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Aloysia Bloodfur Vice Captain
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 Posted: Fri Jul 01, 2011 2:44 pm
Read Organic Hearts, Metal EYEs before reading this novella, its sequel.
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Posted: Fri Jul 01, 2011 2:46 pm
Prologue
New York City was a spectacle at nine in the morning. In Manhattan, buildings interlocked with each other in a modern setting like 3-D puzzle pieces, rebuilt or refurbished in glistening silver or shining white. The rising sun slid over these new buildings and settled on the less modern but just as functional black skyscrapers of Staten Island and Queens, large black rectangles that stood side-by-side without touching each other in reasonable street-by-street coordinates. But the sun did not continue past there; it was cloudy and threatening rain in brick-and-concrete Bronx and Brooklyn.
Given the drab early-September weather, Demitren Corning would usually be wearing a trench coat and fedora, along with his usual slacks, shirt, and red tie. But today the thirty-two-year-old with the light brown hair and flirtatious smile was only in his slacks and shirt. The tie and fedora had been removed for safety reasons, and the trench coat had been abandoned so that the giant foam-like vest with the label Trainee: NYCLEHOL could be visible.
Demitren Corning, intern to Jenosa Parkings, had never seen his boss looking so happy. He was excited too, of course, but it was odd to see her looking this close to almost smiling. She wasn't threatening to shoot anyone as she arranged for him to set out. "Out of the way there, people," she said cheerfully, dragging him along by his wrist as she arranged for him to get his wireless headset, communications device, and items of self-defense. "Intern coming through. His first day of practice field work, first day seeing the NYCLE side of life, first time wearing a bullet-proof vest... A lot of firsts today."
"What's got you so excited?" Demitren asked, as she slammed a pair of headphones on his head and stuck a club in his belt. "This isn't my first time out of the office, remember?"
"Doesn't matter," Jenosa said, putting her own headphones on and poking a finger in chest. "The point is, we're out of the office for the first time since July. That's something to celebrate, I hate the office –"
"Gathered."
"And besides, you should be more thrilled about this. The paperwork finally came back today, right?"
"Eh? Uh, yeah."
"So everything went through without a hitch – about time, too. So you're in training to be a detective now, not a behavior analysist, and this is your first day on the new program. A lot of firsts for you."
"Still, you're way too excited about this."
Jenosa paused, and actually looked him in the face. She was still wearing her old patrol woman's NYCLE uniform of black jumpsuit, boots, and fingerless gloves. Her brown hair had been tied back for today. Light from a patrol man's motorcycle glinted off her face – the left side of her face, which was metal from her forehead to her chin. Her left eye had been replaced with TECH as well – Technology and Equipment Containing Hyperactivity – along with her sinuses, inner ear, left elbow, and right leg. Grim and never expressing any emotion apart from "in thought," "in crime-busting mode," or "in the throes of fury," the thirty-year-old Veteran Investigator, Nonrestricted rarely favored her intern with words other than criticism.
Which was why Demitren was pleasantly surprised when she said, "I honestly want to see how you're going to do with the streets today. There's a whole other element to investigating than just research on a computer or talking to the victims and suspects of the crime. You have to be familiar with surroundings, too, and I'm hoping you'll do well."
Demitren beamed. "Thanks for caring so much about my career, boss."
"Don't be ridiculous," she snorted. "Your performance reflects on me. If you do well, it shows that I'm a competent worker for NYCLE and NYLEHOL. This is purely for selfish reasons." Ignoring his chuckle, Jenosa handed him her NYCLE shoulder bag, and they set out.
Ever since he had applied with NYCLEHOL to switch his internship from that of behavior-analysist-training to that of detective training, Jenosa had altered her teaching style appropriately. They'd spent the last couple of months going over every aspect of investigations, including the jobs of other departments in NYCLE and NYCLEHOL (New York City Law Enforcement, and its Headquarters, Offices, and Laboratories). Today, he was to walk with her up and down a section of Bronx and learn about the patrol men and women's jobs. Jenosa Parkings was a retired patrol woman who resented the loss of her former job, so she was excited to revisit old hunting grounds.
"This isn't really anything like a real patrol," Jenosa said as they passed by fairly clean shops with the occasional broken window. "There's three set ups, which are?"
Jenosa was very fond of verbal pop quizzes. Demitren counted the answers off his fingers. "Both partners on a bike, riding around the blocks a couple times; one partner on a bike riding around, and another walking around; both partners walking, one in one direction and one in the other."
Jenosa nodded. "Usually Daren and I –" (Daren was her old partner; he was now retired and lived with his wife Sharon in Florida.) "– would both be on bikes. But today we're just strolling, really, and I'm pointing things out to you. Like over there."
She pointed to a garbage bin that was stained black on the edges. "Sign of fires. It's likely that the arsonist would act again, so you'd send word back to headquarters through your headphones..."
Through the headsets they both wore, Demitren and Jenosa heard a static-filled voice. "Fires where?"
"Teldore Street," Demitren supplied, "just off of White Plains Road, across from Harry's Hair."
"Harry's Hair?"
Jenosa looked at the site curiously. "That's a new establishment. The last time I was here that was empty."
Demitren wasn't listening anymore. He was distracted by a commotion going on down the street. At first he had thought someone might have been arguing and earning some attention, but it seemed that the chaos was in motion and coming towards them – fast.
"Do you see that?" he said, pointing. The source of the commotion seemed to be a man in suit and tie, who was running for all he was worth. He was middle-aged, balding, and red in the face from exertion. Every so often he would look over his shoulder, which caused him to run headlong into pedestrians and shop stands, but he would keep running without apologizing or faltering. It was obvious that the man had one thing on his mind: escape.
His boss' brows furrowed. "A guy dressed like that would be able to afford a car. That's odd..." Together they increased their pace, starting out towards the man, aiming to intercept him and ask what was wrong, when –
BANG!
Women screamed as the man fell heavily, clutching at his chest. Jenosa broke into a run, yelling at people to get out of the way. Right behind her, Demitren skidded to a halt in front of the man, who was lying on his side, blood seeping in a tiny trickle onto the concrete. "Demitren!" Jenosa yelled as she turned the man over and opened his shirt to tend to the wound. "First aid kit in my bag!"
Kneeling next to her, Demitren dug through the bag, trying to find the kit, as Jenosa spoke rapidly and harshly into her headset. "This is Jenosa Parkings, Veteran Investigator Nonrestricted. There's been a shot on Teldore, off of White Plains Road, a man is shot, the shot seems to have come from a high altitude, back up is requested immediately!"
It was a flurry of panicked activity. Demitren frantically did everything he was told, Jenosa barking out the orders and him following, both on their knees and their hands getting spotted with blood as they bent to the task. Jenosa's orders were peppered with words to the victim. "Keep your eyes open, sir. Get his shirt open so I can see! Hand me the flashlight! Hold it over the wound so I can see! Sir, please, keep your eyes open. Stay with me. Will you tell them to get everyone else back?! Hold this down. Sir, keep your eyes open. I can't get the bullet out. Find the bandages. Sir, open your eyes if you can hear me! Sir! Open your eyes! Stay with me!"
It was one of the most nerve-racking things Demitren had ever been a part of, so when Jenosa sat up and looked at him with a sadistic smile and asked her question, he was at a loss for words.
"So, how do you like your first day on the job?"
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Aloysia Bloodfur Vice Captain
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Aloysia Bloodfur Vice Captain
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Posted: Tue Jul 12, 2011 5:53 pm
Chapter OneHoverTEK To Be A Go! Madaelyn Telm The long-awaited hoverbike that is the daydream of many high-strung teenagers and bikers may finally be hitting the market, says HoverTEK. The NYDOT (New York Department of Transportation) has finally released a report saying that transportation by hoverTEK (TEK: Technology and Equipment using Kinetic energy) could be plausible in the future.
HoverTEK was first introduced five years ago when the company first gave a press conference declaring that it had developed the perfect hoverbike. This bike, resembling a motorcycle but appearing far more "nifty and sophisticated," runs on electricity. It "hovers" by viciously sucking in air through a vacuum, condensing that air, and then forcing it down in a powerful jetstream, which would push the vehicle up and forward in the air.
Concerns regarding the vehicle were understandable. Would the jetstream hurt those beneath the hoverbike? What would happen if the hoverbike ran out of power while you were in the air? How dangerous ]was this vehicle? Fortunately, all tests of the hoverbike have proved satisfactory. It was deemed completely safe and reliable for use.
Why, then, has it taken so long to reach the public? The NYDOT feared one thing - air traffic control. It took centuries to perfect the ground traffic control we have today; what would 3-D air traffic be like? How could you put lanes, stop signs, or intersections in the sky? Finally, after years of research, NYDOT has the (cont. p 2 "Hover")"Demitren!" Demitren looked over the newspaper, folded it, set it aside, and stood up. Jenosa was standing in her office doorway, and gestured for him to come outside. "The patrolman and woman who were in charge of the Teldore murder are in Conference Room 1B. They have their report and I want to hear it." Demitren walked outside, closing the door with Veteran Investigator, Nonrestricted painted on it (only a little slanted; it was his own handiwork). He glanced at his watch. "But the murder took place at nine this morning. It's only two in the afternoon!" Jenosa set a brisk pace. "It's possible, if it's a good patrol couple and if they work immediately, quickly, and efficiently, to cut the criminal off and get this over with almost instantly. In a case like this, you'd make contact through your headsets with patrol partners in neighboring beats, have them set up a blockade in a circumference if they're not too busy. NYCLE would send out emergency patrol pairs too. Then you investigate the immediate surroundings, find where the murderer was... It's plausible." Jenosa pulled up in front of the conference room. Pushing the door open, she had Demitren enter before she did, shutting the door behind her. Both studied the patrolman and woman who were standing on the other side of the table in the room, along with the white-haired captain that was accepting their report for the files. The patrol couple was wearing the newest patrol suits – full-body black jumpsuits like Jenosa's, but with blue and white edgings on the shoulders, elbows, knees, and stripes down the sides. Their gloves were white instead of black, and unlike Jenosa they had shoulder holsters with guns visible. They seemed about the same age, early twenties. He had caramel hair and an attempt at a flirtatious look that Demitren could scoff at – anyone who was attracted by that smile wasn't worth attracting. The girl's blonde hair was cut in a scruffy style, and her gloves were grasping a folder containing an untidy three-page file. Jenosa didn't seem impressed. "Where's the rest of your report?" she asked as she and Demitren sat down. The girl tossed it on the table and the boy said, "This's it." Jenosa and Demitren looked at each other. "That's it?" Demitren repeated. "There's no way," Jenosa said. "You'd need at least a murder's profile, a victim's profile, a crime scene profile, a report of arrest, a report of death, the involved weapon, the method of killing report, the contacts of the grieving loved ones – all of these being at least five pages each – and –" "Hold it, sister," the girl said in a drawling, lazy voice. "You're way overthinking this." "It wasn't a murder," the boy said. Both Demitren and Jenosa started. The girl continued. "We have here the victim's profile, with the list of contacts printed on the other side to save paper –" "A one page victim's profile?" Demitren inquired, stunned. "– the report of death, which includes the possibility of heart attack –" "Are you mental?!" gasped Jenosa. "– and the crime scene profile, which describes the crime perfectly," the girl finished. "It's simple," the boy said. "The victim was just walking –" "He was running as if his life depended on it," Demitren commented. "– down the street and got in the middle of a gang fight. An unfortunate casualty." "Wait, no –" "Gang fights happen all the time," the girl said, sounding bored. "He just happened to get caught in the crossfires. That happens all the time. And he died, so the gangs ran off. That happens –" "It does not happen all the time!" Demitren yelled. The boy shrugged. "Because it was an accident, we didn't press charges on anyone –" "Did you talk to anyone or even try to investigate?" Jenosa hissed. "– and we have efficiently closed a case that would waste a lot of time otherwise." Demitren and Jenosa looked at the captain, expecting him to join their side. Both were frustrated to see that he wasn't listening and even appeared to be napping. Jenosa turned back to the patrol couple as Demitren started to tickle the captain's mustache. "Show me what you have." The girl flipped the folder open, and she examined the files, with Demitren reading over her shoulder. The victim was Gerar Nilling, age 43. He worked as a manager of a TECHcorp in Manhattan. His residence was a nice respectable place on 10th Ave in Manhattan. He had no criminal record. On the back of the victim profile they found his wife, Keili Nilling, his two sons, Dedji and Forson Nilling, and his mother, who lived in a high-class nursing home in Manhattan. The death report was a waste of time; it gave the type of bullet (one that could be easily bought from anywhere in Bronx) that killed him, where he was shot (in the lung), and when he died (approximately ten minutes after being shot; never regained consciousness). The crime scene report was perfect apart from one detail. "You don't have written here where the shot was fired from," Jenosa said. "It could have come from anywhere," shrugged the patrolman. Demitren put his head in his hands. The girl took their report back, because Jenosa looked like she wanted to rip it to shreds. "Long story short, Gerar Nilling was killed by accident. He walked in the middle of a gang fight. The gangs scattered, and were not found." "Now all that remains," the guy said, "is for the captain here –" The captain in question finally came awake as Demitren yanked on his beard. "– to approve the closing of this case. Then we will inform the loved ones of the deceased of our conclusion, and –" Jenosa stood up, and the patrol couple fell silent. Putting her hands on the table, she leaned forward toward them, an ugly look of fury and incredulity crossing her face. "He was shot... in the lung... and there were no other shots to indicate a fight... he had been running..." "Long story short, you guys are the definition of laziness," Demitren said, disgusted. Jenosa reached forward and plucked the file out of the girl's hands. "We're taking on the case. Go get yourselves jobs in a hamburger joint. Come on, Demitren." "All right!" Demitren said, pumping a fist into the air as he and Jenosa left the conference room. He started singing, "On the case again...""Stop it." "You're no fun." The patrol couple tried to get around the table in time to stop them, but when they reached the hallway Jenosa and Demitren had gone. They looked to the captain, expecting him to do something, but he had already returned to his nap. *** "So what's first?" Demitren asked as he and Jenosa arrived in her office. She struggled to find her way to her desk. In the months since Demitren had first started working for her, the office had become gradually more crowded. His fedora hung from one corner of his straight-back chair (which he rarely actually sat on); her NYCLE bag was thrown in a corner on top of an old file cabinet dating back from 2103; files littered her large modern desk; two computers crowded his small wooden one; a holographic screen flitted in and out as the corner of a tossed binder pressed down on its power button. Jenosa flicked a newspaper to the floor, where it joined some others, then stepped over a pile of old records, which had spilled from an open file cabinet drawer, and tripped over Demitren's balled-up trench coat, which still lay where she had thrown it that morning. Catching herself on the bruising corner of her desk and stumbling into her seat, she threw the unsatisfactory report down and glared at Demitren. "See why I hate the office?" Demitren battled over to his own desk, grumbling, "Remind me why all these file cabinets are here in the first place?" Jenosa rubbed her eye with the ball of her hand. "You know Records on floor two?" Demitren nodded. "That's... hang on... the part of NYCLEHOL that keeps records on all NYCLE and NYCLEHOL activity, including arrests, raids, lawsuits; complete law enforcement history ever since the NYCLE's founding year, 2093." "That's them," Jenosa said. "This used to be – is – their extra storage room. For the oldest files." "Wait, Records has a whole floor to itself, right?" Demitren said. "Why's it have to invade your office?" "More like, my office invaded their closet," Jenosa muttered. "When they 'retired' me they just squeezed me into an available space." Demitren could hear the old resentment in that voice and tactfully moved on. "So a new case! We don't know much... Are we going to do recon?" "Recon" was what Jenosa called it when, in the beginning of an investigation, they searched for new information. She nodded and tossed open the file. "We need way more information on this Nilling person. That wasn't an accident, and we need to find out what connections he might have had that would get him enemies." "So the first stop is... ?" "Haven't I already quizzed you on this?" One of Jenosa's favorite teaching methods was pop verbal quizzes. Demitren shook his head, and Jenosa leaned back. "You should know this by now. We contact his closest relations. Here, I would say the wife." She looked at the contact list. "Keili Nilling. Age 39. Pull her up." This Demitren knew how to do. Shaking the mouse to wake his computer, he typed in the password for access to the city records and found the file on Keili Nilling. It had scanned copies of her birth certificate, driver's license, academic records, previous mailing addresses and resident addresses, marriage license, and employee records. Allowing the holographic screen to display his findings, he and Jenosa looked over what they found. Keili was a very attractive woman, even in her terrible driver's license photo (one eye was half-closed in a wince for this particular picture). She had completed college on academic scholarships and had paid off her student loans about a year before her first son was born. Her current occupation was a secretary for a manager of TECHcorp, which was apparently how she had met her husband. She had never lived outside of Manhattan, and to all appearances she was entirely respectable. "We'll arrange to interview her later," Jenosa said. "There's nothing to go on here. Pull up Gerar." Gerar Nilling was much the same as his wife. Attractive, despite the sloppy half-smile of his driver's license, he had also completed college and paid off student loans. His occupation was manager of a different branch of TECHcorp, one that worked often with his wife's branch. He had never left Manhattan, it seemed, though when he was twelve his address had changed from northern Manhattan to southern. "Aaaaand nothing here," Demitren said. "It seems like the whole darn respectable family is just that – respectable." "Poor luck for them," Jenosa said sympathetically. "That can't be any fun. But it doesn't explain what he was doing in Bronx. That's got to be the focal point. If we can find out what he was doing in Bronx in the first place... we can find out who wanted him dead." "So when do we talk with the family?" "First thing tomorrow." *** When Demitren left I stretched, put my feet back up on my desk, and closed my eyes. Another case... This would be our second one together. I hated to admit it to myself, but I was excited about it as he was. This meant that I could pepper his education with field trips outside of the office more frequently – although I refrained from singing for joy about it. The toe of my boot brushed yet another newspaper, and I snorted. Demitren's fascination with the things was just unnatural. He had gone loony when, after we succeeded in our first case, he and I had been in a newspaper article. He looked like such a little kid, running into the building and showing it off to everyone he came to, including that secretary (what was her name, Cindy?) at the front desk. I, personally, wasn't thrilled about the article. Crime Busters on the Rise? The mass kidnappings that have been ravaging the city for the past year have finally been stopped thanks to the efficient but questionable tactics of a new pair of crime-fighters. Jedosh Teclorn was arrested yesterday and charged with the abduction of sixteen kids and the attempted kidnap of one little girl. His last unsuccessful attempt was apprehended by NYCLEHOL employees Jenosa Parkings and Demitren Conin. Thirty-year-old Parkings was retired from her previous job as a patrol woman for the NYCLE five years ago after a serious misadventure, during which she placed herself and her partner at deadly risk, completely burned the left side of her body, leaving her hindered with TECH. Now serving the NYCLEHOL as a Veteran Consultant, she has been assigned an intern, Conin, and will doubtless teach him the same methods that made her both famous and in famous.After that it talked for a bit about how I had endangered the life of my intern by leading him into the kidnapper's grasp and how some officials in the city didn't feel that it was safe to keep me where I could continue to try and "play the game of hero." I told Demitren to burn the dang thing, but he had no intention of doing so. Never mind that they got his name wrong twice; he'd just cut out the headline, first couple lines, and the picture. Gad, that picture. I hate newspaper photographers! One had the nerve to try and get a close up of me! The picture they printed (with the caption "Protector or Menace?") showed my very close-up-furious face, part of my swinging fist, and Demitren trying to restrain me by grabbing onto one shoulder, laughing the whole time. Demitren thought it was the greatest thing ever. I'm not sure I understand that kid... Ever since then, the office has been stuffed with his stupid newspapers. Why can't he just get HED (Headline Events Daily) like everyone else? I tried to talk him into it, but he said that a plastic tabloid that just gets daily emailed newspapers wouldn't give him the pleasure of holding the paper. I'd like the pleasure of being able to stretch in my office without causing a mini paper avalanche. Still, though, he's not a bad kid. And I was willing to solve this case with him, even if it meant getting in another newspaper article. I only hoped that this time, I wouldn't collapse on the ground an embarrass myself, like I had at the conclusion of our last case. My illness, the Virus, has a terrible sense of timing, and thought that it would be a good idea to make my heart implode while I was trying to save over a dozen kids. Really now? It's not bad enough that I got the disease from the freak cyborg parts I have, but it has to make me an invalid while I'm rescuing children? That wasn't going to happen this time. I felt better than I had for a long time, with only the occasional bone being replaced with TECH in the last couple of months. This time, Jenosa Parkings was going to tackle the murderer in full health – and with full force.
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Posted: Fri Aug 05, 2011 6:29 pm
Chapter Two
NYCLEHOL was under strict transportation limitations: employees who had to do work outside of the actual office building had to take NYCLEHOL transport vans, which had hired drivers and were also severely limited in transportation in that they were prohibited from using certain roads, including the 4-30, a road built to decrease traffic congestion which overpassed all other roads at a staggering height.
Demitren hated the NYCLEHOL transport vans. White, large, and generally unwashed in the inside, the entire thing reminded him of a Happy Dinner box from McTECH he had once kept as a child. He had kept his chewing gum in it, despite the grease and ketchup stains that remained on the insides, and his mother one day found it as she was vacuuming under his bed, crawling with critters and what looked like five-legged mold.
At the end of his first case when Jenosa had been told that their kidnapper had been sited, she had insisted on using her old patrolwoman motorcycle instead so that they could arrive on the scene in fewer than three hours. The result had been, a week later, her serving detention in NYCLEHOL, and Demitren had to spend the following week hiding his chuckles as she ranted and raved about mopping the Level 3 (the floor that housed the many offices of head honchos whose jobs were well-paid but poorly explained to the public). Not wanting to spend another such week, the two had arranged for a van transport first thing in the morning. They estimated that driving from the NYCLEHOL building in western Queens to the Nilling house in northeastern Manhattan in a transport would take about three hours, so Jenosa had prepared an entire typed test for Demitren to complete and her to grade on the ins and outs of NYCLE. His score was an 87%; his main trouble spots were whether or not patrolmen received pensions (only after twenty years of service; retirement before then was rare) and –
"For the last time, Demitren, the patrol pairs are tested once every three months!" Jenosa said in frustration, scribbling at his test with a red pen that she had found under her seat. "Not two months, not once a month. And they are tested on FIT, remember? Fitness, Intelligence, Teamwork!"
"But what does that even mean?" moaned Demitren.
The driver parallel parked, pulled on the brake, and looked at Jenosa. "We're here, Teach."
"I'm not a Tea- "
"Whoa.
Jenosa broke off her rant and stared out the window along with Demitren. After three seconds she said, in an awed voice, "Whoa is right."
The house was built in the most modern structure. It was T-shaped, its top floor overhanging the lower branches of the L-shaped buildings to either side. Its roof was a greenhouse, and its windows probably doubled as translucent solar panels. Security measures were, for the most part, securely hidden, but Jenosa had put Demitren through a thorough training course for three grueling days involving home security, so he could determine that the door was both voice- and face-activated, the windows required fingerprint access and would be wired for alarms otherwise, the front gate spoke out loud to discourage unexpected visitors, and – though he couldn't be sure – the doghouse in the front yard actually housed a dog, the best protector of all.
Jenosa and Demitren stepped out of the van and towards the gate, which hailed them at Jenosa's touch. "Good morning. This is the Nilling residence. Are you expected?"
"Yes," said Jenosa.
"Do you have an appointment?" the gate asked again, either not having heard Jenosa or deciding that her voice sounded shifty.
"Yes, we have an appointment with Mrs. Nilling," said Demitren. Jenosa looked at the gate as though she was insulted that an entrance way was trying to act superior to her.
The gate opened as Keili Nilling opened the front door. "Don't mind the gate, come in," she said pleasantly.
Entering the Nilling house was like entering a magazine. Everything was so clean, yet so homely and welcoming, that Demitren half-expected both a robot serving drinks and kids playing a board game in the living room. Neither happened, however. The robot was asleep in the corner near the umbrella stand, and the kids were in school.
Keili Nilling had shoulder-length reddish-brown hair, hazel eyes, a wavering smile, and a graceful jaw. She looked cool and collected, but weary. Demitren had once helped interview three families who were grieving for missing children; now he was seeing a woman who knew that her husband would never return, her loss would last forever, so she must be strong enough to grieve without losing herself. His respect for her was in firm foundations before she asked them to sit down.
Jenosa seemed to respect her, to, but she was more concerned with the dead than the living. After the introductions, she signaled to Demitren, who already had his notepad out to take notes. Jenosa began with a few questions to make Keili feel comfortable. Keili answered with a steady voice. Gerar left for the office every day around ten in the morning. He ate breakfast at home, and packed a lunch because he had food allergies. He worked until five in the evening, and didn't generally leave the office beforehand. Doctors, dentists, allergists, chiropractors, and therapists were all stationed in Manhattan, and appointments were usually made on weekends. Otherwise, weekends were spent watching sports and his investment rates.
Questions then gradually became more personal, but Keili didn't waver. They discussed bills together before they were taken care of. Gerar had a cell phone but it was turned off on weekends and vacations. Gerar rarely used the internet, except for work or finances. He discussed his work week in advance with Keili so that she knew what to expect, and if something changed he called her immediately. As a couple, their communication was off the charts. He never tried to hide anything from her, never tried to escape the house, and never before had ever not been where she expected him to be – except for the morning of his death, when he was supposed to be at work.
Nothing more came out of the interview. Overall, Demitren got the impression that Gerar was a simple man with an ordinary, perfectly plain (though shiny) lifestyle. Loved his kids and wife, liked his job, liked his life in general. He didn't seem to have any outstanding characteristics, suspicious habits, or dark secrets. He even donated to charity out of his personal spending account.
With permission, the three stood for a tour around the house. Jenosa and Demitren wanted a sense of his lifestyle; environments often gave clues as to priorities and interests. Sadly, the two were disappointed. The bedrooms and kitchen were just as clean and perfect as the living room. It wasn't until they reached Gerar's study that the two dug up something.
It was certainly cleaner than Jenosa's office, and it bore the fingerprint of a man who was used to being rich – a trophy for stupendous achievement in the corporate world was being used as a paperweight, some champagne glasses had been left here and there on the table from when "Gerar used to come up here to show off his yearbook photos to his friends at parties." Yearbooks weren't the only things of sentimental value Gerar possessed; photos lined the walls and shelves and piled on the desk, in no particular order. Finally, a characteristic: Gerar was proud of his achievements as a high school student.
"Star of his baseball team," Keili said, smiling. "Valedictorian. Head of the debate club. President of the business club. So many achievements, so many plaques to fill... I don't think he'll ever... did ever look at any time the same way as he looked at those four years."
Jenosa examined each photo, scanning them all with her EYE. "Did he ever try to relive the glory days?"
"That's the thing," Keili said enthusiastically, "he didn't, not really. He'd talk about them all the time, but he didn't expect the same things from his kids, and he was looking forward to succeeding in the business world. He didn't regret leaving high school."
"Then why the sentimentality?" Jenosa muttered under her breath.
Demitren, across the room, was staring at a particular photo in the middle of the wall. "Hey, boss, come look at this."
It was a family portrait. Jenosa and Demitren recognized Gerar – younger than in his high school years, perhaps ten years old or so. With him were his father, his mother, and –
"Who's this boy?" Jenosa asked, pointing to the youngest face.
"Gerar's brother, Minik," said Keili.
"What happened to his brother?" Demitren asked.
"He... was arrested. For possession of Hype," Keili reluctantly told them. "Didn't you know?"
"Is he still alive?" Jenosa demanded.
"Yes, I believe –"
"I'm going to kill those two," Jenosa growled. "A living relative not on the contact list with a criminal history. I'm going to kill them."
"We'll be going now," Demitren said, steering Jenosa out the door.
Demitren and Jenosa returned to NYCEHOL around lunch time, and they split: Jenosa to the office, Demitren to have lunch with his only other friend in the establishment. Sunny Hills was the front desk secretary who punched all employees in as they arrived in the morning. Demitren always thought they had picked her for that particular task because of her name and her matching appearance: blonde hair cut in a boy cut, V-neck sweater vests over blouses with matching short preppy ties, pencil skirts, and a never-failing smile.
Demitren always packed a lunch, so he was looking forward to a side of ham sandwich with his nice, usually entertaining chat with Sunny. He expected her to be waiting for him with her cafeteria-bought salad. As usual, she was at their table; as was unusual, she seemed to have brought work with her to lunch. Her head was buried in a pile that, at first glance, was the usual load for a secretary – binders, cut outs, scraps of... fabric...
Demitren's brows furrowed as he rapped the desk counter to get Sunny to emerge from her pile of something. When she finally looked up, her forehead was as creased as his was. "What are you doing?" Demitren said, looking over her supplies. "What is this, a... guest list, a catering... catalogue... and... tablecloth samples?"
Sunny stared at him, frazzled. "It's about time you got here, I was about to go mad. Sit down, we only have fifteen minutes left in the lunch hour and I told Johnie that I'd have the table set up done by eight this evening when we met with the planner. Oh, I'm such a mess –"
"Sunny," Demitren said, cautiously, "are you... planning your wedding?"
The ring on her left hand glittered as she tousled her hair in frustration. "Who decided that weddings had to be such difficult events to plan?! I haven't chosen a dress yet, let alone veil, the color scheme hasn't been chosen so I can't do the bridesmaids or tuxes for the men, God forbid I can find a decent cake that doesn't have thousands of plastic-freaking-flowers, and –"
"Slow down, slow down," Demitren said, taking a bite of sandwich. "Give me the chance to congratulate you first on tackling such a big project. Then breathe and give me the basics. For example, I don't know, who are you marrying?"
Sunny stared at him blankly, then a smile slowly returned to her face. She laughed. "Good point. Thanks, Demi." She reached under her pile of things and pulled out a photo of a young man with laughing eyes, wavy brown hair, and a strong jaw with a light beard. "This is him, the most wonderful guy in the world. I met him in college and, well, we just didn't let go of each other. His name's Johnie Fields."
"Fields." Demitren looked at the photo, then looked at her face. "You're changing your name from Sunny Hills to Sunny Fields?"
Sunny clapped her hands over her eyes and groaned. "I didn't even notice that!"
"You're name's going to be a running gag in both sides of your family," Demitren informed her.
"I'm not as bad as my sisters," Sunny said, trying to organize the pile and take a bite of lettuce. "My older sister's Emerald Hills, and my younger sister's Rolanda Hills."
"Rolanda?"
"My parents tried to name her Rolling, but my aunt and uncles stepped in."
Demitren decided to set her odd parents aside. "When's the ceremony?"
"Way, way too soon," Sunny groaned. "Johnie and I were planning on some time next year, but we were just informed that his great grandmother has gotten sick, and she was such an influence in his childhood that he can't bear for the wedding to take place without her. That's his mother's official version, anyway. So it's rescheduled for later this month."
"What a mother-in-law."
"Yeah, and she's a great help in preparations." Sunny flung a binder across the table at him. "There's the catering catalogue. Some of the selections have notes on them about his family's least favorites and so on. I need four appetizers, three entrees, and ten desserts. You get going with that, then I can choose what color platters and silverware we'll –"
"Wait, why am I doing this?"
Sunny looked to the ceiling and spoke as if the answer was obvious. "You're going to help me with this, of course!"
"Since when was I a part of the wedding planning committee?" Demitren demanded.
"Since you started eating lunch with me. Ten minutes left in lunch, get going."
***
Some inner instinct told me that this Minik Nilling character was bad business. Or perhaps it was just the criminal record. Whatever the reason, I decided that he had some information that was vital. Gerar didn't just happen to be walking down the street in Bronx; according to the interview with Keili, his entire life took place in Manhattan. Gerar must have had some secret he had kept from his wife in order to be there – or else he had been the victim of a poorly done kidnap and was shot trying to escape.
A rich man like Gerar would be worth a lot of money, but the kidnap theory felt wrong. To net a fish that size, you'd make sure your net was strong. If he had been able to escape his captors just to get shot... Amateurs like that shouldn't be able to shoot him so well in that scenario. Surrounded by people and running. They'd have to be waiting for him.
Oh, ye gods, they were waiting for him.
No, it wasn't a kidnap. Someone wanted Gerar dead. And I had to find out why.
As I ate lunch, I filled out a few forms. One was for permission to interview Gerar's brother. It might be a long shot, but Minik might know something about Gerar's childhood that might tie in to Bronx somehow. The other form was filled out almost on a whim. I had always wanted to use this piece of equipment, and finally I had an excuse to use it!
Life was looking pretty good lately, if you disregarded rookie patrolmen who couldn't and wouldn't do their jobs. Their stupid new uniforms were too flashy, anyway. What did they think they were, models? No, besides those two idiots, life was definitely looking up.
Most of this was because the Virus had barely shown itself in the past few months. The doctor had assumed that, after attacking my heart, it would only spread faster to the rest of my organs. Yet in the months since my last case, the only thing that had been attacked were some bones, which used only cheap TECH, and a bit of muscle in my arm that was easily regrown, no TECH needed. Doc and I were both surprised. "By all intents and purposes, you should be dead now," Doc had said as he tested my arm for signs that the regrowth hadn't taken.
"I don't die or live based on what I should," I'd retorted, glad to see that my muscle was fine. "Do you think maybe it's..."
I had been afraid to say it, so the doctor did for me. "Gone? Fading? I don't know. It's possible that maybe your immune system..."
He paused, holding my arm in a rather uncomfortable position for a little too long as he thought. "It's possible that maybe your immune system has figured out how to fight this. I don't know if it'll kill it off," he had said quickly, to stem overly hopeful thoughts. "But it may be that your system has been fighting this long enough to figure something out that stalls it or contains it. If we look more into it, we could maybe develop something to help it..."
He finally let go of my arm. As I rolled it and massaged it, he had smiled. "Yes, I believe we have a chance."
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Aloysia Bloodfur Vice Captain
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Aloysia Bloodfur Vice Captain
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Posted: Thu Sep 15, 2011 5:26 pm
Chapter Three
Jenosa looked up as Demitren knocked on the door and entered the office. He looked apologetic as he jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "Sorry I'm late, I was planning a wedding."
At the look on her face he quickly backpedaled. "It's not mine! It's Sunny's! I'm just helping her out a bit."
"Sunny..." Jenosa concentrated, then asked, "That girl with the short yellow hair who handled my insurance paperwork when I was in the hospital?"
"Yeah, that's her," he said. "Congrats, you actually remembered someone's name."
"I remember people's names," she retorted. "I remember yours."
"Uh huh, three months after I started working for you."
"Sometimes it takes a while."
"Do you remember your doctor's name?"
Jenosa opened her mouth, closed it, and glared at him. "Why does it matter?"
"Snappy retorts, boss, your specialty," he said, removing his coat and hat. He cut off her next outburst by asking, "What is that?"
He was looking at a new addition to the room. Jenosa had made room for it by pushing his small desk and chair even further into the corner, throwing all the scrap papers into a pile, and piling a few file cabinets on top of each other. It resembled a foosball table; entirely black, it stood on four legs, and held a rectangular basin. On one side, a black control panel glittered with a blank screen and a few buttons. It looked completely pointless.
Demitren stepped backwards in surprise as Jenosa clenched her fists and chuckled with delight, enthusing, "I've always wanted one of these! It's a CSR, Crime Scene Re-enactor."
She took off her usual gloves and applied new ones that almost glittered, black with a few green wires extending from each finger. Curious, Demitren threw his coat and hat on a file cabinet. "Show me."
Jenosa pressed the power button, and a whirring sound filled the room. After a moment a jingle began to play, and the logo for TECHcorp swiveled in midair. Jenosa rolled her eye, complaining, "They have to put their ads on everything."
"TECHcorp made this?" Demitren asked as a loading bar replaced the logo.
"'Course," Jenosa said, "they're not the biggest entertainment and electronics brand for nothing. They make almost everything that runs off electricity. Here we go."
The CSR had finished loading. Demitren stared at the holographic image nestled within the black rectangular basin. "Is... is that..."
"Yep," Jenosa said excitedly, "a perfect model of a section of Bronx."
Demitren gazed in awe at the black display box. He was gazing at a little city, with every detail matched to perfection. He could even observe transportation, cars and pedestrians wandering around like tiny ants between the giant skyscrapers. "Amazing," he breathed.
"NYCLEHOL has hundreds of these, specializing on different parts of the city and its surroundings," Jenosa filled him in. "Satellites keep them updated on the latest changes. These are ideal for recreating any crime scene when you can't go there and reenact it yourself. I've always wanted to do this!"
"But how does it work?" Demitren wondered, trying to find some method of controlling the display.
Jenosa wiggled her fingers, and the hologram zoomed in, out, and sideways. "GT. Glove Technology. It allows me to interact with the display."
"I don't follow."
Jenosa gestured to the usual flickering holographic screen against the wall. "Try and interact with that using your hand."
Obedient, Demitren went and tried to click on an icon on the desktop. His fingers went through the screen, of course. "No surprises there."
"Now watch this." Jenosa put her hands into the display then made a motion like someone unfurling a map. Bronx zoomed in until they were viewing a barber shop and the busy traffic around it. "You can't interact with a hologram with bare hands because the hologram doesn't know you're there. But if I put on correspondingly programmed GT, the screen or display knows where my hand is and what it's doing. Certain moves are programmed to mean certain tasks. But for some, I use this keypad here," she said, gesturing to the few buttons on the side of the display. "Do me a favor and type in Teldore Street for me, please."
Demitren did, and the display zoomed to the correct street. Jenosa had the display zoom out a little bit, and he was staring at the street he had witnessed a murder on a few days ago. "This is so cool," he said.
"Now to complete the scene," Jenosa said. She topped her left palm with one finger, and instantly the street was full of people. In the air above the scene there was a bar with a sliding switch; the bottom of the bar was labeled Empty and the top was labeled Crowded. Jenosa pushed the bar to somewhere near the top, until the street was as full of people as it had been on the day of the murder, then pressed a button labeled Confirm. Next, she tapped her left palm with three fingers, and a window popped up in the air above the street. Demitren read the headline as NYCLEHOL Employees.
"Now we insert our required people," Jenosa said. "There are four lists automatically installed and updated, including NYCLE employees, NYCLEHOL employees, and 'common elements' – animals and such. Here, we can select..." She scrolled down the list and tapped a familiar picture. "... me, and..." She resumed scrolling and tapped another familiar picture, "... you."
A tiny perfect model of Jenosa and another tiny twin of Demitren were standing on the street.
"Now I can control their movements precisely," Jenosa said, and with a few intricate finger movements the tiny people were moving. Tiny Jenosa was looking around with her hands on her hips and a slight scowl on her face. Tiny Demitren was walking back and forth from tiny NYCLEHOL girls to tiny civilian girls, annoying each one individually to the point where they booted him away forcefully.
"Hey... I don't act like that," Demitren protested.
"Don't act like what?"
"Like an obnoxious idiot like that. I don't do that."
Jenosa sighed and tapped Tiny Demitren on the head. Tiny Demitren froze, and she began doing some more intricate finger work. Near the end Demitren recognized American Sign Language, but became distracted when his Tiny glowed blue briefly, shook its head, and began skipping up and down the street, singing in a high-pitched tiny voice, "On the case again! On the case again!"
"Now that's just not fair," Demitren grumbled.
Jenosa tapped Tiny Demitren twice on the head, and it held still. Turning her attention to the civilians, Jenosa used her fingers to deposit some people so that they congregated and milled about in the areas that had been the most crowded on the specific day. "Now, all we need is our victim. The fourth preprogrammed list is a list of unsolved-case victims, but because Gerar is currently being considered an accident victim, we're going to have to download him manually."
"And how are we going to do that?"
Demitren watched as Jenosa clapped her right fingers to her right palm. A window flashed on the display – Save – and Jenosa took off her gloves. Walking over to her desk, she picked up a small screwdriver. "We're going to use my EYE."
"... Say what?"
"Doc and I updated my EYE a couple months ago because he thought he saw warning signs that the Virus might attack there," Jenosa said. "I'm not sure if he was right or not, but while he was wiping the TECH down he gave me an upgrade. I have the option of recording what I see with my EYE. I turned the option on as soon as I heard the gunshot, so I have a video recording of everything that happened after. And from that, the CSR can take a profile of our victim."
"But where's your EYE's memory base?"
"In my head, of course. It's got very limited space, but once we solve this case I can back up the video on file and wipe it clean."
"But... How are we going to access this?"
Jenosa lifted the screwdriver meaningfully.
"Unscrew your head?!"
Jenosa sighed. "You're so hopeless. Hold this." Handing him the screwdriver, Jenosa put her hands to the left side of her head and began feeling around the hair above her ear. After a moment she pulled a section of hair aside, and Demitren saw a sleek, metal door. "The skin was flaking here anyway," Jenosa muttered as she took back the screwdriver, "so Doc took advantage of it and..."
"Do you want me to help?" Demitren asked as Jenosa struggled to fit the screwdriver into the tiny screw that was holding the door onto her head.
"I've... got it..." Jenosa muttered, finally getting the screw to twist out. Putting the screw and screwdriver carefully on her desk, she opened the door and pulled out –
"You have a USB cord... in your head," Demitren said.
Jenosa knelt next to the machine and plugged the cord in. "Yes, and it only goes about two inches, so you're going to have to do the typing for me," she said irritably.
Above the street a window had popped up that said Files Detected. Demitren put on the GT and selected Open and View. "Now what?"
"Do you see the movie clip?"
"Yes, and there's another one here –"
"Don't touch that!"
"Jenosa, why do you have a movie of me picking my nose?"
"I'm going to use it as blackmail in the future."
Demitren selected the appropriate video. "Now what?"
Jenosa gave him verbal directions as she watched what was going on through her peripheral vision. "Click Analyze, then Recognize, then click Individual, then sort through those until you find Gerar's face. Then click Select, and click Edit so you can clean the blood off of him... Yeah, now he looks normal. Now clap the fingers on your right hand against your right palm so it saves. Then click Eject.
Pulling the USB loose from the computer, Jenosa let the cord whirr back into place and closed the flap. "There, now we've got him in the system. Just a minute." Picking up the screw and the screwdriver, she attempted to return the screw. Unable to see, she kept poking herself in the scalp, feeling fruitlessly for the tiny hole the screw belonged in.
After a few painful minutes Demitren took off the GT and reached forward. "Let me."
"I've got it –"
"It'll be faster if I do it," Demitren said, taking the screwdriver and screw out of her fingers. As he put in the screw and began to twist it into place, he noticed that she was looking pointedly away from him, and his face was reddening from being this close to her. To snap himself out of it, he asked, "How long have you been able to do this?"
"Not long," Jenosa said, "only about a few weeks after the heart incident." Oh, how well Demitren remembered the near-death heart incident. "I had a bit of scalp flaking away and some little more flesh rot... Doc just replaced the space with a tiny memory chip and this USB cord. It's nothing big and I can't use it too often. But it proved useful here."
Demitren finished replacing the screw and, resisting the temptation to let his hand just accidentally brush her hair, gave the screwdriver back to Jenosa. "There. So now we have you, me, and Gerar on a busy street. Now what happens?"
Jenosa put the GT back on and tapped her left forefinger against her right palm. A mysterious tiny black figure appeared on the screen. "Murderer," she explained. Tapping two fingers against her palm, a window came up titled Weapon. Jenosa scrolled down to Bullet, which led to another window, where she selected .3 caliber.
Now the Tiny Murderer was holding a gun, thought Demitren couldn't determine what kind it was. "We don't know what kind of gun he used, and the CSR will help us determine what gun would be best for the situation in which Gerar was shot," Jenosa explained. "Now, we put the Murderer in Limbo –" She did this by double clicking on the Tiny Murderer and clapping her hands. He hung in the air above the scene, his legs swinging and arms waving like he had been hung on a peg. "– and we reenact the crime."
Demitren had trouble seeing Jenosa's hands as she wiggled them, tapped them, folded them, slapped them to create the effect she wanted, touching the Tinies to put them where she wanted them. Finally, she pressed the tips of her right thumb and right ring finger together, and a box in the display came up saying Saving, Please Wait.
"I think I can play it back now," Jenosa said as they were waiting.
"When'd you learn all this?" Demitren asked. "I mean, all the hand signals required to run the CSR."
"I just got this yesterday," Jenosa said. "I just read through the user manual and my EYE memorized them for me. Here we go."
The CSR had finished saving. Jenosa put her right fist against the back of her left hand, and red letters, Play, blinked above the street. Tinies began to move of their own accord as Jenosa narrated. "We're walking east on Teldore, he's running west. He's looking repeatedly behind himself, he's panting, he's flushed, he's red and sweaty. He's been running for a while and acts like he's being followed. Then –"
There was a gunshot. Tiny Demitren grasped at his chest and fell screaming. Real Demitren narrowed his eyes and whined, "That's not fair, boss."
Jenosa's chuckle was almost a giggle as a window flashed, First crime completed. Second Crime: Play. "You're the one who says I have no sense of humor. Here's the real thing."
Demitren recognized the crime this time. As before, Tiny Jenosa and Demitren walked east, and Tiny Gerar ran west in the same panicked, hunted manner. Then there was a gunshot, and Tiny Gerar clutched at his chest, fell to his knees, died.
Jenosa tapped the side of her right little finger against the back of her left hand, and the crime paused. Reaching into the display, she made the motion of unfurling a map, and the image zoomed in on dead Gerar, making him a Midget instead of Tiny. She dragged her right fist against her left hand toward the left, and the crime rewound until she stopped moving. Midget Gerar was in midstep of running.
Jenosa tapped her right fist against the back of her left hand again. The crime replayed, and Demitren watched again. Gerar was shot. He clutched his chest, leaning back slightly from the impact, and fell to his knees. He went from there to forward on a slant, unconscious. As Demitren remembered, he would die roughly ten minutes later.
"Wait a minute." Jenosa rewound again, played it again, and rapped her right knuckles against the back of her left hand to make it play in slow motion. "Watch this. He's on a bit of an angle because he was just looking over his shoulder and he's turning back around. He's shot in his... right lung. He clutches at the wound and momentarily leans toward the... right and back. Following the motion of the bullet."
She paused and zoomed the image back out. A quick series of hand gestures and words flashed across the display: Bullet placed in fatal wound. Bullet tracked. Please provided suggested trajectory path. Bullet track being placed. And a red dotted line appeared, reaching from the point of initial contact with Gerar to...
"The roof of a building on the opposite side of the street, next to the one he was opposite from, towards the west," Jenosa noted. "It's a building that rents rooms out to offices and shops. Called the..." she checked the screen's label, "... Thomson Building."
She double-tapped the building, and a window appeared, giving a blueprint of the Thomson. "Someone could just walk in and take stairs all the way up," Jenosa noted. "Maybe the door to the roof was locked, but a little picking can do wonders."
Removing the blueprint, Jenosa took down the Tiny Murderer from where he was still hanging and placed him on the opposite end of the dotted red line. Tiny Murderer hefted his weapon and took aim. "For a distance like that, they'd ideally use a rifle," Jenosa said. "We can research .357 caliber rifles later. So now let's play it over."
They watched the murder one more time. Tiny Gerar ran, panicked, into the Tiny Murderer's line of vision. There was a break in the crowds, and the Murderer fired. A tiny line followed the bullet's progress, then Tiny Gerar was shot, unconscious, tended to, dead.
"That's our crime scene," Jenosa said. "Considering the little knowledge we currently have, we've recreated it perfectly."
"And we know where the murderer was posted," Demitren said. "Pretty good success."
Jenosa rearranged the image, organizing a bit of the post-mortem chaos, so that the crime scene could be surveyed easily. Then she stood back and said, "I want you to tell me what's wrong with this picture."
Demitren raised an eyebrow. "I thought you just said that we reconstructed it perfectly."
"Oh, we did," Jenosa agreed, "but what's wrong with the crime scene?"
Demitren gazed at the display, thinking hard. Jenosa waited, for once patient. After a few minutes Demitren said slowly, "It doesn't make sense."
Jenosa nodded. "Explain."
His words came slowly as Demitren thought aloud. "It doesn't make sense to shoot him there. I mean, wouldn't it be easier to get him on a backstreet, shoot him, dump his body in a dumpster somewhere and run? They announced his death for all the world to see and risked getting caught. Why do it there? Especially because it would be easier to shoot him at close range when he isn't moving... Why was he running? What was he running from? And how did they know he'd be running from them? Whoever was chasing him and whoever shot him must have been working together. So..."
His eyes widened in horror. Jenosa had removed the GT and stood with her hands on the corners of the CSR, eyes glaring at the Tiny Murderer. "Exactly. Someone, probably a group of them, herded him to that exact location, where the killer was waiting for him."
"Like chasing a wild animal into a trap," Demitren said quietly.
"They're hunters," Jenosa said with disgust. "They know what they're doing and they don't flinch doing it. But there's one last bit to this."
Demitren thought more. "All that really bothers me is how they did it, where they did it. It was so risky. It got so much attention... And they should have known that. They did know that." He looked up at the ceiling, running his hands through his hair. "They knew that. They wanted people to know what they'd done. They wanted people to know who they'd killed."
Jenosa nodded. "Exactly." She continued glaring at the Tiny Murderer, who was still aiming his gun at Gerar. "They were sending a message. The questions are, what was the message... and who was it for?"
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Posted: Sun Jan 22, 2012 6:41 pm
Chapter Four
Demitren and Jenosa didn't even enter the office the next morning before heading out to State Prison to interview Minik Nilling.
It was a long drive, both because they used NYCLEHOL transport and because the new prison was located in Queens. So Jenosa actually sat in the back seat with Demitren and they did some training on...
"Today, we are doing guns." Jenosa slid the objects of discussion across the seat to Demitren's side.
Demitren looked at the guns without touching them. "Uh, do the head honchos know you have guns in the transport?"
Jenosa ignored him. "I gave you a study sheet a month ago. Today's your quiz. Identify these."
Demitren took them one at a time, holding them gingerly – he wasn't fond of guns. She sighed. "None of them are loaded. Even if you were to accidentally pull the trigger, it wouldn't be able to go off."
Feeling more confident, Demitren was better able to examine the first one. "This is a... Beretta Storm, Generation 12. Caliber .4. Civilian use, not usually carried by NYCLE staff. Found in some Brooklyn districts commonly." The next one was "Kel-Tek Generation 9. Very old style and hardly ever used. Can be found in Bronx. .32 caliber." He next picked up a "Glock 35. Very excellent. .357 caliber. Used by nearly all NYCLE patrolmen." And the last specimen was a "Korth... Combat?"
"Sport."
"Korth Sport. .22 caliber, another common choice by NYCLE patrolmen."
Jenosa nodded and put the guns back into a line. "I got two crappy guns and two excellent guns on purpose. I wanted you to feel them for yourselves. These old ones here; well, if you're in close range, I guess they'd kill your target. But the Glock and the Korth Sport are the trusty ones."
Demitren put his eye over them again, then looked at Jenosa. "But what about the guns you have up your sleeves?"
Jenosa turned away for a moment with a heavy exhale that Demitren was tempted to define as a sigh. She looked out her window for a moment, and shook her arms.
Two guns slid down the sleeves and into her waiting hands. She twirled them, looking at them for a moment, then passed one to Demitren. "Identify it."
He examined it carefully, knowing this one was loaded. But his eyes widened with surprise. "It's a taser."
"A tranquilizer," she corrected him, and her voice got bitter. "A common, paper-thin tranq. There's only enough juice in each of these to knock a person out once. When I was 'retired' from patrol, they took away my gun license."
"They can't do that unless there's –"
"– a misuse. They said that I 'misused' my guns when chasing down that arsonist."
The arsonist; the last criminal Jenosa had caught as a patrolwoman, and the one who had burned her entire left side. Demitren frowned. "You didn't use your gun with the arsonist, did you?"
"I shot at him once as he was running," Jenosa said. "I missed and hit the sprinkler system, so it didn't work to let out the fire."
"But he always shut off the sprinklers anyway, so it's not like your shot did any extra damage."
"At least someone gets it," Jenosa muttered out the window. She sighed again and took her tranq back. "I got these about two years later."
Demitren cracked a smile. "Let me guess: when you sneaked out of your office window to track down the cross dresser who was harassing girls in Central Park?"
"Cross dresser nothing, he was an armed robber and they knew it!" Jenosa snapped, then she paused. "Wait, how did you know?"
"It was in the newspapers."
"Still, the fact that you thought of that specific case so quickly is kinda..."
"Cool?"
"Creepy."
"Close enough."
"Well, yes, it was then when they decided that if I was going to keep breaking out of the office, I should at least be able to defend myself," Jenosa sniffed. "If you remember he gave me four broken ribs."
"And shot your foot."
"Still have the scar."
"Newspapers never said it left you with a scar, I thought they regrew your foot seamlessly."
"Newspapers got that wrong, t– wait, do you memorize every newspaper you read?"
"Only... certain articles..."
Jenosa looked at him askance, but moved on. "So they gave me tranqs. I found that some people can't tell the difference between tranqs and some of these newest crappy guns out there – like?"
"Like the... the... Paper Machete."
"Paper Machine, get it right."
"Caliber .0007, deadly when to the temple or eye."
"So I often fake them as Paper Machines. But they're tranqs, and really poor ones at that."
Demitren filed that away with his growing stock of information and turned to look out the window.
Pulling up to the jail was a solemn occasion. Even in a verified NYCLEHOL van, they had to get through several kinds of security just to reach the gate that would ask them for their names and appointment. After that were scans and checks and another bout of questioning, where Jenosa did all the talking. About half an hour after getting in the doors, they were taken to a room with padded walls, a table, and a young man in handcuffs and chains.
Minik Nilling had black hair that hung long over his eyes. He was lean but muscular, and he sat with his hands folded on the table. He gazed at the two with curiosity as they entered; he waved a hand to the guard and said, "Thank you, Paul. I will call you when it is time to serve the tea."
"I ain't your butler and you know it," the guard said stiffly, motioning to the two NYCLEHOL employees to sit in chairs opposite the criminal.
Minik sniffed. "I should hope not. If I had a butler, he would be sure to chain my feet to the floor with something much more comfortable than these rusty clankers."
Demitren started with surprise and suppressed the urge to look under the table. Chaining feet to the floor was reserved for special criminals.
Jenosa waved the guard away. "We got this, thanks." He nodded and walked out, closing the door. Demitren and Jenosa both knew that one of the walls was a two-way mirror and that there were men on the other side who could hear every word that was said.
Jenosa gestured to Demitren, even though he already was digging for his notebook and pen. "Minik, we're here to talk about your brother."
"What about him?" Minik snorted, leaning back in his chair.
"I don't suppose you know that he was shot and killed –"
"On Teldore Street a few days ago," Minik said. "Yeah, I heard. They let us watch the news in here, you know."
"Are you surprised your brother is dead?" Jenosa asked.
"Doesn't matter much to me either way," Minik said with a shrug. "If he got shot it's his own damn fault."
"That doesn't answer my question," Jenosa said, more sternly. "I didn't ask if you cared. I asked if you are surprised."
Minik tilted his head, considering her, then said, "The TV said it was an accident. You figger otherwise?"
Jenosa stared at him, hard, then shifted her position in the chair. "Let's talk about you and your brother. What was it like growing up together?"
Minik snorted. "Wouldn't hardly know. When our parents divorced Mom took Gerar and Dad took me. We didn't meet up again until Dad died and I went to live with Mom."
"And how old were you then?"
"Fourteen, freshman in high school. Gerar was a junior."
"That makes you... thirty-nine now."
"Yeah, what's it to ya?"
"What was it like, coming in to high school as the freshman little brother of a boy you'd never really known?"
Minik made as if to put a foot up on the table, but the chains jerked his leg back. He snarled, "Terrible. Gerar was king of the school already. He and his little group of top-notch friends."
Jenosa nodded as if understandingly. "He was already in the baseball team, debate club, and business club, correct?"
Surprisingly, Minik laughed. He leaned forward and put his elbow on the table, gesturing. "Let me tell you something, chick. You think being valedictorian and all that s**t made him the king of the school?"
Demitren's pen hovered over the notebook. "We were under that impression, yes."
Minik laughed again. "I'm already in the clappers for drug-dealing, and with Gerar safe and sound underground I see no need to hold back on ya." He put his chin on top of his hands and smiled. "We went to what they call an 'inner-city school,' you understand. To be great in that school..."
"... You had to be in a gang," Jenosa finished for him, leaning back and closing her eyes. "Go on."
Minik chuckled as he spoke. "They called themselves River Rats, can you believe that? Biggest drug dealers in the land-locked school and they called themselves River Rats. Of course, I could laugh at them all I wanted, but I had to join that gang. So I got to know my brother very well. He wasn't gang leader, of course. The gang was new and very poorly organized. The only thing holding them together was the little bit of money their provider let them keep. Of course, I didn't really think much of that, myself. If they wanted to be a gang, they had to be a gang, you know?"
Jenosa tapped the table. "Listen, unless this has anything to do with who would want to shoot Gerar, please get a move on."
"Pressed for time, chick? No worries, whoever wanted him dead won't go anywhere," Minik said calmly. "Way I see it, they've got this crime air-tight. You can't chase anyone down, so they won't run and leave their long-defended territory behind."
Jenosa tapped the table again, so Minik took a breath and continued. "Gerar took those business club classes in an attempt to figure out how to make our gang life a proper business. Stupid lout was all caught up in the ideas of respectability, you see. He wanted the gang business to be a way to, let's see, 'a way to earn extra pocket money until such times as we can afford to make businesses that will properly support us.'"
Demitren's mouth quirked. "Come to think of it, Gerar's respectable appearance doesn't seem to fit the mold of a gang."
Minik cast Demitren a scornful glance. "Gerar's main goal was to be rich. He figured that would give him the shiniest appearance out there, and he figured drugs were the quickest way to get a start. That's why he and his friends got into the business, but appearances don't keep you in the illegal streets, you know? So I started trying to change that as I got in. Weren't too hard, I made quite an impression."
Jenosa smiled grimly. "I expect you did."
Minik put his hands up into the air. "Now, wait a minute, I was arrested as a street-corner vender, not a gang boss, remember."
Jenosa nodded. "But you gave your brother a run for his money, didn't you?"
Minik smiled modestly. "Well, I was stronger." Coughing into a fist, he resumed his tale. "I got the gang to on its feet, you might say. Helped advise them to open their business a bit, keep some of the cash for themselves without telling the provider. Oh, and changed the name to Rodents. Better suited what we were, you know?"
"And aren't now?" Jenosa asked.
"Nah," said Minik. "Gerar graduated and the gang slowly broke up as all his friends followed him to become 'respectable.' I stayed in the drug business, kept loyal to my provider – he's in here, too, by the way, don't go looking for him. Besides, he never met Gerar. Gerar had his appearance to keep up and couldn't risk being seen with the creep on the street corner, so it was usually me or another younger kid who did it."
"Provider's codename was?"
"Giraffe. Didn't have a neck, you see, so it was his little joke."
"And his real name?"
Minik shrugged. "Kyle som'et-or-other, I think. Don't quite recall."
"Last couple questions. Do you know what did happen to Gerar after high school?"
"Nope, not until I heard he was shot. See," Minik said, leaning back in his chair, "Gerar's head was so full of the rich appearances that he didn't want to see me again. Reminded him too much of where his filthy money originally came from, you know?"
"But you think he dropped the drug business."
Minik closed his eyes and nodded. "Gerar's plan always was, use the drug money to get a head start, then do the rest of it honestly. That doesn't mean –" he said, opening one eye and lifting a finger "– that he wouldn't have active enemies still. Depending on how he got out of the drug business... Well, if he had some dirt, old grudges die hard on the streets."
"Demitren, rip a piece of paper out of that notebook, please."
Demitren did as Jenosa asked, sliding the paper and the pen across the table to her. She slid it in turn across to Minik and said, "Could you do us a favor and write the names of the people who were ever, at any time, a part of your gang?"
Minik raised his handcuffed hands and grinned. "Hard to write in the clappers, chick."
"Try," Jenosa said, grinning back.
Minik did, and the list had a pretty long total. "Most of the kids in all of Gerar's clubs, 'specially the baseball team," Minik explained, tossing the list back. "Anything else?"
Jenosa thought for a moment. Demitren's pen once again hovered over the paper, but after a sufficient wait he capped it. Jenosa nodded. "We might be back, but you've given us something to go on."
Minik looked surprised. "Did I? How careless of me." He smiled. "I do hope you come again. I'll call my butler, shall I?"
Jenosa stood and Demitren followed. "No need, we can show ourselves out, Your Druggie Highness," Demitren said, packing his notebook away.
Back in the van a while later, Jenosa was back in shotgun, feeling no further need to sit in the back. She reached back and put her hand out. "Notebook."
Demitren surrendered it and watched as she flipped through his notes. After a pause she asked, "What'd you think?"
Demitren shrugged. "Honestly, I feel like I learned more about Minik than about Gerar in that interview."
"We found out Gerar was a teenie druggie. That doesn't shock you?"
"Oh, it did at first," Demitren said, "but I'm sure a lot of respectable people got in trouble as kids."
Jenosa glanced askance at him with a hint of interest. "So what did you learn about Minik?"
Demitren thought about it. "His speech was very irregular for a kid who went to an 'inner-city school.' Much like Gerar's, I expect. He was probably raised to believe in appearances as well, but he used it in a different angle than Gerar. Gerar wanted to be seen in the sophisticated society. Minik probably spoke properly and behaved like a king to stand out on the streets."
"Standing out on the streets is dangerous, especially if you're a solo street vender," Jenosa said.
"Which suggests to me that Minik was lying," Demitren said.
"Oh, he was lying almost the entire time," Jenosa said, tapping her EYE. "According to this, his blood pressure yo-yo'd through the whole interview. Trouble is, I can't tell just how much he was lying about. Only way we'll find out," she said, pulling out the list of gang members Minik had given them, "is by investigating these people here."
"Worth a try," Demitren said, sitting back in his seat. "Oh, one more thing about Minik."
"Yeah?"
"Gang members are like family members, right? They're not just business partners. They group together for protection." Demitren scratched his chin thoughtfully. "Why would a gang just disintegrate peacefully like that?"
Jenosa shrugged. "Again, we'll figure that out by finding these people. Though I'm almost certain the story they give us will be completely different to Minik's."
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Aloysia Bloodfur Vice Captain
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