I try not to be discouraged at the response that my enthusiasm earns me. Hope is a devious and dangerous emotion, however, and I held it for the briefest moments when I got that tin star. Only to find that the Reno Police do not like the Sheriff’s department, and had choice words for me after handing over a suspect for a call on the alert system. After three attempts to help, the Police had enough and asked their boss to call my boss.

Sheriff Winchester sent the regional deputy to come talk to me.

“You Novarro?” A mid-height, lean man with salt and pepper hair asks as he approaches me sitting on the back of a bench in professional time-out.

“Kimber, Kimber Novarro. Sorry they called you to come out.” The man snorts.

“James Kincade,” he holds his hand out for a greeting, so I take it and pulse my grip as most people do in a handshake. “This is my part of the territory you’re causing trouble in. The boys in blue do not like us folks in tan and tin, and I bet the enthusiasm and being . . . wait, let me get the cop’s words correct, ‘a Perky pain in my ass’, didn’t help matters.”

“Bah, true enough, I suppose. I was excited to start helping people, but this is teaching me that throwing effort at something isn’t necessarily helpful.” Kincade steps up on the bench and sits on the other side, keeping a respectable distance while we both look on at the crime scene across the street.

“Not always, but in this case, you lit a fire under Winchester’s ass, and that is a good thing. With all lawmen and women, the process gets to us. Some of us find ways to deal, some force excitement when they can, some turn to the vigilante do-gooder type. The saddest result is where the good Sheriff was headed: Lifeless Automaton.

“That said, continuing to step on people’s toes is not a good idea, so you’re going to have to learn the dance.” Kincade pulls a small case out of his breast pocket, retrieving what looks suspiciously like a cigarette from it. He takes a brief puff, igniting an enchantment?! And then a much longer draw.

“Is that like a vape or something?”

“Aether cig. Some of us dip our toes in magic and need the boost from time to time. According to your file, you jumped in the damned lake. Not important at the moment. Since Winchester doesn’t seem ready to fire you, I was thinking of bringing you up to speed. There’s a handbook, of course, but that mostly covers regulations, not doing the job.”

I look over to study the man. Seems earnest and genuine, no red flags that I’ve heard, and he’s got a sturdy presence, one that’s not necessarily comforting, but an assurance that he can be relied upon.

“I’d like that.”

We walk over to his car, he offers to give me a lift, but I decline in favor of following him on my bike. I summon the suitcase, my armor jacket and helmet. Kincade is still standing, looking at me with disbelief.

“Keep staring at me like that, Deputy, and I’ll get the wrong idea.” I say with no menace intended. He comically shakes his head to clear his thoughts.

“Not many people openly use items like that. Or can afford storage items with that much space.”

“So it’s not the biker vibe then?”

“Definitely not. That thing hovering?” he asks as he slumps into the seat of his cruiser.

“Indeed. It can lift as high as three meters without much complication.”

“Range?”

“Three to five hundred kilometers depending on how I drive. I have a spare battery should I need it.” He whistles and shuts the door.

He pulls out of the lot and I follow, trying to keep track of the layout of the city on our way out of town.

A Deputy Kincade is trying to contact you.

Thanks Tova, new co-worker.

\Novarro, you need to register your vehicle if you don’t want to get slapped with toll fees left and right. Since you have a ZEV, shouldn’t be much issue. Also, we’re headed about 50km out to Fallon for a response that got called in. Learning on the job today, rookie\

I double click into his comms to confirm I heard him.

The name of the town we’re headed for seems suspect in my mind, as though I’d heard it recently. This seems odd to me as the only research I did on the actual areas of the Reno metropolitan area was the basic layout and the areas of City Center around the Sheriff’s office and the Truckee River. The only other people I talk to about this place are Marcella and Bev. The same Marcella that brought a team to prep some settlement stuff. I swear by the Empress’ fiery vengeance that hey better not be involved in my first call with the Sheriff’s department.

I try to register my bike and find all the necessary paperwork, the department form for the Sheriff, yadda yadda. Seems as though it’s going to be a few days while they check my employment and other . . . stuff? The response message was not very informative.

I force myself to focus as our transit lane descends below river level and then rises several stories above ground as the speed of traffic accelerates to expressway speeds. Kincade starts to speed up, but I easily pace him on the magi-tech motorbike. He pops his lights and goes faster. I narrow my eyes at his antics, but connecting with my bike’s interface, I have it adopt a law-enforcement lighting scheme with ‘alert’ as red and blue flashing, three flash bursts. As soon as I notice the lights I gun it to catch up.

In less than half an hour, the deputy I’m following pulls off the expressway and starts slowing down. We weave through the sprawl of a town that is more of a suburb than its own city, before slowing at a non-descript home, well past any warehouse or storage facility. Kincade stops his cruiser, so I pass and turn down the next street to park the bike. Sure I could take it with me as a suitcase, but it doesn’t fold and unfold that quickly.

I walk in front of his car and hop in the passenger door.

“Three houses back on the opposite side of the street. Looks like we got a cell operating from here selling tainted drugs. Led to a few deaths here in the city.”

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Yeah, this is looking like less of a coincidence and more like a bunch of idiots are trying to get in on the drug game without knowing their product. “Do they know the mechanism? Blood thinning, rupture? Organ failure?”

“Looks a lot like aether poisoning. The bad cases of OD are mutating.”

Who would try making my drugs more magical? A normal dose should be fine to use, but if people are chasing it too far, then that’s some serious trouble.

“We waiting for backup, or staking out?” I ask him as I study the house.

“You got full armor?” he asks, I nod. “good, I was planning on launching gas through the windows, and shoot whomever comes out.” He pauses a moment before looking at me. “You know how to use a canister launcher.”

I snort, “I modified one to shoot plasma dervishes. I immediately delisted the things when I saw what they could do.”

“The hell is a plasma dervish?”

“Canister that has three plasma jets that make it spin at extreme speeds, and a small thruster on each side that causes it to shoot into the air while shooting plasma in a two meter radius.”

“What the fuck? Why would you do that?”

I shrug, “Pure science is a bad idea. I’m an alchemist that specializes in explosives. I can make a moldable substance that can fuse concrete, and a powder that’s several times more explosive than gunpowder.”

“No wonder you have such fun toys, you’re rich.”

“Eh, getting there. They’re not my Track, so they’re just hobbies that I do to level and pay the bills.”

“Sure, you got anything fun for the occasion that doesn’t count as a war crime?”

I tap my chin, I haven’t tested them on a real building before, but why not. “I’ve got some gas canisters that also spew and aerosol explosive that acts as a compound thermobaric. A regular flashbang after the fact should ignite the aerosol.”

“Should? Navarro, maybes don’t cut it.”

“Then put a fucking flair in there or something. The flash-bangs I make are more powerful than the mundane versions. So sue me for not thinking of the under-powered techies.”

“Them’s fighting words, Kid. Do the canisters fit in 40mm MGL’s?”

“Yep, got a bandolier too if you want to go nuts.” I see the gleam in his eyes, but he stuffs the glee down before responding.

“Alright, I’ll take four dual gas and two super FB’s?”

“That’s a ten credit order, buddy. The dual gasses are restricted items, and I need a license I don’t have to make them.”

“How can you be this complicated?! You’re fucking 18 and I feel like I need to sign an NDA to talk to you. I’ll sign a discovery and use waiver, then we can talk about it after.”

James Kincade has offered to pay 10cr for ‘Munitions’. I thought we stopped making these?

We did, but I kept everything I made.

I summon the canisters put them in the footwell and transfer my old m16 with m203 attachment. Kincade whistles.

“That, is an antique madam. Where’d you get it?”

“I worked for Warram before the hostile takeover of their Crime division. They had loads they stole from a nearby National Guard stockpile. I was issued this one when I was working as a gunner for a crew near Barstow and Adelanto. Hit a few cars with rockets on that job. Good times.”

I look over to my salt and pepper partner and see him gaping at my casual use of explosives? I really don’t know, but I clap his jaw up just the same.

“Well shit. And here I thought you’d be another green recruit. You just don’t know the surface, non-combat stuff.” He slaps his cheeks and shakes out his face. I pull a pack of stim chews out of my pocket and hand him a stack. “Hell yeah, I love these things. Thanks Novarro . . . handing me Nova Chem products. I’m an idiot.”

“I was wondering, I even stenciled the company name on the grenades.” I can’t help but laugh at him. He looks so flustered and very un-oldman right now.

“I will not fangirl over my teenage protegee’s products. I was buying from the Vegas Health Club, does that mean I can shortcut the middle man?”

“Tell you what, James. Since I don’t deal with private clients in general, I’ll sign you up as the Sheriff’s department liaison, and we can work together, while we work together?”

“Kimber, you got yourself a deal.” A golden scroll plops into my lap and I laugh in a roar.

“Yes we do!”

As the sun starts dipping behind the finger mountains in the distance, Kincade falls back not work mode and starts donning his vest and a solid helmet with a filter and a re-breather. I should get a helmet that does that.

Your head’s shield is configurable to prevent foreign substances from leaking through.

Nice, thanks for the heads up Tova.

\Tell me when you get into position.\

Double click.

I slink over to the neighboring house, skim along their fence and pop thrusters on my boots to get a little extra on my jump to get over it. I land with a touch and roll, crouching as I dash behind their barbeque.

/In position./

\Go in 5\

As the timer hits zero, I pump a grenade in through the kitchen window, and another canister into the office/guest room window before ducking back behind cover. I expect another countdown to prep me for the explosion, but the only warning I get is busting glass before the grill is pushed over on top of me. Fucking amateur.

I push the damned thing off me and dash at the back door and kick it in. The door folds easier than any other door I’ve kicked in, and my pistols are ready in my hands as I enter the building.

/Stairs down in the kitchen. Throwing canisters in ten, unless otherwise ordered./

I sit at the corner of staircase and kitchen door for a nervous ten seconds. I throw full gas grenades down the stairs, three just to be sure, and slam the door shut. I order some long ass nails and drive them into the frame through the door just incase someone is struggling with the gas, they can struggle with the door.

/I nailed the basement shut, coming forward./

I flick my helmet to an IR-visual spectrum split on my HUD to see where I should be careful. Three people are unconscious, bleeding from ears, nose and eyes. I inject a rejuvenation pod in each while I cuff them. One is moving, reaching for something. I shoot their extremity and they swear and his to roll over and aim at me. I slide over and get the fucker in a triangle choke before he can find his weapon. I put a heavy sedative in that one, with a rejuv. When I crawl over to the next person, I see that a round or three cracked the deputy’s visor, and he’s out from the knockout part of the gas. I drag his big dumb ass outside, pull his helmet all the way off, then heft him up and walk to the car to deposit him.

What I should be doing is driving him home. What I am doing, is going back into the house to see if the sleepy bitches are Health Club members. On my way back to the basement, I make sure that the upstairs kids have bracelets. I pop the nails out of the door with the hammer I put them in with and put a nail back in to stick it open.

Slinking down the stairs, I turn up my shields and make sure I have a replacement pack for the crystals in my girlfriend’s ring—not dying to what I suspect is friendly fire. When I get to the bottom, I see more bodies. I check pulses and order more cuffs. I start going through the operation mechanically, checking, cuffing, until I round another corner and my conscious brain is on holiday while Tova and my peripheral reactions force my emotions to trigger and use my first instance of complex action of [Triggered Action].

I roll and pull my pistols, firing in a return vector, as my assailant does the same in this soupy air. The problem is, the person opposite me is as fast as I am using my talent, or nearly so that it makes little difference. I fire another salvo, drop a grenade out of my inventory and kick it toward them as I strafe across the room, hoping to draw their vector off the grenade.

I may have pulled them off the grenade vector, but that bastard has me dead to rights with that pistol. A shot in the arm, a shot in the chest and a ricochet off my helmet disarm me from my plasma pistol and stun me for a second as the helmet hit jostled my brains.

The grenade pops and I hear a feral roar as a forearm length dagger looks to split me from chin to cerebrum. The explosion and the shrapnel throw the swipe off, splitting the composite of my faceplate in a clean cut until the tip nicks my forehead.

I roll on the ground, blood from my face cut burning my right eye. I fire another salvo into my attacker’s back, hoping to incapacitate them, cuff them, and medicate them before the gas makes me pass out. A shield flares on their armor, saving them from a plasma bolt, but the .38 follows a piece of shrapnel into their back, eliciting a cry of pain from my adversary.

They kick off a wall and turn toward me, still shouting through the pain. They rip the remainder of my helmet off, before a knife halts against my ribs and another a half a millimeter from my uncovered eye.

“Kimber!? WHAT THE FUCK!?” A familiar voice shouts at me as I fade to black.