Gideon Koar had been a great man, in Jimmy's eyes. A revolutionary kind of man — an icon type. Bodies being found buried on his estate? Tortured, abused, and experimented on?
The news was hard to believe. It didn't sit right with Jimmy. He smelled foul play.
But he had orders, and a request."Do your best to minimize my visibility, Jimmy," his boss had said. "I can't have the rest of the council thinking I'm interested in gaining a piece of the Koar pie after rejecting their offer."
Trey Oberon was an oddball compared to the rest of the Council seats. An oddball that Jimmy would sacrifice his plan A for. From his distant vantage point, he knew his face was familiar to those entering and leaving the estate, ensuring his immediate recognition. Most would see him as another constable or detective tasked with combing the estate for useful intel. He fit the stereotype. He could blend in.
But some would recognize him as The Hound. People would spread the word, and anyone aware of his primary contract with Trey Oberon would begin asking Trey troublesome questions. The people at Trey's level played political games within games within even larger meta games. It always sent Jim's brain for a loop, and he'd cracked some pretty cerebral cases in his time.
A career of cases-gone-wrong has taught him to never leave the office without a plan. Three of them. Plans had saved his life more times than he had fingers to count with. He assessed each job, determining whether it was high-risk, like tailing a council seat to a secret location to gather evidence of illicit dealings, or low-risk, like his current contract.
His mission was to escort the orphaned son of Gideon Koar to a new city with a new identity. He didn't know why, and he didn't care. What he knew was that Trey seemed to place a lot of value on getting this done asSo Jimmy would do his best to see it done.
Plan A involved secretly exploring the seized Koar estate to check if he might confirm any of the evidence causing the commotion. To be honest, Plan A was more personal than it was professional.Back in his heyday, his backup-backup plan meant being prepared to extort his safety and payment for his work with blackmail he'd gathered against whoever his particular employer on other cases. Council Seats were typically fair dealers, but at times they were like bloodthirsty sharks. There were a couple of those types with Seats on the Council now. Other times, you'd experience a peaceful period where all the Seats had the capacity to cooperate in something less like a cold war split 5 ways, and more like a world government should.
All that to say that he'd had his fair dealings with the Council before. He was a known value to them, and his primary loyalty to his boss wasn't a very well kept secret.Which meant he had to go with his backup plan; Plan B.The focus of this job wasn't the Koar estate. It was who it would have belonged to if the Council hadn't pounced upon it like a hungry lion. Once more, Jimmy found himself questioning the peculiar timing. They hadn't waited more than a day to have their people on that estate. It was almost like they'd been waiting for it. It made him wonder, was the explosive death of Gideon Koar while he was tinkering away in his top-secret lab so tragically accidental, after all?
But that was a Plan A kind of question, and one he wasn't being paid to answer. Instead, the focus of his job was the Koar heir. An heir to nothing, now. Nothing but grief.
His boss had told him that the council had claimed a few special privileges during this case, one of which caused Jimmy to believe that the kid would already be at the local law enforcement branch. The Gideon estate wasn't far from the police station, as it was in a wealthy neighbourhood with a well-funded and accessible police force.
As far as back-up plans went, this one was pretty threadbare. He was certain of his ability to succeed, despite improvising. He probably didn't even have to go inside.
But that Plan A curiosity was still pulling at him, pulling his attention like a stubborn itch. He considered if going inside was too much of a risk, and he figured it wasn't. It might be useful to try to talk his way into listening in on the kid's interrogation.
Lucky for him, he knew the guy at the front desk. He was the offspring of an old acquaintance, one who liked to tell his boy that he and Jimmy 'The Hound' Jeremiah were quite the team back in the day. The kid's eyes lit up when he saw Jimmy, and greeted him like an old uncle. Jimmy asked if he would help his dad's old pal with a small favour. The kid seemed uncertain at first, but with gathered something that might have been a feeling of resolve and gave Jimmy a nod."Anything for my dad's old partner," the kid said, "we're basically like family."
The kid let him behind the desk, which offered a shortcut into the offices, and Jimmy was on his way.
He'd helped the kid's dad on a charity case in a fit of sentimentality. Hid some evidence of a pretty minor crime that would have him fired. It took him less than a day, and he got a year of free drinks at a local pub from the whole thing. That had been over a decade ago, and he hadn't talked to the man since.
Family, Jimmy scoffed. The guy had filled his kid's head full of fluff.He observed the atmosphere of the office as he walked.
Cubicles, loud printing machines, cops and admin staff all exhibiting the symptoms of varying levels of stress. Sweat stains, spilled coffee, furrowed brows, mountains of paperwork. The Council had moved uncharacteristically fast, and this local branch had been on the receiving end of that.Jimmy figured that the sudden increase in workload was the least of their problems. Media was going to have a field day with this. Soon, reporters would flock to this neighbourhood like ravenous scavengers. They recently made public the news of Gideon Koar's tragic and untimely demise; this dark twist will probably dominate the media for weeks.
It made Jimmy uncomfortable. People hailed the man as a visionary, a modern-day historical figure. He'd help shape the face of the century, making critical advancements in construct artisanship. He'd made them consumer goods available to the public, instead of limited to top-level bureaucrats and the military.
Academics had been calling this current era the 'age of information,' but ever since Gideon Koar had exploded onto the scene, people called it the 'the age of ether'.As uncomfortable as the news made him, he was far too jaded to dismiss it outright. Jimmy had been around his fair share of eminent men. He knew a thing or two about his species. No matter the age or era, humans were humans. Sometimes the so-called 'greatest' of men and women would commit atrocious crimes. Most of the time, it was the humble nobodies would commit acts of incredible generosity and nobility. Those types deserved the most praise, in Jimmy's opinion.
Years ago, Jimmy had hid bodies for those eminent men, some of those bodies belonging to the noble nobodies who got in the way. Some of those eminent men got caught, some were living large. Some he'd even told Trey about. After years of suppressing his conscious, it was a small revenge, but it offered a sense of closure for the naïve child that had died within him back then. He'd given Trey a lot of leverage to use against his rivals, some he was sure that Trey was holding in reserve, some he had probably acted on to raise Oberon Enterprises to a new height.
Jimmy wasn't proud of his past, but that had been another life. Now, he called his own shots, he could turn down jobs, and he had no one ordering him to do things he didn't want to do. Being independent in this world wasn't easy, but he'd done it. Few people in this world were capable of saying that about themselves.
No one in the office questioned Jimmy's presence. He flashed in investigative license, and his business was suddenly none of their business. Investigators like Jimmy operated at a level way beyond these people's paygrade, and he was counting on the fact that as far as they were concerned, it was in their best interest to pretend they never saw him. Jimmy did his best to pretend he had a council-sized stick up his ass and an ego to match as he turned a corner and reached the interrogation rooms. He knocked on one of the observation room doors that flanked them. The door opened, a tall mustached man looked at him and squinted his eyes.
"Busy," the man said. Just before he shut the door, Jimmy caught the edge of the door with his hand. Despite the man's efforts, the door barely budged in Jimmy's grip.Perks of having an above-average Affinity Rating for his age, and this man seemed to be over a decade younger, too. He must have been skimping on his training.Jimmy flashed his badge, showing that he's a licensed private investigator. They read the first few lines on the badge.
"Private? How'd you pull that off?" the man scoffed. "Listen, you're crazy or brilliant. I don't care, because either way you've got no business here. We're in the middle of a very important case, so if you'd kindly see yourself out?"
Jimmy sighed.
"Look, my employer tasked me with observing this case. You know how it is, right?" He asked the tall man, sticking out his hand, the one not holding the door in a vice grip.
"Name's Jimmy, by the way. Jimmy Jeremiah."
The man was about to say something, but then his eyes widened."
As in James Jeremiah? The Hound?"J
An urban legend, an echo from a life that he had left behind him. Heavens willing, it would stay that way.
"Just Jimmy, these days. Keep the hound between us, will you? Thanks, detective..."
"Oh, Greg, sir," Greg shook Jimmy's offered hand, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, "Greg Hemruck."
That named tickled something in Jimmy's tired old brain."
Greg Hemruck. Where have I heard that before? Was it Smith Transports? No," Jimmy said, waving as Greg was about to interrupt, "don't tell me. No, it was the Pacific Shield, right? You cleaned out a whole abolitionist cell. Who tipped you off about that?"
"If word got out that I was naming names, the best-case scenario is that I'd be out of a job," Greg scoffed.
Jimmy nodded.
"I know how it is. Now, about this Koar case—"
"—say no more," Greg said, inviting Jimmy in. Although he slightly disliked using his old identity, Jimmy was gratified that the moniker still carried some influence.
"…I know this is hard to hear, Hunter…" came a gravelly voice over the small speaker, which was set in the wall above the two-way mirror. It belonged to a young man with sharp eyes in one of the cleanest looking uniforms Jimmy had ever seen.
This young man was clearly ambitious. He had that energy Jimmy associated with high achievers; competent, and unwilling to settle for anything less than the top of the food chain. Jimmy had been like that once. And from a certain point of view, he'd been successful. If you considered PTSD, an estranged family, three ex-wives, the inability to enter certain parts of the civilized world without constantly looking over his shoulder, the simultaneous hatred and respect of the most dangerous and powerful people in the world, spending half of his nights sleepless and anxious, a successful career.
But he also had a lot of money.
Most ambitious young men and women wouldn't come close to living the life that Jimmy had lived. For the average man or women, working up a rung or two of the corporate ladder would work out just fine. For the few who felt the intense desire to stand out from the crowd, they would climb that ladder until they were competing at a global level. But by that point you're going up against entire families, and business or political alliances who would do anything it takes to remain at the top.
For instance, they might tear the inheritance right out of the hands of a young, clueless child without a hint of remorse.
Hunter Koar sat across from the young hotshot detective, who eyed the kid like a ravenous wolf eyeing a wounded, exhausted rabbit.
Who was bank rolling this entire operation, anyway? The Council Seats had all wanted a piece of the Koar estate for a while. If this was a joint operation, then there wasn't much anyone was able to do for the kid. It would explain whyTrey might be interested in helping him out. That was Trey's usual way of working. He did what he could to minimize the damage that the Council would leave in its wake when it didn't interfere too much with the combined interest of the rest of the Council.
Even then, sometimes Trey took risks that would piss most of the Council off. Like, for instance, trying to smuggle away the child of the dead golden goose the Council could never tie its leash around.Hunter sat hunched over. He had long, curly black hair that seemed to resist the pull of gravity. Poor kid looked like he'd just been through a storm, and had barely made it out alive.
"So, what, you guys just pulled him out of his house and stuck him in an interrogation room? How long has this been going on for?" Jimmy asked, afraid he knew the answer.
"Orders, Jimmy," Greg said, having heard the unspoken accusation, "were to remove anyone not cleared by the case's sponsors from the property. That includes the kid."
"…and you're sure that you have no recollection of any place your father might have left more of his research?" the young man on the other side of the mirror asked. Hunter shook his head, his eyes red. He sniffed and clenched his jaws.
"I need you to think hard, Hunter. These men and women are dead. The evidence is pretty clear. They were buried on your family's estate as recently as 3 years ago. Anything you can tell us that might help us shed light on why your father would do something like this—"
"He didn't do it," Hunter muttered, then wiped at his eyes. The kid spoke so low that Jimmy wasn't even certain he'd heard him right.
Poor kid. Seems like he has some spirit, though.
"That's Esther Visgold," Greg said, gesturing towards the young man interrogating Hunter, "from the LockeMark capital."
"The Visgolds, eh?" a small piece of the puzzle revealed itself. The LockeMark Visgolds had been with the LockeMark corporation for years. They had once hired him a long time ago. They were very well off, very secure in their position, and had been for a very long time. It was difficult to oppose them, and doing so was considered unwise unless you possessed superior resources and a foolproof plan.
If this was one of their kids, out to prove himself, it would explain the feeling he was giving Jimmy. If Esther could bring that energy to every case, he operated for the rest of his life, played his cards right, and leveraged his family resources right, he'd go far in this world.But Esther's presence meant that Jimmy wouldn't be enacting contingency plan C, which would see him bust into the interrogation as Hunters' assigned lawyer, and get Hunter out of there before anyone up the chain of command could stop him.
Not that he hadn't taken a risk like that before, and with people much more potentially dangerous than the Visgolds. But he was much younger in those days, and only the youth can enjoy the appearance of immortality. Also, it would risk exposing Trey's involvement. That risk would only rise if Esther had reason to look into Jimmy's presence.
Esther would be too young to know who the Hound was.Probably.But what would it hurt to keep the Visgolds ignorant to his presence? Jimmy would stick with the first back-up plan. Soon, these guys would lose interest in Hunter. After that, they'd kick him onto the street. That's when Jimmy would swoop in.
"How long you figure you'll keep this up?" Jimmy asked. Greg hummed to himself in thought.
"We haven't been able to get much out of him. Except for some construct projects he'd been working on — get this; see how frail he looks?" Greg asked.
Jimmy nodded. Frail was an understatement — he looked malnourished.
"His last recorded AR measurement had him at 4. That was years ago, and it hasn't budged since."
"How old is he?" Jimmy asked.
"He's 11 this year," Greg said. Jimmy whistled.
"Poor kid. And you said he was an artisan?"
"That's right."
"But don't you need a higher AR for those? More than the average toddler, I'd assume."
Greg laughed.
"Yeah, from what I understand, you need an AR of 9 to think about learning about constructs. They don't let you build your own until you have an AR of 12. At least that's how things are at my kids' school."
"So, how's he been doing it?" Jimmy asked. Apart from the obvious, this was Gideon Koar's kid, after all.
"Apparently he's been using ether batts. Figures that Gideon could afford a boat-load of them for the kid. They even had a personal node to charge the batteries on the property."
It was strange, Jimmy thought. Children inherited their affinity potential from their parents. Gideon Koar's affinity was very high, much higher than even Jimmy's, who was pretty gifted—not that he'd had cause to do anything with it except leverage the increased strength and endurance on occasion.
Hunter's low AR was shocking. Another tragedy to add to this whole drama.
"That's got to be expensive," Jimmy said. Using batteries would make sense. If you can't power the construct by yourself, using something else. No human known to him could channel electricity, so they built tools to do it for them, and batteries to store that energy for later use. The logic seemed simple enough.
"But it makes sense, given who Gideon was," Greg said.
Jimmy nodded.
Gideon Koar had possessed a personal net worth that could rival some Council families. Avoiding petty expenses wasn't quite relevant at that level of wealth.
"So the kid is taking after his father? He is any good with ether?"
Greg shrugged.
"Not my area of expertise," he said, "and the kid won't say anything about anything. I think he's in shock. Still processing his dad's death. Poor kid," he said.
Jimmy nodded, content to leave it at that. It wasn't his business, anyway. While he was now here to observe how the case unfolded, Trey had multiple vectors of intelligence focused to and from this building.
Jimmy just needed to get Hunter from point A to point B. That's it.
Esther looked at the two-way mirror, showing that he was done. Jimmy's relief stemmed from no longer having to watch Hunter suffer through this emotional crucible.
"Well, Greg, it was great to meet you," Jimmy said, shaking Greg's hand one more time.
"Pleasure. Wanna grab a drink sometime? Some guys here would love to hear some stories about your old cases. You're a legend," Greg said.
Jimmy laughed.
"I'm a busy man, Detective, but maybe one day I'll take you up on the offer."
Greg nodded and opened the door. Jimmy smiled and left.
He figured they'd keep Hunter in there for another 20 minutes while they discussed whatever they learned, or didn't learn. Then they'd tell the kid to leave, but to make sure he stayed in the neighbourhood so that they could contact him if they needed him. He bet that in all the chaos, no one would have considered whether Hunter would have a place to go.
What a joke.
The kid had nothing anymore. No home, no landline. No future.
At least, not that the kid knew about.
His prediction was almost spot on. About 25 minutes later, Hunter moped his way out of the law enforcement branch. The kid sighed and looked up at the sky. He fixed his gaze there for a while, before someone exiting the building behind him almost bumped into him. Knocked out of his reverie, Hunter started walking.Jimmy pulled up beside him and got out of the car. The kid was tall for his age. Just about as tall as Jimmy himself, and he considered himself about average.
He got the kid's attention as walked past Jimmy's car.
"Hunter."
Hunter stopped and looked at him. Jimmy could only imagine what Hunter was thinking. Jimmy was overweight, bald, old, and had a worn grey suit which may or may not have had some darker patches around his armpits. The kid pursed his lips, thinking of turning right back around and walking to who-knows-where.
"What?" Hunter asked. His voice was low and quiet.
"I assume you just got the worst news of your life," Jimmy said, "And that this news included the immediate notice that your old house, all your belongings, your inheritance, and your projects, were confiscated."
The nerve was still very raw. Hunter squinted and wiped at his eyes. Jimmy came around the car and leaned down to look Hunter in the face.
"I can't imagine what you're going through, kid. I'm sorry."
"Was there any way I might help you, Mr..?" Hunter asked, sniffling as his eyes watered.
Jimmy sighed.
"What you're experiencing is quite rare. And you're just a kid. I know it's not fair. But my employer has taken a bit of an interest in this case. He wants to give you something."
That got the kid's attention. He stared straight into Jimmy's eyes, and Jimmy felt certain it was Gideon Koar himself who was standing before him. The kid might have inherited none of Gideon's stuff, but those green eyes, peppered with crimson shards, held an intensity that reminded Jimmy of when he'd met Gideon once, long ago.
He'd been a very focused man. You'd have to be, to accomplish what he had.
"Give me what?" Hunter asked between sniffles.
"A new start," Jimmy said. Hunter looked at him with distrust and a bit of confusion.
"What do you mean?" Hunter asked.
"No one here will bother you," Jimmy said, gesturing towards the building where they'd just kept the kid for a few hours, "you'll be safe. I promise."
Hunter looked down, his eyes shifting as he considered. Then he looked back up at Jimmy and nodded.
"Okay," Jimmy said, nodding back, "good."
He squeezed between Hunter and the front of the car, and opened the passenger-side door."Get in. It'll be a bit of a drive. You hungry? We can pick something along the way."
Hunter nodded as he got in. The poor kid was likely drained. Jimmy understood that Hunter's low AR meant he wasn't built like other people. He wouldn't just be weaker, he'd have much less energy as well. And after going through what he'd just been through, anyone would feel exhausted.After several hours of driving and a couple of pit stops to eat, he had dropped Hunter off at the empty home, which Trey Oberon had set up for him. Trey Oberon had forbidden him from telling Hunter who provided the home, and it came with a few conditions.
Hunter was alone in the world and would need to fend for himself- but he wouldn't have to worry about having a place to stay. Jimmy wasn't too worried. He was the child of Gideon Koar, and despite his handicap, if he had even a fraction of Gideon's focus and drive, he'd make something of himself in this world.
It was just a matter of time.
Jimmy sighed as he drove back home. Another day, another job handled. Whatever happened next for the boy was none of Jimmy's business.
As the open road stretched before him on his way back to the Oberon Capital, he was thinking he'd just earned himself another expensive bottle of whiskey.