Volume 1 - Chapter 16

Copper Topper

A glance at my watch showed 5:46 a.m., and I needed to find the police station before Officer Packley ended his overnight shift.

For once, things worked out easy for me. As soon as I rounded the next corner onto Jameson Avenue, I spotted the modest brick building with two police vehicles out front.

A couple of ancient Model T's sat there just like the one Packley drove.

I took a deep breath and pushed through the front doors, the pungent smell of stale cigarette smoke and harsh disinfectant assaulting my nostrils. The desk sergeant looked up from his paperwork, one eyebrow raised inquisitively.

The name above him said Officer Mackson.

I approached the desk sergeant, clearing my throat. "Excuse me, officer. I'm looking for Officer Packley. Is he still on duty?"

The man eyed me suspiciously. "And what business do you have with Packley?"

"I was a witness to an incident a couple nights ago," I explained, "and I'm just looking to get more information about what happened."

He grunted, flipping through a logbook. "Packley should be just wrapping up his shift. Have a seat over there and I'll let him know you're here."

I nodded gratefully and took a seat on a bench along the wall. The wood seat groaned as I settled down, my gaze roaming around the little squad room.

A few desks were scattered about, piled high with paperwork and overflowing ashtrays.

The air was thick with smoke. All the NPCs in this game seemed to smoke, like that was some type of stereotypical thing everyone did back in the 1920s.

I wondered if doctors used to prescribe nicotine and alcohol to patients like that was healthy or something. Times had surely changed in that regard, and likely for the better.

After a few minutes, a door opened and a stocky man in a rumpled uniform stepped through, squinting at me. I recognized him as the officer that had arrested NPC Billy Sadler.

Stalvek Dyomin had turned Billy Sadler in for a mission after Sadler was apparently trying to make underhand deals with The Owl. Donovan had said the arrest was an inside job, arranged to show cooperation.

"You Jones?"

I stood up quickly. "Yes sir, that's me."

"Packley," he grunted, jerking his head toward the door he'd entered through. "C'mon back to my office."

I followed him down a narrow hallway and into a tiny office, barely bigger than a closet. He took a seat behind a battered metal desk while I settled into the lone chair across from him.

"Alright, Jones," he said, folding his hands on the desk. "Mackson told me you had questions. How can I help?"

I quickly reminded him I was the other player the other night, the one talking to Stalvek. He nodded with a grunt, and then urged me to keep talking.

"I need to know more about that man."

Officer Packley shook his head. "Can't just tell random strangers about that sort of thing, now can I? What with privacy laws and all."

He sighed, looking me up and down when I didn't like his answer. I was sure the system was deciding whether to tell me. It was difficult to believe in those kind of laws back then.

"I need to know more about Sadler," I said. “Like if he’s gonna be held or released.”

Being blunt might work out for me better than trying to negotiate with the officer. He still didn't seem to respond well.

"Look, I know you've been talking to old Samuel Donovan, otherwise you wouldn't be here. I don't work for The Green Fists or any other gang. I work for the people of The Grims. You got a problem with me arresting one of The Cortez boys, you gotta work that out with somebody else."

I sighed, realizing he was playing things straight as an arrow. I opened my affiliations screen to find his tab, and saw that nothing had changed. I would need to get the information out of him the old fashioned way.

To see how he would answer, I pushed harder, asking, "why do you think Stalvek had his own guy arrested?"

The officer laughed. "He broke the law. I arrested him. Doesn't matter who tipped me off about it."

I nodded. "Fair enough. What did he do?"

"Like I said already, I don't go around telling everyone's business."

Looking at the officer, I realized he wasn't going to spill the beans. Obviously my talent points in Negotiator weren't high enough, or the system simply didn't allow him to tell me.

Then again, I had a few minutes left before 6:30, so it didn't matter too much if I poked a little more. His shift would end soon, and he’d probably kick me out then.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

Deciding on a different strategy, I decided to tell him what I knew.

"Stalvek works for The Cortez Family, enemies of The Green Fists. I'm doing a job for Donovan, just like you guessed, but I'm not one of them. Look at my affiliations tab if you don't believe me."

Officer Packley smirked, considering my words. I wondered if the system had been triggered to do such a thing or not.

"I need to know about Billy Sadler’s situation," I continued before he could answer. "He got too cozy with Owney "The Owl" Johnson, under-the-table deals and all. Neither gang liked that, and I know his arrest was mostly for show. You’ll save us all a bunch of time just letting me know if he’s off to prison or not.”

Packley leaned back in his chair with a sigh. “You know, you’d have more luck getting a lamppost to talk."

I laughed, and a grin formed on the officer’s face. Packley was a hard nut to crack. The man didn't even blink for the longest time.

After a minute, he finally said, “look, Samuel Donovan and The Green Fists ain’t as scary as they used to be. All three of the local gangs are into all sorts of nasty business trying to take each other down. I reckon if I stay out of it, they’ll sort themselves out. You might want to do the same.”

I nodded. “But you arrested Billy Sadler, one of The Cortez Family boys? That's about as thick in the mess as you can get.”

Packley shook his head. “Routine stuff. If he's released, so be it. If he's framed, what do I care? If it's all planned, doesn't matter to me. I know he's a bad guy. He's off the streets. That's the important part. I'm just the mechanism that gets activated. I don't make the shots and I don't get to choose which rules to enforce."

“I see."

I was getting desperate for the man to slip up and say anything that might help me. In reality, I figured this might be one of the cleanest cops I'd ever run into.

At the very least he was playing by the book. Either he was a good man or he wasn't on whatever side he perceived me to be on.

Packley shook his head again. “So, like I told you already, I don’t make a habit of talking details if you're not directly involved in the case.”

I sighed, having hit that wall again. It was 6:22, and I still had a few more minutes to get information out of him. If he wasn't going to tell me directly, maybe he could unblur my tab for the third gang.

"What can you tell me about The Borrell Family?" I asked.

"General information?"

I nodded, "yes, sir."

He smiled. “The Borrells are a small gang network of mobsters friendly with vamps. They're elusive, preferring to work out of sight from most other humans. They're violent, and earn most of their income through human trafficking.”

My stomach twisted into a knot as he told me. The implications were sickening. I should have known that a place called The Grims in a world with vampires would have gangs involved in human trafficking.

I'd hit a decent nugget of information with that question, and it sent a cold spike of knowledge into my brain. I winced. Those little shots of new intel were either getting fewer and far between, or I had already started getting used to them.

Samuel Donovan hadn’t mentioned that kind of business. I didn’t have enough time to study how The Green Fists and The Cortez Family got along with The Borrell Family, but the way he'd talked previously, he considered the other two to be more corrupt.

Officer Packley was about to get off duty.

I guessed randomly and blurted, "The Cortez and The Borrell Families? They get along with each other?"

"It's rough, but yeah," Packley shook his head, as if he couldn’t believe he was telling me. "Look, the vamps pay top dollar for a steady supply of donors, if you catch my meaning. There's plenty of places and groups around that help facilitate that kind of transaction."

The room seemed to spin for a moment as I processed this horrific revelation. I had expected violence and crime, but the thought of people being sold like cattle was almost too much.

I took another stab in the dark and asked, "What about a place called Lantern's Pharmacy. Ring any bells?"

He furrowed his brows. "Owned by somebody in The Borrell Family. Legal business. Plenty of rumors about the place, but that's all I can tell you."

I nodded, thinking about Mia Haoyu. She'd been heading that way for one of her missions.

"Where's it at?"

"On Draven Court, why?"

I shrugged, keeping that to myself as I worried about Mia.

Packley must have noticed my discomfort. His own face looked as though he'd just told me something he wasn't supposed to.

"Listen, kid," he said. "This is the reality of how things operate around here. The Grims are a cesspool, plain and simple. You seem like you're new to this world, so I'll give you a piece of advice: either pick a side and stick with it, or stay out of it completely."

I gulped, considering his words. That was what everyone kept telling me. It made sense that characters needed to choose their path towards victory, but I felt like I didn't have the information I needed to do that correctly.

"How do I pick a good side?"

Packley laughed. "Good side? There's no good side in this game, kid. You either take charge and make the rules or you die by somebody else's rules."

I didn't like his answer. "What?"

There had to be a path with some sort of moral integrity.

"I'm the law," Packley said. "I'm not supposed to tell you to pick a certain type of crime and get good at it. But that's what I'm doing. Survival is the name of the game here, and you either need protection, or you need to be the protection. Either way it goes you're going to become my enemy at some point. I suggest you get out of my office before that happens."

I could only nod dumbly, my mouth too dry to formulate a response. Just as I had predicted, as soon as 6:30 rolled around, Officer Packley ushered me out of his office and went off-duty.

I tried to ask him more questions, but the NPC kept walking away. He turned one time, briefly, and glared at me when I kept looking his direction.

“Hey,” he said, “I’m off duty. Just trying to go home. I don’t bother you when you’re not working!"

I laughed.

Packley looked upset. “What’s so funny, guy?”

“Nothing,” I said, “nothing at all.”

“Good.”

As soon as our conversation was over with, in came the notifications.

Mission Progress: Copper Topper - Learn more about the man arrested, Billy Sadler.

+100 XP

You have 1,400 XP total

You need 1,100 more XP to reach level 2

Before stepping outside, I went to the mission screen in my interface and read the updates to all my screens.

Billy Sadler, a known associate of The Cortez Family, was booked for embezzlement, secretly using gang money to enrich himself through a secret deal made with Owney "The Owl" Johnson, now deceased.

I kept reading, and learned about the man's past. Months earlier, a witness claimed they saw Sadler try to kidnap a woman near Lantern’s Pharmacy on Draven Court. Sadler was arrested and booked at the time, but couldn’t be held due to a lack of evidence.

The woman claimed in her police report that Sadler had promised The Borrell Family would be gentle, and that she wouldn't be turned.

He'd offered her a lot of money to give some of her blood to a vampire, but when he refused to pay, she tried to leave. That was when he tried to take her into the building by force.

I considered the connection. It meant The Cortez Family and The Borrell Family at least had some sort of working connection. Packley had confirmed this, saying that it was rough.

Either way, I suddenly knew both of the gangs had affiliations with vampires. I immediately disliked them the way Donovan did. Looking at their tabs showed me what I'd already figured out, although I did wonder why the system chose to give me this information when the officer hadn't.

"Oh, well," I said to no one in particular.

Hopefully I had enough information. Looking at the mission screen confirmed that as well.

It told me to relay the information to Samuel Donovan, along with additional details regarding Stalvek Dyomin.

I closed out the missions screen.

A wider picture of my new world was beginning to make sense. Not a single bit of it was good.