The “Milli-Cochrane Caper” {Act 1.2}

Posted on Mon 12th Oct, 2020 @ 7:39am by Renato Solis
Edited on on Thu 15th Oct, 2020 @ 3:47am

1,522 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: Denouement
Location: Brown Sector- 200 Block Concourse
Timeline: MD 1, 1325

Gudhagh grumbled. "Work, work," he complained, wiping his short, upturned nose on his sleeve before picking up his toolbelt. "Hey!" he grunted, noticing a vacancy in the belt's holding loops. He turned to the next green-skinned, tusked worker and kicked him. "Why you take grippy tool?!"

"No take tool!" Lugdum protested, turning to punch Xoruk in turn. "Why take grippy tool?!"

Before Xoruk could protest his innocence and pass the casual violence on to the final member of their four-Gruk work squad, a light shone brighter than the mid-day sun the four greenskins had never seen. The four turned as one toward the light. "Wha'da?" exclaimed Onog.

Inside the light was a man, though the radience was too bright to see much detail. His mouth was moving, but no sound came out. A moment later, in a voice as big as the sky that unseen sun would have inhabited, the sound came. "BEHIND SOMETHING!" it thundered, and then, "A POTTED PLA..." the voice went silent in mid-word.

The Gruk looked at each other and fell to their knees, edging backward nervously. "That where you put grippy tool?" Gudhagh asked fearfully.

The man in the light screamed, a scream that would have heralded the end of a world, and did... the man's world, or at least, his incarnation. All the flesh in his body boiled away, bits flaking off and turning to light, swirling upward and into infinity. A skeleton remained for only long enough that all four Gruk registered its presence, before it exploded, and the light switched off, leaving the workers blind.

As one, not bothering to rise to their feet, the four scrambled away from the scene, screaming a terrified note of their own. "Okay!" Gudhagh yelled without looking back. "You keep tool! We gonna get new!"

A security officer stood on the corner of the 200 block N. where it met the 300 block E. She was trying to decide whether to go further north or continue east, when four Gruks ripped past the corner, almost knocking her over.

"Hey, slow down!" she called after them. Not a single one paid her any heed. She brushed off her jacket, though she hadn't actually made contact with any of them ... or they with her, and she threw a dirty look after them, muttering, "Gruks! What bit them in the butt?" She didn't really want to know, however, so she continued her patrol to the east.

***

{Tivoli Gardens, Maintenance shaft behind "Duggo's Shake Shack"}

"So you heard screams from the wall?

"The other side of the wall!"

Kiro looked down at the waiter, flustered over the mass evacuation of his restaurant. The waiter had told him about screams from the other side of an interior wall within the restaurant. It had been so loud apparently people fell to their knees in panic. The room was empty when anyone checked. Kiro was taking notes, but not giving the man any room to lie.

"What did it say sir?"

"It said..." the waiter rubbed the back of his neck, looking down at the deck. "It screamed... that there was a bathroom on the right. And then something about burning its shoes off every time."

Kiro didn't write that down. "Sir, that's peculiar would you agree, are you certain-?

Another scream from down the corridor punctuated the odd interview. A dozen people started running away from a disturbance. The man Kiro was interviewing took off, having never been under arrest. The young deputy struggled to see past the running people, calling it in as soon as he saw a struggling form, energy having taken over same as a man on fire. He only saw a brief flash and it was gone, a photo flash finish blinded anyone looking.

=/\= Kiro to Supervisor Rickards... I need medical attention, medics to my location! There is a problem here... somebody has a weapon or I don't know get here I can't see!

=/\= Rickards here, sending backup, Rithkin is close. Are you under attack, do we need to alert Starfleet?"

Kiro would rather fight blind than invite uniforms to join the deck party.

=/\= Hell No, I think my flash blindness will subside, nobody else is injured we can handle this. Rithkin and the medics can meet me at Doggo's.... Duggo's... or the shake place. Kiro out."

The image seared into his brain had a photo negative familiarity to it. Kiro wasn't a man of memory talent but he knew the face from somewhere. It was contorted, but the visage and affect struck a chord in his memory.

The people around him asked if he was okay, told him the man had vanished. Others had been too far away to be affected, Kiro took small comfort to have at least seen something.

"Burning shoes... bathroom?" The statements made no sense, what did any of this mean?

***

Dong was drunk. More, he was a drunk. Some people just were. Medicine could treat the fatty, cirrhotic liver; the alcoholic rhinophyma; could re-balance the neural transmitters to remove the physical dependency. They could not, however, touch the underlying cause, the weakness in mind and soul; the avalanche of things to be fled, escaped, in the mind of the drunk. And so, Dong was drunk.

He crawled in the unlit warehouse, surrounded by forgotten crates, pushing his Dobro in front of him. More than a decade the crates had sat here in the darkness, waiting for a ship that never came in. Much like Dong himself, for that matter. He laughed quietly. "I'm sittin' on the dock of the bay," he half-sang, trying to remember an old, old song. He shook his head. He found the tiny gap between crates, and crawled in. Back here, back behind the others, he was safe.

He crawled into his tiny nest, reached out and touched the little bluebird nightlight the little dragons had brought him. He liked the dragons. Unlike the punters in the market, they actually listened when he played. Sometimes, he even shared his booze with them. Sometimes, they brought him things he needed: the bluebird, a blanket. They never came when he was sober, though it was also true that he avoided that status as often as possible. He patted his pockets, searching. "Where is it?" he muttered. "Where's the bottle?"

A voice whispered, "if it were up your butt, you'd know."

"Very helpful," Dong slurred. "Except it's not." He turned toward the voice, a little alarmed that there was a voice. The little dragons never spoke to him, only squeaked sometimes. The sight that met his drunken gaze sent him reeling back. A man, glowing from the inside, his skin gone. Muscles, and blood pumping through arteries, veins. Naked eyes, staring at Dong. Teeth, white, glistening, wet.

"Is it my time? Are you here to take me?" Dong asked, the pressure inside his chest building.

"Wish in one hand," the apparition whispered.

Dong's vision dimmed, and his last thought was that no one would find him for a very long time; no one would miss him, and no one would come close enough to smell him as he rotted away. Who cared about an old drunk more or less?

***

{Refugee Center- "Midnight"}

Several surprises awaited on Renato's simple desk. Kya had left a thermos with tea, and several cookies next to a stack of paper files. The kind used in archival backups, paper was only used in situations where computers werent allowed. This office was insulated from any network, it caused problems but solved as many more. In here, there was true privacy, not even internal sensors. Looking them over, he saw it was the evidence to date on several mysterious sightings across Brown Sector. Inspector Rickards had asked for his insights, sent them to the center earlier.

Then, oddly placed as though it was placed after the stack of papers was a folded black paper. Placement of everything else suggested Kya had come in, placed the papers and a drink, then this note came after. Kya would not allow anyone into this office though, and she had been here all night.

Who had gotten this note in here?

The note waiting for Renato was black paper, with silver ink scrawled across it. "Dewd met devel at crossrohs. Lost sol." a crude drawing of the interior of a warehouse, with an x to mark the spot, and a frame number to find the right warehouse.

This notes was dripping in deductive elements, something about this whole affair was very exciting. He wanted to go right away, but knew that was folly by himself. Renato tried to reason out an answer as to what this meant but logic failed to provide a reasonable answer. He didn't miss the obvious conclusion, that this was definitely related to the case on his desk now.

Someone was watching him, in this private space he was seen. The alarm this raised caused immediate anxiety, he hoped nobody was listening before he said simply, "I don't need to be alone."

There was trouble, a deadly game being played. Time to see what lay beyond the X on that map.

 

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