*Weee**Woooo*
Sirens blazed from afar as blue and red lights mixed with a tinge of the occasional intense pink that reflected off of all the surfaces around the outskirts.
People along the footpaths skirted away with a few moving indoors and others just hiding it out inside cafés by the roadside as most with the neural interfaces had already gotten notified of the police's arrival.
I licked my fingers clean of any excess sauces that remained on it after finishing my tendies and grabbed my still packed burger after dropping the tendies cover into the trashcan and began walking down the aisle under the stringent gazes of everyone in the Atomic store.
Leaving the store by opening the door sounded a similar *clink* to when I had entered the store.
Stepping out in the rather hot sun of the afternoon after sitting in the conditioned air inside the Atomic Store I felt a tinge of discomfort in my armpits as I could feel myself beginning to sweat already.
Doing my best to avoid looking at the obnoxiously angry lady in front of me, I crossed the street once again and stood on the footpath as I watched the lights change around the street and grow deeper into their shades of red, blue and pink as the Hoversteeds they were attached to slid into it, flying down from the higher lanes allocated strictly for police hoversteeds.
"Dave! You're here! Are you alright!?" I heard the new recruit shout over as he landed in front of me, and shot a confused glance at the woman beside me that I noticed contained some disgust.
"I am. Don't need much else other than the general Waver shot check up." I replied explaining the situation in as brief a manner as I could.
"That's great. Anything else I can do for you?" The recruit asked with a tinge of expectation in his eyes.
'There is humanity still left in the world after all.'
"I'm calling dibs on the case in the bunker, Larkin." I said, patting the shoulder of the young recruit and stealing a spot on his hoverbike while he along with the other officers went back inside the bunker to clear it out and cordon it after arresting the fools inside.
Larkin looked up at me in astonishment for a second, as did the several other officers on scene.
"Dave! You're back!" Larkin spoke in an almost worshiping manner like I was the solution to all his problems, he began to pat my back with a visibly fierce amount of enthusiasm that began to creep me out so I stopped him by turning him around and pushing him towards the door, "Go in and get me the damn case first you fools. They're probably powering down by now and need an emergency cell replacement."
I waited as I watched Larkin and the rest of the team walking into the bunkers with their wavers drawn, while I hung around outside with a couple of others who kept watch over the locals of the outskirts.
My eyes wandered to the woman beside me who appeared to be lost looking at her personal neural interface with a little focus in her eyes.
'Hmm…? What files is she reading while she's on another case?'
'.....seems rather foolish…' Chucking the action to the back of my mind, I continued to unwrap the burger and eat it while waiting for the two thugs inside to be captured.
Right when I finished half the Atomic burger and was about to chew into the other side, I heard the metallic door of the trap house open once again as Larkin stepped out, dragging A.V along with him on a rolling stretcher, while a sound mask choked any sound he produced and muffled his calls for violence in the outskirts.
The people inside stores did their very best to pretend like they weren't interested in the situation and looked away, but everyone knew they were all recording the scene so that they could listen to the details later when there was time in their busy lives.
After Larkin walked out, another officer brought out K.M by dragging him along on a similar rolling stretcher, both of whom quickly attached the stretchers to their Hoversteeds and only after which did Larkin walk over to me with the case files that were in his hand.
"They made you work with pages? Where did they even get the case files in the first place?" Larkin commented as he handed over the files to me.
"Yes and dunno. Did you talk to the deputy to transfer the case over to me?"
"You sure? This would generally be a conflict of interest, you know." Larkin asked as he held onto the files and looked into my eyes.
"Yes. It seems interesting. Who knows, maybe it'll be interesting enough for me to finally stick around the unit. And if the police can't even do something as simple as this for me, then I'd rather quit."
Larkin held eye contact with me for a second and then broke down into a fit of fake cries as he wailed out loud, "Oh! Dave! You don't need me anymore!!!! How can I live without you at all!!!"
*Sighing*, I shifted my attention back to the files to check if everything was given to me and scanned over all the documents once again to see if I had missed anything under pressure in that dark and dreary place.
'Probably not, probably had a kick-start to finally begin using my head again.'
Larkin drew my attention by coughing and spoke in a confident tone after thumping his chest while I sat on the Hoversteed.
"If you need any help, just ask me and it shall be done!"
'Why is this kid so into me? Is he Gay?'
"Sure buddy." I replied while he climbed onto the Hoversteed and turned it into drive mode from standby after letting the Hoversteed scan his Wavelength ID.
Passing me a helmet equipped with a safety fall bag to protect myself in case of a midair collision, Larkin wore one himself as did everyone else, including the woman who appeared to be passing random scowling glances at me.
The steed rose into the air speedily as I braced myself by holding onto the side rails that were generally used to attach emergency gear like the saddlebag that held most of our first response items like extra nuke flat cells and emergency health syringes.
I watched as the towering skyscrapers that had risen as a response to the single home apocalypse that had once been touted to be the end all and be all solution to overcrowding.
Turns out it was just a foolish idea. The land and home-mafia wanted to promote house ownerships, so more people bought expensive homes.
Who would've thought, just forcing people to stop using cars everywhere and use public transport combined with smaller vehicles like the Hoversteed would be a better solution when combined with proper city planning.
Occasional grunts from behind me that A.V was making while tied to the rolling stretcher, interrupted my first experience in flying after being captured, but I did my best to ignore them.
While we were in the air, I saw the little lines of vehicles, mostly Hoversteeds, riding along the air with public transport following along on the ground as people worked on their neural interfaces, occasionally pausing to alert the automatic driving system that they were definitely paying attention to the airway and to other passengers.
Each time the squad of police Hoversteeds passed over the heads of people, I felt like I was being watched, exactly how I felt each time someone recorded me with their neural interface.
'I wonder if any of them remember me.'
'Perhaps not. Who'd remember the name of a washed up detective from two years ago after all.'
'Then it'll probably be easier to solve this case.'
'Maybe I can hide my involvement by passing away the credit to Larkin? Wouldn't a new recruit need something under his belt anyway? Perhaps I can use him as an assistant.'
I paused my thoughts as we'd arrived at the police station that was built into the single government tower in Inception, the world's first micro city.
'Not very micro anymore.' I thought as I glanced at the many other skyscraper towers built around the government tower in the center.
The Hoversteeds landed on the extending landing pad where all vehicles generally landed, allowing me to descend from the steed as I thanked Larkin with a nod and began walking towards my office, leaving him along with the other officers to report the situation.
The glass doors slid apart as they automatically recognized my Wavelength ID, so I walked into the station without any hesitation with confident steps carrying the case files.
"Hey, Noive." I said while waving my hands, trying to put on the best smile I could while looking at the old receptionist that had probably been in the same place since a century ago.
I watched the face on the screen visibly recoil before replying in a disgusted tone, "Wipe that smile on your face, you look damn ugly with it you old fool."
My smile only widened as I responded back, "Keeping you around was my best decision Noive! Never change Noive. Never change."
"Well I hope you do!" Noive replied as I walked deeper into the hallway only for staff usage after pushing open a wooden door that scanned my fingerprints along with my wavelength ID before budging open.
Before the door closed though, I heard Noive say, "Welcome back Sarg." letting my smile warm up a little and turn genuine for a few seconds, until I found my way blocked by a hand.
A prosthetic hand to be precise, one that belonged to Deputy Sergeant Quark.
'What does he need from me?'
"I heard you were going to pick up a case, sir." I heard him say 'sir' in the most forced manner I'd ever heard.
"And?"
"I was wondering if you could hand over the ca-"
"No." I said, pushing his hand away by simply walking through.
"I'll be forced to raise the issue of conflict of interest with the-"
My brain throbbed as my body reflexively grabbed the collar of Quark's shirt as pulled him closer and whispered into his face while peering into his eyes.
"I wonder how much you skimmed off while I was inside my office, 'DEPUTY' Sergeant Quark."
"What are you trying to tell me, sir?" Quark asked with a visibly infuriated expression on his face.
"Are you trying to tell me something?" I asked back in the same tone.
"No, sir." Quark said and paused, expecting it to be enough, but seeing me not letting go he continued, "I was just passing by, sir. Welcome back."
"Thank you for your greetings, junior." I replied and walked deeper into the staff only walkway, until I reached the end, closed off with a simple door that I pushed open and walked in.
As my eyes fell over the room, the lights slowly flickered to life with audible clinks and flickers, reminiscent of the old detective shows I'd watched as kids with my parents.
'Fun times….indeed. But this room needs some cleaning to be usable once again.' I thought, blocking my nose with my hands. 'This room smells worse than the traphouse….no wonder I didn't feel anything terrible about it.'
'But first….'
I looked down at the files in my hands and then walked into the room, carefully avoiding the mess of wine bottles and cigarette butts as I reached my prized possession, my A.R glasses.
Lifting the delicate glasses in between my bulky fingers, I placed them over my face and waited as the AI came to life with a simple statement over the curved transparent screen that covered my entire vision.
"Welcome back, Dave."
I proceeded to place the files on the desk and then began scanning all of them one by one as I digitized them fully and then stored them to compare them with the official files later to see if there were any changes being made to them.
'Perhaps I could follow the trail of people who are trying to cover the murder up and find out the culprit in that way?'
'Hmm…..we'll see….he won't escape from me either way….I just hope he's who I'm looking for.'
'The bastard that MindWiped my goddamn wife.'
My head throbbed at the reminder of the incident as I finally took a deep breath and reached the drawer that stored my medicine.
'Deep breaths Dave.'
'Remember one step at a time. I'll walk you through this.'
'All you have to remember is to take the topmost pill for the day and you can keep the doctors away.'
The familiar raspy, velvety voice filled my ears as I walked through the instructions and picked up the pill and swallowed it quickly, holding onto the edge of the table, waiting for the effects to kick in while I dragged myself and collapsed into my chair with my A.R glasses still on my face set to wake me up in an hour.
'Good night dear. See you tomorrow....' The voice spoke to me and vanished with me fading into a dreamless sleep.