Thursday 11 October 2018

4: A Watch: Sector 13, 25/07/31: Hit the Streets!

A Shift (later on that afternoon)

Kowalski leaned back in her chair and regarded her two colleagues. She felt the nerves around her eye jumping uncontrollably, a sure symptom of underlying strain. Sighing,  she took a deep breath and ran through the calming exercises her Academy Tutors had taught her. The twitching subsided, but she could still feel it, under the surface. It never really went away, now... 
Muller sat slouched in his chair, his stubbled face regarding his synthi-caff as though it had insulted his mother. The skin around the scars on his face puckered angrily as he scowled, although in reality Kowalski had rarely seen him wear any other expression.
In contrast, Wily sat ramrod straight, as though newly-passed from the Academy. Which in reality he was; fast-tracked to a Tac-Team leadership position to give him some slab-time before getting booted upstairs to some policy wonk position, no doubt. Kowalski mirrored Mullers perpetual scowl at that thought; although she felt that Wily was still trying to use the velvet glove approach too much with Citizens, she felt there was plenty of steel there too, if only he'd let it out.
'So, what do we think we know then?' Kowalski repeated her question of a few moments earlier. Whilst waiting for Rock Beauchamp to be brought out of the cubes for further interrogation, they'd kicked around a range of theories about what was going on. Item one: there appeared to be body-sharking racket operating locally, run by the Finkle Brothers, Oswald and Bisley. Small-time petty crooks, they lived in the lower floors of Jimmy Gandolfini Block. Gandolfini Block had the lowest recorded crime rates of all the blocks in the sector, with the emphasis on 'recorded': the block was also known as the base of operations for the Contralto crime family. They would have to tread carefully there, no doubt.
Item two: Agnes Radley of Kimi Kardashian Block seemed to be caught up in at least two cases of missing persons. They'd uncovered some odd goings-on at the Saturn Towers doss-house; nothing illegal but very suspicious. There seemed to be some connection between Radley and the Finkles, but they didn't have enough pieces to join these two parts of the jigsaw as yet. As she considered this state of affairs, Kowalski felt the tic in her eye start up again. She sighed.
Muller was starting to growl an answer when the comm in the ready room crackled into life. 'Wily, your perps being decanted now. We've started the drip, so by the time you get down here, he should be just about cooked'. Judge-Wardens always seemed to think they were funny, thought Kowalski; probably due to having a captive audience for their terrible jokes. As if cube-time wasn't enough...
Whilst Kowalski and Wily headed off to interrogate Beauchamp, Muller elected to put his tek skills to use and worked on analysing and cleaning up the grainy footage they had of the hover car that had sped off when the Grundy's wrecking attempt had been halted. Perhaps there was some clue that the TekDiv analysts had missed.
In the end, Rock Beauchamp gave up everything he knew without a struggle. Without access to adifax and with all of his body hair removed by the high pressure Depil-Foam used by the Wardens, Rock looked about 100 years old. His sob-story checked out with what he'd told them before, with one addition: his adifax dealer was a small-time fence called Barry the Lip, known to the department but obviously looking to make his way in the world. Even more interesting, Rock had always met Barry near to a mega-burger joint called 'You Only Live Munce!', a known Fatty eatery.
Muller had also been successful with his review of the grainy spycam footage. The car was a Foord Varooma, a very common family sedan model. Even more interesting was the fact that Beauchamp was able to confirm that the same model had been used by the Finkles when picking up Poochums as collateral for his loan.

Grateful for a solid lead, the team hit the slab. Roaring out of the sub-level Sector House onto the skedway, the glare of the afternoon sun turned the clouds of smog to an orange glow that could almost be thought of as pretty. Almost.
The burger joint was in one of the Sector's mid-levels, not far from the Bruce Springsteen Block. In fact, Muller had taken great pleasure in stopping briefly to book a group of E-Street Juves for traffic violations, resulting in a broken jaw, a mild concussion and several broken ribs. His smile had faded by  the time they arrived at the burger joint, however. Wily quickly rapped out his deployment instructions, by the book: he would stay outside and liaise with Control whilst Kowalski and Muller apprehended the perp. Entering the building, it was obvious that this was intended for the specialist dining requirements of the Fatty community. Reinforced plas-steel benches lined the edges of the dining area, with at least a dozen customers already seated. Rather than plates and cutlery, food was delivered by series of chutes. All the customer had to do was to clamp their jaws around the spigot and food would be channelled straight into their waiting gullets. For those who wanted every calorie to count, there was even the option to have their food pureed so they didn't have to waste energy chewing.
Grimacing at the range of unpleasant organic sounds emanating from the clientele, the Judges surveyed the room. Almost immediately, Muller spotted their quarry, seated at the back of the room. Although not a dedicated Fatty like some, Barry the Lip still sported an impressive girth. Almost as though he had a sixth sense, the perp looked up and locked eyes with Kowalski. Eyes widening in shock, Barry leapt to his feet with a speed belying his size. 'Suspensors!' growled Muller as he charged after him. Kowalski likewise gave chase, although she was soon outpaced by the furious Muller. Although he was driven by rage, and tried every trick in the book to catch the perp, Barry the Lip showed a rare elegance in his movements, using just the lightest kick of a foot or the push of a hand to propel himself through the maze of alleyways behind the food joint. Eventually, Muller had to give up when he saw Barry pirouette gracefully around a corner some distance away, and his mood was not improved when he realised Barry was giving him the finger as he did so.

The Tac Team gathered once more outside the munce bar, and Wily did an admiral job of containing his smile when Muller reported what had happened. Kowalski was less successful, earning herself an evil glare from Muller in return.
Hitting a dead end with the adifax lead, the team headed off for Jimmy Gandolfini Block to pay the Finkles a visit. On arrival, the Judges immediately noticed that something was wrong. There were no juves or gangers hanging around committing minor misdemeanours, nor was there any graffiti or litter evident in the tween-plaza. Instead, groups of citizens were walking and talking, or helping to keep the synthi-flower beds tidy. As the Judges walked into the main foyer of the Block, several elds gave them a friendly wave. 'I don't like it' muttered Kowalski 'this isn't normal'.
Heading to the office of the local Block Judges, the Tac-Team reviewed what they knew of Jimmy Gandolfini Block and the Finkles. It had one of the lowest crime rates in the Sector, and was known as an easy posting for Judges approaching the end of their career. It was also well-known as the base of operations for the Contralto crime family; although they were suspected to be behind much of the organised crime in the Sector, only a few low-level gangsters had been sent to the cubes. As far as Oswald and Bisley Finkle went, they'd done time as juves for a succession of minor crimes but then appeared to have learned the error of their ways and had been clean for many years. Also suspicious, felt Wily.
Whilst checking in at the Block Judge office, the team were approached by a heavy-set man wearing what appeared to be a replica of mid-20th century clothing. He also had a very heavily accented voice, that Wily was able to place as being common amongst some of the original inhabitants of the place this part of the Big Meg had been built over; it had been called Brooklyn, he seemed to recall.
Going by the name of Tiny Contralto, the newcomer was able to give some further information on the Finkles. 'Good boys' he continued in his strange manner 'they keep out of trouble. Haven't seen them around much recently though. Perhaps you got some bum intel. Tell you what, you go about your bidness, and I'll call you if I see them. Capisce?'
But the team were not to be swayed, and set off to search the Finkle's shared hab. As they walked away, they noticed that Tiny was watching them closely, and speaking quietly to a juve who ran off, clearly on some errand...
At the Finkle's hab, Muller took great pleasure in booting the door in, even though that was unnecessary given his Judge's pass card. 'This is a crime blitz!' he yelled into the empty apartment before barging in; Wily and Kowalski exchanged glances as they stepped through the splintered synthi-board doorway.
Inside,  a search failed to find anything incriminating. It did, however, reveal several things of interest. The consumer goods in the hab were of a much higher value than would normally be seen, indicating a higher income than could be generated solely through welfare payments. There were also lots of leaflets relating to the 'Eternal Rest' chain of sus-an vaults, which tied in with some of the team's suspicions regarding a link, Perhaps most interesting of all, Muller was able to access their comp-terminal, and in their search history found lots of material referring to the maintenance and design of servo-droids; nothing illegal, but certainly indicating an interest above that of an average citizen.

Finding nothing else of note, the team left the unnerving surroundings of the apparently crime-free Gandolfini Block and headed to the local branch of the 'Eternal Rest' sus-an vault franchise. In common with others of its type across MC-1, the vault was a blocky, stark edifice faced in faux-marble-plas that gleamed in the city lights. The mournful theme was continued inside, with relatives of those being frozen being greeted by droids with black casings and solemn expressions on the vid-screens where their faces should be. There was one human on hand, a tall pale man wearing a black frock coat and top hat; the very image of the sombre attendant one would expect. When the Judges took him aside to question him, however, he removed his top hat to reveal a cascade of luxuriant hair that had been coiled and confined within. Sighing with pleasure, the attendant introduced himself as Willibald Fawcet-Montague III and proved particularly helpful. He confirmed that the chemicals used to freeze Ma Grundy was a proprietary brand used by the franchise, but Ma Grundy didn't show up on his inventory of 'residents'. Furthermore, he'd never heard of the Finkle Brothers; aside from himself and one other shift supervisor, there were no other humans on staff. All of the work was done by servo-droids. It was clear to the team that Willibald was telling the truth as he knew it, so whilst Kowalski checked the vault's records,  Muller and Wily were given a tour of the vault's operations. Whilst reviewing the records, Kowalski had a Grud-sent inspiration; using her medical expertise, she set the biomonitors from each cryo-casket to check for non-human life signs. Lo and behold, one casket in the lowest storage crypt flashed up on the screen. Calling to her team mates, the triumphant Kowalski led the way to the elevator and down into the crypts. 
Reaching the identified storage space, the Judges entered to find a sombre, darkened area with wisps of coolant gas whirling around their standard-issue boots and kneepads. As they moved, echoes rebounded from the marble-plas walls. Stationed at intervals around the crypt were pairs of black-painted servo-droids, standing silently awaiting commands. Moving quickly to a comp-terminal, Kowalski called up the ID number of the anomalous reading. Almost silently, a robotic arm detached from the high ceiling and retrieved the casket, placing it on a shelf in the corner of the crypt for inspection. Wiping away the frost on the viewing plate on the top of the casket, the Judges were rewarded with the sight of what could only be Poochums!
Their moment of satisfaction was short-lived however; a series of sounds made them turn, only to see a line  of servo-droids marching silently towards them, arms outstretched and a single red eye gleaming from their face panels! Drawing their lawgivers, they prepared to repel the robo-zombie horde!

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