Poison City

It was already almost dark when Marcus made it back to the precinct, and judging that it was already quite some time after his normal off-work hours, he just decided to leave a quick note on his monitor and make a mark on his calendar. But before he could finish his note, he saw Detective Shrevas Pahaik escorting a young woman into the precinct.

 

“What happened?” Marcus noticed that Shrevas seemed quite upset and frustrated, so he decided to go over and ask.

 

“Theft. Petty theft, most likely.” Shrevas shook his head: “A rather clumsy one at that. The victim insisted that she be prosecuted, so I had to bring her in.”

 

“What’d she steal?” Marcus nodded, he could understand Shrevas’ frustration, he was the lead in the investigation of the murder of the emergency repair team, and dealing with this would just be nothing but a giant waste of his time.

 

“She was accused of stealing a pouch of talismans from a giant turd of a clergyman.” The young woman rolled her eyes and said: “Stop talking as if I’m not here.”

 

“So you admitted it?” Marcus rubbed his own temples.

 

“No I didn’t, I was just guessing what Detective Tight-ass here was about to say.” The young woman scoffed: “Come on man, I haven’t got all day!”

 

“Can you keep an eye on her while I go in and log a few things? Should be around twenty minutes.” Shrevas looked to Marcus while cuffing the young woman to his desk, his eyes full of weariness and numbness from overworking: “I know you need to go back and take care - ”

 

“That’s fine, take your time.” Marcus waved his hand: “The neighbors will take care of him.”

 

“Thanks.” Shrevas nodded and rushed to the evidence rooms.

 

Marcus pulled a chair over and sat beside Shervas’ desk, then opened his notes while still paying some attention to this young woman with an attitude. There was something different about her, though her attire and general demeanor were somewhat generic and even cliche’ - she had natural black hair, with several locks dyed with the colors of blue, purple and golden; she was wearing some cheap eyeliner, a slightly torn canvas jacket, a pair of old jeans and a pair of cloth flat boots. There seemed to be very faint traces of energy radiating from her, which piqued the interest of Marcus. For some reason, Marcus had the feeling that her crass attitude and her somewhat obnoxious behavior had an element of pretense.

 

The young woman also seemed to have become somewhat interested in Marcus, as her eyesight lingered on Marcus and went up and down a few times, but in an examining and inspecting kind of way.

 

“Do you work out, cop?” The young woman asked.

 

“No.” Marcus shook his head.

 

“Why deny it, those arms don’t lie.” The young woman giggled and leaned forward: “Tell me, what can a girl do to get out of here?”

 

“Sign a confession.” Marcus shrugged: “Or ask the victim of your crime to forgive you and save us the paperwork. It’s petty theft, if you don’t have a record it’s likely just a fine. Even if you do, you probably would just get a few days in a detention center.”

 

“Tsk, people don’t always do things for money.” The young woman laid back on her chair.

 

“Then what’s a pouch of talismans worth?” Marcus grabbed a notepad from Shrevas’ desk and asked.

 

“Nothing - ” The young woman shrugged and scoffed: “To that fat toad of clergyman at least. Those talismans were the collective work of the community, he lives in the temple so he has nothing to worry about. But the community is in need of it, especially - ” She stopped before she would speak too much and implicate herself more.

 

“Go on, I’m listening.” Marcus smiled as he wrote down notes on the notepad.

 

“You pigs are all the same.” The young woman snorted and crossed her arms.

 

“Okay, let’s start over then.” Marcus also sat back and put on a relaxed and gentle face: “What’s your name?”

 

“Gloria Lee.”

 

“Age?”

 

“28 - but be a dear and mark me down for 26, 25.”

 

“Home address?”

 

“I live in the unregistered area of South-Eastern District, I could take you there for a trip but can’t tell you the street number.” Gloria Lee spoke with a smirk: “So, yeah, no address for ya.”

 

“Alright.” Marcus shook his head, he knew full well the troublesome process he or Shrevas would need to go through should he really would like to process this young woman: “Why’d you steal from the clergyman?”

 

“I didn’t steal from him. But if someone did, that bastard had it coming.”

 

“Alright, alright. ” Marcus sighed and put down the notepad: “You know, if the clergyman insisted on you being prosecuted, there was not much we could do right? A clergyman and his influences - ”

 

“Oh, I know, trust me.” Gloria nodded: “He likes to remind everyone of that everyday, like he’s got something to compensate for.”

 

“Alright, and I will go and get a cup of coffee. And you keep in mind that the petty theft can still be a pain in the ass if you’ve got priors AND the victim expressed concerns about the object being stolen.” Marcus stood up and walked towards the kitchen area, which was just at the back of Shrevas’ desk: “Trust me, I think Detective Pahaik would agree with me on this - if the victim insisted, then it’s better if you’d just sign a confession and deal with the fine.”

 

“Eh, pass. ” Gloria waved her right hand in front of her face like she was shooing off a fly: “But you enjoy your coffee, okay? Be sure you don’t lose any sleep tonight.”

 

Marcus walked towards the kitchen and poured the last bit of coffee in the thermal pot into his mug. But just during this brief moment where he did not have his eyes on Gloria, he heard the sound of something jingling, and then the sound of the metal chains on handcuffs being loosened falling onto the ground.

 

He immediately turned back, and found that Gloria, the young woman whom Shervas asked him to keep an eye on, had somehow uncuffed herself and gone outside of the precinct door with some documents rolled up in her hand.

 

“Shit!” Marcus cursed as he leapt through the room and rushed after Gloria, his Qi speeding up inside his meridians, greatly increasing the level of power he could exert through his muscles and bones, thus boosting his speed and momentum in his chase.

 

But it seemed that Marcus was not the only one with their own special skills - Gloria, upon seeing the speed of Marcus’ charge, immediately jumped onto a tree on the side of the street and landed on a branch on all fours. Something coated her exposed skin, making her whole body seem darker with a glimmer of dark blue glow.

 

“Stop right there!” Marcus stomped his legs on the ground and launched himself up at the tree. His movement was much less graceful and yet several degrees more forceful and violent. The leaves and small branches on the tree were blown to the side from the gush of wind coming from his lunge, and Gloria could see a faint orange glow coming from Marcus’ pupils and arms.

 

Several branches around Gloria were torn and sent into the air when Marcus tried to grab her. But she had already leapt off the bigger branch on which she was standing when this happened, and with a short string of after images, her figure landed on the far side of the empty street, aiming for a narrow and dark alley.

 

Marcus kicked the poor tree, leaving a giant dent on its trunk and launching him at Gloria once again. This time, Gloria chose to fight back aside from evading Marcus - when Marcus got into the alley and the environment turned dark all of a sudden because of the lack of light source inside, she turned around right after hopping onto a metal dumpster and launched a handful of small hard wood pellets at Marcus.

 

These hard wood pellets were not too dense, and were mostly rounded without any sharp corners, which gave Marcus no difficulty in blocking most of them just with his arms and taking the rest with his forehead and chest. The pellets cracked and burst when they came into contact with him, some pieces of which flew off and tore up little holes on his clothes. And it was at this moment that Marcus realized what felt special about this young woman Gloria - she must be another martial arts practitioner, not just because of her almost superhuman cat-like maneuvers, but also because he felt the presence of Qi in these wood pellets. This was a different kind of Qi from his - his Qi had some elemental properties of fire and earth, which meant that his Qi was “warm” and “strong”, a more “Yang” kind of Qi; while the Qi of Gloria was “cool” and “soft”, a more “Yin” kind.

 

With this realization, Marcus immediately pushed his Qi harder, used the wall on the other side as a stepping stone and lunged at his target trying to catch her on the top of the wall on which she was now standing, with his right hand forward in a claw position and his left retreated and ready for a follow-up attack.

 

Though Marcus was quite confident in his speed, his defenses and his reflection that he could take down Gloria without resorting to using too much force, he was still careful about facing off against this young woman of unknown martial arts style. Thus, when he got to a closer distance, he immediately pushed his left arm forward and retreated his right arm. His fingers, infused with his Qi, managed to grab the corners of some of the files in Gloria’s arm.

 

But the next moment, Gloria’s back arched like a cat, her lower body slid slightly to her left and unleashed several kicks in rapid succession. The kicks landed on Marcus’ forehead, his left chin and his chest, which, though not causing him much pain if at all, did knock him off balance and make him fall off the wall. 

 

With the pulling from both Marcus and Gloria, the rolled up files were immediately torn, and Marcus got only the smaller pieces of them.

 

Gloria’s body was elevated up in the air riding the reflection force of the kicks, and with her right hand grabbing onto the edge of a roof and pulling up, she managed to hop onto the roof of a two-storey building.

 

She took a quick look at the damaged roll of files in her hand, and after a short moment of hesitation, she said to Marcus: “It’s almost 15 years - you better watch out, not just for yourself.”

 

Before Marcus could ask her why, Gloria left without anything more.