by Dillon Fisher (7th)
The Dark Side of Groceries 2057
Chapter 2: Jump-Start
Cardins was shocked. One attack on the company was bad enough, but people would eventually shrug it off and move on. Two attacks, now that’s fishy, people might shrug it off as a coincidence, but that’s wrong. It wasn't a coincidence that 2 attacks on this now international company happened in UNDER 2 DAYS. Now Rona Cardins was an ex-police detective before a fake scandal got him fired, and no one believes him to this day. All the high ranking positions were all taken out of possible jobs for him because of the scandal. So all he could scrape up was the Metroplex Head of Security, which sounds like a high ranking job but it isn’t when you look at the fact that the company went INTERNATIONAL over the past few years. Well anyways, for the past few days Rona was looking into these incidents. But so far nothing has been useful, so every time they get a lead, it’s a dead end.
Well, over the past few days he was interviewing a now conscious and awake Bobby Warner about what happened when he was attacked, but so far all he could get out of him was “Blue lights.” Which was incredibly frustrating since A. That didn’t provide any information and B. All the security cameras were fried and you couldn’t see anything from 10:53 to 11:03 PM. Which was an entire TEN minutes of footage, which was enough time for someone, or something, to come in, attack Warner and then leave. But then as Rona was drifting off to sleep finally managing to settle his brain down, he caught sight of a blue light circulating from his living room. He grabbed his stunzer from his locked weapons drawer and snuck downstairs, he would have to make do with what he had since he couldn’t get to his secret weapons stash which was hidden using a false wall in the living room.
He crept down the stairs, slightly less alert than usual since it was late at night. When he turned the corner into the living room he saw… a robot? It was humanoid but you could tell it was a robot based on the rust plainly visible on its left and right forearms. It was scanning the room, seemingly looking for something. But then it spotted Rona and immediately started firing its stunzers at him. Rona, trained in the art of dodging/blocking projectiles, quickly managed to get to close range and shot his stunzer which knocked out the robot. He immediately called 911 and notified them of what happened, meanwhile he was checking out the emblem on the side that said IUCA. What it stood for, he didn't know, but something clicked with him, something he couldn’t place. But he knew it was important and maybe, just maybe, it was a lead. A very big one.
***
The next day at the station, police investigators were constantly pegging him with questions like, was the robot bifrogol, quadnomal, or yonoma (was it a 2, 4, 5+ legged). It was tolerable at the start, but now it was just getting insufferable. There were even a few times where he told the person asking him to “please, shut the **** up” Which earned him the death stare from Lt Ashley, the person in charge of this investigation. Then all of a sudden, he was called into Ashley’s office. When he walked in he immediately started sweating, his hands started clamming up. Lt Ashley was one of those people who made you feel intimidated even if you were near him, but on another scale of intimidation than John Baynes. John just looks intimidating because he’s tall and always serious. Ashley is tall, serious, knows close and long ranged combat better than anyone in the Metro City Police Department, AND can give you the death stare so deadly that it would make that really strict teacher you had as a kid jealous.
“So,” Started Ashley, which jolted Cardins out of his daydream, “We’re here to talk about what happened last night.”
“Was it released to the media, like of what happened” Blurted Cardins
“No,” Replied Ashley, “The media’s like a pack of hungry wolves, feed them a bit of something interesting, they will devour it and be back for more, and if they don’t get what they want. It’s not pretty.”
“Ok,” Mumbled Cardins
“So, Rona,” said Ashley, “Did you see anything interesting about that robot last night?”
“Umm, oh yeah, I saw something on the metal.,” replied Cardins, “It was a circle with the letters IUCA on them.”
“****” Ashley yelled. “Apologies for the language, but I must ask you to leave.”
“Ok?” Said Cardins. Cardins bolted as he exited the room, knocking over at least 5 people on the way out. When he got to his car, he left the station and drove home. Probably, breaking the speed limit a few times on the way.
When he got home he immediately looked up what IUCA stood for, he hoped it didn’t mean what he thought it did, and when Google gave him the answer, he swore loudly. It meant The International Underground Criminal Alliance. He HAD heard it before, but since they've been “out of commission” for at least 8 years by now, he thought he had nothing to fear. But they were coming back, THEY had caused March 7th. It wasn’t until now the pieces of the puzzle were coming together. He didn’t want them to be, but they were, and they were fitting.
“This,” Started Cardins, “This is a major problem.”