Vulpecula paused the footage. “Oh.”
“You think the footage has been tampered with, with you somehow chopped into it?” Apus asked.
“Is that even possible? I mean, this looks more than just professional, this looks dead-on.” Lacerta said. He still sounded as cranky as he did at breakfast.
“Comet Fowley chopped his hand off because he was afraid of a website, a website called The Shock, ran by a group evidently too cunning for all of Rescue's finest to catch.” Vulpecula made eye-contact with Vivian for that remark. “They're so capable and comfortable with technology and have so much power at their disposal, they could accomplish what is really a rather simple editing job. Look at the instances where the figure snatches the Sword of Tertius or threatens the body-guard. His face is turned. They found enough photos and videos of me on the internet to make my appearance and demeanor, walking and leaving, but they didn't have enough to do everything. A vicious looking Vulpecula going for the kill? They opted to turn his face or obscure it.”
“What exactly are you saying, that there was no crime at all? That's ridiculous,” Vivian declared.
“Pshaw … that isn't at all what I'm saying. The crime happened. A white fox with a green-scarf came and went. The Sword of Tertius stolen. All these variables are accurate. But that face you see on the screen, tacked on. They might have even redone some of edited some other discrepancies to make it all look more authentic. They studied me beforehand, found some of my features, and acted them out because they knew you'd notice them.”
Vulpecula walked away from the television set and presented his hands to Vivian Herms, or more specifically, showing her the cuffs still clasped around them.
“You have to be drunk to think something so far-fetched could prove your innocence.” Vivian denounced.
“Ask your 'experts',” Vulpecula did air-quotes, “To look at the videos again, this time with questioning in-mind about the integrity of the video. But do it separately, individually, and without any outside influence. Somebody had to have adjusted the video-tape and likely, that's a member of faculty with access to the video-tapes. In-fact, ask the security guard who was threatened, ask her if she remembered seeing my face in-particular.” Ask Her. She Remembered. Her? Vulpecula stopped, he looked at the ground. White tiles with bleak swirls of gray. In his head, however, he searched about himself. The Malane Palace had six guards, and not one of them was female. Vulpecula had etched that exact fact on his blank chalkboard during his thirteenth case file.
“She's new,” Vulpecula announced, a satisfied grin on his face. “In the small window of time between me solving the mystery of the Sword of Tertius, and now, a new security guard has been hired. She would have direct access to the footage, and she's the one that tampered with it.”
5.
It wasn't long before Vulpecula and his friends were freed of all charges. Vivian Herms didn't seem too thrilled about it, but Vulpecula liked to think she was relieved Hensley Noel's son wasn't a criminal. Vivian was dear friends with Hensley, … some would say more than dear, and it was by association that The Fox Detective received some fondness from the Rescue battalion's head of command. The Lady Security Guard confessed. They arrested her, but Vulpecula expected clemency for her. After all, she was under duress. The Shock contacted her by telephone and threatened violence against both her and her loved ones. About then, The Guard was like putty in his hands.
They met. She described him as wearing a black overcoat with a hidden face, his voice altered by a modulator. The smell of him was of peppermint chewing gum, which she recalled him chomping on for their whole encounter. The figure introduced himself as Lepus but didn't attribute a surname for himself. His words were unfriendly, as one would expect from such a man, and he spouted obscenities when The Guard showed apprehension. Once the cards were in-place, everything went well. A White Fox, evidently a member of The Shock entered the Malane Palace. The Guard described him as having claw-marks and scars abundant on him, and that he had a slightly grayer fur than Vulpecula's, which was hidden by the darkness of the room, then the red-lights after the alarm was triggered. She didn't alert authorities. Not at first.
First, she and Lepus took to the Security Room, and Lepus tweaked the footage to his liking. She described his prowess as keen and fast. He had the whole fiasco done in less than ten minutes, and that's including the few minutes he spent yelling at her for not looking believable enough.
This wasn't a lot of groundbreaking information. It certainly wasn't enough to discover the identity of Lepus, but it was a lot more than what they had. Sketch artists worked with the Security Guard on developing a rough drawing of the White Fox. It should be appearing on the Rescue Tribune sometime soon.
As Vulpecula left, he looked at Vivian Herms. Watching as his friends went on.
“I'm not a bad person,” is the last thing he said. They made eye-contact. And she nodded. No embrace. No handshake. He left.
6.
One Step Back was the same as he left it. It was uncanny how much it hadn't changed in the few hours they'd been separated. Even the cast was the same, no star-studded cameos or anything else out of the ordinary. The muskrat was there, smoking his cigarette. And the Warthog and Bear were in-front of him.
Vulpecula smiled. It was like the entire day hadn't happened. He walked over to the chair in-between them. He sat down. A glass of alcohol was there. He didn't know for sure, but he wanted to say it was his glass from earlier. He took a sip of it. The taste was foul. Just as he remembered it.
“Where is that bartender with my order?” the warthog exclaimed, banging his hand over and over against the counter. “This is ridiculous!”
Where was the bartender? A good question. As V looked around the room, he didn't see him. Over by the tables with the muskrat? Empty. Behind the counter? Empty as well. But the Detective thought it better to ease his mind. The whereabouts of his new bartending acquaintance wasn't the reason for his presence. He wanted to forget. To forget about, just about everything. It was a pity. Explaining the Doppelganger would've been a riveting and exhilarating experience any other time. But it all felt cheapened somehow. He took another sip of alcohol. A scream came somewhere off to the side of him.
The noise caught him off-guard. His glass of alcohol spilling out from his hand and spreading its contents all-over the counter.
He anticipated complaints from the warthog, but they never came. Vulpecula looked over at him. Frozen in-place. His fork held in one hand. His mouth jarred open. The warthog made no movements at all.
Vulpecula swayed the stool around and hopped off to his feet. The stool was much taller than him, so he had to be careful not to fall. He looked around. The smoke from the muskrat's cigarette frozen in the air, and the ceiling fan no longer spun. A second scream came. This time, The Fox Detective was able to pinpoint the whereabouts. It was coming from the bathroom. He followed it. Not really knowing the purpose. Curiosity?
He touched the door, and it swung open. He gave it no force. And as he walked inside, the bathroom looked all too familiar. Familiar, but in a way he couldn't disclose. It looked different, but not, somehow.
In-front of the sinks, it was Bartender Red. Holding a knife. Sharp. Vulpecula didn't assume, instead, he seemed to know. Red looked at him. They made eye-contact, and a sinister smile spread on Red's face. Soon after, he dug the knife into his hand. Vulpecula tried to look away but couldn't. He found himself pulled to it. Inclined to step forward. He walked nearer to Red, who continued carving into his hand. Vulpecula continued to come fourth until he was behind the Bartender, and in the mirror, he saw himself.
It wasn't him though. Grayer fur? No. It was him. Plain and simple. But the Fox's face looked sinister. It's muzzle; smiling. Teeth; sharp. A whisper came next, “Yes,” the Fox in the mirror said. Cheering for it? Cheering for this!? Wanting this!? Vulpecula yanked the knife out from Red's hand. But the damage was done. Blood allover the sink. Red ran toward the bathroom stall.
The Life and Crimes of Detective Barker
Episode Five
Step Two
1.
Fingers moved swiftly over the keyboard. His paw darted back to the mouse and clicked frantically. Pulling away he left a smear of sweat. Nerves grated on him. He typed, again and again, commands that he had trusted throughout the years. His paw darted back towards the mouse and he fumbled. How was this happening? It wasn’t supposed to be able to happen. He clicked again and again.
More boxes opened and he tried to escape them, but they flooded his screen. He took in a deep draught of air. It felt like he had been running through the streets. It was like a race that only him and the man on the other side of the computer were privy to. He typed some more and then flickered back to the mouse.
His paws were wet. Dogs weren’t even supposed to sweat, but he wasn’t following any normalcy at the moment. Nothing was going his way. Everything was falling apart before his eyes. The things he had worked so hard to see come to fruition were crumbling like bricks in an earthquake.
Who had the wits to match him? Who had the audacity to even try? He hammered away again. He was quicker, he had always been quicker, but the screens kept changing. It didn’t matter how fast he was if the screens kept changing. Someone was trying to wear him down. Someone was playing a game with him. He could beat them if they would just stop changing the screens, but they kept changing.
He clicked passed them. His jaw hurt from clenching so hard. He was afraid he was going to break off one of his canines. What kind of crime lord would he be then? Knocking out his own teeth in a battle that wasn’t even physical. His mind was wandering. This was the plan of the man on the other side of the screen.
He tried to refocus his thoughts. His hand clicked out of two more screens and then the rapid typing. He would win he just had to stay on top of his game. He tried to unclench his jaw, but his nerves were unwavering in their attack.
His paw instinctively grabbed for a glass of water next to him on the desk. Nervous shaking caused his hand to slip and the water crashed to the floor. It wasn’t until then that his mind also started to concentrate on the dryness of his mouth. Four more pop-ups came to life on the screen.
He was falling behind. A split second lapse in thought and he was already losing. Whoever was on the other side of the screen was ramming a hole into his defenses. He clicked them out, quickly, before seeing that each of them was now filled with words.
Before they had been blank boxes, just put up to distract and deter him. Now the boxes were filled with little black text. If he stopped to read them he would fall even further behind. If he didn’t stop to read them his mind would nag him till the end of time. He clicked furiously out of two more that popped up. The writing was growing longer, but he tried his best to continue to ignore it.
He had to work. He had to win. The writing didn’t matter if he lost his mainframe. If the entire system was compromised his venture would fail. He would be reduced to nothing. All that he had previously worked for would be gone. He had stolen millions. He had gathered resources from all across the world. He was building an empire. There was nothing in the entire world that was supposed to be able to stop him. He had sealed all the cracks.
Now, he was chasing pop-ups, filled with text he had to ignore. He felt the regret of dropping the water even more as his tongue lolled out from his mouth in a nervous habit. The air-dried him out even more and the anxiety let him think of nothing but those little black letters.
Did one of them say surrender and survive? Was the man on the other side just toying with him now? He clicked several more. Not paying attention to the words. They didn’t matter. Just the words of a man who was trying to take over his game, words that he wouldn’t let put doubt into his mind. He was going to finish the journey he had started so many years before. He was going to be everything that he had told himself he was going to be. He typed a few more lines of code into the computer.
That was when he noticed the text of the letters was getting bigger. He paused a brief second to consider this. That was when the screen flooded.
2.
Barker had never taken a vacation for pleasure. “One margarita,” said a toucan pushing a yellow drink into the outstretched paw of Barker. Barker took a sip. Then he looked down at his colorful button-up shirt and his ugly, khaki board shorts. He took another sip of the drink. It tasted horrible. He wasn’t much of a drinker. He wasn’t much for the beach either. Yet, here he was, sipping on a margarita, prancing around in ugly board short. Barker placed the drink back on the counter. Barker wasn’t much for vacations period.
It had not been his intention to travel so far when he told Pssitticus that he would be going on a leave of absence. He had intended to travel back to Rescue’s headquarters. His plan was to waltz into the office of Vivian Herms and have a discussion with her. A discussion that would help alleviate the last tendrils of his headaches. She was the next step in his domino effect.
Instead, he was here hundreds of miles from Urgway. He was forced to listen to the excited screams of children and adults alike. People who pretended to not hate their purposeless lives. People who pretended for a day or two to have the funds to participate in a rich man’s life, but Barker wasn’t fooled by any of it. Each of these people hated themselves, their lives, and their children. Barker reached up to push up his sunglasses.
He scanned the beach looking for the sign he had been waiting for all morning. He just needed one glimpse of his target and then he could move. He could get away from this stupid bartender, who hassled him about drinks all morning. Who drinks at ten in the morning, Barker had thought. It turned out; many people drank at ten in the morning.
“Not enjoying your drink, sir?” the toucan was back in Barker’s ear. The beaked man reminded Barker to much of the parrot Pssitticus. Barker continued to scan and made out what he was looking for. In a bikini that was ten times too small was just the purple creature he was looking for. He stood up without replying to the bird. He didn’t bother pushing in his chair or paying for his drink.
Instead, he made a beeline for the hippo who would lead him right where he needed to be.
The oversized animal didn’t notice as Barker fell into line behind her. She didn’t notice as she left his part of the beach and traveled to a more secluded area. Barker passed the security with a nod as it didn’t occur to them that Barker would be able to follow this close to the hippo without her permission.
Once in the small marked off portion of the beach, Barker cleared his throat. The hippo stopped and twirled around. Barker fiddled with the top button of his button-up shirt. “Let us make this simple for the both of us. You know where Vivian Herms is. I need to know where Vivian Herms is. Seems you are the key to my locked door. Now, won’t you be a good little key and open it for me.” Barker let his paw drop to his side.
The purple hippo didn’t look none-too-pleased with her new arrangement. Her eyes bulged and her lower jaw clenched. Barker guessed she wasn’t too happy at being followed. She had to be even less satisfied that her skills as a detective were pathetic. Barker didn’t mention either of these thoughts to the woman. He wanted one thing from her and that was a location. The rhino gave a huff.
“What makes you think I would help you with this?” she asked.
Barker noticed the same attempt at being something she was not as their first meeting. He ignored it. He also ignored her question. “Let us not make this any more uncomfortable for you than it already is,” he said, his hand trailing to his sunglasses.
Barker noticed several other people walking around the beach. Some of them looked to be security; others seemed to be Rescue detectives on vacation. The hippo clearly was the gofer for them all. Her hands were full with a tray of drinks, and some of the others were looking at her impatiently with empty glasses.
“I
have important business,” she said and turned away from Barker.
Barker didn’t chase her. He wouldn’t chase her. She would cave. She knew Vivian had needed Barker for something, even if she wasn’t quite sure what it was.
The rhino didn’t turn back to discuss her actions with Barker. She didn’t need to. He knew she would guide him to Vivian Herms with no more banter between them. So he fell in line and watched the rhino pass off drinks to men who pretended to care.
3.
Up a small wooden staircase and onto an expensive wooden deck. They passed a few swimming pools, to which Barker would never understand the use of. The waves of the ocean sounded close, lapping off the nearby rocks when they approached a grand sized beach table. Atop it sat an oversized beach umbrella, blocking the rays of the sun. Yet, Vivian Herms, Director of Rescue, still wore dark sunglasses upon her long nose.
“Sit the water down on the table and you can go,” she said, without bothering to look up. Vivian Herms still pounded on the keyboard to her small laptop computer. She worked even on vacation it seemed. The rhino placed a small glass of water on the table. Barker pushed passed her and pulled a chair opposite to Vivian Herms. He thought mostly then of the headaches she had caused him and instinctively his hand rose to his temples. Mostly subsided he reminded himself and adjusted his sunglasses instead.
“Beautiful weather,” Barker stated.
The Canes Files Page 17