Continued From Episode 2

Balinski sat in his blue Atoya Trooper with an arm resting on the sill of the driver-side door’s open window. He rested his head back against the faux cow leather seat and tried to close his eyes briefly against the glare of the neon lights outside. His impromptu attempt to nap was once more interrupted by the creature occupying the passenger seat next to him in the extended cabin of the armoured truck.

He grunted as something furry butted into his side, the barely healed bruising tingling as he put out a hand to stop further assault. “What do you want, Caesar?” He asked the large cyberhound next to him.

Caesar just snuffled and then shook her head before giving him a small whine and a pointed look. He smirked, she couldn't possibly still be hungry. She had just polished off an entire zebberloaf sandwich and had even managed to eat the other half of his. With his limited biological mass he didn't need to eat very much anymore to maintain himself. His cybernetics operated off of internalized promethium powercells and required only limited maintenance as long as he was careful not to get shot too much.

He chuckled at that, the other week had been a brutal array of close fighting. His legs and arms had taken a beating requiring him to actually visit his military contact to get them repaired. Dr. Magoy had been happy to see him it had seemed, if not necessarily happy about the state he had allowed himself to fall into. But after a tense few limbless hours he had been put back together, ‘better than new’ he had been assured.

Caesar butted him again and he looked over toward her, “What?!” he demanded before realising that she was desperate. “Oh, I told you not to drink so much water before we left this morning. Okay, but don't be too conspicuous. I’m pretty sure you aren't supposed to just piss wherever you like.”

He opened the door and grunted as she rushed over his lap and out onto the sidewalk, luckily it was rather early in the morning so there were few passers-by to gawk at the thirty-six kilogram cybernetically enhanced husky as she bolted for the nearest convenient shadow. With her neural implants she at least had the good conscience to be embarrassed about relieving herself in front of others. Something that he constantly found amusing.

He checked his wrist assistant, the small electronic device beeping angrily at him as the fifteen minute timer rang incessantly. He turned it off and looked around again, he didn’t see Daryon anywhere. The large vinarfelien police woman was supposed to meet him here at seven-thirty sharp. So where in the name of Lady Luck was the large insectoid female?

He heard a series of happy barks coming from around the nearby building and smiled. Caesar was wary of strangers and wouldn't bark like that at somebody unless she knew them. He rolled up the armoured glazmite window and stepped out of the vehicle, closing it behind him with a thud.

As he walked towards the corner he saw Caesar bound around it, prancing before a two-meter tall alien that looked as if somebody had taken a child's nightmare about a centipede and scaled them up into a six-meter long three-hundred kilogram version with ten arms and a multitude of short stabbing legs that ran along the sides of her chiton armoured body.

He smiled as she gave him a two armed wave. Waving back politely he walked towards her and called out, “What are you doing, don’t you know that Caesar is an on duty officer of the law? I can’t have her getting pets and distractions from every random passerby.”

Daryon’s antenna rose in a customary greeting as she put out two hands palms up which he promptly slapped. She folded five of her lower arms while still giving the happily grumbling pup a good head scrub with the sixth. Two of her upper arms she used to gesticulate while she answered him, “Well of coursse. But an officer ass good asss thiss deservess to be praissed by her comradesss whenever the opportunity arisess, wouldn't you agree?”

He didn't have a counterpoint and so he just shrugged before leaning against the faded facade of the building next to him. “Well, thanks for coming to help. I don’t know these streets as well as I would like. I grew up on the edge of the flyway and so didn't get to see the old city much.” He looked around, the old city was indeed old.

Cheenha had been founded as one of the original cities on Jureillo a little over three hundred years ago. Most of the old city was at least one hundred and fifty years old with some of the structures being far older. The materials and techniques haven't changed much over the centuries though and so it could sometimes be difficult to tell a historical building from a new novelty one that was simply made to mimic the age of those around it.

Such mimicry was pretty commonplace amongst the buildings in both the old and the new city. It was seen as bad practice to try and modernise the old style buildings. While there were indeed kilometer tall shining steel skyscrapers in the new city, the old city consisted mostly of blocky high-rises and triple stacked city-plates. Large sections of the city that were layered on top of each other in such a way that the underlying levels were completely blocked off from the sky.

In fact, if it were not for the profusion of flashing neon advertisements in the windows of the shops nearby and the flickering overhead lighting it would have been pitch black where they were. He took a few steps towards his truck and then stopped as he heard a noose from behind him.

Turning curiously he saw Daryon with two of her arms raised, she lowered them as he looked. The insectoid woman’s antennae rose slightly as she gestured towards his blue Atoya, “What? Are we taking that?”

Balinski nodded. “Well, yeah. Unless you would rather walk everywhere.”

She seemed to hesitate. “I don’t. Will I even fit in there?”

Balinski had to laugh at her candid nervousness. “Yes, you will fit just fine. I am sure of it, now come on. We have a lot of ground to cover as you said over the E-Link last night.” He tapped his wrist assistant, the small personal computing device that nearly every sapient member of the Union used on a daily basis. It could do a multitude of simple tasks and had the ability to download and use special applications to improve its performance and usefulness.

She looked at the device attached to her own wrist and then back at him. Her lightning patterned carapace seemed to sway slightly as she finally gave a stiff nod of her head, well more of a bob really.

“Okay, but don’t ssay I didn’t have any doubtss if it doessn't work.” the vinarfelien chittered in her slightly hissing accent.

He walked over to the heavy truck, the empty bed and heavy industrial looking profile intimately familiar to him. He had always wanted a Trooper as a child, but his mother had told him that he would likely never get to afford one as they were generally only sold under either government or police contracts. They were armoured and had reinforced secondaries, as well as being able to run off both conventional powercells and raw hydrocarbons like gasoline or diesel.

He opened the door and Caesar immediately launched herself into the passenger seat, right as Daryon opened the other door. Caesar gave a small whine and looked at him. “Well, you can sit in the back or in the middle. Pick one.”

He frowned as the stubborn pup crouched low in her favorite spot, a low growl emanating from her declaring her opposition to this seeming atrocity. Balinski just put up his hands and looked towards the distant plasteel reinforced duracrete ceiling and mimed saying a prayer for luck.

He smiled a little as Daryon chuckled, the breathy hissing sound was only a tiny bit unsettling. But his previous experience with vinarfel made it a familiar one. He watched as she seemed to hesitate again.

Finally he blurted, “Oh for the sake of pete, move your fuzzy ass out of the way Caesar!”

Not the most diplomatic approach, but it had the desired effect. Caesar hopped up in alarm at his shout and slunk over to the middle of the bench seat. Balinsky shook his head as the pouting drama queen settled herself down as if the entire world had been taken from her.

Daryon nodded in thanks once more before trying several times to crawl into the seat without tangling herself. He pointed to a small pull-string near the bottom middle of the bench and stated, “If you pull on that the back drops out of the lower portion. For people with tails, or extra long bodies.” He chuckled as the woman’s antennae shrank against her back and she placed two of her hands over her unblinking compound eyes in an obviously embarrassed gesture.

She shook her head jerkilly before pulling it as he had instructed. With a soft thump the lower portion of her seat dropped backwards making an arched hole just big enough for her. She shook her head as she looked at it though, “I don’t think thiss was made with vinarfeliensss in mind. If I try and contort myself in there, how am I going to ssit in the ssseat?”

His smile dropped and he cocked his head as he looked from her to the conspicuous opening and back again. He scratched the side of his head as he removed his hat. “Huh, how ‘bout that. I suppose you could just.. er.. put yourself down in the footing area and then use what part of the seat feels most comfortable?”

It was a damn strange sight to see the six-meter long woman crawl into the truck, her many short chitinous legs allowed her supreme control of her lower two thirds as she coiled most of herself in the footing area of the passenger compartment. Her upper third, or the part of her body that would be considered her torso, was sitting at an angle on the bench seat. Her flexibly, almost snake-like body was pressed back into the seat that she gripped with two of her more sturdy lower arms.

As she settled herself more comfortably in the position she cocked her head towards him slightly and her faceplates opened slightly, revealing the fleshy pink slit of her jawless mouth. “Well, thiss isss a bit lesss awkward than I wass afraid it would be. Almosst like sssitting on my ressting couch back home, if it wass a bit too wide and ssshort at the ssame time.” Her hissing laughter filled the cabin again and she gave Caesar a hearty scrub on the top of her furry head, the action buying her back some of the goodwill she had lost for taking the haughty pup’s favorite seat by the window.

Balinski raised his remaining eyebrow. “Yeah, I guess so. I think that you might want to try and put on the seat belts though. If we were to get into an accident you would get tossed around pretty bad without them.” She reached over and clicked the restraints over her body without too much trouble. They were designed to work across different species and she had simply selected the largest available option, the atraxses configuration.

While she wasn't as bulky as one of the large shaggy white furred aliens, her body was still large enough to warrant the extra reach. Balinski himself used the setting as well as he was a large man, even before his cybernetics were taken into account.

He settled in and buckled in, pressing his thumb to the ignition scanner. The machine read his biometrics and bellowed to life. Daryon twitched and then looked at him curiously, “What? Are you ussing a hydrocarbon thermocycler?”

Balinski gave her a wide smile and a nod that caused her antennae to flutter slightly. “Yep, don’t worry. I pay my emission taxes for it. Something about the feel of the pistons firing, that base rumble of the machinery working tirelessly. Well, it inspires me. Sure the promethium power cell is much more efficient, but it lacks that certain feel. Do you know what I mean?” He looked over at her, her slightly reflective blue compound eyes seemed locked with his own.

Due to the pseudo-pupils that her eyes had it gave the impression that she was always staring directly at the viewer. But he knew she could be looking almost anywhere in her two-hundred-and-seventy-degree field of view. Despite the fact, he did really get the impression that she was looking straight at him.

She shrugged several of her arms after another moment of silence. “I feel sssome vibrationss. I am not ssure how thiss adds anything to the experience except for that additional ssensssation.” She didn’t seem to get it. He sighed internally. Not to worry, he would show her what he meant eventually.

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She seemed to turn his way slightly more, her face plates opening slightly as she hesitated. “It’s good to see you again, I have not seen you since the memorial.”

Balinski just nodded. It was good to see the large insectoid woman, she was one of the only officers that he had occasion to interact with directly. The city had so many districts that most of the officers in precinct two rotated in and out before he ever got to meet them.

He gave her a sideways glance and a neutral smile. He always seemed to get the feeling that she was prodding at him a little. “Yeah, a long day that was indeed. Alright, well then to business. What is our first stop, some alley behind a casino if I remember right?”

Daryon shook a hand and gestured towards her assistant as she tapped away on the small touch screen for a few seconds. She soon had a readout pulled up on it that he glanced over as she extended her arm. “No, we are not heading to an alley, there iss a dive bar behind Yowul’s Palace of Golden Delight called the Sslimehut by the localsss. I have an informant that ssaid they would meet uss there for a few drinksss.” She seemed a little annoyed by his lack of intimate knowledge on the subject.

To be fair, he had read over the entire proposal. Right before he fell asleep last night. He would have admitted as much except he was afraid he might hurt the poor young woman’s feelings or something, she did seem rather sensitive when it came to data collection and information gathering.

He checked behind him and pulled out into the street, traffic was light due to the time of day. He navigated the heavy vehicle with practiced ease, the sensation of rolling along the roadway in it calming him. He placed his arm on the sill of the door’s open window as he had before. The cool air flowing through and ruffling his short cropped hair in a pleasant way.

He felt eyes on him and glanced over at Daryon, she seemed to be looking at him. Her antennae lowered instantly when he glanced her way and he chuckled, “What is it? You have ridden in those APCs dozens if not hundreds of times right?”

Daryon gave Caesar a nervous pat and spoke quickly, as if afraid she would lose her courage to speak if she didn't get the words out right away. “It’ss just, I have never ridden in one of thesse.. personal vehiclesss before.” He was a bit taken aback by that.

She still seemed nervous, she was sitting there in her simple grey overcoat and blue pocket covered jacket twiddling the fingers on her uppermost arms. He gestured to the window and she looked at it. “You can roll the window down if you want.” She hesitated and he reassured her, “Go for it, c’mon. Roll it down, put a few arms out the window like this, you might like it.”

Balinski smiled as he stuck his arm straight out the window. An oncoming car honked at him as he did so, he couldn't tell if they were angry or maybe they thought he was waving hello. It didn’t matter, he looked over at Daryon and the large insectoid woman tensed again.

“But, what if ssomething happenss and the window needss to be up?” She seemed to be fishing for any reason not to try it.

He just gave her his most tired sounding sigh, purposefully over exaggerating it as if he was thoroughly done. Her faceplates parted slightly, almost like a man pursing his lips in thought. Finally she relented and rolled down the window before emulating him with two of her upper arms. Almost immediately he saw her antennae perk up in what he assumed was mild delight.

She stuck another of her arms straight out and then slowly started to move it up and down, surfing the airflow with her palm. He took the opportunity to ask her, “You haven't ever ridden in a car before. Not one that wasn't police owned, that is. How in the heck do you get around town. Don't tell me you walk everywhere, there is no way you would be able to make that work. No matter how fast you can run.”

Daryon remained silent for a few moments, her antennae twitching as she rubbed a few of her hands together. “I usssually just take a buss or a cabbie when I need to get ssomewhere.”

The admission seemed to make sense. Balinski shook his head slightly. “I just understand why, the sense of freedom you gain from being able to go where you want, when you want. You don’t get that with public transport. Trust me, this is much better.”

Caesar gave a small encouraging woof as if to accentuate his point. Daryon continued to hold an arm out the window as her mouthplates worked silently. After a short time they got stopped at a traffic light and she finally relented. “I don’t know, it just sseemsss like an awful lot of additional effort. You need to buy the vehicle, then you have to pay for inssurance and taxes and maintenance.” She threw up a few arms in an exasperated manner. “It all jusst feelsss sso extra. I guesss I just appreciate the simpler thingss.” She added a but sullenly.

Balinski felt a bit bad now, he hadn’t been trying to tell her she was wrong. He had simply been curious as to the reason she hadn’t considered it. He tapped his hands idly on the wheel as they sat there in the growing silence.

After what felt far longer than the thirty seconds it actually was, he reached out and turned on the radio. The truck was tuned into several wide-band civilian radio frequencies. Many of them offered music and talk shows to pass the time, it was one of the former hats he turned into now.

As the cool sounds of synthwave reverberated around the cabin he could feel the tension that had grown slowly ebb. He glanced at her and smiled, “What about now? You can't tell me this isn't better than some cruddy ‘ol transport bus or musty cabbie?”

She bobbed her head slightly as she leaned her torso back into the padded seat more. “I will admit that it hass a certain appeal to it. I jusst ssstill don’t understand all the extra stepss, maybe it isss a human thing.” She added with what he thought sounded like a bit of a shiteating grin.

Her smug tone wasn’t lost on him as they turned another few corners. He shrugged and gave her a pointed look briefly, “Yeah maybe. Or maybe it is just the fact that I grew up with a sense of urgency.”

Her opportunity to respond was cut short as he slowed and gestured out the front of the cab. “Is that the place?”

Daryon seemed to peer out the window intently, though with her compound eyes it was pretty much impossible to tell where the insectoid female was actually looking. In front of them was the turnoff to a larger boulevard, one that was lined with tall and opulent looking structures. One in particular stood out from the rest for its over-the-top grandeur and gilded buttresses.

The huge gold and chrome structure was covered in flowing holographic displays and enough neon lighting to be seen from orbit, that is if they had not been under a particularly large city plate that blocked them off from the sky entirely. The effect was to generate an almost otherworldly atmosphere of scintillating colors. The phantasmagoria of the display heightening his perception at the same time it confused his already addled senses.

He had to shake his head and adjust his cybernetic eye’s spectrum in order to focus on what he was doing. He couldn't imagine the profusion of swirling and terrible marriage of images that Daryon must be being subjected to, what with her unblinking compound eyes and two-hundred-and-seventy degrees of vision.

Before he even had the chance to ask her, she responded to his previously muttered inquiry. “Yess, that'sss Yowul’ss Palace of Golden Delight alright. It's kind of imposssible to missss.” She chuckled hissingly. “We need to go around the block to the oppossite sside. The Ssslimehut will be on the far side of the next alley, but it doessn't connect to thiss ssside.”

He gave her a nod and glanced at Caesar, she seemed transfixed by the wildly gleaming lights. Not to worry, she would snap out of her trance when they got out of the damnable lights. He started to take the next turn when Daryon suddenly reached out and gripped his shoulder with two of her lower arms.

He twitched in surprise before looking her way, the way her antennae were raised suggested an alarmed state. “What!? What is it?!” He looked around frantically, trying to see what had set the large woman on edge.

Her faceplates clacked as she vocalised quickly, “We need to get out and approach on foot!”

He cocked his head. “Why?” Her comment seemed at once born of some manner of twisted logic and yet totally incomprehensible.

She quivered slightly. “Think about it. We roll up in an armoured Atoya truck and then sstart assking questionsss? That would sscream bluecoat to thesse people faster than waving a badge. We need to take thiss a little more dissscreetly.” Her words took a moment to penetrate the fuge his mind was still floundering in after the migraine inducing display from the garish casino.

It made sense given the context. She was right of course, if he were to simply roll up and try knocking heads together he was going to get them both killed. Or worse. No, he needed to take things a little slower.

He slowed and looked around. There are a number of parking garages around due to the nearby casinos and so he chose one at random. They pulled up the small, automated toll booth and he paid with a single 25c osmir. That oughta cover them for at least two hours. The gate thanked them with a robotic sounding greeting and he proceeded to the third floor. Not for any particular reason, but he had always liked the number and considered it good fortune.

He watched as Daryon uncoiled her long body from the truck, her slightly textured underbelly looked much softer than her back. Devoid of the thick carapace of chiton plates that covered the top of her long body. It might have been impolite to take a peek, but a part of him was curious. As she moved his eyes were drawn to a series of dull bumps or ridges along her lower third that terminated near the last quarter of her long tail-like body. He knew enough about vinarfelien biology to know they were her broodspines, they were evolved to allow for females of her race to carry their newborn larvae upon their bellies.

He saw the flash of something else a little lower down from the termination of her broodspines and averted his eyes quickly, a touch embarrassed. The vinarfel did not wear clothing on their lower bodies as they were generally kept so close to the ground as to be hidden. And so one could say that Daryon was indeed half naked. If she noticed his ungentlemanly curiosity she didn’t seem to care overmuch and so he cleared his throat and motioned for Caesar to stay in the truck.

Daryon cocked her blue-eyed head as he did so, “You don’t want her to come with uss?”

Caesar whined loudly followed by a small bark. She seemed to be in agreement with the colorful alien woman. He kept his window rolled down as he knew she would follow his instructions. “It’s not that, it isn’t Caesar!” He protested as the cyberhound growled at him, her canine features showing her to be unimpressed. “Think about it, if we take you into the establishment it is going to bring a lot of unwanted attention. Cybernetically enhanced animals are not legal for the average person to own and so it would immediately mark me out as either a criminal or a lawman.” He watched as Caesar tried to understand the complex logical jumps he was making.

She shook her triangular head after a moment. She tilted her head as an indication to him that she was not getting it and so he sighed. He put out his hands and spoke as concisely as he could, “If we take you inside the bad guys will know we are good guys. You need to wait for us here, I will of course call you for backup if anything happens. I promise.” She seemed to accept this new slightly simpler explanation.

While her neural implants made her vastly more intelligent than a dumb animal, they didn't quite make her on the same level as a full adult human. She had the conscious understanding roughly on par with that of a young child. Capable of understanding speech, but not really able to pick up on complex or multi-leveled reasoning.

He nodded towards Daryon, “Alright. Caesar will stay back, I can call her in remotely if we need her, and she is pretty damn fast too, so it wouldn't take long for her to get there.” Daryon patted her overcoat and then swore.

“Oh crap, I think I dropped my traumawand ssomewhere.” She moved back towards the truck and partially climbed through the passenger side window. She rummaged around before exiting and holding aloft something triumphantly.

The item was a short telescoping baton-like instrument with a wide, heavy handle with several dials and readouts visible on its gunmetal grey exterior. He grunted, “What, no gun?”

She shrugged her upper three pairs of arms as she pocketed the non-lethal weapon and readjusted her overcoat. “Sseeing asss how I am technically off-duty at the moment I have no legal causse to carry a lethal weapon.”

He gave her a flat stare. “Bullshit.”

She maintained her stare, only the twitch of her antennae gave away the fact she was anything more than a statue. After a minute of this she finally threw up an arm and opened her overcoat all the way to him. “Fine, I relent. Of coursse I’m armed to the neck joint, you really thought even for a millisssecond that I was going to sstep downtown without enough firepower to level a pack of grinskalss?” She chuckled again and he found himself smiling.

He pulled back his overcoat revealing his own trusty sidearm, the bulky form of his ThunderEagle revolver stuck out slightly from the shoulder holster he was wearing over his body armour. Luckily he was bulky enough to hide both the armour and the weapon at a glance when he had his dark trench coat closed.

He gave her a bright smile, the look pulling at the scars that marred his face as he replied, “Oh not at all. But I was a little surprised to see you holding a non-lethal weapon at all. As I recall, every single bad guy that has crossed your path has wound up cooling in the precinct meatlocker.” She ducked her head, the long almost delicate looking antenna that sprouted from her head went flat against her back.

She seemed to stutter slightly, her hissing accent becoming markedly more pronounced in her flustered state. “s-It’ss-s not as-ss if i s-wass wanting to kill ss-them all!”

He waved a hand. “No, but you have to admit that every single one of the bastards deserved it. You made the right call in my opinion, Daryon. I am not trying to convince you otherwise.” He took a step towards the mildly upset insectoid and placed a supporting hand on her jacketed shoulder.

She cocked her head in order to see the contact before he pulled away and gestured towards the distant staircase that would eventually lead them down to the ground floor and hopefully one step closer to a lead for what was happening. There were gangs working with gangs that had always been bitter enemies, lines of drug filled trucks shipping their toxic cargos all across this world. It was a foul, he shouldn't have been so shocked by the complexity of the situation. But he was.

Continued in E3:P2