Poison City

 

“Hi Captain Ko, how you’re doing?” Marcus walked into the captain’s office and stayed just where the frame of the door was.

 

“Sit down. I have an assignment for you.” Captain Ko appeared to be quite annoyed, pointing directly at the chair in front of his desk.

 

“Yes, captain.” Marcus complied and laid back on the chair to appear innocent yet still confident and ready to act on command: “What’s the matter? Anything action-packed? Or is there some new breakthrough?”

 

“Neither.” Captain Ko sighed and threw a thin folder onto the desk: “Take a look at this file.”

 

Strange as it was, Marcus still picked the folder up and opened it - it was the file of an officer, one that was young and on the detective track, from the 15th Precinct, which was located in the deeper parts of the South-Western District.

 

“This Officer Mick Cramer seemed like quite the young man.” Marcus nodded as he read through the final parts of the file: “Three High Commendations, one Medal of Contribution to Local Community. This almost seems like a - well - ”

 

“A child from a connected family aiming for some kind of path into politics?” Captain Ko scoffed: “Yeah, indeed. But as you might be thinking right now - why am I showing you this? Isn’t 15th Precinct the perfect place to stay until this kid makes detective? Well, you see, this particular young officer finds this kind of path too safe and too - arranged. So he requested a transfer to another precinct, one that is more down to earth, which in rich well-connected family talk, means closer to where the actions are at. And guess which precinct is so lucky to have him?”

 

Marcus almost jolted from his chair, and he immediately started shaking his head: “Wait, captain - I might be desk-bound for now, but I am almost fully recovered, and I am fully caught up with all the investigation - ”

 

“Too bad, neither Pahaik nor Lance can spare the moment to mentor a new and up-and-coming young detective. And Sai is young as well, too junior to mentor anyone.” Captain Ko shook his head: “And, to be honest, you are the most qualified detective to do so. I just ran the numbers to confirm it, and I believe my math is correct - you are the one with the highest solve rate on cases, aren’t you?”

 

“I thought Keryn was the one with the highest solve rate?”

 

“Yes, technically, but Lance is not much of a talker, is she? She’s not gonna be a good mentor, at least not now.”

 

“What about Shrevas? His number couldn’t be that far off, plus he has more experience.”

 

“Pahaik is leading the investigation, he can’t be distracted. Neither can Lance.” Captain Ko tapped his desk with his knuckles and stared Marcus right in the eye: “Tomorrow will be his first day. He has to go through some onboarding process in the morning so you can meet him at noon. This is an order, don’t screw it up. Got it?”

 

Marcus sighed and looked up at the ceiling, then reluctantly: “Fine, I’ll babysit. But I want to get off desk duty.”

 

“Exactly what I had in mind. Bring him along with the investigation, but keep him safe.” Captain Ko pulled another folder and started looking through the documents inside: “You’re excused. And, uh, take today off if you need, consider it an additional injury day for taking one for the team.”

 

Marcus went back to his desk full of frustration, he was almost ready to jump back into the action, and with the experience he had in the past few days, he felt like he was close to finding out the answer to all of this, or at least a lot of useful clues leading up to the final answer.

 

After thinking for a short moment, he made a decision. He went to his locker room and the lost and found room to fetch some casual looking clothes, then immediately hopped on a taxi to head to the docks of the Mud River, where he failed to find anything useful last time.

 

Because it was early in the morning, the taxi ride only took a little over half an hour. The docks were quite crowded now, with the local farmers and fishermen setting up produce and fresh fish stands and visitors from all over the city. The smell of barbecue fish, crab and shrimp dumplings and the slightly salty smell of raw fish steaks filled the air, and Marcus couldn’t help but go and browse through a few of the stands, and he ended up with a paper bag full of skewered fried fish balls, one plastic bag of fried fish steak, and a paper cup of local rice wine. He needed to blend in with the crowd, he told himself.

 

Strolling through the crowd, Marcus gradually approached the place where he laid Sitch. After these few days, the docks were already cleaned up. There weren’t even traces of police tapes blocking the area off. The entire brutal fight and the subsequent occurrence of the Blood Rainbow, which ended up with at least one dead and many injured, now seemed to be well forgotten.

 

The corner where Sitch laid and let out his last breath was now occupied by a meek and gentle looking old woman with a hunched back, standing behind a stand selling flowers. Even visiting at an early morning like right now, this was nowhere near a good spot for one to set up a stand.

 

“Do you want some flowers, young man?” The old woman looked at Marcus with an anticipating look: “See, I have these fresh sunflowers, and roses and lilies, they are fresh off my garden, ones my old husband and I cultivated together with heart. Care to buy some?”

 

“Do you have Chrysanthemums?” Marcus asked.

 

“I’m sorry - but no - ” The old woman sighed and shook her head: “It’s hard to get the seeds these days. Rumor has it that they may get banned some day.”

 

“Huh? Why?”

 

“It’s just a rumor, because it’s almost - ” The old woman was almost about to say something, before she shook her head once again and decided to change the subject: “Anyway, do you want to show remembrance of a friend or a family member? I have some white roses and some lilies if you’d like.”

 

“Give me a lily then.” Marcus sighed.

 

After spending half a dollar on a white lily, Marcus put it down in the corner. Then, he thanked the old woman and moved on to other areas of the docks. After collecting his thoughts and calming the guilt inside him, he focused his Qi in and went into a quasi-meditative state, where his reactions would become slow but his senses would be enhanced so that he could hear and see more clearly.

 

“... it happened again, this time in the South-Western District.” The faint voice of a worried man creeped into Marcus’ ears: “I - I fear for my family, should we leave the city?”

 

“Then you should have started saving - the relocation tax is no joke.” The voice of another man responded: “If you try now, you may be able to have a down payment after a few months if you work hard. When you have relocated, you can pay from your new place.”

 

“... it just makes no sense, why do I have to pay taxes for leaving? I swear, this city is sucking everything from us …”

 

“Shh… be grateful that the community collective negotiated a lower number.”

 

“... yes, but they raised the prices for protection talismans again - how do we even make it through this?”

 

“Let’s stick together - and we may have to start hunting in the deep forest if we need to.”