by Colby R Rice
Zeika stared back at Franz hard, not budging. "No, but even if we were, no one asked you."
"Tha good people of thiss here bar don't need to ssee your nasssty," Franz said, stumbling against the booth. "You and your slut mother should keep your Azure pimps at home, ya fuckin' whores—"
"Go suck the cock's end of a beer bottle, all right, Franz?!"
The detective stood up, his face dark. "Get out, or I'm going to arrest you for disorderly conduct and for being a dick."
Franz straightened up as though to challenge the detective, but then he seemed to reconsider. He stepped back, a sloppy smile smeared on his face. "I saw your mom in Angels9 the other day, Z. Tell her I'll see her on the next flight." He burped and staggered off, but not before smirking at them one last time.
Zeika slumped back into her seat and looked at the wall, rubbing her arms. She could feel tears welling up.
"Zeeky, why'd Franz say that about Mommy?"
Zeika couldn't work up a response. She could feel the detective's eyes on her.
"You all right?" He asked.
"Look, no offense, detective," she murmured. "But we're just here to eat and answer questions. If you're working up to getting friendly, please don't bother. You don't have to pretend you care."
To her surprise, he didn't even flinch at her reaction. But he was observing her, more with curiosity than anything else.
"Sorry, Mister. Zeeky's got a real mean mouth."
Zeika cut Manja a glare. Manja stuffed her face full of pancake and looked off, as though the voice had come from elsewhere.
"Not a problem," he replied. "So do I. And you don't have to call me 'Mister'. It's Caleb. Caleb Rai." He lifted his eyes to her. "Zeika, is it? Anon?"
"It's Anon. Like cannon, only drop the 'c'. Ezekiel D'jihara Anon." She regarded him with impatience. It was undeserved, her attitude, and she knew it by the amused way he looked back at her. But she couldn't help it. People always pronounced her name like it was the confessions of friggin' Shakespeare.
"I've never heard a name like that in my life," he said. "It's pretty cool."
Somehow, there wasn't a single drop of sarcasm in his voice. He smiled, even— sincere. She shifted uncomfortably in her seat.
"And I'm Manja!" The little one muscled in. "And I'm going to be a big singer one day, like Nina Simone!"
Zeika smiled a little and turned to her. At least the kid was talking now.
"Yeah? That's great!" Caleb said. Then he turned to Zeika. "What about you?"
As Zeika opened her mouth, Manja crawled into her lap and sat right in front of her, as though to block her. "She dances! And flips and jumps! She's great, and she's gonna be the best ballerina in the world and—"
"Well, excuse you, your Highness, but when did I become a chair?"
"Mou, come on, Zeeky, stop interrupting! I'm about to get to the best part!"
"And I'm about to toss your little behind clear across the diner if you don't stop acting grown!"
Manja reached up and put her hand on Zeika's mouth. "Anyway! Hey Mister Caleb, are you really a policeman?"
Caleb smiled. "Yup."
"Can we see your badge?"
He pulled it from his trench coat pocket and showed it to her.
Manja gasped and leaned her cheeks in her hands. "Woow… and do you get the bad men?"
"Most the time. At least back home I did."
"Cool! And are there bad girls too?"
"Not as many, but—"
"Do you have a police car? Can we ride in it? Where do you work? Can we see the station? Do you 'oink', because Zeeky says the police are pigs and—"
Zeika grabbed Manja's mouth and held it tightly.
Caleb's eyes twinkled. "I'm kind of interested in hearing what she was about to say."
"Aheh. One minute she's a mute, and the next you can't get her to shut up," Zeika chuckled nervously as she put Manja back into her original seat. "You wanted to ask me about the bombing, detective?"
"You can ask me too!"
"Eat your pancakes!" Zeika hissed.
Manja giggled before digging back into her food.
"Ugh, kids…" Zeika took a minute to rub the bridge of her nose before they started to talk. "About the bombing, I know it looks like I have a motive, but the truth is…" And the truth came in full, from the attack all the way up to the raid on her lot. "Koa took everything," she said finally. "Our money, our supplies, my job, everything, and they left us to scavenge for scraps."
"And you've never been approached, solicited, or bribed by any members of the Knights of Almaut?"
"No. Not until the raid."
"Do you know of any Civilians your age or younger that have had any sort of contact with Koa?"
Lauren McGee. Abe Young. Quenton Reed. And others. She'd heard the stories, rumors. While for a long time Koa would never cross into the Protecteds, they still loved to shake working kids down on the borders where they could. They were bastards. Terrorists. Even so, Koans were still Civilians. If anyone was going to deal them justice, it would be the Civilians and the Civic Order. Not Caleb Rai. Not Azures.
So Zeika looked dead at the detective and replied with full confidence: "No. Before the raids, I hadn't heard a thing."
"Not in school, either?"
"More of us work than go to school, detective. But I'm the only one I know of that worked in the Seventh Demesne. The rest work in the Fifth or Sixth. Some come home everyday. Some turn Azure. Others just disappear."
She watched Caleb draw up his shoulders, his eyes went serious. "How many?"
"I dunno. I see missing ads for different kids all the time. It's scary."
"Your parents still let you walk around alone though?"
"Don't have a choice. We all work, or we all starve."
"Have any of the Knights of Almaut or their associates ever offered you any… alternatives to your current situation?"
"I don't know what you mean."
"Have they ever given you incentive to become a soldier?"
Zeika leveled her eyes with his, and she leaned back, feeling the metal of her hidden gun press into her lower back. "What's a soldier?"
"Someone who serves in a military force for a cause or for a country. In this case, a ghost of Koa."
"I'd never become a ghost of Koa. Especially not after they raided our lot. They're garbage."
"They think they're fighting for a good cause."
"Good cause or not, they step on their own to make their point. I'm not a fan of their scorched earth policy. It's neither good business nor good publicity, and now that they've made us targets, Koa will never receive quarter in the Protecteds. They lost this war the moment the Lakeside detonated."
"I think Koa just suffers from inexperience. Too many young hotheads leading the charge, maybe. Don't you think?"
She raised an eyebrow. He was humoring her, and that was kind of cute, but where was he going with this?
"Some of the residents in your lot said that nearly half of the raiding party were teenagers," he said. "Do you know anything else about that?"
Ah. There we go. He was good at this interrogation thing, trying to pull info through casual conversation. But she wasn't a fool. She shook her head as innocently as she could. She even smiled.
"Mm, sorry, Detective. Didn't get much info while they were knocking my head into the dirt. I thought ghosts of Koa were just rumors until the raid, and flying fists aren't exactly the greatest ice-breaker. You know?" She sipped her water.
"I heard you mopped the floor with some of them." Caleb sat back. He didn't bother hiding his admiration.
She shrugged. "They took her medicine. I needed it back."
"She's sick?"
"Hemophilia."
She could see his face soften with an emotion she couldn't place. Compassion. Pity, maybe. Either way, she didn't like it.
"You asked earlier if I was a soldier," Zeika started again. "The only cause I serve is this one. Spoiled as she is." She put a ge
ntle hand on Manja's head, rustling her pigtails. "And anyone who gets in the way of that cause gets handled." She lifted her eyes back up to him. Her smiled faded. "Koan, Civilian, Azure alike."
Caleb smirked. "Is that a threat?"
"No. I'm just keeping you informed. I didn't thrash Koan ass because I wanted to. I had to."
"Yeah, let's talk about that a bit. Tell me how were you able to fend off a group of Koan soldiers— armed with guns— all by yourself?"
"I've studied Majkata since I was five. My father's pretty adamant about that."
"Something that you and the ghosts of Koa have in common."
She frowned, not liking his implications. The cat-mouse thing was kinda cute, but he needed to get back in his lane. "I am not a ghost of Koa, detective. My parents were just preparing me for the inevitable. We Civilians study Majkata to defend ourselves from everyone. Anything else is just coincidence." She stood up and grabbed her traveling robes. Game over. "We didn't ask for this."
Caleb stood up too, motioned to the waitress, and threw a few bills onto the table for the check. "You have my card if you have any more information. Or you could ask your parents to call me too. I have some more questions I'd like to ask."
"Yeah." Zeika knelt to help Manja into her robes and bear backpack. "You'll probably find my parents before we do. If that happens, then you can call us. We haven't seen them."
"I… heard the guy say earlier that he saw your mother around."
"Yeah, well, you didn't hear him too good. She's a k-head. Got shipped off to rehab on the Island."
Caleb's eyes softened. "I see."
She avoided his gaze as she tied her obi sash around her waist. "Thanks. For the food, I mean. It helped. Good luck with your investigation." She put her hood on and proceeded to walk towards the exit. She got to the door before she noticed there were no sounds of little feet pattering behind her.
Zeika turned to see Manja talking to Caleb and smiling. A second later, their waitress came over to the table, toting a brown paper bag. She gave it to him in exchange for a wad of Azure bills, the stack of them blue and thick. Damn, was that her tip? He'd given the girl way more than $29.34. But maybe he just had it like that.
When the waitress left, Caleb gave Manja the bag and something else too. It was too small to see from where Zeika stood. Cash, maybe. Or candy. Whatever it was, Manja put it into her pocket. Zeika shook her head. The kid always had her own game going; she was good at sweet-talking people out of things, but sometimes she overworked it, didn't know how to leave 'em hanging. She'd get better with practice. For now, it was time to go.
"Hey! Come on, brat," Zeika called out. "Stop flirting."
Manja waved goodbye to him before running over and taking Zeika's hand. Zeika lifted her chin to the detective, the nicest goodbye she'd mustered in a long while. He nodded back. Together, she and Manja ventured back out, Zeika already deciding to trade their winter coat for the two bucks.
Jeb dick-in-his-hand Palmer was finally back from the Fifty-Second, and he was screaming his head off in the debrief room. He walked around, ripping badges off cops' uniforms and hurling them into the door.
"You're a goddamned disgrace! All of you! You practically greased up and grabbed your ankles while Koa rammed the Fifth Demesne, and you got the brass nuts to call yourselves cops?!"
Caleb leaned casually against the door, watching the whole scene. Apparently, Palmer did do cop work once in a while and had read Caleb's weekly reports. Of course, Palmer only gave a shit because the precinct had made him look bad, but at least something was getting done about it.
"Captain," Kenji stepped forward, his eyes hard. "We're patrol units, not SWAT—"
"I don't give a damn if you're Granny Knock-Knees, when there's an emergency, you DISPATCH TO THE FUCKING EMERGENCY!" Palmer looked around the room at the fifteen officers he'd just undressed, Loka Torv and her dispatch among them. "All of you are suspended without pay. Don't even sniff around here unless I call you. Now get the hell out of my face!"
Dejected, the line of disgraced filed out the debrief room. Many of them shot angry looks and rude gestures in Caleb's direction as they left. He smiled.
Palmer turned and kicked over the front table. "I can't even fire these bastards because we're so understaffed! What the hell is happening to my precinct?! Trying to kill me, trying to fucking kill me, that's what!" Palmer muttered angrily to himself until he finally looked up at the rest of the debrief room. "Did at least one of you assholes pick up any information on the raids?"
"I did."
Everyone turned at once, and Caleb stepped forward, holding up a stack of dossiers. He looked around the room. "And we've got a shit storm of problems."
"And who, exactly, authorized you to investigate the raids?"
Caleb turned in the direction of the new voice and found it in a shadowy corner of the debrief room. He raised an eyebrow as Xakiah stepped forward into the light. He certainly hadn't been there before. How long had he been listening in? And what the hell happened to using the door?
Xakiah's eyes flickered, their gaze boring through him as he approached. He was still a dick, apparently. He had even grown a permanent scowl which laid tight over his face like a foreskin. "You're on restricted duty aren't you, dollhouse?"
"You're goddamned right he is!" Palmer swung his gaze towards Caleb. "Jake promoted you to Special Forces Tactician, not to patrol officer!"
"If I hadn't gone, the trail on Koa would be cold by now. None of your cops followed up on the leads I gave them. Train your officers better next time, Palmer, and I won't have to break the rules."
Palmer grunted in response, and Caleb turned back to Xakiah. "And to answer your question, Cotch, the moment the precinct's phone lines were routed to a silent alarm, Demesne Five was put in my jurisdiction. But I don't even know why you have shit to say about it anyway; you're not on the fucking payroll, and you sure as hell aren't my superior officer."
"Rai—" Jake warned.
"That's a matter of perspective," Xakiah replied coldly, stepping up to him. "One that I'm willing to adjust if you don't watch your mouth, boy."
Caleb held his hands out to the side. "Adjust it, sweetheart. I'm right here."
Xakiah approached, but Jake beat him to the punch, sliding in between the two of them. Xakiah seared Caleb with frosty gaze.
"We don't have time for this," Jake snapped. "Now either you two have something to report or not."
"The biological warfare, the man responsible, his notes." Xakiah flicked a flash drive to Jake like a bone.
"How nice of you to share," Caleb muttered as Jake passed the drive to him.
"Only at the behest of my Vassal. As for the remainder of the investigation, I have more pressing matters to attend to. I'm sure dollhouse will oblige in my stead."
Xakiah's cold gaze passed over Caleb once more before he walked back into the shadow he came from, leaving the team to their meeting.
"Show off," Jake muttered. "Caleb?"
Caleb squeezed the flash drive in his fist, it feeling more like a dog biscuit than he'd liked to admit. He was still glaring at the shadow that Cotch had disappeared into. He had never seen someone exercise their powers so brazenly—
"Caleb."
"I examined the video surveillance from the Lakeside Diner. Koa is using the bodies of children as a new form of biological warfare. You all can take a look at the video later. I'm sure the data on Cotch's drive will confirm that. Also, after speaking to dozens of witnesses from the lot raids the other night, it's becoming clear that Koa has not only grown roots in the Protecteds, but they are stocking up, probably for smaller, more local hits. They're also training and recruiting new soldiers. Some Civilians report recent runaways, deserters, and people that've gone missing. Especially children. It's possible that minors are either being lured into Koa or forced in."
"Are you sure?" Jake pressed, his brow creased.
"At least half of the raiding party at Lot 3 was comprise
d of kids. Stragglers from the other eight raided lots said the same. Not that I could find many people. Koa cleaned those lots out."
"Did the Civilians run, or…?"
"Hard to tell. People who were wounded or critically injured were taken to the hospital, others abandoned their homes. The rest are dead." Caleb looked around the room. "Thanks to us."
"Well, we're just patrol, not detectives, not special forces, not military," Kenji spoke up again. "What the hell do you want us to do about all this?"
Caleb's gaze hardened. "Aside from the obvious? Be a cop. Start tracking down the missing ghosts of war from the Protecteds. If we can trace their disappearances, we'll also probably find the Koan cells who are turning them into soldiers and bombs. Where are the case files of the missing, and why aren't any of you pursuing them?"
Kenji matched Caleb's gaze, unfazed by the criticism. "The reason no one is looking into the missing kids is the same reason you didn't even know there were missing kids. Because it's civvie business. So if you're working up to some from-yonder-high speech, don't bother."
"If we're working in a Civic Demesne, we also should protect Civilian interests. Else, why the hell are we even here?"
"We're here because we get paid to be here. But I'm not getting paid enough to save the whole damned world. How about you fellas?" Kenji looked at Bly and Joseph. "Are any of you getting paid enough to track down missing civvies?"
"Nope," Joseph replied.
"Not even a little bit," Bly responded loftily.
"See? No one but you is getting paid more than crumbs to do his job. So, yeah. We tend to let the civvies cops handle civvie business. We, on the other hand, deal with Azure shit. We track Azure Alchemists, dispatch to Azure emergencies, and stop violence from spilling into our streets. That is… Joseph and Bly and the rest of us do. Not you. You're a bluer Azure than we are, so you don't deal with much of anything, do you?" Kenji muttered with a smirk.
Caleb bristled and turned to Kenji, full-body.
