Chapter 25: Law, Order, And The Criminal Element

--- John Miller ---

He drank deep from his coffee, knowing that it was the only kindness this cruel world full of monsters was going to give the common man.

When he ran out he knew there was no more putting his work day off.

“Alright people. How bad is it today?” He asked, knowing that it wasn’t a question of whether or not the city was on fire but rather how much of it was on fire.

“We’re finally seeing a decrease in reported Deviant phenomenon though it’s still higher than before the Event as everyone is calling it.” Sergeant O’Niel -a mildly flamboyant dark haired man who was great with people but tended to be lenient with enforcing the law- informed him. “We’re passing it all on to Sanctuary, but it’s becoming clear no one actually knows Sanctuary’s contact information with half of them thinking they were just an urban legend.”

“Meaning we’re still being flooded with things we can’t do anything about.” He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “What about the calls we can deal with, anything on that front?” He could use a win.

“That crime is on the rise, which we were expecting. With the Deviant stuff calming down it was only a matter of time before people either got scared and angry or took advantage of the chaos.” Lieutenant Briggs -a glasses wearing older man who should’ve had John’s job in all honesty, but turned it down before passing it on to his younger partner due to being ‘too old for that shit’- reminded them. “Right now it’s mostly people calling about vandalism, half of which were caused by Creeps when no one was looking, but we’re also seeing a rise in assault, muggings, and worse.”

“Fantastic.” He groaned, looking to the bottom of his mug and wishing there was more coffee. With his hopes thoroughly dashed he looked around. “Anything else? Preferably something good?”

“Uh, we’ve finally begun putting a dent in all of the abandoned cars.” One of the newer officers, a short young but excited woman by the name of Wilde, pointed out. “We’ve got the towing companies dropping them off in a parking lot and we’re calling their owners to pick them up. Um, though we are getting a lot of complaints about the fines…”

“The fees are coming from the towing company.” He sighed as that little bit of good news immediately fell apart. “I’ll see if I can negotiate some mass towing deal to get them to drop the prices… No wait. I’m pretty sure they’re double dipping against the city budget for this. I’ll have someone go over their contract to see if we can make them stop, just put a pause on the calls until we get that sorted.”

“Sir!” Wilde saluted.

“No need for that right now.” He assured her before looking around. “That everything?”

“Um, there was that, uh, youth program you wanted to set-up.” Hawkins reminded him with a grimace as several people glared at the man. “I’ve uh, I’ve asked around the departments a bit and we’ve got a few ideas to run by you… I uh, I only mention it because I know it was important to you.”

“Yes.” He clapped. “Thank you.for giving me something to actually look forward to today.” (If I can get that off the ground then I can actually keep my promise to Maxy about being there more.)

He’d been feeling increasingly guilty with every day he had to leave for work, even before getting called into the school. But it was while walking through the school and seeing the numerous signs for after school programs that he realized if couldn’t leave his work and he couldn’t stay home with Max (then I just have to bring Max to work with me! Brillant!)

Actually feeling a bit of pep again, he looked his top officers over. “Alright, we’ve got a lot of work to do. We’re at the halfway point of this crisis. It’s clear things aren’t getting worse on the Deviant side of things, meaning it is our job to try and bring peace back to the city, not Sanctuary’s. We’re the ones who’ll see this city through the storm so just keep at it and do what good you can people. Dismissed.”

With that everyone scattered, getting back to work in helping reign the city’s chaos in. Well everyone but his old partner who instead followed him into his office.

“You’re getting better at your speeches Johnny.” Briggs told him with an amused grin.

“It’s all about that enthusiasm.” He explained. “As long as you can fake that they’ll work themselves up for you. The real trick is hoping they don’t realize bsing them completely and utterly because you have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Briggs shook his head looking even more amused by that. “Fake it till you make it partner.”

“Maybe one day I’ll be qualified for this job.” He nodded, before looking out his window at all of his officers. “Be honest, how is everyone handling this?”

“No one is liking the extra hours, but we all understand why we’re having to work them.” Briggs frowned, before giving him a smirk. “Nice point by the way. Trying to temper the Deviant resentment and stoke the rivalry with Sanctuary instead.”

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“You saw the way they were glaring at Hawkins, that has nothing to do with my pet project.” He reminded what was essentially his mentor. “I was hoping they’d lay off him by now.”

“They were but this whole mess is bringing up a lot of bad memories for everyone.” Briggs pointed out.

He remembered Maxy in the hospital (so still and calm) nothing like his raging little storm. “I know… You know he had to take his daughters to the hospital. They were caught up in the first wave of… whatever is going on.”

Briggs watched him for a moment, easily picking up what he wasn’t saying. “How is Max?”

“She’s… Physically she’s fine, but mentally? I don’t know…” He sighed, disappointed with himself. “I haven’t known for a while. I’m hoping to fix that but…”

“It’s not too late to fix things.” Briggs assured him, clasping his shoulder.

He thought of his ex-wife who he hadn’t spoken to since his divorce outside of a few early attempts to keep share custody of their daughter. “Depends on if she wants me to fix them. If… if she doesn’t then… I’ll respect that…” No matter how much he should’ve kept fighting it.

--- Morris Brown ---

He drank deep from his coffee, knowing that it was the only kindness this cruel world full of monsters was going to give the common man.

When he ran out he knew there was no more putting his work day off.

“Status report.” He sighed, rolling a hand towards the various officers.

“The situation has… not quite stabilized in the last week, but it has reached an equilibrium of sorts.” Meyers told him, having been promoted after showing far more stability than his predecessor in face of another Rift Riot. “Any equipment relying on external signals is still down but the number of Deviant events being reported through the landlines has begun to decline. Whether this is because they’re actually decreasing or because people have quit reporting them is… undetermined.”

“Of course it is.” He groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I’m guessing most of our reports are from the police rather than the civilian populace?”

Meyers nodded. “Correct sir.”

(Even a decade later we’re still living in Asylum’s shadow… Hopefully another decade will fix that.) He doubted it but he could hope. (Though thinking of it.) “How are our own Deviants doing?”

Robinson -an older man with graying hair, who’d only been pardoned from his acts within Asylum due to the sheer number of Deviant captives he’d helped escape. A feat Morris was convinced he was planning on replicating with Sanctuary if they didn’t meet his standards.- told him that, “As proven by Diaz’s presence all psychics and M.A.D.s have woken up, and all magic users have recovered from their injuries.”

“Good.” He nodded, before glancing at Meyers. “I’m guessing that none of that changes our situation with intelligence?”

Meyers grimaced. “No sir, it does not.”

(Wonderful.) “Alright, and how are our current patrol patterns?” He frowned.

“Only a handful of injured over the course of the initial defense.” Robinson answered. “Apparently, keeping on the defensive and minimizing our parameter helped us across the board if at the cost of civilian defense.”

“We can guarantee the protection of some, or guarantee the protection of none.” He reminded the man he kept around solely because he’d report any Deviant mistreatment that Morris needed to be worried about. “The initial event was a numbers game to keep from losing the entire city. Now that things have reached an equilibrium we can begin pushing into the dark zones.”

“Something half our people do by simply coming and going from their homes and family.” Robinson pointed out.

Knowing that this would only devolve into a fight he’d neither win nor lose he instead turned to arguably the youngest member of their group, an M.A.D. who’d largely joined due to Sanctuary’s tinkering budget on the condition of being a non-combatant. “How are we coming with reestablishing our scanners Diaz?”

“N-not well sir.” Diaz admitted, having not spoken up before due to his job being to build equipment not use it. “The interference we’re seeing is less our equipment not seeing anything and more that they’re seeing so much they’re blind. It’s-it’s like a snowstorm of Deviant energies across all known spectrums. I believe until the crack in the sky quits pouring energy into the air we’re going to have to limit ourselves to non-Deviant operation methods. Which will be difficult due to the fact that all cell signals -outside of a distance of maybe ten meters from a connection point- are being disrupted by the energy requiring mass renovations across the city using landlines and such.”

He closed his eyes, already feeling a migraine. “Which we can’t afford, given how we have other priorities for the budget given the ongoing crisis.”

“Does anyone have good news?” He asked after a moment.

“Sionis hasn’t done anything of note all week.” His head of security (who I now need to replace) offered.

“She’s a Sionis.” He reminded the man. “If she’s not doing anything then odds are she’s wearing down our defenses. We need to keep the guard rotations as frequent as possible with as much time as possible between anyone getting a second shift. This is the way things need to be kept until we can get her transferred to a proper prison.”

He’d fully admit that Sionis made him paranoid, but given her family’s track record of prison escapes and recruitment, let alone her own record of assassinations and interrogations, he was not willing to take chances until that monster was out of his city.

“Only a fool underestimates a Sionis.”

--- Sarah Sionis ---

(I am so utterly bored…)

She was patient -by her family’s standards- yes, but that didn’t change the fact that she also had been trapped in solitary for a week now after a life of always having at least one other person in the room with her.

The only reason she hadn’t tried to escape by twisting her Malice into the vulgarity that the few Stalkers she’d seen had used -An idea that honestly disgusted her given their lack of class.- was because she still occasionally felt something out there probing her mental defenses.

(How long does it take these people to work?!) She wondered indignantly. (I mean, I can’t even begin my escape attempt until they do their jobs already!)