FWC Harvest Moon, P.I.

Post all your stories, poems, and haiku's here!

Moderator: Moderators

Post Reply
Message
Author
User avatar
Welsh halfwit
Citizen
Posts: 74
Joined: Thu Nov 26, 2015 11:21 pm

FWC Harvest Moon, P.I.

#1 Post by Welsh halfwit »

A small character I've used on occasion. A Harvest Mouse with pretensions of being a Detective. Here's one of his tales.


HARVEST MOON.

I'm told there's something called being too prepared. It has to do with being ready for any situation and how to get out of any situation you get yourself in. As I stand, upside down on the underside of a verandah, held up by anti gravity boots and a prehensile tail wrapped around the bottom of the bars above as people above me talk deadly things. This isn't so bad. It's the fact that there's a lady in the bed in side this room who's looking at me alluringly and I'm going to fall on my head the moment I turn the power to the shoes off. That's what's concerning me.


It starts a day back at my office. Well, I call it an office but it's actually my home, a shabby little bedsit in an area of Caldera City that's not quite recovered from having a space ship slam into its neighbouring suburbs a year or so ago. The effect was felt throughout the colony. Trade fell for a while, the economy stuttered, crime grew until the local Sheriff's got on top of it by drafting in new recruits and people like me. The ostracised. The scorned. The Bounty Hunter and Private Eye. But this was still what I can afford. A bedsit where I have to do the washing up each night so I can sleep and where I have to leave the computer on as it's the cheapest way of heating the room. The carpet rides up and has the unique pattern of several breakfasts on it that I still have to clean up at some point. Anyhow I'm not on the settee at the moment. Indeed, I tend to avoid it as it smells like wet Equinna had a towel bath on it. It's something to do with the noodles I spilled in it last week. Not my fault, that. A disgruntled ex-client had taken a shot at me after I'd proved his opponent had embezzled cash from their company. But so had my client. And he'd used some of those funds he'd pinched to hire me to look into who was embezzling from the company!


Back on track, back on track. I'm the Fieldmouse that's sat at the computer. Yes, that solid lump of square is really a computer. It's not exactly top of the range – or bottom of the range or, indeed, something that even knows where the bottom of the range is – but it links up to Galnet, the universal internet, and that's what I need right now. Harvest Moon, Private Eye and bounty hunter. Every so often I spend a few hours near the space port with my camera and snap who's arriving. With the wi-fi still out across the planet thanks to background radiation from the crashed craft, I can't send direct from the camera to computer so It was best to get as many photos as you could. Still, it means you can get a quiet coffee and traffic accidents have dropped fifty three percent as no-one has any portable telephones. So I have to go home and do it. Only when uploaded to the Bounty Hunter databases will I find out if there's any money in…. Ooh, a Feline. And he's dinging. There's a finders credit on him. Five hundred credits for the sighting. Straight into my account. Great. No kibble for me tonight. Thank you, Edgar Trelawney, you've made my…. Ah, right. He's a shooter. Suspected of three middle ranking 'retirements' on Canis and one on Felis. So the word had gone out. A five thousand credit reward now being beamed out to every bounty hunter in the sector. I'd probably better alert Sheriff Feron, the Raitchian in charge of the city forces. She's wonderful. She pretends to hate me, of course, but that's just because I'm not as rule bound as her people.


I had a mentor once, a feline in the Hunter/Killer guilds under who I served and fought. I did the hacking and sneaky espionage work and he did most of the fighting. Well, to be honest, he did pretty much all of it, even though I was trained. Don't believe the vids. A small fighter has no hope if the opponent has a longer reach, more muscle mass and sixty pounds on you I stand up and knock an un-opened letter to the ground. It's from the Celican Justice Ministy and I've left it unopened for a month. After I left my mentor, after my training was done, he headed into Celican Space to hunt bounties and broke some laws. He got caught and imprisoned. A month after that, they sent the letter. They only send these letters for one reason. As long as it's unopened, he's there to save me if I ever need it.


A few hours and Fifty credits gets me the information that he's staying at the RollaCola hotel, a bizarre place where the waitresses skate around a glass floor with flowing cola under it, serving burgers and fries to people sat at tables comprised of glass shaped like Cola bottles for the stems and metal tops that had been fashionably battered into a 'crushed' look as the table top. The rooms are stacked with the company's product and it wasn't water in the waterbeds. All in all it was a good place for a professional to hole up in. Because a professional wouldn't want to be seen dead in such a tacky place.


I know the name he's checked in by thanks to a twenty credit donation to the starliner cabin crew comfort fund at the spaceport and a basic understanding that people kept things simple by only using the one pseudonym per hit and I get into my car, a monstrosity I've labelled the chunkmobile. Within a moment the lump of metal is grinding its way along the street. I got it cheap because the previous owner actually got steaming drunk and died on the back seat but it does have advantages. It's a tank of a car. When that ship crashed, the chunkmobile was on the edge of the blast with me in it. It didn't get blown over. It didn't even budge. Shame the bloody thing can't go over 60 and corners like a slab of cement.


So I pull up outside the hotel and draw back into an alley to change my outfit. I have a jacket in the boot, atop a pile of chocolate boxes guaranteed to not go off any time soon. Because they went off a year ago. I take off the coat I've been wearing and put the candygram outfit on, including the cap with the green and yellow sparkling LED lights powered from under the brim. With the click of a cuff the jacket does exactly the same. It's loud, proud and means people don't want to look at me. I grab the candy, close the boot and head for reception.


“Candygram for Mr Santon,” I say, smiling like a gameshow host that's been given a terminal injection of Botoxan to the lips and bringing sparkly white teeth into play.

“What's he done, Mr Moon,” the receptionist asks and I realise this receptionist hired me two months ago to prove her husband was cheating on her. I'd found out he was. With a clone of himself. The divorce was still going through the courts as they weren't sure if it counted as adultery or not. After all, as his lawyer had said, all I had proved is he was playing with himself.

“Uh,” I said, unsure of how much to say, “he came up on a database search. Could be nothing but I need to check it.” I leaned in closer, knowing she was the manager. “Before other, less subtle, people, hmmm?”

She slides me a key across and I get the feeling the case is going more her way than his as she tells me he's in the restaurant, waiting for someone. She'll warn me if he comes up. “And how will you do that,” I ask? She points to the telephone.


Fourth floor and third door along. The bed's only been slept in by the hotel roaches but the chairs show signs of life and use. Mainly it's the open cases and the high power sniper rifle that gives it away and I tried to recall who was supposed to be putting in an appearance on the Colony. I used to have a photographic memory for this sort of thing but that's not much help here. Apart from Caldera Weekly and the Online press, the main newspaper reports on the farming industry. I can see City Stadium from here. It's sold out today because of an open air meeting with a leading Canine bishop and… I'm a banana. I have mush for brains. I have to answer that telephone. How long's it been ringing? Out onto the verandah I go. I sit on the railing and look down. Oh, I hate this bit… My tail wraps under me so it's all on the outside and whips itself around the bar before doing a VERY quick walk down the bars and I slap the left shoe HARD on the underside of the verandah to activate the antigrav. My stomach lurches as my other leg angles over death and my head before I twist half my muscles getting my leg up whilst my jacket falls down and my hat holds on. They're both still sparkling, by the way. .


Now it's up and there's a certain lady trying to get it over whilst people upstairs talk over their final plans to kill the Bishop. She's just swatted me in the face with a door and I hold in a wince as my tail let's go of the rail and drops over my head.

“You're not a very good secret superhero,” she chides me confusingly as she pulls me off the ceiling. “How were you planning to get down?”

“I really need the suction shoes,” I agreed as things righted and my jacket falls over my hat.

“So are we going to get it on,” she asks, patting the bed where I could see a tablet open on a webpage via the room's connection point. It was a website of some reknown. A website where you could buy people in flimsy outfits designed to come off. Well, be ripped off really.

“Ma'am,” I say, “I think you have me confused. I'm a Private Dick…. EYE! Eye! Private eye! I'm not a prostitute!”

She looks at me in annoyance and curiosity. “Are you sure,” she queries hopefully.

“Pretty sure,” I tell her, brushing down my neon jacket, adjusting my hat and adjusting the white gloves with 'Candyman' embroidered on them. “plus I don't think any Field mouse in history has ever been a success in that industry.” I give her a smile. “We all look as young as you, ma'am. I'm sure your hero will be along soon.” I leave as she throws a cushion at me and, as I get to the lift, it opens to reveal a Canine in a thin, red, suit with a lightning bolt on it. He looks me up and down as he steps out.

“Who are you supposed to be,” he asks.

I lower my voice and take a candy that had stuck in my pocket out. “I'm the Candyman,” I announce gruffly. “I fight crime with explosive Liquorice Allsorts!”

“That's really sad, dude,” he replies before heading off towards the lady. In his profession, I'm not sure his best move is to be declaring himself the fastest alive. But he's not the fastest wit. Never mind. Going up. And up. The line of sight from his room was rubbish. It'd be better from the roof.


It's not windy beyond the busted door but it's somewhat cold up here as I pull the clip blaster from my pocket and extend the barrel to disengage the safety. It's always the first thing I do because I always engage the safety after that time I rode in a bus and pocket blasted a sign advertising timetable changes. The company must have been known for it because people cheered the damage as I tried to to put out the fire in my trousers. As it is now, though, it's a finely tuned weapon and a stealthy one. It's able to kill just as easily as a shotgun. I make sure my handcuffs are accessible as usual and I stalk over to the edge of the roof. Wow, it's high up here. I can actually see my house. It looks like a crap-hole. I can also see a certain Feline. I don't know wo paid him and I don't care. I'm not a great fan of Bishops either. They get involved in politics and reckon they don't get on bad people's tits because of the holy attitude. Well, if whichever God is responsible or, at least, isn't fictional, didn't want people to shut up he wouldn't have invented assassins, Private Eyes and Bounty Hunters. We all stop people talking when we need to but we have different views on the level of lethality required.


The Cat, lying on the roof and aiming under the railing, moves as I approach, kicking out at my feet and clipping my right one, knocking it out. I fall onto the gravelled surface and fire a wide shot that misses him and shears off the barrel of his gun. He knocks my weapon from my hand and extends his finger claws to rip at my face. I roll away and up to my feet, kicking him in the unmentionables as he gets up. He bends over and I slam my fists down on the top of his back before he tackles me and carries me onto the railings. I can see the entire city from here. I'm above the birds and it all looks so odd upside down. He's going to push me over. He's going to get away with this. Unless...


Oh, like hell! Stop waiting for your mentor, Harvest! Save yourself!

I hate my mother. She was a drunkard and abusive. She always insisted I do everything myself. If any voice was designed to piss me off it's hers. And it does. My tail wraps around the rail as I take the hand that was holding the rail away and feel myself moving. Gotta be fast. He's holding onto the rail so…. I swiftly cuff his wrist and secure it to the railing. Then I punch him, halfway ineffectually. It knocks him sideways slightly and he comes in to shove me again. But I've gone down now. I'm practically under the railing but I'm CERTAINLY under him. I put all my strength into the lift and he goes over the top. His journey's not long, though. He just hangs there, looking at me and begging me to pull him up. That's not going to happen. I switch the blaster to stun and shoot him. He goes limp, almost slipping from the cuff. But he doesn't. I head back down to the floor below and call it in.


He'll wake in a cell, the Bishop won't even know and, after Feron signs my chit, I'll have enough to eat steak for a month. Or buy a Vacuum Cleaner. Or pay the Galnet charges for the next few months. It's a glamorous life.
Corp Davidstow. Don't mess with the mouse.

Post Reply