Adventures In Parodyverse: Bright Lights, Big City Part 1

Adventures in Parodyverse - Bright Lights, Big City Part 1

    Detective Jack Burns had to check out the new detective at the Paradopolis Police Department himself. After all, someone with an old school name like Vic K. Cameron had to be someone like him, someone he could hang around with and have a beer after work or play cards with some evening in a room filled with cigar smoke.

    He was a little wary of his own mind's impression though since Commissioner Graham told him that this new detective had just graduated the detective's course at the police academy. But putting his mind at ease was that this new person had not only aced but surpassed all the tests, both mental and physical, and actually was drafted from a police intern program after they were so impressed with the new candidate's mental acuity.

    Imagine Detective Burns' surprise when he entered the small third floor windowed office of the new detective and saw a short, small blonde girl in jeans and some sort of rock-themed hooded sweatshirt who looked like she could be a teenager, leaned back at the desk with her clean white sock-covered feet on the desk, reading a magazine. She didn't even seem to notice that he had opened the door.

    "Get out of here, kid!" Jack Burns immediately scolded her. "This isn't a goddamn playground!"

    The girl looked up, not the least bit surprised or scared, and didn't even put down the magazine. "Excuse me?" she asked in quite a rude tone.

    "I said out!" He approached the desk quickly and reached out for her, but she pulled her feet away from his reach much too fast. "Don't play games with me, kid!"

    "Who're you calling kid, grandpa?" The girl sat up angrily, some of her long blonde hair falling across her bright blue eyes before she brushed it aside. "You should show some more respect, y'know? You got a thirteen year old daughter, and if you treat her like shit she's gonna be pregnant at fifteen."

    Jack Burns turned pale at that point, and froze. How could this kid know about his family? He started slowly reaching for his gun, feeling panic wash over him. There were many crazy things in Paradopolis, dangerous things, and this could be one of them.

    "What are you gonna do, shoot me?" the girl laughed. She casually took a gun from what seemed to be nowhere and slammed it on the desk. "Hey look! I got one too!"

    Another long pause, and this time Jack was sweating and terrified. Was this some sort of standoff? Could he call for backup? He was extremely releived when Commissioner Graham entered the office suddenly, hoping that the boss would set everything straight and finally toss this armed crazy girl out, or in jail.

    "Oh, I see you've met the new detective," Graham said as he slapped Jack on the back. "Be nice, it's Vicky's first day."

    "Vicky?" Jack whispered to himself as Graham left and slammed the door. Apparently he read the name wrong on the file, or maybe it was spelled wrong. He couldn't remember.

    "Yah, Vicky," the girl said, still sounding like a teenage California valley girl. She stood and reached out her hand to shake his. "Short for Victoria, but no one's called me that since I was in diapers." She pulled a chain out of her sweatshirt and showed him the badge at the other end. "See, I got a badge and everything."

    Still in shock, Jack shook her hand slowly. He thought about asking her how old she was but he was married and knew better. "I'm...not sure why I was assigned to you," he said, looking down at the form he still somehow held on to.

    "Sure you do!" she enthusiastically replied, with a sunshine smile. "I'm like, the youngest and brightest graduate of the detective academy! And you're the best detective in town. Plus you have a good marriage with a wife and a daughter so the Commish knows you'll keep it in your pants around me."

    Jack looked embarassed at hearing that. "Did he say that?"

    "No, I'm a detective. I can figure stuff out." She disappeared behind the desk for a moment, and when she finally stood it was apparent that she did so to put her sneakers back on. As she stood Jack realized that his six foot and change frame dwarfed her by nearly a full foot. "So are you taking me out?"

    "Huh?" Jack asked, still confused.

    "C'mon, work's piling up and I'm bored!" She made a sweeping motion toward the door. "Take me out on a case."

    "Um...yeah, sure." He opened the door and let her out of her office first - old habits die hard - and led Vicky past the room full of desks and snickering officers who pointed and obviously were making lewd jokes as they passed. As soon as they got to the elevator he had to ask her. "Doesn't that bother you?" he asked, hoping she'd know what he meant.

    "Nah, they're irresponsible pricks," she replied dismissively. She looked up at the taller man and added, "I gotta work twice as hard to earn respect, y'know," she folded her arms and faced the door until the elevator stopped.

    "Are you really a detective?" he asked, dying to ask her age again but opting for the safer question.

    "Wanna see?" she asked with another room-brightening smile.

---

    The police officers and detectives stared in confusion as they watched a small blonde girl moving through the crime scene. All of them were sure she didn't belong there but they were afraid to say anything. Besides, she did have the legendary Jack Burns leading her around. Maybe she was a witness or something, they thought.

    A woman in her mid-fifties had been murdered. Not just any woman, someone very rich with many connections...and lots of enemies. That made the suspect list rather complicated. And even more confusing for the cops, the crime scene looked like a typical robbery-murder, even the home was ransacked. The only reason they were still there is Jack heard about the case and told them not to close it, that there was something bothering him.

    "It's a distraction," Vicky said right away.

    "What is?" Jack asked. The other detectives turned to look but tried not to participate at first. They all started to seem impressed that the young girl hadn't raced outside to vomit yet.

    "Well you can't trash the house with her still walking around," Vicky pointed out. "So she must've been killed first. But there's no blood on anything except for the pool around her. She was ambushed."

    "So it's just a murder first and then a robbery," one detective piped up, feeling satisifed at shooting down her conclusion.

    "Except stuff is broken but not opened," Vicky added. "It looks like someone murdered her and then trashed the house so it looks like a robbery. I bet only cliche stuff like cash and jewelry was missing, right? Except this chick is smart, she is. She only wears costume jewelry that isn't worth shit and uses plastic. Any pro robber with a fence would know the difference."

    One of the crime scene investigators looked sheepish at that point.

    "We're looking at a planned murder," Jack told the others. "Don't wrap up the scene yet."

    "Oh you can wrap it up in a bow if you want," Vicky continued, "Because it didn't start here, this is the end of the story. We gotta find out where she was before she came home, and who she brought with her."

    "Her huband is dead," another investigator said. "Her only son lives out of town."

    Vicky rolled her eyes and sighed. "She's old, not dead, she wanted to get laid. The sweet talker she brought home was a con artist and he only wanted her bank account."

    "Con artists don't kill, sweetie," the same investigator replied.

    "Gold star for the dickwad," Vicky insulted him quickly. "The murder was an accident, you dork, he was either fighting her off so he didn't have to screw her or she found out what was happening and fought him. A con artist can't just call an ambulance, there'd be too many questions. So he trashed the place and bolted, and she bled to death. Anyone check out her accounts?"

    There was no reply as everyone present stared at each other.

    "Yah, that's what I thought." Vicky gave an exasperated sigh and looked at Jack. "Let's go, these guys suck."

    Jack stared at the slouching investigator and pointed at him, ignoring the fact that Vicky was already on her way out. "Check those accounts," he said plainly.

    He quickly raced after Vicky then, catching up to her at the car. "You really shouldn't be so smug," he warned her. "You won't get very far in this business. There's a lot of politics involved."

    "Well maybe they shouldn't be so rude to me," Vicky pointed out. She relented then and added, "Maybe you're right though. If those guys want to act like they're in high school it can't hurt to be the only adult in the room."

    "That's good," he encouraged. "Just act the part and don't say that to them and everyone will get along fine."

    Vicky smiled at that, and opened the passenger side door. "So you going to give me something better to do than this mickey mouse shit?"

    Jack frowned. He knew just how to humble a new detective who was so cocky. "I have an idea." There was a long awkward pause as he began driving to their next stop.

    "Hey, I don't mean to insult you," Vicky suddenly piped up. "You're like me, right? You feel unchallenged a lot too, don't you?"

    "Yeah, all the time, kid. But that's the job, sometimes you have to slog through the boring stuff and look like you're working hard. Otherwise the other guys start blowing you off, and crimes don't get solved."

    "I gotcha." Vicky nodded. "I never worked a job like this before. Mostly I helped friends and neighbors find lost dogs and stuff. My stepmom thinks I'm crazy but my dad's been secretly encouraging me."

    "What happened to your real mom? Do you think she'd approve?"

    Vicky looked at him in surprise, seeming a little hurt that someone would ask such a question. "My mom was murdered by a fire when I was little," she said. "I guess it's like...my ultimate mystery I want to solve someday. Probably why I'm doing this." She laughed nervously. "Anyway dad tells me mom was a quiet type and would hate to see me doing anything dangerous."

    "I got into this a long time ago," Jack told her. "I was head of security at the airport, making pretty good money. And one day I looked at the front page of the paper, there was a story about a missing kid. This was right after my daughter was born, and I stared at this picture wishing if I could do something. So I became a cop, and worked my way to detective."

    "That's pretty deep," she agreed.

    "Which reminds me, how did you get to detective right away?"

    She smirked at him and leaned back in her seat. "Oh, I didn't make the height or weight minimum to be a cop. But cause of my entry test score they gave me the detective test and some lame interview. Next thing I know they send me to talk to old man Graham."

    "We're here," Jack suddenly announced as he pulled into the driveway of a burned-out suburban home.

---

    "Yah, this place is a total loss," Vicky agreed with herself out loud as she looked around the wreck of a home.

    "I've seen worse." Jack looked around too, only as if he'd been there many, many times before and was hoping something would be different. "You'll probably hear my old nickname at some point."

    "Smokey the Bear," Vicky repeated from his file.

    "How did you...? Never mind." He shook his head. "What the file doesn't tell you is I got that nickname by solving more arson murders than anyone else in the country. I got an award from the fire marshal."

    Vicky looked at him sideways. "Now who's full of themselves?"

    Jack laughed ironically and pointed to a random spot in the burned up house. "Get this...the house was owned and occupied by one man. One day the whole place went up on flames without any reason. Fire department pinpointed the starting point in the bedroom."

    "Was he smoking?" Vicky asked.

    "No." Jack shook his head. "And another weird thing, the time from the initial combustion to the house being fully engulfed was only about three minutes. Unheard of without an accelerant, but none was found."

    "So it was meta activity," Vicky ventured a guess.

    Jack looked right at her. "That's what I thought too. But all physical evidence was destroyed by the hot flames. The man who owned the place, we had to identify him from dental records. We didn't find anything unusual about him until we tracked a wire transfer to some mail order bride company that's long since disappeared."

    "It has to be the bride!"

    "Maybe." Jack frowned. "But the trail goes cold there. The company's gone, there's no record of it, and there were no witnesses. A limousine driver remembers dropping someone off but never got a look at the passenger because it was forbidden by his contract."

    Vicky brushed her hair back and paced a bit, thinking. "If the company's gone it probably wasn't legit. So it has to be illegal aliens or something."

    "Which leave no records," Jack noted. "Yeah, I agree with you there but it just makes this more difficult."

    "Hmm." Vicky spun around again and then looked up at Jack. "Well congrats Jackie, you got me stumped."

    Jack smiled at that. "I thought you'd like this one, Vicky. It's my only unsolved case ever. And now it's yours."


TO BE CONTINUED?

-- Story written and copyrighted (C) 2007 by Jason Froikin, and may not be
-- reprinted without permission.
-- Yuki Shiro designed by Jason Froikin, based on designs by Masamune Shirow
-- Liu Xi Xian and the Psychic Samurai are original design by Jason Froikin
-- Lara Night is an original creation by Jason Froikin

Post By Anime Jason Fri Jan 26, 2007 at 01:45:42 pm EST	Subject Adventures In Parodyverse: Bright Lights, Big City Part 1

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