Duval Dirtbag
Murder on the Base
Ch 32 - Where is it? (‘Kiri Lover)
Michael stormed into the room that he shared with Bill. “The fuck! Did you fucking kill some fucking Shil’vati last night?”
“No,” Bill rebutted, “but I fucked some fucking Rakiri.”
Michael’s exasperation did not decline, “Ok humblebrag, but what’s your fucking knife doing in a fucking Shil’vati patrolwoman’s fucking neck!?”
“I have no idea.” Bill was not to be bullied, “and before you go and blow a gasket, let me go check my storage.”
Michael scratched his head, thinking about the storage. It was stationed in another building on the far northern end of the base. “Do you know where to even look?"
Bill put his hands on his hips, “I have a fair idea.”
Michael’s hands melted down the side of his face in continued dismay, “You have so much shit.”
“I do. But I know where it all is.” Bill said with confidence.
Michael waved his hands in a northerly direction, “Then by all means, let's go check. We’re not going to work.”
Bill twisted his body in the direction Michael was pointing. “Ok. Let's go then.”
Bill and Michael headed toward the storage facility like the Duke Boys going off on another adventure though their pace slackened rapidly. Bill would like to say that the speed of their pursuit curtailed because they didn’t want to be suspicious. Michael would admit that they quickly ran out of speed. No matter the reasons, intentions, or realities of their travel, they did arrive, though not in the speedy manner that they’d set off. Bill got to his particular unit and put his hand up to the biometric scanner to unlock it.
“This seems like overkill for a lot of your shit.” Michael commented.
Bill held his hand to his chest, “These are my precious memories, keepsakes, and tchotchkes.” When the door opened, he proceeded to unceremoniously shove a pile of boxes out of his way with a foot. He stepped further in, beyond what he knew weren’t where the suspected weapon would be. He came upon a stack of munitions consisting of swords, sabers and rifles packed in a pyramid whose peak touched the corner of the storage unit. Bill knelt down and found an empty sheath.
Michael saw that embossed in the leather, the sun that he had mistakenly identified as a snowflake. Three stars surrounded the sun, two toward the hilt and one toward the tip. “What’s all that about?”
“You know I’m asian. Though the way most white folks around here think I might as well go with the flow and say I’m Mexican.” He traced the rays of the embossed sun with his thumb as he spoke. “I did write a lot of essays in school.” Smiling, he looked up at Michael for a second. “I wrote my Ese in Chicago. I wrote my Ese in Oakland. I wrote my Ese in Miami.”
“Woof. Yes, I am aware.” Michael continued, “This symbol, I thought it was a snowflake. You say it’s a sun. What is it?”
Bill scooted the ends of the weapons that were on the floor to see if it had fallen down under something in the move. “It’s on the flag of the Philippines. It’s got eight rays to represent the provinces and this has the three stars to represent the island groups.” He shrugged, “I get it, but it’s mostly from my mom. She’s from there and she’s kind of a big deal in the Filipino community in Daytona.”
Michael let that sink in a moment.
“Where is my goddamn knife?” Bill asked his storage unit.
Michael put his hands in his pockets, “It’s with Joph’rena at this point.”
Bill huffed, “Fuck.”
“I know right?” Michael’s ill ease with Joph’rena was somewhat abated, but he didn’t like what this looked like for Bill, “Fuck.”
“Fuck fuck fuck.”
Michael decided to take a running go at another angle, “But you were with Fala last night. I know with Fala, I assume with Harley too. They could vouch for you.”
Bill moved to another unlikely candidate for a KBAR hiding place in his storage. “Yeah, but we ended on kinda shitty terms.”
“Shitty terms?”
“Yeah, they kinda kicked me out.”
Michael grunted, “Huh?”
Bill turned to Michael, “They said that I took advantage of them.”
Michael was confused, “How could you take advantage of them?”
Bill reiterated, “That’s what I said!”
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Michael pointed to one side and then the other, making token space of the two sides of this equation, “You’re like half of their size.” He stayed on the one side, “They are fucking wolves–wolf peoples.” He corrected himself mid statement, then pointed in Bill’s direction then to himself, “You’re half my size.”
Bill pointed out his military experience, “Ok, ya fat bastard, that means nothing. I’ve taken out dudes twice my size and four times as ugly. I could take down a Shil.”
Michael backed up a bit, “Alright, but you’re saying that you didn’t and you’re saying that the girls in the pack aren’t going to be a helpful alibi.”
“Right.” Bill slapped the leather knife holster against his thigh.
“Well fuck.”
“Right. Fuck.” Bill felt himself going deeper into the shit.
Michael could see Bill’s spirit flagging, “Well, no one has actually accused you.”
“But it doesn’t look good.” Bill admitted.
Michael quietly responded, “No.”
Bill thought further, “But who could have done it?”
Michael rolled his eyes and strummed his fingers along a row of DVDs in a box near him. “Any of the hulking orc women on base.”
Bill looked around with an ounce of hope, “Probably.”
Michael stuck his head outside of the storage unit to see if anyone else was around before he closed the door slightly and turned to Bill, “You know, Joph’rena thinks there’s a spy or a mole or whatever you wanna call them here in base. I think it’s actually why she’s here.”
Bill had no response. His face was blank.
Michael offered, “Maybe it’s something that we can help with.” He pointed at the leather sheath Bill was holding, “maybe you could give that to Joph’rena and they could do some kind of alien forensics and-”
“Fuck that.” Bill stuffed the leather handful into his pants. “This shit is staying with me.”
“Um, is that helping your case?”
“I’m not going to be admitting guilt any time soon.”
“Understood, but I don’t know that we can’t trust Joph’rena; I mean, she ruled me out immediately.” Michael suggested.
“Yeah, you’re too much of a pussy to kill anyone.”
Michael scrunched his face, “That’s not what I meant.”
“It’s what she meant.”
Michael didn’t have anything to say in response to that.
***
By the time the office opened up for business, word of a Human knife being used to kill a Shil’vati had permeated the entirety of the base. Interviews did not go well thereafter. Michael recalled some of the comments with the Pack at the end of the week.
“I ain’t sayin’ shit to a couple of murderers!”
“Fuck you fat pink pieces of shit!”
“Good luck sleeping, Pink Dicks.”
Michael became used to the office door slamming in their faces. The pressure was also applied to the Pack, as they shared in the barracks.
“Keep up, ‘Kiri!” Harley recalled someone in the shop saying.
Ssgt Remington reported that after he’d dropped his omnipad when someone knocked into him as they passed, “Don’t fuck up like Fuzzball here.”
Linnet overheard someone at chow exclaim, “Ugh, I’ve got a ‘Kiri hair in my mouth.”
Bel’a was changing a tire and asked a Shil in her pod to hand her some odd tool and they called over across the garage that “Shit-for-Breath over here needs some help”.
Finley said that Shil’vati officers had openly told him not to drop the boxes he was filing away in the evidence locker with all his shaking. He shook and blinked like a slot machine, “‘You Palsy Rat’ they said to me.”
“Fuck” Michael breathed, “I’m sorry to have gotten you all into this.”
Bill stewed, “You all know I didn’t do this.”
Fala, who’d seen fewer patients than usual during the week, had to admit that it was odd timing, “I know we upset you, but we can’t imagine that you were that upset.”
Harley followed, “Not upset enough to kill.”
“It sucks being rejected,” Bill conceded, “but I’m not twisted enough to kill someone else because I was upset.”
“That’s some high grade projection.” Michael chimed.
Ssgt Remington opined, “That said though, it is suspect that your knife was used in the murder.”
“Do you not keep an eye on your munitions?” Finley questioned blinkingly, “Are they not kept in a regulation weapon safe?”
“No,” Bill admitted, “I do have trigger locks on everything.” He thought back to his storage unit as it stood, “and ammo is stored separately, with me.”
Michael exclaimed, “You’ve got ammunition in our room?!”
Bill defended himself. “I can’t keep them together and I’m not keeping it where I can’t keep an eye on it.”
“Besides,” Ssgt Remington interjected, “kinetic munitions are basically useless on a Shil’vati base.”
“You say, as someone lays dead from a melee weapon.” Linnet had her doubts.
Ssgt Remington shrugged, “Extenuating circumstances.”
Michael asked, trying to rally the troops, “We all agree that I didn’t do it.” Nods all around. “We all agree that Bill didn’t do it.” The response there was less strong there. Bill implored them with a forlorn look. Bel’a nudged at Finley, the ticking holdout, who eventually acquiesced when everyone else’s eyes were on him. “And we all agree that none of us did it.” There was a unanimous nodding at that statement. “Then we’ve got to work together to figure out who it could have been. The Pack’s reputation depends on it.”
“Still, even if we did solve this mystery, the unveiling of the speciesism on base is disturbing.” Fala buried her eyes in her paws. Harley and Bel’a came to her side.
Michael didn’t know what to say. “Yeah, that’s troublesome for sure.” As a white male, the epitome of privilege up until the invasion, what could he say? He found himself the holder of different privileges in this new world. As a male, he still had certain caché within mixed company, though it wasn’t as much authority now that the mostly female Shil’vati were here. And in this scenario, he couldn’t imagine anyone who didn’t love dogs. I mean, sure, they were a lot of work; but he’d not seen any of the problems out of the Rakiri that he’d experienced owning dogs. They didn’t bark all night. They cleaned up after themselves as well if not better than other species that he’d met and better than most people. The terrible, unjustified things people could say just to feel superior to others. Ridiculous, Michael thought, the Rakiri have shown me more care, appreciation and love than anyone, Humans included. But I wouldn’t have gotten this family without the Shil’vati invasion. What a mess.
Conditions on base would not get better any time soon.