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Forum index » Archive » Archive: Deus City » DC: Deus City

Chapter 7: Run-around [solved]

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TGI Fridays
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Joined: 12 Jun 2007
Posts: 123

Chapter 7: Run-around [solved]
Main Street in Red District

Lightning flashes and thunder rolls as the ever-present rain begins to fall faster again, shielded only somewhat by the trees in Mercer's little garden park. The kid in the black jacket is shuffling across a footbridge over an overflowing tiny stream which winds its way through a waterlogged red flower garden. He looks back, and realizing that he is being tailed, breaks into a run. I feel my heart and muscles crank up to match his pace and give chase across the corner of the park, past various benches and side paths, through a thick wooded area, then down a hill and out a side entrance towards a small alleyway.
Already my lungs are straining for air and my pants soaked to the knees from the splashing. The skinny alleyway is lined with modern-looking red trash bins and dumpsters. Most of the rain is blocked by the tall buildings on either side but spouts are delivering plenty of water into the narrow back street so that water flows through the center of the alley. Whatever part of my socks were previously still dry are no longer.

The world around me fades away: tunnel vision, splashing footfalls, breathing. That is my universe. More than winded, I'm a dying man, but I keep going. Every cigarette I ever smoked mocking me from the inside out. I slide to a stop at a brick wall 10 feet high blocking the alley, just as my prey jumps down from it to the other side.

I close my eyes for a moment then set my jaw. No time to be tired yet. I flop my wet hat onto my head to free up both hands and look for a way up the wall. A nearby stack of large solid black plastic crates stacked by a the back door to some little shop provides the only possibility. I grunt and strain to pull my ever older body up onto the things. Water gushes from the nearby drainpipe, fueling the little river that the alley has become and reminding me how slippery everything is.

I clamber up the wet boxes, losing my footing at the top and causing the topmost boxes to fall and break open with a splintering crack, spilling its garbage-like recyke contents all over the alleyway, but I somehow manage to shoot out a hand and catch the edge of the wall as my body slaps up against the red brick. I yell to help my strength along as I bring the other arm around to grab the edge. I'm a dangling puppet, and I force the thoughts of falling out of my head � wanting instead to hang on long enough to hoist myself up to the top of the wall.

I wouldn't win any awards for gracefulness, but I manage to pendulum swing a leg up onto the wall and kick my way over onto the top. My face is pressed hard against the rough brick and I can taste the earthy wash of wet brick in my mouth and nose as the wet wind picks up my hat and flicks it with one big wet finger backwards over the wall to god only knows what gutter.

Damn.

I've always liked that hat, but I guess there's nothing like a little anger to give you your second wind. I drop hard onto the other side with a splash, cringing in pain as I land wrong on my bad leg. Run now. Pain later. I hoist myself up and resume the chase. His widened head-start having just reduced my chances greatly. The alleyway continues for only a few more feet then turns sharply. I launch myself down it and away from the two buildings. The rain is once again pelts into my now naked head as the alleyway dumps me out onto an extremely busy Red District plaza.

People are moving in all directions like big red ants whose anthill has just been kicked by a tardy schoolboy. Throngs of professionally dressed business men and women in red pinstripe and satin suits have begun to make their way to places of work despite the incessant rain. The black leather coat is nowhere to be seen in the crowd of red umbrellas.

In my mind I see the very pleased kid panting hard while hiding behind some parked '36 Ford F1 COE Panel Smart-car Delivery Van remake. His blond bangs have escaped his pony tail and are plastered to his face as he peeks out slowly across the wet plaza and spots a very confused and irritated me a few hundred yards away running my left hand through my dark, wet, hatless hair before ducking back with a satisfied smile and sinking to the ground with his knees to his chest laughing manically.

I look up into the sky and let the rain pelt my unshaven face in pure disgust. Wherever he is he's gone and the only thing I managed to learn was exactly how out of shape I am.

* * *

Thunder rolls as I let the glass door slam behind me. I shake the water out of my hair like some stray dog and walk frowning over to my table where a startled and very dry Bishop sits.

"Where the Hell have you been!" He demands "Do you have any idea what I've been dealing with here?"

I flop soggily into my chair and sigh, running my left hand one last time through my wet hair where my hat should be.

"I've been running around town." I say.

"Well while you've been 'running around' I've been dealing with Securicorp all damn morning! Are you aware that you've been stripped of your freelance license and are officially off the security backup investigator roster?!"

"I had a hunch." I tell him.

"A hunch? A hunch?! Look at this!" He's screaming now. Bish punches up my messages with the keyboard and begins to read with hurried frustration and exasperation the gory and precise ways in which I am now officially inadequate. I reach over to the sugar caddy, extract a few packets and begin to build a sugar packet tower.

"This is to inform you, Detective N. Sawyer, Private Investigator Freelance registration number GD111-etc., etc., that you have been removed from active listing and all recent financial transfers to accounts in your name have been frozen until further notice, pending investigation into allegations regarding 'code J239: Obstruction of Justice' while out of your authorized sector. A complete legal copy of that injunction has been filed with and can be access through the joint office of�" Bishop breaks off and looks at me accusingly. I continue building my sugar packet tower.

"Damn it Sawyer what did you do exactly? The rest is just rights junk: 'You have the right to appeal, you have the right to move about the city and congregate in groups of two or more, your demographic consumer data has been recorded and logged for court references.' The usual legal crap." My stack of sugar packets falls into a heap forcing me to begin again except that Sam sets a hot fresh cup of distraction in front of me.

"Mercer's dead kid." I say between scalding gulps. "She drowned herself in her pool sometime early this morning if you believe it."

"Whaaat? Why haven't I heard about it? I know that hasn't hit the media filters yet!"

"Don't expect it to for a while, we'll have to give Medicorp enough time to re-insert her ident chip and come up with a good cover story." Bishop looks over from his monitor and narrows his eyes in disbelief, bringing one hand up to his face to scratch an imaginary itch.

"Are you serious?!" he says "Of course you are, you were born without a normal sense of humor. Wait! You mean they found her ident chip on you? That's why we got pounded? Sawyer this is big! We have to get out now! Just reapplying while on probation is going to take... months! But if they have the chip then we might be OK! Oh jeez!" he runs his nervous hands across his slicked back hair and releases a big breath towards the ceiling.

"What did you find out about Mercer?" I say. A little detail like a probationary license isn't going to stop me once I've started.

"Clean." He says absentmindedly to the ceiling. "Only child� Mother and only brother died in a car accident back before the autocar highway grid, killed by some drunk guy in a stolen car, then his dad left him his Old-world entertainment empire at the age of nineteen when he unexpectedly keeled over dead in his mashed potatoes in his fifties." Bishop looks up at me as though done. I stare at him over my coffee mug till he sighs and punches up the information he found onto the cafe monitor, continuing to summarize it for me.

"All right man, you want a civic history lesson then here you go: The event was so traumatic that Mercer used his newfound money, power and influence to push through the identity chip laws, funded the autocar automated safety highway, prohibition, and basically built Red District brick by brick. The success of Medicorp alone was enough to rocket him to public hero status, and the rest was history. Mrs. Mercer was born Tara Moore, daughter of Phillip Moore of the Yellow district..."

Bishop's words are a dancing mockery, his irritation at having to slog through such daunting facts is apparent. "They were married 10 years ago, big public ceremony, blah, blah, blah... Between the two of them; till Mercer then owned enough capital and market stocks to claim a majority vote in congress to become a senator. Aaaand that's all there is 'till he golfed himself through eighteen holes of death in the middle of last week!"

Bishop smiles mockingly and looks up at me. I am unmoved. He should have been a writer. A hack pulp fiction writer probably, but a writer none the less. "That's it!" He says "Nothing else! Finito! End of story!" Bishop punches a key on the keyboard with his finger and the Cafe monitor snaps to black. "Now, if you don't mind! I say we walk away before we really get into some trouble!"

There is an awkward silence as I sit blankly and Bishop pretends not to fidget, glancing at the monitor and typing up a new page of unrelated text. When figure he's finally blown himself out and is ready to work I speak.

"Give me a good reason, somebody obviously wants me involved."

Bishop's gaze falls from the monitor and he stares at me unbelieving. He becomes more animated and noticeably upset again as he speaks, ending by waving his hands around wildly. "A reason?! How 'bout the fact that Red's husband is sitting in my briefcase next to a dead priest and a wino? Or how 'bout the simple fact that we don't have a client and couldn't get paid even if we did?! Way I figure it, Red baited you to that terminal yesterday so she could shove that skiver off the ledge the way she killed her husband and the priest! Then last night she planted the three subcues on you so you could take the fall! ...so to speak. And if that's not enough for you, then how about the fact that Red District has enough evidence to drag you in for murder of one of the most prominent senator's wives based on the fact that she was found very dead without a skin chip that YOU let them know you had!"

I smile wryly and make a mental note to make the awkward silence longer next time.

"Gee Bishop I'm impressed!" I say. "Did you think that out all on your own? Only one problem though: She didn't send that first message."

"What? How could you possibly know that?!"

"Intuition." I say.

"You are a mad man, Sawyer!"

Bishop digs around on the desk as he speaks until he comes up with the outer white mail wrapper with the barcode from the package delivered earlier that day. He waves the mail wrapper around for emphasis.

"All right then," he says "If none of that works for you how about the fact that I traced that nice little package you were sent today, and while red-hot was taking her swim somebody was dropping that package into the box in front of that seedy rat-hole you call an apartment! Which means that it was already out of her when she died!" There is a deafening crack and the lights of the caf� flicker out as Lightening strikes one of the rods on the building's pediment high above. I'm suddenly standing over a large woman's body sprawled on the floor. Her face is turned away, but in the second or so of flashing electrical light I see her dyed brown hair and blue fluffy nightgown haphazardly skewed over her heavy thigh until the darkness rushes back in and swallows the room.

I look up from my empty mug and collapsed tower of sugar packets slightly confused. I blink a few times trying to remember the dream but it is gone. Did I just fall asleep? Damn caffeine.

"What?" I say to the mug.

"Your Apartment?" Bishop says. "You know, that place where your other shirt lives? You sleep there occasionally... Been there recently?

I scratch my head, making my already disheveled hair worse. I realize I have no idea what the answer to his question is.

"Actually, that's the best Idea I've heard all day." I say.

And with these words I extract myself from my chair, throw a half salute to Sam behind the counter as I walk across the Cafe, yank the door open and charge back outside into the rain. Wishing to anything I still had my damn hat.

Bishop stares unbelievingly towards the window as I go. "I think he's lost his mind." I hear him say behind me to Sam. "He's going to get us all killed one of these days."

"If he keeps leaving you here with me I'll do it myself." She says.

"Funny." He says, and probably says more but I'm gone at that point and there is too much glass and falling water for me to know what.

GD111842-3PI

Posted: Mon Nov 12, 2007 9:10 pm

Silent
Boot

Joined: 05 Aug 2007
Posts: 56

I wrote Sawyer and Bishop, as they both seem correct. But I got "incorrect answer".

What is the correct answer?

Posted: Mon Nov 12, 2007 9:22 pm

TGI Fridays
Veteran

Joined: 12 Jun 2007
Posts: 123

Silent wrote:

I wrote Sawyer and Bishop, as they both seem correct. But I got "incorrect answer".

What is the correct answer?

yeah, it's a little tricky....

Spoiler (Rollover to View):

N. Sawyer

Posted: Mon Nov 12, 2007 9:28 pm

VQ.Wavecrest
Veteran

Joined: 07 May 2007
Posts: 124
Location: Philadelphia, PA

Spoiler (Rollover to View):

Det. N. Sawyer

That works too, though essentially they're the same.

Posted: Mon Nov 12, 2007 10:22 pm

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