Cop Craft – Dragnet Mirage Reloaded

In the end, Roth and the chief got their way.

Sick and tired of trying to argue with his superiors, Matoba had given the situation a second thought, deciding that there was some truth in his boss’s words. In a city that was home to over 500,000 Semanian immigrants, they had to get a Semanian officer at some point.

Only the Semani could understand the Semani.

That was just the truth. It was a truth that Matoba had seen and experienced many times throughout the years.

However, his biggest surprise was with how Tilarna had acted.

Matoba had desperately hoped that by losing his temper in front of his boss, he would convince that Semanian to adamantly refuse to pair with him. Despite his horrendous attitude, Tilarna had eventually agreed to his boss’s request. That fairy must have been really important to her. Tilarna had told the chief that she would allow Matoba to accompany her as a “guide” for now, as long as he was really the “distinguished bolice warrior” that they claimed him to be.

She shouldn’t have said anything.

They clearly despised each other, and that would have been the perfect opportunity for them to finally be freed.

Though he kept his mouth shut, Kei Matoba radiated an aura of immense displeasure as he left the chief’s office. He told Tilarna to wait in the break room on the 10th floor and walked off to the Document Center. He came back with a thick folder full of papers—a list of former convicts—that he proceeded to shove onto her.

“What is this?”

“Run your eyes over it. I have something that I need to get done,” he said, leaving Tilarna and heading toward his office.

The office of the Special Vice Squad was located on the 10th floor of headquarters, but the room could not be found on a floor map. The entrance was similarly difficult to find, consisting of an incredibly plain-looking door that had a “Resource Management Department” sign hanging above it. Because this was the department that handled investigations of organized crime, security was always tight.

The detectives that worked in the department would typically never enter headquarters through the front doors of the building. They would enter the subway station located one block away, head toward the entrance labeled “employees only,” and pass through an underground tunnel that led into headquarters. It was reminiscent of the secret bases that often appeared in spy movies, but these were serious measures that needed to be taken. Many of the department’s officers frequently worked undercover, assuming separate identities as pimps or drug dealers. If any of their “business partners” happened to catch them walking into the police building in broad daylight, things could get ugly.

He walked into the Special Vice Squad office.

Inside, it looked like any other typical San Teresa Police Department office. Eighteen desks were placed throughout the room, separated by thin blue boards. Aside from the old PCs placed on every one of them, each officer’s desk was arranged differently. Hanging on the walls were calendars, schedules, attendance records and other things of the sort. At the very back of the room was the boss’s office, sectioned off with glass panels.

Matoba’s eyes met his colleagues. He was subsequently told “sorry about Rick” around fifty times or so. Exhibiting inhuman mental fortitude, Matoba politely replied to every colleague with a simple “yeah, me too.”

The sixth person to tell him this, detective Tony Magby, wrapped his arms around Matoba, tears flowing down his face. “It’s so cruel. This must be hard for you, Kei,” he cried, though what he said should have been obvious by now. Tony was a great guy, but he was also gay, and Matoba felt a bit awkward as he stroked his shoulders in consolation.

Matoba walked over to put away the items that were left on Rick Fury’s desk.

Countless thoughts began to flood his mind, but he cast every last sorrow out of his head. If he really wanted to avenge Rick, he couldn’t let his feelings of grief get to him. He kept his mind blank as he stored Rick’s belongings in a cardboard box. He picked up a gold trophy, a family photo, an unfinished , an old iPod, a shoe polishing kit, et cetera, et cetera…

Wrapping up the cleaning and paperwork in just an hour, Matoba left the office. He returned to the break room, where Tilarna sat waiting for him. Each of the officers that walked by shot her a glance of curiosity and fascination.

“Did you find anyone you know?”

“No,” Tilarna answered blankly, the bulky folder still resting on her lap.

“We have fifty more files like that, with names all the way from A to Z. You see that room over there? You can find them in that room. I’ll give you three days to look through all of them. Easy work, huh?”

Tilarna looked at him dejectedly.

“And I’m guessing that you’re going to spend that time doing your own work?”

“That is none of your business.”

“I see that you’re doing everything you can to annoy me, Keh Imatooba. However, make no mistake, though I did agree to work with you, I don’t remember saying that I would follow your orders.”

“Is that so?”

“I will not waste any more of my time staring at these rows of ugly faces. I’m not some sort of rustic that would be amazed by mere pictures. Now, you shall take me with you.”

He knew it would come down to this.

Shrugging his shoulders, Matoba walked down the hallway.

“Then come along and take a look with me.”

“At what?”

“The zombies.”

The San Teresa Autopsy Center was located right across the road from headquarters. All it took was a short thirty-second trip across Blueber street to get there. Deciding not to use the underground tunnel, they exited through the back entrance of the building and crossed the road under the noon sky. Tilarna silently followed behind Matoba.

The autopsy center was a brick building that stood four stories tall. In its underground morgue lay the body of the man with the peace sign t-shirt that Matoba had shot the previous night.

The body lay inside a large container that resembled a filing cabinet. The drawer containing the body was pulled out. Looking down at the now blueish-white corpse, the autopsy manager, Cecil Epps, spoke.

“We were going to transport the body soon.”

Cecil was a young forensic doctor, still in her twenties. She had been working with the San Teresa Police for around two years now. She wore a white lab coat over a dark suit, and her brown hair was arranged into a short bob. Her shape, face and demeanor all radiated an aura of cheerfulness, and she was so beautiful that she could have easily been in one of those gravure photoshoots. Maybe it was a side effect of her work, but her skin had a faint bluish-white tint.

“Should I let you know what I found?”

“No need to. I’ve already read about it.”

“I see. Well, there’s no doubt that he was killed by the 9mm bullets that you shot. He had multiple gunshot wounds, one perforating wound and two penetrating wounds. It was very difficult to find the bullets scattered throughout his body, so if you can, could you use a different type of bullet from now on?”

“I’ll consider it, Cecil.”

But in reality, Matoba did not intend to stop his use of his deadly hollow point bullets, because with his job, just one wrong move could make him the one laying dead on that rack. Though he was constantly bracing himself for a violent death, he was absolutely not about to end up on the autopsy table, his stomach cut open, his organs measured and messed around with by Cecil. These feelings were part of the reason why they didn’t get along so well in the past.

Tilarna looked down at the Filipino’s dead body. Her expression was emotionless. Matoba had thought that she would show at least a bit of a reaction, but there was no hint of fear or repulsion in her face. She clearly wasn’t trying to hide anything, either.

This must not be the first time she’s seen something like this.

Otherwise, she wouldn’t have been able to stare so calmly at a body in such a gruesome condition.

“…And? Why’d you come to this haunted house of a building? Is there anything in particular that you need to examine?” Cecil asked.

“I need to know if he really ran for two kilometers after being shot.”

“Are you trying to say that someone else may have carried the body?”

“Yeah”

“That’s definitely not the case here. It’s certain that he ran for two kilometers with his own legs before dropping dead.”

“Hmm.”

“His oxygen density and lactic acid levels were crazy. According to our calculations, he ran for around 500 meters after being shot, at which point he entered a biologically ‘dead’ state. And then he somehow ran for 1500 meters after that.”

“Almost like a zombie, huh”

“I have a forensic medicine seminar with the Semani in June. Can I use this case as a talking point?”

“Feel free to. Was he under the influence of any drugs?”

“Not at all. He had drunk a small amount of beer, but that’s it. In his stomach, we found some messy traces of chicken, eggplant, cheese, and some sort of bread product. He probably had pizza or hamburgers.”

As she went on about this nauseating topic, Cecil glanced at the clock on the wall.

“That reminds me, I haven’t had lunch yet. You wanna go out somewhere afterwards?”

“No thanks. Maybe next time.”

“Really? That’s disappointing.”

Cecil placed her hand on the zipper of the body bag. Her delicate fingertips had a faint purple tint around the nails. It was probably Ninhydrin, a special fluorescent coating that was used to extract fingerprints from the body. From what Matoba had heard, it took at least three days to come off once it got stuck on the skin.

“But to reiterate, there were no drugs involved.”

“I don’t know about that.”

It was Tilarna who spoke. She had been completely silent up until that moment. Cecil seemed to have just noticed her presence, and she stared curiously at the Semanian’s pure white face. 

“Umm? Excuse me, who is this pretty young lady right here?”

“She’s a noble from the other side. She came here to search for the fairy that this dead man had brought with him.”

“Oh, is that so. My name is Cecil Epps. Nice to meet you, young lady.”

“My name is Exedilika, not ‘young lady.’ I don’t know anything about Dorini medicine, but I sense the smell of Fiel coming from this man’s body,” Tilarna said, staring down at the face that peeked out from the opening in the bag.

“Smell?”

“Yes. It is the scent of the ‘Rahtena’ emitted by the fairy.”

“Uhh… What is Rahtena?” Cecil asked, sniffing the air as if to catch the scent.

“Rahtena is Rahtena.”

“Not a very good explanation…”

Sensing Cecil’s questioning gaze, Matoba opened his mouth.

“I don’t really know, either. I’ve heard that it’s some sort of magical energy used by the Semani.”

“Ahh, so it’s like mana,” Cecil said, understanding immediately.

“Mana? What’s that?”

“Haven’t you played any fantasy RPGs, Kei? A lot of them involve a form of magical energy with that name.”

“No idea.”

Matoba had no interest in those types of games. When he heard HP, he thought of “hollow point” bullets, and he heard of MP, he thought “mystery police.” That was the extent of his RPG knowledge. There was no way he knew a word like “mana.”

“…So? What is this ‘scent of the Rahtena’ that you speak of? It’d be great if you could track down the fairy just by its smell. Then we could just have one of the police dogs smell the body and take it for a walk around the city,” Matoba said.

Tilrarna let out a sigh of frustration.

“Do you not have a brain? When I said that there was a ‘scent,’ I was just using the word closest to what you Dorini can understand. To put it in different terms, it’s more like a ‘feeling,’ not something that you can actually smell with your nose.”

“Okay. And how are you able to sense it?”

“A Mildeeta (sorcerer) can easily tell,” Tilarna said coolly.

“So you can use magic?”

“A little.”

“Hmm. Then use those magic powers of yours to find out where the suspect is. Then our entire case will be solved.”

Instead of getting angry at Matoba’s sarcastic response, Tilarna stared at him with an expression of heartfelt pity.

“It seems that you have no critical thinking ability, Keh Imatooba. The request that you’re making right now is like asking a Dorini to ‘write words using a frying ban.’ The Mildi is powerful, but it is not omnipotent. Now, pound that knowledge into your puny little brain.”

“As you wish, your highness. I will forever remember your noble, generous, and utterly useless words.”

Tilarna glared at him. Matoba looked away. Cecil watched them, not doing anything to help lighten the abysmal mood. Instead, she stared intently at Matoba and spoke in an off-key manner.

“Umm, So you two don’t get along well, huh?”

“If it looks that way, it’s probably true.”

“If you’re asking if I hate this man, then the answer is yes.”

“Ah, okay,” Cecil nodded. She pointed at the dead body that lay on the rack. “So, setting that aside for now, what did you mean by the ‘scent of the fairy’s Rahtena’ that you sensed on the body? You never finished your explanation.”

Realizing that their arguing had detracted from an important point, Matoba and Tilarna awkwardly cleared their throats.