OOCS, Into A Wider Galaxy, Part 656

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Cats, Cops and C4

“Oh. That makes sense.” He notes as he finds a large group of civilian women zoned out, zonked and otherwise in numerous states of inebriation. He examines a few of the girls and they try to kiss him, but they’re too out of it to properly use Axiom so he can hold them back without hurting anyone as he finds signs of habitual drug use on each of them. Her hostages were her customers.

Even if she got away somehow at this point, she’s burnt a lot of bridges with this stunt. When these girls sober up they’ll have a much harder time trusting her. And hopefully they’ll be willing to go to rehab. If not, he can pull some strings, get them brought in on minor charges and have rehab be part of their parole. Not technically the thing he’s supposed to do. But this nightmare will continue if something isn’t done.

Hopefully it won’t come to that.

“Hey, where ya...” One of the druggies asks as she tries to hold onto him and he gently pries her off and sets her down.

“I’m a woman you know.” He lies. “The drugs are just so good you’re seeing a dude.”

“Oh... that’s disappointing.” She says. “Think if I take more a real man will show up?”

“I think you’d have a better chance with less.”

“Oh... okay. Well it’s not like I have any chance to begin with!” She says with a laugh that then breaks down into sobbing.

As pitiful as that is, he leaves the room and continues searching the area for further explosives or traps.

He finds a room with several drums of chemicals. He reads off the labels nad nods. They were planning to make more bombs. Further poking around reveals scrapped computer parts taht were being repurposed as detonators and timers. A small shelf of improvised blast caps and a data slate that he only checks to make sure it’s not concealing more boom somewhere.

Still safe so far. He goes to the next room. Shelves upon shelves of random items in bins with a table and a dataslate on it. Clothing, shoes, purses, jewellry, weapons, unused totems? A barter room? Where the dealer holds things that people pay with that isn’t cash? Maybe. Still, the weapons are the most dangerous thing he finds. A few taps on the walls and stomping around to look for hidden chambers and it comes up clean. He exits the building fully visible with his hands up and offers a nod.

“Building is clear! All bombs disabled! Hostages are in the basement in a drugged state! Get medical down there now to check for overdosing!” He calls out loud and strong and there is movement around him. “I also need a decontamination tent! The First floor off the ground has a lot of drugs all over the place and it’s on me!”

A specialized shield projecter is set up in front of the baracade and it sets up a green film of energy he walks through and is now drug free. “Thank you.”

He returns to the Synth Snict Officer who nods and opens the cruiser door for him.

“How bad was it in there?” She asks as he starts slipping his socks on.

“Three large bombs, enough firepower in there that there was a chance to compromise the level security around this block. Low chance of a chain reaction. But there are some things of concern.” He explains before pulling his boots on and moving to lace up properly.

“Such as?”

“One of the bombs was different from the other two. Two of them were waiting for Axiom measures to be used against them. The third was basically waiting to see if a line would be disconnected first. It was either a trap or there’s a second bomb maker. Either way, those bombs were very powerful, very dangerous and even without the metal detectors, if officers just rushed in, not even touched the bombs, just got too close to two of them, then boom. If they had spotted that danger and tried to destroy the bomb mechanisms from afar, it would have set off the third.”

“That is a lot more clever than our suspect.”

“There’s also a portal she was making a break for. I was just luckily in the right place and time to intercept. Where does it lead and who is she working with?”

“A lot of questions.”

“Yes, but thankfully the immediate danger has passed.” He says as he finishes going from one boot to the other.

“Shalara has a long history of being suspected as a dealer but never confirmed until recently. The fact she was in this house at all was a surprise.”

“Let me guess, ‘random’ tip from a woman trying to suddenly quit her drug habits thanks to the Blood Metal scare.”

“Yes.” She says as he finishes up his second boot and starts strapping everything back on. “Do you want to be kept posted?”

“Only if you need my expertise again. I’m going to look into getting a ceramic knife just in case I run into something like this later. In case they get even more clever next time.”

“To do what?”

“Cut away the explosive payload without tripping metal detectors or Axiom Sensors. I cut it, pun partially intended, rather close.” He explains as he starts adjusting the vest to be more comfortable. The day is far from over and there’s going to be more coming. It’s just a fact.

As he reaches in for his coat his communicator goes off and he grabs it first. “Officer Barnabas here.”

“Where are you? Has something happened?” Mei’Lan asks.

“I’m about twenty levels down, just finished assisting the local precinct. Chemical bombs, metal detectors and a lot of dream dust cut with god knows what in the air. Crazy woman is caught, bombs disarmed and hostages are being seen to by medical. So it’s a win all around, but there’s a question mark due to... what?” He asks as the Synth Snict Officer gives him a sideways look.

“Who are you speaking to?”

“My semi-official sister and a woman who has assisted me in multiple cases when things go sideways. Is there a problem with that?”

“Why are you talking about police business with her?”

“Because she’s an Empty Hand Master who often assists in police business and nothing in this is private or classified and if she’s called in to help with it, she won’t need a debriefing.”

“Can she go non-lethal?”

“She’s an Empty Hand Master, anything she can’t go non-lethal on is nothing that can be held safely in a cell.” He replies.

“Fair enough.”

“She’s legally deputized.”

“I already said fair. Do you have any other deputies?”

“My wife Vera? And I was technically a deputy of my first wife Linda for a while.”

“And Vera is?”

“Takra-Takra.” He says.

“You poor man.”

“Says the giant preying mantis.” He notes.

“Mantis? You’re speaking with a Snict?” Mei’Lan asks over the line.

“Yes I am.” Chenk says.

“Oh my goodness, I got so wrapped up in the questions that I forgot about her.” The Officer mutters as one of her armblades smacks into the side of her head in an expression of annoyance. There is a laugh from Mei’Lan and the Axiom swells.

She drops out of the air and lands lightly on top of the police cruiser. “Hello baby brother.”

“Not a baby Mei’Lan.” He chides her.

“Compared to me you are.”

“I’m also older than your husband you cradle robber.” Chenk remarks and she laughs. “So I take it that house down there is where all the fun was.”

“I suppose you can call it that. There wasn’t any of your fun for more than a few seconds when our perp made a run for it and I was luckily in the exit route at the time. Got the detonator away from her and knocked her silly. Not much of a fight but there you go.”

“How many bombs? You don’t usually get called for specifically if it isn’t bad.”

“Three, all of them about the size of my body minus limbs and head. So that’s about one hundred or so each. One alone would reduce a building that size to splinters and send the shrapnel flying at the kinds of speeds you need a coilgun to match. Every civilian watching from their home, the people at and behind the police cordon... if I screwed up I would have been instantly dead and so would the perp and the hostages and anyone we missed in the surrounding buildings. The shrapnel would have killed or mutilated everyone out to this distance and a good chunk of the level would undoubtedly be compromised and/or peppered in enough shrapnel that the hospitals would be overfilled. Oh, and the shockwave would have reduced anything made of glass for several blocks into further shrapnel.”

“And all without Axiom. Downright terrifying.”

“She had a store of chemicals in the basement. And while they’re accelerants on their own, they’re not explosive and can be safely handled so long as someone doesn’t do something insanely stupid like fire a plasma rifle at them.”

“... So the odds that someone will be that stupid?”

“These are police officers. Unless the local precinct is in the habit of excusing inexcusable behaviour then we’re fine.” Chenk replies. “Besides, look over there. See those big blocks? The ones they’re removing from the building. That’s the explosives. Without those in the equation the worst we’ll get is a bad fire.”

“Good. Now is there a method of safe disposal?” The Synth Snict Officer asks.

“The Undaunted are willing to buy it.”

“For what purpose?”

“Training mostly. Also legal demolitions. Using Axiom reinforced targets and Axiom repaired targets allows the use of live fire munitions and explosives.”

“What about for weapons?”

“Oh no, we like a guarantee of the grade of equipment we use out of training scenarios. If this stuff is up to that level, unlikely, then there’s so little of it compared to how much we use that it’s unlikely to be used in any actual weapons.” Chenk says.

“I see... so how much gets used in examples?”

“A lot. The Undaunted as an organization is expanding faster and faster. Three hundred plus pounds of C4? Not much compared to how many people need to learn how to keep themselves consistent and careful during a live fire scenario.”

“Excuse me?”

“Explosives going off at a safe distance can still be very loud and the sensation of the shockwave, even if it’s no longer dangerous, can really throw people off. The training is to let a soldier act, numb them to panic, get them used to chaos so they can act in it without faltering. A steady hand when the world is shaking is impossibly valuable.” Chenk explains.

“I saw some of that! Buried explosives while they have to coordinate with each other in different trenches! Learning to be heard and how to work while the world is so full of noise and chaos. Good stuff.” Mei’Lan explains and before she can continue a beam of red light lances out of the upper level of the compromised house.

“The portal door has been-” The Synth Snict Officer begins to say as both Chenk and Mei’Lan race past everyone and directly to the danger.

She’s faster than him, but she’s also going for whoever the shooter is. Chenk has other goals and intercepts a laser beam with an outstretched hand to catch it before it can flash into someone’s head.

Mei’Lan has already closed the distance and the shooter is trying to retreat back through the portal with her laser gun. But she catches a foot to the side of her hood, the hood and foot go clean through her. Sweeping off a cluster of round drones, each the size of a person’s fist. Mei’Lan gets between them and the portal and her hand snaps out toe break the barrel of the laser rifle.

The portal deactivates and the drones fall to the ground leaking smoke.

“... You cheating bitch.” Mei’Lan notes incredulously.

“To be fair, they’d probably argue going up against an empty hand master to be massively unfair.” Chenk notes as he enters the room at a calm walk and therefore at a bit less than the blinding speed Mei’Lan had managed. Some bits of dust and dead skin had gotten torched by the laser, but it’s nothing more than a slight black mark on his palm. Utterly harmless to anything that isn’t a fancy white cloth.

“Still, a bunch of small drones working as one? That’s... skillful. And it was so well done I couldn’t tell something was strange until I tried to kick away a head that wasn’t there.” She notes and Chenk checks the cloak by bringing out a knife and using the back of the blade to shift it to the side. Right at the top of the hood is another drone. HE turns and quickly does a count.

“Fifteen drones working in concert to handle a laser rifle. But why? And they’ve all clearly cooked their insides, so the question is what triggered that? Was it the closing of the portal? A manual thing?”

“Why does it... oh. Either way we can potentially bug them.”

“It also tells us the level of automation the drones have. If this was fully automated then tracking is easy. If a controller is paying attention? Not so much.”

“Either way picking apart drones for clues isn’t either of our expertise.” Mei’Lan says.

“Agreed, lets get out of here and call all this in so we can get the appropriate investigators looking at this.”

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