Araneid

[Thexare]

Sacramento, Planet Los Angeles
3:59 PM, August 14, 804 AS

Another day, another circuit around Los Angeles investigating tips and chatting with vagrants and the questionably-employed. The Liberty Security Force had been attempting to track down a prominent cardamine smuggler, and the LPI had been their traditional useless selves, so they assigned a couple dozen agents to investigate. Unfortunately it haden't been terribly fruitful.

"Yeah, I mighta seen 'im," a man in an advanced state of dishevellment said. His shaggy hair was tangled and greying, and his grey jacket could be assumed to have once been a black one. His other clothes were in a similar state of disrepair. "Saw a man sneakin' around the spaceport after midnight just three days ago." His eyes went wide and he continued, "Man had three eyes."

"Three eyes," Alex repeated, cocking an eyebrow. "And how'd you see this in the dark?"

"They was glowin' green, man! Green like one o' them kraut ships."

"... light-amp," Alex muttered, waving for the man to continue.

"Maybe, yeah. Don't see somethin' like that every day, so I followed behind him. Easy enough, no one notices ol' Crazy Mike. Saw him climb into a... into a... one of them Bret ships."

"Freighter or fighter?"

"One o' them cargo ships, the really round ones."

"Clydesdale."

"Now, what I didn't get was, man just took off immediately. Don' they usually have to wait?"

"Yeah, yeah they do," Alex replied, nodding. 'Thanks, Mike, you've been a big help," he added, sincerely.

"Dan."

"I'm sorry?"

"My name's Dan. They just call me Crazy Mike."

"... uh-huh. Dan, then. Thanks," Alex replied after a pause, slightly confused. A beep from his earpiece interrupted him, and he turned away to look down at his phone. On it, a high-priority signal came through with just one word:

Crow.

He hurried back to his car and set its console to work triangulating the signal. Only seconds later, the job was done - about three blocks away, in a well-known shifty part of town, which was part of why Alex was in the area to begin with. He arrived shortly later to find Victor on the ground in an alleyway being beaten by four men, and... not terribly disturbed by it, if you trusted his words.

"My sister can hit harder," he taunted between kicks, "and she's been dead for three years!"

Of course, if you believed adolescent bravado, you'd be a fool. Especially since Alex had done some research on the boy, there never was a sister. "Gentlemen," Alex said on his way out of the car, "I believe that's enough." The beating continued as he approached. "Perhaps you didn't understand me," he said, kicking the knee out from under the closest of Victor's attackers. He dropped to the ground with a thud and a groan, slamming his kneecap into the cement. That finally got the gang's attention. "So, are we going to do this the easy way or the hard way?" Alex asked, sizing up his opposition. The three men still standing had the look of brutes, accustomed to force and the threat of force but without any training; Alex was unconcerned. Immediately the one toward Alex's left lunged for him. Alex responded by ducking under the attempted grab and punching him just below the sternum. "Ah, we've chosen the easy way, then. Excellent." The other two had begun to advance, which put the shorter man in the middle just in range for a spinning elbow strike to the face. Alex concluded the skirmish with another knee kick to the remaining target, just in time for a local LPI unit to show up.

"What's goin' on here?" one of the two officers said. Overweight, poorly-kept uniform, and Alex was pretty sure his gun wasn't secured properly.

"Alexander Crowley, LSF," Alex replied, showing his ID. "These four men were attacking this teenager. The boy needs medical attention, and the attackers have been incapacitated. You take care of them, I'll get the boy to the hospital," he explained, helping Victor to his feet. Now that he had a proper unobstructed view, he could see that Victor was very much not in good shape. His face was bruised and bloody, and from how he flinched when he was getting up there was probably a cracked rib or two as well. But he'd live. Alex carefully helped Victor into the back of his car and then began driving him to the hospital.

"The hell did you do to them?" Victor asked, with pained laughter.

"We learn to defend ourselves in the LSF. They were in decent condition, but had no training. Against a healthy, trained agent... Well. The takedown was less painful than what's next for them, though."

"Yeah? What's that, then?"

"They'll be processed, I'll probably have to testify, and then they'll be in San Jacinto for a few months to pay their debt to society. Maybe years, if they do something stupid while they're there."

"Ah, yeah, gotta keep the prison-factories running. 'Debt to society' my ass, it's not 'society' profiting off their free, involuntary labor. I think I read something about slavery being illegal, y'know."

"Their work in the factories is accounted for, section 6, paragraph 2. Stewart's Pocket Guide to the Law is a handy resource, but it doesn't cover everything."

"Yeah but, like... you know they just pin more arbitrary shit on prisoners that they get decent work out of, right? The hell kind of justice is that? Liberty and justice for the megacorps, and to hell with everyone else."

Alex had some difficulty arguing with the boy, and greatly appreciated the proximity of the hospital.