Theseus Police Brutality

I scrambled my full attention back toward the moon without another word to the two at my heart. I needed to act quick. I imdiately flooded Mouse's terminal with frantic pings, watching him scramble awkwardly to pull it out from under his coat and glare down at the screen without breaking pace, his expression quickly turning from annoyance to intense focus as he read 'Don't look, cop behind you. Flagged as suspect. Don't panic. Lose him quietly. Lights out in four seconds.'

Mouse stuffed his tablet away again, his eyes shifting to the side, but he didn't turn his head. I saw him eyeing an alleyway he was coming up on, picking up his pace just a little as the officer moved to approach him. Suddenly, the lights all down the street flickered in a pseudo-randomized pattern while the one directly over Mouse shut off entirely, and the young man stepped swiftly away from the crowd and down into the space between buildings. He walked hurriedly to the fence in the middle of the passage with a quiet curse.

As the lights ca back on, the crowd that had montarily faltered began going about their night again, and I gave my own silent curse as I saw the cop undeterred, stopping only montarily at the alleyway. He lifted his hand to the comms again and spoke gruffly "Fucking engineers need to fix this power grid. I think that kid just tried to dodge . Stand by."

I was positive Mouse could ascend that fence without much effort, but not without making himself look way more suspect. He'd almost used up any plausible deniability he might have had, so jumping barriers would just get backup called.

I wasn't sure what he was planning to do now, but he started unstrapping the case from his back, still not turning around to face the man in uniform. As the man approached Mouse, he cleared his throat loudly after Mouse began pushing the case up against the fence like he was going to toss it over. He stopped as soon as he heard the cop's voice, like he was surprised by it, even though he didn't flinch.

"Turn around." The cop demanded with the stern, but annoyed tone of a man who'd caught a child misbehaving. The teenager did as he was told, swinging around, holding the case by the handle again, and glaring up at the man confronting him. The cop looked annoyed at the teenager's resting expression. "And what do you think you're doing back here."

Mouse sighed and looked at the ground, making an annoyed whine. "C'mon, dad's apartnt's two full blocks over. Are shortcuts illegal now?" He whined impatiently. Mouse... was not a people person to say the least, and while that might have been a plausible excuse, I groaned at him giving the cop lip. He was smarter than that.

The cop rolled his eyes and folded his arms over his chest. He was being cocky, sure that the 'kid' in front of him was harmless, I was certain. "It is when you're jumping fences on private property," he claid. I wasn't sure if this random alleyway was privately owned by anyone, but knowing the actual laws on the books wouldn't help here. Mouse clicked his tongue in response. "Where you coming from, kid?"

Mouse let out a faint growl and rolled his eyes, staying silent for a mont. Then he sighed and looked dejected, muttering out, "I know this place on the rim of town where the light pollution's thin enough to make out Neptune. My girlfriend thinks it's romantic..."

The cop looked surprised. I echoed the sentint. I didn't think Mouse had a plan there. Was he better at acting than I assud? Or had I underestimated his experience living on the streets before joining up with Theseus? "Please, I gotta get my dad's telescope ho before he notices," Mouse pleaded, trying to appeal to the man as a teenager out making a little innocent mischief.

The man clicked his tongue and reached up to his ear, muttering to dispatch, "All clear. Just so brat wandering where he shouldn't be." He put his hand down and huffed at Mouse. "Get out of here. Just use the sidewalk like a normal person, huh?"

Mouse only looked to be becoming more cross at the man's treatnt of him, despite that this was working. I knew his temper, and he wouldn't put up with this for that much longer. "Fine..." He rumbled and turned back toward the street, stepping past the man.

I breathed a sigh of relief into the core lubricant. He handled that... well, I couldn't say expertly, but he handled it. Or at least, that's what I thought until the cop spoke again after Mouse had stepped past, "Hold it. That case..." Mouse stopped dead in his tracks, shoulders squared up. "Why don't you let take a look at that?"

I watched Mouse grit his teeth, and I barely had ti to register a spark of defiance in his eyes. He suddenly reeled around from a dead stop and charged back into the cop, forcefully shoving the edge of the case into his sternum. The man's eyes went wide as he was thrown back into the fence with far more force than he could have anticipated, and let out a winded wheeze. His hands imdiately went to his gut, and he didn't get a chance to recover before Mouse followed his step, swinging the case around behind him again, and then violently slamd it down over the staggered man's head, crumpling him to the ground with a wet splat.

For a split second, I felt the whole city go quiet. I was just as caught off guard as the cop had been. Since Mouse's role in our group was typically overwatch, I hadn't had the chance to see what he could do up close before. The man was on the ground before I even realized what had happened, a dark splatter pooling around his head. I knew Mouse's augnted arms were capable of terrifying feats of strength, but actually watching him use that power to commit swift and potent violence was jarring.

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Mouse panted quietly as he lood over the man's still body, rapidly redistributing his grip on the case handle with the remains of adrenaline. He looked back at the entrance to the alley and then down at the man again, his expression sowhere between concentration and panic. He stood there for entirely too long while I was still trying to parse what had happened. He had acted on instinct, and now he wasn't certain what to do next. He needed help.

I pulled myself together and pinged his handheld again. He flinched at the buzz against his chest, fumbled the terminal out into his hand and read 'Okay, breathe. That was probably the best thing you could've done.' I began. 'Nobody reacted, but you need to hide him. Is he dead?'

He shook his head and blinked a few tis, shaking off a little bit of the shock and kneeling down. "Yeah," he nodded quietly, pushing the corpse over to the side of the alleyway and looking back and forth between the buildings for anything he could use before climbing halfway over the fence and down into a dumpster full of trash. It didn't have to be a great hiding spot; just sothing nobody would check for the rest of the night.

anwhile, I had my own work to do, and I wasn't entirely certain what I was going to do about it yet. The security force was already on high alert by default, and I wasn't sure what their procedure would be if a patrolling officer suddenly stopped making regular reports after a strange encounter with 'so brat'. At best, there would be an investigation to look for him. At worst, they would suss out that there's already a hostile force on the move and make our mission impossible. And I wasn't entirely sure what to do about it in either case.

My first thought was that maybe I could build a voice library like the one I used for communicating through the intercom on Theseus, but that had taken weeks to make convincing. I had maybe fifteen minutes. And I hadn't taken sample recordings of his voice. So that was out. But what else did I have?

I couldn't just shut down his comms and hope they'd consider it a glitch. They'd have soone check in on his expected route. That could buy ti, but at the cost of looking more suspect the longer they found nothing. It would also make it harder to explain if I did figure sothing out later.

And then I had a stupid idea.

I flung my awareness across the city and pinged Joel's terminal. I couldn't see him, but I'd be able to hear him... 'Joel! Mission critical! No ti to explain! Calmly say the following phrases clearly into your tablet's mic!'

"The fuck?" Was the first thing I heard, but after a mont, he cleared his throat and spoke in the clear, authoritative tone of a soldier, rattling off one line after another with a short pause between. "Copy. Understood. This is PT7 reporting all clear. Must be a glitch, I'm fine. Has to be an equipnt malfunction. Can you hear ? I think my comms might be damaged. I think my gear got fucked up under my vest. I'll get it checked out later... Good enough?" It would have to do. He didn't sound much like the man, but if I ssed with the quality and added enough static, it could pass.

'Thanks! I'll explain soon!' I sent quickly, then returned to the cara above Mouse, watching him finish stuffing the man down beneath the piles of trash bags.

This was never going to work. I sighed to try to calm myself down and sent his terminal 'Okay, I think I might be able to cover this up, if we're lucky?'

"Okay, sure," Mouse grunted. He picked up his case and clicked his tongue as he examined the black shawl around it, stained deep red on one end. "Shit..." he began unraveling it on the ground so he could rearrange the evidence onto the inside of the cover.

And just as I suspected, the officer's comms received a signal just a mont later. "PT7, are you back on your route?"

I didn't have ti to listen back to my audio editing, I'd just have to distort it in a rush and hope they couldn't tell. "This is PT7 reporting all clear," I sent over the line. I cringed when I heard how bad it sounded. The voice could barely be heard at all. I really should have tested that first. I'd need a lighter touch.

There was a short pause before dispatch asked "PT7? Your signal's garbled. PT7 report."

I tried again with slightly less static this ti, "This is PT7 reporting all clear." That ti it was at least audible.

There was a faint sigh, followed by an impatient, "PT7, say again?"

Okay, she was getting annoyed, but at least she was buying it. "I'm fine. I think my gear got fucked up under my vest."

There was another short pause, then the operator let out a sigh. "PT7, are your comms seated correctly? I can barely hear you."

"Has to be an equipnt malfunction. I'll get it checked out later."

"Copy. And watch your language on comms, PT7. Report in 20."

"Understood"

I waited for several minutes, expecting the operator to snap back on and shout 'Actually, you sound nothing like PT7, maximum alert!' or sothing to that effect, but the chatter returned to normal. I breathed a deep sigh of relief and montarily opened my eyes. There were too many close calls already for a mission that hadn't even gotten to what was supposed to be the hard part yet. And it was yet another function I'd have to monitor all night. But we were clear, for the ti being.

After gathering myself, I closed my eyes to see Mouse lifting the case again, the fake logo now backwards and faded since it was inside out, but the bloodstain was... at least not as obvious this way. We could work with it. 'Okay. So I'm going to have to play the part of that guy on comms all night using shitty voice clips of Joel, but I think they bought it.'

Mouse let out an amused snort and lifted the case up onto his back again. "That's working?"

'Sohow. Are you okay?' I asked, unsure how the teenager was faring. He wasn't easy to read, and he had just killed a man and unceremoniously buried him in a pile of garbage. None of us were strangers to murder at this point, hell, he was more experienced at it than , but seeing Mouse startled as he was in the mont when confronted with a body up close made wonder.

"I'm okay. I got the drop on him before he could touch ." Mouse muttered, checking to make sure nothing was poking out of his jacket as he faced the street again.

'I didn't an physically.'

He stared down at my ssage for long enough that I had to wonder what was going through his mind, but he shook his head. "Don't have ti for this shit," he muttered, and put the tablet back inside his jacket, disappearing once again into the crowd.

He'd be okay... for now.