Tuesday, 4 March 2014

Duty

It was an hour later. The hardest part turned out to be breaking the door down.

The Gadian had been using his own product. A haze of smoke almost hid the reptile amongst the tall, waxy plants in the room. It wasn’t illegal to grow Ambrosia – you needed a permit for more than a few plants, but it was the weakest drug you could grow. The danger was if you mixed it with something else, and the policeman found plenty of those things under the kitchen sink.

The Gadian didn’t have a permit, and could at least be reprimanded for that. No way to prove he was going hardcore. The policeman cuffed him and buzzed a drone over to let the poor guy spend an afternoon in a cell. Not that he wanted to stay. The apartment looked like it was turning into a trash heap.

Now they were walking through one of the multi-tier markets that Ashringa Apartments were famous for. The apartments were not one building, but a series of colossi dedicated to keeping as many souls in one place as possible. Some Libertarian idea, probably. It had monorails which the policeman never used. The markets were a menagerie that sold anything and everything, but mostly counterfeit clothes and souvenirs. His powered armor was in a mechanic's shop somewhere in here, although he never used the same one twice in a row.

A stench of grease, mechanical and fried, permeated the air. Piche's face crumpled more than usual.

“Smell is bad-bad,” the dog complained.

“It’s pretty nasty, yeah.”

He fished in his jeans pockets and hooked a few coins. A few dollars - not worth a lot in a place where currency changed more than fashion. He trooped to a stall manned by a tiny floating shark and bought a sandwich, a can of soda that tasted like syrup, and a chocolate bar. The candy went to Piche.

“Isn’t chocolate poisonous to you? No offense, but...”

“Piche has strong stomach,” replied the dog, mouth full.

Some things were mysteries.

He walked through the market, eating the sandwich. It had reasonable approximations of bacon and tomato in it. Around, above and below the catwalks came the calls and voices of thousands, tens of thousands of people. Buying, selling, bartering, singing. Compressed life.

Most people, he'd learnt, were well-meaning but stupid. Many crimes were often explained by the short phrase "I only wanted to." For example, I only wanted to stop him messing around. Or, I only wanted to see what it was like. People would do the stupidest, most hurtful things in good faith. The Gadian from earlier, for instance. Then you had the low level offenders, filled with a stupid hate that made animals of them. Easy to deal with, but hard to scrub out. You couldn’t change their minds with a crowbar and a planet to brace yourself against.

Then you had people who had woke up one morning, thought carefully about it, and decided that they wanted to hurt other people. He'd only met one person like that.

His watch beeped. He pressed a button and Officer Ramirez appeared. Ramirez was half-Spanish, half-Asian. He was an okay guy, maybe.

“Hey, Big C.” A blurt of static obscured the hologram for a moment. “Where you at?”

“Small time shit, man. Same as always.”

Ramirez didn’t grin this time. “We need you. Some stall owner's phoned in. Kid stole a bunch of food from his junk. We last pinged the car on Botticelli and we need someone to take it down."

"My suit's in the shop, buddy. I'll have to take a jet rig."

"Well, hurry up! Whoever's piloting that car is gonna break out of the cordon before long. You'll need to -"

"A fucking SBF, I know." The policeman pinched the bridge of his nose. "I'll be there in five, dig?"

"You better, chingu." Ramirez' hologram snapped out of existance.

SBF. Suicide By Falling. Intercepting a vehicle by jumping from a tall building and using ancient jetpacks to try and land on top. No prizes for guessing where the name came from. It wouldn't be so bad if he had his armor - he might only break a few ribs.

"Sorry, Piche," he said to the dog. "I'll try and not die."

"Good luck." The alien scuttled off into the crowd.

The policeman, for the umpteenth time since starting his new job, began to run.

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