“If you don’t mind,” Tusmon popped open the trunk of his car when they arrived at the train station.
“We’re really bringing this bulky case with us?” Chiulu grabbed the case by one handle and hoisted it onto her shoulder in one smooth motion.
Tusmon undeniably harbored a bit of specism towards Fiends, but he couldn’t help but feel a bit of envy when it came to their strength. “Yes, it’s protective for you. We don’t know what we’ll be walking into, and I’d like you by my side in the field this time.”
The pair probably looked a little weird walking towards the train platform. Chiulu was hauling a massive box over her shoulder while in a tight suit. Meanwhile, Tusmon was next to her in his usual detective’s garb, trenchcoat and all, carrying their small overnight bags, and Chiulu’s was rather dainty.
The woman actually had an officer uniform herself and an accompanying badge, but she rarely ever wore it. Things were better off if the general populace didn’t look to her for help. She’d be happy to provide it, but the collateral damage was often worse than whatever problem they were having to begin with. So ultimately, The Bureaucrat only wore them for official functions.
“I thought we were going to Guzrinn. This train’s headed for Cotagerie,” Chiulu inquired once they’d boarded.
“This town’s actually right on the border,” Tusmon elaborated, realizing he never actually gave her the exact specifics of where they were going. “Luciri was originally hunting the criminal in Cotagerie’s outer ring, but they fled all the way to Guzrinn. She probably didn’t even notice they’d crossed the border, or I doubt she would have gone across willingly. Or maybe her pride forced her to even if she didn't want to go back there.”
“Regardless, it’ll save us an hour or so to go into Cotagerie and rent a car.” Ultimately, their route didn’t really matter either way. Trains had come a long way in the past two years, forced to advance with the wider adoption of skycrafts. They’d gotten faster and had to drop their rates to stay competitive—a real win for travelers but a nightmare for the poor CEOs who couldn’t afford their fifth mansion.
Just recently, this trip would take three to four days depending on stops and layovers. Now it was a straight ride that only took a day and a half. However, that meant regardless of which city they’d gone to, they’d be getting there right around sunset, and wouldn’t be able to investigate until early the following morning. Tusmon would probably be down for the idea of an overnight stakeout, but they’d certainly have better results looking around in broad daylight.
During their endless hours of sitting around, Chiulu mostly worked on their regular bureaucratic needs: responding to emails, filing Fiend clips and reports, checking through their tip line and open channels for leads and verifying that they were actually Fiend related.
Tusmon, meanwhile, delved deep into the symbol that had been etched into the gun. He hadn’t made too much headway, but had been able to find a few patterns. Even though it had been popping up across the globe, the instances seemed to be localized to a few small areas, including the one where they were currently headed. So likely, they had a few bases, but weren’t trying to expand much outside of them—yet, at least. It only drove the detective’s desire to rip out this weed before it started killing gardens.
However, a bit more progress was made when they received the fingerprint results back from the CP’s lab. Tusmon had been able to pull another print off of the gun’s barrel after the grip had been destroyed. The results, though, had only been somewhat helpful in painting a picture.
According to what the detective could find, the gun had belonged to a young man who had fallen off the face of Rathe about two years prior. Essentially, after he’d been let go from his job as a customer service representative, he’d never been heard from again—never got another job, no banking records, and was never arrested in that time either.
Though most everyday citizens who were just going about their daily lives don’t leave much of a paper trail, so it could just be coincidental. The only reason the man had his fingerprints on record at all was because he had been caught shoplifting a bottle of booze while he was still underage. He’d gotten off with a misdemeanor and a low criminal score, which he’d had his parents pay the fine.
Tusmon did actually contact his parents as well. From what he gathered off of the brief interrogation was that their son actually contacted them semi-frequently. They also had no idea that he’d lost his job either, and had been told he’d been forced to move away with a transfer. So the man was trying to create an illusion of everyday life, but likely turned to crime right around the time he’d lost his job. Unfortunately, the detective couldn’t find that connecting thread just yet.
◆◆◆
“You don’t have to keep getting us separate rooms,” Chiulu insisted just as they were about to part ways into their respective quarters at the hotel. “I’m not worried about you doing anything, and then we could save on that expense.”
“It has absolutely nothing to do with that,” Tusmon countered and then reminded her, “Do you remember what happened the last time we shared a room at that motel?”
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“My… bed ended up on top of you,” the woman looked away in remorse. “But it killed that pesky fly!”
“And unlike that fly, I’d like to keep my life,” he ended the conversation there and slipped into his room.
The next morning, after filling up on the provided breakfast, the pair made their way to the dead drop site. Tusmon did a sweep of the place first, making sure no one was around and checking any vantage points where they could be watched from. After deeming it safe, Chiulu joined him and the two began canvassing the area.
Tusmon still kept one hand on his pistol at all times, ready to draw it on a moment’s notice. His assistant wasn’t allowed to have a gun, or hold a gun, or even breathe too heavily in the vicinity of a gun. The reasons were obvious and only compounded by the recent incident.
She was, however, allowed to have a stun baton in case of an emergency. It would do zjik all against a Fiend, but Tusmon had modified it to output as much as he could personally withstand as a Lesser without pissing himself—already having taken a few erroneous zaps. He needed it to be effective without being completely detrimental to his own state of being alive.
It took a lot of nook and cranny searching before they turned up anything of worth. “I’d say that’s a suspiciously shaped hole there, wouldn’t you?” Tusmon asked rhetorically to his assistant.
Chiulu set down the washing machine that had been concealing the hiding spot and crouched down next to the now-exposed hole. “It’s very boxy, isn’t it? Like it could perfectly hold a briefcase.”
“My thoughts exactly,” the detective had to agree. “Too big for drugs, at least an amount that they’d leave unsupervised. Too small for silver and weapons, in quantities that would be worthwhile anyways. Definitely not people, either. So what were they hiding, outlawed liquor perhaps? But that probably wouldn’t be worth attacking someone over. Well, I’m stumped, and it seems they’ve abandoned this spot, regardless.”
“I guess they would assume it was compromised once a CP agent visited and a shooting had happened here,” Chiulu agreed. “They probably haven’t let that dealer back out on the street for a while either.”
“Hey, you’re learning,” Tusmon was oddly proud, almost wanting to put his hand on her cobalt-colored hair and give it a ruffle. “But we’re not going to learn anything else here. So let’s head to the next spot on the map.”
◆◆◆
“So what do you say, Chiulu. Why’s a woman in a biker jacket taking a fancy looking briefcase behind a dumpster at a MegaCluck?” Tusmon asked as he leered through his binoculars at the back parking lot of the fast-food restaurant.
“I’d say she’s likely leaving it there or sliding it underneath,” the detective’s assistant read his mind. “That or she’s planning to use it as a toilet. Hopefully the former.” How she came up with some creative scenarios like that he’d never know.
It had taken the pair a while to fully decipher the map due to the drawer's… artistic license, so to say. The layout and landmarks were clearly meant for someone who knew the area well and had probably lived there for a while. For a visitor who had never been to the country, finding some of the spots had been harder than anticipated, especially since a few icons were just signs or street art, rather than actual locations.
The satellite images being a few years outdated didn’t help either. This MegaCluck in particular had just been built recently and wasn’t part of the pictures, and they’d originally been confusing it with another a few blocks down, which had thrown off their entire perspective for a while. But now that they were certain that they had the correct chicken-eatery, the duo had been staking it out for a few hours.
Tusmon even had Chiulu go in and order a meal at some point just to scope out the place. It certainly had nothing to do with it being lunchtime, despite it being a busy time to get a good feel while also blending in the crowd. He’d made her wear a large bib in their rental car, a good call since the chicken had slipped out of her hands a few times too many.
“Shouldn’t we go and check it out?” Chiulu finally broke the following silence a few minutes later after their briefcase-toting suspect had departed with briefcase still in hand.
“No,” Tusmon shot that down immediately. “That was the seller. So we don’t know if the buyer will show up soon or not.”
“How can you tell?” the assistant was quickly out of her depth.
“That was a different briefcase,” the detective refused to peel his eyes away from the dumpster and surrounding area while he answered. “The one she brought was new and shining, like it had just been polished. But the one she left with was dusty and a little worn, probably having sat there a few days. And since she was walking the other direction, I saw the side. It had our symbol.”
“Well, that’s a good lead then! Shouldn’t we tail her?!” Chiulu began glancing around the area, trying to see if the woman was still somewhere nearby.
“No, not yet,” Tusmon then finally took a pause to take a big gulp from his drink. “I want to get a bit more information before we take any risks like that—so we know what we’re walking into. And you grabbed her face didn’t you?”
“Well, yeah, but…” the woman didn’t finish her thought, glancing down to the tablet in her hands that still had the woman’s profile pulled up. She was a Lesser who only lived a few minutes away. It had her listed as a courier for her profession, not too far off from the truth.
“Then we can always find her later. This isn’t the spot to reveal ourselves. It’s too open and broad daylight. Plus, I wouldn’t doubt that they have a MegaCluck employee on their payroll just to keep an eye out of anyone suspicious or anyone who goes near the case. If we don’t find anything else, we’ll come back after they close. Dead drops usually don’t change unless they have a reason, so it’s not going anywhere.”
“And assuming they still follow this map, this should be one of the last spots on the list. So odds are they just wrapped up, and we won’t be spotted if we find a more secluded location.”