TABLE OF CONTENTS:
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PART ONE:
CHAPTER 1 – NO WARRANT NECESSARY
CHAPTER 2 – OFFICE TALK
CHAPTER 3 – BLUE STUFF
CHAPTER 4 – GUNMETAL POSEIDON
CHAPTER 5 – THE CRUTCH
CHAPTER 6 – WASTED FRIENDS
CHAPTER 7 – FLEX DAY
✇
PART TWO:
CHAPTER 8 – GLASS SPIRE
CHAPTER 9 – WRAITHVALE
CHAPTER 10 – AMBASSADOR THING
CHAPTER 11 – LUNCH BREAK
CHAPTER 12 – GAS STATION
CHAPTER 13 – HEADQUARTERS
CHAPTER 14 – DRIVE-THRU
CHAPTER 15 – ROUNDTABLE UNREALITY
CHAPTER 16 – THE KOOL KITTY LOUNGE
CHAPTER 17 – SQUEEZING THE BEANS
CHAPTER 18 – INTERVIEW
CHAPTER 19 – FEAR CORPS
۞
PART THREE:
CHAPTER 20 – WHITE CHERUB
CHAPTER 21 – WAREHOUSE
CHAPTER 22 – DISTRACTION BAIT
CHAPTER 23 – TANGO DOWN
CHAPTER 24 – NEO-GULF STREET BRIDGE
CHAPTER 25 – CRUSHING EQUIPMENT
CHAPTER 26 – PROFESSIONAL COPS
CHAPTER 27 – MOTEL MOTEL
CHAPTER 28 – NEO-VANCOUVER
CHAPTER 29 – THE HONEY BEAR
PART FOUR:
CHAPTER 30 – THE MAYOR’S DAUGHTER
CHAPTER 31 – TOTAL ANARCHY
CHAPTER 32 – DUMPTRUCK DERBY
CHAPTER 33 – BREAKWATER BLUES
CHAPTER 34 – SPINAL CAPACITOR
CHAPTER 35 – POSSESSED FLESH
CHAPTER 36 – LATENT BEES
PART 5:
CHAPTER 37 – FORBIDDEN TERRITORY
CHAPTER 38 – VOYEURISTIC PYROMANIA
CHAPTER 39 – SHOCKING DISCOVERIES
CHAPTER 40 – WIRE
CHAPTER 41 – TARGET ACQUIRED
CHAPTER 42 – GUNMETAL HYPER HUNTERS
CHAPTER 43 – THE NETHERPLAINS
CHAPTER 44 – PIT OF SOULS
*DEMO*
CHAPTER ONE – NO WARRANT NECESSARY
Rain drizzled lazily from the sky on a chilly Neo-Vancouver autumn Saturday evening. The stakeout had been going on four hours, camping out in Cop Thing’s black police Hummer across the street from some bleak brick apartment complex. Mike Trigger sat next to him, sipping gatorade and munching on a bag of trail mix his wife Pamela had prepared for him earlier that day. She always worried about Mike’s safety as a cop, especially since he became partners with a literal monster, and tonight they were spending a whole lot of close quarters time together, waiting and watching. Their vehicle wasn’t exactly inconspicuous, but Cop Thing didn’t seem to mind. Undercover work was veritably impossible for him, being a towering brown naked beast with an inverted crater for a head ringed with a crown of spikes on the plateau of his cranium.
They were waiting for a guy rumoured to be involved with the recent prevalence of ICE on the streets, a potential agent of the mysterious medical gangster syndicate known as Gunmetal Poseidon.
“Ah, to hell with it. This guy ain’t gonna show, Cop Thing. Let’s call it a day, I’m through,” Mike said, while obsessively rubbing his trigger finger across his beretta, which was unholstered and sitting in his lap.
“Patience is a virtue, Mike. Think of it like fishing. We’re not gonna bag this guy by tapping out so easily. Look -” Cop Thing said and gestured to the front door. A man in a trenchcoat, a bowler hat and sunglasses appeared in the doorwar, then looked both ways suspiciously and trotted down the steps and across the street, disappearing into the darkness of the park nearby.
“That’s our man,” Cop Thing said. “Right on time.”
“How can you tell,” Said Mike Trigger.
“Because he looks suspicious as hell for one thing. He’s wearing sunglasses at night second of all. Either this guy’s covering something, or he’s got a real desperate fashion sense.”
“Let’s roll,” Mike said, and they got out of the car.
“Just remember, lay low, don’t go shooting him before we get any answers.” Cop Thing warned. Mike had an astronomically high body count recently on record and it wasn’t bringing a lot of friendly press about the VPD to the news. As stealthily as possible, which wasn’t actually very stealthy at all because Cop Thing had a heavy lumbering physique and really kind of stood out a lot compared to virtually everyone else, they clung to the shadows and moved in quiet pursuit of the trenchcoat man into the park.
Mike tripped on a duck and tumbled into the mud, grunting in annoyance.
“Fucking ducks!” He complained as Cop Thing leaned down to help him up. Mike swatted his hand away, “I’m fine, I’m fine, thanks. I’m pretty capable man.”
“Pipe down, get up, don’t give away our tail,” Cop Thing said.
They scurried along the path beside a wooden shed deeper into the forest and took refuge in some bushes near a pond. The trenchcoat man was on a stone bridge crossing the pond, lighting a cigarette and waiting in the middle, peering out over the scenic dark landscape, possibly scanning the perimeter to see if he had been followed.
He had, but he didn’t spot them in their cover spot.
“What’s he doing?” Mike inquired.
“Shhh, shut up, here comes what we’re looking for,” Cop Thing raised his index finger over where his mouth was buried behind the encrusted flaps of skin that made up the face of his mutant carapace. Three mafia-looking guys in suits came patrolling out of the darkness on the opposite side of the bridge and walked up to the trencoat man cautiously. They began a conversation but it wasn’t audible to the cops.
“Oh you know that’s gotta be bad. Let’s bust ’em now!” Mike said and brandished his pistol. Cop Thing motioned with his hand for him to put the gun away.
“Not yet, you’ll ruin it. We don’t know what they’re talking about. Wait ’til they give us a reason, otherwise we’re gonna have nothing but more dead bodies and bad press, and no answers.”
“Fine,” Mike said, dejected.
One of the suits produced a briefcase and opened it. The trenchcoat man inspected it. They couldn’t see what was in it from their current vantage point.
“Stay here, I want to get a better look at that, ok? Cover me,” Cop Thing advised, then darted out of the bushes and was engulfed in shadow as he ducked under some branches and approached the bridge from underneath a canopy of trees.
The sketchy looking meeting seemed to conclude and the involved parties parted ways, the trenchcoat man was now carrying the suitcase. Cop Thing was starting to get excited now, it was almost time. He crept along the bottom side of the entranceway to the bridge and waited until the trenchcoat man stepped off, walking down a path into the forest. Stalking him from behind, Cop Thing’s curiosity was growing to the point of impulse action.
Then he pounced out of the shadows and tackled the trenchoat man to the ground. The man shrieked and turned and upon seeing Cop Thing’s grotesque lack-of-a-face screamed even louder. That wasn’t part of the plan, the mafioso types must have heard that. Great, now their cover was blown. Well, you did it to yourself, Cop Thing thought. You can’t expect everything to go perfect all the time in this business. Time to improvise. Cop Thing slapped the guy in the face and then backhand-slapped him again while gripping his trenchcoat collar with his other fist.
“Cop Thing!” The man blurted while scrambling to cover his face with his hands. The suitcase lay vulnerable in the dirt. Mike Trigger ran up, pistol ready and pointed. This was dubious, Mike was a loose cannon.
“Don’t shoot him! For Christ sakes, try to have a little restraint, man,” Cop Thing shouted at his partner. Mike’s hands were trembling, holding the pistol, his eyes flared with the gleam of some sick murderous intent. Did this guy actually give a shit about justice? Or did he just like to shoot people legally? Cop Thing wondered. He should probably get a different partner. Out of the two of them, him being a freakish monster, Mike Trigger was the really scary and dangerous one.
“I want to ask you a few questions,” Cop Thing declared, and shook the trenchcoat man roughly. He could see the terror in his eyes, the sunglasses having been slapped off and laying idly covered in mud. The rain was coming down more intensely now.
“Yeah, we want to ask you a few questions,” Mike added and put his pistol to the guy’s temple.
“Godammit, Mike, put that thing away. We’re not going to kill this guy,” Cop Thing said, exasperated.
“Fine,” Mike said, mopey, and tucked the pistol into his jeans, even though he was wearing a holster. Cop Thing knew he couldn’t keep his hands off that thing for long. Despicable. How did they let guys like this on the force in the first place? Just because the guy was a war hero or something, they let him literally get away with murder. Cop Thing liked to think he had some principals behind his arbiting of justice. He had a vision. A vision for a better world, one which would be brought into reality, by force, by him. Cop Thing grabbed the suitcase, the other hand still pinning the man to the dirt ground. It had a lock on it that required a code to open it.
“It’s locked,” Cop Thing said.
“Brilliant deduction,” The Trenchcoat man quipped.
“What’s the code? Open it, let’s see what’s in there,” Cop Thing growled.
“Go to hell copper, you ain’t got nothing on me!” The trencoat man replied and he spat in Cop Thing’s face. Then a gunshot rang out and echoed reverberated throughout the park forest. The trenchcoat man’s kneecap of his right leg exploded in a flurry mist of blood and bone as he screamed and writhed in pain.
“Wrong answer,” Mike Trigger stated proudly, posing with his pistol.
“Godammit, Mike, that’s excessive,” Cop Thing said, turning to his partner. “Put the leash back on that thing, please!” The trenchcoat man’s horrified screams were bellowing throughout the park. Anyone even romotely close by could hear all of this.
“Open the case,” Mike Trigger repeated the order, but the guy was in shock and rolling around on the ground, leg spurting blood all over Cop Thing, who was still holding him down. Mike brought the case over and handed it to the trenchcoat man. “Open it,” he said.
The man was convulsing now and cursing, eyes closed, really in quite a lot of pain. Mike cocked his pistol again. “I said open it, pussy!”
That’s when the three mysterious suit-clad gentlemen appeared under a lamp in the distance, brandishing uzis and one of them had a Banshee rocket launcher.
“Aren’t you going to invite us to the party?” Said what appeared to be the leader. They had clearly heard the commotion and picked up weapons from some kind of cache nearby, probably a vehicle parked inside the forest. Cop Thing took a mental note. These guy’s were obviously invested enough to try to rescue the trenchcoat man, whatever was in that case must be important enough for them to remain in cahoots after they parted ways. They wouldn’t just save their own skins and escape. Cop Thing carried a 44. magnum in a kangaroo pouch in the side abdomen of his carapace, his weapon of choice, and now he was thinking of using it.
“Let him go, or we blow all three of you away,” said the one holding the rocket launcher, which was indeed aimed squarely at the three of them. That’s when another gunshot rang out, and the trenchcoat man’s other kneecap blew up and he lay there pathetically wasted with destroyed legs that no longer would ever walk again. Mike Trigger said “Oh? I don’t think you have the balls.”
“Look at this smart ass cop,” The rocket guy said. “He thinks we’re bluffing. Ok, hot shot, let’s see who’s the real tough guy here!” And with that he fired the rocket. It screeched through the air and Cop Thing and Mike Trigger dove in separate directions out of the way, the rocket made direct contact with the trenchcoat man who was passed out now from the pain-shock, and his unconscious ruined body exploded in a fiery geyster of blood and guts and smoke. The suitcase was blown clear, but still intact. Cop Thing did a duck and roll from behind a tree, snatched it, and ran away. Mike Trigger was unloading his pistol at the three antagonizers. They were returning fire with a steady stream of uzi bullets. In the distance, sirens could be heard approaching.
“Come on, leave ’em, let’s get out of here before the rest of the pigs show up!” The leader said and they scrambled into the dark cover of the forest and vanished. Cop Thing had the suitcase, their prime suspect had been reduced to a smouldering hole in the ground stained with charred blood and meat. Mike Trigger had gone off the deep-end again, but ultimately, maybe they would find the answers they were looking for after all. They retreated with the suitcase back to police HQ to crack the thing open and see what was inside.
