So after our delightful break, Raven and I headed back to the crash scene and continued to help out in the effort. Yeah, okay, I made it sound like I didn’t care earlier, sure––but, I’m not that cold hearted of a guy. Even though one lady managed to use that opportunity to rob me, I still had some sense of common decency to assist those that were generally hurt or dying. There were, however, other scum bags hanging about trying to do the same to the victims, especially when they were disoriented and not knowing which were the medical responders and who were just pretending to be one. I tell ya, this is why I have no faith in anyone on this station.
I made sure those dirt bags weren’t near any of those I assisted. I pointed to my gun and my badge the minute I saw a few sneaking up, trying act like they were overly concerned for the individuals, and asking to give them their valuables to hold on for safe keeping. They got the hint and took off just as fast as they came to ’supposedly’ help out. Raven finished assisting the last group of survivors and approached the big silver ship still stuck in the debris. She gave it few kicks with her foot (what good that was going to do, I wasn’t sure), and glared at it with puzzled fascination.
“Is this thing even a ship?” Raven said to me as I came up beside her. “Its smooth, very smooth… but, I’ve never seen something like this in the landing bays before.”
“Looks expensive.” I stated as I shrugged. “Has to be some rich-dick’s vessel. Maybe he was drunk and brought it in too fast.”
She nodded at my half-ass assessment and continued to feel the surface. I grew impatient and gave a drawn out sigh. She immediately took note of my hint and scowled at me.
“Dude, really?”
“What?” I said. “We’ve done our part, time for us to head back to HQ.”
“Come on, man!” She flared her eyes. “This is major! Don’t you want to know what the fuck this is? Why it crashed? Who it belongs too?”
“Nope…” I replied, still looking bored.
“Wow…” She said while shaking her head in disappointment and walking away from the thing. “I can’t believe you. This is the biggest event to happen on this station for some time, and you just wanna glaze over it?”
“Look, Raven,” I sighed, placing my thumbs in the loops of my belt. Seen a lot of cops do it in the movies. “We’re just routine beat patrol, not investigators. We come here, keep the peace as much as we’re contractual obligated to do, and go home counting our blessings that today was the day we didn’t end up dead, somehow, in some back alley.”
“Truly you are a conundrum, my friend.” She snickered. She looked at me, then the ship, then back at me and shrugged. “Okay, well… I guess you want to get back and go home, if that’s what you really, really want.”
“Its not about what I want,” I stressed to her, giving a glare with a cocked brow. “Its what the job is for us. We’re just underpaid babysitters for the criminal element. We keep things nice and respectable, tell them when lights out is, and pat them on the head for not being too unruly for the day.”
“Holy fuck…” She replied, slowly stretching out the words. “I’m glad we’re not a couple. I would have kicked your ass to the curb for such lofty ideologies. Probably explains why you’re so damn single.”
I laughed, giving her a slight nudge with my elbow to her shoulder and winked.
“See, you know me better than you think. Come on partner, let’s go back, strip off these uniforms and grab us something tasty.”
She couldn’t help but belt out a laugh on that. Yeah, it was suggestive in its meaning, but she didn’t seem to care. Raven loved that kind of witty talk from me, I was being playful and naughty. But I also know, that my chances of being with her in the sack were next to nil. We’ve been down that road (and on that bed) once before, and there wasn’t anything between us (other than the sheets). Raven shook her finger at me for being like that, and walked out of the debris with a smile on her face.
Its kind of nice having a partner who gets your sense of humour. Someone that understands the twisted mindset of a lonely individual. Would we ever have sex again? No, I don’t think so. She’s talked about being with some other guy on the thirteenth level. He’s a salesmen or something like that, I think. Must have really talked the talk to get into her laced panties. Lucky her, I say. I can’t even get someone to smooth talk me enough to get into my stained and hole-ridden underpants for the life of me. Perhaps that’s my problem, not enough fresh underwear, but who can afford that luxury in this place—and on this stupid salary.
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“Be sure to put a ticket on that one boys!” I hollered to the group of officers passing by. They had equipment, cables and a hover-winch machine to hoist the silver ship with. “Parking in an illegal spot, sounds like we just made the department an easy buck today.”
The guys all laughed and gave me a wry salute. Raven and I headed down the mound and back onto street side again. I wiped my hands clean and strode with a smile on my face. It was the end of shift. Thank the mother-fucking-ever-god for that.
* * *
“You two mother-fucking a-holes get into my office right the fuck now!”
That’s the greeting we got from our police chief. Instead of sneaking by clean past his office, we got tagged by him and were pelted with a slog of insults as he fingered us to get in his room. Most of it was directed at me, talking about my lack of competence, duty and, I think, one about my mother screwing a sloth and having a bastard child of low intelligence. Chief Harland was like twenty years my junior. It’s like having a bloated greasy teen shouting at you for interrupting his gaming time.
Imagine you’re from the past, thinking about what a police chief’s office would be like in the future; lots of holographic screens, clear walls, a desk that just full of data pads with the day’s business on them. Well… forget that crap. This was more like something out of the roaring 1970’s, lots of empty coffee cups, papers stacked everywhere, walls covered in… god, I don’t know what it could be. Raven thought it might have been the blood of former officers, but I think was just any kind of curry the fat guy tried to consume and spat out realizing it was too hot.
His uniform was much like ours, albeit, a tad more stained and ripped at the seams. The idea that ‘one size fits all’ when the station issued them out to us was a tell-tale sign that we were vastly under budget. Harland tried his best quell his anger. He slicked back his long greasy brown mane, took a sip from a cup of coffee (never mind the dead fly in it), savoured the flavour for a second and started ranting on us again.
“Do you know that I’ve just had a hell of a time with the station manager a minute ago?” He glared at us both as he swiped the door to close behind us. “That man is pissed! Pissed I tell ya! Not because of the crash, oh no—god forbid that! No, he was pissed, because two of my on-duty officers took that moment to walk off during a major accident, and had a fucking coffee instead!”
“Aw, shit…” I muttered. Raven quickly glanced at me with anger, knowing what the chief was on about. I then stated the obvious. “The security cams were operating.”
“No shit!” The chief stated at me mockingly. “Normally, they wouldn’t be… haven’t worked for years, right? But… it turns out, a crash will jog those ol’ circuits back to life. Amazing!”
“Were all of them… uh… working?” I dared to ask.
“Enough, yes,” He bitterly mocked back. “Enough to see you, sitting on your ass, sipping on those expensive coffees… looking like you didn’t give a fuck about all those people trapped, hurt and dying!”
“Ah…” I simply replied back.
Yeah, those old cams weren’t operational, until today, it seemed. So, I can’t fault the guy for nailing us for that one. I tried to say something, even Raven stuttered to speak, but he held out his chubby left hand and grunted at us to sit down. The two chairs (if you could still identify them as such), creaked upon our weight as we plunked down on them. Remember, 1970’s decor, right? Lovely shades of brown and nauseating off-red.
“Thanks to you guys, we’re now in the shit-meter at full tilt.” He stated while sitting in his own chair behind his messy desk. “It makes our department look bad, do you understand me?” He pulled out a candy bar from his 20th Century inspired table, unwrapped it, and chewed on the simulated-chocolate treat. “So now, we’re expected to do actual work for a change. I hate doing actual work… you know I do.” We both nodded in agreement. He really hated having to do anything like it. He nodded as well and continued on. “So, because of this infraction, you and Raven are assigned to finding out how this ship… or… whatever this is, managed to breach our defences and smack through five levels of this station.”
“Wait, what?” Raven glared.
“Uh… pardon?” I gawked in disbelief.
“You heard right,” He grinned. “They would have actually sent you guys to the lock up, seeing how that’s a dereliction of your duties as a paid officer of this station. But I managed to save you from that disgrace.” The bloated man chortled and rubbed his chocolatey fingers with delight. His eyes focused on me. Yeah, he really enjoyed giving me this bit of news. “My dear officers, Raven Salak and Mike Bernard, you are hereby promoted, to the rank of station detective, and will head the investigation of this crash.
“Come again?” Raven said doing a double take. “You’re promoting us?”
“You heard me.” The chief nodded.
“Detective?” I repeated back with glare of confusion.
“A temporary advancement,” He snorted, taking another slow bite of his treat, eyeing me in delight. He knew I didn’t want it, but still revelled in my surprise. “You’ll get more pay, of a sort, that should at least make you happy, in that regard. But, as I said, it’s for a limited time. Since this station can’t afford full time detectives, well… at the rate we should be paying them, of course. So, for now… you two will be it. Then, once the investigation is complete, you’ll be reassigned back to your old posts.”
“Yes!” Raven hooted, pumping her fist down with enthusiasm. “I’ll take that action, even if it is temporary, it’s still a promotion…” She glanced over to me with a smile. She was excited and nudged me with her elbow. “I knew this was going to be a good day.”
Me, on the other hand, I was slack jawed and looking as if someone just slapped my mother bare-assed with a big frozen fish. Holy Fuck, I was promoted. How? Why? What? It didn’t seem to make sense. My brain couldn’t calculate the logic of it, mainly because, there was no logic to it. I tried to utter back a response, but my worlds were slurred and incompressible. The shock was still holding my brain hostage. The chief just grinned and nodded at me. His eyes fully conveyed to me what he was thinking, and (as if I could read his mind in that moment) they seemed to say, “I got you, asshole.”