Chương 45: Security

The police station felt a lot less cold and soulless than the first interrogation room I was in. Didn't make it welcoming, but I at least didn't feel like I was trapped. Just unnecessarily inconvenienced. My arms were crossed, and I was leaned back against my seat. They had politely removed my cuffs, likely aware that even if I could just walk out through any wall, I wouldn't get far. The police officer sitting across from me, filling out a clipboard, spoke to try and break the dead air I let permeate the room.

"You want me to get you like a soda or something?"

"Mask stays on," I warned.

"You got it," he conceded. I didn't even like the mask, felt like it was clinging to my brain whenever I wore it. But it was necessary legal protections if I wanted to avoid any trouble by not being masked. The silence permeated for a bit longer before the door swung open. Wendy Tancred. Agent Tancred's ex-wife, and chief of police. She looked at me with the same vigor someone would have for a jury duty letter.

"Bennett, you're all set, I'll finish processing for him."

"Chief, this is way below your paygra-""Get the Hell out already," she barked. Birds of a feather, seemed like. The police officer got up and strolled out, leaving the clipboard behind, with Chief Tancred taking his seat, crossing her arms to mirror mine.

"First patrol and you couldn't just follow basic ROE and keep your Blue Card on you? You know how much paperwork we're going to have to go through to make sure you're not locked up with Technofiend's head and where Clowncar was?"

"Was?" I asked spontaneously, my head tilting.

"Yeah, get this. He acts crazy, like he has some kind of developmental disability or whatever, that he has a fixation on cars. That he wants a toy car and that it'd soothe him. His lawyer pushed for it, genuinely thinking it'd be a great insanity plea. We get him the toy car. He shoves his goddamn finger in it, floods the entire fucking station, and runs off in the chaos." That was... sudden. Why didn't-"Why didn't we get informed of this?"

my mouth asked before my thoughts could finish to put things together myself.

"You did, it only happened a few hours ago. It should've come up on your earpiece that there's an APB for Clowncar."

"... I forgot to put mine back in after our communications were compromised."

"Of course! Of course you did! Abichail's really bringing us the best with this little Lost Boys outfit, isn't he? Is there a single competent member of your team? Most of you don't even have actual experience dealing with criminal activity outside of incidentals-" My head tilted again as I spoke up.

"Did Tancred not tell you about me?" Again, the questions came before my thoughts could finish. But incidentals? What I was doing wasn't incidental.

"I got the basics of your file that you got arrested for attempted vigilantism and crippling that governor's brat. What about it?"

"I have a lot more experience than that. I was keeping the gang element in Richmond stuck in a six block area by myself. Do you not keep contact with Richmond's police department? They had to have noted something like that."

"No, I don't talk to Chief Leslie often, but I am aware of the statistics there. For starters, you were not the force crushing gang activity in Richmond. 2013 has been its thirty-year low so far, with no signs of worsening. While there were small crime groups in the area, they were primarily dealt with by the police."

"Yeah, and me. Any who got out of the Southern bubble I made ended up arrested because they had no support. Did they not document any of this? There was an opiate crisis, people were overdosing on street corners."

"None on record, Herc." Chief Tancred leaned back in her seat.

"And you don't think that might have to do with the fact it was an operation tied to the governor's son?"

"It very well might. But I can't just take your word for it when for all I know this is bluster meant to justify what you did to those thugs."

"I broke one person's hand, the rest of them are uninjured besides maybe a broken nose from falling over. The convenience store had to have had security cameras-""None. They were disconnected beforehand. Maybe by those thugs, maybe not. We're still in an investigation period. We don't make any definitive statements otherwise because we believe in the notion that suspects are innocent until proven guilty. You are not a judge. You are not a jury. You are certainly not an executioner.

Your position as deputized law enforcement does not grant you the right to mangle Charlottesville citizens." Sitting up, I rested my hands on the table. This rant was pointed. There was a punchline she was trying to dig into me, but I wasn't gonna get it without asking.

"What are you trying to actually tell me here?"

"I'm telling you multiple things. The first is you need to stop acting like you have direct authority on matters like guilt or acts of cruel and unusual force. If there weren't marks on your mask and bullets at the scene, you'd be in a legal shitstorm. That's the most magnanimous thing I'm telling you. The second is, in Charlottesville, the CPD are God. Do not fucking undermine us. You report and you detain." The chief also sat up, slamming a hand on the table.

"We've gone eighty years without a superhero. The Wave of Hope drops by for the giant monsters and then fucks off. The only reason you jackasses are here and not off in Tuscaloosa or somewhere else that doesn't matter is because that balding dirtbag Abichail held a sword over my head that you're mostly children and I wanted to keep said children out of trouble." She then raised a painted nail towards me, her gaze trying to find my eyes behind my mask.

"And if it means putting you in jail with super-cuffs, I'll have it done. I am not here to facilitate a child soldier program. Only one of you is old enough to drink, for crying out loud. You follow the ROE and act like a pack of boy scouts until the tax money runs out, do you understand me?" That gaze was failing to find purchase.

"Sure," I said flatly. There was no debating someone like this. That casual dismissal of the Richmond situation had more red flags than a Chinese embassy. Was she just trying to kill the topic? Was there an actual cover-up? Maybe the fact Tancred was such an unreasonable asshole that communication between the feds and the police was strained. This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience. It could be anything. Too many variables.

There was an outside presence in Richmond, the guy with that alien thing was not from the area, I knew that much. There was an attempt at a protection racket here in Charlottesville, using the local hench network. They started with busting up a store, similar to what happened in Richmond. That was too obvious, wasn't it? That could not be that obvious. Klak The door opened. Agent Tancred. Absolutely covered in glitter.

"You know, not a lot of people can say they got into a fight-orgy with a small army of clowns. Fewer can say they've done it twice. And that was the third time for me! I should get a lottery ticket later." I absolutely did not want to know what the first time was in that case. Wendy Tancred got up with the clipboard that was left behind, and the air cracked as she slapped him across the face.

"You deal with him. Scuzzball decided to play the silent act after I tried to warn him against not listening to you. Maybe you can teach him a goddamn lesson. Dick." Silent act? Fucking Hell, did it happen again?

"Yep, that's what you married me for," Tancred snarked as the chief stormed out of the room. Agent Tancred practically melted into the chair to replace her.

"You know, second time this has happened where you beat up a few morons and end up in an interrogation room. I like this one more, though. Except for all the uh..."

"The clowns," I finished for him.

"I don't think those are supposed to be part of the police department. I mean yeah, cops are clowns, but I don't think Clowncar is a cop. Just a bonafide freak."

"Why didn't you mention Clowncar escaping when I called you?"

"Well, frankly, I assumed you were just ignoring my comms because you are an emotional hedgehog," he sniped.

"And that you calling in was your way of going 'I don't care about your orders, I'm gonna go be a menace like I was back in Richmond.' Was gonna scold you and call you every name in the book for it, but as it so turns out you just forgot your earpiece. So all I can do is say you're fucking stupid, instead of maliciously negligent." There it was. Knew he was being too friendly for too long.

"Of course. So are the others here?" Tancred waved dismissively.

"Flowstate and Teiú were here but they've already resumed patrol. Told 'em they got all of them. Truth was a bunch more were still in the building, but I didn't want us all packed in here. I was playing tunnel rat hoping the bastard was still in the building." He gestured to his confetti and glitter-covered suit.

"No luck." I nodded, before another question snuck up for me.

"So what's the plan for finding Clowncar? Interrogate every clown in the city?"

"No, because we're pretty sure he's not one of those cases of being terminally a clown," the agent explained.

"What's more likely is he's stripped off as much of his outfit as possible and is going to lay low until more business comes in. They suspect he's a hench and not a normal supervillain. The trick is getting into the HenchNet to verify. They've never gotten someone in that didn't out themselves."

"How come?"

"Well, for starters, the average HenchNet is a closed off sociological ghetto. They all have their own shibboleths and internalized culture. The Brooklyn HenchNet is not the same as the Maine HenchNet, and they can be reactive to obvious plants or undercovers. Virginia's we know is small and insular, and moved from Craigslist entries to private online boards with vetting processes." Convenient. Worth bringing this up, then.

"The guys I dealt with. They were on the HenchNet. They were hired for a protection racket, like I told you. Maybe we could use them?" He clicked his tongue.

"It's not a guarantee. We can't exactly slip a wire on them and expect to get much out of them other than keyboard sounds or whatever they type on. If we can get a guilty verdict on them — and we will if my ex-wife doesn't want me to raise Hell — then we can compromise their devices and use that. The current plan is just have Dr. Way build up a fake digital footprint to try and get in."

"And what's her luck been with that?"

"Well, her first attempt had her pose as a woman who was then told to either post pictures of her tits or to get the fuck out. The average henchman is a man from the financial lower class, meaning they've got very crude language and opinions. Not a girls' club. If I didn't think it were a bad idea, you'd be a better Hench pick than anyone else."

"So why not put me in?"

"Because, presently, you have a public identity. You're Hercules. You also have your mundane identity. Adding a third to the mix would drive you insane. I've done triple-agent, I've done quadruple-agent. I had to get CT Scans afterwards because it was practically giving me brain damage."

"It's not like I have much of an identity with either." The auditor pinched the bridge of his nose.

"No. But we're trying to build those up. With your involvement, by the way. We've got too many problems Hercules is relevant to right now. If the ADU is dealt with, we can think about an undercover gig. But until then, get the thought of that out of your fucking head. No thinking about it." I nodded.

"Fine. I had another question, actually." Was a necessary one to me, at least.

"Shoot, my calves are sore so I'll take all the rest time I can get."

"Why doesn't your wife know about the Richmond drug ring?"

"Because it's not a Richmond drug ring. It's some group that's clearly more of a federal jurisdiction matter, but the fact it's technically mundane crime means it's not our issue. DEA and FBI were handed the case. It'll go back into our hands if superhumans show up."

"But one guy had alien weaponry-""Weaponry, kid. Second Amendment issue. Only reason the ATF aren't involved is magic knife goo isn't technically a gun. Plus we haven't found it. Shame, I'd kill for pet liquid metal." I never wanted to see that thing again, so he was alone in that.

"Wait, how did you know about it, I never told you-""I read the reports from when we interrogated that jackass. Guy was feeding the thing cat food and steak. What a great fucking combination, let's give the living blender a taste for meat! Not like we aren't made of that shit, pal!" He yelled, ranting at no one in particular.

"How'd you get it out of him?"

"Well, first he thought we were gonna send him to The Firmament. The agent then said 'Oh we don't send people like you to The Firmament, you're not considered a superhuman. We have scarier places for you guys. We're gonna send you to Jerusalem.' Which of course made him piss himself." Wasn't sure what the threat was, there.

"What happened?"

"He told the agent as much as he could, which I'm not privy to. We can't send people to Jerusalem, by the way, not our problem. So they sent him to Rikers." Presumably not a better option.

"What do you make of it, Tancred?"

"What, the drug gang? There's a growing opiate crisis. People are getting hooked on it, and other people are supplying it. It's not complex. In twenty years it'll be something else, probably stupider, and probably more lethal. Access to alien tech is also something that's not as rare as you'd think. The Interstellar War left a lot of collateral, we still don't know what the K'lar really were doing so even when salvaging wrecks, things that we thought were trash might actually be treasure.

I don't think you've unraveled a conspiracy, kid." I was almost disappointed. Was it really that simple?

"Oh, yeah. We were supposed to do some big dinner thing after the press con, but obviously with Jairo nearly getting killed and all of that, the circumstance changed. Your end of day on Friday will be at the eatery we've set up new reservations for. Be at base for that hour so we can ship you all off. You need to meet the others' families and learn basic normalcy. Can't keep having a fucking caveman in our base." Wonderful.

"Anyways, come on, let's go. You've got reports to write. Hope you've got good penmanship." I didn't, but that was going to be his problem.