Case - 1 : Fired.

*SLAM*

Waking with a start, my eyes flickered open with parts of them still stuck together, but they cleaned up once I forced them to open up.

'Who the hell barged into my office without permission?'

My eyes lay on the white office shirt that she was wearing and then on her rosy hazel shiny hair that bounced with the continuous movements of her head.

'Fuck, what is she doing here?'

I forced my gaze to meet hers and then stared blankly as I waited for her to open her mouth and produce sounds and give me a valid reason I shouldn't just fire her right now.

"You can't sleep on the job."

"*sigh*" I rubbed my face, my head beginning to throb, lightly this time, as I got up from my comfortable chair that I only now appreciated since it had actual cushions instead of rebar sticking out.

I picked up my AR glasses and began walking away from my desk and towards the door when I was stopped by an aggressive grunt that escaped her vocal cords, causing me to turn around and look at her.

"The staff council decided to let you off. Your notice should arrive in a few minutes. You may leave." She said as she switched up her position from in front of the desk and walked up to go behind it.

Sliding her fingers across the dusty desk, her face scrunched up in a frown as she picked up her fingers and looked at how blackened it had become, but she took a seat in my chair and made herself comfortable anyway.

"Huh…I see." I said and then comfortably walked out of the room, walking down the same long hallway that seemed a little darker this time.

'I don't need to clean that dumpster filled room anymore I guess.'

As I walked, I activated my AR glasses and used my eyes to upload the case files to my own network and called upon my vintage AeroStrider to land on the extended landing pad so that I could leave without having to wait for the CityStrider, something that I hadn't used even once in the last couple of years.

I kept walking while working on copying the case files away until I was stopped by the same hand that had stopped me on my way in.

"Oh?" I looked at the head attached to the arm as the mouth attached to it began to speak.

"How do you feel about what you did now? I might still be able to-"

Before he could finish his words, my hand shot into his mouth as it touched the back of his throat. The place that held his neural interface chip.

"I do wonder what'll be faster, me breaking your interface or you arming yourself to use your waver on me." 

"Whis ihs wong-"

"Like I care about that. I'd love to see how long it takes you to open an investigation on me for this."

Quark glared at me as much as he could with his almost human-like prosthetic eyes spinning frantically in their sockets trying to intimidate me.

'I need more time to transfer a few more files.'

"What is it?" I taunted Quark. "Scared that you won't be able to walk out of this hallway yourself after I smash your chip inside?"

Quark tried his best to avoid gagging on my fingers that were scratching the back of his throat as I continued buying time.

"Did you know?" I asked as I stared into Quark's eyes that were representing a growing fear by the minute. "This is the same hand I used to scratch my sack?"

"Ahh…the lovely feeli-"

Before I could complete my sentence, Quark's gag reflex finally kicked in, jerking his head and throwing out my hands as I watched him puke his afternoon lunch onto the now slick floor.

"What's going on here!?" I heard that same annoying voice question me from behind, but I just ignored it and played off the situation by slowly patting Quark's back and helping him soothingly, as much as possible at least, ejaculate his vomit projectiles.

"Are you alright, Quark? I'm sorry you have an upset stomach. Perhaps you might want to stay aware of people that force you to stomach their vomit. Alright buddy? I hope you have a fun time working in the future. Stay safe and keep everyone else safe!" I patted Quark one last time on the back as he heaved onto the floor, almost collapsing when my knee pushed his knee a little while I walked ahead and out of the hallway towards the exit I had arrived in from just a few minutes ago.

The annoying woman's voice behind me sounded and echoed through the corridor, "You won't get away with this!" but I just ignored her.

"I told you, you looked terrible, Sergeant."

"No longer your Sarg Noive!"

"That doesn't allow you to make moves on me! And you're too old for me to consider anyway." Novie replied as I walked out of the exit doors that opened automatically when I reached them.

Turning around and giving a short nod to Novie's camera and watching her screen display a hand waving video, I smiled and waved my own hands in return and turned around to leave.

'Hmm….maybe I will miss someone after all.'

With a soft *hum* my AeroStrider landed right in front of me as I looked at it and admired the sleek precision and design that was supposed to be a throwback to older oil based engines that were signs of wealth.

The long handles that stretched to the sides of the bike gave it a very organic feel that continued over into its body as it curved into sharp edges that glowed a vibrant pink hue from the blue pearlescent paint that coated its body.

The ends of the Strider held two short pipe arms that were hidden under the airway arch of the ends, providing pathways for proper mechanical thrust generated from the motors that spun inside the body after getting power from the nuclear flat pack cells.

Slipping onto the Strider, I felt the soft hum of the motors as they ramped up in speed and carried my feet off of the ground with me tilting backward to help ease the orientation as I shifted downward to the public lines of traffic.

As I waited to ease into the in coming automatic traffic, I flipped the switch for the AI to take over the steering and turn into automatic mode as I relaxed a little and focused on the interface display that was hovering in front of me.

'Hmm…..I have all the files then….'

'Where to next? Home?'

'Hmmm….the banker's home falls on the way…'

I switched the location marked on my interface screen to the crime scene and began searching for the name, 'Vera Morrigan', the key wittiness of the case, on the web.

Pulling all the webpages that mentioned her before the current case, I began to save all their contents on my local server running in my home and began to read the ones that had been saved.

'Key witness in the case against Suimanto reveals, 'I was forced to testify against them!'

'Mother(52) loses her son(23) after he takes his own life due to being Mind Wiped.'

'Testimony of Mother in case against Suimanto disregarded due to discrepancies!'

I read through the various other articles that had been written by independent media sources that lived in other micro cities who also had done their own research into the issue until not long after I began, I heard a loud screechy voice, one that I did not recognize.

"Get off my side of the street you bastard!"

I pushed aside my interface screen and looked around myself, only to find that my AeroStrider had already landed and was gently hovering only a little over the surface of the curb that rose a few inches off of the road.

"Are you deaf you fool!" I heard the screechy voice again and turned towards it, finding the person I had only known through pictures until now standing steadily while leaning on a cane, framed perfectly by a window frame that was surrounded by potted plants all around.

'Vera Morrigan.'

I looked around the street patiently and got down from my bike by tilting it just enough to let me slide off of it easily and then sent it to the other side of the street that was presumably the curb of the victim's house.

Walking towards the well-kept house of the lady in her sixties, I patiently stood on the porch and knocked on the door, indicating that I wanted to have a proper conversation with her.

A shuffling of steps that sounded much heavier than I expected sounded on the inside, sending me on alert as I braced for any sudden surprises when the door abruptly opened, shoving a rather well-dressed man into me.

"Ufff…." I checked myself for any wounds and then looked back at the man who was rubbing his head that had probably been hit hard after he butted into my shoulder bone.

"Watch out man." I rebuked, while the man a little younger than me looked up with a confused expression and asked me a pointed question, "Who are you?"

"Geez, how rude?" I replied and then scanned for any neural connections around myself using my AR glasses and sent him my police badge using a proximity sharing system. 

"I'm from the police. I was sent to ask Mrs. Morrigan a few questions that came up in her statements, and who might you be? I was not informed that Mrs. Morrigan was acquainted with a man like you." I asked, noticing the well-dressed hair that was stuck to his head, along with the clean clothes and expensive looking tie clip that adorned his dress.

"Oh…haha….well I'm just a nobody, I happened to meet Mrs. Morrigan at a common counselling center. You know…I lost someone in a similar way to Mrs. Morrigan too and then….I just couldn't see her so unhappy anymore….so I try to fill in for the son she lost-"

"-and he does a fine job at it." Mrs. Morrigan interrupted, emerging from behind a wall, walking with a steady rhythm with the help of her walking stick.

"Hmm…..I see."

"What more would you like to know, officer? I was told that I didn't need to do much else."

"Oh? Who told you that?" I asked a little curious, since the investigation was still open on the files and both A.V and K.M were still only suspects.

"Oh…." the lady faintly glanced at the young man in front of me as she continued speaking, "Well the one that was here last time? Erm….what was his name….do you remember Revanche?"

"Oh….yes, I have it here in my interface, one second, erm….yes his name was, Larkin."

"Oh! Larkin, you've met him!? The little guy who's always a little overenthusiastic and does things by the book?" I started off in an overly enthusiastic manner myself and tried to bring their guards down and when I saw the two of them relax a little like I was on their side, I spoke with a confident tone to pretend like I knew what I was talking about, "Don't worry about him, he's a newbie, hasn't been on real field cases all that much in the past few months or so and this was only his fourth case so don't worry about it. It is standard procedure to recheck all the work a newbie does on his first unsupervised case so that Nulear Justice is delivered!"

I spoke and added the slogan of the city police at the end to seem like a good cop who was already worked to the bone with my poor looking clothes.

Both Revanche and Vera glanced at each other like they were speaking through their eyes but their communication felt too short for it to hold any sentiment or value.

"Well then, have a good day Sir, erm…Dave? Yes, have a good day, Mr. Dave. I really need to leave quickly, or I'll be late for my evening meeting at work!"

'Oh? He actually read my badge well enough to know my name...hmm...or maybe he's just used to it for some reason?'

I watched Revanche push past me in a hurry as his eyes glanced at the normal position people placed their clocks at on their neural interfaces, but just before he left, I called out to stop him.

"Mr. Revanche!"

Revanche paused for a second and turned around and looked at me and asked, "Yes? What can I do for you?"

"You dropped your handkerchief while you bumped into me!" I said, handing over the piece of white cloth he had dropped on my shoe when he bumped into me.

"Oh! Thank you very much! Have a good day Vera!" He said, and took off to the HoverSteed that was parked in Vera's driveway.

"Mrs. Morrigan, may I ask you a few questions then?" I asked her in a light tone while looking and studying her non verbal responses.

Morrigan looked at me for a moment like she was evaluating me but then agreed anyway, "Yes you may, please come in, I don't like standing and talking at the front door." she said and walked into the hallway to give me a little space to walk in behind her so that she could close the door and follow me after.