Chapter 357
”Thanks, Franky.” Hope jingled a key fob and moved away from the Crusade’s garage counter.
Franky, the old stooge who couldn’t just give me a freaking car and save us all some time, waved his hand with a small smile on his face. “Good luck, Hope!”
Hope moved up beside me and stretched the keys out. She dangled them like an owner toying with her cat using one of those fish on a string thingies. “That wasn’t so hard.”
”Inquisitor…” I stared at her. Should I just quit? Like, legitimately? What was this—the year of taunting Shiro?
She stretched out a hand and ruffled my hair like I was some kind of dog, sending streaks of black and silver flying in every direction. Make up your damn mind, Hope! Am I a cat? Or a dog? Or… actually, foxes were like a mix, weren’t they… “Just messing you with you, Zuku. Where are we headed?”
“Phyxaflame.” I needed to have a very serious conversation with Jerry. That bastard sent me on a wild goose chase after Burton, or whatever the heck that guy’s name was.
“You drive, Dev.” Hope tossed the keys to him and moved around to the passenger side. She whistled sharply, and CJ29 trotted over to hop into the back of the car. “You coming, Zuku?”
”I’ll, uh, I’ll meet you guys there.” I didn’t like not having escape options. I wasn’t the driver, didn’t have the keys, and overall would be stuck there until they were ready to be done if I didn’t take my bike. My bike that was locked up in my Aether armory. I really thought I’d be able to just borrow a cruiser. Stupid.
”Nonsense.” Hope not so subtly stepped in my way and crossed her arms. “You hate the backseat that much?”
”Something like that.” It wasn’t the backseat as much as it was the lack of control on the situation. As Mira so… skillfully pointed out, I might be a bit of a control freak. Better than a Mind Freak.
“Want to sit in my lap, then?” She said it like a joke, but I had a feeling she was giving me her full dead fish gaze at the moment. “You take the passenger seat. That’s fine.”
”Is this, uh, is this really necessary?" I shifted from foot to foot and pulled my poncho tighter around me. Freezing temperatures were really starting to get on my nerves. Could summer get here any quicker?
”Consider it a team building exercise. When’s the last time we were altogether like this?” She opened the back of the cruiser for the jaeger and me, and then took shotgun. “Oh, except Joshua.”
“Literally earlier today.” Dev seemed just as put out about the whole thing as I did. I didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing. Or maybe he just didn’t want to drive. I couldn’t blame the guy, honestly.
”That doesn’t count.” Her voice dripped with irritation. At least all three of us were feeling the same thing now.
We got into the car and Dev drove out of the parking garage onto the city’s streets. It was snowing lightly, with flakes drifting down onto the busy city streets. A clump of snow fell off a tower and thunked down into the windshield. Dev flicked on the wipers, and cleared off the gray, filth ridden substance.
The cruiser was blessedly silent for the first couple blocks. Surprisingly, it was Dev that killed said silence. I really figured it would’ve been Hope. “Maybe when we were moving on the Circle?”
”Or the award assembly right after.” I offered. We didn’t really all work together though. Each of us just kinda did our own thing for the most part.
Hope sighed and kicked her boots up onto the console. “You know, other Crusaders don’t move unless they’re all grouped up.”
”That sounds absolutely awful.” At that point, it’d be like having an actual job. I’d definitely have to find a way to quit or disappear if we were like that too.
“It’s protocol.” Hope’s shoulders drooped. “I blame Ligh for inheriting this absolutely dysfunctional squad.”
“Blame yourself,” Dev muttered. “You were the senior squire, so we followed your example.”
”I can’t be blamed for this!” Passion filled Hope’s voice. “If anything, it’s Joshua’s fault.”
”Do we even need to pass blame around?” I asked and casually pushed Hope’s legs off the console. “I mean, this works, doesn’t it? And it’s how Inquisitor Ligh ran the squad.”
”It barely works.” Hope sighed once more. “I see you, like, once a month, Zuku. That’s totally not how a normal Crusade squad should operate.”
”I’m busy.” If she wanted to start implementing some stricter work schedules, I might really have to find a way to check out of the Crusade. Be a bit of a shame, but freedom was worth it.
”Doing what? Sitting around the apartment?”
”Hardly. I’ve—“ I froze for a moment and sharply pivoted. Almost exposed some secrets there. “I’ve been helping a friend.”
“A friend?” Hope shook her head. “I’ve just been thinking about this a lot… maybe I should go get my own squire. Someone who isn't’ tainted by being under Ligh.”
”Go for it.” Dev’s hands tightened on the steering wheel and we slightly sped up. “Not like we’re around, anyway.”
”You know I wasn’t talking about you, Dev. At least you show up everyday.” Hope backpedaled quickly. “I was talking about Zuku and Joshua.”
”You really should go for it, though.” A new squire wasn’t a bad idea. It’d give her something else to focus on and hopefully forget the stupid idea that we needed to move together more. “There’s thousands of hopefuls among the aspirants that’d love to be under such a distinguished inquisitor.”
My words seemed to have the opposite effect and make her even more depressed. ”When did your suck-up skills improve so much, Zuku? You’re hanging around some bad influences.”
Had they really improved? I’d been working on them—wait, no, that wasn’t the point. “What’s the real issue here?”
Hope sighed and pulled off her mask. The silver caught the ambient neon, sending an array of color onto the ceiling of the car. She didn’t speak for a while, though when she did, her voice came across heavy and somber. Her dead fish eyes were fully engaged. “We’re being investigated. Internal Affairs flagged our squad.”
”Oh.” That—that was bad. Like really, really bad. Would I be fine? If they dug into the database and found out… I needed to talk to Luna. Maybe she could hack into the database and make me look more legitime.
”Yeah…” She rubbed her eyes and leaned back in the car seat. “A few more red marks, and we’ll be disbanded. It’s why Commander Ligh dumped the whole stolen armor thing into our lap. We get this done, and we’ll get them off our backs.”
I was wondering about that. This really was a big deal—enough so that finding the memorial armor should’ve been given to a much more veteran squad. I just figured Ligh was practicing favoritism. In a way, I guess I wasn’t entirely wrong.
Not that I was ungrateful, but why were Internal Affairs on us instead of him? He was a known drunk, and had been spending weeks in the bar from what it looked like. Offering Crusaders double their salary to beat him in a hand of darts and distracting them while they’re on the clock also wasn't great.
Unless… was he trying to paint a bigger target on himself to give us some more leeway? Somehow, I could see him doing something like that. And then whatever bullshittery surrounded the man ensured he would get off completely free.
“After the Circle… we won, but the Aythryn City branch is under a lot of scrutiny.” She lifted her mask up and stared at it. “Not to mention the public barely sees a difference between us and the criminals we’re supposed to keep in check. Tack on the whole Troubleshooter Act and it’s just…”
“Is it that bad?” The Troubleshooter Act seemed like a good thing from everything Mira’s said about it.
”Bad? Just different. And not in a good way for us.” Hope slid a thumb over her mask as if tracing some invisible contour. “Used to, if someone without connections needed help, they’d come to the Crusade. Now, Troubleshooters are the answer. They’re easy to contact, mostly cheap, and completely legal.”
That was something Mira and I talked about briefly in the past. Mercs needed connections to hire. There was a reason the little guy rarely went to fixers and most clients were some level of corporate. It wasn’t just rayn that gatekept access, though that also played a part.
“We need an internal investigation, though.” Dev flicked on the cruiser’s lights and rolled through a red light instead of stopping. “Our branch is full of people who aren’t who they say they are.”
I barely managed to keep myself from tensing up. It was a near thing. He wasn’t talking about me, but probably the traitor in our midst. Or traitors. “Oh?”
”Yeah…” Dev glanced over at me with an emotion I couldn’t quite read. “You know, when—“
”Dev.” Hope’s voice dripped with a low warning.
Dev looked up to the rearview mirror. I didn’t have the same angle as him, so I couldn’t see it, but the two had some sort of argument with their eyes. Who knew what it was about, but it looked like Hope was losing it.
“As I was saying.” Dev glanced up one more time. Hope didn’t say anything this time. “When I first started as a squire, I joined as Tristen Olner.”
Why was he telling me this? Did they know? There was no way they knew. I’d been nothing but careful when around them. “Oh?”
”Yeah… I was an investigative journalist’s assistant, if you can believe that.” He laughed lightly and shook his head. His laughter was cold and dead. “That bastard sent me into the Crusade to gather intel. I just so happened to join Inquisitor Ligh.”
“You weren’t caught?” I focused in on his story. It was honestly a little terrifying how much it paralleled my own.
“Oh, I was. Almost immediately.” Dev sighed and his hands tightened on the steering wheel hard enough to creak. “I was an imposter squire for three years before something changed.”
”You don’t have to keep going.” A trace of worry filled Hope’s voice. “I can—“
”It’s fine, Hope.” The man released his death grip on the steering wheel, though he was still exceptionally tense. “The truth came out eventually. It always does.”
My heart throbbed in my chest. His words felt like a gut-punch that I so wasn't ready for. Was there a deeper meaning behind it? No, surely not. They couldn’t know. If they knew, they would’ve said something. Right, classic Paranoid Shiro. Haha! Always causing issues for the rest of us here in the Shiro Alliance.
When I finally found my voice, it came out barely above a whisper. “H-how did it?”
”In a Pervider den." He spoke with a deceptive calm. Although his voice came out easy, his expression twisted and churned like an active war zone.
Silence filled the cruiser. The air itself felt heavier than it did just a few minutes ago. My mind brought back images of Dev injured and laying on the ground while I treated him back after the tower collapsed. Specifically, to the bursting scars all over his body. What would that be like? Feeling Pervider spawn crawling around inside of you, and then, just when you’re wishing for death—pop! One after another—
An uncontrolled shudder went through me as his words started to rebuild that scene. I thought he would’ve been unconscious or paralyzed by Pervider venom. If he could talk and tell the truth in a den, though…
The car rolled to a stop. “We’re here.”
Hope coughed lightly, slid her mask back on, and opened her door. A chilly winter air filled the cruiser. “Right… this is your lead, Zuku. You take charge.”
”C-chek.” I fumbled for the door handle and slid out of the cruiser. Something about his story… I dunno. It felt like I had a weight around my neck. Not a guillotine, exactly, but more like a heavy chain.
I shook my head and opened the door for CJ29 to get out of the car. Regardless, the sooner we found this guy, the better off our situation would be. And if they weren’t digging into the squad, Internal Affairs hopefully wouldn’t dig much into me either.
— - —
AN: I’ve been thinking about some kind of art competition. I’ve been sent a couple pieces of fanart and thought they were, like, super cool. I dunno. What do you guys think? It’d probably be closer to April. I’m super busy.