Chapter 9: Regret

“So, let me get this straight. You climbed up to the top of the hyper-scraper, tossed your pet snake over the edge, and then jumped after it, just for a thrill?”

“This is an offensive oversimplification of the events that have transpired, but it is not entirely inaccurate.”

Officer Maloney groaned in frustration. He’d left the station for this? Talk about a tremendous waste of his time. Though, it wasn’t as if he was needed elsewhere. Just the opposite, in fact. This was the first time in about two months that he’d had to respond to a call since Dave-156 was a model mega-city with an astronomically low crime rate. It was nothing like the 3BE’s frontier colonies, where policemen like Officer Maloney allegedly had to sleep with sidearms under their pillows. That was why the man wouldn’t be caught dead complaining about his job. Indeed, any policeman would be happy if their services were hardly required, and not just because it meant they got to collect a paycheck for doing nothing.

That said, whenever Officer Maloney did have to respond to a call within his precinct, he tried his best to perform his duties to the utmost of his abilities. A job well done was its own reward and whatnot. That was why he was so annoyed at this particular incident. All he had to do was investigate a reported public disturbance, something about unlicensed skydiving by the sound of it. However, between the conflicting eyewitness reports, the inconclusive security camera footage, and this nutty black-haired bird’s inane statements, the whole thing had turned into a bloody circus. He had half a mind to just get back in his patrol car and sod off back to the station rather than deal with this mess.

“Alright, miss Mags,” he collected himself. “If that’s your final statement then I’m afraid I’ll have to bring you in.”

“Where is it you intend to take me?”

“To the station, of course.”

“For what purpose?”

“I’m… arresting you,” he stated the obvious.

“On what charge?”

“Well, you basically just confessed to skydiving without a permit. That’ll be a fine and a few days in lock-up.”

The girl’s unfathomably deep eyes narrowed.

“Skydiving. Noun,” she spoke in a soft monotone. “The sport or activity of jumping from an aircraft and performing acrobatic manoeuvres in the air under free fall before landing by parachute.”

“… Yes? I know what the word means, miss.”

“Then you will agree that my actions do not qualify as skydiving as I did not jump from an aircraft, nor did my descent involve a parachute.”

“Uh… huh,” he scratched his head in confusion. “That is an excellent point, miss. However, I’m afraid I now have to bring you in for smart-mouthing a police officer.”

Despite the man’s crude phrasing, there was actually a law like that, and Maggie had no defense against it since she was, in fact, smart-mouthing him.

“I comprehend. I will comply.”

“Very good. Please follow me to the back of my vehicle.”

“Will it be permissible to retain ownership of Azgod’Kalar.”

“Hm? Ah, your pet snake? Sure, you can hold onto it.”

He wasn’t technically supposed to allow that, but he didn’t want to upset the clearly unstable girl. The overprotective way she kept cradling and petting that thing made him think she might snap and cause a scene if asked to leave it behind. Not to mention her charges were about as minor as they could get. All that would happen to her was that they’d run a background check on her while she sat in lock-up for a bit. She’d then be let go with a stern warning. The station was only a few kilometers away from the scene of the incident, so she’d probably get home within the hour.

Officer Maloney escorted Maggie to his patrol vehicle. It was a standard four-seater sedan frame painted white with blue and yellow checkered stripes on the sides and roof. The girl obediently parked herself in the rear while the policeman hopped in the front where the control console was. However, he didn’t start flipping switches or reach for the flight wheel. He instead sent a mental prompt through his implants and the car did the rest. Its gravity engine hummed to life and the autopilot plotted a course back to the station. This left Maloney’s hands and attention free, allowing him to review his confusing case notes one more time.

Several concerned citizens had called in to report a person falling out of the sky and landing on the high road completely out of nowhere. Upon his arrival two minutes later, Officer Maloney had been directed towards the suspect currently in the back of his vehicle. Apparently this was her first time on the high road and she was having a gander at all the curious high-class establishments. Between her unfamiliarity with the area, exotic appearance, foreign accent, and lack of a PnP implant, it seemed obvious she was a tourist. The background check back at the station would reveal more on that.

The only sticking point in Maloney’s mind was how, exactly, she had survived that fall. Those fancy words she used when questioned suggested she had employed one of those gravity cushions. The devices in question were compact enough to be fitted into belt buckles, bracelets, and other similar accessories. Their function was to safely carry the wearer down to the ground should they detect a dangerous fall. They had originally been intended as safety nets for people working in dangerous high-altitude environments, but youngsters often used them instead of parachutes while practicing extreme sports. It was therefore completely reasonable that this Mags had used one of those.

Except she didn’t have such a device on her person. In fact, she wasn’t carrying anything but that pet snake, the clothes on her back, and the shoes on her feet. Furthermore, the witnesses had reported that she hadn’t floated gently to the road, but had slammed into it like a meteorite. There had even been mentions of a sonic boom following in her wake. However, the girl would not have walked away uninjured if she had actually achieved such a ludicrous velocity, nor would the pavement have been left completely unscathed. The worst part was that the security camera coverage of the area was a bit spotty, so these unverifiable statements were the only clues Maloney had to go on.

After thinking things through once more, the officer realized there was an explanation that made sense, but it wasn’t a pleasant one. Namely, that the girl sitting in the back of his car was one of those rogue telekinetics, possibly a telepath as well. It was extremely unlikely and it would make zero sense for such a person to willingly submit to being arrested over something as silly as smart-mouthing an officer. However, Maloney couldn’t overlook the possibility once he had considered it. Thankfully confirming it was a simple matter.

He sent a mental command to the car’s onboard computer to scan the passenger for anomalous psionic readings. When the vehicle attempted to do so, its old and disused sensor module was overwhelmed by Maggie’s massive energy signature and, in a manner of speaking, shat itself. The readings spiked so hard that the little graph on the policeman’s terminal broke. It was the digital equivalent of a dial getting such unexpected results that it defaulted back to zero. Maloney gladly accepted what his malfunctioning user interface was telling him at face value. After all, nobody wanted to be told that the strange girl behind them was capable of ripping them in half with a single thought.

His worries were far from over, of course. There were a few sticking points that he could not, in good conscience, overlook. These were, in no particular order, confirming the suspect’s identity, contacting the relevant embassy, determining her means of cheating gravity, and discovering the source of that sonic boom. Maloney had a few ideas, but put them off for the time being. He told himself that all would be made clear once they got back to the police station.

That did not happen. If anything, things got even more confusing. Neither the girl’s fingerprints nor her DNA matched any database on the entire planet. The latter also showed tampering and mutation consistent with illegal gene-mods. She had turned out to be so incredibly suspicious that the officers on duty found themselves at an almost complete loss. They hadn’t even started questioning her despite the fact that she’d been in their custody for over thirty minutes. None of the officers on duty had actually performed an interrogation before, nor would they have known what to ask this suspect even if they had attempted one.

The only upside of the whole situation was that the girl was extremely cooperative. Maggie was completely aware of the severity of her situation, but felt confident that things would sort themselves out without her having to take any severe measures. That was why she was content to sit in the interrogation room and play with her pet while the inexperienced officers tried to figure out what to do with her.

Thankfully for the well-meaning but inept police force, the matter had been taken out of their hands. About an hour after Maggie’s arrest, they had gotten the order to release her under military authority, along with instructions to wipe everything they had about her or that incident from their database. The officers were more than happy to oblige. It was easy for them to just ignore the whole thing under the assumption of it being a secret military affair, like an experiment involving cutting-edge orbital troop deployment that had gone tits-up.

In actuality this had come down from the Supernatural Eviction Agency, who wanted to keep the morons in blue from pissing off the shockingly well-behaved Class-3 cosmic entity in their midst.

However, Officer Maloney had kept himself busy over the past hour. Some old fashioned sleuthing around the scene of the incident revealed that the suspect he had brought in had an associate, possibly an accomplice. Being the diligent peacekeeper that he was, he had decided to bring this individual in for questioning. Once the army had passed down a gag order, Officer Maloney had no choice but to release both of his suspects despite his protests.

This was the long and short of how and why Maggie and Joe wound up walking home from the police station together.

“So. Got arrested, huh?” the young man remarked on the way back to his apartment.

“Yes.”

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“How was it?”

“Inconvenient.”

“That’s… yeah, I would hope so.”

One didn’t need to be a mind reader to tell that Joe’s usual carefree attitude was nowhere to be found. He was clearly upset about something, so Maggie decided to investigate.

“Are you okay, Joe? You seem troubled,” she repeated his words from earlier.

“Damn right, I’m troubled. What were you thinking, Maggie?”

“I apologize. I did not foresee that my actions would result in your rest being interrupted.”

Joe had barely gone to sleep after a long virtual training marathon, so it was only natural he’d be cross about being dragged into police custody over something he had no part in.

“What? No, that’s not what this is about.”

Maggie felt so certain of her reasoning that being told she was wrong was genuinely surprising.

“It… isn’t?” she quietly asked.

“No! It’s about you!” he slightly raised his voice. “That police officer told me you threw your pet off of the top of the bloody hyper-scraper! You can’t do that!”

“Why not?”

The confused look on her face said louder than any words that she completely failed to understand why this was an issue.

“Because he’s your pet,” Joe grew exasperated.

“In what way is this an issue?”

“In what way!?” he paused to stop raising his voice further. “It’s a living creature, Maggie. You can’t just treat it as property. By becoming his owner, you also take on the moral responsibility to care for the little guy and keep him safe. He trusts you - literally puts his life in your hands - and you betrayed that!”

“I… was not made aware of such an obligation,” she tried to excuse herself.

“No, of course, not. Because nobody told you the obvious,” Joe said in a huff. “I’ll be honest, Maggie. I’m not angry with you, just disappointed. All this talk of not wanting to appear like a heartless monster, and then you run off and do stuff like throw innocent sneckos off of buildings. The worst part is, all of this could’ve been avoided if you had just talked to me about it. So why didn’t you?”

“… I did not wish to disturb your rest.”

“Then wait until I’m done sleeping. Or just wake me up if it’s urgent. What’s the point in me being your guide or whatever if you’re just gonna run off and do this crazy shit without saying a word? You’re supposed to be smarter than that, aren’t you?”

Joe backed off and rubbed his tired face while Maggie reflected on her actions. His harsh words rang true. Her tendency to take her experiments way too far was precisely why she had bonded herself to him in the first place. And yet, knowing that, she had slipped into her old habits the instant his back was turned. She had been so eager to conduct her arguably unnecessary fear research that she had ended up going against her moral obligations not only to Azgod’Kalar, but also to herself. This realization exposed Maggie to yet another feeling she wasn’t all that familiar with, albeit certainly not a pleasant one.

“I am… sorry.”

Her voice was so quiet that it was barely audible, and the look on her face was one of utter remorse. If anyone were to see her like this, they would most likely assume she had accidentally murdered fifteen people or something. Her guilt was so palpable that it made Joe wonder if he had perhaps been too hard on her. He was definitely in the right, and she absolutely deserved worse punishment than a time-out and a scolding, but he couldn’t help himself. He did have a soft spot for her, after all.

“Haaaah,” he sighed heavily. “Look, it’s fine as long as you understand and promise not to do that again.”

That was something Joe didn’t need to worry about, as Maggie had already decided to never repeat that experiment long before the stern talking-to. She had succeeded in experiencing fear, and frankly speaking, once was enough for her.

“Also,” he continued, “I’m not saying you should ask my permission for every single thing you do. Blimey, I’ll probably go insane if you actually did that. All I’m saying is that maybe - just maybe - the next time you get an idea that puts a life in danger, run it by me first?”

“… Okay,” she squeaked out.

“There’s a good girl.”

The man put on his usual carefree smile and gently patted the upset abominable intelligence on the head. It was a simple gesture, but one that carried with it the mysterious power of comfort.

“Also I legit feel like I’m about to pass out, so… could you carry me back to the pod?”

And like that, the moment was ruined. Or improved, depending on the point of view. Maggie was clearly on the latter side of that fence if her resurfaced smile was any indication.

“I shall accommodate your request.”

Of course, since Joe hadn’t specified how exactly he would like to be carried, the girl opted for the most efficient method at her disposal, which was to fling him over her shoulder as if he were a bag of old yams. It was more than a little humiliating if Joe had to be honest, but her skin was soft and warm-cool and she smelled nice, so he ended up falling asleep almost immediately. Maggie also took the liberty of lifting Azgod’Kalar up to her lips with her free hand and whispered an apology to it.

She was, of course, fully aware that the witless critter could not understand her, but it just seemed like the right thing to do.

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