The hum of Marcello’s car’s engine died down as it settled into a parked position at the side of the street. Out the passenger side window was a building not unlike any other, an almost sterile-looking building, the faint gray metal stainless and smooth. Windows lined the many-story building, lights from within dotting the occasional unit. A radial light circled the building near its top like a halo, illuminating the area around it for night-time walking, or even just overcast skies common of the autumn season. It was a more modern style of apartment complex, standing in unity with those of its likeness along the street.
Not every Harbington resident lived in a cozy little cabin in the woods. The population may not have been very numerous, but domes were often sectioned into very specific parts. Industry, commerce, and residence all had their place, and so in the residential sector there were many buildings like the one Marcello and Eddie beheld just then. Address numbers painted onto the side of every building prominently set one apart from another, though they were otherwise cloned in appearance with no one building having something the others did not.
The building the detective and Arbitrator pair sought out had a large number 9 displayed on the side of the building and circled in black paint. They only took a moment to observe the building together standing side by side before making their way inside. The fascination was far from the building being unique and they had seen them countless times before. It was more that they needed to commit it to memory in case something actually turned up from the Procsman lead.
As the glass door slid open and welcomed them inside, Eddie pushed his hand into the pocket of his duster to take out a cloth inside. He used it to dry his antlers of the spitting rain from outside. Unlike the day before the rain in Harbington had let up, granting the people a little respite from the cold, swampy atmosphere. The weather outside hadn’t taken a turn for much better, and Eddie had been paying more attention to what was going on outside the dome rather than inside. Had he known it was going to rain even more, he would have worn his antler-cozies… but he was more concerned about what his son had to be dealing with.
Of course, if Mrs. Procsman could tell him something useful, he’d be that much closer to getting Daxton back.
Marcello took Eddie’s cloth away without even asking, capturing his attention as she dried off her esca piercing.
“I’ve never been on an investigation before,” Eddie confessed.
Marcello stuffed the cloth back into Eddie’s pocket herself before moving on towards the lift. “It’s not rocket science,” She said, “It’s just asking questions.”
Eddie was no stranger to asking questions, not in his line of work. It was his job to gauge public interest in numerous affairs, after all, and he was on a need-to-know basis with what Harbington needed to know. “Really, that’s it?” He asked. He was a little in disbelief, enough so that it took him a moment to remember that he was the one leading the detective to where she needed to go. He quickly pushed the button for the third story.
“That’s it,” Marcello was swiping her hands over the sleeves of her jacket to flick off errant water droplets, “Well, and drilling.”
Eddie cocked a brow, “Drilling?”
“It’s not enough to ask questions, you also have to get answers,” Marcello explained, “We’re going in a little blind right now, but sometimes you have to know what your suspects know before you know they really know them.”
“Uh, what?” Eddie blinked. The lift’s half-circle doors parted from the center to welcome them in with a comforting waft of warm air.
Marcello grinned knowing just how ridiculous that sounded as she stepped onto the lift, “You heard me.”
“Sounds like suspect manipulation,” Eddie mumbled as he stepped on and stood facing the glass wall that showed off an outside view of the unity park shared by that apartment and all the other complexes around it. Despite the bad weather, young children were playing on the swings and climbing all over the tall oak that stood as a central point for the park.
“It’s evidence-based,” Marcello shrugged as she watched the children as well. They gradually got smaller as the lift rose higher. “You’ll see,” She added.
The doors opened to a corridor lined with doors that lead into the residents’ apartments. Marcello and Eddie walked until they reached the eighth room marked with the number 308 upon the door. This belonged to Mrs. Debbie Procsman. Eddie knew her to be a fairly old woman of eighty-seven years, widowed as of six years ago, living alone. He didn’t know she had a son, but of course that information wasn’t exactly useful up until that point. He still had to really try and wrap his mind around how someone could fall in with some gun-toting fugitive group, let alone someone from Harbington. Hopefully Mrs. Procsman would have some answers.
Without any hesitation, Marcello knocked on the door. Eddie just stayed quiet, but he had a feeling he knew what was going to happen. No answer came at first, so after a few seconds Marcello tried again. She rapped on the door with her knuckles with more impatient urgency before waiting again for an answer. Nothing came, yet again, and so she tried one last time to knock. This time it was a bit more frantic and even had a little rhythm to it.
“Mrs. Procsman?” Marcello called, “HDPD!”
Nothing.
Eddie took a deep breath, “I suppose she’s not--”
Before Eddie could finish, a muffled voice came from behind the door, “What do you want?” The old woman’s tone was sharp.
Marcello looked at Eddie, then to the door she was supposedly going to be talking to. “I need to ask you a few questions,” She explained. She didn’t follow it up with a polite inquiry or request for invitation – she was very curt and direct, in fact.
“I don’t have answers,” The voice, supposedly Mrs. Procsman said, “Go away.”
“Polite,” Marcello huffed.
“Mrs. Procsman?” Eddie tried his luck.
There was a silence before the door opened just a crack. They couldn’t see much of the woman behind it aside from her scaly green skin that looked cracked with age and one somewhat vibrant blue eye. “Is that Arbitrator Kemberge?” She asked, “What do you want?”
Eddie smiled at Marcello before turning his attention to the elder reptile. “I’m here with Detective Marcello from the HDPD,” He explained, “It’s… about your son.”
Mrs. Procsman’s eye shifted its gaze in a few directions before she asked, “What’s happened to Kris?”
“We were hoping you could help us find him,” Marcello said, “We feel he may have some information we need, and we understand that he’s living here with you.”
The door closed, and a few clicks of unfastened locks sounded before it opened once again to Mrs. Procsman. She was a shriveled old shrew, a gecko or some sort of reptile by the looks of things. Her face was wrinkled with age – she was just rounding the bend into the latest in the average human’s life-span, and it had really started to show. She wore a sweater that looked like it had seen better days; the violet wool was frayed and sloppy. She wore some sort of burgundy pants and some slippers on her feet. Despite the fact she was evidently mottled by age, her blue eyes had a striking bit of colour that offset the paled green age she otherwise wore. Her body trembled beyond her control, something the detective and Eddie politely ignored.
The elder woman stepped back and invited the pair inside before shutting the door behind them. She then pushed passed Marcello so she could step out of the foyer and into the living room, skipping whatever pleasantries would be custom for visitors. Her gait was a shuffling one.
“I haven’t seen Kris in almost a year,” Mrs. Procsman came forth rather bluntly, “He moved out to work on The Ring. He couldn’t live here because he needed to be up there more often than the orbit schedule made time for.”
Marcello and Eddie put their coats up on the nearby pegs that served as hangers. The apartment was a small one, typical of the sort of living conditions that were affordable, yet comfortable. There were no stairs, most of the rooms were clearly carpeted with a plain brown carpeting, and the kitchen looked just barely big enough to cook in. Looking around, it was obvious there was only one bedroom. Already theories spun in Marcello’s mind about how Kris lived with his mother in such a small space. He must not have had his own bedroom… he may have slept on the couch or something to that effect. She was looking for any belongings or effects that would belong to Kris, but nothing stood out. For all intents and purposes, Debbie Procsman lived alone.
“What does he do up there?” Eddie asked as he stepped into the woman’s living room with his partner.
Mrs. Procsman had settled herself into a recliner – an act that seemed to prove somewhat difficult, as if her bones were all stiff. “Pushes boxes around or something,” She waved a hand dismissively.
Marcello squinted a little, her eyes on just about everything except for Mrs. Procsman. “When was the last time you heard from him?” She asked.
The old lizard didn’t even have to think about her answer for long. “He used to send me messages once a week for a little while,” She said, “But that stopped after about two months, so… it’s been eight months since I’ve gotten more than the occasional message on my PET. He doesn’t even call.”
There was a frustration in her voice that betrayed her worry that had been growing beneath the surface. She gave it away when she asked, “What happened? What did my son do?”
There was a certain amount of tact necessary for dealing with a mother who suddenly began to realize that it was possible she didn’t know every detail about their child’s life. It was probably the first time Debbie Procsman considered that Kris may have kept a secret from her that was actually very important to know. This was no secret like a perverted interest or something, but a secret that had brought a detective from the HDPD to her home. She stared, quivering, directly at Marcello. It was like Eddie was no longer in the room.
“He simply may know something about a person or persons I am trying to track down,” Marcello offered, “Nothing else.”
Mrs. Procsman wrinkled her nose. “I don’t believe that,” She spat. She rose from her chair slowly and got to her feet where she then shuffled over to Marcello. “If my boy is in trouble I expect you to tell me,” She said.
Marcello kept a stiff jaw. “I’ll have to go track him down before anyone can say anything for sure,” She said, “Simple as that.”
Sensing that Mrs. Procsman may not have been entirely satisfied with the response, Eddie cut in, “Mrs. Procsman…”
“What is going on?” The woman spat in frustration and turned to Eddie, “First we get invaded, aliens are crawling around, and now my son is being tracked by the police? Whoever asked for such a thing?”
The grouchy old woman’s gruff exterior crumbled to expose a distraught mother. Eddie gently placed his hands on the much shorter, much older woman and looked down at her. “Debbie, don’t worry,” He said, “Things are difficult for everyone right now, but we’ll pull through just fine.”
“He’s a good boy, Arbitrator,” Mrs. Procsman sniffed, “He just wanted to help.”
It sounded as if she knew that Kris had fallen into a bad place. She wasn’t making excuses – the words she spoke were the truth.
“No one ever said otherwise,” Marcello crossed her arms, “And that has no bearing on…”
“He sounds like a fine son,” Eddie cut in, “One to be proud of. Thank you for letting us know where we might find him. When we see him, we’ll tell him to give you a call.”
Marcello breathed out a little huff and remained silent. Mrs. Procsman nodded once and said, “You’d better! Now if that’s everything, I kindly ask you to get out of my house.”
Eddie sort of chuckled and released the old woman. “We were just leaving,” He said and then moved to Marcello, “Detective.”
Marcello’s eyes wandered. “Yeah,” She said, “We can work with that… Do you know where on The Ring he was working? A designated warehouse or residency?”
Mrs. Procsman stalked over to her chair and bent down to pick up her PET from a side-pouch that must have been attached to the recliner. “I don’t remember off of the top of my head,” She huffed. She took the device over to Marcello and simply held it out after accessing her messages. “I’ll just give them to you,” She instructed.
Marcello, surprised, fumbled for her PET in her pocket. She quickly unlocked the device to accept the local file transfer from Mrs. Procsman and breathed out a little sigh. “Thanks,” She said, “This will help for sure.”
The transfer took mere seconds, and once completed Mrs. Procsman sulked back to her chair and settled herself in it again. “When I get my hands on that boy I’ll give him such a talking to,” She grumbled, “Making me worry like this, he should know better.”
Eddie’s eyebrows upturned and he couldn’t help but smile a little in understanding. “Thanks, Mrs. Procsman,” He said as he rested his hands on Marcello’s shoulders and started to guide her out of the apartment, “We’ll be leaving now.”
Mrs. Procsman just grunted her goodbye.
Eddie and Marcello gathered their coats and threw them on before leaving out into the hall. The detective looked up at Eddie with a bit of a frown. “You almost politely excused us without having a very important piece of information,” She said, “Rookie mistake.”
Eddie started off down the hall back towards the elevator, shrugging a shoulder. “Well, you can’t really talk to a parent about their relationship with their child if you aren’t a parent yourself,” He called back, “Suspects have feelings too, you know.”
Marcello followed him, walking right up to the lift doors as he pressed the button to call it. “Don’t take this too lightly,” Marcello said, “We can’t even really guarantee that her son is…”
“Yeah,” Eddie cut her off promptly. He took his PET out of his duster’s inside pocket as the lift doors opened and they stepped on together. He went quiet as he tapped the screen and flipped through menus. “The skylift to The Ring ought to be aligned in a couple days, so we can head up then,” He informed his partner.
Marcello squinted. “We?” She asked.
“Mm,” Eddie nodded, “They have their own little world up there in space. If they’re going to let you poke around, you’re going to need a representative from Harbington to back you up. The Ring is outside of our boundaries – our jurisdiction – you know.”
Marcello looked up at Eddie and let out a sigh. She wasn’t sure quite what to say to him, but she wasn’t prepared to outright deny his request to tag along in her investigation. “Alright, you’re probably right,” She conceded, “So what will you do until then?”
“I suppose it’s up to me to work with your police chief and security on the Ring to get you cleared to head on up,” Eddie stuffed his PET back into his duster, “That and… Edward’s been worried. He’s not taking this whole thing very well. I should be there for him more than I am.”
“Ah,” Marcello kind of stared at the floor, unsure of what to say, “Well… every step taken is a step towards locating your son.”
She looked at him then as the doors opened and allowed them to step into the complex’s lobby once more. “Listen,” She said, “If I happen to hear anything about Daxton, I’ll let you know… okay?”
Eddie nodded, and stopped with Marcello in the midst of the quiet lobby to regard her. “Thanks,” he said.
“Yeah, normally? I work by myself… and normally I’d really advise against you getting involved,” Marcello explained as she rubbed an arm, “Conflict of interest, you know? You’re involved intimately with a key part of the investigation to the point where it could cause some problems.”
Eddie listened, but didn’t say anything.
“I’m fine with you helping out and pushing red tape and stuff, but I have to be careful about this sort of thing,” Marcello went on, “You understand that, right?”
Eddie nodded. He crossed his arms and peered down at the detective. “I am aware of the boundaries in regards to my… overreach,” He said in a professional tone, “I will act with complete discretion in accordance with the laws and regulations set into place by my office and your institution.”
Marcello just stared at him for a few moments. His tone had taken a noticeable shift, and her study gauged that he had to actually put an effort in to not sound like some over-grown kid. Eddie was too young to be an Arbitrator. He was too relaxed an individual, too easy to pass off as being unable to keep up with the responsibilities of his position. He kind of came off as some older brother and not some stuffy bureaucrat. But then, Arbitrators weren’t selected at random – he had come recommended by several notable persons and much of the public. Heck, Marcello hadn’t voted to swear him in, but when she’d heard he was getting his spot she didn’t protest it. Eddie was in his position for a reason… so Marcello just had to keep telling herself that while they worked together, however briefly.
“Good,” Marcello nodded, accepting Eddie’s response, “Good. Well then… How about I give you a ride home? I can drop some contact information and when we’re ready for our epic space adventures, we can head on up.”
“Sounds good,” Eddie made a small smile and then swept his arm towards the door in an invitation, “After you.”
They stepped out to the parked vehicle and got inside. Marcello slipped into her driver’s seat and pulled her seatbelt over her chest. “I have a few other things to check up on in the meantime, I guess,” She said mostly to herself. Eddie just happened to be privy to her self-chatter, but he didn’t criticize as he buckled in.
Marcello took Eddie home as promised, to his fancy log-cabin house on the outskirts of the residential sector. Compared to the almost cramped blocks of apartment complexes and townhouses that made up a majority of the sector, Eddie’s property was large and sparse. Marcello couldn’t help but think it was because Eddie was an Arbitrator that he had a home like that. Her home was nothing like that, being considerably smaller. That was where she was headed when her business dropping Eddie off was concluded; it was time to go home and sort out a few things.
-
--
-
Her trip took her back into the heart of the residential sector, to an apartment complex no different than any of the others. It was complex 13, one of the later-built ones that wasn’t new, but not terribly old either. Marcello called it Lucky Number 13 when not talking to anyone other than herself. She did that a lot, talking to herself, and she was even doing it as she pulled her vehicle into the community parking and took her space; it was marked clearly with the number 3.
She stepped out of her car and into the complex, passing through the same-y, drab lobby; she passed the lift with no real need of it and took a short trip around a corner and down a hallway coloured with white walls, a dusty blue carpet, and some potted plants for decoration. She reached her apartment and unlocked the door by inputting a number combination on the door’s keypad before stepping inside.
Marcello lived alone. She had no brothers, no sisters, no parents, no roommates, and definitely no lovers. Considering that dome population was a concern, people tended to live in homes that fit their family size. Most families didn’t have more than two children, some only had one parent; the conditions were so different for each household that the homes themselves were separated into categories. Single occupants, like Marcello, lived in single occupant housing; two-person households live in two-person homes, three-person in three-person, and so on. This meant that Marcello’s home was very small, fit just for one person.
The home had a kitchenette attached to a living room, one separate bedroom, and one bathroom, and that was it. The living room was lit well enough, the far wall having a window that took up most of the space. The view from the window was garbage; it looked out into what qualified as an alleyway, though it was spacious enough that it could have been considered its own street and allowed sunlight to shine in at various angles throughout the day… granted the sun was out, which it was not. The entire apartment had a drab, gray look to it as a result.
The floors and walls were already dark. The carpet that covered almost all of the apartment was black, and the walls were just enough of a shade lighter to pass off a gray. The good thing about that colour, or lack thereof, was that any colour of furniture acted as a nice contrast assuming they weren’t too bright. Marcello’s living room was a combination of whites and reds. Her coffee table was a secure-fastened white slab on black legs, and her sofa’s cushions were red while the frame blended black with the floor but stood out from the walls. Normally people had televisions across from their couches, but Marcello just had a mantle that dominated the far wall comprised mostly of shelves full of books, trophies and mementos. A comfortable-looking armchair took up one of the corners nearest the window on that side as well.
The kitchen was just to the left of the door. A counter extended from the wall to section off the area with a glossy, marble-textured countertop and only a couple of metal support columns to hold it up. Two red cushioned stools gave people a place to sit, making it look almost like a bar. On the inside of the counter space the floor gave way to wood paneling, cupboards hung overhead and lined beneath the counters along two of the walls spreading out from one corner. There were the usual appliances: a stove, a toaster, a sink, and some utilitarian containers for various cooking utensils. The refrigerator was built into the lower cupboard space, providing more countertop that stopped appropriately at the corner that would turn off into Marcello’s bedroom.
In a nook to the right of the door, Marcello set up something of an office space. The wall had a corkboard over a desk where she would sit and mull over details of any cases she was working on. The area got very little use, admittedly, and she’d struggled to make it seem… office-y given that she had no need for a personal console when she had her PET. Still, she had an office chair and had even picked up a filing cabinet that stood against the wall mostly for appearances sake. It was mostly used as a junk drawer.
What stood out wasn’t the rooms or the furniture, but the décor that Marcello had set up around the house. She had many glass sculptures around her home that looked like plants or in some cases coral. She had one on the coffee table, one by her desk, and one large one placed right in the middle of everything that stood from floor to ceiling like a pillar that separated the three main areas of her home. She had no real foliage to speak of, hardly any pictures, and if it counted as decoration, she had a few small pyramids of coloured block puzzles – one on her desk composed of twelve cubes, and one on an end table next to her sofa made up of only five. Every puzzle was perfectly solved, with every face being one colour.
Once inside, Marcello turned to a console next to the door. With a few inputs, she locked the door and drew down a shutter over the far window that clacked down metallically until the entire thing was covered. The apartment was plunged into darkness, all save for the light coming off of Marcello’s esca. It made her shine with a gentle cyan blue light and illuminated some of the immediate area around her, but the rest of the apartment was pitch black. It was, at least, until a few more button presses on the console turned on only a select few lights in her home. The glass decorations, the ones that looked like twisted coral or vines, lit up in different colours.
The lights weren’t too bright, they were more like a dull neon in fact. They only lit up a small area around them and kept the rest of the home in darkness. The large pillar-like coral standing in the center of the home shined a burning red, one that looked warm and comforting. Over the coffee table, the low coils of glass that tangled like a plant glowed golden yellow, and had small, dancing orbs of light drifting around it akin to fireflies. Marcello’s bedroom had a glow of many colours pouring from the doorway, where inside there was a rainbow of hanging glass ornaments that made the colours dance along the walls whenever they turned or swayed.
This was Marcello’s fortress of solitude. She loved the lights and the way they stood out in the blackness. She liked how she could just see enough of her furniture to keep from bumping into things, and she liked how her esca could be used as a way to navigate. Like a guiding light, she’d use it to walk around her house safely. Never did she feel more like an angler fish than when she was at home.
With everything set up, Marcello took off her jacket and hung it on a peg by the door and removed her boots to leave them close by. She debated what to do first, naturally gravitating towards the warm glow of the red glass coral in the center of her home as she looked around. She couldn’t get her mind off work, and so she moved towards the office desk she set up and took a seat in the wheeled chair where she spun once before settling in proper. Taking her PET from her pocket, she kicked up her feet on the desk and started to do some searching.
She needed to research a number of things, but she started with Curon. The information network had plenty to say about Curon, some of which she already knew.
Curon was a widely-used alloy of rubber and plastic, composed of the two by melting and blending them together and molding them into various shapes. For the most part, these shapes were shells used to protect technology and equipment so that if anything were to be bumped, jarred, or knocked over, the circuitry, mechanics, or whatever else within would not be damaged. With Curon being part rubber, objects made with them had been known to bounce, but in keeping with plastic’s more rigid composition, the capacity for bouncing was rather small. It was good for absorbing impact or force for this very reason, with much of it often being diverted through the Curon shell due to particular design elements often employed by Fabricatory schematics.
Given that it was designed to absorb impact, Marcello applied the implications to her weapon problem. The weapon found basically fired controlled bursts of strong-force containment energy. To do this, it must have had to both generate the energy required and fire it at high speeds. Marcello was no engineer, but she theorized that doing so would have damaged most metals after extended use, and so Curon was the go-to material. It was just rubber enough to not shatter when firing, and just plastic enough to keep it from bouncing all over the place. She had studied the weapon itself and remembered that it felt rather thick, too; densely packed with material to make it durable.
She read up on more. Curon was far from rare, since plastic was easy to manufacture and rubber was easily farmed from tree saps. It had a weakness to heat that was often countered by special coatings or other materials boiled right into the shells. Since the generation of containment fields did produce some heat, not to mention the energy core that was likely responsible for making a weapon work, it stood to reason that either the shell, the circuitry, or even both were treated to be heat-resistant in some way, or contained heat sinks in order to fire.
The more Marcello thought about the materials the weapon was made from, the more she thought that constructing one must have been a tiring process. But how did they do that, exactly…?
Marcello shifted in her seat and started to look up the anti-personnel weapon. Looking up weapons in general brought up all sorts of different kinds, but the weapon in question wasn’t the gunpowder sort that had once been discovered around the time of the Neo-Victorian era. The weapon used fusion technology that was what propelled society from scraping together fragments of the past to where they were in the present, the Armistice Era. She eventually found the model in question – the Anti-Personnel Strong Force Rifle, or APSR-20 for short – and looked up its history. It was one of the last known non-lethal weapons used by police officers before the Disarming of 2440.
That meant the weapons had been gathered up when everyone got them taken away. As an officer, Marcello knew that each Dome was responsible for dismantling the weaponry that was collected in their area. It was a tireless effort, with law officials needing to track down anyone who sought to withhold their weapons or otherwise smuggle them away. It resulted in more than one manhunt at the time where officers weren’t as armed as the men they were hunting. Through sheer perseverance and fancy footwork, officers managed to wrangle up enough weaponry to account for a majority of Earth’s population.
Of course, not knowing how to make one would have been foolish. No one really knew how the future was going to change, and so the schematics for weapons, both lethal and not, were archived away under careful watch – to that day, no public records would even say where. But that begged the question… how did these men get their hands on one?
Marcello had no real theories. There was a lot she just didn’t know, and that was mostly because she couldn’t have known. She wasn’t aware of what could have happened one hundred years ago that could result in men and women of present day to somehow get their hands on weaponry that had long been illegal to carry. That frustrated her. The idea that someone, some law-shirking slime-bucket, knew something that big and she was just unaware entirely… Just who was she dealing with?
Her searches weren’t turning up anything conclusive that might give her a lead, so she turned her thought to where she might find a few answers. Just as she opened her desk’s drawer, her PET began to ring where she had set it down. She leaned forward and plucked it from atop the desk to answer the incoming call. Lieutenant Terry Blackwell’s face appeared on the screen, and given that she was wearing her officer’s hat and what appeared to be her blue officer’s shirt, she must have been at work. Marcello smiled. “Why Officer Blackwell, I was just thinking about you!” She mused.
It was a little game she played with Blackwell, and she’d been at it for years. She had that cat so wrapped around her fingers that she could work her like a marionette. A little hard-to-get coupled with the occasional bold flirting was just contradictory enough to drive Blackwell crazy, and despite knowing she was getting toyed with in a romantic sense, Terry fell for it every single time. Even that obvious lie seemed to jar her, and the feline officer cleared her throat.
“Right,” She responded in disbelieving flatness, “How goes that missing suspect?”
Marcello set her PET upright on her desk so she could continue rooting through her desk’s drawer at an awkward angle. She didn’t want to take her feet off the desk. “Kris Procsman hasn’t been in Harbington for a long time, a year at least” Marcello explained, “From what I gather, his last known whereabouts were up on the Ring. I was just about to read some of the last messages his mother received before he stopped talking to her altogether.”
“The Ring?” Blackwell blinked, “That’s…”
“Out of our jurisdiction, yeah,” Marcello finished as she sat back. She had another cube puzzle in her hands, the squares of red, blue, yellow, orange, white and green all mixed up. She began to twist and turn the various sections of the cube while only half paying attention. “Don’t worry – Arbitrator Kemberge has offered to back the investigation personally. He should be talking with Reynolds to get me cleared,” She said.
“Right,” Blackwell responded again with pursed lips, “Ah, well, about that.”
“Mm?” Marcello looked away from her cube and at the screen of her PET.
The officer put on a professional face. “I tracked a lead for you… personally, I’m not entirely sure what it might turn up,” She said, “We don’t have anything that would tie this person to the investigation but they may have information for you that you might find useful.”
Marcello cocked a brow. She didn’t have time to go on goose chases, but Blackwell had never really steered her wrong before. “Alright,” She said tentatively, “Shoot.”
“Marcus Florence,” Blackwell spouted a name, “He’s a Harbington citizen and a total gun nut – to the point where he creates non-functional replica weaponry.”
With her interest piqued, Marcello kept Blackwell talking. “Replicas? How genuine are we talking?” She asked, her attention back on her cube puzzle. It took only a few more twists of the thing to set all the colours in their proper place, with each face of the cube being one colour.
“Very,” Blackwell said, “We’re talking top-dollar copies favoured by collectors. According to what we’ve been able to dig up, he makes them right out of his own garage – has his own personal smelter and everything.”
Marcello scrunched her brow. “And these things don’t actually work, right?” She asked. A smelter seemed kind of intense for a hobbyist.
“You wanna check him out?” Blackwell asked, “Maybe he at least knows something about the particular model of weapon we’re dealing with. It might give us some insight on how someone could have recreated it.”
Marcello squinted at the wall, past her PET. Everything was bathed in a soft green light, almost an aquamarine turquoise due to the glowing glass sculpture on the desk’s edge. “… And how’d you come across this guy anyway?” She asked. She knew Blackwell just well enough that the idea of happening across a gun nut by chance was unlikely. The detective looked dead at the screen and asked, “What did he do?”
Blackwell took a breath and let out a sigh, “He’s been involved in some Amendment Party Grandstanding.”
“And you weren’t going to tell me that part?” Marcello laughed.
Blackwell blushed. “I was getting to it,” She cut in, “He’s been charged with a few public disturbances but he’s pretty harmless overall – just believes that we need weapons. He tends to get particularly active after Town Meets and was almost rallying at a few points during the Locksmouth invasion. Don’t you remember that?”
“I was on the Ring, I was working,” Marcello shrugged, “Detective work wasn’t paying the bills. I must have missed it and no one was really talking about it.”
“So,” The detective said, “You can’t really ding him, so you’re sending me to check out strong connections to possible weapons manufacturers.”
“Yes.”
“Key word, ‘possible,’” Marcello gave Blackwell a sideways glance as she leaned over to try and put her finished cube puzzle atop the pyramid sitting on top of her filing cabinet. She ended up having to push away from her desk to do it, and thus slid out of frame.
“Yes,” Blackwell said again, though a little tinge in her voice.
“Lieutenant Blackwell, I am not some patsy for you to send out on all your hunches – and you need to stop worrying about where I’m going to be. You’ve got your own investigation to attend to, right?” Marcello wheeled back onto frame and leaned towards the screen to watch Blackwell squirm from her being chastised.
“Y-yes, well,” Blackwell cleared her throat and adjusted her tie, “One could very well lead to the other, so…”
Marcello grinned. “Thanks,” She cut in.
Blackwell stopped her explanation rather prematurely, catching the words in her throat. Her face became a confused, blinking expression and then shifted seamlessly into a little agitated smile. “You’re welcome,” She said back through her teeth, “Paris.”
“Terry,” Marcello beamed all too happily, “I’ll put in the legwork and report back to you on what does – or doesn’t – turn up.”
Marcello gave the officer a little salute as she leaned forwards and plucked her PET from her desk. She turned it off, ending the call and leaving the screen dark. Most of the apartment was dark again, save for a few glowing areas and the light coming from her own esca. Even so, she pushed away from her desk and rolled to her feet to stand and get ready to go. It was better to go find this Marcus Florence as quickly as possible in hopes that she could strike that off her list of things to do before going up to the Ring.
She turned from her desk and stopped as her gaze swept over the kitchen. Small lights along the counter’s edges, lining them upturned to light the room as little as possible while providing her a clear view of her countertops, fridge, and cupboards showed off the area and reminded her that she needed to eat. It was as if just seeing the little area kicked her stomach into growling.
Well, eating could wait. She’d run out, get whatever information she could squeeze from this guy, and be back in time for tea… or something.
-
--
-
ARID had Marcus’s file on the ready even before Marcello had activated the device. Given that he had a police record, he was easy to find. He was a family man. He lived in a house rather than an apartment, had a wife and one young daughter of thirteen years of age. The house was straight out of modern suburbia. The building was the same metallic structure of the apartments, but smaller and angled to have bigger windows and only two stories. It had a front step, it had a yard, it had a fence, and it had a garage. Marcello had parked on the side of the midway and crossed the street to approach the house. There was a personal transportation vehicle parked out front of the home, a four-seater family unit. Someone must have been home.
In the dim light of the murky, cloudy day, the house looked more cold than welcoming, but Marcello approached it and stepped right up to the front door and gave it a knock, as was routine. She stuffed her hands into the pockets of her jacket and waited. The daughter opened the door. She was a puppy, mostly white fur with patches of rusty brown and short, reddish hair. She wore a dress, a modest one with a floral pattern that covered what looked to be a skinny, mostly average form. She stared up at Marcello with her big brown eyes, and Marcello looked down at her though her gaze was masked by ARID’s shades being used as an interface.
“Hello there,” Marcello couldn’t help but put on a somewhat friendly tone when speaking to someone so young, “Would your dad happen to be home?”
For a second the girl didn’t know what to say. After a while she managed, “Uh, who are you?”
Kids can be so rude. Marcello introduced herself professionally, “My name is Paris Marcello from the HDPD.”
She opened her jacket to show the badge she wore on the inside of it. It had her picture, her information, and was detailed readily to show off an officer’s crest. Upon seeing that, the girl nodded a few times and took steps to leave the house. Marcello had to step back as the girl walked past her, and she had half a mind to close the front door before following but opted not to interfere with anything. She followed the little pup, who walked over to the garage and gave a few heavy smacks of her hand to the big metal door. The resulting sound was booming and admittedly sudden enough to startle the detective.
“Dad!” She yelled, “You’re in trouble again!”
There was a clatter from inside and the garage door opened upwards to reveal a man who resembled his daughter; a canine with white fur and rusty brown spots. He had reddish hair, short, receding, and had just lifted a pair of goggles to show off his brown eyes. He wore a nondescript navy shirt with the sleeves rolled back and some dirty worker’s pants of a drab gray, and all of his clothes were covered in sweat stains. For his humdrum look, his arms looked pretty strong by Marcello’s judgment. He shook his hand and kind of sucked on one of his fingers as if he’d hurt himself, and then he stared at his daughter in an annoyed fashion that the girl seemed to shrug off as she marched back towards the house.
Marcus then regarded Marcello. “I’m uh, I’m sorry, who are you?” He asked.
“Detective Paris Marcello,” Marcello said promptly, “I was just--”
“Oh come on, I haven’t even done anything,” Marcus groaned, “I haven’t been out since the last time you guys hauled me in. What do you think I did this time?”
Marcello raised her brows. “Nice to meet you too,” She said, “And this isn’t about anything you did.”
Marcus squinted, “What? Then… Then why are you here? Wait, you said you were a detective?”
“I want to ask you about guns,” Marcello said simply.
Marcus’s eyes seemed to light up a little bit at the mere mention of the word and he perked visibly. “Oh? Oh!” He said, almost seeming giddy as he wrung his hands together, “Oh you’re an appreciator of the fine art of gunsmithing! Oh well why didn’t you say so? Here, come inside.”
Marcello was a bit puzzled by the sudden shift in demeanor but decided to ride it out so that she might be able to get inside Marcus’s… workshop? She walked into what looked like the most unorganized pile of scrap metal and materials she’d ever seen since the last time the police department needed to organize its evidence locker – and that had contained approximately fifty years of unorganized things. The little garage had pieces and bits and bobs scattered all over the place. There were tool cabinets, two of them, with their drawers and doors left ajar; there was a workbench, or a desk of some sort that had so much stuff on it that here was only a small space of actual tabletop visible. On the walls there were many things hung and tacked up: pictures, posters, some schematics and many pieces of paper that had writing on it that was almost illegible. What stood out, of course, was the larger equipment.
In comparison to the mess that was the garage, the smelter and 3D printer that Marcus owned were in pristine condition. They looked brand new, and the smelter took up a majority of one entire corner of the garage. The heat coming from it was intense, it was like walking into a sauna. The air around it was wavy as if he’d just been using it, and the machine hummed with energy. It looked almost like some sort of fireplace or something of the like, with one great big vent that ran up into the ceiling where it probably exited in a chimney fashion.
The printer was much smaller, but Marcello recognized it for the machine it was. It just looked like some big block of a machine that had many slots and compartments that could be taken out and put back in, and one large tank where various arms and machinery would construct things. Someone could watch as any sort of object was built right before their eyes using layers of materials, often a sort of plastic or the like, being piled atop one another in a very particular shape depending on whatever digital schematics that were fed into the machine.
It took plastic, or perhaps Curon. With a large smelter like Marcus’s, it wasn’t out of the question. The garage did have that melted plastic smell.
“I was just working on an FN SCAR-H mark seventeen automatic rifle,” Marcus hurried to his workbench, where he picked up what was probably his PET. He spoke with no small amount of excitement, “Oh a classic, to be sure.”
“Yeah,” Marcello pursed her lips, “Those old things.” She actually had no idea to what he was referring.
Marcus looked at her. “You know what it is I do, don’t you?” He asked.
Marcello nodded once. “Replica weaponry,” She answered.
Marcus nodded emphatically a few times. “Yes, yes, model weaponry to display in your home – closest thing to an actual weapon you’ll ever find, I assure you!” He went through almost like a sale’s pitch as he hurried over to the printer he had and stuck his PET into a slot. The machine whirred to life and the two arms, square-like with several segmented parts over the top of the glass case and the side, made a laser-like grid where they began to outline what the weapon was to look like. In moments they began to work, with other moving parts squeezing some kind of melted material out like toothpaste to fill very particular shapes. Marcello wasn’t even sure how they held without some kind of mold or something.
Marcello shook her head. “I want to ask you about a very particular gun,” She said, “The APSR-20.”
Marcus barely had to think and just came out with it, “Ah! The Anti-Personnel Strong-Force Rifle, mark twenty of course. Those were the last non-lethal firearms the police carried!”
He turned to Marcello and clasped his hands together. “Must have heard about it in the old records, did you? Maybe during schooling?” He asked.
Marcus wasn’t taking this seriously enough, so Marcello crossed her arms. “I found one,” She said simply.
Marcus blinked his eyes. “Found one? What do you mean… found one?” He asked.
Marcello just raised her eyebrows a little bit and let Marcus’s imagination take him. It took him, and he became visibly excited, almost shaking a little bit as his mind came to a conclusion. “You found one! You found an actual working APSR-20?” He asked frantically, “No, no, that’s impossible. There’s no way.”
“Oh there’s a way,” Marcello said, “Do you have any sort of plans or blueprints or whatever regarding those?”
Marcus’s eyes widened. “You… can’t possibly be looking at me for… no. No you must be joking, there’s no way, there’s no way at all,” He threw his hands up in a gesture of dismissal, “You’re lying, there’s no way you found one. It’s impossible, simple as that.”
“Marcus Florence,” Marcello said, “I am performing an investigation. Such investigation involves an illegal firearm, the APSR-20, discovered days ago outside of the Harbington dome. The weapon is in working condition. Do you or do you not have a means to make a rifle like that such as the one you’re working on now?”
If Marcus didn’t have white fur his face may have gone pale. His excitement melted into something much more nervous. “Like that? No! No, not like that!” He answered, “No one ever has had anything like that!”
“I thought the APSR was common?” Marcello rebutted.
Marcus began to pace, he walked back to his workbench and began to push aside spare parts seemingly without care. Many fell off the table and onto the floor, creating quite a clatter. “No, I don’t mean… Yes, the weapon was common. It was incredibly common, for years before the Disarming. So, yes, I have plans for one… somewhere. But… but the plans! The plans aren’t for actual working guns! There’s no way!”
“How do you go about getting them?” Marcello asked, shifting her weight from one leg to another as she watched the man.
“Pictures, from the net,” Marcus answered hastily, “I find pictures, as many as I can, and then I make the plans myself. I used to work at the Fabricatory, you know. I make them, from scratch, based on pictures.”
Whatever he was looking for on the table, he didn’t find. He practically climbed onto it to start shuffling papers aside that were on the wall, pushing them to reveal even more papers beneath. His eyes scanned them frantically.
“Is it possible to make one that wor--”
“No! No it is not!” Marcus cut the detective off, tearing a few pages off the wall and tossing them carelessly aside, “Detective you may not know this but the real weapons were stored away and the means of making them were hidden somewhere. No one knows where. Pictures of the guns? They can only be used to see what they looked like, not how they work.”
“Reverse engineering?” Marcello drilled, “Has anyone ever approached you asking about your plans?”
“And where are you going to do that, in your back yard?” Marcus shot back, “You can’t. It’s not possible – and no, no one’s asked. I’d never sell them anyway, I only sell models.”
“You seem to have a pretty decent workshop here,” Marcello glanced around the unorganized chaos that was the garage, “You couldn’t make weapons here if you wanted?”
Marcus stopped and looked over his shoulder at Marcello. “I don’t have fusion cores just laying around! I don’t have coolant tubes or heat sinks or wires or anything like that! What would I even do with them?!” He shouted, then went back to searching. After a while he found what he was looking for and snatched a piece of paper from the wall, tearing it away. He hustled back to Marcello and thrust the page out for her to see.
It looked like a print-out from some article. The graphic at the top corner was an acronym, APC, with some stars and little wavy lines under it. The article had pictures of what appeared to be a tank, though the picture was blurred somewhat, rolling through some kind of downtown area whose buildings looked to be of a very modern make. Marcello took the page and looked it over, reading the article that was written. It was a report – not from any professional source, but some observer with too much time on their hands – that was written shortly after the Locksmouth Incident. The article spared no time in blowing its metaphorical load, spouting that Locksmouth did indeed have a cache of military weapons and vehicles.
Marcello’s lips parted. “What is this?” She asked.
“An article from the Amendment Party Cognitive,” Marcus explained, “Locksmouth has friggin’ tanks. Tanks and weapons just like the APSR-20!”
Marcello couldn’t believe her eyes. How did she not hear about that? Locksmouth had weapons… she knew that every dome was responsible for dismantling the weapons collected in their area. Had Locksmouth not dismantled theirs? Rather than just keep plans and documents, had they really kept actual constructs? Actual weapons? Marcello tried to wrap her mind around the, pun intended, bombshell and she reached up to take ARID off to do so. Her eyes scanned the article frantically, but when it came to the bottom she couldn’t find a byline.
Her mind raced with possibilities. Reverse engineering would have been possible, very possible, if someone had lifted a rifle from this supposed cache. But that Locksmouth had one at all… it seemed… hypocritical. No one was meant to have that, no one was meant to bear that much power. What was Locksmouth going to use it for? Had they always intended to use it to defend themselves if anything happened?
Marcello’s mind was going too many places at once. She had to focus on what she needed to know, on what was important to her investigation.
“Who wrote this?” She asked.
“Beats me,” Marcus shrugged, “The APC doesn’t make people reveal their identities. They can just post stuff anonymously so that they don’t get in trouble or get suspected of conspiracy or something. I think it’s bull. If you believe that weapons should be in the hands of the people, then why not stand behind that?”
“We all have the right to defend our homes, so why do these bastards hog it all to themselves and drag it all out when it’s already too late?” Marcus spat.
Marcello ignored him. She really needed to check this out, it could have lead somewhere…
“These weapons, the APS… whatever,” Marcello said, “They’re made with Curon shells. What do you know about that? Do you use that in your replicas?”
Marcus blinked at the change in topic and nodded quickly. “Yeah, yeah, I do, I do,” He said nervously, “But again, I don’t make real guns. It’s just to be authentic, you know?”
“Where do you get it?” The detective pressed.
“Okay, the best way to get it? Especially around here?” Marcus answered, “Buy old medical equipment.”
Marcus gestured to an area behind Marcello where an old defibrillator unit sat lifeless and useless with the paddles hanging off their cords probably just by a thread. It didn’t look too out-of-date, but it definitely wasn’t in a hospital. Marcello peered at it curiously. “Hospital equipment?” She asked.
Marcus walked past her, barely brushing around the detective to step over to the machine. “Oh yeah,” He said, giving the machine a kick, “They all have Curon shells! That way if anything happens, like if they get run into or knocked over or anything like that, they don’t break. I think they use them a lot on their crash carts and stuff, so that if they’re running around they can smack into stuff and nothing gets messed up. And Harbington goes through a lot of hospital stuff, let me tell you. Did you know that just a little while ago they replaced almost everything with the newest top models? Suddenly you had all this off-hand equipment being dismantled and melted down. You could’ve had Curon coming out of your ass and it was cheap as hell.”
“Is that right…?” Marcello puckered her lips and nodded. Medical equipment. The Harbington General Hospital may have something to say about that. She then looked at Marcus, “And you can just buy it? I find that unlikely.”
Marcus swallowed, “I have a contract! I… I have a guy! I run a legitimate business selling these models, so I get some shipments, that’s all!”
“Listen, the best way you’re gonna find out about that actual working gun is right there,” Marcus said as he stepped over to Marcello, took hold of one side of the paper and gave it a firm poking with his fingers a few times, “So that’s it, that’s all I know. You can search the place if you want, bring the whole department for all I care, but there’s no working parts here. Just a bunch of fakes.”
Marcello shook her head. “No, no… you’ve been a… a help,” She said, still a little stunned.
“Ah, well, then, good! Tell that to your buddies the next time they decide to come accuse me of starting a riot,” Marcus said, “So, are we finished? I…”
A beeping started to go off and plumes of smoke rose from the printer that had been busily working on the replica rifle. Marcus spat a curse and ran over to the machine, manually turning it off and practically tearing it open to yank the fake gun out of the chamber. It looked like a melted glob of plastic that barely resembled a weapon. The camo colours bled into one another, and the only visible part that was still totally intact was a lower end of the stock.
“God damnit!” Marcus grabbed the weapon and marched over to the smelter to open it up. The glowing red heat from inside looked like a dragon’s gaping maw. He threw the weapon in and slammed the door shut again. After that he stopped and he sighed.
It became increasingly unlikely that a man like Marcus could somehow be involved in something as big as a gun ring. Still, he shouldn’t have been stricken off the list of suspects right away. Marcello took in her surroundings – particularly things like the old defibrillator machine and the various blueprints he had plastered all over the walls. Some looked rather detailed, and she still reserved doubts that they simply couldn’t be used for more nefarious purposes. Maybe that’s why Blackwell was nervous about the guy. She also noticed numerous other things stamped with both the APC acronym and the Amendment Party’s bald eagle emblem.
“… Well you seem busy,” Marcello took the paper and folded it into her pocket with her shades. She then rolled her shoulders and said, “I think that’s all I need for now, but if I think of anything else, I’ll come knocking.”
“Hurray,” Marcus lifted a finger and spun it in the air.
Marcello excused herself, stepping over some clutter to exit the garage. Marcus was pretty quick to close the door behind her, making no attempt to be gentle and slamming it down onto the pavement. She jumped when the door banged shut, tensing and gritting her teeth. She muttered a curse and something about attempting to drag a needle out of Marcus’s butt, and then made her way back towards her car. When she got inside, she gripped her steering wheel and just sat there for a little while.
“Holy crap…” She muttered. Locksmouth had weapons. Real weapons. It had to be connected, it couldn’t have just been some coincidence. Locksmouth hauls out some ages-old bunch of military swag and attempts to use it to drive off some aliens – something the article said was kind of effective, but ultimately not – and then just a little while later some band of merry jerk-holes with guns start hunting down a poor little alien pig girl. It was all a little too closely knit for Marcello’s liking, and her grip tightened on the wheel.
It looked like she’d have to go to the hospital and track down possible large shipments of old equipment. Then, after that, she would be off to the alien epicenter that was Locksmouth before she’d have to go into the cold depths of space. That sounded like a good week.
-
--
-
Marcello made her way back home. She took the high road, passing over pedestrians below, allowing herself time to mull over her thoughts and plans for the future. Her home wasn’t far from Marcus Florence and his family’s cozy little house, a few blocks if one dared to call the space where her vehicle gravitated through the air such an old and mundane term. She eased her vehicle back into the underground parking area with a practiced, fluid swoop and found her parking space where she switched off her car and stepped out.
She walked up the stairs of the garage access and to the main floor. She stepped out into the dull lobby of the complex and rounded the corner to walk down the hall and to her apartment. She took pause. Standing in front of her apartment was Lieutenant Terry Blackwell. Obviously free from the shackles of work, the stocky black cat stood in her officer’s blue uniform pants, but had shed the uniform shirt and tie for a black undershirt – very flattering against her dark complexion – and a red sports jacket. Her hair, looking like smooth waves of smoke against a pitch black sky, flowed down around her full cheeks and knowing feline eyes.
The officer held a bag in her hand and she smiled upon seeing Marcello. When the detective approached, Blackwell simply thrust the bag out to push it against her chest. She was strong enough to make Marcello take a step backward as she fumbled with the bag.
“I thought you might be hungry,” The Lieutenant said, “You know you didn’t have to go chasing after my lead right away. You could have had lunch first.”
The sun had already gone down, and Marcello hadn’t realized until then that she was awful hungry. She couldn’t smell the burger and fries inside the bag so well, but she could just taste that wafting grease and salt smell and it sent her stomach into angry little fits crying “feed me!”
“Uh, thanks,” Marcello blinked her eyes.
“Uh, thanks!” Blackwell mocked her, “Are you going to invite me in or what?”
Marcello stepped closer to punch in her door’s access code. “Yeah, yeah,” Marcello kind of droned as she opened the door up. Blackwell stepped inside without waiting for an invitation, a haughty feline stride gracing her steps. Marcello followed her in and closed the door behind her. The apartment was still pitch black and the glass decorations were still glowing, casting the apartment in its array of dull colours. When Blackwell looked back, her eyes seemed to shine and pick up whatever light they could to do so. She was incredibly hard to see in the dark.
Marcello breathed a sigh as she set the bag down on her kitchen counter and took off her jacket. Blackwell handed her own jacket off to the detective and slid herself onto one of the stools in front of the kitchen counter with more grace than someone of her build ought to have had. She studied Marcello as the fishy woman sidled up beside her and started tearing into the bag.
“You’re too quiet,” Blackwell said, “What happened?” Her expression turned more serious as the question left her lips.
“Sorry, yeah,” Marcello nodded, “Just hungry I guess.”
Blackwell tilted her head. “Did you find anything out?” She asked.
Marcello wasn’t sure whether to be out with it or not, but she opted to go through her visit with Marcus Florence step by step, point by point. She told the Lieutenant about his garage, about his machines and the information that he simply could not have made any real, working weapons and that no one had approached him asking questions before her. She explained the deal with Curon and the potential that spare hospital equipment could have been being used to supply any real effort to arm a number of people. She finished by telling her about the article that Marcus had on hand and the startling revelation spelled out in it.
“Holy… if that’s true then that could mean… well… all kinds of things,” Blackwell said.
“Someone could have gotten their hands on schematics that way, or even just one weapon to duplicate,” Marcello nodded before slumping in thought and tearing into her Burger Dictator burger some more, “But no one knew. No one knew about this. If that’s true, if Locksmouth has a cache somewhere, then surely it’s well-protected. There would have to be all sorts of security systems in place to keep something like that from happening.”
Blackwell laced her fingers under her chin, keeping herself propped up on the counter by her elbows. “So who could pull something like that off…?” She murmured.
“I’ll have to go check out the building myself, maybe see if I can find signs of anything unusual happening in the past little while,” Marcello said, “I mean, more unusual that it being a storehouse for weapons.”
“If Locksmouth kept them, someone has to have known about them,” Blackwell brought her gaze to Marcello curiously, “But who could you even talk to?”
Marcello sighed, “I don’t know. Maybe I can tell the Arbitrators about it, get that ball rolling.”
Blackwell shook her head and clucked through her teeth. “Where it would immediately get stuck in a bunch of red tape and neo-political bull crap,” She said.
Marcello mowed down some fries. “Maybe the police will help me,” She suggested behind a mouthful.
Blackwell laughed, “Yeah, maybe you could ask Murph.”
“Yeah,” Marcello scoffed and sat up straighter, “Oh, hi Murphy, long time no see. Sorry about almost destroying your relationship in college. Have you seen any military grade weapons laying around?”
Blackwell’s eyes flashed. “There’s some snark,” She mused before rolling a shoulder, “You might not have a choice.”
“Maybe not,” Marcello spoke quietly. She then turned her head to meet Blackwell’s eyes, “Any signs of the kids?”
Blackwell straightened and ran her fingers through her hair. “Some of my men ran into them,” She said, “They said they saw the girl, the one with the alien, and they chased her until she just… melted. It was a diversion, while the kids moved in on one of the Rest Stations for the hikers just a few miles out from Clarkston. They assaulted the officer left behind to keep watch, raided the stores while my men were busy, and were gone before they caught up.”
Marcello stared at her. “Well buck my britches,” She said, a grin forming across her features, “Your men, fully grown, fully trained cops, got beat up by a bunch of high school kids.”
“One that can clone themselves,” Blackwell spat back, taking some offense to Marcello’s playful mirth over the whole situation, “And they have a neurod with them. They crossed the river and took Benson by surprise, there was nothing they could’ve done.”
“But let me tell you, it won’t happen again,” Blackwell stuck a finger out at Marcello, “Clarkston is just a short ways away from Locksmouth. The kids are following the river and when they do they’re going to come right out in that backwater pile of sticks. We’ll be waiting for them. We know exactly where they’re headed, and we’re closing the noose.”
“Clarkston’s full of naturalists,” Marcello cocked a brow, “They’re not going to let you come within fifty feet of that… village? Town? I don’t know.”
“Well they just have to let me close enough to catch those kids,” Blackwell said, “That’s all.”
Marcello took a breath and wiped her gloved hands off on her pants. “I’m sure Eddie’ll be glad to hear that,” She said.
“Eddie? You mean Kemberge?” Blackwell asked, “You’re on a first-name basis with an Arbitrator?”
“When you work with someone…” Marcello shrugged.
There was a silence. It lasted for only a few seconds before Blackwell spoke up, “Well, you should be careful. You know, with all this talk about weapons and things, it sounds like this whole thing can be dangerous. I know you work alone – the whole detective thing and all – but if you run into anything bigger than you can handle…”
“I call for backup, easy as that,” Marcello finished with a nod, “I know, Lieutenant.”
“Don’t you ‘I know Lieutenant’ me,” Blackwell said, giving Marcello a gentle shove against her shoulder, “I’m serious.”
“Alright,” Marcello laughed and rose from her seat. She rounded the counter to toss her trash into her disposal, the glowing blue light within it disintegrating the trash into dust. “I guess I’ll have to do a little more legwork tomorrow. Your bill’s climbing, by the way.”
“We don’t have much of a choice but to ask you to look into this stuff,” Blackwell stood and stepped out from her seat, “Sorry. We just have our hands full with this.”
“It’s not like I mind,” Marcello grinned, “I love it.”
They got quiet again, standing there in the dark. Marcello’s esca kept her plainly visible, but Blackwell’s dark fur was all but invisible in the lack of light. Her eyes softened a little and she nodded some kind of affirmative before settling into thought. Whatever she was thinking about, it didn’t take long for her to move on from it as she stood straight and turned to the door to grab her coat. “I’d love to stay around, but I’m going to have to get up pretty early to make it to Clarkston,” She said.
Marcello smiled a warm and gentle sort. “Alright,” She said.
“Maybe when we’re not working so much…” Blackwell started.
“If I can afford not to,” Marcello chuckled. Blackwell gave her a look and she raised a hand and shook her head, “I’ll call you. I owe you now for lunch.”
Blackwell flashed her teeth. “Damn right,” She said, “Alright, see you.”
She turned, the door opened, then it closed, and she was gone.
Marcello probably shouldn’t have let her just go. There was a moment where her mind wandered to what she would have done had she instead taken Blackwell into her room and spent the night with her. She shouldn’t have played hard to get all the time, but then… she was working. Blackwell was working too, and it was kind of a hectic time. They were still just getting out of being invaded and that was bad enough. The missing persons and illegal contraband was bound to keep them busy for a while longer as well.
Oh well. She’d have her chance to spend some time with Blackwell soon. If she could track a few shipments and find a warehouse full of firearms, she’d have a solid lead in no time. Then she could use all that sweet, sweet blue she’d get for her effort to take Blackwell out, maybe hit up a club or two, and show the feline officer that thing she learned how to do with her butt.
Marcello moved to the red glowing coral in the center of her apartment and gripped some of the glass stems so she could jut out her rear. With a quick motion of her knees, she made it dance with an attractive bounce while she studied the motion curiously. “All in due time, Paris,” She muttered to herself, “First, solve the mystery of the century.”
