A Taurus-class shuttle in standard Octavarium colors touched down in the hangar at Canberra Star City, and two figures emerged. One was a man in a green flightsuit, with a long silver-white coat over it. The other was a pale, dishevelled man in black.
"Take a day, that's all I'm saying," the man in white said, checking his handgun while his dark-garbed gestured for the guards to stand down. "You're not in a good place right now. Take time to plan this out, that's how we survive out here," he added, putting his pistol away to placate the guards.
"Yes... right. I need resources I don't have right now, scanners, a long-range ship. Corvo. We have one of those."
"Victor, perhaps I wasn't clear enough," the calmer man said with a sigh. "This is not optional. You remember the contingency; I have full power. I can, and if I must I will, lock you out of all base functionality and ensure that you cannot leave. I would prefer instead if you do the smart thing and take a day to compose yourself and gather information. See what Kelly knows, see what Jones knows."
"Kane could be dying out there!" Victor hissed.
"And... where, Victor? There's entirely too much space in space for 'pick a direction and go' to be effective. Maybe he's stranded in Orkney. Maybe he's lost in the Omicrons. He could be on Baden Baden nailing krauts for all we know. If we don't know where to search, we cannot search effectively. Am I wrong?"
Victor took a breath and steadied himself. "No. No, you're right. I'm being irrational. I need to plan this out properly."
The man in white nodded. "Good. I'm not saying you have to have a party here, as funny as that thought is. Go ahead and gather information, make your preparations. Just don't run off half-cocked. I'll keep things running while you're away."
"Thank you, Alex. Make sure you explain the situation to Fairfax."
Victor walked away quickly but calmly, in the manner of a man on a mission. When he had gotten out of sight, Alex radioed docking control. "Weaver, Commission business. Victor Delacroix and Escher are not, under any circumstances, to take flight for the next 24 hours, under their own power or anyone else's. Should either leave after twenty-four hours pass, priority clearance is to be granted. If either attempts to depart before the time has elapsed, contact me immediately. Authorization code 13-Lima-Zulu-96."
"Control, acknowledged. Welcome home, Weaver."
Sacramento, Planet Los Angeles
2:17 AM, November 3, 803 AS
On any other night, this part of Sacramento would be quiet. And indeed, vehicle traffic was sparse and pedestrian traffic nonexistent. But the shattering of glass and blaring of alarms made a quiet night impossible. Local homeless were woken by the commotion at a local spacer outlet, New Horizons. Stores like this were common around large spaceports, and they carried everything a traveler would need - food, water, tools and parts for minor repairs, and so on. The more "upstanding" ones were rarely open all night, to avoid association with the kind of pilot that avoids the light of day.
The teenager that hopped back out through the broken window ten minutes later had chosen his target well. The only witnesses were a few homeless people, and they weren't all that likely to cooperate with the authorities. Especially after he dropped a bag of food for them. Though his clothes and hair were disheveled, his eyes revealed a clear, calculating mind, that of someone who knew the streets well.
Not quite well enough, though. Rounding a corner he bumped directly into a young man in a long, silvery-white coat. "Going somewhere, kid?" he asked with a smirk.
"What's it to you?" the kid replied, picking up the bag he dropped in the impact.
"Alexander Crowley, LSF," he said, flashing his badge by way of explanation. "I'm going to guess you didn't pay for that."
"Store was closed, and a man's gotta eat."
"Oh, of course," Alex replied, rolling his eyes and restraining the boy. "Any weapons or sharp objects?"
"Are we actually doing this? Nah man, I'm unarmed."
Alex began standard pat-down procedures and continued, "Weren't expecting LSF, eh?"
"Figured if anyone saw me it'd be one of those useless rent-a-cops. This their job, right?"
Pat-down completed to his satisfaction, Alex replied, "Yeah, usually, but since the rent-a-cops are useless, sometimes the LSF likes to send out a patrol. Keep them on their toes. Let's get you in the car," he continued, cuffing the boy and leading him to the waiting car. "So why are you out here this late?"
"Thought I'd see the sights, y'know?"
"Don't bullshit me, kid. I know you don't live nearby, unless you're homeless."
"Yeah, well, after a while I got tired of my aunt beating me, so I guess you don't know as much as you thought."
"... Hm. Well, not that far now."
Alex's silver car pulled up to the local juvenile facility shortly afterward. Most juvenile offenders were still handled by government agencies, if only because of child labor laws keeping the LPI uninterested in the work. The facility was manned by only a small graveyard shift, and the woman at the front desk seemed slightly surprised to see the LSF agent bringing in another "visitor".
"Name," she asked flatly.
"Victor Delacroix," the boy replied.
"Address," she droned on.
"Don't have one," he answered. She glanced over at Alex, who silently nodded.
"Crime?"
"Mark him down for vandalism," Alex said, surprising the boy. He raised a hand to keep him quiet and continued, "Broke a window over at New Horizons, not a lot of damage."
"Understood. Cell D-23, we'll hold him until sentencing. Need a guard or can you handle it?" she asked, handing Alex a clipboard with some paperwork.
"I have it under control, thanks. Come along now, kid." The two left the lobby and went into the main body of the facility. Blocks A through C were set aside for more long-term residents, and they passed through all of them on the way to Block D. The design was intended to scare minor offenders by forcing them to see worse offenders, but of course at this time of day the effect was... rather diminished.
"So, what, you think you're doing me a favor?" Victor asked, about halfway through Block C.
"There's no justice without mercy, kid."
"Oh and I bet you think you're a real angel for this. Goddamn spooks."
Fresno, Planet Los Angeles
1:08 PM, March 28, 804 AS
Alex hadn't been with the LSF for terribly long, so the encounter with the homeless teenage food thief was a pretty prominent memory in his career. There would always be those that slipped through the cracks in the system, he surmised, but it still hurt to see. Victor's stay in Liberty's juvenile justice system was a short one, thanks to Alex downplaying his crimes, but he'd end up stuck in one of the LPI prison-factories before long at this rate. So Alex put out a few feelers to try to track the boy down, try to get him on the right track. Eventually he was able to get a message passed along to meet outside a local restaurant. Soon enough, Victor came around the corner and Alex waved him over to the table.
"I haven't done anything yet," he immediately said.
Alex laughed. "I'm sure. No, I just wanted to talk. Have a seat, I already ordered. Thought you might like some actual food instead of Synth's processed imitation food product."
Victor shrugged and took the offered seat across from Alex, just in time for the waitress to bring out their meals, grilled fish and vegetables imported from Cambridge. "So what's this about, really? People here don't just give you anything."
"Hm, suppose that's fair," Alex replied, accepting his guest's framing. "Let's say, then, that my bosses are aware of my little lie in November." A lie, of course; the details of a minor juvenile offense were beneath notice. "Now, they don't want me to bring you in, but they're hoping we can keep you out of trouble."
"Uh-huh," Victor replied between bites. "So you got caught and you're hoping I don't get you in trouble."
Alex smiled. "If that's how you want to see it, sure." Victor found something offputting about that reply, but didn't push the matter. "So I'd like you to try to keep your nose clean for a while. Maybe head down to the spaceport, see if you can get some work helping with cargo."
"You know, I'm pretty sure that's against some labor law or another."
Alex sighed. "Yeah, probably is. But it's like this, you're not going to try for a foster home, right?"
"Not happening."
"Right, so the way I see it, you can do something harmlessly illegal that keeps you out of trouble, or you go back to breaking and entering and we both have a problem." The LSF agent paused before continuing, "Look, no one really cares about one or two fourteen-year-olds doing some work to make ends meet. It's not worth prosecuting and it's usually doing us a favor by keeping them out of trouble and off the streets." He wrote a out a string of numbers on a piece of paper in green ink and added, "Here's a comm channel, one of the ones I use for anonymous tips. If you need help or if you see anything I might have an interest in, leave a message. Say it's from... Crow."
"Heh... knew it'd be something," Victor replied, folding the note and putting it in his wallet. "Seems fair enough to me."
Sacramento, Planet Los Angeles
3:59 PM, August 14, 804 AS
Another day, another circuit around Los Angeles investigating tips and chatting with vagrants and the questionably-employed. The Liberty Security Force had been attempting to track down a prominent cardamine smuggler, and the LPI had been their traditional useless selves, so they assigned a couple dozen agents to investigate. Unfortunately it haden't been terribly fruitful.
"Yeah, I mighta seen 'im," a man in an advanced state of dishevellment said. His shaggy hair was tangled and greying, and his grey jacket could be assumed to have once been a black one. His other clothes were in a similar state of disrepair. "Saw a man sneakin' around the spaceport after midnight just three days ago." His eyes went wide and he continued, "Man had three eyes."
"Three eyes," Alex repeated, cocking an eyebrow. "And how'd you see this in the dark?"
"They was glowin' green, man! Green like one o' them kraut ships."
"... light-amp," Alex muttered, waving for the man to continue.
"Maybe, yeah. Don't see somethin' like that every day, so I followed behind him. Easy enough, no one notices ol' Crazy Mike. Saw him climb into a... into a... one of them Bret ships."
"Freighter or fighter?"
"One o' them cargo ships, the really round ones."
"Clydesdale."
"Now, what I didn't get was, man just took off immediately. Don' they usually have to wait?"
"Yeah, yeah they do," Alex replied, nodding. 'Thanks, Mike, you've been a big help," he added, sincerely.
"Dan."
"I'm sorry?"
"My name's Dan. They just call me Crazy Mike."
"... uh-huh. Dan, then. Thanks," Alex replied after a pause, slightly confused. A beep from his earpiece interrupted him, and he turned away to look down at his phone. On it, a high-priority signal came through with just one word:
Crow.
He hurried back to his car and set its console to work triangulating the signal. Only seconds later, the job was done - about three blocks away, in a well-known shifty part of town, which was part of why Alex was in the area to begin with. He arrived shortly later to find Victor on the ground in an alleyway being beaten by four men, and... not terribly disturbed by it, if you trusted his words.
"My sister can hit harder," he taunted between kicks, "and she's been dead for three years!"
Of course, if you believed adolescent bravado, you'd be a fool. Especially since Alex had done some research on the boy, there never was a sister. "Gentlemen," Alex said on his way out of the car, "I believe that's enough." The beating continued as he approached. "Perhaps you didn't understand me," he said, kicking the knee out from under the closest of Victor's attackers. He dropped to the ground with a thud and a groan, slamming his kneecap into the cement. That finally got the gang's attention. "So, are we going to do this the easy way or the hard way?" Alex asked, sizing up his opposition. The three men still standing had the look of brutes, accustomed to force and the threat of force but without any training; Alex was unconcerned. Immediately the one toward Alex's left lunged for him. Alex responded by ducking under the attempted grab and punching him just below the sternum. "Ah, we've chosen the easy way, then. Excellent." The other two had begun to advance, which put the shorter man in the middle just in range for a spinning elbow strike to the face. Alex concluded the skirmish with another knee kick to the remaining target, just in time for a local LPI unit to show up.
"What's goin' on here?" one of the two officers said. Overweight, poorly-kept uniform, and Alex was pretty sure his gun wasn't secured properly.
"Alexander Crowley, LSF," Alex replied, showing his ID. "These four men were attacking this teenager. The boy needs medical attention, and the attackers have been incapacitated. You take care of them, I'll get the boy to the hospital," he explained, helping Victor to his feet. Now that he had a proper unobstructed view, he could see that Victor was very much not in good shape. His face was bruised and bloody, and from how he flinched when he was getting up there was probably a cracked rib or two as well. But he'd live. Alex carefully helped Victor into the back of his car and then began driving him to the hospital.
"The hell did you do to them?" Victor asked, with pained laughter.
"We learn to defend ourselves in the LSF. They were in decent condition, but had no training. Against a healthy, trained agent... Well. The takedown was less painful than what's next for them, though."
"Yeah? What's that, then?"
"They'll be processed, I'll probably have to testify, and then they'll be in San Jacinto for a few months to pay their debt to society. Maybe years, if they do something stupid while they're there."
"Ah, yeah, gotta keep the prison-factories running. 'Debt to society' my ass, it's not 'society' profiting off their free, involuntary labor. I think I read something about slavery being illegal, y'know."
"Their work in the factories is accounted for, section 6, paragraph 2. Stewart's Pocket Guide to the Law is a handy resource, but it doesn't cover everything."
"Yeah but, like... you know they just pin more arbitrary shit on prisoners that they get decent work out of, right? The hell kind of justice is that? Liberty and justice for the megacorps, and to hell with everyone else."
Alex had some difficulty arguing with the boy, and greatly appreciated the proximity of the hospital.