Introduction

“You know why people trust me, it’s BECAUSE I’m a cautious motherf@*#%r!”

“Aright calm down people are starting to get curious,” Jim whispered.

Jim looked around the diner at the late night clientele, those who had been listening turned away from his gaze. The couple in the next booth over got up and left, undoubtedly thinking some shady deal was going sour; they were right.

Jim worked for the RCMP; his team had been undercover for weeks to stem the flow of GTS, A synthesized drug previously known as 109-GEN. An experimental drug for shrinking tumors that failed miserably at its intended use but found a new market as a bizarre black market drug in communities across North America.

It took only a small amount of the drug to produce the desired shrinking effect, which lasted until a restoration pill was taken. Crummy dealers & mules like Tony and Jocelyn here distributed the drug to kinky couples and others with more criminal intentions; it was the latter Jim was concerned with.

Tony stared at Jim from across the table, barely skipping a beat before continuing his dirty deal.

“Look I’m sorry for the attitude but between cops trying to bust me and all the freaks who keep wanting more of this stuff I haven’t been getting much sleep,” Tony said through bloodshot eyes. The scanky pale girl next to Tony slid what looked like a pack of gum towards Jim.

“But for someone wanting a pack of twenty, sleep had to wait” Tony laughed.

Jim opened the corner of the pack to make sure he wasn’t being conned but everything seemed clean, in a manner of speaking.

“Would you mind me asking what you plan on doing with that much GTS?” This was the first time the girl had talked, the fact that Tony didn’t back-hand her seemed to indicate she was more then just his drug mule.

“Don’t mind her man, she’s always lookin’ for knew ideas of what to do with shrinkees” Tony said tossing a smoke across the table to Jim. “Almost every night she gets her hands on some poor bastard who was just looking for a good time, screaming almost keeps me up all night.”

Jim involuntarily let a shiver pass through him; the girl could’ve been attractive enough to be a model but her dark malevolent eyes and dirty appearance showed a past that had left her twisted and sadistic. Her foot rubbing up against his leg encased in clear stilettos did not help ease the cold feeling in his stomach nor chill the warm feeling slightly south of there. Jim picked up the cigarette

“I hear that, you should think of finding somewhere else to sleep,” Jim said motioning for a light. “I know a place where I can get you room and board without having to pay a dime.”

Tony smiled raising his lighter to Jim, “Oh yeah, where’s that?”

SNAP!

Jim flung a pair of handcuffs on Tony’s outstretched arm, while his team burst in from every entrance and exit.

“You’d like it, its downtown”

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Several moments after his team rushed in it was over and Frank and Jocelyn were in custody, his team had pulled it off efficiently. He was lucky Tony didn’t carry a gun; in fact Tony did very little when faced with a dozen officers, what Jim found even stranger was Jocelyn’s lack of panic seeing as how she actually handed him the drug.

At the station he and his partner Emma had been called in to see Capt. Heather Watts; while he often considered the operation his, she was the real one in charge of the team which consisted mainly of women. She had never been happy about him being assigned to the operation, but he never caused enough trouble to be reassigned.

Emma and Capt. Watts were old friends, so knowing his partner was always trying to help her friend get rid of him didn’t help their relationships. Emma was more of the girl-next-door type who had been hardened by police training, pale with long messy red hair and a cute face complete with a button nose gave her a non threatening appearance. Capt. Watts on the other hand was a tall supple blonde but embodied the ideal of a cold ice queen.

Upon entering the office he was taken aback to see her enjoying a drink, well at ease, and trying to hold back a grin.

“Sit down you two, we just got a big break” she said pulling out a blue folder and handed it to the two officers.

“Tony was just another small timer out to make a buck, but when we looked into his girlfriend Jocelyn’s activities we hit pay dirt.” Heather explained, while he opened the folder showing long distance photos of Jocelyn entering several warehouses.

“Judging from surveillance she’s a big part of the shrinkee trade, as both customer-“

The next page showed a photo of several small corpses found in her trash, Emma looked traumatized.

“-and a seller”

The next few pages had dozens of photos, all of women entering or leaving Jocelyn’s apartment. Couples who wanted to experiment didn’t go through Jocelyn; her clientele seemed to consist of a wide array of sinister looking girls. A twenty something girl with long brown hair and a little weight around the hips left carrying several shoe boxes, several middle aged women resembling street walkers and one who looked like a professional dominatrix also made appearances.

“The last few pages are of particular interest, they shows just how wide spread the GTS phenomenon is getting”, another hint of a smile flashed on her face so quickly he thought it must have been his imagination; a small gasp from Emma set my concentration back on the photos.

Their, on the first page a mother and her 14 year old daughter were leaving Jocelyn’s with the signature shoe boxes and an excited smile on both their faces. This was something he’d never seen, irresponsible parents introducing their children to their sick habits. Many experts figured it would take years for something as new as GTS to become a fad drug among tweens and teens; but in parents eyes they weren’t letting their kids handle cocaine or dildo’s, GTS was something different to them.

The photos went on and on. Many of the older teens came alone or with friends, all looking trashy, miserable, or scared. Many of them girls looked familiar; he may have even seen them around the local high-school only three blocks from his house.

He actually felt relieved to see two older girls (a tall and skinny girl with bleach blond hair and a shorter pale girl with black hair) in the final shot; the blonde wore a modified school girl outfit heavy on the punk side while the brunette wore so much dark clothes and make-up it took him a minute to understand the feeling of lead in his stomach and the sharpness of his heart beat….Samantha?

“That’s right Jim, it’s your daughter” Heather said now no longer hiding her glee, Emma seemed to have a rather blank expression not looking at either of them. “Caught, and she only just turned eighteen a few months ago. Things aren’t looking good for her future” A steady sly inflection in her voice.

“What is this?! You’re going to blackmail me off your team! Dragging my daughter into th-“

“Calm down Jim, you’re good at what you do and I just intend on using those skills for the good of the team. Busting the shrinkee trading ring in this area will be the greatest achievement of my career and you’re just going to help me accomplish that by going undercover.” She threw a slip of paper at me.

“I knew you’d weasel out’ve the order if I didn’t have collateral”

Jim inspected the document which authorized the use of GTS for an undercover operation.

“In 5 hours we will release Jocelyn and you’ll be waiting in her apartment placed with the shrinkee’s destined for trade, you’ll be bugged with advanced audio and visual equipment which I will be monitoring. I suggest you get ready and maybe have a chat with your daughter”.

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Walking into his house Jim had never felt this tormented since the divorce, he felt betrayed, stupid, and scared for both himself and his daughter.

How long had this been going on? He knew her friend Crystal was probably to blame, in the photo she was the one with the shoebox and Samantha carried nothing; He knew it wouldn’t help much in court but it eased his conscience, perhaps it was just her friend.

There was something else thought, he knew the profiles of girls who used shrinkees and his daughter fit the bill; she wasn’t the prom queen she was an experimental, dark, and rebellious girl. He had always figured it was just a faze; but what if she did love torturing defenseless shrinkees and maybe even killing them?

She’d be coming home in about 30 minutes, giving him more then enough time to search her room; but he couldn’t bring himself to do it.

He grabbed a pen and paper, leaving a note telling his daughter he’d be back in a few days and that she would be home alone and was forbidden to have anyone else over. This would be the first time he’d be leaving her alone without a babysitter; she’s pressured him to give her more responsibility now that she was eighteen and to stop babying her.

‘Her throwing a party is the least of my worries now’

He grabbed his things and went out the door.