Chapter 17: Officers down

They had been talking for the better parts of two hours now. In hushed tones at first, but Jean-Pierre had gotten inebriated. Or at least, he pretended to be. Rick was no fool. That man was barely drinking his beer, in two hours he had had two relatively tame pints of amber ale. There was no way he would bedrunk so easily. So it meant it was a play for Alicia and him. And it seemed to be working on his partner.

Alicia was starting to get looser lips than he wished for, in spite of his best efforts. Now, he knew that it was a little bit too late. She hadn’t revealed anything too damning yet, but she had confirmed they had been to the Northern Docks and that they knew what had happened over there. And worse, she had revealed where Matthew had been treated. She had given Jean-Pierre a clue about where to search for him.

And Rick knew, deeply, that he didn’t want to save him. It wasn’t outright stated, but it was clear he was only here to make sure that his organization hadn’t a loose thread the police force of Gigantopia to make them fall. He leant back in his chair. They hadn’t learnt enough about the group Matthew had probably belonged to. It was clearly just general description of the cowardly character of their lost witness.

“And you don’t know how he could have gotten his grievous wounds?” asked Rick suddenly, stopping Alicia mid-sentence as she was trying to joke with Jean-Pierre, probably to try and lower his barriers a little more. “Those were… horrible, to say the least.”

“Care to describe them for me?” asked their interlocutor in reaction, a sly smile on his face for a second or two before he managed to hide it. “I mean, all that I knew was that he had disappeared and, well, he has had some bad frequentations from time to time.”

Like you, I guess, thought Rick, but he said nothing. That man was far too clever for his taste, but it seemed his sudden foray into what had happened to Matthew, bringing about the discussion back to the main topic to the forefront. Truly, Jean-Pierre was not some grunt into whatever organization he was a part off. He was someone with enough experience to be able to get two officers stalled and revealing information they shouldn’t have.

“Come on”, Rick replied with a soft smile. “We both know you know perfectly what happened to him that needed him to be sent to a hospital.”

There was a change then. Not in Jean-Pierre so much as the whole café. It was subtle, but it was enough for Rick to realize he had made a mistake. He had been played. Their interlocutor had talked and talked and he hadn’t noticed that the clients around shifted and changed. Jean-Pierre had kept them entirely focused on him but he had chosen a place where his allies had been able to enter and wait to see what would happen.

“Rick” whispered Alicia.

“I know” he replied, with the same tone. “Be ready for anything, but I’m sure we’re safe. It’s Gigantopia, after all.”

It was a lie. He had touched her feet to let her know, all he could do was hope that she’d realized it. She was their greatest card to get out of here in one place. There was no way any of those guys knew how strong she was. He had to get her out of the café in one piece, the force would need her in the future, far more than him. But it wouldn’t be easy, of course. Even their position in the room wasn’t as good as it should have been.

They weren’t too far off a door, but there were three tables, full of peoples he now suspected weren’t innocent bystanders. To get out of here would be quite the ordeal. And they had to move now. Perhaps it was still possible to avoid an open confrontation. He hesitated however. If he just got up to quickly, someone could get the wrong idea and start the whole mess when he wanted to avoid it more than anything.

“Well, it has been a long discussion but we really need to get back on our patrol duty” he said to Jean-Pierre, who shook his head slightly.

“I’m afraid not, officer. You see, you probably truly know where Matthew is, and he’s a man with a lot of friends, for all his flaws. And we want to find him.

“I’m not sure you’d be friendly with him if you did” bluntly stated Alicia, who seemed to bulge out in her chair.

Rick wasn’t sure what she was expecting, showing off her muscles like that. She already made their interlocutor and probably most other men around really worried. She was way taller than the average Normals, and muscular to boot. Showing them off in a threatening way could either scare them off, or drive them to use more drastic measures. And he wanted to avoid the second outcome as much as possible.

“I can assure you I wouldn’t lay a finger on Matthew” affirmed Jean-Pierre, and somehow, Rick believed him.

But he wasn’t the problem. As competent and charismatic as he was, it was clear to him that he was just part of a whole, not the head of the gang. And whoever had such a man under his thumb would be more than able to do to Matthew whatever he wanted. And what that mysterious man wanted was probably to finish him off. Rick suspected the injuries the disappeared witness had endured were from a Grown trying to crush him.

“I trust you, but it’s an ongoing investigation, so we can’t divulge anything about it, sorry.”

“A shame, really. You could have avoided a lot of trouble, you know? I don’t like it when it turns violent.”

The sound of many chairs being moved all around him made Rick sigh. It was bound to happen; he had misjudged Jean-Pierre at first and he also had underestimated whatever gang he was a part off. He hadn’t ever heard of any as brazen as that. Perhaps it was due to the cleaning work of the Commissar. With less allies inside the force, and names being dropped by corrupt cops to lessen their sentences, the gangs had to become more desperate.

“You don’t want to do that” stated Alicia, as she slowly got up herself, offering a full view of her towering physique – the tallest man in the café barely reached the middle of her breasts.

Rick couldn’t help but notice how big those were, even in such a situation. He was glad he had found a woman like her, who had the brains, the looks and the muscles. But it also meant that she was in danger now, because he had made a mistake. He needed to get Alicia out of it in one piece, and if possible him too. But if only one of them had to go down, it had to be him, his girlfriend was too great an asset for the force.

“Listen to my partner, guys. We are officers, you lay a finger on us, you go to jail, we all know it.”

“Only if you can testify that we attacked you” chuckled Jean-Pierre darkly. “Believe me, I’d rather you be able to do so, but now it’s too late. You’ll need to come with us and tell us everything you know. Boss’ orders, really. If it helps you, I’m sorry, really.”

Rick winced. His suspicions were confirmed, but it also meant that he couldn’t hope to negotiate at all with Jean-Pierre. And the men around them, twenty or so, knew it. The owner of the café had gotten out of dodge and Rick suspected he had been fairly well paid in advance for such an occasion. A few patrons looked genuinely terrified, and it meant that they were innocent bystanders, complicating even more the matter.

“Well then… I guess we don’t have a choice then” sighed Rick, seemingly resigning himself – just before he threw a wonderful punch right into Jean-Pierre’s plexus, sending him reeling. “Alicia, get out of here!”

He dashed, but just slowly enough that he was certain his partner could get out. A few idiots tried to stop her, but she pushed them away with ease. One particularly bellicose man drew a knife and was rewarded by a powerful slap on his face, so powerful that Rick feared Alicia would have broken his neck. But he couldn’t really focus on it, they had to leave the café. It seemed the goons hadn’t expected them to be that effective.

They still came into them, rushing while the innocents screamed loudly. But it was quickly becoming clear that them and him had underestimated Alicia. She had been in an elite strike team, and it showed. She was moving around, savagely punching and kicking, using her superior mass and strength to great effect. But not so much that she’d wound or seriously hurt her opponents.

Somehow, it made her look both even more beautiful and awe-inspiring. She was mowing through the crowd, imposing and unstoppable. He smiled as he himself punched another man in the face, proving that he had his own abilities to bear to the fight. And then a loud sound exploded behind him and pain flowered in his lower back, making him howl as agony wrecked him body.

“Rick!” shrieked Alicia, as she rushed to reach him.

“No! Get out of here! Warn the Commissar!” he roared.

He didn’t want her to get shot, it was a miracle he had been the target and not the far more massive woman. Probably because she was moving too fast and lifting the shooter’s allies off the ground with such ease that the man who had shot him feared too much to hurt them. It didn’t help him to deal with the pain easier. Guns were rare, even among the criminals of Gigantopia, they attracted too much attention.

“I’m not leaving you here!” barked Alicia, just as Rick saw Jean-Pierre, still wheezing, coming near him and readying himself to punch him the face as he was half crouching because of the pain.

“You stupid bastards could have –” started the criminal – and then his skull exploded.

Rick blinked. He hadn’t heard any other gunshot and – it was Alicia. His girlfriend had covered the distance between her former position and his with such a speed that it was terrifying. And she had punched Jean-Pierre. Punched with all she had, and suddenly Rick realized she had never unleashed herself in full on him. She had blown up a skull with a single punch! And she was not finished.

She lifted the heavy table he had been crouching against with one hand, as if it weighed nothing. She was probably planning to shield him, realized Rick, but he didn’t want it. There was still the shooter, and as strong as she was, she wouldn’t survive a direct hit in the face. Rick opened his mouth to try and convince her to leave him alone. But he was left speechless by her actions.

The table wasn’t a shield. It was a monstrously large weapon, that Alicia started to use to simply crush the goons. They couldn’t do anything, her strikes were so powerful that other tables and chairs were sent flying, becoming weapons in themselves. And when the one guy with enough brain to use his gun, he was so shocked that he missed. Alicia didn’t. She threw the table at him. The sickening sound of bones and muscles being crushed made Rick feel sick.

“I’m here, I’m here” said Alicia, as he felt her large hands cradling him. “Don’t move Rick, you’ll be fine, I promise. Nobody will hurt you again. I swear.”

“Alicia...”

Something enormous punched through the windows. Something big enough that Alicia, for all her strength and ferocity could do absolutely nothing against it. It barely grazed Rick and it sent him flying against a heap of bodies, peoples he hadn’t even noticed had been mangled by Alicia’s fury. The shock, added to the pain of the wound in his back was too much and Rick felt he was starting to lose consciousness.

“Alicia” he tried to call, but his voice was far too weak.

The last thing he saw before all went black was a hand large enough to entirely encase his partner and lover, who was couching blood, retreating from outside the ruined windows. An angry looking Small woman’s face was visible but trying to look up a little more, to see what she was doing was just too much on Rick’s body. It shut down, his implant fighting to save his life.

It shielded him the shrieks of Alicia.