Chapter 5: Chaotic Culture V

One of the White Phantoms’ older members, known scarcely throughout Seagate’s streets by the alias of ‘Vince’, had gone missing the previous month with no apparent reason. Further investigation had, however, revealed a willing defection from the group.

Upon confirmation, the Phantom’s leader immediately ordered him captured and interrogated, as his real name, Jackson Valdez, quickly spread through the gang and its circles, and the price on the man’s head gradually increased as time went on.

The small studio apartment he lived in had been located in the outskirts of the Urban Center, but it had been completely empty by the time they found it, and him already escaped with all of his possessions.

His reasoning, on the other hand, had not been difficult to figure out. For over seven years he had, with notable freedom, been in control of over 30% of the gang’s trafficking routes, as demanded by the late former leader of the Phantoms.

Although the new leader had decided to leave it untouched in the beginning, it wasn’t long before she grew to regret it, much too late to do anything about it. Without request or warning, Valdez decided to leave the Phantoms, taking with him as many drugs and haema as he could and diverting a noticeable parcel of said trafficking routes for his own profit. Then he suddenly vanished. Nobody had been able to find him during the 26 days that followed.

Crouching, she picked up one of the spilled canisters, crushing it with her bare hand.

“Little shit was still trying to sell all this stuff behind my back after a whole month… Didn’t even get to torture him myself.” she paused, resuming louder after a moment. “Anybody have any idea just what happened here?”

They all shook their heads sideways.

“We tried to feel up on the culprit’s scent imprint, but we’ve been unable to detect anything aside from these three’s on the floor. 

“Huh…?”

The girl tilted her head in confusion. But still, they were completely in the right, there, because she could not sense anything herself, either. She sniffed around some more, but there was nothing. She had no other option other than to accept it as it was.

“I see. This is… quite troubling…”

“Yes. As you can see, no accusing scent, let alone a proper trail for us to follow. It’s a dead end for now, boss.” commented Roger, pointing towards one of the suited men “But there’s one thing in particular I think is worth looking into.”

“…Show me.”

They approached the man with the slashed arm, crouching over the severed area.

“It’s on this guy’s arm. Not sure what it is, though. Looks like talc or something.”

“Talc?”

She took a closer look. There was a white, powder-like substance adhering to the amputated surface.

“And there’s more. Look at the other wounds.”

She focused on the incisions on the man’s head and upper chest, where more of it could be seen, although much more scarcely, forcing her to lean over to properly discern the vague, colorless grains. They had found that white powder in all three of the corpses, firmly attached to each one of their wounds.

“Any idea what it is?”

“Not sure. Ring any bells, ma’am?”

“Do I look like a doctor to you?” she shrugged.

“Boss, wait! Don’t -”

Reaching out with her index finger, she touched one of the wounds with its tip. Less than a second had passed before she pulled her arm back. Her finger jerked about. She felt it burn, as though she’d plunged it straight into a flame.

“Hey, is everything alright!?”

“That thing could be poisonous, boss!”

She stared at the tip of her finger, on the surface of which a small cut had opened.

“I’m okay. It’ll be gone in a few seconds, anyway.” she replied, annoyed.

(Weird. A paper cut out of nowhere. Where’d it even come from? The powder?)

“In any case, it seems this thing is capable of causing small wounds by the touch. For now, let’s… uh… refrain from any direct contact with it.” she decided, shaking her head in bewilderment.

Had a few, tiny grains of talc just cut through her skin?

***

“So, then, how did you end up like that, Emmy?”

“How did I end up, how?”

“With your skin problem, I mean!” the ribbon girl waved her arms for emphasis.

“I was born with it, naturally. I always had it.”

“Mmmhh… But some days you seem better than others, even though you say you always have it…”

“It comes and goes. In any case, stop pulling up the subject. It’s rude and annoying. Stop trying to worm into people’s lives without even knowing them well. I’m not one of your friends.”

“...? Yes, you are! We spend a lot of time together, don’t we?”

“No.”

The foolish-looking library assistant stared intently into her eyes, as if trying to pierce through her soul.

“So, then… You really don’t wanna be my friend? Come on!”

Emily couldn’t have felt more lost. She wasn’t sociable at all, she had no hierarchical power in any way whatsoever that time of the day and she surely was not rich. Not publicly, anyway.

What the heck could she be after? Was Armetta seeing something else she wasn’t? Or was that just her doing things on impulse? No, there’s no way she’d bother her for so long in that case. But if so, what was it? What would Armetta possibly stand to gain from it?

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She stopped walking, trying to clear up her own thoughts.

(And what about me? What would I be gaining from this? She’s just some airhead from around the block. She has absolutely no use to me.)

Truthfully, Emily saw no reason to like or trust that girl. On the contrary, she had every reason not to, supposing whatever that noisy brat could be hiding. But even so… Even while considering all that…

“Fine… It’s not like I’d hate it or anything…” in the end, that had been her answer. A stumbling mumble which had found its way out her throat.

“Yay! Let’s be friends then!” yelled the short girl, hugging her new friend without a second thought.

“... P-Personal space, please?” the other girl requested, in vain trying to push her away.

Finally calming down, Armetta jumped back with a giggle.

“Alright then, I guess I'll take the turn right here. See you around, Emmy!” the short girl exclaimed, heading down along a nearby street with her small hand waving behind. “My house is just nearby, so we’ll have to split here.”

“Yeah… Goodbye, I guess.”

Left on her own, Emily wondered if she had made the right decision. She waited a few seconds for the smiling girl to disappear behind the corner down the road, then turned around and went on her own way.

“Good grief…” she muttered, sighing.

Sometimes, she felt like a nanny looking after a small child.

***

After a few more minutes of effort, some of them had managed to retrieve several of the white grains with pliers, storing them in small sterile bags. No conclusion had been reached, however.

“That’s enough samples. We can have Sarrif take a look at them later.” she declared, pointing at one of the Phantoms. “Charlie, you deliver them in half an hour or so.”

“Yes.”

Already tired of the whole ordeal, the girl found herself bringing a hand to her forehead.

“What a dead end, indeed… Anybody got anything else?”

 “Not much, but at least we got a hold’a some of the stolen dough.” one of them said, picking up a string bag nearby and throwing it at her. “Take a look, boss. That thing’s packed full off stuff!”

She looked inside. It seemed to have been Vince’s.

“Seems… decent. But nowhere near everything he took. We have to find this guy’s hideout before the patrols do it for us. That’ll be this area’s task after we’re done with this, understood? Interrogate as many people as you need.”

“Yes. But… what should we do once we find the goods? Do we store them in the nearest –”

“No, just destroy everything. All the haema, and the rest too. Then you burn the whole place down. We don’t have time to deal with whatever he might’ve done with the stuff, or how many tracks he might’ve forgotten to cover this past month. The faster you’re done with it, the better. Got it?”

“Understood!” they all declared in unison.

“As for the bodies… I guess we can just move them at once. I don’t want to leave anything here. Earl, sack them and take them to the incinerators. No witnesses. Well, sober ones.”

Clearing her throat, she looked once more at their former member’s corpse. Many things were bothering her about it, but one dilemma still stood out the most: nobody could just die like that. It was impossible, it was simply something that could not occur.

A concentrated flame could perhaps kill enough cells, or enough explosives could maybe wipe out the whole person before regeneration could take place, if their user was skilled or lucky enough. But merely slashing someone with some melee weapon would be far from enough to finish off an enemy in that day and age.

With the right connections, haema and similar performance enhancers could be obtained, and their mere use would be enough to reduce one’s chances of dying in any possible way to almost zero. Something like what they were now witnessing was entirely unheard of.

“… So this isn’t a normal enemy we’re dealing with. Excluding the remote chance of Vince being targeted completely by chance, whoever killed him was most likely trying to get our attention. They were aware of his existence. That alone shows they know more than they should about us.”

“So, you’re suggesting there’s a leak, ma’am.” pondered Roger. “Could there be a traitor among us, boss?”

“We’ll see. For now, you keep silent about this. It’s an order. You know what happens if you don’t. I will surely know who to go after if I hear one word of this pass around the public. Furthermore, we’ve got to find out if there is really somebody after us, and if so, who they could be. I will be sending more information later tonight to the rest of the city, so keep your lines open.”

“Y-Yes, ma’am!”

“Now, if there is nothing else to discuss, then scram.”

With help from Roger and some others, Earl slid the dead bodies, as well as the loose arm, into three different body bags, and they jumped off into the distance with the heavy load, followed by the rest of the gang members. Each of them headed in a different direction.

She looked down at the floor. A few stains of blood had been left, but they were not that noticeable. Some random drug fiend could’ve banged their head on a wall somewhere and let it drip while they walked through there.

For the time being, she would have to wait and confirm what their situation was. If it had truly been some rat trying to lure them out, and if so, how many there actually were. How would have they tracked down Vince, and if so, why do that instead of going after more obvious targets. Why not just hit someone who hadn’t defected?

She had no idea what they should even be looking out for. The best option, then, would be to try and lure them out instead. And since they seemed to have been aiming for drug traffick, it was decently likely that a similar event to that one would happen again.

She could mobilize more groups to focus on haema shifts, for instance. The amount of actual dealers would stay the same, but increasing their numbers from the shadows would give them a better fighting chance in case such a bizarre event occurred again.

They would surely lose profits in the long run using this moronic strategy, but a few days of inaction would be easy to compensate once the problem at hand was solved.

But of course, all of that would have been a mere distraction in the end. Assuming the person behind all this knew of Vince’s situation, it was quite probable they had some kind of contact inside, a way to draw information from under her nose. Until she figured out who, or whatever else it was, however, she would need to make do with what she currently had.

The covert increase of security around the trafficking routes would certainly not pass unnoticed by them, and so they would shift their attention to some other, less protected business of hers in order to throw her off. She would have to wait, keep on watching until it happened, but once it did, she could quickly strike them with a backup group.

Tightening the hood around her head, the girl exited the alley, onto the bustling main streets.

Whatever reinforcements she’d have at hand would be entirely up to her own luck, though, as giving orders beforehand regarding a new change of arrangements to such specific people would seem suspicious to the observer. Her own person would be more than enough to eliminate whatever threat they were facing, as long as she had the numbers to distract it. Surely, they would take them down. Crush them, if necessary.

It wasn’t perfect, but she was sure it would work for her, one way or another. There was nothing she couldn’t achieve, so long as time was on her side.

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