Industry & Intrigue (3 page)

She made her way over to one of
the serving staf
f and asked for the manager. The waitress went out the back
and a moment later a large man, both in height and weight came out
to see her. “I’m here to see Rengalk,” she said and she slid a
silver coin over the counter.

In p
laces like this, it was an expected
cost for the privilege of them to not ask questions.

The man carefully pocketed the
coin
,
“Second floor, third door on the right,” and she nodded in thanks.
She made her way up as fast as she could, running into a woman
hurrying in the opposite direction, but paid her little attention.
She reached the door and knocked lightly. There was no response, so
she knocked again, harder this time. He could be sleeping off a
night of drinking.

I shouldn’t have agreed to meet
in an inn
,
she thought, although Rengalk hadn’t given her much choice.
She tried the knob and it turned; the door was unlocked. She pulled
her Hanuus six-shooter revolver out of its holster and pushed the
door open with her free arm.

Rengalk was slumped against the
bed, blood pooling
from a stomach wound. She stepped in and he gasped and
tried to speak, but it turned into a violent cough. She scanned the
room for assailants but it was clear, she bent down next to him.
“Rengalk, what happened?” she asked.

“
I was too slow,” he said with
his thick, orcish accent, “shoulda been more careful.” He coughed
again, drops of blood spattering the bed sheet. Brenna examined the
wound but could tell it was too late; it was a deep, knife wound.
The blade had sliced along his green skin, then twisted around and
pulled out to ensure maximum damage.

“
So
rry,” she said. “I should have got
here faster.”

He shook his head before going
into another coughing
fit, “Barus, he’s… he’s getting in a new shipment
tomorrow night and…ugh.” He stopped and blood dribbled from his
lips.

“
And?” asked Brenna, the orc was
dying and
but she could still get what she came here for. “At least
make the last thing you do a good deed,” she pleaded.

He looked at her, his eyes
strained. “I
t’ll be going to a new safe house…its…ah...ugh…cor,” but he
was unable to finish whatever he had been about to say, his breath
stopped and his eyes were no longer moving.

Brenna stood up and
swore
,
“Fucking damn it!” She had been this close to getting Barus’s drug
operation. She should have known better though, this was the reason
it was so hard to get information about the drug operation run by
Barus Asulius.

Informants were killed and witnesses were
intimidated. There had been a particularly nasty shoot-out a month
ago, between Barus’s crew and one of the smaller gangs, which left
five dead, including two innocent bystanders. Not a single suspect
had even been arrested. Barus controlled a significant portion of
the tarcaine trade in Alkos City.

Tarcaine was a powerful
drug that induced
hallucinations and a near comatose like high, and it was highly
addictive. It was smuggled into the Alkon Empire from Ze Feros,
where it was legal, albeit only for high ranking members of the
Kartec religion. That didn’t stop entrepreneurial criminals from
obtaining it, which left little chance for it to be cut off at the
source. The Zefey were zealots when it came to their religious
practices.

The recent drug
refo
rmation
under the new legislation had changed the situation. Brenna’s unit
didn’t have to go after the small time drugs anymore, as they had
been decriminalized or even legalized, which at least gave the
watch more resources to focus on the tarcaine trade.

As she went to leave she suddenly realized
she may have passed Rengalk’s killer. He had only been stabbed a
short time ago and she had passed a woman on the way up. She ran
downstairs and burst out the front door, no longer caring about
attracting attention.

She looked down both ways of
the
street
but she couldn’t see her anywhere. There was no one other than the
usual vagrants. Fortunately her memory was incredibly keen, part of
what made her such a good justice officer. She would get down
everything she could remember about the possible killer once she
returned to the station.

After finishing with the
station’s facial
artist, Brenna took a good look at the picture; it wasn’t much to
go on. Human, light skin, average height and weight, no
distinguishing marks.

“
So how’d it go?” asked one of
the officers who was under
her command, George Thorndor. He typically did
street work, arresting drug dealers and prostitutes and bringing
them in to pressure them into spilling the beans on their
superiors. Despite his age and long service in the watch he had no
problem working under Brenna. Unlike a few of the other older
officers who didn’t appreciate being told what to do by a less
experienced member who had yet to earn their respect, on top of
being a woman in the male-dominated city watch.

"No good
,” she replied. “One of
Asulius’ people beat me to him. Guess he must have made them
suspicious, said or did the wrong thing.”

George grimaced.
“Damn, that’s
rough, I thought this informant of yours had finally cracked the
armor of Asulius’ operation.” Then he noticed the picture she had
in her hands. “And that’s the killer?”

She nodded.
“Yeah, at least I think it is.
A woman that bumped into me while I was heading up to meet Rengalk.
She was in a hurry, so she’d be my best guess.”

“
Not much to go on, in this city
there’s hundreds of people that match that picture” said George as
he held up the drawing.

“
I know, fucking useless.” She
grabbed
the
picture from his hands and threw it onto her desk. “I better go and
tell the captain.”

“
Oh right, that’s why I came
over, he wants to talk to you ab
out a case involving Imperial Branch,” he
said, in sudden remembrance. “And before you ask, no I don’t have
the details. He also has a rookie he wants you to try out.” He
snickered as he finished his sentence.

“
And why in the hells is that
funny?” asked Brenna in an annoyed tone “Something up with the new
meat? Oh fuck. Don’t tell me whoever it is, is a fanatical
Varonite.”

“
Absolutely
not!
”
exclaimed George, “So soon after the McWilliams Scandal. Do you
think the captain would let a Varonite rookie into our
unit?”

Varonism was a large, monotheist religion
that was conservative and strict. It had once been the main
religion of Alkos before the empire had secularized, but there was
still a significant amount of the population that were belonged to
its church. They were well known for being vocal about their
beliefs even in fully secularized workplaces where speaking out in
such a way could have legal repercussions.

A
few months ago a watch captain named
Kenneth McWilliams had been fired in scandal. He had delayed an
investigation on a murder case, due to the main suspect being a
high standing priest in his local church. It turned out that the
suspect had been guilty but by the time the watch had enough to
charge him he had already fled the city. Captain McWilliams had
been crucified professionally and in the papers for delaying the
investigation out of religious privilege.

“
No nothing like
that
,”
replied George, “but you’ll see soon enough.” He walked away from
the desk still chuckling to himself.

Brenna shrug
ged and headed towards the
captains office. As she walked past the other desks, she noticed
grins and odd laughter from several other officers, clearly George
wasn’t the only one in on whatever the joke was about the new
recruit.

She reached the large glass
doors that had
Captain Niko Tolov
written in bold, black letters. She knocked and
the captain looked up and waved at her to enter. She walked in
while saying, “Captain, I’m sorry, the informant had been attacked
by the time I arrived. He died before he could tell me anything
useful. I should have been more careful.”

The captain was immaculately dressed in
his suit and tie as always and his heavily greying, dark hair was
cut short. He leaned forward and Brenna could smell his aftershave.
“Anything on the killer?” he asked.

“
No sir, nothing beyond the
brief description I have
when she passed me. But I will do everything I can
to find her and then I’ll get Barus Asulius if I have to beat it
out of her.”

The captain leaned back and put
his hands together with his fingers laced.
“It’s doubtful you’ll find her. From
what we know of Asulius, his enforcers are careful and even if you
do, I doubt she’d talk. Not with the amount of pull Asulius has in
the city prison. No, I think you need to take a step back until we
get in from the other angles, besides I need you elsewhere for
now.”

S
he wasn’t exactly happy but she replied,
“Yes sir. What do you need?”

He passed her a sheet of
paper
.
“Imperial Branch has requested a member of our unit to advise them
on a suicide, so I need my best sergeant to go.”

“
A suicide sir? Since when
does Imperial Branch investigate suicides and why do they need our
help?” she queried.

Imperial Branch was
a small, elite part
of the watch that dealt with high-profile murders, thefts and
political crime. The branch took orders directly from the justice
minister rather than the watch commander. On the street they were
called the Blackwatch. It was never a good sign for a criminal if
they heard the phrase ‘The Blackwatch is coming.’

“
I know, it’s not
normally an area
for either branches but I suspect the victim is someone high
profile which is why they’re involved. As for us, well it’s a drug
overdose so they asked for the experts.”

Brenna
nodded
,
“Where is it?”

“
The victim was a student at
Warded Spirals, the scene is at the campus housing, block five,
room two-zero-one. But before you leave, we have a new rookie,”
said Niko.

“
Yes,
so I’ve heard,” said Brenna. “Those
guys can’t keep their mouths shut about anything.” She pointed out
at the officers in the main room. “You want me to take the rookie
along to the scene?”

Niko
nodded, “Yes. He’s waiting in the
conference room, I’ll get you introduced.” He stood up from his
desk and let Brenna leave the office first and followed her out. As
they walked towards the room, Brenna could sense the same level of
humor from the other officers again.

“
What’s the big joke
captain? Something to do with the rookie?” she asked.

“
Don’t mind
them
,” said
Niko. “They’re wondering what your reaction will be.”

“
Reaction to what?” she
asked
, more
annoyed than ever now. They were coming up to the conference room
door and Niko said, “The new rookie, he’s… well he’s an
agorid.”

Brenna was
shocked
,
“What! An agorid! Are you fucking joking?” Her surprise was only
natural. Agorids were a savage bipedal race from the Steppes of
Kangur that lived in numerous nomadic tribes. They were made up of
five sub-races, bear, bovine, goat, lupine and tiger, each sub-race
looking like bipedal versions of the respective animals and having
different cultures and traditions. The one trait they all had in
common however was violence.

The tribes near the borders of civilized
nations constantly conducted raids against them and never cared how
many of their own number they lost in the process. Many experts
thought that if it were not for the tribes warring against each
other so often they would be able to conquer all of Maceon, so
great were their numbers and expertise at waging war.

“
Calm down
,” said Niko. “I know what
you’re thinking. I thought the exact same thing when the commander
asked me to consider him for our unit. Meet him, take him out on
this simple case with you and let me know what you think. That’s
all I ask.”

Brenna was still shaking her head. “Fine
sir, if you say so,” she replied and pushed open the door to the
conference room. There was a podium at the front and several small
chairs messily spread throughout the room. Seated at a large, empty
desk was a bear agorid in the red uniform of the Alkos City Watch.
It must have been custom made; the department certainly didn’t make
a common size large enough to fit him. In addition to the uniform
he had metallic armor covering his left shoulder.

He stood up as
the
y entered
the room and he looked even bigger. He was at least seven and a
half feet tall and Brenna had to look upwards to make eye
contact.

Then he spoke and
surprised her,
“Greetings captain, am I to assume that this will be my training
officer?” He held out his huge paw to shake her hand.