Claspy's Gripping Adventure -- Prologue and Chapter One
Prologue
The city streets are crowded. Humans bustle against each other, long coats and thick pants worn to spite the harsh October winds. Above be-hatted heads swim pennants, flags, and posters, advertisements swinging and breaching the minds with assortments of propaganda. The skyscrapers streak up like malignant tumors, bridges built between them blotting out the sun more and more these days. Sitting on one of these green platforms is a city bird, a symbol of endurance against all conditions, a pigeon. Its emerald feathers sit clean against gray and white, the orange beak pecking at the soft greenery grown on top of these bridges. It chitters and coos, looking upon the cement empire it owns with its rat-bird kinfolk. Wings flap, and it throws itself off of the bridge, aiming itself downward towards the teeming mass of citizens below.
It glides, a singular ball of feathers, hollow bones, trash digesting in its gut, eyes reflecting the cement and glass of the ancient temples of capitalism. Within these structures people in faded suits and old ties type on computers as they attempt to fight against the merciless powers of time and taxes. A plurality of them are not sober, and a majority of them wish they weren’t sober. The pigeon keeps its downward streak, wings folded close to its highly evolved body. The other buildings begin to pop into its vision, high-rise apartments composed of brick and mortar and discount insulation. Within these modern cells, people live. The pigeon cannot understand this. All they see is boxes upon boxes in which some non-hairy apes emerge from time to time, giving them small morsels that fill them so. They flap, slowing their dive and changing direction. They head south, towards the hustle of the lower parts of the city. The buildings begin to shrink in pure height, the roosts of the pigeon beginning to become more obvious. Now, sidewalks stretch out more and more, many areas having been reclaimed from the evil metal beasts.
Slowly those cement behemoths melt away into much kinder architecture, brutalism slowly fading into areas of ardent architectural ability. Vaulted entryways with plentiful perches present opportunities for the crafty city bird. This pigeon gently shifts the ailerons of their wings to glide through steep marble columns flitted with birdshit. It aims for the betweens, where people walk across reclaimed streets dressed as faded glory seekers, treasure hunters in a race with each other. It catches a gust from the many fly-pipes of the city, riding an upward draft to float high among the streetlights. The bird turns east, away from the clutter of the financial world. They glide past more buildings, each filled with a thousand lives doing a thousand acts in a single second. The bird circles around one such tomb, and heads south again, the huge expanse of the New Yorkian Strip exposed and laid out against the horizon. The bird passes a huge, electronic billboard. Its eyes flicker over the photonic emissions, seeing human writing and ignoring it. None of these words are food. Across the board of microLEDs installed on the dwelling tower, a pattern emerges to write the words strewn along the border to this massive metropolis. "Welcome to the NYS! Please Visit an NYCM Block Headquarters for Local Immigration! Enjoy Your Stay in the NNEC!" The stinging bright lights that illuminate the massive red-and-white wreckercopters shine up, the clogged electric arteries that lead into the city currently stopped due to a minor traffic incident many miles west. The pigeon maneuvers through the low slung liftoff ports, humans moving with feverish speed around the vehicle. Soon it will make the air around it impossible to fly in, so the pigeon heads south, towards the crumb mines where the perches are far lower, but the food is exquisite. By this point night has begun to fall, and miniature suns begin to light up the residential areas.
Here, blocky individualist apartments composed of newly standardized concrete mark the interval between streets, their walls covered in decorations that hang off complimentary sill boxes. On the floor, tasty liquids run through the fields and across the sewer grates out behind the collections of uncoordinated humans. The good juice spills here, and the bird pecks at some of it. It gulps a few mouthfuls before it curls across the expanse of cars, letting loose a small dollop of feces on the windshield of one such vehicle. Below its flight, electric vehicles range in collections of dozens, parked in concentric circles that make up the border of every major city. Around these circles sit trach homes, huge hives of human activity that create little trash but much angst. Even the bird can see these homes are naught but nests for the bird-haters. Except for one among these nests, a man-ape that is within the bird's mind. They always have good seed, delicious seeds and bits and chunks. Later this evening, the bird will visit the man-ape for some sustenance. But for now, it will return to its home. Gingerly, it finds its place, a huge collection of twigs, sticks and plastic carefully sewn together to create a singular comfort under the shelter of a store awning. It alights, looking down at the collection of humans below it.
It sees a sea of red and white and gray, and its head turns. It may not speak, but there is a language all animals know intrinsically- the language of violence and death. This has been spoken below its home, the crimson sprays of conversation meeting the typically quiet expanse below. The pigeon lifts off, grabbing a structural branch and destroying its home. It cannot raise a child in a place of such loudness and violence. It knows peace is what is needed for learning. It allows the home it built to collapse, shedding sticks upon the scene of violence below, letting go as easy as any creature will.
Chapter One
“Shoot that fucking bird.”
Recruit Officer Alexsander, fresh from the classes, eyes enclosed by standard-issue prescription goggles, jaw nervously moving back and forth, does the only thing they can think of in that situation as an e-car pulls into the parking spot closest to the scene, and decides to shoot that fucking bird. He pulls out his revolver and aims carefully at the flying bird. From the open window of the vehicle flies a cardboard food container that scratches RO Alexsander across the eyebrow and causes them to miss their shot wildly, adding the smell of gunpowder to the scents already diffusing across the cement parking lot of the Quick Pick n Stick, a mom-and-pop owned supermarket that resides within the Sever’s Cuboid sector of the New Yorkian Strip. Alexsander cringes away from the vehicle, dropping their gun near an active crime scene. The gun goes off again, and the bullet refracts off the streetlight pole and lets out an echoing, piercing ping like a hellion’s screech. This causes both passengers of the vehicle to glance at each other, a look of two things, of mutual amusement and mutual anger. The passenger exits first, excited for their first day to start. The other stays in the car for a moment more, savoring the isolation for the briefest of moments.
Alexsander, still being insulted by the forensics officer, turns to see who spells their dread, and is shocked at what they see. Exiting the left side of the vehicle is a man- or not a man- with beautiful, flowing hazel hair that seems to curl and cloud of its own accord. Under the leftward part lies a face of feminine beauty, with eyebrows that present a shield to the world. They grin, exposing teeth composed of various materials, and sweep an aqua streak of hair from their face. Bright pink eyeshadow compliments piercing blue eyes that wink at the new recruit, and their body deftly weaves through the crowd of people as though it has done so a thousand times before. Large and small scars dot their face, and a scraggly line flows from their weak jaw, across their cheekbones, and rests right at the edge of their laugh lines. Finally, Alexsander sees the nameplate tucked into their brash and outrageous tie, a combination of green, brown, and yellow in a patchwork tie-dye that screams its own independence. They seem to enjoy spinning a small black ring on their middle finger. The name of this beautiful being, Alejandro Claspar Delegardo, is written in loose cursive handwriting, the hand-drawn nameplate the fashionable accessory for any up-and-coming NYS detective. Hugging tight to their athletic body, the shale-gray suit is gently corrected from its tussled position, and the body begins to move itself through the crime scene towards Alexsander.
“Uhm, Mister Delagardo, sir, I’m so sorry for-”
They speak. “Don’t call me Mister, please. I prefer Claspy.”
“Claspy, I- uh- the bird-”
The tech speaks up again. “You moron, you can’t tell sarcasm from actual orders?”
“Hey, Eddie, go easy on the kid, he’s just a rook!”
Alexsander seems to descend further into hemming and hawing, as the other side of the car opens, another frequenter of the Sever’s Cuboid Civilian Militia Headquarters that Alexsander has seen in passing. The early dawn light illuminates the parking lot and puts her face in profile. An Adonis, a face of both pity and disgust. Her face is strong, with a pointed chin, high eyebrows, demure forehead, and almond-shaped eyes, caramel skin wrapped in a tight three-piece suit. Her broad shoulders roll, the cloth straining against the muscles underneath. Fingers crack and retrieve a Notebook from the carrying case equipped onto the car, flipping it open to a blank page and empty screen. A pencil sweeps out, one end lead and the other end smooth silicone, the delicate fingers clipping it onto the Notebook as she puts her long blonde hair back into a ponytail, a scrunchie holding it in place. The notebook spins in her hand, the dark green cover reflecting the harsh artificial street light, and she looks down at the ripped-apart body. Her eyes narrow in determination, mouth set, shoulders tight, and walks briskly towards the tape. On the neat black tie hanging on her chest, a nameplate with her engraved name sits, along with the rank “Detective Major,” and above that “Jean-Pascal de Guignes,” in terse, expertly done print. She looks at her partner, attempting to suppress something.
“Claspy, I think the officer needs to be disciplined at the station.”
Alejandro grins, showing their rainbow coalition of fake teeth. “Fine, fine, fine.” They snatch up the revolver, and in a single smooth movement break it open, flinging the ammo in the air. The six-fingered hand deftly catches four bullets between the fingers, the empty shells caught by the tip of their foot and kicked into a nearby sewer grate. Claspar grins, taking two bullets from their revolver and slamming it into the chamber, filling the empty slots and handing the weapon back to RO Alexsander.
“If I ever hear of you misfiring, prefiring, blind-firing, or friendly-firing, this will be reported, and I will be drawing full charges of misconduct against you, RO Alexsander. Understood?” Alexsander nods, and exits the crime scene quickly, returning to the line of uniformed officers keeping the small number of civilians away from the crime scene. Claspy’s grin remains in place as they turn to their partner.
“Well, I think there were worse ways to have handled that, right, JP?”
Jean-Pascal shakes their head, melancholy dripping from their countenance like amber sap from a tree. “No. But the evidence is now in the sewer. So it doesn’t really matter anymore. Remember what I said to you at the station- keep your shenaniganizing at the station or in your damn spare time, understood?"
Claspar walks nearer to their partner, conspiratorially whispering. “I’ll report it when we get back. Just trying to get a good repertoire going with the uniforms, okay?”
Jean-Pascal grimaces, still annoyed with the situation but accepting how it is, and turns to the scene they were called to. In front of the two, a destroyed and ended life lays on the cement ground in front of them. Across the ground, body parts lie in disarray, a young male torn asunder. His pimpled face sits against a curb, staring open-mouthed into the nothingness that death brings. Two long feet away, their torso sits, covered in a cheap cloth uniform with clashing colors and disgusting patterns. Spread around them, their limbs lie, resembling some arcane summoning circle. Encircling this symbol of the damned are ten technicians of various professions and expertise, doing their jobs quickly and efficiently, taking small blood and powder samples. Over the burned-out hole in the small island of grass and cement that dot the parking lot that resembles a the remains of a micro-shell artillery strike, is a forensic explosives expert whose face looks as though someone sat them in front of a large pile of dog feces and told them their wedding ring lied underneath. Their thin eyebrows are knitted in concern as they gently poke at the electronic remains of an improvised explosive device, the innards turned to burnt and twisted pieces of waste metal and plastic. This is what destroyed the poor retail employee, the engine of death that churned and spurned the world of the parking lot of an independently-owned grocery store. The name tag reads “Davis McCoy,” a name that will never be spoken in greeting when this man-child meets another, a name that will be read on an urn of ash and bone fragments.
As the two approach, they ready Notebooks emblazoned with the insignia of both the National New Englanders Coalition, the ruling body of their territory, and the NYCM, New Yorkian Citizens Militia. The former is an hourglass surrounded by eight connected triangles whose tips are intersected by dotted lines, meant to represent the connected nature of industry and citizens. The latter is a simple outline of the New Yorkian Strip, the one hundred and fifty mile stretch of industrial areas, residential buildings, and recreational activities that stretches from the boroughs of Old New York City to what was once the capital of the state, and now contains a majority of its operational and military security apparatus. Within this outline are the symbols of the NYCM, a magnifying glass and a hand reaching out. The lime green of the nylon cover matches Claspar’s garrulous tie, and two mechanical pencils click rapidly, recycled lead exiting one neoplastine container and fervently meeting the paper contained within the Notebook. The other opts for the silicone side, making notes on the screen of the device. Claspar’s tannish hand writes using long, looping characters that seem to blend with each other, creating extended pieces of long-form notation that only they can read. Jean-Pascal’s calloused hand writes using exacting, consistent characters, each independent piece separate from every other, coming together to translate to words, to paragraphs, to pages of every singular detail her turquoise eyes catch as they bolt from object to object across the scene. She flips to the front of the Notebook, tapping the screen of the first page and turning on the camera, beginning to take pictures that are stored on the thousand gigabyte hard drive. She grimaces, tracing a circle around the individual chunks of explosive. Claspar, utilizing the Notebook for the first time, accidentally takes a picture of their own face which is now indelibly entered into the record of this case. Far away, along the vertical line of the Sever’s Cuboid District, a technician in charge of reviewing the pictures admitted, sees the handsome face come across their screen. Surreptitiously, they take a picture with their phone, before admitting the picture into evidence along with the various pictures of bodies and bits.
As the two finish their various investigative rituals, they kneel down next to the blasted hole, the forensic expert kneeling next to them, their knees clicking as their nametag dangles down, blocky letters reading “Scanlon Deen.” Jean-Pascal speaks first, indicating one of the broken parts
“Deen, do you have even the foggiest idea what this could be a part of?”
Deen shrugs, picking it up with a gloved hand. “Best guess? Seems to be the plastic pieces of antique phone, commonly sold in certain gas stations and grocery stores during the early oughts. Used to be called trac phones, or in cop-speak, a burner phone.” He picks up a larger chunk, turning it so both detectives can see the brand name. “Nokia. If I had to guess, this phone is at least 30 years old. Kept in some extremely dry area, turned off for years.”
Jean-Pascal and Claspar make heavy notes, turning to each other. Claspar speaks first.
“Antiquarian?”
“Possibly. Could be someone who works in a museum, or a techie with a fet for the old world.”
“Maybe.” Jean-Pascal looks at the surrounding parking spots, noting the unevaporated puddles, oil stains from the few zero emission antique vehicles, the small flecks of cigarette butts and food trash. “The phone means they knew when the trigger needed to happen. They knew exactly who it was they wanted to kill.”
Claspar turns to the uniformed officers. “Please scan all of the surrounding lot islands and trees. Look for electronics or cameras of any kind, and someone please get me into the store so we can see their surveil footage. Thank you. JP, how many bombing kills have we seen in the city? I don’t quite know how to use this yet.”
Utilizing the Notebook’s database, she searches for bombing related deaths, ruefully ignoring Claspar as they peek over her shoulder. “A lot, but the majority occurred during the Union Wars. Leftover roadside explosives and citizen travelers don’t mix. We’re still decoding the locations from the Unionizers, but I highly doubt we would’ve gotten one this close in. Maybe from a corpo trap, but the fighting was centered more on Old-”
“I love history, and you know I do. Just not right now, queen.” Claspar looks up from their notebook, waves at a passing sex worker who waves back as though Claspar is an old friend. They are. Jean-Pascal looks over and smirks.
“You’re fucking lucky they voted to legalize, Claspy. Otherwise your hobby might’ve been a bit more of an issue.”
Claspar looks up from their Notebook screen, displaying death statistics that slide across their face like a prayer candle shedding flickering light. “Uh-uh, and I am now able to see that there were a total of fourteen deaths from bombs in our fair cuboid in the last year, and… fifteen hundred, roughly, in the overall Strip.”
A nearby technician speaks up as they scrape a piece of brain off of the now significantly darker pavement, picking it up gingerly as they raise their heads, the latex suit making them more androgynous than Claspar. “Bombin’s are always messy. One day you wake up, think you’re gonna have an easy day, then you need to go to a mess like this.”
Jean-Pascal nods, looking at recently passed laws within the overall Strip. “Mhm. Seems like once NYSO-93-475 was passed, the bombings diminished.”
“Remind me what that beautiful collection of letters and numbers means, my cybernetic dear?’
“It means that, legally, if someone is convicted for a messy murder, they are then made to (in any way possible) pay for the labor cost of cleaning up said murder. Both the crime scene clean-up and civilian clean-up.”
“Wow, how wonderfully economical our fair city-state is! I wonder what utterly wonderful people participated in passing that bill.”
Jean-Pascal shrugs.
Claspy, as they put down their clipboard and turn to an officer with a photomat, says “All done?”
The officer nods, moving back apprehensively. Claspar gets in front of the explosion site and plunges their hands into the dirt, working through the now burnt dirt, passing their hands through the loam and musk. The smell of burnt powder and burned metal bursts upward. As their hands strike below the line of the cement curb they find, buried between the roots of one of the two small trees planted in the parking lot islands, a box. Grimy, brownish fingers emerge clutching the box, the weak sapling being pulled out of the ground as its roots are unearthed and exposed. It is an old wooden box, decrepit from years under the pavement, baking in the heat sink that dark asphalt creates. Dark orange, wrapped in faded emergency and duct tape. The natural color has faded, and the lettering of the tape has gone down to nothing. A small pocket knife snicks out, small clumps of dirt falling from Claspar’s hands.
Everyone stops. All action is finished. At this moment, there is nothing else but this person, this box, and the knife. The silence is like syrup, sliding across the crime scene and across the parking lot. Officers turn around, aware of the ceasing of activity, and spot Claspar holding the box. Technicians agape at the item, at the possibilities it presents, and quickly adopt the tried and true fetal position.
The knife moves slowly. It pauses, and swiftly slides back into its home in Claspar’s pocket. They put the box down gingerly, putting up their hands and walking away. A member of the bomb squad rushes forward, a massive outfit clumsily jingling forward. As one, every person on the scene takes many ginger steps away. A specialized tool slides out of the bomb-men’s suit, tracing along the outside of the box. It is detecting many things, but at the forefront of their needs is any metal within the box, any emanations from explosives, any radiation that may be coming from the box. The readings come back negative. He sighs. The bomb-man cuts open the box, taking their life into their own hands. There is always the danger of a fully organic bomb, and he feels that possibility weigh upon his shoulders.
A moment.
A heartbeat.
The box is opened successfully, without an explosion rocking the already blood-stained area. Like a massive bottle of champagne being popped, the yell of “Clear!” unleashes a wave of collective relief. Claspar charges forward, looking over the massive shoulders of the Grade AAA rated Mickelson’s Clamshell Explosive’s Suit, and sees what lies within the dark orange cocoon, planted under the scene of a brutal murder, and gasps.
It is not a manifesto. It is not another bomb that failed to explode. It is not a small trinket, nor is it a time capsule buried for future generations to understand the past.
It is a skull, hollow eye sockets staring up, the upper jaw resting on top of a small piece of faded paper, with delicate cursive text. The skull itself is completely clean, with not a single speck of flesh or grime visible on its bright white surface. Small knicks and marks surround the jaw joint and eye sockets, with scrape marks evident along the scalp. This skull was not degraded into its current form via natural actions- it was done by hand, and cleaned by medical means. About the size of a greeting card, two words are printed in delicate cursive with scarlet ink. Cameras click hurriedly, capturing the contents of the box. Claspar reaches in and picks up both the skull and the card. They turn the skull around and see, printed on the anterior curve, is another word, in the same swirling print, with the same aggressively bright coloration, denoting both freshness and skill.
Reading aloud, they say “Head games.”
Claspar looks at Jean-Pascal and grins. “I bet we don’t have any of these in the records.”
Jean-Pascal nods. “I doubt we even have the paperwork for it.”
Around the scene, pens emerge from their cloth homes, are hurriedly clicked, and the chorus of small silicone tips and lead points rubbing along screens arises. The sound is not a loud one, not a strong one. It is a quiet tapping noise that does not order or align, but is undersigned by quiet sighs and detached eyes. Claspar looks around, gingerly returns the skull and card to their home, and retrieves their Notebook and dutifully begins recording. Claspar and Jean-Pascal share a glance, looking down at the shattered body of the retail worker. Claspar speaks up first as their pen continues to scribble across the artificial paper screen.
“I guess this ain’t gonna be simple, babe.”
Jean-Pascal shrugs, her shoulder moving like boulders tossed downhill. “Nothing’s ever simple, Alejandro. That’ll be the first thing you learn.”
Claspar grins as they stare at the lines of paperwork, the initial wave from the surrounding officers finally starting to die down. This has become a ritual for many officers assigned a Notebook. Police work is no longer a slipshod task done by good ol’ boys- it is a practiced, efficient task, done by people with a measured respect for and interest in their community. For a corporal to apply, they must have evidence of at least two years of humanitarian work and community outreach. Within the Sever’s Cuboid, the Citizens Militia has consistent civilian assistance programs- what few bribes are attempted are absconded and “seized for evidence,” only to have a similar amount placed within the Widows and Orphans and Orphaned Widows Fund. Minus a few unheeded changes, perhaps enough for a doughnut and coffee at the cafe just around the corner. Every job has its perks, after all. The paperwork is just an extension of this- once a case has been resolved, either by a commanding officer ending the investigation, a suspect admitting to the crime, or a sentencing, all paperwork around a case is released to the public to be audited by various sources. If the case has not been recorded properly, has not had the due amount of concern that it deserves, or the paperwork of several officers does not align, there is an investigation opened by yet another outside organization, the Bureau for Enforcement Honesty and Integrity. As the artificial screens slowly dim, each officer hopes beyond hope they will not receive a greeting from a BEHI. Claspar, a well-known figure among the BEHI halls, finishes their necessary reports, stepping away from the body to take an overview of the surrounding parking lot.
Parking lots are an entirely human invention. Not many are different- they are quite simply large, flat areas of concrete and blacktop where people may park their vehicles. Within the last ten years, there have been marked improvements in their technology- many possess automatic charging ports for EV’s. Along the border of the lot, where some of the small patches of wild greenery are allowed to flourish, a few classic gas cars are parked, refitted to have net-zero emissions. Winging these vehicles are larger transport trucks, their ethanol tanks being slowly refilled as their loads are removed. Steetlights, with motion detectors on all angles, are scattered throughout, all of them slowly flickering off as the light of the rising sun comes over a far off mountain range. Their eyes seek back to the storefront, looking at the small plastic orbs sticking out, the collection of employees standing scattered near windows, the slow trickle of lookie-loos and gossipers. Claspar turns, the vision of the lot blurring as they face the scene once again, their experienced eyes running over the scattered pieces of evidence and turning to Jean-Pascal. She awaits their words expectantly.
"It’s your first case as lead, bud. What are we gonna do?”
Beneath the smirking countenance, mental gears whir and click. Neurons fire as axles begin to turn quickly, rubber belts of thought processes begin to zoom around the gray matter, and the mouth begins to work.
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