☣
PART I:
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
❆
CHAPTER 1 – NO WARRANT NECESSARY
Rain drizzled lazily on a chilly autumn evening in New Terra City. A black Hummer was parked across the street from a bleak brick apartment complex. Cop Thing and Mike Trigger were in the vehicle. Mike sipped Alpha-ade and munched on his second bag of Mr. Chippy’s.
Cop Thing was a hulking brown beast with an inverted crater for a head, ringed with a crown of five spikes. His body was an encrusted carapace and his sheer size made it so he couldn’t get an appropriate wardrobe, not that there would be any way to make him look presentable. His eyes, mouth and genitalia were hidden behind the outer layer of his body.
Tonight, Mike and the monster were spending a lot of close quarters time waiting for someone rumored to be involved with the recent prevalence of the lethal drug called ICE on the streets. The suspect was potentially an agent of the mysterious syndicate known as Gunmetal Poseidon. According to their informant his name was Larry Lancaster.
“I don’t think this guy’s gonna show, Cop Thing. We’ve been here for almost four hours. He’s probably in there on a hog crankin’ marathon. Let’s call it a day,” Mike said, obsessively rubbing his trigger finger on the Beretta in his lap.
“We’re not gonna bag this guy by tapping out that easily,” Cop Thing said. Then, “look -” and nodded to the apartment front door.
A man in a trench coat, fedora and sunglasses appeared in the doorway, then looked both ways and trotted down the steps and across the street. He disappeared into the darkness of Glenwood Park.
“That’s our man,” Cop Thing said.
“How can you tell?” Said Mike Trigger.
“He’s wearing sunglasses at night. It’s suspicious. He must be covering something.”
“Let’s roll,” Mike said.
They got out of the car and began following.
“Just remember, lay low, don’t get too excited and go off shooting him before we get any answers,” Cop Thing warned.
Mike had a high body count recently. It was bringing unfriendly press about the NTPD to the news.
In the police business Mike was what they would call a “loose cannon”.
They clung to the shadows and moved in quiet pursuit into the park. Weaving through the trees they passed onto a muddy flat next to a pond filled with ducks.
Mike tripped on a duck and tumbled into the mud, grunting.
“Fucking ducks!” He complained. Cop Thing leaned down to help him up. Mike swatted his hand away, “I’m fine. I’m pretty capable man.”
“Pipe down. Don’t give away our tail,” Cop Thing said.
They scurried along the path beside a wooden shed deeper into the forest taking refuge in some bushes near a pond. The trench coat man was on a stone bridge crossing the pond. He lit a cigarette and waited in the middle, peering out over the scenic dark landscape.
“What’s he doing?” Mike inquired.
“Shut up. Here comes what we’re looking for,” Cop Thing raised his finger over where his mouth was buried beneath the flaps of skin that made up the face of his mutant carapace.
Three men in suits came out of the darkness on the opposite side of the bridge and walked up to the trench coat man. They began an inaudible conversation.
“Jackpot,” Cop Thing murmured.
“You know that’s gotta be bad. Let’s bust ’em now!” Mike said, brandishing his pistol. Cop Thing flagged with his hand for him to put the gun away.
“Not yet, you’ll ruin it. Wait ’til they give us a reason, otherwise we’re gonna have nothing but dead bodies and more bad press, and no answers.”
“Fine.”
One of the targets had a briefcase. He opened it. The trench coat man inspected it. The cops couldn’t see what was inside from their vantage point.
“Stay here, I want to get a better look at that. Cover me,” Cop Thing ordered, then crept out of the bushes. He was engulfed in shadow as he ducked under some branches and approached the bridge from under a canopy of trees.
The involved parties parted ways with the trench coat man carrying the suitcase.
It was almost time. Cop Thing crept along the bottom side of the arching bridge and waited until Larry stepped off and walked down the concrete path into the dense woods. He stalked from behind (almost supernaturally silent), pounced from the shadows and tackled Larry to the ground. The man shrieked and turned. Upon seeing Cop Thing’s grotesque lack-of-a-face he screamed even louder.
Cop Thing slapped the man in the face, then backhanded him.
“Stop hitting me, Cop Thing!” The man shrieked, covering his battered face with his hands. The suitcase lay vulnerable in the dirt. Mike Trigger ran up, pistol ready.
“Don’t shoot him! Try to have a little restraint, man,” Cop Thing shouted. Mike’s hands were trembling, holding the pistol, his eyes flared and gleamed. Did Mike actually give a shit about justice? Or did he just like to shoot people legally? Cop Thing wondered. He made a mental note to request a different partner.
“I want to ask you a few questions, Larry, ” Cop Thing declared, shaking him roughly. The terror was visible in his eyes now that his sunglasses had been slapped off.
The rainfall intensified.
“Yeah, we want to ask you a few questions,” Mike added. He put his pistol to the man’s temple.
“Goddammit, Mike, put that thing away. We’re not going to kill this guy.”
“I’m just letting him know we mean business,” Mike moped and tucked the pistol into his jeans.
“I think he knows.”
Cop Thing knew Mike couldn’t keep his hands off that gun for long.
How do they let guys like him on the force in the first place? Just because the guy was a war hero or something they let him get away with murder. Cop Thing liked to think he had some principals behind his arbitrating of justice. He had ethics. A vision; A vision for a better world; one which would be brought into reality – by force – by him.
Cop Thing grabbed the suitcase. His other hand still pinned the man to the wet mud. It required a code to open it, evidently.
“It’s locked,” Cop Thing said.
“Brilliant deduction,” the trench coat man quipped.
“Open it, Larry,” Cop Thing growled.
“Eat my ass, Cop Thing! You got nothing on me! My lawyer will see you in court for this,” Larry hissed. He spat at Cop Thing.
A gunshot rang out, reverberated throughout the forest. Larry’s right kneecap exploded in a mist of blood and bone. He screamed, writhing in pain.
“Wrong answer,” Mike Trigger stated proudly.
“Jesus, Mike, what the hell is wrong with you?” Cop Thing exclaimed, turning to his partner. “Put the leash back on that thing!”
Larry’s horrified screams bellowed throughout the park. Anyone even remotely close could hear the horror-show.
“Open the case,” Mike Trigger repeated, but the man was in shock, rolling around with his leg spurting blood all over Cop Thing.
The man was convulsing now, muttering curses with his eyes shut, streaming moonlit tears.
Mike cocked his pistol again. “I said open it, pussy!”
“You forgot to invite us to the party!” a gravely voice yelled. The three men in suits appeared down the ways on the path behind at the foot of the bridge under a lamp light. Two of them had UZIs. The other one had a rocket launcher.
Cop Thing carried a 44. Magnum in a kangaroo-like abdomen pouch on the side of his carapace. Now he was thinking of using it.
“Give back the case, or you’re all gonna fry,” said the goon holding the rocket launcher.
Another gunshot rang out. Larry’s other kneecap blew up and he lay there whimpering with agony, his legs utterly destroyed.
“I don’t think you have the balls.” Mike Trigger said.
“See if I’m bluffing, bitch!”
The man with the rocket launcher fired. It screeched through the air fast. Cop Thing and Mike dove in separate directions out of the way. The rocket made direct contact with Larry, whose ruined body exploded in a fiery geyser of blood, guts and smoke, lighting up the forest momentarily. The suitcase was blown clear but still intact. Cop Thing performed a duck-and-roll from behind a tree, squashed a duck, snatched the suitcase and ran.
Mike Trigger took cover behind a thick tree and unloaded his pistol blindly around the corner at the three men. The UZIs returned fire with a steady stream of bullets churning up the terrain around Mike.
Distant sirens were getting louder.
“Leave the stupid pigs!” A voice called. The men scrambled into the darkness and vanished.
The good part was Cop Thing had the suitcase. The bad part was their prime suspect had been reduced to a smoldering hole in the ground filled with charred flesh and bones.
They retreated with the case back to HQ. Hopefully a professional locksmith could open it.
☠
CHAPTER 2 – OFFICE TALK
Cop Thing and Mike Trigger sat in Police Chief Phillips’ office.
The blinds were drawn. Phillips sat at his desk with his eyes closed, brow furrowed, frowning with his hands in the praying position on the table. He began rubbing his eyes and his sweaty forehead, then took a bottle of whiskey out of the desk drawer and poured himself a shot. He was a portly fellow with a white dress shirt and suspenders and an oval balding head with a bushy salt-and-pepper mustache. He drank the shot.
“Let me get this straight,” Phillips began, “You followed the suspect, blew his legs off, then he got blown up, and you got zero answers?”
“That’s right,” Cop Thing said.
“That’s just trash, boys. Trigger, you’ve been warned. You’re a cop, not an executioner. We need the suspects in custody for a reason. You’re on a path to go on permanent leave, pal. Or worse, you’re gonna be the one in jail. Let me spell it out for you so it gets through that thick skull of yours. Stop shooting people!” He took a cigar from the desk drawer, lit it and began puffing. “We got the case open. The whole thing was filled with ICE. Lot’s of it. This new superdrug is wreaking havoc on the downtown east side, not that I care that much about a bunch of junkies who behave like they want to off themselves anyways, but the damn clean-up crew is costing the city a lot and the Mayor’s so far up my ass about it he’s tickling my duodenum.”
Cop Thing and Mike Trigger exchanged confused glances.
“I’m gonna give you guys one more chance. You mess this one up, I’m sorry, but I’m gonna have to fire you. The press is horrid with you guys. Cop Thing’s already a goddamn media magnate. So please, try doing something good for a change, then we’ll see what’s up. Do I make myself clear? Now, that guy you massacred could have been an agent of Gunmetal Poseidon. The proof is in the pudding and in this case the pudding is a shitload of ICE. This stuff will blow your heart out, literally. The stupid thing is,people like it! The sickos so hopeless and bored they’ll literally cancel themselves in the nastiest way possible, just for a thrill. If it wasn’t the law, I’d say good, waste the fuckers. If you wanna kill yourself, be my fucking guest, but the law says that’s illegal.”
Phillips puffed on his cigar and sighed.
“Can I interject here? Just for a second,” Mike Trigger said. He was caressing his Beretta in his lap again. “This guy was being a little prick about it, Chief, we told him to talk, he wouldn’t do it, so–
“So you blew his legs off. I know,” Phillips said.
“He had it coming. I warned the fucker. Cop Thing had him pinned and he was being abusive to Cop Thing. What do you want me to do?”
“You’re not that bright are you, Trigger? I want you to not blow peoples legs off. That’s what I want. I want you to do your damn job properly, minus the killing spree you always go on. It’s getting harder and harder for me to cover your ass in the press. To be frank, I’m starting to wonder who the real bad guys are. We give you a badge and you take that as license to just go out there and start blowing anyone away who gives you some lip…” He took a pause and puffed on his cigar. “Guess what? That’s always going to happen! People are pieces of shit out there.”
The smoke filled the room. Mike coughed a bit into his bomber jacket sleeve.
“Do you mind, Chief? I’m sensitive to smoke. My wife’s gonna be grossed out if I come home reeking like cigars,” Mike said.
Phillips stared at him disbelievingly. “This is my office. You’re not in a position to negotiate on such matters, Trigger. If I were you, I’d keep my mouth shut and just pray I don’t shit-can your trigger happy ass right now. Is that clear?”
Mike nodded and Chief Phillips took a long drag off his cigar, then blew it directly in Mike’s face. Mike coughed again.
“Moving on,” Phillips continued, “I want you two to go down to the lab. Hopefully we can trace this ICE crap back to the creation point. Whoever those guys were in the park you encountered, they could be connected at the high levels. Don’t go sniffing where you’re liable to get your nose clipped off, but maybe we can bring in some lower level Gunmetal Poseidon guys and make them start spilling beans. I want to make some actual progress here. That’s something you guys may not have heard of before. Now get out of my office, get down there, get briefed, then go do some actual police work, or I’m gonna have both your badges by the end of the week.” Phillips stuffed out his cigar.
Cop Thing and Mike Trigger stood up with their heads hung, turned and left.
☠
CHAPTER 3 – BLUE STUFF
The elevator descended with a mild ambient hum. The inside walls were mirrors and Cop Thing and Mike Trigger stood in silence, glaring at their stone-faced reflections. The elevator came to a rumbling halt on the basement floor and the chrome doors slid open. The duo stepped out and began walking down the hall, footsteps reverberating, except for Cop Thing, because he didn’t wear shoes; the sound was just the gentle pitter-patter of his bare feet on the freshly mopped linoleum. The halls were empty. It was afternoon and a lot of the office workers were on lunch break. Out the window, snow was dropping from the sky.
They walked down the hall and scanned a keycard at a terminal beside an opaque door. A little light blinked green with a friendly access confirmation beep and the door opened with a swooshing suction sound.
They entered the lab. A man with a comb-over hairstyle wearing over-sized glasses magnifying his eyes had opened the suitcase they’d previously recovered. The science geeks had been running tests all morning on the ICE.
“Cop Thing, Officer Trigger, good to see you,” said the lab coat man. He had a little name tag that said Hallorand on it.
“What’s the scoop on the blue stuff?” Cop Thing said.
“Well, this is some seriously heavy-duty narcotics. One sniff of this, and people are gonna be tripping balls pretty heavily in euphoria for about five minutes. That’s the nice part. The not nice part is this stuff is so potent it will send peoples hearts into overdrive and blow them right out of their chests. I guess the kids these days are willing to chase that ultimate high, or they just don’t know what they’re messing with. It’s sad.”
“It’s been a hell of a mess out there, bodies popping up all over the damn place because of this blue stuff,” Mike said.
“I’m aware of that, Mike, that’s why we’re doing this. Now, what we need to sort out here is where is this stuff coming from? Then shut it down. You said you got this from some guys in the park right? Can you elaborate on that? We need a lead here. Any clues?” Hallorand pushed his glasses up on his nose and scrunched his face in inquiry.
“Well, we had a, er, a hostage, I guess, until Mike popped his kneecaps off and then he got blown up. So – no, not really.” Cop Thing said.
“Uh, okay, that sounds like some pretty irresponsible police work, but alright.”
“It was a learning experience,” Cop Thing said. “Right, Mike?”
“Yeah. A learning experience, that’s right. Won’t happen again,” Mike said and saluted half-heartedly. He was shifty-eyed and rubbing his pistol trigger nervously.
“Do you mind?” Cop Thing asked and motioned towards Mike’s gun, then he turned to Hallorand.
“So what do we know about Gunmetal Poseidon?” Cop Thing asked.
“Only that they’re pretty mysterious. It’s only recently we’ve got any hint that they even exist, recon says. Judging by what this stuff is made of, they likely have ties to actual corporate medical institutions, because this is weapons grade dope,” Hallorand said.
“But why would they want to destroy their own customer base?” Cop Thing said. “Wouldn’t it make more sense to keep people hooked on goofballs so they keep paying?”
“Unless it’s not about the money. Could be somebody’s evil idea to wipe people out for the hell of it. Who knows how these wackos brains work,” Hallorand said.
Mike Trigger was fiddling with his pistol again, zoned out with a glazed look in his eyes. Cop Thing glanced at him wondering where his head was at. Cop Thing knew he was a full-blown psychopath.
“We need to get more organized with this. First of all, who were those three mobster-looking guys packing heat last night? I couldn’t really get a good look at them in the dark, and I was kind of indisposed at the time,” Cop Thing said.
“We’re lucky we got away with that rocket fiasco. But I’ve got a bullet with those guys’ names on it ready,” Mike said.
“You don’t even know what their names are though,” Hallorand said.
“It’s a figure of speech. We’ll find them, we’re detectives. That’s what we do,” Mike Trigger said.
Cop Thing supposed he was right. Time to put doubt out of his mind and act like a man, even though he wasn’t really. Not anymore.
“So where do we begin?” Mike said.
“For a second there it sounded like you knew what you were talking about, Mike,” Cop Thing started. “Look, why don’t we start at the source. Let’s get out on the street and try to score some ICE. You go undercover as some lowlife scum looking to get jacked up, and I’ll hang back and cover you until we get the proper info we need.”
“Why do I have to be the undercover guy?” Mike shrugged.
“Because I look like this, obviously,” Cop Thing said. “It’s going to be a little tricky for me to pose as anything other than Cop Thing, don’t you think? Everyone knows I’m a cop. I’m famous.”
“Fair point,” Mike said.
“Guys, if you don’t mind, I’d like to run some further tests on this blue stuff, so if you’re all done here, I’d like to get back to work,” Hallorand said and turned his attention back to the blue crystals strewn across the desk. He began peering into a microscope and studying the crystals intently.
“Good luck out there. I’m sure I’ll be hearing about it soon. You guys aren’t exactly the stealthiest bunch of cops I’ve ever met. You might even say you’re becoming somewhat infamous.”
“I don’t know if that’s a good thing,” Cop Thing tried to be amiable.
“It isn’t,” Hallorand chuckled lightly smiling. “Happy hunting.”
☤
CHAPTER 4 – GUNMETAL POSEIDON
The mountain ranges outside Kelowna, British Columbia, were generally unpopulated by regular folk. Frolicking billy goats and birds of prey frequented the area: animals of the altitude. However, deep in the rocky layers, high in the mountains, lied a carved out network of tunnels and caves cultivated richly with the metal decor and hi-tech computer gadgetry that might be seen in some kind of TV space show. Men and women in blue one-piece jumpsuits populated the subterranean base inside the top of the mountain, some of them wearing yellow hard hats and doing construction work, others running more menial errands and programming computer code in cubicles.
The main office in the labyrinth was facing outside the mountain wall with tall windows, the inside lined with surveillance screen displays surveying the outside of the base. The only thing that was currently showing on them were rock cliffs and swaying tufts of grass in a cold and breezy wasteland no one in their right mind would ever come exploring, except the purveyors of Gunmetal Poseidon weren’t in their right minds.
A slender man with a black padded tunic, laced with many pouches, shoulder pads, a popped collar and ninja-style pants tucked into what was somewhere between a mix of military combat boots and pro-wrestling gear, was pacing back and forth behind the gargantuan desk of the office. His oval golden belt buckle had an embossed etching of a pill on it and he had a white wrinkled balaclava with no mouth opening and glimmering purple goggles which concealed his eyes fully.
There was a tumbler of orange juice with some pulp on the desk and a bowl of noodle scraps, chopsticks and cashews, as well as a small bottle of Saint Timothy’s hot sauce. His secretary entered the room and politely scurried over, so as not to waste even one second of the man’s precious time, and rapidly retreated back outside with the dirty dishes.
“Oh, Ms. Casey?” The man said, not turning to acknowledge her visually, but staring out the window at the prime vista ahead of him, noticing her in the reflection with his metal-gloved hands clasped together firmly behind his back.
“Yes, Mr. Poseidon?” She said meekly, almost quivering, as if she feared she had made some terrible mistake she was unaware of in her duties and would be reprimanded.
“Thank you. You do good work,” Mr. Poseidon said, now turning to look at her briefly,a privilege, he thought, to be even acknowledged by a man as powerful and important as himself.
A sigh of relief exerted from out of the terrified woman. She smiled and said “You’re welcome,” then exited the room. Mr. Poseidon took a seat in a massive black leather swivel chair and began pouring over the several computer screens set up and linked together with a plethora of cables extruding from them. There was also a legion of paperwork neatly stacked in separate piles organized in order of priority, he was flipping through it sporadically while also staring off in deep thought. After several minutes of this, the beeper went off on his intercom and he flicked a little red switch and spoke into it.
“Yes, what is it?”
“A Mr. Antonio Jackson is here to see you, Mr. Poseidon,” Ms. Casey said.
She was a nice girl, middle aged, competent, pretty, no options, spineless. Perfect for the job, a useful prisoner.
“Send him in,” Poseidon said. He leaned back in his chair with his gauntlet hands folded together on his desk, waiting for his guest. Antonio Jackson entered a few moments later. He was a stout man in a striped gray suit with a red tie and slicked back jet-black hair, clean shaven pudgy face with jowls. He carefully closed the door and turned to face Mr. Poseidon from the spacious hollow distance across the room, then, with trepidation, waddled over. Mr. Poseidon sensed this man was not going to be bearing good news.
“Ah, Mr. Jackson, to what do I owe this surprise in-person visit? Aren’t you supposed to be in Neo-Vancouver right now, overseeing the distribution of my little project? Clearly you have something to communicate to me of the sincerest intimate importance,” Poseidon jabbed.
“Yeah, well, uh, you see, Mr. Poseidon,” Jackson began, sweating and dabbing his brow with a white handkerchief he brought out of his breast pocket, “the deal, well, I don’t quite know how to say this…”
“Something went horribly wrong. I know. Clearly. Tell me about it,” Poseidon invited, raising his hands in a welcoming gesture as he feigned calmness at this sure-to-be calamity failure of this untrustworthy incompetent lackey.
“Cop Thing was there, and his partner too. We got rolled,” Jackson blurted.
“Cop Thing, ah yes, that grotesque muscle-bound freak who’s creating such a buzz in the news these days. That is most unfortunate to have him involved – and the ICE? Did it reach the target? What happened? Come on, tell me, don’t be shy,” Poseidon goaded.
“Well, they caught our boy. We tried to save him but they got away with the case,” Jackson admitted.
Poseidon delayed his response.
“They… Got away… With the case?” Poseidon was rubbing his temples with his index fingers, as if he was unable to process this information. “My case? My case of very expensive merchandise you mean? The case that’s supposed to be being distributed in every orifice of human decrepitude in the downtown East Side at this very moment? That case? That case is now in the custody of the police… Is that what you’re telling me?”
“Well… Yeah, pretty much,” Jackson admitted further.
“What about the arsenal of weaponry we sent you down there with. Was that not good enough for you bumbling twats?” Poseidon was rubbing his masked forehead with his metal gloved hand.
“Oh, yeah, we used it. We used the rocket launcher!” Jackson stated proudly, trying to sound reassuring.
“And…?”
“Well, we missed and, well, yeah, we hit the contact instead.”
“You… Hit the contact?”
“Yeah. Like, we blew him up.”
“Is he…?”
“Dead? Yeah. But he was probably going to be dead anyways, Cop Thing’s psycho partner kept shooting him in the legs, I think. It was hard to see in the dark. We could really just hear the guy screaming.”
“I want to make sure I understand the situation here. You let the case get confiscated by the police and you killed our own guy?”
“That about sums it up.”
“It takes a very sympathetic and understanding type of man to forgive such a colossal failure,” Poseidon said and stood up. Jackson flinched. Poseidon would have had to be told the bad news anyways, he would find out from any of the other sources spying on the streets of Neo-Vancouver. He had informers everywhere. This seemed like the most effective method of informing him in terms of hopefully yielding some mercy, Jackson rationalized.
“Except I’m not that type of man. This isn’t some circus of idiots where you can just fuck up that badly and laugh it off. This is Gunmetal Poseidon, and we don’t tolerate that kind of failure. You must know that, Mr. Jackson. Frankly, I’m surprised to see you here. I would have thought you’d be halfway to Costa Rica by now with some bonehead plan to hide your head like a faggot flamingo. But you knew I’d find you, didn’t you? You aren’t that stupid,” Poseidon said.
“I thought if I told you in person I could appeal to your, uh, sensitive side,” Antonio Jackson pleaded.
Poseidon laughed out loud, a righteous, raucous, condescending guffaw that echoed throughout the room. “You’re right, yes, that’sgood, appeal to my sensitive side! Ha! Alright. Months of meticulous planning and spending on this project, you completely fuck it up, and you want to, sorry, appeal to my sensitive side? Well, that sounds fine. That’s perfect. Your rationalization makes total sense, Mr. Jackson, you’re free to go. Thank you for the update,” Poseidon said, pacing in circles.
“I am?” Mr. Jackson said.
“Oh yes, everyone makes mistakes. Just don’t let it happen again, please,” Poseidon said, mock-jovially and waving. “Have a nice day Mr. Jackson, say hi to the wife. Mindy? Is that correct? And little Timothy? Say hi to Mindy and Tim for me. I’ll have to remember to give you a Christmas bonus this year just for the family. A man of your considerate work ethic deserves it. Now be on your way. I’m a very busy man, as you should know. Very busy, indeed. Good day to you, Sir.”
“I promise it won’t happen again,” Jackson said and exited the room, confused but relieved. That could have been worse.
When he was gone, Poseidon stood in silence, staring at the wall, thinking. Then he flicked the little red switch on the desk transmitter and dialed a specific number.
“Hello. Yes. Yeah. It just occurred to me the elevator is having some technical difficulties. Mr. Jackson has just left my office, could you please see to it that he finds his way down to the ground level properly. Yeah. Yes, that is what I mean, take him down via door 313, please. Thank you.”
Antonio Jackson exchanged nervous pleasantries with Ms. Casey outside the office then walked down the hall. Something wasn’t quite right. When he got to the elevator, two large body-builder type men in black tank tops and jeans appeared around the corner and approached him.
“Mr. Jackson, Mr. Poseidon called and said he forgot the elevator was having technical difficulties, he wants us to escort you to the stairs,” one of them said.
“Technical difficulties? But I just took the elevator on the way up here fifteen minutes ago.” Jackson said.
“It just started having technical difficulties,” the other one said.
“Are you sure? What’s wrong with it?” Jackson asked, anxious.
“It don’t work. Look, come with us and we’ll show you the alternate way down. We insist.”
They walked in single file down the hall, Jackson in the middle, one bodyguard leading the way, the other one flanking, down a lonely corridor to a door marked 313.
“Is this it?” Jackson said, dumbly.
“Yeah, this is it,” The front bodyguard said.
He opened the door to reveal a towering vertigo vision of extreme height from outside the mountain. Jackson gasped in horror and then screamed a blood-curdling high-pitched shriek as both men roughly pushed him out from behind. He plummeted, swirling like a rag-doll through the cool afternoon air and his body smashed in the jagged rocky pit below. Vultures landed immediately and started pecking at his corpse, eating his eyeballs out of his shattered gore-strewn face. There were several other skeletons in the pit already. The vultures knew to camp the area.
Mr. Poseidon watched on the security camera in his office the delectable feast of the carrion.
“I guess that’s what my sensitive side looks like,” he said and bellowed out an evil guffaw that lasted for several minutes.
☣
CHAPTER 5 – THE CRUTCH
A brown van was parked below the misty light evening rain across the street from a seedy brick two storey bar next to a gross alley littered with a pile of garbage in the entranceway. Like many of the alleys in East Van, significantly large and random piles of garbage were becoming increasingly prevalent. There was just too damn much of it for the clean-up crews to handle adequately. People tended to full-on disregard the dumpsters and just dump it on the ground, especially in these parts of town where there was a whole festering sub-society of ghoulish wanderers hopelessly lost in oblivion, chasing nothing but their next fix and a bunch of crime. It was a sort of collective subconscious post-apocalyptic mentality.
Inside, the walls of the van were lined with surveillance tech and a single computer screen with a green terminal display grid that looked like a homing radar of a submarine, plus the keyboard. Thanks, taxpayers. There was a little green blip on the screen. Cop Thing, Mike Trigger and Officer Dempsey were in the back of the van. Officer Dempsey, a tall, well-built man with a bushy mustache and fat sideburns, a white plain civilian shirt and a police rain jacket, was wearing a headset and pointed to the little blip and said “Okay, Mike. That’s you.”
Dempsey was sort of the designated driver of the police surveillance van. In this case, they were hooking up a wire to Mike Trigger’s bare chest so they could hear everything going on in the oncoming operation. Usually Mike wore a white tank-top, but now he was wearing a faded black hoodie. It was part of the disguise. The shabby dive bar they were about to investigate was called “The Crutch” on East Hastings street. It had a reputation for being rough and never failed to get it’s share of 911 calls, so it was a good place to start. It was Sunday and there was a beer special of Monkey Back’s and a cute little children’s sandbox pail of peanuts on sale for $4.75, so business was bumping that night.
The cops were about to start digging for info in the most inconspicuous way possible and see if they could get some of the local patrons talking about the kind of dope-related activity that’d been going down lately.
Mike had been groaning about having to do this in the first place, he didn’t like having to wear a wire. No one would. It was uncomfortable for one thing, not to mention ridiculously dangerous when dealing with edgy criminals who were probably high and drunk, but it was part of the job and someone had to do it.
“Alright, all systems go, should be secure. Leave your gun, Mike, I know it’s hard for you to part ways with that thing but that’s a little too heat-score, don’t you think? If you go in there packing, and start doing the Rambo stuff, like I think it’s fair to say you usually do, this is going to completely backfire. You might even get shot for a change,” Cop Thing warned. “So do me a favor and just give it a rest this time.”
“But I’ll be completely unprotected! I don’t go anywhere without my gun. It’s like going somewhere without my dick,” Mike groaned.
“I know, but this is a situation where we’re likely gonna be dealing with some real bad guys, not some pimply-faced nerds who’re easily intimidated. Who knows what kind of dope-sucking scumbags are in there?” Cop Thing said. Dempsey was on the audio receiver, tapping it, checking it.
“Test one, two, check, check. Yeah, it’s working. Don’t let anyone see that wire, obviously, be very cognizant of that, Mike, please. I know you’re kind of spaced out sometimes, no offense. Just remember it’s important, because if people see that, it says ‘I’m a cop’. People in there are not gonna like having nosy cops invading their space,” Dempsey said.
“Affirmative. We ready? I’m getting tired of all this sitting around strategizing like we’re in a fucking football swap meet or something,” Mike said.
The back doors of the van swung open and Mike hopped out with as much bravado as he could muster, landing in a puddle and splashing water all over his jeans’ ankles.
Son of a bitch. Ah well, it makes me look shittier. That’ll be good for my disguise, he thought and jogged over to the front door of The Crutch, where there was a little campfire outside and a small group of cloaked junkies smoking some substance in stinking plumes.
“Hey boys,” Mike said with a salute, trying to play the part. They just stared at him with toothless grins, eyes bulging out of their heads, faces riddled with open sores. They weren’t really even on the same planet anymore, Mike thought. He was superior.
Inside the bar, there were girls and their menfolk playing pool, sports on TV, women’s tennis and hockey. The Neo-Canucks were playing Detroit, a home game for the Neo-Canucks, and it had the Neo-Vancouverites sitting at the bar enraptured to some degree. There was a four piece band of long-hairs in cowboy garb in the back corner on the stage playing sad, crooning country tunes. The bartender was a balding, tall fellow in a leather vest and gray jeans, bare-chested with curly black and gray fuzz. Apparently the no-shirt, no-service rule didn’t apply to the bartender. An army of the world’s selection of booze was sprawled out on the mirrored shelves behind him. Mike could see himself from the bartender’s point of view in the reflection. So this was what it looked like to be a washed out piece of shit. There were waitresses as well, but Mike sat at the bar to pick up more information there, just eavesdropping.
“What are you getting’?” The barman skipped the verbal pleasantries but he did toss a coaster down nonchalantly.
“Hi. I’m new to this establishment. You guys got a special or anything cheap on tap?” Mike said with a sly grin, trying to be as charismatic as possible.
“Monkey Back’s on special,” The barman answered bored.
“Is it good?” Mike said.
“It tastes like shit, but it’s on special. It’s good enough swill for the people who come here, let’s put it that way.”
“Alright, I’ll get a pint of Monkey Back. When in Rome, right?” Mike said. The bartender just stared at him. God-damn-it man, don’t give yourself away, talk like that and they’re gonna know you’re a cop in five seconds, he reprimanded himself thoughtfully, shifty-eyed. Stay cool, Trigger. Don’t blow your cover. Pamela and the kids are counting on you.
The bartender brought the beer over and placed it on the coaster, foam frothing over the rim. “Anything to eat?” He said.
“Oh, uh, yeah, maybe, can I see a menu? I’ll just look,” Mike said.
The bartender squinted and eyed him up suspiciously, then brought a menu over and started tending to his other patrons who were mostly hooting at the hockey game. One guy had a Chucky doll from the Chucky horror movie series, which Mike thought was odd. That guy must be a bad guy. He was sitting with another man in a black coat and a bowler hat whose face was so outrageously contorted and disproportionate he looked like a Dick Tracy villain. If looks could kill, this ugly bastard was on a murder spree, Mike thought, then, wait, does that make sense? Wasn’t HE on a murder spree, Officer Mike Trigger of the NVPD? No, it was all in the name of the Law. It’s not murder. Now’s not the time to get philosophical and conscientious, Trigger, don’t get distracted.
Mike sipped his beer and observed the area. It was quite busy for a Sunday. Don’t these people have to work in the morning? Then he remembered the rabble he was dealing with. These losers likely didn’t have jobs. Or really unimportant ones. This society was going to hell.
A man came and sat next to Mike with what appeared to be either his girlfriend, or a hooker, or both. The man wasn’t a fine picture of health, quite the opposite, in fact. He was gaunt and unshaven, wearing a football jersey. Cleveland, Mike thought, although he wasn’t completely sure as he wasn’t a big sports guy. Unless you counted the gun range. The girl was wearing knee high leather boots, fishnet stockings and a pink halter top, hair all strewn about in a flurry, early thirties, probably, but she looked older because she was all fucked up. They were on a first name basis with the bartender, whose name was Cliff. The guy and his girl were Clint and Marlena.
“Any food for ya?” Cliff asked Mike.
“No, I think I’ll just stick with the beer for now, Cliff.” There, say his name, schmooze a bit, that’ll make him like you better.
Marlena looked kind of dizzy and she kept emitting this squeaky squeal and tugging at Clint’s jersey sleeve. He had baggy jeans on, casually hung halfway down his ass displaying his gross Calvin Klein undies to anyone who cared to look.
“Two Monkey Back’s and a shot of Jager each, Cliff, my dude,” Clint said, hunched over and gyrating nervously, which seemed very unnatural.
Possibly a clue.
“Oh, and a bucket of those peanuts. Gotta have the peanuts, eh, buddy?” He said, then turned to Mike Trigger and clapped him on the back in a friendly way. “Love the fucking peanuts. Why doesn’t every bar have peanuts?”
“Goddamn, this guy really like’s his fucking peanuts,” Dempsey said in the van. “Must be some damn good fucking peanuts.” He was smoking a cigarette, which Cop Thing disapproved of but kept to himself out of basic professional politeness. The folds of his facial carapace filtered out most of the carcinogens anyways. It was just a disgusting, self-destructive habit in poor taste.
“I’m Clint, man, nice to meet ya, what’s your name?” Clint asked Mike and offered his hand. Mike hid his disgust, swallowed his pride and shook the guy’s hand.
“Hi, I’m Jared,” Mike said, giving a firm handshake to Clint’s sweaty palm, which clearly said I’m the alpha. Mike hated this guy instantly just by the sight of him, but he was here for information so he played it cool, he might need him. The ragged couple’s beers and Jager shots arrived. Marlena was pawing at Clint’s arm, making mousy noises, to which Clint became snappy and irritated with. They had some kind of whispered and quick lovers quarrel, then picked up the pints, cheersed and drank. Clint gave Mike a cheers too, slurring something incomprehensible. Jesus Christ, how intoxicated were these losers?
“You from here, Jared? Where you from?” Clint inquired, clicking his tongue and lolling his head around, able to get the words out clearly this time, though he was clearly stoned, drunk, and smelled bad.
“Port Alberni, originally, but I’ve lived here for years, so I’m pretty much from here now,” Mike said.
“Aw, man! That’s a hick town! I think, never been there myself. Well nice to have you aboard this motherfucker,” and with that he triumphantly slammed back the rest of his beer. “Come on, Marlena, shot time. Love fucking Jager. Tastes like black licorice. For the hard booze, it’s the best tasting one.”
Marlena was nursing her beer still and they cheersed the shots and gulped them down. “Aw, yeah,” Clint said and wiped his mouth with his bare forearm. The band began a faster number and the music seemed to get louder. Maybe someone turned up an amp. Mike was starting to get really annoyed with Clint.
“Be right back, gotta drain the lizard,” Clint said and hopped off to the bathroom.
Woozy, Marlena leaned over to Mike.
“You know what he did?” She said, brown dilated pupils rolling back in her head and vaguely waving and pointing in the direction Clint walked off in. Mike did not, in fact, know what he did.
“What did he do?” He said, leaning back a bit to avoid her booze-drenched breath. Her red lipstick was applied way too liberally on her over-powdered face. It reminded Mike of The Joker from Batman.
“He smokes drugs in the same room as my son!” She said.
“That sounds pretty irresponsible,” Mike said.
“Jesus, we should arrest that guy and put his kid in child custody,” Dempsey said in the van, listening in.
“Then they’ll know we’re listening in on the wire. Is this even legal?” Cop Thing said.
“I’m not sure actually,” Dempsey said.
“Yeah, he brings a bunch of drugs home from his shitty friend’s house and smokes it in the same room as my son!” She repeated.
“That’s horrible, you sound like you need help,” Mike consoled. The bartender was faintly overhearing this and sort of pretending to go about his business, as if that was normal talk. It probably was for him. Clint returned from the bathroom and ordered another round of Monkey Back’s. It wouldn’t surprise Mike at all if Clint had just ripped a huge snorter of god-knows what in the bathroom, because he was noticeably ripped as hell when he came back. Clint started whispering something intensely into Marlena’s ear, shaking her by the arm while she had this horror-stricken look on her face, bent over the bar staring into her half drank beer when the two new beers arrived. Cliff the bartender said “That’s it, Clint. You’ve had enough for tonight. I’ve told you before. You said you’d behave, but I haven’t see any evidence of it. We both know where this is going. It’s actually illegal for me to serve you.” Cliff rescinded the two beers back behind the bar.
“Oh, come on, man. I didn’t do nothing! I’m just sitting here having a nice night out with my gal. You gotta come down on me like that and embarrass me in front of my new friend here,” Clint said.
“Yeah, well, historically, I know what’s gonna happen here. You’re gonna get shit-faced and I’m gonna have to kick your ass out, as usual, and your lady too.”
“No, no, no! It’s okay. I’m good for it,” Clint said, then he brought out his wallet and opened it showing a crumpled up twenty, as if that would solve the issue at hand. He was beginning to convulse now and people were starting to get disturbed and take notice. Marlena was looking sad and scared and Clint was starting to clutch his chest.
“Just get the fuck out of here man, I don’t care. Just go. I’m not gonna stand here and just enable you to make a fool of yourself while you slowly commit suicide,” Cliff said.
“Come on, Marlena. Let’s go someplace cool where they treat people with some respect. I’ve been a good customer here. A solid customer. And this is how you treat me? Not cool man. I ain’t gonna k– k—k–,” He couldn’t quite get the word out, still clutching his chest. Then he stood up so furiously his stool fell over. He fell over on the bar and rolled over screaming before his chest proceeded to explode where his heart was. Blood splattered all over the shocked patrons in a spurting geyser of fleshy chunks and bone. He dropped face down, hit his head on the bar on the way and keeled over on the ground beside Mike. The bartender was covered in blood. So was Marlena, who was screaming and kneeling beside Clint’s twitching corpse, shaking his bloodied body crying “Why!? Oh, god, Clint! Why, oh why? You bastard! You ruined my life! And you made me cry like you always do!”
“That didn’t sound good.” Dempsey said. “Not good at all.”
“Sounded like ICE,” Cop Thing said.
ICE, Mike thought. Picture perfect example. The awkward, terrified commotion of the crowd’s confused reaction became very audible when the music stopped and the singer exclaimed “Holy shit, folks,” into the microphone. “Umm…. Yeah.”
Sirens could be heard approaching from outside. The show was over, this time.
CHAPTER 6 – WASTED FRIENDS
There was a shaken crowd gathered outside The Crutch as medics wheeled Clint’s blown-out, rigor mortis body on a stretcher covered in a bloody beige tarp with a red cross on it into an ambulance. On the bar floor there was a white outline of Clint’s collapsed frame, marked off-limits with police tape. A CSI photographer was busily snapping pictures for later reference. The coroner still needed to provide an autopsy, but they all knew what happened. Mike had found an empty little crystal clear baggy in Clint’s jeans pocket. He planned to send it back to the lab to test the residue. There were plenty of drugs on the street, but ICE had special properties. Most especially it was the only drug that was destined to kill a person in the most savagely explosive way. People seemed to be interested just from the sheer mystery of the danger, like it had generated a mythology surrounding it people were curious about. Whoever the sick puppies were who concocted this stuff and distributed it to the public had a date to pay for such a perverted idea.
Mike wondered why a person would ever want to get that inebriated? Pure escapism was the only answer he could come up with. It wasn’t a feeling he resonated with, or the type of person he would allow himself to be. No aspirations, no dreams, no hope. Just the broken remnants of a forsaken life that would never prosper. Where was the sense of self-respect? Drowned to death in alcohol or suffocated in drugs long ago. There was only a desperately momentous self-destruction in its place. He supposed that was one of the most common plagues on society. Everyone didn’t work towards a common cause. It was a clusterfuck where some people had a downright disdain for not just the law but for the whole system itself. It made him frustrated as hell, but that was just a basic age-old dilemma of the human condition.
Marlena was outside, sitting on the edge of the back of an ambulance with a blanket draped over her shoulders, quivering, sipping a hot chocolate someone had picked up from Tim Horton’s to calm her down. Officer Dempsey was standing there, smoking a cigarette, talking to her about her son and her situation. Hopefully they could arrange some help for this poor unfortunate soul and at least get the kid to safety. It always struck a nerve with Mike the negligence parents were capable of sometimes. Smoking drugs with your little boy in the room. That was just setting a terrible example. Talk about bad starts. The poor little twerp wouldn’t stand a chance in life with a start like that. His Mother didn’t look like she was going to win any Mother of the Month awards either. This was the reality of the dark hell of the peoples lives he’d signed up to serve and protect. Mike’s own father, an IT technician who was prone to melodramatic temper tantrums and stomped around in his underpants slamming doors and generally scaring the shit out of everyone in the family came to mind in a stinging memory flash. But the old man had ethics and virtue, and Mike somehow still respected his sense of duty, which he always tried to uphold, even when it was partially a symptom of mental illness.
Cop Thing approached Marlena and took a knee.
“I’ll take it from here, ” he said to Dempsey, then turned Marlena. “Ma’am, I’d like to ask you a few questions.”
“You’re even more handsome than on the news,” she said. Not the most eloquent lady, Cop Thing thought, and rude.
The truth hurt. It was lonely being a monster, the only one of his kind. This is what Frankenstein’s monster must have felt like, except Cop Thing had been a man once, he knew what he had lost – and gained – when he underwent the tragic transformation that brought him into his current state. The difference was Frankenstein’s monster was a fictional character. Cop Thing was real. That’s why he devoted himself to fighting crime, to try to do some good in a world so cruel and callous. If he could gather the courage to get up every day and fight the battle of life gallantly, why wouldn’t other people? He reminded himself he had some positive aspects to his condition and tried to have some gratitude. This was his fate. He had no choice but to accept it.
He had a built-in force field that was part of the thick skin of his mutant carapace. He was especially well fit and muscular, rivaling champion body builders, even to the point of having a six pack of abs on either bicep, which was another bizarre talent unique to him. An increased ability of strength and endurance allowed him to work out more than the average hulk, and he didn’t require as much sleep either, so he would stay up most of the night doing push-ups and reading world history and literature in his apartment living room. He reassured himself that he was special and he was meant to be here, not letting himself get depressed or feel sorry for himself. That was for cowards. That was for normal people.
“Do you know where Clint got the drugs?” Cop Thing said. She nodded solemnly. Was Cop Thing gonna make her rat people out now? He was. She just submit. She had no loss of honor about telling the cops about it. Why should she protect someone who was now inadvertently responsible for the destruction of her home life?
“Yeah, I know who he is. His name’s Jaguar Johannson. Sells drugs. Whatever flavor, you name it. Down by the docks usually. Clint and him would meet up, I dunno, drink in a graveyard or something, just party you know, on the streets, like fucking derelicts. I guess Jaguar had connections. I don’t know who, and he just sort of filtered the shit down into his world of drinking buddies and wasted friends. Used to work at London Drugs, the audio equipment section. I guess he makes electronic trance music or something and would push drugs and get people all high at his raves and shit on molly and ketamine. He’s DJ Jaguar. He’s got like, long hair, wears aviator sunglasses all the time and a leather jacket. Doesn’t really change his clothes. Plays shows every Tuesday at The Kool Kitty Lounge. I think he’s on welfare or something and just sells drugs and plays music. Thinks of himself as some great artist even though he’s just a delusional, god-complex asshole. Jaguar was always talking about himself and his gifted creative force, really self-centered, you know, a total narcissist for sure, but without the charisma to actually make him a likable person. That’s really all I know. I don’t like the guy, and I don’t think he likes himself, how could you? I don’t mind saying it,” Marlena said.
“Kool Kitty Lounge on Tuesdays. DJ Jaguar. Thank you ma’am you’ve been very helpful. You take care now, we’ll get you set up with some help. It’s gonna be okay. It’s gonna get better. You just hang in there and believe it’s gonna get better, and we’ll see what we can do,” Cop Thing said.
“Just don’t take my son away. Please. He’s all I’ve got left,” she pleaded and buried her hands in her palms, sobbing, repeating “He’s all I’ve got left. He’s all I’ve got left.”
“We’re the good guys, ma’am, you can trust us,” Cop Thing said. He put one of his heavy-veined hands tentatively on her shoulder in an attempt to console her. It was awkward. He felt like he absorbed her pain instead of transferred his consolation. Then he walked over to Mike Trigger, who was hanging out on the perimeter, nursing a coffee he got at the 24/7 Tim Horton’s a few blocks down.
“Got the guy who probably supplied the ICE. Name’s DJ Jaguar Johannson. We can find him at the Kool Kitty Lounge this Tuesday. He’s playing, she says. I’m going to that DJ show. I mean we’re going. You’ll have to be the guy who goes in because I won’t be able to go in there looking like… This. I’ll wait in the van with Dempsey, same thing as tonight. Thing’s are starting to come together,” Cop Thing said. Mike nodded.
“I guess that means I’m wearing the wire again, great. How are we gonna get to the guy, that’s a pretty public space isn’t it, a lounge? Especially if he’s the DJ. We don’t have a warrant or anything. I’m not just gonna tap him on the shoulder while he’s Djing and arrest the guy, even if we did have a warrant, the damn crowd’s gonna pelt me with rotten fruit or something,” Mike said.
“I don’t know. We’ll figure that out at the time. I’m done with this day,” Cop Thing said.
“Me too. Wanna doughnut?” Mike said and produced a fresh Boston Cream out of a bag for himself, and offered Cop Thing a chocolate doughnut with sprinkles, the last doughnut left in the bag. Cop Thing took it. The folds in his face morphed monstrously back and apart, opening like gleaming flesh-curtains in the rain. The creepy details presented themselves – faintly glowing red slits for eyes. His nose was a zombie snout and his teeth were all over-sized and yellowed, sharp incisors prevalently on display. He devoured the doughnut in one swallow, not even chewing, thanked Mike and got back in the van to call it a day.
☣
CHAPTER 7 – FLEX DAY
Cop Thing had an apartment with decently priced rent out in Burnaby. The commute was a nice drive for him. He enjoyed cruising in his Hummer and listening to classic rock. Despite being able to afford an extravagant vehicle, he was generally modest with his spending. He got paid more than the regular cops because his skills were superhuman. It wasn’t about the money, not beyond the amount necessary to survive comfortably. The vehicle was one of the few luxuries he afforded himself.
The apartment was fairly barren, furnished with a brown leather couch that matched his skin tone, framed posters of Muhammad Ali and Michael Jordan, a laptop on a desk, a flatscreen TV and several packed bookshelves. For extracurricular activities he mostly read and worked out. There was a bench press and some fifty pound dumbbells. He usually spent hours lifting every night.
When he got in the door he locked it, tossed the keys on the kitchen counter and opened the fridge. There was a t-bone steak. He pulled it out and squirted some coconut oil in a cast iron pan, turned the burner to max and let that simmer for a few minutes while he was lost contemplating the day’s events. Then he sliced open the sealed package of beef with a chef’s knife and tossed the generous slab in the sizzling oil a few minutes later to get a nice sear on the meat. He opened the cupboard for some salt and pepper and sprinkled lots of both on top. It was pretty hard to over-season a steak. He went over to the living room and turned the TV on. The channel was set to CNF (Canadian News Foundation) but he changed it to Input 1 right away and popped a VHS of “Rio Bravo” into the VCR . He dropped to the hardwood floor and banged out fifty push-ups with the old western dialog as background noise then got up, flipped the steak and seasoned the other side. He pulled a loaf of garlic bread out of the fridge and flipped the oven dial to 200 degrees, put the whole loaf in separated down the middle so the delicious buttery garlic and parsley would toast appropriately. A nice steak and a full loaf of garlic bread was not only a favorite after-shift snack for him, it was necessary to keep his bulging muscles nourished. He slammed a full clear-flavor Alpha-ade and walked over to the balcony. He lived on the thirteenth floor. From that vantage point he had a clear view of his everyday stomping grounds, distant downtown Neo-Vancouver, as well as the sky-train whipping by over the dense suburbs of Burnaby.
☣
Cop Thing rolled out of bed in the very early morning, after a night of thousands of push-ups, rewinding “Rio Bravo” three times and a half-sleep of two hours between three and five in the morning, tossing back and forth, failing to get comfortable, mostly waiting for his alarm so he could get out there into the world and start. His discipline routine was dialed down now, back when he had been a real human man, he struggled with the importance of it like most common men. Now that that life had been stripped away from him, he gained something else in return, he knew the importance of making the most out of what you had, and the hard lesson simply resulted in a rock-hard work ethic after a lot of pain and training. It kept his mind occupied and didn’t leave room for things that didn’t matter, or that he couldn’t change.
He left his apartment and began running down the street. Every morning he went for a lengthy run to clear his head and put things in perspective for the day. That early in the morning, only the hardcore fitness freaks and the derelicts were out and about anyways, so he had to deal with considerably less shocked reactions when people encountered him. He ran all the way into town, down to Stanley Park and along the waterway, nodding greetings to the common folk he saw. They knew who he was, ever since his chemical accident he had been a hot topic on CNF. It worked, because it made him into sort of a revered celebrity where people often gave him special favoritism a lot of the time, instead of fearing him.
He thought often of that legendary accident, the mutating chemical spray that soiled him permanently years ago, transforming him into what he was now. He always tried to put a positive spin on it, how it had changed his life forever, and how it were up to him to decide if that were a good or bad thing. The choice was easy, the opposite meant death. A slow, pathetic, useless fade-out transition of reality to the grave. He just couldn’t accept that. He prided himself on his tenacity to endure the gruesome fate bestowed on him. Other men might look in the mirror, and think oh my god, I’m a monster, and just blow their brains out, but not Cop Thing. So he embraced it and everyday put in the herculean effort to grow, and hopefully make an actual positive difference in the world.
It was later in the morning now. He had been running laps around Stanley Park for a considerable length of time. Businesses were starting to open. He stopped at a Jumbo Doggo hot dog vendor. The cashier was flabbergasted to be serving THE Cop Thing. He ordered ten hot dogs, loaded them up with the works – mustard, relish, ketchup, diced onions, banana peppers, everything the plastic nine pans on the Doggo stand had to offer, then sat at a picnic table and ferociously gobbled them all down. The hot dog vendor shuddered watching thisthing feed and devour the chef’s product in such bulk so enthusiastically, but the employee was enjoying it like a freak show. He was just a regular guy selling hot dogs. Cop Thing was a superhero.
Cop Thing had to urinate so he found the nearest public washroom hut in the park. He would never commit a crime – period – even if it was something as seemingly harmless as littering (it wasn’t), let alone one so ignorantly disgraceful as to urinate in public, not in a designated washroom. First of all, it was against the law, second of all, the reason it was against the law was it was disgusting, it would stink. Other people would have to suffer from the smell and be completely inconvenienced and offended at the lack of respect for the society they were supposed to all contribute to.
Inside the washroom was surprisingly clean and sterile looking. Good, the city custodians were doing their jobs properly. Another man was there at the other urinal and he attempted to make small talk with Cop Thing, which was inappropriate, but he was polite to the talkative citizen and wished him a good day before he tucked his junk back into the flesh folds of his crotch, concealing it, then left for work for the day, congratulating himself on being a friendly person.
It was time to really get down to business.
☣
Cop Thing summoned the necessary willpower and energy to run back to his apartment, take a shower, do fifty push-ups, get his car keys and drive his Hummer into town. He parked at the police station and went inside to his office, greeting his fellow officers as he passed them on the way. He had a wooden door to the office with an opaque glass pane window which only enabled people to see the blurry silhouettes of what was inside. The window said “Cop Thing” on it. He opened the door, walked inside, and strapped on his .44 Magnum in a custom made padded black-leather holster across his massively ripped chest. Sometimes he used the kangaroo pouch, sometimes he used an actual holster, it was a stylistic choice which depended on how he was feeling in the moment, but he always had the option of using the pouch, because it was part of his body. He took his phone out of his pocket, which was really just another fleshy pouch on the side of his body and called Mike Trigger. After a few rings, Mike picked up.
“Trigger here,” He said.
“Rise and grind, Mike, how’s your morning going?” Cop Thing said. He didn’t really care, he fully expected Mike to be completely prepared, that was his responsibility as a police officer, but it was nice to ask, especially to a guy he had to get along with all day. Mike got moody.
“Fine. My kids are hassling the shit out of me though. Daddy doesn’t have time to give all seven of them the tender love and care each one needs. But Pamela does a pretty good job.”
“Well, why didn’t you think about that before you had seven kids?” Cop Thing asked.
“Pamela wanted more kids, so that’s what we did. She runs the household, I run the streets – and win the bread,” Mike said, triggering a thought of garlic bread in Cop Thing’s mind, making him hungry all of the sudden.
“I’m at HQ and I’m ready to run the streets and get the bread too. Where are you?”
“On my way. Stuck in the damn construction traffic. The street’s all torn up. I’m literally in a cloud of dust right now, bumping along at a snail’s pace. It’s pretty frustrating, to be honest. Don’t let Phillips know I’m gonna be late. As you know I’m already on thin ice.”
“True. Speaking of ice, whatever happened to that lady from that escapade last night at The Crutch? Marlena?”
“We put her in a halfway home to get her shit together and took her kid to child custody services. She was deemed an unfit parent. Rightly so, in my opinion. At least for the time being. She’s lucky she didn’t go to the mental institution, the state she was in.”
Cop Thing remembered the woman crying about her son.He’s all I’ve got. he’s all I’ve got.
“Why don’t you adopt the kid, Mike? you’ll barely know the difference with one more little rascal to take care of.”
“Is that a joke, Cop Thing? I haven’t known you to be much of a comedian,” Mike was not impressed. Clearly his fatherly troubles were no laughing matter.
“Try to be on time next time, please, it’s disrespectful to the force, and to me.”
Mike said, “yeah, sorry,” and hung up. Cop Thing doubted he really was.
Cop Thing went over to the mini-fridge in the office where he had an enormous lumberjack sandwich rapped in saran wrap waiting for him and a bunch of Coca-Colas. Lettuce, mayo, mustard, ham, swiss cheese, tomatoes, sprouts, pepperoni, prosciutto, black olives, Santa Fe sauce, all the basic good stuff. His jaws were salivating from underneath his facial folds as he unwrapped the sandwich. He had earned this through diligent hard work like he did everyday. This much sandwich would kill a normal man. Halfway through devouring the beastly sub a knock came at his door.
“Enter,” Cop Thing mumbled behind the crumbs and slobber dripping from his full mouth. It was Dempsey.
“I hate to interrupt your sandwich time, but we’ve got a nasty situation on our hands. I’ll brief you in the car,” Dempsey said coldly.
Happy Monday morning, welcome to Neo-Vancouver, Cop Thing thought, secretly enjoying the drama. What kind of bizarre twistawaited? And what else did he possibly have better to do? This was what he was made for. He dropped the half-eaten sandwich on the desk and thought I’ll deal with you later.
They both stormed down the hall vigilantly and down the stairs to the parking lot.
✞
