The Neo-Metropol Heist

14: Jaeger

Jaeger felt like she wanted to throw up all the way back to the station, so when they arrived, she did.
The back-up she'd called arrived and followed basic procedure - 'clean up' the body, try to calm down the situation. She'd demanded, and upon remembering her rank, ordered, that they arrest Oscuro, and they eventually did.
They asked him if he'd come quietly, and he said he would. They hadn't even bothered to cuff him.
The second they made it back to the station, they'd led him towards the office, where Lieutenant Aguilar waited for them, probably with the captain called down from top floor - they had to at least look like they gave a shit.
She'd made a quick diversion to stumble towards the bathrooms frantically before vomiting with the best aim she could muster into the sink, retching quietly to herself as tears rolled down her cheek.
The sink automatically detected it was in use and washed away the remnants of her lunch in seconds - she scooped up the water in her palms and splashed away the tears, trying to pat away the redness in her cheeks that blared out at her from the mirror.
Her wrist terminal started beeping angrily, telling her that her heart rate was rising, amongst other readings that she didn't want to know. She ignored it and headed out of the bathrooms and towards the organised crime floor.
As she came out of the elevator, a young officer she vaguely recognised as being polite and harmless - Stewart, she thought his name was, leaned out from the wall of desks, concern across his face.
"You okay, Jaeger?" He asked.
She mustered a weak nod and continued to walk through the floor towards Aguilar's office.
She didn't bother to acknowledge any of the other stares she received in the short walk across the floor, she didn't know how much they knew about the situation but it probably wasn't enough to earn them an opinion on it.
As Aguilar's door slid open, a wave of dread washed over her as she saw Oscuro's face.
He was sat in front of Aguilar's real-oak wood desk, an ostentatious and oversized statement of power cluttered with throw-away terminals and pictures of family. Jaeger had always thought Aguilar had weird looking kids, but she'd never mentioned it. Now it was all she could bring herself to think about.
The lieutenant herself, a heavy-set, hard-faced woman with scraped back greying hair and eyes like a circling vulture, sat in her high-backed leather chair, her face serious.
Stood next to her was the captain, Lutalo, the only person in the room that could rival Oscuro in terms of size and severity. He was at least, if not dead on, six five, with black hair shaved back, tidy and neat, and dark skin mottled and wrinkled from decades of stress. His nickname in the Marines had been Big Dog, and he was perhaps the only person in the world could pull of such a stupid name, mainly because everybody knew: you don't fuck with Big Dog.
"Detective Jaeger," Aguilar said in her husky voice, "please, have a seat," she gestured to the seat next to Oscuro.
Jaeger suddenly found her feet, steeling her spine. Remembered who they thought she was.
"No, thanks," she said, her voice firm.
She did move towards the desk, as close as she felt she could go. Lutalo acknowledged her with a nod.
He was a mysterious man - head of a police force riddled with corruption but with a demeanour and history that should have placed him anywhere else.
Oscuro glanced up at her, his eyes were lowered but his expression unreadable.
"Well, today went down the shitter quicker than a rabbit down a hole," Aguilar sighed.
Lutalo turned to his left and tapped a button on the wall behind him. The plain dark-grey fabric of the wall flickered and was replaced by an image of a news feed showing Playa Perdido. Overhead footage from a news drone showed crowds of people railing against a line of patrol officers.
"Didn't take long for this to kick off as soon as we pulled you two out," Aguilar said, glancing back at the footage before addressing Jaeger, "the beachers have been waiting for any fucking excuse for weeks now. You gave it to them."
Jaeger wanted to snap at her - either at her making it sound like she'd wanted Oscuro to blast an unarmed kid or her use of the slur for people from Playa Perdido, she didn't mind which. She pursed her lips and continued to listen.
She'd noticed the crowds starting to converge on them as they were escorted away by the back-up she'd called, she couldn't believe how much things had escalated even in an hour.
"We've got PR trying to downplay our involvement as best we can, but there's not much more we can do," Aguilar said, "now I'm going to ask you two straight and expect a mature fucking answer. What the hell happened?"
Jaeger didn't know how to form the words anymore, so Aguilar exhaled angrily and tapped the terminal screen set into her ridiculous desk.
"This is First Class Detective Yasmin Jaeger," she heard her own voice playing through the speakers, her voice higher coming from somewhere that wasn't her own mouth, "I've just witnessed a code three-four-six, excessive use of force by Detective Oscuro, we have a citizen down, requesting back-up."
Then she heard a string of desperate, panting curse words she didn't remember saying and Aquilar shut the recording off.
"Detective Jaeger," Aguilar said, "am I right in assuming you believe that Detective Oscuro shot and killed an unarmed citizen?"
"Yes."
Oscuro suddenly woke up as he heard the words.
"Detective Oscuro, do you claim that you felt threatened to the extent that you felt lethal force was both necessary and justified?"
Oscuro nodded and Jaeger felt a stream of a feeling that felt like rage but wasn't, that burned her inside like leaking battery acid.
"You know that kid wasn't a threat, you piece of-"
"Detective," Aguilar snapped, momentarily stemming the tide.
"He wasn't even armed," Jaeger said, the words trickling out of her lips limply.
Aguilar looked her in the eyes and Jaeger already knew what she was going to say.
"The arresting detectives found a knife on Muchanza."
Jaeger shook her head.
"That's a lie."
Maybe the kid did have a knife, maybe the officers on the scene had been Oscuro's friends - he had enough of them - but she knew that the kid hadn't even tried to pull it and he was trying to get away from the insane patrol officer that had pulled a gun on him without cause.
Lutalo just watched the situation carefully, his deep brown eyes the only part of his body that showed movement.
"Detective, I understand this has been an emotional day but I'm going to need you to reign your emotions in," Aguilar said, "I'm doing my best to sort this catastro-fuck out," she lied.
On the screen, the camera tracked an improvised explosive made from a bottle of liquid and a burning rag, it narrowly missed the line of patrol officers and struck a metal shack, spreading liquid fire and lighting up the dark night.
"Detective Oscuro," Aguilar said, her voice quiet and formal, "you will take a month's leave until this situation is resolved, paid."
"That's bullshit, Lieutenant," Jaeger snarled.
"Detective... "
"He's a murderer."
"Detective Jaeger," Jaeger was taken aback as Lutalo spoke for the first time. He didn't say anything more but she found herself saying nothing more.
Aguilar took advantage of Lutalo's commanding nature almost immediately.
"There will be a full investigation into Detective Oscuro's actions, but I won't lose one of my best detectives over a stupid fuck-up with some little juvie beacher."
Jaeger knew then that the only thing Oscuro had gotten out of killing an innocent kid was a free holiday. Even if an investigation did happen, even if for once bureaucracy stood aside and the system worked, he wouldn't get anything more than a slap on the wrist.
"This is screwed up, lieutenant," Jaeger said, changing her tact and looking at Lutalo instead, "Chief, you know this isn't right."
Lutalo just looked at her, his face half sympathetic but his expression stern and non-moving.
"I think we're done here," Aguilar said, standing up, "Oscuro, you will be escorted home by patrol, and I'm assigning you a detail," was that to keep an eye on him or for his own protection, Jaeger thought to herself, "Jaeger, go home and get some sleep, come back Monday with your head on straight."
Jaeger summoned all the strength she had to stop herself from vaulting the table and punching the woman in the face.
Aguilar moved to the door and Oscuro followed her, stopping momentarily and looking at Jaeger, his eyes anything but apologetic.
"Hermana, I..."
"Get the fuck out of my face," Jaeger said, her voice laced with venom.
Oscuro nodded and left the room, into the waiting arms of two officers who slapped him on the back like he'd just bowled a perfect game for the department bowling team. Jaeger wanted to be sick again.
"Lieutenant Aquilar, can I have a moment with Detective Jaeger?" Lutalo said, his voice rumbling like a train. Aguilar stood there for a moment before she realised that Lutalo was asking her to get out of her own office.
She nodded and followed after Oscuro, the door quietly hissing shut behind her.
"Captain Lutalo, I-" Jaeger started, stopping when Lutalo raised his hand.
"Save it, Detective," he said, his features growing sympathetic as he exhaled sadly, "I think that this whole thing is as fucked up as you do."
Jaeger felt relief wash over her, glad that she wasn't the only person left in the building with a soul.
"He's going to get away with this," Jaeger said, exasperated, "that kid wasn't a danger."
Lutalo nodded, sitting down in Aguilar's high-backed chair and sagging into it. Jaeger finally took the chair she'd been offered earlier.
"Sir, you have to..."
"What, Detective?" Lutalo asked, his voice sincere, "what do I have to do?"
Jaeger knew what she wanted to say but she also knew that Lutalo had already pre-empted her.
"You know as well as I do that this isn't down to me, I can lean on her, but this is down to Aguilar, and that woman is like a damn mule," he said, "the Beach just doesn't matter unless they're throwing molotovs and threatening revolution."
He gestured to the screen behind him, the chaos erupting in the ramshackle alleyways between the shacks of Playa Perdido. The words were harsh but true, which only made them more awful.
"This isn't right," Jaeger repeated redundancy, putting her head in her hands. Her skin was fevered and moist from sweat.
"You're a smart kid," Lutalo said. She should've been offended, she was a grown adult and Lutalo must have only been thirty years her senior, but the words were sincere and kind, so she wasn't, "you know what kind of world we live in."
He got up out of the chair and went over to the window on the far side of the room, the wide pane offering a panoramic of the tower across the street, various windows lit up in abstract pattern. Had they been a couple of floors higher, they would have been presented with a more interesting picture of the city around them.
"There's something wrong with it," Lutalo said, his voice quiet, "it's what everybody knows, deep down, but they're too scared to say it. Something went wrong and now everything is... like this."
Jaeger didn't interrupt him, even to agree. She just sat there and listened to his smooth, careful voice.
"It didn't used to be like this, you know, the world used to better. Yeah, sure, it's always been fucked up, people kill, steal, enslave their brothers, always have and probably always will, humans have a darkness inside them that isn't always easy to control.
"But under all that, it was good. There was good, and there was beauty. People were free and they used to stand up against tyranny, and now they're either too distracted, brainwashed or scared to, and that leaves us in a situation where bad men rule the world and people are forced to live in poverty like animals because there's nowhere else for them to go. "
His words were simple and spoken with a sadness that left Jaeger with a heavy heart.
"It doesn't have to be like this," was all she could manage. She'd never said more than five words at a time to the captain, and here they were now having the deepest conversation she'd had in a long while.
"You're right, and I hope that one day it changes, Jaeger," Lutalo said, "if the world had more people like you it wouldn't be in the state it is now.
"But right now, and as much as I hate it, that kid doesn't matter to anybody but his mother, and all I can do is promise you that I will do what I can to see that Oscuro doesn't get away with this."
Lutalo turned away from the window as he said the words, nodding at her once reassuringly.
Jaeger was still angry, but it was accompanied by something else now and finally she could breathe regularly.
"Thank you, sir," she said.
Lutalo nodded slowly, walking away from the window. Jaeger glanced up at the screen as the camera cut to footage of the patrol officers firing off warning shots in an attempt to disperse the still growing crowd.
"Sir, what's going to happen?"
"I don't know," Lutalo said, "I hope for their sake they give up before it turns ugly. There's a lot of Oscuros in that line-up and I can't stop them from here. But the people are angry and I don't know how long this could go on for."
Jaeger didn't like to think about just what kind of caliber of officer the NMPF had taken to recruiting, and Lutalo seemed totally resigned to it. For a moment she found herself wishing that all of the rioters would go back to their poverty and silence, because at least then they would be alive.
"Go home now, Detective," Lutalo said after a few moments of contemplative silence shared between them, "sleep, take the weekend to sort your head out."
"Okay," Jaeger said, her voice more quiet than intended.
She thanked him again, climbed out of the seat and left the room, hearing Lutalo exhale heavily as the door hissed shut behind her.
She walked through the OC floor and out of the building as quickly as she could, trying to avoid seeing anybody else.
She hailed a cab to take her home, and as it flew to her compartment, she saw smoke and the bright orange light of fire rising from Playa Perdido, her heart sinking.
When it landed, Jaeger stepped inside the automatic warmth of her space, dropped her jacket on the floor and slipped her holster off, leaving it on the kitchen side.
She stood there for a moment, in the darkness, motionless. Then, she swore tiredly, called her bed up from the ground with a tap of her palm, crawled into the sheets and cried herself to sleep.