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Detective first class Dreb'n sighed as the door to his office's antechamber closed behind him. The scant protection of the cheap metal didn't do much to dim the blare from the precinct house behind him. It was oven-hot in the lower city and no amount of fiddling with his office's filter-fan was going to bring him relief.

The dark-furred feline shrugged off his overcoat, the platinum stud sparkling dully in the ice-bright glow of the chem lights in the

ceiling. The brightness caught the shock of white fur at his muzzle where improper healing tech had grown his fur back incorrectly. It also played over his weary expression and the ragged stumps of his mutilated ears. He panted softly, undoing the top couple of buttons on his shirt. While it would have been unseemly for an officer of his standing to appear so casually in front of the criminals outside here he could afford to relax a little more.

Folding his jacket over his arm he opened the inner door to his office. The air was marginally cooler in here and tinged with the slightlysoapy scent of whatever oil his secretary was burning. He spared Nanli a glance as he walked to his desk. For once she didn't immediately jump to her feet, which made him pause. The canine-feline hybrid looked pensively up from an open tabloid, trying to stuff the inky pages back away from the keyboard of her console as she guiltily stood to greet him.

"Morning, Nanli," he said as he draped his coat over the back of his chair. He flopped heavily into the meagre padding and winced at the creaking it made. He pondered putting in a requisition order for a new one now. At that rate it'd reach him by the time this one gave out. "Anything for us today?"

"Not yet, sir," the timid female replied. She looked back at her console, then up at him. Nanli had managed to get out of the habit of acting like he was going to have her sent back to the agency for the slightest perceived slight. However, the creamy-furred hybrid was still painfully shy. At least now he knew it was more because of her demeanour than because he intimidated her. She fanned her short, stubby muzzle with a paw, her ears draped across the back of her head. "The crime rate is up, but none of it has called for a detective yet."

He nodded and leaned back in his seat. As was his want he turned his gaze up to the labouring filter-fan in the ceiling. Nanli settled herself back in her seat, and with a stealthy glance in his direction, fished her tabloid out to continue reading. Dreb'n considered his options for now. While the heat had brought out the regular array of crazies and bubbling anger there was little for him to do. It was not really the place for a detective to go breaking up water-riots, and his involvement in domestic disturbances would be overkill. Besides, it would involve cramming himself into his cruiser and roasting his fur off.

The door opened and his second, Purity, padded in. Dreb'n nodded a greeting, then sat up as the canine bypassed his own desk to stand in front of him.

"Have you heard, sir? It's war!" Purity sounded almost excited as he slapped a greasy-looking tabloid onto Dreb'n's desk. He looked down, seeing the headline helpfully declaring the same in block capitals; red letters on a black header bar. After a moment he looked back up at his partner and shook his head a little.

The last few months had managed to take the last of the middle-town starch out of the canine. His uniform was no longer as pristine, and his badge had accumulated a couple of brass commendation studs as well. The more important part was that he'd stopped behaving like this assignment was so beneath him it made his teeth ache. That alone made it a lot more bearable sharing an office and a cruiser with him. Dreb'n was even more grateful he'd stopped moping over the missing tip of his left ear. Until a female officer from the precinct had told him it made him look 'rugged', the canine had been acting like losing the tiny chunk of flesh had ended his life and career.

His eager, intent expression shifted to one of puzzlement as Dreb'n didn't react with sudden alarm at his news.

"Are you made of ice, Purity?" Dreb'n answered after a moment's further consideration.

Purity looked flustered. "Sir? What..." Dreb'n indicated that his second was not only in uniform but still wearing his greatcoat without even the slightest hint of discomfort. Purity looked down and shrugged. "I was born in the Steelmills, remember?" The canine wandered to his desk and began removing his jacket. "When there was a big order in things would get about this hot whenever you stepped five paces out of the main arterial footpaths."

"So...you really think it's going to happen?" Nanli asked meekly. Dreb'n noticed the front page of her paper bore the same headline. He scooped up the tabloid, the printer roll greasy with cheap ink under his fingers. "The war I mean?"

Before Purity could reply, Dreb'n cut in. "I doubt it. The Soviets always make noises like this from time to time." He looked at the others over the tabloid with a grin before turning back to the luridly-written story.

"They say this new war-minister is a real hardarse though," Purity said. He didn't take his seat, instead perching on the edge of his desk. "They say he's pushed through a plan to annex all the remaining League territories for the Collective. That'll put the border right next to the iron pits and the petrochem deposits." He nodded and jerked a thumb upwards and over his shoulder. "The spire will never allow him to pull that off."

"Of course they won't," countered Dreb'n as he tossed the tabloid onto the desk and wiped some loose ink from his fingers onto a blotter. "And you know how they'll stop him? By having the air force bomb any foot soldiers they send into the League all the way back to the borders. The Soviets have decent newtech, but they haven't got any fliers worth a damn compared to us."

It was a strange point of pride. No matter how low you went in the city, no matter how poor the people and how nastily they cursed their distant overlords, every man, woman and child have a solid belief that Daylight's air force could see off any threat before it got in range of the city's land defences. Every gutter-runt and console-jockey wanted to be up there with them, plugged into a fishtail or belly turret, listening to the rhythmic tweeting of the pilot through the comms as the avian plugged into the flier's controls dive the shining steel fighter through a furious dogfight.

People hated the lapines and avians for many reasons, but everyone can dream of flying no matter how poor they are.

Purity and Nanli shared a glance. "Didn't you hear?" Nanli said, flipping through her copy of the tabloid. She held it up and Dreb'n leaned over to try and work out what it was. With a slight lurch he realised it was a shot of some part of the plains territory of the Collective, the air almost black with heavy, rotor-driven fliers. He snatched up the other copy of the tabloid to get a better look.

"The reports say they have been churning out some newtech flier," Purity continued where the female left off. "They are pretty much disposable, but intelligence suggests they pack one hell of a punch. Maybe as much as a Raven." He watched as Dreb'n read the words that accompanied the intercepted Soviet propaganda-transmission. "Apparently spy satellites have seen them massing on temporary airfields near the border. It's looking pretty certain something is going to give before too long."

Dreb'n closed the paper and pondered, glaring at the filter-fan like it held the answers in it's wheezing innards. "I don't think it matters," he said after a moment. "They have an air force, but like you said, they are disposable and aren't nearly as well-trained as ours. Besides, let's look at it this way; If they want to claim the leftovers of the League they are going to be marching on kilometre after kilometre of gang-clan territory." He chuckled. "We might not even need an air force to deal with what is left. When they get through that lot they'll only come to our border to beg for an evacuation."

Nanli giggled a little, and the corner of Purity's muzzle curled up a touch although the smile did not reach his eyes. Dreb'n was feeling a little unsettled. But a combination of bravado and practicality made him discard the thought. If it did come down to war then he'd be too old for mass conscription, so the only way he'd be involved would be hunting down fifth-columnists. Besides, it'd not come down to that in the end. It never did.

The comms on his desk buzzed, and Dreb'n poked the button to put the caller on loudspeaker. "Detective Dreb'n," he said, glad for the distraction.

"Dreb'n? This is Dan'shee," the communicator blended the voice with static to make the speaker seem like a distant hissing voice heard down a plastic shell. Dreb'n knew Dan'shee. She was a competent beat officer. If politics had not saddled him with Purity he'd have tried to poach her before the streets knocked too much of her edge off. "We need you down at the ninth-circuit warehouses."

"What's the incident?" Dreb'n was already scooping up his notebook. Purity was pulling his coat back on and even buttoned the collar. It made Dreb'n feel uncomfortable just to look at.

"Gang slaying," came the reply after a moment. Dreb'n had been about to sign off when another line came through. "At least...it might be. Can you bring Hesh?"

That made him pause. He flashed a questioning look at Nanli, who paged the doctor through her console. "I'll see what I can do, officer. Is there something the matter?"

The comms stayed silent for a while before Dan'shee replied. "It's bad," she said flatly. "It's very bad."

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

After a breathless trip through the lower city in the cruiser they had arrived at the unused warehouse block in the ninth circuit. Dreb'n could smell smoke and cinders, and for a moment was reminded of his brief stay in the Glassworks. Stepping out of the vehicle the heat enfolded him like a cloying blanket. It would have been better if there had been more than the usual, industrially-diluted sunshine coming down. The air was just hot, muggy and scented with the effluent of nearby industry with almost no visible source.

Dreb'n strode over to where Dan'shee and a couple of other officers were lurking inside a watch office. There were three portable fans on a desk, and Dreb'n didn't blame them for cramming into the prefab hut. Purity, damn his hide, waited outside like nothing was amiss, drawing curious glances from the patrolmen.

Back at the cruiser, Doctor Hesh began to struggle with some of her portable equipment. "What are you doing standing around?" Dreb'n said after a moment. "Go and help her set up her things." Purity grimaced and padded over to help the rat with her gear. For her part the doctor tried to be civil and strike up a conversation as they worked. Purity kept quiet or merely grunted. Dreb'n shook his head and turned back to the patrol officers. "Ok, so what are we looking at here?"

Dan'shee answered him with a gesture towards a burned-out shell of a warehouse not too far distant. "Someone torched a warehouse. There was a call to attend a water riot nearby when the fire patrol came to put it out," she said. The feline female was a little shorter than Dreb'n with light orange fur. She'd lost several fingers breaking up a bar brawl, and the augmetic replacements were a dull, gunmetal grey as she used them to point out the warehouse they had been called to. "We put it down and hung around because they said it could be arson."

Dreb'n nodded, taking a quick note on his pad and shuffling to get a little more into the path of one of the fans. "When we got inside we found...well, some bodies," she looked over at her fellow patrolmen, who seemed reluctant to discuss it. "We thought it was a gang slaying. Specifically the clans. There was the usual marking but it just didn't sit right." Dan'shee shrugged. "In any case, it warrants a detective. Do you want me to show you the scene?"

"No need," he said, clapping his notebook closed. "You three can keep out of the heat for a while." The officers behind Dan'shee grinned at this news. Dreb'n looked out and saw that Hesh had assembled a simple wire trolley with her equipment on, and was wilting a little in the warmth. He basked in the cool air of the fans for a moment longer before stepping back out to join them.

"Hey there!" he called to a pair of fire officers. The two turned slowly, heavy and ponderous inside their heat-resistant exo suits. They were a cobbled-together conglomerate of parts from older makes and models, no doubt cats off from broken suits from higher in the city. The soft whine of servos showed they were in powered-down mode now the fire had been dealt with. Huge canisters of fire-suppressant foam gave the pair a hunchbacked appearance.

Both of them were still fully sealed in. Given the level of cooling on those things, Dreb'n guessed they were sticking inside to keep their own personal air-conditioning. The downside was that he had no idea who he was talking to other than two faceless, chrome masks. He finished trotting over and looked from one reflection to the other, indicating his badge on the jacket he had opted to carry. "Is it safe to go in there yet?"

The nearest head bobbed with a purring noise. "The fire is all burned out, detective," the words emerged in a tinny buzz from a comms unit on their torso. "We wouldn't have let the other officers in if there was any danger. Come with me, I'll show you to the scene." With that they turned and began to plod heavily into the warehouse. Dreb'n checked the progress of Purity and Hesh, and found them catching up. He gingerly stepped in behind the fire officer as the other waited outside.

He was lead through rows of scorched crates, many of which had split and spilled metal ingots onto the floor. Further in they passed pallets of sheet steel and more intricate containers for precious or delicate metals. The floor was soon slippery with foam, although it was already beginning to break down into a gassy substance that tainted the air with a chemical tang. Dreb'n tried his best to breathe through his ears as they found the central point of the devastation.

Dan'shee had said it was bad, and she had been right.

The good thing about the foam compared to high-pressure hoses was that it left things pretty much where they lay. Dreb'n counted seven bodies, tossed around and curled in sad little bundles, blackened and shrivelled by the fire. He swallowed, getting the terrible scent of roasted meat and burned fur into his sinuses. Behind him the rattling trolley came to a halt.

The fire officer thumped noisily to the middle of a charred circle on the concrete floor and pointed. "The fire started here," the figure said, their matter-of-fact tone clear even with the distortion of the comms unit. "There was some sort of accelerant poured over the bodies and then some sort of incendiary-mine was used to ignite the area." An whine of servos accompanied a wide, sweeping motion of their arm. "The other fires were secondary; an effect of the thermal flash reacting with present combustibles. I don't think they wanted to burn the whole place down, or they would have used more accelerant. This was arson to cover up the killing here. I'm sure of it. I'll leave my details with the officers if you need me to give a report."

With that, the officer began to slowly stomp away from the crime scene, through the path they had carved in the dissipating foam. As they passed the trolley they paused and turned back for a second. "I should warn you. This looks like something pretty high-tech. If this was a gang hit...they have gotten hold of some military surplus at least." That last bit of information delivered, they left the detectives and Hesh alone with the bodies.

Dreb'n began to circle the area, sticking to areas that were clear of foam. He nodded to himself; this definitely looked like something more that a street gang could do. The area was scorched black in a wide circle, and was mostly free from the foam. The mine or incendiary had been something powerful, thoroughly igniting all of the combustible material in the area until very little remained. The other fires had started when the heat had touched off packing material elsewhere, leaving the central area untouched.

Aside from the bodies.

He put a paw over his mouth as he leaned in close to one of them. It was difficult to tell what they had been in life. As Dan'shee had said, they had been marked as a clan-gang kill by being stamped on heavily to the point that little remained above the neck other than burned, unrecognisable mush. Hesh approached too, muttering to herself. Her ears were pinned back against her head as she examined the bodies with a great deal more detachment than Dreb'n.

The black rat snapped on a pair of latex gloves and knelt down. As she moved past him, Dreb'n saw the riot of colourful plants and curling vine worktattooed into her ear. It almost covered the black X indicating her government-mandated sterilisation. He stood and let her work on the body. Purity was walking the perimeter in the other direction. He paused and gagged, turning away from something he found.

"There are some corpse-bags in the trolley, detective," Hesh said softly, her voice very loud in the stifling gloom of the warehouse. Sitting on her haunches she let out a soft whistle as she examined the ruin in front of her.

"Isn't it a little early to be bagging the bodies?" Dreb'n asked, circling a strange line of pitted holes in the floor.

"Oh, I meant you can use them if you're going to puke," Hesh said, grinning over at Purity. The canine glared at her, his jaw tightening. Her face turned serious. "I mean it. This scene needs to be cordoned off. We're going to be pretty swamped with this. I don't know if our lab can handle it all."

Dreb'n pulled a pencil from his pocket and poked at one of the craters he had found, turning over rubble until he found the deepest part. He stood and ran a paw over his head. "We're going to need to farm this out I think," he said after a while. "We can call on the precincts in the Graveyard to use their labs. And I can call in a favour in central's gang-crime to get them to run ballistics."

Purity, deciding his breakfast would not be rejoining them, waved Dreb'n over. "Sir, you should probably look at this." He looked back at something hidden by a melted pile of plastic and metal slag and winced.

Dreb'n joined the canine. he paused, trying to work out what he was looking at for a few seconds. "Oh..." he added when his brain finally processed the scene. Absently he noted that Purity was made of sterner stuff than he had given him credit for not throwing up at the sight.

Behind the crate, where they had fallen when the incendiary had exploded, were the scorched remains of two furs. Mixed up. In chunks. The bodies had been brutally torn apart and, given the baked-in bloodstain that covered quite a large area around the crate or platform nearby, it had clearly taken a while. The clan-gang mutilation of the bodies had also happened here, although the meagre protection the crate meant the wounds to the discarded heads were a ghastly palette of grey, red and shocking pink.

Dreb'n heard a voice say "Only one..." softly. It took him a moment to realise it was himself. As the full horror of the sight hit him he already knew what it was that his mind had spotted during that moment of shocked calm. He turned away, closing his eyes and trying not the breathe in the scent of death.

"Only...one...set of hooves," he managed after a moment stood on the verge of throwing up, passing out or both. He'd seen some terrible things in his time, but this had to rank up there with them. He tried not to reflexively recall those occasions and instead focus on the issue at hand. "Only one set of hoof prints. If it was a clan-gang they would all have taken a turn to..." He waved his paw behind himself. "You know."

Purity looked dubious, but kept quiet. Hesh was moving to another body. "I think you might be right," she called over. She was gently pawing at the shattered skull of one of the bodies with expert care. "That is, unless the gangs are using energy weapons."

Dreb'n and Purity's ears both perked up at that. The canine's obviously had a little further to go than the stubby remains of his own. They both stepped over scorched debris to see what clue had been uncovered. Hesh shifted her body and pointed a sooty finger at the corpse's head. "This one didn't get stamped on as hard. There is a clear cavity right through the middle of their head, scorched and cauterised, all the way along. That's not a common injury. It looks like a high-energy weapon of some sort. Military grade, like the officer said."

Both the detectives straightened up. Dreb'n turned to Purity. "Ok, go and get Dan'shee to put up a perimeter and start calling in the specialists." He turned in a circle, taking in the whole scene slowly. "We're going to find out what happened here."

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

Dreb'n looked down at the communicator in his paw like sheer incredulity could change the answer he had just received. He thumbed the transmitter stub. "Repeat the last part, sir," he said, trying to keep his voice level.

Overseer Shal'vey's voice came through again, this time tinged with petulant annoyance at having to repeat himself to a subordinate. "I said that the case has been handed off to another precinct Dreb'n. Now acknowledge, and get your people out of there before they arrive."

He feline looked back towards the warehouse, where the rolls of crime-cordon tape were being erected, ready for the forensic team he had scraped together from other precincts. He gritted his teeth, then thumbed the stud again. "Acknowledged," he transmitted. A moment before the overseer could reply, he added 'Sir', before signing off and tossing the comms back inside the cruiser.

He was already walking back towards the crime scene when Purity scrambled out of the cruiser. The canine had to run to catch up. "What? Are we just going to hand this over? Really?" He jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the cruiser when Dreb'n did not reply initially. "Seriously, we should call in some favours and..."

"And what?" Dreb'n rounded on Purity, who skidded to a halt to prevent himself from running into the feline. "The case has been handed over. That means that the middle town precincts will be taking over. It was quick, damned quick, but what did you expect?" He began ticking points off on his fingers. "We've got military grade weapons being used to torture and execute people. We've got nine bodies that we can't even identify without knocking the dust off some antique gene-scanners. And, and this is a pretty big point, the second a middle-town precinct calls dibs on a case then it is theirs." He threw his paws up in the air. "Hell, for all we know this is a case that started up there and we're trampling all over their evidence."

Purity looked hurt. He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again. While the gesture made him look indecisive at least he'd broken his habit of arguing a lost point just because his methods would work uptown. Dreb'n gave a sigh of release and turned back to the warehouse.

"It's a shame," he said quietly. "But that's how things work."

He sent Purity back to the cruiser. The canine had been in the process of calling in the various specialist teams that would be needed to give the scene the best coverage that they had to offer. That was probably how Shal'vey had found out about it. One brown-nosing call up the chain of command and the order would come back to quash the investigation. It had happened before, but this was a pretty quick turnaround.

Hesh took the news stoically. She nodded and began to pack up all her sample files. They had tried running identifiers over the bodies, but no chips registered. "Probably removed," she has noted into her recorder. Soon the rat was ready to move out, and without a backwards glance left the charnel house.

Dreb'n lingered for a moment longer. He walked around the perimeter one last time, looked over the scorch marks and the bodies and tried to get a feel for the scene. He sniffed, trying not to gag at the smell, and a rough idea began to form in his head. He walked back over to the row of pitted craters in the warehouse floor. Seven in a neat little row. Seven bodies with neat little holes drilled in their heads.

He dropped to his haunches and put his paw on the ground to steady himself. His tail twitched slightly. "They made you kneel, didn't they," he whispered to nobody in particular. It made some grotesque sense. Line them all up in a row and what? Butcher two of them slowly? Information. A man under torture might not give up what you want...but a man watching what you were capable of might well give up a secret to save his pelt. Or to save the life of someone important to them.

Then there was no more reason to keep the people alive. So you drill a neat little hole through their heads with your powerful energy weapons, and set your military grade incendiary to render them anonymous bundles of charcoal.

That last step was the stumbling block. Gangs round here would slice you up, maybe blow your face a new nostril with a corroded streetgun. But where the hell do you get that kind of tech down here?

He stood back up as Dan'shee padded in. "I heard the case has been handed uptown," she said, trying not to look at the bodies too closely. Dreb'n nodded and wiped char onto his trouser leg. "Shame. I really would have liked to find out who did it."

"So would I, officer," Dreb'n replied. He turned to go, his foot catching on something and making it skitter noisily across the concrete. He padded over and reached down, picking up a curl of metal, distorted from heat. He thought it might have some sort of pattern, but discarded it all the same. If it was important, then his replacements would no doubt find out.

As they approached the warehouse entrance he heard the familiar drumbeat of rain begin. "Finally," Dan'shee exclaimed. "I heard they were going to try could-seeding to break the heat." She tugged a disposable rain-suit from a pouch and draped it over her head. Dreb'n reached for his own and realised he had left it in his greatcoat. As he considered an undignified dash to the cruiser that would leave his fur acid-bleached for days, the vehicle pulled up and the door popped open.

Hesh waved at him from within, and Dreb'n ran the few paces to the cruiser and slid inside, slapping the door closed against the rain. Purity chuckled from the driver's seat as Dreb'n tried best to mop up the chemical drizzle with a cloth Hesh proffered. "Taxi for one?", he quipped.

Dreb'n rolled his eyes. He grabbed the comms and called central to see if they were needed urgently elsewhere. The downpour was going to keep people off the streets, which would be a mercy. He had a feeling that this was likely going to be the most exciting thing to happen for a while.

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

Dreb'n skidded around the side of the cruiser and threw himself into one of the wheel-arches, tucking himself in so the wide tire would hopefully provide him with a little more protection. Purity, being taller and, much to Dreb'n's chagrin, fitter, vaulted over the cruiser by flinging himself at the hood and skidding along it. The friction of his belt and greatcoat on the metal made an almost comical squeak before he too ended up with his rear parked on the ground and his back firmly pressed to a hubcap.

The cruiser began to shake as shots and energy rounds impacted into it. Both the detectives tucked their heads down as the windows blew out, showering them with glass fragments. Purity yelped loudly as they scattered over his head, while Dreb'n chose to ride out the storm of shards with a few select curses.

The both looked up as an energy round compromised the integrity of the cruiser's midsection, blowing a glowing, fist-sized hole in the rear door, a few inches from Dreb'n's head. Almost unimpeded by the metal and plastic it had just passed through, the glowing beam flashed off and impacted in the wall of the area dock building nearby. The two of them locked gazes, confused and panting.

"What the...what the shitting hell is going on?" Dreb'n yelled, as the firing began again.

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

What had happened was this;

Immediately after leaving the crime scene, the trio had picked up some food from a lurking vendor and parked on the side of the road to eat. Purity, eager to resume this morning's conversation, had proposed the idea that the crime scene was the work of Spire intelligence agents, rooting out Soviet collaborators. Dreb'n had proposed the idea that this was bloody stupid.

"Look," he said, waving his cheap plastic fork for emphasis. "There is not going to be a war." Purity opened his muzzle to speak, and Dreb'n cut him off. "The Soviets are always talking a big fight right? What about last time this happened? They were right on the brink of attacking the city-states over mineral rights...or whatever the hell it was." The feline swallowed a mouthful of cheaply-spiced meat. It was vaguely tasty for once, and the vendor had even managed to disguise the chemical tang of corpse-protein used to fortify the vermin meat. He swallowed as the others chewed, the interior of the cruiser steamy from the heat and moisture rising from the disposable cartons.

"If the Soviets will back down from a fight with the canines then they are not likely to start a war with us, are they?" Dreb'n vaguely marvelled at the ability for even someone as street-numbed as him to suddenly become a part of the great big 'we' of the Consortium the second there was a 'them' to align against.

That had stalled the conversation for a while. It was a good block in the idea of the Soviet's starting a new skirmish over this issue. They were, after all, the creation of the canines. Specifically the abuse of the Thunder of Righteous Retribution, a despot that was known even amongst the City States as one of histories greatest monsters.

Centuries ago, when the canine city-state model and well-drilled mercenary armies had been the pinnacle of global civilisation, they had extended a 'protective' blanket over the relatively peaceful alliance between the ungulates and the bovines. They exchanged the rich bounty of the mountains, plains and forests for manufactured goods, teachers and advisors that helped to build the roaming herds of sheep, goats and cattle from a nomadic existence to a more 'civilised' lifestyle.

Under Thunder's rule, however, the city-states began to take greater and greater control of the plains-folk. This resulted in uprisings and rebellions, bringing war and destruction to the area. Simmering resentment built up, finally finding an outlet in the publication of the subversive manifesto 'Bitter Harvest; a rejection of the Canid Oppression'. This underground pamphlet spread through the ungulate population, calling for a rejection of the capitalist system that saw goats, sheep and cows treated as slaves to be downtrodden and harvested under the canine yoke.

Thunder dispatched armies to burn whole cities to the ground, but on arrival the generals found the land an un-rulable mess of guerrilla fighting and rebellious ambushes. More over they saw first-hand the legacy of his rule, like the secret breeding camps he had organised to boost the population so that the flow of wool and milk could be increased. They also found out about his forcive shearing and milking of civilians, an act of bodily abuse on-par with rape, de-clawing and castration. Pausing only to round up those canines involved in this process, the mercenary army returned to Thunder's capital and slew him in his throne room.

The new ruler of the city-states formally withdrew all canines from the emergent Soviet lands. A period of infighting and social experimentation followed, although all three of the races involved knew they were in this together for the long haul. Eventually the Soviet system evolved, and isolated it's self from the growing capitalism of the new Consortium and the old City-States. That was, in broad strokes, the history that Dreb'n knew, gathered from watching the basic education broadcasts in his youth.

Much as the massive land army and it's blocky, mass-produced newtech was vaunted in Soviet propaganda, peace had been a fairly reliable constant for the last few decades. They had skirmished back and forth, with the desert archologies and the former League, for instance. But on the whole the mighty war machine had been sat idle, polished and refined but still a thing for a museum or parade ground.

Purity seemed immune to this logic. He picked at the thread again as the food vanished.

"I'm just saying, what if, you know," he wheedled, scraping at the cheap plastic of his carton with the edge of his fork. "What IF they were part of a Soviet spy ring or something. It'd make sense why the case got shut down so hard."

"I really doubt the Soviets are using surrogates as spies," Hesh chimed in from the back before popping the last of her food into her mouth. Dreb'n and Purity shared a glance, pausing, then both turned in their seats to look at her. She blinked at them both and chewed faster, making a circling motion over her heart with a finger.

"I saw a logo," she said once she had swallowed enough to get the words out. "On one of the less burned bodies. There was a little pin or something with a logo for one of the surrogate companies. I noted it, but...well, there didn't seem much point in mentioning it."

Dreb'n remembered the feel of the little curl of burned metal in his fingers and unconsciously rubbed them together. "Surrogates?" he breathed to himself.

"Well, none of them looked pregnant so they could have just worked at one of the clinics," Hesh added matter-of-factly, folding her carton closed and dropping it onto the seat.

Dreb'n turned to face the windshield again. He reached out to activate the console and stopped himself. Much as the new information had piqued his curiosity he had to let it go. Or at least he had to be a little more circumspect than just firing a message through central asking if anyone had reported some surrogates or staff missing. He saw Purity watching him out of the corner of his eye and shrugged.

"Well I guess its someone else's problem now," he announced. Purity nodded slowly, clearly still unhappy about the handover. He started the engine and steered the cruiser back to the precinct. Dreb'n watched the rain slowing, the pools chemical rainbow-sheen being disrupted by further drops and the wake of his vehicle.

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

The heat of the day had soaked into the precinct's bones still. Even with the cloud seeding the filter fan in the office was sputtering and beginning to struggle to circulate fresh air. It was a slight improvement overall. The scented oil Nanli had been burning that day had been used up, half evaporated from the little burner and half by the warmth of the office. It made the air slightly greasy, like a cheap narco-den.

He and Purity dropped into their respective chairs as the little hybrid checked the day's roster of cases to see if there was anything to pull them out into the rain again. Apparently there was nothing for now. Between the heat and the chemical washout they had a reprieve in which to brood about the butchery in the warehouse.

Dreb'n stretched in his seat, his tail curling lightly against the faded padding. As was his habit his eyes locked on the filter fan, but only for a moment. He leaned forward and brought his console online. Skimming data from central he brought up a communications channel and ran it through the set on his desk. He saw Purity give him a curious look as he picked up the headset, cradling it to his stumpy ear as he waited to see if he got through.

It wasn't likely. It was, after all, quite a while since he had spoken to Equerry Ranshi of the Glassworks central precinct. He doubted she would even recognise his call sign. But maybe speaking to her would be able to answer a few questions.

To the felines great surprise the tone on the comms went from the atonal humming of connecting to the gentle beep of a line being secured. With a soft pop he heard the female lapine's voice. "Ranshi, who is this?"

"This is Dreb'n," he began. "Detective Dreb'n? You might remember me from about half a year ago or so..."

"The Sanctity robbery-slaughter, I remember," whether she remembered fondly or not was a different matter. Ranshi's tone was quite brisk, although not unfriendly. "How can I help you, detective?"

Dreb'n angled his chair a little so he could not see Purity mugging and trying to attract his attention so that he could be filled in. "We just had a case handed off to the upper city," Dreb'n said, looking at a grimy patch on the wall. "It was a pretty nasty one too. Nearly ten people slaughtered in a warehouse with some pretty high-tech gear. Basically I wanted to know if you could keep me appraised...if you have time of course."

Ranshi paused slightly before replying. "I'll see what I can do, but I doubt I'll be able to let you know anything soon," She hesitated slightly and continued, clearly keeping her voice down. "We've had a pretty high-profile kidnapping come up. It's got everyone running around like crazy up here."

Dreb'n sat forward, his fingers tightening on the comms handset. "Was it surrogates?" He changed paws, flipping clumsily through his notebook for the name of the agency Hesh had provided on the ride back. "Or some staff from a clinic?"

"No, why do you ask?" Ranshi's tone was pretty surprised. "Oh, is that who was killed downtown? No...a noble from one of steelworking families has gone missing." Dreb'n whistled softly. That was a big deal. "It's not a house head or even a very major player. But as you might imagine, until he's found we're going to be on full alert.

"Speaking of which, I'll keep an ear up to see if I hear anything about missing surrogates. But I really have to get back to work. It was good to hear from you, detective. Stay safe." With those parting words, the line went dead.

Dreb'n clicked the handset back into cradle and looked up as Purity, unable to contain himself any longer, wandered over and lurked near his desk. He relayed the information Ranshi had provided, and Purity's eyes went wide. Even Nanli gasped in shock at the idea of a noble, even a lower -tier one, being kidnapped. Obviously it was not a rare occurrence, but it was rare to hear about it down here. The games the spire families played were as rough and deadly as any back-street gang lord. But so long as the plebs didn't find out, all the better.

He came back from a swirling cloud of thoughts and realised he was tracing the corroded edges of the filter fan with his gaze again, lost in the tangle of ideas and possibilities. In the background he noted the chatter between Purity and Nanli on the subject of spire gossip. A name popped into the conversation and punctured his private contemplation.

"What was that you said?" he planted his elbows on his desk and looked over at Purity. Nanli shrank back into her chair a little as if she was going to get scolded for not paying attention to her blank console screen.

"Uh..." Purity was taken aback for a second. "I was just saying that my cousin went to the Amansol's daughter's wedding."

Dreb'n looked down at his notebook, then back up at the canine. "Amansol? As in the AmansolMetallurgical Concern?"

"Yes?" Purity tilted his head, drawing out the word as he always did when he tried not to miss a point his superior had already arrived at. "I mean, I was just saying that it was such a shame about the baby. Why do you ask?"

"That warehouse from this morning was one of the Amansol storage centres," Dreb'n explained. He tapped his pen on the paper gently. "What's that about a baby?"

Purity shrugged and held up his paws. "She and her husband lost a baby recently is all. I assume it was some genetic thing. She's a lapine, obviously, and he's a canine. They must have used gene-meshing to get a heir. I guess it just didn't take."

Dreb'n nodded, running his tongue over his sharp teeth. Gene-meshing was quite common amongst interspecies nobles. It allowed the production of a 'face' heir that would lack any genetic problems caused by being a mixed species. Like Nanli's floppy, terrier ears and her elongated feline snout. The down side was that they were usually sterile. But they would still be a product of both parents, which was important. Normally it would only be allowed in branch or minor families where producing a breeding or marriageable heir would not make too much of a difference.

He tried to think of a connection. Surrogates could possibly be used to raise a gene-meshed child, but that was highly unlikely. Normally such a thing would take place in the sterile and fur-raisingly creepy surgical district in an artificial womb. But then again this was not something he was particularly experienced with. He started to type into his console when it suddenly struck him again that he was not on this case.

It took a near-physical effort of will to settle back in his chair. Dreb'n eventually forced the spiral of possibilities and connections down with a two-pronged mental effort. Firstly, that it was no longer his problem. The best he'd get in this case would be finding out second or third hand about it from Ranshi. The second was that, for all he knew, there was no connection at all. It could just be a coincidence. Noble houses owned huge tracks of land down in the slums, for industrial or residential purposes.

No doubt he'd never know the answer, he thought, his gaze once again captured by the struggling filter fan.

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

A few days later the heat had vanished, but the streets were gripped with a breathless tension. Purity entered the office, and Dreb'n glanced at him over the news sheet he was reading. He'd shelled out a handful of currency for something a little less sensational than the fare that his partner and Nanli seemed addicted too. The news inside was no less foreboding.

Soviet propaganda programs had shown the movement of troops and aircraft to the old League border. Now the equine state had collapsed into anarchy and factional infighting there was little for them to worry about in terms of retaliation. Diplomatic channels were being desperately pursued in case they did start taking annexing bites out of the former equine nation, but they seemed determined to roll the border all the way up to the outskirts of the Consortium. That would put them within striking distance of Daylight.

Dreb'n was still maintaining an optimistic, slightly biased view of the affair. "I don't think we have anything to worry about," he told Purity as they debated the latest round of troop movements and sabre-rattling. "I mean, you saw for yourself those aircraft have a terrible range. They can barely run a single mission before they'll need to head back to their lines. At that rate it'll take them decades to even get halfway across the League."

Purity nodded, but pointed at a satellite image of columns of troop-carrying tanks and line after line of power-armoured soldiers. The unmistakable bulky form of bovines could be seen amongst the smaller figures, hefting heavier weapons. "Yeah, but with the central government gone they can roll right over most of the remaining cities," he took a sip of 'caff and continued. "Don't forget the League sold them a lot of prisoners after the coup. That includes a lot of the old government figures and civil servants. They probably have pretty good intelligence."

Dreb'n snorted. "They are about to go and throw themselves right into the middle of a hundred warring clan-gangs," he smirked. "That's not very intelligent in my books."

Nanli's giggle at his comment was cut off by a beep as her console received a priority signal. She read the details as they scrolled onto the screen. "There's been a report of screaming at the eighth-circle air dock," she announced. "Several complaints."

"That's a patrol job," Purity complained. For once, Dreb'n nodded in agreement. "Why are they assigning us?"

"Um...it looks like they sent a patrol but can't raise them," Nanli added, her ears drooping slightly like it was somehow her fault. Dreb'n and Purity exchanged glances.

"Isn't that air-dock near the Grey Quarter?" asked Dreb'n. Regardless of the answer he was already slipping his coat over his shoulders. Nanli nodded an affirmative. "Great. That means it could be clan-gangs. What sort of backup is available?"

Nanli clattered the keys of her console before looking up. "There is some sort of disturbance going on in the Graveyard. All the assault officers are tied up with that."

"Oh fantastic," commented Purity as he began strapping on the recoil-suppressor for his stubby hand cannon. "It's the two of us versus a fuckload of narco-snorting, pissed off equines that might have already taken out a patrol."

Dreb'n nodded and fished around in his pocket for the key for the weapons locker. "Well, it could be worse," he said as his fingers closed around it. "We could be at war or something."

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

Dreb'n slowly made another pass around the front entrance of the air dock. The windows were down as he and Purity peered at the gate. Everything appeared quiet from the back of the cruiser. There was the occasional knot of civilians in the shadow of the boundary wall or walking on some unknown errand. But otherwise it all seemed like a normal off day for maintenance.

The dock was built mostly for VTOL carriers, so there were no long runways. It was just a large, enclosed landing field with various terminal buildings, storehouses and hangars. It was one of the better maintained areas, and the housing crowding up to it was equally better class for the district. After all, the workers, loaders and cleaners that worked there were paid a little better and could usually rely on the dock's security to keep undesirables from muscling in on them.

Even when the dock was shut for maintenance there should be more activity though. Where were the guards? The workers soaping the omnipresent gang-tags from the wall? Where was the patrol that had supposedly come to investigate the sound of screaming?

Dreb'n had replayed the dispatch call that the patrol had been sent to check out. Some scared-sounding habber had described some female in intense distress. "It sounds like they are killing her in there!" they had yelled down the line before hanging up. An icy finger ran down his spine, tickling along the collar of his body armour. He glanced down at the battered and reassuring sight of his pacifier in the rack between his and Purity's seats.

He steered the cruiser towards the gate. There was a moment of lag as they approached the sheer metal, but it rolled down into the concrete and allowed them to pass. Dreb'n glanced into the empty guard booth. The cruiser's authentication clearly had triggered an automatic mechanism. Purity re-checked his hand cannon for the hundredth time since they set off.

"I don't like the look of this," whispered the canine. Dreb'n found it hard to disagree.

The cruiser passed onto the dock's main landing area. There was a wide, unbroken stretch of empty space, the concrete scorched with vector-jet residue and tattooed with arcane scribbles of white paint marking out the different bays. Arranged around this was a trio of storehouse-hangars and a large prefab shack for workers and tool storage.

The patrol cruiser sat near the prefab hut. The doors were closed. The lights were off. There was no sign of any officers that he or Purity could immediately notice.

Dreb'n brought their own vehicle to a halt. He killed the power and listened. Aside from the sound of the city and the gentle ticking of the hot engine there was nothing. He glanced at Purity. "Let's check the hut. If this was all a prank they might be in there sipping 'caff and playing cards." The attempt at levity fell flat. Both the men were tense and on edge. Dreb'n unclipped his pacifier and slid out through his door, scanning for targets.

Purity followed him out, covering the wide-open space with his pistol clamped in both paws. The began to make their way over to the hut, looking left and right. Blind, dull, landing lights stared up at them from the concrete as they got closer. The pair were keyed up, almost as if expecting a horde of axe-wielding clanners to pour out and dismember them. They reached the cruiser with all limbs still attached. Dreb'n examined it as Purity kept watch.

At first glance everything seemed fine. Then Dreb'n noticed the unit's pacifiers were both missing from the vehicle. His tail twitched a little under his greatcoat, wanting to lash. But if things got nasty the last thing he wanted was to lose a chunk of it to a bullet or blade. He tried the door and found it open. Leaning in the driver's side he noticed the blinking lights on the console. Central had attempted to raise the patrol a few times, and was one more call away from calling in the cavalry.

Dreb'n was about to push the stud on the crude comms set and let them know he had arrived, but then decided not too. If things went bad then at least backup would be on the way.

He slammed the door closed and winced at the harsh slap the action raised. It echoed off the buildings, fading softly away. He indicated the door to the worker hut, and he and Purity made some haste getting there. As they got to the door he looked up. He could see a transport of some sort overhead. It seemed to be circling. he dismissed it for now as more pressing concerns grabbed his attention.

They could both smell the blood before the door opened. The latch was pretty badly messed up, and it swung open with a slack, broken handle. Gory streaks of blood and fur painted the back of the short corridor. A discarded pacifier lay in another pool of crimson. Drag marks and further splashes lead through another open door, and the pair of detectives padded quietly after them. They found desks in disarray, more blood, but no bodies. Purity watched Dreb'n's back as they came to a closed door from beneath which a tacky pool of gore was leaking.

Putting his sleeve across his face, Dreb'n opened the door and looked inside. After a moment he gagged and closed the door again. Behind him he heard Purity whimper and swallow bile. They had found the patrol and the missing guard, along with the maintenance workers. It was clear someone had business here they did not want witnessed and were willing to kill, brutally, to ensure all loose ends were taken care of.

He and Purity took a moment to compose themselves. "We need to call this in," Dreb'n was the first to speak. "Let's get back to the cruiser." Purity nodded, ears flat against his head and paws trembling. They began to double-time it back to the door. Suddenly Dreb'n put a paw out, stopping his partner. The sound of vector engines outside was growing louder.

The pair flattered themselves against the prefab wall, either side of a window and peered out. Dreb'n noted two dark figures running towards the hut coming to a halt as the detectives took a look out. Weapons were raised. A second later the window exploded inwards in chunks of cheap plati-glass, making them both yell out. Dreb'n's finger tightened on his pacifier reflexively, putting the chambered round into the floor. He pressed his back to the flimsy protection of the wall and swore, racking the slide to reload his weapon.

"You ok?" he called to Purity, who had thrown himself down to the ground. The canine nodded. Outside more gunshots echoed, making them duck. But it seemed they were not the target any more. The scream of vector jets became deafening, and Dreb'n risked another glance. He saw a pair of blocky transports settling on the runway, ramps already dropping and more armoured figures stomping out holding weapons. He tucked himself back out of sight, panting.

"What's going on?" demanded Purity from the floor.

"I have no fucking idea!" Dreb'n curtly replied.

"Should we do something?" Purity asked, sliding onto his paws and knees. A few seconds later an almighty racket of overlapping shots, explosions and the unmistakable, gum-needling whine of energy weapons began. The two detectives both went prone again as some solid-round weapon went berserk out there. The stream of firepower seemed to be aimed elsewhere, then swept across the side of the hut, almost as an afterthought. The rounds pattered through the wall like molten metal through a snowdrift, barely stopping. Dreb'n looked incredulously at the craters it had punched through both walls.

"Fuck that!" he yelled to his partner as the shooting stopped. "let's get to the cruiser...now!"

On paws and knees the pair made an undignified shuffle through the hut, skirting around the blood and matter near the entrance. Dreb'n paused at the door which was, due to an accidental or deliberate hit, hanging by one hinge. He peered out, trying not to attract attention. From what he could see, a group of twenty or so people in combat armour were using the cover of two transports to engage another force in one of the terminals. The armour they wore was shiny, beetle-black and masked species and gender. He couldn't see much of the enemy other than the occasional muzzle-flash from doorways and service hatches in the distance.

He turned to Purity and nodded. "Ok, first we sneak to the patrol car," he indicated with the muzzle of his gun. "Then we make a break for the cruiser. Then...we get the hell out. Ok?"

If Purity was going to argue for honour or valour in the current situation, one peek at the forces out there was enough to quash that plan. He nodded and braced himself as the pair eased past the hanging door and out into the gunfight. Stray rounds nicked the concrete and shattered more holes in the prefab hut behind them. The attacking transports had come down well away from the hut, and they were doing everything they could to cover the detectives, albeit without noticing.

The pair crouched behind the patrol car, sheltered from view for the most part from both groups. They peeked up over the hood to try and get a better idea of what was happening, but the fight was too intense to follow. Dreb'n sat back down, blinking away the afterimages of muzzle flare and the blue-white lashes of energy weapons.

Purity kept looking a few seconds more before dropping down too. "I just saw some of them get hit," he had to repeat himself a few times for Dreb'n to make him out. There was little chance of them getting overheard in this maelstrom.

"Right, let's go," Dreb'n kept low to the ground as the pair shuffled over to the rear of the patrol cruiser. The gap between this vehicle and their own seemed huge. Dreb'n gave it a dubious look, then turned to glance at Purity. "On three...ok?" The Canine nodded. Both of them ducked as something exploded nearby. "One...two...three!"

The pair burst from cover and began sprinting as fast as they could. There was no way either group could miss noticing them. Rattling gunfire and the retina-scaring flash of energy weapons flicked their way. But almost as soon as the storm began it ebbed. They were running away, unarmoured...worthless as targets compared to the true enemy. Dreb'n panted heavily, running as fast as he could towards the parked vehicle. He felt a tug on his coat as a hard round nearly clipped him. Ahead the cruiser dented and twitched under impacts. As low as he and Purity were on the totem pole of priorities, both groups still chased them every step of the way with firepower.

Dreb'n skidded around the side of the cruiser and threw himself into one of the wheel-arches, tucking himself in so the wide tire would hopefully provide him with a little more protection. Purity, being taller and, much to Dreb'n's chagrin, fitter, vaulted over the cruiser by flinging himself at the hood and skidding along it. The friction of his belt and greatcoat on the metal made an almost comical squeak before he too ended up with his rear parked on the ground and his back firmly pressed to a hubcap.

The cruiser began to shake as shots and energy rounds impacted into it. Both the detectives tucked their heads down as the windows blew out, showering them with glass fragments. Purity yelped loudly as they scattered over his head, while Dreb'n chose to ride out the storm of shards with a few select curses.

They both looked up as an energy round compromised the integrity of the cruiser's midsection, blowing a glowing, fist-sized hole in the rear door, a few inches from Dreb'n's head. Almost unimpeded by the metal and plastic it had just passed through, the glowing beam flashed off and impacted in the wall of the aerial dock building nearby. The two of them locked gazes, confused and panting.

"What the...what the shitting hell is going on?" Dreb'n yelled, as the firing began again.

It was clear from the low volume that they were either being suppressed, or that the attackers were simply venting the last rounds and dregs of energy onto them to keep them down. Dreb'n leaned down close to the ground and peered along the concrete floor. He saw a number of the attackers were down, having tried to rush the building but being pushed back by withering rains of shells. One of them hefted a tube to their shoulder and sent a corkscrewing rocket into the side of the sturdy hangar.

That seemed to lessen the response from within, and another team of dented, armoured figures began a rush capitalise on the lull. Dreb'n looked away, flattening himself into the wheel as the cruiser came under fire again. He felt the wheel he was leaning on begin to angle away from him as the tires on the other side were reduced to rubber fragments unbalanced the vehicle. The door by his head dented and cratered, but held.

Purity reached up to try and open the passenger door, hoping maybe they could both try and make an escape from the gunfight. He yanked his arm back as the door dented and buckled from the other side as another clip was spent on the pair of them. Dreb'n clutched his pacifier tighter and swore. Chances were that the controls were not faring so well under this barrage.

The

silhouette of the cruiser was suddenly thrown into stark relief on the landing strip as a monstrous roar of energy erupted. Dreb'n felt like his teeth were loosening in his gums as the high-pitched whine began. Purity wailed, slamming his paws over his ears. Then it stopped. Dreb'n, his head ringing, risked another glance.

The latest assault on the building had been thrown back by a massive figure. An equine in full powered plate loomed in the doorway. In the bulky exo-suit it was nearly eight feet tall, a massive block of newtech and reactive plates. In it's massive gauntlets it held an ugly club of a weapon, connected to a steaming backpack array of heat-exchangers and power cells by coiling bundles of wires.

The attackers that had been trying to enter the hangar had been shredded by the energy lance. Bodies and parts of bodies lay in messy, steaming heaps. The attackers were falling back to the dubious protection of their transports, pinging hard rounds at the equine as it brought it's weapon back up for another shot. Dreb'n flinched away, yelling for Purity to cover his eyes. Both of them twitched as the energy weapon was unleashed again, a bright, burning rope of heat and light connecting the horse to whatever it chose to destroy.

When Dreb'n looked again the equine had vanished back into the hangar, leaving a glowing scar across both transports and another downed figure being pulled to safety by his comrades. Suddenly the front of the hangar blew out and a vector flier sprinted out, gunning its jets hard as it skimmed away. The attackers scrambled, flinging a rocket up into the open sky above the port. Others sprinted to secure the fallen, heaving them bodily into the transports.

Dreb'n and Purity looked at each other in the relative stillness. The feline was about to suggest popping up and trying to injure one of them for capture when the mysterious mercenaries began to hose the cruiser from end to end with brutal, suppressive fire. Dreb'n tucked his arms and legs in, covering himself as best as he could. He felt the breath knocked out of him as something impacted with his back. He flopped forward, his gun skittering away, seeing Purity do the same, and writhed there in agony for a moment.

With a double-scream of jets the two transports still in the port took off. Racing off into the sky they began to chase down the equine's flier, leaving Dreb'n to his agony. He pushed himself to his knees, swearing and looking around. The battle had left his ears ringing and his nose filled with the scent of propellant, ionised air and blood. He reached back and felt the cracked, dented plates of his body armour around his lower back. From the lack of major pain he assumed it had probably held.

Purity was bleeding.

He noticed his partner was not moving after a few confused moments. Two big, dark holes had been cut into the canines back, equal sized craters in the cruiser where he had been sheltering.

"Fuck!" Dreb'n dropped to his knees. "Purity? Purity! Can you hear me?" Blood was beginning to run down Purity's back. The canine was unconscious but alive. Dreb'n yanked off his own greatcoat and tried his best to stem the tide of gore running from his back. Sirens began to converge on the port as he tried to save his second's life.

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

Dreb'n wasn't sure how much time had passed. He was staring down at his paws, both matted and tacky with Purity's blood. The lack of response from the patrol cruiser had drawn an emergency team from central. Even as they had been approaching local patrols had been responding to the air-hammering sound of gunfire. He had been pulled away from the downed canine as an officer sprayed his back with coagulants before loading Purity into a cruiser heading to the hospital.

He hadn't gone. He perched himself on the edge of his ruined vehicle and stared down in shock and adrenal withdrawal. Another detective had taken over for now, directing crews to the hangars and the ruined prefab. He'd been left to his own thoughts as people tried to make sense of what happened.

Hesh was there. He couldn't remember how long ago she had arrived. With the other detectives at her back, she had pried out a few pertinent details about the scene. Then she had hugged him carefully and set off to do her job. He watched her, by the hangar, emerging every now and then with some arcane and unknowable medical gear or sample bottle that she handed over before leaving again.

He swallowed and came back to himself. He slid off the cruiser and looked around. He wanted some water, to clean his paws and try and remove the itching dryness from his throat. Noticing his movement the lead detective padded over. He was another feline, lighter in colour and younger. He nodded, eyeing Dreb'n cautiously.

"Feeling a little better?" he asked. His voice had a slight metallic burr to it, indicating a larynx lost to injury or mine-blight. Dreb'n snorted and shook his head.

"I feel like crap. But I guess that's as good as it's going to get for now," He tried not to let a shudder pass down his spine. His knees felt a little shaky. He wanted to sit down. He wanted to go home. "Do you need me for anything right now?" He held up his paws. "I really want to just go clean up."

The other detective shook his head. "No, we can come and get you at your office for a full statement," he put a paw on Dreb'n shoulder. "Just so you know, they got your partner to the central hospital over in sixth. He's critical but they think he'll make it." Dreb'n smiled and nodded, a coil of tension in his belly untightening a fraction.

The detective pointed to the distant hangar. "Your mortician found another body in there that we can't account for. They were pretty badly messed up, but from what we can tell they aren't on the maintenance team or part of the patrol." He gave a shrug. "Whoever they were they were really destroyed. They might have used a grenade or something to prevent any chance of identification."

Dreb'n shuddered a little at the thought. "I'm going to need a lift back to my precinct," he spared a glance for his cruiser. The side that had faced the firefight had been abraded down to bare, bullet-punched metal. The internals were wrecked and the engine was a leaking mess. It was a write-off, completely scrapped. He felt a moment of nostalgia for the old thing.

"We can arrange that," the other detective waved over an officer who was looking a little in need of getting out of there. They had been sorting some of the body parts from the storage building and accepted the assignment gladly. Dreb'n climbed into the passenger seat, his gaze drifting down to his bloody paws once more. He was still staring at them when they pulled into the motor pool.

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

Dreb'n once again paused in the antechamber to his office. He'd paid a visit to the showers but hadn't brought a change of clothes and had redressed in the ones he'd been wearing at the scene. They felt gritty and wrong against his damp fur, like the afternoon's events had been ingrained into the fabric like a stain. He'd checked his armour and found a couple of flattered hard rounds, a lot of shrapnel and a small dent. The muscles of his lower back felt tender and stiff with bruising already now that he had found his equilibrium again and little was distracting him from the pain.

He entered the office to the sound of sobbing. Nanli looked up, her face wet with tears. Whatever explanation she had been planning on giving became incoherent with emotion as she suddenly sprang around the desk and hugged him tightly. Dreb'n's paws flew up in shock as she rested her face on his chest and cried. With a sigh he patted gently on Nanli, trying to reassure her.

"They said you were both dead," whimpered the hybrid. "Then they said Purity was in the hospital...but nobody would tell me what was going on!"

Dreb'n settled her back in her chair and made them both a nice, strong glass of 'caff. Nanli was dabbing her face, sniffling gently as he wheeled his chair over to face her over the desk. "Well, as you can see we're not dead," He blew steam off his 'caff and took a long pull on the hot liquid. "The last I heard, Purity was in the sixth district hospital. And you know him; he has connections. They'll probably airlift him to somewhere in the Steelmills and he'll be back with us before you know it." Nanli nodded, blowing her nose noisily. "What's the news from central?"

Nanli waved her paw at the screen. "I've been locked out. That's why I didn't know what was going on," she explained. "I tried checking the news feeds and they said it was some sort of Soviet attack."

Dreb'n was already moving. He looked at her screen and saw the blinking signal for lockout on the tip right of the screen. "What the hell? What were you looking at before this happened?"

"I...I was just checking some background details on the dock when the screen locked up on me..." Nanli shrank in her chair as Dreb'n loomed over her, looking with disbelief at the screen. "Then I heard about the gunfight over the comms..."

"So this locked up before the fight?" Dreb'n walked away from his secretary, shaking his head. She nodded, her paws clutching her mug of 'caff like it was a rock of solidity. "What did you see before you were locked out?"

Nanli tensed a little. "Just something about the dock being closed for maintenance," she replied, her voice quavering. "There was some shipment of ingots due in a few days and the shipping company demanded an overhaul."

As Dreb'n absorbed this information a street officer opened the door to his office. "The overseer wants to see you," he stated flatly before exiting, the door open in his wake. Dreb'n placed his 'caff on the edge of his desk and set off for Shal'vey's office.

In a rare display the overseer had come to...what? Pass judgement? Commiserate him? Promote him? The white feline was stuffed into his chair. The last few months had seen the feline begin to balloon from overweight to obese, apparently due to some genetic defect. In Dreb'n opinion the defect was due to a gaping hole in his face he kept filling with food. "You wanted to see me, sir?" said Dreb'n as he took a seat.

Shal'vey nodded, looking as concerned as he could. "I heard what happened today at the air dock. Terrible business..." he continued to nod for a moment, fiddling with a button on his shirt. Dreb'n remained silent until eventually the overseer cracked and continued talking. "Would you like a few days off? To recover I mean?"

Dreb'n shook his head. "I think I'll be ok. I want to get these bastards before the trail goes cold." He stopped and looked at his overseer's face. "...I will be working on this case, right?" Shal'vey pursed his lips. Anger lit a flame in Dreb'n's chest, warming him like a shot of fine alcohol. "Look, I know that I was a little out of it at the scene, and detective...whoever that guy was, is handling it right now. But this needs a task force. We can work together."

"That's not the problem," interrupted Shal'vey. "This is not some common or garden gang shooting. It's being passed up the chain."

"Bullshit!" yelled Dreb'n, causing Shal'vey to flinch. He pounded his paws onto the desktop, raising a little dust from the paperwork. "This is bullshit! Purity is in hospital, and we've got a bunch of mercenaries turning our district into a crazy bullet festival! I'm not going to just hand this over!"

"Watch your tone, detective!" Shal'vey's ears flushed and he wheezed as he leaned forward, his fists clenched. "You know the drill. When the spire..." He stopped, eyes going wide. "I, uh, mean..."

Dreb'n jaw dropped. "The...the spire?" he mumbled, his mind already racing to put things together. "This is being handed over to spire central? What the hell? What's going on?"

"That's restricted, Dreb'n," Shal'vey's tone and expression of superiority convinced Dreb'n immediately that the overseer was also prevented from finding out. He stood and began pacing, the other feline flinching a little as he got up.

He turned back to the desk. "Has this got something to do with the missing noble? The one that got kidnapped?"

Shal'vey looked shocked. "How did you hear about that?" He shook his head. "No...well, I doubt it does. And even if it was, you know I couldn't tell you that." He gave a sigh and settled back in his chair, the unfortunate furnishing making a groan of protest. "Look, Dreb'n, you know as well as I do that this is out of our hands. If it was middle town, you might have been able to use that platinum in your collar to wrangle your way onto the task force. But this is spire business. The nobles will deal with this as they see fit."

Dreb'n nodded slowly. He gripped the back of his chair and gritted his teeth. He'd imagined maybe being taken off the roster for a few days, maybe having to take a subordinate place in the task force. At worst being relegated to hired muscle in a middle-town inquiry. But to have the case completely taken from him was like getting a punch in the gut. At that thought the muscles of his back twitched, making his tail flick and his eyes narrow in pain.

Shal'vey squinted up at him and gave a benevolent smile. "It's obvious that you're not one-hundred percent. I'll move you onto restricted duty until Purity is back on his feet. How about that?" Dreb'n had been about to argue, but the overseer was already poking at his console. He felt the weight of the day settle on him and he just nodded quietly. "Take the rest of the day off too of you want," added Sahl'vey. "Tell that cross-breed of yours she can go too."

Dreb'n's jaw tightened at the casual reference to Nanli, his clawtip gently dimpling the material of the chair. His aching back and the waves of fatigue hitting him behind the eyes made him reconsider. "Thank you, sir," he managed, before limping back to his office.

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

Restricted duty basically meant that Dreb'n was expected to catch up on the labyrinthine paperwork that came with his position. Normally this was a duty put off until the last moment, or occasionally farmed down to street officers that wanted to become detectives themselves. Of course if someone was injured or being punished then they were generally also put on the restricted roster.

It took less than a day for Dreb'n to become intensely pissed off with this relative idleness. Tapping data from his notebook into the pre-made forms for cases long since closed or gone cold while his mind whirred on the problem at hand left him irritable and on edge. The empty desk in the room kept attracting his gaze like it had acquired its own gravity. While Purity was expected to make it, he was confined to a nanite healing tank for at least a week.

It appeared that both of them had been saved by the old cruiser in one way or another. In his case, the back door had been re-enforced with heavy metal plates to stop agitated prisoners from kicking their way out. When drenched in streams of hard rounds they had mostly been stopped by the alteration, with the one that passed through slowed enough that it had just left him a bruise when stopped by his own personal protection. Purity had been less lucky; the front doors had absorbed a lot of the punishment, but some cratering rounds had hammered fistfuls of shrapnel through the interior and out into his back.

He needed some repairs to his spine and ribs, as well as some regrown muscle and skin...but without the cruiser taking the worst of the beating he'd have been in the morgue.

On that note, Dreb'n left his desk and took his meagre bundle of food down to see Hesh. She had sent him a message asking him if he wanted to join her to talk. For about an hour Dreb'n did most of the talking, pacing her cool, cluttered little chamber releasing a stream of creative curses at the current situation.

As he slumped into his chair, Hesh smiles and pushed a chipped tin beaker of 'caff over the table to him. "Feeling better?" she asked.

Dreb'n gave a deep sigh. The rant had left his mouth dry and his soul a little hollow. He sipped the drink and nodded. "For now," he admitted. He put the drink to one side and began to fish around inside his cheap plastic container for his food. He spared a glance to the clock and grimaced. "I guess you'll be getting back to work soon. Sorry to waste your lunchtime listening to me bitch."

Hesh shook her head. A small plaster covered her inner ear where she had apparently added to her painted garden. "They have me on restricted too," she said with a sad smile. She saw the look of disbelief, then anger on her friends face and waved her paw at the teetering stacks of hardcopies and files lying across every available surface. "In my case it's a blessing. I really need to make a dent in this lot."

"I can't believe they put you on restricted duty too," Dreb'n felt the hollowness begin to refill with anger.

"I did some checking, and as far as I can tell everyone from the scene is on restricted as of right now," Hesh shrugged. "Obviously spire central really doesn't want anyone to go around poking at this matter."

Dreb'n took a bite of his sandwich, managing to make the act look quite wrathful. "Well, if it was a noble in there then I suppose that they would want to keep a lid on it," he said, washing down the mouthful with some 'caff. "You took a look at the body. Do you think it was a noble?"

Hesh shrugged. "I doubt it. There has been some general watch signs on the mortuary line; 'if you a see a body with the following characteristics, inform your overseer'," she began to tick points off her fingers. "The body was a canine, and so is the noble. But I'm pretty sure it was a female, and they are missing a male. It was pretty tricky to tell given the damage to the body but that was the overall impression that I got." She eyed Dreb'n with a furtive expression.

"What?" he asked. "Are you holding out on me, doctor?"

She smirked at that. "Well, when the case was passed uptown, I was asked to hand over all my physical samples," that furtive expression returned. "Just thinking about it now, I had already inserted a sample of blood into one of my portable samplers. I may not have flushed the memory yet, because I only do that when the case is complete, and this case hasn't been completed."

Dreb'n considered this for a moment. "If we ran it through central then it'd be flagged and there would be trouble..." he mused.

"Well my console is linked to civilian databases," countered Hesh. "Besides, I can just hijack one of the closed case numbers and pretend I'm filling paperwork." She adopted the patronisingly sing-song accent that non-rats would use to stereotype them. "What's that overseer? The wrong blood sample? Oh goodness gracious me, I must have forgotten to put in the correct data, being such a silly breeder and all."

Dreb'n wasn't sure whether he was allowed to laugh or not at her use of the rodent derogatory. Instead he just nodded. "Can you do that for me, doctor?"

Hesh was already sorting through the case at the foot of her desk. "Of course," she looked up at him. "You know you won't be able to actually do anything with this data, right?"

That gave him a moment of pause. "Yes, I know that," he replied slowly. "You know what? I just want to know. I'm on restricted duty, but if this clue leads to something else, then I'll look into that case instead." He made a dismissive gesture. "Until that one gets taken off me too. That or they decide to promote me and give me the case just to keep me quiet." He finished the sentence with a grin.

Hesh plugged her battered analyser into her console and tapped out a sequence of keys to unlock the data within. A few seconds later she began to send it through various databases, in regards to a case that consisted of a severed feline ear found in an alley. As the progress meter filled and possible matches began to flash onto her screen, she blinked.

"Huh, we have a hit..." Hesh breathed. Dreb'n slipped around the desk and watched over her shoulder as she pulled up a couple of data files. The information all seemed to point to a middle-town canine female from the Steelmills named Perfection of Form. They scrolled through pertinent records, checking for any clues. Apparently she seemed to live in a decent hab apartment, owned a vehicle, etc, all without a job. That immediately tripped Dreb'n instincts; either she was the mistress of some spire noble or a highly-paid operative for one of the trade families with a job so secret it was kept off the books.

More data began to pile in. Criminal citations for intoxication, narco possession and prostitution, all closed and marked for redaction. It seems that while she had moved uptown, she had been quite a hellion, living out of the belt of servants and staff in the borderland between here and the upper city. Then suddenly she had a nice apartment and money to burn? More flashing files appeared as the search continued. Frequent travel dockets to the surgical districts for cosmetic augmentation. Approval pending for documentation to own an exotic pet-animal.

A surrogacy license.

"LifeBloom Surrogacy Centre," Hesh said, highlighting the file. "The same people from the warehouse a few days ago." Dreb'n nodded. The final grains of the search meter filled, bringing up a birth certificate. The rodent opened it and blinked. "That's not right..."

"What is it?" Dreb'n asked, leaning in.

Hesh highlighted another bar of text. "I can run the sample to be sure, but it looks like she was gene-meshed." She looked up. "Nobody would issue a surrogacy license to a gene-mesh. Even if they were just used as a rented womb the baby would be born with all kinds of defects." She checked the files again. "See? The certification says that she is free from all genetic defects and diseases. But even a cursory blood scan would show she's not suitable."

Dreb'n stood back up and scratched himself behind his ragged ear. "Well, last time I checked it was illegal to issue surrogacy licences without the proper background checks." He placed a paw on Hesh's shoulder. "Thanks doctor. I think you may have found me a case to look into."

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

Surrogacy was a widely accepted concept in Daylight. In the lower city the dirty, toxic work many people did left them unable to conceive without outside assistance. In the middle town, if you took several months off to bear a child and recover then your job might be poached away from you by rivals. In the spire some of the more courtly ladies had a child carried for them to prevent them missing social functions, while others used it as a means of hiding an heir away for protection while they carried on as normal.

Obviously the level of care varied wildly. Some downtown clinics were brothels in all but name. Meanwhile, top-ranked clinics would provide artificial wombs and state of the art gene-melding to ensure a healthy offspring. For the most part the clinics would use a regular female host and implant the embryo. The surrogate could then be cared for and kept protected as the baby matured.

LifeBloom was a clinic with a mixed reputation. On the one hand they operated out of the band of respectable citizens that clung like a limpet to the middle city giving them a veneer of shared gravitas. On the other, they had a string of redacted and open complaints over care quality and health violations. Dreb'n parked his new cruiser outside the central office and turned off the console in the dash. Well, it was new to him at any rate. The vehicle was a lot older than his last one, and built on a sturdier, blockier chassis.

Technically he was still on restricted duty. He had simply asked for a new cruiser and taken it for a test drive. What he intended to do was still hazy. He had a vague idea about doing a quick sketch investigation, and once he got back to normal duties carrying through on any wrongdoing he had found. So far the plan was ill-formed. He just wanted to do something other than press buttons all day in an office that smelled of his own frustration.

He left the cruiser and padded across the arterial bridge towards the clinic. It occupied a tall, narrow building that may once have served a civic function given the ornate flourishes to the façade. The doors opened a little jerkily as he approached, the lobby beyond a spotless, professional white. He paused, stepping to one side to allow a misty-grey equine in a white uniform clop past. Both of them looked at each other with slight surprise, although for different reasons. Dreb'n had no idea what her issue with him was, but he was just shocked to see an equine in this part of town.

Passing into the building he walked up to the reception desk. A feline with a cheap dye job to make her as white and pristine as the walls flashed him a beaming smile. That shrank slightly when she saw the badge on his lapel. "Detective Dreb'n," he announced. "I was wondering if I could have a word with one of your managers."

Nodding, she typed into a console before looking up with that peculiar expression that people working with the general public get when they know they are in for a long argument. "I'm sorry, detective, but I can't allow you to see any of our managerial staff," she spoke the words as if reading them from a well-rehearsed script. "Due to an ongoing legal issue all requests to deal with LifeBloom personnel must go through the relevant legal department."

Dreb'n tried various responses in his head. Recognising a stone wall when he saw one he tried switching tactics. "Is this to do with the deaths of your workers?" he asked.

The receptionist looked a little shocked. "Um...I'm not at liberty to say," she added after a moment.

"If it is, then I can tell you now that I'm here on a separate matter," he tried smiling, but could see right away that it wasn't going to work. "I won't take up much time. It's a matter of paperwork, really."

"I'm sorry officer," the receptionist said, in tones that conveyed exactly how little she was sorry. "Due to an ongoing legal issue all requests to deal with LifeBloom personnel must go through the relevant legal department." She gestured to a security guard positioned tactfully out of sight. "Technically that includes me. I'm going to have to ask you to leave. You can be ejected from the premises if you do not co-operate."

Dreb'n shook his head and waved a paw at the guard to indicate he would not be needed. Padding outside he took a deep breath of the slightly-less polluted air and grimaced. So much for that side investigation. He would have to wait until he was re-instated, then take the proper legal channels to get what he wanted.

A rodent carrying several parcels walked up to Dreb'n, and he stood aside to let them pass. Rather than thank him, the rodent looked at his badge and glared. Dreb'n was about to accost him when a voice to one side spoke. "Detective? Can I help you with anything?"

He turned and found himself looking up at the horse he had passed earlier. "Uh...do you work here?" he asked, jerking a thumb back at the clinic.

She shook her head. "No; I'm just on-call with the clinic. I'm a nurse at the sixth-district central hospital." She looked over Dreb'n shoulder and frowned. He turned and saw a couple of members of the clinic staff glaring at them through the windows.

"Do you know what's going on?" he asked, turning back to her. He indicated the watchers. "I got completely blocked back there. If you're on-call you must have heard something."

She nodded slowly. "I can tell you what I know, although I don't know how much help it will be," she said. "But we might be better off talking about this elsewhere. I was just going to grab some food, if you care to join me."

Dreb'n hesitated for a moment. He was not on a case, was not officially allowed to investigate the clinic, and more over was about to go and be seen grabbing food with an equine, even if she was really a nurse. This felt wrong on a number of levels. However, in the end he nodded. He wanted to see where this faint thread took him. Sure, he might not gain any useable evidence, but it would still be better than paperwork.

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

They ended up in a small eatery a few streets away. Dreb'n hadn't forced the nurse to ride in the back of the cruiser. She was head-and-shoulders taller than he was, and had to push the passenger seat back as far as possible to fit in comfortably. Even then she'd had to hunch quite considerably. The pair drew odd looks from the patrons, and Dreb'n found himself gently smoothing the lapel of his greatcoat to ensure his badge was on display.

They were shown to a small booth. The feline inwardly winced at the prices, but decided that it would probably beat tucking into refried crap from a carton again. After their orders were taken he settled in his seat. "So, what can you tell me about LifeBloom, miss...uh?"

"Snow-upon-the-waters," she said, extending a paw which Dreb'n shook. "The short-form is either 'Snow' or 'Waters', you can pick either."

"Detective Dreb'n," he replied. he fished his notebook from his pocket, placing it by his cutlery. He noticed her smiling at him and tilted his head curiously. "Do I know you? You seemed surprised to see me when I met you at the clinic."

"Its not important," Snow said with a smile. She rested her paws on the table and looked at him with an expression that seemed vaguely sad for an instant. But the moment passed. "What exactly is it that you want to know about? Are you looking into the missing clinic workers?"

"Well, let's start with that and move on," Dreb'n took a quick note in his book.

Snow continued. "Well I heard that about ten clinic workers from one of the branch clinics in the Steelmills had been abducted. Apparently the Steelmills police were looking into it. A memo went round telling them not to talk to any police officers and direct them to speak with specific managers and lawyers."

"How did you hear this?" Dreb'n asked. "Were you included on the memo?"

Snow shook her head and chuckled. The sound was an odd whinny of amusement. "No. You'd be surprised what people will discuss in front of you when they don't think you're intelligent enough to understand." Her smile became a little more brittle. "I overheard about the memo from one of the doctors. He told me to distribute medication to some of the girls, then turned right round and chatted about it like I wasn't even there."

Dreb'n looked down at his notepad for a second. "Do you know why anyone would want to kidnap some of the workers?"

"Not really...I never worked with any of them. Apparently they went missing from one of the clinics uptown," Snow toyed gently with her fork as she spoke, the movements quite delicate given the size of her hands. Dreb'n found himself looking down at them now and then as they moved.

"Do you know anything about the girls that LifeBloom certifies? I mean, have you ever seen them issue surrogacy licenses to women that might not qualify?"

That caused Snow to pause and give Dreb'n a hard look. "If I'd seen anything like that myself I would have reported it." She glanced back down at the table. "I heard the occasional rumour. Mostly when I was at the hospital. Some of the nurses from maternity and paediatrics would complain that some kids coming through with birth defects were from LifeBloom. Sometimes it was little things like low birth weight, other times it was foetal alcohol syndrome, immune system failure, deformities, albinism..." She shook her head, paws making fists on the table. "I kept an eye out but I didn't see anything myself."

Dreb'n nodded as he scribbled his illegible note-scrawl. "Have you ever heard of them issuing licenses to gene-meshed clients? Or have you ever heard the name Perfection of Form?"

Snow looked genuinely shocked. "Perfection of Form? I've heard her name. She's one of the people that is missing. She was taken a day after the others." She leaned forward, eyes wide. "Wait, she was a gene-mesh? That's illegal, and immoral. Do you have any idea how badly that could turn out for a baby she surrogated for?"

"That's why I'm here," Dreb'n stated. "We found her license and I'm here to check up on it." He laced his fingers on the table. "Do you know where she was employed? And do you have any way to find her list of clients?"

Snow settled back in her chair and shook her head slowly. "I don't think so. I only heard about her in passing, and I don't have access to the archives. You'll need to get a warrant." She locked gazes with Dreb'n, making him a little uncomfortable. "I can let you know which of the clinic workers it was I heard talking about her. If this needs to go further, that is."

"Why wouldn't it go further?" he asked.

"Because I heard the Steelmills police were looking into the whole thing," she gave a small smile. "I mean, you're not here officially, right?"

Dreb'n flinched. "I'm not sure I know what you mean..." he began, but she silenced him with a raised finger.

"if you were conducting a real investigation then you'd have a second here, and we'd be doing this interview down at your precinct," she said matter-of-factly. "I didn't think that chatting over a meal was really an accepted way of gather information, although I'm not about to complain."

Dreb'n tucked his notebook back into his pocket. "Ok, you got me," he said, the corner of his lips pulling up slightly. "I'm just here doing a quick investigation to lay down the groundwork for a real one later. But if the middle town central has the case under investigation it might not be needed..."

"...Unless they manage to use some political connections to block things," Snow finished for him. Dreb'n nodded. With nothing new to discuss they both sat in an awkward silence, underscored by the sound of eating and easy camaraderie from the other patrons.

Dreb'n broke first. Curiosity, that great policeman's burden, prompting him to speak. "So...uh, were you a nurse back in the League? Before...you know..." He tried to frame a polite way of asking her about the collapse of her nation into utter anarchy.

Snow saved him the trouble. "Before the collapse?" She flicked a strand of her mane back from her face. Dreb'n nodded. That was the politest term for what had happened to the League. "I was. But I passed my residency and was working as a doctor when the coup took over. My brother's family was in local government when they began the conscription." She looked away, showing her profile to Dreb'n, clearly trying to find something to look at to make the memory easier. "He was an easy target. They came for me a little later. Obviously being skilled I fetched a much higher price in blood-money."

Dreb'n nodded, trying not to meet her gaze. "So is he here in the city?" he asked. "Do you get to see him at all?"

Snow gripped her paws together as if praying and shook her head in a twitchy, violent gesture. "He was declared an enemy of the league and given to the Soviet. I've not heard from him since." She paused, then continued. "They sent his wife to one of the correctional facilities, I later heard she was executed when they culled the prisoners before it could fall into clan hands. His son...he joined one of the clan-gangs. He was in Freshire..."

The name rang a bell. That particular city had been wiped out when the military forces fired guided missiles into the atomic power stacks. They had chosen to wipe out the clan stronghold instead of retake it, as the League fell apart. If he'd been in the city he was either killed quickly when they went up, or died slowly as a walking ghost.

"I'm, uh...sorry to hear that," Dreb'n tried to sound sincere. He was, of coursed, touched by the female's story. But it took a little more than that to move him these days. The awkward moment was interrupted by the arrival of the food. The currency he had passed over certainly seemed to have gone pretty far, he though, as he tried to concentrate on his hunger.

He was partially though his own meal when Snow paused and set her fork aside. "You seem to have me at a bit of a disadvantage, Detective," she said, dabbing her lips with a disposable napkin. "How about you? What made you become a policeman?"

Dreb'n looked up and swallowed. "I'm...sorry?" He tilted his head a little.

"I asked, what made you become a policeman," she said, setting her elbows on the table and resting her muzzle on her paws. "You know about me, and since this is hardly an official interview, I wouldn't mind hearing a little about you in return. If that's not too forward."

He considered the question. The seconds passed away under her gaze as he tried to think of a good reason to not talk about such a personal thing. Then a few platitudes that would cover the issue as generically as possible. He cast his gaze around as if looking for help and found none.

With a sigh he closed his eyes and said, "A friend of mine, from when I was very little. She was...I think she was killed. And it was just so...unfair. I wanted to make it right. I wanted to be the kind of person that would stop that from happening, if I could." He opened his eyes and looked at the equine. She said nothing, so he took another mouthful of food.

"Do you want to talk about how it happened?" she asked after a moment, picking at her own food.

Dreb'n shrugged. He'd only told a few people about Hesh and the nights of the culling decree. He looked back at his paws. "I take it you've heard about what happened with the rats?" Snow nodded. "Well I used to be minded every now and then by a rodent called Hesh. It was a long time ago, and only for about a year or so. Then..." he sighed. "On the night when everything went to shit, that was the last time I ever saw her."

The next part came a little slower, the feline looking down at his cooling food. "My father. He went out that night . For years, I thought he was...I don't know? Fighting for the rodents. Helping them get to safety or something. Maybe even just saving Hesh at least. She was three, maybe four doors down for us at least, so if anything happened he would have seen it.

"When I was in my teens, he was already dying from mine-blight. He spent most of his time drunk to keep the pain at bay. He started talking about that night with some friends. I know now that one of them was an Abortionist. I was in my room, and I heard him start talking about how he'd killed three rats that night." His paws clenched. "Bragging about it, even. He never said he killed her specifically..." He trailed off as Snow reached over and put her paw over his.

"I'm...sorry," she said, her voice low. "I shouldn't have asked."

Dreb'n smiled and sat back in his chair. "You know what? I needed to tell someone," he ran a paw through his headfur. "I've been through a lot of shit in the past few days. I really needed to just, you know, talk to someone. Even if it's just in passing."

The silence that followed was a touch less awkward as they both finished eating. Soon the cruiser was pulling back up at the end of the road for the clinic. Snow exited and straightened her clothing as Dreb'n slid out and leaned on the cruiser. "Well..." he began to say.

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

He was back in the eatery.

The booth was smaller than it had been before, almost intimate. He ached. All over.

There were more people too, talking loudly to the point that his ears had a tinnitus ring. They babbled nonsense and rumbled like thunder. He couldn't make out any faces.

Hesh was there. She was both HIS Hesh and the doctor. Merged. She seemed as big as he remembered her, childhood perspective making her a giantess. He was in a great deal of pain.

A waiter placed a plate of ident cards in front of him. His fingers traced the faces, but he couldn't make them out.

He looked up at Hesh and tried to tell her he was sorry, but he was in too much agony. It hurt far too much to do anything but look at her as tears blurred his eyes. She smiled and began to sing. But for some reason it sounded like screaming.

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

Dreb'n yelped as he came to and tried to sit up. His vision was a red-tinged cloud from the pain. He tried to breathe and ended up laying on his back as friendly paws restrained him. Whatever was happening seemed less real than the Hesh-vision, dulled and numbed as he viewed it from behind a wall of agony. A face swam into view as he blinked away tears, tasking blood in his mouth and snorting it from his nose. Whatever they were saying was blocked out by the ringing in his ears.

He looked around, trying to wave this figure away. He managed to prop himself up against the cruiser. There seemed to be a lot of rubble. And bodies.

Snow was nearby, blood on her hands, her face and her uniform. She was trying to hold down and minister to a feline who was bleeding and thrashing, but Dreb'n could barely make out her screaming. He rolled his gaze along the street. Glass and concrete layered the road like a fan. There were forms in it. Some moving, many not. Many were just pieces, and he couldn't tell if they were people or bits of wreckage.

He sat there in his concussed haze, trying to work out why the LifeBloom building wasn't there any more. The ambulances took him away before anyone could give him an answer.

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

They took him and most of the other victims of the bombing to the sixth district hospital. He spent two nights in a healing couch having his eardrums repaired before being released. Dreb'n's first test of his hearing was to get a lecture from Shal'vey. He managed to convince the overseer that he had just been taking the new cruiser for a test drive when he was caught up in the explosion. He didn't bother trying to secure the case for himself this time, as he knew what the answer would be in advance.

Clearly not convinced, Shal'vey told him to stay on medical leave until Purity got back. "Apparently I can't trust you not to get yourself into trouble on restricted duty, so just keep out of the station," he had sneered before hanging up. Dreb'n was tempted to hurl the handset at the wall, but restrained himself. He flipped it off and slammed the receiver down into the cradle with a snarl of frustration.

Since he was there, and apparently not required at the station, he went to see Purity.

The canine was lying prone in a hospital gown, a muzzle-like rebreather mask keeping him sedated. The room his recovery couch was in was large enough to fit the humming, coffin-like apparatus and one doctor or a sitting, anxious loved one. Dreb'n decided to stand. The air inside the couch was smoky with nanites. The steady wheeze of the respirator and dripping from the couches reservoir of nutrient-rich nanite fuel was all the sound he could hear. But on the plus side he could hear again.

He began to feel a little awkward. His partner was not awake enough to answer him, so he was effectively creepily watching him while he slept. He looked around the room and ran a paw through his headfur. "Fuck..." he mumbled to himself. He placed a paw on the hard crystal-glass hood of the couch. "Get well soon, Purity."

He stepped out and closed the door behind himself, letting out a breath. He spotted Snow and a couple of other nurses nearby and wandered their way. She smiled as he approached, the male and female she was with shooting him a glance before heading off on an errand.

"I'm glad to see you're up," she said brightly. "I was going to see if I could say thanks before you left."

"Thanks? What for?" Dreb'n leaned against the wall, his limbs still a little stiff from enforced inaction.

"Well if we hadn't spent so long talking i would have been back at the office already," Snow dipped her head in Dreb'n's direction. "I guess you saved my life."

He gave a start, grinned and held up his paws. "Hey, don't worry about it. Besides, I hear that you took care of me when I was down."

"Well it seemed the least I could do..." Snow trailed off. Several nurses and a few patients went running past them. "What's going on?"

"Beats me," replied Dreb'n. They followed the growing throng. There were cries of alarm now. The crowd were gathering around one of the large viewers in the recreation rooms. Using a combination of elbows and gentle persuasion, the pair of them managed to get to a place where they could see what was causing the commotion.

The volume was off on the viewer, but subtitles flashed across the screen as a pair of worried announcers described a propaganda broadcast by the Soviet premier. One of them looked off-screen and nodded. "It appears we are going to a live broadcast from the Soviet Collective," rattled along the bottom of the screen.

With that the scene switched with an abrupt jump. Lines of marching soviet troops were exiting the bunker complex on the border of the former League. Un-translated Sovkant scrolled down the side of the screen as the view pulled back and up; the camera mounted on one of the black, chunky rotorcraft taking to the air in droves. As the troops got out of frame the buildings of the bunkers began to collapse, demolished by shaped charges like someone disassembling a model.

Mumbles of unease grew as people realised that was what it was; the vaunted army barracks, equipment sheds and tank pens were just a decoy. Bulky earthmovers began to push away the rubble rapidly and retreated off screen. Concrete parade grounds and floors cracked.

The ground opened.

Huge blast doors were revealed, sliding back and displacing earth, rubble and concrete as they retracted into concealed positions. Dreb'n felt the fur on the back of his neck stand on end. The army base had been there for decades, concealing this...secret. What was emerging into the light made a mockery of every peace treaty and ceasefire, every armistice and agreement that the Soviets had held with the League...with everyone, for maybe longer than he had been alive.

It first looked like a model train, until you took into account the scale of the pieces of the dummy bunkers rolling down it's monumental flanks. Triple rows of massive tank treads, flanks studded with guns and rapidly traversing flak cannons. An armoured cockpit and huge, unfurling banners displaying the red fist of the collective. That was just the engine of this mad device. Behind this sat three crenulated fortresses. Fortress-bunkers on heavy treads, with enough space to hold and deploy massive numbers of troops.

The camera moved as blocky aircraft began, in ordered rows, to touch down on the armoured backs of the three cars. Dreb'n's mouth went dry. The Soviet knew that their air cover could never challenge the range of the Consortium craft, so they had decided not to bother. They had instead developed a land-carrier. A machine that was clearly designed to bring the Equine League into line. But now the League was gone, that task would be pitifully simple.

What other tasks would they put this leviathan to? And how many more did they have?

The view pulled back further as ranks of flak-tanks began to converge on the carrier, bracketing it with protective, watchful anti-air weaponry. An honour-guard of soldiers moved into parade-ground formation ahead of it. The view seemed to swim as massive stacks were brought to life to bring the monster to life. The scene dissolved to an elderly goat in full uniform stood before a pair of Soviet flags. His lips moved, but no subtleties appeared.

With a jump the view returned to the studio. The two anchors looked flustered, checking notes, listening to barked instructions via earpiece. Subtitles tried to keep up with their confusion. 'Um' and 'ah' and awkward silence causing the words to stutter and vanish from the screen until the whole sentence could be parsed by patient, unflappable programming.

"We...that is...the Noble houses....Daylight...Will obviously resist this flagrant act of...war...Soviet aggression...Sovereignty of the League," Dreb'n was only able to catch parts of the words as panic began to spread through the room. His chest felt slightly tight as he tried to come to terms with this new situation. He was so locked in his own thoughts that he didn't realised Snow was holding his paw tightly until much, much later.

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

The lower city burned.

The gangs had little, if anything to do with it. They knew from bitter experience that if they took too many liberties that the Spire would direct canine mercenaries to cleanse the troublesome districts. There were those, like Dreb'n, who still remembered those dangerous, deadly nights when the sterilisation decree had been challenged. The black times when the Helldogs has taken the streets back with gunfire and energy rounds, with monomolecular halberds and shrieking sonic dissuaders.

They wrapped up tightly, gang-blocks becoming little islands of calm as they eyed the streets in case someone did try anything stupid. In case anyone decided to use this chance to settle old scores.

No, the fires that leapt from street to street were the fires of panic and madness. The riots that broke out around water and food outlets as desperate, blameless workers beat and stabbed their neighbours and friends for the last packet of tinned rations. The self-appointed hunts for sympathisers that clashed with the cowards that raised Soviet banners in the hope that if/when the ungulates arrived that they would be spared.

It was an outpouring of the mundane anger given an excuse. Slights became grudges. Grudges became blood-feuds. Blood-feuds spilled into murder. Serials and Abortionists crawled out of the woodwork to kill or be killed before the storm broke.

"Burn the vermin!" screamed a feline. He hefted a bloody metal bar in one paw, the gore pattering onto the body of the male rat at his feet. Nearby a female rodent screamed and tried to shield her young, as if her protection could negate the fact that the three of them had been drenched in flammable petrochem from the leaking containers nearby.

The feline's head suddenly cratered, face vanishing in a spray of blood and bone fragments. The pacifier round kicked him onto his back where he died, thrashing. Dreb'n racked the slide on his weapon, his breath and the tinny chatter of the comms loud in his ears. His helmet deadened the sound as he put a round through another masked Abortionist. Three others broke away from beating a downed rat and scattered like 'roaches.

To his right a pair of emergency medics began to wash the flammable liquid off the weeping rats as he watched the scene. He had been attached to Dan'shee and some other officers. Any chance of taking a few days off on medical leave vanished when the panic hit. He glanced up at a nearby public viewer, the screen cracked and crazed by damage but still showing the same blank 'Await News' symbols.

Rocks landed nearby and he brought his weapon up. The three fleeing criminals had returned with a half-dozen re-enforcements. Dreb'n sighted down his pacifier and opened up a gaping wound in the shoulder of a grinning lunatic with a crude firebomb. More shots hit into the rioters and they faltered, falling to the ground either in pain or surrender. Dreb'n chambered another round and gritted his teeth. He hated having to use his weapon so often. He'd fired about as many shots in the past few days than he had in his career to date by his reckoning. But Shal'vey, rot his bloated hide, had rolled down a blanket execution warrant for rioters from the safety of one of the public bunkers.

Besides, many of the people out there right now were not nearly as discerning.

He'd heard some real horror stories. Abortionists had grabbed a large patrol three districts over. All the rodents have been brutally tortured and executed. Everyone else was shot afterwards for being a breeder-collaborator. There had been a massive anti-war protest at one of the more liberal academies that had devolved into a four-way gunfight when pro-and-anti-Soviet mobs had torn through the police cordon to battle it out.

In the Graveyard a column of chanting doomsday cultists has charged a barricade. When the officers ran low on ammunition the survivors had retreated across a carpet of their own dead to go find martyrdom at another location. He'd heard about bombings, killings, rapes and arsons. They were locking things down as best they could, one block and street at a time. But brushfires were springing up behind them and they kept on having to double back.

A tinny alarm sounded in Dreb'n ear and he held up a paw to grab Dan'shee's attention. She jogged over from where the other officers were binding the prisoners. "That was central, time for me to head back," he said, his voice weary. Dan'shee nodded her helmet in his direction. They shook paws, and she headed back as he went to the cruiser to get driven to the precinct house. The signal was an alarm to tell him he'd been active for 20 hours; time to return to collapse for a moment and let the 'caff and stims bleed out of his system.

He barely remembered making it back to his office. He just twitched awake as Nanli tried to draw a blanket over his shoulders. She flinched back as he groped about for a weapon. Reality returned and he smiled reassuringly, placing his head back on his paws. He didn't see her return the expression as his fatigue drew him back down into restless sleep.

When he next awoke it was to the blaring signal of the public address system. He sat upright, the blanket falling from his shoulders. Nanli started awake at her desk too. She had opted to stay in the station instead of her home given how much safer it was. She blinked in fear as the tones faded. Dreb'n motioned for her to lay her head back down as he slid to his feet.

"I'll go check it out," he said, his voice horse. The main precinct floor had gone quiet aside from a commanding voice that was muffled by the doors. Regardless of how tired she looked, the little hybrid shook her head and tried to knead some sleep from her eyes. Dreb'n left her and padded to the outer door to his office. He opened it and glanced out. Criminals and officers alike were watching the main viewer with rapt attention.

"I repeat," came the voice. "The soviet advance has been halted and the land carrier destroyed. The ground forces are in retreat as fresh bomber wings prepare to drive them back to the Soviet borders. Combined legal pressure from the Consortium and the City-States has caused the Soviet premier to issue a recall of troops and an immediate ceasefire..."

The speaker paused and a ragged chorus of cheering, grumbles and other noise filled the space it had left. The screen suddenly blinked to some grainy, gun-camera footage. A loop of about a minute played again and again. The monstrous, monolithic carrier was sleeting flak into the air, accompanied by the surrounding tanks. Silver darts flashed out of the sky, impacting in a long line going from the engine along the three carriages as conventional munitions blanketed the tanks, flak-batteries and infantry that clustered around it. A moment passed, and then the huge machine began to deform like a metal canteen with a cherry bomb inside.

Huge blasts punctured the sides and erupted through the flat hangar decks, tossing metal plating and aircraft into the firestorm either side of the land carrier before the view snapped back to the start of the loop.

Cheers, uninterrupted by doubtful grumbles this time, rounded the precinct. Dreb'n joined in. He knew that this sight was being flashed to every district, every street and hab viewer. It didn't just signal the end of the impending war, it signalled the fire being taken out from under the rioters, looters and crazies. For now at least. With the first smile he had cracked since he had left the hospital plastered across his muzzle he stepped back into the office to tell Nanli the good news.

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

Dreb'n marched through the halls of the AmansolMetallurgical Concern offices in the Steelmills. The deeper into the austere but expensive complex he went the less his badge opened doors and the more he was forced to rely on the small message wafer held in his paw. There was a dull ache behind his eyes. Blood pressure, adrenaline and fury drove him deeper.

The invitation had arrived the day Purity had been moved from the healing tank to the recovery ward. The canine was weak, and needed to be observed to see if his regrown bones and muscle were fit and working. Dreb'n had spoken to him briefly on the comms, but hadn't had time to go see him yet. He was probably being swamped by family members and friends anyway. That and the feline had more important matters to attend to.

He had taken advantage of Shal'vey's absence from the office for a few days to continue his investigation. The threads had come together slowly. In places he wasn't investigating the shape of the evidence, but the lack of it. He saw how far into the central archives he could get before his console was locked down. He tested the bounds of what he didn't know and what he couldn't find out.

The connections became apparent, and anger had built in him. The invitation was no surprise in the end. He had driven his boxy cruiser up to the Steelmills and been shown through the muggy, industrial heat to Amansol's offices. They had come down from the lower spire to see him, the lowly street detective. The great and the good wanted to look him in the eye. And right now he wanted nothing more than to look right back at them.

A guard checked his identity and subvocalled a query. Double doors glided open, and Dreb'n stepped into the presence of His Lordship, KigneeAmansol of the House Amansol. The lapine was seated behind a desk of brushed steel, holographic papers and a small haptic console projected out of the seemingly featureless surface. With a wave of his paw he dismissed it.

A pace behind him and to the left stood a demure female rabbit. From her mixed black-and-white mourning clothing and the veil cascading down the back of her head and covering her ears, Dreb'n guessed their identity immediately. He came to a halt in front of the desk and put the invitation into his pocket, lacing his paws behind his back.

"I believe that you are Detective, Dreb'n, correct?" said Lord Amansol. Dreb'n nodded, and the noble stood and extended his paw. Dreb'n shook it stiffly. "I am Lord Amansol, and this is my daughter, Lashen Amansol." Through discrete surgery and subtle augmetics the male looked like he was a hale and fit rabbit in his 30's, barely older than his daughter. She gave a tight curtsey, and Dreb'n nodded an acknowledgment, his jaw clenching a touch.

"I believe that I owe you an explanation," his lordship began. He steepled his fingers in front of his face, looking Dreb'n right in the eye. "You are owed one, and it seems that it has fallen to me to take you into my confidence to answer your questions. It appears that you have been caught up in circumstances well beyond your means to investigate. I mean no disrespect at all; but the crimes you are looking into are a clear and obvious attack by an outside, terrorist agency. They are striking at myself and my family..." at this he gestured to his child, who blinked away a tear and looked sadly out of the nearby window.

"You must understand that calling you here is a mark of confidence in your abilities," he continued. "I know that you have been looking into the case from the ground level, so to speak. But the matter of my son-in-law's kidnapping, and the despicable use of our holdings to conduct brutal murders is now being looked into by the highest level of law enforcement. This is not a maze that can be navigated alone. At best, you would be acting as a completely junior member in a task force to investigate the vendetta against my family. And you will do a damn sight more good out on the streets than being sidelined by my men.

"Again, I congratulate you, Dreb'n. Not many people would be prepared to compromise like this, especially if they are so emotionally invested in the cases. That's why I wanted you here, so I could answer any questions you had and put your mind at rest." He nodded solemnly. "You can rest assured. These murdering swine will be brought to answer for their crimes."

Dreb'n had stayed quiet through the speech. He remained quiet, letting the silence draw out until the lapine's sculpted face creased a little in confusion. He placed both his paws on the warm metal of the desk. He could feel the vibration of the power generators built into the fabric of the metal, awaiting the commands of the man who sat opposite him to bring up sheets of sculpted light and hovering numbers of energy. "Bullshit," he said flatly.

Surprise flashed across Amansol's face for a moment, and Dreb'n saw his daughter's head snap around the look at him. Even as the surprise darkened into anger Dreb'n pressed on. "You didn't bring me here to let me know how your investigation was going, you brought me here to find out how much I know," he straightened, the anger throbbing through his head like an ongoing migraine. "And I'm pretty sure I know everything."

Amansol's jaw clenched and his paws curled into fists. "Perhaps you'd like to explain this...outburst, Detective," he said with remarkable coolness.

"Oh, I intend too," Dreb'n snarled. "First off, I know that there is no investigation. I've been checking the central archives, and guess what? There is no case log. There is no investigating officer. There is no assigned precinct. Now, I know that if there WERE any of those things then the data would be restricted. But the data would still be there; for this one there is nothing.

"Secondly, even if there was an investigation you'd quash it. You don't want anyone looking into this. I mean, there are dozens of people dead; the LifeBloom staff that were kidnapped, Perfection of Form and the staff of the air dock, all the staff at LifeBloom that have been killed in bombings, 'random' shootings and the like." Dreb'n began pacing, gesturing wildly as he tried to get his thoughts in order. There was so much anger, so much hate that it was difficult to trot the facts out one at a time. He rounded on the watching lapines. "And let me get one thing straight. I can't pin ALL the deaths in the rioting on you. But I know for a fact that if people weren't wired up over the 'Soviet attacks' that had been going on, we'd have had less blood on the streets."

He spread his arms wide. "So we're looking at a double-figure body count so far, with a missing noble to top the whole thing off." He snarled and jabbed out a finger. "You killed them all! It was you and your damn kill-squads that did this!" The target of his anger flinched back like the accusation was going to fly from his fingertip like a lance of righteousfury and kill them where they stood.

"M...me?" stammered Lashen, putting her paw up to her mouth. "F...father, what is he talking about?"

Before the noble could interrupt, Dreb'n resumed his pacing. "Let me tell you a little story. It's a story about a whore called Perfection of Form." He shot the two nobles a glance. "Although I'm sure you both know it already.

"Perfection was gene-meshed because her parents discovered that through a genetic quirk they couldn't breed. They were hard working clerks, and saved up enough money to correct this flaw and have a child. But despite having a damn better chance than most kids she fell in with a bad crowd. Narco, whoring, gang affiliation. But she was pretty. Perfect, almost. So it wasn't long until a middle town escort agency picked her up before some street-disease or pimp ruined her looks.

"Now it was all parties and glitter. Sure, she was still earning her pay on her back, but now she was living better even than her parents. And then she met her prince charming." He snorted at that. "Duty Above All Else. A minor noble, spotted her at some function or other and picked her up as his mistress. So now she has a penthouse apartment, unlimited funds and a noble as a patron.

"It's just a pity that said noble was already engaged to your daughter to seal some trade agreement, isn't it?" Dreb'n hissed. His pacing stopped, both lapines watching him. The elder with a hard, disapproving stare, and his daughter with the sort of calculating, predatory expression he normally saw on street killers. If she had genuinely been upset by his accusation, that emotion was gone from her face now.

"So, things continued like this for some time," the pacing and narration resumed at the same time. "But then comes time to produce an heir. Obviously a canine and lapine will need to use a surrogate. But this is where Duty decided to have his cake and eat it. Let me guess, he took care of finding a surrogate? And it just so happened to be his mistress. But she's in trouble now, because she knows she can't actually bear a child.

"But she hears through the grapevine that LifeBloom is known for giving out licenses to unsuitable candidates. So she bats her eyes at Duty to open his account to get her...what? A new car? And she takes the money to LifeBloom. They take the cash and give her a license, and now everyone's happy. Of course when it comes to actually make the pregnancy stick they do what they can. Maybe they don't know who's baby it is that they are messing with. Maybe they do, and just don't care.

"And then the great day arrives, and you have a child..." Dreb'n paused as he saw a look of genuine hurt cross Lashen's face, replaced immediately by anger. "But everything isn't perfect. There are medical complications that LifeBloom never told you about. Even for a gene-mesh, their health is failing..."

"Felesh," Lashen interrupted suddenly, her voice razor-calm with anger. "She was called Felesh. Show some damn respect, street-whelp!"

That caused Dreb'n to pause for a moment. His thoughts jumbled for a moment before he resumed. "She...Felesh, died. Even the simplest autopsy would show birth defects not present in children raised by a genuine surrogate. So you start looking into things and find out that your baby was killed by LifeBloom's greed, with Duty and Perfection's collaboration."

Dreb'n finally stopped. His mouth was dry and he was actually shaking a little. It was like waking from his concussion outside the bombed out clinic again. Was he really here, doing this? Or was it a glorious dream of righteous vengeance?

As the last of the anger began to drain he finished off the story. "So, you sent a team or mercenaries to find out where Perfection was. I'm guessing Duty warned her that trouble was coming so you had to torture the information out of those clinic workers. Then, when you had her, you used your influence to route a shipment of minerals through the air dock, and insisted they give it an overhaul before they arrive. That gave you plenty of time to have her tortured. Probably on camera so you could enjoy your vengeance directly.

"After that, you declared open season on LifeBloom clinics. There are always protest groups you can blame it on," he locked gazes with Lashen. "I think that about covers everything."

Amansol steepled his fingers again. "This...pantomime is very interesting, detective," he practically spat the last word. "But I fail to see anything here but your paranoid accusations towards your betters."

"Oh this isn't an accusation," Dreb'n said, a bitter smile curling his muzzle.

The two lapines exchanged a glance. "Then...what is this all about?" Lord Amansol snorted derisively. "Is this blackmail, detective?"

Dreb'n waved the comment away. "You wanted to know how much I knew, so I came to tell you," his bitter grin became a peal of laughter that caused Lashen to flinch. "I already knew you were aware of all this, your lordship. That's why you sent out your own mercenaries to stop her. You thought she had Duty at the air dock, didn't you? That's why you sent your men."

Lord Amansol stood and slid his paws behind his back. "You'll never prove any of this," he said, glaring at Dreb'n like he was some tracked-in filth from the street. That was fair enough by Dreb'n, who was aiming an equally dismissive glance at the rabbit. "You're just some street-trash thug with a badge."

"I know that. I mean, even if I were to prove it, who would I tell?" Dreb'n chuckled and shook his head. "The press? You'd shut the story down so fast the ink would run right off the newsprints. Hah! I could even go to your bitterest rivals, and what would they do? Use the information to wrangle a nice, juicy trade concession." He stepped forward, gratified to see the noble flinch back a little. "No, I just came up here to let you know that I saw through your shitty little conspiracy to use our streets as a battleground. I wanted to look you in the eye and remind you that for all your money you're not bloody smart enough to carry this crap out without getting caught. You couldn't even run this scheme without a street-thug like me catching on."

He glared into the rabbits eyes. Without breaking the gaze he said, loudly and slowly; "This is the end of it. If I see any of your thugs on the street I'll send them right back to you. In pieces." He swapped his glare to the female. "So whatever you have planned for your husband, you do it up here. And you leave us out of it."

There was a dangerous pause in the air. Dreb'n straightened and turned to leave. Blocking the door was a massive equine. His midnight pelt was marked with kill-tats, and his arms were studded with injector plugs for muscle-building narco and quick-healing drugs. An energy pistol of monumental calibre sat in a holster at his hip. He looked down with some amusement at Dreb'n. To his credit, he did not flinch. The horse looked over his shoulder and nodded.

Then he stepped to one side with a mocking bow.

Dreb'n didn't bother to look back to see who had called them off. The doors glided open, this time giving a buzz that was absent when the guard had entered. Clearly there was some mechanism there to allow quick, silent entry for a guard in cases like this. As he passed through the portal, Lashen called out.

"You were wrong about one thing," she said. Dreb'n didn't turn around, but he could picture her father glaring at her, indicating she should keep quiet. "She didn't trick him. She told him she was gene-meshed and he just gave her the money anyway. They didn't care what it would do to my baby, to my little angel..."

"If you think that makes it ok to do what you did, then I hope you sleep soundly," Dreb'n said into the echoing, austere corridor without looking round. "But I don't think the families of the people you killed will take any comfort in it." With that he walked on.

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

"So, what now?" Purity asked. Dreb'n had just finished filling him in on the meeting. The canine was propped up in his recovery room. The nearby table had a sad-looking pair of cards, both of which Dreb'n had signed back at the precinct.

He shrugged. "Well, I got back to the precinct and wasn't fired. And nobody has tried to kill me yet. I guess we'll have to see." He looked around the brightly lit room. He had noticed on the way in that he was the first and only person to sign in to see Purity since he got here. The two cards were from him and Nanli, and to his great surprise, one from Hesh. Sure there were a dozen signatures inside them both, but he was surprised that Purity's family hadn't made much of an effort.

"So the case just gets dropped?" Purity banged his head back into his pillow. "Perfect. I almost get my lungs shot out and the case vanishes."

"Well the case hasn't vanished. It's solved; pretty much all wrapped up in fact," Dreb'n reminded him. "It's just we have no chance of getting near the people that did it." he patted the canine's arm. "You'll be out of here tomorrow and then we can get back to sweeping the streets."

Purity forced a smile, and turned to look at the muted viewer on the wall. Dreb'n followed his gaze. The news was still on the aborted war, or more specifically the aftermath. From what Dreb'n had heard the League territories were being declared a DMZ between the Consortium and the Collective. It was no longer considered a country recognised by the other nations; not only had the Equine League vanished, but it was not even being recognized as the federations and states that had existed beforehand.

No equines had been invited to take part in the discussions that had come to this agreement.

This had been accompanied by a segregation decree. Now no block was allowed to have more than a certain number of equines to prevent coordination of gang activities. There had been no resistance to this from the general populace. From within the equine community the response had been to turn over as many clan-gangers as possible. With the troublemakers in prison or working outside of the city limits in a punishment mine that meant more of the law-abiding horses were not going to be displaced.

That had cooled the tempers towards the equines a little. Another degree off the fire was that they were now all considered stateless for now. There was talk of making them re-apply for citizenship.

As usual, realising that the newcomers had just as heavy boot on their neck as the rest of them was helping to melt the ice between the downtrodden of the lower city. Dreb'n gave a sigh and stood, stretching his back. He'd have to wait and see if that helped the murder rate drop before he celebrated.

"I'll maybe swing by tomorrow, to give you a lift back," he said to Purity. The canine looked genuinely touched and nodded. Dreb'n gave him a smile and padded out into the corridor. As he wandered towards the entrance he heard the clop of hooves on the smooth linoleum. Turning around he saw Snow approaching.

"Hello detective. How is your partner doing?" She tucked a clipboard under her arm and smiled.

"Much better. We're getting him back tomorrow," Dreb'n stated. He looked up at her. "I...uh. I'm sorry I took off back then."

She waved his apology away. "That's all right. You had to get back to the precinct to keep us all safe," she ran her fingers through her mane and blinked. "I guess since this place didn't get burned down to the ground might make this the third time you've saved me, detective."

The feline tilted his head. "Third?" he asked, racking his memory. "I'm sorry. I really don't know what you're talking about."

"If you have some time free later, I wouldn't mind telling you about it," Snow said the words softly, leaning her mouth close to his ragged ear so that the words were not overheard. This time he was not too distracted to feel her reach for his paw.

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

"You have an old soul," she whispered to him later. "I noticed it when I first met you. It's why you care so much when the world wants you to stop."

He mumbled something, pretending to be more asleep than he was. Snow chuckled softly and curled tighter to his back. Dreb'n was far from sleepy, however. He and his old bed were not used to company. Never mind a female large enough to cuddle around him like a warm, muscular blanket. His body was smaller, tighter, more knotted and scarred than hers, but fitted into her arms quite nicely.

He was thinking. A bad habit for this situation.

It'd never work out. Not in the long term. He was a feline and she was an equine. He was a detective and she was an equine. No matter how popular opinion thawed it'd be hell to pay if people found out he was seeing a horse while the clan-gangs were still a power in the lower city.

He had also found out she was a practitioner of the shamanistic folk-faith of her people. A seculist feline detective and a shamanic equine nurse? And what did they have to hold them together? A couple of dates? Some meals and a shared history of loneliness and loss? The idea of this being anything other than a dalliance was folly from all sides.

But, he thought with a smile. Here and now it worked. Tonight, it worked.

With that thought in mind, Dreb'n began to purr softly. He rolled over and kissed Snow gently, pulling her close to his warm body. And for that night, it worked.

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