Happy Halloween, ya freaks. Here's an appropriate chapter.
Chapter VIII
Getting Jazz out of Cyber City jail was easier than getting him into the city itself. When Prowl made it to the station and saw Jazz behind bars, the dancer smiled and started teasing sarcastically. It was a nice cover for the multiple scrapes on his head and the violet stain on his chassis.
"Hey, officer," he purred. "These mean mechs locked me in a cage. You mind settin' 'em straight for me?"
Prowl turned to the nearest officer at a desk. "This mech here is my partner."
"Good for you," the cop grunted.
Prowl's optics flickered. At Praxus he was never disrespected, so this was a new flavor. "Meaning we're working on a case right now."
"And he was caught in a chase."
"Because he was the chaser!" Prowl started getting aggravated. For a moment he thought he would turn into Surge and bash some equipment against the wall. "Where's your sheriff? I need to talk with someone with a functioning processor."
The cop looked at him in annoyance. "He's out."
"By Pit he is." He lifted his badge. "Officer Prowl of the Praxus Police Force. Jazz is my temporary partner. We were asking questions, our suspect ran. Release him from custody and we won't have an issue."
The enforcer stood up. "Your partner has no badge. He can't prove if he was a runner or chaser, so I have no choice but to keep him here until the sheriff gets back and figures out what to do with him."
"Of course he's got a badge! Jazz, show him."
A hiss of inhalation went through the white mech's mouth. "Yeah… About that…"
Prowl shoulders slumped and he looked at the dancer with gleaming optics. "Don't tell me."
Jazz's shoulders went up in shy humiliation, palms faced upwards, and he smiled weakly. "I left it at home." He bit his lip and whispered, "Sorry."
The black and white mech rubbed his helm with three digits. "Damn it, Jazz, of all the stupid—You're supposed to have it on you at all times!"
"Don't be gettin' all brusque with me! I'm new to this! 'Sides, if I kept it on at all times, it would scare my customers away! You know how hands like to wander in the berth!"
The Cyber City officer interrupted, feeling slightly awkward that he was hearing this conversation. "I'll call the sheriff. Take a seat, Prowl; he takes his time getting here."
Because Jazz could not prove that he was an undercover partner, Prowl had to post bail. Jazz said he would pay him back eventually, and to consider ten of those credits part of his winning bet.
"What do you mean 'bet'?" Prowl asked, still irritated that his partner had made him look like an idiot by forgetting something as simple as a badge.
"You don't remember? I had betted ten credits that our doctor was involved in the black market bio-weapon thingie."
"He hasn't said anything."
"He doesn't have to. Soon as you mentioned it, he hauled out of the store like his aft just caught on fire. He's involved, Prowl. He's a kidnapper. Jumpspring knew it."
"We don't know what Jumpspring knew."
"Officer Prowl." The sheriff of Cyber City, Fireplug, walked up to them. He was blue with yellow flames. Though it was not suited to his age, even Jazz could say he made the paint look good. "Sorry about the trouble we caused."
"It wasn't entirely your fault." He threw a quick glance at Jazz and the mech laughed.
"If anything, I should let you finish questioning your suspect," the old mech continued. "But, since your partner doesn't have a badge, he can't be allowed in."
"Understood, sir."
"Primus damn it," Jazz muttered before Prowl shoved him in the arm, warning that he should behave himself.
Fireplug led him into the interrogation room, which was larger than the one Praxus had. He could imagine that bigger mechs lived in the city, some of them twice as big as himself, so the extra space was for people like them. However, in this case, it just made him uncomfortable, which was probably how the suspect was supposed to feel. Three of the walls had two-way mirrors, so the illusion of several mechs watching was imminent, making the room even more unbearable. Enforcers at Praxus liked to watch interrogations, and only so many mechs could see into the room at once. Here in Cyber City it was like the room was an arena with two cameras on opposite corners of the walls, recording every encounter.
Ranger was sitting handcuffed to a bar on the table. His head was down, refusing to look up at the officer in the room. He knew he was caught, and he knew he would not be able to lie. His house would have evidence that he would not have an alibi for. He was doomed, and he was just going to admit it.
"Hello again, Dr. Ranger," Prowl said, taking a seat across from him. The distance between them was pretty long, probably to keep any violence on one side of the room. The purple mech did not look up.
"Officer Prowl…" he murmured. "Where's the agent?"
"Jazz is sitting back for this one. You had your chance with the good cop, now you've got to deal with the bad cop."
Ranger ducked his head down deeper and his shoulders raised, trying to make some sort of barrier between them.
"You know if you admit to any crimes it's possible to get some time off of your prison sentence. People who plead not guilty get the trouble of going to court for more than a month and lengthening their punishment."
"You're giving me advice? I thought you were the bad cop."
"I get worse if I don't get what I need. As long as you obey, we won't have any trouble."
"Whatever…"
Jazz and a few other Cyber City enforcers were watching from behind the glass. They all were asking Jazz what the case was about so they could get a background story but he told them he was sworn to secrecy. It was not true; he just wanted them to be quiet so he could hear.
"Where were we... Oh yeah. Jumpspring. He was—"
"Bio-weapons, yeah… I never met him or talked to him about it, never seen him. Never made any deal with any Jumpspring."
Prowl's optics brightened. "Jumpspring was a DGS agent."
"Right, right, you told me…"
"You said you never made a deal. What does that mean?"
Ranger kept quiet.
"A lot of your patients wind up missing, doctor. I'd say you were either cursed or they're part of your 'deals.'"
Ranger's head shot up and the cuffs clanged to the table. "I never wanted this!" he shouted, making Prowl flinch in surprise. "They started it! It's not my fault!"
"Ranger, calm down," Prowl said slowly. Ranger's optics were glossing over and his voice began to break.
"They said they'd let them go if I did what they told me… They promised me! I risked my neck doing this! What more do they want from me?!"
"Doctor."
"I helped them! I helped them! They still didn't let my boys go! My mate and my kids! They fragging—!"
"Doctor!"
Ranger stopped, looking at Prowl with lubricants sliding down his face from his optics. Prowl waited a moment before speaking, keeping his voice low so Ranger would spend more energy trying to listen than to throw another tantrum.
"Someone made you kidnap people?"
"They've got my family, Prowl," Ranger whispered, straining to speak.
"Who has them?"
"I've already said too much… They know now, they know I'm spilling, and they'll kill me, they'll kill Starflower too, and my twin boys. Spikelet and Splicer, they're just sparklings… Oh, Primus, I can only hope they kill them instead of…" He choked on a sob.
"Instead of what?" What could possibly be worse than death? he thought.
Ranger's optics flashed a different color for a moment, and he smiled gruesomely. "Experimenting."
The purple medic's frame crisscrossed with electricity. His optics flashed and he went into a spasm. Prowl got up and ran to him, careful not to touch him or he would obtain some of the charge that seemed to be killing his suspect. Two other officers ran into the room to try and help him, but by then Ranger was still. Smoke was coming from various joints of his body and one of his optics was blown. The image of Ranger smiling at him was burned into his mind, like he finally won something by telling the officer his story, even though it was in bursts of shouts.
"What the frag happened to him?" said one of the cops.
"I can take a guess," Prowl uttered. He reached out to touch the medic, to make sure the short-out was over with. A few residual sparks jolted into his fingers, but that was it. "Tell your coroner to check for an obstruction in his processor."
"How do you know that?" asked the other officer.
"I've heard of a similar case. Just tell him, alright?"
When he walked out, Jazz came over to his side before any of the other officers could get in his way. To let them know to back off, he held his hand. The other cops saw the gesture and murmured to one another. Plenty of rumors and situations where partners became "partners" floated around this job. The hard part was figuring out which of the spouses was more dangerous. So they left them alone.
"Electric pulse to the processor," Jazz stated. "Sound familiar?"
"I'll get a report from their coroner tomorrow, when he's done examining."
"Ranger said they've got his family. Who's they?"
"Most likely the same people who just killed him."
"I've got a theory."
"I'd love to hear it."
"The guys behind all of this, they wanted to use Ranger to steal people, use them as experiments for bio-weaponry."
"That's a long shot."
"I ain't done. Shut up. They took Ranger's family to motivate him to do their dirty work so he'd get the blame for it. He'd tip them off about where his patients lived, since he had their records, they get kidnapped, tested on. That's why he kept screaming they made him do it and it wasn't his fault. Now, some may have escaped, the ones that go crazy, or some didn't survive and got thrown into the street. And some may still be in the hands of the mad scientists."
"Do you know how crazy you sound?"
"I'm right! I know I am! I've got a knack for figuring out people's lives! You said so yourself. So, to make sure Ranger didn't blab about it, they put that chip in his processor in case he did exactly what just happened back there and short him out."
Prowl sighed, trying to process all of this. If Jazz was right, he would need to log it in.
As if reading his mind, Jazz said, "Shouldn't you be writing this down, detective?"
"How about you come to my place and log it all in, since you figured it out?"
"Excuse me?"
"I keep records of what I find out in my computer at home. Since you're keen on all of the details, you should type it in. I'd probably forget half of it by the time I get back."
Jazz grinned. "You're asking me to sleep over?"
"I didn't say that."
"You're thinking it."
"No, I'm not!"
"Okay, okay! Cool your engine, officer. I'm just teasing. You know how I am."
"I know exactly how you are, agent."
"Oh, you caught that, huh?" he chuckled. "Yeah, Agent Jazz sounds much better than Officer Jazz, don't you think? Anyway, since you didn't say it, can I sleep over? My room becomes a boring sight when you're used to it. Even seeing the gardens makes me cranky. I don't think that's the purpose of a garden."
"Sure, you can stay over. Just let your boss know so he doesn't chew me out." He paused for a moment. "By the way, what's your boss's name, anyway?"
"No one knows, really. And hardly any of us see his face. He's just a big shadow in the corner of the room, with narrow red optics. We call 'im Shadow Walker. Always in the dark. You ever heard of a vampire?"
"No, but I have this queer feeling you're going to tell me what it is."
"It's a vitals sucker. It creeps around in the dark, steers clear of the light, jumping stray people on the street to feed on their energon. No one knows where they come from but they say the first of them was sculpted from Unicron's tooth, hence the nice pair of fangs they've got to puncture your derma and slurp from your arteries."
"That's a bunch of slag."
"Sure is, but it's fun to scare kids with that kind of story. Gets 'em home before curfew even pulls through."
"And you think your boss… Shadow Walker… is a vampire?"
"Freaks me out enough to make me think that."
"How do you get an interview with the guy if you can't even see him face to face?"
Jazz visor flickered and his mouth slanted.
"Just curious, that's all."
They walked out of the building and Prowl yanked his hand free from Jazz's grip. Both of them agreed, without speaking, to walk for some time. The city was a little more peaceful in this area, with the police station being in close proximity.
"Well, officer, that all depends on who you talk to. In my experience I teased with security. They must've recommended me or something, because when I came back they said Shadow Walker wanted to meet me. They pulled me into this dark room, a little stage with a pole and one spotlight. I couldn't see the boss. He was just a pair of optics in the dark, staring up at me. I guess that was my audition. And I got the job."
"Pretty strange way to get an interview."
"Now you spill it, Prowler." He shoved him in the arm. "How'd you get a job as a cop when you're supposed to be an artisan?"
"I have Surge to thank for that. He was a friend of the family. He told my alpha he could pull a few strings to get me into the Police Academy of Praxus and he agreed. After all, my alpha knew I didn't want to do what he did. He always respected that about me. The sheriff talked to a few people, I was given a written examination to prove myself, and I made it."
"Guess I should be nicer 'round the old fart, huh?"
Prowl chuckled. "He's not that old."
"Old enough for me to make fun of."
"Old enough for him to sling you into a wall should you call him that."
"Nah, 'cause then my vampire boss'll be on his aft an' suck out his energon."
Jazz put both hands on the side of his face and pointed his fingers down, making a growling noise and nibbling on Prowl's shoulder. Both of them laughed. For the first time in a long while, Prowl felt comfortable around someone, and it pleased Jazz even more that he could turn this sour authority figure into a casual conversationalist.
xXx
I said appropriate, right? A death and a vampire. What more could you want on Halloween?
My Halloween was great. I dressed up in a black morphsuit, put on dress pants, collared shirt, and a jacket and called myself a Slenderwoman. (If I had chosen white, you would've totally seen my face and hair, so I went for black and pretended the female slends are black, which everyone in the neighborhood played along with.) I scared a few kids. And white parents don't seem to care about costumes, because the black parents certainly gave me good compliments.
So doing that again next year.
