“Collaboration takes place between autonomous partners who choose whether or not to participate, therefore, it is unlikely collaboration will develop without at least a measure of trust” -Tschannen-Moran, Collaboration and the need for trust-
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James woke up in an unfamiliar bed, with slightly stiff blankets, sore and tired. Not the kind of sore of recovering injuries and bad bruises, but just the regular sore of being in a mortal body that had slept at an odd angle. And not existentially tired, drained of all motivation and soul, just the kind of tired where he had kept waking up in the night and felt like he needed a nap.
He wouldn’t be doing that though. Instead he exfiltrated his arm from underneath where Arrush was curled up on him, feeling the spikes of pain in his limb recede as blood flow resumed, and slowly began moving to get out of bed without waking his partner.
That wasn’t actually successful, but Arrush only opened the half of his eyes that were partly covered by the blankets; taking in the scene cautiously as his survival reflexes told him to stay still and pretend to be asleep for as long as possible or until he needed to strike. When he remembered where he was, and who he was with, though, Arrush slowly let go of those impulses. And soon enough, as he watched James sitting on the edge of the bed sleepily checking his phone, he drifted back to earnest sleep himself.
James meanwhile was quickly catching up on a few messages before going to see what the day was going to contain. There were a few quick reports from the people traveling with the new paladins; he was doing his best to let them face whatever challenges they ended up with on their own, but he still wanted to know if he was going to be needed to jump in. Also he was just curious.
The others were from Alanna, and, when taken as a whole, made James wonder if maybe getting back in bed and sleeping through the day was a good idea.
And then after a pause, during which James could imagine Alanna laying down, getting comfortable, and then having a thought that demanded she reach out of the blankets and scramble for her phone on the nightstand or floor, one last thought.
It was eight AM. Why Alanna was going to bed now James didn’t know, considering she was usually the only one of them who was always on a normal human sleep schedule. Even with all the dungeon nonsense, he’d never once known Alanna to oversleep or have insomnia or anything like that.
Also James didn’t know why that was what his brain chose to focus on. “No, wait.” He whined lightly. “You can’t just… dammit, I love you so much, but how do you have so much advancement in a Lesson on communication and still end up this bad at texting me.” Behind him, Arrush stirred, half-listening to his quiet words. “Go back to sleep.” James whispered, standing with an aching stretch, and making the conscious decision to start the day.
Rise, shower, brush his teeth, realize he’d accidentally taken the toothbrush Sarah had been trying to turn into a magic item and that everything tasted like butterscotch, spend too long trying to figure out why Sarah’s toothbrush had been on his bathroom counter, spend longer wondering if it was weird to use his friend’s toothbrush, finish brushing his teeth, dress, head downstairs.
”Wow you look like shit!” Dance told him as he plodded into the living room and Charlie wordlessly presented him with a toasted bacon and avocado sandwich. The emotional whiplash between the camraconda sass and what was somehow exactly the perfect breakfast was weird, but James silently endured it.
Alice didn’t. The woman looked as tired as he felt, but that didn’t stop her from grabbing Dance’s neck and rolling the camraconda girl off the couch to impact the floor with a hard slam that probably woke up anyone who wasn’t already awake. “Come on, we talked about this. Stop swearing snakeybutt.” She said with a yawn.
”Stop throwing me on the floor, mom!” The camraconda protested, wriggling herself over to pull her head up and glare at Alice.
James watched them as he ate and his brain came online. Figuratively; there was a general piece of advice about not using skulljack connections on unfamiliar networks, just for all the obvious reasons. A lot of people ignored it. James didn’t.
There was something amusingly familiar about Alice and Dance. Charlie, too, now that he thought about it. It was a kind of comfortable set of connections; they worked together, sure, but they were also a small family in their own weird way. It reminded him of his own little coterie, but different in all the details. And yet, it left him knowing one thing absolutely; even if they didn’t know it themselves, even if they’d never said it, these people would go to the ends of the world for each other.
The other two staying here weren’t quite the same. Myles and Yin were… professional, in their weird way. They worked together, they accomplished goals, they might even like each other. But they weren’t this.
“Where is Myles, anyway?” James asked as he reduced his breakfast to crumbs.
Charlie didn’t react to the odd phrasing. “Breaking into a doctor’s office.” He offered.
James pursed his lips. “That… is… sure a sentence that you’ve said.” He reached for a more elegant response and failed to find it.
“Hey, you have a fake FBI badge in your coat, you don’t have the moral high ground!” Alice called from the living room floor where she’d ended up in a friendly wrestling match with Dance.
”Why were you in my coat?”
”It looks identical to my coat and I wanted gum.”
”…Alright, well, fine.” James relented. “Maybe I was gonna spend the day impersonating a federal agent. What of it?” He folded his arms, not really offended and starting to really wake up now, as Alice dropped their conversation. One glass of water later and he even felt like he could pretend he was awake to a normal human. “Alright. That was good.” He thanked Charlie with a sigh. “So, what’s the actual plan for today? Because unless Myles’ HIPAA violation pays off we’re still experiencing a drought of leads.” James gave a much more exasperated sigh, adding, “I thought it was supposed to be chaotic down here.”
Charlie gave him a sideways look as he methodically worked through cleaning the pans he’d used. “Were you expecting monsters in the streets?” He asked.
”Kinda yeah!” James admitted. “Not, like, ‘kaiju robs local bank’ levels of nonsense, but something I could react to. Yesterday made me feel… useless.” He shrugged, trying to brush it off.
But it did sting. People he would have rather have been spending time with got to go on cool adventures, and he got to trace down family lines for missing persons. An activity that had resulted in finding eighteen more of those missing, and an equal number of dead ends.
He helped Charlie finish cleanup, the quiet man seeming utterly nonplussed by James’ complaint about wanting to fight monsters or something. At a certain point, Myles got back, Yin stumbled in, Zhu woke up and wrapped himself around James’ arm and shoulders, and Alice and Dance stopped fighting. And they all started to lay out their plans for the day.
”Alright, I had a couple people check out the extended families.” Yin slapped her palms into the coffee table with a slap that made James wince as he suddenly worried about waking Arrush upstairs. “Some of them are still around, some of them are dead, but like… normal human dead.”
”What’s that mean?” Dance demanded. “How do humans normally die?” The camraconda hissed alongside her words as she stretched out and took up one whole side of their morning meeting’s table.
James let out a long breath. “Medical issues, accidents, things like that.” He said. “Nothing suspicious?” He asked Yin, and then held up a hand. “Nothing suspicious relevant to this investigation.”
”Oh. Yeah, no. Normal stuff.” She rubbed her hands together. “Anyway. I was out late rummaging through basements here. All our new disappeared friendos have the same general profile. Like they packed for a long trip, walked out, and didn’t come back or turn the lights off. No signs of a fight or struggle or any shit like that. But just like for the others, Call to Blood blanks on some of them, and for anyone it doesn’t, it just goes around town. Normal stuff.”
”I have an important question.” James said in the kind of quietly serious voice that made everyone shut up and look at him. His mind dwelling on his own use of the spell yesterday, he glanced around at their faces. “Were there any of the signs we look for in abuse situations, for the people who it worked on?”
”No.” Yin said instantly, the irreverence out of her voice for a moment. “But.”
”Dammit.” James and Zhu muttered in unison.
”You remember you only got three names for that family you stumbled ass backward into on your first day? Well. I got the last one, and checked it out. And they’re blank to the spell.” Her expression didn’t change, just a simple unhappy frown as she kept talking. “And so are the other two you flagged, now.”
“Mmh. Bad vibes there.” Alice stated.
Zhu gave a sleeping rattle of his talons onto the table, reaching for the familiarity of the laid out map. “Vibes is for when there isn’t something to look at.” He said slowly. “There’s a kind of trail there, isn’t there? Evidence like the start of a map. We could track them, until we couldn’t. They got injured somewhere that is off the grid.”
”There’s insufficient data to make that claim.” Charlie countered, though he didn’t really sound like he believed that.
”Sure. Cool. So, you’re saying that everyone who’s blank, they bled after being taken.” Myles rubbed at his eyes, red and tired from lack of sleep. “Cool. Piss. Looking more and more culty as time goes by.”
Charlie frowned down at the map, before flipping open a folder full of profiles the group had built on various known victims. They might be mysteriously vanished, made difficult to think about, and impossible to track, but there were enough hard copy records that weren’t meddled with that their team knew quite a bit about them. “Cult just doesn’t seem like a likely situation.” He said. “A lot of these people are textbook ‘go to sacrament on sundays and temple every month’ Mormon families. Not that I’m saying they’re all true believers, but typically we don’t see cults pop up in enforced social environments like that.”
James paused, mouth open like he was trying to figure out how to respond to that. Uncertain if he was going to get a real answer from Charlie, he turned to Alice and partly Dance, though the camraconda was distracted by something. “What the fuck have you three been doing that you have a ‘typically’ for cult behavior?”
”Hey, don’t look at me. Charlie just has a thirst for true crime podcasts while we’re on the road.”. Alice defended herself.
”I can list serial killers in alphabetical order!” Dance added in her snarky voice; interjecting in a way that made James acutely aware of the fact that she was young in a sense that a lot of camracondas never gave him.
Yin slapped the table again. “No distractions.” She ordered sharply, pointing a slim finger at Myles specifically who looked around like he was confused as to why he was being targeted. “What are we doing today? What’s our next step?”
That had been James’ question too. He wasn’t actually good at this, though he was improving. Investigation, he was finding, was all about locating starting points, and then ruthlessly digging into them. Which sounded nice and all, but it turned out, was often a pretty tedious affair. The problem here was that it was a tedious affair in a situation where they knew there was a dungeon nearby, knew there was something that could get through even their own informorph defenses to blank chunks of memories, and suspected all of this tied back to some kind of hostile actor in the region.
Which meant that even though it was boring, there was zero chance that James wasn’t going to be on guard all day anyway.
”I’m going to sleep.” Myles said. “Because I was up until… now.”
Charlie went next, calmly laying out what sounded like a tedious chore as if it were just another day at the office. “My team is running a bunch of refurbished algorithms for finding dungeons through weather patterns and geographical surveys. But we need the actual records to plug in, so Alice and Dance are coming with me to a couple local libraries and one TV station.”
James started to say something at the same time Zhu did, the two of them both stopping as the table looked to them next. “Go ahead.” James offered. “I think we’re on the same page here.”
”Sure!” Zhu swept his open talons through the air, arm twisted around and palm up. “I think we all forgot TV was real. Why don’t we put out missing person’s ads?”
The question got a jolt of laughter and a head shake from James. ”Not even close to what I was thinking. I figured there’d be some kind of camraconda related media disaster.”
”Don’t be silly.” Alice admonished him. “Dance is a kid but she knows how to behave.” She paused just long enough that everyone thought it was the end of a serious statement, before adding, “It’s me. I’d be the media disaster.”
”Good to know.” James said. “So, I’ll be-“
Zhu didn’t actually want them to move on just yet, and interjected before James could continue. “Wait, no! Why don’t we put out ads or something? Put up flyers, or post on facebook, or whatever normal humans do to communicate with random strangers? The worst that can happen is that someone notices us and tries to stop what we’re doing, which gives James exactly what he wants.”
”…It sounds bad when you say it that way.” James grumbled.
”It sounds like something we can try.” Charlie says, looking at the map of the suburbs, tiny lines for roads stretching for miles across their rented coffee table. “Alice, you’re not going to help with data entry anyway. I’ll do that, you take Dance and get some flyers made. We can start tonight.”
The speed with which they adapted plans and moved to add to their task list was impressive. James just hoped this wasn’t how Charlie was all the time, because he had noticed that the scout team didn’t exactly have a lot of downtime. But for this one operation, it wasn’t like he was clocking out after a standard eight hour workday either, so he let it go unremarked upon.
What he did remark on was his own goal. “And I’ll be talking to cops. As mentioned, pretending to be a fed.” James didn’t actually like it. It wasn’t a fun game or anything, it was impersonation and fraud in a way that was very illegal, not to mention that he just preferred to be bluntly honest with people. But like it or not, the Order might need information the police had if they were going to help, and the police weren’t helping, because they didn’t know. So something had to happen to move the intel from one side of the veil to the other.
Maybe they could give everyone in the world an infomorph some day. Maybe right now they could equip enough of the police with navigators to let them cut through the majority of effects like this. But that first part was far off, and that second idea was bad. James hadn’t trusted the police for a while. Not since a lot of them had tried to shoot him, not since they’d failed to react to crises that had killed people in the open, not since he’d learned about the pillar that seemed to have an in with their whole existence. They weren’t some kind of ontological evil, but they weren’t the people he trusted with power, and navigators did represent quite a lot of power.
”Why thank you.” Zhu whispered to him, and James jolted. Had he said that out loud? “No, you’re just easier for me to hear when you’re musing.” Zhu added.
”Stop musing and get to work.” Yin told them all. Mostly James. She followed her own advice, standing and grabbing a folder of notes and addresses that had been left for her. “I’m out. Gonna go interrogate some therapists. Standard checks through the day!” She snapped the paper against her thigh as she strutted out of the room, twisting her arm around like she was limbering up for a boxing match.
Myles yawned as the group watched her go with different flavors of concerned expressions. “Well that’s terrifying.” He said. “Alright, naptime for me. Good luck, wake me if the world starts ending.”
James was pretty sure that wouldn’t happen. But he and Zhu both frowned in their own ways and tried not to let that statement make them nervous.
As everyone gathered their stuff and got ready to move out, James ended up being fastest. Unburdened by anything except needing to put shoes on, already more or less ready for what he was doing, he headed for the front door ahead of the crowd. And in doing so, spotted Arrush sitting on the stairs, the ratroach looking none the worse for wear having used James as a pillow all night.
”Hey.” James said with a smile.
”I’m coming with you.” Arrush said nervously.
James paused for only a moment, looking at the tired figure leaning against the staircase’s bannister with two of his thinner extra arms. Arrush was dressed already in his loose black clothing, tan fur and rough chitin poking out anywhere he hadn’t been able to fully cover. But he stared at James with all seven eyes, and he didn’t look like he was interested in arguing, even if he seemed legitimately worried that he was overstepping.
”Yeah, okay.” James said, and felt Zhu flutter out a sigh of relief on his arm as he accepted Arrush’s offer. “You need breakfast first, though, so- oh.” He trailed off as Charlie walked by and handed Arrush a plate, reaching over the wooden railing to pass off a familiar looking sandwich. “Okay. Well. Eat that. Do you have your stuff on?” Arrush nodded, a set of claws making divots in the toasted bread as he sawed into it with his teeth, while other arms held themselves up to show shield bracers, or to tap at pockets that concealed weapons or other tools. “…how do you get dressed so fast…” James muttered, before shaking his head. “Alright, well, you’ll probably want to stay in the car for the first stop. But yeah, let’s get going. Gonna be a long day of getting stonewalled.”
”Get your music and podcasts requests in now!” Zhu cheerfully added.
James wanted to say that made it sound even more boring. But Zhu was gonna be waiting in the car too, he just didn’t know it yet. So he kept the thought to himself and just shook his head as he threw open the front door to smell the desert summer, and led the way toward slowly chipping away at a mystery.
_____
“This place smells cruel.” Arrush said, sniffing wetly as he stared across James and out the passenger side window to the building he’d parked them in front of.
Letting Arrush drive was one of those things James sort of regretted, even if he wouldn’t say that out loud. His companion, he realized too late, had learned how to drive from Kirk and Alanna, learned on a box truck, and learned in Route Horizon. And of those three things, James didn’t know which one accounted for how aggressively Arrush changed lanes, but he suspected it was his girlfriend.
Zhu had flitted over to the ratroach at the start, with mutual consent, and his orange feathers had shifted to a pattern that looked more ragged and molted as he’d wrapped himself around Arrush, adding his own tail down the ratroach’s own bifurcated appendage for stability. Or at least, he said it was stability. And Zhu was a good stabilizing force; quietly and effectively guiding Arrush to apply the skills he’d already learned in a non-combat environment. They’d made it where they were going without any casualties, in or out of the car.
“Well, it’s a rental.” James joked at Arrush as he ignored where they were parked and looked at the harsh lines on his partner’s face where chitin and fur met and went to war with each other. “Kinda smells like… ham?”
Arrush’s neck popped as he twisted slightly to look at James with a nonplussed multitudinous gaze. ”Not… not the car. The place. You know.”
“He always knows.” Zhu said. “He thinks he’s funny.”
Arrush nodded slowly, wiping a line of saliva from the corner of his mouth. ”He is funny.” He said. “But also…”
”But also he’s still in the car?” James asked with a small smile. He stretched in his seat, feeling weird wearing a dress shirt and suit jacket when what he wanted to be wearing on a day like this was a Hawaiian shirt and shorts. It wasn’t warm yet, but the summer morning was already getting started, and the chilly breeze was starting to lose ground to the heat of the sun. “Anyway, I know what you mean, but also, how can you smell that.”
Arrush paused, shifting so the arms from his back weren’t pinned against the seat so badly. He’d seen James gnaw on his lips or cheeks idly, but he refrained from copying that particular habit, just so he didn’t hurt himself worse than he normally did. “I don’t know…?” He settled on. “S-sometimes, people change how they smell when they feel different. If someone is… afraid, or angry, that’s easy. H-horny, too, and that feeling th-that happens when you’re doing the right thing really fast. But I need to know what they smell like normally first.”
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”Hang on, I have questions.” Zhu’s eye, multifaceted as it sat on Arrush’s double shoulder, rolled to look up at his face. “You can smell feelings? Like Alanna?”
”…Alanna usually smells happy. And like her deodorant.” Arrush said.
”No, like…” Zhu blinked and pivoted to stare at James. “This is how you feel all the time when people do this, huh?”
”It’s like having a conversation while being lightly bombarded, yeah!” James cheerfully agreed. “Anyway, that’s really cool, but also how do you smell the vibe of a building you’ve never been in from the parking lot?”
Arrush nodded and drummed three sets of claws on the steering wheel. “I don’t know!” He said, giving a pleased little chuckle. “Learning new things, all the time.”
”Welp. Cool as that is, I’m gonna be late. Time for me to go learn things.” James softly snagged one of Arrush’s paws and landed a light kiss on the back of it before he popped his door open and stepped out into the police station parking lot. “Don’t cause trouble unless someone throws me through a window!” James proclaimed to the ratroach who was flushed neon green so strongly that it looked like was bleeding through the few feathers Zhu had on his face.
No matter how many times he did this - the espionage thing, not the flirting with Arrush thing, though that was fun too - James still felt the anxiety beforehand. Heart picking up speed, breathing suddenly noticed and awkward, thoughts racing as he ran through every possible fail scenario.
And then he was in the front doors. Tall clean glass and shining metal frames swinging aside as he passed by people who clearly wanted to be in a police station even less than he did, though James was pretty sure that was because they were staff of some kind and no one wanted to be at work on a day like this.
A scuffed and lightly speckled stone floor stretched off in a few directions, leading to a couple halls, a wide staircase with an elevator behind it for the upper floors, and to some benches and waiting room chairs surrounded by racks of pamphlets and hanging posters helpfully failing to inform anyone of the specifics of the law. James ignored all that, and also the skill rank voice in his head that doggedly pointed out how bad the electrical wiring in this place must be, and headed straight for the front desk, waiting for a few minutes for one of the counters to clear up before he approached with a smile and a “Good afternoon.” The officer watched him approach with a bored look that James figured wouldn’t change no matter how friendly he was. “Gordon Haman, FBI. I’m here to speak with Captain Mecham. Where can I find him?”
The mention of his fake employer got a disbelieving smirk from the man behind the desk. The presentation of the badge, as well as an official business card proclaiming he was part of the organized crime unit that his coat provided for him, changed the look a little bit. “Upstairs, take the first left and go to the end of the hall. Does he know you’re coming?” The man asked as he slid the badge back to James. Which was good; it was actually from the FBI and James didn’t want to ask their contact for a new one.
”He should, but feel free to call ahead. You know how often someone forgets to update a calendar.” He shook his head, not bothering to play up anything for drama. JP’s social drills fell into place pretty easily as he did this; stay direct, don’t offer extra information, remember that boredom is an effective shield against examination.
It was so weird to James that it worked. He just… walked upstairs, headed for the largest office at the end of the hall, moved through a whole open floor of cops that were focused on paperwork, coffee, and conversation to distract from the paperwork, and no one stopped him or even asked questions. The door swung open as he approached, and a bald man with thick jowls swept an alert gaze across the whole floor before picking James out and jerking a nod at him, turning to lead the way back into the office. James sped up without thinking about it, and only realized that he’d been hit by a real life summoning ritual as he stepped in and shut the door.
He loved how offices could tell you about people. Even people who put nothing in their office, they were still telling you they didn’t care about their office. Or didn’t want you to think they cared. This one was particularly barren, empty of anything except filing cabinets and a pair of modern black plastic backed monitors on the desk. No stray pens, no loose papers, nothing but the desk, the chairs on this side that were overtly less comfortable than the chair on that side, and the half-closed windows letting some sunlight in.
”FBI, huh?” The captain sat without offering a handshake or his name. “You don’t look like FBI. How’s Michelson doing?”
James pursed his lips at the attempted game. “There are forty thousand people employed by the Bureau, more counting contractors. I work out of a field office in Oregon, and even then, I haven’t met half my official bosses. I report to Malcom McHarn, whose number you have already, and if I’ve ever met a Michelson, I put that in the part of my brain I use for storing people’s birthdays. Which means I’ve forgotten.” James gave a probing joke, just to see how this man would react. The answer was that he didn’t, at all. No smile, but not disdain either, just focus on whatever he was doing on his monitor.
Which was rapidly closing arrest records, James noted, the enchanted contact lenses he was wearing that let him see screens if he focused doing their job. Sometimes he felt like blue items were cheating, but right now, it was funny enough that it was hard to not laugh.
Captain Mecham looked up and James met his eyes, looking away from the bandages he’d noticed on the man’s hand. “So what’s the organized crime unit doing here in my quiet city? You know there isn’t anything like that going on here.”
“Organized crime and drugs, technically.” James said idly, maintaining the shield of boredom. “And it might be that last part. I’m looking into a lead on a case, and I was hoping to talk to a mister Calvin Smith. Cal to his friends. The problem is, he’s not here.”
”You don’t need to be telling me this.” The police captain stared down James. And somehow, the overt hostility made James feel more comfortable in this deception. “Why are you wasting my time?”
James blinked and frowned, leaning forward in his chair and losing the friendly aura he’d been trying to put on. “No, sir, you misunderstand me. Cal Smith should be here. So should his wife, and two teenage sons. But their home is empty, their neighbors don’t know where they went, they haven’t been seen at work or school for a week. They aren’t in witness protection, I’ve checked. So I’m here to ask you about open missing persons cases, and try to figure out what exactly has happened in your quiet precinct.” James spread his hands. “So that it can stay quiet, and you don’t have to worry.”
“So you want missing persons records.” The man nodded. “No. Get a warrant.”
”I…” James paused and tilted his head in legitimate honest confusion. “That isn’t something I need to do, Captain Mecham.” He said slowly. “A list of missing people is public information, the details of the cases are internal documents and don’t require a warrant at all from my department. But that wasn’t what I was asking for. I’m asking for information about one specific individual.”
The police captain was openly glaring at him now. ”And how do you know this Calvin person was an informant?” He demanded. “Or even that you’ve got the right man?”
James kept his expression unhappy, but didn’t react to the specific words. He hadn’t said informant, he’d said lead. A quick decision played out in his thoughts as he weighed the pros and cons of commenting on that. On the one hand, it would help maintain his cover, but on the other, it would let the captain know he’d maybe let something slip. James chose rapidly, hoping he wasn’t making an error. “Oh, he’s not an informant.” He said casually, once again playing at only idle interest. “Just a lead. But when leads go missing, it means there’s likely something more that just a lead. I’m sure you’ve experienced this before.”
”Yes…” The captain nodded slowly, jowls shifting as he smacked his tongue. “I’ve seen plenty of lowlifes try to cover their tracks. So you think someone killed this man, and his whole family, and no one noticed?”
James nodded like he was participating in an investigation and not being probed like he knew he was. “Well, I think something happened to them. Whether they left of their own accord or not, I’d want to know. It’s not a crime to move out of state overnight; it’s not even that suspicious. But it is a crime to interfere with an investigation, which might have happened if someone made them leave. Or, yes, worst case, if there was violence.” James shook his head, glancing out the windows behind the captain as a few pidgeons whipped by, reminding him that he wasn’t back home. “And people did notice. But no one reported it, unless there’s records I haven’t seen?”
Captain Mecham grunted, but did start tapping on his keyboard. Pecking away as he did legitimately search for anything regarding a similar case. It didn’t take long for him to turn up nothing that matched, and James watched the whole time as the man flicked through results that weren’t related. “No.” He eventually admitted. “Nothing.” Except it wasn’t nothing, because James knew something that this man didn’t know.
”And with no other reports of people going missing, it looks like that’s something of a dead end.” James sighed, using the trick of watching over the man’s head so it didn’t look like he was watching for a reaction. And he was rewarded when he saw there was a small but real moment of smug relief from the captain. “It’s a long shot, but have there been any reports that’ve reached you of anything that stands out lately?” James took a direct shot.
Captain Mecham’s glower was back in full force as he turned one of the monitors back so he could stare at James fully. “Nothing. Like I said, this is a peaceful part of town. Low crime rate, no homeless problem, a whole family going missing would stand out, if that’s what happened. What you're looking for isn’t here.”
”Looks like.” James shook his head. “Well captain, thank you for your time.” James stood and offered a hand to shake. “I’ll be in the area for a day or two until travel arrangements come through. If anything comes up, you have my number.” Captain Mecham turned his stare back to the monitor, ignoring James’ offered hand until eventually James let his smile turn brittle, and then dropped the arm back to his side. “Right. Well, have a good one.” He shrugged idly as he turned and left, closing the door behind him and sighing deeply as part of a show for the room full of officers that was pretending to not be curious what he was up to.
Back down the stairs, his shoes catching on the strips of black material adhered to the edges so people didn’t slip on the stone. Out the front door without bothering to look at anyone. Remember that he belonged here, but also remember not to pull his phone out until he was out of the building.
James missed his skulljack braid already. He wanted to live with it openly, but that was a terrible idea especially in this situation. So he punched through the menus on his phone manually, and let it ring as he placed a call.
Eight rings later as he was halfway back to the car parked on the edge of the lot, Myles picked up. “‘M gon murder you.” The rogue muttered sleepily.
”Not with that level of energy you’re not.” James countered. “I need you to do something today.”
”You need me to sleep today.” Myles didn’t sound like he was fully participating in the conversation.
”True. I also need you to follow Captain Mecham from the local PD. I just talked to him, and he actively tried to deflect me from looking into the missing persons. Also, the local records? The ones we know existed for some of the families? They’re gone. Don’t show up on a search at all, even for the correct names. Someone deleted it, and I suspect it was Mecham himself.” James stopped at the car, leaning on the roof as he draped himself across the side of the sedan. “Pretty sure he thinks he deflected me, but I have no idea if he’s going to try to cover anything else up, so I want you on that. I’d ask Yin but she’s doing something illegal and stupid.”
There was silence from the other end of the line. Not complete silence, but the sound of blankets rubbing against a phone set to speaker. And then a long groan. “Make Yin do it anyway.” Myles said. “I’m so tired.”
”There’s magic coffee, regular coffee, energy drink, yellow orbs, and exercise potion in the kitchen.” James told him. “Myles, please. I can’t do it, he’ll recognize me. Arrush can’t do it, for obvious reasons. Everyone else has tasks today.”
”…I’ll get another rogue on it.” Myles said. “Phone, call Ben.”
”I’m… still here.” James cleared his throat awkwardly. “Also you know there’s no one free except Ben, who is paradoxically very noticeable.”
There was another long and unhappy groan. “Dammit.” Myles breathed out. “Okay, I’m up. I’ll have my revenge for this later.”
”Noted. Thanks man.” James said, hanging up before Myles could start the revenge part early. He was shaking his head as he slid back into the passenger seat of the car. “Well that was something.” He said with a sigh to Arrush and Zhu before they could ask.
He explained the chain of logic to them quickly as Arrush turned down the Alanis Morissette song that he had been listening to as his eyes scanned every person moving through the parking lot.
The problem was that the police captain had lied to him. That was something James had sort of expected to happen, through more in a general sense of negligence or interdepartmental interference, and less in terms of direct relevance to the case. Their investigation knew that there were missing persons files for several of the families, and they knew it because they had filed them.
James was getting better at reading people, and he was prepared to say with reasonable certainty that Mecham had known that his search wouldn’t turn anything up. Which meant he’d known those files weren’t there, for whatever reason. Likely because he deleted them.
”It’s thin.” James admitted as he watched the front of the building through the rear view mirror, the structure occluded by the big sandstone sign out front proudly declaring it to be the North Smiths Police Station. “It’s real thin. But I have a bad feeling. There is a worst case here, which is that the cops are actively helping whoever is doing the disappearing. We’ve only ever fought Statuses Quos that’re… like… fifty-ish assholes in a contained area. This city has, like, a hundred thousand people in it? Their PD is gonna be at least a hundred and fifty people, spread out, and way more capable of calling for backup from sheriffs or neighboring departments. And also, they probably aren’t all in on this. They’re just gonna be normal guys who think they’re stopping some nutjob. I don’t wanna fight someone over mistaken identity.”
”Could it also just be this one guy?” Zhu asked as Arrush tugged his hoodie up. They’d stopped at a red light, and there were a pair of energetic small children one car over that were pressed against the windows and staring. “If he’s a captain, that’s… how do police work?”
”Captain is pretty high up, yeah.” James confirmed. “For a city like this, there’s probably just one or two, and they manage day to day operations. The chief of police runs the broader thing, and then lower ranked officers handle the hands on stuff.” He pulled the visor down from the car’s roof to shade his face from the sun, which had grown more aggressive while he’d been inside.
Arrush made a contemplative rapid clicking in his throat. “Is it… like Townton was?” He asked. “Kirk told me about it. He said they didn’t need that many people.”
“Exactly.” Zhu’s mangled looking feathers ruffled against Arrush’s cheek. “You don’t need to compromise a whole police station to get what you want, you just need one guy with access to a delete button.”
It was a comforting thought, which was, itself, a worrying thought. It was possible that only one high ranking well armed government employee with access to sensitive records and the tacit ability to arrest or kill them all was working against them. “Honestly, I’d prefer none enemy agents of the state.” James grumbled.
”Well… tough I guess?” Zhu offered in consolation.
“Thaaaaaanks.” James dropped his head to the dash with a further groan, only flinching a little bit as one of Arrush’s claws settled on the back of his neck and tried to console him. He almost reflexively told the ratroach to keep his hands on the wheel while driving, but stopped himself before saying the dumbest possible thing to a guy with five arms. “Okay. What now.” He breathed out the words as he tried to compose himself.
”We could talk to other police?” Zhu asked.
”This city doesn’t have multiple precincts.” James reminded him.
The navigator gave a rejecting flutter, eliciting a light whine from Arrush who was trying to pay attention to the road. “No, I mean, talk to people who aren’t just captains. Who else would notice missing people?”
”…there were… there were younger people taken?” Arrush asked nervously.
James raised himself back up into his seat with an intake of breath, the seatbelt only mildly trying to strangle him. He hoped Arrush was just nervous because of traffic and not because he was worried about speaking up. “Yeah.” He said, choosing to address his concern later. “Not a small number either. Lot of middle and high schoolers. No one younger than eight, at least.”
”The ones at h-home…” Arrush’s raspy voice stumbled over the word, before he caught James smiling widely at him with one of his offset eyes and flushed slightly, “the teenage humans. They gossip.”
”Yeeeeeep.” James nodded.
”Especially about things they think are weird.” Arrush added.
James narrowed his eyes, looking over at his friend. “They aren’t giving you shit, are they? I know that’s not something you just deal with overnight, but I know Brian was at least getting along with you, and a lot of the other survivors were making an effort. Did something change?”
Zhu’s insectile faceted eye focused on James from where the navigator was manifested wrapped around Arrush. “How are you this stupid sometimes?” He asked.
”I used up all my brainpower lying to a cop.” James answered, replaying what Arrush had said to see what he’d missed as his ethereal friend pointed out that he was fucking something up. “Oh. Oh.” James rolled his head back to stare at the beige felt covering the sedan’s interior. “Shit, that’s a good point. If they had friends… I feel like you’ve figured this out by now, but teenagers are absolutely incompetent when it comes to keeping secrets.” James told Arrush.
”Noticed.” Arrush gave a coughing laugh.
James frowned, looking away and out the window at the passing row of dull green shrubbery surrounding an apartment complex. If this weren’t something that was picking up in intensity now, if it weren’t a problem that needed to be handled right away, he would have loved to have waited a couple weeks for Arrush to actually go through with his shaper substance surgery. The ratroach’s body wasn’t failing, but he was still just as vulnerable in most of the ways he had been when he’d walked out of the Akashic Sewer, and James knew it.
Arrush and Zhu both had forms that were suffering, and here they were tagging along with James as he stuck his nose into dumb places to try to see who’d take a shot at him.
Maybe this was a bad idea. And yet, somehow, he still felt better with the both of them along. Because despite feeling like an introvert a lot of the time, James actually hated being alone. Maybe it was just habit from the dungeons, maybe it was some other old trauma roiling in his head, it didn’t matter. “I’m glad you’re here.” He said quietly, voice barely loud enough to be heard over the straining air conditioning.
Arrush tilted his triangular head, chitin and fur shifting under his slipped hood. “I… am too?” He didn’t see where James was coming from on this.
”Right. I don’t actually know where you’re driving us right now, but I’m gonna look up the nearest high school that has a cheap fast food place near it. It might be summer, but I know where we can find some people to provoke.”
”Please tell me ‘provoke’ means ‘have a simple conversation with’, and not anything worse.” Zhu gave a rumbling sigh.
”You know it absolutely does not.” James grinned down at his phone as he tapped in a search.
_____
“I hate this idea.” Arrush informed James as he sat awkwardly on the hard plastic booth of a Dairy Queen. The two of them were in the one seat in the building that was lined up with the door, so both of them could see everyone entering, and that seat happened to be one that just didn’t work for someone with tails.
To be fair, no Dairy Queen in the world had seating that worked for anyone. James was pretty sure they were universally, as a franchise, devoted to making the shittiest places to sit down possible. But he kept that part to himself. This one had the added oddity of having a wide selection of non-caffeinated drinks in the soda machine, and when James had made the connection on why, he’d felt a little burst of satisfaction like he’d solved a small puzzle.
”You don’t think it’s a little fun?” James asked teasingly. He only made the comment because he did know Arrush was mostly joking. And they’d been here for half an hour and it had been fine so far, though it wasn’t exactly the lunch rush yet. “Actually, forget fun, I think it’s important that you get to exist in public spaces. Even if we weren’t here looking for something specific, everyone and their reactions can fuck off. You should get to eat onion rings in peace.”
Arrush looked down at the cardboard box of fried food. “I like onion rings…” he agreed, tentatively grinning. “Keeka thinks onions are evil.” Arrush’s smile turned distant as he looked out the dirty dining area window to the drive thru, thoughts cast to his boyfriend back home.
James swatted away one of Zhu’s talons from sleepily playing with his french fries. “I dunno if I’ve mentioned this, but I think it’s really cool to see you and Keeka… like… forming those kind of opinions? Tastes and preferences and… whatever an aversion to onions is. That’s neat. Everyone should have foods they hate.”
”Really? Why?” Arrush held up a claw with an onion ring in it to stop James’ response, wanting to solve the puzzle himself. His jagged teeth ripped the piece of food apart as he considered. “Because… because it means we aren’t worried about food?”
”Kinda, yeah.” James hadn’t actually been thinking that, but it was true anyway. “But also, I dunno, that kind of thing is sort of silly and unimportant? Which only develops when you have time and space where you feel comfortable.”
”And now that we aren’t… aren’t scared, we have that.” Arrush agreed with a slow nod, adding another napkin to the pile of scorched paper he’d been slowly building up over the meal. “If… if we don’t have to fight to live, we can do other things.”
”Yeah! And, like,” James snorted a laugh, “there’s so many weird hobbies out there. Many of them ones I’m far too into. And I look forward to seeing what you end up falling in love with.”
”Keeka.” Arrush answered, the skin around his eyes turning neon green. “And… and y-you. Maybe both of you.”
James gave him a knowing smile. “No, I mean non-people things. But also what’s that last bit mean? Like… I know Keeka also likes me, I just haven’t… you know. Pursued that. Cause I have essentially no free time and apparently I treat murder investigations as dates, so… wow I just said that out loud and realized how bad it sounds. Yikes!”
”Maybe.” Arrush said, looking down at his tray. “But also-“ he cut himself off as a new group of teenagers walked into the building.
Eight of them, all boys or at least boy presenting. James recognized the pattern instantly; the friend group or summer club or sports team or something. Probably not the sports team, judging by the general vibe, but it was possible. They moved like a pack of boisterous wild dogs, roughhousing lightly with each other, swinging backpacks or shouldering their friends around. Two loud overlapping conversations and one of them just making equally loud sound effects to be funny meant that any of the people eating here who wanted to have a conversation were either going to have to leave, or shout to be heard.
Pretty typical, James figured. He’d warned Arrush about it, and his new boyfriend wasn’t a complete stranger to being around excited teenagers. The Lair did have those, after all, and sometimes their boisterous antics involved literal magic, so it wasn’t like this wasn’t a thing that could be handled. James still hooked his foot around one of Arrush’s paws under the table in the most comforting motion he could quietly make as the kids swarmed the front counter clamoring for ice cream and chicken strips.
Most of the teenagers, that is.
One of them hung back, at the rear of the pack. Suddenly quiet, not that it would be noticeable through the yelling if they weren’t being watched. His eyes had locked on Arrush, only briefly flicking to James, but still moving with a kind of rapid analysis that James often saw during knight training sessions. Well, that or overt terror. He flinched like he was either reaching for a weapon, or for the swinging door behind him.
Arrush sighed, deflating slightly. James grinned at the kid. And the teenager turned and bolted without a word to his friends.
”I know it’s working.” Arrush breathed out the last word with an exasperated whine, slowly picking up another onion ring. “But it’s… it’s… ah…” he straightened his back and dragged in air in a way that didn’t work when he was slumped forward. “Depressing.” He finished.
James lost his frown, and his own straight back, leaning forward to throw his arms across the table and onto Arrush’s extra limbs. “I know. And I’m sorry. I wish that people were-“
”N-no.” Arrush cut him off, coughing out a chuckle as he covered his muzzle. “It is sad… how… they never learned how to avoid being spotted.”
”…Zhu…?” James said in an exasperated voice, looking up at Arrush with an evaluating gaze.
”Oh, yes, saw him. Easily followed, not even trying to hide really.” Zhu said. “I’ll keep an eye on his route. Along with the others. This is easy, Arrush is right!”
Arrush nodded sagely. “Our ah-annoying kids know how to hide better. And not react… ah… what’s the word? For making your life worse?”
”…compromisingly?” James ventured.
”Yes!” Arrush curled small claws around James’ forearms. “I like learning words.” He grinned wider, jagged fangs showing through the glowing crack of his muzzle.
James sat up and gave him an evaluating look. “So, to be clear.” He said slowly. “You’re bothered that they’re making this too easy, and not… the fear reaction?”
Arrush blinked in a circular sequence at James. “You told me…” he paused to catch his breath, conversation still quite draining, “that anyone young needs time to learn. Not to be mad at them.” Arrush’s smile and his words took on a sad tinge. “I am hurt. But I’m used to being hurt. I can handle it. They’ll learn, and we’ll teach them, and it will be okay. But if they run like that, they won’t live long enough to learn.” The ratroach tilted his head toward the door, one of his spined antennae catching on the shoulder of his hoodie as it waved in the air.
”…That’s… both the most mature and most depressing thing I’ve ever heard you say.” James admitted.
”Oh. Those are… different?”
”There’s a lot of times I can’t tell if you’re fucking with me, and it’s kinda great.” James shook his head. “Okay. Zhu’s got all three of them tracked. Let’s get back to our little home base and check in with the others. We can take a little break, and then figure out how hosed we are.”
”Mmh.” Arrush nodded. “I… I love you too.” He said, responding to something James hadn’t really spoken, but had said all the same. He stood to follow the human and his navigator companion out of the building, but paused before wading through the impolite crowd of teens.
Not out of anxiety about being surrounded by that many unknown humans. Well, a little bit that. But mostly…
He needed to see if he could cram the rest of his onion rings in his maw before rushing after James.