The Neo-Metropol Heist

11: Jaeger

Jaeger had started to feel like the walls of the organised crime floor were closing in on her, like suffocating claustrophobia, the bright, sickly roof-lights bearing down on her, drawing beads of sweat borne of anxiety, the overwhelming raucous noise of the detective floor hammering her ears and making her want to scream.
The second the lieutenant had asked for two detectives to check out a lead over on the west side of Playa Perdido, she jumped at the chance, desperate to get out into the open air.
She'd sworn under her breath when Oscuro tagged along with her, now they both sat in an unmarked patrol car, parked up just outside of the South Perdido Market.
Playa Perdido, known informally and derogatively as 'the Beach' was the name given to the sprawling mass of shacks and shanties that grew out from the lower west side of the island like a horrific growth, half the size of the island itself again.
It made up the home of thousands of the poorest and most downtrodden and forgotten members of society, of all colours and creeds.
In front of them, crowds milled between the corrugated steel stalls, the whole place brimming with an energy unique to Playa Perdido, not found anywhere else in the city.
The shopkeepers of each stall shouted rhymes and sales pitches at the top of their voices, drawing people in with charm and wit. People like them kept the people of the Playa Perdido fed and clothed, by providing their wares at fairer prices than what was charged in the city due to the less-than-legal means through which they 'procured' them.
There were always new memos floating through the office from top-floor about cracking down on it, but Jaeger didn't see the need. These people didn't have much, why take more from them?
"Were you out living it up last night, hermana?" Oscuro asked, "you look rough."
Jaeger glanced away from the front of the car when she realised he'd spoken. She struggled to turn on her 'hard face' for a moment.
"No more like crap than you," she said, "and take those stupid glasses off."
"Hell naw," Oscuro chuckled in his rasping tone, readjusting the ridiculous pair of sunglasses strapped across his face, "they finish the look."
The 'look' Oscuro was talking about essentially meant the jacket and scruffy, worn synthetic jeans he wore. Jaeger was pretty sure that hadn't been a 'look' for at least four decades - the sunglasses he wore defiantly did nothing.
"Whatever you say," Jaeger said.
Oscuro chuckled.
"So, who's this scumbag we're tailing?" He asked.
Jaeger tapped her palm against the screen on the dash of the car, activating its 3D projection function. The face of a grubby looking teenager with a thin, pencil thin moustache that only served to garner sympathy from Jaeger appeared in front of them.
"Do you have to be so judgemental?" Jaeger asked, more sharply than she intended, "we only want to talk to him, he isn't a perp, just because he's a Beacher doesn't mean he's a scumbag."
Oscuro raised an eyebrow.
"You're right, partner," he sighed, not a hint of sincerity in his voice, "sorry."
Jaeger shook her head and pulled up various records of the guy they were looking for.
"Tommy Muchanza, nineteen" she explained, "we had him on our files as an informer up until a couple of weeks ago when he dropped off the map. Kotor and McFain think that he could know the ID of a perp involved in the EMBR smuggling ring we can't pin down."
Oscuro seemed at most half interested, still fiddling with his stupid sunglasses.
"If this is Kotor and McFain's case, why are we here?" He asked.
Jaeger swept the projection away.
"Because Kotor and McFaign are busy on the Astoria case like everybody else and if I spend one minute more in that place then homicide are going to have a spree on their hands," she said bluntly.
Oscuro laughed.
"At least they won't have to go far?" He chuckled, then glanced out of the front window, "there, I see him. Navy hoodie and baggy shorts."
Jaeger followed his eye-line and saw Muchanza a couple of metres ahead, handing a hunching, elderly shopkeeper a credit bar and taking something that she couldn't identify due to him quickly stuffing it into his jacket pocket, his expression and posture suspicious.
"You think that could be a weapon?" Oscuro asked quietly, "or a package for the ring?"
Jaeger shrugged.
"I haven't got a clue, but as we don't know what it is right now let's stay sharp."
"Sí jefe," Oscuro said, "let's do this," as he reached for the door open button, Jaeger grabbed his arm then quickly pulled away.
"We're only going to talk to him, Os," she warned him, "this isn't a chance for you to prove how big your dick is."
Oscuro nodded, raising his hands in mock insult.
"Got it," he grinned. Jaeger resisted the urge to scowl.
They left the car and walked across the market, had they been in a full patrol officer's suit, anybody within a hundred yard radius would've scrambled, regardless of whether they'd committed a crime recently or not - such was the relationship between the NMPF and the people they were meant to protect and serve.
Still, at least they weren't MetSec, Jaeger repeated to herself in her head, realising she was doing it more and more often lately.
As they passed, the shopkeepers began to eye them suspiciously, trained to recognise a patrol officer even without their skin. Some of them shifted nervously but none of them raised the alarm and the quietly erratic atmosphere stayed steady.
Jaeger glanced at Oscuro carefully - his posture was raised and threatening like a gorilla, his spine like steel and his stride careful, dominant and measured. He was giving them away before they'd even opened their mouths.
They stopped behind Muchanza who was perusing another store set further back into the scrum. Before she'd even said it, she knew she'd made a mistake.
"Tommy Muchanza?" She asked, tapping the kid's shoulder, relaxing her body so it wasn't clear she was expecting trouble and hoped it would be enough to keep the peace.
Muchanza turned to them, his eyes going wide, his legs already scrambling.
Oscuro reached out too heavily and tried to grab him, but the skinny teen managed to wriggle out of his grip. Jaeger felt almost happy for him for a split second before she remembered her duty and took off after him.
She was faster than Oscuro but not as fast as Muchanza, so was already tailing the kid before Oscuro had even managed to start lumbering after them.
The crowds parted with surprised yelps and shouts as the two bolted between two rows of stalls.
"Tommy, stop!" Jaeger called after him, knowing that even if he could hear her through the manic hustle and bustle, and the adrenalin pounding through him that scattered his thoughts, he wouldn't obey.
A rusted old automated dolly carrying bags of something marked 'honeycomb' piled high chugged into their path, not advanced enough to notice them. Muchanza vaulted it easily, barely scraping the peak of the bags, but Jaeger mistimed it and rolled over clumsily, hitting the dusty ground awkwardly and struggling back into stride.
She chanced a glance back at Oscuro but couldn't see him - he'd probably been blocked by the hive-mind of the market, not understanding the situation but knowing enough to make the lives of the nearest NMPF officers as difficult as possible.
Jaeger threw herself into a right turn after the kid, into a darker, shadier part of the market. They flew past huddled crowds she didn't see long enough to identify.
Seeing a handrail coming up, she realised that the catwalk they were running over came to a dead halt, likely leading to a sheer drop to the next level of shacks and motley buildings.
She shouted out as Tommy threw himself up the bars like a primate and dropped over the edge.
Jaeger didn't know how far the drop was, but she didn't break stride, knowing that this could be the moment she lost him. Without slowing, she clambered up the metal railing and dropped over it with a cry.
She landed with a clumsy roll, the drop not being far enough to cause any serious injuries but scraping her bare hands on the dirty ground as she jumped up again.
Ahead of her, she could still see Tommy running, his shoulders sagging and his strides less measured. He was running out of steam - he might have been younger but she'd hazard a guess that he didn't have much in the way of fitness training.
They burst back into a busy street that seemed to run on forever, a straight line.
She thought down to the gun tucked inside her jacket, specifically the switch that activated its electro-bolt feature. It would stop him the moment she pulled the trigger, but an NMPF officer gunning down an unarmed kid in the middle of Playa Perdido, even with a non-lethal round, would cause more problems than it would solve.
Tommy spotted an escape in the form of a pile of boxes high enough to allow him to clamber up onto the buildings either side of him, and took it.
He was already disappearing over the roofs above her by the time Jaeger had scrambled up after him.
On the roof, Jaeger could see for rows upon rows of shacks and shanties either side of her as she vaulted over the gaps between the buildings in front of her, almost to the polluted black oceanfront that surrounded Playa Perdido like a prison wall.
Tommy was slowing as he tripped over his own lanky legs and fell from the roof he was on, rolling over the edge with a cry to the ground below.
By the time Jaeger reached him, he was already limping away.
Like a lion making the final burst at its prey, she carefully lowered herself to the ground floor, knowing the chase was over the second she cornered Tommy in dead end alleyway, blocked off by a sky-high wall of discarded building equipment.
"Tommy, stop!" Jaeger repeated, not realising how out of breath she was until she gasped the words.
Tommy turned to her and raised his arms, before leaning over and vomiting.
"You need to relax, kid," she choked out, finally managing to catch her breath, "I just want to talk."
Tommy still looked erratic, but his hands were raised and she didn't think he was a threat.
"We just need to take you in for some questions, OK?" She said carefully.
She was stepping forward and preparing to slap cuffs on him as a precaution when Oscuro entered the alleyway, his oversized, over-compensating blaster drawn and lit up like a Christmas tree. Even Jaeger felt threatened as the tension in the alleyway suddenly ramped up.
"Os, relax," Jaeger warned.
"On your fucking knees, mierda," he spat like an animal.
Jaeger could still feel her heart pounding as Tommy glanced at her once, his eyes wide like a scared puppy, his mouth and thin lip hair trembling. Then he bolted.
He was aiming for the gap she'd left open to her left, a final, terrified push for freedom borne of misfiring thought processes inside a brain now ruled by the short-sighted need for survival.
Then, Oscuro pulled the trigger on his blaster and shot the kid dead.
Jaeger felt herself crying out inadvertently as she watched Tommy's fragile looking body suddenly go limp as the rounds hit him centre-mass. He scraped along the ground for a moment before coming to a dead stop.
She heard Oscuro exhale and half-chuckle.
"You... bastard," she choked, feeling how wide her eyes were, kneeling next to Tommy's body, checking his pulse but knowing he was already dead.
"Piece of shit was charging us," Oscuro said plainly, his words obviously fake and without self-belief. He'd shot because he'd wanted to.
Jaeger felt rage welling up inside her, years of withheld anger and disenchantment surging from within.
She rose to her feet and pulled her gun from its holster, aiming it square at Oscuro, who raised his eyebrow.
"On your knees," she screamed, knowing then how crazy she must've looked - this wasn't how she was meant to act, "get the fuck down, detective."
Oscuro paused for a moment, then dropped his gun, raising his arms.
"Okay hermana," he said quietly, "just relax."
He dropped to his knees as Jaeger scrambled for the terminal strapped to her wrist, hitting the button for station operator, it pinged green as it connected her.
"This is First Class Detective Yasmin Jaeger," she manage to splutter, "I've just witnessed a code three-four-six, excessive use of force by Detective Oscuro," she could feel her head spinning as Oscuro just stared, "we have a citizen down, requesting back-up."
It took a few moments but the terminal acknowledged her request and informed her that an arresting vehicle was en-route.
Oscuro simply bowed his head as Jaeger glanced over her shoulder to the mouth of the alleyway. A crowd of shocked faces had gathered, only seeing one of their own dead on the ground and her gun raised. They began to shout.
She couldn't have known at that moment that Pandora's Box had been opened, so she just kept her gun raised and tried not to cry.