B9-2 Asui (Patreon)

Still riding the Tori train. Choo choo!

Nija's fear of mobs has rattled both Tori and Sese. Whatever will happen next?

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Tori walked in silence with Officer Sese. They didn’t discuss where they were headed, but after exiting the downwells, Tori noticed that they were approaching the security station. Once there, Sese would be able to swap the screwdriver she had been carrying for the nightstick she’d left behind.

Sese hadn’t admitted it, but Nija must have rattled the big officer if she was starting to feel vulnerable.

Her strand rang, and she answered it on the go. “Yeah, boss?” she said at Chief Tipohee’s image.

“Hey, Sese,” he said, sounding tired, “I need you to come to Nija’s quarters. We got another anonymous tip.”

Sese groaned, and Tori poked her face up over the larger geroo’s arm. “Seriously, sir?” she asked. “You know it’s just another run-around, right? More classmates trying to make the poor cub miserable?”

“Probably, but I can’t just skip it. Besides … this tip was weirdly specific as to where we should look.” Tipohee shrugged. “I did warn Nija that I was going to do another search, but I’m not going to bother pulling the cub from school.”

“Yeah, there’s no point,” agreed Tori. “I don’t know what we’d ask him.”

“We’re on our way,” said Sese before she hung up, and the two turned back toward the gravity wells.

“Poor cub,” sighed Tori. “Someone really must have it out for him.”

“Yeah,” said Sese. “He really needs to figure out who and kick them in the teeth.”

Tori chuckled and shook her head. “Asui doesn’t seem the type to kick anyone in the teeth.”

“No, and that’s why he’s getting bullied like this.”

Tori carefully reversed into the upwell and followed Sese’s hops before reversing once more. From there, it was a short trip to Nija’s apartment and Chief Tipohee waiting outside.

“Oh good, you’re here,” he grunted. “Perhaps we’ll get lucky and eliminate this lead before Nija even gets here.”

“Go, go, go,” said Sese, her ears forward and urgent. “If we can do this without another confrontation, that would be great.”

The chief keyed his strand and unlocked the door.

“Any idea who’s jerking us around, Chief?” asked Tori.

“No,” said Tipohee as stomped his way to Asui’s bedroom, “but this better be the last time. If I catch the little prick, I’ll hang him from his tail in the marketplace.”

Inside the door, he rested his fists on his hips. “The tip claimed that Asui had stashed the evidence inside an electrical access panel in his room.”

Sese peeked around him. “There. Behind the bed.”

Tori loomed anxiously from the doorway, glancing back toward the front door from time to time. “Ugh, I really don’t want to deal with Nija again,” she groaned quietly.

“Don’t worry. I’ll take care of her.” Tipohee knelt on the bed and touched one of the screws holding the panel in place.

“Try this, boss,” said Sese, handing him the screwdriver.

“Thanks.” The security chief removed screw after screw, setting all four in a small pile on the cub’s pillow. Then he pulled the panel away and set it to the other side.

“No … way…” whispered Sese, her ears as alarmed and upright as they could stretch.

“What? What? What did you find?” demanded Tori.

Tipohee began pulling out items and setting them on the bed beside him. “Some sort of tripod, I think. A camera … expensive one. Plush toys… Printed document…”

When the chief set the printout down, Tori snatched it up and paged quickly through it. “Looks like a script to the Boots video,” she mumbled. “Incriminating, sure, but it’s just circumstantial evidence. He could have downloaded this from the network and printed it off.”

“The plushie toys look consistent with the characters from the video,” said Tipohee. “He could have used the camera and tripod to build 3D models for his movie.”

“Or maybe someone planted this?” suggested Tori, but her voice lacked confidence.

Sese reached in and pulled out a smaller item. “Oh jeez,” she whispered. “You should have a look at this, Tori.”

When she handed it to her, the rusty red geroo gasped. She’d seen one of these only a couple days earlier… “The missing quinalbarbitone bottle.”

Sese added, “And it’s empty. All eight pills are gone.”

“I don’t believe it,” Tori gasped. “We talked to him. There’s no way that cub had anything to do with the video, but a connection to both crimes? I just can’t believe it.”

“I wouldn’t have guessed it either,” Sese said with a shrug. “Call the other evidence circumstantial all you want, but that’s the pill bottle. Not even the administrators have access to those—only the pharmacists. Once issued, administrators keep their pills in a lockbox.”

“Chief, this can’t be right,” Tori begged. “Someone is setting that cub up to take the blame.”

“Why?” he asked. “How?”

“I … don’t know, but you talked to him! Did that cub sound like a killer?” Tori’s heart was racing. As much as she’d love for both cases to be solved, she was absolutely certain that they had the wrong guy. Someone had set up this evidence and tipped off security to finish framing him. But why?

“Well,” said Sese, “you saw how small the air duct was feeding into Stoli’s apartment. We never did figure out how someone could have hacked the lock, but a skinny cub like Asui might have been able to squeeze his way in.”

Tori looked up at her, eyes pleading, but Sese only shrugged helplessly.

“Plus, it does seem a little like something you might expect from a teen,” said the chief.

Both of the females stared at him. “How so?” Tori nearly shouted. “Teens do not go around poisoning people! It doesn’t happen!”

“Well, maybe not poisoning people specifically,” he said, climbing off the bed and wiping the dust from his paws. “But if I’ve learned anything in this job, it’s that teenagers are more likely to act on their moral outrage than any other age group. You or I might curse and gripe about something being unfair. Cubs will cry and whine, but teens? If there was any one age group that’ll do something stupid when you piss them off, it’s teens.”

“Outrage over how the company treats us?” asked Tori. “Over how the victims treated the rest of the crew?”

“Yes, exactly,” said Tipohee. “Asui sees how hated certain officers, supervisors, and administrators are. He decides it’s wrong and gets a knot in his tail over it, so he decides to make a video to show everyone how unfair it is.”

“And everyone loves it,” added Sese.

“Right!” said the chief, pointing at her. “He published it anonymously because he doesn’t want to get in trouble, and everyone loves it. He feels energized and wants to do more than just make a video.”

“So, he steals poison?” asked Tori.

“Yeah!” shouted Tipohee. “Most of the thefts aboard this ship are teens taking shit—usually stuff they don’t even need—just for the thrill of taking something. He takes the poison and…”

“...And murders people?” asked Tori, shaking her head.

“Yes, I suppose,” he said. “As murders go, what could possibly be less confrontational than slipping a tablet into someone’s javea and walking away? You don’t have to confront them, fight with them, risk getting hurt or overpowered. You just…” He mimed holding a pill between two fingers and then letting it drop.

“I just don’t believe it,” she repeated once more.

“You want proof?” he asked. “I’ll give you proof. What happens if the company thinks that the crew is fed up and has started to revolt? That’s what they’re going to think, isn’t it? An anti-authority video that everyone loves and a serial killer taking out everyone that represents the company week-by-week?”

Tori gulped. She knew exactly what would happen. She looked nervously between the other two. Did they? They knew that the company would act and act harshly, but did they realize it would trigger a full purge of the ship? “The company would punish the crew,” said Tori, hoping that would be saying enough.

Sese’s ears turned pale and bloodless.

“Yup, cruelly and indiscriminately too,” said the chief. “Any adult with half a brain could work that out. As much as they might want to lash out at the company, they’d be afraid of which innocent geroo got hurt in the process. By and large, an adult won’t do it.”

Tori frowned. “And you think a teenager would?”

“Yes!” the chief shouted. “Teenagers think they’re freakin’ immortal. Ask any parent. We raise them as carefully as we can, keeping them safe, and they grow up believing that they’ll never get hurt.”

“Teenagers get hurt plenty,” said Tori.

“Because they’re doing stupid shit,” Sese agreed with her boss, “because they think they won’t get hurt.”

“Yup. Becoming an adult is realizing there’s no safety net,” he said. “Teenagers get punished, but even then, they always believe that things will work out right or that if they get punished, it won’t be all that bad. No teen realizes just how bloody krakun justice is until they’ve seen an execution or two.”

Tori put her palms to her forehead and leaned back against the wall. “No. Someone has set him up. I just know it. Someone was able to get into the victims’ apartments, so it follows that they could have gotten in here to frame Asui.”

“Your proof?” asked Tipohee.

She shrugged. “I need some time.”

“Sorry,” said the chief, “I can’t give it to you. It’s not our job to prove anyone innocent. We just need a reasonable suspicion to arrest someone, and then it’s the court’s job to decide if they’re guilty.”

Tori felt like she might explode. “But the court finds everyone guilty!”

The front door banged open and Nija’s shriek cut through the apartment, “Tipohee! You damn kerrati! You better not have searched my home without permission!”

———

Reviewer's link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1OrPUnDd72USyfDuucFkuqNtlfH6HDq_6xvvziANk7cw/edit?usp=sharing

Thoughts?