If you’ve never had to get a copy of a police report, you should thank your lucky stars. It’s tedious, obnoxious, difficult, a pain in the tail, and always takes way longer than it should. Just… imagine the DMV, but everybody has a gun, and is impatiently waiting for an excuse to point it at you.
But sourcing police reports was only bad, which was why I had Julio and Fatima handling those. I was stuck doing something that was somehow worse: I had to get a copy of whatever farce of an investigative report the National Moonshot Regiment had decided to vomit up onto a page and call it a day.
My derision was well-informed, I assure you — I’d had to fill out after-action reports for more than a few such investigations, and every single one of them was worth less than the paper I printed them out on. It turns out that when the investigators’ primary directive is “push the spotlight off of us and onto literally anything else”, the investigations themselves start with the answer they want and work backwards from there. Wow. Who would've guessed.
Everyday Americans would be horrified if they knew just how many billions of their tax dollars the State Corps, the Regiment, and the Fumblers themselves flushed down the drain for this shit. Or maybe they wouldn’t, actually, because they’d all bought into the superhero myth for so long that they’d lost the ability to look at it with a critical eye. Fucking propaganda.
That same propaganda was why it was so absurdly difficult to get anything out of the NMR. It was also why I couldn’t let Julio, Fatima, or anyone else from the firm try and source this report. They would’ve needed a subpoena.
I just needed to prove I knew which closet they kept the skeletons in.
I’d initially debated taking the metro out to the DC National Guard HQ — it was pretty much right next to the Stadium Armory stop on the silver line — but that was far enough outside of my usual stomping grounds to draw stares. More than usual, that is. Plus, the number of supervillains who announced their presence by crashing the National Guard’s HQ, and with it the NMR’s HQ, was too high for comfort.
So instead, I expensed a limo service, and it dropped me off right in front of the building. My appearance got a few odd looks, but I was wearing work clothes and had gotten out of a car; they’d already discounted me as ‘not the next wannabe supervillain’ and gone right back to their daily routines.
Once I’d passed the vaunted ‘public scrutiny’ test, I walked up the steps and headed inside the building proper. Blessed warmth replaced the chill of early spring, and I luxuriated in the heat for a couple of seconds before heading for one of the information desks.
There were three separate people one could bother in the Joint Force Headquarters: one for the general public, one for the press, and one for military-plus-veterans. Depending on who you asked, that didn’t always include the NMR or its vets. And if the stink-eye I was receiving from the man behind the glass was any indication, he was in the ‘not military’ camp.
“Unknown Moonshot, identify yourself and state your purpose.”
The troopers on guard duty, who I’d previously managed to ignore, drew my attention by reaching towards their sidearms.
“Naomi Ziegler, FKA Foxfire; here to procure a copy of the investigative report for the incident on December 27. My NMR ID number is 19450902.”
NMR ID numbers were supposed to be seven digits, and random. Mine was eight, and was anything but. It was the date of Japan’s surrender in World War II, because Japan losing both me and the source of my powers to America was apparently as great a defeat for the island nation as WWII. Or something.
The petty games expected of and played by small men with smaller dicks were forever lost to me, thank God.
“Produce your registration card for inspection.”
“It’s a license,” I snarled back, ears pinned back and low even as I retrieved my wallet to comply with the demand, and readied myself to need to escalate this whole situation if it got called a counterfeit again.
The Federal Moonshot Bureau issued licenses for public use of Moonshot powers, though it was usually contingent on joining the NMR or proving that your powers couldn’t realistically be used to hurt people. These “flier’s licenses”, as people had taken to calling them after the first non-NMR examples, were also supposed to state Moonshot Type (MT) – which defined how and when their powers manifested – but only ever stated A2 or A3. Which, well, that was fair. Almost two-thirds of Moonshot were A3, and enough of the remainder were A2 for a rounding error to get to a hundred percent.
But for me, and for the eleven other A1 Moonshot in the US? Well, while the rank and file followed protocol pretty well, that protocol collapsed when faced with an A1 Moonshot. So the higher-ups, in their infinite wisdom, felt it was easier to just slap an A2 on our licenses and leave it at that. That mostly worked, depending on when the database was last updated. If the update left a few snags, you wound up with guns pointed at you. But if you got lucky, and the code base hadn’t broken in the last software patch, the A1/A2 mismatch would produce a popup for the person looking, with a new set of orders: pass the buck as high as it can go.
And lucky me, I could see the moment those new orders came through: the grunt’s expression started at ‘bigoted boredom’, cycled through five different levels of confusion, and settled on ‘oh shit I done goofed’.
“M-my apologies, ma’am!” The grunt on receptionist duty jumped from his chair and snapped to attention. “I-if you would wait here, I will go inform the—”
“No bothering the Major General,” I interrupted, keeping my tone as carefully bored as I could sound. “Just get me the Staff Judge Advocate.”
“M-ma’am?”
“I told you: I’m here to do my job. Now go do yours.”
The grunt snapped off another salute, pushed in his chair, then marched out of the reception office as fast as he could go without running. I sighed, flicked an ear, then turned to sit in one of the three chairs they left out for people waiting. The chair gave that horrid fwump-crunch of cheap vinyl and dead cushion, but at least it didn’t stink.
Like I said: there were only twelve of us A1 Moonshot in the United States, which meant that if I showed up at an NMR building, it was a Big Fucking Deal. I’d only ever sat down to talk with one of the country’s other A1 Moonshot, and he was even more disdainful of the government than I was, if for similar reasons.
Usually, Moonshot were given the choice between going to jail, never using our opowers again, or being the government’s propaganda superhero — and Morton’s Fork that may be, it was still a choice. But I didn’t get to make that choice. When I got to speak with Roaring Thunder, he revealed that he didn’t either. The US Bureau of Indian Affairs made it a condition for him being able to legally leave the Navajo Reservation.
The US State Department made it a condition for me to come home, and keep the source of my powers with me.
And yeah, sure, fine. My NMR service came with perks. I got veteran's benefits. My schooling was paid for by the biggest loophole the GI Bill ever saw. I already owned a home. So long as I didn’t hurt anyone, then I could use my powers as much as I damn well pleased. But that last one should’ve been the default. It was the only one I actually cared about. My powers were part of me. I shouldn’t have needed to be a soldier just for permission to have them, to exist, to be myself.
Neither I nor the fox deserved getting trapped in a gilded kennel.
I was pulled from my reminiscing by the secure door at the end of the hall opening. Another soldier stepped through, this one dressed in officer’s garb, and did not offer any kind of salute when he approached.
“The Staff Judge Advocate will see you in her office,” he said. “Follow me.”
Then, without so much as waiting for an acknowledgment that I’d heard him, he turned on his heel and started power-walking back through the door he’d come from. It was so abrupt that I had to actually catch the door he exited through. I didn’t devote any energy to the rudeness, though; I was more surprised by what I’d heard. The last eight years, the DC SJA had been Judge Advocate Michael O’Connor, a right old bastard that never saw a square peg he wouldn’t try to shave down to fit a round hole — like me. I’d last had cause to speak with him a year ago, and that should have been more than recent enough to stay on top of things, given that turnover for such positions were relatively rare. Which meant that there was probably some or other scandal involved with the change.
And that meant I’d missed out on some amazing gossip instead! Damn it! Ugh, I’d have to see if any of the usual suspects online had gotten away with talking about it; someone had to know something and be able to spill it without repercussions!
The officer led me to an elevator, down a hallway, through a keycard door, through a second keycard door, down yet another hallway, down a flight of stairs, and then through a third keycard door in the process of bringing me to my destination. It wasn’t hard to tell that he was doing it on purpose, which meant one of two things: one, it was deliberate disrespect on either his or the SJA’s part, or it was some new protocol meant to obscure the route from anybody who wasn’t normally cleared to be in the building. I desperately hoped it was the second option, simply because that would mean these incompetent dillweeds had actually updated something in the last decade, but it was probably the former.
Regardless, we came to a stop before a heavy wooden door, which stood at odds with the rest of the building’s almost utilitarian style, but I supposed that that was the perk of being a higher-up. There was a brass plaque on the door — Megan Annie Barnes | Staff Judge Advocate — and it appeared they’d actually gotten rid of the stripped top-right screw from O’Connor’s door plaque.
I’d bet anything the replacement screw somehow cost the Pentagon a hundred thousand dollars.
The soldier knocked twice on the door.
“Enter,” a muffled voice from within said. Despite this, the soldier made no move to open the door.
So I scooted my way around him, opened the door, and made a point of whipping my tail up into his face as I pushed past.
“Give me a moment.” The woman at the desk didn’t even look up at me, and remained wholly focused on a stack of papers set in front of her. She flipped through the stack with her left while she scribbled something with her right, and it was only after she’d gotten through the back half of a fifty-odd page packet that she even bothered to look my way.
“... huh,” she began. “You know, for all that O’Connor talked up how weird you look, the reality’s kind of a let-down.”
“Let me tell you, the feeling’s mutual,” I told Judge Advocate Barnes, crossing my arms and flicking one ear in silent challenge.
Stolen story; please report.
The SJA was a rather severe, if unimposing woman — copper hair flecked with gray pulled back into a painfully tight bun, permanent frown lines just beginning to carve their way into the corners of her mouth, and cheekbones sharp enough to cut glass. The shoulderpads on her blazer did her no favors, only serving to make her appear even smaller behind a desk clearly sized for somebody substantially larger than either of us. Actually, now that I looked around the office, most of it was still SJA O’Connor’s stuff, just with the absolute most personal touches swapped out. God, how new was she to the position if she hadn’t even had a chance to redecorate?
That office gossip was a nice juicy hen, and this fox needed to get in that henhouse.
“Mhmm.” SJA Barnes put down her pen, rested her elbow on the armrest of her chair, and gently laid her chin against the base of her palm, one finger extending up towards her temple. “Let’s skip the Mean Girls routine and get to the point. What do you want, Foxfire?”
I frowned; that particular pose she’d taken was… it was familiar, oddly so, but I couldn’t for the life of me put a finger on it. Had I met the SJA before? I didn’t think so, and she had a distinct enough appearance that I would’ve expected myself to recall such a meeting. It was — ugh, no, it was a distraction. I was here to do a job; I needed to focus on that job.
“There was an incident on December 27, 2019, which involved an NMR Moonshot going by the callsign Barricade,” I said, repeating some of what I’d said downstairs, because of course it was too much to ask that the desk grunt at least relay that much. “Such an event should have spawned an investigation, which would have produced an internal report. I need that report, and you’re going to have your people give it to me.”
“And why exactly would I do that?” The Judge Advocate asked, raising one eyebrow. “That is what a subpoena is for, isn’t it?”
My ears went back in a brief moment of surprise at the response.
“Oh, wow, you really are new,” I said, letting some dismay leak into my voice. “You didn’t work with Moonshot much before this posting, did you?”
“Oh I’ve worked with plenty of your kind. Most of them actually understood their place in the grand scheme of things, though.”
Translation: no she hadn’t, and she was playing tough to hide the fact that I’d gotten her number. She wasn’t even good at it, either. As far as an ‘untermensch’ spiel went, I’d maybe give her a 2.5 out of 10.
“I would argue that, but it’s not the point,” I said, waving off the obvious bigotry, which led to Barnes’ brow furrowing and frown deepening. I just offered a slightly smug grin before continuing. “The point is that where we Moonshot are concerned, your job is to put out fires.”
… shit. Right, pun not intended, given the current case, but I doubt she’d even notice.
“And?”
“And,” I let my grin show a few more teeth, “that means you’re expected to do everything in your power to keep the government’s shiny toy soldiers as far away from the spotlight as possible. Now, I wager that’s a bit more difficult to do when, oh, I don’t know.” I tapped a finger on my chin three times and adopted a pensive look, then gave her another sly, toothy grin. “When they get a subpoena, the media gets a tip-off, and cameras are waiting for them to show up. Wouldn’t you say?”
“You should know better than to play dirty pool like that, Foxfire,” Barnes spat out, her chin dipping once her brow could go no lower. “You wouldn’t want to poison the well, would you?”
I flicked my tail and offered a disdainful sniff.
“O’Connor didn’t leave you any guidance, did he?” I asked, more rhetorically than anything.
“Only a few fifteen-minute stretches. Even that was hard for him to do from Walter Reed.”
I blinked, ears going slack in brief surprise.
“Ah. I’ll be sure to send him a tropical fruit basket.”
“He’s allergic to at least three of those,” she admonished.
“Exactly,” I said with another vulpine (heh) grin. “See, here’s what you missed: O’Connor and I hated each other, but we had an understanding: he gave me what little I requested without causing a fuss, and I didn’t do or say any of the approximately three dozen things that could make his life miserable, including accidentally declassifying so, so much information about Moonshot.”
Like I said, I knew which closet they kept the skeletons in. It was also where they buried my personnel file.
“Fine,” she spat. “You’ll get your goddamn incident report.”
“Good!” I said, ears perking up as my tone brightened. “Then I suppose it’s a good time to let you know that I’ll need you to clear some time in the next little bit to interview Barricade, then have someone ready to review an affidavit. And hey, with any luck, he and the NMR may even have a claim against the same defendants my client goes after!”
“Just… ugh.” The SJA’s other hand had come up from behind the desk, and she’d set one chipped, chewed-down fingernail to rapidly tapping on its hardwood surface. “Make sure you respond to the same email that sends you the report. And I will be accompanying Barricade to that sit-down. Do I make myself clear?”
“Crystal.”
“Anything else, or can I at least try and enjoy the rest of my day?”
“Nope, I think that’s it,” I said, stalking towards the door and opening it.
“You know,” she said right as I was stepping through the doorway. “He was absolutely right about your attitude.”
“Huh?” I turned to look at her, lowering an ear in question. “What, did O’Connor complain that much?”
“Not O’Connor.” SJA Barnes’ frown suddenly inverted itself, and became an absolutely vicious smirk. “Your brother.”
Those two words had me seeing red. My tail went ramrod straight while my ears pinned back flat against my head.
“I don’t have a brother,” I bit out through gritted teeth.
“Really?”
Barnes took her left hand, which I only now realized she’d largely hidden from my sight this whole time, and turned its back towards me. There, seated on her ring finger, was a glimmer of gold that I would have recognized anywhere.
It was my great grandmother’s engagement ring, which had gone from Germany, to Shanghai, then Japan, and finally to the United States.
And now a family heirloom that I’d wanted more badly than I’d ever had words to describe rightfully belonged to this, this — this bitch.
“Oh yes, Eli’s told me all about you,” Barnes purred. “Isn’t that right, J—”
I slammed the door shut so strongly that I almost ripped the door knob free from the wood, and a moment later I’d skipped past half the hallway in a flash of purple foxfire. The restroom lay in front of me, and I stumbled inside, locking myself into a stall. I needed to calm down. I needed to calm down. I couldn’t afford to lose my temper here, to burn something to ash in a fit of rage. I needed to breathe, to just breathe in, breathe back out, focus on something—
An orb of blue flame flickered into existence on the back of the toilet. Moments later, it disappeared, and I wasn’t alone in the stall anymore.
“Gorou,” I half-gasped, half-whispered, feeling the tension bleed out of me at the sight of him, to be replaced with a slight pang of guilt. “I, you, uh—”
The silver-furred fox silenced me by holding his supernaturally long tail in front of my mouth. Well, one of them, anyway. Two other tails found my hands, which dug deep into the soft, soothing fur, while the fourth twined itself around my own tail.
“You were distressed.” The fox’s voice was a smooth, calm baritone, so very at odds with his stature. “I grew concerned. Are you well?”
I shook my head and sighed, shoulders and ears slumping. Gorou let his tails fall from my hands, and when I held my arms out, he hopped into them. One of his free tails joined the one wrapped around my tail, and the other two wrapped around my midsection.
“I’m going to bring us home,” he said. I nodded to let him know I was ready. A moment later, his amber eyes shone an ethereal blue, and the two of us dissolved into azure flame, disappearing from the locked (oops?) bathroom stall like we were never there.
Barely a second later, we were physical again, and it was only the many years of trust that kept me from panicking as gravity took hold. The two of us dropped maybe half a foot and landed directly on my bed, bouncing once or twice before coming to a rest. I could have let go now, and been fine. I probably should have let go and checked in with work.
Instead, I closed my eyes, wrapped my arms tighter around Gorou, and buried my face into the four-tailed fox’s fur, letting his familiar scent ground me.
“Naomi,” he said, tone lightly admonishing as he switched language to Japanese. “We will have time for this later, and you will be able to speak of what troubled you as much as you like. But it is still the morning, and you have your duties to attend to.”
“Mm,” I murmured. I pulled my face out of his fur and looked him in the eye, nose to muzzle. “You just want to go back to watching your idol shows in peace,” I answered back in the same language.
A paw smacked me right in the nose, and I turned away, giggling slightly.
“Thank you,” I said, pushing myself upright on the mattress, and switching back to English to continue. “Okay. You’re right. Tonight, though.”
“Tonight,” Gorou agreed.
Then he released his hold on my tail, hopped off the bed, and strutted downstairs to the living room, where I could hear the TV still playing whatever show he’d been watching. I smiled at his antics, then pulled out my work phone to both let Alice know I’d be finishing the day remote and to check my emails.
A pair of messages had arrived in my inbox during the thankfully few minutes Gorou needed to calm me down. One of them was from an official NMR email address, containing the report I’d requested as an attachment.
The other one…
Foxfire;
I’d say it was a pleasure to meet you, but we both know that’d be a lie. Your arrangement with O’Connor, as it were, may have been predicated on the consequences you could inflict upon him, but that will not be the case for us. Instead, you and I are going to agree to a sort of mutual detente. You don’t cause me trouble, I don’t cause you trouble, and we both keep things in writing. Don’t bother to reply to this email, though; I’ll only acknowledge anything you send to my work email.
Also, no more unscheduled visits. From now on, you call ahead.
(P.S: By the way, the destination wedding was three years ago, in Tahiti. As I understand it, even if you had been invited, you wouldn’t have been able to come anyway.)
Hope you have the day you deserve.
Your sister-in-law,
Megan Barnes Ziegler
That… mother… fucker.
“Gorou!” I yelled downstairs.
“What is it?” the fox yelled back, once again defaulting to his native language.
“Whatever you’re snacking on, put it away!” I heard the TV pause, followed by the scrape of a bowl on my coffee table. “It’s comfort food time!”
“No forgetting my hairy tofu this time!”
“Wouldn’t dream of it!” I lied. I had, in fact, been planning to ‘forget’ the hairy tofu. How that fox could eat moldy food, even if the mold was deliberate, I would never know. But hey. It was his comfort food, and if it lifted his mood, so be it.
But even as I changed out of my work clothes and into something more comfortable, even as I logged back into work to finish out a frustrating day, and even as the promise of cumin lamb awaited me, I couldn’t help but ruminate on what had just happened. I had a new sister-in-law. I’d had one for three years, and nobody had bothered to tell me. Not even the cousins who still recognized me as a living, breathing human being. Not even the few relatives who were still willing to acknowledge my existence.
… God, fuck. Not even my little sister.
Of course. Of course this case would get oddly personal for me. Wasn’t even the first time either; this one was just from an unexpected vector.
Then again, I was probably the only open Moonshot attorney in the country, and that made me a bit of a trouble magnet. So really, what else did I expect?