nearly toppled over, a dozen fresh bruises flashed with pain. I groaned, and then glared at the cop. “A little help here.”
Officer Smitty crossed his arms. “Not until I get a full confession about what you did.” I caught the hint of a smile at the corners of his eyes. “Oh, you’re going down this time gypsy.”
Damn enforcers. Posers mostly as the whole thing is largely unnecessary, there isn’t really much crime in Nittsburg, at least not much that’s reported. It’s a volunteer organization, a band of vid-trained wannabes.
“Merk you, Smitty,” I said and began trying to heave DJ up the steep embankment. I wanted to make a statement to the cop, but, in my injured state, I was only joking myself. DJ was a tiny thing, but she might as well have been a cave bear. Suddenly she seemed to float up out of my arms.
“What the—” My head spun around and I ignored the pain in my shoulder. A troll, the troll in the business suit, had DJ cradled in one strong arm. “What do you think you’re…” I didn’t like that hairy creep troll-handling DJ one bit, but even as I began to complain, a flash of swirling white spots appeared in my field of vision.
“Humans,” rumbled deep in his big chest. He clamped a three-fingered hand around my arm and swept DJ and me up the embankment in two long steps. As we ascended the top a medical barge settled to a stop and a pair of medics hopped out. They ran over, a hover-gurney followed obediently behind them.
The troll laid DJ down on it; she looked like a doll in his huge hands.
“I’m OK,” I said, wriggling out of his grip. He started lumbering away. I swallowed my bigotry and ran up behind him. “Hey.”
He turned and watched me with his big, droopy eyes.
“Thanks. Thank-you…very much.”
“You’re welcome,” he said, carefully forming each syllable as if to emphasize that English wasn’t his first language.
Smart ass. “I owe you one.”
He slid off his tie and tossed it to me. “Have it dry cleaned.”
I watched him saunter away, and then held up the stained tie, which hung to the street in my hand. Then another siren approached. I turned and saw the mini-slope turn the corner at high speed. “Samuels,” I said reflexively. This would either save me some grief or send me to the mallow-mines, just depended on his mood.
The tiny vehicle slowed to nearly a stop, then settled to the street. As soon as it did the canopy slid back and Inspector Samuels leapt out. He walked in long, hurried strides to Smitty and another officer standing beside him. A couple of seconds later both officers pointed at me. Samuels turned and, upon seeing my feeble attempt a friendly smile and wave, made a disappointed face.
He walked over, setting his hands on his hips, holding back his waist-length blue enforcer jacket. “Jazz, what happened here?” His voice was icened with disappointment.
“Hey Jazz, are you OK? Is there anything I can do for you?” I fed him lines.
He rolled his big, brown eyes. “Come off it Jazz. I’ve got a storefront on fire, a gaping crater in the middle of the street, a melted carriage, injured citizens, and your name’s all over it. So forget the cute banter and tell me what the hell happened.”
I just smiled up at the tall man until his brow wrinkled.
“What are you smiling at?”
“You said I was cute.”
His mouth opened, he drew in a large breath and I braced myself for the verbal explosion, but his mouth snapped closed and his chin dropped to his chest. He was either stifling a laugh or cursing me under his breath, I couldn’t tell which, but when he looked back up his youthful face just looked confused. “What am I going to do with you, Cole?”
I rolled my eyes skyward as if in consideration. “You could ask me out.”
“I did, and you turned me down, remember?”
I shrugged, though the motion sent a new wave of pain coursing through my nerves. “I didn’t think you’d give up that easily.”
“Jazz,” a soft voice called to me, DJ’s voice. I looked over. She was sitting up on the gurney, but was slumped forward. I ran to her as fast as my battered legs would take me. Samuels was right behind me.
As I came to her I took her hand. “DJ, I’m here.” She was cut and bruised, but otherwise looked OK. I turned to the medic. “Is she all right?”
“Amazingly I think so, nothing broken anyway, no internal bleeding as far as I can tell; she might have a concussion. I want to take her to the Hospice, but she kept asking for you.
I bent at the knees so I could look up into her downcast eyes. “DJ, what is it? What’s wrong?”
Her half-lidded eyes burst open and her head snapped up with sudden vigor. “Jazz, Jazz,” she kept calling, looking around.
“DJ, I’m right here,” I said, concerned.
“Oh, there you are. Hi,” she said, smiling her familiar smile.
“Yes, DJ, I’m here. These men are going to take you to hospice.”
She grabbed my sore arm with considerable strength. I winced with the pain. “No, you can’t, you can’t,” she said, her voice in a near panic.
Cringing, I managed to work my arm free of her grip. I glanced at he medic. “Yeah, I’d say she has a concussion—or maybe some brain damage.” Then I laid DJ back down. “Don’t worry, I’ll come with you.”
She stated up at me, her pupils were huge back shadows that eclipsed her brown irises. I walked along as the medic glided her toward the barge. “That’s what I’m saying, you can’t, the stone, you have to wash the stone.”
The stone, the words stopped me in my tracks. I’d forgotten all about it. I glanced toward my wrist, but my crono-scale was gone. I must have lost it in all the action. I had no idea how much time I had left, but it couldn’t be much. I had to get to my office as quickly as possible.
I spun and spotted the el-station at the corner, but two hands clamped down on my shoulders. I cried out with the pain from the burn, then spotted the two enforcement officers, each holding one of my shoulders, through tear filled eyes. “Hold on,” one of them said, “you’re not going anywhere, you’re now a captive of the enforcement agency.”
“Let go of me you clod, I don’t have time for this,” I tried to wriggle free, but I was too tired and in far too much pain for a real fight. But I needed to get free, and fast.
“No can do gypsy,” Smitty said and I could hear the smile in his voice. “You have a date with the magistrate.”
Damn. If they took me I’d never live to see the magistrate.
“Hold on there officer, Jazz is my responsibility, I’ll take her,” Samuels said.
Smitty pulled me close like I was a favorite toy and I cried out again. “I was the first officer on the scene, so I take her in.”
“Smitty,” Samuels said in a tone best suited to coaxing a runaway dog into coming closer. “I’m the ranking officer here, you know the codes.”
For a full minute Smitty didn’t move and I’d swear I could feel the stone sitting heavy in my stomach. Then he shoved me toward the inspector. “Fine, take her. I don’t really care.”
Samuels caught me by the upper arm, and I was grateful he avoided the shoulder. “Then I’ll leave you two to clean up here.” Samuels dragged me to his mini-slope.
“Adam, this is serious, you have to listen—”
He shoved me hard toward the mini, grabbed my arms and slapped on a pair of vari-binders. My instincts wanted me to knock him senseless, steal his car, and race back to wash the stone. But Samuels was the closest thing to a friend I had in the enforcers, besides, as badly as I was hurting, I wasn’t sure that I could have taken him. With the cuffs in place, he took a step back from me. “Just get in Jazz, and save it for the magistrate because I’m done listening to you.”
I brandished my banded wrists before him. “That’s not fair. After all I’ve done for you, you have to listen to me.”
Quick as a rabbit he drew his stun-pole and shoved it in my face, his teeth were bared. “After all you’ve done for me I should st
un you senseless, now get in before I do.”
I got in. I’d never seen him react so violently toward me, and I’d given him good reason to in the past. He slid in beside me, closed the canopy, and took off, steering us toward city hall.
The stone rolled in my belly. I had to make him listen. “Adam, listen—”
“Shut it Jazz, I mean it. Just shut your mouth.” He rested the end of the stun pole an inch from my ribs and the tip crackled with a blue-silver mallow charge. Avoiding my eyes, he stared out straight ahead.
I huffed and slumped back into the seat, we were shoulder to shoulder in the tiny craft. The magistrate had no love for me. In fact, the last time I saw her she promised that if she ever saw me again she’d condemn me to the mallow mines for the rest of my life. One up side though, if I didn’t get back to my office and wash the not now stone, I’d serve a very short sentence. The down side, this was going to be a very painful death.
…to be continued.
-Next Time-
Jazz just barely managed her way back to Nitsburg, but DJ wasn’t as lucky. On top of that, Jazz has been taken into custody by the enforcer corps and the Not Now Stone is kicking up a serious fuss. She has minutes to get to her office and scrub the stone in her old pickle jar of solution, but the corps, the magistrate, and practically everyone else doesn’t like Jazz a bit, and would love to see her do a stint in the mallow mines. Her only consolidation is that if she doesn’t get the stone scrubbed, she’ll suffer a terrible and painful death long before she can