Valiant: Tales From The Archive

[CURSEd #18: Culling]

Log Date: 9/24/12764

Data Sources: Ilyana Kemaim

Event Log: Ilyana Kemaim

Seinbeck House: Living Room

11:26pm SGT

I don’t care that it’s not the way we’re supposed to do things.

I don’t care that it’s not the ‘right’ way to handle things.

All I know is that want him to shut his mouth. I need him to shut his mouth. Because if it stays open, the truth is going to keep falling out of it, and I don’t want to hear it right now. I can’t afford to hear it right now.

“You think I haven’t heard it before, kitten?” Malchi says, arms up in front of his face to block my fists. “I know your family’s told you the same thing they told me—”

“Shut up!” I shout at him, grabbing the old man’s arms and yanking them aside so I can slug him in the head. “I told you to shut up!”

“Stop me, and all you’ll be— hhNT! —all you’ll be doing is proving your— UNT! —your family right.” he coughs out, grunting each time I punch him in the face. “I’m only doing what you woulhhHNT— what you want to do. What you would be doing if— UMPH —our places were switched.”

“Shut up!” I scream at him, letting go of his arms and starting to pound him with both fists now, a punch for each word. “Shut up shut up shut up shut up!”

“Whisper!” Kwyn shouts in the background. “Stop, you’re going too far!”

But I don’t stop. I keep pounding, pummeling, hammering away at Malchi as he feebly tries to defend himself, because he’s right, and I hate that he’s right, and I don’t want to hear that he’s right. That this is the whole point, the whole reason he thinks I’m beneath him. I haven’t gone as far as he has. As far as I should. As far as I want to.

And he’s only doing what I’ve never had the courage to do.

Event Log: Ilyana Kemaim

Falcon-2: Troop Cabin

Earlier that day

“This is the area he lives in?” I ask, staring through the environmental shield across the side-loading doorway of the Falcon skipper we’re in right now. The door itself has been slid back so I can stare down at the industrial town we’re flying over. The small suburbs spread away from the center of town, fading into patches of farmland that jut into the surrounding forest.

“The general area, yes. We’ve tracked back his movements and identified a homestead out on the forest’s edge where he lives; he’s not in the heart of the town or its suburbs.” Seer says from where he’s safely strapped into one of the benches within the troop cabin.

“Seems about right.” I say, my gaze wandering over the plants and factories that make up this town’s economy. Most of their parking lots are full. “Surprised to see that all these factories are still running. I thought they would’ve taken a beating from jobs getting outsourced to the Cyber-Mercurial assembly complex.”

“They were. Took longer to get the product, but it was a lot cheaper overall. So long as the supply chain stays on schedule, it’s the better option, from an accounting perspective.” Seer says, taking a moment to comb his pale silver hair behind a pointed ear. “That changed after Mokasha was invaded. The Confederacy couldn’t wait for the supply chain to adjust. They needed to make up for the production capacity they lost when Mokasha was seized, and they also wanted to ramp up production of warships and orbital defense platforms, for obvious reasons. So the COS Congress passed a bill providing grants for local industries to fire up old or idled factories on Confederacy worlds, and have them retasked to start churning out products critical to national defense. It’s kicked certain manufacturing industries into overdrive, and communities like these are benefiting from the revitalization.”

“Nothing like a little bit of war to juice the economy.” I mutter.

“War? This isn’t a war; this is a border scuffle.” Seer snorts, his hands hiding within the wide sleeves of his shirt. “The Confederacy has lost Mokasha. They’re not getting it back, no matter how many ships they park on the edge of the system to take potshots at the Collective defense fleet. By this point the entire planet’s been assimilated; there’s nothing left for them to save and they know it, no matter how much they rage about reclaiming a stolen world. What these factories produce won’t help take back Mokasha, but it will provide measurable enhancements to the defenses of other systems within the Confederacy.”

I push away from the hatch, flicking a switch so that the door slides back into place and clunks shut. The environmental shield only dissipates once the hermetic seal has locked in. “That’s all just peripheral stuff, though. We’re here because the top brass of xenophobe groups in this area are gettin’ crossed off, because they won’t let up on the rhetoric blaming nonhumans for their problems. You’d think having your town revitalized would’ve given the locals a reason to lay off the grievance politics.”

“Just because people have gotten what they need doesn’t mean it’s what they want.” Seer points out. “This population, and countless others, have been told for decades that the decline of their communities is due to nonhumans changing their culture and stealing their jobs. And some of them are stupid enough to believe it. So when the jobs and money come back, but the nonhumans are still around? The politicians pivot to blaming them for other things, because angry people vote. If you don’t manufacture another grievance to keep them angry, they’ll realize they’ve gotten what they wanted and they’ll stop turning up to local elections.”

“Humans…” I mutter, folding my arms.

“They’re not all bad, Whisper.” Seer says calmly. “After all, you are quite fond of one of them.”

“I know they’re not all bad.” I retort, ignoring his other observation. “But it’s always the same story, and it repeats so often it makes you wonder what the point is. Maybe we shouldn’t be interfering here, Seer.”

He raises an eyebrow. “We were asked to intervene by the government of this world.”

“A government that’s supported by whiskey-soaked barnacles that would burn down the town before letting their daughters date a Halfie! That think that elven men are an effeminate conspiracy created by the Colloquium to turn their sons gay!” I snap at him. “Don’t tell me you had an easy time of it on this assignment; I know you didn’t! I know what these towns are like!”

Seer purses his lips. “The officials I dealt with were civil. Some of the people I spoke with during the investigation did harbor certain… biases, but those were exceptions to the rule. One or two bad apples, but the rest of the bushel is good.”

“A single bad apple will rot the rest of the bushel if you leave it in there for too long!” I growl, turning and starting to pace. “This… person of interest we’re after. As far as I can tell, he’s just picking the bad apples out of the bushel.”

“He’s assassinating civilians, Whisper.” Seer says softly.

“Civilians that often have a military background and lead supremacist paramilitary groups and nationalist militias.” I counter. “Don’t sugarcoat it. The people that have been killed so far aren’t philosophers or academics. They’re demagogues.”

“Regardless of their past employment, they are still civilians involved in the civic process.” Seer says. “People do not deserve to be killed for civic participation. That’s not democracy; that’s a regime.”

“Their ‘civic participation’ involves trying to pressure their representatives into legislating away the rights of their fellow citizens.” I hiss back at him. “I remember the bill that the Confederacy tried to pass earlier in the year to constrain the options vampires had for feeding. If you want to call it ‘democracy’, then fine, but let’s be honest about the fact that it’s democratized racism.”

Seer is quiet for a moment, then goes on. “Will you be able to carry out this assignment, Whisper? Or should I ask the Mediator to deploy a team of operatives?”

I press my lips together, glancing towards the hatch that leads to the skipper’s cockpit, where Kwyn is learning how to fly the Falcon-2. Maybe if I was alone on this assignment, I’d take Seer up on his offer. But I couldn’t do that when Kwyn was supposed to be shadowing me. She’d been paired with me to get some Peacekeeper experience, and this entire trip will have been a waste if we just sat on the ship while a team of operatives handled the problem. We’d been deployed here to do a job, so we needed to make the trip worth it.

“I can handle it.” I mutter. “I don’t have to like it, though.”

“Good. That’s all I need to know.” he says, going back to looking out the window. “Did you read the briefing I wrote up for you?”

“Kwyn’s got it. I’ll get her to catch me up on it when we land.”

“I see very little has changed since the days when you were training Axiom.”

“Oh stuff it, knife-ear.”

Event Log: Ilyana Kemaim

Wisconsin: Habricht County

12:50pm SGT

“It took Seer a while to home in on the suspect.” Kwyn says as she scrolls through the data slate she brought with her. “There’s been six deaths in the last three months, starting shortly after the invasion of Mokasha. The suspect was confirmed to have been present at four of them, and Seer could not establish presence at two of them because he was not here at the time, though the circumstances were suspicious.” Kwyn looks to me. “How does he do that, by the way? His team is tiny, and they barely have any equipment deployed.”

“Seer is a Gazer.” I say, checking the speedometer. I’m driving us down one of the long roads outside the town, cutting through the farmland on the way to the forest’s edge. Fields whip by on either side of us, with short, green crops that might be soy. “A disciple of Gryffin, the wereckanan god of seeing. Take them to an area, and they can stare into the recent past. See everything as if they were there while it happened. It’s very useful when you’re conducting criminal investigations.”

Kwyn takes a moment to absorb that. “…yeah, that is super useful. Why don’t we have more of those? Something like that could revolutionize policing.”

“They use them in the Ranter colonies, but the rest of the galaxy doesn’t use Gazers because only the Gazer can see the past.” I explain. “You can’t see what the Gazer is seeing, so you have to take their word for what they’re seeing. The Colloquium nations don’t recognize it as a valid legal method because it usually doesn’t produce physical proof or a record that can be admissible in court.”

“Oh. Well, I suppose that does also make sense.” Kwyn says, scratching an ear. “Does the Confederacy know that we’re using a Gazer to handle this assignment?”

“Maybe. But they haven’t said anything about it, which means that either they don’t know, or they don’t care. I’m willing to bet it’s the latter.” I say, checking the map on the dashboard. “Besides, I can’t deny that Seer gets results. As long as I’ve known him, he’s never brought back bad information.”

“He’s a Peacekeeper, right?” Kwyn asks. “If he knows who’s behind the assassinations, why hasn’t he moved to arrest them?”

“He is, but he’s a noncombat Peacekeeper. Strictly an investigative unit.” I answer. “I think it has something to do with his oath of service to Gryffin. Something I’ve noticed about a lot of Gazers is that they rarely participate in arrests or combat; they usually get the information, but let other people act on it. That’s why we were dispatched to follow up on what he discovered, and that’s usually how CURSE uses him: they send him out to investigate stuff, and then another Peacekeeper will follow up once his investigation is complete.”

“Interesting. I’d never heard of him before now.”

“Seer’s low-profile. He likes to stay away from the cameras and crowds; celebrity isn’t his cup of tea.” I say as the woods rise up before us, the fields disappearing as we’ve engulfed in a tunnel of leaves. “This is how a lot of our investigative units work. They go in ahead of us, lay all the groundwork, and once everything’s ready, Peacekeepers are dispatched to come in and handle the rough work.”

“It’s kinda strange.” Kwyn says, lowering her slate. “We really only come in for the final act. We’re not here for the months of work that lead up to the result.”

“Pretty much.” I agree.

We lapse into silence for a bit, humming along the forest road with the dappled sunlight flickering through the leaves overhead. Kwyn looks up, staring out the sunroof at the arching branches overhead, and even though I have to keep my eyes on the road, I can’t help but think back to the days of my youth, growing up in the forest of my tribe.

“I wonder how Dare’s doing.” Kwyn says after a while. “Hope he’s okay.”

I glance at her. “Why, is something wrong with him?”

“I don’t think so? He was just a little… distant during our last visit to Gritter’s.” Kwyn says, looking down at the slate in her lap. “I hope he doesn’t feel miffed that I was away from HQ training with other Peacekeepers for the last six months.”

I snort at that. “He wouldn’t get mad over that. He knows that’s not your fault. The orders came down from the top; there’s nothing either of you could’ve done about it.”

“He was really quiet, though. I could tell something was on his mind, but I didn’t want to ask him in front of everyone else.”

Thinking back to the conversation I had with Dare, I wonder for a moment if I should say anything — then I figure if he won’t say anything for himself, I might as well say it for him. “He’d noticed you were different. More at ease, more confident. He didn’t know how to orient himself around that.”

Kwyn looks at me. “…seriously? How do you know?”

“I trained Dare. I know him like the back of my hand; if there’s something that’s bothering him, I can weasel it out of him.” I shrug, wondering if I should say more — and then saying it anyway. “You know he likes you, right?”

“Yeah. It’s pretty obvious.”

I can’t help but grin a little. “And he thinks he’s so sneaky about it.”

That brings a little smile to Kwyn’s face. “Yeah, a lot of guys are like that.”

Still grinning, I go on. “So, what’s the story on that? Is he just not your type, or…?”

Kwyn’s smile evaporates. “No, no, I do like him. He’s… nice. Normally I wouldn’t mind dating him, but there’s someone else I’m more interested in right now.”

“Ahhh.” I say, nodding. “Okay. It makes sense now. Wouldn’t happen to be one of the six Peacekeepers you were shadowing over the last six months, would it?”

“What? No. It’s someone I met a while ago, in the first couple months after I joined CURSE.”

I raise an eyebrow. “That’s almost a year ago now. So have you asked them out, or…?”

Kwyn squirms a little in her seat. “It’s kinda… complicated, so… no? Not yet? I’m trying to figure out how to do it…”

I gape at her. “Girl! It’s been over half a year since you’ve met this person and you’re still trying to figure out how to ask them out? Do they even know you like them?”

“No…” Kwyn mumbles, sinking in her seat a little.

“Ugh. Sylak save me, you're almost as bad as Dare.” I say, rolling my eyes. “Well, are ya gonna give me a name so I know who this mystery person is, or am I just gonna have to guess?”

“Aaaauhhh, I’m not really comfortable with saying…”

“It’s not Gossamer, is it?”

“What? No!”

“Okay good. I would’ve had problems if that was the case. Gossamer’s a prickly bitch; I don’t know how she manages to bed as many recruits as she does. Not gonna lie though, she’s got legs for days, so I kinda get it. God, I hate elves sometimes.”

That gets a little snort of laughter out of Kwyn. “Are you saying that because you’re vertically challenged, or…?”

“Look! It’s not my fault I’m small!” I protest. “It’s everyone else’s fault for being tall! It makes sense for Dare, because he’s a guy, but look at you! You’re like four inches taller than me! Who gave you permission to be that tall?”

Kwyn shrugs. “Blame my dad. I got the height from his side.”

“Man, I didn’t get anything like that from my dad’s side.” I grumble, taking a turn off onto a side road. “Not that anyone in my family is really that tall. We’re all under five-ten; only our cousins are taller than that.”

“You’ve got family?” Kwyn asks. “I mean, I kinda figured everyone does, but I don’t ever hear you talk about them. None of us really do, I suppose.”

“Yeah, I’ve got family.” I sigh, planting an elbow on the window ledge of my door, and leaning my head against my hand. “Not exactly on good terms with them. That’s why I don’t talk about them, and Dare and Kent don’t talk about their families around me. I don’t like talking about my family, so it becomes a conversation that’s hard for me to be a part of.”

“Oh, sorry. I hadn’t realized.” Kwyn apologizes quickly. “I wouldn’t have brought it up if I’d known—”

“It’s fine. You can’t read minds.” I say, shrugging it off. “They don’t like that I’m part of CURSE. Or that I’m fraternizing with younger species on a personal level. It’s not proper, they think…”

“Younger species?” Kwyn asks quizzically. “I know that wereckanan have been around for a while, but…”

“Right. So, humans and vampires and Shanarae technically predate wereckanan, but in wereckanan society, we refer to species that have smaller lifespans than us as ‘younger’ species.” I explain. “Because that’s what they are to us. Young, prone to mistakes, all that stuff. And because of the aging disparities, there’s a lot of complications that come up when we maintain relationships — romantic, platonic, cultural, political, any kind, really — with younger species. A lot of wereckanan think we should just isolate ourselves from being involved in younger societies completely, because it creates problems when we’re mingling with younger species…”

“And you don’t think that, but your family does?” Kwyn guesses.

“Yup.”

“Ah.” she says, shifting the slate in her lap. “I’m sorry to hear that you and your family don’t get along. Doesn’t seem to be much of a problem for you, though — you seem to get along just fine with your friends and coworkers.”

“Yeah, I do. I guess that’s proof that it is doable. But there’s some things that are hard to ignore.” I admit. “Aging disparities make long-term relationships hard, for example. Makes marriage practically impossible, not to mention having kids and a family.”

“Makes sense. I hear that’s a problem for elves and certain other species as well.” Kwyn says.

I scoff at that. “Hell, elves have it easy compared to wereckanan. At least they sorta age in tandem with their partners. Wereckanan can outlive a human thirty times over. Wereckanan fathers that have human children can watch their kids be born, grow up, get old, and die, and the father will have barely aged a couple years throughout the whole process.”

This information looks like it comes as a shock to Kwyn. “…how old are you again?” she asks hesitantly.

I smirk sidelong at her. “It’s not polite to ask a lady’s age.” I slow the car down as the paved road starts to run out, fading into a well-worn dirt road running alongside a stream. “I turned six hundred and seventeen in May.”

Kwyn just stares at me with wide eyes.

“If it helps, that’s about thirty-one years old, by wereckanan standards.” I add.

Kwyn takes a deep breath, staring forward through the windshield again. “…you don’t seem like you’re six centuries old…”

“I don’t behave like I’m six centuries old because that’s boring.” I correct her. “I look young, I feel young, and I like behaving like I’m young. Because I am young.”

She mulls that over to a moment. “…yeah, I guess that makes sense, if your entire species ages that way. Still. Wow.”

“Wow what?”

“Well— no, I didn’t mean it like that, but it’s just— so it’s just— I’m trying to get my head around it—” she stammers quickly. “Like— how do you even date people when you’re that old? I mean, not! Not that you’re old, but there’s… like… isn’t there a maturity gap? A major maturity gap? Everyone must seem immature to you when you’re six centuries old, right?”

“Yeah. I guess.” I shrug. “I don’t look old, so people don’t expect me to act old. And I don’t act old. Because acting old is boring. And it’s weird when you’re young but try to act old.” I slow down the car a bit more to carefully navigate a particularly deep rut in the dirt road; trucks are probably better equipped for this type of terrain. “I’ve seen a lot in six centuries. But I don’t assume that I know it all, or that I can’t learn from younger people. That’s what really makes you old: thinking you don’t have anything to learn from people that haven’t been around as long as you have. A lot of wereckanan, vampires, and elves make that mistake. They think that just because they’ve been around forever, they don’t have anything to learn from younger people. And even though I’ve seen a lot of stuff, and lot of it is stuff I’ve seen over and over again from different people, I still come across things that are new to me. Things I wouldn’t have encountered or learned if I wasn’t spending time around younger people. So that’s why I spend time around younger races. They have stuff to offer, stuff we can learn from, even if they’re only around for a short while.”

“That’s a good way of thinking about it, I suppose.” Kwyn says thoughtfully. “Just because there’s differences in age and longevity doesn’t mean we don’t have stuff to learn from each other.” She looks around. “Where are we going?”

“The site of the first death, the one that Seer couldn’t establish as a murder.” I say as we bounce along another rut in the road. “I wanted to take a look at it myself.”

“Oh, that was the drowning, right?” Kwyn says, unlocking the slate in her lap. “Do you think we’ll find something here that will help us with apprehending the suspect?”

“Maybe. It’s just a hunch.” I say, pulling over into a campground turnoff next to the stream. Putting the car into park, I pull the key and step out, looking around the clearing, and the cleared bank of the stream on the other side. “In cases like these, with multiple murders, visiting the scene of the first known murder can be instructive. Killers grow as they progress through murders; they refine their process and technique as they gain more experience. As a result, the first murders are more likely to have mistakes, since they’re still working things out. They start leaving you less and less to work with as they get better at what they do.”

Kwyn steps out of the car, following me across the campground to the bank of the stream. “That does make a lot of sense.” she agrees, sounding surprised. “You’re a lot more… methodical than I was expecting.”

I come to a stop on the stream’s edge, staring down into the water. “That’s because most of the time you’ve spent around me is when I’m off-duty. I’m a goof when I’m off-duty. When I’m on assignment, I’m more focused. Especially on solo missions. I know you’re technically here, but I’m treating this as a solo mission so you can see how I usually approach things when I’m on my own.” I squint down at the stream. “…Seer’s report said the guy that died here drowned while he was fishing?”

Kwyn comes to a stop beside me, checking her data slate. “Yeah, this was the site of the first death. The cause was drowning; the body floated down the stream a tenth of a mile before snagging on a log, but all the equipment was still here at the campsite.”

“Does the report say how old he was?”

Kwyn glances my way, then checks the slate. “Mm… yeah? Forty-four years old, by the galactic calendar. Why do you ask?”

“Do you notice anything about this stream?” I ask.

She glances into the water, starting upstream, and then downstream. “Not… really? It’s really clear; I can see the streambed.”

“You think you could cross it?”

“Mm… yeah, probably? Doesn’t look too deep.”

I crook a finger towards the stream. “Exactly. That’s what’s getting me. You can see the streambed because the water isn’t deep. Even in the middle, it only looks like it would come up to my knees. For humans, forty-four isn’t old by any stretch of the imagination; this guy was youngish and strong, and he probably had a military background. If he was camping here, it probably wasn’t his first time fishing here either.” I give that all a moment to sink in. “How does a human male in his prime drown in less than two feet of water? Even if he fell in, all he has to do is sit up and that would put his head and chest above water.”

“You think someone pushed him in and held him down?” Kwyn guesses.

“Well, he certainly didn’t drown here because he fell in and suddenly forgot how to stand up.” I say, folding my arms. “Is his autopsy included in Seer’s report?”

“It is. I went over it; the coroner found no evidence of physical trauma aside from suffocation by drowning.”

I tap my foot against the ground. “Had to be murder. Grown people don’t just fall into streams and drown.” I look down, skimming the sole of my boot over the surface of the water. “He would’ve needed to be dragged all the way to the middle of the stream. The water near the banks is only a few inches deep; you couldn’t drown in that even if you were trying.” After a moment, I turn to her. “Read me out the cause of death for the other five targets.”

“Oh… well, let’s see.” Kwyn says, scrolling through her slate. “By chronology, starting from this murder all the way to the most recent one, in order… number two: vehicular death. Victim was in truck on one of the roads cutting through the farms when a sinkhole opened up on the road. Victim did not have time to stop; truck went into the sinkhole at about fifty miles an hour, death likely instant. Number three: vehicular death. Victim was on their hoverbike when the fuel cell violently ignited and exploded. Number four: vehicular death. Victim was in the middle of getting onto their bike and turning it on when the fuel cell exploded and killed them, and injured bystanders. Number five: vehicular death. Vehicle appears to have hydroplaned into a ditch at high speed on one of the roads cutting through the farms. Number six: smoke inhalation. Victim died when their house in the woods caught fire overnight.”

I narrow my eyes as I listen to her. “Started out in the woods. Moved through the farms, into town. Then moved back out to the woods.” Rubbing a thumb and forefinger together, I look around the rest of the campsite, then study the woods behind us. “When did Seer get here? After the second murder?”

“According to the report chronology, yes.”

“The killer knows we’re here.” I murmur. “Pattern killers start where they’re comfortable, and once they find success, they expand their area of operation. In this case, into town. If they realized a Peacekeeper was here and investigating, they would’ve withdrawn to their comfort zone. Back to the farms and the woods. Less people, less witnesses, less risk, more places to hide.” I look back at the stream. “This murder was the outlier. All the others relied on infrastructure or transportation malfunctions, engineered deaths that could be blamed on weather conditions or maintenance failures. A drowning, a house fire, a sinkhole, hydroplaning, exploding fuel cells…” I bite my lip. “I think we’re dealing with a mage. One that’s good with natural elements.”

“You got all that just from visiting one of the murder sites and having me read out parts of the report?” Kwyn says, glancing at her slate and then at the stream.

“Ha! No, I’m just talkin’ out my ass.” I laugh, breaking the tense mood. “What do I look like, some kind of star detective? Nah, I’m just saying what’s coming to mind. Some of it might be right, some of it might be wrong, and I’ve got no proof for any of it aside from what you’ve got in your hand there.” I wave her along to join me as I start to head back to the car. “C’mon, I wanna take a drive past the place that the suspect lives in. Get an idea for what we’ll be hitting up tonight.”

“Oh.” Kwyn says, seeming a little taken aback by that. “I mean, most of it sounded pretty solid…”

“I’ve been around a while, so I’m drawing on past experience from handling these types of cases.” I explain, opening the car door and getting back in. “I’m pretty sure we’re dealing with a pattern killer that’s motivated by politics, and I’m pretty sure they’re using elemental magic. The sinkhole and the hydroplaning crash are what convinced me; you can’t mechanically engineer that shit the way you can by getting a hoverbike fuel cell to explode.”

“Will that change anything?” Kwyn asks as she gets back into the passenger seat.

“Not really. We’re still gonna run him down and arrest him.” I say as I start the car back up. “It just means that he might put up a different kind of fight than we were expecting. Less guns, more sparklefingers. But that’s nothing we haven’t dealt with before.” Taking the car out of park, I pull us back around, heading back the way we came. “Let’s go take a peek at this crib we’re supposed to be breaking into later tonight.”

Event Log: Ilyana Kemaim

Riverside Hotel: Room 306

9:21pm SGT

“I know the Christling fundamentalists aren’t going to be happy with it, but we have to support the abortion clinic and make sure it’s placed near the west side. Right smack in the middle of that bitch of a furpile, if possible… why? Why do you think, John? Use your brain. We have to be smart about this. The boys can patrol the streets on their bikes all the damn day and keep those hairballs in check, but they breed like goddamn rabbits. Humans have a one kid every time they reproduce, maybe two if they get super lucky. Halfies have goddamn litters. Two or three at a time, scrambling around like rats… no matter what we do, we’re not gonna keep those animals from humping each other. Their population might be small now, but look twenty years down the road, when they’ve tripled or maybe even quadrupled. What happens when the fuzzy little vermin are all grown up? When they’re voting, stealing jobs, and — god forbid — running for office? They’ll start turning this town into a furpile paradise. And we’ll be stuck getting shoved to the side in their futurist dream. Hell, they might even buy out the land our families have been on for generations… so yeah, having the biker vets do patrols through the west side ain’t gonna cut it. You need a legislative solution, a policy solution. That’s why you brought me on; you needed some brains because you sure as hell wasn’t getting it from the bikers. Get the abortion clinic placed on the west side, right in the middle of their goddamn neighborhood, if you can. Put it closer to them than the goddamn hospital, make it easier for them to access than the goddamn hospital. Get city hall and the health department to run a family planning initiative, cut down on the teen pregnancies and unwanted pregnancies. Else your kids are gonna be huffin’ fluff in twenty years, I promise you… if you don’t control the population, they’re gonna start datin’ Halfies because that’s what’s available…”

Snatching up the remote, I pause the recording on the holoarray, then throw it back onto the hotel bed, leaning back in the desk chair on the side of the room. “Sorry.” I say to Kwyn as I run a hand over my face. “I couldn’t keep listening to that.”

“It’s fine.” Kwyn says from where she’s sitting on the bed. She looks a bit queasy, her eyes darting between the secret recording on the holoarray, and the data slate in her lap. “It’s… mmnh.” A small, wordless sound of dissatisfaction the makes her feelings about the recording clear.

“Yeah, that about sums it up.” I agree.

“It makes me feel… weird.” she blurts out, running a hand through her hair. “Like, abortion access is a good thing to have, right? Preventative care and family planning… but when someone’s trying to use it as a way to suppress and control a population, it feels… wrong. Corrupted. Like taking a good thing and twisting it.”

“Welcome to politics.” I say, using my chopsticks to poke at my noodle bowl. “A political operative never met a good thing they couldn’t corrupt and appropriate for their own agenda. At least this one’s dead, courtesy of our suspect.”

“I suppose that’s part of what’s bothering me.” she says, rubbing at a brow. “I know I shouldn’t feel this way, but some part of me is happy this guy hydroplaned into a ditch and snapped his neck. And I know I’m not supposed to feel that way; we’re supposed to be neutral arbiters of justice, but it’s… hard.”

I shrug. “What you’re feeling is perfectly natural. Dude was a greaseball; he deserved a quick ticket to the morgue. How much you wanna bet he got judged to hell?”

Kwyn doesn’t answer right away, just staring at the slate. After a moment, she sets it aside. “We’re supposed to be the good guys, right?”

I know where she’s going with this. “You really want me to answer that?” I reply.

“I don’t know, I just…” she says, running her fingers through her snowy hair. “Like, I know, I get it. We’re here to put a stop to this because we need to preserve the rule of law. People have rights that ought to be respected even if they have despicable beliefs. I get the concept of why we have to do this. But when you put the concept into practice, it… what actual good comes of it? People like this guy don’t care about a fair and just system. They bend and twist the levers of government to achieve their ideological endpoint, regardless of the damage it does to society and to their fellow citizens. I know we are technically required to protect these people, but some part of me just wants to leave here. Let the suspect keep doing what he’s doing.” She presses her knuckles to her forehead. “But I know we can’t do that either, because murder is murder, no matter what color you paint it. People can’t be allowed to think it’s okay to do this kind of thing, even if the victims deserve it.”

After a moment, I set my noodle bowl on the desk. “Culling.”

Kwyn glances at me. “What?”

“Culling.” I repeat. “Back in the old days it’s what the wereckanan would do to keep human populations under control. The legend of the wereckanan is that we were created to protect humanity, and we have done that for billions of years. Mostly in the form of protecting them from extinction, or at least making sure enough survive so that they can start again. But we’ve always struggled with the question of how to protect them from themselves.” Taking my legs off the desk, I rattle my empty drink, then throw it in the recycling. “Some wereckanan believe that our ancient mandate to protect humanity means we have a responsibility to eliminate the problematic members of human society. Some may even go so far as saying we have that responsibility not just to humanity, but other offshoots of humanity as well. Like Halfies.”

“So people like this.” Kwyn says, motioning to the paused recording on the holoarray. “Culling them to prevent the damage they’re doing to the societies they live in.”

“Yup.” I say, pulling out my phone. “Wereckanan historians say it doesn’t work, though. No matter how many you cull, the ideas usually stay in the community. Floating around, until they manage to convert some other charismatic malcontent. But what’s the alternative? Let these people run around freely, spreading their poison and sickening the parts of society that aren’t smart enough to know any better? You have to do something about it, or it rots your society from the inside out. Someone’s gotta cull the sick branches, or the disease will spread and it’ll kill the whole tree.”

Kwyn’s quiet for a bit as she absorbs that, then tilts her eyes towards me. “What do you think?”

I hesitate at that, not sure how to answer. After a moment, I lower my phone.

“My family does not… does not believe in the ancient mandate. They think humans, and other, younger races, should be left to decide their own fates. Even if that means watching them bring themselves to ruin.” I say quietly. “They would stand by and watch while younger societies eat themselves from the inside out, and burn to the ground. They would stand by and do nothing while millions and billions died. And they think that what I do, my work among younger races, is preventing younger species from making their own decisions, deciding their own fates. They think that what I do is interference, which is something they think should only be done if a species is on the edge of extinction. They believe this because there are many examples of wereckanan doing harm to the younger societies they are trying to protect, and they think that it is hubris for us to think that we know what is best for other species.”

“But that’s not what you believe.” Kwyn guesses.

“I cannot sit by, and watch all the cruel things that the powerful people in this galaxy do to people that are weaker than them.” I say slowly. “It is not right to sit there, watching people dying and suffering, and say ‘we can’t do anything because it’s not our place to do so’. Whether or not the rest of my people want to accept it, we are a part of this galaxy. We have a right, and a responsibility, to help decide what kind of galaxy it’s gonna be.” I look to the paused recording on the holoarray. “I believe in cutting away the rotting branches to save the rest of the tree. And from what I’ve seen so far, this town is full of rot.”

“CURSE has asked us to catch and arrest the person that’s behind the killings, though.” Kwyn points out.

“They have. And that’s what we’ll do.” I say, looking back to my phone, thumbing over it. “I’ll do it because those are the orders we were given, and that’s what we’re paid to do. But I don’t have to agree with it. And I don’t have to like it.”

“Yeah. I suppose.” Kwyn agrees quietly.

“Don’t sound so bummed. This is part of the job.” I tell her. “Peacekeepers get assignments they might not agree with. They still do them, because that’s what we’re paid to do. You’ll get used to it as time goes on.” I finish tapping out my order on the phone, adding don’t follow to the notes section, then look to her. “You mind doing me a favor?”

She looks up quickly. “Yes? Sure.”

“I just ordered a milkshake from the place down the street. A little something for me to sip on while we’re driving out to the suspect’s house. You mind running out and grabbing it for me? It’ll be under my name; I’ve already paid for it.” I ask, locking my phone and tucking it away.

“Oh yeah, sure.” she says, setting her slate aside and standing off the bed. “What’s the name of the place?”

“The Yard. Milkshake place about a block to the west. Text me if you can’t find it, alright?”

“Will do. I’ll be back in a few.” she says, snagging her jacket off the rack and heading out the door. I give it a couple minutes, then get out of the chair and head for the door, grabbing the car keys as I go.

I feel bad, tricking her like that, but tonight might get ugly, and there’s some stuff I’d like to ask this guy before I throw the cuffs on him.

Event Log: Ilyana Kemaim

Seinbeck Property: Lawn’s Edge

11:02pm SGT

As far as SCION had been able to analyze, Malchi Seinbeck was an illusion, at least so far as personally identifiable information went.

While the name was attached to bank accounts, property records, and even a retirement fund, it returned nothing anywhere else. Nothing on social media, nothing on employment records, nothing on crime — not so much as a single parking fine or even a speeding ticket from his youth. And while it was possible that this guy had made it nearly a century without getting on the wrong side of the law, it was more likely that Malchi Seinbeck was a fabrication, and a low-quality one at that. There was an entire fake identity industry out there, and whoever this guy was, it looked like he’d gotten the basic package — a name and ID, valid enough to pass muster in credit checks and home purchases, but no personal history to go along with it.

That left the question of who he was, though it didn’t really matter to me, because I was aware he was prolly nobody. Nobody important — just someone that took it upon himself to clean up the galaxy a little bit, trim away the rotting branches of a diseased tree. For me, all that was left was the why — that’s what I wanted to know before we took him in and threw him in the slammer for the rest of his life. And it was something that I wanted to ask him alone, without an audience, because I wanted an honest answer, not a fabrication for the courts.

That’s why I’d sent Kwyn off to pick up a milkshake I never intended to have, and took the car so she couldn’t follow. I knew she wasn’t gonna be happy about it, and she might hate me for it, but I could live with that. There would be other assignments, other opportunities for her to gain the experience she was looking for — but I would only have this one chance to have this honest talk with Malchi, and I wanted to take it before it passed by.

So here I was on the edge of the property, having parked the car about a quarter mile down the street on the side of the road. The house wasn’t anything special; just a regular old single-story house with a flat roof, lots of glass walls, a porch, and a small garden out back. The glass walls were both a benefit and an obstacle; I could stare right into the living room and see that he was comfortably seated in one of the chairs, but it meant he also had a nice, wide view of backyard, and the light from the living room spilled out across the lawn in wide swaths, leaving few shadows for me to navigate through. After a few minutes more of sizing up the yard and assessing possible approaches, I refocus on the front of the house, which has wooden walls and a darkened lawn. That side of the house would probably be better to approach from, and I could try going in through the front door. It would be unlikely that anyone would drive by, with this house being out in the woods and far removed from town.

Stretching out and morphing down into a small black cat, I wind my way through the underbrush on the edge of the property, then strike out across the shadowed portion of the front lawn. It’s a quick trip; there’s nothing to stop me, and I only stop a couple of times, mouth open and head lifted to scent the air while listening for any signs of movement round about. Reaching the porch, I carefully slink up to the stairs, and demorph just below the door, already digging my lockpick kit out of my jacket. Though I have a machine pick, I opt for the manual picks, since those are quieter, and I’m not in a rush.

After a few more minutes, I’ve got all the tumblers clicked into position, so I wedge my turnkey — basically a strip of blank metal — into the keyslot, and carefully turn it, sliding the deadbolt back. Packing away the lockpick kit as quickly as I can while remaining quiet, I tuck it back into my jacket, and activate my bodysuit’s cloaking, pulling my hood up over my head as I do so. As my body ripples away with a hexagonal shimmer, I reach up, grabbing the doorknob, and slowly, quietly twist it and push the door open.

A rush of air escapes from within, and I slink into the house, carefully closing the door behind me. The lights are off; presumably Malchi’s winding down for the evening, since we’re less than an hour from midnight. I do notice that the floors are plankwood, so I move carefully, gliding my feet along the floor rather than fully stepping, in an effort to avoid provoking any creaky floorboards. I take a moment to turn on my wrist pistols to ensure that they’re charged and ready to go in case things go south, then begin working my way further into the house.

As I delve deeper into the house, the midnight gloom slowly melts into the buttery warmth of yellow-hued lamps, their steady, drowsy light leaking into the halls that lead to the living room. Edging along one of these halls to the corner, I peer around to see that Malchi’s still in the chair I first spotted him in, though now that he’s closer, I can see he’s cradling a glass of wine in one hand. He simply seems to be relaxing, as far as I can tell; there’s a holoarray projector on the ceiling, but it’s off.

“I know you’re there.”

My heart stops dead for a moment. Adrenaline spikes through me and kicks it back into gear, beating faster than ever, and I have to fight to keep my breathing from speeding up. He hasn’t turned his head; he’s facing away from me, but I can see his dim reflection in one of the glass walls, and he’s not looking in my direction. He’s got his head tilted back slightly, nose up in the air.

“I can smell you, if you’re wondering. Calyri, right? I know what a cat smells like… you must be a smaller morph. The big cats have a certain… pungency about them. The odor’s sharper. It’s more muted with the smaller ones; doesn’t clog the nose quite as much.” Swirling his glass of wine, he takes a sip from it, but doesn’t otherwise move.

I find my mind racing, trying to figure out how to approach this situation. He clearly knows I’m here; I’m not as concealed as I thought I was, and if he can pick me up by scent alone? Figure out, without ever seeing me, that I’m a Calyri with a small morph form? His sense of smell has to be insanely good; he can’t be human. He has to be something else, something that looks human, but isn’t human.

Not unlike me.

I start to ease my way into the living room, remaining cloaked for now. Even if he knows I’m here, he’s still an old man, he can’t pinpoint my location, and he doesn’t appear to be armed. I should still have this well in hand, even if he tries to pull a fast one with magic.

“You are welcome to come in and have a glass, if you like. I just opened a Walsker red, and you can’t go wrong with a Walsker.” he says, motioning to the bottle on the coffee table in front of him. “I shouldn’t be drinking at my age, but once you’ve made it this far, you might as well enjoy yourself at the end.”

I quietly pad around the couch arrangement in the living room, ending up behind chair that’s facing Malchi. He looks like a worn old man, one that has aged rugged, instead of wrinkly. Where some people get soft and doughy in their old age, Malchi has aged in the other direction, towards tough and leathery. That’s how you can tell the difference between someone that’s spent their life on desk jobs and someone that’s spent their life on physical labor — whether they look like something that’s been left out in the sun for too long, or something that’s been left in the fridge past its expiration date.

Reaching up, I turn off my cloaking, my bodysuit and jacket rippling back into view. “You seem very relaxed for someone that has an intruder in their house.”

His head turns as soon as I become visible again, his mouth quirking up at the corners once he can see me. “Oh, you’re young. Now isn’t that a pleasant surprise. Whatever agency employs you must be very lucky indeed; Calyri are renowned for their covert prowess.”

“And Dalayu are renowned for their sense of smell.” I reply just as quickly.

“We are, aren’t we.” he smiles, taking a sip from his glass. “Did you expect you’d find one of us here?”

“I had my suspicions.”

“I’m sure you did.” He motions to the chair in front of me. “Why don’t you take a seat? Make yourself comfortable.”

“I’ll pass, thank you.” I say, remaining where I am. “You know why I’m here.”

“Of course I do, though, I can’t admit to having patience for the dramatic buildup.” he says with a shrug. “Let’s just get right to it. You’re here to arrest me for making the galaxy a better place, one hairless brute at a time. For doing what we all know needed to be done.”

“You can’t just run around culling humans for their political beliefs.” I say, waving a hand. “That might’ve flown in the old days, but we can’t do that anymore. We’re not allowed to do that anymore. Politics is an ugly sport, but it’s one they’re allowed to play.”

“Don’t tell me you seriously believe that, do you?” he scoffs. “Politics isn’t just a sport; it’s culture, and cultures define societies. And when those politics are doing tangible, targeted harm to parts of the population? Do you just stand around say ‘oh, it’s politics, nothing to be done about it’? That’s how you get dictators and autocrats and genocides. All of those things, and more, rise out of toxic politics and poisonous ideologies.” He leans forward in his chair. “Are you going to tell me that these things should be countered by good politics and compassionate ideologies?”

I glare at him. “I’m a soldier, not a philosopher.”

“Exactly. You don’t need to be a philosopher to know that’s wrong, because as a soldier, you see the end result of bad politics on the battlefield. You know that good politics and compassionate ideologies aren’t enough. People act like the mere presence of such things alone negates the damage done by toxic politics and poisonous ideologies, but it doesn’t, does it? The damage done by bad ideas still exists. It exists, and spreads regardless of whether or not there is something good to juxtapose it. Evil is not a math equation you can solve by adding factors until you reach equilibrium. It’s something you need to stamp out and crush, because if you let it exist at all, it will keep doing harm no matter how many good things you put out there to balance it out.” He laces his fingers together around his wine glass, his penetrating stare leveled at me. “Am I wrong?”

My fingers curl into the back of the chair in front of me. Because he’s not wrong, but I do not want to give him the satisfaction of admitting he’s right. “There are ways to handle these things that do not involve assassinating people who have disgusting beliefs. Going straight to killing people isn’t the answer.”

“There are. There are ways to do that. But these people aren’t using them, are they?” Malchi asks. “They sit around and let fester. They tolerate it, because these noxious beliefs just so happen to belong to people that vote for them. Because power and control are more important than integrity and morality. For the politicians supported by these kinds of people, the cost does not exceed the benefit reaped by tolerating them.” He gives that a moment to sink in, then goes on. “If you want to make a difference, to change things for the better, you have to change that calculation, kitten.”

“Call me kitten again and I will shoot you.” I warn him. “This is not the old days, when we were judge, jury, and executioner of the human race. If they want to run their society into the ground and set it on fire by letting demagogues lead them around by the nose, then they are allowed to do that. They will have no one to blame but themselves for the result.”

“But you don’t believe that, do you. Not truly.” Malchi says, leaning back in his chair and returning the wine glass to one hand. “It’s easy to just write it off, to wash your hands and say ‘on their heads be it’. But you wouldn’t be here, working for whatever agency you work for, if you believed that. It’s not a wereckanan agency, I know that much. I can smell it on you; you work with other races. A touch of elf. A lot of human; young human, female, by the scent of it. If you really thought that these younger species should be left to their own devices, and shouldn’t be interfered with, you wouldn’t be here, doing this job, responding to their crises and problems.”

“And right now, one of those problems happens to be you.” I say, reaching into my jacket to pull a pair of magnetic drain cuffs out.

“You already know what happens if you arrest me.” he says, reaching out to snag the wine bottle and refill his glass. “The pressure comes off the supremacists in this area. They get vindication when law catches me. Without me here to keep them cowering in their garages, looking over their shoulders, they go back to finding ways to suppress and control the nonhuman population in this area. Deprived of a few leadership figures, of course, but those gaps will be filled in time. And those in power, those with a responsibility to this community, will do nothing about it, because they did nothing about it before, and will do nothing about it in the future. Maybe because they have their hands tied, but more likely because they are part of the problem, not merely observing it.” With his glass refilled, he slowly swirls it about, letting the wine breathe. “You would exchange a little justice now for generations of injustice to come.”

“I will do my job now, and what happens in the future is up to the people in this community.” I correct him, moving around the chair. “Get up and turn around. Make this easy on me and I’ll make sure the trip to the jail cell is quick and painless.”

“Pity.” he sighs. “And here I was hoping you’d break the mold, but you’re just as much a slave to the rules as the rest of them.”

With that he twists his free hand, the wine in his glass curling up into the air and starting to freeze into little beads. Realizing what’s about to come, I dive over the couch, tucking the cuffs away as I hear the crack of frozen drops hitting the glass walls with the force of bullets, shattering the panes and leaving spiderwebbed fractures in the ones that survive. Scrambling along the floor, I peer around the edge of the couch, lifting an arm and discharging one of my wrist pistols at him. The plasma bolt nails him in the leg, blowing a hole in his pants and scorching the skin beneath, prompting a shout from him as he twists in the chair. Dropping the wine glass, he stomps his other foot against the floor, and I find myself slammed into the air as column of earth shatters through the floorboards beneath me.

Flailing in the air, I twist around, landing on all fours on the top of the column, albeit bruised and out of breath. I roll off the column, landing on the floor and raising my wrist pistol towards Malchi as he tries to stagger his way out of the chair. I close my hand into a fist, the contact on the thumb of my glove meeting the contact on the knuckle of my forefinger, my arm kicking back as another shot is fired at him. But he sees it coming and stomps his foot again, a lopsided wall of earth erupting through the floor to block the plasma bolt, which leaves a glassy crater in the wall.

Knowing that I can’t give him time to recover, I run in an arc to get around the raised wall of earth, keeping my arm leveled to take a shot as soon as I see him. Yet the moment he comes into view, I’m hammered with a blast of wind that hits me hard enough to pick me up and throw me clear across the room, slamming me back against one of the solid walls. As I fall to the ground, trying to catch my breath, I see him tilting his head back, taking in a deep, chest-expanding breath.

Oh shit. Scrambling back to my feet, I throw myself into the adjacent hall as a fireball explodes against the wall where I was sitting seconds ago. Clawing back to my feet, I turn on my cloaking as I retreat down the hall, trying to catch my breath and figure out where to go from here.

This is not going how I hoped it’d go. I think to myself as I skid down the hall, trying to get my breathing under control. The most important thing at the moment was to go dark and stay undetected while I put a plan together. I’d known that I’d be dealing with magic, but this was on another level. He had good combat awareness, and clearly knew to keep me at a distance; on top of that, he was creative with his powers. The fireball had been flashy, but what worried me more was the way he’d used the wine. He was capable of being economical and efficient, and I’ve got the feeling he would’ve killed me without getting out of his chair if I had been just a bit slower.

Turning the corner in the dark hall, I pause there and press my back against the wall as I work on getting my breathing under control. Technically I was supposed to arrest him, bring him in alive, but with how dangerous he was, that might not be an option. With the way things were, I might have to shoot him until he dropped, then detain him if he was still alive.

The sound of uneven footsteps gets my attention; I can hear him limping down the hall I just fled through. “I suppose what frustrates me above all else is that we are, at the end of the day, on the same side. We are fighting for the same thing; each of us, in our own way, are trying to protect lesser creatures from more powerful forces. I’m trying to protect the nonhuman community from the human supremacists in this area; and you are trying to protect the community in its entirety from me. We both fancy ourselves guardians of our principles, do we not?”

I don’t answer, knowing that he’s trying to get me to give away my position. I do look around the corner to see where he is; he’s about halfway down the hall, the wine bottle in hand. He stops — perhaps it’s the faint distortions of my cloaking that gives me away, but his free hand coaxes a few more drops of wine out of the bottle, which freeze into little beads as they float into the air. I jerk my head back just in time for the beads to zip through the space where my head was, punching holes through wall behind me.

“I would really much prefer you to see things as I do.” he says, and I can hear his limping start again. “And I suspect that deep down, you already do see things that way. You agree with me; you just don’t wish to voice it, because you have another duty you are obliged to.”

Looking to the other side, I see a door next to me is ajar, and I move towards it, slipping into the room. Moving to the wall that separates the room from the hall he’s currently in, I press my ear to it, listening carefully to the vibrations as he limps down the hall. I press one of my fists to the wall at about chest height, my wrist pistol primed and ready to fire as I judge how close he’s getting by the vibrations that his monologuing sends through the wall.

“My family never agreed with me. It’s a bit of a cliché, wereckanan families being broken up by disagreements over the ancient mandate, but I’m sure you’ve been there too. Otherwise you wouldn’t be here, in this line of work.” Though his voice is muted, being on the other side of the wall, I can still make out everything he’s saying. And I don’t like how close each word is landing to my own experience. “For me it started with an argument with my sister. We’d argued before, but this one was the real blowout. I can’t describe the rage I felt; it really is unspeakable. You could have all the enemies in the galaxy and none of them could hurt you quite like family does.”

I can hear the vibrations of his voice on the other side of the wall, and tap the contact on my thumb to the one on my knuckle. The blast tears clear through the flimsy paneling, sending burning shards of wood flying as the plasma bolt slams into his arm, searing through his shirt and sending him stumbling. I can hear the wine bottle drop on the floor, and see motion on the other side of the wall, then a rush of air as if a vacuum was being created.

Then the wall explodes as a blast of air slams into it, throwing me across the room hard enough to crash through the opposite wall and into the neighboring room.

Groaning, I roll over in the debris, struggling to get the dizzy under control and get back to my feet. Staggering to the door, I yank it open and stumble back out into the hall, rounding the corner and trying to take stock of the bruises and potential fractures I’m racking up. I’ve dealt with mages before, but sweet Sylak, this guy hits like a truck. When his hits connect, they hurt.

“I can only imagine you were the same.” I can hear his voice as he rounds the corner into the stretch of hall that I was just in, and it’s clearly strained from the pain of getting scorched by a plasma bolt — but he’s pushing through anyway. “It’s always in defiance of our elders or our families that we do this. We feel we have something to prove, even if it means defying the rules — we cast them aside to meet the demands of our conscience, of our principles and convictions, rules be damned. We are a divided people, and always have been — now that we’re not fighting over our racial differences, we’re fighting over what we owe to the rest of the galaxy.”

I’m in the middle of checking my wrist pistols when I feel the air in the hall moving past me, flowing back the way I came — not quickly, but at a more relaxed rate. It takes a moment before I realize that it’ll be carrying my scent with it, and that is what Malchi is using to determine where I am in the house, even if he can’t see me. I might be cloaked, but he can still hunt me with his canid sense of smell.

There’s no point in trying to hide, because I won’t be able to. At this point, the only option is to end this before he wears me down and I make a fatal mistake.

Pushing off the wall, I twist around and raise both arms, getting off a pair of shots down the hall. One misses and the other one nails him in the shoulder, but it doesn’t bring him down; I can feel the ground shifting beneath the floorboards, a column of earth punching through the floor and flipping me into the air. I twist around starting to angle to land on my feet, only for another column to punch up out of the ground and slam me back into the air — the same air that shunts me back down to the floor faster than I can recover. I land with a heavy thud and a grunt, my cloaking deactivating probably because of the force of the impact. Even though the breath’s knocked out of me, I know I have to keep moving — but before I can roll over onto my hands and knees, both columns of earth topple over on me, compressing and covering me up to my neck in dirt.

“If it makes you feel better, you’re every bit as vexing as I would expect from a Calyri covert agent.” he grunts as he limps down the hall to stand over me, one hand clasped to the scorch mark on his arm. “But I have at least two millennia on you. I have seen all the tricks in the Calyri book in my days. Experience compensates for what I’ve lost in youth and speed.”

“There is no winning this.” I grunt at him, trying to wiggle out of the mound of earth and finding that it’s continuing to compress around me, filling any gaps between my limbs and my both, preventing me from moving. “If I do not return from apprehending you, that tells them all they need to know. They will run you to the ground.”

“They are welcome to try.” he says, stepping over me and into the bathroom on the other side of the hall. I hear the faucet being turned on, and while he’s busy, I look around, trying to figure out if there’s anything I can do with my surroundings. The front door is a few yards behind me, and I left the door unlocked in case I needed a quick exit. “I have not made it this long without being able to drop off the radar and handle adverse circumstance. I have enough connections to make it offworld, disappear, and pick up the work somewhere else. Maybe on a world in the Venusian Monarchy. They do a poor job of managing their xenophobes, so I imagine they could use some help with that.”

“However well-connected you think you are, it’s not nearly as connected as I am.” I say, looking down and trying to assess my options, which are running out. I could try firing my wrist pistols to blast myself free, but with nowhere for the plasma to go under the dirt, that would burn the shit out of my hands. I wouldn’t be able to finish the assignment because I’d have a medical emergency on my hands… literally on my hands.

God, my sense of humor picks the worst times to make roll call.

“I’m fairly well connected.” Malchi says, stepping out of the bathroom with a sizable ball of water swirling over one hand. “You and I aren’t the only ones that feel like certain humans need to be culled to keep the rest of the communities healthy. There’s plenty of wereckanan out there, of many tribes and clans, that understand the damage that is being done. And they understand that we have a responsibility to do something about it, instead of simply standing by and watching, or offering anemic condemnations at the political level. Words without action mean nothing, and our network provides the action the wereckanan government is unwilling to pair with their words.”

“So you’re just going to keep on hunting down humans and killing them for their political beliefs.” I growl, still trying to wriggle loose. There’s still one ace in the hole I’ve got, but I’m holding off for now, because it might just put me in a worse situation.

“Humans. Elves. Even some vampires.” he says as he comes to stand over me again. “Humans do not have a monopoly on prejudice and noxious ideologies, though they do seem to control a majority of the market share in that area. So yes, it will likely be humans, but every now and then we may pick off a pointy-eared bastard or a bloodsucker who’s lost touch with their mortal decency. And I would like it if you would help us. You have a skillset that would be indispensable in the work, and I know you share our anger, even if you refuse to act on it. If anything, it’s stronger because of that — you hate that you are expected to defend these kinds of people, when you know they deserve the exact opposite.”

I bare my teeth at him. “My friends expect better of me.”

“Pity.” he says, the water over his hand starting to unravel down towards me. “They sound like good friends.”

I can tell that he intends to drown me, and that’s the signal that it’s time to do or die. I tense up, morphing down into my cat form, the pressure from the earth around me disappearing as I shrink in size. Unfortunately, my center of mass is under the pile of earth, which is where I end up in my feline form, and I have to scramble out through the hole where my neck was, even as I feel the pile of each collapsing around me. Once I’m out, I streak for the door, intending to morph once I’m there and get out and into the clear.

But before I can reach it, I’m slammed with a blast of water that reforms around me, lifting me into the air. I try to paddle my way out of it, but the current within the ball of water keeps me from breaching the border. I didn’t have time to get a breath before I was submerged, so my lungs are already shouting for air, and I’m fighting the instinct to inhale, because I know I’ll be inhaling water if I do. Everything is blurry; I can’t see anything beyond my prison of water, and the only thing I can make out is a golden spot that gets bigger and bigger until something clamps down on me and yanks me out of the water. It’s something that feels like teeth on either side of me, and as it drops me on the floor, I morph back into my human form, coughing up water and wiping my eyes as I look to the side.

Standing in the middle of the hall is a translucent spirit wolf, golden light curling off its form as it faces down Malchi, not with growling or snarling, but a quiet, austere sort of dignity.

I know I should be relieved, but the only thing that comes out of my mouth is “The hell?”

A loud bang, followed by molten hissing, startles both of us. Looking up, I can see a glowing hole in the door where the doorknob’s been blown out by plasma bolt, and a second later, the door’s kicked open. Standing in the doorway is Kwyn, plasma rifle in hand and another two spirit wolves behind her, looking like a badass in her leather jacket and her long white hair pulled back into a messy ponytail.

And in that moment I can understand why Dare’s fallen for her so hard.

“Hands in the air.” she snaps, leveling the rifle at Malchi.

Malchi smiles. “Gladly.”

“Wait, no!” I shout, but it’s too late. Malchi raises his hands, and the dirt on the floor comes up with the motion, forming a barrier in the hall. Kwyn fires a pair of bolts, but they come a second too late, thudding into the wall and glassing the dirt without making it through. Swearing, I start to get up, only for Kwyn’s wolves to lope past me, phasing into the dirt wall like ghosts. A few seconds later, there’s a thud and growling as something hits the ground.

“Stay there.” Kwyn orders as she steps into the house and walks past me. I start to protest indignantly — she’s got a lot of nerve, giving orders to a senior Peacekeeper — but when she hears me start to retort, she looks down, and the words die in my throat when I see the tawny glow of her eyes, and the fierce set of her eyebrows. I can tell I’m in trouble.

I might be the ranking officer, but I think I’ll follow her orders for now.

Continuing past me, Kwyn fires a few more bolts into the dirt wall, then uses her boot to kick in the glassed portions. It easily crumbles, revealing Malchi lying in the hall just short of the living room, with all three spirit wolves on him — one on his back, teeth around his neck, and two at his sides, jaws clamped shut around his arms. Walking over to him, she levels the rifle at him, then uses her foot to flip him over as the wolves let go of him. They stay close at hand, surrounding him on all sides, as she slings the rifle over her shoulder by the sling strap, and pulls out a pair of drain cuffs, kneeling down to start cuffing him.

“By the authority vested in me by Citizens United and the authority delegated to us by the Wisconsin Planetary Police, I place you under arrest, Malchi Seinbeck.” Kwyn says, starting to recite the typical arrest spiel. “You have the right to remain silent, so as not to incriminate yourself. Anything you say or do while in custody will be admissible in a Colloquium court of law. You have a right to legal defense; if you cannot afford your own, a public defen—”

I’ve gotten up, limping down the hall while she’s reading his rights and getting the cuffs on him. Grabbing her shoulder, I push her aside once she’s gotten the cuffs on him, interrupting her recital as I drop to my knees over top him and grab the front of his shirt. Ignoring Kwyn’s protests, I yank him up by the collar. “Who was the next target. You wouldn’t have stopped if we didn’t stop you, and if you’re part of a network, someone else is going to pick up where you left off.”

He smiles, though it seems partly delirious — the damage from my wrist pistols is prolly starting to take its toll. “If I tell you, maybe you’ll be the one to continue the work. Deep down inside, I know you want to.”

I bare my teeth at him. “I am not like you! I don’t act as judge, jury, and executioner—”

“No, I suppose you don’t.” he breathes, cutting off my rebuttal before I can go on. “More’s the pity.”

Something snaps inside of me. Maybe it’s the tone of smugness, of moral superiority. Maybe it’s because he keeps hitting that sore spot, that wish that I could cull the way he’s culling. Maybe it’s because I know that he knows that this is going to bother me and it’s going to linger with me well after I’ve left this world. Whatever it is, I feel my fingers curling into fists, and I start throwing punches as my anger crests. “Shut up!”

I don’t care that it’s not the way we’re supposed to do things.

I don’t care that it’s not the ‘right’ way to handle things.

All I know is that want him to shut his mouth. I need him to shut his mouth. Because if it stays open, the truth is going to keep falling out of it, and I don’t want to hear it right now. I can’t afford to hear it right now.

“You think I haven’t heard it before, kitten?” Malchi says, arms up in front of his face to block my fists. “I know your family’s told you the same thing they told me—”

“Shut up!” I shout at him, grabbing the old man’s arms and yanking them aside so I can slug him in the head. “I told you to shut up!”

“Stop me, and all you’ll be— hhNT! —all you’ll be doing is proving your— UNT! —your family right.” he coughs out, grunting each time I punch him in the face. “I’m only doing what you woulhhHNT— what you want to do. What you would be doing if— UMPH —our places were switched.”

“Shut up!” I scream at him, letting go of his arms and starting to pound him with both fists now, a punch for each word. “Shut up shut up shut up shut up!”

“Whisper!” Kwyn shouts in the background. “Stop, you’re going too far!”

But I don’t stop. I keep pounding, pummeling, hammering away at Malchi as he feebly tries to defend himself, because he’s right, and I hate that he’s right, and I don’t want to hear that he’s right. That this is the whole point, the whole reason he thinks I’m beneath him. I haven’t gone as far as he has. As far as I should. As far as I want to.

And he’s only doing what I’ve never had the courage to do.

“Whisper! Stop!” This time, I feel Kwyn’s arms around my midsection as she yanks me up and away, and I feel the bruises from where Malchi had slammed me with columns of earth earlier in our fight. Swinging me around, she drops me behind her in the hall, and I brace myself on the ground, one arm pressed to my ribs. Looking around, I can see Kwyn pulling a stunner out of her jacket and charging it; a few seconds later, she fires a weak pulse down at Malchi. He jerks once and goes still, after which Kwyn turns to me, holding up the stunner. “I’m not gonna have to use this on you, am I?”

I glare at her, then look away. Pushing myself to a wall, I lean back against it, wiping my wet hair out of my eyes. “Why’d you follow me?”

“Because I’m your partner.” she says, holstering the stunner back in her jacket as she walks over and crouches down in front of me. “This wasn’t just your assignment. It was my assignment too. I might not be as experienced as other Peacekeepers, but that doesn’t mean I can’t pull my weight.” Pulling my jacket open, she seems to be searching for any visible sign of injury, but can’t find anything because my stealthsuit is still intact. “Where does it hurt?”

“I’ll be fine; it’s just a few bruises.” I mutter.

Kwyn presses her lips together, then plants a hand against my midsection and applies pressure.

“Akh!— okay okay fine, right there!” I cough, wincing. “And on the left side, here… probably on my back as well, he blasted me clear across a room, through the wall, into the next room… no lacerations, maybe a few abrasions and a lot of blunt-force impact…”

“A doctor will need to take a look at you, but I think I can get you back on your feet for now.” she says, one of her spirit wolves trotting over. She reaches out to it as it arrives, and it collapses into a swirl of golden light in her hands. Wrapping it around her palms, she presses her hands to my midsection, fingers folding around my sides; the light starts to sink through my bodysuit, producing a growing warmth underneath that eases the lingering ache and soreness from getting beaten around so much.

“Wha… seriously?” I murmur, tentatively touching fingers to my midsection and finding that it’s a lot less tender than it was before. “You’ve gotta be kidding me. Since when have you been able to do that?”

“I’ve learned a lot over the last six months.” she says, taking her hands away and standing up as she pulls out her phone. “I’ll let our contact at the Habricht Police Department know that they can come pick up Mr. Seinbeck. Once they’re here, we can get you to the local hospital for a checkup.”

“I’m fine.” I grunt, working on getting back to my feet. Once I’m standing, I walk past her and back towards Malchi, blocking her arm when she tries to grab and hold me back. “Tell the police to have a cell ready. I don’t want to wait for them to get out here. We’ll take him to them, that way we can get back to our hotel and be done with this.”

Leaning down, I grab Malchi’s cuffs, and start dragging him down the hall, over the piles of dirt, and back towards the door. It’s clear from the look on Kwyn’s face that she disagrees and wants me to take it easy, but I give her a single glare, and that keeps her from vocalizing it. Once I’m past her, she falls in behind me as I drag him out onto the porch, down the stairs, and start across the driveway.

“Wait. I took the car. How did you get here so fast?”

“Spirit wolves. The three you saw earlier were part of a single big one that I rode here.”

“Well what the heck, why aren’t we doing that now! I’m not gonna drag this useless lump a quarter mile back to the car; let’s get him on one of the wolves!”

Event Log: Ilyana Kemaim

Riverside Hotel: Parking Lot

9/25/12764 10:46am SGT

“You’ll be able to handle it from here?” I ask, slinging my duffel bag into the backseat of the rental car.

“So long as you submit your after-action report in the next two days, it will not impact my schedule.” Seer replies, hands tucked within his wide sleeves. “I will see to the cleanup and any remaining procedural matters. I know combat Peacekeepers are presently in high demand with the recent unrest in the galaxy.”

“Feels like the whole damn galaxy is going to shit.” I say, slamming the car door closed. “Collective invasion in Mokasha, Laughing Alice getting loose, the Valiant doin’ whatever the hell it is they’re doin’…”

“History moves in such cycles. Periods of peace and unrest take alternating turns in the flow of society.” Seer points out. “Given your age, I am sure you can recognize this pattern well enough.”

“Yeah, but I kinda expect some of it to be spaced out a bit.” I say, hitching my hands on my hips. “It’s the least they could do, y’know? Recently it’s just felt like it’s one major crisis after the other. We can’t seem to catch a break.”

“Things will settle. They simply need time. What we decide is how they settle — that is the responsibility we have. To make sure that peace, when it does come, is the best peace we can arrange with the circumstances we have been given.” he says. “For this present case, that is maintaining the rule of law, even for those we disagree with. Is there anything else I should know about Mr. Seinbeck’s case before you head back to HQ?”

“No.” I say. I don’t even hesitate in saying it. I could tell him that Malchi was part of a network, that there might be others that would pick up the work after he was imprisoned, but as a Gazer, I know Seer would give that information to the Wisconsin planetguard. “You say we’re maintaining the rule of law, Seer. Just remember… laws are only as good as the people enforcing them. Laws can be twisted and bent to serve cruel ends while maintaining a veneer of legitimacy.” I pull open the driver door of the car. “Be careful out here. Sometimes, being polite and mild isn’t enough to protect you against people that would hate you just for how pointy your ears are.”

Seer’s lips press together at that. “Give Peacekeeper Resquill my regards. And travel safe, Whisper.”

“You too, Seer.” I reply, pulling the door shut as he turns and heads back to his own car. I don’t fully relax until his car pulls out of the parking lot, and even then, I let out a long sigh and slouch in the seat. The last twenty-four hours have not been what I’ve wanted out of this trip. I barely got any sleep last night, and now, I just want to drive back to the starport, fly back to the Mediator, and go pass out in my quarters for twelve hours. I don’t want to stay awake, or think about Malchi and his crusade, or what might happen to the minority groups in this community once we’re gone. Because the longer I spend thinking about it, the more I’ll start to believe that I should’ve let Malchi continue the culling in the name of protecting the vulnerable. 

Digging my phone out of my pocket, I open up my messages and scroll through my threads until I find the one I have with Dare. I think he’s deployed on an assignment right now, so I’m not even sure he’ll see my message, but I type it out anyhow: miss u. After that, I let my head flop back against the headrest, and closing my eyes.

That’s really what I want, more than anything else: to be able to vent to him, then curl up in his lap when I’m done and just get cozy. Not that he’d be comfortable with it, unless I was morphed into my cat form. Over the last year, I’ve seen that Dare and I are more alike than I’d realized, both of us hopelessly enamored with the operatives we’d trained to be Peacekeepers. He probably doesn’t see that parallel, because he never caught onto the fact that I adore him, but I see it every time he averts his gaze from Kwyn — a funny but bitter irony.

The sound of the passenger door opening gets my attention, and I open my eyes to see Kwyn sliding into the passenger seat. After settling in and closing the door, she turns to me, holding out the milkshake she’s got in hand. “It’s a repeat of the order you had me go get last night.” she explains. “Blueberry cheesecake.”

I stare at it for a moment, then smile and take it from her. “Gosh, Junior… you’re nicer to me than I deserve.” Sipping from it, I set it down in the cupholder, reaching forward and turning the car on. “Look, about last night…”

“It’s okay. Stuff happens, I get it.” Kwyn says, shrugging as she reaches for her seatbelt.

“Stuff happens, but that doesn’t make it okay.” I say. “This was a training assignment, and I was supposed to provide a good example for you. I didn’t do that. And I probably didn’t teach you anything on this assignment except how to catch up with a fellow Peacekeeper that’s trying to give you the slip. I’m sorry if I was a little bitchy last night, and in the end, you were the one that had to come save me from my mistakes, not the other way around. I’m sorry I put you through that.”

Kwyn shrugs. “Everyone makes mistakes, Whisper.” She looks at me at this point, and it’s the milder, quiet Kwyn, not the commanding, imperial Kwyn I saw last night. “But I am a Peacekeeper now, not a recruit. This is the job I signed up for. Let me help, instead of trying to leave me behind.”

I nod. “Yeah. Yeah, fair enough. You’d been away from HQ for so long that Dare and I didn’t recognize our starry-eyed little recruit.” Reaching over, I ruffle her hair with a grin. “She’s growing up so fast.”

Kwyn giggles at that, batting my hand away. “Alright, alright. Let’s go. I’m looking forward to getting back to the HQ and seeing Kent again.”

“You’re looking forward to seeing that horny greasemonkey? Good lord, Malchi didn’t hit you in the noggin while I was looking away, did he?”

“He’s fun to hang out with once he stops hitting on you. Does he get lucky as often as he claims he does?”

“You think I keep track of who he takes to bed? Please. I got better things to do with my time. You can ask him when we get back, though.”

“Yeah, I think I’ll pass on that. Rather not encourage him.”

“Smart girl. Aight, let’s get this show on the road!”