Welcome To The Jungle

by Michael Todd

  Katie glanced up as the cops ran past them. She was thinking about those call identifiers. Damian looked at her, knowing that the call of duty was pulsing through her veins.

  She bit her lip and looked at the shop window.

  “A 444 is an officer-involved shooting,” she whispered to Damian. “And a 211S is a burglar alarm—the silent one. Someone is robbing a bank, and whoever it was took down a cop—which was a terrible move on their part.”

  Damian’s head swiveled to track her as she started walking faster and faster in the direction the cops had gone.

  She was nearly jogging when Damian sighed and ran to catch up.

  She was so bad with things like that. She wanted to save the world, demon-related or not. She would have been one hell of a cop or soldier in her civilian life, that was for sure. Still, they were there to relax, not to chase down every perp on the street.

  That was what the cops were for.

  Damian’s cross bounced against his chest beneath his shirt as he trotted after Katie, and he was out of breath.

  “Got to,” he huffed, “do more cardio!” He dodged between a couple of cars and Katie did something where she put a hand on the hood of a car and vaulted over, managing to accomplish a somersault with full twist in the air. “Oh, that’s so much bullshit!” he grumped when she landed gracefully and kept running.

  Training it was, or he was gonna get fat and sloppy fast. He picked up the pace while looking up to the heavens.

  “Was it too much to ask for a quiet afternoon?”

  Three more cop cars came to a sliding stop at the bank. There were at least a dozen already, and a gaggle of onlookers that was growing larger by the second. The police had the place surrounded, but they weren’t positive what they should do next.

  Chavez and Simon, who had gotten there on foot, bent over, hands on their knees, trying to catch their breath. Katie and Damian were only a few steps behind but were stopped by the ropes. Police crowd control was using the barrier to push the crowd back a little at a time.

  “It’s a bank robbery,” Damian whispered between breaths. “Not really our line of work unless the robber has red eyes and snarls, Katie.”

  “How would we know unless we went in?” Katie asked, watching wide-eyed from the ropes before turning to Damian. “Besides, Korbin said they might need our help on a bunch of different issues.”

  He raised an eyebrow, “I don’t think he meant listening to the speaker on a cop’s vest and then ambulance-chasing them to the scene of the crime,” Damian replied.

  She patted him on the chest before turning back. “All in the details, my friend.”

  “Christ almighty!” a tall detective in a suit exclaimed, throwing his hands into the air and walking toward the cop pushing the people back. “SMITH, you got people creeping the barrier forward, for fuck’s sake. You have got to show some balls here and get them to move back. These people should not be in the middle of this situation.”

  “Yes sir,” the young cop said, walking forward.

  The detective glanced at the crowd and looked away, but before he could take another step he froze.

  Slowly he turned back and stared at Katie and Damian. He knew exactly who they were, but what in the world were they doing at his crime scene? Was there something he didn’t know about what was in that building?

  “You and you.” The detective pointed at Katie and Damian and waved them toward him. “Come with me. The rest of you, push back so that if there’s gunfire we don’t accidently blow your brains all over the sidewalk…please!”

  Katie chuckled at his attempt to be nice by using please at the end of a sentence like that. They ducked under the ropes and followed the detective to his unmarked car, which had a temp light flashing on top. There was a layout of the bank on the trunk, and a pile of cigarette butts on the ground.

  “Look, I don’t know what is going on in there,” he said quietly, looking at the two of them before glancing around to make sure no one was sneaking a listen. “It probably doesn’t have a damn thing to do with your D Squad stuff, but there are a lot of people in that bank—and some of them are children.”

  “What do you know so far?” Katie eyes flitted over to the bank.

  “I was kind of wondering the same thing about the two of you,” he admitted. “Why are you here…at this specific crime scene?”

  “No reason,” Damian answered. “We heard it over the speaker of some cops standing next to us, and we figured maybe you guys could use an extra couple of hands. We know what an ambush looks like, but we also know that in this climate they may kill someone innocent if it takes us too long. We really aren’t sure what to do, though. What is your take on the situation inside?”

  “One officer, who had a second job at the bank, was shot. No idea how severe the injury is, but shot is shot,” the detective answered. “There are a lot of innocent people in there, so we are afraid to barge in and risk lives. For whatever reason, we have two other issues going on the West side, so our negotiators are stuck in those locations right now. I know you guys are trained in tactical and you’ve faced some serious shit, so will you help us?”

  Katie and Damian looked at each other and shrugged, and Damian nodded. Katie smiled and patted him on the shoulder, happy he was going to back her up.

  She turned back to the detective and stuck out her hand. The cop let out a deep breath and shook it, obviously relieved that he wouldn’t have to rely on his underpaid and overworked cops to get all the hostages out of that dangerous situation. He didn’t want to be the one who cost innocent people their lives.

  “We’ll help, but it has to be on our terms,” Katie advised him. “We need a bit of freedom to take care of this.”

  “You got whatever you need; all the freedom in the world,” he assured her. “We don’t need senseless deaths on our hands, and we need to get that injured cop out of there, so we can get him to help.

  “Detective,” the captain began, walking over. “Where are we on this? And who are these two?”

  The detective waited for the man to get closer. “Captain, this is Damian and Katie—part of the D Squad,” he replied. “They’ve agreed to help us out on this.”

  “Oh, shit,” the captain said with wide eyes. “I like the sound of that! Anything you need… We got tactical teams, blueprints of the building… You need it, just ask and we’ll get it for you.”

  “All right,” Katie said, rubbing her hands together. “Let’s come up with a plan.”

  The four of them gathered around the back of the car, and Katie started laying out the plan for them. She didn’t see any difference between these guys and a demon, and for all she knew a demon was behind this.

  The day had started as a vacation, but the adrenaline pumping through her told her this shit was in her blood. With Pandora and Damian on her side, she was fairly sure these assholes didn’t have a chance in…

  Well, hell.

  5

  “The layout is simple,” Stephanie told Korbin as she unfolded her blueprints on Korbin’s desk. “There is one large building in the center that has an aboveground floor and an underground location pretty deep below. There is a ventilation system that pumps in good air, and it runs through the entire bottom level. Along the right side of the main ICBM building are barracks, mostly low-grade rooms for the plebes who worked the base. To the left is a larger barracks; maybe ten or twelve rooms, all upstairs. They look like they were officers’ quarters.”

  “Are they livable now?” Korbin asked.

  “Yeah, they are in decent shape, actually,” Stephanie replied. “The barracks also has a basement with a compression chamber that leads to the next main ventilated areas, so if there was an emergency they could go to the underground chambers.”

  “What about medical?” Korbin asked.

  “Across the back here is a long rectangular building that seems to have been the hospital,” Stephanie said, pointing to the map. “Things are still intact, but it was stripped. I
t needs straightening up and a real good clean, and then you have yourself a hospital. Now, I don’t know about holding facilities for things like demons, but there are radiation rooms.”

  “That’s not a big deal.” Korbin rubbed his jaw, taking a few moments to study the plans. “We can build those. They are specialty places for us, anyway. I just want to make sure there is room for all of us when we move. We can’t wait until the new base is finished, but we can stay aboveground until we are sure the ventilation system is still in tip-top shape.”

  “Right.” Stephanie stood up. “We can test all that stuff in a few hours’ time. I’ve done some exploring, but I haven’t really pushed the envelope too much. I bought the land thinking I’d perhaps turn it into a larger brothel— almost a camp for adults—but never got around to the restoration.”

  “Good for us.” Korbin smiled.

  “Yeah.” She scoffed. “I didn’t like the business anyways, and I’m pretty sure that’s why I never actually got around to it. I didn’t want a bunny ranch, I wanted a life.”

  “Well, now you have one, though it’s not as free as you might be otherwise.” Korbin smiled. “I just need us back up and running, but we can’t go there if we can’t get it into service relatively quickly.”

  “Everything aboveground just needs to be cleaned.” Stephanie tapped a finger on the desk, thinking. “Maybe some light bulbs replaced, bedroom stuff, moving racks out, but all in all it just needs a loving touch—nothing the boys and girls can’t handle. There is also an underground bunker back here that is camouflaged to avoid detection from the sky and at ground-level. I was thinking it might be a good place for the business.”

  “That sounds interesting,” Korbin mused. “We will definitely take a look at that as soon as we get over there.”

  “I think that with everyone’s help, we could have this whole facility—or whatever is left of it—moved in a couple days’ time.” Stephanie looked up at him. “Three, tops.”

  “We could spend one day moving this main building floor by floor, and then one day getting anything salvageable out of the extra buildings.” Korbin considered the layout of the buildings. “Yeah, I don’t think it will take too long, and everyone is ready to get out of this mess. I think living in a dust bowl is starting to get to them. When they train they get covered in dust, and when they go to bed they have to wipe everything off again. It’s kind of a pain in the ass, that’s for damn sure.”

  Stephanie laughed. “I know, remember? I live here now.”

  “Yeah.” Korbin chuckled. “I forget sometimes.”

  As if, he chided himself.

  “Anyway, I think I could get the girls to come help. Do some painting, get things looking nice the way we did here,” Stephanie continued. “I can get construction crews to start ventilating the shafts underneath, and clearing out any debris we can’t use. That will give us a clean slate to work with. There is nothing worse than getting it all cleaned up and having piles of shit lying around. Get it all hauled off before anything secret comes in there and we can’t let the crews on the base.”

  “That’s smart,” he admitted. “I want our new place to be treated like a top-secret military installation, because…well, that’s really what it is. It’s a place to keep everything under control; under lock and key. I want to figure out some way to camouflage it from the sky even better, if it needs it. I don’t want people coming in and out without proper clearance. We have to get serious about this. We saw what happened when we treated this place like a normal house. We were attacked in our own damned yard. It could have been disastrous, and in some ways, it was. In other ways, it made me realize what I need to be doing; what this place is missing. It has become too relaxed.”

  “I agree with you on that,” she told him. “I loved the feeling of family, but we didn’t treat it like there was any danger.”

  “Absolutely,” Korbin replied. “When we lost that edge, that deep-seated fear that we all have, we got careless. Carelessness caused Jeremy to get killed. I think this team has seen enough death in the time they’ve been here to last them the rest of their lives. I’d like a good long streak where I don’t have to worry about funerals, memorials, and grief. I just want to move forward into a new and stronger day with a fresh start, and I think this move is what might do it. If we all work together, we can get what we need out of the base and start building what we want. There definitely hasn’t been a lack of business or payments recently.”

  “Very true,” Stephanie agreed, folding up the blueprints. “Well, I can get some construction companies over to the site and meet with them as soon as now.”

  Korbin put up a hand. “Hold off just a little bit longer.” He nodded toward their kitchen. “The team leaders are still here, and I don’t want to leave them on their own. There is too much going on, and too many slip-ups could occur. When they are gone—and I mean the moment they board their plane—I will be out of here too. We all will. We will jump right into getting the place set up and ready to move into. It’s been a hard road—and there is still a lot to contend with—but at least we know that we will soon have a strong, reliable home to come back to. We will be able to work more efficiently, and we will be able to do better at tracking and running the current calls we get. It just takes time.”

  “That it does.” Stephanie smiled. “Anyway, you have some people to entertain, and a nap is calling my name. Come and get me when they are gone. I want to show you around the base, and get some contractors out for you to talk to.”

  “I will.” Korbin grinned at her. “And one day I’ll actually try that resting thing, too.”

  Ella Hamilton was that girl—that New York City twenty-year-old still living with her parents.

  Her long hair was wildly streaked pink and purple, her makeup was dark and crazy no matter what time of day it was, and her attitude matched all of the above. She was a wild child, and had been her whole life.

  Her parents weren’t home ninety percent of the time, and the other ten they drove her absolutely fucking batshit crazy.

  She was teetering on the edge of no future, walking the edge of a homeless, jobless, or perhaps addicted life—and she didn’t give two shits about it.

  The craziest part of it all was that Ella was extremely smart; possibly genius-level, she had been told. But all she wanted to do was drink, smoke, and party as much as she possibly could.

  “Yeah, right. Whatever, Mom,” she yelled over her shoulder, tramping down the sidewalk in her combat boots, torn jeans, and military jacket. “Fucking parents!” she huffed, disgusted.

  She threw her Starbucks shirt and hat in her bag as she walked to the cab. She was annoyed by her mother; someone she felt she barely knew, someone who drove her fucking nuts on a regular basis. She wasn’t a momma’s girl, and she barely ever spoke to her father. She just wanted them to leave her the hell alone.

  “My life can’t possibly get any fucking worse,” she grumbled as she climbed into the cab.

  She was never early to work. In fact she was usually lucky to even show up, but she somehow managed to not get fired.

  Her awakening with her mother, though, had been so insane that she was actually leaving early for work that day.

  She had been happily asleep—passed out, to be exact—from the party she had been to the night before, but at the butt-crack of dawn her mother went on one of her rampages, waking her up and bitching about every little thing.

  She had told her parental unit the same thing she always did; that she couldn’t be a mother only when she wanted to, that she had given that right up a long time before, but of course that didn’t fly. It never did.

  Her mother had been tipped over the edge by it, and it just went on and on until Ella grabbed her shit and headed out the door.

  Ella gave the cabbie her work address and sat in the back looking out the window.

  She had always known she would go down that path; she had made it a point to do so. She was fucking smart and she knew she had
control, but when her parents started going nuts and life just got to be too much, she had buried herself in the underground. She lost her pain in drugs and alcohol, danced until her feet couldn’t move anymore, and fell into the arms of whatever hottie was crushing on her that night.

  Self-respect wasn’t the name of her game, nor was respect.

  She was upfront about it, and she wasn’t worried what others thought. She didn’t give a flying fuck, and that was just how it was. There was no fucking way she was going to bend to the demands of her society or her parents, who didn’t do anything but bitch and push her further down the partying rabbit hole.

  When the taxi pulled up in front of the coffee shop, she paid the driver in crumpled bills and got out, walking nonchalantly in the door.

  The place was always packed, but so was everything else in New York. That was why she loved it there; there were always so many people. She could get lost in the crowds, and no one ever cared who the hell she was or what her story was. She put on her apron and tied her hair back before walking behind the counter and clocking in at the register.

  “Wow!” Her supervisor looked at the non-existent watch on her wrist and back at Ella. “One minute early. I never thought I would see the day you got to work on time.”

  Ella gave her a fake smile and waited for her boss to turn back around. When she did she gave her the bird, mocking her expression with her own.

  She hated that bitch. She was always so perfect, so innocent; so on-point with everything in life. She hadn’t liked Ella even before she knew she was a slacker. She didn’t dress the right way for her, her hair was never perfect enough, her makeup was never trendy enough, and Ella’s personality sure as hell wasn’t saccharine enough for that girl.

  Her supervisor had tried to get her fired several times, but the manager wouldn’t let it happen. He was a friend of her mother’s somehow, and had promised to keep her on no matter what.