narcotics. “I sometimes thought of lookin’ for yer overgrown ass, but seems I didn’t have to bother, cause you just waltzed in the wolf’s den!” With that, he took a pair of golden brass knuckles from his jacket, the knuckles shaped in the word “HATE” and spiked, and slipped them on his paw. The dark, dried patches on the metal showed that the nasty tool had seen plenty of use.
Now Hymer recognized him. He wished he’d have given the group of bikers a closer look when he got in, but he’d already been half cut by then, and now, he felt the effects of the alcohol, his head feeling light and woozy.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
He was Jak “Uppercut” Baker, a lieutenant in the Twinkling Skorpions gang. He’d beaten a rival dealer to death and his personalized weapon left quite the impression on the unfortunate victim’s face, but also quickly led to him. Hymer had been part of the team to raid his hangout and had arrested him personally, tanking a punch to the jaw with shocking endurance before beating the criminal senseless. He’d heard back then that Jak’s lawyer had managed to plead the charges down to manslaughter after claiming self defense and got a joke of a five-year sentence. It seemed that joke had further been cut short by whatever strings Jak’s higher ups could pull.
“This giant fuckin’ jackboot made me lose three years of my life! And well, I’m a reasonable guy. I ain’t gon’ kill someone fo’ that. But I will shorten his life by that much, with ol’ Hatey here…” He grinned as he rubbed the lettering on his knuckles.
“That didn’t work out last time, didn’t it, you junkie fuck?” Hymer snarled, getting up and standing at his full 7’5 height. He made no move yet, either to get in a defensive stance or pull out a weapon, but merely glowered at the group determined to give him a thorough beatdown. He noted with some satisfaction that a few of the canines seemed less confident now that he wasn’t shaking before them.
“Jak, back off!” The bartender rasped. “No more fights here, you promised.”
“Fuck off, Marty! We own this shithole!” The gang leader snarled.
“Yeah, Marty. Why don’t you leave this between us?” Hymer said, taking a step towards Jak. A few of the bikers took a step back of their own, and Jak seemed poised between backing off himself and taking the first swing. Hymer hoped he would. He was ready. He was already flaring up his Forte, enough to use it to tank the first steeled punch then throw Jak through a wall. Hopefully that would scare his cohorts off. If not… well, all the better.
The alcohol burning in his veins no longer felt like an impediment, but a boon. They fueled his anger and indignation. The fact that he was outnumbered five to one, ten if Louise didn’t get involved, and that they were presently armed and he was not, did not bother him. He could fight, damn well even. Perhaps he would even win. The alternative to that and the likely fatal consequences did not cross his mind.
He briefly acknowledged to himself that he hadn’t sought out a dive bar to get wasted in some shithole as far away from the judging eyes of his fellow law enforcers as possible, but to have something to vent his anger on. This was exactly what he had hoped for, and he was ready.
He could take them on. He could take all ten of the mutt bastards!
Then, he saw someone else enter the mass of bodies that were to stand against him. The newcomer placed a calming paw on Jak’s shoulder. It was Louise.
“Jak… let this one go. It’s not worth it.” She said calmly, yet sternly.
“Lou, you’re one of the few badges I wouldn’t gut in the street,” He growled, not taking his eye off his tiger nemesis. “So imma say this once: leave this between us and him. I got no quarrel with you.”
“Well, it’s too late for that now,” She replied. “You started having a quarrel with me the moment you decided to try and get your buddies to beat him senseless in a dive bar. I’ve seen this guy fight. Yeah, you outnumber him, but at least five of you are not gonna be in any shape to ride your bikes for the next two months at least. I don’t like fifty-fifty odds, do you?” She asked the group. They looked even more nervous now as they glanced at the towering tiger.
“More importantly,” She continued. “I’ve seen this guy shoot. He’s METF. METF requires that each operative can hit ten targets at ten yards away with a handgun in ten seconds. He did it in five. We’re a hell of a lot closer than ten yards here, and you can bet your hides he packed his piece.”
As a matter of fact, he hadn’t. He was so distraught as he left his apartment that he’d forgotten to get his gun. In fact, he didn’t feel his door keys in his pocket, which meant he also forgot to lock the door. He was messed up in ways that had nothing to do with the booze. He briefly began wondering if listening to his instincts when antagonizing the gangers was a good idea.
“Come on, Jak. Marty just replaced the floorboards here, let’s not got blood on them already. And I’ve had two drinks with this guy, and I kinda like him, so, you mess him up, you get on my bad side. You don’t wanna be back there, do you?” The last sentence was said with the same almost soothing tone yet it had an underside of malice and danger. The paw on the man’s shoulder unsheathed its claws and sunk in his jacket ever so slightly. He made a move to pull away, but she held firm.
For a moment, Hymer looked away from his would-be opponent and instead focused on Louise. Her violet eyes were blazing like burning petunia fields, her mouth a thin line, promising dire consequences.
Jak looked away, pretending to instead look at Hymer, yet his eyes were glassy and staring off at something behind the tiger. Hymer knew then that he’d back off. He didn’t know what kind of pull Louise had over the criminal, but it was clearly thorough.
The battle had been won before it even started, and Hymer felt a mixture of gratitude towards Louise and disappointment that the fight he’d been amping up himself for wouldn’t happen.
Cursing under his breath, Jak removed and pocketed his brass knuckles.
“Fine. Yer lucky I owe you one, Louise, and I’m a man of honor who respects his debts. But get the hell outta here. Both of yous.” He sneered, waving them off like he was being swarmed by flies in an attempt to keep some semblance of authority in front of his men before walking back to his table.
Marty was keeping one beefy hand underneath the bar, undoubtedly gripping a weapon of sorts, most like a sawn-off shotgun, then let his arm fall to his side and sighed in relief as the situation was defused.
“Thought I’d have to call in the Cleaners again. Nice one, Clawson.” He chuckled. “But uh… no offense, but could you-“
“Yeah, sure, Marty.” She drained the rest of her beer and left a fifty dollar bill on the bar. Obviously far more than both her and Hymer’s tab would have been, unless she’d been drinking here since noon, which judging by the fact she was still coherent and not vomiting everywhere, she hadn’t. He trailed behind her. He didn’t know why, but he felt a strong compulsion to go wherever she went. If nothing else, he wanted to know more. All he’d heard of her was that she was a corrupt, arrogant and trigger-happy cop, but he’d just watched her talk ten drunken pissed off bikers. She had strange powers, indeed.
“Hey uh… thanks.” He muttered as they both went out into the trashy street bathed by the sun’s dying burnt orange rays. Cheap neon signs from various storefronts bathed the filthy concrete, reflecting in the puddles created by a recent downpour. Usually, it seldom rained in Solkat, but this neighborhood was very near the border with Silvokat, and since city maintenance on the climate controls in this part of the city was a distant dream, it was far more susceptible to the whims of the neighboring forest district and its cloud seeding.
Silvokat was visible beyond the ancient climate wall. It was a towering monument to the brilliant minds of engineers nearly a century ago, standing 150 meters tall, covered in gears the size of buildings, massive gauges all citizens could see, exhaust pipes and chimneys, catwalks and scaffolding, a tireless factory that kept the entire city alive... all rusted away and nearly falling apart now.
The wall was non-operational. It had been for close to fifty years now. The glow of its massive generators replaced with a holographic ad from a corporate airship of lingerie specially designed for canines, a vixen posing seductively in a way that was barely legal to show to an entire city full of children.
The lower half of the brass wall was covered in graffiti, as far as they could go with stolen scaffolding. The centerpiece was a mural depicting a battle from the Second Nyteri Civil War, line infantry firing rifles and Maxim machineguns at each other from trenches as dragon air cavalry swooped in from above, bathing enemies in their horrible fiery breath as they screamed and ran as they burned, for all the good that would do them.
Strangely, it never had been graffitied over. Hymer wasn’t sure why. Perhaps it was the piece de resistance of some powerful gang and none dared touch it, or perhaps it just felt wrong to tarnish such a sincere expression of respect for lives past.
“Don’t mention it.” Louise waved him off, regarding the dead monument of the city herself. “It’d have felt wrong to let a badge get their ass kicked in this part of town.”
“I mean… I wouldn’t have gotten my ass kicked, but-“
“Yeah, you would have,” She said sternly, giving him a slight smirk. “You’re tough, but you’re not ‘winning a ten on one barfight’ tough. And you ought to be more careful. You’re METF, that sort of bravado gets operatives killed. Shit, you don’t even have your piece with you.” She said matter of factly.
Hymer was silent. She was right. He was about to ask how she knew he was unarmed, but he supposed it was immaterial at this point.
Everything about this trip to a dive bar had been stupid. Going in the first place was stupid, not looking closely at the patrons was stupid, getting even more drunk than he was already was stupid, trying to start a fight with an entire gang was stupid, and here he was, a big drunk walking fridge of a tiger, the crowning gehling jewel on this crown of idiocy.
But the night hadn’t been a complete waste… he’d met Louise. Well… he’d met her a long time ago. A cold handshake, then speaking on collegial monosyllables for two years. His colleagues had told him “watch out for her” and he’d lapped it up, cowardly staying within the herd, never questioning what everyone else was bleating. And now, that group of friends had stood aside as he was getting shitcanned, and the bad news gumshoe had bailed him out of his own stupidity.
Now, he looked at her, truly looked at her, for the first time. She was beautiful. Her golden fur looked messy at first glance, but it was clearly well groomed and kept short. Her face was bathed in a faint purple glow from the adjacent building’s neon sign, “Karl’s Body Shop” (which the cop in him instantly pinned as a chop shop), which matched her eyes. She was lithe, yet strongly built. The bags under her eyes spoke of long nights overworking herself and getting beaten down by the city, but never giving up or believing that what she did didn’t matter. She was a fighter. And one who had been in the ring longer than he had.
“Right…” She spoke. “You… didn’t come here with your own car…. Right?”
He froze. She frowned at him.
“. . . Right?”
“I uh…” He muttered.
“How exactly did you think you were going to drive back after getting shitfaced? You leave your car here overnight, it’ll get turned into scrap metal and shipped to ten different states, if it hasn’t already.”
Hymer cringed and looked away. He heard her sigh.
“Give me your keys. It’s that blue Redfield-9-VI, right?”
“Right. What, you wanna drive?”
“Gehl no. I’m as shitfaced as you are. I’ll give the keys to Marty, he’ll stash the car somewhere where it’ll be safe.”
He shot her a questioning look.
“Marty’s good people, okay? You’ll get it good as new tomorrow. Now… I suggest we both head home. Subway station’s a couple blocks yonder.” She nodded in the direction.
Hymer turned to leave, yet stayed as he glanced back at her tall, lithe yet powerful frame, already turned in the opposite direction.
He opened his mouth to say something.
“You’re welcome.” She said, not breaking stride.
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The black-pelted jaguar stomped through the precinct, eyes blazing. He hadn’t even bothered removing his stifling plate carrier and helmet. He collided with a gazelle officer carrying a stack of paperwork, sending the files flying. He seemed poised to give the METF operative a tongue lashing, when the feline’s dead glare stopped him.
“Fucking bitch… who do you think you are…” He muttered as he rounded another corner and all but kicked open a door marked “Intel-Lt. Clawson”.
“Clawson, I demand an explanation!” He bellowed.
The tigress inside was infuriatingly unphased by his furious display. She took her sweet time taking another sip of her coffee as her other hand twirled a pencil, eyeing up the new arrival like an overworked secretary eyeing up a new client. He half expected her to tell him to pull up a ticket.
“Officer Serrano Garra. Sit down, please.”
“No, I’ll stand.” He said in a somewhat calmer tone of voice, yet maintaining his fiery gaze on her. “What the Gehl is going on with my brother?”
She still didn’t look directly at him, and shrugged infuriatingly.
“Well, it’s against policy to discuss an ongoing case, but I suppose I can do you a favor,” She seemed to emphasize that final word. “Your brother was caught with a distribution amount of the street drug known as “Twinkle”, and he was in the process of sharing it with his girlfriend, which makes him a dealer. 10-20 in Federal.”
“Dealer!? That bitch is who got him hooked on it in the first place!” He growled, his previous attempt at intimidating calm out the window. This dirty mafia whore was really going to ruin his brother’s life… he glanced the paperweight on the desk and thought of some very unpleasant ways he’d use it right now.
“Hearsay.” She said, lighting a cigarette and picking the pen back up, seeming to regard its tip. “Here’s the deal, Serrano: my job is Intelligence. As in, information gathering. This includes internal affairs, as much as you boys may hate it. And I was looking through some solved drug cases, hoping to get more leads on the drug trade, and I found that one Rodrigo Garra has had four drug possession charges leveled against him in the last year alone. All were dropped, despite no real evidence in his defense coming about. I wonder what the commonality is,” She set down the pen she’d been toying with on the desk, very deliberately placing it to point at him. “So, I decide to bust him with my own team. No MKPD uniforms. And lo and behold, we shut down a major dealer.”
“He’s not a fucking dealer!”
“Then why did we find two keys of Twinkle in his apartment?”
Serrano knew why. For his brother’s birthday, Serrano and his parents bought him a Cormac Nighthawk, his brother’s dream car. Second hand and a five-year-old model, of course, but still in pristine condition. They were hoping the heartfelt gift would mend bridges and convince his brother to stay clean. Instead, his brother sold it for drug money. He doubted those two keys would have lasted him a month had Louise gehling Clawson not busted him.
“Maybe he… he wanted to get a good supply of it with his savings. Street price of Twinkle is only going up, and he has no stable income.” He was careful with what he said, lest it came out that he knew about his brother’s drug problem and never reported it. His future in the METF would be up in smoke.
He breathed in and looked the detective in the eye.
“Look, Lieutenant… please… Rodrigo’s… gone down a bad, awful path. I’m… trying to get him off it, as his big brother, but it’s hard. But if you put him in jail, it’ll only make things worse. He’ll still get the cravings inside and he’ll do anything, absolutely anything for the next fix. You send him to prison, you’ll turn a junkie into a hitman.” He tried sounding calm and detached, but he felt his voice quaking, and he hoped the moisture in his eye was not visible.
Clawson maintained an impassive face, saying nothing for a good minute, finishing off her cigarette.
“I’m surprised, Officer,” she said as she crushed her coffin nail into the ashtray. “From what I’ve heard, you have a zero-tolerance policy towards junkies. You’re asking me to spare a known associate of the ilicit drug trade… yet… a few months back, you all but ended one of your colleague’s careers for doing just that.”
Serrano’s head sprang up and his breath caught in his throat. No… that bastard…
“Is this about-“
“Yes, Officer, that’s exactly what this is about.” She glared at him, standing up, letting him appreciate that she was a good foot taller.
Serrano stammered, opening and closing his mouth several times grasping for words, but none came.
“You know what you have to do. Do. It.” She hissed.
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“Chief Herrot will now see you.” The antelope secretary said, her smile as fake as the diamonds in her earrings. Hymer exhaled. He’d been preparing for this moment for a good 30 minutes, yet those simple, robotic words seemed to drive an icy stake through his heart. He got up, and followed her.
It was finally happening…
Getting called in the Captain’s office was bad enough. If the Chief called you in at HQ across town, well… you may as well pack up your desk before you go there to save time.
He didn’t know what he’d do with his life now. He couldn’t just go back to Riguri, it was out of the question. The Nyteri military was probably a decent choice, but he didn’t quite look forward to dying in a desert for a country that wasn’t his. Perhaps he could join one of the many private groups around the continent looking for those with his particular set of skills? Bounty hunters, sellswords, security, even straight up mercenaries… he imagined there wouldn’t be many groups denying an ex-METF operative from joining their ranks.
But that wouldn’t sit right with him. Something about becoming a mercenary, trading blood for zeroes in his account, made him feel sick with himself. Well, it wasn’t all that different from what he was doing now… METF’s goal was rescue, and they did their utmost to make the bastards surrender first, yes, but more often than not, bullets started flying. What would the difference be? The badge? Public perception?
“Selling your soul, that’s the difference.” He growled in his throat.
“Excuse me?” The secretary queried. Shit, he’d said that out loud.
“Nothing… just… got a lot going on.”
She looked at him for a long moment, as if weighing up to press further, before shrugging and walking off as they reached the office door.
Chief Herrot was the exact image of what the layman conjured up when they thought “police chief”. He was a massive elk well into his 60s, his dark brown fur silver in some places. He was overweight, but in a way which suggested that he’d once been an imposing, muscular man. Hymer had never seen him in anything other than white shirts and suspenders, that along gold-framed spectacles being his constant attire. His desk was full of files and reports waiting his attention, yet it was all stacked in neat little towers. All that was missing was the fat cigar, but Herrot was a strict non-smoker, even enforcing it for his officers when he was around.
“Ah… Officer Jehud. Take a seat.” The Chief asked without taking his small green eyes off the report before him. Hymer did so, sitting down as if he expected the chair to be covered in spikes.
“So,” Herrot began. “I’ve been looking over your performance reports. METF is doing a slight restructuring and they asked me to shuffle some operatives around. And another operative, you worked with him before I believe, Serrano Garra…”
Hymer froze. What the Gehl else had Serrano done? Had he finally buttered the higher ups enough to get him canned for good? Was he really that petty?
“… He’s apparently leveled a complaint against you a couple of months back, but he just retracted it. Said that you did the right thing.” Chief Herrot finally looked up to smile at him.
Hymer blinked. He ran the last few seconds through his mind again to make sure he hadn’t misheard.
“He… when?” The tiger questioned.
“Yesterday afternoon. His captain said he entered in quite a hurry and seemed nervous. His brother got detained over some stupid mistake, so I guess that must have been it. And then he…” Hymer didn’t listen anymore. He zoned out.
He was finally out of limbo. Everything that he’d thought lost was within reach again.
“… which is why the team lead of the Eiskat 30/5 team asked for you.” His chief finished.
Hymer snapped up.
“Uh… excuse me?”
Chief Herrot smiled indulgently and reached for a thermos and poured a measure into an unused paper cup.
“Here, it’s still warm.”
Hymer accepted the cup and sipped tentatively.
“The 30/5 teams are a new system we’re implementing.” The Chief explained. “Previously, all METF teams worked in regular shifts. However, due to the sheer number of calls METF responds to, that’s spreading them too thin. And we can’t afford to fund new teams for now. So, each district will have one 30/5 team. This means that if a situation is bad enough, you may get the call any time. Could be while you’re asleep, in the shower, at the carnival with your sweetheart, whatever. You’re on call thirty hours a day, five days a week. You’ll mostly be called for emergencies in Eiskat, but it could also be anywhere else in Mamalokat, should it get nasty enough. No breaks, except official vacation days. There’s some nice bonuses, but-“
“I’ll take it.” Hymer said without hesitation.
Chief Herrot smiled.
“I knew that you would, son.”