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The city of Daylight had many nicknames. While the great and good tended to select and revere those that

praised its art, industry and the decadence of its nobles sport, the average citizen shuffling to work or hanging around its litter-strewn gutters preferred the insults. For every name that blessed its works, there were half a dozen that cursed it. In the language of Dreb'n's ancestors, still used by the technology-shunning theocracy of the mesa-country, it was known as Shhs'ylth - the city of whores. Amongst the candle-lit churches and fanes, yowling priests depicted it as a place where every virtue was frittered away in the name of unholy technology. They said that to even look towards the unnatural glow of it industrial minarets in the dark watches of the night would see the faithful stripped of their souls and honour. It was a hell where the wicked and indolent lay in unholy congress in the gutters, veins pounding with the chemical beat of narcotics.

Beneath the mildly acidic drizzle, Dreb'n looked down at the girls corpse. He only knew snatches of Felid, mostly picked up from street gangs, and the nicknames of the lower reaches of Daylight. He risked a glance upwards, the clear plastic of his hood misting under the drizzle. The raindrops that missed him pattered in idiot-rhythm on the stained concrete of the city of whores; Daylight's premier flesh-ghetto district.

"Equines, it has to be."

Dreb'n made a noncommittal noise at the back of his throat and looked down from the grimy sunlight back at the body. His second, Purity, was stood a few feet away, his paws tucked demurely away in the pockets of his jacket. The canine stood under the meagre protection of a ragged awning outside a burned out building, having scooted under its shadow as the drizzle began. Like Dreb'n, he was wearing his rain-suit; a clear disposable covering to keep the acid rain from bleaching his dark brown fur. Unlike the older feline his uniform was of a more expensive cut, and his youthful face lacked the scars of a life on the streets. Even his accent, clipped and drawling, spoke of better breeding than the man moving to squat by the dead female.

Having missed the soft click of apathy his superior had made, he cleared his throat and made his observation again. "Equines. It must be one of the gangs, sir."

Dreb'n did not answer at first. The feline was glad that he had packed his filter mask today. It cut out the smell of death from the body, and the smell of desperate, passionless lust from the nearby whorehouses and discarded prophylactics in the surrounding gutter. His ears, what was left of them, twitched gently under the hood of his rain-suit. His fur was a mixture of colours, partially from his mongrel genetics, and partly from faulty medical procedures. For instance, the curved bowl of his filter tucked neatly along the semicircle of pure white fur where a drunk had scraped a broken bottle along the muscles of his jaw. On a downtown detective's salarythe only medical centre he'd been able to attend had repaired the damage, but the nanite treatment had caused all the fur to grow back white.

He had little doubt that any similar injury to his subordinate would be repaired with a seamless blend with his natural pelt. But the bitterness left him as soon as it arose. There were more pressing matters at hand.

The girl had clearly been pretty, for a street-walker. She was some sort of canine mix, her fur patchy and splotched with light browns on a white base. She lay in a naked heap, the position and the gaping wound in her torso making her look like some feral vermin that had been gutted ready for the street-vendors cooking tray. Ugly snarls of blood and viscera splattered the area. It was clear that she had been shot here at close range by some kind of solid-round weapon. Then either her killer or the street-scavengers had picked her clean, yanking away what clothing and dignity she had possessed in death.

From the paw prints in her vital fluid, he'd have guessed the latter. People had been here, and only when there was nothing left for them to take had her murder been called in. That was about right. Down here, where the streetlights were missing or vandalised, and people might live their whole lives by the garish glow of neon or bio-luminescent street signs, life was cheap and salvage was salvage.

Purity seemed ready to provide his expert opinion, made from several yards away from a corpse he was obviously reluctant to touch. Dreb'n cut him off, standing and addressing the canine. "Pass me your identifier." He held out a paw, feeling the light sting of the drizzle on the pawpads of his fingers. Stymied, Purity fumbled in his pockets, then ventured out into the drizzle to hand the small microchip reader over.

"Do you think she'll have a chip?" He asked, when he was safely back under the awning.

Dreb'n reached down and raised the female's right paw, gripping her wrist loosely as he played the machine over her palm first. "Unless she's an illegal she'll have a chip." He looked over his shoulder as the first pass provided no result. "The alternative is that we can start looking for her purse. You think you can handle that?"

Purity snorted in derision at that plan. Dreb'n turned the corpse's paw over and ran the identifier over the bloody fur of the back. With a soft ping the machine announced it had read the personal identifier chip implanted under her flesh. Straightening up, Dreb'n tossed the little device back to Purity, who, having jammed his paws back into his pockets, nearly dropped it.

He gestured to the two street-officers stood by their idling cruiser. The pair wandered over, their uniforms and fur streaky and patchy with acid-bleaching. "You have any corpse-sacks?" Dreb'n asked. He got a nonchalant nod in reply. "Good. Pack her up and send her to the precinct mortuary." He gestured vaguely to some of the bloodstained trash around the body. "If you have any to spare, put some of that stuff in. It may be useful." The two officers exchanged a glance that told him exactly how little extra effort they were going to put into this scene. He didn't blame them. Likely any evidence was already being pawned in a black market, leaving only blood and corpse-flesh behind.

Still, it didn't hurt to ask.

The feline stalked through the rain, sliding himself into the driving seat of the cruiser and beginning to clumsily tug off his rain-suit in the confines of the vehicle. Sensing an opportunity to impress the lower-ranks, Purity swaggered from under the awning.

"Equines," he said with a knowing nod. "Got to be."

~------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------~

Dreb'n Watched Purity share his opinion with the other officers impatiently. They nodded and shared the same propaganda-rife stories of equine clan-gangs overrunning the slums. He tossed his sodden rain-suit into the back of the old vehicle, letting the crinkling plastic settle in the foot well. It was unlikely they were going to be transporting anyone, so it might well wait there for a while.

He tapped the ignition button twice, making the tired engine flare into unhealthily coughing life. Purity did not take the hint until he twisted the throttle a couple of times, drowning out the sound of the little knot of furs shared bigotry. As the canine tried to make a dignified exit without looking like he had been summoned, Dreb'n reflected that this city was built about as much on racial hatred as it was on the tattered slum-districts he was oath-bound to protect.

The city had been founded by the lapine tech-engineers and mining cartels. Just another warren of shoddy housing that abutted the deep pits where the citizens eked out a subsistence living. Then they had struck those deep and seemingly limitless caverns of petrochem deposits, silver and precious radium. Soon Daylight was crawling with opportunists. First came the avians in their floating sky-caravans. Trade deals worth more than the lives of a thousand citizens were struck, and the new nobility of lapine-avian trade leaders was born.

With the limitless wealth of the new deal, the cartels hired whole canine mercenary-clans from the city-states to the north. Waves of canines came to defend the mines from predation, and to help discipline any workers that were considered to be shirking. Since then the city had eaten waves of cheap labour alive. With one paw it welcomed them, pulling them to its rotting, chemical-stinking bosom. With the other it had pushed them away. Not for the immigrant or the illegal were the bright lights of uptown, the academies, the silver-trimmed spires and bobbing sky-palaces.

First, came the felines. While the rest of the world had begun to bask in the possibilities of newtech, the patriarchs and matriarch of the Covenant had decreed such things sinful. In a wave of purges and pogroms, anyone with augmetics was driven out or heaped upon the pyres of heretics. As the council became more paranoid more and more tech was declared sinful, more families saved themselves by accusing their neighbours of deviancy. It was said that the ash from the burning blackened the sky and made winter come early to the achingly beautiful plateaus of the mesa-towns.

Daylight capitalised on this with a greed that verged on the perverse. His father, rest his spirit, had kept the propaganda leaflet that his great, great grandfather had been issued by a smiling lapine that had visited the refugees tent-city. It depicted felines working paw-in-paw with lapine overseers. Felines in flight uniforms looking up into a bright, blue sky above with their avian co-pilots. Felines working in laboratories, felines smiling. Laughing. Living.

The reality was a lot less savoury.

Herded into the great slums, the felines were met by an exodus of lapines from those same houses. After all, why should a rabbit do the dirtiest of work in the city when the refugees will do it for a pittance? Thus the warrens of the lapines became the slum of the felines. Shyshammshh; graveyard of heretics. Even as the felines began hauling the bounty of the earth to the great factories they were accused of religious extremism. Even as they took the heavy weight of the city's economy on malnourished shoulders, they were told that no feline was allowed to work outside the mines unless they became a Seculist.

Dreb'n had not hesitated in signing that oath, refuting the gods of his people to attain a better life. All his childhood he had watched his parents impotently pray at the family altar. Night after night, calling for rewards upon themselves and death to their enemies. Year after year he watched what little money they had vanish in smoke in the copper offering-bowls. Scented oils, paper effigies, prayer-scrolls. None of these were cheap, but none of the faithful would consider skimping on these luxuries, even as they starved.

When he had inherited the meagre bundle of belongings after mine-blight had finally taken his father, he had made an offering of his own. Stripping a few valuables and keepsakes from the bag, he had tossed the bundle into his block's incinerator. The old pamphlet had fluttered free in the heat, curling in on its self and vanishing in a twist of ash.

Purity slid into the seat beside him and began to untangle his lean limbs and greatcoat from the plastic sheeting protecting him from the rain. Dreb'n's thumbs pressed the throttle of the control stick and smoothly guided the cruiser back towards the precinct.

"Do you want me to run the ident?" offered Purity after his rain-suit was discarded on the back seat with his own. he made no attempt to actually fire up the cruiser's woefully unreliable console. At Dreb'n's dismissive shake of his head he tucked the identifier back into its pouch. The canine stared out of the window absently, watching the chemical drizzle make little rainbows of oily refraction on the armoured glass. Despite obvious signs Dreb'n was not interested in talking he tried to fill the void of silence. "I guess you're right. Chances are it'll be another whore-killing. A waste of time. Dead end. Her pimp won't remember her last client and we're about as well off asking for witnesses as just guessing."

Dreb'n made another passionless grunt as he steered the cruiser around a toppled refuse-stack. Purity looked over, ignoring the view for a moment. "What?"

The feline paused before answering, stopped by a crossing light. A scurrying horde of civilians pattered past on various unknowable errands. "You really are full of opinions today, aren't you?" Beside him, Purity stiffened.

"Well I've been working this beat long enough to know..." he indignantly began. Dreb'n held up a paw, the fur already stained with penny-sized discolorations where the chemicals had touched his extended fingers.

"You've been working this beat less than half a year. Yes, we get a dozen murders a day. Yes, we're near the gang-clan stables at the Grey Quarter. Yes, the City of Whores does see a lot of dumped prostitutes...but you really can't go mouthing off just yet." The foot traffic started to wane, and Dreb'n shot his canine companion a look. "Just because this is the arse end of creation does not mean we don't do a little police work now and then."

Purity adopted his most sarcastic grin. 'Enlighten me, oh wise and benevolent one' it seemed to say. "What, pray, is that supposed to mean?"

Thumbing the accelerator, Dreb'n resumed the journey towards the precinct, the officers car carrying the day's first victim coming around the fallen garbage as it too began to return. "The clan-gangs mark their kills," he offered after a moment. "Did she look like she'd been stamped on by an equine?" Purity's grin vanished. before he could splutter out some half-arsed explanation as to why he was ready to raid the nearest equine-heavy sinkhole, Dreb'n continued. "And let me ask you this; if anyone had seen so much as a single horse in that district, why didn't they tell us about it? You know as well as I do that they stand out like a sore thumb. If an equine so much as lives within ten blocks of a crime scene we get a dozen calls to go bring them in. Not today."

The canine suddenly found it more interesting to look out of the window for the remainder of the short journey. Dreb'n was fine with this. It meant he didn't have to hear his mid-town opinions and accent for a while.

~------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------~

The stale smell and angry sounds of the precinct faded as the door to the office closed. Dreb'n and Purity hung their coats on the rack in the tiny space given over to personal supplicants and headed through to the main work area. He nodded to Nanli behind her desk. She was the pair's secretary and gopher, a creamy-furred hybrid of cat and canine. Hybrids were unusual, even reviled in the upper city, but down here she was just another hard worker. Dreb'n wouldn't go as far as to say she was attractive, with her short snout and lop ears, but she was easier on the eye than the chain-smoking harridan he'd had last.

A little oil burner on her desk flooded the room with the scent of strawberries. Her personal touch to try and keep the bachelor scent of grimy fur and fermenting 'caff at bay. Purity often objected, and he paused by her desk, mouth opening. Dreb'n, halfway to his desk, beat him to it. "Run the last entry on Purity's identifier, please. And we've got a body coming in shortly." His chair wheezed an asthmatic breath from tired pneumatics as he flopped heavily into it. "Do you know what the doctor's schedule is like?"

Purity, stymied for a opportunity to belittle someone, went to his own prefab desk and booted up his console. Hearing the familiar whine of the engine Dreb'n pressed the power tab on his own and waited for it to gear up. Nanli cleared her throat, as always seeming too shy to speak even when directly asked a question.

"We had a family slaying called in about five minutes after you left," she said, her paws fumbling to plug the reader into the rodent-nest of cabling at her console. "I think they are going to go to precinct 22, but if not we've only got a gang killing in the morgue right now." Dreb'n nodded at the news. Mortician Hesh should be able to process the body quite quickly at that rate. Looking over he could see the hybrid trying not to fret as the reader took a while to load. Despite, technically, having the best console of the trio, hers ran all day when she was in the office, and tended to overheat. He didn't mind waiting the extra few minutes it took, but the shy female always acted like he was going to send her back to the agency.

His screen flickered into life, green symbols counting up to full awareness on the dull background. He thought about Hess. First the doctor, then another rat that had carried the same name. Apparently it was as common amongst the rodents as buck teeth and pink, watery eyes. But it always reminded him of his temporary minder.

After the felines had settled into lives of drudgery, enduring the lash long enough that some of them actually did manage to work into decent positions, the rodents came. Brushfire wars in the rodent countries, coupled with poor planning and a sudden famine caused a mass exodus of poor and desperate souls. The Soviets had opened their borders to the rodents, as had the city-states of the equines and canines. Even the mesa towns had preached salvation and security for refugees.

He remembered his father telling him about the view from the city edge. Visible from the top of the mine-works, the caravan of the rodents had trailed across the horizon. Every vehicle and riding beast had been employed as the rats closest to the city, or those with contacts within its smoky dens, had headed there. At first it was a golden public opportunity. Here, said the nobles from their spires, come to us and we will feed your hungry and heal your sick. Lay down your burdens and let us be your savours.

For a price, of course.

In the slums of the felines, there was an initially joyful reception. The rats were put to work in the dirtiest jobs, meaning that more felines could avoid the mines and chemworks and instead take credit handouts or look for better jobs. Many of the hardest workers found themselves as overseers to the new arrivals, promoted based purely on seniority. It was obvious that the boot of oppression was already at the neck of these new arrivals, so why would the felines not get along with them?

Mostly, because of the breeders. A female rat could produce litters of five children, and given the racial apocalypse that had driven them to the city, many females saw it as their species duty to have a few litters to re-establish their flagging numbers. Without the natural hazards of their home country, there were soon more and more little rodents running around. That was when things got ugly.

Rodents were blamed for every outbreak of disease in the city. Even canine or avian only diseases were suddenly the fault of the 'population explosion'. There were dark mutterings of rat-only sections of the city. Of a planned coup. Of a planned biological attack that only the rodents would survive. The nobles reacted with typical lack of restraint. Like the felines before, the rodents were forced to bow, to grovel, in fact.

He vaguely remembered the order coming down and the riots that followed. He had been two or three years old. Occasionally his mother would leave him in the care of a rat female, Hesh, while she went to prayer groups or out to buy votive offerings and cheap supplies. Some of Dreb'n's earliest memories of his childhood were of reaching for her long, pink tail, which fascinated him with its sinuous coils. That and being rocked softly by the black-furred rat as she sang him folk songs in her chittering, clicking language.

The sterilisation quota and the riots that followed was the last he remembers of her. The nobles declared that to retain population stability, fifty percent of all rodent children must be chemically sterilised at birth. Naturally this did not go down well. Rioting and attacks followed. Sections of the city were visited by the Helldog enforcers and cleared of all 'recidivists'. He recalled with painful clarity sobbing into his mothers chest, her paws over his ears as the sound of fighting rolled up and down the street outside. His father had taken the rifle and gone out into the maelstrom. He never saw Hesh again after that night.

With order restored things got back to normal. In a way the felines were, overall, more accepting of the rodents now. Both were forced by the upper classes to sacrifice so much to gain so little. However, the only thing that stopped the scandal-pages reporting on backstreet chem-dealers reversing sterilisation was the arrival of the equines. For the majority of his long career the worst hate crime he'd had to deal with had been the abortionist attacks that targeted fertile female rodents. Until the clan-gangs arrival, that was.

As always, Nanli simply shunted the data from her console to his instead of break his contemplation. He always ended up looking at the gently rattling filter-fan when he was lost in thoughts, bitter or introspective, and the poor female was too shy to interrupt. A flash of green static tugged at his attention and the details of the murdered canine came up on his screen. A quick skim caused Dreb'n eyebrow to raise. "Purity. Take a look at this." Tapping a few keys sent a copy over to his subordinate. The canine whistled as he read.

"Looks like she's not a streetwalker after all," Dreb'n mused. "She's from your neck of the woods. The Glassworks, even." Looking closer he tutted. "Well fuck. So much for that theory." He glanced over at Nanli. "Send a message to her parents. And let Hesh know she's an overseer's kid. We're going to be in some serious crap if we don't dot all our i's on this one." The hybrid nodded and Dreb'n read more of the pertinent details the ident-reader had dredged up about the slain canine.

"What the hell were you doing down here?" he asked the grainy screen. Answers, sadly were not forthcoming.

~------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------~

Purity and Dreb'n waited in the cool, antiseptic-scented antechamber to the mortuary as Hesh finished her work. Purity, as always, looked discomforted by the surroundings. Dreb'n was never sure if it was because he was afraid of death or hated the smell. Given that the caninenever wore a filter, even when in the worst downtown slums, he was unsure if he'd had filter-implants grafted when he was younger. Maybe Purity just liked the smell of the streets? If so the cleanliness with which Hesh ran her chambers must have been such a polar opposite it made Purity uneasy.

The canine paced again, pretending to read the safety instructions on the wall or the grief-council hotline leaflets left on the nearby racks. Dreb'n spiralled through evidence in his mind again. The facts he could pin down based on the digital readout.

The canine currently under the knife in the next room was called Sanctity of Treasured Memories. An overly elaborate middle-town name in the canine tradition. Her parents, both of whom were known by official overseer titles (Overseer Primus of Operational Security and Overseer Secundus of Quality Control), were currently beginning the long journey from the Glassworks district down to the precinct to claim the body. Before her untimely death she had been a student at one of the middle-town academies. Decent grades, artificially inflated by her parent's political positions. Suggested occupation; Overseer Decimus in one of the smaller Glass working houses secretarial pools. There she could either grease her way up the ladder of power or simply cruise by and enjoy a life of leisure.

Dreb'n tried his best not to feel that familiar tinge of class jealousy towards her. He'd never met her, heard her speak. He'd never talked with her at any length, heard her jokes, shared a drink. But then again, chances are, if they had passed on the street and he'd not had his badge fixed to his sagging lapel she'd have crossed the road to get away from the alley-trash. Or, irony of ironies, called the police. Ignoring Purity giving his five thousandth sigh of annoyance he tried to get his mind back on track.

According to official monitoring, her last known sighting had been at some student club known for fringe entertainments like blood sports and narco-lounges. He'd need to interview her friends, of course. And check the info cams inside the building. That would be one of the few good things about this case, assuming that it wasn't handed off to some politically motivated officer, the resource pool available would be a damn sight deeper than he was used to.

Of course, it was down to the parents if he would keep the case. If they took one look at him and thought the middle-town dandies could do a better job then he'd find himself sending all the data uptown and get back to scraping whores off the pavement. Subconsciously he smoothed his hair back against his scalp and tried to straighten his tatter-edged greatcoat. Not that it'd make too much difference. Without some plastic surgery for his scars and some mental surgery for his bitter demeanour, that was going to be all the preparation he'd have time to make.

As if on cue, the light above alcove 2 flashed green, indicating that the detectives could enter. Purity lurked by the leaflets, pretending not to have seen it, so Dreb'n lead the way. The door opened with a hiss of pressure difference and a wafting scent of blood and frost. The little mortuary-alcove was cramped with trays littered with discarded wrappings. Hesh, her plastic apron gory and slick, was feeding the last of her tools into the recycler. She shared a nod with Dreb'n, her face smiling beneath the transparent hood of her autopsy smock.

"Detectives. Please come in," she gestured to the few scant areas of floor space and tried to make a little more room by arranging the trolleys, building an artificial wall between her and the officers to let them get closer to the table. She had draped a sheet over the body, which could be seen beneath like a bloody ghost through the material. Dreb'n shot a smile her way in return and he heard Purity grunt something vaguely civil. The rat peeled off her gloves and hood, throwing both into the recycler. Without the latter, the tattoo on her ear, added at birth when whatever criteria marked her for sterilisation was decided, could be seen. Like most rodents she had extensively modified it, and the large, black 'X' was now the centre of a veritable garden of flowering plants.

Dreb'n settled his back against the alcove's viewing window. "Doctor Hesh. Pleasure as always. I take it you got the communication?" She nodded. "So, what are we looking at here?"

Doctor Hesh picked up her notes and indicated with a finger on the printout of the body scan. "Cause of death was obvious; loss of blood and organ damage caused by gunshot." She took a look back at the list of other marks and items of note, then shrugged, meeting Dreb'n's gaze. "The rest of it was post-mortem with two exceptions. First, she was sexually active shortly before death. Second, her fingernails and knuckles were damaged. I'd say she was locked somewhere she didn't want to be and tried to get out from the looks of things." She handed the report over to Dreb'n, Purity lurking at his shoulder.

"Rubber, black paint and fibreglass under the nails. No biologicals," He looked up. "Was she raped?"

"I don't think so," Hesh replied "I mean, the contact does not appear to have been forced. You might want to check to see if she has a partner when the parents arrive."

Dreb'n grunted and flipped through the report. That wouldn't be a fun question to ask a hysterical parent. "I assume you've cleaned her up for them. I think they'll be here in..." He turned to Purity, who checked his watch and shrugged.

"Three to four hours? Maybe less?" he suggested.

"I should have her decent by then." The doctor padded over to a quietly purring console. "Yes, I've not got anything on for a while, so barring some shootout we should be fine." Dreb'n nodded and tucked the report under his arm. Before he could ask, she looked over her shoulder with a grin. "And no, I don't mind you taking that copy. Good luck with her parents, detectives."

Dreb'n smirked and lead Purity back up through the precinct to the warmer, more welcome confines of their office.

~------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------~

Dreb'n sat in the precinct overseer's office, sipping warm 'caff and listening to him drone on about the serious import of the case. For all he knew, his secretary posted him select details as the fat oaf drove his car to the precinct in time to meet the grieving parents. Given than he had been in for over an hour so far today it made it the longest single time the other feline had been in the precinct that Dreb'n could remember.

Precinct Overseer Shal'vey was a fellow feline, but a political placement rather than a street officer or detective. Handed his position out of a downtown academy, he simply existed to put an official seal on execution warrants and present a warm, smiling, and above all suitably obsequious face for any supervisors that came along. Where Dreb'n's form was lean with danger-honed muscles and ragged at the edges with bullet and knife scars, Shal'vey was podgy and running to fat with an immaculate coat of white fur. Where his uniform had the slightly dusty yet spotless air of one that spends most of the time in a closet, Dreb'n's was as patched and frayed as his past.

Perhaps exhausting himself by pacing in front of the precinct banner, Shal'vey sat heavily in his oil-slick-shiny leather chair and gave Dreb'n the stern, yet open look he tended to save for the occasional personal inspection day. "I really don't know how you did it, detective, but this is a real coup for this precinct." Dreb'n remained quiet, so his superior continued. "Whatever you said to the Overseers really convinced them that you are the man for the job. When I first studied the case..." 'Half an hour ago?' asked a treasonous voice at the back of Dreb'n's mind. "...I was of course willing to hand this case over to the Glassworks detectives for their attention." He ran his paws along the taut material over his belly and smiled. "But it seems that they want you to look into this matter. They have given me leave to upgrade your authorisation warrant with their personal seals, Dreb'n. Again, I can't overstate the benefits such a thing can bring for us."

This was the difference between them. Dreb'n had worked his way up from a beat cop in the imaginatively titled Murder District, where the gang crime gave most officers a life expectancy measured in month. Shal'vey had never directly investigated a crime in his life. He had jockeyed behind a console, for sure. When the abortionists had moved into the area he had worked hard to track them down through the pattern of targeted females, it must be said. But he did so with one eye on the news-casters and one hand typing out the latest press release.

This wasn't an opportunity for them. This was a chance for him to be bumped up to an overseer's post in a better precinct if his pet detective managed to haul in the brutal slayer of an overseer's little girl. Dreb'n's paw tightened around the insulated ceramic of his 'caff cup and he tried not to say anything that would get him fired.

"Yes sir." It seemed to be the safest thing to say.

Shal'vey seemed quite content with it, as he nodded indulgently. He shuffled some papers on the desk, inadvertently revealing the top sheet to be covered in a thin film of dust. "Well, I shan't keep you. I want daily reports though. And keep everything by the book," he said, nodding. Dreb'n nodded in reply and sipped the 'caff. "And remember, detective; when you are in the Glassworks, I want you to conduct yourself in a manner befitting your station. This is a great honour. You should feel proud to work alongside those officers." Shal'vey sat back, his chair supports giving a hiss of discomfort.

"Make us all proud, detective."

Dreb'n stood and walked out without a further word.

"Did she suffer?" asked Sanctity's mother. The words hanging in his head as he made his way back through the riotous precinct front chambers. The question hadn't been directed at him initially. The two canines had emerged from the viewing room, followed by a stately undertaker in greatcoat and veil. The funerary servant had taken his leave to make the arrangements to collect the body from Doctor Hesh. Her father, Overseer Longing, was a tall, whip-thin canine with the hard eyes of a man used to following orders that many others would balk from. His wife, Overseer Faithful, was shorter, of a stockier breed, with a blunt muzzle and ears pierced with silver and gold hoops.

Both had turned to Purity the second they caught sight of the two detectives. The canine had straightened up, but before he could speak, Dreb'n had cut him off with a reply. "We don't think so, Overseer," he turned so they could see the seniority pins in his lapel. Both of the canines looked momentarily discomforted to be dealing with someone of lesser breeding, but rallied well.

Longing wrapped an arm around his wife and glared down at Dreb'n. "They say she was found near gang territory..." he left the question unfinished. Dreb'n knew of the horror stories that circulated in the upper city about the gangs abominable practices. He shook his head. "That may be the case, Overseer, but we do not currently think this was a gang crime." The look of relief on his face was fleeting. Yes, his daughter had not been made to suffer in life or been abused in death. But she was still taken from them.

Dreb'n cleared his throat. "We have some questions for you both. Routine, you understand. Some of them may be considered...unpleasant." He waved Nanli forward. "If you'd prefer my secretary interview your wife..."

"No," was the flat reply. Longing reached down and took his wife's paw in his. Dreb'n, for a moment, actually liked the man. But he buried that feeling away with the rest. Like the man or not, there was a chance he could turn out to be a suspect. The best way to go forward was to save his like or dislike for this man and his family until the suspect was in the cells or the morgue. "We understand entirely that this is your job. We want her killer caught." The canine made eye contact with Dreb'n. "Can you catch this man, detective? Can you promise me that?"

Back in the present, Dreb'n sat in his chair and looked at his flickering console. "I can, and I will," he muttered to himself.

~------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------~

The cruiser sat in traffic. Normally the urgency of the mission would have them use the sirens to push through the other vehicles, but there was little point. According to the comms movement was halted due to some feline doomsday cultists. They had clipped the wire safety net a few levels up and hurled themselves onto the traffic below. The incident had happened on one of the main arterials, so nobody was going anywhere fast.

Dreb'n used some choice expletives for the group and slammed the communicator back into its cradle. The plastic was slightly warped with age, so it took a couple of goes to get it to stick, which did not improve his temper. Purity, for once, did not venture an opinion, and instead re-read the data that had sent them out to the other precinct.

With the Overseer's backing them, he, Purity and Nanli had spent some time scouring the archives looking for similar crimes. Several hours of 'caff, cursing and cross-referencing later they had discovered several other crimes of a similar nature. Women from the lower-middle city that went missing one evening and turned up dumped in gang-towns or flesh-districts with a single gunshot to the torso or head. Narrowing things down further, they had found three other cases where the females in question had black rubber, paint and fibreglass under their nails or on their clothing.

This was the first of the cases where the body had been dumped in Dreb'n's precinct. This was probably due to a major crackdown by that precinct on a new narco-gang that had moved into the area. Checkpoints were being monitored more closely, and even the infocams had been replaced. Sure, the gangs and pimps would shoot them down or block them within a few days, but for now it meant they had some coverage.

It was obvious the killer or killers had moved locations to get away from the attention. The districts they had been cruising for victims was too far away from the City of Whores to reach with any ease, so they had ventured into the Glassworks for a mark this time. If they had picked anyone else; a tired hab-bound worker or glassmaker's apprentice for instance, then they would have been fine. But they grabbed an overseer's child, so heaven and earth was going to be moved to bring them to justice.

The traffic-lane ahead of them moved one crawling space forward. This left the cruiser level with a pub-trans terminal. Several people sat in the gloomy plastic shelter, awaiting a critically delayed carrier. Setting the engine to idle, Dreb'n looked out at them, for no reason other than it was a new sight on this glacial crawl to his destination. There was the usual scattering of felines and rats, and one equine, which caught his attention. This was quite a way from the nearest gang territory, so equines were quite a rare sight.

She was dressed in some sort of white uniform, with a clear rain-suit with the hood pulled back. Her fur was a misty white with darker grey spots on her muzzle. Like most equines she was tall and powerfully built; the passing rats on the street barely came up to her head even though she was seated. She wore the same slightly bored, poker-face that made her species so infuriating to deal with, staring at some point in the middle distance as the other people in the shelter tried to keep as far apart from her as possible.

Bright, garish colours caught Dreb'n's attention. A trio of felines in motley gang-garb were sauntering this way, nudging pedestrians aside. The leader was a swaggering brute with bio-lume tattoos along his muzzle and neck, kill-loops crudely hooked through the flesh of his ears. The three of them spied the horse in the shelter, and the swagger immediately morphed to a predatory prowl. The leader called out a challenge as they wandered closer, and Dreb'n saw the equine tense, although she did not take her gaze off the middle distance.

The sheer fact that he and his cruiser were slap bang in the middle distance in this case made Dreb'n feel like she was looking right at him.

The ganger swaggered to a halt in front of the equine, flashing metal claw-implants and generally putting on his display. His boys flanked him either side, the one closest to the other occupants of the shelter putting a paw into his luminous and baggy clothing for whatever streetgun he had concealed there. He needn't have bothered. None of them looked ready to intervene in whatever abuse the equine was being subjected too. Dreb'n couldn't see her any more past the gang's leader, but he could imagine her dark eyes locking on his and not looking away.

"Fuck it," he muttered. He thumbed the window stud until the armoured glass was all the way down. Adjusting his lapel to better display his badge he called out. "Is there some sort of problem here, citizen?"

The gangers all turned as one; a predatory entity with six narrowing eyes looking for a challenge. Then they saw the cruiser, and the scarred muzzle turned their way. The leader grinned wide and spread his arms, trying to catch Dreb'n attentions while his wingmen made sure their weapons were concealed in case this was going to lead to a shakedown. "Hey, shil vesha, is no trouble here," the ganger smirked, his accent thick with gutter slang. Shil vesha - someone who cleans the streets. In one inflection it meant the honourable profession of keeping them free from trouble. In another it was the name of a caste of slaves that swept away mud and dung. Dreb'n had been around long enough to get both used on him with equal sincerity. "We're just, you know, struttin'. Keepin' an eye out for troubles...shil vesha." The two backup gangers sniggered dutifully.

"Yeah, you two better keep it that way. Move along." Dreb'n was in no mood for dealing with some low-tier gang-punks. He gestured dismissively for them to be on their way. The gang leader flashed some hand signs that, if Dreb'n had given a damn, would likely have been insulted by. His honour at being so dismissed satisfied, he padded on, flashing one final look at the seated equine. She inclined her head subtly, and Dreb'n nodded back, already winding his window back up to keep out the petrochem-stench of the stalled traffic line.

He looked over to see Purity staring at him. "What?" He asked, adjusting his seatbelt and busying himself at the controls in case they had to move on. The canine smirked and looked away.

~------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------~

It was the equines turn to be the newcomers. They had suffered even more than the rats in may cases, but things were still so turbulent from the rodents arrival. This city needed time to let things settle. To let the melting pot melt a little. There were still rats living here today that could tell their children about the great exodus. About a land where the horizon went on forever, and where so many people had died with nothing in their bellies that they were forced to come here.

It had been five brief years ago that the League of Equine States had collapsed. Many had predicted its fall in advance, as corruption and infighting clawed at its foundations. The final straw had been the coup by the military assets when the ruling elders had tried to cut back on pay for the soldiers while simultaneously demanding they work more tours along the border with the Soviet Collective. The civilian government had been cast down and an 'interim' military government took over.

The whole thing began to fracture right after. Thepoliticians had been concealing massive debts, rising crime and other figures from the public for too long. As soon as the generals sat down to try and fix the problem they realised it was way out of their grasp. Whole swathes of the country dropped into anarchy as the old clans formed vicious gangs and began to fight each other for resources and space.

Desperate for some sort of income, the generals had tried to sell the one natural resource left to them; their own citizens.

It wasn't slavery. That crude institution had been outlawed by mutual treaty centuries ago. No, what happened was that fit and healthy equines were sent to fill jobs in other countries. Usually menial work that required the brute force that an equine could deliver. In exchange they would be paid a wage, and the generals would be paid a 'finders-fee' for providing a worker. And they also took a portion of the worker's wage. Like, 60%. See? Clearly it is not slavery. It's just business.

They tried to keep the lid on the arrangement for as long as possible. Criminals were in plentiful supply, and they could be sent away to the Soviet mines where nobody would hear from them. Dutiful workers from within the military class would get better posts with the lapine-avian Consortium. For instance, in Daylight's upper levels, an equine could do all the work of a canine, lapine or feline wearing an exo-suit, hauling cargo or servicing aircraft. The end result was that instead of paying a wage AND maintaining a sophisticated powersuit you only had to pay them a wage. The only species that did not, openly or subtly, take advantage of this offers directly were the avians. After all, weight was a premium in their sky-cities, so having a huge equine wandering around was impractical.

It was not long before the deal became known to the general population. In the cities the nobles and trade cartels tried to put a brave face on it, claiming they had no idea that it had been going on. In the League, the notoriously independent and fractious clans rose up and ousted the generals before descending into squabbling. The League had, as a political entity, ceased to exist.

The deal went on though. Many equines 'sold' themselves, giving the money they earned to theirfamilies so they could come and join them. However it was not long before the clan-gangs began kidnapping healthy equines and selling them in exchange for weapons, armour, augmetics and other gear. Dreb'n remembered the daily protests against the unfair treatment of the equines. He remembered the reporters standing in burned out villages and talking about the depredations going on inside the fallen league.

All of the sympathy for the horses vanished when the clans moved in too.

Many of the larger and smarter clan-gangs had stored a chunk of the money they were getting, and when they had enough they uprooted and went to anywhere they could buy a way into. The Soviets turned them away, but many of the canine and consortium cities let them in. They settled amongst the equine populations already in place and began ruling them with an iron fist where they could. Gang wars erupted immediately, brutal and unceasing. It was an easy thing to sympathise with a man who had been sold by his government to pay off crippling debts he had never incurred. It was a lot harder when 7-foot gangsters were waging war in the street with heavy ballistic weapons and great, cleaving axes.

The rats hated them because for every equine employed three rats would never see a job due to the volume of work they could put out. The felines hated them because they were tearing up the slums with their gang wars. The nobles hated them because they had bought into a deal that meant they got nice, docile, quiet servants and now there was gunplay on the streets. The oppressed hated them because they were not as oppressed as them. The equines hated themselves for this shameful failure. Hate stacked high upon hate.

There was talk of a crackdown, and of segregation. Not herding the equines into camps, but enforcing a strict spreading out of their numbers through the slums to make coordinated gang fighting impossible. Maybe when every equine lived alone people would feel sorry for them again. Dreb'n doubted it. The wounds of the clan-gangs were still fresh and bleeding in many districts.

~------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------~

They were stuck in traffic for another hour before things started moving solidly. The first sign that things were going back to normal was the much-delayed public carrier arriving at the stop. When it left, the equine was gone. Dreb'n had been sitting in silence, occasionally looking out the window at her. Her fixed gaze had seemed to be lingering on the cruiser, making the fur on the back of his neck itch a little as if she could see through the tinted windows. He relaxed a little when she disappeared, and turned his attention to the line of vehicles ahead. Soon they were moving again, albeit at a snail's pace.

The main reception of the precinct looked identical to their own. Dreb'n elbowed his way through shouting pimps, sullen crooks and restrained gang warriors. To one side a massive equine was securely bolted to a wall brace. A uniformed officer was bellowing at him, but the clan-ganger simply ignored his threats and occasional blows. Purity straightened up a little and met the equine's gaze, holding it for as long as he passed by. The horse's expression was unreadable, but given the number of kill-stamps furtooed on his thick arms he was not particularly impressed.

Dreb'n made it to the main desk and tapped his lapel badge. "Detectives Dreb'n and Purity. We're here to pick up some files." The rat on duty gave them a quick glance and pointed them at a door some distance away. The pair pressed on. Dreb'n noted with some surprise that this was the precinct's detectives office, not an archive as he had expected. He tapped on the door and it retracted smoothly.

Inside there was the usual small waiting chamber, but before they could settle in or punch the intercom the door opened and a grizzled canine loped out to meet them. "You Dreb'n?" He rasped, his voice harsh from age or excessive smoking. Dreb'n nodded and extended his paw. The other male shook it and motioned them inside. "Forthright. You're both late."

Dreb'n scanned the office briefly. A rat sat behind a pair of packing crates typing on an obsolete console against one wall, while another canine with an augmetic eye lounged on an old sofa. The only other furniture in the room was an ancient desk, some sort of hand-me-down given the excess of carving and detail on the time-worn wood. The smell of old cigarettes and vendor food was heavy in the air. A pile of cartons mouldered quietly by an overflowing recycler unit, awaiting disposal. "Yeah, didn't you get our message?" The older canine shrugged, so Dreb'n continued. "Some jumpers on the main arterial blocked up traffic for about two hours. I let central know we'd be coming in delayed."

The detective turned to the rat, which Dreb'n assumed was his secretary. The rodent shrugged and tapped the console screen to indicate it's lack of function. With a derisive snort he turned back to the pair. "Well now you're here let's talk. This is my second, Labours. I've pulled up the files you want and gotten a hardcopy for your archives as well." The canine padded around his desk and sat, patting a plastic-wrapped bundle precariously laid on top of the paperwork stacks. "So, what I want to know is why this is so important you have to come all the way down here. I saw the clearance on your badge when the request came through. Why do the overseers want to know about some body-dumper?"

Before Dreb'n could answer Purity cut in, his tone more condescending than usual. "Sorry. We're not required to share that information with you."

He went from stiff-backed authority to nearly whimpering in an instant as everyone in the room turned and glared at him. It was clear the other two canines were street-mutts, born and bred down in the slums. The second he opened his mouth Purity had given away his middle-town heritage. The other two detective's eyes narrowed. In the case of Labours the augmetic ratcheted almost closed with a series of clicks that sounded quite loud in the sudden silence.

Dreb'n turned away from his second in disgust. "We believe he'd struck again," he continued as if nothing had happened. "This time he pulled a girl from middle town." He looked between the two canines, noticing scarred ears perking up at this information. "I assume I can trust you both to keep quiet on this? If we can keep our investigation under wraps then he won't know we're coming for him." Both of the canines nodded. "The female he killed this time was an overseer's daughter. One of the branch houses in the Glassworks, but a pretty major incident."

Labours sat back on the couch and whistled softly. "Fuck," he added eloquently after a few seconds.

Detective Forthright nodded solemnly and steepled his fingers in front of his muzzle. "Well I should probably let you know these cases might not be the only ones he's committed. We had a rash of robbery-slaughters along the precinct border that we never pinned down to anyone. All of them were committed with the same sort of weapon."

Dreb'n nodded thoughtfully. "Do we have any data on what he's using? All we know is that it's some sort of hard-rounds. I hear you guys have a ballistics lab."

Forthright nodded and called up some data on his console. "Yeah. But the news isn't great," he tutted to himself. "The weapon isn't registered and has a random spread pattern. We're guessing a home-made street piece or gang-tooled job. Most bodies were shot at close range with shrapnel rounds." He turned his gaze back to the feline for a moment. "Again, home made, so no leads there." He scrolled a little more. "All those three cases and the suspected ones he used a single round at close range to the torso. We're guessing he took what he wanted at gunpoint then took them out to clear up."

Dreb'n' stored this information away. He stepped forward with his paw out. Forthright handed him the files from his desk, causing him to pause. Tucking them under his arm, Dreb'n extended his paw again. This time, with a sudden chuckle, the other detective shook it. "Sorry," he said. "Not used to people being polite around here."

Dreb'n grinned and nodded. "We're with the police. If we wanted people to be polite to us we'd have picked a different job." With that, he turned to leave, collecting the silent Purity on the way. The canine gave a stiff, short bow as he left, drawing a snigger of derision from Labours. Purity's hackles rose and he seemed about to say something until Dreb'n flashed him a warning look.

Back in the ante-chamber, the feline slapped the bundle of files against Purity's chest. "Two things. First off, you are never, EVER going to complain about Nanli using scented oils in our office again. Understand?" Purity paused for a moment, then nodded. "Second, and this is more important, you are not some middle-town hot-shit supercop, do you understand me?"

"But we aren't required to..." Purity began.

"Shut. Up," Dreb'n' stepped forward and put himself almost nose-to-nose with Purity. The taller canine winced and flinched back a step, but Dreb'n went right along with him. "You are not, I re-fucking-peat, some middle-town hot-shit supercop. It is not the case that you are rolling down here to teach us slummers how to do real police work. We've come here to get their cooperation. Not to barge in and demand what we like." Dreb'n punctuated his hissed tirade with a poke to the canine's chest. "If we'd walked in here, giving them that 'we don't have to tell you anything' shit and then walked out with our noses in the air then we wouldn't know that stuff about these other robbery-slaughters or his weapon of choice. That's more info we can use to catch him. Do you understand?"

The muscles of Purity's jaw tensed. Grudgingly he nodded. "Yes," he replied. As and afterthought he muttered out the 'sir' that should follow. Dreb'n kept him pinned with his gaze for a moment, then turned and walked back into the precinct proper. About halfway across the room Purity caught up with him.

"So what now?" ventured Purity as they headed to the cruiser bay.

"First off, we're going to drop those documents off with Nanli for processing," Dreb'n muttered. He turned and half-grinned at his second. "The we're going back up to your neck of the woods." Purity's smile was a great deal more genuine than the felines at the thought of heading uptown. He drummed his paws lightly on the sealed documents on his lap as the cruiser set off back to the precinct.

~------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------~

The next day found the pair on the main arterial heading into the Glassworks. The cruiser sped along the police lane heading uptown, checkpoints opening as they approached as the credentials attached to Dreb'n's badge approved them for the travel. Purity had spent the first hour of travel talking excitedly about returning to the middle town. Of course, this would be the first time he had been back, Dreb'n thought, so he would be looking forward to getting out of the grime of the lower reaches.

As they took another spiral road around an immense support pillar he risked a glance at the now silent canine. Purity was looking out the window as they climbed, moving from the scrubby tatters of lower town to the brighter lights of the Glassworks. Dreb'n turned his eyes back to the road. He knew his second was looking forward to going back, but he was not sure what sort of reception he would get. Not least of which because of Purity's past.

He had been a minor support officer working in a middle town precinct in the Steelmills district. His family was not important enough for him to get a placement in the overseers, even as a decimus. Instead he had been put in charge of pushing papers around the accounts and archives. The problem was that while he was undeniable intelligent, he was not as intelligent as he believed. So when he began funnelling money to his account he did so sloppily and got caught.

That wasn't the problem. Middle town had as heavy a graft problem as the slum precincts. The stakes were a lot higher though. Instead of some pimp offering you a night with his least mangy girl, along with a bag of illicit narco, to let him off, you had production houses sending aides with the promise of serious currency if you let their industrial saboteurs go. Or stopped investigating why so many of the prostitutes a house-scion visited kept turning up dead. Or asked that the info cams be turned off so a strike team could knock over a rival overseer's hab.

That was the difference. Here you got a better class of criminal. Down below you had the desperate, lost and depraved slicing each other on street corners for pennies. Here you wouldn't get shivved in the spine for your wallet. You'd just catch a bullet as anonymously-funded teams turned your workplace into a bullet festival over a trade contract. Much as he would like to dismiss all the middle town cops as preening, work-shy dandies, they were the ones that had to roll out and stop the houses from going to war over sums of money so large as to be almost fictional. That took guts. And unravelling the plots and lies they wove around their schemes took brains.

That was why Purity had been sent down to him. The same officers that found him out were also neck-deep in bribes, but they did it subtly.

His family wasn't able to cover his tail fully. To avoid a scandal they reached an expensive compromise with the precinct. He received a promotion from support officer to detective second class...and was assigned to the city of whores precinct. One paw gives, the other punches you in the nuts.

Still, it beats seeing your name on an execution warrant.

Dreb'n had endured Purity's whining for the first few days before he had told the canine to shut up about it. The way he told the story, he was the victim of a conspiracy that had framed him and sent him away to prevent his imminent rise to greatness. Dreb'n had looked into the details himself. He still had the letter sent from Purity's precinct overseer. Rather than turn away his enquiries or ignore his messages the man had sat down and hand-written him a hardcopy summary of the incident and sent them along by courier. He smirked a little to himself. The man certainly had class.

Luckily Purity had finally accepted that the only way out of his situation was to make detective first class and then, you know, solve some cases and get transferred to a better precinct. The last six months had dented and battered this plan, but at least he wasn't as raw as he had been. He might even make a decent officer by the time it came for Dreb'n to retire.

But for now he was worried. What would the precinct think when they reviewed Purity's record? Would bringing him along open doors with his middle-town knowledge, or would it slam them closed because of his history? Dreb'n was just going to have to find out.

"There it is," Purity exclaimed as they rounded the final bend, the automatic gates opening ahead of them. "The Glassworks."

The view was pretty stunning. Down below the world was all about the wrestling of raw elements from the earth. Ground-scaring mines and soot-belching factories did the dirty work to ensure that there was a constant supply of minerals, petrochem and other building blocks of industry. Here it was all put together. But not in some back-breaking sweatshop. No, this was a district of automated factories, where workers needed hefty degrees to even push the buttons that started and stopped the kilometres of conveyors and millions of robotic assemblers.

The highest uptown Dreb'n had ever been for any length of time was investigating the buffer-zone of lower-tier housing that serviced the middle-town districts. There lived the servants, the cleaners and the personal dogsbodies to the designers, tech-engineers and overseers. That and the time he had delivered a wanted criminal to the gates of the Steelmlls. But that had been just a fleeting glance through the barrier before being on his way.

The Glassworks was a glittering creation. The factories and foundries were hidden from public view behind stunning tinted-glass facades and offices. The district produced everything from simple window glass and spectacle lenses to the armoured crystal cockpits of the sky palaces. They drove past a stepped pyramid where streamers of molten glass fell in endlessly-recycled loops inside armoured, transparent pillars. They paused at some traffic lights as an office nearby emptied of workers, each room falling black and silent as the lights within turned off and the expansive window polarised into obscuring darkness.

At another intersection they paused to check the console for directions. Some sort of expensive eatery opposite seemed to be composed entirely of stained glass in abstract patterns, transparent enough to see through but prismatic and distorted. The facade of the building flickered between light and dark hypnotically as the people within moved. Soon they were on their way again.

"So...does this remind you of home?" Dreb'n asked casually as they made their way to the precinct.

Purity looked up from the console and out the window. "It does, to some degree," he admitted after a pause. "The architecture is a little overblown for my taste. I prefer the minimalism we had back home. Although that's probably not the fashion any more." He looked over at Dreb'n. "The mills are a lot nosier and run hotter too. So most of the public spaces are enclosed to let the filter fans work." He sniffed a little and looked out of the window. "I've never been a fan of the open sky."

Dreb'n started. Of course; this place was high enough out of the industrial fog and titanic foundations to get a good look up. When next they paused he peered out of the window, trying not to let Purity catch the action in case it drew a mocking smirk. All he could see was patches of white between the glass and steel buildings around them. He shrugged and looked back at the road. He chided himself for monetarily expecting bright blue, clear skies filled with wheeling avians and exquisite sky palaces. Still, he'd seen clouds that were not a misty conglomerate of factory waste for once, so that was something.

The pair drove deeper into the Glassworks. The beaten and weathered cruiser utterly at odds with the dazzling surroundings.

~------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------~

They were greeted in the motor pool by a female lapine that introduced herself as Ranshi, the Overseer's equerry. Her fur was a patchwork of light and dark browns with a black splotch around her right eye. Her uniform was crisply laundered, but the armoured jacket over her torso bore scratches and repairs that told of some hard encounters.

"Obviously the overseer will meet you in person if needs be." she explained as they wandered through the precinct. The building seemed to be made from reinforced glass cubes which were darkened as appropriate through tinting controls set into the walls. It made the whole place seem open and airy. Dreb'n watched as a sullen looking canine was lead into a small cell and the walls went black. He assumed that was an interrogation or holding room. Ranshi continued as they padded past a row of officers doing paperwork at their consoles. "But that will likely only be in the case of a press conference to give you a briefing on what to say. We've tried to keep a lid on this as much as possible. While there is going to be an inevitable moral panic over the idea that scum are passing the checkpoints and abducting people for robbery-slaughter, we'll try and solve the case first." She looked over her shoulder, and Dreb'n caught the faint whirring tick of augmetics as her back twisted. "I assume you'll be needing lodgings?"

"Probably, we don't know how much time this will take," Dreb'n said as they wandered into a small room with a couple of holographic consoles. Ranshi switched the walls to opaque with a wave of her paw over a wall switch. She indicated the plush chairs, which the two detectives sank into. After the hard plastic bucket seats in the cruiser this was heaven.

"The parents of Sanctity's friend have requested that the interviews be carried out by holographic link," Ranshi said as she tapped a call button. A feline tech-engineer appeared a moment or two later and began making adjustments to the consoles in the middle of the room. "They have also reserved the right to terminate the interview if things become too emotional."

Dreb'n grunted a little in annoyance. Ranshi's jaw tightened a little. "I'm sorry, detective. But these are the children of overseers, or at the very least the children of highly-ranked designers and fabricators. We can't just drag them down to the station and beat information out of them."

There was an uncomfortable pause. Dreb'n sat back in the chair and glared at the lapine. "Let me get something straight," he said, when she refused to back down or break eye contact. "I don't randomly beat suspects, especially children, for information. I'm..." he paused, cracking his knuckles distractedly and making Purity wince at the sound. "...Upset, because there is a chance that this killer is going to get away because some over-protective parent is going to pull the switch on this interview. Is that understood?"

Ranshi gave a nod. "Apologies, detective," she offered, spreading her paws wide. "However I don't care how upset this makes you. This is how we do things here. I understand you have been given clearance by her parents to investigate, but I don't think you understand how quickly that will be withdrawn if these people apply even the slightest bit of pressure." She paused as the technician finished his work and a link began to establish. "In any case, let's begins. Just try not to be too abrasive."

Dreb'n was his charming best. It turned out that most of the students were quite happy to cooperate. However there were some grey patches in the overall story. They all agreed they had gone to a club to celebrate the end of the semester, but none of them was willing to talk about what exactly they were offering in the way of diversions that night. The threads of the story came together, recorded in scribbled shorthand on Dreb'n notepad.

Sanctity had apparently been more eager than the others to party as she believed she had succeeded in her exams for that period which had been bothering her. Whatever hedonistic delights had been on offer had been explored fully by her that evening. A blushing lapine had, at the off-camera urging of what sounded like her mother, admitted that Sanctity had spent some time away from the group with some male none of them knew. The last of them to see her had spoken to her as she headed to the door, happy but alive.

Dreb'n was shocked to notice that none of them knew she was dead. As the link powered down he turned to Ranshi but she answered before he could form the question. "When I said we put a lid on it I meant it." She perched on the edge of the console desk. "If the killer knows that they tagged an overseer's daughter they might flee. So, as far as anyone knows this is a kidnapping case. We're just hoping that the press doesn't get hold of a picture."

The feline sighed and sat back in his chair. "Well we have enough to be getting on with now." He checked his notebook. "We'll need to find this male. Let's head to the club and see what the owner has to say for himself."

~------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------~

Apparently what he had to say for himself was 'We're fully licensed'. Dreb'n had lost count of the number of times the nervous looking canine had chorused those words. He noticed that each time he'd looked to Ranshi instead of him when he did so.

"So let me get this straight," he said, tapping his fingers on the expensive desk. "On that evening you were selling narcotics to students. You also had no security in the private booth Sanctity and her party were in because they paid you extra. You have no idea who the male she went off with is because you didn't take idents at the door, only cash. And you don't remember seeing her leave."

"We...we're fully licensed for narcotics," quavered the club owner. He looked at Ranshi until Dreb'n tapped his finger louder on the polished glass desktop to draw his attention. "It was designer gear anyway. Harmless fun! And it was an overseer crowd. You...you don't say 'no' to them and stay in business." He paused before bringing out his stock mantra once again. "We're fully licensed, I don't see why I should put up with this harassment."

The look on Dreb'n's face indicated that the harassment was only just beginning. However, Purity decided to step in to smooth things over. "Look, we can be on our way quite quickly. If you and your staff don't recall that happened that night, just give us your info cam footage and we'll take it back to the precinct."

The manager squirmed in his seat. Dreb'n was about to ask why when Ranshi spoke a brief burst of lapin. The canine nodded, and she turned to the other detectives with a weary look. "Sorry, detectives, but there is no footage from that night." She turned and gave a little bow to the canine behind the desk. "I believe we may have to return to the precinct for now."

Dreb'n had been about to argue when he caught the subtle tilt to Ranshi's head. He nodded to the club owner and the trio padded back to the lobby.

"What was that all about?" Dreb'n asked when they were in the spectacularly gaudy entrance to the club. He eyed the nearby workers putting up fresh posters for some sort of blood-match between two augmetics and snorted. "'Fully fucking licensed'" he muttered under his breath.

Ranshi paused, her paws behind her back. She gave a little stretch, ending in a click and a sigh of release, shaking herself slightly. Dreb'n raised an eyebrow and the lapine gave a half-smile. "Augmetic spine," she explained. "I took a hard round to the back during...a case." She looked away. "The club has info cams, but they turned them off that night. It's a common thing for places like this when the overseers and promising students come around." With that Ranshi began padding to the door. Dreb'n and Purity kept pace as they emerged into the street.

"The thing is, these kids may end up being a primus or secondus some day," she shot over her shoulder. "They don't want someone popping up with a video of them crawling the walls, high on narco and shagging any passing stranger. It'd be terrible blackmail material." She paused as they reached the cruiser and leaned on the door slightly, facing the two males. "So places like this operate a 'lights out' policy when they have these kids or their parents in. They turn off the cameras for the night so everyone can have fun without problems."

Dreb'n nodded. He sighed and looked up. it was getting late now, and the clouds above were tinged a strange, unhealthy orange from the glassworks below and the setting sun. He clicked his own back, stiff from the interminably-long cruiser trip, and noticed something glittering on the corner of one of the eateries opposite.

"Hey," he pointed. "Is that what I think it is?"

Ranshi and Purity followed his indicating finger. Sat on the corner of the building was a small protruding tube of glass. A single, blinking light sat atop a polished lens.

"Info cam," chorused the three of them in unison.

~------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------~

The problem was not that Dreb'n did not expect there to be an info cam there. Quite the opposite. The lower town was blanketed with them, 'for security reasons'. The thing was that no matter how high out of reach they were or how armoured, the gangs and criminals would disable them. There was a constant rolling project to get the cameras replaced, district by district. In the end it was only sensible to really use them as part of an operation to catch a specific criminal in the act. By the time the case was airtight they would all be down again. It was such an operation that had flushed the killer out of theircomfort zone.

In his own precinct the cam terminal was stored in a closet in the archives. There had not been a need to put in a requisition order for more cams, so they had left it to get dusty out of the way. Here in the middle town the streets themselves were pretty safe. Most info cams were hooked up to remote consoles either in precincts or in the local security office, and covered only the interior of the building. But there was the occasional traffic monitor on busy junctions, or 'public' cams paid for by businesses that wanted the police to keep an eye on the streets outside their properties.

By sheer luck, the building opposite the club had installed an info cam to deter revellers from the club clogging up their frontage. The three officers had jumped in the cruiser and raced back to the precinct. Ranshi drove them. She had picked one of the Glassworks precinct cruisers to ferry them to the club and back in, as it attracted less attention than the obsolete and grimy model they had arrived in.

As they approached the motor pool entrance Dreb'n saw the light-flash of newscasters and a scrum of people pressing to the front doors of the precinct in desperation, most of them wearing the traditional green sash of a licensed reporter. "What the hell..." he breathed.

Ranshi tapped her ear. Dreb'n watched her throat work slightly as she used some sort of implant mike to call central and get information. After a moment she looked over at the feline. "Looks like someone leaked the story." She guided them past a pair of officers armed with deterrent staves to keep any reporters away and down the ramp into the motor pool. "The chief is going to be holding a press conference later, if you want to attend."

Purity's ears perked up at the thought but Dreb'n' shook his head. "I don't think so," he said as Ranshi parked them between two other cruisers. "By the way, are we going to pull in that bastard from the club for leaking the information?"

Ranshi looked shocked. "Oh I don't think it was him," she added as she disengaged her harness. She slipped out of the vehicle before Dreb'n could question this. He got out and slammed the door, trying to think who else would have the information. Ranshi cut though his thoughts with her answer. "One of her friends will have put two and two together. A kidnapping story only works so much as a cover. So they will have gone to the press to get into the newscasts."

"What?" Dreb'n was shocked. Purity slid out of the car and nodded.

"It's simple," he said. "Even a very good student might not get an overseer position unless they have some connections or are otherwise well known." Ranshi nodded and continued the line of logic.

"Exactly. So if they are known as they friends of the poor, murdered girl, and get their faces plastered all over the papers and news programs..." she left the thought hanging there. Dreb'n slowly began walking to the door, shaking his head sadly.

"Really?" he shot over his shoulder.

Purity nodded as he and the lapine moved to catch up with him. "It's a pretty cutthroat system," Purity added. "Yes, anyone with the right academy grades, from all over the city, can take the overseers exam. But there are only so many places. So, anyone without political connections who makes some contacts in the media, even from something like this, has an edge over someone that just does well in the exam. Just having your name in print is enough sometimes."

Dreb'n snorted dismissively. "Well you live and learn," he bitterly exclaimed to the delicately etched lift doors as they waited for a carriage.

They were soon in a spacious, well-lit room with a row of lapine and canine operators watching info cam footage. Ranshi spoke in rapid-fire bursts of chittering lapine to an older male who directed them to a desk. The well-groomed canine manning the console looked up as they approached, glancing warily from Dreb'n' scarred face to Ranshi's decidedly more appealing one.

As soon as introductions were done, Dreb'n directed the canine to bring up the info cam footage for that night. It took a moment to load from the archives but soon they were skimming through footage of blurring cars and fast-forwarded pedestrians. Dreb'n dug out his notepad. "We think she left the club about midnight. Can you bring that up?"

The canine gave a superior looking smirk, one which Dreb'n was used to seeing on Purity when he dealt with lower towners. "Of course, detective," he said, his tone dripping with smarm. "You see, here in the middle town we are trained, extensively, with the latest info cam procedurals." As if to demonstrate he paused, zooming in until the footage became grainy blur. With some tapping and a press of a paddle the image resolved by degrees into a couple of canines walking arm-in-arm down the street outside the club. The canine looked up with a smirk. "I suppose you're not used to this sort of tech, right?"

Dreb'n looked at the officer. "Well you have certainly showed me, officer," he affected his most overawed tone as he spoke. "Maybe I should ask your overseer to send you back with me so that you can work on the cams in my precinct."

The canine looked like he was about to piss his pants in fear at the thought of ending up in the lower town. Ranshi gave an unladylike snort of laughter and patted his shoulder. "He's joking...right, detective?" Dreb'n bared his teeth in what was almost a smile, and the cam operator tried not to whimper at the sight. "Now, if you please. Stop being such a complete prick and bring up the footage requested before I report you to the archivist." Dreb'n found himself warming to the lapine a little. The jibe made the officer turn back to the console without another word.

Without too much of a delay they were scanning through the club footage for the time of Sanctity's disappearance. Something started to nag at Dreb'n's mind as they watched. Something slightly out of the ordinary, but not enough to call full attention to its self.

"There she is," Purity commented, pointing at the entrance of the club. The tech slowed down the footage, reversing it the point the canine emerged. She was talking happily into a personal comms, staggering slightly under the effect of the designer narcotics she had been enjoying. The comms went into her purse and she waved to someone inside the club's lobby. Dreb'n was struck by a faint sense of unreality as he watched her walk towards the road. He'd used info cams before, but they were generally of a fuzzy and rather grainy quality. The last time he'd seen this girl she had been lying under a blanket in the mortuary. Before that in a pool of her own blood and bullet-chewed viscera in the city of whores.

Here she was, in a sense, immortal. She'd always be this smiling, pretty image in the archives until deleted as part of a memory-purge. He pondered asking for a copy of the footage for her parents when a cab pulled up on the screen. The fur on the back of his neck rose slightly as he watched her lean down to the window and chat with the driver before getting into the chunky passenger compartment.

"Get that cab's ident," he said, his voice suddenly horse. The operator paused the footage and performed the same technical wizardry he had done before, getting a good view of the cab's identity plate. Dreb'n noted the number down in his pad. "Reverse the footage about...an hour or so and play forward."

Ranshi looked at Dreb'n oddly. "Detective? Is there something wrong?"

"I'm not sure," Dreb'n said after a few moments. The footage was back to the point he had requested. The view began to scroll forward at time-and-a-half instead of the rapid pace of before. "There!" Dreb'n's finger pointed at the screen, the other officers around him flinching at the sudden exclamation. On the screen a cab had just slowly crawled past the front of the club. The operator made to pause the footage but Dreb'n shook his head. "Keep going," he urged. Nodding compliance the canine did.

A few moments later the cab went round again.

And again.

And again.

That was what had caused Dreb'n hackles to rise. This wasn't a cab following some random route looking for fares. Nor was it responding to a callout. It was circling like a predator looking for easy prey. Ranshi straightened up, her spine giving a faint buzz as the three officers watched the vehicle crawl past on another circuit. The cab's fare light was lit as a couple of males staggered by, trying to hail it. The next time it went round they were unlit. The last time it pounced, and Sanctity vanished into the back.

Purity broke the silence. "Can you bring up the back?" The canine tapped at the passenger compartment. Soon they were looking at it from the best angle the operator could find.

"Blacked out windows," Dreb'n noted. "Not just tinted, blacked out. With a little sound proofing central locking she'd have been trapped."

Ranshi nodded. "That's a pretty popular cab company logo he has there. We can try and get hold of their records, but they will likely fight us without a warrant." She checked a clock on the wall. "We'd be lucky to get an overseer to issue one at this time of night, but I can try."

"Thanks," Dreb'n nodded his appreciation. The mention of the time made him realise how tired he was becoming. Fatigue was beginning to pour down his spine like icy water and he straightened form the console, hiding a yawn.

Ranshi noticed his movement and subvocaled something. "We have a pair of rooms free in the barracks ready for you. Your bags have already been taken up." Dreb'n started at that. The lapine has specifically told them to leave their belongings in the cruiser. That meant that chances were they had been searched for contraband or illegal weaponry while they were out at the club. He didn't have anything to hide, but it was still jarring to realise that he and Purity's privacy had been invaded so casually.

Masking his scowl with another yawn he nodded. "Sure, that makes sense. We'll crash for now and pick this up when we have the warrant." He gave a short, stiff bow. "Thank you for the hospitality."

Ranshi returned the bow to them both with a smile. "Think nothing of it," she added. "I'll get the archivist to pull up any further footage we have of the cab. If it passed any checkpoints we should be able to work out where it was going."

Dreb'n had a suspicion he already knew where it had been going. Down through the grimy streets of the lower city to the whore-haunted alley where he had found Sanctity. He spared one last look at the screen as the cam operator copied an image of the cab for archival searching. The angle of the shot prevented him from seeing the driver. With luck, he'd be able to see his face in person before too long.

~------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------~

The barracks room he had been assigned was probably considered utilitarian and space by the standards of this precinct. The fact that it was about the same size as Dreb'n living room didn't really come into it. He eyed the bed with a vague air of suspicion. The futon was about twice as wide as his own, and blanketed with fresh linens. He walked over to the huge window and adjusted the controls to get a look out onto the Glassworks.

An artificial constellation met his eyes. The lower town was usually made of little islands of light at the end of the day, with the better-kept districts distinct from the darkness of the slums and gang-towns. Here every streets light was in working order, and every high-rise hab and pleasure precinct was glowing with neon, bio-lumes and chem-lights. He looked up, past them, and saw the immense, glittering lights of the upper city spires. The tallest buildings of the middle city barely compared with the towering structure. Had the night not been cloudy it would have blotted the stars in a massive stripe across the horizon.

He followed the view up to the cloud cover, the indistinct shape vanishing into the darkness of the sky. There, in the distance he saw the sky lit from within, the movement betraying the path of one of the avians sky palaces. He watched it in a rare moment of awe. He half hoped the clouds would part so he could see the titanic zeppelin-city of the nobles for himself directly. After a few moments he looked away, bringing his gaze down to earth.

In the street below people wandered back and forth on nightly errands. Here the population was a mix of lapines and canines, with the occasional feline here and there. The servants and cleaners from the buffer around the Glassworks would not be on the streets, instead taking the hidden transit tubes to their destination. He watched with interest as an autonomous street sweeper meandered down the side of the road, chrome sides plastered with advertisements. The machine swept the gutters with brushes and sprays of cleaning fluids, leaving them pristine for the late evening cycle of workers.

He flicked the window back to blackness and looked at himself in the mirrored surface for a moment. He looked as tired as he felt, but was too on edge to sleep just yet. He dumped his jacket and shirt, scratching an itch in his lower back before sitting on the futon cross-legged and using the control to turn on the viewer that took up a good percentage of the wall opposite him. He idly skipped through the light entertainment channels, pausing for a moment as canned laughter caught his attention. A feline in the traditional robes of a priest was engaged in some sort of slapstick to the amusement of a scantily-clad lapine. He snorted and moved forward.

Religion was a big laugh in the upper parts of the city. The secular truth of science had taken away the promise of hereafter for most citizens. There was still some superstition, and some sites of 'historic interest' were preserved in the name of cultural heritage. But by and large the seculists held sway. The only holdouts globally were the elders of the mesa country and the isolationist desert archologies. Both of which seemed determined to prove the naysayer's true in their pursuit of theocratic independence.

He paused on an adult channel, his finger resting on the button to activate the pornographic content, then moving onwards. The days events had left him tense, but he had a suspicion his usage of the viewer would be monitored. The last thing he needed to do was give the overseers of the precinct the impression that at the first opportunity when alone he started looking at porn. On he went through the channels until he saw a familiar face.

Sanctity smiled at him from a silent video clip, waving and hugging some of her student friends. The picture was bad and the frame jerked around randomly. Clearly it was taken from someone handheld cam.

"...continuing coverage of this tragic story," said a sober suited canine. He was some sort of purebred, his face and body the sleek dart of one of the ancient runner-genotypes. Next to him a lapine with fur so black it shimmered like ink in the studio lights noddedsombrely. "The shocking murder of this young girl, and her discovery in one of the worst districts in the slum-zones has shocked the Glassworks and the city beyond."

The scene cut to the press conference that Dreb'n had skipped earlier. At the podium stood a heavily-augmented avian. The caption showed that this was precinct overseer Imun Triyll. For a moment, Dreb'n was actually sorry he missed the meeting, just so that he could say he met an avian in the flesh. The overseer's feathers were a colourful riot of greens and reds, tipped with white. His wings were tucked inside a uniform cape, and the manipulator-harness he wore was part prosthetic and part armoured dress uniform.

The disappointment vanished as the audio from the meeting cut into the news cast. Voices clamoured at the overseer as one delicate manipulator limb adjusted the microphone closer to his short, hook-like beak. His augmetic eye lenses appeared almost insect-like as he leaned in, his movements the characteristic twitch-jerking of the fliers.

"Ladies and gentlemen of the press," he began, repeating himself a little louder as the reporters failed to calm down. As a semi-silence returned he paused, flashes of static-cams grabbing his image. "This case is currently ongoing and so very little information can be released at this time." He cut off the babble of rising voices with a wave of his manipulators. "Rest assured we are doing everything in our power to bring these criminals to justice. The detective heading this case has a long and distinguished career, and has the full support of the overseers." A swell of voices again interrupted him. As calm returned a reporter stood up and aimed a recorder the overseer's way.

"Is it true that the detective in charge is not from the Glassworks?" he yelled, prompting another round of shouting.

The overseer ground his beak a little and looked over his shoulder at some of the assembled officers there. Turning back to the microphone his tone was a lot harder. "We are currently in close communication with elements of the precinct house closest to the scene of the crime. That is all I can say at the moment."

Dreb'n smiled as the audio filled with more shouted questions, returning to the calmer studio and the two anchors. A small picture of Sanctity's smiling face filled the back corner of the screen. Of course the middle city would not admit to his involvement in such terms. The press up here crucified the effectiveness of the lower city precincts regularly. Telling them that a detective from the city of whores was trying to catch a high-profile killer was not going to look good. Even if her parents popped up and directly gave him their blessing, it was not going to do him any favours in the press' eyes. Only bringing in the killer or killers dead would see to that.

"We will bring you more on this story as it unfolds," the lapine interjected. "For now we can only join in wishing Sanctity of Treasured Memories family our deepest condolences." Both of them gave a sombre nod to the camera. The background picture changed to a picture of a serious-looking goat in the red and black uniform of the soviet military, his chest a patchwork of medals and service studs. "Our other top story tonight. With the continuing illness of the leader of the Soviet Collective's armed forces, our diplomatic core asks; who is likely to succeed him?"

Dreb'n flicked the viewer off and lay back on the futon. He laced his fingers under his head and stretched out, wriggling a little to get comfortable. The filter fan in the ceiling hummed in the silent chamber, and he felt the tiredness begin to catch up with him. He closed his eyes for a moment, thinking to himself he would rest for a moment before getting ready for bed properly. Inky waves of fatigue washed against the thought, and before he knew it he was asleep.

Five hours later the comms began to chime. The warrant had arrived.

~------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------~

Dreb'n, Purity and Ranshi formed a little cluster next to the communications centre outside the cab company. He had thrown on a change of clothes and chugged back a vending machine 'caff before meeting the others in the motor pool. From there they had ridden the large command vehicle through town to the central offices of the Loyal Retainer transport company.

Dreb'n looked up at the logo on the outside of the building as another squad of officers went inside, replacing those that were coming to the command post to deliver hardcopy reports and data to the techs. The company had denied them entry until the warrant had been produced for much the same reason as the club owner had turned off his cameras. Tracking peoples movements through the coming and goings of the cabs could uncover hidden trysts and illicit dealings. Nobody wanted to be the one to bring down a trade or fabricator house like that.

Apparently Ranshi and her techs were keeping this in mind, scanning the data just for the cab ident that they were after. The canine operator was also on call, apparently popping stim pills and cans of cold 'caff to stay awake as he processed hours of footage trying to find the last sightings of the vehicle they were after. Dreb'n had been assured that he was trying to make up for his earlier comment, and a link had been left open in case he found anything.

The latest group of officers handed over the files they had gathered and went back in for another pass. Boxes and crates of data were gathering in the parking lot. In the distance, green-sashed reporters jockeyed for position, filming with hand-cams and stealing slivers of time with the flash of static-pics. Dreb'n tried to ignore them.

So far the owner of the company had denied that the cab was one of his. He insisted the livery was right, but the ident was not one of theirs. As far as he could tell this was looking like it might be the case for once. Nobody had been able to turn up a schedule for that cab, a driver linked to the ident. Nothing. Not even a scrapped or decommissioned cab that had the same plates.

"Maybe it was a rival company?" suggested Purity after a while. The latest data trawl had turned up nothing, and Ranshi was pressing a finger to her ear as she received report after report of the officers involved in the search coming up empty.

"It seems a little convoluted, if it is some sort of frame-job," Dreb'n said after considering it. "We're looking at four confirmed deaths so far, possibly over a dozen if you count the unconfirmed cased. If it was a frame then they would have made sure that the cab was caught on camera at more then this scene." He looked over as a stocky canine female in uniform stuck her head out of the back of the command vehicle. She waved the detectives over.

"Detectives. Sorry to disturb you, but there is a communication from central," she explained as they approached. Dreb'n was taken aback at her accent; she was clearly a recent immigrant from the canine city-states. She gave him a wide, toothy grin at his surprised expression and slid back into her seat, letting the three of them hop into the back to take the call.

It was the cam operator. "I've found out cab," he said, the words coming out in a stim-induced rush. His eyes were baggy with chemically-relieved tiredness as he uploaded the footage to the console. Ranshi took the seat as she manipulated the controls. Soon they were watching a montage of the vehicle taking various side streets and service roads. Dreb'n's fists tightened as he watched the cab pause at some traffic controls. The passenger compartment gave a little rock to one side, as if the person inside was throwing themselves against the door.

The footage became patchier as the vehicle headed away from the club zone. They caught glimpses of it heading past factories and office facades. Dreb'n blinked as he saw a stepped pyramid with molten glass pouring in and endless loop outside. "Isn't that..." he began before the next shot confirmed his suspicions. There was the same gateway that they had taken into the Glassworks the previous day. Purity swore under his breath and Dreb'n nodded, watching the gate open smoothly as the cab approached.

Ranshi did not need either of them to ask. She was already tapping into central's archives, using the time stamp and gate number to check the credentials that allowed the cab to pass through. She brought it up and frowned, passing the data along to the other techs in the command vehicle. Soon the results were back.

"Great," grumbled Purity. "Fake idents."

The permissions of the cab were valid, but according to the roster the cab legally assigned them had been halfway across the Glassworks when the transmitter was registered at the gate. It took the work of moments to bring that cab up on camera with the timestamp proving that it was waiting in a rank by a public transport station when it was supposedly passing down into the lower city. Dreb'n gave a sigh and straightened up.

"Well, on the plus side we now know what to look for," he turned to the techs. "Can you try and bring up any data from the lower city cams?" They looked dubious. "Yes, I know. But look at it this way; there's not going to be a lot to work on, is there?" He turned back to Purity. "We know that they were diving a middle-city cab around the lower-city. That's going to attract attention."

Purity nodded and grinned. The techs began dredging the long-unused archives of the lower city cams for any clues. Dreb'n took a deep breath and let it out as a slow sigh. he padded to the open doors of the command post and dropped down to the hard tarmac. The warm air tasted slightly of ashes as the powerful industry of the district began to gear up for the day.

"I take it you'll be heading back soon?" Ranshi sat on the lip of the vehicle and ran a paw through her close-cut hair.

Dreb'n nodded. "For now," he said, not looking down at her. "We'll find what information we can get on the cab's movements here. Your people have better tech and training to find it after all. When we have a better idea of where to look we'll take it from there."

He got the feeling she was looking at him, and glanced back. The lapine was smiling. "Just like that?" she asked.

He returned the smile with a slight upward twist to the corner of his muzzle. "We might not have a working cam network but we can track them down pretty easily now we know what to look for." He joined her on the edge of the command post, tucking his tail a little out of the way and sticking his paws in his pockets. "We'll get a few precincts together, plus anyone we can spare from the reserves. We'll shake things down until we find this bastard."

He heard her spine give a soft, augmetic sigh as Ranshi twisted a kink out of it. "Well, we'll make sure to get you anything you need. If the trail leads back this way then we'll be at your disposal, of course."

Dreb'n nodded. But he knew already that this was going to lead them back down to the lower districts. He spent the time waiting on the techs to gather the last dregs of information they could and watched the Glassworks come to life before him.

~------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------~

Purity took the controls of the cruiser as they went back. They had the windows open to let the heat from the old, faulty console in the dashboard vent. It was a necessary evil, which became worse as they headed back into the lower town and the smell of rubbish and rot began to creep into the cruiser.

Dreb'n used the time to review the few fleeting sightings of the cab the techs had managed to scrape together. As he suspected it had been seen heading in the direction of the city of whores. The problems was that once it passed the final checkpoint into the lower city it had turned off its transmitter. The Glassworks precinct were monitoring all the checkpoints for its credentials in case it tried to pass along any of the arterials or back up into the middle town.

He didn't intend to let the killer get another chance.

They were being tailed by a number of reporters in sleek ground cars. Dreb'n called ahead to central to arrange a roadblock to shake them. The pair had run a gauntlet of the newsmen as they left the transport company, and then again when they left the precinct. Until they were on their way they had kept the windows down and the console blank to prevent any information leaks to a minimum. One of them had thumped a microphone on the window and yelled in, asking if the pair were being dismissed. Dreb'n had half a mind to correct that notion, but didn't. It was obvious from the trailing vehicles that the reporters still though he had something to give them.

Ten minutes later they came to a traffic barrier. Dreb'n noted the uniformed officers stood waiting as they passed over it. Behind them the reporters stopped or scattered down side streets as the barrier was raised, foiling the pursuit for now. He'd called in the favour before they hit the lower town proper. Here in the gentrified districts of servants and low-caste workers for the Glassworks, the reporters were likely to count getting lost as an embarrassed. Any deeper in and Dreb'n would have even more robberies and murders to deal with.

Hopefully the newscasters would call on whatever roving reporters they had in the lower city rather than keep up the pursuit. The sashes that worked down there knew enough to keep down when things started to get messy.

Several hours later he finished giving his report to Shal'vey. Via comms, of course. The overseer was back in his comfortable apartment when Dreb'n and Purity rolled the cruiser into the motor pool. The fat feline signed off, and Dreb'n sat back in his chair. He took a deep gulp of 'caff, wincing at the bitter taste.

Nanli, who had been editing the hardcopy of the case notes looked over and giggled. "I hope you've not got too used to the good 'caff they serve uptown, Detective," she teased.

Dreb'n laughed and stretched his tired limbs. The hybrid was burning some sweet-scented incense that was making him drowsy. He stood and tried pacing to try and regain his focus. Purity opened the door and nodded. "They're ready when you are," he said before ducking back out.

Dreb'n took a deep breath of the sickly-sweet air, and washed it away with another muzzleful of bitter 'caff. He ran a paw across his hair to smooth it down and stepped into the main precinct room. The place was quiet for once. Any business that wasn't related to this case had been bundled off to side rooms and holding cells. Without looking at the gathered detectives and officers he pulled himself up onto the desk nearest his office.

The space was packed with furs of various breeds. Mostly there were felines and rodents, with the occasional hard-faced canine. At the back, arms crossed over their massive chests stood a pair of equine officers. They were a motley bunch, with scars both new and old, uniforms ragged and patched. He played his gaze over all of them and nodded.

"All right, listen up," he indicated a viewer that had been set up on one wall, high enough for the gathering to see. It flickered to life, ready for Purity to put up the selected images he had chosen. "As you all know we're on a manhunt for this killer. I've brought you all here because we have some details we've not shared with the press yet. And I want them to remain confidential for now." He paused, nodding to Purity. The image of the cab leaving the club popped up on the screen.

"We think the killer is picking up their victims in this cab, then brings them to the lower town where they rob and kill them. From what we can tell they are most likely based in lower town." There was a mumble through the room. He stopped it by raising his voice. "We presume this because while they used false credentials to enter and leave the Glassworks they did not use them again after the killing. That means that the vehicle is parked down here someplace. And chances are they are not just coming down here, changing vehicles and then going back up to middle town."

He nodded to Purity and the cleaned up image of the cab's identity plates, along with a better image of the vehicles logo appeared. "Now, we're going to get you all a hard copy of this information. As of right now we're going to do a sweep, covering three precincts." There was another mumble through the officers, but this time he let them voice complaints before raising his paws. "I know, it's going to be a lot of work. My overseer has already spoken to yours and requisitioned the shifts. We're running low on time. As soon as the newscasts down here start showing the face of the victim the killer or killers are going to realise they tagged an overseers little girl and head to ground.

"We're going to get him before he does that." He looked around the various faces arrayed in front of him. "So, those of you that work late shifts, you start now. the rest of you go home and rest because you're going to be on the hunt as of tomorrow morning. I want every informant shaken down. Bring in every narco-head that trades info. Touch base with the gangs if needs be. let them know that if we don't find them now then the middle town's going to send in task forces until the killer's head is on a spike over the checkpoint."

He paused again. That would about cover it for now. "Dismissed. And good hunting." With that he jumped down off the desk and headed back to his office. If he put his head down for a few minutes while the first shift went out, he might be able to get some sleep before the reports started coming in.

~------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------~

The teams spread out through the streets. Half of them pulled the good cop duty. They visited informants and offered cash and favours in exchange for information. They visited the gangs and offered to release members or to trade contraband weapons and narcotics to them if they found what they wanted. They spoke softly the drug addicts, whores, lost and dammed souls of the city, offering whatever was needed to get cooperation.

The other half kicked open doors and dragged secrets out into the light. Hostile informants were pulled out of bed and into the cells to give up what they knew. Gang leaders found their habs stormed and were told to 'fess up or else. Arms were twisted, boots placed to necks. The message was very clear; 'give us what we want and we'll go away'.

Dreb'n, Purity and Nanli worked furiously at the data as it pored in. A map of the districts had been printed and pinned to the wall of their office. Each street and warren was being marked off one at a time. Pins were added for possible sightings, and more used for crimes that would need following up. Many of the officers involved knew the score; while this was a manhunt for the killer, it was also a good excuse to purge themselves of criminals they did not have the resources normally to combat.

As the overall coordinator, Dreb'n and his team sorted the reports as they came in into those that related to the case and those that could be brought to trial afterwards. At first the latter pile was by far the largest. Narco dens, serial offenders, up and coming gangers, doomsday cults and even an abortionist propaganda press were all stacked to one side. The sightings of the cab were few and far between, but growing. The evidence was beginning to pull towards the graveyard of heretics. That sprawling feline warren was too big to just break open, so they needed something to narrow it down.

Fifteen hours into the operation they got the information they needed.

Dreb'n had been taking a nap when it happened. Two officers had stuck a narco-head in a cell and left him to start detoxing. When they told him what they were after he had immediately given up a location. When they pressed he had repeated the story. It soon became clear that whatever he was on, he was jonsing for it hard enough to go directly to the truth to get out of there and back onto the streets for a fix.

Dreb'n entered the tiny holding cell and winced. Whatever the mangy feline had been injecting had altered his body chemistry into some sort of biological apocalypse. His eyes were bloodshot to the point of being cataracted with crimson, and his fur was so loose that even the act of twitching in his restraints was plucking him bald. A female detective and her second watched him with open contempt. She looked up when Dreb'n walked in and nodded, rubbing her raw and bloody knuckles. Purity caught one whiff of the stench coming off the feline through the open door and decided to wait outside.

Dreb'n walked over to the junkie and glared at him. His nose was bloody and there was a broken tooth on the floor by his restraint chair. The narco-fiend whimpered as he leaned in, trying to ignore the stench his chem-altered body gave off. "Tell me where it is," Dreb'n said.

"I...I already told them," the feline whimpered, looking over at the other detective.

Dreb'n grabbed his face and pulled his head back around to face him again. He could feel the heat of withdrawal under his fingers, and the slimy feel of the mangy skin around the other felines' muzzle. He wanted to retch. Instead he squeezed, feeling teeth set in malnourished gums shift slightly under the pressure. "Well now you get to tell me," he said. "Where did you see it?"

The junkie whimpered and wet himself. Dreb'n released his muzzle and stepped back as the man began shouting. "Um Shu'vel's garage! Um Shu'vel's garage! I saw the cab at Um Shu'vel's garage!" He was still screaming the words over and over, weeping and soiling himself, as the detectives left the room and the officers moved in to get him out of the restraints.

Dreb'n wiped his paw on his coat as he marched towards the motor pool. He barked orders at a trailing officer. If there was anything to find at this garage then they would dig it out. And he'd be right there when they did.

~------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------~

The cruisers had rolled out with a compliment of heavily armoured vans. The assault transports were of various obsolete designs but were well protected from all but the heaviest gang weapons. Dreb'n's armoured vest was chafing on him as he sat in the back of the largest of the vans, checking his pacifier. The pump-loading rifle had been sat idle in the armoury since the food riots the year earlier and he didn't want it to fail on him now. On the uncomfortable bench opposite him, Purity was strapping on an arm brace and loading a trio of shells into a long-barrelled hand-cannon he had brought with him from the Steelmills.

Dreb'n had often mocked him over the weapon. It had a tiny magazine and he needed a recoil suppressor that went right up his arm to the shoulder to use it. However he did have to admit that the calibre shells it fired were big enough to put down everything that the streets could throw at them. That ran as far as any converted ground cars that had been armoured into gang gunships. Just so long as they didn't appear suddenly or in groups of more than three it was quite the weapon of choice.

Around them were the half a dozen specialised assault officers from

their precinct. They wore ragged and patched suits of combat armour. Most of them were armed with pacifiers, while the leader of the squad was testing the action on his rotary pistol, a heavy dissuaderprod tucked into his webbing.

"Two minutes," came the warning from the driver. Dreb'n felt his chest tighten with anticipation. They had no idea what would be waiting for them in the garage. It was on the bleeding edge of several gang territories and the graveyard. The space was taken up with rows or ancient cargo containers, each big enough to house a decent sized groundcar with ease. Shu'vel, the owner, had taken the ground and rented out the containers as a secure place to park a car. When someone couldn't pay the rent he confiscated the vehicle and sold the parts to other owners who wanted an upgrade or repair.

"You ready?" He asked Purity. The canine nodded, but his ears were pressed flat to his skull with tension. Drebn's were as well, although in his case it was through practiced experience. He didn't want to lose any more chunks of himself to random fire or slashing blades today.

The van screeched to a halt and the back doors crashed open. The assault officers went out first, pacifiers raised as they sprinted through the open chain-link fence and into the maze of containers. Other officers, armed and armoured, began pouring into the garage from all the entrances, cutting off the patrons milling in confusion within. Dreb'n dropped down and racked the slide on his pacifier. Behind him he heard the heavy clunk of Purity's pistol hammer locking back and ready.

A ragged feline in overalls stormed up to him, waving his arms. "What the fuck is this?" he yelled, apparently not noticing or caring about the firepower on offer. "You're fucking up my place? What is this, shil vesha? Some fucked up joke?" He reached into his overall pocket and tossed some hard currency in Dreb'n's direction. The coins pinged and rattled like discarded shells. "Money? Is that what this is? A fucking shakedown?" He tossed his paws dramatically into the air. "A man can't even run a clean business in this town any more..."

Dreb'n cut him off, jamming a picture of the cab in his face. "We're after this cab. We've got..." he paused before he said 'solid information'. Technically they were shaking him down on a hunch, circumstantial evidence and the word of a narco-freak that was rotting from the inside out. "...good intelligence that its been parked here." Before Shu'vel could issue a stock denial he tossed the hardcopy at the feline. "We're not leaving until we have it or have searched through each of these units. So what's it going to be?"

Shu'vel looked at the cab, then the officers gathering up his customers and workers. Dreb'n could see the wheels of profit and loss running through his head. "This all you're after?" Dreb'n nodded. "Yeah, I know this cab. Let me get my records."

Before the feline could leave, Dreb'n grabbed his arm. "Yeah, not so fast," he tone brooking no discussion. "I wouldn't want you to get lost on the way and end up phoning your gang contacts for help." Dreb'n waved an assault officer over. "Take this gentleman to the office and get the files. Make sure he's quick about it."

The officer's faceless helmet turned to Shu'vel, who spat on the ground and grumbled. The pair headed to a clapboard and corrugated iron shack set apart from the other containers. Dreb'n took a moment to scan the watching faces. Through the corroded chain link fence gangers and gawkers watched in equal measure. This was quite a heavy operation, and many of them would be wondering what was going on. A couple of street-activists began yelling about 'police brutality', but the crowd seemed content to just watch the show for now.

He turned and watched as the various people inside the compound that had been found were lined up alongside one of the containers. One of them tried to run as an identifier was passed over his paw. Illegal, Dreb'n guessed. A blow to the kidney with a sparking dissuader left them rolling on the ground whimpering. A furtooed feline ganger with a luminous mohawk spat in the face on an assault officer and got a rifle butt to the mouth in reply. All in all it was running about the same as any other shakedown in this district.

Shu'vel returned suspiciously quickly. He had a hardcopy in one paw which he waved at Dreb'n. For a strange moment he thought that the feline was going to say he too was fully licensed. Taking the greasy printer roll Dreb'n checked the details.

Deciding to fill the busy silence, Shu'vel began talking. "Yeah, I knew I recognised that thing. Some street punk brought in some junkers and paint and made up an old streetcar to look like a cab." He paused. "I didn't know he was gonna do anything illegal with it. You know. Just pick up fares." He shifted uneasily from one foot to the other. "Look. it's over here. Let's just get this over with so I can get back to work."

Dreb'n handed the document off to Purity. The rental agreement was vague in the extreme and had no concrete details like legal ident tagging. He and a couple of other officers followed the feline through the containers until they came to the one indicated on the docket. Shu'vey produced a key ring and opened the padlock. He was about to pull up the shutter when the officers pulled him back and took up position either side. Dreb'n indicated that the indignant feline should remain quiet.

With a rattle of metal slats the container opened.

The assault officers dived in, Dreb'n and Purity covering them. Shouted cries for the occupants to put down their weapons echoed off the metal walls of the container. It was empty of immediate threats. However, the cab they had been chasing sat cold and empty in the middle of the 'room'. The air was thick with the smell of scent-oils, motor grease and paint. A long worktable along one wall was laden with open tins of pigment and sprayers, as well as pics of various cab company logos.

Dreb'n padded inside, checking the corners until the assault officers called an all clear. Behind him Shu'vey gave a nervous chuckle.

"All this over someone running an illegal cab? You boys got nothing better to do?" The feline gave an overly-wide smile of false friendship. "Well, now you found what you want you can call off your search, right?"

Dreb'n waved one of the officers over. "Take this idiot outside and arrest him."

"Wait a fucking second, shil vesha!" the feline practically exploded, baring his claws and teeth in anger. "I gave you what you wanted..." His tirade was pre-emotively cut off when Dreb'n whipped round and jammed the barrel of his pacifier under his muzzle. Shu'vey's eyes widened as he tilted his head up and stepped back, trying to escape Dreb'n's rage.

"Put this fucker in a cruiser and keep searching the other units," Dreb'n said with deadly calm, keeping pace with the other feline until Shu'vey's back hit the nearest container and he was forced to stop. "He's under arrest for now. Harbouring a known felon andsome illegal's for starters. Complicity in a murder if I can make that stick. And get someone to check the serial numbers on that money he threw at me. If today is going my way then the bastard that owns the cab paid him with the money he took, so we'll get him on handling stolen currency." He ignored the struggle as the officers restrained Shu'vey and walked back over to the parked vehicle. "I'll let you know if we find anything else to add to the list."

~------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------~

With Shu'vey out of the picture, Dreb'n turned his attention back to the cab. He pondered calling Ranshi and seeing if she could ship some forensic techs down to check the place over, but dismissed the idea. It'd take far too long to get them to the scene. The underground grapevine would already be buzzing with information, and if they didn't speed things up it would reach the killer and let him go to ground.

It was now confirmed to be a he at least. While the name on the rental agreement was probably fake, it was unlikely Shu'vey would have ticked the wrong box for what sex his customer was.

Purity was circling the cab with an expression of curiosity. He ran a paw over the metalwork, tapping here and there. "Up close you can see its a custom job," he noted as Dreb'n moved to join him. He banged his knuckles along the edge of the passenger compartment, the different quality of the metals giving different hollow thunks.

Looking at it up close the disguise was good, but amateurish enough that when considered closely it would raise red flags. But then again if you were a tired worker, staggering home for the night, you wouldn't stop to check the welding-seams on a cab offering you a ride. Dreb'n assumed the same applied if you were tripping on legal narco. He moved to the front of the vehicle as Purity gingerly tried the back door, as if expecting it to be booby trapped. The reek of scented oils filled the rusty confines of the cargo box, making both of them wince. Dreb'n wished he'd brought his filter.

He tried the driver door and peered into the gloom on the small cabin. Reaching in he gripped the shiny metal disk of the permissions transmitter and pulled it loose without much effort. Up close it was clearly some home-made components with an illegal transmitter nestled in the middle. The familiar shape of the disk was just a cheap plastic knock-off covered in glued on foil for the chrome finish.

"Looks like we can add another credentials faking gang to the list of cleanup operations," he said. The transmitter had been held onto the roof of the cab with some sort of double-sided fixer tape, and the cheap adhesive was gumming up his fingers. Dreb'n put it on the roof of the cab for now and wiped his paw on his coat. "What have you got back there?" He asked as his second poked around in the back.

Purity waved Dreb'n round to see for himself. He pointed to the blacked-out windows as his superior approached. "Well, I think this explains a few things. The windows are sound-proofed and fixed in place. No interior handles, and I assume the doors have been filled with sound-deadening foam too." He tapped at the inner surface of the door and grimaced. "This explains the traces too. " Dreb'n's fist tightened slightly as he was the desperate clawing gouges in the black material of the doorframe. Clearly the women trapped in the cab had tried their best to get out.

"I guess that explains the oils too," Purity added. He pointed to a small pot of oil that had been left to permeate the interior. "Leave that in there for a day or two and any scent of blood or fear is masked over."

Dreb'n nodded and returned to the front of the cab. Purity began poking at the tools and materials spread on the workbench or stashed in cheap cardboard boxes beneath. Dreb'n climbed into the drivers seat and hunted around. He felt under the dashboard and found a small, concealed shelf. It was almost empty, aside from a single home-made, shrapnel round. He tucked it into his pocket for later analysis and kept looking.

He pulled down the sunshade on the front passenger seat and found what he was looking for. Attached to a cheap, cloth lanyard was an cab driver ident card.

"Gotcha," he muttered to himself.

He slid out of the vehicle. "Ok, Purity, you keep looking around here. I'm going to run this ident." The canine looked up sharply.

"You know it'll be fake, right?"

Dreb'n nodded, and tapped the picture set in the plastic card. "Of course it'll be a fake. But let me ask you this; would you get in a cab where the driver's face didn't match his ident?" Purity, seeing the logic, smiled and nodded. Dreb'n was already on his way out the door, speaking mostly to himself as he went. "We'll run the face through the visual database. I don't care what he's calling himself, this bastard is ours now!"

~------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------~

Things had moved rapidly after that. Dreb'n had barely returned to the van with the ident when a small fire fight broke out. One of the assault teams had found a small narco lab set up in the containers, and the gangers minding the stash had opened fire. The conflict had been put down brutally by the officers. It seemed that Shu'vey had been renting containers to the local gang to use to brew up illegal street-drugs. More importantly, he had been keeping the containers to either side open to let them sub-let as narco dens where their customers could collapse.

No wonder the mangy druggie had been the one to identify the cab's hiding place. He had most likely seen it while begging for heavily-cut product.

In any case that meant they had to move faster. The gang using the containers would have been watching to make sure it didn't get hit by rivals. And of course those rivals would have been watching it to try and find an opening for a hit. The news would be filtering through the local blocks like blood in the water. If the killer caught the scent he'dget the hell out. Whether the police had come to find him or turn over the lab it didn't make any difference, down here you played it safe or you wound up dead.

Fortunately his hunch had been correct. The ident had been as fake as the cab's permission transmitter, but the face was genuine. Dreb'n, Purity and six assault officers had piled into a couple of cruisers and begun heading the address on record for the killer. The rest of the team, including the heavier assault vans, remained behind to find out what else the scowling Shu'vey had been so anxious to keep hidden.

Shushash Um She'low was a tortoiseshells slum-shark. He had the classic, sleek look of the sort of feline that ended up the face of the gangs, or a sleazy street-lawyer or con-expert. Dreb'n sat in the back of the cruiser, occasionally looking down at the face of the suspected murderer. The ident was pretty much all they proof they had on him at the moment, but he had a good hunch that this was the one they were after. Shal'vey had issued a dead-or-alive warrant for him in any case. If he wasn't the killer then he had better have a damn good excuse as to why his face had been found in the cab.

He could just about see how it would go down. Up pulls the cab, cruising for the vulnerable targets. One glance through the window shows the mark the legitimate-seeming transmitter and identity card. Out comes the charming smile, backed up with a dash of dangerous guile. Maybe he tells them he's actually off the clock and will drop off a pretty lady for free. Everything seems legitimate, so in they get.

He probably drives them quite a way before they work out something is up. Maybe they notice that the windows don't open. maybe they look through the ballistic shield separating them from the driver's compartment and realise the view through the windshield is getting darker and grimier and more unfamiliar.

How long would it take to bring the gun out? Dreb'n wondered. Would he turn to it right away? Or would he string them along a little longer? Would he bring out that charm again and tell them he's going to save them half the fare by taking back lanes? Or would he just reach for that secret shelf and bring out his piece?

It would become abundantly clear that he wasn't going to stop, and that they were trapped. He'd calm them, of course. He'd tell them he'd take them on a little ride downtown and take their purse. Maybe he'd promise to leave them some money to call a real cab. Either way he'd give them the false hope that they would get out alive. Clinging to that would have calmed them.

Then, when they had stopped, and the frantic female had left her valuables on the back seat of the cab, he'd get out. He'd let them out, smile that street-shark smile, and kill them. Dreb'n wondered how long he'd keep that little flame of hope alive. Maybe he'd kill them as soon as they stepped out. Maybe he'd make them promise not to tell anyone his name, face or methods. And just as they began to relax he would shred their vital organs with a close-range blast of shrapnel.

He tucked the card into his coat pocket and silently vowed to ask him personally about it. At length.

They were passing deep into the graveyard now. She'low's residence was about five blocks from the garage. This was one of the oldest feline sections of the city. The buildings were almost unrecognisable as the original lapine habitations, encrusted with graffiti and religious iconography as they were. Gangs squatted on stoops and porches, watching the cruisers with wary eyes. Preachers and visionaries stood in alleyways, promising salvation and redemption. A trio of doomsday cultists lashed themselves with scourges, telling anyone that would listen that only suffering would set them free.

This was the Graveyard of Heretics. Named thus by the preachers that had lambasted the fleeing feline refugees during the theocratic purges. They claimed that the promise of sanctuary offered by the consortium and the rulers of Daylight were lies to lure the unwary. The so called settlement area was just a huge graveyard where the faithless tech-users would be buried in mass graves, there to writhe in eternal torment. It was variation of the argument used by the doomsayers, who claimed the slum conditions and persecution by the gangs proved they had all died and gone to hell that day.

The cruisers came to a halt in front of a tenement building. The gang scouts sat on the front step gripped street-pieces for a moment until they saw the assault officers and detectives getting out. They put paws up in mock surrender until Dreb'n waved them away. The message was clear; we're not here for you today. Keep out of the way and we won't bother you.

"Ok, we're going to need to be fast," Dreb'n muttered to the knot of officers. "You two, get round the back. You two, take the fire escape. You two, with us." With curt nods the officers fanned out. There was a sudden flash, making Dreb'n flinch. He looked round and saw a reporter with a static-cam lining up for another shot. He jabbed a finger angrily at her. "And someone get them the fuck out of here!" The camera got one more shot off before one of the assault officers bundled her back into her groundcar.

Dreb'n was already moving. He, Purity and the remaining officer would have to make the assault while the last one caught up. He tugged on the filter he had found in the back of the cruiser as they ascended flight after flight of grimy concrete stairs. Not just to cover the stench of cheap cooking, urine and rot. In an emergency the thick plastic might well stop a light calibre round from blowing his muzzle off. The trip stepped over a fallen narco-addict on the landing and headed towards the door of the apartment they were after.

Scowling feline matriarchs pulled their malnourished children inside as they approached. The walls were thin enough for him to hear the blare of religious screed from a viewer, the sound of a domestic argument in another apartment. He could sense the peering eyes through the small vision holes either side of them as they got to the door. He took one side, Purity and the officer the other.

Things got quiet very quickly. The viewer clicked off, leaving the landing still aside from the activity on the floors below and the yowling argument further down the corridor.

Dreb'n reached over, his back to the wall, and hammered his fist onto the door. "Shushash Um She'low?" he called. His voice sounded overly loud. Adrenaline began to trip his heart rate into a pounding beat. His ears twitched as he heard someone the apartment scramble to their feet. This was not the sort of area that people came calling for a good reason.

"Who wants to know?" came the shout from inside.

"This is the police! Surrender peacefully!" Dreb'n yelled. He heard a double-click through the flimsy wall and turned his face away from the door.

She'low must have been a few feet away when he fired. The shrapnel from his weapon had spread into a wide cone by the time it slammed into the cheap wood, blowing a wide crater into it at roughly the height of the average man's torso. The hot metal fragments, now supplemented by an array of wooden splinters, smashed into the door of the hab opposite. Dreb'n registered a high-pitched shriek from within. No doubt the occupants had been at the door, peeping, when the rounds passed through.

Purity started cursing and flailing at his face with his free paw. He hadn't covered himself or turned away when the shot was fired, and some splintered wood from the door had struck him in the cheek, drawing blood and sticking out of his flesh like quills. Time seemed to slow. Dreb'n could picture the desperate, cornered feline moving to aim at the yelping sound to the side of his ruined door.

He dropped to one knee and spun to face the entrance. Wood fragments dug into trousers like pinpricks of pain, but he ignored them. Aiming through the huge hole chewed in the door he saw She'low bringing a twin-barrelled weapon up and around. Seeing his face at the door the killer's devil-handsome features twisted into a scowl. Giving up the chance to hit an invisible target for the more obvious threat he started to scream something and bring his weapon to bear on Dreb'n.

The first pacifier round took him in the hip, just above his left leg. The limb went slack and She'low spun with the impact. The second barrel of his shrapnel cannon emptied into the floor, turning a rug and the cheap linoleum into a cratered waste. Dreb'n pumped the slide on his rife and shot the collapsing feline through the chest. His third round missed as She'low flopped to the grimy floor as dead weight. The futon the feline had been lounging on absorbed the round with a crunch of wooden slats being shredded.

Dreb'n got to his feet and kicked the door. The impact of the shrapnel round had busted the cheap latch, and it gave way easily. He stalked into the room and kicked the smoking weapon away from She'low's outstretched paw. The feline was still alive, but not for long. The round to his torso had left him aspirating blood and wheezing through a collapsed lung. There wasn't a chance of them getting him to a medic quick enough to repair that sort of damage.

Purity and the two officers he had with him slid into the apartment. The officers checked for threats and Purity whimpered and probed at his injury with his fingertips, clearly distracted by the pain. Dreb'n's distraction was caused by something a little more gruesome.

On one wall hung a cheap memo board. Pinned to it were sixteen indent cards. All female. Dreb'n walked over and pulled one of the free. Sanctity of Treasured Memories smiled up at him guilelessly from the plastic surface. He put it in his pocket with the cab licence. Behind him, the liquid-heavy wheezing slowed and came to a stop.

~------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------~

A week later, Dreb'n walked into his office. He'd slept badly the night before due to some sort of street party taking place about a block away. His apartment had been filled with the sound of second-hand enjoyment and the light of flashing fireworks. The precinct had moved in late to disperse the crowds, but it had left him tense and on edge.

Nanli was already behind her desk, and smiled shyly as he came in. "A package arrived for you, sir," she said, indicating a plastic-wrapped folder on his desk. "A courier dropped it off first thing." Dreb'n tried to decide if the hybrid was chiding him for being slightly late, but he decided against it.

He eyed the package suspiciously as he took his seat but decided it probably wasn't a bomb. His desk was stacked with paperwork still, although at least things were beginning to calm down. As the detective in charge it had been up to him to farm out the various cases the raids and shakedown had uncovered. He had used leverage, seniority and on one case a brief fistfight to secure the rights to prosecute the ident-faking ring, as well as chasing up Shu'vey's illegal activities.

He was looking forward to that, especially after they found his links to an illegal-harbouring network. He expected to have that wrapped up in a few days to let him get back to tying up the loose ends of the Sanctity case.

On that thought his paw went to his coat. The platinum commendation stud next to his badge had arrived the day after the death of her killer had been announced. He had plenty of other studs to represent difficult or meritous cases, but until now they had been the simple brass pins available in the precinctwarehouse. He'd almost sent it back. It made him proud to have received it, but also made him a target. After some soul-searching he had relented and applied the stud to his lapel.

He had, however, turned down the offer Overseer Longing had sent him along with it. While a place within the Glassworks precincts would have been a distinct step up in quality of life and life expectancy, he knew he'd not live up to expectations. He had killed She'low, but he had found him only with the concerted effort of his fellow officers. If Longing believed him to be some sort of super cop he'd find the reality slightly more lacking.

Purity slouched into the room, holding a mug of 'caff. He gave a disparaging glance to the small oil burner on Nanli's desk but said nothing. He settled into his own desk with a sigh. The canine had been working as hard as Dreb'n to distribute all the leftover cases. He had argued that they should have used their temporary celebrity to take some of the glory-cases to keep themselves in the public eye. Dreb'n had just shaken his head and taken those that they were more likely to solve without jurisdiction and border issues. At least he'd stopped wearing that bloody stupid healing plaster on the minor pin-pricks he had suffered in the raid.

Dreb'n slid his thumbclaw through the white plastic sealing up his mystery bundle. The smell of fresh ink and good quality printer-sheets greeted his nose. Pulling the package further open he found a copy of a mid-town news sheet. Checking the label he smiled as he realised it had been sent down by Ranshi. Sheets like this didn't make it this far downtown, outside of a deposit bundle for a recycling plant.

He shook the pages out and skimmed the headlines. Weighty issues like the current trade indexes were skipped over, as with the international news of further infighting over the claimants to a vacant post in the Soviet government. He flipped past the whole section on debutants and academy celebrations, and stopped in the crime section.

There was the pict taken by the reporter outside She'low's tenement, attached to the story of the case, sanitised for public consumption of course. A quick skim of the story showed that it had been blown into a two-pronged assault. First, a moral panic asking what the overseers were doing to do about the growing threat of robbery-slaughterers creeping up into middle town. Second, a seemingly surprised section praising the quality and competence of the lower-town officers that had 'aided' the Glassworks precinct in bringing down the crazed serial-offender.

Dreb'n smiled and sat back in his seat. At least the papers had accepted that his precinct and fellow officers had helped in this case. They could just as easily blamed them for not keeping a lid on the seething cauldron of crime of the lower city. He looked again at the picture. He stood, pointing to one side as the assault officers jogged to flank the building. His pacifier was held loose in one paw, aimed down at the litter-swathed pavement. His expression was hard, his eyes narrowed and mouth half-open, displaying his sharp teeth. His jacket was partially open, showing the tattered body armour beneath. Behind him, Purity was checking the slide on his monstrous pistol, standing a good head and shoulders taller than the feline.

He wondered for a moment if this hard-edged visage was how criminals saw him? Was this, or some caricaturethereof what people thought he was like? He looked at the half-missing stumps of his ears in print before him. The edges of them looked like they had been nibbled away by disease and a hard life on the street. They had, of course, but he had to stop himself from reaching up with a paw to self-consciously touch them. He was always a little embarrassed about the state of them, despite refusing to have them reconstructed.

Looking lower he read the caption. 'Detective first class Ashway Um Dreb'n helps to plan the capture of the killer.' He wondered briefly who in the middle town was reported as having brought She'low down. They probably just reported it as 'an officer' to keep things neat. A grin spread over his scared muzzle, tugging the crescent of white fur on his cheek.

Purity, who had been stealthily watching him read, perked his ears up. He wandered over to the desk. "What's this?" he asked. He saw the picture and nodded happily, but paused when he read the last part of the caption. "'Also pictured, Detective second class Purity of Considered Action'?" His tone was incredulous. "'Also pictured'? What? Do they think I sat around making the caff or something? i was right there with you when we brought the bastard down! I was injured for fuck's sake!"

The canine took the paper from Dreb'n unresisting paws. He began ranting about the 'pain and suffering' he had endured during the case. Nanli broke out in a fit of uncontrollable giggling at the sincere hurt in his tone, which only aggravated Purity more. The pair's bickering faded into the background as Dreb'n shook his head and tuned them out. He activated his console and began putting together the case against Shu'vey.

Beyond the office the main room of the precinct began to fill with the days catch of killers, robbers and dregs. It was business as usual in the City of Whores.