Conflict Zero
Conflict Zero
By: Mike Scoont
Debriefing
A large black and gold German shepherd entered the room packed with the 123rd company of the Singford City Police Department; he was being trailed by his advisors. The commissioner was a husky Shepherd with broad shoulders, a long thick black snout, dark menacing eyes, but he had the heart of a satin pillow. Mason was an incredible commander, an even better person, and was damn good at leading our company. He is no dog to mess with, especially when it comes down to Business.
He shuffled his documents behind the lectern trying to look as though he was preparing a speech when he really had no idea what he was going to say, but that never stopped him, not Mason, he was impeccable at playing it by ear. He makes one deafening bark to clear his throat and to call everyone to attention. Standing tall behind the lectern like a classic German Shepherd he began his debriefing.
"Alright people, here's the beef." His deep powerful voice rumbled through the room. "Lately, we've all been noticing an increase in crime here in Singford City. From what we can gather, the increase is probably due to the recent escape of a faction leader by the name of Fritz Gerhaulte. Seems that a lot of the crimes have been thefts and break-ins. This looks like small potatoes, but are no doubt Fritz's minions gathering supplies. We have intelligence working on gathering as much information as they can on this matter so lets keep an eye out for any suspicious activity. Reports lead us to believe he is within the Singford vicinity. This is a grungy bunch, so keep a sharp eye for anything unusual about the slum activity; I don't want this bastard starting any revolutions in our city." He said it with underlying laughter and anger, some others laughed shortly. "As for the street patrols, Mikeson! You cause any more property damage with your MechUnit and I'm putting you on probation and running your ass through training again. Got that!?"
"Yes sir, sorry sir!" Mikeson, a slim rusty colored fox with a nervous disposition yells from the back row."I have raised the quota to compensate for the increasing circumstances, so get out there, keep a sharp eye and don't screw up. We already have a lot of pressure with Fritz's faction in the area and we don't need any more legal issues." Commissioner Mason finished his debriefing with assigning street and "MU" duty, That's short for Mech Unit, and then dismissing us with his usual "Keep those streets clean and in line!" cheer. A few officers growl and groan in response as they rise from their chairs and head for their duties.
"Do you believe this guy, street patrol four days in a row, Come on give me some metal to drive man!" My partner complained excitedly.
"Oh chill" I patted the top of his snout with my fingertips. "It's not so bad, just think, surly someone is getting tired of MU duty by now. Hell, look at Chris and Lory, they have been on MU duty since last week. You know they're gettin' tired be of sitting around in those damn metal suits waiting around for some action. Besides, you need the exercise, your looking a little thick around the waist." I laughed as I poked him in his obviously slim and fit stomach.
"Hey!" He swiped at my hand. "True, but at least the MUs are air conditioned. Besides, I don't hear Lory or Chris complaining, for all we know, they are having the time of their career." I just laugh.
"Right Ri'ya, right."
Patrol
Ri'ya was a gold and black lightweight canine who likes to over exaggerate things to make fun of his unfortunate situation. I have worked with him for seven years now here in Singford city. When you become a Singford patrol officer, you and your partner are considered sort of a married couple. You live in the same officer's apartment, you work the same hours as your partner, you practically eat and sleep with your partner. Although Ri'ya never dared to try to sleep with me; he has always respected me as a co-worker. Besides, he knows I'd tear him apart if he were to try.
"Ah foowee. Well, I guess its back to the streets. Come on Petra." He looked at me and smiled, "Let's go make a difference." No matter how mad, upset, or freaked out Ri'ya is, he always tries to look on the bright side of things, after of course he has made fun of it.
The start of our fourth day on street patrol went fairly regular. A couple parking violations, giving people directions, Ri'ya rolling his eyes at me in obvious boredom, you know, small stuff, nothing real stimulating, that was until about twelve thirty. Three male suspects came tearing through the streets with stolen items under each arm, two orange striped felines and the one in front was a tan mongoose and had a stack of Compact Data Disks in his jaws. Ri'ya, being superior to me when it came to reflexes, spotted them first just as they passed us, he pounced on the one in front and CDDs flew in every direction as his jaw hit the ground. I took pursuit of the other two; I followed them down one block and into an alley. I grabbed the thin tail of the closest to me just as he turned the corner. I pulled him to me with his tail and grabbed his legs causing him to fall and hit the ground hard. In an almost fluid movement, I jumped on his back, pulled his arms behind him and cuffed him. I looked up at the other suspect just in time to feel Ri'ya fly over my head and snatch him off the chain link fence he had been climbing. I hurried to Ri'ya to help him with his struggling suspect, but by the time I reached him he had the suspect under control.
"Good catch Ri'ya" I commented as he raised the cursing feline from the ground.
"Not too bad yourself bud." He laughed. "Ouch, not the tail man!"
"Yeah, lay off the tail officer." My suspect whined.
"Shut it! As of now, you have no further constitutional rights except the right to an attorney, the right to a trial, and the right to one VidComm to your Office of District Residence." I read them their Suspected Offender Rights, or SOR's, and Ri'ya called for a prisoner transport as we walked the two felines back to the canine who, to my amusement, I found sitting on one of the bus benches on his stomach with all four of his limbs tied behind his back like a yellow furry rodeo hog.
"What the hell took you so long man, untie me I didn't do nothin!" the canine screamed at us from his stomach. Ri'ya couldn't help but laugh when he realized what he had done to the suspect in the frenzy.
"Geez Ri'ya, did ya go a little over board there?" I laughed too.
"Damn it, this isn't funny man, untie me! Stop laughing at me!" we couldn't contain our laughter now and even bystanders observing the commotion started laughing uncontrollably. Ri'ya placed his suspect on his knees.
"Alright, alright, move along people." Ri'ya approached the tied suspect with his hands motioning the by standers away, then he pulled out his knife and cut the leg restraints and began reading him his SOR's. Just then my radio screeched and a female dispatch officer made an announcement.
"We have a triggered alarm system at the 107 Renaissance office building on South Brenedan Street. Need one unit to check out the situation." I pressed the Transmit button. "Petra 231, Copy that, Ri'ya and I will check it out, over." It screeched again. "Copy, be advised, office building should be empty of civilian entities."
"Copy that, Petra out. Looks like we got another gig." I announced to Ri'ya just as the prisoner transport arrived.
"Boy and look who just arrived, it's your golden steed to take you away. Aint that nice of the city and here you were trying to steal from it, what a shame."
"Stuff it pig!" one feline yelled. I grabbed Ri'ya's arm before he could reach over and slap the cat's whiskers off.
"Come one Ri'." I talked soft to calm him down and pulled him along the street. "There is an alarm triggered at the 107 Renaissance over on South Brenedan street, we need to go check it out."
"Alright what are we waiting for then?" Ri'ya asked excitedly as he started to jog down the street. I jogged barely one and a half step behind him down four blocks to the 107 Renaissance building.
Renaissance 107
This was a less active area of the city, Singford City has whole business districts that were inactive on certain days, they are referred to as "Ghost town days." Your daily schedule here in Singford city is determined by what part of the city you work and live in. This section was empty except for janitors and rats, thankfully for that we don't have to worry about civilians getting in the way.
The building was a ten story white flash metal tower with small window panes on each floor except the second and an overhang over the entrance. We hurried under to check the door, it was unlocked.
"Hmm, that's not a good sign." Ri'ya commented.
"Lets take it slow, remember, Fritz Gerhaulte and his Faction might be in the area, let's be careful and not take any chances." I cautioned.
"Good thinking." We glanced at each other in sync and we both armed our pistols and replaced them unlocked in our holsters. The Front lobby was blue marble tile and had a large brown marble reception desk in front of two massive stainless steel elevators. The empty building was eerily still and quiet.
"Yuck, talk about outdated 2120's, someone needs to get in touch with their interior designer." Ri'ya joked and we allowed ourselves to chuckle only momentarily before realizing the possible situation we were in. On the left wall from the reception desk, there was the usual outdated 2120's security office door. This was the central security for the whole building, supposedly impenetrable to any personnel other than police. That Myth was quickly dispelled by many terrorists in the past, so they were discontinued from that point on. Willing to take advantage of the security office, we moved cautiously to the door and I punched in my security clearance code on the keypad of the door. The vault like door depressurized, emitted a stream of fog from the edges and then opened suddenly.
"Okay, you check out the camera feeds and I'll call up the building's security system's activity log." I ordered as I took my position at the main security console, a big old clunky looking piece of machinery, and started typing.
: S/ OPEN ACTIVE SYSTEM SECURITY LOG
: "NO ACTIVE SYSTEM OR INVALID COMMAND."
"Hmm, that's odd."
: S/ DISPLAY ACTIVE SYSTEMS :
SYSTEM STATUS
POWER ACTIVE
WATER ACTIVE
NETWORK ACTIVE
SECURTY INACTIVE
COMMUNACATIONS UNAVAILABLE
PROBLEM WITH ONE OR MORE SYSTEMS DETECTED. PLEASE REQUEST SYSTEM MAINTINANCE IMMEDIATELY.
Curious, I picked up the phone receiver and held it to my ear, there was no tone and a bad feeling came over me suddenly like a cold blanket of water. "Ri'ya, check this out, the security system has been deactivated and the communication are..." His voice rang out interrupting me with a sharp and sudden advisory into his radio.
"Command, we have a conflict 18-7, intruders in the Renaissance building 107 on South Brenedan Street." His voice was firm and confident; he always had a knack for staying cool in intense situations, it's when it gets personal that he starts thinking irrationally. "Confirmed three heavily armed and armored personnel possible more. M4Tk assault rifle, P-130 Subs, and what looks like an SGI Pulse rifle." I glanced over at the monitors and saw three raccoon looking creeps armed with some serious hardware; just then Ri'ya drew his gun and hurried to shut the security door. "Requesting MU and AI backup immediately, Suspects are unaware, and two security monitors are inactive, over." An AI is an Armored Infiltrate, they can enter a building by any means possible, they are heavily armored, and extremely deadly with their weapons. His voice was confident, but when he turned and looked me in the eye, I could see a hint of fear. Not an irrational type of fear, but the fear that says, "Here we go, hope I see you on the other side." I reassured him with a smile and a wink; he calmed down a little and just stared at me until the radio screeched.
"Shadow" the voice whispered. That's was the code word to be unseen and unheard, every officer is trained to handle such delicate situations, even hostages; it increases police opportunity. We pulled our radio ear piece out from a small pouch on our Tactical Patrol Vests and clipped them to the rim of our ears. No sound would come from the radio's speaker, no sound would come from us, and we were to be unseen. "Be advised, backup is en rout. Assess situation further and remain unseen until backup arrives, over."
"Copy command," he received the orders and processed the situation in his head. "Ok Petra, check this out." He whispers to me in a silly downtown accent to lighten the mood as he does in every stressful situation. He said it while trying to defuse a twenty pound block of C4, "Check this out, you sit right here with me and were gonna ice this firecracker." I remember him saying to me as if our lives depended on him to set the right mood. "We need to watch the monitors to confirm a head count. Either this is an outdated system with some maintenance issues, or they are trying to hide something by breaking those monitors. In either case, we need to check out what they're up to up there, but we don't need them to start shooting, they have bigger guns than us." He did not chuckle at his own comment, nor did I.
I thought about what possible situations this might turn into.
"Let's think about the situation. Okay, it is possible it could be a major theft, maybe a bank or data heist, or retaliatory business terrorism. It's common for big businesses to use terrorism to weaken their competition. This could be an action from our neighborhood revolutionist Fritz Gerhaulte, then again it could just be a mis-planned terrorist attack. Let me see if I can find anything about this building in the computer and maybe I can find out what is behind the blind spots in the surveillance." I returned to the console to find out what companies resided within the building.
: S/ DISPLAY TENENT INFORMATION
: STRUCTURE TENENT INFORMATION:
BUSINESS REGISTRATION
DISTRICT LEGISLATURE AND REGISTRATION
DISTRICT DEVELOPMENT OFFICES
INTERNATIONAL SECURE DATA DEVELOPMENT INC. (SECURE)
INTARNATIONAL DATA RELATIONS (SECURE)
"Okay, we got secure data development and international data relations; guess this some heavy data piracy." I laid out the situation. "Where are the blind cameras located in the building?"
"Can't tell with this old security system." He replied still staring at the monitors like a hawk.
"Okay, never mind. I'll just go up and try to see..."
"Ah fur balls! There goes another camera. Yeah we need to find out what they are doing up there."
"Alright, I've seen the way you dance in the shadows, and trust me, it isn't pretty." I commented as I started to take off my boots revealing my soft rubber tactical slippers. "I'm going up to check it out; you keep on the monitors and tell me if I'm getting hot or cold." Normally I would expect him to say something along the lines of, "Come on, do I really need a monitor to tell that?" but his jokes took side to the seriousness of the situation, I have never seen him so tense before, but then again we have always known what we are up against. Mysteries are one of the few things that have a way of getting to him.
"Will do." he responded coldly. I knew what I was getting my self into, or at least I thought I knew. Angry looking raccoon terrorists with big guns can be a serious hazard to my health, I'll have to keep myself unseen or else hope that I can shoot damn straight. I punched the door release button and the door depressurized. "Hey" I turned back to look at him. "Be careful." I shot him another wink and left the security room. Without a sound I ran past the left side of the massive elevators and down a hallway ending with a single door leading to the stairwell; the door was wide open. Like a ghostly specter, I ran silently to the second floor door; it too was wide open.
Conflict Zero
"Not much for discrepancy are they?" Their tracks lead me right to them. The door opened perpendicular to a hallway leading to the left. The hallway then opened up to the left just past the stairwell door. There was a large cushion bench in the middle of the open room and some cheap office plants at each end.
"Petra, I got a visual of you on a monitor," Ri'ya's whisper echoed in my ear. "Hold on a sec... Ok, it looks like the opening just ahead of you is clear." I proceeded to the corner at the end of the left wall crouching with my body tight against the wall. "There are two doors just around that corner, the closest one to you is closed, the other one is wide open." I rounded the corner and proceed to the nearest door, I started to catch the angry scent of the raccoons when Ri'ya's whisper shot into my ear again. "Move! Hostile in open doorway!" I reacted with instinct and jumped to the ground in front of the bench, catching myself so lightly that I landed without a sound. In one swift maneuver I was down and rolled under the bench out of sight just as two terrorists emerged from the open door. Luckily they had been arguing in a jumbled language and didn't notice a thing. "Good move, that was too close." Ri'ya complimented me. The two continued to argue just outside of the two doors until one stormed off back from where they came from. The other calmly walked to the closed door and entered the room. I waited for a moment to see what would happen next, and then I heard a loud destructive ruckus coming from the left doorway, no one came to investigate. He was probably burning off some steam so the others didn't bother to stop him; best not to anger you're partner too much, especially one so unstable. So I took advantage of the situation; I rolled out from under the bench and moved to the edge of the left door and peeked in. Sure enough, the pissed off terrorist was throwing around chairs and bashing computer screens and desks. He was really unstable, so much so that I could probably investigate the other room while he is distracted by his rage.
"What are you doing?" I pointed two fingers at my eyes so he could see on the monitor, and then pointed to the door on the right. I just needed a look, that's all, just a peek. I moved across the left door to the edge of the other and peeked in. The left wall extended straight from the edge of the door, the right wall had an open closet door and then opened to a large room with numerous office cubicles. I couldn't see anyone in the room from where I was at, so I moved silently into the room and slipped into the closet door. It was dark and I could see small slivers of light beaming in from a vent leading into the main room. It was just about eye level and I could barely see over the bottom edge. What I could see was the tops of the cubicles, there was one of the raccoon's head moving about dipping and quickly swaying about the cubicles.
"What is he doing?" I thought to myself. I stretched my legs and feet as much as I could stand. His head just kept bobbing and swaying, dipping for seconds at a time then coming up to bob and sway again. I bent my knees and hopped a little and then it struck me. I saw a glimpse of a bloody, beaten face lying on the floor among the cubicles. My heart dropped, it sank like a cold rock in a pool of despair when I realized what I just saw. "Command," I whispered with a shaky voice. "We have a Conflict Zero, hostage confirmed. I repeat, Conflict Zero." Now it's clear what they were doing, they had hostages or at least one, and since they cut the communications line, it's obvious they are not willing or planning to make negotiations. They must have not been a part of the terrorist's plan; the civilian had been in the wrong place at the wrong time and now their life lays in the hands of three unstable and possible pissed off terrorists.
"Copy that, what is the current status?"
"Communications lines from building are cut, still three confirmed aggressive hostiles, one confirmed momentarily live hostage. Possibly accidental situation, they must not have planned to negotiate hostages or they wouldn't have cut the lines. Permission to further assess and stabilize the situation." A pause from the radio.
"Backup advised, hostage scenario. Proceed with extreme caution and discrepancy. Don't miss." the female voice advised. The enraged continued to trash the other room, while the other beat the hostage. I cautiously left the closet and entered into the main room under the cover of the cubicles. I circled quickly around the perimeter of the room avoiding the center where I could hear the brutal beating taking place. A cross shaped path cut through the center of the cubicles. Down the pathway I could see the back of the raccoon's Kevlar vest and the hostage lying on the floor at his feet. The raccoon knelt down to the suffering bore wearing a bloodied business suit. My worst fear came to light as the raccoon wrapped his large clawed hands around the bore's neck and started to squeeze the life from him. My heart pounded and I felt the rush of adrenaline flush through my body as I silently and quickly approached the raccoon from behind. Without so much as I whimper, I grabbed his snout with one hand and the side of his head with the other and quickly broke his neck.
In an instant his body went limp, his grip loosened from the bore's neck and his lifeless body fell sluggishly to the floor. I pulled the hostage by his arms behind the backside of the cubicles out of sight. He was unconscious by now, but still alive, so I returned to move the other body from view. As I started to pull on the body, a scream came from in front of me, I looked up to see the third hostile grabbing for his gun. I released the body and drew my gun with lightning reaction from my hip and fired a shot at him. The shell struck the wall behind him just above his left shoulder. I fell on my back and rolled behind the cover of the cubical just as his automatic rifle burst a round of shells down the aisle. I hear him scream for his partner, by the sound of his voice and the silence of the gun, I could tell he wasn't looking at my direction. At that moment, another rush of adrenaline waved through my already shaky limbs and I popped up form behind the cubicles, took aim, and fired a shot at his head. It struck him just above his left eye and he dropped like a bag of potatoes behind the cubicles.
Everything was still for a moment, I froze stupidly waiting to see what would happen, suddenly my whole left shoulder burned and felt as though it was about to explode. My pistol dropped behind the cubical where my hand had been suspended over and I dropped down behind the cover, I had been shot. "How stupid." I cursed myself holding my shoulder as it burned, throbbed, bled, and even smoked, it was a sulfur round and it was burning me from within my shoulder. I crawled quickly to the unconscious bore. "Now what?!" I thought. The immense pain, the likes of which I had never felt, clouded my mind and I couldn't think of anything to do, so instinctively I covered the bore's body with my own small body in hopes my armor would somewhat protect him. My heart pounded and my lungs seized up, I realized that I was about to die doing my job, trying to save this person's life. My eyes filled with tears, but I was not sad, a teardrop splashed on the bore's sports coat, but I was not angry. I waited for my end. The flame burned within my shattered shoulder and I waited, then it came. One shot was fired and I tensed up feeling a stinging in my back. The shots sounded muffled and further than I was expecting. Maybe that's normal just before you die.
Savior
"Officer down! Officer down! Officer, are you alright!" An unfamiliar but friendly voice echoed in my increasingly fuzzy consciousness.
I woke up in a hospital bed, two blurry faces lingering over me. As they came into focus I saw that the one was Ri'ya, but the other one was unfamiliar.
"Hey hey! Look who's back from the dead!" Ri'ya cheered.
"Glad to see you pulled through." the other person said. He looked and sounded like a young ferret that I had seen once before.
"Petra, this is AI specialist Binks, he's the one that came in at the right moment and saved your butt." He started to laugh. "Ha, you got saved by a rookie; he just got in last week." His insult to injury did not sit well with me in my groggy mood. I growled at them and Ri'ya laughed, Binks did not, he looked embarrassed. As though he though he made a mistake and now I was mad at him.
"I'll leave you to your seething and self depravation." Ri'ya laughed again and I felt my ears blushed with anger. "But seriously, you did one hell of a job, the hostage is alive and well with only a broken snout and the computer data was safely recovered. I think you earned your rest so we'll just skip on out of here, I'll tell the nurse to bring you some ice cream, you deserve it." He snickered again as the two left my side.
"Binks!" I called for him with a rough scratchy voice. He stopped in the doorway looking nervous. "Thanks."
"Anytime Lieutenant."