Chapter Twenty Eight Cris

In the morning, Cris wakes up to the sound of the door handle to their holding room clicking open. The smell of coffee floods in, forcing away the heavy scent of chemically cleaned carpet. It makes him optimistic for a good start. He recognizes the two officers that’ve since been promoted to replace him and Gerald. It’s not a surprise. Neither of the two are the typical suckling little shits that moved up through the ranks by being proper.

Rick Wise is one of the older bad asses from the K-nine unit. He was going to retire after his Shepheard aged out, but it looks like the offer of investigator was enough to keep him on. The man’s moustache can only be described as perfect. Kirk Kindsvogel started out as a dispatcher. I takes a cool head to do that job, but after a while being hands-off gets to a person. He had to be the one out there on the street. The man knows how everything works, and has a reputation for his diligence. He wouldn’t have wanted anyone else to have taken the reigns.

His look of endearment changes when he sees that the two of them have only brought the two cups of coffee for themselves and have no intentions of offering them to him or Gerald. What he was hoping would be a good-ol-boys get together, turns out to be a rather uncomfortable and embarrassing ordeal. For the first two hours, the two of them are outright grilled while still sitting in their bunks. Rick and Kirk came prepared, with pictures and all. It makes them feel like children being dressed down by their parents. Clearly they aren’t cops anymore, but fugitives.

Despite the theatrical start, a good amount of scraping and a little bit of lying, gets them to back off quite a bit. Rick and Kirk eventually come to understand how tight of a corner he and Gerald were backed into during the riot at Evan’s home. No way around it, if they hadn’t gunned down so many rats, he and Gerald would be dead. Even Kirk agrees that it probably was best that they disappeared for a while. Everyone knew they were going to be thrown to the wolves if they didn’t. That black eye on management warrants them some leniency.

Explaining away why they let Valerie and the others skate free like they did does not go nearly as well. The three robots are still wanted for murder, but not officially. Any acknowledgement of their existence would still be a bit of a liability. The two are chomping at the bit to figure out where how and where they’ve disappeared to. He wonders considers how he should say it.

“Oh, we know where they went, but you’re not going to like it.”

Rick shakes his head. “Well, go on and say it.”

“Space Security Services.”

Rick doesn’t seem to think anything of it. “Uh, k. They’ve been here the whole time? That’s just over in the space sector.”

Kirk doesn’t think anything of it either. “Yeah, we’ll go pick em up.”

Clearly, they haven’t had to deal with SSS yet. Neither he nor Gerald say anything either. They know exactly how it’s going to go, and that suits them just fine. They both do their best to hide their smirks. He can’t wait to hear how it goes. Both Rick and Kirk are the kind of guys that don’t like having their authority thrown back in their faces either. It’s going to be great. They’ll soon be wishing they never got involved. It’s the perfect ticket to get them reinstated.

As soon as Rick and Kirk leave the room, he high-fives Gerald. ”Hehe, this is gonna be great!”

Out front of SSS headquarters, Rick and Kirk loiter around for a little while, looking for a way to get into the damn building. The only thing they’ve found on the eye straining pure black building, which looks like a door, is a broad shiny black glass pane that doesn’t even have a handle on it. At least they’re pretty sure it’s a door. It’s the right size and shape. When he knocks on it, it sounds like it’s got to be a couple inches thick. He feels like an ass when there’s no response. It’s like the place is abandoned or something. They get the feeling that Cris and Gerald are screwing with them. It wouldn’t make sense why though.

Eventually, almost an hour into the nonsense, a black personnel truck, like what the riot teams use, comes barreling down the drive. It has the big red SSS logos on it. Even when they wave for the truck to stop, it keeps going around to the back of the building. There’s no way they weren’t seen. It’s a deliberate disregard of them. By the time they run around the corner to intercept the truck, the huge bay door to the inner hanger is already closing behind the truck. The lights are off inside, but they can see the back of the truck just fine.

As they try to rush in before the door closes all the way, they are warded off by armored guards with big rifles pointed right at them. They stop in their tracks, shocked more than anything else. They’ve never seen or dealt with anything like this before. They recognize the owner, Sy. He’s the asshole in a suit that Cris warned them about. Sy makes the uppercut gesture, for them to shove it up their asses, as the huge door slams shut with a low “clunk.”

On the other side, they can hear the muffled yell of him calling to them. “Better luck next time, ya fukin pricks!”

Neither he nor Kirk have ever had their authority thwarted like this before, not even before they were investigators, nor so blatantly. He kicks at the door and shouts back everything he can do to make them pay. No matter what he threatens them with, he doesn’t get any response.

“It was only going to be the two of us, you stupid shit. All we wanted was to ask a few question. Now we’ve gotta bring our friends! I hope you’re happy!” They can hear voices on the other side, but not what they’re saying.” He runs at the door one more time and kicks it as hard as he can in anger.

Within twenty minutes, a swat van of their own shows up, but the only guy in it is the driver. All they wanted was a full suite of entry equipment. Clearly, Sy is a cocky son of a bitch, and it’s going to take some real bluster to get his attention. All he and Kirk wanted, was to corroborate Cris and Gerald’s stories, but now they’re pissed off. They don’t wait another single minute before dragging a whole chain of explosives out of the back of the truck. There’s no more yelling at the building either. The two of them immediately start setting up the breaching system around the heavy glass door they found at the front of the building.

Inside, Sy stands at the glass wall of his, office overseeing what the investigators are doing below. He has his phone in his hands and is hesitating making a phone call. He really hates having to contact General Quincy over such low-level horseshit as a couple of greenhorn investigators that don’t know their place. It’s embarrassing, as if he were the one stirring up problems with the locals or something.

Marek told him that Cris and Gerald gave themselves up into custody last night, and he suspect this has something to do with it, which is even worse. The last thing he wants to do is tell the general anything about this silly business. It’s unprofessional, and makes their business look questionable.

When Rick stands out front of the door and holds the detonator up high in his hands, he sighs, and presses dial. It only rings twice. “Hey Q… um, this is a little embarrassing, to have to call you about this again, but it looks like I’ve got a couple of new cops standing outside my door with a bomb on it. I guess they were never told about us when they replaced Cris and Gerald.” He grabs his face with his hand and presses at his closed eyes, waiting for a response.

“I see. Well, it’s good you called son. We don’t need anyone’s emotions getting the best of them over this kind of thing. Don’t you worry, I’ll handle this one.”

“Hey, thanks, I appreciate it. I really hate dragging you into this small time stuff.”

While Quincy has Sy on the phone, he has his aid dialing the precinct commander. Before Sy hangs up, he pings him on a curiosity he’s been made aware of lately. “You guys ready to start stretching your legs out a little farther yet? I know Mars is kind of a one way trip these days, but the chatter we’re picking up on is starting to make it sound like the moon thing all over again.”

“We actually are building a new ship that’s got the legs to get there.”

Quincy has seent eh specs oft the ship, how small it is, and that it wasn’t’ even outfitted with life support. “I’ve heard a little rumor that you’re maybe holding out on me. That you’ve got another trick up your sleeve.”

That gets him to smile. “I’m not going to beat around the bush. I’m sure you pretty much know everything you need to. What I want to know, is how much does the assholes that built those bug drone things know? Pretty sure they’ve seen my guy. Also, he knows his way around the old stuff too. Figured that’d be of the most interest to you.”

“Uh huh. Well well… gal dang! you let me know if you need anything at all, alright. Hey, I gotta go here, but lets uh, talk about this a little more, hmm.”

When Quincy hangs up on him, he looks out the window again to see what the investigators are up to. Rick is now holding his hand up high, counting down on his fingers. Apparently, he has four three minutes remaining. When Rick curls another finger down, to three minutes, Kirk runs out to him and hands him a cell phone.

“Rick here. Hey, I’m in the middle of a breach right now, can this wait?”

Knowing their wings have now been clipped, Sy decides to head on down and at least have some words with them, to try and patch things up a little bit. He doesn’t want to leave things raw with them like he did with Cris and Gerald. That moment alone had made them permanently resentful, and SSS has been paying for it ever since.

When he steps out the front door, that’s covered in explosives, he catches Rick spiking his cell phone off the pavement in a complete fit. His hands are out, and his palms are open. He wants Rick to know he isn’t upset with them.

“Hey come on now. Cris didn’t tell you how this was gonna go? You got set up man. That’s not on you or me. You just weren’t told.”

Ricks temper actually gets even hotter. “You think this shit is all fun and games don’t you! I almost blew your shit down, for real! We will dispense the full extent of the law on you if you do not comply! I don’t care how big of connections you have! That’s literally why we are here, because we are the ones who are supposed to look past that, and stop corruption, no matter how high!”

He slowly raises his hands up. “Woah, dude, now come on. I’ know you got your feelings hurt, but I am not allowed to let you breach this facility. You do not understand what’s waiting for you on the other side of that door, trust me. You’re commander called you off for your own sake, not mine. Let it go. I’m honestly trying to make peace with you here bud.”

Kirk is a little more reserved, and steps in between the two of them. “Yeah, well, your guy called us over-caffeinated meter-maids. And the sassy shit you pulled back there definitely didn’t help. Now you wanna be all cool!”

“Hey, that’s fair enough. I guess I’m still a little reactive when it comes to you guys. You’re predecessors did not exactly hang around on the best terms. I will work with you guys if you’re cool, but there are military assets here that you are in no way allowed near. Any more funny business, and it will cost you lives. I cannot stress that to you any more strongly. Do not push this any further.”

While Kirk ushers Rick back to their cruiser, Rick only has one last thing to say before they leave. He points back to Sy and curses. “This aint over you prissy little shit.”

Kirk and the driver that brought the truck hurriedly pack up the entry explosives while they let Rick stew by himself in the cruiser. He figures it didn’t go as bad as it could have, but not great either. At least Sy doesn’t say anything else, and simply walks back inside the building. He didn’t want to believe anything Cris or Gerald had said, but it seems they might be more truthful than it appeared. The killer robots are very likely there, and SSS are not operating within respect of the law. It looks like they’ve been getting away with whatever they want for a long time now.

All the way back to the precinct, Rick’s temper only gets hotter and hotter as he stews. Uprooting well-connected criminals is exactly what the position of investigator was created for. SSS has always been well known for breaking the rules, rubbing it in everyone’s faces, and then getting away with it, but it’s gone too far now.

No matter how much he hates it, the one thing he knows they won’t be doing is thwarting precinct command and going after whoever this general Quincy is. It’s discouraging to be disrespected, by these thugs, and then abandoned by command like that. If everyone wants to play in the grey area like this, then they can too. When people disregard the law like this, then they have no grounds to complain when things don’t go their way.

Neither he nor Kirk felt very good about Cris and Gerald coming back. The whole thing feels shady as hell. Still, there are too many things to their stories left unanswered. The two of them surely know how to protect themselves during questioning, and it feels like that’s what they were doing. They were holding too much back, and they need to know what’s really going on.

One thing is for sure though. The other two know SSS very well, and they have a bone to pick with Sy too. He and Kirk sure as hell won’t be getting themselves sucked into the SSS game of cat and mouse, but what they can do, is let Cris and Gerald loose on them.

Back at the precinct, he gets Kirk onboard with the plan. While he heads off to let the other two out of their holding room, he has Kirk handle the paperwork to get them their badges back. Once an investigator, always an investigator. That’s what they’ve always said. In his eyes, the two of them had proven their dedication to what is right the day they joined the force. Things can get rocky, even with good people, but no one should have ever doubted their loyalty.

When Rick opens the door, with a scowl on his face, Gerald tries to hold his grin back and look serious. He pretty much knew exactly how thigs were going to go down. He didn’t mean for it to be a prank, but that’s how it looks like it must’ve gone.

“He’s a real son of a bitch huh? And everyone used to say we were the ones who were being assholes.”

Rick doesn’t even turn back around as he disables the lock on their door. “I don’t give a shit. They’re your problem, not mine.” He closes the door behind himself and walks off right on down the hall.

Gerald looks down over the edge of his bunk at Cris. “Man, I kinda wanted to know what happened, but I guess he’s a little sore about it huh.”

Within the hour, Cris and Gerald are back in the full swing of their old jobs. It’s like they never even left. They’ve got their black tactical pants, boots, heavy white button up shirts, and ballistic vests on. They take a few minutes to almost ceremoniously pin their old credentials back on their armor before stepping heading downstairs. It feels incredible to have their old rifles back in their arms and that heavy belt of gear synched tight on their waists.

He and Gerald march down the halls with their heads held high and are greeted with “welcome back” and “hell yeah” every time they pass someone. They could almost forget about the whole blood feud between the Lion’s group and SSS at this point, but they won’t. Sy and his goons have been allowed to continue on for far too long without getting their teeth kicked in. They’re definitely still committed to it.

Before bothering with anything else, He decides to set out to find a place for the two of them to stay. For their safety, it’ll have to be as close to the precinct as possible. They won’t need to be going any farther out to do what they need to. Since Gerald is chomping at the bit to get things moving, he has him go over all the facial recognition sightings of Sy’s people for the last couple days, while he heads out alone. The easiest way to get things rolling will be to anticipate anyone leaving the compound.

All they’ll need to do is detain a single one of Sy’s guards on a bogus charge to spur a retaliation from him. He’ll predictably lose his shit. They already told him they were out for blood. They are investigators. They don’t need a trial, a judge, or anything. If any of his people step outside to so much as have a smoke, the two of them will be all over it. Sy is too narcissistic to handle something like that patiently. When he comes at them with both barrels, they will have his ass for good over it.