by RyFT Brand
Inspector Samuels, dressed in his Enforcer Corps uniform, gloves, a hood over his head, a scarf over his nose and mouth, and wearing large, dark sunglasses, lead us inside the Enforcer’s impound office and straight up to the desk. Spotting us, the officer behind the desk stood and drew his stun pole.
“Relax Hemming, they’re with me.”
Officer Hemming narrowed his eyes and slid his head forward. “Inspector, is that you under there?”
Samuales strode up to the tall desk and peered over through the dark lenses. “Try not to be stupid, Hemming, of course it’s me.”
Hemming looked over at me and his expression soured. Then he looked back at his commander. “Why are you dressed like that? Is something wrong with the weather manipulators?” he asked, barely restraining a chuckle.
“Maybe he’s got a sunburn,” I said.
“What’s a sunburn?” Henning asked.
“Look, forget my wardrobe officer. Mrs. Milesmonk here would like to recover her impounded vehicles.”
Henning stared at me for a full half a minute, pursing his lips in and out, before saying, “I see.” He sat, pulled open a drawer, and rifled through a number of recordstone tablets. Finally he pulled one of the thin, four by nine inch stones out and set it on the desk. He pinched a pair of stone reader spectacles on his nose and read aloud. “Coltrane Jopass Montgomery-Milesmonk—”
“Just call me Jazz,’ I said interrupting.
His lips pursed in and out again and I very badly wanted to fatten them with my fist.
“Says here you still have a lot of overdue parking tickets, gypsy, enough to issue a warrant,” he said looking at me over top of the glasses.
I snapped a receipt on the desk. He held it high enough that he could examine it above the readers, made a clicking sound with his tongue, then set the receipt aside. “Well and good, but you still owe ten-thousand blue in impound fees.”
“Parry,” I said.
Parry walked up and, having to reach the desktop on tiptoes, set a cloth bag down.
Henning drew the cords, opening the bag, and shifted his fingers through the blue, red, and yellow chips inside. “And where did the likes of you come up with this much revenue, gypsy?”
“It’s legit, Henning. I was with her at the mallow exchange, payment received in pure mallow for services rendered. She has a bona fide invoice.”
Henning removed the readers, sat back in the chair, and rested his hands, fingers interweaved, on his magically augmented abdomen and stared at me.
My eyes shifted from Henning and back to the passcard on his desk, expecting him to reach for the card and unlock the gate.
“No, too late,” he said at last, “we had your wretched ship dismantled.”
“What!” the three of us cried out together.
“Who gave that order, officer?” Samuels shouted.
“Came from superior magistrate itself,” Henning said and I was getting very close to beating the gloat off of his magically-perfect face.
“Not possible, let me see that order,” Samuels demanded.
“As you say, sir.” Henning passed a small disk to Samuels. With a pass of his gloved hand, Samules activated the disc. It projected a series of Mirthen symbols authenticated at the bottom by an image of the gassy cloud that was our district’s magistrate. I couldn’t see Samuels’ expression beneath all the clothing, but I could hear his growing impatience. “This is dated for tomorrow, why was the accursed thing wrecked already?”
“Hey!” I shouted at the slur, even though it was one I’d used to refer to my sentient flycraft often enough. Still, it was mine to insult.
“So sorry sir, I totally blame myself, I must not have looked carefully at the date.” Henning hit me with a condescending grin. “I’m terribly sorry about that your gypsy-ness.”
Quick as a rabbit I reached into my concealed bandolier.
“No!” three voices shouted at me. Henning leapt beneath his desk, Parry closed his eyes and covered his ears.
Samuels jumped in front of me and held up his hands. “Jazz, don’t!”
“What?” I asked as innocently as I was able and brought the radio microphone to my mouth. “Wake up there, rusty, work to do.”
The speaker in my rucksack receiver crackled, then a flippant, irritated, high-pitch voice poured out. “Where the hells have you been, Monster Collector? Do you have any idea what I’ve been through? While you’ve been lounging about, I’ve been chained up in here with these human infidels. Even Lord Balish of the fiery realms lacks a torture of sufficient pain and duration to properly intern you to the tortures that I’ve suffered—”
I clicked the receiver off, returned the mic to my bandoleer, crossed my arms, and raised my eyebrows in mock anticipation of the apology Henning would give me.
Instead he burst to his feet, grabbed the passcard, and ran for the barred gate of the impound yard. I drew my MacDaddy revolver, but no sooner had the long barrel cleared its sheath, than Inspector Samuels dropped Henning with a single punch to his jaw. Mirth born humans were so very delicate, even the ones supposedly trained for combat. But nothing here was real, especially the pretend training.
Samuels grabbed the card and used it to open the gate. I could hear Ship’s echoed voice still ranting somewhere deep inside the impound yard. I pulled the leather flight cap from my rucksack and set it on my head. The straps dangling from the earflaps swung as I turned to Parry. “Take DJ’s scooter and get back to the office. Try to get it ordered enough that we can use it as a base camp.”
I turned to Samuels, decked out in his head to toe coverings. “What are you going to do, Inspector?”
He drew in a deep breath, apparently considering. Then he pulled back his hood and tore the scarf from his face. His transparent skin left all the inner workings of his skull clearly, and disgustingly, visible. “I don’t see how I can get medical attention without drawing a great many questions I can’t answer easily, meaning I’d spend a great deal of time occupied with protocols and debriefings, and I think you’re going to need me.”
I couldn’t help but let a little smile escape my hold. “I agree, and I might know someone who can help you, no questions asked. Why don’t you take my motorcycle and I’ll meet you both back at my office. I need to get there as soon as possible and scrub the stone before it backlashes.”
Just then the quiet of the day was broken by a terrible explosion. Samuels and Parry ducked, instinctively covering their heads. Couldn’t say that I blamed them, but I was fairly desensitized to gunshots, explosions, eruptions, and wild accusations. I looked over the tops of the magically constructed buildings to the thick line of black smoke rising above them.
Samuels rose to my side, staring. “Was that…”
“My office?” I finished his question, and then answered, “Yep.”
Parry, still shaking, walked in front of me. “But the jar…the soulution, it was in our office.”
“Yep,” I said.
“But…” he said, his voice trembling, “what are you going to do?”
“Me,” I said, raising my eyebrows high in acceptance. “I’m going to die the most terrible death ever yet achieved.”
-Next Time-
Jazz is a dead Monster Collector walking, as the Not Now stone is gurgling away in her belly, about to backlash and rend her with the agony of every pain it had ever healed right before it kills her, and the jar of soulution that could scrub the stone blew up with the rest of her office. So with nothing left to lose and large number of annoying chips on her shoulder, Jazz embarks on a wild rampage of revenge and lo be to any that gets in her way.
Jazz, Monster Collector, Episode 12, Nothing to Lose
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I hope you’ve enjoyed this Jazz adventure.
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