041

--TheirWorld--

“He’s not my boyfriend,” Guin scolded, waving her meat stick in the air. “What are you doing here anyway?”

“What do you think I’m doing here?” he snorted, folding his arms. “Investigating. Why else would a cop be in a video game. I’m even on during the wrong damn shift.”

Guin stared at him as she nibbled on her meat stick. “I’m still having a hard time believing you’re a police officer…”

“Well, your friends here don’t seem to doubt it half as much as you do,” he said, nodding to the others at the table. They were eyeing him wearily as he went, “And trust me, days like this, I’d rather not be — but here I am, uniform on and attention whore show pony in tow.”

One of the players at the table whom Guin didn’t know, a woman dressed in simple, non descript clothes, slammed a mug on the rough hewn wood and said, “The cops already came around here. Can’t you guys just leave us alone? We’re playing a game to escape reality, not… be reminded of it.”

Grim looked at the woman evenly. “Who was it that took your statement?”

“Officer Blackfoot,” the woman said.

“Do you have any more leads?” the smith asked Grim as he waved his hand in the woman’s face.

“Even if I did, I wouldn’t tell you,” the earar told him.

The smith ground his teeth. “We’ve been waiting for someone to tell us something since this morning!”

“I am very much the wrong person to try to pry things out of,” Grim said.

Guin clicked her tongue. “Would it kill you to be a little more personable?” she asked him. “These people just lost their friend. They’re looking for answers!”

“Looking for answers does not make answers magically appear,” Grim yawned. “Also, being personable is my partner’s job. Mine is to get shit done. Also, I have no idea who Officer Blackfoot is, so I’m just gonna ask you to confirm what you told them, for records sake.”

There were audible sounds of frustration and annoyance going around the table, but Grim didn’t seem fazed as he started playing with a device on his arm that resembled Guin’s smartwatch in real life.

“Can I ask a random question?” Guin asked. The earar glanced at her. “How do you not know your coworkers? Isn’t that an important part of your job? To know who you can trust?”

A smirk played about his lips. “Your attempt at trying to be clever with me is duly noted,” he told her. “But there are two reasons: The long answer is, I’ve only been a part of this unit for a few weeks, and I have no intentions of sticking around. The short one is, and this shouldn’t surprise you: I don’t really care,” he said as he opened a window from his arm panel. “I do, however, have every intention of doing my job properly until Mari decides to accept my transfer request.”

“Mari?” she asked.

“You’d call her ‘Chief Landau’ I suppose.”

“Why am I not surprised you call your boss by her first name?”

“Because you’ve known me for longer than thirty seconds.”

“Right…” Guin licked her lips and went back to chewing on her meat stick.

Grim snorted at her again and looked back around the table. Dropping his badge and identification in front of them, he said, “My name is Leegrim Grimnar, of the Virtual Crimes Unit of the Enclave Police Department. TheirWorld Character is ‘Grim’, outfitted with Game Master Permissions and Protocols. Please be advised that I will be recording this conversation, sass and all. You have the right to not cooperate, but I have the right to shut your accounts down and order an arrest warrant. So. Could you please tell me your names — character names only please — and let’s get this show on the road.”

“Rinnie,” the girl Guin hadn’t known answered.

“Cynth Syzer,” the tivarys said. “This is Miko —”

Grim held up a hand, “Let the guy speak for himself.”

Miko looked very nervous as he watched Syth’s face sour and went, “M-Miko Max…”

“Hammerhead,” the smith told him. Grim raised an eyebrow at him. “What?” he grumbled. “I like the sharks.” To which Grim merely shrugged.

Next was TonkatsuMan and another young man at the table who identified himself as Lindle Pie.

“And you’re character name, annoying female?” Grim asked Guin.

Rolling her eyes, Guin asked, “Please tell me you aren’t bothering these people only to harass me.”

“Character. Name.”

“Guin Grey.”

“Alright,” Grim went, gruffly. “Thank you.” He seemed to be writing down a few few notes by hand before shifting his stance. “Now. Please tell me what you know of one, character name: ‘Ollie Bear’.”

“Ollie was a good guy,” Syth said, her eyes darkening. “We told the officer, he never did anything wrong. Not by us, at least.”

“He was a craftsman?” Grim asked.

Katsu shook his head. “He was a hunter-gatherer,” he told him. “He used to do what Guin came here to do today. He brought the mats to us, we made stuff out of that, and it got passed along in some shape or form.”

“Ollie was pretty well known around here,” Hammerhead said, fumbling with a piece of metal in hands. “He supplied a wide range of crafters with materials. Because of that and the fact he was a high enough level to travel on his own, he had a pretty extensive network in a few cities.”

Grim nodded. “How close were you guys in particular?”

Katsu and Hammerhead exchanged glances with Synth. Synth took a deep breath, and looked at Miko.

Miko pointed at his nose, and then, said, “I-I guess, I was the closest to him here.”

“Have you spoken with another officer?” Grim asked, but Miko shook his head.

“O-Officers a-a-are scary…,” he said, shoving his hands between his thighs. “Y-You’re kinda scary too…”

“It’s okay, Miko,” Synth rubbed his leg. “We won’t let the nasty man hurt you.”

Grim cleared his throat and started speaking in a much lower, gentler tone of voice. “If you would feel more comfortable talking to another garule, there are a couple in the unit; females. Failing that, there is a garuli male in the area whose cleared as a civilian counselor.”

Miko bit his lip, seeming to be trying to think of how to arrange his words properly. “A-Are you guys gonna try to stop the guys who did this to Ollie Bear?” he asked, his voice squeaking a little bit. “I-I-I don’t want any trouble, I just… I don’t want my friends to get hurt anymore…”

“If it reassures you in any way, this case is top priority,” Grim said. “That’s why we’re here.”

But Miko sat quietly, making himself as small as he could, his eyes drifting out toward the road. “Is that really true?” he asked in a small voice. “Is that really true?” The others sat quietly, looking down with fallen faces.

“We can’t do anything if people like you don’t talk to us,” Grim told him.

Guin could tell that he was getting a little frustrated. She looked back behind her, in the direction where Miko was looking, where the crowds were still growing.

“And the Silver Hound?” Guin asked, turning back to the earar. “Does he care as much as you say you do?”

The icy glare that Grim gave her made her shrink back as he said, “The VCU doesn’t have to answer to the likes of you.”

A large part of her wanted to turn back in to ‘Just Dassah’ as he stared at her, but in this world, she reminded herself, she was ‘Guin’.

Leaning forward, she said, “Maybe it doesn’t need to answer to me, but what about them? All these people here are treating the death of their friend like it’s some kind of carnival because he’s running around here. You want them to cooperate with you guys, well maybe you should think about respecting them, at least a little bit.”

“Listen —” Grim started, opening and closing his mouth like a fish a few times. Then, he closed his eyes and breathed deeply before going on. “I know,” he said. “I know. But there’s nothing I can do about him. He has a purpose and he serves it. Trust me; I tried to get him to stay behind today. Unluckily for all of us, that asshole still wants to be a real police officer, even after all the commotion he’s made.”

Hammerhead scoffed, and looked like he wanted to say something, but Katsu shook his head.

“I know that it’s hard to trust us,” Grim told them. “I know it’s especially hard when it feels like no one else but you cares. But we do care. I care. He even cares. And we want to stop the guys who did this. And to do that, we need your help.”

“Promise?” Asked the little green and orange garule.

“Promise,” Grim affirmed.

Miko looked between his friends, and then gave a stiff nod. “W-what do you want to know?”