here?" I asked the nearest
officer, an almost two-meter-tall tiger.
His response was to hold a camera up to my
face and run my image through a tablet app. When he read the
results, he glared down at me and instead of answering my question,
issued a question (or rather a demand) of his own. "Where is the
red panda known as 'Denal'?"
What? They wanted Denal? Had he tried
something stupid already? The only response I could think to give
was a short "I… don't know."
"You liar." The tiger grabbed the front of my
shirt and drew me close. "You two were on the same policy as the
victims; you must have some idea of where he ran off to."
"Leave zir." A disturbingly familiar voice
came from a gurney set up by the Guild vehicle parked next to the
tunnel entrance. On the propped up stretcher was the one cat I
least wanted to see at that time. "Ze's with Griggs," said Derrick
Marquez, the corrupt clone of the Marquez clan's leader.
The enforcer dropped me and stalked off, back
to whatever it was he had been assigned to do. Cautiously, I
approached the commander. I saw that his stomach was bandaged and
he was essentially confined to his impromptu bed by a set of
intravenous tubes and straps to his legs.
"What…" I stuttered, afraid of what the
answer might be. "What was he talking about?"
Derrick snorted; even such a simple act
appeared to take a great deal of effort in his condition. "What do
you think happened?" He lifted a hand to point towards the interior
of the ground car next to him. "Your raccoon buddy went nuts and
shot your other two friends. Then when I tried to stop him, he
attempted to run me through with a sword."
I looked in the direction he was pointing.
There sitting on the bed of the transport lay several items in
plastic bags tagged with numbers for reference. One bag had Denal's
longsword, the thin blade snapped in half. Aniya and Cole's dart
guns were in another pair of bags, next to them a couple of darts
that had apparently been fired. But the interior of the vehicle was
dominated by a pair of very large opaque bags that were zipped
shut; one was just a little over one meter long, the other well
over three.
"Are they…" I started to ask, but I couldn't
bring myself to complete the sentence. "They can't be. I was just
having dinner with them last night. It's not possible."
"Afraid so, Silver." The Marquez scion's
voice was calm and controlled, as if this kind of thing were
routine. "The darts Denal shot them with where loaded with massive
doses of hydrogen cyanide. They were dead within minutes."
"But those are Aniya and Cole's guns," I
objected, still unable to grasp the reality laid out before me.
"They would never put something so lethal in their darts; they
hated killing."
"Then I guess you didn't know your crewmates
as well as you thought you did." Derrick Marquez started to lift
himself up off his stretcher to turn towards me. "I suggest you go
home and go to bed early. This is a lot to deal with." Then his
eyes lit up in a moment of sadistic glee. "Unless… this was your
home, wasn't it? Well, too bad, because it's now evidence in a
murder investigation. You might be able to retrieve some of your
things in two to six weeks, depending on how long the paperwork
takes to process."
"Hope you can handle the mortgage payments,"
I said in a weak attempt at a witty comeback as I slowly walked
away in the direction of the apartment I had called home for five
nights out of each of the last five weeks.
Once I made it there, I found myself taking
Derrick Marquez's advice, I piled every blanket and pillow in the
apartment on top of the bed and burrowed underneath them. It was no
substitute for Aniya's pouch. That would never again offer me the
comfortable safety I had felt inside it. By the time I crawled out
to inform Maximus that I wouldn't be coming in to work the
following morning, the sheets were stained with sweat and
tears.
***
I spent the day following the deaths of two
of my closest and only
officer, an almost two-meter-tall tiger.
His response was to hold a camera up to my
face and run my image through a tablet app. When he read the
results, he glared down at me and instead of answering my question,
issued a question (or rather a demand) of his own. "Where is the
red panda known as 'Denal'?"
What? They wanted Denal? Had he tried
something stupid already? The only response I could think to give
was a short "I… don't know."
"You liar." The tiger grabbed the front of my
shirt and drew me close. "You two were on the same policy as the
victims; you must have some idea of where he ran off to."
"Leave zir." A disturbingly familiar voice
came from a gurney set up by the Guild vehicle parked next to the
tunnel entrance. On the propped up stretcher was the one cat I
least wanted to see at that time. "Ze's with Griggs," said Derrick
Marquez, the corrupt clone of the Marquez clan's leader.
The enforcer dropped me and stalked off, back
to whatever it was he had been assigned to do. Cautiously, I
approached the commander. I saw that his stomach was bandaged and
he was essentially confined to his impromptu bed by a set of
intravenous tubes and straps to his legs.
"What…" I stuttered, afraid of what the
answer might be. "What was he talking about?"
Derrick snorted; even such a simple act
appeared to take a great deal of effort in his condition. "What do
you think happened?" He lifted a hand to point towards the interior
of the ground car next to him. "Your raccoon buddy went nuts and
shot your other two friends. Then when I tried to stop him, he
attempted to run me through with a sword."
I looked in the direction he was pointing.
There sitting on the bed of the transport lay several items in
plastic bags tagged with numbers for reference. One bag had Denal's
longsword, the thin blade snapped in half. Aniya and Cole's dart
guns were in another pair of bags, next to them a couple of darts
that had apparently been fired. But the interior of the vehicle was
dominated by a pair of very large opaque bags that were zipped
shut; one was just a little over one meter long, the other well
over three.
"Are they…" I started to ask, but I couldn't
bring myself to complete the sentence. "They can't be. I was just
having dinner with them last night. It's not possible."
"Afraid so, Silver." The Marquez scion's
voice was calm and controlled, as if this kind of thing were
routine. "The darts Denal shot them with where loaded with massive
doses of hydrogen cyanide. They were dead within minutes."
"But those are Aniya and Cole's guns," I
objected, still unable to grasp the reality laid out before me.
"They would never put something so lethal in their darts; they
hated killing."
"Then I guess you didn't know your crewmates
as well as you thought you did." Derrick Marquez started to lift
himself up off his stretcher to turn towards me. "I suggest you go
home and go to bed early. This is a lot to deal with." Then his
eyes lit up in a moment of sadistic glee. "Unless… this was your
home, wasn't it? Well, too bad, because it's now evidence in a
murder investigation. You might be able to retrieve some of your
things in two to six weeks, depending on how long the paperwork
takes to process."
"Hope you can handle the mortgage payments,"
I said in a weak attempt at a witty comeback as I slowly walked
away in the direction of the apartment I had called home for five
nights out of each of the last five weeks.
Once I made it there, I found myself taking
Derrick Marquez's advice, I piled every blanket and pillow in the
apartment on top of the bed and burrowed underneath them. It was no
substitute for Aniya's pouch. That would never again offer me the
comfortable safety I had felt inside it. By the time I crawled out
to inform Maximus that I wouldn't be coming in to work the
following morning, the sheets were stained with sweat and
tears.
***
I spent the day following the deaths of two
of my closest and only
Similar Books
