Rabbithole (TWI ONLY | IC)

[Menna Shuli]

I stepped around the glass on the floor and crossed as quietly as I could to the partly-open door. I pressed my back to the wall next to the hinges, then with the fingertips of my right hand I applied pressure to the thin crack between the door and the frame, levering the door open a few extra inches without placing myself squarely in the center of a target. I could hear movement inside, keys tapping, but as the door shifted it stopped. I could almost hear the startled glance up of whoever was within.

I thought for a second about how to approach this. There were about a dozen plays in the book I could go for, but I was treading upon somewhat shaky ground. I realized I didn't have anything linking me with the Pride, so appealing to that was a no-go. In fact, as far as anyone was concerned, I was a rogue cop pursuing a case I'd been removed from. Thankfully, Mênna Shuli had never much gone in for things like warrants, at least not if a detective could draw a good link to some crime being committed. Broken window was enough to let me cover as an investigation of a B&E if things went sideways, but entering a foreign national's home without a preexisting case was still gonna be a tightrope to walk. I decided that bullheaded was probably the best approach.

"This is Detective Kilu Tashê of the Shuhakallu Capitol Police Force, stop whatever you're doing and put your hands up," I said. Then, thinking about it, I quickly repeated myself in English.

There were a few seconds of silence, then a voice replied. "My hands are up."

Passable Mênnan, for a foreigner. I stepped back from the wall and into the living room.

"I want you to step out from that room," I said. "I want to see your hands come out first, and I want them to be empty. I'm armed, and you're currently breaking and entering."

I thought about that for a quick moment, then appended a single sentence. "Unless you're Faard."

I heard movement and readied my weapon. It was aimed forward but down at the ground, showing I wasn't about to shoot but ready to swing up and fire if things went badly.

[Ostehaar]

Shit. I did not expect this.

The window, maybe? I raised my head slightly and tried to estimate the distance to the ground. No - it was too high and the window was too small.

What about jumping behind the computer desk? I glanced sideways. No - the desk was too close to the wall behind it and it would have taken me too long to do that move.

An attack was not an option. I had no intention of putting my entire mission in the country at risk - certainly not when I don't even understand what's going on yet and what's at stake. This was the decisive moment, a win-or-lose kind of a situation - you either cooperate with the local authorities or act alone and in the shadows. I usually prefer the latter...

I took a deep breath, intentionally aloud and noticeable. I removed the device I connected to the computer as silently as I could, placed it somewhere around so it would appear as if it was Sihvort's, and finally raised both my hands up. The video I was watching ended abruptly and the computer got locked again.

"My hands are up," I said clearly in the best Mennan I could articulate. The Detective wanted me out of there, hands first. Well, no point in resisting now. I stood up and paced towards the living room, my hands hanging up but rather low.

The Detective seemed to me a bit surprised. Her eyes quickly scanned my slim frame, probably looking for signs of a concealed gun or a knife. Her gun was still aimed at my feet but her posture seemed to loosen. I stared at her lazily, sporadically glancing at the rest of her body. Being honest with myself, I thought she looked good, even compared to other warrior caste women. I was not completely sure if I was more impressed by her physique or by the fact that she managed to sneak-up on me.

"I'm not Faard," I said in good-old English. "My name is Elan Duhnisj and I'm from Ostehaar. You are Detective Tashê..." I hesitated for a moment as I thought to ask her for her personal name. "Tashê what?"

[Menna Shuli]

A cop instinct tingled in the back of my brain, right next to that deeply ingrained, ancient evolution of the lizard, the amygdala and hippocampus. I didn't know what it was that tingled it, but it wasn't a danger sense. It was more like a feeling of something being subtly askew. It happened sometimes when you walked onto a crime scene, let's say a murder, and you glance around the room. You don't see anything obviously wrong, aside from the dead body on the ground of course, but some small part of your attention, a subconscious tickle, picks something up. Then, a few hours or days later, something will trigger an insight and you'll realize what the feeling was. Maybe a patch of the wall is too bright, revealing that a picture frame was missing, or you wonder why the only clean piece of cooking equipment was that particular rolling pin when everything else was still in the wash basin. The feeling you got was letting you know where a clue was. I got it here, looking at this guy from Ostehaar. Something subtly, almost imperceptibly off.

I pulled out my badge and flipped it open, still holding my gun in my right hand. I held it out. The text was small enough that he probably couldn't read it, but that was fine. It was the silver gleam he needed to see.

"Detective Kilu Tashê Lila," I said in English, but I knew where this was going. Getting first names, using first names, was an interrogation technique. It bred familiarity, comfort, opened people up. I didn't know if this guy was doing it intentionally, but I got the sense he was. "But it's just Detective Tashê."

The blunt redirection aside, I wasn't above the tactic myself, not the smallest reason for which was that I already knew I wasn't going to be able to wrap my tongue around the pronunciation of his last name with any style or grace. I needed to remain in control, and stumbling over my words wasn't in control.

"What are you doing here, Elan?" I asked, sliding the badge back away. "Because I'll tell you, it looks a hell of a lot like you're breaking-and-entering. And that's a crime, even if it's between two Osters."

[Ostehaar]

I lowered my arms but kept my hands open out of my pockets. It felt awkward, but I didn't want to seem assertive or inordinately confident. She was the cop and I was the criminal, after all, and I was caught red-handed. I looked around at the broken glass, the door, the half-shut window - I did break-in, but this wasn't burglary.

Moreover, she wasn't on routine patrol or something like that. She came here specifically and knew who lived here, which meant she probably knew I wasn't really a burglar. She was still just a local Mennan cop, though, so I assumed I could bend the truth just a little bit.

"I realize that it seems like a crime," I said in low-key, "but I only broke-in because I'm trying to figure out what happened to Arin." I paused for a moment to see if my use of his first name would have any effect. "You see, I'm a close friend of his and I haven't heard from him in a while. I had no intention of stealing anything or killing anyone."

The lie had been said. I was on a closed and defined path, and had to start weighing my every word from that moment on. I had to buy some time to think about the story I had just invented - details, what I was doing, what I knew about his businesses... I had to prevent her from throwing questions at me right away, as quickly as possible yet without raising too much suspicion.

I released a troubled sigh. "Detective, do you have any information about Arin?"

[Menna Shuli]

"I'm only here because I saw a broken window and what looked like an intruder," I said, the half-truth as easy as breathing. It was entirely possible that this man was just what the story being told said he was, which was a concerned friend or family member of Faard who had broken into a home out of fear or love. I didn't buy it, but it was actually one of the simpler answers. Occam's razor let me shave it to a fair margin of correctness, even if I had a cop tingle about it. An alternative story was that he was a fuckwit criminal who had decided to rob a random Oster, but that made almost no sense given the information I had received thus far. Why would a random burglar target someone in a place like this, and why would he have been so prepared with asking around at the Lion?

The third story being told was that this guy had some connection to the drive, which seemed likely enough. Not to get ahead of myself again, I also told myself about option four, which was that whatever business Faard had in Mênna Shuli had earned him the attention of either business rivals or a government agency, meaning this guy could very well be an Oster spy of the corporate or government variety. The Oster intelligence community did have a reputation, after all. There was a big movie about it a couple years back that I couldn't remember the name of. Options three and four could very well be part-and-parcel with each other; if information on the drive was connected to the Oster uranium deal Usu was working on, and Faard was somehow connected, it was very possible that this guy was here for dirt. Whether that dirt was to bury Faard and the deal or to try and bolster the levies and make sure it went through, I didn't know. Still, this was all way too suspicious.

While these thoughts blitzed through my head, there had been a long second of silence, broken only by the distant laughter of children kicking around a football. Suddenly, a loud series of ditonal shêwa beats echoed from my pocket. I nearly jumped out of my skin. Removing my supporting hand from the butt of my sidearm, I reached into my pocket and pulled out my phone. Checking the screen, I saw an unfamiliar number. What were the chances that Lioness Kilu Kintukin Ishêta was calling me at this very moment? Or maybe it was someone watching the apartment. If Faard was important, and I was starting to get an inkling that he was, it was very possible that a cocksucker with binoculars or, worse, a sniper scope was watching us right now. On a whim I decided to answer.

"Detective Tashê," I said, keeping my eyes trained on the Oster. "Who is this?"

A voice purred from the other side. "Detective," said Kilu Ishu Kiti, the Pride secretary, her voice low and playful. "How harsh. I thought we hit it off."

I felt like an idiot. Of course it wasn't important. The weirdness of the case had gotten to me, and now I was stuck holding a man at gunpoint while a beautiful woman called me to set up a date. "We did," I backpedaled. "I'm just...I'm in the middle of something. Work-related."

"I see," there was laughter in her voice. "I was just wondering if you were still on for dinner."

Fuck, I thought. "Uh, yeah," I said. "Yes. Could you just..."

"How does around 19:00 sound," she asked. "At 'Padma's' off the Park? I'm dying for Indian. I'll treat."

I tried to judge what the Oster was making of this. His face was somewhere between passive, confused and amused. "Fine," I said, more bluntly than I wanted to. I addended more lightly. "That sounds great. Sorry to be quick, but I have..."

"I know," she laughed for real this time. "Business. I'll let you get back to work."

She hung up. I slid my phone back in my pocket. If my concern had been remaining in control, that call had certainly undermined some of my authority. Still, I was the one with the gun. Trying to get my grip back, I decided to come at this head on.

"Who are you really? Why are you here?"

[Noronica]

"Bollocks."

I held my head in my hands, mostly due to shame and partly due to the odd smell of cleaning liquid that the janitor had been generously adorning the floor with. I could see that even Abigail's confident facade was faltering slightly, the cracks evident by the increasingly harsh coldness in her voice when she addressed one of the staffers. We were both feeling the strain, especially due to the odd feeling sitting heavily in our stomachs that we were a few steps behind.

Abigail spotted another spotty intern, "Could I-"

"Sorry, busy." Said the Oster, cutting Abigail off not out of rudeness, but due to the fact that the intern was already two metres away.

Abigail looked close to screeching, but she pulled back and dug her fists into her pockets. Either this was the regular bureaucratic process in an Oster embassy, or some deity really didn't want us to progress anywhere. The receptionist occasionally shot me apologetic glances, but even then it was obvious that neither Abigail or I were getting in to see even a low-level diplomat.

Glancing up at the ceiling, I began to attempt to find patterns, my eyes scanning the shapes and colours. When I thought I had found something, something or someone blocked my vision. Jolted out of my little game, I looked at the man in front of me. To anyone not versed in official protocol, this was just another man dressed in a suit, but I immediately recognised the red patterned tie and crossed-key badge on the lapel.

"Fancy seeing another Noronnican here!" Exclaimed the man in surprise. He wore a large grin on his features as he grasped my hand into his. Shaking hands, I noticed that Abigail was watching us with interest, but she kept her distance, not wanting to be seen cornering this new potential lead.

The man sat next to me and smiled in satisfaction, for what I did not know. Speaking in a Nolon accent, he took to using a low-volume as people passed us by, "I recognised the shoe-make, Gwynon-brogues are they not?"

I nodded, both impatient yet content with the new distraction, "Uh, yes, I bought them recently."

"And a Nolonder at that! My day is getting better and better! I just had a bit of a hard time in a meeting here, you know how it is, allies can often have arguments too. Ah well, I'll be off back to the embassy, but it is refreshing to hear another Nolonder voice in these parts! Say, I'll give you my newspaper. It must have been a while since you saw new from home, I mean it had been one hell of a ride with these 'Bedside Papers' thing." He looked at his watch and grinned, "Best be off mate, I'll see you around maybe?"

With that, he swiftly exited the Oster embassy's doors, leaving me more confused than ever. The man acted as if I was a long-lost friend, and his excuses were flimsy and rather forceful as if he was trying to force a narrative. I frowned, attempting to recollect anyone that looked like the man before I was interrupted by the janitor.

"You finished?" He asked, picking up the newspaper. Standard practice I supposed with all of the newspapers that diplomats caught up on. Nodding absentmindedly before I noticed a small piece of paper dangling from between the pages. Quickly apologising and snatching the newspaper back, I flicked through the newspaper as the janitor shrugged and moved on. I almost opened the page where the piece of paper was until I looked up, remembering that a camera lens covered my seat. Looking at Abigail, I motioned for her to join me outside the embassy. At her nod, I moved from my seat to the door, careful to maintain a dejected look as I did so.

Once outside, I was hit by a wave of humid heat as the change from an air-conditioned room to the raw heat of a city was rapid. Turning, I walked to a nearby alleyway, the newspaper clutched between my hands as if it was my most prized possession.

Entering the alley, I opened to the page where the piece of paper was and I read the note, feeling that there was something missing when I did.

.
DESTROY SWIFTLY


Information:

Oster attaché - told target about THE LION bar.

BE VIGILANT - Osters might know about you now - information garnered by bribe -
Osters might take an interest
.

Handing it to Abigail, she sighed, "It means another bar search."

I frowned, "Not necessarily. If she is looking for someone, they might be a regular to this bar. I suggest we keep a lookout in and around the bar."

Abigail nodded, "Ahah, here we see the ol' Copper in action. P.C Peter here to investigate." She chuckled, hailing a taxi at the edge of the alleyway.

[Ostehaar]

The fact that she asked me for my business here again did not necessarily mean she did not believe what I had said - it was probably just another way to see if my story remained consistent. She gave me a chance to change my attitude and put our little encounter on another course... perhaps opening a door to potential cooperation on the matter?

No. I did not know her enough, nor did she do anything to justify trusting her. I released a short and impatient sigh. "I told you, I am..."

My phone suddenly woke up to life, buzzing in my back pocket. Apparently it was my turn to embarrass myself a little bit. Not many people had the number of the phone I was carrying, so I could guess between two or three options, and it definitely was not a good time to have any of those possible conversations.

It did keep on ringing, though. I started moving my hand towards my pocket, testing the Detective's response and making sure she was not going to shoot me or anything like that. It was actually the other way around - she must have thought the conversation would reveal something new. Oh well - there are moments in life when you just have to roll with it. I decided to go along. I pulled the phone out, keeping my eyes on the Mennan cop. I glanced at the number - it was this Alex from back home, the one who gave me the mission. Fuck.

"I'm in a bit of a situation right now," I said in Oster. "Can I get back to you in a few hours and -"

"Listen," he interrupted, "you might have a tail or two. We identified Noronnican nationals in the embassy, and one of them might have gotten information on your case."

"Fek." It was the Oster way of saying fuck. I forgot it was recognizable. "Thanks."

I put the phone back in my pocket and finally lowered my hands all the way.

"Look," I told the Detective, "just arrest me, let me go, or help me find him. I realize you have no reason to believe me, but in all honesty it doesn't really matter. I was just informed that I might be in danger because of my digging, so... that's where it stands." This was not entirely false...

[Menna Shuli]

Lots of phone calls at inopportune times, I thought. I gripped my sidearm tighter for a moment, considering how to handle this. I studied the Oster man's face, trying to figure out what he was thinking. My cop senses were still buzzing, but the problem with instinct was that it was imprecise. It didn't bother going into specifics, and what I needed right now was specifics.

The phone call. I didn't speak Oster, but I could read tone. And the context. I chewed the inside of my cheek. Was he Oster intelligence? That would be problematic, especially if he was going after Faard with the intent to fuck his day. Of course, I didn't even know if Faard was connected to the drive. All I knew was that he went to a specific bar a lot, and that this man in front of me was ringing a ton of alarm bells.

What were the chances I'd slipped into a different nest of vipers while trying to dig myself out of the first one? Not impossible, but damn unlikely. I was starting to feel a lot like Alice, tumbling down a rabbit hole with no apparent bottom. A brothel to a computer drive. A computer drive to a pimp. A pimp to a murder. A murder to a senator. A senator to an embassy. An embassy to a bar. A bar to an apartment. An apartment to this man. Could I afford to drop the chain?

I finally decided on a course of action. I needed one more piece of info before I could start to figure out this whole thing.

"I'll decide if you can tell me one thing," I said. "Did Faard go to brothels to fuck Mênnan girls?"

[Ostehaar]

There it was. She was definitely, without a doubt, not a cop on routine patrol. Her question surprised me, both because I did not expect her to take that step, and because it made me realize that there was a chance she actually knew more about this story then I did. It felt strange to think about it, but I also felt safer, for some reason.

"Yes, he did," I confirmed. "That is actually where I started looking for him a while ago."

[Menna Shuli]

His answer clicked things into place. I sighed, half out of frustration and half out of relief. A tension I didn't know I had released. My hand drifted down and I holstered my gun.

"I had a feeling," I said. "I'm not going to arrest you, but I have some big questions and I think you might have answers. You know the Pride?"

He gave me a look. Of course he knew the Pride. Tourists always knew the Pride. It was like the Buckingham Palace guard, right down to the ridiculous furry accessory. The Guards in London had their hats. The Pride had their collars. I sighed again.

"Alright, so, I'm working with the Pride on an investigation," I said. "The investigation has led me to Faard. I don't know what your role is here, but I figure whatever it is, cooperating with the Pride is probably in your best interest. So here's the facts...I'm looking for something and I think Faard is linked. I think it has something to do with Ostehaar, and I don't know who or what else might be involved. So I need to know, here and now, if you are an Oster intelligence agent and whether or not this is all going to go tits up on me."

[Ostehaar]

"I am not from any intelligence agency," I said, hesitating to give more details. "I am getting help from my government. You can think of me as some kind of a freelancer, I guess."

"As for your second question," my eyes drifted sideways as I continued, "I honestly don't know. I'm not sure how deep this entire thing goes, but I do know that there are a few Oster corporations that are very interested in the case. Faard probably had inside information regarding some covert dealings, perhaps, or some accusations against top directors."

There was no point in hiding my recent findings from her. If she was indeed working with The Pride, they would be better equipped to check Faard's computer. "By the way," I gestured towards the other room, "we are not the first to search this place." I told her about the missing video camera and the strange recording. "That's all I have at the moment."

Were we 'partners' now? This was the first time I ever considered a Mennan individual to be an equal and not a disturbance or a simple lead towards some more information. I was starting to feel that I really did get into something that was way above my pay-grade, and having with me someone who knew the system from within seemed like the better choice.

[Menna Shuli]

I looked at the white boy in front of me. Half-unconsciously, I made the bush-sign for calm against my leg, the two fingers tapping against the seam of my pants in a tic that had always managed to still my nerves. I honestly didn't know if I could trust the Osters. For all I knew, one of them had been the person to put a cap in my pimp's unfortunately stupid head. A professional job, Kikit had said, and Osters had a reputation for professionalism. Still, if what this guy was saying was true and someone had already ransacked the place for evidence before we'd even gotten here, then I was starting to paddle out into shark infested waters with no compass. There were clearly a number of interested parties here, and whether they were all gunning for the drive or not didn't much matter. Enough fast moving pieces rocketing towards each other always caused a fucking crash.

I reached into my pocket and pulled out my card case, then handed one to the man named Elan. "Like I said, I'm not going to arrest you," I said. "I spoke with attaches from your embassy this morning, and I'd really rather avoid a..."

For a moment my English faltered and I made the bush-sign for patience, then caught the string again. "...diplomatic incident, so to speak. So I'm going to let you walk out of here. But you and I, we're walking down the same path here. It'll be better for both of us to help each other out. I've got places to be tonight, but we should share info, cooperate. I have local clout, for what that matters, and the aid of the Pride, and you might have access to information I can't get to..."

[Noronica]

The car swept into the parking area, my eyes quickly scanning for the best space for a later getaway before letting the car glide into said space. Abigail was in the final stages of preparation, her eyes dancing across the chair beside her as she catalogued our equipment. I supposed it was a moment of madness when I let her handle my own pistol, but she, as much as I would have hated to admit it, was very good at her profession. Despite my borderline reckless driving, she had meticulously cleaned and prepared equipment and run through any possible contingency plan we could think of. It was strangely calming to see her work, but the thought kept crawling into my mind. If the tides turned would she remain a friend?

Before I could dwell on this further, a hand shot out beside me as I put the handbrake on. Abigail moved closer towards me, "Alright copper-boy, I've split our bags by roles. I'll get to the Lion bar, you use the intel we have from our friend P.C Têtê about the CCTV footage he sent us." I nodded, comfortable being own for a while.

Clambering out of the car, we both set off on our way, mine heading towards a residential area near the bar. My Gwynon-brogues had been exchanged for trainers in case of possible action, much to my chagrin. Pulling out my phone, I checked the footage sent by our ensnared officer and continued to walk slowly as my eyes scanned the screen.

I was not interested in just the surroundings, as my eyes focused on our target. She was a cop caught in a game of espionage way beyond her pay grade, but she chose to continue, she chose to feed that hunger for more information. I knew that feeling, hell I was kicked out of the police for digging way too far than I should have done on a case.

Looking up from my phone, I gazed around, seeing the residential complex laid before my eyes. It was prettier than some of the areas Abigail and I had visited, in fact, it was relatively normal. I took notice of everything, a couple basking in sun on a terrace, a clothesline hanging from between buildings, a few cars strewn about the area. Sighing, I noticed the number of doors laid before me. The issue with these complex apartments was that apart from some minute details, they were practically the same.

I tried to find the CCTV camera that Têtê had used, but I was interrupted by an angry shout to the side of me, "You asshat!" Came the young voice, in thick Mennan. Turning to see the source of the noise, I saw a group of boys running over to their friend on the ground. The boy on the ground seemed to be the oldest as all the boys were smaller and were worried to see him so angry. Seeing the bloodied minor but sore injuries the boy had sustained, I decided to go over.

"I have a medicine kit, can I help?" I said loudly, not knowing the words for 'first-aid'. The boy on the ground caught on and nodded quickly.

Pulling my kit out of my bag, I grasped the boy's leg and checked to see what I could use. It was a simple fix, so I made quick work of mending the injury while the rest of the group of boys were trying to poke around in my bag. I knew that I had limited time to find Detective Tashê, so decided to try the boy.

"Kid, have you seen a woman pass by recently?" I asked, quickly applying a plaster to the boy's wound.

"Your girlfriend?" Said the boy, a grin on his face.

I snorted, pulling out my phone to show the kid, "She's-"

The boy frowned, "That woman came to us to ask us about-" His voice dropped and his eyes sparkled with mischief, his face beaming with false innocence. I paused, waiting for a moment before I realised what was going on. I scowled, he wanted money.

Deciding that I would remain a fiscally-conservative sort, I pressed on the wound lightly, yet just enough to cause the boy to yelp, "I have no time for bullshit, just tell me now."

The boy spat out angrily, "Alright! Damn old man," he lazily pointed his finger towards a door quite far away, yet close enough to reach in a minute. I smiled in return, ruffling the boy's hair much to his annoyance and snatched my bag back onto my shoulder.

Leaving the group, I went towards the door. Dialing Abigail's number, I pulled my phone to my ear. When she finally picked up I spoke, "I have her. Come to the residential complex and hang back in case she comes out. I'm going to check for a point where I can see through the apartment's windows." The call disconnected, there was no need for a reply.

I hesitated, tempted to enter the apartment opposite and watch from the window there, coming up with some story to make the owners let me in. Deciding against it, I looked to the set of fire escape stairs climbing to the roof of the building, deciding to climb there instead. Clambering up quickly, yet ensuring I did not make too much noise climbing the metal frame, I pulled binoculars out from my bag and scanned the windows of each floor of the building opposite me.

Gotcha! I thought as I found a populated window. True to the pictures, Detective Tashê stood talking to someone else, her mannerisms suggesting that she was trying to calm the other person in the room. The other person was a man, the interesting thing about him being that he had a Gaelitic look about him.

I was hidden well enough, and if either decided to look down at the opposite building, then I could pass myself off as a resident. The only issue was the sun was on my side, and binoculars were good reflectors.

[Menna Shuli]

Evening came in to Shuhakallu, and the rain drifted back with it off the ocean. As I took a cab into the Capitol District from my apartment, I was still turning over the events of earlier in the day. The Oster had taken my card and agreed to contact me when he had info. I had scribbled his cell number into my notepad with the same promise. I felt like I'd made a deal with the devil, but couldn't put my finger on why. The Oster involvement felt wrong somehow. Another gut instinct. I was starting to feel like I might want to get myself checked for ulcers or stomach cancer with the way I kept finding my stomach clenching in this case.

Padma's by the Park was an upscale restaurant, at least by my meager measures. I reminded myself that my meager measures were monstrous by the reckoning of the vast majority of the Mênna. Still, I had to assume the Pride paid well. After all, my date had offered to treat.

I wasn't a naturally comfortable person where dating was involved. The whole concept of dating was an extremely Western thing, slowly being absorbed into the Mênnan culture by osmosis. Most Mênnan people could point at one of two forms of courtship as normal: either your parents arranged your marriage, or someone got pregnant in a sexual excursion and the right thing to do was to get together afterwards. Sex itself was something normal, but hidden behind closed doors. You didn't talk about it, but people did it all the time without the pomp and circumstance of dinners and movies. You didn't go out. You snuck off. Westerners flaunted their sexual relationships, going out in public and displaying their affection. Of course, they had their own hang-ups. So many Westerners still felt strange about two people of the same sex going to bed or getting married, with all their religious baggage getting in the way. In some places, my date and I would be lynched for going out together. Here, we were more likely to get sideways glances because we shared a cheque than a bed.

If we wound up sharing a bed. I swallowed hard. It had been awhile.

I'd tried to tidy myself up a bit. Shower. Fresh pants. Fresh shirt. I didn't own anything fancy, but I could get away with the blouse and pants I had in Padma's, although probably not in any of the clubs just down the road. I got out of the cab at the restaurant and crossed the street in the rain, rushing so that I didn't get completely soaked through. I'd forgotten an umbrella. Too distracted by the Oster questions.

Faard was missing and had been robbed. He very well could be the connection to the drive that the Senator wanted me to look in to. All I had were my instincts telling me to trust the man I'd caught turning the place over. That could be very stupid. If the Osters had taken out Faard as some sort of security risk, they may have also killed my vic. They might have the drive too. That fucking drive. Every second that ticked by was a lost moment to get the info back. It could be too late already. What was I doing going out in the middle of a case like this?

The answer hit me headlong when I saw Ishu Kiti sitting at a table to one side of the restaurant, close to the bar at the back. She wore a western-style dress in orange, short enough to show the majority of her thighs. She had bangles on her wrists and lips painted the same gold colour, which parted softly to sip at the water at the table. She'd marked gold dots in the style of Tihêsi cheek scars along her cheekbones, with the same colour in her eyeshadow. I'd never in my life spoken to a woman as beautiful as she was right now, let alone sat with one for a meal. By comparison, I wasn't just plain. I may as well have been immaterial.

She glanced over as the door opened and the host welcomed me. A smile turned up the corners of her lips just slightly. The host led me to the table and drew out my chair. I sat and he went off to get a bottle of wine that Ishu Kiti had already ordered preemptively.

"Detective," she purred. "I half thought you'd cancel on me tonight."

"You make plans, you stick to them," I said. My throat felt dry. I sipped at my glass of water. "That's what my father taught me."

"Did he now?" she smiled. "I'm glad he did."

Her eyes flicked across my body. I could feel them. She was not playing coy. She smiled again. I cleared my throat.

"You look..." I started, then grasped for the right word. One that wouldn't come across as horribly ridiculous. Ravishing? Gorgeous? Fuck it. "Great. I could never pull off a dress like that."

She laughed. It turned her face from seductive to charming in a moment. "You shouldn't try," she said. "It's not worth it. I fill it out because I've gotten lazy behind a desk. Fat gives you curves. You, on the other hand, have kept the muscles from the compound. It's better for a warrior."

I didn't disagree, but the curves worked for her. "You're saying you are fat?" I chuckled.

"No," she shook her head. "That I have fat. Have you ever met a fat Mênna before? Physical impossibility."

"It's because most of us are starving half the time," I replied. "There's never been a better fad diet than malnutrition. I'm surprised more Westerners haven't picked up the practice."

She laughed. The waiter came over with the wine and menus. "So, Lila," she said, as she began to glance across the menu. I squirmed a bit. Personal names already? Okay. "I actually thought you might stand me up because of the case you are working on. It's not every day that a police detective gets called up to the Pride's level."

That actually got my hackles up. "SCPD not good enough for Lion work?"

"Oh, no," she said, her tone soft. "I didn't mean that. It's more like we Lions tend to be...protective of our territory. Do you see a lot of lions going around in packs with cheetahs?"

I closed my menu. "I guess not."

"It's the same thing," she said. "It has me thinking that whatever you are working on must be very, very interesting."

It was. "I can't really discuss it."

"Not with the public, no," Kiti's face went catlike, her grin something fierce. "I'm not the public though. Do you know what my security clearance is?"

"I hadn't considered it."

"I'm coded violet," she said.

My eyebrows went up. "Really?"

In the national security clearance hierarchy, there were only two levels above violet, namely ultraviolet and black. Being I was only rated at code yellow, although that may be a bit in question given what I was currently working on. I would need to ask whether I could be brought up to at least green, if not blue, if I really wanted to get anything done on this case.

"Really," she said. "I'm not a secretary. I'm considered a front-end security asset. I get dossiers on everyone allowed access to the Pride building, and can make certain security calls. It lends me some access to...privileged information. Hence, code violet. I'm at the same security level as Prince-Governors are."

"That's impressive," I said.

"Perks of the job," she smiled and leaned forward across the table. I could smell her perfume and see down the front of her dress to the perfect plane of her stomach between the swells of her breasts. She whispered in my ear. "It's the porn drive, isn't it?"

I looked at her. "If you're rated violet, you could just look it up," I said.

"True," she leaned back again, her cat-like eyes dazzling in their gold frames. "But where's the fun in that?"

I considered for a moment. "I can't discuss this in public."

"Then we can discuss it later," she said. "At your apartment."

I was about to say something when the waiter showed up. Kiti ordered for the both of us. I didn't argue.

I can't recall the rest of dinner.

[Menna Shuli]

We didn't talk about it in the cab ride home. The cabbie, to his credit, diligently ignored our half-drunk groping in the backseat. I felt like a teenager back at the compound, rutting in the bushes near the hunting camp when I should have been on guard. I could taste the wine on Kiti's tongue.

We didn't talk about it for a couple hours back at the apartment either. We were too busy distressing the sheets and causing damage to the walls and floors of my one room bachelor pad where the headboard abutted the drywall. Even afterward, when we lay sweaty and naked in the tangle of blue sheets, smoking a shared joint that we passed back and forth in a parody of ki'unuxâ ritual, we didn't talk about the case. We barely talked at all, just languished in the shared post-coital aftereffects, the dopamine flood in our hands and arms and spines.

I lay naked on top of the sheets, my hair a wild halo around my head where I rested it on the pillow I had folded against the headboard. I could see Kiti's orange dress on the counter next to my sink to my right, a flash of colour out of the corner of my eye that was lit red by the bright neons that glowed through the kitchenette window. I didn't remember it getting tossed across the room that way. She lay under my top sheet, the thin fabric settling across her curves as she lounged on her side, looking at me. She dragged on the joint, the ganja smell mixing with the ruddy scent of sex in the air. The tip of it glowed. She passed the twist of paper and cannabis back to me. The gold dots that had been painstakingly painted on cheeks were smudged into shapes like feathered wings from when our skin had met.

As I took a drag, she looked up to me with her cat-like eyes. "Your apartment is a shithole," she said.

I laughed, a cloud of smoke rising away from like mouth like the exhaust of an engine. "Yeah, no shit," I replied. The tink-tink-tink of the leak in the ceiling striking the bottom of the pan I had laid out to collect the water punctuated her point.

"Do police detectives get paid that little?"

"Yeah," I said. "Well, kind of. I renumerate. Generously."

"How much money do you send back home?" she asked. Her eyes were locked on my face, drawing the shape of my lips as I breathed out a proper stream of smoke this time. I passed the joint back.

"Most," I said. "More than 50%."

"Father's name," she said, rolling on to her back. The sheet tugged away from her feet and she flexed her toes. Her toenails were painted green, strangely, and they were a bit flaked. It stood out compared to the rest of her obvious fashion choices. "How do you afford to eat?"

"With difficulty," I said. The joint burned down with her drag. I rolled to my bedside table and grabbed a pack of cigarettes and, because I was starting to lose the afterglow of the sex, I reached down next to the bed and grabbed my underwear. I placed a cigarette between my lips and wriggled back into my panties without getting out of bed. "The compound needs the cash more than me."

She turned her head to watch me as I lit the cigarette. "Dire straits?"

"They got relocated a few years ago," I said. "Change in zebra movement patterns, we were going to be a disruption. You know what happens half the time with relocations...government forced them to move but without a chance to properly pull up stakes. Kicked off our land with only the packs on their backs. Basically rebuilding from scratch."

"I'm sorry," she said. She rolled back on to her side, closer to me this time and, of all things, kissed my elbow.

It was strangely endearing. I smiled.

"No issue," I said. "But they need fences and a generator and all that stuff. I'm not one of those girls who goes to the city and loses the compound, you know?"

She smiled. The sheet slipped away from her breasts. "I know."

I put my arm around her and offered her a drag from the cigarette. She shook her head. We lay in silence for a few seconds, cuddled up and sticky from the humidity.

"What's your name?" she asked suddenly.

I raised an eyebrow. "You know my name, Kiti."

She looked up at me. Her eyes weren't carrying any of the seduction she had had before we had tumbled into my bed. "No. Your name."

She meant my private name. "Oh," I said. "Are we there? I kind of figured you were just..."

"What? Using you to get off?" she laughed.

"Something like that," I mumbled.

"Honey," she said, "I don't need to buy someone dinner for that. There's a thousand tourists in a hundred clubs I can use for that."

I squirmed a bit. She laughed again and grabbed the back of my head to pull me into a kiss. It lasted a fair while, at least until my neck hurt from the bad angle. She let go.

"I'm joking," she said. "Although its true. If I just wanted to fuck, I wouldn't need to put in all this effort. Believe it or not, I find you interesting."

"I don't normally give it out on the first date," I said.

"And I don't normally fuck on the first date, but here we are," she said. She moved her body a bit and pressed her self more wholly against me.

I looked down at her. Something was triggering in me. Some cop instinct. Grandmother's tits, I really might have stomach cancer at this rate, I thought. My gut felt like it was reaching the tipping point where a jump off a high point turned into the fall off a high point.

I also hated my private name. They didn't tend to be good, they were just secret, which made people feel like they were special.

"I was always Rabbit," I said. "At home."

"Nowhere else?" she said.

"I don't tell many people my private name," I said. "No one's used it since...since I guess before I went for training."

"That long?"

"Hey," I said in mock outrage. "I'm not that old. It's not even 20 years."

She laughed and draped a leg over me. "I'm Juniper at home."

Our eyes locked, me looking down at her and her looking up at me. She was smiling. There was something burning there. The tip of her tongue wet her lips.

"You asked me about the case at the restaurant," I said for some reason. I didn't know what brought me there.

"I did," she said, "but it can wait. I think you may have been a bit quick to put your pants back on."

She was proven quite right.

[Menna Shuli]

We had to walk a few blocks to catch a cab for her. The narrow streets in my district were often packed with vehicles, pedestrians and animals, even late at night. Shuhakallu never slept. Districts like mine were rat warrens and termite mounds, thousands of lives spilling over one another in a constant battle for survival. For many or even most of the people here, any second not spent working was a moment closer to their children's deaths. The streets grew only slightly quieter at night, and the neon made the streets buzz and glow.

The cabbie had to honk at us to split us apart when we said goodbye. To his credit, he didn't just drive off. That's more than could be said for most cabdrivers in this city. As Kiti climbed into the back seat of the faded yellow car, she grabbed me by the back of the neck and pulled me into another kiss. The cab driver glared at us in the cracked rearview.

"I'll call you," she said.

"Please," I replied, and the cab driver revved off with barely enough time for me to step back. Rain water splashed across my sneakers. I watched the car join the traffic, then turned back into the narrow twists of my labyrinthine neighbourhood.

It had been hours since I had really considered the case, but like the first floods of the Ihwala Musê in spring, I could feel the banks of my mind already growing damp with the facts. Without Kiti, the walk back to my apartment seemed longer, the shadows tossed by the neon signs and flickering incandescents longer. There were no streetlights in the twists of my streets, and most of the electricity was gathered by a haphazard conglomeration of generators on the roofs that formed an informal grid of communal power. As I passed under a string of faded paper lanterns, the lights flicketed, went out entirely for a minute, and then slowly glowed back to life as I walked away. I saw a group of warrior kids betting on a dogfight in an alley. I reached into my pocket for my pack of cigarettes and realized I'd left them, my wallet and my gun on my nightstand. I swore under my breath.

It was strange. I liked the woman I had just spent a few sweaty, incredibly satisfying hours with, but there was a twinge of an instinct in my head that said that something was off there. Of course, that wasn't anything new. I felt the same way about anyone I'd ever fucked in my whole life. I wasn't a person who slid comfortably into feeling loved or appreciated. A department-mandated therapist called it projection once. According to her, I didn't like myself so I grew suspicious when other people liked me. I always felt like there were ulterior motives. I thought she was a quack, but it was how I was feeling now, as the post-coital and post-cannabis afterglow began to wash away in the after midnight chill. I was trying to find Kiti's angle. She wasn't just better looking than me, but our conversation over most of dinner had suggested that she was smarter than me too. In my experience, a girl like her would be better suited to being a vêhitap'at concubine, one of those combination bodyguard/lovers that the richest princes tended to like to keep around. There was always something about a woman who could kill you, Sha had once said to me. I understood that feeling. She was ki'êsh, I reminded myself. To work for the Pride, she had to be.

And she had asked about the case. She hadn't pushed it, of course, but that didn't mean there wasn't a deeper meaning there. Was she angling for more info? Was she fucking me to learn more? Anyone could be in on something like this, I thought. If the money was there that I was starting to believe there was, you couldn't trust anyone.

Maybe I was overthinking things, but my instincts were throwing up all sorts of red flags. It wasn't good to consider these sorts of things when it was after midnight and you were a little drunk and a little stoned, I thought. I shoved my hands in my pockets and tried to let my mind go elsewhere.

I got to my building and slipped through the cracked glass door into the hallways. The flourescents in the off-teal hall were half-dead, leading to patches of shadow every ten or twenty feet. I ascended the rattling metal stairs in front of me, listening to the sounds of radios and honking horns in the streets. When I reached my floor, I turned into the hallway to almost trip over a tiny, wrinkled mass of white hair and threadbare robe, standing half-in and half-out of the apartment door next to mine.

"You and that girl kept me awake," said Kiavêvit Nanu Nani, the ancient woman who lived next door to me. She was simultaneously one of the best and worst neighbours you could ask for. A habitual busybody, she kept an eye on the building as keen as any guard dog. She knew everything about everyone in the building. There was no way a home invader could get in and out without the tiny old judge getting a good sense of their height, weight and blood type. Still, that cut both ways, and she knew everything that went on in my home as well. Most of the time that didn't matter, but right now it was a bother.

"I apologize, grandmother," I said. It was the polite form of address.

"Banging around, moaning, screaming," she shook her mop of white curls. "Have some decency, girl."

"I was in my own home, behind closed doors," I sighed. "I'm sorry if we kept you up."

She grunted. "You weren't in your own home when you were pawing at each other out here in the hallway on your way in. You're not out in the bush anymore, where you can rut like animals and there's no one around for miles to hear you. You're in civilization now."

I wanted to tell her to fuck herself, but I bit my lip. "Of course," I said instead.

"And she had herself all made up in mockery of the Tihêsi," the old woman continued tutting. "Haven't my people suffered enough without every city Shuâ whore deciding we're good for a trend?"

I was about to point out the hypocrisy of her obvious opinions on the compounds and her own pride in her desert heritage when Kita Kutukiâ Mot from down the hall swung open his door and shoved out his bearded head.

"Shut the fuck up, you ancient bitch," he shouted. "I am trying to sleep. At least she is quiet in the halls. If she wants to fuck in her own apartment, let her do it. Just because your cooch is more like a tomb than a womb doesn't mean we all have to get dusty down there."

They shouted expletives in some relatively creative combinations for a few minutes while I tried to slip towards my door. Finally, Kutukiâ flipped the old woman off, which was far from bush sign, and disappeared back into his apartment. The old woman turned back to me.

"Some workers don't respect their betters these days," she said, her voice suddenly sweeter. "I almost forgot. A man came in when you were gone earlier."

I didn't really need to hear this. I grit my teeth. "When I was out just now or when I was at work?"

"Just now. He came up here and slipped something under your door."

I stopped, my hand on the doorhandle. "My apartment?"

The judge nodded. "A big envelope. One of those...oh, what are they called...manilla ones."

"What did the man look like?"

"Tall, well over six feet," she recited. "Wore an old gray sweatshirt. Long hair, almost gray. Wore glasses and a ball cap. New shoes though. They squeaked."

I frowned. "Any scars or tattoos?"

"Nothing like that," she said. "Of course, I could only see through the peephole."

Still saw more than most people would have. "Thanks," I said.

"Return the favour by having some courtesy before fucking some Shuâ slut next time," the old woman suddenly flipped and slammed the door shut.

I rubbed my temples. I wanted to handle this somehow, but I had other worries. I grabbed my keys and unlocked my door, then opened it slowly. I heard a sliding noise as I did, and as I stepped through I found the manilla envelope on the floor. I looked down at it. It bulged in the middle. Something that wasn't paper was in it.

The smart thing to do would be to leave it closed and take it in for evidence. It could be a trap. It could have anthrax in it. I kneeled down and picked it up, closing the door behind me. Something in the envelope jangled. I scratched my chin. The envelope wasn't sealed, but was taped closed with some clear cellotape. I thumbed the edge of the flap, running my options. There were the cop isntincts again telling me...telling me...

I grabbed the flap and yanked it open. I shook out the contents on the floor. Inside was a single piece of folded card and a computer hard drive, which appeared to have been run through with a power drill. I blinked. Was this the drive? What the fuck was going on?

I picked up the card. In simple, printed text were nine words:

WE HAVE DEALT WITH IT
KEEP COMING AND YOU DIE

"Well," I said, "fuck."

[Noronica]

I could see Abigail grinning beside me. It had been like for that for some time. I knew exactly what she was about to say, the words aching on the tip of her tongue, I was merely tired and wanted to get back to the apartment as soon as humanly possible. Unfortunately, it seemed that fortune was not in my favour, as Abigail chose the frustrating moment of getting stuck in evening traffic to spring her conversation.

"So," she spoke with mischief, "I was always told that you found out more about your partner when on a case, but I never knew I would learn this much about you."

"Abigail-" I warned, my voice strained with annoyance.

Her grin widened, this was pure schadenfreude for her, "What? Can I not be shocked about learning the prefrences my partner has?" She asked, mockingly offended, "I thought being a peeping Tom was bad, but a voyeur? Well, some would consider that illega-"

"Abigail!" I shouted, slamming my fist against the car door. To her credit, she did not jump nor retreat, merely leaned forward to deliver more.

"In French, it is 'la petit-mort', I suppose that is quite apt, considering you are a voyeuristic hitman." She whispered, before letting out a guffawing laugh. I did not give her the satisfaction of reacting, merely scowling as I continued to drive. In essence, she was right, we had followed Detective Tashe throughout the city, watching her dinner date and eventually followed her and her partner to Tashe's apartment. It was completely wrong, and while I consider myself more of a bruiser, I was not comfortable with this amount of blackmail. Abigail, however, was having the time of her life detailing every single act of the bedroom while she snapped as many photographs as she could.

I understood the necessity, but this was more than a simple intrusion, this was an invasion of privacy, and one that opened up a new side of the target that I was not comfortable with seeing. This was Detective Tashe at her most vulnerable, and both Abigail and I were happily digging right in.

Driving back to our own apartment, I considered the mission. What were we here for? Anyone could see that back home, the situation was dire and in Menna Shuli, politicians and civilians were in danger of assassination or falling victim to several crises. The Defence Secretary had been in touch on several occasions, but even then he sounded disheartened. This was no longer about his desire for leverage, it was now for survival. If the situation in Noronica went to the dogs, he would need the hard drive to prevent him being struck off the cabinet, or worse.

I let out a sigh as Abigail went back to staring out of the window thoughtfully, we needed to act quickly or we were going to run out of time. Was Tashe the key to all this? If we did finally move to intercept her, what would she know that we didn't? It was infuriating, but the excitement was what kept me going.

[Menna Shuli]

"What am I supposed to think about this, Tashê?" the Captain asked, tossing the file on his desk. "First you go completely AWOL yesterday, no one knows where the hell you've gone, even your damn partner can't tell me what you're working on...then I get this landing on my desk."

He tapped his finger on the file. I blinked tiredly at it, then sipped my coffee. The frown lines on his volcanic fault of a face deepened.

"I told you," he continued, "to get off this case."

"Because the Pride wanted it," I replied. "And now they want me."

"No," the Captain growled. "I told you to get off it because it wasn't safe. If the Pride wants it, it means that its far above your pay grade...or mine, for that matter. You should have followed orders, but it seems to me you're off chasing something that you have no business in."

"It's my case, Captain," I said.

"Motherfucker, Tashê," the Captain swore. "Do you think I'm screwing around here? I can't have the Pride requisitioning my detectives. We're already undermanned here. On my best day, I'm captaining a ship with a skeleton crew, and you and I both know that these are not our best days."

I stood up, leaning against his desk. "This goes so much further than you understand, Captain," I said. "Last night, I found a package in my house. There are people out there who want me dead."

"Exactly," he shouted, standing to meet my eye level. "Do you think I want one of my officers dead? Do you know what sort of flak the Prince-Constable will give to me when this all goes ass-sideways?"

"Father's name, Captain," I slammed my fist down, sending droplets of my coffee across the Captain's desk. "This isn't about politics! It's about a dead man! This is so much bigger than the Prince-Constable!"

"I gave you forty-eight hours and those hours are over," the Captain said.

"Bully for you," I replied. I pointed at the file. "Good thing is that its out of your hands. The Pride has me commandeered for this investigation."

"For this investigation," he said, holding eye contact with me.

I stared into his eyes. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"When this is all over, you have to come right back here and sit in that desk out there," he pointed at the door, to the imagined bullpen beyond. "This is ridiculous, Detective. When you are back here, I'm having you up on review."

I blinked. "You're going to desk me?"

"You better enjoy this little sideshow, Tashê, because its the last one you are going to see for a long time."

"You can't be serious."

"Deadly, Detective."

"There's a dead man out there who is begging to have this solved," I said. "What about his name? What about our honour?"

"What about his name, detective?" the Captain asked. "My honour doesn't hang on the hakêm of a pervert, pimp and pornographer. My honour hangs on my officers following orders. You think you are so much better than everyone else here, Tashê. You think we're all city-weak, that we gave up the compound. You're not the only one here that remembers where they came from, Detective. Going above the head of your superior is not of the Hêluk Kima. You've dishonoured me, you've dishonoured this department and you've dishonoured yourself with this. There are brave officers out at those desks who know that the only way that they prove themselves to be good warriors is by keeping their heads down and doing their damn jobs. If everyone ran off to be a cowboy the way you are, where would we be?"

I stared at him. I didn't know if he wanted me to answer, but I suddenly realized that if this went as high as I thought it did, I had no way of knowing who was connected. I didn't think that the captain was, but this wasn't him. Could someone be leaning on him? Could I actually trust him? Or was the disk from last night just weighing on me. I felt something odd, something that I hadn't felt since I was a kid. I felt like I wanted to cry. This was all wrong, all fucked up. I clenched and unclenched my jaw. Finally, I leaned back.

"Fine," I said. "Fine. But I'm finishing this. Following every order that's given to you, especially when those orders are wrong..."

"I don't know what I expected," he said. "You're a hunter. This was going to happen eventually. It happens to us all eventually. A case that goes just a bit too far. But most of us know when to leave well enough alone. Not you though. Goddamn it, what a waste."

He fell back into his chair. "Get out of here," he said. "I don't want to see you back in this office until your damn case is done with."

[Menna Shuli]

I sat staring at the broken drive. After my conversation with the Captain, my desk felt uncomfortable, a promised prison. I shifted my weight in my seat, getting a new angle on the metal-and-plastic block of lost information in front of me. Something was up. Something was off. I frowned down at the drive. If someone had already destroyed what we were looking for, why would they have threatened me if I kept going after them? Surely they would have thought that this would end the investigation. Why threaten me? They could have played it off as a gift, so to speak, and I probably would have had to pack things in. But instead they threatened me.

I ran my options. Option one was that this was all way simpler than I thought, that someone had landed the drive without knowing what it was and when they had realized how hot it was, they had destroyed it and ditched. The issue there was that I couldn't imagine a random gangbanger knowing I was on the case, let alone where I lived.

Option two was that whoever had taken the drive in the first place had been trying to hide the information on it, and that now that it was gone they wanted to scare me off the scent. Again, though, the threats made no sense in that context. They could have just let the trail go cold, but the threats were enough to let me know I was on to something. Someone with the skills and knowledge to set up the maze I was in now wouldn't be so stupid as to think that a threat like that would do anything other than motivate me.

Option three was that that was exactly the intent. If it was, then I had to assume that this drive was a fake. There was no way of knowing, of course. No way of recouping data on a drive this damaged. Not only had they run a drill through it, but the whole thing was gaussed to shit. As a motivator, threatening to kill me was a pretty classic case of reverse psychology. I mentally sent this option up the likelihood meter.

Option four was that the drive was either a fake or that someone had already copied the info, but really did want me to get scared and drop it. In which case, they had made a really stupid mistake.

I had to assume that it was either option three or option four, since the other two options were dead ends. Thankfully, options three and four also accounted for the same investigatory approach. I wouldn't have to pull myself in a dozen directions. The simplest approach would be to try and figure out who exactly had shoved the package under my door in the first place while trying to track my already broadening spiral of clues.

Kiavêvit Nanu Nani hadn't mentioned anything about the man being white, which was interesting. She would have noticed something like that. It made me feel more comfortable with my deal with the Oster. Either this guy had been one of the people, or he had been a black guy foreigner trying to blend in. It didn't exactly rule out the Osters, but it made their involvement slightly less likely. At the same time, it also made the list of potential suspects leap up to the millions.

There was a thump and I was startled out of my reverie. Sha had dropped a file on my desk with all the intent to shock me.

"You look tired, partner," he said.

"Long night," I replied.

"Have something to do with your disappearance yesterday?" he asked. "We all heard the shouting from the Captain's office."

"Something like that," I replied. "I got commandeered by the Pride for their investigation. The Captain's not happy."

Sha sighed. "He wouldn't be. I suppose that means that you and I have some time apart."

I shrugged. "I have to follow the clues."

"Sure, sure," he said. He grinned. "I may actually have something for you, then."

I raised an eyebrow. "The Lions ate up all the evidence."

"Not all of it," he replied. He laid a hand on the file. "The coroner still had our vic's body, and was still running the autopsy and all that hullabaloo."

"What are you saying?"

"I figured that you might have still been running this case," he said. "You're a bloodhound, after all. So I pulled a few strings and got our guy on the top of the corpse pile. The coroner's report is in. Technically, we're supposed to immediately turn this over to the Pride. But if you are working for the Pride..."

He pushed the file towards me with a grin on his jowly face. I snatched it up and flipped it open. Scanning the report quickly, nothing leapt out at me.

"Check the third page, the analysis of the kill shot," Sha said, seeing that I wasn't picking up his revelation.

I did as he said. I frowned. "This can't be right."

"I thought the same thing," Sha said. "Had him recheck it. We're pretty damn sure though."

"You're saying that, in all likelihood, the weapon used to kill him was a police-issued sidearm?"

"In all likelihood," Sha said. "It doesn't mean it was a cop who did it, but there are way less of our guns being hotswapped on the streets than there are other guns."

I leaned forward, dropping my voice. "Sha, you know this means that it's pretty damn likely that someone in the department is our killer, right?"

Sha shrugged. "I doubt it," he replied. "Could be, of course, but I doubt it. I just figured you'd want to know."

I did. I stood up, snatching the file and the drive. "I have some people to see."

Sha nodded. "Of course."

I turned to walk away, but he snagged my wrist. "Just one thing," he said. "I may not be running this thing like you are, but I am curious. Keep me in the loop, alright? I might be able to help."

I nodded. "Sure, I'll do that."

As I left the precinct, I pulled out my phone and dialed a number. The Oster's voice responded.

"Hello?"

"Don't ask any questions. Just listen to what I'm saying. I have some information, but the most important thing to know is that the cops here may be tied up in all of this. Whatever you do, don't trust the police. I'll call when I know more."

Before he could respond, I hung up.

[Menna Shuli]

The traffic outside was bumper-to-bumper. Rickshaws and bikes weaved between honking cars while pedestrians pushed through the smog. I figured my best option was to go to the Pride headquarters, but I wasn't going to be driving in traffic like this. The sun bore down at me. I checked my watch. Something was tingling the edges of my instinct. I glanced around, trying to figure out what was setting me on edge, aside from the fact that I now had to consider the very real possibility that my perp was a fellow officer. Nothing stood out.

I guessed my best option was to go grab a bus, for all the dignity it felt like I would lose. I pushed into the street and began weaving between vehicles. Street hawkers were shouting from the edges of the road, a few going up to the windows of stalled-out vehicles and making trades with the drivers. I saw one teen worker girl selling cell phone minute cards from a half dozen companies and knock-off phones to go with them. Ballsy of her to break caste law right outside a police station, but most of these people were skirting the edges of propriety anyways. There wasn't much we could do that wouldn't stretch our resources and potentially domino into a riot.

I had a thought, and quickly walked over to the girl, pulling out a few dollars. I didn't haggle over the price, although she clearly expected me to. Instead, I pushed the cash into her hands, took an old flip phone and a few hundred minutes of time. I swung off the street, tore open the plastic blister packing and loaded the phone with the minutes and a few key numbers, then dropped it in my pocket. I had no reasonable way of knowing whether my other phone was being monitored by someone, and having a burner seemed like a reasonable precaution. I turned to leave the alcove I'd occupied through this process and noticed someone else talking to the girl. I pressed back.

He didn't exactly match Nanu Nani's description. He was tall, six foot six at least, and his hair was long. No sign of gray in it, though. No glasses or ball cap, though he wore a hood that blocked a good line of sight to his face. As a gap opened in the crowd I saw that he was wearing bright, white sneakers. Brand new, barely dirtied by the road dust. It might be a coincidence, but I didn't believe in coincidences.

The girl was waving vaguely in my direction. I swung into the alcove where I couldn't be seen from their angle. There was a door on my right shoulder, but it was plastered over with old, peeling posters and advertisements and a thick slime of graffiti. It hadn't been opened in ages. The tightly packed buildings and traffic precluded an easy transition out of the alcove that wouldn't be noticed. However, sheer luck was on my side. A rickshaw began to pass by without any passengers. I grabbed the guy pulling it by the shoulder and pushed a few xat into his hands as I climbed in, the cloth covering of the thing blocking line of sight from the angle of the man in the new shoes.

"Don't slow down," I said. "Just move normally."

"Where to?" he said in a thickly eastern accent, like someone from the shipbreaking yards.

"Doesn't matter."

He pulled off, and I sat stock still as he rumbled forward. I wanted to look back and see if I was being followed, but I didn't want to risk being seen. It was slow going in the vehicle, and it took more than five minutes to reach the next intersection, where things opened up and the cars moved more freely. I hopped out of the rickshaw without telling him to slow down, and immediately darted a short distance forward and swung off into an alley. A cat was munching on the corpse of a rat in the rear corner of the trash-filled place. It hissed at me and raised its hackles. I ignored it and pulled myself into the darkest shadows.

I waited ten minutes. I watched the crowd at the end of the alley pass by with no sign of the man. As I decided to leave, my phone rang. My old phone, obviously, not the burner. I glanced at the screen. It was a blocked number.

"Hello," I answered.

"Hello, Detective," a man's voice responded, distorted through modulation. "Do you think that you have gotten away?"

[Noronica]

"Mummy?" I cried out in a sea of mouths. That is all they were, tall, giant mouths. There was a hint of humanity in their shadows, but the sound they made was deafening, their lips opening wide as if to eat me up. They were having conversations, shouting at each other, begging, laughing, growling, crying. I continued to cry out in the swarm, tears streaming from my face, but even a child's piercing screams could not burst this impenetrable wall. In one last desperate push, I screeched at the top of my lungs until I had reached a level of pitch that no soprano could ever hope to reach.

Every one of them turned towards me, but their noise did not stop. Instead, they continued to grow louder and louder as they walked towards me, some of them running. They all said the same thing but I could not make out the words, their collective roar preventing me from making any sense of them. I pressed my stubby fingers against my ears and wailed on my knees. Why could they not stop? Stop. Stop. STOP.

A hand pressed onto my shoulder. I could feel the warmth in the hand, travelling through my body until it reached my very soul. The noise stopped now. Now I was surrounded by a blanket of calm peacefulness. I gazed up and my eyes found warm brown orbs staring back at me, concern mixed with a hint of amusement in them. It was a young woman that was hugging me, whispering soothing things into my ear as I slumped against her bent knees. I was yanked into the air and moved towards the side of a building.

The woman became clearer to me. She appeared tired, with bruises dotting around her skin, but to me, there was a beauty in her. A grace only found in the nicest of people. Her warm smile gave me a smile of my own.

"-----" She said. her voice soothing. I did not understand. "-----?" I heard the lift of her tone at the end, a question.

Eventually, I could make her out, "Sorry kid, I shoulda seen you were foreign. Where are Mommy and Papa?" She asked kindly.

I shook my head, tears welling in my eyes, "M-Mummy I dunno..." I began to cry softly and pawed at my knees to bring them closer to my small chest.

The woman sighed, in a nice yet frustrated manner, "Leave it to the whore to help a foreigner." She mumbled. She sat beside me against the wall and pulled me into a hug.

We waited for hours that day. The woman was warm and sweet to me, yet upon reflection, she had no reason to be. She was not a social worker, quite the opposite in fact, but she helped me without a second thought. It rained that day, so she pulled us into a café and paid for some water. That was what she could afford, but it was the most satisfying drink I remember having. The saying goes that everything tastes better if it was made with love.

When it was clear that no one had found me, she took me to her home, telling me that the police stank something awful. So I stayed with her in her brothel, where she sat with me and played cards with me. The bosses were not happy, but according to my newfound friend, she was a valuable employee and so all they could do was scrape the ground with their hooves. She called me 'Hitap', telling me that I was her 'little lost prince'. I grew to like the name.

My parents eventually found me, having being told that I was seen being walked into the dodgier parts of town. They caused a ruckus in the place and dragged me out, my Dad cursing, "We're not comin' back to this fuckin' country again!" He said, "I told you, Martha, Menna Shuli's a fuckin' death trap for tourists and I cannot be arsed lookin' for my son around this fuckin' hell hole!"

Here I was again, however, standing on the street I had all those years ago. Abigail was off doing more reconnaissance on Tashe, so I had my own free time to kill in the city. It was embarrassing to have that memory, it was usually a nightmare for me. While the novels talk about the brooding detectives having gory or depressing nightmares that haunt them to near suicide I got the 'I lost my parents' dream.

Sighing, I let my cigarette drop to my feet and stamped it out, ready to go back to my car. I do not know whether it was some divine intervention or coincidence, but as soon as I put my hand on the handle, I heard a voice cry out, "Hitap!"

My eyes were wide. The voice had changed of course, but I recognised it. So much so that the memories flashed in my eyes as I turned to face the woman before me. She was old, much older than me. She was dressed normally, no longer in a trashy skimpy outfit, but her eyes showed the same soul as that woman.

"How-?" I began, too overwhelmed to formulate proper sentences.

The woman had no time for idle chatter and yanked me away with superhuman strength to a nearby alley. When we stopped, she checked we had not been followed and turned to me, a small yet tired smile on her features. "From a little kid to a spy, how the world seems to mysteriously fuck with us I will never know." She said, her English flawless except for her obvious accent. Her face grew serious, "You should not have come. When I saw the pictures they had of you, I knew I had to find you. I recognised you from the off, and I figured you would appear here at some point."

"What pictures?" I asked incredulously, "Who knows about us?"

"I do not know if we Mennan have an equivalent, but I like the phrase you have, 'too many cooks in the kitchen'." She spoke in a hushed tone, "My employers are becoming worried about everyone involved in this mess. You, the psycho with you, the Oster, Detective Tashe. You are all headed for a world of pain if you continue to push them into a corner. Tashe has already been warned, but I figured it would be better if I gave you yours with a friendly face." She was deathly serious, "Turn away now. Go back home, if you so much as dip a pinky back into this you will pass into the event horizon."

I growled, "I appreciate the fuckin' honesty, but I'm being paid good money for this. Tell me where the drive is and I'll be out of your hair sooner than you think."

The woman punched me in the gut and swore in Mennan, "I do not wish to see you dead! You foreigners always underestimate Menna Shuli, but my employers are cruel." She said, near shouting. She tried to calm herself, "Fuck. I knew you'd be stubborn, you were when you were crying in my arms." She looked at me with pleading eyes, trying to discern whether I had taken aboard her message.

Surprising her, I pulled her into a hug, "I thank you for that. All those years ago. What you did showed me compassion in a world of hatred and I will never forget it. I am sorry, I will pull back from this." I could feel her welling up against my shoulder.

We stood like that for several minutes. When she eventually left, she wore a smile, happy that I had listened to her. She was wrong, however.

I had her purse.

[Menna Shuli]

I made my way to the end of the alley and looked either way down the street. Vehicles buzzed by on the road. On overloaded bus pulled up on the far side and a few people got off. More got on. A gang of shirtless kids bumped into a man while kicking around a football, and a moment later he ran after them, screaming for his wallet. I untied my hair with one hand and shook it out as I entered the crowd, distorting my silhouette for anyone looking from a distance.

"I think that you're trying to scare me," I said. "I think you're making a huge mistake."

"Only one of us is making a mistake," the distorted voice spoke. "Your continued investigations are a tremendous error in judgement."

As I passed a homeless warrior panhandling at a corner, I tossed him my blazer and rolled up my blouse's sleeves. "The more you threaten me, the more I think that its worth it."

"This is not a threat, detective," the voice said. "It's a warning. This thing isn't about some drive. It's not about some dead pornographer. This goes so much higher than any of that."

"I was getting that feeling," I replied. A hawker was selling factory defect shirts and jeans on a series of tables on the street corner. I grabbed a man's hooded sweatshirt with a misprinted sports team logo on the front and tossed the guy a dollar. My discretionary funds were were running a bit low. I tugged it on without slowing. "You wouldn't be calling me if I hadn't shaken you somewhere. Seems to me I'm on to something."

"We know where you live, detective," said the voice. "We know where you work. We know each and every place you frequent on a daily basis. Eventually, we will track you down again. We have a long reach."

"Who is we?" I turned down a side street.

There was no reply for a moment. Then the voice returned. "We've got eyes on you again, detective. Returning to your vehicle so quickly? You really are foolish."

My vehicle? I was nowhere near my car. "Some might say that."

"Are you going to drop this?"

Options wheeled around my head. Something was going on. My stomach was doing backflips. "No," I said. "I'm coming for you, asshole."

"Too bad," the voice said. "I was looking forward to seeing your future. We'll have to cut it short."

Suddenly, there was a bang from a few streets over, loud enough to carry above the din of the crowd. Smoke began to billow above the rooftops. I spun on my heel as my line went dead and looked back in the direction of the precinct and the parking garage there. The black smoke billowing from the midst of the neighbourhood marked the very spot. People nearby shouted and began running in the opposite direction. Most people in districts like these knew that when there was a bang, it was a good idea to be anywhere else. Even if you weren't nearby, if someone's generator or still exploded and set fire to a gas line, there was a good chance a few nearby buildings might go up in smoke too. I ran my options, and joined the throngs that were pushing to the next blocks over.

A few moments later, my phone began to buzz. It was Sha's name on the front. I answered. "Grandmother's tits," he said, "am I glad to hear you breathing."

"What's going on?"

"A female body matching your height and build was just blown out the second floor of the parking garage when your car detonated with enough force to knock out half the pilings. Whole thing is a smoking wreck that's about to come down. We're evacuating the headquarters, but my first thought was that you were ash."

What the hell? Someone had been killed trying to get into my car? Another gas thief in the wrong place at the wrong time? Or another one of the people watching me?

"You gotta get back here," said Sha.

"I can't," I replied. "It isn't safe."

"Is this about the case?"

If someone had managed to place a bomb in my car right under the nose of the police precinct, then I was starting to become certain that my brothers in blue were involved. "I think so. I have to ditch my phone. Things are getting hot. I'll be in touch."

Sha was quiet for a moment. "Meet me at the Blue Lagoon tonight."

I kept moving with the flow of the crowd, although many of them had stopped and were watching the smoke rise into the sky. "Not the Lagoon," I said. "Too many eyes. I know a place. I'll send you a message."

I snapped my phone shut before he could answer and dropped it on the ground to be crushed by the crowd.

[Menna Shuli]

The bombing had me on edge. Of course it did. I wasn't a fucking mook without a brain. With the last of the few dollars in my pocket, I found a hole-in-the-wall ush place and settled down to some fish and rice in a back corner while I made some calls. The bombing had me on edge, but the clues it had given me meant I had to take some risks I normally wouldn't have taken. One of them was to ignore my gut a bit and reach out to Kiti. I dialed her number, one of the ones I had programmed in my burner. She picked up on the second ring.

"Hello? Rabbit? Father's name, it's good you've called. We just sent Lions down because of the bombing," her voice went low. "I'd thought you died for a few moments there."

"Sorry," I said. My heart was thumping like a damn jackhammer. I moved some rice around my plate with my fork. "Sorry. Things are getting..."

"It's about your case, isn't it? They're out to get you?"

I was silent for a moment. Why wouldn't my instincts shut up for two fucking seconds? I was getting a headache. I dropped the fork. "Yeah. Yeah. That's why I'm calling."

She sighed. "And here I was hoping it was because you wanted me to have a sense of your well-being."

"I do," I replied, "but shit's...well, it's hitting the fan hard, Juniper. And I'm moving nowhere fast."

"I can tell."

"Look, the only clear thread I have is an Oster named Faard," I said. "Whoever he is, he's connected to this. As soon as I picked up on him, things went sideways fast."

"The bombing?"

"Not just that," my voice dropped a few decibels. "Last night, after you left, someone came by my apartment and left me a package warning me off this whole thing. They left a dummy drive to make it seem like there wasn't anything to find."

"You're sure it's a dummy?"

"Even if it isn't, it wouldn't change much," I said. "Let's assume it is. On top of that, I found out that a vic that we have down in the morgue was shot with a police issue sidearm. So I'm not exactly flush with resources."

I heard the tick-tick-tick of a crappy old rotating fan on the restaurant's counter through the silence and the hiss of the grill. No proper cooking rocks here. After a moment, Kiti answered.

"I'm looking up Faard," she said. "I have to say, I'm not getting much of anything."

"Okay," I said. "Not that weird. He's a foreign national, after all."

"This isn't the SCPD, where you have to run every file search by hand," she said with a tone of mild, if amused, exasperation. "I'm sitting at a Pride terminal here. Best database in the country, for what that's worth. If we're not getting hits, its because he doesn't exist."

I sat in stunned silence for a few moments. Was my Oster contact screwing me? "I was in his apartment yesterday."

"Apartment?"

"Yeah, place had been turned over."

"What's the address?"

I rattled it off. I could hear her tapping keys.

"We might be in luck," she said after a few long seconds. "I have pretty decent rental records for the apartment block."

"Anything stand out?"

A few more seconds. "Most of the apartments handle rent payments in cash or through Âkkê Ullu. Not a lot of names connected to them. But I have one with legitimate, ancestor's truth bank transfers. Like someone was writing cheques. Not under a Faard, but when was the last time you saw cheques in a building in that district?"

"It is odd," I mumbled. I picked up the fork and scooped some fish into my mouth. "What's the bank? Foreign?"

"Local," she replied. "Not that that helps much. Mkeku Family Bank."

That was a big fucking company. "Damn," I said. "Do we have a branch number?"

"00245," she said. A bit more tapping. "That's a big branch, the one in the Kutek Ashê Tower."

Capitol District. That was rough. "Alright. It's something. Wish it could have been in some hole where I wouldn't be noticed."

"Wish I had better news," she said, "but my system only stretches to public records. We got lucky with the cheques, most places don't file those. If I had a way of pulling up this guys deposits and telling you where he made them, I would."

I sighed. "Thanks, I appreciate it."

"It's nothing. Just...keep safe, alright. I want a second date. I was thinking about the fact that you're a cop and carry around handcuffs..."

I felt my cheeks go hot. "Yeah," I said. "Yeah. I'll call you. I had to ditch my phone. In case...in case it was being tracked."

I felt stupid saying it. She laughed a little. "Smart move," she said earnestly. "See you around, Rabbit."

"You too, Juniper."

The phone clicked.

[Menna Shuli]

As I approached Ikitishu Walled City, the enormity of how fucked I was began to dawn on me. The monolithic conglomeration of apartment buildings and modular construction platforms, ringed by scaffolding, balconies, clotheslines and barnacle-like protrusions of concrete and steel was testament to how far up shit creek I'd gotten not only without a paddle but without a fucking boat. The Walled City was Shuhakallu's most vile den of inequity, crime and danger. 30,000 people lived in only 300 buildings landing on only seven acres of space. Cops didn't go in, at least not if they wanted to come out. Clean cops, anyways. The criminal organizations that operated the slum were known to have certain officers in their pockets, and I knew one or two detectives who got VIP treatment at the brothels and flesh dens that occupied some of the flourescent-lit alcoves of the Walled City's impossible corridors.

Yet here I was, planning on heading in. If I was going to follow Faard's tracks, I needed to do so in a way where the people watching me couldn't pick up on it. That meant I needed something I couldn't get on the clear: a new, temporary identity. And not just any identity, but one that couldn't be tracked by anyone who might be involved in what I was beginning to suspect was a much, much larger conspiracy. That meant I couldn't rely on police or Pride resources. I needed to go to people that I knew wouldn't be connected, if only because I trusted criminals to act like criminals.

I needed to see the Javieran.

As soon as I entered the Walled City, the sounds and shape of Shuhakallu proper disappeared. This was a new world of winding alleys and corrugated metal. For an outsider like me, traversing the place would be impossible, but I knew that that wouldn't be a problem. I wandered in, feeling eyes upon me from dark corners. I passed people moving through the narrow roadways. I heard the buzz of the impromptu markets and electrical wires. Turning a corner, I descended some concrete steps and suddenly found myself surrounded by a group of teens in denim jeans and foreign, name-brand sneakers. One of them, a burly kid with a flat nose and a nasty scar on his cheek that looked like a bottle had been broken over it, stepped towards me and lifted the edge of his shirt, revealing a heavy, matte-black pistol.

"You're wanted, Detective," he said.

I nodded, and followed the group of gangbangers through the twisted alleys. We passed illegal bars, back-alley clinics and a makeshift school in the open space of a long-closed appliance store. We went up stairs, passed through hairpin corridors, moved into and out of buildings with nearly zero indication of a difference from the outdoors. To be honest, it wasn't that much different from the other slums of Shuhakallu, but while those slums had grown outward in a conglomeration of huts and shacks, letting one see the sky and providing a sense of openness and apparent safety, the Walled City had grown up, blotting out the sun and creating a claustrophobic nightmare labyrinth, where any corner could lead to a dead end and a grisly fate. Most people who lived here were just normal folks, living hard but forming their own version of something that reminded me of the compound. Those who weren't normal folks, though, were the most dangerous people in the city.

Finally, we arrived at the door of one of the most dangerous of all. It was the back entrance of something I assumed was a strip joint and brothel. I could hear pulsating electronic music from somewhere deep within. The heat was sweltering. Scarface knocked on the steel of the door and a slot in it opened. A pair of eyes gazed out, and then the slit slammed shut. A moment later, the door opened, and I was hustled in.

The man on the other side was huge, like the mountain gorillas out west. He grabbed me by the shoulder and guided me through the dimly lit passage beyond to another door, which he rapped on with surprising delicacy. There came assent from within, Big Man opened the door, and I was shoved in.

The space beyond was a well-appointed office. There was a desk, a couch, a huge flatscreen television. There was a surround sound system, shelves of books behind the desk, a minifridge. The place buzzed with electricity, but still held the inborn grime and murk of the Walled City. Someone had tried to cover the damp concrete floors in expensive carpets, but there was a trapped mold scent rising from them.

Behind the desk there was a man who I recognized immediately as the Javieran, one of the foremost criminals in the entire country. Despite his alias, the man was black as midnight. He was thin, bald, in his late thirties. When his mouth opened, he was missing one of his top front teeth and the others were a mess of yellowed, cracked and crooked tombstones. He smelled strongly of foreign bourbon, and his face was an impossibly cool mask that hovered between a half dozen emotions. He'd been born in the diaspora, off in San Javier, but when he spoke he had the thickest Mâupsâtê accent I had ever heard, hitting his T's like they owed him money.

"Dehtective," he said. "Wut a sooprize. I nevuh would have tunk I would have sin you round abouh tees pahts."

He stood, came around the desk, and crossed the room to stand in front of me. He looked me up and down. "Christchild, girl, you be lookin' growed up," he said, and nodded once. "Wut you be doing heuh?"

"Kashaka," I said, "I need a favour."

"A favuh?" he smiled. "A favuh? Off coss! I be doing anyting foh you."

He held his arms wide for a hug. "Wut can I be doing, little cuzin?"

[Menna Shuli]

"You know, little cuzin," the Javieran said, "I am bein' sooprised by you. I never tot I'd see you in heuh askin' for my help. Little Rabbit is too much on duh straight and naruh foh dat."

"Desperate times," I said. I had to clench my fist so hard the knuckles turned white to avoid from adding certain expletives.

The Javieran took a drag on his cigarette. "Sum of duh poleez, yeah, dey'd be comin' heuh. Not you, doh. Wut snake has climbed intuh yoh boots?"

I glanced around the room and sighed. "A big one," I said. "Look, I can't trust anyone. That includes you, cousin."

"Wut is family and trib' foh if not foh duh trustin', cuzin?"

"I may not trust you, but I still trust you more than some other people," I said. "You may be a criminal, but you stay in your lane. You do your thing and...well, you're not the sort of criminal to get into the sort of thing I'm dealing with."

He took another drag and exhaled a cloud of smoke that swirled around his head like steam where lava hits water. "Is it kids? Someone be peddlin' kids in muh area?"

"It's not kids," I said.

"Som new drug, den? Someting that makes duh skin peel off and your balls to shrivul?"

I shook my head. He mused for a moment. "Ah," he said. "Dat leaves eithuh wooking wit duh wahlods, blackmail or kidnappin'. You don't have to tell me which."

I raised an eyebrow. The warlord angle hadn't occurred to me. I ran it through my filters and dismissed it. The warlords wanted guns and drugs, not leverage. But the blackmail hit the nail on the head. I was starting to think that the only real reason the disk was important was as a stepping stone to something else.

"Look," I said. "All I need is an identity. One for short term, that can hold up to careful scrutiny but one that doesn't have to stick."

"A covuh, den?"

"Yeah," I said, "a cover."

He scratched his cheek. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah, I can do dat."

"So..."

"But look," he said, "I will be needin' someting in return."

"I thought that family..."

"Family matters," he said. "But so does business. I will help, even help on duh cheap, but I will need a favuh in return."

I narrowed my eyes. "What?"

He smiled and stared into the middle distance for a few seconds. Finally, he spoke. "I haven't decided yet. But I will be lettin' you know."

"You can't dangle this sort of thing, Mkep," I said. "I won't have this hover over me."

"You ah already heuh, little cuzin," he replied. "Hard to be turnin' around now. One favuh, to be decided latuh. Dat's muh price."

I considered the option of walking into the bank with my normal badge, and the mental image of an explosion ripped through my head. I grit my teeth. "Fine."

He smiled. "Good," he replied. "Good."

He stood and patted cigarette ash off his shirt. "Come on, little cuzin," he said. "Let's get you some new papuhs."