Second Strike

by Tim C. Taylor

  I didn’t agree, but I decided to waste a few seconds acting the part of someone mulling over important new information. If only Silky could have seen me acting so restrained.

  “I’m not talking about Revenge Squad,” I told the police officer. “Please, Frennan. It’s something bigger than that.” I hesitated, not daring to look at the recorder, but imagining the orbs penetrating my thoughts. If I told what I knew of torture and murder it might condemn Frennan as well as myself. But I couldn’t sit back and do nothing either – I wasn’t made that way.

  The door opened and my heart sank down to the cold, stone floor. I’d had my opportunity, and hadn’t so much seized it as brushed it lightly with a fingernail.

  “Well, well,” said a female voice.” I looked up in surprise at Rachel Silverberg. “Look what the cat vomited up,” she said with a lopsided grin that didn’t suit her normally emotion-free features. She closed the door and shuffled over to the rear wall of the interrogation room, staring at me all the while. Silverberg was the calmest person I knew, and for her to do something so weird scared me. Then she fiddled with something in her pocket. Next thing I knew, I was smelling overcooked electronics and looking up at the black orbs in the ceiling that were now weeping sparks.

  Frennan gave a long sigh of resignation, before raising a sardonic eyebrow. “It appears that the recorder has developed a technical fault,” he drawled. “Lieutenant Silverberg, the prisoner may not be left unattended. Will you please guard the stupid drellock while I get a replacement recorder?”

  “Very well, Sergeant Frennan. You are relieved.”

  “Remember what I said,” Frennan snarled at me across the table.

  “Thank you, Michael,” said Silverberg, and even I could hear the depth with which she meant that.

  “I hope you know what you’re doing, Lieutenant,” he grumbled as he left, but leave he did, presenting me with Silverberg, who seemed a more promising opportunity to be seized with every limb at my disposal.

  “For heaven’s sake, McCall,” she started. “If I hadn’t reached you when I did, you would have blurted out some dark secret that would have gotten Frennan killed.”

  “So you do know what’s going on?” I accused, before noticing her total lack of concern for my own theoretical death.

  “No, I don’t. I see unfamiliar faces, areas of the station house that are suddenly off limits…” She drew a sharp breath. “I hear dark rumors, but I’m a police officer, McCall. I need evidence, which is why I need you to fill me in and fast. Sitrep, Marine!”

  I gave her a cheeky grin, guaranteed to annoy. “Doesn’t it feel good to be getting the old team back together?”

  “We were never a team,” Silverberg replied. “You and your freakish wife are my bitches. I tolerate you, while you are still useful. Now tell me what I need to know.”

  I told everything.

  Afterwards I felt better, and began for the first time to wonder just how Silverberg would react. I hadn’t thought that far. I’d just known I wanted to unburden myself of the horrors I had witnessed.

  As it turned out, her reaction was to give me a look of disappointment. “And you expect me to fix things, right?”

  “That hooded man… He’s a monster. I don’t know what’s going on but it’s sickening. It’s certainly illegal and it’s going on right under your frakking nose. This is why you became a police officer, Silverberg. You know that to take the easy road and avoid confronting the evils around us will quench all hope for the future of Klin-Tula.”

  “That’s a pretty speech,” she said. “And an amusing one, coming out the mouth of a professional vigilante.”

  “I serve with Revenge Squad. We can debate another time whether my organization is a necessary evil for Klin-Tula, but it sure as hell isn’t an excuse for you to do nothing.”

  “I’m not in charge here anymore. Have you forgotten?”

  “You are a lieutenant in the Port Zahir Police Department.”

  “Not for much longer. I’m being pushed out. Undermined. Captain K’Zoh-Zhan, my new CO, uses every opportunity to publicly state their lack of confidence in me, but it’s the commissioner and politicos who hate me most.”

  My anger at her crashed and burned. “For what? For giving a damn?”

  “Yes. For shining a light where powerful people desire shadows. Look, McCall, I do understand your anger. If what you say is true.”

  I slammed my fists on the table. “Do you think I’m making this up?”

  She slumped a little, and looked away. “I guess not, NJ.” She sighed. “Not all in the Department are bad. In fact, if you overlook a little skimming here and there, cops are mostly decent, despite what you’ve seen. But I’ve gotten myself a reputation as a troublemaker. I can still call on a lot of goodwill – and get a lot of good people in trouble in the process – but I’m going to be forced out because they want me out. I’m hanging on by a thread here.”

  So, she was having a hard time. Didn’t get her off the hook. I changed tack. “Female officer. Marine build, mid-thirties, blonde hair and skin so pale that the hair color might be natural. Wouldn’t want to meet her in a fair fight. Male officer. Late 40s. I’m guessing he’s a Spacer-Marine of mixed parentage. Gray mustache interrupted by diagonal scar across his face.”

  “Who were you describing?”

  “People who give the Grotesque’s injection.”

  She smacked her palm into her face and left it there while she finished my descriptions for me. “Male, 30s. Marine. Close-cropped snow-white hair.”

  “Yes,” I agreed. “He’s one of them. There’s about six altogether.”

  “I know them. They been pally of late. Won’t look at me in the eye. I thought they were involved in pushing me out the Department, but maybe there’s more to it than that.”

  “Silverberg. That injection… They were extremely wary when administering.”

  “You think it… it unleashed the beast in her – that it fuels whatever sickness is going on here?”

  “Perhaps… I assumed the injections were suppressing her power, not fueling it, but your explanation is just as plausible. Either way, whatever else she did, she was being tortured and the injections were part of that. If you could–”

  She put a hand up to silence me. “Best if you don’t say any more.”

  I saw the determination in her eyes to do the right thing. Shame that had never applied to me or to Silky, but it was why I didn’t hate her. “Do your duty, Lieutenant Silverberg.”

  “You can rely upon me, McCall.”

  “Now, tell me what you know of Silky.”

  The door opened.

  “My wife, Silverberg! Is she being tortured? Will it be her screams I hear next time?”

  “Now there’s an idea.”

  I looked up, expecting to see either Frennan or Bravic.

  It was neither.

  — CHAPTER 18 —

  The police officer in the doorway wasn’t even human. It was a Pavnix, an alien whose body looked like a random assortment of geometric shapes, and whose skin changed color according to mood and whim. Over its breast, its uniform carried the same captain’s bars that Silverberg’s once had.

  Awkward.

  I had limited experience with the species, but what I knew taught me that this one was seriously pissed.

  The creature looked from Silverberg to me and back again, but its anger seemed mostly directed at its fellow police officer. “You!” it growled at Silverberg. “Explain your presence.”

  “Frennan had to leave,” Silverberg said. “I’m covering for him.”

  “Disappointing,” said the Parvnix. “I see that Sergeant Frennan’s loyalties are divided. I had hopes for him. You’re finished, Silverberg, just as soon as I can get rid of you. Don’t drag Frennan down with you. Now get out!”

  “Sir,” Silverberg insisted. “With respect–”

  “No, Lieutenant. The only respect I acknowledge here is for the old Captain Silverberg who once pe
rformed her duties adequately, despite Port Zahir PD’s previously catastrophic underfunding. Then you went bad. The terms of your temporary reinstatement are clear – you are not to be directly involved with active cases until I say so, and yet here I find you alone with this prisoner. Alone! What the hell were you thinking of?”

  “But, Captain K’Zoh-Zhan–”

  All pigmentation left the captain’s face, leaving a pulsing network of blood vessels plainly visible through colorless flesh. “The only reason I’m not throwing you out of my station house right now is because I can’t afford to lose Frennan too. You take your skinny human carcass, and your worthless respect, and get the fuck out of this interview room before I notice you violating the terms of your reinstatement.”

  “Yes, sir.” She gave a salute that was not returned. “Thank you, sir.”

  Silverberg fled, leaving me alone with the new captain.

  “That’s better,” said the alien, locking the door after Silverberg and taking the seat opposite me. “Let me make a few things clear, McCall. Whatever alliance you believe you might have with Silverberg, she cannot protect you. Whatever stunt she’s pulled with Frennan is not the first time she brought dishonor on herself and this department. I tell you this because I appeal to whatever soldier’s honor you once had to skip over the bullshit. The city’s in crisis. I don’t have time for your nonsense, or hers.”

  “So the good sergeant was telling me.”

  “You don’t deserve to speak his name. You have no friends here. There is no one to speak for you. And as of 2 a.m. this morning, the mayor’s emergency protocols came into effect, which means you have no rights either.”

  I gripped the table’s smooth edge in panic. Had everything really gone to hell so quickly? “Emergency protocols… this isn’t about someone allegedly blowing up the mayor’s ship? Surely?”

  “Someone. You mean Revenge Squad. I don’t care about your pathetic outfit. Paramilitary insurance salesman. Professional vigilantes. I don’t give a shit. You’re an annoyance – an itch to scratch another day. The mayor, however, does care. Is he suspending civilian rights to get at you scum? Possibly. The mayor has a grenade up your ass, and the truly dumb thing is that you put it there. Unfortunately for me, unlike Lieutenant Silverberg – who follows the latest human whimsy to take her fancy – whatever the mayor wants, I have to deliver.”

  I’d never met this K’Zoh-Zhan before, but I knew Parvnix had an overdeveloped sense of right and wrong, and that to them the foulest crime of all was not murder or blasphemy as most other races would claim, but disrespect.

  I tried to think how I could turn that to my advantage as we glared at each other across the table. K’Zoh-Zhan was more-or-less humanoid, though with a forward-tilting cylindrical chest that looked like a toy version of a Little Tin Bastard. The sense that the creature was assembled out of pieces salvaged from a garbage dump was deepened by the telescopic neck that poked out from the drum-like torso, and from which hung a wedge-shaped head that could have been an oversized doorstop turned through ninety degrees, if not for the hairy mandibles.

  The alien spoke. “I want you to give me enough dirt on Revenge Squad that we can put you away in a nice box and concentrate on more important matters.”

  “I refuse.”

  “Okay.” The captain’s reply sounded moderated through its translator box, but the powder blue of its face changed to a deeper shade flecked with gold. “For the next phase of this interrogation, I want you to keep the idea inside your bony head that you have no rights, that I can shoot you dead, and the only comeback for me would be the requirement to write a paragraph explaining why. Can you do that?”

  I mumbled that I could.

  “Good. Now, let’s move on to Silverberg. Her reports describe her many contacts with you as meeting informants, but all you’ve given her so far is background information on Revenge Squad. A few snippets that on their own have been utterly useless. And that’s all she gotten out of you in almost a year. The way I see this, either Silverberg is lying and she’s in your pocket, or she really does think you work for her, and she is simply incompetent. I don’t know which is worse, but I would like to know. I’m a police officer, McCall. I like to get at the truth. Indulge me. Are you stringing her along, or is she in league with you?”

  “I’m not going to answer that.”

  “Really?” K’Zoh-Zhan didn’t seem bothered or surprised. “I prefer evidence, but I trust my instinct too. I know for a fact that Silverberg’s incompetent. Today’s fun and games is an example of her bad judgment and lack of discipline. She’s a disgrace to the Department, but my gut tells me she is not corrupt. Which makes me speculate that she thinks she has a hold over you. What is it?”

  “Nothing. She has nothing.”

  “My guess is that Silverberg’s alleged leverage is to do with this individual.”

  The captain unfurled a viewscreen from its breast pocket and shoved it under my nose. Sure enough it was Silky, lying sprawled, unconscious, on a cell floor like mine, except hers was wrapped in darkness.

  “The Kurlei female’s citizen registration is flawed,” said K’Zoh-Zhan, as if that were the most depraved crime imaginable, and perhaps to the Pavnix it was. “What is her secret? Why is a member of her species on this planet at all? Why did you promise information to that fool of a police human in order to protect the Kurlei? I will find out, but it shall go easier on all of you if you volunteer the information first.”

  I would die before revealing Silky’s deserter status, so I glared at the alien in grim silence.

  “Oh, I know many things about you human Marines. For example, you’re engineered to withstand all physical torture. I would be wasting my time shattering your bones, but hers? If I cut out her tongue, would it loosen yours? She’s such a rare species that I don’t know whether we could reattach it afterwards even if you did talk. If you truly care about her, you would spare her the experience. Save your friend. Or even your wife, as you just referred to her. Talk!”

  “All right. All right! I get it, already. I cooperate with the cruel Pavnix, or it hurts the Kurlei. Someone give the alien police-being a prize because it’s learned basic human psychology. That still won’t get you far, but I’ll tell you this much. Silverberg doesn’t have anything on us, but we did join forces in that business with Hurt U Back last year, and it proved useful; to open a line of dialog so we didn’t keep bumping up against each other. I guess we’ve learned to tolerate each other. That’s all there is to it.”

  The captain huffed angrily and I returned a smile at my small victory.

  Pavnix are easy to annoy, you see. They have an annual personality refresh and skin molt, and this frequently includes a change of gender. Referring to them as ‘it’, rather than choosing from the array of alternative pronouns, is guaranteed to piss them off.

  K’Zoh-Zhan moved around the desk to stand behind me, letting my nose fill with its heady scent of decaying wood.

  I ignored the mandible that it drew roughly over one of my ears before leaving a thick trail of woody slime down the side of my neck.

  Then it whipped its head down to my crotch.

  I flinched. But the police captain tilted its head just above my lap and grabbed the metal arms of my chair in its mandibles. They were short appendages, like a spider’s paps, and I had no idea they were so strong but K’Zoh-Zhan twisted the metal arms. I could have done that, but I’d have needed powered armor to do so.

  The Pavnix stood, lifting the chair as it did and tilting me out until I was standing hunched over the desk. When it regained its own seat, it said, “You give me something I can use on Revenge Squad to make the mayor go away, and you won’t be harmed. Not badly. If you can’t or will not give me what I want – either way, makes no difference – then we’ll get started on the Kurlei. Even if the mayor restored civilian rights, she isn’t a properly registered civilian, which means I can cut and smash her as much as I choose without even needing to write that paragraph.
”

  Alien veck! I could tell I was letting this damned creature get to me, so I tried to distract myself by imagining being in a happier place. All I could come up with was a place in which my hands weren’t bound so I could punch that ugly wedge of an alien head. Would its scrawny neck retract back into its torso? My fists itched to perform the experiment.

  “Is that it?” the alien shouted. “Is that the best a washed-up loser like you can manage? To ignore me?”

  “What you expect, idiot? You’ve told me I’m scum and have no rights. Which means I can’t trust you. Even if I wanted to sell out my friends, you’ll break your word and do whatever you want anyway.” I stood as erect as I could with my wrists chained to the desk, and declared my defiance. “You are without honor, Pavnix. You do not deserve my respect.”

  The alien cycled through colors too fast for me to track. But then it controlled its anger and settled on albino white with orange eyes. “Human logic,” it said. “Very well.” K’Zoh-Zhan got up and unlocked the door, allowing two waiting human police officers to enter. “Take him away. No food.” It extended its head toward me. “I will see you in a week, vigilante scum. Longer if I’m busy. We’ll see if you’re more talkative when you’re hungry. And, Sergeant Hernandez, no food for the Kurlei either.”

  “No, sir.”

  Hernandez and other officer dragged me away to the endless light.

  — CHAPTER 19 —

  Was I worried about Silky?

  You bet.

  And my friends at the Slaughterhouse?

  Deeply.

  But they were all hardened veterans who could look after themselves – well, all but Shahdi who ought to be in college. They were also too distant, the threats they faced too abstract. My concern burnt away to leave smoldering fires of revenge.

  It was the Grotesque who occupied most of my attention for the next few days, because with my own eyes I could see her shame in the rags she hid beneath, and on the one occasion the hooded man returned, I heard the fearful screams of rage and lust. And pain. They brought a human along that time, bound and struggling on the way in, a corpse on the way back, his brains exploded through his ears.