Chapter 41: Seeking Friends And Knowledge

--- Coraline Hawkins ---

“I’m not going to lie… I was kind of expecting a few more people…” Her dad’s boss, Captain Miller, commented as he looked the room over.

The room that was largely empty save for her, Max, and their dads.

“I, um, I put out the word but uh, maybe people are waiting to see if we were serious about this?” Her dad offered, looking like he didn’t entirely believe that himself.

“You’re right. It’s probably that, Hawkins.” Captain Miller nodded, before taking a sip of his coffee. One that took long enough that she was pretty sure he was stalling. “Okay, well, this… doesn’t change anything. If anything the fact that we only have the two of you means this whole thing should run even smoother. So smooth that everyone will be kicking themselves in the pants for not signing their own kids up for this first thing!”

(Well… he has enthusiasm?) She figured, not really blaming Max for staring ahead with a checked out glaze to her eyes.

“R-right.” Her dad nodded, with a pained grin that clearly said he didn’t agree with his captain’s sentiment.

“See I knew you’d get it Hawkins, so what’s the first thing on the agenda for the girls?” Captain Miller asked.

“Wait, I thought you…” Her dad blinked, before shaking his head. “Um, uh, the first day… was supposed to be… simple introductions and… maybe a tour? If there was time? But uh…” Her dad gestured towards her and Max. “That plan doesn’t work with these two?”

(Nice save.) She couldn’t help but snort seeing what he was doing.

“That is… problematic.” Captain Miller admitted with a frown. “But we can still do the tour part can’t we? I mean if you’ve warned everyone that we’re coming through today then showing up an hour early shouldn’t be too big of an issue.”

“It wouldn’t be…” Her dad agreed, clearly making this up as he went. “If we hadn’t already given our girls tours of the station before today. At that point we’re kind of just wasting everyone’s time.

“Oof, that uh, that would be a problem.” Captain Miller grimaced, glancing at his own daughter and finally noticing that she’d sort of checked out on all of them.

An awkward sort of silence descended on all of them as the adults tried to figure out what to do. As the two started talking about things, she found herself slowly checking out like the girl next to her as her mind began to drift.

--- Max Miller ---

Given how she was being forced to attend the stupid youth club -an event that it seemed like only her and that Hawkins girl were attending- she decided to try and use her new abilities to make things more… interesting. For herself if no one else.

It had taken a bit of experimentation on her part but she’d figured out how to maintain a connection with a device she’d ‘Hacked’ even when she wasn’t able to see it. Though she did still need to make a slight detour to her dad’s office to get access to his computer in the first place. At which point -so long as no one went into the station Captain’s office without him- she had unrestricted access to anything her father’s computer could access, having long since learned all of his personal passwords.

She tried not to cringe whenever she had to enter ‘Maxluv4Maxy!!!!’, blatantly ignoring the embarrassing warmth it brought to both her chest and face. (Stupid dad…)

Instead she chose to snoop through the various files on everything that had occurred since the sky cracked, more specifically she snooped through the overlapping files the police shared with Sanctuary. Who while publicly known were also infamously secretive with their op-sec, with the group rarely patrolling the way the police did. Only appearing in force during Deviant Events before disappearing back into their base, a large complex near the center of the city that many mistook for a simple office building and its parking garage with the more interesting facilities buried several stories underground.

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

Of course the fact that they were still a law enforcement agency -albeit a highly specialized branch with an entire military base hidden within its walls- they still needed a certain amount of communication with the city’s primary law enforcement. An amount notably higher than what other federal agencies were expected to hand over due to the whole ‘attempted genocide of Deviants’ thing their predecessors tried to do.

And while all of those communications were still classified behind so many walls of op-sec that only a handful of people could access them. It didn’t change the fact that her dad’s work computer was arguably the biggest hole in their cyber security that she could get her hands on, even if she had to be very careful and only access things that the Captain of a Police Station would have reason to look at to keep anything from blowing back on him. (But that still leaves plenty of juicy stuff here for me to go through.)

For one, despite the number of Deviant incidents sort of normalizing, there were still a number of places that had become more or less dead zones as far as their scouting went. The few on the ground trips they send into the area either finding only signs of something being wrong such as a number of missing people in the ‘safer’ zones. Or in the case of the areas marked ‘dangerous’ the people they sent in disappearing half of the time or finding a Creep that had made a nest in the area.

Admittedly none of those areas were actually covered by her dad’s station barring a ‘Yellow’ threat zone that was closer to their house than their station. The area being marked as low priority because there wasn’t an active threat there so much as a known Deviant presence in the area. One that was assumed to be a Hunter of some kind self policing the area while staying off the actual books. (Either way, definitely something worth looking into.)

With the revelation that she herself was a Deviant, she felt that the only way she could figure out what kind of Deviant she was, and just what she was capable of was to try and get into contact with the local Deviant community. (Which is going to be a hat trick given how I doubt any of them want to deal with a cop’s daughter, and I have no idea which of them are benign and criminal.)

The former could only benefit her, while the latter would see her testing her prototype on live targets.

--- Eric Campbell ---

He looked around the outside of the riverside shipping center this little base was composed of, noting how there didn’t appear to be anything wrong with it from the outside. (Though the faint scent of blood in the air isn’t comforting for once.)

Deciding that the only way for him to find any answers required he go inside he took a deep breath and put out his cigarette before pulling out his lighter, just knowing that he was going to need it.

The shipping center itself had only been in their possession for a few years, their Bloodline long since having learned that the best way to keep their operations hidden from the mutts was to subtly take things over. To get someone into the position of managing the company they were interested in and then convince the owners over a couple of years that the company was failing for one reason or another before having their manager buy the company out with a hefty loan from an oddly friendly bank to save his friend’s jobs. At which point things would miraculously turn around.

It wasn’t a method they employed too often, but they were always working this angle on a handful of businesses. Each individually owned given how the mutt’s accountants were like bloodhounds hunting down anything owned by too large of a group in the city or any entity seeming to make a little too much money.

Which admittedly aided in their mutual desire to keep outsiders out of their city, and keep the city itself as independent as possible. One of the few unspoken ‘truces’ they’d agreed on after discovering Asylum had snuck into their city during the Rift Riots.

A truce that was why (as much as I hate the mutts, I don’t think they’re behind this.)

With the sky cracked and all the chaos going on, they’d be scrambling to make sure their own were all accounted for, (same as us.)

Of course, that didn’t mean he was stupid enough to believe nothing was wrong with their operation here. Especially given how many abandoned cars he found in their little smuggling front’s parking lot, the fact that the front door was basically boarded up from the inside, and that that scent of blood had only gotten stronger the closer he got to the back of the building.

Flicking his lighter open, and giving it just a hint of anima to make the light stretch further out, he found the back of the center had a number of fresh and bloody smears on the ground, a clear sign that something violent had happened here.

The fact that as he entered the building, the blood began to shiver in place, was a sign that something was just as wrong as it was violent. Especially when it made all of the doors slam shut behind him, locking him in with whatever had gotten to his people here.

“I can already tell this is going to be a shit night.”