05-15-2016, 10:47 AM
Carmelita pulled the cab over just before the gate, head sinking in frustration. She began slowly thumping her forehead against the steering wheel.
“Idiota.”
Thump.
“Idiota.”
Thump.
“Idiota.”
Thump
“Idio-”
“Er, miss?” A voice cut across her words, and she turned her head. A woman with green skin and tentacle hair was looking at her concernedly from the back of her horse. “You done beating yourself up?”
Carmelita nodded and pushed away her feelings.
“Pardon my outburst, Miss, just frustrated. I got ambushed-”
“-by the J and T gang, we saw from the wall. We thought you were a goner, actually. Turns out you held your own better than most. Name’s Kirsa, I’m one of Roland’s deputies.” The woman held out her hand through the open window. Carmelita couldn’t help notice that it had two thumbs, but she took it anyway.
“Carmelita Fox-Cooper. I was an Inspector for Interpol back home.”
“Hmm. You look too strong to be a summon, so I guess you’re a Prime. Come on, let’s get this cab of yours parked inside the palisade and we can talk more.”
---
The Town With No Name might be fairly poor, but it was still significantly large enough for the diversity of its inhabitants to show. As Carmelita followed the Deputy through the dusty streets, she took in the rusty steel shacks next to wooden bars and adobe cantinas. A hedge mage hedgehog sat on a patio, lighting her pipe with a flick of her fingers, staring with lidded eyes across the road at the man fixing scrapyard hoverbikes outside his auto shop. A bar advertising irradiated drinks sat cozily up against an imposing gunsmith’s and a set of stalls tried to hawk everything from nutrient paste to scorpion charms.
Deputy Kirsa walked through the streets with purpose, barely stopping to glare at a few shady looking humans lurking by a dark alleyway. After passing through a collection of plastic tents and several water towers, they eventually reached their destination. Kirsa opened the door to the Watering Hole, a few other deputies giving her a wave as she led Carmelita to a corner booth and gestured for her to sit down.
While Kirsa fetched drinks from the counter, Carmelita looked around. Clearly the local equivalent of the ‘cop bar’, the establishment was a fairly clean concrete room set in the ground with good lighting and an extremely holey dartboard. The bartender looked human, though she couldn’t make out too many details from this angle, and they seemed to be busy handling the patrons that had come in to get out of the afternoon heat.
Kirsa returned, two pints of beer in hand. She proffered one to Carmelita, who took it with a little wry smirk. Last time she’d tried a beer had been during the time travel venture where they’d ended up working with Tennessee Kid Cooper.
“So,” Kirsa said, leaning back against the worn leather of the bench. “What were you doing hauling water?”
“I was looking to get a friendly welcome. I wasn’t sure that I wanted to step on any toes when I started my work, so I felt a present might be nice for the area. Get Roland to give me a chance, you know.”
“Uh-huh.” Kirsa took a sip of her beer and looked over at the bar for a moment. “And your work would be…”
Carmelita took her old Interpol badge out from the pocket she always kept it in on the inside of her jacket and slid it across the table. Kirsa picked it up and examined it intently as Carmelita explained.
“I was an Inspector for Interpol at one point. Well, technically I was a member of the Nationale Police with experience in the Gendarmie Nationale who was seconded to UNPol and made an official European UNPol Interpol liaison, but it boiled down to me being an Inspector. Travelled a lot, hunted serial criminals and busted a lot of the big bad names of the time. Warlords, pirates, terrorists, drug lords, art thieves and forgers, corrupt politicians, environmental criminals… the list goes on. When I got married, I quit the force due to personal conflicts, but I ended up doing a lot of stuff from the sidelines, submitted a lot of ‘freelance’ reports and evidence. Now I’m a part of the Omniverse, closest I could find to UNPol or Interpol is an organisation with a distinct agenda, so I figure that I should probably set something up. Of course, I’ll need time to establish a name for myself, and I need to get the law enforcement onside, and the place I felt it best to start was here.”
Kirsa nodded and turned her head to the bar.
“You hear enough of that, Boss?”
Carmelita turned her head in surprise to find a gruff human studying her intently. The Sheriff’s badge on his jerkin and the unique pistol in his belt holster made it pretty clear that this was Roland Deschaine himself. The man felt around in a pocket and tossed a small silver star into Carmelita’s lap.
“I heard enough alright. Miss, if you can get the town a water tanker or the location of the J and T gang in the next four days, we’ll talk more about making that badge a permanent feature. You’ll not get any help from the rest of my people, mind. We’ve got plenty enough trouble to be dealing with here, and I can’t send them haring around in the sand trying to find those louts. Understand?”
Carmelita nodded, dumbfounded. Satisfied, Roland left the bar, the deputies tipping their hats or giving him nods as he passed.
She blinked and turned back to Kirsa, who had an unapologetic smirk on her face.
“Congratulations, you aced the initial interview. Now for the practical exam!”
“Idiota.”
Thump.
“Idiota.”
Thump.
“Idiota.”
Thump
“Idio-”
“Er, miss?” A voice cut across her words, and she turned her head. A woman with green skin and tentacle hair was looking at her concernedly from the back of her horse. “You done beating yourself up?”
Carmelita nodded and pushed away her feelings.
“Pardon my outburst, Miss, just frustrated. I got ambushed-”
“-by the J and T gang, we saw from the wall. We thought you were a goner, actually. Turns out you held your own better than most. Name’s Kirsa, I’m one of Roland’s deputies.” The woman held out her hand through the open window. Carmelita couldn’t help notice that it had two thumbs, but she took it anyway.
“Carmelita Fox-Cooper. I was an Inspector for Interpol back home.”
“Hmm. You look too strong to be a summon, so I guess you’re a Prime. Come on, let’s get this cab of yours parked inside the palisade and we can talk more.”
---
The Town With No Name might be fairly poor, but it was still significantly large enough for the diversity of its inhabitants to show. As Carmelita followed the Deputy through the dusty streets, she took in the rusty steel shacks next to wooden bars and adobe cantinas. A hedge mage hedgehog sat on a patio, lighting her pipe with a flick of her fingers, staring with lidded eyes across the road at the man fixing scrapyard hoverbikes outside his auto shop. A bar advertising irradiated drinks sat cozily up against an imposing gunsmith’s and a set of stalls tried to hawk everything from nutrient paste to scorpion charms.
Deputy Kirsa walked through the streets with purpose, barely stopping to glare at a few shady looking humans lurking by a dark alleyway. After passing through a collection of plastic tents and several water towers, they eventually reached their destination. Kirsa opened the door to the Watering Hole, a few other deputies giving her a wave as she led Carmelita to a corner booth and gestured for her to sit down.
While Kirsa fetched drinks from the counter, Carmelita looked around. Clearly the local equivalent of the ‘cop bar’, the establishment was a fairly clean concrete room set in the ground with good lighting and an extremely holey dartboard. The bartender looked human, though she couldn’t make out too many details from this angle, and they seemed to be busy handling the patrons that had come in to get out of the afternoon heat.
Kirsa returned, two pints of beer in hand. She proffered one to Carmelita, who took it with a little wry smirk. Last time she’d tried a beer had been during the time travel venture where they’d ended up working with Tennessee Kid Cooper.
“So,” Kirsa said, leaning back against the worn leather of the bench. “What were you doing hauling water?”
“I was looking to get a friendly welcome. I wasn’t sure that I wanted to step on any toes when I started my work, so I felt a present might be nice for the area. Get Roland to give me a chance, you know.”
“Uh-huh.” Kirsa took a sip of her beer and looked over at the bar for a moment. “And your work would be…”
Carmelita took her old Interpol badge out from the pocket she always kept it in on the inside of her jacket and slid it across the table. Kirsa picked it up and examined it intently as Carmelita explained.
“I was an Inspector for Interpol at one point. Well, technically I was a member of the Nationale Police with experience in the Gendarmie Nationale who was seconded to UNPol and made an official European UNPol Interpol liaison, but it boiled down to me being an Inspector. Travelled a lot, hunted serial criminals and busted a lot of the big bad names of the time. Warlords, pirates, terrorists, drug lords, art thieves and forgers, corrupt politicians, environmental criminals… the list goes on. When I got married, I quit the force due to personal conflicts, but I ended up doing a lot of stuff from the sidelines, submitted a lot of ‘freelance’ reports and evidence. Now I’m a part of the Omniverse, closest I could find to UNPol or Interpol is an organisation with a distinct agenda, so I figure that I should probably set something up. Of course, I’ll need time to establish a name for myself, and I need to get the law enforcement onside, and the place I felt it best to start was here.”
Kirsa nodded and turned her head to the bar.
“You hear enough of that, Boss?”
Carmelita turned her head in surprise to find a gruff human studying her intently. The Sheriff’s badge on his jerkin and the unique pistol in his belt holster made it pretty clear that this was Roland Deschaine himself. The man felt around in a pocket and tossed a small silver star into Carmelita’s lap.
“I heard enough alright. Miss, if you can get the town a water tanker or the location of the J and T gang in the next four days, we’ll talk more about making that badge a permanent feature. You’ll not get any help from the rest of my people, mind. We’ve got plenty enough trouble to be dealing with here, and I can’t send them haring around in the sand trying to find those louts. Understand?”
Carmelita nodded, dumbfounded. Satisfied, Roland left the bar, the deputies tipping their hats or giving him nods as he passed.
She blinked and turned back to Kirsa, who had an unapologetic smirk on her face.
“Congratulations, you aced the initial interview. Now for the practical exam!”