Fiction: The Evil Possum and the Eurypterids, Part 4!

 Since I'm still deciding how to balance this story with my usual blogging, I decided to try to get ahead with an extra post. This ended up being the chapter with all the exposition I had cut before, and it's actually the one I've revised least. Here's links for the first and previous installments, and why not one for the "first" Evil Possum adventure?

As the new day dawned, Percy was back in the briefing room. He allowed his own partner to stand next to him. On closer examination, the rodent was 1.2 meters tall and probably about 50 kg. His fingers were partly webbed, but still dexterous. He met the gaze of the blue-haired woman; she gave a subtle, perhaps grudging smile. The other rookie who had so far drawn his attention was clearly trying to stay as far from her as possible. He noted one more who looked out of place. It was a rodent, evidently the same species as his new partner but evidently female, with a glossy and distinctly red pelt. “Well, I hope you all had a good night,” Percy said. “Now, any of you have any new questions?”

The blue-haired woman raised her hand. “My name’s O’Keefe, I transferred from Social Services,” she said. “Do you think hate crimes against non-humanoids are a problem?”

“Now you sound like a reporter,” Percy said. “The first thing I’ll say, the Arcostate Administration doesn’t recognize `humanoid’ as a category. `Non-humanoid’ is even less meaningful.”

The nervous rookie spoke up. “Hold on, of course `humanoid’ is a real thing. We know humans built this city...”

Percy gave him a coldly mechanical stare. “Actually, we don’t know that,” he said. “Our founders rebuilt the city, from the core infrastructure and records they found. Records from which all direct information on the original inhabitants had been erased.”

“But you were here,” the rookie said. “Isn’t that right? And you sure look human.”

“It’s not that simple,” Percy said. “But you should be asking the Historians, not me. Now, does anyone have a question about the job?”

An oviraptorosaur raised a hand. “Do we get a gun?”

* * *

 

The marsupial lay on the cushions for well over an hour, motionless except for a sporadic twitching of its ear. “Should we call someone?” Wes asked finally.

“Who?” Daisy said.

Even as she spoke, the creature’s eye opened. He shot upright, drawing the miniature broomhandle pistol from his vest in the same motion, and cried out, “Anja! The panzerfaust!”  After a moment, he took his finger off the trigger and began surveying the surroundings, without seeming to take any particular notice of the apartment’s occupants.

“They are here,” the marsupial spoke, still taking no notice of the humans. “They think they are strong, they think they are smart, and they do as they please because they think that makes them better. Better than ME!”  His gaze darted about. “But I am stronger than they know, and wiser than they can imagine. I have fought them and I have won, every time!  But the rest refuse to learn, and there are more, always more!”

He blinked and twitched his ears, the evident equivalent of shaking his head. “My apologies for any disturbance,” he said. “I appear to have absorbed a small quantity of neurotoxin.  The effects should pass momentarily.”

“Daisy, look at this,” Wes said. The news feed projected onto the window showed a report of a dangerous exotic organism, complete with a heavily blurred image of one of them attacking a large dog. This was quickly followed by lengthy pronouncements about the necessity of the Quarantine department and the foolhardiness and irresponsibility of those who broke it. The marsupial watched for a moment and gave a single “HA!”

“The Department sent me to destroy the first of them seven months ago,” the marsupial said. “It was openly displayed at a high end restaurant in Aster Plaza, frequented by a number of Municipal administrators. It does not appear anyone paid any monetary bribes… The staff were feeding the specimen live prey to amuse their customers. It grew to exceptional size, even for its kind. Finally, they put in a smaller but similar creature, the survivors said they thought it was a juvenile, or another species, but it was in fact a male… The specimen ate it anyway, but not before conceiving young. Afterward, it grew even larger and became far more aggressive. Apparently, they tried to destroy it when they saw it depositing eggs… with a polymer pipe and a sporting bat.” He gave another laugh.

“I found the specimen and destroyed it a few weeks after the escape. By then, the eggs had hatched, but most of the young were still with the female, and perished with it. However, I suspected some had split off and formed a nest. I hunted for weeks at a time, but did not find conclusive evidence of their survival until 48 hours ago, shortly before one was seen by a member of the public. I determined twelve of the surviving young had gone through the first molt and dispersed, except for one that was consumed at the primary nest.”

He attached the pistol’s solid holster as a stock. “So far, I have destroyed three more, and discovered a fourth, a male killed and consumed while attempting to mate. Fortunately, I was able to surprise the female while it was still feeding. A third specimen approached before I was able to confirm if I had penetrated the central ganglion. The female revived, and I lost my primary weapons in the melee. When I engaged the female a second time, I withdrew to a potentially friendly residence… Incidentally, have you seen any large arthropods?”

“Yeah,” Daisy said, “we found something in the kitchen when we moved in a week ago.  I hit it with a meat tenderizer.”

“Excellent! Percy said you are commendably level-headed. Then there are only six!”

“Excuse me,” Wes said, “who… and what… are you?”

“Ah!  I always forget, hominids are always concerned for etiquette,” the marsupial said. “I come from the continuum where the dominant forms of sentient life, developed from rodents and other vermin. From the evidence at hand, it was where the builders of this city came from, though we know no more of who they were or why they departed than you… At any rate, you may call me No-Hands, as many do in my place of origin, though as you see I have one hand. From El Diablo Sin Mano Derecho, or possibly for the time I destroyed a platoon of possums with my hand chained behind my back. I am the holotype of the species Archididelphis invicta, roughly, `unconquered king of the possums’. Your city-state acknowledges my existence, but not my capabilities or the manner of my coming. Suffice to say I came here without their sanction, and after a time reached an agreement to aid them in time of need.”

“Mr., ah, Hands,” Daisy said, “I think you dropped a bullet.” She held up a tiny cartridge a centimeter long.

The marsupial answered with a curt laugh. “Keep it! It will be novel for conversation, and it just might be useful to me if I come by again. Now I must go!” Receding footsteps rang from the vent, including an odd clomping.

“That didn’t happen, right?” Westley said.

Daisy dropped the cartridge in a drawer under the couch. “What didn’t happen?”

* * *

 

As the rookies again dispersed, Percy looked to the female rodent. “Can I help you?” he said.

“Oh, no, I’m not even in Security,” she said. “I’m probably not even in the right place…”

“Well, I’m sure you’re not in the wrong place,” Percy said. “Come with me, and we’ll talk.

Percy went upstairs with the rodents following behind. The rookie carried an armload of forms. “I’m Lindsey DeVaca,” the newcomer said. She held up her own sheaf of papers. “I work in the Data Analysis department of the Power And Utilities Administration. A while ago, I was assigned to a Service Optimization project. The assignment was to study power usage patterns so we could find ways to encourage people to reduce power usage. Six weeks into the project, I noticed something odd, odd enough that I contacted Data Analytics for an independent review.”

They stepped inside Percy’s office. It was small and visibly neglected, but also devoid of almost any decoration, except for a painting that showed an intricate geometric pattern. Lindsey laid the papers on the desk, and then looked at the painting. “Why, that’s by E.P. Bosche,” she said. “You must know quite a bit about art; there still aren’t many people who've heard of him.”

“Actually, it’s by me,” Percy said. He picked up one of the sheets, and then another. Each consisted entirely of charts and graphs. “And believe me, I know… I suppose these measure power usage?”

“Yes, for a subdivision over an eight hour period,” Lindsey said. She pointed to two smaller graphs on one of the pages. “These show power usage in the same area on the days before and after. As you can see, consumption rose almost 500%. Then if you look at the detail here, you’ll see it was all over a very short time, no more than 20 minutes, and maybe as little as five.”

“It must be a power surge, maybe a corroded insulator or a rat chewing on a cable,” Percy said. He glanced at Nick, who shrugged. “But I suppose if it was that simple, you wouldn’t have come to us.”

“That’s what my own supervisor said,” Lindsey said. “Here’s the problem…” She held up two other sheets. “We have identical power surges in completely different districts, two weeks before and a month before that. It’s possible that the phenomenon is increasing in frequency, or it may be there are others we haven’t found. In fact, the distribution across multiple districts is the only reason it wasn’t noticed before my own study.”

“…Which means someone is trying to avoid attention,” Percy said. His visor dimmed and flared, but he shook his head. “I’m sorry, but there’s not much we can do. Apart from anything else, our precincts have jurisdictional boundaries. Then, siphoning power isn’t uncommon, and usually it’s a misdemeanor at worst. I can send out a notice to watch for unusual activity, and sooner or later somebody might get hit with a fine, and that will be it.”

“I see,” Lindsey said. She was already gathering her papers, and Nick helped. “Thank you, anyway, I’m sorry to waste your time.”

“It’s no trouble,” Percy said. “It’s always good to meet with a member of another department. Why, I might just give you a call some time.”

“It was nice to meet you,” Nick said. Lindsey twitched her whiskers in the clear equivalent of a smile, and then walked out.  As her footsteps faded, the rookie turned to Percy. “You’re wrong, you know. You’re a Special Inspector. The whole point of your position is to coordinate investigations between precincts. And you know that.”

“Not my speed, not yet,” he said. He turned to the rodent. “So what’s your story? I’ve seen your species before, but not often, and I’ve never heard of one trying to get in the force.”

“Well, um, my grandfather was a policeman, before we… came,” Nick said. “My father always hoped one of us would take up the job.”

“I see,” Percy said. He leaned back while records scrolled by. “Obviously, you did well enough to get through the academy. So where do you expect to go from here?”

Nick shrugged again. “I want to help people, I guess,” he said. Percy already recognized that this was unusual eloquence. “Then maybe I could go up the ranks, move my folks to a better place…”

“Get a girlfriend?” Percy interjected.

Nick nodded absentmindedly. “Yeah, that would be nice… Say, do you have a girlfriend?”

“Naw, I wasn’t built that way,” Percy said, clearly irritated. He rose to his feet. “I suppose we might as well hit the streets. I’ve got a feeling you just might be good at this.”