Two toms were making their way through the Enforcer HQ. Their destination was the top floor and it's sole occupant, the new Commander.
"You wanted to speak with us, sir?" Jake asked when they stepped in to the office.
Behind the large desk sat Cmd. Feral. He was shifting through several folders and finally found the one he was looking for. "Lieutenant Jake Clawson, Sergeant Chance Furlong. The two of you have a history of working together to solve difficult crimes, therefore I give this case to you both. It's the gem store thief. Good luck kats." He tossed the thick folder to Chance who caught it easily.
"Under stood commander. We'll do our best to solve it quickly." Jake then made a formal salute and both toms then left.
"You hear that buddy, Seems the new boss wants us to work together. I guess all those times when our duties got us to work on the same case finally paid off. I tell ya, it's smooth sailing from here." Chance was so pleased that he nearly danced through the corridors of Enforcer HQ. The old building had definitely seen it's fair share of action during it's many years in use, but now it was getting old.
"Don't get a head of yourself Chance, we still have to solve this crime. There are many things in this folder that could potentially lead us to our thief, but..." Jake trailed of while reading the many reports.
Chance was quick to pick up the slack. "Some thing off buddy?"
"Yes, not all of these reports tell the same tale. This one for example, say that our thief bypassed all alarms before entering. However this one here say that the window was broken without shutting down any alarms...It just doesn't make sense. Why disable the alarm here and not here."
"Two possibility's, One: were dealing with several thieves or a copycat, and two: The thefts weren't the goal." Chance took the papers that Jake handed him and started to read them.
"Only one way to know for sure, go there and look." Jake finished. The two then left the building, heading for the garage to requisition a squad car.
Sitting in the small waiting room outside the office of the mayor of Megakat City was a young new intern. This was her first meeting with Mayor Manx and she was looking forward to it. Though his reputation was a bit uneven there still had to be something extra to him. After all, you didn't get to be mayor for as long as he had without doing something right.
"Miss Briggs, the mayor will see you now." The receptionist said.
Entering the office revealed a vast open room. The windows were huge and gave a fantastic view of the city. In the middle there was a big desk and sitting behind it there was a equally big tom, Mayor Manx himself.
"Ahh, miss Briggs. Welcome to City hall." The aging tom then walked around the desk to shake her hand. "As mayor of this fine city it is my pleasure to personally say hi to those individuals who will contribute to the future of us all." His pleasant politicians voice sounded smooth and way too rehearsed to come from the heart.
Calico Briggs sat down in one of the plush chairs and waited for the mayor to continue.
"Now as you will be working for me,I would like to personally hand over your first assignment. " He started to shuffle around several folders that was on his desk as he sat down. "Ahh, there it is. Here miss Briggs, this will be your first assignment." He handed here the folder. "Down at the harbor there's a new project planned for expanding the existing capacity for new ships. All you have to do is go down there and get them to sign every paper there. That will give them the permission they need to start building."
Callie opened it and started reading through on what was there. The first thing that she noticed however was the date on the stamps. They were old, some even two years old. That could be trouble, and she said so.
"Don't worry miss Briggs. All is as it should be. This is, after all, MY city, and when I say that they can build, then and only then can they."
She left without commenting on his remark. The elevator ride to the ground floor gave her more time to read all the permits and papers detailing the constructions. This time she noticed that several papers were missing. Once the elevator reached it's destination on the ground floor she walked over to the stairs. The office for interns were located one floor below and the elevator didn't go that far. Incidentally, that was where tha archive was located as well. In Callies mind that was a deliberate planning as her first three weeks here had consisted of carrying folders from there up to where ever they were needed.
Once sahe got to the small room she shared with the other three interns she started organizing the paper work so that she could see what was missing.
"Your doing more work then you need, new girl." A young tom said. He was sitting across from her and was busy reading the funny pages in yesterday's paper. His name was App Athy. Callie had never seen him actually do any work down here. Ever.
It soon became clear that more than half of all paperwork was missing. The nearby archives however solved that problem and by noon she had collected all the paperwork she needed to have signed.
The trip to the harbor took more than an hour as she had to change trains twice. It would bee nice to have a car but as this was her first job that would have to wait until she could afford it.
"I'm looking for the build master. Do you know where he might be?" Callie's qustion was directed at the back of a tall, broad shouldered tom in work clothes.
He turned around to face this interruption of his work. What he saw was a petite looking she-kat in a pink suit. "I ain't gonna give a damn about what you fellas in the tree huggers alliance think 'bout this here build project. It's happenin' get over it." He then spat on the ground.
For about five seconds his anger frightened her but then her teachers voice stepped in.
"Remember this my students; Fear will only work if you let it."
Callie wasn't about to let him intimidate her. There was only one thing to do: She would have to intimidae HIM.
"My name is Calico Briggs, sir. I'm the representative from city hall. I have the paperwork here that will allow you to build this." At this point she stopped and looked around him. "I see that you already started yet I have not given you a permit...Why?"
The effect of her words were noticeable immediately. The big tom even took a step back as her realized that he just tried to intimidate someone who could very well shut him down, possibly with repercussions.
"I...I'm sorry ma'am. I didn't know you's was'a city official." His apology was honest and from the heart and Callie could sense that he meant it too.
"It's alright, sir. Just tell me why you started this build without permission from city hall."
"Well, you see. Two years ago I sent in the first batch of paperwork to bee signed but I never got any response. And last year I sent in the survey results from the sea floor together with the remaining paperwork, and two months ago I sent in the build plans for the pier. Again I got no response and now my contractor is shouting at me to start or he'll go to someone else. And well, since no one has said that I couldn't do it, well..."
His story was confirmed by the date stamps on the papers. As she opened the folder (now with double the content) a plan formed in her head. It was clear to her that city hall was deliberately holding back on the build. Why was unknown but as there was no pier in the harbor that could handle the newest super tankers from the many shipping companies and oil rigs, she could easily see the need for it.
"I'll overlook the fact that you started without permission if you'll do something for me."
"A bribe? why you filthy little..."
"No bribe! Just tell me about the construction instead" Callie cut him of. "If I am to handle these sort of things then I'll have to learn about them. I'll trade with you. Tell me from the start what you do and I'll sign all papers as we go, OK?"
"You don't want a bribe? Are you really from city hall? Well OK then. From the start. Les'see here. First we have to make the plans for the construction and send them in for evaluation."
Callie picked up the first paper in the folder and looked at it. Planed construction, Megakat Harbor was printed on the top. There was a date stamped on it when the archivist received it. The "sign here" line was empty. After she signed it, Callie realized that it needed to be dated too... No wait. The stamp was official. She didn't need to date any thing. "Here you go, now the plans for the construction is approved and dated two years back."
The tom took it and carefully put it on his clipboard. "Thank you ma'am."
"Well then, what's next?"
"Umm, well next would probably be the permission to survey the sea floor."
Signed and dated, Callie gave him the paper.
"After that would probably be the result of the survey and the environmental documents."
Callie gave him those too and then proceeded working her way down the pile of papers in her folder. Every time the foreman told her what had been done a new paper got signed and handed over. it took nearly an hour to work through all the papers but finally all of them had been signed and delivered.
"Thank you for taking the time to tell me all of this, sir. It'll be a lot easier for me to work now that I know how all of this works."
"No, thank YOU ma'am, for helping us with the papers. Now I can finally deal with all those pesky environmentalists in a legal way." He said as he gently collected all the important papers.
"Are they giving you trouble?"
"Yeah, said we was ruining the wildlife of the bay. Ha, there's nothing but mud n' dead rock down there. No fish, no seaweed, no nothing. Megakat Harbor is dead, has been ever since the war when they's dropped those lethal bombs. There'll never be life in the harbor again"
"Is that dangerous?"
"Gosh no, they'd done clean up the harbor decades ago. No life came back though."
"Oh, I see. Well, I have all I need now, good day to you sir." Callie held out her hand. and the big kat shook it.
"Before you go ma'am, if I may , I have friends who wouldn't mind actually getting some help from city hall."
Callie wrote her name on a paper slip and gave it to him. "Have them leave a message for me and I'll do what I can."
"Thank you again, ma'am."
"You've thanked me enough times now. I have to go and file these." As she walked away she could hear him say to himself: "It's nice to finally get some help from city hall, these last years have been difficult."